Matricentric feminism - the need for feminism to recognise the experience of mothers

[EmilyDickinson]

mommuseum.org/aint-i-a-feminist-matricentric-feminism-feminist-mamas-and-why-mothers-need-a-feminist-movementtheory-of-their-own/

There's an interesting article in the Guardian today (I'll link in a minute) that refers to this more detailed article.

My daughter who is 16 has told me she will not have children because she is aware doing so will prevent her achieving what she wants.

I am secretly quite pleased because things are not changing fast enough for her to be able to rely on an understanding workplace or a partner who will support her fully.

I would rather she lives a life that is full rather than one that is full of regret. Sadly, due to circumstance, having children was for me, wonderful but tinged with regret and that's not a nice way to feel.

As a side note I also have some concerns re childcare as IME one need a small child has is for physical affection. Because of safeguarding it is not really possible for childcare to really meet this need.

Re puberty - obviously it’s not necessary that it is even a parent at all but it’s the sharing of sex that children often feel is important.

I just remember my DTS being outraged that his preschool key workers wouldn’t kiss his knee better when he fell off the slide!

A feminism that avoids properly engaging with family motherhood etc is not a great feminism given that

most women in the world have babies
for many women in the world it is not an entierely free choice (social / family pressure) or indeed not a choice at all (forced marriage, lack of access to birth control abortion etc)
women are the default carer of children in all soceities in the world (i am sure) and there are reasons for this. children are going to be had, and they need looking after. trying to delink as well also leads to things like surrogacy as the same as any other form of paid work which is not a helpful stance for women
our oppression is based on being memebrs of the sex that usually has the capability to bear children - we need to address the oppression, not say women shouldn't have children, women who have children are anti feminist etc. Women are not going to stop having babies any time soon....

There is also the fact that men want babies and they want the babies healthy and cared for (usually) just quite a lot of them feel like really it's not their responsibility. That is an issue that feminism has been going on about for years.

I am a member of a few online feminist groups and you do get women occasionally who seem to really hate mothers.
Oh that reminds me, so an example might be Julie Bindel who is good on prostitution obviously but wrote a really nasty article about mothers, and also I was at a talk with her once where a girl maybe 12 got taken out by her mum (content was very upsetting I'm sure her mum hadn't realised) anyway the expression on JBs face really shocked me, she looked really pleased.

So - no women are great on all fronts. There is a strong strand of feminism which is anti mother which to me seems utterly ridiculous. And anti children too which is just, well, nasty.

I’m sorry but this is where there needs to be a bridging between MRA’s like myself and feminists. There needs to be a cross gendered advocacy and activist group who protitize children and those who primarily care for them. Irrespective of wether it’s mothers or fathers.

Wider society often writes off both feminists and MRA’s as a bit fringe and extreme a lot of the time. I accept the antics fathers 4 justice don’t help my case, as if dressing up like batman when trying to advocate for something important makes you look anything other than ridiculous....

Brilliant posts as usual, Offred. Would type more but ironically am breastfeeding at the moment, so...

Feminists have fought for things that benefit children though and continue to do so

Drawing attention to child poverty, the disproportionate impact of austerity measures on children due to the fact that so many are teh responsibility of a woman and women were clobbered.
Drawing attention to the impact of DV on children
Refuges for women and children escaping DV
Loads of work life "balance" stuff which is backfiring on us a bit initially but hopefully we are turning a corner where men start taking advantage of this stuff (although I think for women it is a must, for men it is opt in - plenty of men at my work stay late to avoid bath / bedtime - because they can - so the men who take advantage of the longer leaves and flexi stuff will be the sort of man who wants to, I imagine many will still happily leave it all to the woman ot pick up and of course we do)

Thing is the MRA movement often comes off as immature and whiny. Like the man who did FFJ, I think it was him, he said he was a violent alcoholic and if he had been his partner he wouldn't have let him see the kids either. And yet, he did FFJ. They often seem to care more about the children as property piece, or as a mechanism to continue abuse of their ex, than anything else.

Anyway I doubt the 2 sides will meet. Although a lot of the ambitions of feminism would help men as well.

It’s not really the feminists who are the problem there though is it.... It’s the culture of masculinity that sees children as property and has created F4J. MRAs frequently attach the blame to feminism and women.

Feminists have been wanting men to actually be involved parents for an age, and you are right that this is where there may sometimes be an overlap, however there is no overlap when men view access to children as ‘father’s rights’ and the courts awarding primary care to the mother because that is how the parents arranged childcare prior to the split as ‘sexist family courts’. That’s simply the same problem of entitlement thinly veiled with ‘children’s rights’ language.

I do acknowledge however that it is difficult for men to overcome the socialisation to ‘be the provider’ when they become fathers and that it is difficult to overcome structural barriers to involvement in a child’s life due to the way the economy is.

However, this is simply not the case for most of the MRA movement, their narrative is that nasty women are being facilitated to snatch their children by the ‘sexist family courts’ even if prior to the split they were uninvolved as a result of deliberate choices. For those men it is outrage that women might care for children (their property) without their supervision. It is not concern about child development.

And they aren't comparable at all.

Feminism is a long standing gloabl movement that seeks to free women and girls globally from oppression, and while som like to say all is well in the UK, I don't think many can look around the world and say feminism has no work, with a straight face.

MRA is a recent movement that has come about as a reaction to some of the gains that feminism has made, and wants to reverse them. It's men reacting to a tiny loss of power.

For example, MRA is very big in India. Now India is a massive place and different in all sorts of areas but still, because it is >>over there, people can sometimes see the issues of women and girls more easily than when they are right under their noses. MRAs in India say, as they do all over the world, that men are under attack, that women's rights have "gone too far", that men don't know what to do with themselves any more.... None of this is resaonable. Not there, not here.

And the constant barrage of shit from men (namalt but way too many) in response to stuff like #metoo, shows that really, they don't give a fuck, they have no understanding of the things that women and girls are expected to put up with, and they dont' want to.

So many men took #metoo and made it all about them, and "oh I can't even talk to a woman any more" this is genuinely pathetic.

Men have never really done anything for us, to be honest. We have had to fight tooth and nail for everything, and there is constant constant pushback.

Offred
As a side note I also have some concerns re childcare as IME one need a small child has is for physical affection. Because of safeguarding it is not really possible for childcare to really meet this need.

Well I don't know.

I used to sleep next to my kids and extensively breastfeed all night repeatedly, as happens if you exclusively breastfeed. I talked with and reacted to my babies/infants.

They did go to the childminders nearby when i worked. The childminder was affectionate to an appropriate degree and looked after all my 4 kids over the years. I trusted her.

Some people are on their phones all day. What I'm saying is that you would know if your kids were getting enough affection. And act accordingly.

Yy

Yes, I kind of want to, just out of childishness, pop up on every issue not subject to #NAMALT saying #NAMALT.... suicide, diseases, accidents at work, life expectancy....

Yes terf I meant the feminists who propose all babies go to big state nurseries for long hours virtually as soon as they are born. I shouldn’t have said all childcare as nannies, au pairs and childminders don’t really suffer from this problem to the same degree.

It’s my hope to reform the discussion within the MRA movement beyond simple whining. As I appreciate that’s where a lot of it is at presently. I’d also accept Offred’s point that if men want to be involved with their children before relationship breakdown that will reflect better for us when things get to the courts.

However just as I accept wholeheartedly that there are many men who use their children as pawns to control the mother their are also plenty of women who work to alienate children from their fathers.

I would agree both Feminists and MRA’s are going to be sitting down any time soon to hash it out respectfully, but that also doesn’t mean we aren’t going to have to sooner or later.

Aren’t going to be sitting down that should read.

It would be infinitely better for MRAs to ally with feminism. It’s not necessary for MRA to even really exist re DC.

Although feminism is not directly concerned with fighting for men’s rights the actual result of feminism would be that men are no longer structurally assumed to be surplus to requirements re DC.

Unfortunately, the very act of framing these issues as ‘men’s rights’ means every single man involved in it is actively demonstrating the very same pathological entitlement that feminism is trying to erase.

I think men who choose MRA rather than allying with feminism are fighting for something different from the very start - perpetuation of inequality.

MRA want to keep higher status for men AND have control over children without equal responsibility. That’s the purpose of being MRA rather than allying with feminism because that’s the material difference between them. One wants to end inequality, the other wants to increase men’s privileged status into the arena of the family (as it used to be).

If you don’t believe personally that’s the best outcome then I suggest you have perhaps been negatively affected by smear campaigns about what feminism is and that you’d be much better off allying with feminism than MRA. F4J absolutely IS representative of what MRA is re DC.

Women are also subject to stereotypes as girls, sexual harassment from preteens, expected to care for elderly relatives, to be quiet and unassuming and if not motherly/caring/quiet are condemned in a way that men would never be.
And of course they have medical conditions that are ignored that are to do with their biology. And the differential research into general medical conditions that means women are less well treated for the same condition. Infertility affects women more and not all pregnancies lead to children so not everyone who's affected by pregnancy or its complications is a mother.
I certainly noticed sexism more when I had children but it was partly the effect on them. It didn't start then.

I have a problem with this opening paragraph.
Over the last forty years, as feminist theory and women’s studies have grown and developed as a scholarly field, they have incorporated various and diverse theoretical models to represent the specific perspectives/concerns of particular groups of women; global feminism, queer feminism, third wave feminism and womanism. In contrast, I will argue that women’s studies has not likewise recognized or embraced a feminism developed from the specific needs/concerns of mothers, what I have termed matricentric feminism. The paper will consider possible reasons for the exclusion of matricentric feminism in feminist theory and why this school of feminism must be accorded the same legitimacy and autonomy as other feminist theoretical models in the discipline of women’s studies.

It seems an odd thing to address since there are almost no women's studies in academia any more. Still, I would like to hear more about the theoretical frame for pro porn and prostitution that is the basis for third wave or what is currently called liberal feminism. While I have heard of queer theory I had no idea that there was a theory of queer feminism. In fact I had thought that Feminists rejected queer theory.
They are calling gender studies women's studies.
Punching down in academia is particularly unsavory.

One common piece of rhetoric that I see from feminists is how can men possibly comprehend the lived experience of women? This is something I can see the wisdom of, but that being true the reverse must also follow that a woman cannot comprehend the totality of a man’s lived experience. Therefore that being the case how can feminism possibly represent men’s interests?

I agree MRA is a new movement and we pratfall and make fools of ourselves more often than not BUT this will change as cooler heads prevail and present our case more robustly. I think we could learn a lot from feminism in that regard.

My hope is eventually feminism and MRA’s can actually become sister/brother movements. I concede there is a long way to go at my end.

Feminism doesn’t try to represent men’s interests.

However, re this particular problem of uninvolved fathers and child development would be resolved much more satisfactorily for everyone by feminism that MRA.

The problem is that MRA is centred on seeking regaining of privilege.

Feminism is centred on gaining equality. With feminism men lose privilege but gain in areas where the maintaining of the privilege has a cost - like re DC.

Women, of course have no concept of the lived experience of being a man.

Actually having lived experience isn’t really very relevant to analysing power structures though.

*I would like to see feminism acknowledge that really, that actually beyond the women’s rights where motherhood is concerned, children’s rights and development are important and can’t be simply ignored when we look to improve the rights and experiences of mothers.

Unless we can deal with that then motherhood will remain a trap.*

Offred pretty much agree with all you write! YES!

I've really felt that the way things are with society and work hugely disadvantage a woman since I became a mother. But also, I know that DH sometimes resents the time I get to spend with the DC. I think a structure which allowed both of us to go part time and together care for DC would be equality (we earned the same pretty much when DC1 came along), but most workplaces won't countenance this and for us, there was no shared leave with DC1. Once you've given up work the first time, and the other person's progression and pay outstrips yours, it's really hard to financially change roles (unless you're super rich).

One thing I think often gets missed about breastfeeding too is that it is good for the mother's health - and reduces the risk of several very unsavoury diseases. I breastfeed because it's easy, cheap, good for baby but also good for me - in particular reducing the risk of some diseases I am particularly at risk of. This always, somehow, gets overlooked by healthcare professionals / the accommodations work must make for bf. As if what's good for the mother doesn't actually matter.

I think both feminism and MRAs can tend towards seeking supremacy at their extremes. Years ago when the Canadian government was seeking to consult on reforms to the family law system, the largest
Feminist organisation in the country point blank refused to engage if Fathers rights groups were invited to the consultation. I struggle to see how fatherhood is going to be advocated for robustly under such conditions.

I’ll admit right now my side is blighted by male supremacists, rape apologists and a number of unsavoury characters, all of whom I’m prepared to argue with, call out and argue with in fair and open debate, but currently they are the only show in town re: promoting fatherhood. I again agree we don’t go about it in the right way and our arguments are often flawed, but that’s what I’m left with.

I’m a single father myself and once my dc is old enough I’ll be getting into advocating my position possibly full time, both within the men’s rights movement itself and in wider society.

I have found sometimes the feminist drive for equity entirely dissipates when I make a request for something equitable. Not from all feminists mind but often the majority of you.