Archive for March, 2010
Mainstream feminism and motherhood: solidarity extends beyond the personal
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I approached a group of contributors at The F-Word (none of whom have children) to see if any of them would be interested in writing an article for the readers of Fertile Feminism; Laura Woodhouse responded with enthusiasm. I asked Laura to give us her thoughts on why mainstream feminism is often (or at least feels) exclusionary to parents and what her ideas are for bridging that divide. This is her response, in the form of a guest post. In return, I’ve written a post at The F-Word explaining why I created this site and what its goal is, which you can read here.
A note before you get reading: It takes courage and insight to write sensitively about a subject with which one has no personal experience, so please, if you are able, leave a comment and let Laura know what you think — if you liked it, agree with her, disagree (and why) or your ideas for building on what she’s written. Taking part in these discussions is what Fertile Feminism is all about so I hope you’ll feel moved to comment.
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When FertileFem suggested that a childless feminist blogger contribute to this site, in the spirit of building bridges between mainstream feminism and the feminist mothers it often excludes, I was really keen to get involved. However, I’ve found it difficult to figure out quite what to write. I feel a little like an impostor entering a territory where my personal experiences and knowledge are suddenly exposed as somewhat lacking in relevance. The temptation is to say, ‘Actually, I’m not sure there’s really a lot I can do here. I’ll leave it to the experts.’
It seems that’s the position taken by many of us childless feminists who make up a significant portion of the current UK feminist community when it comes to motherhood. We either prefer not to try and tackle issues of which we have no direct knowledge, or – worse still – we are entirely oblivious to their existence, and to their relevance to feminism. The personal is political, right? So for those of us who, like me, came to feminism fresh out of our teens, sick to the back teeth of being sexually harassed, assaulted and objectified by our male peers and a sexist dominant culture – launching ourselves with headstrong gusto into campaigns against lads’ mags and for abortion rights – issues such as childcare, birth trauma, maternity care and breastfeeding rights just weren’t on our agenda. Which is understandable. But when these campaigns united young women into larger feminist groups and later developed into conferences and events, and those groups and conferences failed to take the childcare needs of feminist parents into account, or offer any talks or workshops that recognised motherhood – and mothers’ – relevance to feminism, this short-sightedness became discrimination. And that’s not what feminism is about.
It doesn’t help that the middle class feminist aim of freeing women from the shackles of enforced motherhood and housewifery in order that we could make it in the worlds of education and employment (ignoring the working class women who often never had the option of staying at home in the first place) inevitably paints motherhood in a bad light, nor that the dominant cultural narrative of the feminism-liberated modern woman struggling to ‘have it all’ makes it seem nigh on impossible to have children while achieving any of the things middle class feminism promised us. Until you start thinking about having children of your own, or until you’re faced with an unexpected pregnancy and motherhood becomes a personal issue, it can be all too easy to separate it from feminism.
Yet, for me, some of the reasons I have always thought I would be unlikely to have children were rooted in sexism: employment discrimination against pregnant women and mothers (how can I progress at work if I’m going to have kids?), the horrible gender role indoctrination of children (would I ever be able to counteract it?), the lack of affordable childcare and flexible working hours (how on earth can I have it all?). And as I’ve begun to think more seriously about having children (I can’t even tell you how much it’s freaked me out realising that having kids with my partner would actually be really rather lovely!) I’ve started to feel this mother-directed sexism on something close to the same visceral level that I felt sexual objectification and beauty fascism when I first became a feminist. And I want to do something about it.
But it shouldn’t take that level of visceral, personal identification with an issue to kick me into gear and start trying to do my bit for mothers. Feminists should advocate for all women; ‘the personal is political’ just isn’t enough. We need to remember that not all women’s ‘personal’ is the same, but that all women’s ‘personal’ matters.
I think it’s a reflection of my privilege as a young, sheltered, middle class woman that my early activism was centred around things that affected myself, and it’s only been through reading the experiences and theories of disabled, trans and BME feminists that I’ve succeeded in breaking out of my own little personal bubble and expanded my range of activism to include issues that don’t affect women with whom I can identify. And it’s a reflection of the marginalisation of mothers within feminism – and the dismissal of mothers’ needs in wider society – that it took a change in my personal circumstances for me to really identify motherhood as a feminist issue.
That’s why I’m so pleased to have discovered all the feminist mother blogs that have been springing up recently, and why I want to work with feminist mothers to help bring your voices and battles and mainstream feminism together. It’s been all too easy for childless feminists to ignore motherhood, and it really, really shouldn’t be. We need to listen, learn and become allies to mothers by not only centring your voices but using our own to advocate for mothers everywhere. I know when I wrote a short blog post on the proposed maternity reforms last week I felt rather out of my depth and a little embarrassed by the blandness of my writing compared to the informed passion of the mothers who left comments. But discomfort and ignorance is no excuse, particularly when mothers like FertileFem are putting the necessary information out there to enable us to learn. It isn’t good enough to say ‘I’ll leave it to the experts’; we’re supposed to work in solidarity with all women, and when the women in question are working their arses off raising the next generation, the least childless feminists can do is make some noise on your behalf!
Notes for new fathers
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Accompanying graphic from article
It’s a few months old but I am loving this article from comedian Robert Webb for the Telegraph, in which he lends a few words of advice to new fathers, seeing as he had only recently joined the club himself. I usually find articles like this entirely predictable (“She’ll be a hormonal mess!” and “You’ll be expected to get up in the middle of the night!” and “Who knew so much poo could come from something so small!”) but this contained a few pleasant surprises, not least of all his use of the word ‘patriarchy’ in tip #4:
4. Don’t accept unearned medals.
This ‘Lance’ that I mentioned earlier, the one that rushes home from work to help out with bath time. You have to ask yourself, why the applause? What the hell does he do the rest of the time?
Well, you might argue, he’s the breadwinner: the poor chap has gone out to earn a decent crust of said bread (I know this is a conservative newspaper and forgive me for doing an impression) and what, pray, is the bloody problem with that, Mr Brown? (Enough now.)
Well nothing, except Lance should be aware that even in our unusually rich, happy, free little country, men have an astoundingly easier time of it than women.
Face it: we’re laughing our heads off at every turn. And when we have a baby, the patriarchy really kicks in to defend us. Mothers-in-law and health professionals will be queuing up to tell us how wonderful we are for so much as glancing at a tub of Sudocrem. ‘You got up in the middle of the night to look after the baby one night out of 235? Please accept this OBE.’
It won’t do. Yes, we usually earn more. And that’s not right. Yes, we carry on working because there’s less pressure on us to stop. And that’s not right either. Me, I’m trying to be fair but not much trying to remake the world. The applause is inevitable, but let’s not stay for the bow.
Tenth Carnival of Feminist Parenting
1I’m very, very late posting this so my apologies to the lovely Anji, who puts this fantastic collection together and who included two of my posts this month. Without further ado, the Tenth Carnival of Feminist Parenting
What about the men? Allies, privilege and collaboration
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There’s often a lot of talk within feminist discourse about involving men in creating change. At points, it does feel like we’ve done all we can to press for new laws, new attitudes and less cultural biases against women. So we surmise that, really, it’s men who need to be taking on more responsibility, creating their own brand of activism and making adjustments, not us. In many areas of women’s rights this is (somewhat) true. While men maintain the upper hand in all of the institutions that govern our lives, there’s only so much we can do before we get the rights we deserve. Ideally, we would have many men in our feminist revolution. If they don’t join or at least acknowledge our movement, it will continue to be more of an uphill struggle than a swift climb towards progress (short of violent protest and economic overthrow, of course, which I do admit to fantasising about on occasion after a run-in with a particularly virulent strain of misogynist or capitalist).
Why, then, does my visceral reaction to certain groups of men trying to get more involved seem to be: ‘Oh, sod off! What do you know about it? Stop making this all about you!’ I’ve noticed that this reaction happens a lot more when it comes to things that are and always will be the exclusive domain of women (pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding) than for things which have nothing to do with biology and everything to do with social conditioning, like gender roles.
For example, men who campaign for more involvement in their children’s gestations and births and demand more antenatal and maternity resources devoted to helping dads-to-be cope with becoming fathers. They want more attention paid to them at antenatal appointments, a bigger role at the birth and literature and support aimed at helping them help their partners succeed at breastfeeding. On paper and rationally, I know that men wanting to be more involved in these things is good, and fair. If it gives a father a greater sense of responsibility and attachment towards his child before it’s even born, I’m all for it. If it helps break down, in his mind, the cultural norm in our society that says babies are women’s business and men are only to provide for them financially and practically, all the better. However, I can’t help but bristle and feel a bit exasperated at the sense of self-importance and inflated vision of a father’s role in these areas that some men exhibit. Perhaps it’s because these issues, like abortion, are to do with our bodies, not theirs. It sometimes seems like just another way to assert control in an area where women should be holding the reins. It can bring to mind those who claim to care about equality but continually challenge the idea of female oppression by pointing to the substantially less common crimes or injustices against men (like male victims of female-perpetrated domestic violence and rape, or job discrimination), which can come across as just a way of saying, “Yes, yes, we know you’re oppressed, but you have been for ages and you’re used to it. But what about us?!”
Just like I can try to be an ally to people of colour and gay/queer/trans individuals, I cannot ever live their experience and know it’s not really my place to demand that greater (already precious and rare) resources be devoted to educating me and ensuring I don’t further screw things up for them. While acknowledgement from the majority/the oppressor is important in securing equality, so is the minority/oppressed’s need to feel safe in their own spaces and that they are creating change with their own voices and own grassroots empowerment; otherwise, ‘success’ will still feel like something that was done for or to that group to make the privileged feel good about themselves, not built on the movement’s own merit, for those most effected by it.
Fathers should be encouraged to ask that schools and medical professionals address them as well as mothers when it comes to their kids’ educations and health; that media outlets not portray them as helpless, bumbling idiots; to campaign for a longer and better paid paternity leave in the postnatal period; to require their employers to offer flexible working hours and situations so they can take an active and equal role in their children’s care; and to raise their boys without macho expectations and their girls without some preconceived idea of femininity. Additionally, all men who want to be feminist allies should be actively speaking out against domestic and sexual violence, the insidious nature of the sex trade, the gender pay gap, the objectification and sexualisation of girls and women and gender stereotypes that constrict both sexes, amongst others.
But when it comes to our bodies and what we do with them, especially reproductively, the utmost sensitivity and restraint should be exercised. Even if the aim is not to control but help and learn, remember that we have been fighting for the right to absolute authority over our bodies and childbearing decisions for centuries and have, in most areas, still have not been granted full autonomy in this regard. Our trust will not come easily. Our need for support from our partners but ultimate command of ourselves means, for many men, relinquishing the role of decision-maker or complete equal. Men may have to take a back seat at times and they should become comfortable with that, not feel threatened or marginalised by it.
Sometimes, it really is all about us.
Selling out on the postnatal ward
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They say there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. But in the 21st century there’s a third eventuality we cannot escape — advertising.
There’s been a bit of a fuss kicked up in the papers lately about the infamous ‘Bounty ladies’ and how these representatives are allowed to roam maternity wards up and down the country, handing out the free ‘goody bags’ that have become ubiquitous with having a baby in the UK. In addition to the goody bags, some of the Bounty reps also pester new parents to agree to and then purchase photographs of their new arrival, often before the baby has even had its first breastfeed or before the new mother’s stitches have set. They are also asked for their contact details, which are (surprise surprise!) sold onto third parties and used to market additional products, sent directly to the parents’ homes.
The pack contains a few inoffensive and even useful things, certainly — Child Benefit and Child Trust Fund forms, perhaps a ‘guide to your newborn’ or other inane pamphlet — but the rest of it is purely an exercise in corporate PR. It generally features samples of a particular brand of nappies, wipes, nappy rash cream, breast pads, toiletries and laundry tablets, with accompanying coupons and promotional materials. I’m sure that if it weren’t prevented by various ethics and health codes, a carton of formula would be in there, too. To some, it’s less Helpful Items To Get You Started and more Parenthood: What a Cash Cow! The fact the hospitals get £1 per bag handed out, amounting to a tidy profit for them, as well as Bounty, is just the icing on the capitalism cake.
My dislike of blatant marketing aside, this isn’t what disturbs me the most. Many of the mothers who called into Vanessa Feltz’s BBC London radio show on Friday morning to discuss it said that they’d thought the Bounty rep was some kind of hospital aide or auxiliary person and so didn’t feel they could say no, especially to the personal information. This is not to mention the fact that many of the callers said they’d just had cesarean sections and so were pretty drugged up on pain medication and not sure what was going on or who all of the people coming in and out of their rooms were. Even those who’d had vaginal births were, as is to be expected, extremely exhausted and overwhelmed. Women in the immediate postnatal period should not be having to think about whether they want to give their personal details to a spammer, or if they want to pay £10 (or however much it is) to have a single photograph taken of their newborn.
I remember when I had my first child in a birth centre attached to a hospital, the Bounty rep coming and giving me my free pack and asking for my details, all whilst I was attempting to change my daughter’s first Oh My God This Stuff Is Like Tar nappy and before my husband had arrived from his overnight sleep at home. I was in pain, hadn’t slept in two days and was being ignored by the overworked and understaffed midwives, who rarely came when I pressed the buzzer for assistance. I was in absolutely no state to realise she was trying to sell me things, nor did I have the energy to tell her to sod off. Thankfully, I declined the overpriced newborn photo but I was not pleased to begin to receive a mountain of junk mail a few weeks later. I didn’t make the connection between that and the details I’d given the Bounty rep until months later. I was angry that I’d been approached by someone peddling their wares under the guise of concern for new mums and that this lady had been able to wander round the maternity ward as she pleased, going into people’s rooms without being invited in, when my own husband had been kicked out the previous night when ‘visiting hours’ were over, as if he just come to be a spectator at the birth of his child and that was his bit done.
Looking back, that night I spent alone in my room — with a brand new baby in a bassinet next to me that I had to learn to hold and care for and breastfeed, so physically exhausted that I couldn’t lift my arms to wash my hair and with less than two hours’ sleep in 48 hours — was the loneliest, most terrifying and draining of my life, and that’s the night AFTER I gave birth! That my husband wasn’t ‘allowed’ to stay with me was so infuriating. He’d helped make this baby and now he got to go home and get some sleep while I, the one who pushed our 9-lb. daughter out of my body after carrying her for 9 months was supposed to just suck it up and look after her on my own?! It just seemed (and still seems) so cruel. According to this Times article, 70 per cent of parents think a father should be able to stay with his partner after the birth.
Having said that, I understand that with most women being put on wards after they’ve given birth, and not private rooms, this plays a big part in the decision not to allow fathers to stay overnight. The NHS worries about the safety and privacy concerns of other women on the ward, who may be wary of strange men passing by while they’re attempting to breastfeed for the first few times or get out of bed while wearing a flimsy hospital gown. There’s also the cost and practicality issue — the NHS is so stretched as it is, they worry that having to accommodate overnight visitors for each woman in the maternity unit would mean overcrowding, more money spent on reclining chairs or extra beds and possible conflicts over use of the already-oversubscribed toilet and kitchen facilities. I’ve heard many midwives, like this one, say that having fathers stay overnight would be a nightmare. So whilst I understand the reasons against it, I stand firm in my belief that it is not only unfair and cruel to the new mother, but that it sends a very strong message to the new dads that their role is really not all that important and that the mother is chiefly responsible for the baby, with him around as some kind of ‘happy helper’. While only women can give birth and breastfeed, there is no reason that a father couldn’t hold, rock, comfort, bathe and change his baby’s nappies in that first day or two, letting the mother get some well-deserved rest.
That’s why I think, really, that most women are better off at home. Not being left alone and separated from your partner at such a monumentally life-changing and emotionally volatile time seems like common sense to me. Unfortunately, not that many people want or are able to birth at home and the current system and attitudes towards home birth aren’t likely to change any time soon.
One possible solution (aside from the perhaps more unrealistic demand, due to space and finances, that all women have private rooms after birth) is to follow the Dutch model of postnatal care, called Kraamzorg. Under this system, all women who have had relatively uncomplicated births (i.e. not an instrumental or surgical delivery or other medical complications) are discharged within hours and sent home, where a maternity nurse meets them almost straight away. There, in the comfort of their own homes, women are given one-to-one postnatal care which includes checking on the health of mother and baby, breastfeeding advice, preparation of lunch and snacks, light housekeeping, emotional support and practical help with the shopping and visitors, and just allowing the family time to bond with and get to know one another.
We have this here, in the form of a postnatal doula, but it is a service that is not widely known and, because it is done privately, rather costly as well. It is a role that used to be played by a woman’s own mother, or other close family member, but which has become increasingly more rare due to changed family dynamics, work commitments and the logistical difficulties of distance and time that many families face.
Funnily enough, this is something that David Cameron suggested back in 2008 as part of a Conservative reform of maternity services and is probably one of the few areas in which I agree with him. The cost of implementing this system, while perhaps great at first, would be an absolute bargain in the long and even medium-term, as beds are freed up for labouring women or those who had complicated deliveries and with midwives free to concentrate more on those women than the ones who just need a bit of help with breastfeeding or need assistance going to the toilet but are often deprioritised on a busy ward. Breastfeeding rates flourish and postnatal depression rates decrease when one-to-one support is on hand in the first week or two after birth, showing how vital this kind of support in the period immediately after birth is. Until all fathers are taking the the paternity leave they are entitled to (which we know from previous discussions will only likely happen very slowly and with more legislation), an alternative solution and support system for new mothers is desperately needed.
What are your thoughts on better handling the postnatal experience for women? Do you think fathers should be allowed to stay overnight or would you rather they not be there? Are private rooms for all a realistic solution? What do you make of the Kraamzorg system, would you have benefited from and welcomed something like that?
Reclaiming Birth
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I wrote a guest post over at The F-Word last week, getting the word out about a march and rally called Reclaiming Birth, which took place today. The aims of the march and of the participating organisations can be read in this handout. In summary, they are:
- Ask the health service to provide more midwives so that every woman is supported throughout her labour and never left alone
- Provide access to at least one stand-alone birth centre in every local area
- Disseminate good information on and the option to choose home birth, birth in a midwife-led unit or birth in an obstetric unit in every area
- Maintain at least one case-loading midwifery group, free at the point of use, for every area
- Launch an inquiry into maternity care at King’s College Hospital Foundation Trust, London, which recently terminated its contract with the Albany Midwives Practice
Here are some photos from the event.
I was really impressed with the number of people there, including quite a lot of men and many, many children. One little girl, no more than 7 or 8, was leading chants and blowing a whistle while shouting “Choices! Choices!” and “We need midwives!” There were grandfathers, great-grandmothers, teenage boys with shirts reading “Born at home,” mothers of all different ethnic backgrounds…it was really fantastic. I felt inspired, empowered, invigorated and part of a community and a movement that really cares about women and their families.
If you want to help Reclaim Birth, please write to your MP, the Secretary of State for Health and to the Maternity Services Liaison Committee at your local obstetric unit. You can email letters directly through the NCT website. Please take a few minutes to send a couple emails, and then pass it onto others who care about birth and ask them to do the same. This is our chance to demand real change to the maternity services, providing women with the choices, continuity of care and positive birth experiences that every one of us deserves. Let’s make our voices heard!
Book review: The Equality Illusion
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This is the first in a run of book reviews I hope to do in the coming months, seeing as I have a backlog of relatively new feminist non-fiction to read. First up is ‘The Equality Illusion’ by Kat Banyard, former campaigns officer for the Fawcett Society, an organisation that campaigns for social and economic justice for women in the UK.
Before I get to the review, I’d just like to make a somewhat-tangential aside about Ms. Banyard’s place of employment. While I know that there are sectors within which unpaid internships are the norm and that non-profits are one of the biggest culprits, I was pretty disheartened when I emailed the Fawcett Society a few months back to eagerly ask how I might assist them with some volunteering of some description. I didn’t mind if it was stuffing envelopes or whatever, I just wanted to get involved with an organisation I’ve always admired and would love to work for some day, when my return to paid employment outside the home is imminent. In reply to my query about volunteering on an occasional basis, I was sent details of an unpaid internship (what other kind is there?) instead. The kicker was that the job would’ve been perfect for me and I would have happily applied right then and there…if it actually paid any money. Travel expenses and £4/day for lunch isn’t going to pay the bills or the childcare though, that’s for sure. When I wrote back to say as much and again asked if there were any more occasional tasks or weekend events I could help with, I was told they “don’t really do that sort of thing.”
Now, the only reason I bring this up is because I think this is a good example of an organisation trying to do good work but putting restrictions on who can actually work for it. I mean, who else but the wealthy or those just out of university and living with their parents, sans any immediate financial responsibilities, could afford to work for three days a week for 3-6 months, completely unpaid? The assumption that those interested in feminist activism can do unpaid internships (especially by an organisation that campaigns for fair wages and equal pay for women!), just comes across as astoundingly arrogant and clueless to the realities most of us face. And the only reason I’m pointing this out is because some of my criticisms of this book are based around this general appearance of excluding some topics in favour of others that may be more sensationalist or controversial but less relevant to the majority of women’s everyday lives in the UK, ones that are affecting their livelihoods and personal lives in deeply-ingrained, meaningful ways. So with that grumble out of the way (and with it having no direct bearing on Banyard because she is not the sum of her employer’s policies, obviously), on to the review.
First off, I will say that my overall impression of the book as a tool to get the general public thinking about ways in which gender inequalities still exist is a fairly good one. If you ever heard someone say “We’ve/you’ve got equality now, what are you complaining about?” or use a term like “post-feminist world,” (has a more laughable phrase ever been uttered, aside from ‘post-racial’?) you could do worse to hand them ‘The Equality Illusion.’ For those unversed in gender issues, this is a good starting place. However, as Jess at The F-Word already pointed out in her review, Banyard is kind of preaching to the ‘yes, we all know this’ choir as far as how already-established feminists are likely to react to it.
The first chapter, on body image, does a pretty good job at dissecting the main issues — media representations of women, objectification, gender conformity, beauty standards and the beauty industry and how all of it is damaging to girls and women. The young women she interviews for this portion of the book indeed have heartbreaking tales of shattered self-esteem and distorted views of their bodies, but I couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t include much in the way of how we can combat these images in our daily lives, not just by taking on the huge structures perpetuating and capitalising on it, which is a huge task that no one is really sure how to undertake.
One of the most important ways we can help girls (and boys, for that matter) build healthy self-esteems and realistic body expectations is through involved parenting and leading by example. The messages sent by a constantly-dieting mother who is always (only half-jokingly) calling herself a pig can be far more harmful and seep into a child’s subconscious than a parade of billboards with conventionally attractive, airbrushed models on them. Talking to your children about the messages they receive and the images they see can be a very effective tool in keeping their expectations healthy, yet Banyard does little, if anything, to mention empowered parenting as a potentially massive part of the ‘solution,’ as it were.
I have similar complaints about the chapter on education. Overall it’s very good in presenting facts and providing a context in which we can see the gaping inequalities still present in today’s schools, but where are the interviews with parents? What do they think of gendered behaviour, gendered education, the arguments for and against biological and socially-conditioned differences in the way boys and girls think and perform? What are theirthoughts and concerns on how gendered education is effecting their kids and if they are counteracting that at home in any way? Speaking to the teachers and to the children themselves is all very well and good, but leaving parents out of the education equation just because they don’t actually attend school with their kids is trying to complete a 24-piece jigsaw puzzle with only 18 of the pieces.
I have similar complaints of the reproductive rights chapter, which deals, unsurprisingly, with teenage/young pregnancy and abortion but not much else. There is no mention of feminist issues relating to pregnancy or birth rights, or of the changing role and consequences of reproduction throughout a woman’s life. Again, the focus seems to be on young(ish) women and those who have chosen not to have children, at least for the time being.
From my corner of the feminist parenting blogosphere, there hasn’t been much hope that this book would be any different from most of the others in really dissecting some of the issues important to mothers, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the ‘Sexism in the City’ chapter to be dedicated almost solely to the injustices and inequalities that women face with regards to work and childcare and the division of domestic labour. The case study she uses to open the chapter is about one woman”s struggle to care for her children and earn enough money to support them. Banyard asks some good questions and raises relevant topics, such as:
Why do so many women have to work below their skill level because those are the only jobs that fit around their caring responsibilities? Why are cleaning and other forms of traditional ‘women’s work’ (like carers and caterers) paid so little — and in particular less than traditional ‘men’s work’ (like plumbers and decorators) that require equivalent levels of skill and effort? Because gender discrimination in the workplace is illegal and women make up nearly half the workforce it is easy to assume that all is now fair and equal. But the near equivalent numbers of women and men in the workplace is where any ‘equality’ ends: 30,000 women are sacked each year in the UK simply for being pregnant, women make up only 12 per cent of FTSE 100 company directors and women are paid on average 22.6 per cent less per hour than men.
She also writes:
When discussing women in the workplace a standard media refrain is to ask whether women can ‘have it all’, i.e. a family and a career. But women have always had to combine work and caring. For many, particularly those from working-class backgrounds, that question is redundant; if they don’t work their family doesn’t eat. The real question is why is it only women who have to choose between a family and maximising their career potential? And, in fact, why should anyone have to choose between these two things at all?
Banyard goes on to talk about discrimination against mothers at work, the belief that women’s careers are curtailed by their ‘choices’, not because the system is set up to favour those without caring responsibilities, and the concept of a ‘sticky floor’ that exists well below the ‘glass ceiling.’ She interviews a charity that supports working parents and talks to working mothers themselves, making a real effort to understand and explain the disparities they face. There were things she didn’t touch on, of course — issues relating specifically to mothering are about more than just combining work and family — but for a feminist book by (from what I gather is) a relatively young, childless woman, I thought it was pretty well done.
Finally, the chapters on violence against women and the sex industry were informative, compelling and passionate. It seems pretty obvious that these issues are the most important to Banyard, and many young feminists, and she/they are doing a great job of speaking out against them. However (didn’t you know that was coming?), I will say that while I am 100% supportive of feminist aims to help women exit prostitution and to combat the pervasive and often-unpleasant sex industry, I can’t help but feel that the intense focus on it can be a bit off-putting to the general public. As Rachel Cooke pointed out in her review in the Guardian:
Mostly, she is preoccupied with finding ways to help women exit prostitution, and while I’m all for that, too, there are 30 million women in Britain, of whom not even a quarter of 1% sell sex for a living. What about the rest of us?
That’s not to say that prostitutes or sex industry workers don’t deserve our help and attention, because they unreservedly do. But if a book about gender inequality is trying to reach out to large swathes of people in one country, many of whom probably don’t identify as feminist in the first place, it needs to be relatable to their lives. Focusing on the sex industry, or female genital mutilation or forced marriages in other parts of the world (for example) can be, rightly or wrongly, seen as directing focus away from the issues that women right here in the UK face, all around them, every day. Portrayals of Western feminists as young, childless, middle-class, white girls who want to save ‘those poor women’ (sex industry workers, African women, child brides, etc..) from themselves may be off base entirely, but the fact is that this is the image they (we) have been saddled with by some. If a book’s aim is to foster greater understanding and enthusiasm for gender issues within a Western framework and amongst the women who inhabit it, I have to wonder if narrowing the focus a little bit and not necessarily worrying about casting the net wide in an effort to be ideologically diverse would actually catch more fish, as it were.
Again, I don’t want to insinuate that international problems or ones affecting a small, specific minority are not our problems or that we should be discouraging others from thinking about and acting upon them, but if Banyard truly wants to inspire ‘grassroots feminism’ (to which she devotes most of her last chapter), she would do well to remain focused on issues a bit closer to home and our hearts and remember that most of us — especially those living with children, or with disabilities, or financial hardships — can’t easily attend meetings and marches, or get online to check out all the latest blogs and conferences, or partake in unpaid internships.
Overall, this is a good ‘primer’ book but it’s approach is too broad and there’s not enough fire in the belly. We need less theoretical pontificating and more solid ideas for action. Because until we start organising the latter, the former is all we will ever do.
Cross-posted at Noble Savage
This is not a whisper
13
A few weeks ago I discussed women’s bodies in the workplace and how our biological and social needs were never truly integrated, even when we were finally ‘allowed’ to work. I said:
The problem is this — nearly all of the business world was built around the male biological and social imperative. It was understood that a working man was either single and carefree or with a wife at home who took care of his house, his children and all domestic tasks, aside from the more ‘manly’ chores like grass-cutting, wood-chopping and car repairs. The male worker had no need for flexible hours that fit in around school or shopping hours. The male worker had no dramatic hormonal changes, pregnancies, breastfeeding or post-partum recovery to deal with.
I also said:
But one of the biggest problems remaining, in my view, is that women’s bodies have not been integrated and accepted into the workplace. Pregnancy and maternity leave are still career-killers.
…Some people would even begrudge a woman the right to pump milk at work, calling it an ‘extra break’ and complaining that she’s getting ’special treatment,’ which I think any mother who has ever breastfed or expressed knows is misguided. Trying to get as much milk as possible out of your breasts while hunched over an electronic pump in a storage closet, hoping no one walks in on you, is not a ‘break’. It’s just more work, though of the unpaid, ‘unimportant’ variety in capitalism’s eyes.
Finally, I concluded that:
Because industry and business were built upon male norms, the working environment reflects this attitude as well. We got on the ladder alright, but what we should’ve been after was an entirely different climbing apparatus, one in which we could move horizontally across a continuum we helped create, not forced to climb vertically up those rigid, historically-male rungs (in high heels, naturally) before hitting that infamous glass ceiling.
Essentially, I was arguing that we can’t ‘fix’ the current system or try to force our way into existing frameworks because those systems and frameworks don’t serve our needs or our lives, which is what author Hilary Mantel says in today’s Guardian as well. What both of us are trying to say, I believe, is that moulding ourselves to fit a system designed without our bodies, our wants or our priorities in mind can do us harm. It does do harm to women the world over, every day. Being forced to delay children until our 30s and 40s in order to establish successful careers is harmful. Being denied educational and professional opportunities if we choose to have children in our teens or 20s is harmful. All this analysis of feckless, fertile teen mums and desperate, over-achieving 40-somethings undergoing IVF sends one clear message and it is this:
You can’t win.
You can’t win because the perfect time to have a child, according to current advice, is in one’s mid-20s to early 30s. Unfortunately for us, that also happens to coincide with the prime years for establishing a career and moving up the ladder, or pursuing further education. Taking long ‘career breaks’ (because, as we know, having and raising children is not considered ‘real work’), even if short-term, harms our long-term financial and professional potential. Women who take career breaks at this time in their lives rarely end up in senior positions, earning as much and on the same par with similarly-aged male colleagues. If we want to have even a chance at joining their ranks we have two choices — don’t have children for another 10-15 years (or at all) or have children but get back to work quickly by placing them in care, the provision and management of which will be made preposterously difficult given the restrictions of the working environment.
Each of these ‘choices’, of course, has negative consequences. Risking infertility or having to pay someone else most of your salary to care for your child in the first years of its life are not ideal options, though they are the ones we have to live with in the here and now. Without truly flexible academic and professional accommodation and without access to affordable, quality childcare and meaningful, fairly-waged part-time work, we are getting nowhere. Giving dads a bit more paternity leave or giving mums a bit more money for their leave, while a nice gesture, is pointless in the end. It’s an adhesive, cartoon-faced bandage for a gaping, bleeding shotgun wound of a problem. No matter how many smiley-faced plasters we stick on it, the wound will ooze and fester without first extracting all of the detritus and cleaning it up. Putting superficial fixes on a wound of this size only masks the rotting infection underneath.
Eventually, the infection will spread and what little good the bandages did will be for nothing. We will be pushed out of the workplace again, unable to operate within the male-structured system, or continue to rely on luck and technology to have children later in life. The poor, the working class and even much of the middle class (i.e. most women), for whom talk of career breaks and IVF isn’t even relevant or possible, will continue to have children at their reproductive peak and be punished for it by being priced out of decent housing, higher education and training, and quality childcare. They will also continue to have the blame for perceived societal breakdown lain at their feet, convenient scapegoats for a system that set them (and all of us, including our children) up to fail.
I am not being dramatic at all when I say we need radical, revolutionary change. Asking the men behind the curtain very nicely and calmly if we can have this or that concession, only to see if taken away again with budget cuts that deem “women’s issues” unimportant in comparison with military spending or lining bankers’ pockets has proven ineffective. The overwhelmingly white, male, middle-class parliamentarians will pay lip service to equality and fairness, sure. They’re not stupid and know they need our votes. I’m sure many of them do know the system is unfair and would like to change it. But when push comes to shove, people protect themselves, their own families and their own jobs and interests first, we know that. We all know who is doing the shoving and who will be shoved. An increasingly hostile, ‘anti-PC’ segment of the public who feel threatened by challenges to their long-standing privileges also contributes to this climate of intolerance, narrow-mindedness and unwillingness to change on any substantial level.
No one is giving anything to us. Wringing our hands and writing moving essays or angry blog posts is not enough. As far as I’m concerned, it’s time for battle and we need more soldiers. I’ve had enough. And though I understand completely that not everyone feels so passionately about it, or thinks we can actually change anything, or even has the desire to, I can’t help but feel completely, helplessly angry when I know that if we really could get a million women to rise, we’d finally be noticed. If, like our sisters of the first and second waves have done before us, we sat down, refused to move, refused to accept the status quo or meek little promises of incremental change, we would be an undeniable force to be reckoned with. We are 52 per cent of the population. We vote. We live here. We matter. And I, for one, am tired of playing it down and carefully explaining and ‘being reasonable’ and keeping my voice down.
I’m fucking angry and I want you to be too.