Bio
Elizabeth J. O’Reilly is a registered social worker, student and mother. Her academic journey has been a slow crawl forward while balancing community work, paid work, and mothering. She dreams of a more just and caring society.
Abstract
Our lives are intrinsically interdependent and in-relation with others, yet our neoliberal capitalist culture prioritizes the notion of individuality. Using a feminist lens, this paper argues that our individualist capitalist society is failing mothers and disabled people. Mothers are expected to take on the bulk of caring labor, while concealing their in-relation status with their children, and hiding or deprioritizing their personal lives to participate in capitalism. Furthermore, with the prioritized notion of individuality and through necropolitical practice, our society permits the disregard of marginalized and disabled bodies, as they are expendable during a global pandemic. Autoethnographic in nature, this paper tells the story of a mother engaged in academia and paid labor, while grappling with neoliberal capitalist society. Finally, it proposes a more just and caring society through the reimagination of our in-relation status.
Keywords: Mothering, interdependence, in-relation, COVID-19, necropolitics, maternal and disabled bodies, capitalism.
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