Why are high-achievement women identified by their motherhood status?

May 1, 2015

Writer Anne Born wonders why  it is that whenever a woman is in the news for some noteworthy accomplishment, she is likely to be described in the headlines by her motherhood status.  She writes:

“Women are labeled in the news as “Mother of Two,” or  “Mother of Three,” when nothing in the rest of their newsworthiness is about their being mothers. You don’t need to be a mom to ref the NFL. You don’t need to be a mom to love football, but now we all know that Sarah Thomas — a groundbreaking woman in sports — is a “Mother of Three.” What possible additional information about her or her story does this information give us?”

She points out that such descriptions are never used when a man is in the news headlines for something that has nothing to do with his parental status.

Read Anne Born’s article, “Mother of Three to Ref for the NFL: What’s Being a Mom Got to Do with It?

 

 

Letha Dawson Scanzoni is an independent scholar, writer, and editor, and is the author or coauthor of nine books. In 1978, she and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott wrote Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, one of the earliest books urging evangelical Christians to rethink their views on homosexuality (updated edition, 1994, HarperOne). More recently, Letha coauthored (with social psychologist David G. Myers) What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage (HarperOne, 2005 and 2006). Another of Letha’s most well-known books is All We’re Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism for Today, coauthored with Nancy A. Hardesty (Word Books, 1974; revised edition, Abingdon, 1986; updated and expanded edition, Eerdmans, 1992). Letha served as editor of Christian Feminism Today in both its former print edition (EEWC Update) and its website for 19 years until her retirement in December 2013.

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