| Opting
out or opting in?
Parenting and the third wave
Both Belkin's and Story's
opt-out articles raise a question: How are members of Gen X and
Y thinking about, and dealing with, motherhood (and fatherhood)?
Embedded in this question is the assumption (explicitly stated in
Belkin's piece) that second-wave feminism failed most American women,
the majority of whom still become mothers but who find, as they
embark on the simultaneous work of career and motherhood, that they're
doing both in a "half-changed world," to use journalist
Peggy Orenstein's phrase. Both articles -- particularly Story's
-- look at younger women to spot developments in the larger context
of not only how women are creating their lives, but also how younger
generations of women view (or don't view) their lives in relationship
to the feminist movement. Neither the college students in Story's
piece nor the representative Gen Xer in Belkin's article (who graduated
from college the same year I did) appear to suffer from guilt or
angst over their choices, as do the two older women profiled in
"The Opt-Out Revolution." (Belkin quotes the Gen Xer in
her article as saying, "I don't want to take on the mantle
of all womanhood and fight a fight for some sister who isn't really
my sister because I don't even know her.")
The danger, of course,
is that this quote, along with the quotes from the college students
in Story's article, becomes woven into a larger narrative about
Gen X and Y women. According to this narrative, younger women have
turned their backs on the gains of their feminist foremothers; they
opt out of their work lives easily; they do not view their individual
situations as political. In other words, this story divides -- a
point that becomes readily apparent when one looks at other opt-out
stories, such as the October 2004 60 Minutes segment, "Staying
at Home," which staged a conflict between the generations
by including a second-wave feminist mother (the only second waver
interviewed on the show) who criticized the choices of younger,
stay-at-home mothers.
Yet this conflict, like
the larger opt-out narrative, hardly represents the experiences
of all younger women (or of not-so-young women). Certainly none
of the thoughts and observations of any of these mothers, as represented
by the journalists who interviewed them, capture my own experience
of motherhood, which has been become fundamental to my understanding
of myself as a feminist. Nor do they represent the diverse experiences
of the wide range of twenty- and thirty- something women who have
been defining motherhood, family, and work in their own terms, in
print and on the internet, in the workplace and at the playground.
Thanks to the surge of
Gen X and Yers writing about motherhood -- particularly among those
who identify as third-wave feminist -- we're all a little more aware
of the incredible diversity of women with children in the U.S. The
smart, searching, irreverent, and frequently humorous autobiographical
essays, memoirs, and blogs of writers such as Ariel Gore, Bee Lavender,
Ayun Halliday, Faulkner Fox, Andrea Buchanan, and Cecelie Berry,
plus numerous others -- not to mention the many magazines, 'zines,
internet journals, and web sites they and others have launched (Hip
Mama; Brain,
Child; East
Village Inky, and so on) – "tell the truth"
about mothering (as Ariel Gore writes in Breeder) and/or
celebrate a radical, "hip mama" lifestyle in a culture
seemingly obsessed with upper middle-class motherhood. And while
some have criticized the third wave for being stuck on the personal
side of the "personal is political" equation, much of
their writing both complicates and challenges the opting out story.
In fact, according to Rowe-Finkbeiner (The
F-Word), one of the main third-wave responses to the opt-out
debate has been to question the relevance of the debate in the first
place, which she says has a "misplaced focus": "What
we're really looking at here is not an opt-our revolution, but a
symptom of a far greater problem -- very little family support in
America."
Not all third-wave writing
about motherhood is autobiographical, however. Third-wave activist
and author Amy Richards (ManifestA, Grassroots)
is attempting to redefine the debate in her current work-in-progress,
Opting In: The Case for Motherhood and Feminism, which
will delve into feminist history and examine the relationship between
feminism and parenting. Richards describes the book as a "partial
response to Belkin." After reading the article, she was intrigued
by the way that the women profiled in the article seemed to stand
for the failure of feminism. "Why is it that working or not
working has become the feminist litmus test?" asks Richards.
"Feminist values go so much deeper, plus there are so many
working mothers who aren't feminist and vice versa." To add
to the confusion, many women think of feminism and motherhood as
in conflict: they can be one or the other, but not both. (While
some of this perception may be rooted in false stereotypes of feminism,
some is certainly based on reality; as Crittenden writes in The
Price of Motherhood, the majority of mainstream feminist organizations
have "not exactly stepped up to the plate for mothers.")
However, this either-or opposition is a "false dichotomy,"
says Richards. "One CAN be both." She wants to close the
gap between feminism and motherhood by articulating a feminism that's
truly pro-parent and that addresses the needs of families in practice
as well as theory.
Richards' comments suggest
one defining characteristic among many third wavers: a healthy sense
of entitlement, which may generate much of the desire to redefine
the terms of the opt-out debate. Peskowitz argues that many Gen
X and Y women "feel entitled to work, and have a family if
they want one, and they feel entitled to believe that these things
don't have to be opposites or separate or in conflict." They
have the urge, as Rowe-Finkbeiner puts it, to "search for new
solutions." Rowe-Finkbeiner is searching for her own solutions
in a new book she's writing with Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn.org.
Tentatively titled The Motherhood Manifesto, it attempts
to politicize the discussion and inspire individuals to advocate
for policy changes. "Motherhood in America is in crisis,"
observes the author, and while third wavers have done a lot of work
on "consciousness raising," she argues that they have
yet to undertake what they are poised to do: "advocate for
public policies and programs that truly support American families."
Rowe-Finkbeiner believes that a national movement based in achieving
these changes may come together soon: "The time is ripe to
take the next step of advocacy for public policies and programs
that truly support American families."
Like activist groups
such as MOTHERS, Rowe-Finkbeiner wants to politicize discussions
surrounding work and family. Will she, along with other journalists,
writers, researchers, and activists -- those I haven't mentioned
as well as those I have -- manage to change the narratives we tell
about motherhood in the U.S.? Will this then translate into social
policies that will truly help us live our lives? I don't know. I
would like to think the tide is turning, but I'm certainly not an
objective observer. What I do know is that coming to understand
my own situation, through a process of reading and writing, has
been central to my own sanity and sense of self. My deepest hope
is that our collective effort to rewrite the nation's narrative
about motherhood will succeed, and that the public dialogue will
begin to reflect what we each know, privately and deep within ourselves,
about the many different kinds of work we do as parents.
mmo
: october 2005 |
