Feeling conflicted about (childless) man's feminist views on mothering

[NomNomNom]

Hi,

I think this is one of my first forays into the feminist section, although I've been lurking. I was hoping to get your balanced and reasonable views on this.

Basically, I don't know what to think about this - my personal pissed-offness is clashing with my political views, I think.

I have this colleague who is in his mid-20s (I'm slightly older), childless, very well-educated, very right-on, yet he seems inexperienced in real-life matters. I don't like him for various reasons that are not really relevant. Mostly that he expresses vaguely political views when it helps him impress people in positions of power at work, but doesn't really know a lot about the actual issues and seems to put it on a bit.

Today he posted a video on Facebook of a kind of spoken-word performance by a young female poet/stand-up that was all about the physical changes motherhood brings and how women are great, strong etc for what they go through during pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding. It was a great poem, I really like it, and it expresses many things I think as well.

But somehow I'm really pissed off that this guy has posted it. He has nothing to do with children. He'll never go through those experiences himself. I often think he jumps on political bandwagons, so I don't know if my discomfort is to do with that.

I think if a dad had posted the video, I would have thought how lucky his partner is.

But somehow, a childless (privileged) guy doing it makes me angry. I've always been a feminist, but only found feminist approaches to mothering and the whole mothering/motherhood distinction a little while after my daughter was born. Reading blogs about feminist mothering, Adrienne Rich etc. really helped me to make sense of my situation and feelings, some of it was so eye-opening and just amazing. I really like how other mothers seem to experience the same issues as me and then write about it in a thoughtful and concise way, taking apart the challenges - it seems like a kind of almost intimate community of mothers (that sounds completely wanky and essentialist, I know!). I don't know how to explain it. So somehow, I just get the sense that this guy I know is 'doing' feminism in an almost consumerist way, putting it on - because feminist views on mothering have nothing to do with his life, so why is he posting about that?

I have to admit that I occasionally feel slightly conflicted about aspects of my feminism - e.g. the whole question of whether men can be feminists (though I read a great explanation regarding how one can perceive feminism as either shared political aims or shared experience). I'm still on the fence when it comes to those 2 views, but I suppose for me feminist approaches to motherhood are rooted in shared experience, and this guy does not share it, so he should butt out.

But on the other hand, more men should admire women for the strength involved in making a person and nurturing them, so… I just don't know!!

[HomeHelpMeGawd]

Buffy, that just doesn't seem like a valid distinction. You essentially seem to be saying that it's fine for Hollie McNish to post a poem, but the only people who ought to be re-posting it are other mothers, and even then they ought not to do it really because some mothers who may potentially read the poem may not have had a positive experience and may be rankled by a poem that refers to birth / breastfeeding / some other aspect of motherhood in positive terms. That seems really quite unfair on her and on others who hear her poetry and want to share it.

[MrsCakesPremonition]

I think it is a leap to say he is endorsing one particular version of motherhood. He may have been endorsing the energy of the performance, the ability of the poet to engage with her audience, he might have enjoyed the rhythm and flow of the words or the poet's skill in her craft. He might even have thought "Wow, I hadn't thought about it like that before".

At the moment, all we know is he said something like "Here's abc talking about motherhood and xyz" - which is really too little to judge upon without knowing him.

[DuskAndShiver]

Artetas, the OP says,

"that was all about the physical changes motherhood brings and how women are great, strong etc "

So in other words it was directly about women's bodies. (So that snippy nonsense about cattle rustling is just nonsense)

For a woman to celebrate the physical changes that motherhood has wrought in her body can be liberating, and radical, as they are changes that the patriarchal mainstream tends to think of as "downgrading" her physically, in the sense that being heavier and marked is to be less conventionally attractive.

A man celebrating women's bodies is basically being an arse, because women's bodies should belong to women and men shouldn't get to decide what is valuable and what is not, and traditionally under patriarchy men have been able to objectify women's bodies, make value judgements upon them as currency. So reversing it and going "woo mothers' bodies are cool" is not digging this particular arse out of the hole of ascribing to himself a right to have an opinion on something that is nothing to do with him and he should shut up about. Even if it has nothing to do with attractiveness, he is saying "women's bodies are great under these circumstances", or in other words taking an instrumental view of them when they are doing certain jobs. Men need to shut up about women's bodies. They seriously fucking do, except to say nice things to the woman they are with, in private

[MrsCakesPremonition]

But saying that men are not allowed to share a poem written by a woman about her experience - doesn't that label female poets (or any type of artist really) as being for "women only".

As a woman, am I not meant to form an opinion on or share the poetry of Wilfred Owen, because he is writing about his experience of a uniquely male situation?

I'm struggling with this TBH.

[HomeHelpMeGawd]

Dusk, you're assuming an awful lot. Not least that this man was celebrating women's bodies. Isn't it more likely that he was celebrating a woman poet who was celebrating women's bodies? Or is that de facto not possible because he's a man?

I personally think your interpretation stomps out the poet's voice, and says that the man's voice is more important, which feels faintly ridiculous when his voice is limited to clicking the "Share" button on Facebook, and it was the poet who - literally - did all the talking. It also feels weird to focus on the man at the expense of the woman poet.

[HomeHelpMeGawd]

Buffy, I think the challenge is partly in moving from the general to the specific and back again. In general, I agree that men all too often co-opt women's voices and that they should not. In this particular case, I don't agree that it is possible to know for sure that this is what has happened.

[UptoapointLordCopper]

Not contributing much to the discussion, but personally I hate everyone who says anything akin to approving me as a mother - who do they think they are and why do they think I need their approval?

Yes, I'm touchy as hell in RL. More so than on here.

[DuskAndShiver]

In this particular case, I am taking the OP's sense of ickiness as my guide, and unpacking various angles that may have contributed to this - without knowing any more about it. I would not say that it is definitely all about x, y, z, how should I know? But the OP feels icky and I am, helpfully I hope, putting forward a few angles that may help her articulate of analyse what she doesn't like about this, at least to herself.

If the OP had posted "this sweet chap I know heartened me by ...." I wouldn't feel the need to propose ways in which to explain how he was being an arse, because there would have been no suggestion of him being an arse.

I think what is happening here is that the OP feels wrong-footed by not being able to articulate something and I think we should honour her icky feelings rather than brush them off just because we can't prove he is an arse. None of us know him, or who he is, he won't suffer by the suggestion that he has an arse. But it may help the OP resolve how she feels and whether she allows herself to be irritated or not, and if so, put the irritation in its place.

[MrsCakesPremonition]

that I suspect we are all talking about, on the basis that it is widely available online and fits with the content being about motherhood rather than childbirth.

[HomeHelpMeGawd]

Fair enough, Dusk. It's just that I read in the OP's OP an acknowledgement from her that she may be being unfair in her judgments of him. And I guess I am still struck by the fact that judging someone one doesn't like by their FB posts seems like a hiding to nothing. If a woman who does like him and doesn't think he's an arse enjoys the poem and is glad that he linked to it, that view would be as valid as the OP's, no? It's just it wouldn't make it onto this board, obviously. I know this is a hypothetical, but it doesn't strike me as a particularly wild guess.

[HomeHelpMeGawd]

Buffy

"I would be willing to bet that she didn't intend to come across as criticising other women who don't feel strong about the physical aspects of birth and motherhood. Yet, this is what seems to have happened as a result of this young man sharing it."

Well, another result is that I have re-watched that video and reminded myself how ace Hollie McNish is. With a bit of luck, so will some other MNetters too. So it's not all bad!

[ArtetasSwollenAnkle]

Dus, he posted a woman poet's opinion on these things. He endorsed her skill, her words, her viewpoint - not his own. So let's name the elephant in the room - she doesn't like it because he is a man, and you are happy to endorse that view.

As someone else said, we studied war poetry at school. Where is the rulebook to list exactly what those of us who have not been to war are allowed to say about the war poets' works? Because an awful lot of people make a living from commentary on these things.

[DuskAndShiver]

This has been posted on here before but I think it is kind of relevant here:

www.theonion.com/articles/man-finally-put-in-charge-of-struggling-feminist-m,2338/

It's not as simple as that (not just that he is a man - also that he is an arse), but it is ok in general to not like stuff done by a man that you wouldn't mind done by a woman. Applying that sort of crude notion of "equality" is just bolstering the status quo.

If a close friend who loved me who had suffered depression and we had talked about our MH issues together said when I was feeling down "cheer up it may never happen - pull yourself together ;)" I would laugh. If someone who had never had a day's illness in their life said it to me, or posted motivational think-positive shit on my fb wall, I would block them. Is that "unfair"? I stand by it

This is analogous

[ArtetasSwollenAnkle]

Yes, the elephant thing was dumb . Nobody is hiding their bias here - my mistake. But I'd still like to know when discussion of someone else's work is or is not valid. Because I still don't see where this man posted a critique of the poet.

Dusk, what if during your hypothetical depression, you wrote some prose about it, and it affected someone who had not suffered depression. Would you be happy that maybe it gave her an insight into your depression, if she said so on FB? Or would you tell her to fuck off and come back when she had suffered it too?

[NomNomNom]

Crikey, this thread has really taken off! Sorry to get back to it so late.

I appreciate all the interesting points. Buffy and Dusk have expressed my contradictory feelings more articulately than I could.

I'm not saying everyone should think he's an arse. Quite the opposite: I feel uncomfortable with my own feelings as they aren't as inclusive a I'd like them to be.

It makes me feel better to have some back up of my random undefined impression though.

As for the WW1 poetry: the soldiers (and poets) didn't like civilians back home talking about the war because they had no idea what it was really like. Not quite the same as posting a video on Facebook, but make of that what you will.

[ArtetasSwollenAnkle]

Yes, because bias is unfair prejudice. In this case, him being a man is something he cannot affect, unlike his arse-ery. Unless a woman who did not (or could not) have children would come in for the same criticism, it is bias.

Is the question about critique of works such as war poetry a fair one? No-one has tried to address it. Should I just drop it?

[KerryKatonasKhakis]

This discussion reminds me a bit of how I felt when I heard 'Same Love' by Macklemore. It's an amazing song, but it's by a straight man rapping about the struggles of being gay and the prejudice faced.

Brilliant song and message, really well received too but the cynic in me finds it bit unfair that Macklemore is getting the glory and money for pointing out other people's struggles. I suppose it's similar with the OP's man; he's spreading a great message but he's also getting cookies for someone else's struggle (women's body image).

Overall, I agree with Art and others and think people should support other people's struggles in any public or private way but privileged groups should be aware of how they are coming across; if their sentiments are just for show or to win cookies (as Op's man might be) it's just lip service.