Protest Poster

Artist Statement

It is not news that women have been under attack for centuries; sometimes we are targeted as objects of lust, or subservient to men, or as unimportant and dismissible. Today women are gaining more rights than we have ever had, we have independence, we can vote, we are able to work and provide for families. This is progress, however, looks can be deceiving. Women themselves are less and less the target, as the bulls eye has fallen upon the institution of motherhood. In a shocking recent study, Satoshi Kanazawa says that people with higher IQs are less likely to want children. The study then sights some famous people with the captions like “clever and child-free Cameron Diaz and Lucy Worsley have both said they don’t want to have a family,” or another caption showing famous women who are “unencumbered” by children. The stigma of motherhood being a silly choice, or taking the easy way out of a job was reaffirmed in Hilary Rosen’s interview with CNN, in which she suggested that because Ann Romney was a stay at home mom that she “never worked a day in her life.”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has quite a different stand on the decision for women to make the huge sacrifice to be a mother. On LDS.org I found Elder D. Todd Christofferson’s approach to the swift change that is taking place in the hierarchy of the importance of motherhood. He warns, “A pernicious philosophy that undermines women’s moral influence is the devaluation of marriage and of motherhood and homemaking as a career... We do not diminish the value of what women or men achieve in any worthy endeavor or career…but we still recognize there is not a higher good than motherhood and fatherhood in marriage.” This recognizes that there has been and continues to be immense achievements by women, but that the greatest will always be the good that can be done within the home.

Being a mother is work, it’s hard work and often doesn’t get the recognition that other jobs receive. The poster’s slogan “When do you clock in” is meant to signify that being a mother is just as, or maybe more, prestigious than being in the work force, and that mothers don’t get the perks like breaks, a paycheck, or days off. In fact, with this poster I’m suggesting that being a mother is more than having a job, she doesn’t clock in, she doesn’t get the limelight, but she gets so much more than any normal job satisfaction, I am suggesting that being a mother is the ultimate job and is more important, and more work than anything else we could do. However, this poster is also a salute to working mothers. Again, any kind of mother cannot clock in or out of a job, and once she’s at work she also is trying to attend two full time jobs, and one of them may lack. So, whether it is more important to attend to the sad child on the right, or to look the glamorous job in the publics eye on the left, is up to you.

Many people on Facebook agreed with my stance, and many saw different unintentional messages enlaced in the image as well. I am grateful for the debate that ensued about whether working women are hurting their families, or about the stereotype presented here that childrearing is only a woman's duty and, as Andrea Wojick commented, can often perpetrate "both gender pay gap and the glass ceiling." While these are all aspects of the issue at play, my poster was meant to be more based on the fact that in today's society, childrearing is often seen as something that is not quantifiably significant in society. Megan Shea perfectly summarized this issue in her comments saying, "this is the inherent problem with capitalism, only goods and services which fit within the neoliberal economic structure are considered valuable... but who says that childrearing isn't part of productive society, when in fact taking care of children and raising them to be productive members of society... could be seen as one of the most important aspects of creating and maintaining the class system capitalism is based on." I chose this medium to explain exactly Megan's point that childrearing is work and it is possibly the most important work, because I feel that black and white images are powerful, and focus the attention more on the message than the details, it also is a way to signify how so many people have such a black and white stance on an issue with many grays.

Social issues are often told as single stories, that is to say generalizations are created based on one side of the issue. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, an author and speaker hosted on TedTalks said, “the single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.” I agree with her analysis because judging issues based on one story creates a barrier of an ‘us’ verses ‘them.’ The media pushes single stories because it is so much easier to cover just one scenario in a three minute segment, and then the other sides of the issues, the other stories, are then treated as anomalies and unimportant. Media suggesting that only stupid or lazy women have children and the church’s stance that motherhood is the most grand calling are both single stories, but together they create a more broad picture from which to center ourselves. Where do you stand?