The Working Mom

The Lowell Offering 

The Lowell Mills in Massachusetts was home to the first all-female organized labor union, and mark a time in history when women began to assert themselves into the male-dominated realm of factories. Their presence was a glaring anomaly, of which they were hyperaware. However, they took pride in themselves and their work, and there was a shared desire among the women to be educated and intellectually active. From this academic interest, The Lowell Offering was born. It served as an academic and artistic outlet for women working in the factory, featuring everything from poetry to healthcare demands. The women were not in the least timid about their opinions regarding their gender, there is a scathing article addressing an editor who questioned the virtue of women living in the factory. There are several articles on the plight of being an old maid—their disrespect, their neglect, their overlooked contributions to society. There is an article that details the “Women’s Sphere” which are the aspects of life that the author believes that women should confine themselves to. There are countless philosophical ruminations, and there are formal demands and propositions drafted by the women of the Lowell Mills in regards to their working conditions, yet in all of these works, there are none that concern pregnancy or motherhood. Even within this free-thinking publication where women were able to fully express themselves, they do not address the one factor that truly sets them apart from men: the ability to have children. Even in regards to healthcare, there no mentions of the provisions in place for pregnant women. Although these women have stepped outside of the norm and comfortable defending their decisions, they seem to be averse to addressing any fundamental differences to men, the largest of which being maternity. The exclusion of women from various workplace environments spawned a sense to defend female similarity to men, to prove that they can duplicate the male worker and should not be considered an inferior. Insistence on equity has led to an erasure of the maternal experience from the workplace in The Lowell Offering and from the mills themselves, where few if any women had families of their own while working in the factory. While women in this publication boldly defend themselves as women, they seem to be reluctant to defend themselves as mothers.

Local 99 Pamphlets 

In the 1930’s, there was a large movement to increase union participation, particularly because working conditions were exceptionally poor as a result of the Great Depression. Corporations and factories had no other incentives to provide safe and equitable conditions for their employees because the demand for jobs was so high, and decreased economic activity lead to an increase in worker exploitation to account for profit losses. Workers were forced to organize in order to gain conditions that were barely humane, so unionization in the 1930’s quickly became a matter of safety and necessity. Pamphlets from the era read like advertisements, offering a list of all of the potential benefits of joining a union. There are different pamphlets based on occupation; female-dominated jobs like garment work have unions who advertised specifically to women. In this context, maternity benefits make some of their first appearances. It is integral to note that maternity is addressed briefly and without substantial fanfare within these documents. The pamphlets heavily advertise on a shorter work week, which will allow workers to have time for “a boy friend, your family, and some fun.” The prioritization of working hours, paid holidays, and other benefits above maternity benefits is telling of the conceptualization of working women at the time. Many of the females that populated factories were young girls who obtained a job in order to support themselves and their families prior to getting married, at which point they will be able to abandon their jobs in favor of building a home. The lack of emphasis on maternity speaks to the fact that women were not generally intending to maintain their jobs while working in a factory position. To illustrate, the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was often described in the number of engagement rings found in the ashes on the factory floor—signals of girls biding their time and working until they entered marriage. The maternity benefits themselves are differ vastly from what is expected in the workplace today. Rather than guaranteed job security or paid maternity leave, the union guaranteed a specific monetary amount—in this case, $50—to assist the mother with paying for her hospital bills. In most contemporary workplaces, the responsibility of hospital bills has shifted to the insurance provider. Current maternity benefits revolve heavily around making sure that an expectant mother can continue to succeed in her career, but that was not the focus of workers in the 1930’s, and their maternity benefits reflect as such.

National Women's Conference, 1977

National Plan of Action, National Women’s Conference: The National Plan of Action proposed by the National Women’s Conference represents a more sweeping organization of women across the nation rather than the unification of all of the women in one workplace. In 1977, women had begun to enter the workplace with the intention of creating lasting and successful careers. Although pregnancy interrupts factory or domestic work, it does not have lasting effects on a woman’s experience at work. Pregnancy and subsequent maternity leave cannot serve as impediments to career advancements where there is no opportunity for mobility in the workplace. Additionally, the shift towards lifelong careers for women meant that pregnancy occurred in the midst of a woman’s career rather than at the end of it, right before she retired to become a housewife. It is important to note that there have always been women who worked their entire lives, but often their jobs lacked ability for advancement, and so they maintained a similar status throughout their whole lives. As women began to enter competitive workplaces and were fighting to succeed, pregnancy became a larger issue. This is evident in plan set forth by the National Women’s Conference, where they demand alterations to the workplace in order to accommodate the pregnant worker. Regarding employment, they demand that:

• The President and Congress support a policy of full employment so that all women who are willing and able to work may do so.

• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act should be amended to prohibit discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions.

This represents a shift in female rhetoric. Whereas prior they fought to occupy an identical space to men in the workplace, here they acknowledge that discrimination based on gender and pregnancy prevent them from being equals and ask that the government intervene to amend that. In respect to reproductive rights, they invoke a statement from the World Plan of Action adopted in Mexico City which said that “The exercise of this right is basic to the attainment of any real equality between the sexes, and without it, women are disadvantaged in their attempt to benefit from other reforms.” Here, there is acknowledgement of a fundamental difference between men and women, and how it hinders women’s ability to succeed. Alongside the demands, there is support of ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, which aimed to drastically expand and protect the rights of women. However, the organization makes sure to note that the ERA will not “alter the family structure” or “have any impact on abortion laws”, indicating that infringement on woman’s reproductive responsibilities will prevent the amendment from being ratified.

Hip Mama

The Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture boasts an extensive collection of zines that show the experiences of women and woman-identified people. Zines are publications that can vary drastically in style and content, but all are made for correspondence within communities. One zine, in the collection, Hip Mama is created by several young mothers with the intention of creating an open space to discuss the trials and triumphs of motherhood. While this platform is not a complete labor union, it is representative of a community that unites around a particular cause, providing financial and emotional support. A feature of the Hip Mama zine is for the readers to have the ability to send in articles on issues, creating awareness throughout the entire community. One such article discusses the failings of the welfare system and how it ignores the monetary value of motherwork by expecting poor and single mothers to both work extensive hours and provide adequate care to their children. The author of the article, Pat Gowens, argues that motherwork is equivalent in value to caregiving work, but mothers are neither acknowledged nor paid for their contributions. Gowens is adamant in a society that expects women to enter the workplace, mothers are forced to take on a double workday. Forcing women to have at least two jobs, one of them unpaid and largely unrecognized, is portrayed as a liberating position for women, but is in fact, oppression. This stance is indicative of the growing realization that when they joined the workplace, women were expected to maintain their delegated responsibilities as a homemaker. Therefore, the working mother contributes twice the labor to her household as her husband, yet the male is consistently recognized as the breadwinner. Gowens even draws a parallel to slavery in her analysis. She argues that the ‘work ethic’ that built society was in fact exploitation in the form of unpaid and excessive slave labor. In her analysis, the ‘double work-day’ harms both mothers and their children, and reflect a failing in the government and the workforce to provide liveable working conditions for low-income women:

“Nothing will be solved by forcing mothers to do both breadwinning and care-giving work...Children should have the right to a childhood. Dependent people should have the right to loving, paid care-givers. Americans should have the right to work and receive family-supporting wages. Women should have the right to decide when and how much paid work they can do around their family’s needs, and mothers should have the right to continue receiving government child support.”

In this article, a woman is not only willing to call out the labor inequities that accompany motherhood, she asserts that this difference in experience merits additional support from the government. The demand for monetary recognition for raising one’s children is often absent even in contemporary discourse, as motherhood is largely viewed as a gift and choice. However, as the model shifts away from a primary breadwinner supported by a primary caregiver to two breadwinners, there must be some discussion on the value of parenting and how it can be properly divided amongst members of a household.