Dec 09, 2008 15:58
" This is not [...] another so-called feminist attack on mothers, but on a culture that encourages them not only to think so little of themselves, but to positively glorify themselves in doing so, as though this constitutes some kind of sacrifice on behalf of our children. In magazines, TV programmes, mothers’ groups and web forums, it seems to be taken as read that motherhood makes you less of a person. Rather than challenge this, [...] the accepted response is to go along with it all, but say it doesn’t matter, as long as everyone appreciates how noble we are for having given up said personhood." "[...] while we’re all allowed to say how difficult it is, no-one’s allowed to say that it’s too difficult and needs to change, because that would be seen as undermining the very roles with which we’re struggling. So we get nowhere or, worse, we learn to seek value in all the things that could be so much better if only we’d try to alter them. " "[...] it is not the case that all ‘mothers’ issues’ are feminist issues. To claim they are is to mistake the trees for the wood, since what clearly is a feminist issue is the way in which all parenting issues are cast as mothers’ issues, as is the way in which any negative perspective on the undue burden parenting puts upon women is misrepresented as a failure to value the work mothers do."
gender stereotypes,
feminism,
working mothers,
gender roles,
reprodictive rights,
women's rights