Search results for ""Author Caitlin Killian""

While many claim that being a mom is the most important job in the world, in reality motherhood in the United States is becoming harder. From preconception, through pregnancy, and while parenting, women are held to ever-higher standards and are finding themselves punished – both socially and criminally – for failing to live up to these norms. This book uncovers how women of all ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses have been interrogated, held against their will, and jailed for a rapidly expanding list of offenses such as falling down the stairs while pregnant or letting a child spend time alone in a park, actions that were not considered criminal a generation ago. While poor mothers and moms of color are targeted the most, all moms are in jeopardy, whether they realize it or not. Women and mothers are disproportionately held accountable compared to men and fathers who do not see their reproduction policed and almost never incur charges for “failure to protect.” The gendered inequality of prosecutions reveals them to be more about controlling women than protecting children. Using a reproductive justice lens, Caitlin Killian analyzes how and why mothers are on a precipice and what must change to prevent mass penalization and instead support mothers and their children.

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While many claim that being a mom is the most important job in the world, in reality motherhood in the United States is becoming harder. From preconception, through pregnancy, and while parenting, women are held to ever-higher standards and are finding themselves punished – both socially and criminally – for failing to live up to these norms. This book uncovers how women of all ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses have been interrogated, held against their will, and jailed for a rapidly expanding list of offenses such as falling down the stairs while pregnant or letting a child spend time alone in a park, actions that were not considered criminal a generation ago. While poor mothers and moms of color are targeted the most, all moms are in jeopardy, whether they realize it or not. Women and mothers are disproportionately held accountable compared to men and fathers who do not see their reproduction policed and almost never incur charges for “failure to protect.” The gendered inequality of prosecutions reveals them to be more about controlling women than protecting children. Using a reproductive justice lens, Caitlin Killian analyzes how and why mothers are on a precipice and what must change to prevent mass penalization and instead support mothers and their children.

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In recent decades more Algerian, Moroccan, and Tunisian women have immigrated to France than men, yet despite their increasing numbers first generation immigrant women are rarely the focus of research. In this sociological study, Caitlin Killian examines how Muslim women construct and manage their identities in the midst of a foreign culture—what they hold on to from their countries of origin and what they decide to embrace in France, why some immigrant women cope better with challenges in their new country than others, and how they raise children who will one day be French. She demonstrates that these women engage in selective acculturation and highlights their ability to resist labels that do not fit with their self perceptions. These findings point to the flexibility of personal identity, even among visible minorities whose self-identification choices were previously thought to be highly constrained.

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