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?

I’ve always been a feminist I’m also infertile so no motherhood here. What has radicalised me has been TRA weaponising infertile women vis

‘Aha! You make it all about reproductive issues but what about infertile women eh?? They’re just like trans women because they haven’t given birth are you saying they’re not real women eh?”

That a male would weaponise my pain & the pain of women like me fucks me off more than I can say!!

Yes because it brought me together with other women and I ended up reading things like “The politics of breastfeeding”. Further to that, giving birth gave me something as a person that I didn’t have before. Kind of a “Ive done this, it was bloody difficult and now none of that petty nonsense matters”

OK, I just looked up the history and Ms. and see that it never actually changed to Working Woman. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms._(magazine)
But this sentence explains what happened: For a period, the magazine was published by MacDonald Communications Corp., which also published Working Woman and Working Mother magazines. Known since its inception for unique feminist analysis of current events, its 1991 change to an ad-free format also made it known for exposing the control that many advertisers assert over content in women's magazines.

It seems that for some unknown reason they just took it into their heads to send me Working Woman instead of Ms (which I had enjoyed). I was a SAHM at the time and not the least interested in American feminists in high heels and pencil skirts breaking down the glass ceiling, which was what WW was all about.

Yes. And it makes me feel more confident in speaking plainly, questioning things and saying what I see. I don't want my daughter to absorb the current message of "#bekind by rolling over for whoever shouts the loudest, apologise for daring to speak, and just agree that 2+2=5 like a nice girl because you couldn't possibly understand". She and I both have good brains and good hearts, and should not accept gaslighting.

My mother, an intelligent woman, has no filter and says what she thinks - and I haven't always agreed with everything she says (and nor would you). These days, I simply prize and respect the fact that she speaks her truth and doesn't contort her thought processes to please others, or waste her energies second-guessing. That example will long outlast any disagreements on particular topics.

Yes, absolutely it did. An aspect I think about a lot is the impact of pregnancy / birth hormones and lack of sleep at work in the early days of going back to work post-baby - it made me less inclined to stand for bullshit, and ultimately that was held against me. There was zero consideration of the massive life change and impact on my mind and body. I'm a big fan of shared parental leave as a means to a more equal parenting model, but one thing it doesn't do is facilitate recognition of that impact on women of having a baby.

I also recently read my employer's policy on time off for fertility treatment. It makes the point early on that infertility applies to both men and women, but then what it fails to do is point out that most of the treatment - regardless of who has the fertility issue - applies to the woman only. So they've set up the policy as applying equally to women and men "you could use your holiday to cover appointments etc" but there is zero recognition that it will largely affect only women - so it's mostly women who will have to run about using their leave and begging to start work an hour later so they can make an appointment.

I've told a story on here before about a talk I attended at work from a Stonewall employee, who told us all that gender is the one babies are assigned at birth. I was so angry - I'd not long given birth to my daughter, and to say my daughter was assigned a gender at birth seemed a total denial of what actually happened in the delivery room, plus all the hopes and dreams that I had for her before she was born. I.e. that she could grow to be who she wants to be without being constrained by gender assumptions. I'd only brought white babygrows with me. Nobody in the hospital told me I had to dress her in pink in accordance with the gender they had just assigned.

I agree with some previous comments - growing up in the 90s, feminism seemed a bit cringe as surely we were all now equal and the battles were won. Now I look back and cringe at my naivety!

Yes absolutely.

Before children, I'd been more of a 'feminism is about having choice' feminist. Having children made me see the enormous gap between how mothers and fathers experience parenthood. And once you see that kind of sex-based inequality (and have a good think about what you read on FWR boards) there's no going back. Radical feminism is the only feminism as far as I'm concerned.

It's very good that more of use are speaking our truth now.
As humans, we are not designed by evolution with lesser brains than men. More like the opposite.
Nature puts its best into the females who gestate, birth and do most of the early caring.
That doesn't extend to being fulfilled with centering our offspring in our lives while sacrificing ourselves for 18 years. A trap.

@msgloria I feel the same, I also cringe at my nativity and how I behaved. I'd very much internalised the patriarchy without realising it.

So true about the physical impact to work when pregnant, I really struggled when I was pregnant and had terrible mental health. Before this happened I thought women were a bit sick at the start and then skipped through the rest of pregnancy full or excitement and joy...how wrong I had been. I realised that so much of the difficulty during and after had been hidden away with women suffering in silence and getting on with it.

becoming a mother, struggle to, or not being able to become a mother, or choosing not to become one are all uniquely female experiences.

It all boils down to the fact that our bodies are the ones that grow babies.

We all have our own experiences and mine don't invalidate those of women who have been unable or chosen not to become mothers.

But yes, my goodness becoming a mother threw the patriarchy we swim in into sharp relief. As merrymouse said upthread

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

I went very part time, because I knew I wanted to keep my career ticking over, it's very important to me, but walking away from my babies in the morning never felt right, and I certainly didn't want to do it 5 days a week.

each time I went back to work after having a baby I lost a little bit more responsibility, got pushed a little bit further down again.

My boss is a very nice man for whom I have a great deal of respect, but if I'd never had children I feel pretty sure that our roles would be reversed.

So yes, selfishly, it was motherhood that threw into sharp relief for me that fact that no, actually, we can't have it all.

@Kit19 I hear that and can totally see how upsetting that must be. What you have been through is a uniquely female experience and has nothing to do with trans people.

I’m pretty amazed by the number of parents I know who fall for the whole TWAW thing. It’s incredible to me that someone who has pushed a human being out of their vagina things people can magically change sex. There’s nothing more viscerally real than childbirth. That level of cognitive dissonance is very impressive. As to the main question - I’ve always been a feminist and having kids has definitely pushed me back into engaging in a big way; but I actually think that with the gender woo woo issue it’s less about kids than it is more that I’ve always upheld reality, science, rationality, free debate and enlightenment values and the whole notion of gender ideology is a direct attack on them.

I would say it changed my feminism! Pre-pregnancy/DC I was a complete liberal feminist. All about 'choice' and the examples of sexism I experienced were more 'gender' related (or a social construction, at least), like beauty standards, assertiveness perceived as bossiness, 'feminine' traits not being valued etc etc.

Then I got pregnant and everything changed. I felt more vulnerable, I was noticeably treated differently. In fact, I had a job offer withdrawn because I was pregnant. Mine and DH's plans all revolve around MY sacrifices of my health/time/career to have children, breastfeeding ties ME physically more to the baby ... Pregnancy exposed me to the sexism there is in all aspects of our society, and for want of a better word 'radicalised' me. The erosion of sex-based rights is appalling and will harm us immeasurably. Like a pp, I didn't realise (Western) women needed these rights until I did.

Although I realise I've always been a GC feminist even if I wasn't engaged with the debate (although I would have mindlessly parroted TWAW to be nice). When Germaine Greer was de-platformed for saying that women's experiences were different from TW because they are socialised differently I thought ?!?!???? How could anyone - especially anyone who has had anything at all to do with feminism - dispute that?

It has also made me much more interested in how society could be better organised around the reality of child-bearing, and all the economic factors and decisions that affect this.

As a student, I saw feminism about grimly "climbing the ladder" in a black trouser suit and severe chignon, and making it to "the boardroom" to point at a flip chart in front of lots of grey-haired blokes. I just couldn't see the appeal. I dreamt of a family. (I was utterly ignorant and naive about the ways in which women are screwed within the family unit, though fortunately that hasn't been my own experience).

I now work full-time from home in a job that I enjoy, where I can use (a good part of) my brain and contribute to a broader purpose. During this time my child is well cared for by my husband (half the week) and nursery (the other half). But I am one of the lucky ones. It took a pandemic to allow me to WFH. Why shouldn't it be this easy for all women? Why should we (as a society) put up with the usual grind, rushing back and forth (or having to quit or take a pay cut just to get some quality of life)? And how can we better communicate that as a feminist issue, rather than the unrelatable "boardroom" schtick?

Or what @nothereoften said, in many fewer words!

Yes.

I became interested in birth politics after the birth of my first two children. I was so angry about how I was treated, and the way informed consent was skated over.

With my third pregnancy, my 20 weeks scan revealed several markers for Edwards Syndrome. I had an amino and while waiting for the results, told the OB I was seeing that I would terminate if it was positive. She told me that if it was positive, a hospital panel would have to approve or deny the termination. Just disgraceful. It fortunately was negative.

That a male would weaponise my pain & the pain of women like me fucks me off more than I can say!!

Kit It must be so upsetting. I find it infuriating and deliberately divisive. It took me a number of years to conceive my first and so many of the challenges and so much of the pain was connected with my womanhood.

That a male would weaponise my pain & the pain of women like me fucks me off more than I can say!!

I think having children/struggling to have children/choosing not to have children are all part of the same thing. None of them affect men and women in the same way, and without a massive evolutionary leap, that won’t change.

I think some of this is about age as much as becoming a mother. Many of my rights depend on a healthcare system that I have no reason to take for granted.

Not becoming a mum really, but becoming a single mum yes.

Only four years apart, but I realised I had all of the financial responsibility now, none of the freedom, and yet somehow in society's eyes, all of the shame too, and employers were very prejudiced against hiring mothers/single mothers.

Thank you Damsel & Hecates

And yes merrymouse it’s exactly that. It’s all about our female biology whether it functions properly or not & the expectations forced on us because of it

@smallpug, I agree, and all of the times I've been disadvantaged, it's been because of my biological sex. Not my ''gender''. I was literally physically left holding the children. Due to being a biological woman I was objectified in a male environment at work, sleazes came on to me and then were bitter old bastards to me afterwards if I dared to reject them (even when they were married it was and affront to their egos). My x was abusive and didn't need to be physically aggressive often, just the threat of it kept me under control. He was much bigger and stronger after all. I was cornered out of my job due to having to care for my baby. All of these disadvantages to earning a living and being able to support myself came out of being biologically female.

I've been a gender critical feminist for years, but was never really "public" with it until my daughter was born (only seven weeks ago). Now I am an absolute ball of fury about the state of things for women, and I'm determined to add my voice to the fight.

@HecatesCats

That a male would weaponise my pain & the pain of women like me fucks me off more than I can say!!

Kit It must be so upsetting. I find it infuriating and deliberately divisive. It took me a number of years to conceive my first and so many of the challenges and so much of the pain was connected with my womanhood.

I never did have a child and felt like a failure.

A well known feminist told me I couldn't be a proper feminist if I didn't have children. There's still aa number of people (wbenion here) who expect childless women to be selfish, childlike and broken.

Worse, in this section a transwoman told me my infertility wasn't sure as painful as theirs because at least I had a womb. They'd fathered children.

@Cocothefirst omg, the utter narcissism of that comment.

A well known feminist told me I couldn't be a proper feminist if I didn't have children.

Maybe well known, but perhaps not well read, or somebody who has thought very deeply about feminism!!