Moments of power in women's lives...

[Martorana]

I am running a serious risk of being deleted for "thread about a thread" but I have been thinking a lot about a situation unfolding elsewhere on this site and I would love other's opinions from a feminist perspective. Basically, the position being held by the vast majority is that the mother should have absolute control over what happens/who holds/sees/ does anything with a new baby for a considerable period post birth. A couple of people even suggest that the father should have no say in any of this for the first 12 weeks. That there is no such thing as unreasonable behaviour in a pregnant/ post partum woman.

This has made me think about the points of power in women's lives. 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. In practically all other circumstances, they are expected to appease, to conciliate.

Obviously it's a good thing for women to have power whenever they can- but the complicating factor of this is that it's a power based on hormones and instinct. "They can't help feeling like that- it's the hormones. Let's appease her, she'll be better soon"

A bit like the characterization of any woman who is angry and not conciliatory as pre menstrual.

I am thinking as I write- does any of this make sense? Does anyone have any thoughts?

[squishysquirmy]

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!!

[squishysquirmy]

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!)

[SabrinaMulhollandJjones]

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'.

[NiceTabard]

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.

[SabrinaMulhollandJjones]

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?

[SabrinaMulhollandJjones]

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

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

[NiceTabard]

Well that's a Nope so far

[NiceTabard]

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

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

[NiceTabard]

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

[thecatfromjapan]

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.

[thecatfromjapan]

Having said all of that, Martorana, I think it is a really interesting question. I wonder if my views are heavily coloured by my experience of becoming a mother in a patriarchal society? And if you have touched on the subjugated power of motherhood? - what it could and might be?

I'm wondering if Adrienne Rich wrote about this (mainly because I can't imagine I've thought this on my own) - arguing that much of patriarchy spends its power subjugating the power that is within motherhood?

[SabrinaMulhollandJjones]

I think that a lot of men think women have power in motherhood. It's F4J's bread and butter.

[thecatfromjapan]

Sabrina I think that is very true.

I was just thinking a bit more about this, and wanted to add that another reason I'm a bit ... careful about endorsing this idea of "the moment of power in motherhood" is that I remember attending a "Parents and Anarchism" workshop many years ago. The workshop was brought to an inglorious end by a man announcing that mothers could never be anarchists, or progressives even, because the power they had over children made them fascists.

Obviously, there is so much wrong with that, it's hard to know where to start.

But I think there are a fair number of men who think like that. It's a very one-dimensional view of power.

It is also so much at odds with many women's actual experiences of becoming mothers.

[SabrinaMulhollandJjones]

It's the one they can't do. It's the one area they feel they don't have any power over - although maternity services are still largely dictated by 'men's' views of things. As is everything. Some may think childbearing is power - but it's not called 'labour' for nothing, is it?

[NiceTabard]

ugh

labour - work - and needs to be pain, if you're doing it properly. So much religious & cultural awfulness around that. sex too, obv. nasty.

What I know is that late pregnancy, birth and having young children knackered my mental health. It was the least "empowering" thing I have done. In that it ruined me, psychologically. 1 in 10 have PND etc, many don't present to later etc so aren't in stats.

What does "empowering" even mean? Are men ever exhorted to experience "empowerment"???

[SabrinaMulhollandJjones]

Thinking about this seriously now. I think the only 'power' a woman has, in a patriarchal society has, is withholding sex. Which is a very, very sad indictment. And is why patriarchal society is bad for women.

[SabrinaMulhollandJjones]

*and bad for men.

[SabrinaMulhollandJjones]

Btw - I'm assuming that everyone on the FWR section knows why I say this - madonna/whore complex, women called sluts if they do, frigid if they don't, women as the gatekeepers of sex, and so on. It's all so bloody dull, hypocrtitcal and v bad if you're a woman.

[georgesdino]

I have never been asked those questions and I user to work in an admin role in a career where every woman was outnumbered by 9 men. I am not a person who makes coffee for people I dont drink hot drinks so they do it themselves.

[georgesdino]

What is it that people dont think a man cant do that a woman cant do with a baby. You see a lot of woman as old as in their 30s on here that have babies and have got to that age not knowing what they are doing, whereas I know young men who take to it like a duck to water as they are around it when younger. I honestly believe there is no difference between men and women doing it, just some women and men are really good at it, some men and women are no good at it, and then some in between.

[georgesdino]

Its cause women dont give men a chance. Dh is doing my entire maternity and Im back at 2 weeks. I am hoping to go in the very next day if baby is born before academic year. With dc1 I was back in 10 days and dh and I worked round each other, and I did full maternity of 7 mths for dc2. Doesnt matter how you do it to me.

[Martorana]

I spent a long time thinking about this before I started the thread- largely because I found it very difficult to find the language i needed. Yes, "power" is wrong. So is "control". I suppose I was thinking about times in women's lives when, if they do "put their foot down" it's considered OK. But only really because it's instinct, or hormones- as I said "normal service will be resumed shortly". I think the "bridezilla" analogy is quite a good one. Men smile indulgently and let the little woman have her way. Women pile in- almost encouraging the woman to make the most of the window of opportunity, subliminally aware that there aren't many such windows in many women's lives.

[kalidasa]

Goodness thecatfromjapan how precisely well put! I once tried to explain to DH about how invisible I felt as a mother with a very small baby, as if my personal, social, political and professional identity had just been wiped out all at once, but he didn't really get it. He could see that I found it hard not being at work, and being quite isolated on maternity leave etc but he didn't understand at all about the much more profound change in how people even look/don't look at you, and what they are seeing when they do. I think you are spot on about the 'shadow' personhood too.

I hope you write about this somewhere else as well? Do you have a blog? Have you written a book?! Please pm if so!

[georgesdino]

If you felt like that kalidasa then if you plan more children are you transferring all your maternity to your dh? We are going to do that in a couple of years for baby no 4 as from April 2015 a woman doesnt have to do it and you can arrange things as you like.