Freya, apologies, perhaps I wasn?t clear.
Obviously reproducing is essential to the survival of the human race. This involves women and men only in the initial creation. Thereafter I agree, from a survival point of view, men aren?t necessary except to contribute to the next round of reproduction.
So men are pretty pointless in terms of Mother Nature other than the supply of sperm. This doesn?t mean that they don?t then contribute but there is nothing about their contribution that can?t be done by women. So men need to find a role and in creating a patriarchal society, they?ve given themselves a role, as provider, protector, ruler, etc etc.
In order to appease women, and particularly in recent times, when women have started to question why men hold this apparently dominant role, the response has been to tell women that their role is motherhood. That?s it. There is nothing else that women were good for. So that role has been embellished to an extent. Women are told that motherhood is their role, that men aren?t as naturally good at parenting, that because motherhood is so wonderful and fulfilling, women don?t need any other role. Nice guilt trip they?ve laid on us.
The concept of motherhood as being everything that a woman is about, is to my mind, very recent. Women weren?t historically so invested in their children for their own sense of purpose. They had larger families, children frequently died in infancy, they were more accepting of the ?village to raise a child? mentality. Children were treated as a further source of income and labour, through necessity. I?m not for one minute arguing that modern day children shouldn?t be cherished and valued, but look at the way in which modern women regard their children. It?s almost like an extension of themselves, they have ownership of children in a way that is a relatively new phenomenon. You can?t criticise a child otherwise you?re criticising the mother. There?s still a widely held perception that only a woman can really truly understand the needs of a baby and infant child. And yet society has a much better idea of child development and the only specific things that a woman brings are pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. There is nothing else in raising a child in modern day UK that a caring and involved father can?t do as well.
Who does it suit better to continue with the belief that child rearing is all consuming, a process of maternal instincts, and the ultimate goal of all women ? That would be men. I really don?t think that it?s a coincidence. I firmly believe that our society has taken child rearing and made it solely the province of women in order to benefit men. And that to appease us, we?re apparently treated with a sense of wonder that we can reproduce, that only we know our babies, that we should be at home with them. I wonder how many women stay at home due to a sense of belief that it?s their duty and that they are less of a mother if they don?t and consequently less of a woman.
It comes back to choice ? very few women actually have the choice to be a stay at home parent or working parent because choice can?t exist without equality. I just think that the concept of motherhood holds some of the solutions to equality but it involves women breaking the taboo of saying that women aren?t naturally better parents than men, that having a child is wonderful and life affirming but it?s not all that a woman is about, and that you?re not less of a woman for not having a child.
In a nutshell, where you think that misogyny is caused by motherhood, I think misogyny created motherhood, or at the very least, created a false expansion of what motherhood is in order to bind women to a specific role.