Part II Gender as psychological essence
5.1. Introduction
In The Reproduction of Mothering (1978) Chodorow provided a psychoanalytical model for the reproduction of gender difference. For her (1978:191-209) women’s mothering of children is central. She defines mothering not only as a biological but also as a social and psychological phenomenon. Boys’ and girls’ gendered
personalities develop within particular family relations through the practice of women’s mothering. Feminists and sociologists critical of Chodorow’s theory have argued against her emphasis on the unconscious psychological constitution of gender identity and difference. Rather, they have explained the production and reproduction of gender differences in society by emphasising relational, institutional, structural and ideological influences. Criticism has also been levelled against her essentialist notions of gender difference and for locating this difference in women’s mothering capacity. Methodologically, criticisms have been raised against her psychoanalytical account of gender identity formation, in that it is difficult to verify or test her theory empirically (Wharton 2005:38).
In light of these methodological criticisms, the analysis which follows does not seek to find or verify her ideas about the internal unconscious psychological processes of identity formation in women and children. Rather, I propose to analyse the discourse of gender/mothering/caring in welfare policy, legislation and programmes in South
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Africa in terms of Chodorow’s view on the significance of mothering in gender formation. The purpose here is to see whether or not her assumptions have any resonance in welfare policy discourse in South Africa and if this discourse itself is a constitutive force in the production and reproduction of mothering practice and gendered identities, difference and inequality in society. The analysis specifically focuses on exploring the discourse of caring and this caring discourse’s links to the discourse of gender in three key texts and to these texts as practices, namely, the White Paper on Social Welfare (WPSW) (Department of Welfare 1997), the Social Assistance Act No.59, 1992 (Department of Welfare 1992) and the Child Support Grant (CSG) programme (South African Government Services 2010).
The White Paper on Social Welfare provides the policy framework for state provision of care for the vulnerable in society. The Social Assistance Act and the Child Support Grant programme are the legislative and programmatic statements that operationalise these ideas of the framework. These texts have been specifically chosen for analysis because they embody contemporary institutional discourse on mothering and care for children in vulnerable households. The chapter also looks at how policy and programme discourse on mothering/caring impacts on the actual practice of caring for vulnerable children through an analysis of the findings from secondary studies on the uptake of the child support grant. The findings on the practice of caring in the CSG programme are also weighed against the arguments made by Chodorow (1978) that it is women who mainly mother and want to mother as well as the implications of Chodorow’s (1978) model of object relations between children and their parents within CSG household structures.
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Terre Blanche and Durrheim (1999:156) state that a discourse is “broad patterns of talk – systems of statements – that are taken up in particular speeches and
conversations.” However, discourse has been defined as ideological practice
(Fairclough 1995; Thompson 1984) where discourse as ideology is embedded in the language used by individuals, groups or institutions to construct meanings, values,
social relations and social practices in society. Viewed from this perspective discourse does not merely reflect reality but actively constructs it and the way in which people act and behave in the world. Their actions serve to reproduce dominant discourses and relational patterns. Discourse analysis as a research tool is employed to interrogate the assumptions and statements embedded in the language of texts or speech acts: “(d)iscourse analysis can be defined as the act of showing how certain discourses are deployed to achieve particular effects in specific contexts” (Terre Blanche and Durrheim 1999:154). Terre Blanche and Durrheim (199:155-156) suggest that discourse analysis is not necessarily one thing. Legitimately, it can be about the identification of the ‘discourses’ in a text, or it can focus on the kinds of effects that the text achieves, or it can explain the context in which the text emerges and operates in. I propose to use discourse analysis to identify the discourse around women, children, men and their relations to each other.
Daly and Rake (2003:40) argue that social policies are both ideological and
normative and reinforce appropriate behaviour for men and women. They argue that the state, as an institution in society, through policy, can reaffirm and valorise existing social roles in society and, in this way, act to produce and reproduce them.
Conceptions of gender and caring within the family, as they are reflected in policy and programmes, can also accord or deny women their agency in other areas in society. In a study of programmatic interventions on child care Marcus (2004:27), for example, demonstrates how programme activities are influenced by ideas of family, community, institutions and policies.
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Marshall (1994:127-8) argues that the state constitutes and regulates gender in particular ways through its various activities. State institutions underpin certain dominant discourses and ideologies about gender. These are reflected in policies and programmes that intentionally or otherwise produce and reproduce gender
differences and inequalities in society. In this way institutions act as conduits for certain values, norms and roles in society as well as for the allocation of resources.
Several writers (Gouws 2005, Sevenhuijsen et al 2006, Hochfeld and Bassadien 2007, Schram 1993, Fraser 1989, Razavi and Hassim 2006, and Kabeer 2004) have analysed how gendered discourses of state institutions and their policies have generally negative consequences for women’s political agency in society. One of their arguments is that as policy allocates caring responsibilities to women within families so it impacts on women’s full citizenship. Schram (1993:250) argues that welfare policy operates as a cultural force and reinforces certain family structures at the expense of others. Daly and Rake (2003:17) argue that in the context of welfare states, their programmes shape the lives of women and men by contributing to rather than determining social relations.
The social construction of motherhood has been used by feminists to compare welfare states and to examine how policies have constructed women as mothers and have endorsed maternalism as an ideology (Rake 2003:19). Official documents are the means through which certain ideas and discourses are perpetuated in society. In this view, policies, legislation and programmes can have intended and unintended consequences for the production and reproduction of gender difference in society. In their examination of Welfare States, Daly and Rake (2003: 40) argue that these consequences are ideological and the content of social programmes are normative and can be powerful in creating and reinforcing appropriate behaviour in men and women where social roles can be affirmed and valorised. Social roles can be reflected and continually reconstituted through social policy ( Rake 2003:40).