Mothering, Diversity and Peace Politics: A Critical Analysis of Sara Ruddick's Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace

Abstract

The most popular uniting theme in feminist peace literature grounds women's peace work in mothering. I argue that if maternal arguments do no address the variety of relationships race and class have to institutional violence and to the military, then maternal peace politics can only draw incomplete conclusions about the relationships between maternal work/thinking and peace. To illustrate this I compare two models of mothering: Sara Ruddick's description of "maternal practice" and Patricia Hill Collins's account of U.S. Black women's "motherwork." The paper also addresses the essentialist aspects of Ruddick's account.

Keywords: Mothering, Peace, essentialist accounts, race and mothering, Sara Ruddick, Patricia Hill Collins