The Motherhood Penalty—Understanding the Gendered Role of Motherhood in the Life Histories of Incarcerated South African Women

Abstract

The number of incarcerated women in South Africa has steadily increased over the last decade. However, as a minority in the carceral population of the country, their narratives are underrepresented. An emergent body of feminist, gender responsive research has found that motherhood is central to the narratives of incarcerated women. This study endeavored to document the life histories of 17 women who are incarcerated in the largest correctional center in South Africa. The narratives of these women explicate how the gendered role of motherhood impacted on their incarceration pathways, contributing to the developing literature of justice-involved women in South Africa.

Keywords

incarceration gender motherhood feminism life histories South Africa

While women may make up the minority of the correctional population worldwide, the number of incarcerated women has increased by an alarming 50% since the year 2000 (Walmsley, 2017). America constitutes the largest percentage of that total, with an estimated 211,870 women making up a total of 8.4% of their correctional system, an increase of 1534% since 1950 (Casey, 2018). Contrastingly, in Africa the rise has been somewhat less than the increase in the general population of the continent, with the smallest justice-involved female populace globally at only 3% (Walmsley, 2017). South Africa in particular has seen a decline in the number of women incarcerated since the post-apartheid era, when the highest numbers were recorded with women detained as political prisoners (Dastile & Agozino, 2019). Thereafter, the statistics of incarcerated South African women remained constant at 2.1% until 2010, when a steady increase was recorded by the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) (Qhogwana, 2020). Currently, there are 2957 sentenced and 1359 unsentenced women in correctional facilities across the country, which, in a total carceral population of 162,875, denotes that women make up less than 3% of the entire South African incarcerated population (DCS, 2019). From the statistics listed above, we can conclude that the population of incarcerated women in South Africa is a tiny minority compared to their male counterparts, which is consistent with overseas literature (Adams, 2020; Arnull & Stewart, 2021; Epstein, 2014; Larroulet et al., 2020)

The United Nations (UN) reports that incarcerated women experience augmented risks of abuse throughout their adolescent and adult lives, coupled with high instances of mental health disorder diagnoses, including substance use disorders resulting from self-medicating due to histories of trauma (UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, 2013). They also have an increased likelihood of being the sole providers and caretakers of children prior to incarceration, as well as a history of employment in low wage, entry-level positions (UN Handbook on Women and Imprisonment, 2014). According to the Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative (CSPRI) report in 2014, like their overseas counterparts, justice-involved women in South Africa are overrepresented among the poor, have less access to education, employment, and economic resources, while assuming the principal burden of care and domestic unpaid labor (Ackermann, 2014). Local research (Artz & Hoffman-Wanderer, 2017; Dastile & Agozino, 2019; Moen & Shon, 2020; Qhogwana, 2020; Steyn & Booyens, 2017) supports the international literature that recurrently describes the typical profile of incarcerated women as likely to have a history of polyvictimization, living in poverty, employed in the informal sector or unemployed, and usually the primary provider and caregiver for young children.

Motherhood and Crime

Feminist, gender responsive studies conducted abroad report that women who experience incarceration most often are single mothers from disadvantaged circumstances in relegated communities prior to incarceration (Arnull & Stewart, 2021; Barnes & Stringer, 2014; De Coster & Heimer, 2020). Indeed, the majority of women in correctional facilities are mothers, such as in the United States and Russian Federation where 80% of incarcerated women are mothers (Glaze & Maruschak, 2010; Townhead, 2007; UN Handbook on Women and Imprisonment, 2014). In the United Kingdom the total is over 60% (Epstein, 2014; Prison Reform Trust, 2019; Townhead, 2007); while in Thailand, 82% of incarcerated women are mothers (Thailand Institute of Justice, 2014). Of concern is that incarcerated mothers are more likely to be solely responsible as the single parent heading their households with their children, despite the fact that they were also more likely to report living on government financial aid, being homeless, experiencing past physical or sexual abuse, and medical and mental health problems (Adams, 2020; Erez & Berko, 2010; Kennedy et al., 2021; UN Handbook on Women and Imprisonment, 2014). Justice-involved women are also nearly twice as likely to be unemployed, when compared with their male counter parts, yet they were equally likely to be the main financial support for their children (Kjellstrand et al., 2012).

These findings are corroborated by South African research (Artz et al., 2012; Ackerman, 2014; Haffejee et al., 2005; Parry, 2020). A study conducted by Pretorius and Botha (2009) found that 91% of participants indicated that they had children. For Haffejee et al. (2005), nearly 83% of the women had at least one child, and almost half of the women (45%) reported that they were the breadwinners in their homes before they were detained. Most recently in 2017, Artz and Hoffman-Wanderer reported in their qualitative pathways study with incarcerated women in South Africa that 75% of the participants were mothers. Additionally, the “burden of responsibility borne by many of the participants, including the responsibility to support children, parents and other family members” was often within the context of extreme poverty (Artz & Hoffman-Wanderer, 2017, p. 6). Ackermann’s report for the CSPRI in 2014 recognized that the literature from local studies indicate that the majority of women in South African correctional centers are mothers, and many are the primary or sole caretakers of their children.

Many studies on incarcerated mothers show them to be their children’s primary caregiver (Ackermann, 2014; Glaze & Maruschak, 2010; Haffejee et al., 2005; Kjellstrand et al., 2012; Ryder, 2020; Townhead, 2007) suggesting that motherhood is central to their lives prior to their incarceration. A United States research study, conducted by Moe and Ferraro in 2006, focused on the position of motherhood in the lives of incarcerated women and related this role to these women’s criminality. They found that the pragmatic obligation to provide for their children, a position often made untenable due to poverty, high levels of unemployment and experiences of victimization, was inextricably connected to their motivations for committing crime (Moe & Ferraro, 2006). Indeed, the UN specifies motherhood and the “high likelihood of having caring responsibilities for their children, families and others.” (UN Handbook on Women and Imprisonment, 2014, p. 7), as a major factor in contributing to justice-involved women’s incarceration.

To understand the context that incarcerated South African women find themselves in, requires comprehension of tradition, culture and gender in the country, “concepts that are strongly influenced by the historical impact of apartheid, post-apartheid and globalized influences” (Mayer & Barnard, 2015, p. 342). As a multiethnic society steeped in the racist, patriarchal legacy of apartheid, the socio-economic location, and positioning of South African women, particularly black women, have immense bearing on their access to basic resources and ability to provide for their dependents. In addition, the forced, racialized migrant labor system of the apartheid government divided families by uprooting parents and sending them to work far from home. This set the precedent for a society of single mothers or grandmothers, where disconnected parents, most often fathers, were only present to their families through the role of financial provider and almost completely absent in caregiving (van den Berg, 2017). Such family fragmentation occurs within the context of 20% of South African households having inadequate access to food and 49.2% of the adult population living below the upper-bound poverty line, while a third of the population lives on social grants (Moen & Shon, 2020). These social crises form part of the everyday struggles of the 42.6% of female-headed households in South Africa (Nwosu & Ndinda, 2018). These households, as a result of the feminization of poverty, tend to live further below the poverty line, be dependent on social grants, and less likely to have employed members providing for their children (Parry & Gordon, 2020). The encumbering social and economic conditions that South African women face, needs to be comprehended for a holistic understanding of the unique choices and challenges confronting incarcerated women in South Africa, particularly those who are caregivers and providers.

Yet, in South Africa, very little research has considered the gendered responsibilities of caregiving and motherhood as a possible factor of impact for their participants incarceration (Artz & Hoffman-Wanderer, 2017). Despite social perceptions of femininity which dictate that the self-sacrificing ideal of motherhood operates as a motivation to remain crime free or reduce recidivism, their research confirmed otherwise (Artz et al., 2012). Similarly, in their 2016 review of female desistance in 44 studies from the United States and Europe, (Rodermond et al., 2016) found that when a mother felt incapable of taking care of her children and was overwhelmed and stressed by the demands of the role, motherhood was seen as a contributing factor toward women’s incarceration. It would then seem that despite the importance of the maternal function, the stresses that accompanied the position often led toward failed desistance. This emergent body of feminist, gender responsive research that examines motherhood and incarceration is increasing, both locally (Ackermann, 2014; Artz & Hoffman-Wanderer, 2017; Haffejee et al., 2005; Pretorius & Botha, 2009; Steyn & Booyens, 2017) and globally (Barnes & Stringer, 2014; Easterling et al., 2019; Enos, 2001; Rowe, 2011). Unfortunately, the minority of these are concerned the pre-carceral, lived experiences of women who are mothers from behind bars. The research has generated knowledge regarding incarcerated women’s mothering identities or the effects of incarceration on mothers and/or their families. However, less has been written, particularly from Global South perspectives, that highlights the gendered role of motherhood and its possible contributions toward unlawful behavior. This article aims to contribute to the developing literature of justice-involved women in the South African context by explicating their life histories and motherhood experiences prior to incarceration and the possible causative role it may have played in their pathway to offending.

Method

The methodology of this study was informed by feminist, gender responsive approaches within the qualitative paradigm that takes into account the particular lived contexts of incarcerated South African women. The choice of narrative interview to share the gendered and lived experiences of motherhood was purposeful and necessitated the use of the life history research method. Previous efforts to readdress the all-male focus that has characterized most South African criminology to date have used similar methods effectively (Artz & Hoffman-Wanderer, 2017; Dastile & Agozino, 2019; Qhogwana, 2020). As a qualitative research methodology, life history research recognizes the indivisibility of epistemological perspectives and chosen methods of inquiry, as situated within the researchers own experiences (Artz & Hoffman-Wanderer, 2017). Similarly, it locates the socially constructed identities of participants within their past experiences to their present reality and consequently, it is a method that provides a great amount of data depth (Dastile & Agozino, 2019; Easterling et al., 2019).

Data Collection

Data were gathered by means of face-to-face interviews with 17 women housed in the biggest women’s only correctional facility in South Africa, the Johannesburg Female Correctional Centre. Access to the facility was granted after the research plan and data collection tool were reviewed by and cleared by two local Research Ethics Review committees. Thereafter, the DCS provided a point of contact through the facility’s psychologist who acted as an inaugurator for the study, introducing the researcher to various groups of women in the center. These sessions provided the women with an opportunity to ask questions and consider whether they wanted to participate in the research. It also acted as an icebreaker with women interested in participating, who were told the times when they could elect to visit a private office where the interviews could take place. This was a safe space where the interviews of the women’s narratives were audio-recorded. Convenience sampling and snowball sampling were used in recruiting women for participation during these briefing sessions where the nature of the research was discussed. As is appropriate for qualitative sampling, women of various ages, racial, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds, as well as various lengths of incarceration periods and convictions, were included. All interviews were conducted on a voluntary basis with signed consent forms and pseudonyms ensuring anonymity. The narrative, semi-structured interviews were guided by an interview schedule with open-ended questions that were compiled by the researcher. This schedule was informed and developed through study of similar methods employed in previous research (Artz et al., 2012; Casey, 2018; Moe & Ferraro, 2006). It was further guided by the feminist positionality of the researcher and my observations and self-reflexivity during ongoing community engagements with incarcerated women since 2016. Although the research participants and I were different in a number of ways, including age, race, education, and class, the complexity of being located at intersections of various individual, social, cultural, and economic lived experiences led to an abundance of data being collected during the interviews.

Data Analysis

In the analysis of the shared narratives, it can be seen how life histories research is a valuable methodological tool when used to understand the women’s lived experiences from both the outside and the inside. It effectively allows for recognition of duality in experiences of oppression, while contextualizing the individual agentic standpoints of the participants mothering experiences. Utilizing narrative analysis formed part of the important recognition that the resulting text is the product of a collaborative relationship with the participants. The interviews incorporated a focus on how the participants’ stories are told, which is of course relevant to narrative analysis, but also how these stories relate to what has happened to them in their lives and how they have reacted toward these circumstances. Consequently, narrative analysis of the transcribed interviews elucidated the participants’ views of reality from within their social context. This resulted in a number of overarching themes that included agency and autonomy, victimization and violence, the feminization of poverty, and of course, motherhood. As an analytic tool, narrative analysis of the transcribed interviews allowed for the diverse interpretive potential in each narrative, which in turn provided a contextual understanding of the nature of the participants mothering realities.

Participants

The age of the women interviewed ranged from 23 to 53 years old, with an average median age of 35 years of age. With regards to race, the majority of the study’s interviewees were black (n = 6) and women of mixed race (n = 5), totaling almost 65% of the participants, followed by 5 Caucasian participants and one participant who was a foreign national. The 17 women had, on average, two children before they were arrested, and one participant who was pregnant with her third child at the time of her incarceration and interview. Furthermore, three of the women had taken in the children of their relatives or husband’s previous marriages, to raise as their own. The vast majority (n = 13) were the breadwinners for their children, and most were single, with six women having never married, six divorced, one separated, and two widowed. Only two of the women were still married. Since the study was concerned with the women’s experiences of motherhood prior to incarceration, the reasons for their incarceration and convictions were not focused on, unless the women communicated these during their interviews as important to their narrative. As the research study was primarily concerned with contextualizing these women’s personal accounts, it was the researcher’s responsibility to sincerely depict the voices of the women through their narratives and bring to the fore their stories. Excerpts from selected transcripts, with participant pseudonyms, are used in the results section to validate and authenticate the incarcerated women’s mothering experiences, societal influences, and their understandings thereof.

Findings

In order to explicate the participant’s experiences of motherhood, I first need to contextualize the theme of motherhood. It emerged as a dominant narrative within my broader doctoral study on South African incarcerated women’s life histories but was by no means the sole finding. It was deeply interwoven with two other narratives identified during the context of my doctoral research: (1) victimization and violence and (2) feminization of poverty. These are discussed here, in brief, in order to contextualize the pre-incarceration mothering experiences of the women interviewed.

Victimization and Violence

In concurrence with the most common concern highlighted in literature on justice-involved women, cumulative forms of violence dominated the history of polyvictimization experienced by the women pre-incarceration (Arnull & Stewart, 2021; DeHart et al., 2013; Kennedy et al., 2021; Steyn & Booyens, 2017). Various violent behaviors were perpetrated against the women interviewed (n = 11) by their intimate partners or family members, which manifested in acts of physical, sexual, verbal, psychological, and emotional abuse. Most of the women spoke dismissively of the victimization and violence they experienced, as though it was a part of life to be endured. Jackie, a 35-year-old divorcée with two sons, said her father had “stabbed my mom with a garden fork in the head” and described her relationship with her boyfriend as “I’ve always known that he is… that he hit women and things.” This intergenerational abuse, experienced by mothers and daughters, was illustrated through Gloria’s narrative, where the 41-year-old single mother to one adult son stated that “The father of my son was like my father… drinking, abusive, hitting me every weekend… he was like that.” Furthermore, a lack of familial support was reported by the women and was often indicative of dysfunctional family dynamics, with members of the women’s own families refusing or unable to help. Natalie, 34-year-old married mother of four, elucidated her experience of years of escalating abuse at the hands of her now ex-husband, which, during her pregnancy with their child had deteriorated to the point where he had attempted to rape her:

When I fell pregnant, he told me that the baby was not his… he wanted me, and his mother wanted me, to have an abortion, I refused… So, then I wanted to go live with my parents… she [Natalie’s mother] said no, that I must not worry, once the baby is here things will change… he will change.

At times, experiences of victimization blurred with monetized expectations in relationships that conformed to traditional gender roles. Albie, a mother of two and widow at age 42, was married off to an older man by her family when she was 16 years old, and explained that this was done in order to secure financial support for the whole family:

I was out of school when I was sixteen because I had to marry another man… She [her mother] said my brother is going to land up, both of my brothers is going to land up in, um, children’s homes if I don’t, um, get married… I was very upset because she let me marry so, so early. And then I thought, I will do it for my brothers… then they will have a… they are men, they can finish school and do something out of their lives, I can still depend on them. And then they didn’t even finish… nothing!

Feminization of Poverty

Similarly, to the profile outlined by UN research (UN Handbook on Women and Imprisonment, 2014), the incarcerated women I spoke with were young mothers (n = 9) who were single (n = 15) and working for minimum wage or in the informal sector (n = 13), to provide for their families. Faith was the first participant to elucidate her experience as a breadwinner. At age 34, she had recently been incarcerated, while 4 months pregnant with her third child, and was engaged with divorce proceedings. Neither her first boyfriend, nor soon to be ex-husband, had provided financial support or caregiving for their children. This pressure as sole provider was compounded by her responsibility toward her other family members as well: “Everything! Everything they had! That house depended on me, even dad would say “Oh, this month, I can’t make it”. He knew that, “okay, she will… she will make a plan…”. Comparably to the primary breadwinner role (n = 13), most of the women stated that they were the principal caregiver (n = 16) toward their families and main caretakers of the home environment. Once again, these unpaid tasks were considered part of “women’s work” and were referred to in an offhand manner, as simply part of the role to be played as a woman. For Albie, the obligation of caring for her children and keeping the house in order was more than a responsibility. Intensive mothering that was selfless and demanding (Adams, 2020; De Coster & Heimer, 2020) was part of her very identity as an embodiment of motherhood. She shared this by saying “this is the first time that I’ve been ever away from my children. I lived for my husband and my children. For me, um… my husband, and my children, they mustn’t be ashamed to bring their friends over or whatever… everything was clean, and neat.”

Both narrative themes of victimization and violence and feminization of poverty were amplified by the role and the responsibilities of motherhood, with the majority of participants being single mothers and breadwinners for their family from a young age. The qualitative analysis of the participants’ specific discussions regarding motherhood yielded four themes: (1) becoming a mother, (2) disintegration of the family structure, (3) dislocation and isolation, and (4) freedoms lost and gained. These themes are discussed in more depth and contextualized within the overarching life history experiences explicated earlier.

Becoming a mother

Of the women interviewed, nine out of 17 had given birth to their first child when they were teenagers, while on average the rest of the women had their first child by 21 years of age. The experience of young motherhood was easier for some than for others. Evelyn, a 36-year-old mother of three, spoke of the love and support she received as a teenage mother, stating

I stayed on with my grandparents, a happy childhood, got all the love that I had to get… um, with my first steady boyfriend I fell pregnant. I actually had two children, before I matriculated, but then I still… I didn’t miss the year, I still matriculated.

For others, like Jackie, who had no parental support, there was a duality to the experience she describes as “exciting, but I was scared because I was still a child myself… even though I was working… I didn’t know anything about raising a child…”. However, for Zaida, a 25-year-old mother of four, her teenage pregnancy and subsequent mothering experience was symptomatic of her poor relationship with her own mother, and of her own disrupted childhood:

My mother could not take care of us… because of problems that my mother had. All of her children… was tooken[sic] away… then, we were placed by the social workers and so things went… life got turned upside down and I found a boyfriend, when I was fifteen years old… So, I had my first child, and um… he [her boyfriend] taught me to take drugs… and from then on, I did not focus on myself or my children.

Becoming a mother was a significant moment in all the women’s lives, and for the most part was seen in a positive light, but with undeniable burdens placed on individuals who were often young, poor and lacking in support systems to carry the load. Maria, a 28-year-old mother of two and stepmother to her husband’s child from a previous relationship, married and became a mother at 17. She explained the duality she experienced as a mother as follows:

It become better for me, I am becoming independent, because before I was holding… everything was him [her husband]! If he is angry, I get sad. Whatever he was doing, it was affecting me. So, when I have my son, he [her husband] becomes the second part of my life, which was good. It helped me. It was a change yes, but I was taking care of my son.

Theresa, a widow at 48 years of age with two children, was able to look back on the pressure and responsibilities of motherhood that started in her teens, but still questioned whether or not she had done enough for her family:

Adjusting a lot! But I enjoyed every moment, minute of it. Yes, you do complain… “I can’t handle it anymore!” and the pressure is just too much on you, but the day you get incarcerated… believe me, you see life differently! And you think to yourself, had I just done more… had I told them just once more how much I love them…

Disintegration of the family structure

Abandonment and poor relationships with parents were reported by all 17 of the participants, who communicated experiences of trauma and feeling deserted by one or both of their parents. For eight of the women, a poor relationship with their mother was outlined as a significant life experience. Indeed, six of the women stated that they had no relationship with their mothers and had been raised by their grandmothers instead. Noma a single mother of two, aged 29 years old, described how her mother had never been a part of her life: “I don’t fit in. I would see myself as if there is something wrong with me because I live with my grandmother and father… the person who was more involved in raising me was my grandmother.” For Palesa, a single mom aged 28, the estrangement had impacted her transition from childhood to womanhood:

So, my mother, she was not… too much like… she was not part of my life.... my mother was once arrested while I was very young… I was fourteen years old, she got arrested for theft, sentenced for one year. She spent one year in prison, and found a lover, here in prison. So, my mother was not part of my life, she put her love life first… when I started my period, my mother was not there...

These unhappy maternal ties varied when the women had still lived with, or had contact with, their mothers. For example, Rowena, one of the older participants at age 53 and a married mother of four, stated “My mom and myself did not get on.” Anneke, a 54-year-old mother to three sons and stepmother to her ex-husband’s two children from a previous marriage, shared that “Me and my mother never had a relationship. I always felt that she don’t love me…”.

Comparably, nine of the participants reported having absent fathers or having fathers whom they knew, but who did not play a role in the familial life. It was often difficult to elicit any response from the participants when asking about their relationships with their fathers. Faith shared, in a matter-of-fact manner, that “No, I didn’t have a father figure. So, I always had women around me. My grandmother and my mom.” Samantha, a 23-year-old mother of two, explained, in a similarly nonchalant demeanor, that:

I have a dad… um… my mom and dad separated when I was eleven months [old]. Ja, so I really do not know him. Ah… I’ve tried making contact with him, but… he doesn’t want anything to do with me. I have no idea why…

This seemingly indifferent acceptance of absent fathers, although a common attitude among the participants, was not universal. Four of the women confirmed that this absence and abandonment had a profound effect on their lives, such as Evelyn, who said that “I blame him because he was not there as a father.” As Palesa said of her relationship with her father “he loves us, but… if I want to talk, I can’t talk to my father… I can’t share with him. If I want money, I can talk to my father, he can give me [money].” The detrimental influence of these prescriptive, gendered norms revealed itself later in her life, where Palesa espoused this monetized ideal of relationships with men. She rationalized the controlling, promiscuous and abusive behavior of her boyfriend and child’s father, which had led to her violent retaliation and incarceration, with statements like “My boyfriend was a sweet guy, he didn’t want me to work… he was a gangster, he said he will pay me everything”.

It is then understandable that all 17 women were concerned with how their incarceration and parental separation from their children would impact the financial and emotional well-being of their children. This concern over their children’s welfare while they were incarcerated, also led to some of the women experiencing conflicting emotions toward those on the outside who were raising their children. Evelyn stated how her son was acting up after she was remanded, and how those taking care of him in her absence were not as attentive to his special needs as she had been:

My son stays with my mother, but… the thing is this, they are currently not properly dealing with his ADHD [Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder]. And… I know my mother is trying her best, but I keep telling my mom that ADHD children… they can’t sit for like thirty minutes or an hour with their schoolwork…. I know they are trying, my mother and them… but the child needs me!

Out of the 17 women, seven believed that their children were being well taken care of, on the most part by their mothers (n = 5). Two of these women’s children were being cared for by the children’s fathers and their new wives, and the participants communicated the conflicting guilt and gratitude they felt for these women. Anneke, explained her situation as follows:

My ex-husband got married again and I must tell you that wife, she’s really not a nice person in many ways, but there is one wonderful thing that she have, she is like a real grandmother to all the grandchildren. She… there is no difference between her kid’s kids and my kid’s kids…

Jackie explained her feelings regarding how her ex-husbands new wife, her best friend that he had an affair with who was now taking care of her sons as “That’s why I say as much as she has done me wrong, I can’t say a bad word about her because she was there for my kids while I wasn’t there”.

Dislocation and isolation

Another unique finding during interviews was that of whether or not the mothers had truthfully shared with their children the events surrounding their incarceration. This was important as deception often led to the women becoming isolated and removed from their children, who did not visit. Ten of the women had lost contact with their children who had been taken in by estranged family members or foster care. The remaining seven of the women had kept in touch with their children and while five had truthfully explained the situation to them, two had lied about their whereabouts. The five who had provided true accounts of their incarceration had adult or older children who were in the care of their fathers, grandmothers, or aunts. For those mothers who had kept their children in the dark about the truth of their incarceration, sparing their children’s feelings had led to isolation. Zaida was one of those mothers that had lost contact with her children in the foster system and was adamant that it was best that her children did not know where she was, saying:

No! No! Oh my, I get so sad… because I didn’t even wish my child [know]. So… I don’t know [how] my children are feeling at that stage because they don’t know where I am, when am I coming home…

Lesedi, the primary provider for her four sons and nephew, expounded on the story she had told them concerning her current location:

They just know that I am in China, and then, you see… So now, eh, my ex-husband told the young one, wanted to tell, wanted to bring them here… But how can you tell kids like that?

Faith had tried to communicate the situation to her children before being remanded, but then had become complicit in the false narrative her family had used to explain her absence:

I explained to the big one. But the small one was too young at that time to understand. So, my mom said “No, I just told him that you work in Cape Town.” And I can see him every six months, or whatever the case. But the older one, I made it clear to him, because he was already old enough to understand it. So, then I said to him “When you do something wrong, what happens?” and he said “Cops come.” And so, because he understands cops come, I said “Mom did something wrong, and cops will come, and mom will be away for a long time.” So, he said okay and I asked, “Would you visit mom?” and he said no, he doesn’t have a problem [visiting] and so I said, “How will you tell people in the neighbourhood?” and he said he will tell people that my mom is working somewhere, “I won’t tell them exactly where you are”.

Women with older children, like Gloria, had told their children where they were, but not why they were incarcerated. Her son, now an adult, knew where she was but not why she had come to be there:

Even my son, he is okay now… but I didn’t tell him why I am here… [he knows] maybe… rumours you see… but for me, it’s not easy to tell him… And he, he doesn’t have a problem to visit me…

The minority of women, like Jackie, had explained to their children where they were and for what reason they had been committed to correctional custodianship, and felt that although it had been a very difficult thing to do, it was worthwhile in the end:

I told them everything… and my son cried, [eldest son] took it a little bit hard with me being honest with him because he said “You always trying to hide things from us.” But now they understand better and the truth has actually helped. They’ve accepted it…

Natalie, 34-year-old married mother of four, explained that her children did know, but that it had been difficult to explain:

They all know where I am and they have come to see me here. So… they know. Like [her daughter], last week, the time she was here she asked me when am I coming home. I said when my time is right, and the she said to me what did I do and I told her… And the she said, “Okay mommy” [starts crying]... My biggest fear is that they are going to forget me!

Freedoms lost and gained

For the most part (n = 15) the women believed that, as mothers who were sole providers and/or primary caregivers to their children, alternative arrangements should have been set up by the DCS which would have allowed them to repay their communities and society for their transgressions committed, but not penalized innocent children by separating them from their mothers and dividing their families. Faith suggested alternatives to incarceration where she could pay her dues to society but remain as provider and caregiver for her children:

So, um, but it’s just that it happened behind closed gates. I would’ve loved it to happen, maybe if, like…um…. The way they explained it was house arrest or something like that. So… I just miss them [her children]! More than anything! And it’s not really freedom [I miss] because I never really had freedom [before]. It’s like the same thing, like I am in my house. Like I’m in my room…

This sentiment was echoed by other women, who stated that their lives in a correctional facility were not that different from before, as they had never really been free. This was true for Zindiwe, a 28-year-old single mother to one daughter. Her experiences of losing her mother at an early age, abandonment by her family, abuse from her boyfriend, and his introducing her to drugs and life on the streets had all culminated in her losing her daughter and subsequent arrest. Finally, while incarcerated, she had a chance to break free of her past:

I’m happy cause I’m here… God give me a chance to change my life, there is a purpose why I am here… I don’t know maybe I would have been dead by now because staying on the streets is risky, it’s dangerous… and I’m a woman, you see, so there’s lots of things that might happen to me. On the other way, I’m telling myself this place… for now… it’s fine, until I learn my lesson, to change my ways…

A similar narrative was shared by Anneke, who described how relieved she felt: “It was so strange, when I got in here… it was that relief, in a certain way, of, of… I don’t have to provide for anybody, anything, anymore…” She explained her relief from the pressure to provide as the only household breadwinner and caregiver, coupled with experiences of concern for separation from her children. In Noma’s narrative, she explained how domestic violence, abandonment by her mother, overwhelming caregiving responsibilities, and her own mental illness had played a role in her final act of abandoning motherhood and had led to her incarceration:

I grew up without my mother so I always, um, had this space in my heart… So, like, to me my boyfriend was everything… but he left… and I decided… it’s going to be me, me and my kids… because I thought, okay, I did not have a mother, I don’t have anyone. So, if I just kill myself, what will happen to my kids… and I think of street kids… I see street kids, I don’t want to see my kids going through that. And then, I decided that… I’m gonna kill myself with my kids. I wanted to kill myself, but… when I thought of my mother also, like, I had that picture that my mother left me when I was young and everything… So, in me, in my mind, I thought no, I don’t want to be like my mother. I won’t leave my children alone. I won’t leave then to suffer…

Noma’s decision to take her own life had failed but her children’s lives were lost. In her heart-breaking reflections on the life she had lived this was an ambiguous act of autonomy, how she chose to break free of the vicious cycle of poverty, loss and maternal sacrifice.

Discussion

As stated by Ramsay (2017) motherhood in is not an experience that only occurs within the private sphere of the home, it is an experience through which public sphere politics of social control are lived. Therefore, it can be understood that motherhood is a socially constructed concept that, in many cultural presentations is a woman’s central role to fulfill, with women seen as either mothers or potential mothers (Ramsay, 2017). Understanding the participant’s actions within the South African context requires an understanding of the country’s association with racist patriarchal customs and inequitable societal heritages in the creation of the stereotypical gender role of womanhood and motherhood. The violations of South African women’s human rights pervade all areas of a woman’s life, in both public and private spheres, and take on many different forms. Violations occurring in the private sphere, such as the prescriptive roles of unpaid labor and care, limit the autonomy of women and their access to the public sphere. “They establish a patriarchal hierarchy where men are seen as the head of the house and authority and power are still, subconsciously, more strongly associated with men” (Mayer & Barnard, 2015, p. 334). Inversely, the acquiescent caregiver and emotional support roles in the family are associated with women (Mayer & Barnard, 2015). This stereotypical gender role expectation was enforced through an apartheid legacy of public sphere governmental control and racial discrimination. The familial devastation exposed through the absent parent narratives of the participants contextualizes the effects of these legacies in the private sphere. Forced migrant labor often epitomized rigid belief in a gendered ideal of men as responsible for fiscal provision in the fatherhood role, but not caregiving responsibilities (Parry & Gordon, 2020; Richter et al., 2010; van den Berg, 2017). This was confirmed in the participants narratives of how they saw the majority of their fathers’ obligations toward them as fiscal. Indeed, the monetized interactions with their fathers had manifested within the relationships with their children’s fathers as well, with some of the women believing these men could alleviate their isolation and destitution. Unfortunately, this was not the case for the participants. Most shared stories of being young, single mothers earning a living to support their children, often in isolation after experiences of victimization, with little support from their partners or families.

Provision for, and care of, children is a gendered assignment that places women in an inequitable position as “natural caregivers” with an intolerable burden to shoulder. Resultantly, incarcerated mothers are judged by society as neglectful and relegated to the category of bad or undeserving mothers, despite the disadvantaged contexts they endure prior to incarceration (De Coster & Heimer, 2020). Easterling et al. states that this “vision of motherhood largely discounts the socio-economic challenges to parenting experienced by women in disadvantaged contexts, who also face greater risk of incarceration” (2019, p. 522). These women had taken on the solitary responsibility for the care and well-being of their children, with many having had volatile or estranged relationships with their mothers, and absent husbands or partners in their lives and in their children’s lives. The ideal of motherhood, a gendered role that is constructed by society as natural and universal, created idealistic expectations of being a good mother for the participants. This pressure to provide and care for their children, was overwhelming for many, exposing motherhood as a stressor that exacerbates insecurity, both relationally and fiscally (Nash et al., 2021). Despairingly then, it would seem that motherhood played a role in these women’s actions as a conduit to offending.

Conclusion

As seen through the women’s narratives, a confluence of factors contributed to their offending. Despite stereotypical gender role expectations that the self-sacrificing epitome of motherhood should act as a motivation to refrain from unlawful activities, these women have shared narratives confirming otherwise. When the overwhelming obligations of this role contribute toward women’s incarceration they become, in the eyes of a moral society, “Bad Mothers” for not thinking of how it will affect their children. This inescapable, inevitable requirement to meet society’s standards of motherhood means that in the case of incarcerated women, they are doubly blamed as the singular agents of disintegration in their family structure. The ultimate motherhood penalty is then the price these women pay for the choices they make within the institutional patriarchy they are trapped in, an institution that endorses a woman’s self[less]hood. Isolated and removed from their families, it is these “bad’ mothers, not the compliant ones, who reveal the mechanisms by which gendered conventions confine and control women, and its heavy recompense.

Limitations and Recommendations

The narratives produced in this study should be understood in its context as a doctoral research study, considering the time and financial restraints of this type of research which impact on sample size, as well as in relation to the positioning of the researcher. It was not the aim of this qualitative research study to quantify the experiences into a universal narrative of incarcerated South African mothers. Rather, it meant to make known the life histories of these particular women, to broaden understandings of and include their lived experiences in the small body of literature that exists on the lives of incarcerated women in South Africa.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NIHSS.

ORCID iD

Bianca R. Parry

Author Biography

Bianca R. Parry has been a lecturer and a post-doctoral fellow at the department of Psychology at the University of South Africa, Muckleneuk Campus, since 2016. Her main research focus is on the lived experiences of marginalized communities in South African society, with a particular concentration on women and gender. This application extends to her teaching interests, which include community psychology, qualitative research methodologies and online teaching methods, specifically within the correctional context.

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