[USA]: Moms with young children and nursing babies need your help with the DNC!

[bialogue]

We're answering a call to action from the National Organization for Women ~ Pacific Shore OC branch and their venerable (and out bisexual we're mighty proud to say) organizer Zoe Nicholson. It seems that children will not be allowed access on the floor of the Democratic National Convention and that daycare will not be provided for delegates who

Comments

[pinkminx]

I think people have been partaking of the YOU CHOSE TO GET ON THE PATRIARCHAL LOVE TRAIN Kool-Aid. You know, that thing that says that if you ever "make a choice" (see: saying "yes" procreating, or being too late with the "no") that comes with its downsides -- nevermind if many of these downsides are structural and not biological -- well, tough luck, you got on that ride yourself, stop whining and get on with the program. Or, as it were, not, stay in the kitchen and stfu.

It's a type of enlightenment lite, only without enlightenment, this idea that women can now do everything that men have traditionally done in this culture. It's not a bad goal per se, as long as we allow for the importance of what used to be viewed as traditional women's work, too. (I'm ignoring a long conversation about the value of paid vs unpaid work, let's just say I'm not a big fan of capitalism on the whole.)

And I suppose it comes as a sort of relief to a certain type of budding baby feminist, this idea that if you "choose right" you can survive in this game. And that if you do the anti-professional thing by breeding, well, it's your own fault.

And so we argue with each other over one measly slice of pie and create these ridiculous divisive arguments about how mothers are setting back the movement and especially so if they want to or need to do unpaid, nurturing work. We snort and laugh at the lack of professionalism of the primary caregiver-mother, why does this silly woman expect to be accommodated when procreating is a choice? And instead of realising that no decision is made in a vacuum, or acknowledging that the reality is still such that more women than not will at one time or another become a mother, we delegate them to secondary roles.