We live in a patriarchal society, so in a hetero family even a progressive family, gender is still going to be a struggle. I think white feminism (Stanton, Cody) did a huge disservice to women by demanding equality with white men (legal, political, biological) rather than equity. Historically, white women were emancipated based on the Stanton argument that white women could counteract the freed black male slave vote. Also, those white suffragettes and subsequent white feminists distanced themselves from motherhood as a form of unremunerated bondage and not coincidentally, the wage work of freed black women.
While that is all centuries ago, its legacy is this--Mothers are not valued in the mainstream power structure; the US is the ONLY 1st world nation that does not provide mandatory paid maternity leave. FMLA is a watered down approximation of a well meaning thought. If you are on welfare, you can only take of other people's children for pay, you cannot be paid to raise your own children. So the rallying cry that a "women can do anything men can do" is mostly true, but more importantly, men CANNOT do everything women can--give life and sustenance--and that is exactly what remains unacknowledged, unvalued, and unremunerated.
(ASIDE: the New Yorker had an interesting article a while back about the "liberating" American invention of breast pumps and how it forced mothers to go back to work sooner because now biology wasn't a barrier for women to be like men in the workplace.)
SAHM label is an effort to reclaim the degraded "homemaker."
All that to say that I don't take the gender dynamics as solely an individual couple's relationship problem, but a social problem. I struggle with it too, not because my husband is a patriarchal narcissist (far be it from true!), but because we live these socially imposed power dynamics and norms. And this all without bringing in other dynamics like race and culture.
Motherhood is still unpaid work.
The patriarchal nuclear family structure and the ruptures in extended family networks from immigration and American nomadic existence makes it so much harder; no grandmothers and elders live with us to raise our babies.
Dennis Brutus once gave met Tstsi Dengaremba's novel Nervous Conditions. And I think it gets exactly at the tension between Western feminism/norms and cultural roles.
Having exclusively breastfed and coslept until 1yo meant that my daughter was squarely attached to me which created its own cycle of emotional dependence. It wasn't until ~2.5yo that VL would ask for her Ba when she needed comfort or nurturing. Now this wasn't my husband's refusal or irresponsibility; he picked up the slack on all the household chores and other non-BF parenting so that I could nurture our child. When he was back at work FT, I voluntarily did all the diaper changes at night while I was on maternity leave in equitable appreciation of him working outside the home. For SAHMs, the household chores do fall on their shoulders more, because that is what is equitable. For families where both parents work outside the home, chores and parenting may be more negotiated in the 3 hours we have with the offspring before they go to sleep.
Until males start lactating (physiologicaly possible, if socially/cultural taboo. google it), the first few years fall squarely on the mother's breasts. I still struggle with what mainstream feminism enculturated in me and traditional/cultural roles.
While that is all centuries ago, its legacy is this--Mothers are not valued in the mainstream power structure; the US is the ONLY 1st world nation that does not provide mandatory paid maternity leave. FMLA is a watered down approximation of a well meaning thought. If you are on welfare, you can only take of other people's children for pay, you cannot be paid to raise your own children. So the rallying cry that a "women can do anything men can do" is mostly true, but more importantly, men CANNOT do everything women can--give life and sustenance--and that is exactly what remains unacknowledged, unvalued, and unremunerated.
(ASIDE: the New Yorker had an interesting article a while back about the "liberating" American invention of breast pumps and how it forced mothers to go back to work sooner because now biology wasn't a barrier for women to be like men in the workplace.)
SAHM label is an effort to reclaim the degraded "homemaker."
All that to say that I don't take the gender dynamics as solely an individual couple's relationship problem, but a social problem. I struggle with it too, not because my husband is a patriarchal narcissist (far be it from true!), but because we live these socially imposed power dynamics and norms. And this all without bringing in other dynamics like race and culture.
Motherhood is still unpaid work.
The patriarchal nuclear family structure and the ruptures in extended family networks from immigration and American nomadic existence makes it so much harder; no grandmothers and elders live with us to raise our babies.
Dennis Brutus once gave met Tstsi Dengaremba's novel Nervous Conditions. And I think it gets exactly at the tension between Western feminism/norms and cultural roles.
Having exclusively breastfed and coslept until 1yo meant that my daughter was squarely attached to me which created its own cycle of emotional dependence. It wasn't until ~2.5yo that VL would ask for her Ba when she needed comfort or nurturing. Now this wasn't my husband's refusal or irresponsibility; he picked up the slack on all the household chores and other non-BF parenting so that I could nurture our child. When he was back at work FT, I voluntarily did all the diaper changes at night while I was on maternity leave in equitable appreciation of him working outside the home. For SAHMs, the household chores do fall on their shoulders more, because that is what is equitable. For families where both parents work outside the home, chores and parenting may be more negotiated in the 3 hours we have with the offspring before they go to sleep.
Until males start lactating (physiologicaly possible, if socially/cultural taboo. google it), the first few years fall squarely on the mother's breasts. I still struggle with what mainstream feminism enculturated in me and traditional/cultural roles.
January 7 at 10:12am
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