Radical feminism and sperm donation

[klinghoffer]

Hello everyone!
I've namechanged, but been on here a while. I'm not a mum, but I am a woman who feels I'm now ready for children.
I've had awful experiences with men in relationships (not just romantic relationship, but family relations and friendships). I won't go into detail here, but it's really made me not want to have a relationship with another man again.
I want to have a baby, and for the past 3 years I've been thinking sperm donation would be my best option.
I'm also a radical feminist, but I'm wondering if this is the best way to go? I'd have to take a lot of time off of work, and financially I wouldn't be as stable as if I were to have a partner etc., but I would have support from my parents and my sister.
Are there any radical feminists who could give me some pointers as to whether they think I'm doing right by myself and my future child by not having a man involved?
Thanks in advance!

[DidoLamenting]

@klinghoffer

You're all giving me lots to consider, thank you!

If I went down the known donor route, would he have parental rights?

If you are in the UK he will have parental responsibility if he is named on the birth certificate or if he applies to a court for it.

He has financial responsibility regardless of whether he has parental responsibility.

[Kimchii]

Saying a man has financial responsibility is all well and good until you're dealing with the csa and a man determined to dodge his responsibility.
Sperm doner or not.
That is a feminist issue.

[DidoLamenting]

It's pretty irrelevant here however. The OP is clear she doesn't want a father in her child's life so presumably won't be looking for financial support.

[Kimchii]

Op mentions the lack of financial support in her op.
My advice would be dont worry about it, when most seperated fathers, dont pay any or enough child maintenance.
Go to gingerbread for the stats.
They are dire.
It is a scandal and a feminist issue in this country how men, including men who were married to the mother of the children they no longer want to support can walk away with minimal to no hassle from the csa or society at large.
Its a disgrace.

[DidoLamenting]

The OP said she would not be as financially stable if she had a child.

The points you are making are irrelevant to this thread. The OP doesn't want a father to be part of her child's life. If she uses a known donor rather than an anonymous donor legally the father has financial responsibility. She does not have to accept financial support and I assume that as she does not want the father around she wouldn't look for it.

There can't be many men who would agree to father a child on the understanding they will not be allowed any involvement with the child other than paying child support.

[Kimchii]

"My feeling is that by raising a child on my own, I'm exposing myself and my child to perhaps not being as financially stable as if I were to have a partner to help out."
My point is any woman could end up in this situation if she has a baby in a relationship with a man she knows, if that relationship subsequently breaks down and the man doesn't want to live up to his financial responsibility as most dont.
Thats not a reason to use a donor or not.
More important is how important is it to a child to know their father or at least who that man is.
Personally I think it is important.
My dad died when I was young but hes still my dad. Ive only got a few memories of him but I know him and nobody else could ever be my dad.
My sons dad is not the best father in the world, like i said his financial contribution has been minimal.
I would rather my son have an imperfect dad than a big question mark where half his heritage should be.

[Goosefoot]

@Blezz

In a perfect radical feminist world, a child would be raised in a commune, alongside other children, with each adult person raising the child contributing something different to its emotional, physical and intellectual needs. Its parentage would be meaningless - it would be the group of people caring for the child who would help shape the child's future.

I know Germaine Greer carried on about having children raised in an Italian farmhouse in The Female Eunuch. Her kids would live with a "local family" who would "work the house and garden". Germaine and her friends would pop in and out as suited them, and it would be so much better than the nuclear family with a stressed, overworked mother. I mean, who wouldn't rather have household staff in Italy or anywhere? But it's not exactly a universal solution.

Then there was Shulamith Firestone. I haven't actually read her books but I know she was all about separating women from the burdens of pregnancy and motherhood again, not a mother. Nor were Andrea Dworkin, Catherine MacKinnon or Valerie Solanos. Perhaps they were childless on principle, which makes sense. It also means they were inexperienced about the realities of raising children. Alice Walker had a daughter, but I don't think she has ever advocated for parentless communes. Nor did Adrienne Rich.

I like to think of myself as a radical feminist, but the commune idea is terrible. A recipe for neglect and abuse of children. Luckily, parents don't do that anyway. But that's the other weakness of the idea, it does not take into account the way people actually behave. Although making sure that all mothers have access to social and community support would be an obviously good thing.

Yeah. This sort of thing has been tried and there are a lot of issues with it. It's not the same thing as a family within an extended family and close community.

Even the one place where it seems to have worked fairly well, on kibbutzes, it's telling that the generation of children brought up that way very much did not want to do the same with their own kids.

Alice Walker's daughter, IIRC, didn't have a very positive relationship with her mother and she very much saw it as connected to her mother's desire to be free from the constraints of mothering.

[DidoLamenting]

@Kimchii

"My feeling is that by raising a child on my own, I'm exposing myself and my child to perhaps not being as financially stable as if I were to have a partner to help out."
My point is any woman could end up in this situation if she has a baby in a relationship with a man she knows, if that relationship subsequently breaks down and the man doesn't want to live up to his financial responsibility as most dont.
Thats not a reason to use a donor or not.
More important is how important is it to a child to know their father or at least who that man is.
Personally I think it is important.
My dad died when I was young but hes still my dad. Ive only got a few memories of him but I know him and nobody else could ever be my dad.
My sons dad is not the best father in the world, like i said his financial contribution has been minimal.
I would rather my son have an imperfect dad than a big question mark where half his heritage should be.

I'm really not sure what point you are making. I don't disagree with what you are saying but it's irrelevant to this thread.

The OP asked what the implications of using a known donor were- the implications are he potentially can acquire parental rights and will be financially responsible. That's just a neutral statement of the law- not a justification for picking a known donor.

[DidoLamenting]

Alice Walker's daughter, IIRC, didn't have a very positive relationship with her mother and she very much saw it as connected to her mother's desire to be free from the constraints of mothering

Well Alice Walker has now been shown to be bonkers and very unpleasant with it.

[FourPlasticRings]

I think the financial aspects would be of concern to me, particularly in COVID land. How financially unstable are we talking? If you gave up work, how would you support yourself and the kid?

[BovaryX]

OP,
Have you thought about the implications of your decision for the child? You are planning to have a baby with zero support from its father and you acknowledge that this will cause serious financial repercussions for you. I don't understand what 'radical feminism' has to do with your decision and to be honest, I think it is irrelevant. You should be considering the impact on the child, not on 'radical feminism.'

[HappyHedgehog247]

Hi! I ended up a single mother with my first child and then tried to conceive with a known donor who lived abroad. We talked through in advance that he would not be on birth cert but that the child would know about him and family history, could have some virtual and poss face to face contact if older. I’m just sharing that as an example of how it can be. Single parenthood is expensive and I went part-time and moved to be near support network but there is also a lot of choice involved and not the requirement to domestically do over my fair share etc. I love being a mum but it does change lots of things so worth thinking through how you and child would go about loving your lives together. It is all very do-able should you want to do it.

[Cwenthryth]

OP, seeing as your dilemma seems to be whether becoming a single mother via sperm donor is compatible or not with your understanding of radical feminist belief, and your wish to steer away from ‘choice feminism’, I’d bring it back to this that you said:
I think choice feminism is thinking absolutely every choice a woman makes is empowering etc., when often times the repercussions of her choices affect women who are perhaps lower down the class structure.
You’re concerned that your decision to use a sperm donor could be detrimental to women less privileged than you, so unpack that, how would it/could it be detrimental?

I think the point made about you decide - your belief is not saying ‘anything you do is feminist’, more that the only person who has to rationalise and accept whatever decision you make is you - feminism, even radical feminism isn’t the Borg, there’s no one set of rules, and no feminism police that are going to cast you out based on what decision you make on this.

Personally I think most of the issues are around the welfare of a child being deliberately created with only one parent, and that’s not really an issue that feminism can directly answer IMO. Sperm donation is in no way analogous to surrogacy or even egg donation so there is no double standard in having different level of acceptance to each process.

[LoeliaPonsonby]

I appreciate this is diverging from the OP but the idea of bringing children up in a commune is horrific, to my mind, and deeply anti feminist as it trivialises the maternal-child bond. That’s the most important bond there is, and expecting that we can outsource it to others is detrimental to both the mother and the child.

Absolutely mothers and children need a rock-solid community behind them. That can look very different, but the idea that a mother is just another person who can be rotated in and out with any other member of the community is not a good one.

[LoeliaPonsonby]

Sorry - My post wasn’t clear. I don’t necessarily disagree with communes, just an environment that doesn’t recognise and support the importance of the maternal bond.

[TyroBurningDownTheCloset]

I think from a radfem perspective you're good to go, if the finances are doable.

The bit I'd be putting a lot of thought into relates to the idea of community parenting discussed upthread. Have you got decent and caring people of both sexes around you, whose interactions with you your child will be able to learn from? With no father on the scene there's no risk of your child learning shitty m/f interpersonal relations from her or his parents, but equally there's not the possibility of them learning what healthy interactions look like. So I'd be looking at whether I was well-placed to mitigate the lack of relationship models there.

[StillNotAGirl]

@DidoLamenting

How are you going to cope if your baby is a boy?

I think this question is worth repeating. A child could be male. You say you have had awful relationships with males in family as well as romantically. How would you cope with a son?

Baby boys grow into small boys, who grow into hormonal teenagers, who grow into men. Parenting a adult seems very remote when you're pre conception but it comes at you quicker than you can imagine.

Boys have other male influences in their lives from school and clubs even if no family relationships. Some of those relationships may introduce them to toxic aspects of masculinity. As the sole parent you will need to deal with that and you may not know what online influences there are until you realise they have views that are anti feminist.

And I say this as a feminist who has a close, honest and loving relationship with my adult son. I wouldn't change him for anything but feminist parenting of young men brings different challenges.

[DidoLamenting]

Some of those relationships may introduce them to toxic aspects of masculinity

To be honest I was thinking of toxic feminist views of men - that a man has no purpose other than as a provider of sperm. That's basically the OP's position. How does she explain that to a son?

[Bunnymumy]

I've always thought one if the key foundations of radical feminism is that woman cannot be truly free from oppression because of pregnancy and childbirth. But maybe that was firestones contribution.

I think going it alone is percectly a acceptable. But I dont see it as necessarily feminist. Societal, physical and financial constraints in a patriarchal society mean that women are always putting themselves at risk of constraint and oppression by having children.

[BitOfFun]

Apart from anything else, I think it sounds like you need to accrue a lot more savings: as women, pension poverty and caring responsibilities impact hugely on us economically as it is, so going into the whole enterprise from a position of underfunding seems very unwise to me. You certainly shouldn't be viewing slipping out of the labour force permanently as a sensible or viable option for the future.

[klinghoffer]

@Bunnymumy

I've always thought one if the key foundations of radical feminism is that woman cannot be truly free from oppression because of pregnancy and childbirth. But maybe that was firestones contribution.

I think going it alone is percectly a acceptable. But I dont see it as necessarily feminist. Societal, physical and financial constraints in a patriarchal society mean that women are always putting themselves at risk of constraint and oppression by having children.

This is important to remember, and is part of the reason I do still have doubts about doing this.

[klinghoffer]

@BitOfFun

Apart from anything else, I think it sounds like you need to accrue a lot more savings: as women, pension poverty and caring responsibilities impact hugely on us economically as it is, so going into the whole enterprise from a position of underfunding seems very unwise to me. You certainly shouldn't be viewing slipping out of the labour force permanently as a sensible or viable option for the future.

Financially I am doing well, and I am saving. I would not give up my job once I have a child. I am planning on doing this when I'm 32, and I have 5 more years of saving before then. I want to be financially secure before I do this, but then I do panic that without financial support from another parent I would be putting myself and my child in some risk. There's a lot to consider, and that's part of the reason I started this thread. Thanks for the response. Making a list of all other things I need to think about that I may have missed!

[klinghoffer]

@TyroBurningDownTheCloset

I think from a radfem perspective you're good to go, if the finances are doable.

The bit I'd be putting a lot of thought into relates to the idea of community parenting discussed upthread. Have you got decent and caring people of both sexes around you, whose interactions with you your child will be able to learn from? With no father on the scene there's no risk of your child learning shitty m/f interpersonal relations from her or his parents, but equally there's not the possibility of them learning what healthy interactions look like. So I'd be looking at whether I was well-placed to mitigate the lack of relationship models there.

I do! I won't go into full detail here about my past experiences - I name changed for this reason, but I do have a better relationship with the men still in my life because of radical feminism. Thanks for your response!

[klinghoffer]

@BovaryX

OP,
Have you thought about the implications of your decision for the child? You are planning to have a baby with zero support from its father and you acknowledge that this will cause serious financial repercussions for you. I don't understand what 'radical feminism' has to do with your decision and to be honest, I think it is irrelevant. You should be considering the impact on the child, not on 'radical feminism.'

Financially we would be okay, but I do believe all families with two parents working are financially better off.
I think my child wouldn't lost any other benefit from not having a father in their life.
I'm not planning on doing this for a few more years, but I'm ready for it when the time comes. I want to make sure I have everything secured before I do.
I don't feel my future child would miss out on anything by not having their father in their life, truthfully.
Thanks for your response!

[KormaKormaChameleon]

I don't feel my future child would miss out on anything by not having their father in their life, truthfully

This actually worries me a bit to read. I think it's one position to consider what a child will miss out on my not having a father in their lives but decide on balance this isn't vital/persuasive enough of an arguement to prevent you conceiving via sperm donor or that you can create circumstances that go a long way to ameliorate that.
But to dismiss that your child wouldn't miss out an anything shows a bit of a lack of understanding and naivety I think.

I think it's commendable to put so much thought in before having children - ideally most people would soul search and plan and consider the child's welfare as much. I don't agree it's great to hang the decision on 'what would a radical feminist do' though and like I said, it jarrs me a bit to read you think your child would miss nothing by not having a father.