In this article I will argue that systemic institutional conditions contained within a family structure result in oppression and obscurity for mothers. In countering this somewhat gloomy assertion, I will introduce a feminist theology of obscurity as a means of actualizing personhood for mothers and acknowledging the concomitant empowerment to be found within motherhood.
AsherR (2011) Shattered: Modern Motherhood and the Illusion of Equality. London: Vintage.
2.
BrownW (1995) States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
3.
ClackB (2015) Against the pursuit of the snazzy life: a feminist theology of failure and loss. In: WoottonJ (ed.) The Spirit of Dissent: A Commemoration of the Great Ejectment of 1662. Winchester: Institute for Theological Partnerships Publishing.
4.
CuskR (2002) A Life’s Work: On Becoming aMother. London: Fourth Estate; Harper Perennia.
5.
DalyM (1984) Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy. London: The Women’s Press.
6.
DalyM (1986) Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation. London: The Women’s Press.
7.
de BeauvoirS (1997) The Second Sex. London: Vintage.
8.
DinnersteinD (1977) The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise. New York: Harper Colophon.
9.
DubeMW (2012) Feminist theologies of a world scripture(s). In: McLintock FulkersonMBriggsS (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 382–401.
10.
DworkinR (1981) What is equality? Part 2: equality of resources. Philosophy and Public Affairs10(4): 283–345.
11.
DworkinR (1987) What is equality? Part 3: the place of liberty. Iowa Law Review73(1): 1–54.
12.
EliotG (1995) Felix Holt: The Radical. London: Penguin.
13.
EllisonGBarkerAKulasuriyaT (2009) Work and care: a study of modern parents. London: Equality and Human Rights Commission Research Report15.
14.
FineC (2011) Delusions of Gender. London: Icon Books.
15.
GilliganC (1996) In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
16.
GrayJ (1994) Men Are from Mars: Women Are from Venus. New York: Harper Perennial.
17.
Groag BellSOffenKM (eds) (1983) Women, the Family, and Freedom: The Debate in Documents, Volume Two: 1880–1950. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 50.
18.
HardyT (2000) Jude the Obscure. Ware: Wordsworth Editions Limited.
19.
KalvenJ (1984) Respectable Outlaw. Available at: http://www.trunity.net/KWLsPortal/view/article/131139/. In: Schüssler FiorenzaE, Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
20.
KelanEGrattonLMahAWalkerL (2009) Young professionals’ perspectives on work, career and gender report. London: London Business School.
21.
KellerC (1986) From a Broken Web: Separation, Sexism and Self. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
22.
LordeA (1984) Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde. New York: The Crossing Press.
23.
MasonA (2000) Equality, personal responsibility, and gender socialisation. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (New Series) 100: 227–46.
24.
MacKinnonCA (1989) Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
25.
Moller OkinS (1989) Justice, Gender, and the Family. New York: Basic Books.
26.
Moller OkinS (1998) Gender, the public and the private. In: PhillipsA (ed.) Feminism and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 116–41.
27.
Moller OkinS (2005) Forty acres and a mule for women: Rawls and feminism. Politics, Philosophy & Economics4(2): 233–48.
28.
NietzscheF (1983) NietzscheFriedrich (1886). In: Groag BellSOffenKM (eds) Women, The Family, and Freedom: The Debate in Documents, Volume Two: 1880–1950. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 47–50.
29.
NussbaumMCSenA (1993) The Quality of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
30.
OakleyA (1979) Becoming a Mother. London: Martin Robertson.
31.
OduyoyeMA (2004) Daughters of Anowa: Africa Women and Patriarchy. New York: Orbis Books.
32.
O’ ReillyA (2010) 21st Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency. New York: Columbia University Press.
33.
Radford RuetherR (1983) Sexism and God-Talk: Towards a Feminist Theology. London: SCM Press.
34.
RawlsJ (1996) Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
35.
RawlsJ (2003) Justice as fairness: a restatement. In: KellyE (ed.) Justice as Fairness: A Restatement John Rawls. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
36.
RawlsJ (2005) A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
37.
RichA (1996) Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. London: W.W. Norton & Company.
38.
Schüssler FiorenzaE (1984) Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation. Boston: Beacon Press, v.
39.
SoelleD (1984) The Strength of the Weak: Toward a Christian Feminist Identity. Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press.
40.
WittigM (1985) Les Guérillères. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
41.
WoolfV (2000) A Room of One’s Own. London: Penguin.