The demonisation of single mothers.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

Hi,

I've ended up talking about this in various threads but have never dedicated a thread to it.

So, i'm looking for your thoughts. How do we see this in action? What are the views of single mothers? How are they propagated? Why are they propagated and why do they attract such demonisation?

I'd also like to hear about where you think the feminist vision saw single mothers, did it predict their would be more given the increased freedom women would have in their lives and their ability to leave male partners or choose to not have one without being financially or socially (though that hasn't held true entirely compared to 1960's it's at least possible to live this way) ruined?

Is women being able to have children alone a part of the feminist outcome - if women have more control over their bodies and reproduction surely it was an inevitable outcome? And is it in your mind a positive or negative thing in terms of feminism?

I'm actually going away for a few days now but hope this will attract lots of thoughts for me to read when i get back.

As for me, to put this in context, i am a single mother of a pre school boy. When i found out i was pregnant (unplanned) at 30 i decided that i was happy to be and wanted to keep the baby but that i didn't want to stay in the problematic relationship with the father. Therefore i've been a single parent from the outset.

I have framed this as about single mothers rather than single parents as it is my experience that single fathers are seen very differently, imo as heroes and glorified whereas single mothers get the demonisation treatment in popular culture.

Look forward to reading your thoughts.

Single mothers are only demonised if they also fall into the 'living off the state' bracket. We also don't demonise the woman who was married and then left holding the baby.

It's the woman who carries the unborn and therefore will have much more connection than a man who had less than a day being part of this woman's life.

Oh god ranting mysogynist alert, coming on to a feminist section of a parenting website and calling one of the posters a slut. You poor, pathetic, bitter man, you have my pity, as Buzz Lightyear would say.

A man becomes distinguished in his forties, a woman becomes irrelevant.

I've just ignored that dreadful white noise....I'm implore others to do the same. No good engaging with such drivel.

Yes, hence the difficulty of re-entering a career path.

I don't agree with you re not demonising previously married single mothers TFP. I think all single mothers are lumped together, pour encourager les autres.

Yes he's a useful illustration of what we're talking about though.

Herbeatitude, you clearly didn't get my reference... Posh was complaining about how women who sleep around are labeled sluts, I simply explained why such a term came into use. :p I never once attacked Poshsinglemum once and I find it offensive that you have impinged upon my reputation by suggesting I have called anyone a slut. :p

poshsinglemum Fri 03-Dec-10 19:21:28

It really annoys me how women are labelled as sluts for sleeping around.

I have always wanted relationships with the men I have slept with. They are the ones who have bogged off to the next lady. I am the one left with the bad name. Oh well.

"As for you posh, there is a damned good reason the word SLUT got invented and DAMN good reason it is still used. "

"Posh was complaining about how women who sleep around are labeled sluts, I simply explained why such a term came into use"

You didn't actually explain why such a term came into use BH, but feminists already know why such hatespeak is used against women. We'd have a different explaination from your's, because we believe that women are fully human and not defined by their bodies or their sexual behaviour.

Oh and as to your reputation you silly little man, you don't have one on MN.

Though I'm sure you will have soon - as a bitter woman-hater.

Excellent reasoning Bill Hicks

So if I sleep around whilst using contraception carefully does that still make me a slut? Or should I be called a stud instead?

As us women should not have sex until marriage then I suppose any more than one sexual partner is considered slut like. You wouldn't want to know my track record then!

"Women have so little in society that hanging onto their children is a big deal..."

no, I agree with this ISNT.

MY main point, I suppose is, that women shouldn't give up their rights as mothers in the name of something elusive called equality. Patriarchy always moves the goalposts, or they dissapear. I can see mothers signing away their children in the hope that women will somehow achieve equality that way. They won't. After the revolution, after patriarchy is crushed, then we can all relax, but until then, until women have at least 50% of economic and political power, then I wouldn't hand back hard-won rights over children to men.

I'd be interested to know what country it is that bill hicks comes from though. It sounds awful.

gotta be America

He's over on that Are Men Oppressed thread, ranting on.

Am resisting the urge to get involved, life is too short to bother with MRA's.

Oh God, I won't look

Yes I think you're totally right there 13.46 sakura.

are thousands of police officers killed every year in the US? I thought it must be iraq or somewhere

oh his post has been deleted.

I expect it's because of his hate-speak.

I don't think that all single mothers are demonised, the ones that are are the ones that are either wholly or mostly reliant on the state

I have to say though that I'm with xenia on a lot of this, although maybe not so hardline

In our current setup it is important for women to try and get a good education, into a good job, get a decent income, not chuck it all away when they have children, always bear in mind what they're going to do if their relationship fails, that sort of thing. Try and maintain a financial backup plan IYKWIM. So easy not to, but nonetheless, it's what I'll encourage my daughters to do. Financial independence is so so important in this society.

ISNT, I read in "Injustice" (by Daniel Dorling) that in the U.S armed police have to stand outside schools in some areas, because of the pupils !

That's not true byrel. If our children misbehave, people put it down to them being the dysfunctional product of a broken family,. If other mother's children misbehave, well, kids do, don't they?

As to only sngle mothers on benefits being demonised - well, given that lots of us work in the public sector, there's an awful lto of us going to be crossing over that line from "worthy" single mother, to the demonised sort.

yes ISNT, I agree with that. BUt I'm dead against Xenia in that her world view is very patriarchal. SHe votes Tory, for example. I don'T see how a feminist woman could do that, knowing how they ride roughshod over women, especially single mothers.
I also think it's patriarchal to believe that the world of work is more relevant and that's the patriarchal world-view that I rile against.

Or indeed that child-rearing is not actually work. When many women freely admit that they go to the office to get their sense of self back after a baby, to get away from the slog of baby-rearing. The slowing down it takes to raise a child is not really compatible with the modern world, and we expect children and mothers (or care-givers) to adapt themselves to this capitalist-driven mess we've made. I think that's backward.

She's right and she isn't ISNT. You do need a financial back up, but at the same time, thanks to the fashion of pretending that reading your kid a bedtime story twice a week is the same as doing 50% of the parenting, the danger of working full time, as BonsoirAnna is always pointing out, is that in a climate where the patriarchy is always looking to attack women, that can be presented as him being a primary carer and women losing custody of their children, because the bar at which men are seen to be good fathers, is so much lower than the bar at which women are seen as good mothers.

Basically, whatever you do, you're fucked.