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Original poster

Moments of power in women's lives...

85 replies

Martorana · 17/03/2014 09:05

I am running a serious risk of being deleted for "thread about a thread" but I have been thinking a lot about a situation unfolding elsewhere on this site and I would love other's opinions from a feminist perspective. Basically, the position being held by the vast majority is that the mother should have absolute control over what happens/who holds/sees/ does anything with a new baby for a considerable period post birth. A couple of people even suggest that the father should have no say in any of this for the first 12 weeks. That there is no such thing as unreasonable behaviour in a pregnant/ post partum woman.

This has made me think about the points of power in women's lives. It seems to me that for many women, childbirth and post birth is one of the only times when they are allowed- even expected to put themselves first. In practically all other circumstances, they are expected to appease, to conciliate.

Obviously it's a good thing for women to have power whenever they can- but the complicating factor of this is that it's a power based on hormones and instinct. "They can't help feeling like that- it's the hormones. Let's appease her, she'll be better soon"

A bit like the characterization of any woman who is angry and not conciliatory as pre menstrual.

I am thinking as I write- does any of this make sense? Does anyone have any thoughts?

OP posts:
Original poster
Martorana · 18/03/2014 10:02

Earnings. (For many families the smallest drop in earnings would be catastrophic)
Breast feeding.
Inflexibility of employers.
Actual inflexibility of jobs.

I could not, for example, have practically carried on with the job I had when I had my first child unless I was prepared use childcare for 14 hours a day. And if I could have found childcare that was flexible enough for me to suddenly say at 4.00 one afternoon that I wouldn't be home until midnight. And it was not a job that could have been done part time. My Dp worked more predictably, but was still out of the house for at least 12 hours a day, and would not have been able to go part time.

OP posts:
BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 18/03/2014 09:56

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TheDoctrineOfSnatch · 18/03/2014 09:35

Debbie, I agree - well over 50% of posters on that thread thought the DW WBU.

"For most it's neither. It's just not a practical possibility"

Do you mean because of differential in earnings, Mart?

kalidasa · 18/03/2014 09:29

I took quite a short mat leave georgesdino and if we have a second child then yes, the plan is that DH and I would share it. I breastfed though and would probably do so again which does make switching roles in the first few months quite difficult. I know some women seem to make it work with expressing etc but I really thought expressing was ghastly - all the absolute worst bits of breastfeeding and none of the benefits so I wouldn't want to do that.

Interesting thread OP and I do know what you mean. I think you're right about the disempowerment that lies beneath the rhetoric about peculiar female authority at that stage. I was slightly better "tuned in" to DS in the early months, and perhaps am still fractionally so, but I had a lot more prior experience of small children than him via babysitting/relatives etc; I spent more time with DS at the very very beginning, in hospital, the nights while breastfeeding; and also - and I think this is crucial - girls and young women are intensely socialised to respond to small children, to learn at least the basics about their care, to be seen as "good with children" in a practical as well as emotional way. In all these respects I had a 'head start' and it would be surprising if I was not a bit more confident and accurate as a result. I don't believe it is anything more mysterious than that.

DebbieOfMaddox · 18/03/2014 09:25

It wasn't all "I could never leave my kids, hes selfish asking, a woman makes all the decisions stuff him" -- that's a very selective reading. There was an awful lot of "I can see why she wants to stay off, and legally she can, but she shouldn't go back on what they agreed and clearly he wants to stay off with DC as well".

Original poster
Martorana · 18/03/2014 09:19

"Wonder if more men would like to do half and half and the mothers don't want to, or if that's vice versa?"

For most it's neither. It's just not a practical possibility.

OP posts:
TheDoctrineOfSnatch · 18/03/2014 09:13

I'd do half and half and so would DH.

Wonder if more men would like to do half and half and the mothers don't want to, or if that's vice versa?

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 18/03/2014 08:59

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georgesdino · 18/03/2014 08:49

I think a lot of men do step up. Did you see the outrage on aibu when a woman went back on their word about transfering maternity at 6 months. It was all I could never leave my kids, hes selfish asking, a woman makes all the decisions stuff him'

Honestly how many of you would of willingly gave you dh all your maternity? I can as I did it with my first and I see no difference, but most women dont think like me.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 18/03/2014 08:46

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georgesdino · 18/03/2014 08:45

If you felt like that kalidasa then if you plan more children are you transferring all your maternity to your dh? We are going to do that in a couple of years for baby no 4 as from April 2015 a woman doesnt have to do it and you can arrange things as you like.

kalidasa · 18/03/2014 08:42

Goodness thecatfromjapan how precisely well put! I once tried to explain to DH about how invisible I felt as a mother with a very small baby, as if my personal, social, political and professional identity had just been wiped out all at once, but he didn't really get it. He could see that I found it hard not being at work, and being quite isolated on maternity leave etc but he didn't understand at all about the much more profound change in how people even look/don't look at you, and what they are seeing when they do. I think you are spot on about the 'shadow' personhood too.

I hope you write about this somewhere else as well? Do you have a blog? Have you written a book?! Please pm if so!

Original poster
Martorana · 18/03/2014 08:39

I spent a long time thinking about this before I started the thread- largely because I found it very difficult to find the language i needed. Yes, "power" is wrong. So is "control". I suppose I was thinking about times in women's lives when, if they do "put their foot down" it's considered OK. But only really because it's instinct, or hormones- as I said "normal service will be resumed shortly". I think the "bridezilla" analogy is quite a good one. Men smile indulgently and let the little woman have her way. Women pile in- almost encouraging the woman to make the most of the window of opportunity, subliminally aware that there aren't many such windows in many women's lives.

OP posts:
georgesdino · 18/03/2014 08:18

Its cause women dont give men a chance. Dh is doing my entire maternity and Im back at 2 weeks. I am hoping to go in the very next day if baby is born before academic year. With dc1 I was back in 10 days and dh and I worked round each other, and I did full maternity of 7 mths for dc2. Doesnt matter how you do it to me.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 18/03/2014 08:11

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georgesdino · 18/03/2014 06:56

What is it that people dont think a man cant do that a woman cant do with a baby. You see a lot of woman as old as in their 30s on here that have babies and have got to that age not knowing what they are doing, whereas I know young men who take to it like a duck to water as they are around it when younger. I honestly believe there is no difference between men and women doing it, just some women and men are really good at it, some men and women are no good at it, and then some in between.

georgesdino · 18/03/2014 06:33

I have never been asked those questions and I user to work in an admin role in a career where every woman was outnumbered by 9 men. I am not a person who makes coffee for people I dont drink hot drinks so they do it themselves.

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 18/03/2014 01:29

Btw - I'm assuming that everyone on the FWR section knows why I say this - madonna/whore complex, women called sluts if they do, frigid if they don't, women as the gatekeepers of sex, and so on. It's all so bloody dull, hypocrtitcal and v bad if you're a woman.

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 18/03/2014 01:23

*and bad for men.

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 18/03/2014 01:22

Thinking about this seriously now. I think the only 'power' a woman has, in a patriarchal society has, is withholding sex. Which is a very, very sad indictment. And is why patriarchal society is bad for women.

NiceTabard · 18/03/2014 01:10

ugh

labour - work - and needs to be pain, if you're doing it properly. So much religious & cultural awfulness around that. sex too, obv. nasty.

What I know is that late pregnancy, birth and having young children knackered my mental health. It was the least "empowering" thing I have done. In that it ruined me, psychologically. 1 in 10 have PND etc, many don't present to later etc so aren't in stats.

What does "empowering" even mean? Are men ever exhorted to experience "empowerment"???

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 18/03/2014 00:58

It's the one they can't do. It's the one area they feel they don't have any power over - although maternity services are still largely dictated by 'men's' views of things. As is everything. Some may think childbearing is power - but it's not called 'labour' for nothing, is it?

thecatfromjapan · 18/03/2014 00:47

Sabrina I think that is very true.

I was just thinking a bit more about this, and wanted to add that another reason I'm a bit ... careful about endorsing this idea of "the moment of power in motherhood" is that I remember attending a "Parents and Anarchism" workshop many years ago. The workshop was brought to an inglorious end by a man announcing that mothers could never be anarchists, or progressives even, because the power they had over children made them fascists.

Obviously, there is so much wrong with that, it's hard to know where to start.

But I think there are a fair number of men who think like that. It's a very one-dimensional view of power.

It is also so much at odds with many women's actual experiences of becoming mothers.

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 18/03/2014 00:41

I think that a lot of men think women have power in motherhood. It's F4J's bread and butter.

thecatfromjapan · 18/03/2014 00:35

Having said all of that, Martorana, I think it is a really interesting question. I wonder if my views are heavily coloured by my experience of becoming a mother in a patriarchal society? And if you have touched on the subjugated power of motherhood? - what it could and might be?

I'm wondering if Adrienne Rich wrote about this (mainly because I can't imagine I've thought this on my own) - arguing that much of patriarchy spends its power subjugating the power that is within motherhood?