Episode 52. The Power of Single-Mothering w/ Ruby Russell

About Face

As a single mom myself I've had to battle the negative stereotypes and stigmas around single motherhood and what happens after a marriage/parenting relationship breaks down. In this episode I am talking with Ruby Russell is a journalist, author, and single mom from London, also living in Berlin, and the author of Doing it All: The Social Power of Single Motherhood. Doing it All is a feminist exploration of single-motherhood, tracing a history through Victorian brothels, welfare rights activism and Black feminist traditions of othermothering. Ruby Russell tells a different story: of motherhood defined not by marriage or men, but as a nexus of solidarity beyond the patriarchal status quo.

A personal quest for empowerment, Doing It All is also a fierce critique of the structures that leave single mums marginalised and exhausted – and a call to reclaim mothering as the life force of sustainable, connected and radically responsible communities.  

In this episode we cover:

• Challenging dominant narratives about single-motherhood: “The archetypal single mother used to be the girl who didn’t hold out for a ring on her finger, or the deserted wife who couldn’t hold on to her man. But these days, most of us are women who detonated nuclear families we couldn’t tolerate.”
• The separation of romantic love and parenting, what happened to our relationships after birth, and what responsibilities fall to mothers, despite any efforts towards egalitarian models of care.
• The benefits of single motherhood and what ways we could improve communities and policies for single mothers: "Why should mothering without a man be so hard and how might we all do family better?”
• How 'mothering in capitalism is shit," the relationship between capitalism and the nuclear family and how advancements in feminism have still failed women and particularly mothers.
• “A woman’s fertility is more powerful than his virility” and the idea of reclaiming of fertility as woman’s power and how it has been eroded through patriarchy.
• How questioning our dependence on men allows more alternatives to the nuclear family and empowering our choices against patriarchy.
• The Legal system, which used to give no rights to women, has also stepped in trying to impose a 50/50 model on families, without considering the very different nature of mothering versus fathering. We talk about the “equalizing” imposition of the law and why it strips mothers of their natural rights.
• Abortion and feminism- how suppressing our fertility is different from asserting power and how to reimagine a feminism that includes motherhood.
• The Reproductive Justice Movement, and the intersectionality of single-motherhood, black feminism, welfare warriors, and sex workers.

You can find Ruby Russell and her book online or at your local bookstore.

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