TRIGGER WARNING – THIS IMAGE MIGHT BE UPSETTING

Notes on first 1-2-1 tutorial – 13/10/23

My initial aim for the ARP: to include Motherhood in the career advisory service at UAL

As most of the female students at UAL face the fact that they will eventually have to split their time between their paid profession and their life’s unpaid profession called motherhood I wanted to achieve that motherhood will be included as a profession in the career advisory service at UAL.

My tutor: “We recommend not to talk about motherhood to students”.

“This project constitutes a risk to the students and yourself.”

“You risk your, the PgCert team’s and UAL’s reputation.”

“Currently, you could be seen as transphobic.”

Having worked for UAL for a long time I knew subconsciously when developing my initial idea for the ARP that this would not be accepted however, hearing my inner voice spoken out loud by my tutor was a strange sensation, like a reality check. 

Chat with my dear friend:

Sharing my tutorial with my friend the next day who used to be a fine artist and now the mother of two or how she calls herself (sarcastically) ‘a lady of leisure’, my friend was shocked and exclaimed that this is a project in itself. However, quite quickly we both agreed that I have not the time or energy to embark on this battle and also my tutors who most likely had similar thoughts primarily want to protect me and my well-being. – STILL the conclusion is that an idea around ‘motherhood’ and some form of ‘improvement or change’ must remain and be the project.

Further thoughts during my 1-2-1 tutorial:

What is my agenda?

What is important to me?

What am I trying to achieve?

What are the benefits of all this?

What can this work inform? Well-being?

Autoethnographic – research my own story

A dialogue with individual staff rather than a written questionnaire

How can you create a safe space

Further reflections on tutorial:

What is the relationship between motherhood and teaching? How does motherhood inform teaching-practice? How does motherhood inform our work at UAL in general?

Women and education – I used to wonder so often how I ended up teaching; why would I be good at teaching young adults?

Concluding, I want to do something small and compact around motherhood and higher education but involving staff possibly only the staff on the BA Fashion.

At the end of my tutorial my tutor considered the following:

• observe: talk
• plan: talk
• action: talk
• reflection: talk

Planning my Talk ‘Notes on Motherhood’

• the reason for the talk: getting back into making art after 7 years of not making any art and being recognised for my artwork/my identity with CSM/UAL. Trying to find my identity again.
• I was ready to take 2 massive risks: presenting unfinished/in process artwork and talking about motherhood in the work context
• Importantly, halfway through the panning I decided to present a ‘compromise of motherhood’ because I was afraid of the mix of audience which I didn’t know and also, I didn’t necessarily share my tutor’s belief that I will be presenting in a safe environment. Additionally, I did not want to make my male colleagues who have no children feel uncomfortable or bore them. – This made me wonder how important it is to me ‘to please others’ and be perceptive and sensitive to other’s feelings – possibly enhanced through motherhood.

Action: Talk ‘Notes on Motherhood’

The talk went really well especially, as everyone made me feel safe and appreciated in a way I have not experienced before. This was a real noticeable shift and significantly helped created an internal shift and boost of confidence. However, whenever I was asked questions around motherhood, I felt uncomfortable particularly as I continuously did not want to ‘bore’ my male audiences and I tried to keep my answers brief. The audience was a mix of male and female colleagues including both of my bosses.

My male boss asked me whether I feel in any way resentful towards my children.

Reflection on Talk:

Add Marketa’s question about my childhood and my focus on ‘trying to unlearn’…. perhaps add Nina’s email content properly as quote

The hidden mother/motherhood

• In my talk I spoke about ‘hidden mothers’ in photographs and in life. I described that I take on the role of the observer and facilitator – always being in the background listening and ready to jump – as mother (and as teacher). One of my colleagues stated that she can really associate herself with that.
• When my colleagues and I start to talk about motherhood we literally start to whisper.
• One of my colleagues apologised for being unable to attend the talk stating that she really wanted to come because most of the time she pretends not having any children when being at work.

Motherhood + artwork + work = one entity

• Coming back to autoethnography: as my colleague pointed out it is interesting how I combine footage of my personal life and artwork footage together into one piece.

Sharing my camera (=creating artwork) with my children:

• Together we (the audience and me) unravelled that there is a significance in the fact that I passed my camera to my children and therefore, included them actively in developing and making the art piece. I am usually not on private photos visible because I am mostly the one who takes the pictures.

Strong sense of togetherness and connectedness and wanting to do something about it but not knowing how because we have no time or energy or feel safe. It feels like a ‘secret motherhood society’.

My peers’ feedback / action learning set:

• Peer: “It has to be motherhood and non-motherhood (for women who want babies and are unable to have any). I wished somebody had told me when I was younger – planting a seed.”
• Peer: “I have started to introduce myself as ‘mother’ first to my students before I talk about what I accomplished in my career.”
• Peer: “Perhaps you can research how staff have got time to do their CPD (continuing professional development). As mother you remain stuck at the same level because there is no time for professional development.”
• Peer: “As mother you are hiding a part of yourself, your identity and therefore, you are not a person, you are an employee. It is de-humanising.”

SAFE SPACE

• Safe space is when nobody can listen in
• Be aware that participants may associate trauma or discomfort with motherhood.
• Participants may share discrimination at work when talking about motherhood.
• Wellbeing Room (K project space pod); Wellbeing Rooms – designed to be used for rest, nursing or expressing milk, or for other health-, wellbeing or disability-related reasons; Do not use Quiet Spaces for group discussions or meetings – instead, refer to your local room booking system to arrange an appropriate space. Keep your visit as brief as possible.

What is a safe space for women?

Drinking tea or coffee at the kitchen table – ideally, I would like to create mugs out of broken cups possibly with drawings relating to motherhood on them and give each participant a mug.

Or I could create pendants out of broken teacups like an award inspired by the German mother-cross and the teaching award which I received once.

This idea derives from my mother who passed away and left 5 coffee sets behind, but women don’t really set the table for afternoon coffee/tea anymore. It is also an idea I explored in my new art piece.  Perhaps I can start creating mugs or pendants after this project and give those to participants in retrospect.

Citation text I read:

Why Citation matters: Ideas on a feminist approach

to research – Christina Templin (SoSe 2021)

The key thought of this text is that we tend to reproduce existing knowledge because we tend to use the same references of white men. As a consequence, we reproduce oppressive knowledge and structures of racism and sexism that silence other marginalized voices. – Looking at my above findings it seems that we continue to silence the voice of motherhood at work.

Christina Templin mentions theblogpost by an Australian teacher, who came up with a few questions to ask ourselves when reflecting on our list of references:

• How does this list of references situate my work in the field? With what kind of scholarship am I aligning my work?
• From what nations, cultures and classes do my references come? To what extent do they represent Euro- or Anglo- centric ways of knowing and being?
• What is the gender mix of my reference list?
• Whose voices are silent? Whose scholarship have I ignored or excluded? – again the voice of motherhood is silenced or is at least whispered.

The text stresses that black feminist scholars such as Patricia Hill Collins turn to alternative ways of producing and validating knowledge emphasising the importance of lived ‘collective experiences’, ‘collective wisdom’ and the‘belief in connectedness and the use of dialogue’.

Dialogue

Bell Hooks said: “Dialogue implies talk between two subjects, not the speech of subject and object. It is a humanizing speech, one that challenges and resists domination.”

‘Sarah Ahmed tries to create a link between a theory of feminism and the everyday experiences of women dealing with racism and sexism, arguing that feminism can never be restricted to the field of academia but rather has to be brought “home” into women’s personal spaces.’

Concluding my text about citations related closely to my thoughts and encouraged me to go ahead with ‘dialogues’ and to believe not only in the importance but more significantly in the value of the ‘lived experience’ which motherhood represents. The more I share my thoughts and connect with colleagues and peers the more I begin to see the further importance of ‘collective wisdom’ and the ‘safe space’.  

The ‘safe space’ for my conducted dialogues should feel ‘like home’. The idea of tea/coffee mugs would help including possibly a small tablecloth – props representing ‘home’. If I had endless time perhaps the best would be to visit all participants near or in their home.

What do you want?

1. CSM/UAL needs to recognise that staff who are mothers are not able to develop their teaching practice without any additional support from CSM/UAL unless their children are older and have no additional caring needs.
2. CSM/UAL needs to recognise what consequences this has on the staff’s well-being who are mothers such as self-deprecation, lack of confidence and self-respect, emptiness, loss of identity etc. and sacrificing their own needs unproportionally to ensure the required teaching practice development next to the usual work requirements.
3. CSM/UAL needs to show visibly that they recognise ‘motherhood’ as a state of being and value motherhood through including the actual word ‘motherhood’ in their communication so that mothers stop whispering and hiding their identity.

Why does it matter to me? Why does it matter to the world?

• I am a mother and work part-time since being a mother.
• I had to give up my artwork because I could not handle work, motherhood and artwork.  
• I also was not able to do my PgCert earlier because of my young children and now after having taught for 20 years it does not feel quite appropriate
• Several of my friends prompt me to do my artwork again especially in the last couple of years.
• My tutor prompt me to interrelate my artwork with my teaching practice.
• Having reached 51, lost both of my parents in recent years, having 2 teenage daughters, having been menopausal for 9 years and having taught for 20 years I feel like an empty shell and so ideally, I want to try to do something that matters to me personally.
• I do not regret having children at all, quite the opposite however, I very much sympathise with the above quote by Rachel Cusk, in that I felt too overwhelmed in making a decision of becoming a mother or not and went through with it because I was not able to decide and ‘the clock was ticking’. It felt as Rachel Cusk describes ‘determined by forces greater than myself’. Had I been a bit more engaged with the prospect of having children earlier in my life would have helped.
• I want to make a change and want to establish that staff who are mothers are enabled to pursue developing their teaching and other practice further.

Working title: Motherhood – A life’s unpaid profession or Why is Motherhood not part of the career advisory service at UAL?

Rachel Cusk, A life’s work on becoming a mother, 2001

Introduction page 1-2:

‘I regarded it as a threat, a form of disability that marked me out as unequal. But women must and do live with the prospect of childbirth: some dread it, some long for it, and some manage it so successfully as to give other people the impression that they never even think about it. My own strategy was to deny it, and so I arrived at the fact of motherhood shocked and unprepared, ignorant of what the consequences of this arrival would be, and with the unfounded but distinct impression that my journey there had been at once so random and so determined by forces greater than myself that I could hardly be said to have had any choice in the matter at all.’

Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise, Part 2: Charlock’s Shade, London 1938: ‘There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hallway.’ Ann Coxon, Motherhood, 2023: ‘It is worth noting here that Connolly’s misogynistic statement was in fact referring to the artist’s wife and child as distractions (assuming that the artist is male).’

In the UK, 18% of women are childless at the end of their reproductive lives and 50% of 30-year-old women are childless (Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2020).

Possible questions:

• Are CSM students whose female sex was assigned by birth engaged with the fact that most of them live with the prospect of childbirth and Motherhood?
• Are CSM students whose female sex was assigned by birth engaged with the fact that most of them will eventually have to split their time between their paid profession and their unpaid profession as mother?

My goal:

As most of the female students at UAL face the fact that they will eventually have to split their time between their paid profession and their unpaid profession as mother I want to achieve that motherhood will be included as a profession in the career advisory service at UAL.

Why does it matter to me? Why does it matter to the world?

• I am a mother and work part-time since being a mother.
• I had to give up my artwork because I could not handle work, motherhood and artwork.  
• I want to make a change and want to engage young women in the fact that most women live with the prospect of childbirth and Motherhood is an unpaid profession however, it is not included in the career advisory service.
• Several of my friends prompt me to do my artwork again especially in the last couple of years.
• My tutor prompt me to interrelate my artwork with my teaching practice.
• Having reached 51, lost both of my parents in recent years, having 2 teenage daughters, having been menopausal for 9 years and having taught for 20 years I feel like an empty shell and so ideally, I want to try to do something that matters to me personally.
• I do not regret having children at all, quite the opposite however, I very much sympathise with the above quote by Rachel Cusk, in that I felt too overwhelmed in making a decision of becoming a mother or not and went through with it because I was not able to decide and ‘the clock was ticking’. It felt as Rachel Cusk describes ‘determined by forces greater than myself’. Had I been a bit more engaged with the prospect of having children earlier in my life would have helped.
• I want to make a change and want to engage young women in the fact that most of them will be potential mothers and those children might have disabilities, anxieties, depressions etc. you will not be a mother only but a special carer and educator.
• Two years ago, I had a student in the 2^nd year who did a project about believing that she should not give birth and become a mother because of our environmental issues. This really moved me a lot in that I felt young women should not have to take on such immense burden and responsibility.

Research question & keywords

Where are you up to?

I have identified my subject:

• I define motherhood as an unpaid profession and believe it should be part of the career advisory service at UAL.
• For this project I would like to focus only on women whose female sex was assigned by birth.

Female students at UAL:

• should be made aware of and supported in the fact that most of them will have to split their time between their paid profession and their unpaid profession as mother.
• should be made aware of and supported in the fact that their motherhood will most likely involve being a carer and educator of their children who will have anxieties, depressions, or disabilities etc. – hopefully, I can communicate this less frightening, but I think it is important to make the point that all of our students with numerous conditions and learning disabilities are children of mothers.

This motherhood career advisory service should be executed in an informative and most importantly positive manner because I personally would like to promote motherhood however, I understand that this is not possible as UAL needs to remain neutral.

Possible questions:

• Are CSM students whose female sex was assigned by birth engaged with the fact that most of them live with the prospect of childbirth and Motherhood?
• Are CSM students whose female sex was assigned by birth engaged with the fact that most of them will eventually have to split their time between their paid profession and their unpaid profession as mother?

Actions:

• My art project: A video consisting primarily of endless photographs combined with video footage.Working title: Princess Dress continues

• Workshop proposl: the proposal is still in process.

I would like to do a workshop with CSM BA Fashion Womenswear students whose female sex was assigned by birth. The workshop would be optional. However, I intend to run it alongside the research practice-led project in the 2^nd year Womenswear so that I have a better chance of getting some voluntary students involved. I will also ask final year womenswear students. Through the workshop I want to encourage female students to engage with the reality of having to choose whether they want to be a mother or not and that there is a time limit to it.

I intend to ask the students to bring a photo of a naked baby (that could be of themselves, siblings, parents etc.). Everyone will need to kneel on the floor because once you have children you will be kneeling on the floor for quite a few years. The students will get a small amount of clay and will be asked to create a small baby maybe not bigger than a hand full. Depending on the amount of clay they might be able to produce more than one baby if they want to.

I will not instruct the students how to create the small baby as it could take on any form – abstract, realistic, fantastie etc. – it is up to the students how they want to engage with the activity. I will join and also create a baby.

At the end the students will be able to choose if they want to get their clay babies fired in a kiln or leave them just to dry. If one chooses to leave the clay to dry, then it represents the time limit women have because the air-dried clay will break eventually.   

• Questionnaire:

I intend to create a questionnaire for female students to find out whether they think about babies, motherhood, work etc. I also want to create a second questionnaire and ask staff what they think about my idea.

How are you feeling about it?

On the one side I am excited because this project coincides with my art project and is about who I am. However, on the other side I am very nervous because this is not a ‘sexy’ research topic and adds to my usual perception of motherhood as being little valued or respected.

What do you need to know more about?

• Research what statistics have been conducted already
• Research what UAL, students and staff have done in this context
• https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/student-careers/careers-support-for-students
• I need to look at this more closely and find similar surveys https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/37/11/2611/6751717
• Research what kind of artistic motherhood workshops other have been done

What is the next thing you are going to do?

• Speak to the ceramics department at CSM
• Refining everything much more and researching more what has been done in this context.
• Find out what kind of questions similar surveys asked
• Look at the ethics guidelines