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NEW HANDBOOK NOW AVAILABLE
Download a pdf copy of the Certificate Program Handbook today: HERE!
You are welcome to schedule an in-person, phone, or video conference appointment to discuss the certificate program in greater detail: swgproject@tc.columbia.edu
Join the 2020-2021 students on their way to getting certification in Sexuality, Women, and Gender in Psychology and Education!
Reproductive identity is how you self-identify when it comes to your reproductive experiences. The term is intentionally broad, inclusive, and exists on a spectrum.
It conveys both conventional categories of parenthood & nonparenthood as well how people make sense of their feelings within the sphere of reproduction more generally.
For a comprehensive review, you can download the debut article on Reproductive Identity in the special issue of the journal American Psychologist.
Or click here.
Athan, A. M. (2020). Reproductive identity: An emerging concept. American Psychologist, 75(4), 445-456.
If you are an educator or practitioner and wish to receive more in-depth training to innovate your current approaches using the concept of Reproductive Identity, apply to the Sex Education Initiative.
2019-2020 SWG Certificate Program Handbook
NEW HANDBOOK NOW AVAILABLE
Download a pdf copy of the Certificate Program Handbook today: HERE!
You are welcome to schedule an in-person, phone, or video conference appointment to discuss the certificate program in greater detail: swgproject@tc.columbia.edu
Join the 2019-2020 students on their way to getting certification in Sexuality, Women, and Gender in Psychology and Education!
Kim Baranowski
The work of Drs. Melanie Brewster of the SWG Project and Brendan Velez’s publication on minority stress was included in a recent Supreme Court brief:
https://www.apa.org/about/offices/ogc/amicus/bostock#
Read the APA’s coverage or abstract of the publication below!
Melanie Elyse Brewster, Ph.D
Associate Professor of Psychology and Education
Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology
Teachers College, Columbia University
Website // identityLORE // SWG Project
During her research in sexuality and gender studies, Melanie Brewster has encountered plenty of frustrated couples.
And if there's one thing many same-sex couples could teach straight ones, she says, it's how to divvy up the seemingly mundane tasks of housework.
"When gender is neutralized as a factor in relationships, people tend to divide household chores either by interest or by who's better at a certain task," said Brewster, a psychologist and associate professor of psychology at Columbia University in New York City.
The increased participation of women in the workforce has been one of the main social revolutions in Canada over the past 40 years.
But it has resulted in increasingly heated battles over who does what around the home, with women left picking up the slack.
Studies by Statistics Canada suggest modern men tend to be far more involved in the domestic sphere than previous generations of fathers and husbands, but mothers still account for nearly two-thirds of all the hours of household work done by Canadian parents.
"Repeatedly, one of the things that makes people very unhappy in their partnerships is feeling like there's a disproportionate burden of domestic labour," said Brewster.
"In working with queer people, it was not a concern that came up quite as much."
Having surveyed dozens of studies of gay and lesbian couples, Brewster has concluded same-sex couples divide unpaid labour in a more egalitarian way.
Not only do same-sex couples tend to be more committed to equality, she explains, they're better at discussing openly who performs household tasks — and which tasks each partner prefers.
"The fact that you could actually discuss with your partner, 'I would much rather you take out the trash because I'm really sensitive to smells.' Something as simple as that leads to a lot less resentment."
Listen to FULL EPISODE with Alison Barker and many thanks to her thoughtful interview!
5.27 - postpartum considered as a pathology
6.14 - complex language used by mothers in interviews – coexistence/competing realities of positive/negative
7.10 - child outcome research not looking at experience of mother.
8.22 - Aurelie Athan marries positive to negative in her dissertation – postpartum flourishing and then the grey in between.
9.40 - Language around developmental stage of motherhood
10.17 - Disrupting the unitary model of motherhood – to consider all the diverse ways we come into motherhood and mother.
11.17 - Aurelie leaving her field and finding anthropological work of Dana Raphel and the word 'matrescence'
12.38 - Testing the word matrescence in her class at Columbia University
14:54 - Discussion of matrescence alongside adolescence
16:14 - Does matrescence have an end date? Additional pregnancies, additional children and how we experience mothering as the children grow.
17:54 - When does matrescence begin? The preconception window....
19:04 - The spiritual journey of pregnancy
20:30 - Positive psychology
22:05 - Why our culture is open to hear about matrescence – growth, wellness, complimentary medicine, self actualisation, spiritual development.
23:36 - Spiritual practices and beliefs as part of physical healing.
24:17 - How children influence the development of mothers. Lessons of patience, mindfulness, presence, meaning and purpose – are you living from that place - you have to walk the walk. Character traits we want to have in our children.
26:24 - Love, acceptance and compassion – not just loving ourselves with kindness but our own loving kindness – Kristen Neff
27:12: The #Metoo movement
27.25 - Enlightenment – awakening to truths
28:12 - Not being able to tolerate violence of kids on TV - collapse of self and other
30:14 - Collaboration instead of competition. “Mothers are counterculture” we can be the change agents. This is where society needs to go to ensure our survival and health. The other system of values has created destruction of planet mentally and physically. Aurelie believes this is the reason motherhood is so as we are moving from one set of values from the ego to arguably transcendent values.
33:41 - Changing attitudes in society to mothers
33:37 - Locating what mother needs in larger social matrix of support. Mothers are canaries in the coal mine.
35:42 - Different practitioners are coming round to this research - change in one domain creates change in others. Aurelie believes education is key.
37:48 - Mothers can be change agents
27:12 - Biggest complaint in interviews which Aurelie conducted with mothers is that ‘nobody told me this’.
38:15 - The modern day village
42:33 - Child is a force of nature that you have to surrender to.
42:55 - Curiosity to the logic labelling – you start learning from them. You can't predict what you are going to learn.
42:24 - Nice to meet me – confrontation with your true self by being with kids.
44:43 - Can be applied to any relationship where tethered to another – with pet or another caregiving role so we don't disrespect one life over another.
45:46 - Mother guilt and suffering which is where we get stretched and the depth comes. What is being asked of us in our maturation?
48:00 - Murphy's law when trying to Trickster energy – when trying to get something done can't - when trying to get out of the door when our child is taking a long time to get ready. Aurelie says this is what tempers the ego. Any ideas on why the attunement between mother and child always seems to be this way? Please do share.
53:05 - Liberating our own mind with knowledge.
Link to the papers discussed in the podcast
Kristen Neff’s website
Centennial published a special edition dedicated to The Science of Motherhood that is relevant to the month of May with its focus on Maternal Mental Health and Mothers’ Day. Dr. Aurelie Athan was interviewed on The Maternal Brain her interpretation of the prosocial changes it undergoes.
For pictures and schedule of presentations at Manhattan College read more here.
Academic Festival 2019 Will Make “A Personal Statement”
Read full details here.
WOMEN BEHIND THE CAMERA Film Series
Friday, March 29 to Sunday, March 31, 2019
This month we are celebrating Women's History Month with a selection of films directed by women. From showcasing films by African Women directors Zara M. Yacoub & Khady Sylla to documentaries chronicling the lives of iconic musicians Josephine Baker and Mary Lou Williams, we have something for everyone to enjoy.
SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE
Friday, March 29
6:30pm – Looking for Life – FREE Screening! (Haiti)
8:00pm - The Black Mozart in Cuba (Guadeloupe/Cuba)
Saturday, March 30
2:00pm – African Women Directors: Zara M. Yacoub & Khady Sylla (Chad, Senegal)
3:20pm – I’m Not a Witch (Zambia)
5:15pm – No Shade – Back by popular demand! (UK)
7:40pm - The Green Book: Guide to Freedom – Q&A (USA)
Sunday, March 31
2:00pm – Foreign Body (Tunisia)
4:00pm – Black Divas: Josephine Baker & Mary Lou Williams (Germany, USA)
6:30pm – Teddy Pendergrass: If You Don’t Know Me (UK/USA)
Details at www.nyadiff.org
FREE SCREENINGS WITH A VALID TC ID!
Read the full article here.
“Feminist artists tend to make me feel instantly seen,” says Melanie Brewster, who is a Columbia psychology professor and an artist herself. “They are able to capture common gendered experiences, such as marginalization and disconnection, and encourage you to think about them from a slightly different vantage point.” For her, creative works are also sometimes a better way to get to the truth of someone’s story, she explains: “We are constantly bombarded by content that aims to manipulate us to think one way or another. Art is inspiring to me because it speaks for itself and isn’t coercive.” With that in mind, here are five artists—and one gallery show—that she can’t get out of her head.
Read the full piece on Of a Kind here.
JOIN OUR 2019 SEX EDUCATION TRAINING FOR NYC MIDDLE & HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS
Held on the Teachers College, Columbia University campus, this fully-funded program consists of a teacher training on sex education with a specialized focus on Reproductive Identity Formation (RIF).
Participants learn from content area experts, explore their own personal values and norms, and discuss how to then similarly engage their students and community.
A foundational core skills training on sex education will also be provided along with vouchers to purchase additional instructional materials.
Apply for our Spring 2019 training and help spread the word: https://sex-ed.tc.columbia.edu
DEADLINE: MARCH 1, 2019
Download a pdf copy of the Certificate Program Handbook today: HERE!
You are welcome to schedule an in-person, phone, or video conference appointment to discuss the certificate program in greater detail: swgproject@tc.columbia.edu
Join the 2018-2019 cohort of students on their way to getting certification in Sexuality, Women, and Gender in Psychology and Education!
Matrescence, a seldom heard word that names the shift into motherhood, stemming from on the word, adolescence. Funny that the metamorphosis into adolescence is socially viewed with compassion, support and a general understanding of tremendous and uncontrollable change while the same slide into motherhood is often met with high expectations of “maternal instincts” and an innate understanding of how to seamlessly take on this new role and identity.
In this episode, I speak with Clinical Psychologist, faculty member, and co-founder of the Sexuality, Women & Gender Project at Teachers College, Columbia University, Aurelie Athan, Ph.D about this massive transition in a new mother’s life. Aurelie shares her insights, some of her research, and teachings on this incredibly important and under discussed topic. This conversation is vital for a new parents and her support system.
About Aurelie Athan:
Aurélie Athan, Ph.D. is a Clinical Psychologist in private practice and faculty member and co-founder of the Sexuality, Women & Gender Project at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her work in Reproductive Psychology advances the concept of matrescence, or the transition to motherhood, through education, theory, and practice. She understands women’s development as mothers holistically, both the potential for thriving and distress in their subjective experiences. She designed the first courses nationally in Maternal Development as well as a certificate program in Reproductive & Maternal Wellbeing and teacher training program for reproductive literacy through the Sex Education Initiative. She enjoys working with mothers directly as well as consulting with maternal care professionals. Last heard saying: “We all have a psychological relationship to our reproductive life, from menstruation to menopause and everything in between!”
Recommended Reading from Aurelie:
(https://www.westchesterfamily.com/stories/2018/5/wf-feature-motherhood-2018-5.html An article by Aurelie about the two competing cultures she believes might be driving the perfectionism in mothers.
Read more here.
Aurélie Athan, a reproductive psychologist who teaches at Teachers College, Columbia University and is founding member of the Sexuality, Women & Gender Project, isn’t surprised by the focus on the wellbeing on the children. She’s been working to revive the anthropological term “matrescence”—that is, a woman’s transition into parenthood—for more than a decade. “Our compassion lies with the child, and rightfully so,” she tells Broadly. “They are the vulnerable other of the dyad—but it’s only half the story when we leave the mother out.”
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In fact, Athan says, the repercussions of separation that a mother endures will likely mirror that which her child experiences. “It’s the other side of the same coin, basically,” she explains. “When a child is separated from their parent for a moment, such as, God forbid, in the grocery store, they panic first and start to search and look for them. When they can’t find her, then the fear and anxiety and all that starts to kick up. The same thing [occurs] for the mother.”
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Athan, who’s worked with several women in her clinical practice who were separated from their children, says that oftentimes mothers will cope during that time apart by trying to maintain some kind of connection with their child: whether that’s holding onto belongings or photos or revisiting memories in their minds. Even then, however, these mothers risk potentially reviving the trauma of separation. “It’s not necessarily comforting at times,” Athan says, adding that many women she’s spoken to describe their coping as a “moment-to-moment, day-to-day survival.”
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Athan also raises the concern that some parents separated from their children may be at risk for suicidal thoughts. “It’s just like maternal deprivation of children,” she explains. “We know that there’s something called ‘failure to thrive’—they can literally stop growing. Mothers can succumb to losing their will to live ... they can stop eating or sleeping or [have] poor self care.”
The messages that schools send to boys when applying dress codes are especially harmful, said Riddhi Sandil, co-founder of the Sexuality, Women and Gender Project and an assistant professor of practice in the department of counseling and clinical psychology at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
“The message sent is that somehow your body and your dress causes an inappropriate reaction in boys,” she said. “You’re a distraction, and it could lead to boys behaving badly. So women are held responsible for the behavior of men.”
Read the full article here.
The term “matrescence,” coined by anthropologist Dana Raphael in the mid-’70s and brought into common use in psychology by clinical psychologist Aurelie Athan, head of the maternal psychology lab at Columbia University, describes a woman’s transition into parenthood. The term deliberately evokes the passage into adulthood — adolescence — though the two aren’t exactly on equal footing in our collective consciousness.
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As Athan describes it, “I think [the concept of matrescence] would bring some of the magic back into adult development. It can bring curiosity and intrigue back to our own stories of self-development. It doesn’t stop after adolescence … it continues on.”
Nor does matrescence end after the early months of caring for a first baby. It evolves with each child, and carries on throughout a mother’s life with her children. “Mothering changes with experience. With every child, there’s a layer-cake effect,” says Athan. “And there are different stories in mothering young babies or children age zero to 3 than there are in how to raise young children or adolescents, and then also emerging adults, and then the empty-nest experience. There are mothers of now-grown children who continue to wrestle with the very same questions. The story just deepens and becomes all the more fascinating.”
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“A colleague of mine once said, women might celebrate going to a yoga class, but not breastfeeding in the middle of the night, staying up all night, as having the same sort of value. I think [kids are] teaching you things like mindfulness and patience,”Athan says. “Think about the repetitive tasks [of parenthood] … they force you to be very present.”
Athan likens the monotonous daily tasks of motherhood to ascetic exercises that allow us to put aside our egos: “If you were to invert the notion that we somehow raise our children and think about the influence of children on our development … it would be a number of things. People pay a lot of money to travel to an ashram or to go through some kind of spiritual practice, and I think if they reframe or reconceptualize parenting in those terms, they could get it at home for free.”
“Probably more than they want,” she laughs. “A lot of moms talk about finding a patience they didn’t have before.”
Athan likes to compare matrescence to the classical hero’s journey of literature. The protagonist is called upon, willingly or unwillingly, to embark upon an adventure, a journey. She faces many difficulties and trials along the way, but ultimately emerges victorious, and returns home with a new way of looking at the world, having grown from her experience.
“You hear the call, and the adventure is not going to be an easy one,” she says. “It’s really the moment when a mother psychologically conceives that she’s a mother, and it might not be an ‘a-ha’ moment. Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s when you bring the baby home from the hospital, or your adopted child lands in your arms. Other times, it’s more of an unfolding of the responsibilities, and that is where the mother confronts, in that kind of heroic sense, what is really being asked here. And that’s where I think each of us individually has to embark on that alone.”
“When I hear a mother come out of that process, that early reckoning, she comes out with a real shift,” Athan adds. “That’s what the hero’s journey is … there’s no going back, in the same way.”
Read full piece here.