WGSC Member Jodi Vandenberg-Daves Quoted in New York Times Article

Jodi Vandenberg-Daves headshot
Jodi Vandenberg-Daves

Dr. Jodi Vandenberg-Daves, UW-La Crosse Professor of Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, has been quoted in a New York Times article by Lisa Selin Davis, featured as part of the “In Her Words” section of the Times.

Below are a few quotes from the article, featuring Dr. Vandenberg-Daves.

Ironically, as women’s paid work hours increased around the 1980s, so did the supermom practice of “intensive mothering,” said Jodi Vandenberg-Daves, author of “Modern Motherhood: An American History,” and professor and chair of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

“All those things crop up right at the moment when women are also more involved professionally. And it helped create that sense that no matter what you’re doing as a mother, it’s not enough.”

Greater gender equality in the home and in business could be a silver lining of the pandemic, said Ms. Vandenberg-Daves, if we make it the focus of our economic recovery and redraw the boundaries of family life, retiring the imposing, impossible figure of the supermom.