Is the Child Free movement anti-feminist?

[GothAnneGeddes]

Not sure how to word this, but while I absolutely agree that there is nothing wrong with not wanting children, this whole idea of a movement (with a lot of men in it) that seems to despise mothers and children with a visceral repulsion and also encourage women to remove their reproductive organs is very unsettling.

What do you think?

no nobody has said that.

garlicbutter, you are arguing against things I am not saying. Perhaps it's my fault for not being clear, perhaps not.
It is truly ridiculous for you to read those things into my posts.

It is odd.

perhaps it comes from seeing the world through male eyes.

The idea of separating childless women and mothers into two separate, opposing groups just doesn't make sense.
Under patriarchy, mothers are despised for being mothers, and childless women are despised for being childless.

I agree with Sakura that motherhood is an intrinsic part of womanhood, if we see women as a group (which as feminists we have to do, otherwise whose rights are we talking about). Women are the only people who do motherhood. It is an issue particular to us - we are the group of people who give birth and breastfeed. That doesn't mean that women who are not mothers, are adoptive mothers, or who don't breastfeed are somehow less.

I don't want to be considered a person rather than a woman. I don't want to be seen as a person rather than a mother. What sex you are in not incidental if you have been pregnant and given birth. This is not some extreme situation where if we acknowledge pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding as important, the consequence of that is to let those things solely define us and demonise those women who haven't done it. It is not some either/or situation where women can only be seen as mothers or only be seen as people.

I can see why some people don't want to be seen as a mother - because people have negative ideas about motherhood and it can be detrimental to you at work if people are still seeing you as a mother in that situation.

But I am fortunate in that I work in a place where people don't have a negative attitude to me because I am a mother, so I can still talk about the fact that I have children and aspects of my children's life, what I have been doing with them and so on, and nobody will think less of me for mentioning them. One of my colleagues has a baby, and her baby is brought into work at lunchtimes for her to breastfeed in the lunch area, and there is no issue with that. I am a mother all the time, not just when I am with my children. And when I am with my children, I still have more interests in life than just my kids.

So with the childfree movement, what are the women in that movement asking for (of course there are men, but I am concerned about what the women want)? Are they asking for a society in which they are seem as being important, valuable people whose lives without children should be seen as worthwhile, whose lives, thoughts and experiences are of interest to others? Are they asking to be treated in an inclusive way, to have their choice not to have children to be seen as a valid one that they should not be called upon to ever justify or explain?

Of course they should have all of these things. It is ridiculous when they don't.

But there are some things that they can't have (and hopefully most in such a movement don't want). They can't ask for more public spaces not to have children in them (and consequently the primary carers - usually women) of those children. They can't put unrealistic demands on what behaviour children are going to exhibit in those public places (although clearly there has to be a balance). They can't expect primary carers of children - usually women, to not mention they have children, or to not talk about their children, or to show no interest in what those women are saying. Treating mothers in such a way is rather like how some people want gay people to behave - You can be gay, just don't really mention it, and certainly don't talk about the person you're in love with and spend a lot of your time with.

No person can live childfree. You can not have children of your own, but children are a part of society and a part of life. I know people who are not parents - they still interact with children and expect children to be part of life. So perhaps it is really the name that causes the issue.

I've just clicked on the link to the childfree forum. The first thread I have clicked on (about summer jobs) is calling kids brats, and saying that child labour laws should be relaxed so that preteens can do less desirable jobs in order to stop them from ruining the Summer holidays of the childfree.

Well, you get bonkers people everywhere, Milly!

I don't think I was responding especially to your posts, Sakura. Some of the wording used, in some posts above, gave me the strong impression that womanhood was being equated with motherhood. As a woman without children, naturally I felt offended! Other posters have put this better than I did, I think, and SGB has expressed my own view on this whole topic very well.

While here, I may as well reiterate that there is a persistent background of social disapproval & interference for women like me. I'm fairly outspoken (oh, you guessed?!) but a more sensitive person might feel bitterly attacked and might react by becoming anti-motherhood. I feel she'd be wrong but I can see how that could happen.

Thinking about it, maybe that's why I reacted so strongly to what I read as subtle denigrations to childless women on here.

.. oh, sod it, I've got shelves to put up ...

"I can see why some people don't want to be seen as a mother - because people have negative ideas about motherhood and it can be detrimental to you at work if people are still seeing you as a mother in that situation"

Not just that though. The patriarchy likes to see women as mothers and potential mothers. That way we are 'useful' and easier to keep in our place.

I didn't become a mother till I was 39. Up until then, I was more inclined towards identifying myself as childfree-by-choice not least because that was a good stupidity-detector. Saying that I didn't want to marry or breed (and most definitely did NOT want to 'marry-AND-breed' did send quite a lot of people into paroxysms of panic and rage. I think there is something in the patriarchy's alleged 'reverence' for motherhood that is very much about putting women in their place - patriarchal thinking also values motherhood for the way in which it increases a woman's dependence on a man, at least in partiarchal societies (a woman who is pregnant or has a newborn will find it a lot easier if she has a supportive partner, and htis gets twisted into 'being a single mother is AWFUL so make sure you keep your man happy, you NEED him to be happy). So a woman who rejects the the whole deal, wants to earn her own living and spend her own money on Having Fun (and indeed to have sex with lots of different men without allowing a man to 'own' her) is a huge threat tothe patriarchy. She might Give Other Women Ideas.
THis is why I feel there is feminist merit in a childfree position.

when i started work in 1991, i had to sign a contract stating that if i got married or pg, i understood that i would have to leave.

because i was a woman. clearly men did not have to sign the same contract re fatherhood.

clearly during the intervening 20 years, this particular wrinkle has been ironed out courtesy of the ECHR.

but given that context, you'd have to work fairly hard to convince me that i need to labelled a woman primarily. i'm not denying my womanhood, it is of course a huge part of my identity, but it just comes second to my identity as a human being. i've got three children, and have happily sah when they were small.

i can see why this could be construed as a patriarchal position - after all, men are already in the position where they are judged as people, rather than men (except on here, natch). but it really isn't. and i'm perfectly aware of the pitfalls of being judged as a woman in today's society - the cold hard reality, sakura. it's for that reason that i believe in equality.

it's the rights and responsibilities conundrum though. i'd be perfectly happy for men to have an equal share of parenting (and really don't believe that makes me a men's rights activist ) and actively encourage it. but it does get tricky when women want men to have equal responsibility for their children, but none of the rights... currently that balance is well out of whack, obv.

but clearly i'm a fairly liberal humanist feminist, rather than a radical. there's room for all sorts remember. or do we get back to 'anyone can call themselves a feminist these days'?

motherhood is of course an intrinsic part of womanhood when you are discussing contemporary women's rights and policies towards an equal society. to argue otherwise would be ridiculous. to claim it is always your primary identity from an external viewpoint is sadly usually true. internally, i still regard myself as a person primarily. the fact of my womanhood is ordinarily a superfluous detail.

"So a woman who rejects the the whole deal, wants to earn her own living and spend her own money on Having Fun (and indeed to have sex with lots of different men without allowing a man to 'own' her) is a huge threat tothe patriarchy. She might Give Other Women Ideas."

Susan Faludi covers this a little in Backlash where she describes (in the 80's) as more women were entering the workplace and getting careers there were also more media articles/research done about how women weren't having children and this was detrimental to society and how marriages were going down and women were "left on the shelf". All designed to put women back in their place and all complete bollocks. There was no significant down surge in child birth rates. It is a huge threat to the patriarchy for women to not fit into their societal role (designed by men of course).

"but it does get tricky when women want men to have equal responsibility for their children, but none of the rights" What rights are you meaning madwomanintheattic?

there are always a lot of discussions on mn wrt to 'rights', particularly in custody/ access. (hence the MRA mention presumably) but it also comes up on other threads where there is a difference of opinion to do with a particular (any, really) aspect of child rearing. it's fairly common for the eventual rationale to be 'well, i gave birth so i get the final say'. and when the decision is actually an aspect that particularly includes the woman or her body (ie to bf or not), i'm entirely happy with that (and even prior to birth, in the case of abortion etc) but the fact of motherhood is quite often used as the crunch point in whatever the discussion is. as a trump card. in even the most negligible circumstances. because women know all about child-rearing, and men don't. (!) by virtue of their sex. it makes me uncomfortable to see the fact of motherhood used as a tool in this way, really.

not sure if i'm making much sense there. and i'm still looking at it from a largely ideological point, rather than the cold hard reality point.

surely (unless the point in question affects the mother specifically) rights and responsibilities for children should be equal between mothers and fathers?

(re custody decisions, as this is where the MRA accusations were thrown , if the sahp is a man, as of course 50% would be in utopiaville, then at that point would it be reasonable to assume custody would be pretty much equally split, rather than revere the position of motherhood?)

that's clearly playing devil's advicate, and not relevant at all in reality.

and i'm not a man. honest, guv.

I don't really see why the fact that you are the parent who gave birth needs to come up that often as an argument for greater rights to make a decision about your child's life. For most children, the primary carer or sole carer is the mother, which is the main reason why women tend to get custody more often. I don't see a reason why women would keep bringing birth up in such circumstances, and I've rarely come across such attitudes on MN.

I think how you want to be seen and how you see yourself are two different things. But I fail to see how being a human being can be anybody's identity. Identity formation is about developing a distinct personality and identity that you can express. And by distinct, I think we're really talking about how we relate and express ourselves to other people. I don't need to go around identifying as a human being because I'm not expressing myself to frogs, tulips or pianos.

What I meant was madwomanintheattic, in the UK parents don't have rights over their children - they have responsibilities. The primary carer will get custody of a child in divorce because it is in the best interests of the child. Women get maternity leave by default (but if they died in childbirth or withint the maternity leave period of time that would pass to the father) but that is granted in the best interests of the child due to breast-feeding etc - not as a right for the mother.

Also agree with MillyR (which I seem to be doing a lot today )

Well then I will say that I agree entirely with SGB's last post. I see the value of the childfree position as she describes it; I just don't think that is reflected in the childfree movement.

i don't disagree with any of that - and of course it is all knotted up inextricably in the fact that most sahps are women (as well as being mothers).

i'm not really talking about women discussing different methods of childcare between themselves tbh - it seems to come up on here when someone posts a specific childrearing issue that the dh disagrees with. there are always voices of reason ('your way isn't the only way') but a groundswell of maternal opinion that the mother does hold the trump card. (interestingly, it's a bit similar to the mil threads or in fact anyone who disagrees with the parent) i can see that it is perhaps too tied up in the 'primary carer' role to untangle properly though.

'rights' might be too strong a word, though. interesting that you and dp had a difference of opinion wrt bfing, lenin (or at least a decision to make that affected her personal comfort). do you think it would have been resolved so amicably if a man had 'insisted' that his dp bf? i'm just trying to imagine a thread on here where a wife asked if her dh could insist she bf'ed if she didn't want to? i'd like to think there would have been a sensible discussion re the benefits of bf and an attempt to get the op to change her mind, but suspect there would be a fair amount of 'it's your decision'. more to do with her body rather than their child though... so a different trump card

i think it is probably confused because people use 'you are the mother' instead of 'you are the prime carer'...

anyway, apols for random wander off topic. supposed to be discussing child-free, rather than parenthood per se. oops.

getting society to respect motherhood could be achieved by getting it to respect parenthood, though, couldn't it? by sharing the responsibilities for child care etc etc. not by the creation of formal and informal policies and expectations where the default position is women in the home. (aware we are talking solely in terms of two parent hetero families and leaving out huge swathes of the population).

I think you're being stunningly naieve Madwoman. Of course we can't get motherhood respected by respecting parenthood, the reason motherhood isn't respected, is because it's done by women.

no kidding. which is why if the emphasis was on parenting rather than mothering, it would be more respected.

not naive.

more statement of the bleeding obvious.

And this: "but it does get tricky when women want men to have equal responsibility for their children, but none of the rights... "

It gets even trickier when men actually have- not want to have, but have equal rights for their children, but none of the responsibility.

For example, men have the right to have contact with their children (courts pretend that a child has the right to have contact with their father, but that's not true - if a father doesn't want to ahve contact with their children, suddenly those children's so-called rights simply disappear. It is not possible for mother to go to court to pursue her child's putative right to a relationship with his or her father). But they have no responsibility whatsoever, to pay maintenance - 3/5 of them don't bother. again, courts pretend that they have responsibility, but in reality they don't - no sanction exists to punish a man for failing to dischrage his supposed financial obligations to his children.

and that's what's wrong with the situation. the imbalance.

i'm not arguing.