"Personally, becoming a mother has enabled me to be much more clear and efficient about what I want and who I want to be. And that feels feminist to me, because it empowers me. I'm not as wishy washy as I used to be. I don't fake things as much. I'm more aware of the realities of what can hurt me in some ways, because I'm painfully aware now of the things that can hurt my daughter, but at the same time, I'm less willing to waste my time or energy or let someone walk over me just to avoid a conflict. My mothering has taught me to see myself as the same sort of precious entity that I see in my daughter. So it has helped me achieve the kind of self-respect and love for myself and others that feminism, no matter how you define it, should be aiming to bring to all women."
I'm still not certain I can articulate why I am a feminist and, therefore, why I am a feminist mother. WWWmama posted the above comment on my previous post on feminism, and I trust that she'll forgive me for reposting it. I am reposting it because wwwmama artfully expressed a lot of the feelings I have about being a feminist, a mother, and a feminist mother. I too feel less passive, less willing to put up with crap than I was before I became a mother (not that I've ever had a high tolerance for crap). I simply don't have the time to waste energy beating around the bush. I've always been direct, but I've become more so now that I'm a mother. Now that I have a child, I don't want to waste time figuring things out; I'd much rather know what is going on, which I too find empowering. I'm not as afraid to ask questions or as willing to let things unfold. I want to avoid passing on my less than wonderful qualities to my son, so I've tried to become more aware of myself. I also want him to be an empathetic and sympathetic human being, so I'm trying to be more empathetic and sympathetic myself. I think awareness, especially self-awareness, is empowering. I hope S will develop a similar level of self-awareness, and that like his father, he too will call himself a feminist one day.
1 comment:
That's funny that you posted my thoughts because I feel like this whole issue of fem/mothering is so hard to figure out. I'm glad that you agree with my musings. I think you're right that awareness and self-awareness is a big part of it all. Cultivating that is part of what feminism and parenting are about.
Feminist research methods are partly about questioning who we are in relation to what we're studying and making sure we don't assume that one perspective is the only answer (that's what patriarchy has led us to believe, and we need to challenge that by examining multiple perspectives and how they intersect). I think mothering helps me to empathize with others' perspectives because I'm so aware of my child and work at trying to imagine how she views something. If we could do this more generally, we could figure out ways to negotiate real change in our world.
Post a Comment