What does a feminist mother look like?

I've been on the hunt for other feminist parent blogs, and I found the motherlode at blue milk. I imagine I will be filling up my RSS reader with the plethora of amazing feminist parent blogs linked to from there. Finding this abundance, when I started this blog largely because I hadn't heard this voice before, both intimidated and inspired me; it makes me want to close up shop with a redirect to blue milk and a "what she said" note, and gives me hope of finding an audience and has me thinking of a hundred new blog posts of my own.

One of them (this one) you could call a cheat, or a meme, but I, like blue milk, call it:

What does a feminist mother look like?


1. How would you describe your feminism in one sentence? When did you become a feminist? Was it before or after you became a mother?
I could crib, and use the ever-popular "feminism is the radical notion that women are people", and it would be true, if annoyingly vague. Feminism for me is a path to the end of gender-based discrimination, to gender equality, to a world where women are not systematically oppressed and men systematically elevated. I believe I was raised a feminist; whether or not the word was used, and regardless of my parents' not-exactly-equal marriage, the idea that "women are people", and that the system is set up against us, was there from the beginning, reinforced at many turns. In fact, I was frankly shocked when, in adolescence, I discovered that not all women (smart, strong women at that!) identify as feminist. Didn't they believe women were people? Didn't they disagree with policies oppressing women? So why didn't they identify as feminist? I still haven't figured out an answer to that that satisfies me (though I blame the patriarchy).

2. What has surprised you most about motherhood?
I was fortunate to join a mothering community and make mother-friends (both online and in face-to-face) before even deciding to have children, and I read voraciously, so little about this parenting journey has surprised me, other than the specifics that our path have taken (I was not expecting congenital hypothyroidism, for instance, nor that a child of not-skinny The Man and I would be long and lean). The one thing I often run up against that surprises me, though it shouldn't, is the way mothering, motherhood, and mothers are perceived, and conversely the way fathers and fathering is perceived. Would that I had a dollar for every sexist "dads can't do this/mothers are this way/babies never like dads" comment I've heard!

3. How has your feminism changed over time? What is the impact of motherhood on your feminism?
I think I have become more radical over time, and possibly more cynical or jaded -- I have discovered that feminism isn't as ubiquitous as it should be, that there is more sexism still in the world than I believed possible, that even the advancements we have achieved either have backslid or had undesirable consequences, that gender-neutrality and gender-equality even as goals are again being rejected and reviled. I have become more critical of the only-women-must-change philosophy of the ever-popular "choice feminism". In motherhood, I have become more aware of how much the system needs a radical overhaul, how little progress has been made toward sane and family-friendly policies that would support equally shared parenting, and how really, truly damaged by sexism little boys are as well as little girls. I have also become more nuanced in my thoughts on women, motherhood, and work, having become more aware of the importance of attachment and breastmilk in the early years; but even this goes back to becoming more radical, and believing we truly need a major, systemic, patriarchy- and corporatocracy-toppling revolution.


4. What makes your mothering feminist? How does your approach differ from a non-feminist mother’s? How does feminism impact upon your parenting?
A look at the clothes and toys the Boychick has displays a large part of the differences between us as feminist parents and American popular non-feminist parents (a post about toys and clothes is forthcoming) -- and the way I answered just now, with us not I, is one of the ways that my parenting is different, because The Man and I see these choices as ours, whereas in a non-feminist family, the choices of what young child wears and plays with is more exclusively the domain of the mother (with the father having veto rights over anything pink and girly for his sons). My mothering is feminist because I expect my partner's fathering to be equally invested in our child. The Man wore our baby every day of his life until he was over a year and a half; he is an overt and outspoken breastfeeding supporter; he took charge of non-nursing nighttime parenting; he learned about and equally practiced elimination communication, and changed diapers when we missed, and did the diaper laundry. I as a feminist mother assumed and allowed (did not interfere with) him to establish his own, unique relationship with our baby. I encourage the Boychick to be nurtured, and nurturing, to be attached and dependent, and independent, and interdependent. I do not assume I know who as an adult he will be or who he will love or what he will do, simply because I know the genitals between his legs. We chose his name while knowing him in my womb, without knowing his sex. Feminism informs every part of my parenting, even if some parts look "traditional" and therefore patriarchal.


5. Do you ever feel compromised as a feminist mother? Do you ever feel you’ve failed as a feminist mother?
I think that very question is telling: it is on the woman to "succeed" or "fail" at feminism. I reject that notion, and say instead that society often fails us, requiring compromises to feminist values that, if universally accepted and accounted for, would create an entirely new kind of life.

There have been times when I have looked around at my traditional-appearing life and thought "what the hell am I doing?" But I do not believe that reflects a belief that I have failed, rather that I have temporarily bought in to the (entirely false) idea that I must change, and take part in the inherently patriarchal, capitalistic, stuff-based rat-race if I am to be a "real feminist" or a "fulfilled woman", once again placing the traditionally-male higher in value than the traditionally-female. I feel angry often that The Man and I are not able to lead quite the life we would like to, thanks to patriarchal, anti-feminist institutions and cultural expectations, but no, I do not believe this means I have failed.

6. Has identifying as a feminist mother ever been difficult? Why?
I exist at an interesting crossroads, being both a feminist and a "crunchy", attachment-minded parent. The natural birth/breastfeeding/attachment community draws such a diverse group, from radical submissive proud housewives to radical equality-seeking queer feminists, and everything in between. In that context, it is sometimes difficult, in that I am often lumped in to categories and stereotypes that are entirely counter to my feminism; or, conversely, I may be accused of rejecting attachment values if I proclaim my feminist ones. Convincing people one can be both at the same time is not always easy.

7. Motherhood involves sacrifice, how do you reconcile that with being a feminist?
This is such a strange question to me, although I recognize where it comes from (the idea of the sacrificial mother). Any relationship or endeavor involves sacrifice: having a pet, having a partner, having a job, going to school... The things we want in life are worth sacrifice, compromise, giving up one thing to get another. I don't believe in sacrificial motherhood (the mother as martyr), so I don't feel I sacrifice more as a mother than I do as a partner, as a student, as a person with companion animals. It's definitely more involved, and if someone is used to living only for the self, that can be a shock, but for someone with an awareness and appreciation of interdependence before having children, it's not much of a change of type, just a change of scale.

8. If you have a partner, how does your partner feel about your feminist motherhood? What is the impact of your feminism on your partner?
We are feminist parents, whether or not The Man identifies as "a feminist" (this has changed over time, with him becoming more comfortable with it as we have talked more about it; the cultural shaming of identifying as feminist is even stronger for men than for women). It seems to me that one cannot act fully as a feminist mother with a non-feminist partner (see answer to question 4); in order to be a feminist mother in a partnered relationship, the partner MUST take up equal childrearing duties without regard to "traditional" gender roles. I think The Man has a much better, closer relationship with the Boychick due to our views on equality parenting (which is to say, due to feminism).

9. If you’re an attachment parenting mother, what challenges if any does this pose for your feminism and how have you resolved them?
I don't think attachment parenting is in any way contradictory with feminism; attachment mothering is. Attachment parenting means both (all) parents build attachment with their child: this means we both wear him, both sleep with him, both offer gentle guidance, both play with him, both bring him in to our lives and help him see us work (to the best of our ability). The only apparent contradictions are breastfeeding and the home/work split; breastfeeding is not a challenge to feminism at all, but a facet of it (more on that later), and I've previously discussed the compromises that have led to me staying with the child during the day while The Man works in an office. Both have meant that in other ways, The Man takes on a proportionally larger role than I: when the Boychick was exclusively breastfed, The Man did almost all of the babywearing when we were together; when he comes home at lunch or after work or on weekends, he does more of the pottying and dressing and playing. Since rarely do I leave them both (I am a homebody by nature), I do spend more time with the Boychick than The Man does, but I don't think I spend much, if any, more "on" time. The mother-child relationship in a breastfeeding, attached family may be closer in the younger years than the partner/father-child relationship, but with equally shared as well as attachment parenting, this isn't a "problem" for me as a feminist mother.

10. Do you feel feminism has failed mothers and if so how? Personally, what do you think feminism has given mothers?
I think the patriarchy fails mothers, and that feminism isn't done yet. I think some branches of feminism were (inadvertently, I like to believe) hurtful to mothers, but that isn't a failure of feminism, but a win of the patriarchy: whenever we fight with each other, it is the patriarchy that wins.

Feminism has given us so much in tangible contributions that so many non-feminist-identified women take for granted these days (if I do not remind myself, I can forget it too), from being seen as legally persons instead of property of a man, to the right to vote, the right to divorce, the right to contraception, the right to make decisions for our children, the right to own property, the right to work, the right to terminate a pregnancy, to the ability to have a child out of wedlock without being shunned, the ability to be pregnant in public without being shunned, the ability to have family at our births, the ability to birth without the humiliation of enemas or pubic shaving (though the patriarchy still asserts itself in other ways), the ability to chose our last name and the last name of our child, the ability to speak up and not be laughed at in the public sphere. These (and more) are all direct results of feminist activists, of feminism changing the way we as a culture think. We have so much more to do, but we must not forget how far feminism has brought us already.