Nancy Chodorow's The Reproduction of Mothering, suggests that the term "mother" and the role of the mother has become female. These ideas have persisted throughout generations and maintain gender roles. Chodorow also says that the role of mothering changed and diminished as family lost much of its educational and religious role. Women's role became centered on child care and taking care of men. While the woman's role changed so did the man's. He now spends less time taking care of children and spending time with the family. Chodorow suggests that these strict roles should loosen and men should spend more time with families and women could spend more time working in the outside world.
While I agree Chodorow's suggestion, that men should spend more time raising children, I don't quite agree with the idea that it is necessary that women get jobs outside of the home to become equal. I think this is a good idea and will help to steer mothering from being defined as strictly female, but I feel that it undermines the work that women already do at home. I think therefore, that society needs to learn how to appreciate all the work women do both inside and outside of the home.
Chodorow argued against the ideas that women mother because of a need for emotional support and that in mother-daughter relationships, when the mother's mother is not present, she develops an ambivalent attachment with her daughter. While I do not think this is true, after reading this I couldn't help but think of Sethe and her relationships with her daughters. Sethe never really knew her mother and has a strange relationship with Denver where she cares for her but then is not very close with her until Beloved arrives and Sethe grows closer and spends more time with both of them. Sethe is not able to separate from Beloved even when their relationship becomes parasitic.
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