Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Michigan Law Review

Abstract

This Review proceeds in three parts. Part I discusses Civil Rights Queen, focusing on the double bind that shadowed Motley’s professional life. Race and gender shaped Motley’s career trajectory, and Motley’s role as a civil rights litigator shaped impressions of her within the civil rights movement and, later, within the federal judiciary. Part II then focuses on Brown-Nagin’s choice to foreground Motley’s efforts to balance her responsibilities as a wife and mother alongside her trailblazing legal career. In balancing work and family, Motley defied the conventional notion that a woman’s universe was cabined to the domestic sphere. Still, Motley hewed to some conventions, delegating household work to other female family members and paid caregivers, rather than disrupting gender norms around family work altogether. With this in mind, Part II examines the disparate aspects of Motley’s experience of motherhood. On one hand, her household arrangements reflected core aspects of Black motherhood— reliance on “other mothers” and fictive kin and the creation of a “networked family” as a means of discharging family responsibilities. But interestingly, her delegation of household work to other women reflected durable gender roles within the family. In this regard, Motley’s disruption of gender norms was uneven, perhaps reflecting the prioritization of certain gender norms in the Black family and community. Recognizing the inconsistencies in Motley’s experience is an important corrective to a public discourse that frets about work-family balance but rarely views working motherhood through the lens of race. The light Brown-Nagin sheds on one experience of Black motherhood is especially welcome at a time when many legal decisionmakers have overlooked the experiences of Black mothers. Accordingly, Part III pivots to reflect more broadly on the law’s treatment of motherhood—and the role of Black mothers in shaping and articulating the law. Focusing on the recent Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, this Part notes the decision’s impact on the reproductive landscape and on Black women. Although the Court is utterly silent as to Black women’s experience of pregnancy and motherhood, Black women have been particularly affected by the changing landscape of constitutional rights. The Review briefly concludes by considering some of the themes of Civil Rights Queen in the context of the current Court and its engagement with motherhood and women’s rights.

First Page

909

DOI

https://doi.org/10.36644/mlr.121.6.mothers

Volume

121

Publication Date

2023

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