THE GOOD ENOUGH MOTHER PODCAST

Episode 96 The Economy of Motherhood and Being Played the ‘Fool’ with Tess Wilkinson-Ryan The Good Enough Mother Podcast with Dr Sophie Brock.jpeg

 Being Played the ‘Fool’

The Economy of Motherhood and

MAY 29, 2023

MOTHERHOOD, HUMAN EXPERIENCE, GOOD GAME, SOCIAL REWARDS, CULTURAL PROMISE, BIAS AND DISCRIMINATION, PATRIARCHAL MOTHERHOOD, ECONOMY OF MOTHERHOOD, MOTHERHOOD STUDIES

with Professor of Law and Psychology Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

Are we being ‘duped’ by our current cultural conception of what it means to be a mother? In this episode, I speak with Tess Wilkinson-Ryan who is a law professor and moral psychologist at The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Tess is the author of her recently released book: FOOL PROOF: How Fear of Playing the Sucker Shapes Ourselves and the Social Order―and What We Can Do About It. The book is on the psychology of feeling duped or betrayed, exploring the human experience of feeling like a ‘sucker’, and we focus our conversation on one particular chapter of the book: Mothersucker. Tess shares how motherhood can be like playing a relentless public goods game (she explains what this is in the episode) in which a mother's job is to contribute, but everyone else gets to play whatever strategy they want and benefit from her work while she remains undervalued and taken for granted. We unpack the discrepancy between the cultural promise and social rewards of motherhood with what mothers then experience, and Tess shares research into the bias and discrimination that mothers face. This conversation explores the relationship between individualism and care work, the ways mothers are socialized into patriarchal motherhood, collectivism, the allocation of resources, the economy of motherhood and more. We also explore the dynamic between an individual mother’s life, psychology and decision-making, with the broader social-cultural-moral context of motherhood that she is living within.

  • “The cultural recruiting materials promise that being a mother is the best and most important job in the world, which in some ways it is: it is a singular experience of love. Once you get the job, though, the social rewards remain just out of reach, unless you’re married, white—and never, ever make a mistake."

    — Fool Proof: How Fear of Playing the Sucker Shapes Our Selves and the Social Order—and What We Can Do About It by Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

  • “In the United States, motherhood is a social good until women ask for state support, at which point motherhood is a personal choice.”

    — Fool Proof: How Fear of Playing the Sucker Shapes Our Selves and the Social Order—and What We Can Do About It by Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

meet

Tess

Wilkinson-Ryan

A professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She has a law degree and a doctorate in psychology. She studies the moral psychology of legal decision-making, teaching courses in contracts, consumer law, and leadership. Wilkinson-Ryan grew up in Maine and now lives in Philadelphia with her husband and two children.

How Fear of Playing the Sucker Shapes Our Selves and the Social Order—and What We Can Do About It

Fool Proof

The fear of playing the fool is a universal psychological phenomenon and an underappreciated driver of human behavior; in the spirit of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational, and Susan Cain’s Quiet, Fool Proof tracks the implications of the sucker construct from personal choices to cultural conflict, ultimately charting an unexpected and empowering path forward.

“On its face, becoming a mother is a cultural achievement, a self-actualization that secures one’s place in the community. In fact, motherhood comes with heavy responsibilities but not a lot of power.”

“…motherhood can be like playing a relentless Pubic Goods Game in which your job is to contribute, but everyone else gets to play whatever strategy they want.”

— Fool Proof: How Fear of Playing the Sucker Shapes Our Selves and the Social Order—and What We Can Do About It by Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

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