| If thousands of mothers
around the world criticize other mothers for not being vigilant enough
about what their children eat, wear, and do— and I think it’s
reasonable to assume that this is happening— then the effect
is women policing women into upholding the status quo of male privilege,
of men only in positions of public power. If women in playgrounds
all over the world make each other too guilty to go full out into
the men’s world, men don’t even have to turn us down for
important positions. We never show up to be turned down in the first
place because other women have made us feel too guilty about not doing
everything for our children. There is no question that raising children
can take all of a woman’s time. Perhaps a more relevant question
might be: should it take all of a woman’s time? And
who decides? How do we help each other make the fullest, best, most
self-aware decisions possible? Rather than decisions coming from guilt,
social pressure, regressive cultural messages on TV and in magazines,
and inflexible workplaces?
I think the solution is old-fashioned consciousness-raising, which
is quite different from either giving a bossy, manifesto-style lecture
or a catty, tit-for-tat counter response, a la: “Oh, you have
time to syringe yogurt? Uh-huh. Isn’t that special.”
I want to be clear here: I do think there is a fundamental and
important difference between feminist critique, on the one hand,
and catty judgments designed— at least in part— to make
an individual mother feel guilty or stupid.
Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist, best known for his theory
of hegemony, or the way dominance can be achieved through persuasion
and consent rather than solely through force and coercion, says
that people typically have a contradictory consciousness: we can
critique the power relations that exist and also consent to the
way they are at the same time. Revolution, he says, comes
out of ambivalence, because people, even the most revolutionary
of us, aren’t only comprised of pure, unadulterated critique
of the powers-that-be. That said, Gramsci believes that the structural
critiquing side of our consciousness is the better side, the driving
force toward liberation and social change. This is the voice of
the feminist manifesto: clear, sharp, taking no prisoners in its
analysis of how patriarchy functions to diminish women’s lives
and choices.
And yet, even in the most adamant feminist, there is still also
the voice of consent to the status quo. The consenting voice, it
seems to me, is even stronger when one is talking about an unjust
situation that also includes love. For heterosexual feminist mothers
in positive relationships with men, the true voice, the whole voice,
is inherently one of contradiction: I love my husband and my children and I hate the inequities between my husband and me.
Even if he is individually the most progressive man alive, society
still rewards him for his maleness in countless daily ways, and
this— it seems to me— is worthy of anger and work toward change.
For mothers who are not feminists— or not yet— the
consenting voice is likely to be stronger, louder than the revolutionary
voice. It seems to me that the way to draw the social critiquing
voice out in the women we encounter all the time— at the park,
at the PTA, on the bus— (and we must do this; feminism needs
all the bodies we can recruit)— is not through talking in
a take-no-prisoners voice but through modeling ambivalence—
speaking honestly and fully. I’m not talking about lying,
feigning interest in syringing yogurt, say, when you would never
in a million years, do such a thing. Rather, I’m suggesting
a kind of opening up of dialogue, through full honesty on our part.
“Wow, you really think sugar content matters that much? Can
you tell me why? I do worry about what my daughter eats sometimes.”
And then the next step is to really listen to her. Hopefully the
conversation will wander away from yogurt, perhaps toward how she
feels about being at home, in general.
Obviously no one is going to be up to this every day. Nor is it
always, or even often, possible, with small children in tow. But
I do believe it’s the way to build a movement, step by step,
conversation by conversation.
What I’m suggesting is nothing new, it’s old, it’s
from the early 70s; it’s consciousness-raising. I have rarely
felt as envious as I felt when reading Jane Lazarre’s 1976
classic The Mother Knot in 1998 as the mother of two young
children myself. Lazarre talked of the flyers she and her friend
posted in their apartment building:
“Tired of being
somebody’s mother or somebody’s wife? Come to Jean
Rosenthal’s house on Monday night. Talk about your real
feelings. Women’s group forming.”
Wow! That’s where I wanted to go— Jean Rosenthal’s
house on a Monday night. It’s where I want to go now in 2005.
Feminism, I believe, also needs to welcome those who are reluctant—
rather than desperate for its message and time spend with its believers,
as I have been for the last 22 years. Those of us who know what
feminism has done for us need to recruit. Not in a crazy evangelical
way, but in a respectful, honest way that involves acknowledging
our own ambivalences and listening fully, open to being surprised
by what a woman might say.
Consciousness-raising doesn’t work so well lecture-style.
Instead, it comes through honest discussion in which people acknowledge
ambivalence, vulnerability, complexity, and torn feelings. As the
feminist, sometimes we have to go first. Acknowledging our own ambivalences
can allow women who have been afraid or unnerved by the contradictions
they feel to speak up.
(This has been the most personally gratifying part of the response
I’ve gotten from readers of my book. If you can be that angry
at your husband— and he seems like a pretty good guy—
people will say, then at least I can acknowledge that I don’t
always love being a wife and mother.)
There is still a place for manifestos, absolutely. But manifesto-like
talk is not typically the best icebreaker with women you don’t
know well, or at all, like those you might encounter in a park.
Neither is silence.
But what do we do if we believe, for example, that it is unquestionably
best for mothers to have some aspect of their lives that is non-child-centered?
Can we never say this to someone who appears— to us, at least—
to be dillying around with yogurt? I have come to believe recently
that a first and fundamental step in feminism is empowering women
to feel entitled to ask the question of themselves: what is it that
makes a rich, full, and meaningful life?
We don’t have to, shouldn’t, and couldn’t possibly,
provide a standard answer to fit every woman. What we can do is
empower each other to feel entitled to ask the question. Sadly,
I believe this in itself is quite a feat. Many of the mothers I’ve
met around the country in the last year as I was on book tour indicated
that they asked this questions before having children, but whatever
those answers were (other than children) fell into the irrelevant.
Mothers ask themselves daily “What is it that makes a rich,
full and meaningful life for my child,” and then
move mountains to make those things a possibility. For themselves,
there isn’t time to ask the question— much less answer
it, then go about enacting it.
I think we make it easier for other women to ask the question by
modeling the fact that we ask it for ourselves and also by talking
about what stops us, occasionally, from feeling entitled to ask,
as well. We need to voice our uncertainties. Not make them up, but
if they are there, go ahead and voice them. Go first. Sharing our
ambivalences puts others at ease and it models complexity: I can
love my husband and be angry about the inequities at the same time.
The implication is: so can you. Life as a human being involves complexity
and ambivalence. And if Gramsci is right, revolution will follow.
I say, let’s bring it on.
mmo : april 2005 |
