S2E9: TV Moms that Shaped Us:  Clair Huxtable, Rosanne, Marge Simpson

Sonja and Vanessa consider TV moms who inspired American women in the 80’s and 90’s.  Given the warm response to our pop culture episode in our first season (S1E10: “Madonna, Maggie, Diana, Cyndi & Sinead–Gen X Heroines”), we were excited to review some fictional moms from our youth.

Clair Huxtable of the Cosby Show, demonstrated how to raise five children, while looking fashionable and gorgeous, exuding educated elegance, wit, and feminist passion.  Rosanne Conner, tutored us in unapologetic snark for Reagan era policies that left her working-class family forgotten in the dust.  Rosanne raises 3 kids on part time jobs with intelligence, savvy, and resilience that lets laughter ring out defiantly in her home–every single day. Finally, the most long-lasting TV mom, Marge Simpson, in a nutshell, probably deserves sainthood. Marge is both a satire and a loving salute to pearl-wearing housewives of yesteryear.  Let’s just say that June Cleaver never faced the challenges Marge does.  What other TV mom can hold a candle to Marge’s 36-season (and counting) optimism, ingenuity, and long-suffering patience?  

We look at all three characters as mothers whose stories partly shaped what we hoped we’d be as mothers.  Why did they make an impression on us? What did their stories leave us expecting when we were expecting?  And were these stories on the mark?  Were any parts of the stories ultimately misleading or unhelpful?  As we pursue these queries, Sonja shares a secret about bra burning, and Vanessa (tries) to sing the Enjoli commercial song.  

REFERENCES:

NPR's Fresh Air Interview about the documentary We Need to Talk about Cosby

Article from Slate in 2014 about Clair Huxtable:  The Other Huxtable Effect 

2018 Article about Rosanne in Meanjin Online:  When Capitalism Saves Us from Ourselves

In our second half of Shirley Jackson’s biography, we pick up in 1939 when Shirley is about to marry Stanley, and for a full portrait of Stanley, you’ll absolutely want to check out S2E7 “The Very Haunted Life of Shirley Jackson.”  Again, as we highlight in the show notes for the previous episode, this episode is only made possible by the scholarship of Jackson biographer, Ruth Franklin. We have drawn primarily on Franklin’s 2016 biography of Shirley Jackson, A Very Haunted Life, and we highly recommend it as thorough, thoughtful, and engaging.  If you love Jackson or if you are interested in what 1950’s life was like for women and female artists, get your hands on Franklin’s marvelous book! 

In this episode, for Jackson, children and books start coming along at about equal intervals in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, and then we really get to see a woman writing full time, while also being an attentive mother, a loyal wife + maid, cook, and laundress.  Hear about how Jackson manages this challenge admirably, in a time when neither her husband, nor her parents, nor her society offered her any physical or emotional support.  

As they review Shirley Jackson’s adult life with a focus on motherhood, Sonja and Vanessa pause to give special attention to Jackson’s 1953 family memoir, Life Among the Savages, about raising her 4 children.  It’s brilliant.  Add to that, it’s hard not to marvel at a writer who masters nonfiction humor writing AND also writes fictional horror at a level that makes her one of Stephen King’s greatest influences. Jackson’s Life Among the Savages takes us on a jolly journey through 1950’s America, where parenting requires ashtrays and no child car seats.  

Shirley Jackson’s life was short, and packed into it are all the forces arrayed against mid-century American women–the constraints of maintaining a home, the unquestioned deference to husbands, the constant pressure to be feminine and slim, all alongside a very human desire to pursue what your mind and spirit need… and if that need happens to be writing, in the 1950’s, you probably have to wait for your husband to allow you a turn at the typewriter.   

REFERENCES:

Ruth Franklin's biography:  A Very Haunted Life

Goodreads Review of Life Among the Savages

S2E7:  The Very Haunted Life of Shirley Jackson, Part 1

Shirley Jackson, one of America’s greatest writers, was also a mother of 4 children in the 1950’s, and she worked from home writing, cooking, writing, nursing sick kids, writing, doing laundry, writing, shopping, writing, going to parent-teacher conferences, and also taking care of her husband Stanley, who was a legendary college professor but who was so incapable of adulting that his two daughters had to come take care of him after Shirley died because he didn’t even know how to make himself a cup of coffee.

We bring you this episode in large part thanks to the careful, thorough, and passionate scholarship of biographer Ruth Franklin and her brilliantly-written 2016 biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life.  We knew we had to include Shirley Jackson in our season on motherhood because of how much Shirley’s own mother impacted her life and what a heroic feat of organization, love, hard work, and humor she brought to the act of birthing and raising 4 children while birthing and seeing to publication over 200 short stories, 2 best-selling memoirs, and 6 novels.  Within those works lie some of the most probing studies of female characters trying to literally maintain their sanity–with varying degrees of success–in a society that wants them to be college-educated housewives who work like unpaid servants but who do it all cheerfully in high heels and wearing pearls.  

Part 1 covers Jackson’s life from her birth in 1916 to the late 1930’s, in her college years when she meets Stanley Hyman who will be both her greatest champion and the source of her deep sense of abandonment.  Along the way, Sonja and Vanessa brush up against Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the happily-very-rarely used term, “transcendental groin.”  

REFERENCES:

Ruth Franklin's Shirley Jackson: A Very Haunted Life

A brief overview of Betty Friedan's life & main argument of The Feminine Mystique (1963)

Ruth Franklin’s biography of Jackson contains several of Jackson’s cartoons, but this Washington Post article also includes a couple showing Jackson’s satirization of her lounging husband, in the midst of her non-stop work as a full-time homemaker & writer who, eventually, made more money than he did.  

Ruth Franklin’s scholarship goes far beyond her 2016 biography of Jackson:  check out Ruth Franklin's Website!

S2E6:  Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice: Is Mrs. Bennet a Bad Mom?

Mother knows best, the old saying goes. But what if your mother is constantly trying to ship you with strange, rich men?  Believe it or not, if you’re in England, circa 1800, having such a mum might have its upsides. 

Sonja and Vanessa offer a lively run-through of Pride and Prejudice with an eye on the character who, in terms of dialogue, speaks second-only to Miss Elizabeth Bennet herself. (No, it’s not Mr. Darcy.)  It’s Elizabeth’s mother, Mrs. Bennet, who talks her way into second place with gossip, scheming, and fashion advice.  And yet, we pose the question of whether this mother–universally acknowledged as silly–may also be wise.  In this classic novel’s playfully astute look at patriarchy’s true ridiculousness, we spotlight Mrs. Bennet, wondering if, perhaps, she may be the marriage game’s MVP. 

Along the way, Sonja indulges in a bit of Lady Catherine worship, and Vanessa mixes up her balls, and together they offer at least a couple of fresh insights into the world’s ongoing obsession with Pride and Prejudice, a novel merely attributed to the nameless  “Author of Sense and Sensibility” when published that has, nonetheless, cast the shadow of a giant across the landscape of the literary world, over two hundred years later. 

REFERENCES:

Jo Baker's novel, Longbourne

Live from Pemberley, Season 4 Hot & Bothered Podcast

Ben Fensom, lip synch PP miniseries from the 90's

@somebenfen (on Instagram)

S2E5: Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s Beloved

In so many ways, Toni Morrison expanded the reaches of our cultural imagination both in terms of understanding our history and exploring the intricate landscape of the human psyche through language.  Beloved, Morrison’s 1987 masterpiece, alternates settings between 1850’s Kentucky and 1870’s Ohio, depicting Sethe, protagonist and former slave, isolated and dealing with trying to live on after the scarring trauma of slavery.  She finds herself feeling, for instance, the complicated nostalgia for the beautiful trees of the plantation where she grew up…while those very trees were used to hang black men she knew.  The reader recognizes the truth of this feeling, while reeling at the profoundly unresolvable conflict it creates for Sethe. Morrison takes on these painful paradoxes, including the desire of a mother to protect her children…at any cost.  And then, that same mother has to live with the cost as a personal regret, when the faceless structures of an evil institution made her choice necessary. 

Sonja and Vanessa consider how Morrison puts a mother, Sethe, at the center of her meditation on historical shadows, collective trauma, grief, memory, regret, and loss of self through Sethe’s story.  Sonja offers clear, helpful historical context for the American prewar period of the 1850’s and also Reconstruction, in the 1870’s.  Vanessa gives an overview of the plot, and there are spoilers, but nothing can detract from the immersive experience it is to read Morrison’s lyrical prose, so–even after listening to this episode– readers can absolutely enjoy the novel for the first time or the fiftieth.

Please be advised  that Morrison’s novel deals with violence, including infanticide, and the episode discusses these aspects of the novel, so it might not be a good fit for all listeners.

REFERENCES:

The Black Book, Edited by Toni Morrison

Text of The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Yale Law School Library

12 Years a Slave, Publisher's Website

Dred Scott Case / National Archives

Text of the 13th Amendment,  Congress.gov

Text of the 14th Amendment, Congress.gov

Text of the 15th Amendment, Congress.gove

Historical Context of the film, Birth of a Nation

Info on 1989 film Field of Dreams

Information on Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, HBStowe Foundation Site

Uncle Tom's Cabin, novel for purchase

Ta-Nehisi Coates's The Water Dancer, novel for purchase

Julie Otsuka's Buddha in the Attic, novel for purchase

Federico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, play for purchase in English

Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, novel for purchase

S2E4: Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse

Sonja and Vanessa explore Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel, To the Lighthouse with a focus on Mrs. Ramsay, one of the great mums of British literature. As a happy coincidence, Sonja’s daughter, Sage McHenry, was in town for the episode recording, and Sage offers her Gen Z-reader thoughts on the classic novel. To the Lighthouse, while not strictly autobiographical, has clear links to Woolf’s own life experience, particularly her memories of her parents.  We start off with a look at Woolf’s childhood and formative experiences, her education, her own thoughts on whether to become a mother, and her life-long struggles to maintain mental stability.  Please note that that this episode does discuss child sexual abuse.  

From there, we examine the 3 parts of the novel:  “The Window,” all about the day that starts with little James telling his mother, Mrs. Ramsay, that he wants to go to the lighthouse and ends with a dinner where the whole family and all their guests connect emotionally after a delicious meal.  Despite Mrs. Ramsay’s hopefulness that the lighthouse visit will happen the next day, the weather shifts, and the trip does not happen.  In the second part, “Time Passes,” the house lies empty and begins falling apart, World War 1 rages, we are parenthetically told of several deaths in the family–including that of Mrs. Ramsay.  Finally, in the third part, “The Lighthouse,” the trip that had not happened in childhood, finally happens, but only Mr. Ramsay, James, and Cam are left, and they note the absence of a mother who was able to create an emotional web among all her loved ones.   

Join Sonja and Vanessa as they reflect on the many ideas the novel considers:  women acting as mirrors for male confidence, the contrast of a woman choosing to create art vs. a woman creating family, motherhood as unappreciated creative work, the idea of male and female in a sort of cosmic balance, nostalgia, the ephemeral nature of childhood and community, and Woolf’s clear admiration for of one woman’s power to use her emotional intelligence to connect a diverse group of people into a harmonious community–if only for a day.  

REFERENCES 

Emma Woolf, great niece of Virginia Woolf, article that explains why Virginia didn't become a mother herself:

https://www.newsweek.com/2015/02/27/joyful-gossipy-and-absurd-private-life-virginia-woolf-306438.html

Nino Strachey's Young Bloomsbury: he Generation That Redefined Love, Freedom, and Self-Expression in 1920s England

Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own

Emily Dickinson's poem, "Tell All the Truth" 

Peter Pan pdf illustrated edition with picture of Wendy on the 2 "tombstone"

Dylan Thomas's poem, "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night"

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Vanessa Bell, sister to Virginia Woolf, bio info

S2E3: Motherhood in Lorca’s Yerma & The House of Bernarda Alba

Sonja and Vanessa are thrilled to welcome Dr. Jonathan Mayhew, an international scholar on Federico Garcia Lorca, to explore the theme of motherhood in Lorca’s 1934 play, Yerma, and The House of Bernarda Alba, the masterpiece Lorca finished writing just two months before he was assassinated by Spanish fascists in August 1936. Disappeared by Franco's Falange forces at age 38, Lorca never saw Bernarda performed. Both plays question the expectations and limits traditional society puts on women in terms of sexuality, marriage, and motherhood.  Yerma lyrically portrays a wife who cannot conceive, trying to figure out what purpose she serves without motherhood...she asks if she is even a woman. In Bernarda Alba, Lorca forges a crucible within the walls of a locked house, in a Spanish village, at the height of a sizzling Andalusian summer, in which five young women live, caged by religious mores, fears of gossip, patriarchal traditions, and the demands of their own sexual desires.  Bernarda–their own mother–appoints herself their jailer, and with cruel words and a walking-cane-cum-blunt-weapon, Bernarda dominates her daughters, her servants--even her own octogenarian mother.  Dr. Jonathan Mayhew explains and offers insights on crucial textual elements, plus he fills in key information about Lorca’s biography and the complicated political landscape of 1930’s Spain, in the lead up to the Spanish Civil War.  This episode showcases all the elements we value on In Walks a Woman:  scholarship, history, enduring literature, and women’s stories.  Treat yourself to an episode that examines a Spanish male writer who showcases passionate, powerful women in stories that refract larger social, religious, and political issues….many of which we are still negotiating in 2025.  

LINKS:

Jonathan Mayhew's 2020 book, Lorca's Legacies

Johnathan Mayhew's 2009 book, Apocryphal Lorca

2015 Presentation: Conversations in the Observatorio: Jonathan Mayhew. Lorca's Modernist Self-fashioning in collaboration with Harvard  Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Translation of Lorca's 3 Major Plays: Blood Wedding, Yerma, The House of Bernarda Alba (Dr. Mayhew recommends this translation)

Spanish Text of Lorca's Bodas de Sangre, Yerma, La Casa de Bernarda Alba

There are absolutely online translations of Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba that are free, but the quality of the translation might vary. 

Sonja mentions the BBC version of The House of Bernarda Alba with Glenda Jackson as Bernarda and Joan Plowright as la Poncia, but sadly it does not appear to be available via streaming online.  You might have more luck at your local library or finding a used copy for sale.  It’s a brilliant production with two of the greatest British actresses ever.  Jackson passed away in 2023, and we just lost Plowright this January of 2025.  If you can find this performance with these two legends, it is SO worth watching! 

#lorca #garcialorca #federicogarcialorca #spanishcivilwar #womenintheater #bernardaalba #inwalksawoman

Vanessa and Sonja examine Julie Otuska’s completely original narrative style in her novel, The Buddha in the Attic (2011).  Vanessa grabs the historical student-driver wheel along with Sonja’s steady historical expertise to give you the story of Japanese immigration to the United States, the fascinating phenomenon of “Japanese Picture Brides” (OG catfishing?), the journey of women who leave their mothers and families in Japan to a country where they can only snag a foothold when they, the novel’s narrators, become the mothers of American citizens.  And then comes the bombing of Pearl Harbor…and all footholds are lost.  Buddha is like no other novel that has been written.  Why? Because it tries to capture the “kaleidoscopic” (Sonja’s perfect adjective!) of women experiencing sweeping cultural events, women who traditionally have no voices and remain forgotten by history.  What if all those women from the past could speak?  What if they could all reach out to us from history and share a moment of their life experience?  If they could, Julie Otsuka would be their medium, and the themes of motherhood and the cadence of poetry in Buddha would be their book.  

Julie Otsuka's Website

THE BUDDHA IN THE ATTIC for purchase from the publisher, Penguin Random House

WHEN THE EMPEROR WAS DIVINE for purchase from publisher, Penguin Random House

Also Referenced in this Episode:

An novel that exemplifies the use of multiple first-person narrators:

WONDER by RJ Palacio, for purchase from the publisher, Penguin Random House

More Info on Japanese art that may be influences:

Kakemono History

Sumi / Japanese Ink Paintings

Sonja gives a tour de force presentation of Patriarchy's beginnings:  when, why, how, and what it replaced.  Was there Matriarchy before Patriarchy?  Sonja explains.  Why did humans go from one central Mother Goddess to a male god at the center of the pantheon of gods?  Sonja explains.  Is Patriarchy just how it is, or can it evolve into a less male-beneficial system?  Sonja explains!  In this detailed but very accessible historical explanation, you'll come away with a greater understanding of why both men and women in early civilizations morphed from more equal hunter-gatherer societies to sedentary patriarchal civilizations.  By the end of the episode, Sonja and Vanessa challenge the claim that Patriarchy is "natural," contending instead that it's actually just a fiction, a story...and as is the way with storytelling, can't we--both women and men--rewrite our story with a plot that puts all humans on more equal footing? Join us for this insightful historical overview that kicks off Season 2 of In Walks a Woman:  The Mother Goddess.

Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy

Sonja and Vanessa delve into recent history to ask if it’s even possible to be your own woman in a world that is designed and controlled by men?  Through the lens of five prominent women of the 1980’s and 90’s, IWAW asks if female odysseys are doomed to follow in the footsteps of–or be a reaction to–male expectations.  Sonja and Vanessa dip into stories of women in politics and pop culture to ask what these real-life heroines gained and lost on their journeys.  If you are a fan or contemporary of Madonna, Margaret Thatcher, Princess Diana, Cyndi Lauper or Sinead O’Connor, this episode offers a probing conversation about the forces at work in the lives of women who decided to enter traditionally male institutions and put themselves in front of the unforgiving male gaze. 

Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Robber Bride (1998)

For Purchase @ Penguin Books

John Berger’s 4 Part BBC Documentary Series, Ways of Seeing (1971)

Ways of Seeing Series on You Tube

Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema” (1975)

Mulvey Article in PDF

Sinead O’Connor’s memoir, Rememberings (2021)

For Purchase @ Harper Collins

Allison McCabe’s Why Sinead O’Connor Matters (2024)

For Purchase @ University of Texas Press

Allison McCabe’s Website:  AllisonMcCabe.com

Legacy Season 8: Margaret Thatcher

Let the Canary Sing (documentary)

Sinead's 1989 Mandinka Performance

Sinead Protest on SNL & Rejection by Bob Dylan Fans a Few Weeks Later

Madonna's Material Girl Vid that is all shot through the male gaze of a rich guy trying to go out with her...and succeeding

Article on the Diana Sheer Skirt Pic, and the male photographer who felt that, regardless of embarrassment to the 19 year old woman in the pic, felt it was "too good" not to publish:Diana Sheer Skirt Revealing Legs Pic

Brilliant Cyndi Lauper "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" Video