Why Doesn't the Feminist Movement Care About Mothers?

Last week, a jury awarded $16 million dollars to a woman who was sexually assaulted in a hospital.

It's probably the biggest news in reproductive rights all year, and a huge victory for advocates of sexual assault survivors. But you won't see anything about it on feminist blogs. And you'll probably even see some feminist women downplaying the verdict's importance.

Why? Because the woman in question was giving birth, and the people who assaulted her were nurses. You see, the feminist movement simply does not care about pregnant and laboring women, nor about mothers. Even though more than 80% of women are mothers. Even though misogynists constantly tout motherhood as a fair basis for inequality. Even though pregnant women and mothers are far more likely to experience violence, discrimination, and virtually all forms of oppression.

Why is this? Because Third Wave Feminism operates a lot more like a cool kids' clique than a meaningful social movement. Perhaps it's because much of feminism has focused on helping women avoid motherhood. Maybe it's because feminism is primarily a young movement, and mothers remind young feminists of their hopelessly uncool parents. Since so many feminists are young, maybe they just haven't thought about how motherhood affects women.

Whatever the explanation, and there are many, my pregnancy has taught me that the mainstream feminist movement would prefer to pretend mothers don't exist. Even when that means projecting misogyny onto mothers.

That's not to say the feminist movement rejects mothers outright, or that mothers cannot be feminists. When the majority of women are mothers, the feminist movement absolutely depends on us. We're there for protests and donations, to share stories on Facebook, and to help with organizing conferences. Feminism benefits from our participation. But when we ask for assistance as mothers, we are often rejected. Indeed, women who bring their identities as mothers with them to feminist events are often completely rejected--as is the case of numerous women who have been asked to leave feminist events solely because they had babies with them.

A Recap: Why Motherhood is a Feminist Issue
If you've been reading this blog for more than a few seconds, it's hard not to realize that motherhood is a feminist issue. After all, women's status as potential mothers is one of the factors used to justify their oppression. A woman might quit the workforce to raise children, so she doesn't deserve equal pay. Women's crazy hormones mean they can't be treated similarly to men. Women are naturally weak, because their bodies are geared toward raising children, not killing mammoths. Women shouldn't go out at night alone; they should be home with their children.

Some women, understandably, have eschewed motherhood precisely because of the oppression it justifies. Yet feminism needs mothers; we are the ones providing the movement with a future. Mothers also need feminism, since motherhood brings a unique form of oppression that womanhood alone often does not. Consider the following:

• Pregnant women are more vulnerable to domestic violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence than any other group. The leading cause of death among pregnant women is murder. 
• The wage gap persists at all income levels and occupations, but it only really gets started when a woman becomes a parent--decreasing from 90% of a man's earnings to 78%. And that's even if she doesn't leave work, even if she does the same job, even adjusting for all other possible explanations. Motherhood is the single best way to reduce your pay. 
• Motherhood is constantly used as a justification for violence against women, and for removal of their reproductive rights. It is routine for doctors to perform procedures on pregnant women without their consent. 
• The most prevalent form of female genital mutilation is episiotomy, an almost always unnecessary procedure performed on laboring women to make things easier for the doctor. With an episiotomy, a doctor cuts open a woman's vagina, potentially leading to permanent incontinence, painful intercourse, infection, and a host of other serious health concerns. 
• Most studies show that household inequality begins or worsens with children. The arrival of children often turns a woman into little more than a household servant. 
• Women are consistently penalized, and even threatened with arrest, solely for caring for their children. Breastfeeding mothers are often asked to leave public locations for feeding their kids, suggesting that most people think women and their babies don't belong out in public. 
• If you believe maternity clothing designers, nursing bra manufacturers, and basically the entire fabric of society, sexiness can and should end with motherhood. Apparently caring for a child means no more sex--unless you want to be a bad mother who cares about something other than her child, of course. 
• Women's bodies are quite frequently permanently destroyed by the push to return to work too soon after having a baby. We don't expect men who have just had surgery to be back at work the next day. But push a human out of your vagina, suffer a stress fracture, and maybe get a blood transfusion? You're just lazy if you're not back to work--not to mention skinny--within a few weeks. 

But good luck seeing any of these issues covered in mainstream feminist blogs. Moms are boring and lame, and our issues are part of the "mommy wars," not the stuff of meaningful political discourse. Our society collectively expects women to accept numerous forms of sexism solely because they are mothers. Somehow, the decision to give life to another person is supposed to rob a woman of her bodily integrity and autonomy. And mainstream feminists sit by and ignore it.

Blame the Patriarchy (Unless You're a Mother)
The feminist movement has laudably fought against biological determinism by, for example, pointing out that it doesn't really matter if boys out-perform girls in math class. When we deliberately undermine girls' math performance and socialize boys to love math and enjoy math toys from the cradle, it's impossible to assess what's biological and what's social. The same goes for aggression, nurturing, and so many other traits to which we assign a gender.

A veritable avalanche of research supports the notion that, even if some differences are hard-wired (and again, there's little evidence that they are) those small differences cannot possibly account for the massive differences in outcomes between men and women. Men being 3% better at math, on average, than women means that there should be a 3% difference in their representation in these fields. And if women are really more verbal, then why are almost all famous writers men?

Every feminist I know--indeed, every intelligent person I know--gets this. Yet their ability to reason seems to go out the window when it comes to motherhood. Mothers are "weird" and "crazy." Loss of interest in sex is the inevitable outcome of giving birth. It's natural for mothers to leave the workforce. Women who give birth should expect to be incontinent. Chronic pain after pregnancy is normal.

So many childless friends have insisted to me that women need to be "warned" about the horrors of motherhood. Never mind the social construction of these horrors-like, for example, the fact that postpartum depression is far more common among women whose partners don't do their fair share, or that instrumental deliveries, episiotomies, and other interventions exponentially increase the rate of postpartum incontinence.

Nope, they tell us. It doesn't matter that mothers face social barriers, medical abuse, and stigma at every turn. The miseries of motherhood are natural. Accept it and shut up. And while you're at it, could you show up for our pro-choice protest next weekend? No, sorry, there won't be childcare, and your baby is not welcome. Oh, you feel depressed and unimportant? Must be those crazy mother hormones!

In feminism, oppression is the patriarchy's fault. Until you become a mother, and then you need to just accept your lot in life. 

The Co-Optation of Choice-Based Language 
Feminism is full of interesting debates--whether dressing up and wearing makeup is a personal choice, performing femininity, catering to the patriarchy, or something else entirely, for example.

But debates about motherhood and feminism are viewed as something else entirely. An avalanche of evidence suggests that our maternity care system is failing women. Many of the medical interventions doctors recommend to women during pregnancy are objectively dangerous, yet self-style feminists openly mock women who want a say in their birth. More than 80% of women want to breastfeed, yet less than half are still successfully doing so by their babies' six-month mark. We're told this is just "choice." Don't judge. Don't pressure.

Somehow, the language of choice has been used to completely dismiss women's autonomy, right to knowledge, right to demand better from the care providers upon whom they depend. It's all just one big choice--even when all the evidence suggests that women are not freely making their own choices, but are instead being manipulated by doctors, shamed by people who think their birth/feeding/parenting choices should look a certain way, and forced into jobs that refuse to accommodate their health or parenting needs.

Choice indeed.

Third Wave Feminism as an Individualist Shopping Spree
Somewhere along the way, Third Wave Feminism became about nothing more than choice. Whatever anyone does is now feminist, because all choices are valid and choice in itself is a feminist thing.

So it makes good sense that, when women complain about the miseries of motherhood, other feminists tell them that it was their choice. You knew what motherhood involved. You chose it anyway. Now suffer forever. Choice, choice, choice. It's all about choice.

And mainstream feminism continues to choose to offer no support to mothers--the very people who built, and will continue to build, the movement. A feminist movement that is not also a movement for mothers is not a feminist movement at all. It's an individual rights shopping spree that ends just as some of the most extreme forms of oppression begin.

By the way, if you're childless and don't want to be a part of this sexist cult of mother-blaming, here's a list of five ways childless feminists can support their friends.