Did becoming a mum increase your interest in feminism?

[damselindedress]

Just that really, although I recognised the inequality and was very much in the women have to support each other camp, I hadn't explored in much depth feminism ...until I got pregnant.

All of a sudden my sex was of huge significance. What I went through at work and with my physical and mental health whilst pregnant was a huge eye opener. I have a daughter and being her mother has made me analyse how I was raised and the influences I absorbed from society about what it was to be female and I can see how damaging so much of that was to how I understood myself.

Same with the trans debate, I hadn't given it much thought until I recently I just thought sure people are who they say they are without examining the various point of view it in any detail. I've since explored it in more depth (inc on here) and my views have become much more nuanced.

With regard to the particular issue I've noticed it's my friends without children who think JKR is transphobic and haven't actually read her essay. In general they also don't seem to have explored feminism in much depth. Just an observation.

I'm wondering if that's a common experience and that for many motherhood is what brings these issues into focus?

Not in my case, as I was already a Spare Rib subscribing radfem in the 1970’s, when I was a teenager! I could hardly become more feminist!
But I think you make a valid point about the younger generation. Girls today might be deluded into thinking that equal pay, legal abortion, freedom from marital rape, the ability to sign their own credit agreements, etc, mean that feminism is no longer needed, the battle won.
It is when they encounter the issues of childcare, wife work and so on that reality hits them.

Yes, definitely. And, tbh, even now I think the impacts of motherhood on a woman's life are dismissed in feminism as obstacles to be got over so they can get back to the workplace as fast as possible. I have been a bit disillusioned as mothers caring for their children seems to be considered as letting the side down somehow.

No. I think my feminism influenced the sort of mum I was and the sort of man I chose to marry

Absolutely! I'm a mid 80s baby who grew up in a fairly liberal home and there was definitely a sense that equality had pretty much been won. Girls could do what boys could and have just as much fun.

Getting pregnant I realised that really wasn't the case and it has made me look back at my upbringing a see how many times I'd been made to feel I had to adhere to certain beauty standards, certain ways of behaving, being kind and nurturing, putting up with men speaking over me and belittling or sexualising me in the workplace and ultimately not doing what I wanted.

Im not married and when it came to choosing our child surnames I automatically thought she'd have her dads surname (we're engaged) and then I thought to myself why am I doing this? I looked around at my friends and realised how many had just taken their husbands names without any questions. In the end we went for double barrelling but it really got me thinking about how pervasive the patriarchy is.

@ISaySteadyOn

Yes, definitely. And, tbh, even now I think the impacts of motherhood on a woman's life are dismissed in feminism as obstacles to be got over so they can get back to the workplace as fast as possible. I have been a bit disillusioned as mothers caring for their children seems to be considered as letting the side down somehow.

Totally agree with ISaySteadyOn

@Whatsnewpussyhat yes totally. I've had this conversation with a few friends and it's the ones with kids who seem to get it and the ones without who dismiss it as transphobic. This is of course an observation, but one I can't help find really interesting given my own thought process on the subject.

I think it made me a different kind of feminist and a more rounded one. I've always felt a sense of injustice, I took some time to recognise it was feminism, but it was there from my teens. Motherhood made me much more acutely aware of how the female sex is treated in society and how issues around women's health/welfare/maternity rights/childcare provision disadvantage women.

I'm with you OP. I think having a daughter, starting to look at debates on Mumsnet and thinking more deeply about genuine gender inequalities has made me become much more pro women's rights.

Being a mum to a daughter, yes definitely. I already had the right ideas and was invested, chose politicslly aware friends, a decent DH and a job where I can feel I am "making a difference" as the cliche goes. But I got a bit complacent and stopped paying attention and in the meantime the world went mad.

Infertility made me more of a feminist. The way women and men are treated is so different.

@ISaySteadyOn @WhenSheWasBad

Yes totally this! The narrative is very much get back to work ASAP so you can do some proper work that actually matters to society. I found motherhood so hard and all consuming and just wanted to be with my baby most of that first year but I was constantly asked when I was going back to work and people said things like you don't want to be just a mum. I felt that somehow I was letting the side down. It made me see how the work of caring (typically women's is so looked down on by society).

But I also found that after that time I did want to go back to work but i needed flexibility that was really I hard to find and now I just feel guilty all the time trying to balance it all.

Yes absolutely. Sometimes I wonder if we find it easier to fight for others rather than ourselves.
When I worked for a tech company (pre kids) and a man joined our team two years after me with less experience but got paid more I was cross and frustrated. When I questioned it I was told that he negotiated better (I had also negotiated but obviously not well enough) so I felt like it was a failing on my part and left it at that.

Now I have my two daughters I would be laser focused on helping them fight inequalities and challenges. I am going all I can in this ‘gender’ situation because if it is the last thing I do I am not going to allow them to be treated badly and discriminated against because of their sex.

I’m not a mum yet (am pregnant).
I think I was brought up as a feminist - so I’ve never had a turning point.

However, I’ve been working from home throughout my pregnancy, so most of my colleagues don’t know I’m pregnant.. so I’m probably missing out on the usual societal expectations of pregnancy.

I’ve reflected previously on how people seem to think they have a right to pregnant women’s bodies (touching bump, commenting on size etc) - but haven’t actually experienced any of this.

I’m sure motherhood will bring many new experiences of sexism... but I’m kind of expecting that to happen.. so I don’t know if it will be a wake up call to increase my feminism.

Yes, very much so.

I had always assumed that sexism was an unfortunate thing that would just die out.

Embarrassingly I didn’t realise that women actually require additional rights and services to participate equally in society until I needed them myself.

Yes, absolutely.

I am on totally the same page as you OP.

Born in the 80s and growing up in the 90s I was fed a diet of 'women can be anything!' which actually meant 'women need to work hard to get a job and earn money but also be pretty, not too slutty/frigid, not too outspoken and basically deferential and also btw boys will be boys'. Looking back at 90s culture now, as much as I'm fond of it, it was deeply sexist and highly demanding of women, but at the same time we were essentially being told 'the war is over and women won, so what are you complaining about?'

Before I became a mother I thought I was a feminist but i had no clue really. I made a lot of poor choices and was pretty judgemental in the name of being liberated. I wouldn't have 'got' the trans debate at all - I would have shrugged my shoulders and thought everyone should just get along in peace and love blah blah.

I'm now a mother to a boy and a girl and it's only now that my eyes have been opened to how prevalent and damaging gender stereotypes (and the whole gender identity theory) are to both sexes.

100% - going through pregnancy, birth and motherhood put many issues in a new perspective for me.

Hell yes! It taught me that I am nothing more than a good to fuck, a walking incubator and a servant - and that’s how society sees me.,

Yep, born in the 80s, hands on dad who treated us all exactly the same, seeing Thatcher as the PM made me assume I could do any job. Went to good schools, single sex in high school, taught to achieve. Ended up in a very female dominated industry so now barriers at work, earned well. Met DH, life continued as normal & then had dc. Well that was an awakening! Without sounding patronising I think some of us live in a bubble (include myself in that) & have never really experienced sexism so becoming a mother makes you suddenly aware of the imbalance of power.

My dc going through puberty radicalised me, particularly thinking about their futures and how being a girl would make more of a difference than being a boy.

In other words I’m not a person, I’m a thing to be thrown in the scrap heap if my parts wear out/I malfunction.

And I’m fucking angry about it.

I have become more aware of feminism, definitely as a result of motherhood. I can now see more clearly how the patriarchy has us tucked away with children, a mostly boring and personally unfulfilling position which they have sold to us as the ultimate happiness state of women. We don't even dare admit it, sometimes even to ourselves.
Meanwhile, they have agency to go out into the world while we play the role of support system.

I had to give up my career after dc1. I tried to make it work but it was too much, the only option was 9 day fortnight with the same amount of work & no flexi time. It made me so angry as I had no idea that would happen, thankfully I fell into another career.

Agree with you 100% OP. I definitely thought of myself as a feminist but before becoming a mother it was just a frame of mind or set of ideas I agree with.

After beginning a mother I realised just how much work there still us to do and how fragile our rights are. And then I got active.