so i won't have to bury this piece down there in comments, here's something on the limitations of the mommy wars and how we really need to start talking about more important things - like, how our culture needs to change so that *all* mommies can do what they need to do.
from the article: "Maybe we can quit beating the dead mommy wars horse, and start talking about how family and work can fit together in the twenty-first century." [emphasis mine]
it's a fascinating site that's pro-mommy and pro-social change. it all goes to show: not all mommies are cut from the same mold.
The Mothers Movement Online
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3 comments:
i haven't visited the site yet, and i may have said this on your site before, but what they hay: regarding "start talking about how family and work can fit together in the twenty-first century..." i really feel like the best way to do this is to engage men in public discussion about family and work. we should encourage and celebrate their domestic contributions in much the same way that the public and professional contributions of women are now celebrated and encouraged.
My dad was so hands-on in my emotional nurturing growing up that in many ways he was another "mother" to us. i would like to see our society encourage more of that on a broader scale - more paternity leave, etc.
... i'll step off the soapbox now and go back to cruising YouTube like i was before.
I agree w/ molly 100%. I think that it's generally accepted these days that the movement towards women's equality has stumbled because although women were successful at moving into the work place, men have not done their part and moved into the home. Women made it into the workplace because it was something that they wanted and they worked for it. Men will not do the same with respect to the home until they view home life as desirable and worth working for. This means, oddly enough, that the most productive thing that the women's movement can do right now is emphasize the importance of home life. But not just for women; for everyone, and particularly for men.
Said another way, since men were (are) traditionally the privleged class, the things that they did were viewed as intrinsically more important and fulfilling than the things that women did. Thus the project of equality for women was seen as the project of women obtaining the things that men had. But of course, the things that women were doing were not intrinsically less important or fulfilling than the things that men were doing. The problem with the patriarchy is not (primarily) that women are forced to do the crap while men get to do all the fun stuff. It is that it defines the things that women have traditionally done to be crap. Since the things that women have traditionally done are in fact indispensable to the functioning of society, somebody has to do them. If that somebody is not to be the members of yet another oppressed class, then we had better start valuing those tasks.
greg,
i didn't respond to this before because i didn't have the time, but upon rereading, this is a fine analysis and i agree completely with you and molly.
progressive change can't happen in our society until we're all part of the conversation, willing to give up a little of our own privileges in order to make life work a little better for all of us.
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