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.

It’s testament to the power of the gender roles that no-one has cottoned on to what the cost of nannies and cleaners and social care actually says about the contribution of all this unpaid work.

I keep making points like this to my social worker; ‘ok so from a services perspective you have risk assessed that you have to have trained people working in pairs, those people are paid and supported by health and safety legislation, training, qualifications and managers, the case is discussed amongst professionals with training so that decisions can be made re the best strategy etc etc but the majority of the time the approach re me as the mother is ‘just do it on your own’ and no consideration is given to whether I want to do it, whether the other dc want to live with it, whether I am able to do it or supported to do it or knowledgeable about it. Do you see why this is ridiculous? To assume that because I am the mother I just am the default and that’s that’

And then no job=black mark...

I don't see why the cost of a nanny is an elephant in the room? Surely at least one reason rich people hire a nanny is the convenience of having individual childcare who don't stop at 6pm sharp and can travel with you?

That aside, I am less interested in the childcare choices of the wealthy and more interested in why so much effort goes in to keeping the world of children and work so separate.

Some is due to quite reasonable legislation to protect young children from exploitation. But the sheer outrage and horror on some threads about women taking their babies in to work is more than practicality - it is enforcing a cultural norm that children should remain separated from the world of work. Who benefits from the strength of that prohibition?

It’s testament to the power of the gender roles that no-one has cottoned on to what the cost of nannies and cleaners and social care actually says about the contribution of all this unpaid work.

I think some get it. They just rely on women's love for their children / families to keep them doing it. They'd rather profits from society at large go into their offshore accounts rather than back to the next generation.

It’s an elephant because it is a replacement for the work of ‘mother’ and it has an economic value, therefore rendering the argument that mothers are useless eaters worthless.

Childcare of any kind has become a ‘cost of motherhood’ which is outrageous a. That it is another thing added to the list of things mothers are responsible for and b. That people don’t see that the cost of childcare is translatable to mothers providing the care themselves.

The point re wealth and nannies is that the better the service replaces a mother the higher the cost and so wealthy people don’t choose nurseries but nannies.

But it's only so for the comparatively wealthy though - I mean childcare workers other than nannies are notoriously poorly paid, as are care workers.

Crossposted there so didn't see your most recent post Offred

The argument is that there is a difference between your own children and someone else’s. That’s absolutely true but is placing the distinction in that place the right one?

I think it’s interesting to track the knock on effect that this philosophy has had on other things too. How closely something fits into the immediate financial return model seems to directly affect it’s considered value. Increasingly ‘for good’ or ‘for art’ or ‘for knowledge’ things are being devalued and it is all about ‘for money’.

And worse, it is very much about short term gain. Get in, get the money, get out and let others clean up the mess.

Taken to the limit, we have bitcoin. Completely utterly useless 'work' which achieves nothing but squandered energy and computer hardware somehow being deemed to create monetary value.

Indeed but look at what is happening in science, medicine, literature, media etc etc....

It’s this whole philosophy that directly caused the financial crisis; get in, get money, get out, someone else cleans up the mess.

Everything that can be must be monetised, everything that’s monetised must be shorn of as much social responsibility as possible...

So many interesting and thoughtful posts on this thread!

When I was not in paid employment I remember hating being asked the question, "What do you do?" by people who I knew expected the answer of a job title. At the time I was "doing" several things: caring for my small children; a voluntary role for a charity and caring responsibilities for an elderly relative. Each of those roles if done by a nanny, paid employee of the charity or paid carer, would have been a satisfactory answer to the, "What do you do?" question. I would then be neatly pigeonholed into my "job" slot in the world of work. However as I was undertaking each role unpaid as a mother, volunteer and female relative the work I did had no status or value.

Is it about valuing motherhood (a gendered role involving self-sacrifice, financial sacrifice and all the usual nurturing things) or is it about valuing caring for children? If it is the latter and if it is valuable then surely men (in het couples) should do 50% of that labour, including the unfashionable things involving bodily fluids, sleep deprivation and financial sacrifice)? What I am getting at is that motherhood is largely a gendered social construction. Do we want to value it or say that men should also do the work involved?

Emily - when asked what I do I cheerfully say Nothing! with a relaxed smile. It’s so far from the truth it’s insane but I find the question so intrusive.

YetAnotherSpartacus - I disagree that motherhood is a gendered social construct. I revel in the mucky biology of it!

I revel in the mucky biology of it

Oh yeah - the gestating, birthing and feeding - but most posts here have, in chronological terms, moved beyond that to more social roles (most involve sacrifice). Why should they be limited to femininity?

Why should they be limited to femininity

More to the point - why shouldn't men do them equally with women?

Men should be involved with their children, you cant be a good role model from a distance. No one would expect 'mothering' to be hands off.

But in social terms why should 'mothering' be different from 'fathering'?

Everything that can be must be monetised, everything that’s monetised must be shorn of as much social responsibility as possible

Yes. Childcare = GDP value and therefore valorised. Motherhood = social value and therefore devalued.

My DH is an excellent father and a lot of the time our roles are technically speaking interchangeable except that we have very different skill sets. Some might qualify the differences as «gendered» but, in our case, they are deeply biological.

They do less than the job of a mother (only housework related to the children), but approximate what a mother would do (compared to a nursery)

There is no intrinsic 'job of a mother'. The work is about raising children. There is nothing beyond gestating, birthing and breastfeeding (if one chooses) that dictates that this is women's work.