"I am now a Feminist with a capital F, since becoming a mother. It became vivid and real to me just how women are devalued when they dare to connect to their female body and power. If feminism is for the rights of women but does not reflect or fully support the rights of a woman *as* a mother, then it's letting women down. It is failing to see a huge part of the picture... It is not enough to talk work/life balance, childcare, sharing care, flexible working or the pay gap... If our culture remains misogynistic and premised on patriarchal economics, mothers will have to play by the rules they didn't write and which fail and exploit them. Sisters, our right to care for our children *without sacrificing full citizenship or financial safety* is a right yet to be won."
"We are unaffected by maternity for longer than our ancestors ever were. So by the time the *mother* problem becomes *our* problem, we're so mired in it that any action we can agitate for is too little, too late. For us. The average age for first-time mothers in the West is increasing. It is now into our thirties. What does that mean, in reality? It means feminism is becoming *remote* from mothering."
"We have had, what, thirty-plus years of child-free feminism to live and preach. No room for nappies. No room for thinking about 'non-economic' contributions to society. No room for remembering that while a woman can do anything a man can do, there are three big things a woman can do that a man can't: create life, give birth, and breastfeed. We need to proclaim that power rather than be ashamed. We have internalised the message that we do not matter and that these things are inconsequential, or make us weaker... Our experiences may well be ethereally gender-neutral until a human being makes his way down our vagina and attaches to our breast, covering us in amniotic fluid and connecting us with the life-creating and birthing process of generations of women before us.
"We have sneered at work ([gestating, birthing,] breastfeeding) when it is something only a woman can do... We devalue work (child-rearing) when it is work traditionally done by women. We have failed to protect and support mothers or value women's life-creating power and life-sustaining work. Sisters, we must demand greater support and flexibility for that - not simply the liberation *from* it."
"This is not to say that sex is destiny. Feminism has been there, and done that. But somewhere along the line, the rightful protest that we are *more* than mothers and more than our wombs has led to a failure to remember that we are, still, *mothers.*"
"Just so you know, this ain't no backlash. There were never any good ol' days: feminism hasn't 'gone too far.' Actually, it didn't go far *enough*... We cannot expect feminism to succeed until we embrace all women. And that includes mothers. We cannot treat women as being of value and worthy of respect only where they disavow or sideline matters of motherhood. We cannot exile motherhood from feminism... 'Our oppression as females is closely linked to and bound up in our roles as the bearers of new life and male hatred of our female reproductive power.' It is all connected: motherhood and feminism cannot and should not be separated."
"If current trends in social and economic policy are anything to go by, there will be greater and greater barriers against our ability to care for our own families. And conditions may well become so intolerable owing to lack of money, security, support, respect, freedom and autonomy (or exhausting second shifts) that we, and the next generations of mothers, will struggle; but the blame will be placed on *motherhood.* Not politics. Not economics. Not patriarchy. Not neoliberal pathological market-driven environmental and social destruction. Not misguided attempts by some feminist camps to eradicate mothering. But *becoming a mother.* And that script is being written right now with the sanction of women, female politicians, and of course, patriarchal neoliberalism."
"However, just because a voice grabs the mic doesn't mean that it is either right or in the majority: a woman at home raising her family, happily or not, will not have her voice heard... If we struggle to speak of the issues that remain for all women under patriarchy, we are even more bound when we try to articulate the mother issue. There is an awkwardness about women's reproductive and mothering experience. They are seen as more private and personal... We may not speak our own line: that being a mother by desire is, for many women, one of the most precious experiences of our lives."
"The political and economic system must start to reflect this reality and the reality of what many, *many* women want: to have their work as mothers respected, valued and supported. For their return to employment to be a time of their genuine choosing, rather than compulsion. We have a long lifespan. With that in mind, we can do better than forced workforce participation for our *entire* adult lives."
"We cannot and must not tolerate financial sacrifice and greater risk of poverty in women because they raised their family for the benefit of society. The answer to the 'mother question' and the 'feminisation of poverty' cannot in all conscience continue to be 'get her earning a pittance outside the home when she would prefer to be with her children.'"
"It is important for our culture and socio-economic systems to start to value *care* and *carers.* This is so whether the carers are men or women, whether parents or paid professionals, or other relatives, such as grandparents or even children. Indeed, in the UK, there is a significant number of children who care for their parents or siblings. It is important. When I argue for valuing care it is with *all* carers - of the young, the sick, the disabled, the elderly, and the dying - in mind."
"Maternal feminism [is a movement which is] reminding the world to remember the need for love and humanity, and which places mothers at the heart, rather than in the margins."
I realize this is my first post here -- I've so enjoyed reading Other Feminisms since I discovered your work last year! Just wanted to chime in that I would love to join a book club that discussed The Technological Society, however the book club took shape. I've very much wanted to read Ellul's work for some time, and would love to read it with a group of thoughtful people...
I would love to do this! I think in particular The Technological Society would be a good one to read in a group since it seems like a more challenging read.
I re-read A Wizard of Earthsea in my Children's Literature class in undergrad. I think her "theory of magic" is one of the best I've encountered.
I would love to participate in a book club, my preference is for nonfiction but I would still give fiction a try, and hope it would involve some kind of shared communication/discussion, submitting questions, or listening to observations of the reading process.
I would definitely be interested in a summer book club, but I guess my concern about using the first Earthsea book is that LeGuin's thoughts in regard to feminism develop a lot over the course of the series (which was likely inevitable, considering that there's a gap of several decades between the 3rd and 4th books). Personally, I would feel a need to read the entire 6-book series and discuss it as a whole if I was looking at it through a feminist lens.
I'd love to do a summer book club, and would probably read anything everyone is interested, but as I recently read both Left Hand of Darkness and Wizard of Earthsea I'd be interested in doing those – especially the former because it's so obviously about OF topics. I read it with my siblings and we had a pretty interesting conversation but I'd love to hear what OF readers think.
I'll read anything. We could pair a book with one of Caitlin Flanagan's essays. I recommend "How Serfdom Saved the Women’s Movement," a 2004 Atlantic article exploring how outsourcing domestic work can come at the expense of low-income women, many of whom are immigrants.
I began but haven't had time to finish Vanessa Olorenshaw's book Liberating Motherhood.
https://a.co/d/cnctwkh
I like what I've read so far. Some excerpts:
"I am now a Feminist with a capital F, since becoming a mother. It became vivid and real to me just how women are devalued when they dare to connect to their female body and power. If feminism is for the rights of women but does not reflect or fully support the rights of a woman *as* a mother, then it's letting women down. It is failing to see a huge part of the picture... It is not enough to talk work/life balance, childcare, sharing care, flexible working or the pay gap... If our culture remains misogynistic and premised on patriarchal economics, mothers will have to play by the rules they didn't write and which fail and exploit them. Sisters, our right to care for our children *without sacrificing full citizenship or financial safety* is a right yet to be won."
"We are unaffected by maternity for longer than our ancestors ever were. So by the time the *mother* problem becomes *our* problem, we're so mired in it that any action we can agitate for is too little, too late. For us. The average age for first-time mothers in the West is increasing. It is now into our thirties. What does that mean, in reality? It means feminism is becoming *remote* from mothering."
"We have had, what, thirty-plus years of child-free feminism to live and preach. No room for nappies. No room for thinking about 'non-economic' contributions to society. No room for remembering that while a woman can do anything a man can do, there are three big things a woman can do that a man can't: create life, give birth, and breastfeed. We need to proclaim that power rather than be ashamed. We have internalised the message that we do not matter and that these things are inconsequential, or make us weaker... Our experiences may well be ethereally gender-neutral until a human being makes his way down our vagina and attaches to our breast, covering us in amniotic fluid and connecting us with the life-creating and birthing process of generations of women before us.
"We have sneered at work ([gestating, birthing,] breastfeeding) when it is something only a woman can do... We devalue work (child-rearing) when it is work traditionally done by women. We have failed to protect and support mothers or value women's life-creating power and life-sustaining work. Sisters, we must demand greater support and flexibility for that - not simply the liberation *from* it."
"This is not to say that sex is destiny. Feminism has been there, and done that. But somewhere along the line, the rightful protest that we are *more* than mothers and more than our wombs has led to a failure to remember that we are, still, *mothers.*"
"Just so you know, this ain't no backlash. There were never any good ol' days: feminism hasn't 'gone too far.' Actually, it didn't go far *enough*... We cannot expect feminism to succeed until we embrace all women. And that includes mothers. We cannot treat women as being of value and worthy of respect only where they disavow or sideline matters of motherhood. We cannot exile motherhood from feminism... 'Our oppression as females is closely linked to and bound up in our roles as the bearers of new life and male hatred of our female reproductive power.' It is all connected: motherhood and feminism cannot and should not be separated."
"If current trends in social and economic policy are anything to go by, there will be greater and greater barriers against our ability to care for our own families. And conditions may well become so intolerable owing to lack of money, security, support, respect, freedom and autonomy (or exhausting second shifts) that we, and the next generations of mothers, will struggle; but the blame will be placed on *motherhood.* Not politics. Not economics. Not patriarchy. Not neoliberal pathological market-driven environmental and social destruction. Not misguided attempts by some feminist camps to eradicate mothering. But *becoming a mother.* And that script is being written right now with the sanction of women, female politicians, and of course, patriarchal neoliberalism."
"However, just because a voice grabs the mic doesn't mean that it is either right or in the majority: a woman at home raising her family, happily or not, will not have her voice heard... If we struggle to speak of the issues that remain for all women under patriarchy, we are even more bound when we try to articulate the mother issue. There is an awkwardness about women's reproductive and mothering experience. They are seen as more private and personal... We may not speak our own line: that being a mother by desire is, for many women, one of the most precious experiences of our lives."
"The political and economic system must start to reflect this reality and the reality of what many, *many* women want: to have their work as mothers respected, valued and supported. For their return to employment to be a time of their genuine choosing, rather than compulsion. We have a long lifespan. With that in mind, we can do better than forced workforce participation for our *entire* adult lives."
"We cannot and must not tolerate financial sacrifice and greater risk of poverty in women because they raised their family for the benefit of society. The answer to the 'mother question' and the 'feminisation of poverty' cannot in all conscience continue to be 'get her earning a pittance outside the home when she would prefer to be with her children.'"
"It is important for our culture and socio-economic systems to start to value *care* and *carers.* This is so whether the carers are men or women, whether parents or paid professionals, or other relatives, such as grandparents or even children. Indeed, in the UK, there is a significant number of children who care for their parents or siblings. It is important. When I argue for valuing care it is with *all* carers - of the young, the sick, the disabled, the elderly, and the dying - in mind."
"Maternal feminism [is a movement which is] reminding the world to remember the need for love and humanity, and which places mothers at the heart, rather than in the margins."
I realize this is my first post here -- I've so enjoyed reading Other Feminisms since I discovered your work last year! Just wanted to chime in that I would love to join a book club that discussed The Technological Society, however the book club took shape. I've very much wanted to read Ellul's work for some time, and would love to read it with a group of thoughtful people...
I would love to do this! I think in particular The Technological Society would be a good one to read in a group since it seems like a more challenging read.
I re-read A Wizard of Earthsea in my Children's Literature class in undergrad. I think her "theory of magic" is one of the best I've encountered.
I’m fighting my way through Ellul now and would love to do it with Other Feminisms!
Yes, please!!! Sign me up.
I would love to participate in a book club, my preference is for nonfiction but I would still give fiction a try, and hope it would involve some kind of shared communication/discussion, submitting questions, or listening to observations of the reading process.
I would love to join a book club! I am not a huge fan of Le Guin, but very open to tackling whatever the group prefers.
Yes! I would be interested in a book club this summer!
I’m reading Ellul now, so I might join that.
I would definitely be interested in a summer book club, but I guess my concern about using the first Earthsea book is that LeGuin's thoughts in regard to feminism develop a lot over the course of the series (which was likely inevitable, considering that there's a gap of several decades between the 3rd and 4th books). Personally, I would feel a need to read the entire 6-book series and discuss it as a whole if I was looking at it through a feminist lens.
I'd love to do a summer book club, and would probably read anything everyone is interested, but as I recently read both Left Hand of Darkness and Wizard of Earthsea I'd be interested in doing those – especially the former because it's so obviously about OF topics. I read it with my siblings and we had a pretty interesting conversation but I'd love to hear what OF readers think.
I would be very interested! All of those books are ones I'd love to read with this crew.
A few other books I'd love to add to the list of potentials:
Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, by bell hooks
A Burst of Light and Other Essays, by Audre Lorde - described as "a clarion call to build communities that nurture our spirit"
Simone Weil: An Anthology, ed. by Siân Miles
Poverty, By America, by Matthew Desmond
Yes! I need you all.
Yes! Summer book club, please!
A Technological Society sounds fascinating!! I’d also love reading Le Guin.
I'll read anything. We could pair a book with one of Caitlin Flanagan's essays. I recommend "How Serfdom Saved the Women’s Movement," a 2004 Atlantic article exploring how outsourcing domestic work can come at the expense of low-income women, many of whom are immigrants.