International Women’s Day has its roots in the labor movement and the early 20^th-century international women’s rights movement. The UN has a nice site about International Women’s Day here. This year also marks the 15^th anniversary of the adoption of the groundbreaking Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which has spurred much activity among women’s rights activists globally and is currently under review at the UN.

This mama would have loved to have told you all about the goings-on at the UN, since I had been planning on attending some of the panels this past week; instead, I’ve been dealing with an issue that has left me housebound (when I’m not at the doctor’s office) and caring for my little ones: stomach flu!

So, instead of fabulously interesting insights (and no doubt plenty of bureaucratic speak) from inside the UN, I will leave you with the following call for submissions: an anthology about Globalized Motherhood! The deadline for submission is June 1, 2010.

Globalized Motherhood: a Short Story Collection

Editor: Wendy Chavkin MD, MPH

Publisher: Feminist Press at City University of New York

Debby lives on Manhattan’s upper West side. She is the 41 year old mother of 4 month old twins conceived via a Hungarian IVF clinic, and of 3 year old Lindsay, adopted from a Chinese orphanage at 11 months of age.

Basha lost her job in Poland when she became pregnant and could not find another. So she left her 7 month old son with her grandmother and left Poland. She now works off the books as a nanny in London for Gemma and Erik who have a 2 year old.

Gita lives outside of Bangalore and is the married mother of two. She has never had a Pap test. She is undergoing hormonal stimulation of ovulation so that she can donate ova to her sister who has not become pregnant in five years of marriage.

These stories signify a world in flux about the most intimate of human connections, a world wide open to a host of possibilities for reconfiguring family and parenthood, and perhaps of liberating women from the constraints of reproductive biology. The physical, emotional and caring aspects of motherhood are separable in new ways, pushed by demographic shifts, bio-technological innovations and global travel of babies, women, body parts, information, and technologies.

This is a call for submission of literary works: contemporary short stories, memoirs, and creative nonfiction that convey the transformation of motherhood in the globalized moment. Short fiction and creative non-fiction offer the chance to illuminate these experiences and to vividly present the voices of those affected. We are looking for short stories and memoirs primarily in English, although it may be possible to translate some works; previously published work is welcome.

We are particularly, but not solely, interested in the inter-relationship of transnational adoption, “reproductive tourism” (transnational travel for treatment, gametes or uteri) and women’s migration to do nanny work, which together comprise the globalization of motherhood.

This will be an anthology directed at a general audience for whom the issue of motherhood-in-flux particularly resonates: those adopting and relinquishing babies; those traveling to obtain IVF, ova or “surrogates” and those selling body parts and services; those dependent on and ambivalent towards nannies caring for their children and those working as nannies who have left their own children and home behind.

Please submit to:

Wendy Chavkin: wc9 at Columbia.edu

Gloria Jacobs: GJacobs at gc.cuny.edu