Moments of power in women's lives...

I have to agree with the posters who report feelings of powerless pst-birth.

I would say I felt completely eradicated. The pressure put on me to just un-self myself and become mother-of-baby was extraordinary, right down to people just not "seeing" me at times. It was crazy.

I think that you are suggesting that there is proffered by some a "power" of being especially tuned in to the "voice" of the - at this moment- voiceless child.

Now, I would say that all this added together comes to this: women are pressured to lose their "self" when becoming "mother", ie, they are pressured to become "0". In lieu of a personhood or agency, they are offered a "shadow" agency as the temporary proxy of the (voiceless, powerless) child. That is, mother ("0") is now offered some kind of positive presence, but only as the proxy for the child's wishes and demands.

She is offered this role on the - entirely dubious - ground that she is "hormonally", "intuitively", "biologically" tuned in to the voiceless voice, the inexpressible wishes and demands, of the child.

She has been stripped of adult personhood and offered instead the proxy agency/personhood of a child - not an adult. And all this on the grounds that "biologically" she's programmed for this.

We might go further and allege that this substitution of actual adult personhood for proxy and temporary minor personhood is also biologically pre-programmed into women.

But we won't, because it sucks. It's really very sexist, I think.

I honestly think that this is why a lot of us are very cautious about jumping right in there and saying that women are biologically attuned to our children.

However, I do think that that is throwing the baby out with the bath water . Perhaps there is a slight tendency towards this gendered attuning. Who knows? Sadly, not enough men do enough childcare to really say anything definite about that.

Still, I think I would be totally hesitant to call it power. I think it is a weasel power - that leeches power away just as it seemingly bestows it.

My guess is it performs similar twists and turns to saying that women can exercise great power by being smashing cooks and utterly raunchy in the bedroom.

Not in a bad way.

I think they don't know quite what to do with me.

She isn't like a girl, doesn't want to talk about diets
She isn't like a boy, doesn't want to talk about football

Mmmmmmmmmmm tricky

Luckily I am quite chatty and i think add Breadth to the team

Although I do think the men at my work are mildly scared of me.

Outsiders still assume I am there to take notes. Sometimes.

Well that's a Nope so far

*Never being asked to 'make coffee' or 'take coats' ?

Never being asked 'who's looking after the children?'

Men's moments of power? Being assumed to be the one in charge? Being assumed that will have a higher salary? Getting your wife to agree to allow you to 'present' your baby to your parents (who she hates) just after birth? When she doesn't want to?

Basically having your needs met by a woman at all times?

I'm not even sure what "moments of power" means.

The times I have felt like I had a bit of power were mainly when I got someone to do what they should have done anyway. Mainly when I told blokes to leave me alone etc and they actually DID!!! That felt good. But it was hardly power. Relief, more like.

Anyone got any ideas what men's "moments of power" are, so I can see if i have met any of them.

I remember reading an article by a woman who said that after birth she felt like a deflated, leaky, exploded seed pod - and everyone was paying attention to the new baby. I thought 'yes, that's exactly it'.

Off topic but another example in our society where women could be said to have more power than men is, ironically, weddings where there is that horrible media stereotype of a "bridezilla" who must have every demand appeased to achieve "the happiest day of her life" (hate that phrase!)

I dont think I'v seen the other thread, but I thought (maybe naively) that the reasons why the mother's choices are put before the fathers (or anyone else's) both during the birth and for a certain time after is that during the birth she is the patient, and afterwards she is the one recovering from a physical ordeal. Even after the baby is born the postnatal care of mother and baby are very much connected, and the bond between mother and baby is considered (rightly or wrongly) as being the most important.
I dont know if that sounds a bit patronising, and I know that there is far more to birth than the medical practicalities. Agree that 12 weeks sounds very excessive though. I would not be impressed if my DH claimed that I had exclusive responsibilty for our DD, so I would never claim exclusive rights iyswim.

Personally, during the birth of our DD I felt like my body was very powerful, but like I myself was powerless... don't really like the way that looks written down, not articulate enough to explain exactly what I mean!!

i may be unusual but childbirth and a new baby was the time I felt most powerless.

Martorana I haven't read the other thread but I get what you're saying, it's not real power. It's like saying a woman has dominion over her home is presented as power.

Those of you that haven't seen the thread might need to pad your desks to save yourselves a headache...

(Mart, I think the 12 weeks was under extreme provocation to define a number and not wanting to constrain another woman to being browbeaten by that.)

Anyhow... I agree with you that the hormone thing can be patronising - like "oh she's cross because she has PMT, ha ha ha"

I also disagree with this:

" 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."

I would say that for all women, childbirth and post birth is a time when they are absolutely expected to put someone else ahead of themselves utterly and that is the baby.

I would need to see the thread I think.

Each situation is different, different families have different dynamics, different women have different birth and post-natal experiences, some women BF some don't etc etc.

There is no set standard of reasonableness or otherwise here, it's a case by case type thing IMO.

Yes soon to be 3. Why?

Georgesdino- do you have children?

'"Generally in our society women are expected to put other people's needs and wants before their own."

Not true. Mothers maybe yes. But not women, in general.'

I disagree. In the world of work, for example, a man is "direct" or "confident" or "no-nonsense" while a woman who displays exactly the same behaviour is "pushy" or "a bitch". Study after study has confirmed that. To be rated as highly on the social dimensions of leadership as a man, a woman needs to display an extra layer of concern for others, to be more tentative in how she suggests things, to be more in tune with her subordinates' feelings.

I think a lot of the after baby thing comes from some women not trusting a man to care for a child in the same way. I think its bizarre as they are 50% the parent just as a woman is. I think its 100% interchangeable if your not breastfeeding.

"Generally in our society women are expected to put other people's needs and wants before their own."

Not true. Mothers maybe yes. But not women, in general. Mothers are expected to think of their children first.

But I wouldn't point the finger at Western society or even humankind in general. A mountain lion or a pelican, when it becomes a mother will defend her young at the cost of its own life.

You really believe that the vast majority of relationships a woman puts a man first? Im very surprised by that.

I think you are very seriously misrepresenting the other thread here.

But dealing with the theoretical question posed, I can see what you're getting at but I think it's more complicated than that. There's a whole mystique around women and childbirth it's an arena men were excluded from for much of history (and still are in some cultures) and I think there's a taboo/almost quasi-spiritual aspect to it still. In part it probably ties in to the old presumed dichotomy of men as the logical materialists and women as the emotional nurturers but then there is in this specific instance a factual basis behind that in that the woman does have hormonal surges that (in most cases though not all) do bond her closely to the baby as well as make her more emotional at a time when she's also physically vulnerable. It's as though all the myths about women come true for a handful days and that's seen as justifying their existence (and the pigeonholing of women) in general.