WP3: Feminist Mothering: A Paradox or an Inevitability?

In exploring and dissecting my identities and beliefs over the past few months, I keep returning to my mom. Yes, I was also raised by my dad and sister and society, but in the same way that essentially Shakespeare boils down to Hamlet, my upbringing comes down to my mom. Everything I’ve experienced and learned I view through the lens she provided me, and while my perspective has evolved, it’s still based on her principle beliefs. In many ways where she is on her journey is where I began mine, adding to it as each generation does.

I don’t think having my worldview primed by my mom is a unique experience: aside from rare examples, our moms’ are the singular people with the largest impact on us. I’m not saying this is inherently how it should be, but rather that it is an effect the institution of motherhood has. Before I go further, I want to quickly distinguish between “mothering” and “motherhood.” In her book, Mothers, Mothering, and Motherhood Across Cultural Differences: A Reader, maternal scholar Andrea O’Reilly explains:

“The term motherhood refers to the patriarchal institution of motherhood which is male-defined and controlled and is deeply oppressive to women, while the word mothering refers to women’s experiences of mothering which are female-defined and centered and potentially empowering to women. The reality of patriarchal motherhood thus must be distinguished from the possibility or potentiality of feminist mothering.”

Within the reality of the institution of motherhood, mothers have almost a ridiculous amount of influence over their children. Obviously society also impacts children greatly — it is impossible to entirely isolate your children from societal oppression and biases — but you can influence how they take it in and critique it. Thus mothers and mothering should be an area of immense interest to feminist scholars. However, it is actually an understudied area. In previous feminist thought, motherhood and mothering were not separate, and thus all of mothering was viewed as oppressive to women. Only recently has there been interest in feminist mothering, something which was previously thought to be paradoxical.

I decided to do a case study of the generational evolution of feminist mothering against motherhood by interviewing my grandmother and mom and comparing them against my own perspective.

First I will examine my interview with my grandmother, Marjorie, in which we get to hear not only about her mothering, but how her mother’s and grandmother’s beliefs affected her. (Sorry for the poor audio quality, I had to conduct my interviews remotely with limited technology.)

MarjorieInterview

Interview Summary and Notes:

• She quit work when pregnant with her first child to be a “home mother” but wanted to follow through with her profession, so went back to work while mothering

While it might seem counterintuitive to be a better mother by prioritizing mothering less, O’Reilly argues that feminist mothers who prioritize their own lives, as well as those of their children, actually make better mothers. She proposes that, “mothers, empowered, are able to better care for and protect their children.” It makes sense that mothers should model what they want for their children, and devoting their lives purely to motherhood is not a sustainable or healthy goal. Instead, it is best for their children that they model maintaining their own lives separate from their identity as a mother. Thus, by going back to work while raising her kids, my grandmother set a positive example for her daughters.

• She describes her mother and maternal grandmother as feminists
• Her mother didn’t work, but did volunteer work and went to college when there was a cap on how many women could be at her university
• Got her degree, taught for a short amount of time
• If she had gone to college now, she would have gotten a business or math degree
• She ran the household, and she got an allowance from her husband to run the house
• Her grandmother was also a strong woman

It is interesting to hear about even more generations of mothers, and how they each were strong and feminist in their own ways, and through this managed to help their daughters have even more fulfilling lives.

• She “has always thought girls could do anything boys could do”
• Because her father had heart attacks, her sisters and her were encouraged to learn and do many of the things that would often be done by men during that time
• She was told she should get a college education so she could support herself because “you never know what could happen to your husband”
• She was taught to save her money before college to be financially independent
• She felt so independent she didn’t realize when laws actually prohibited her from getting a credit card without her husband’s signature

Here we can see that she was empowered by her parents, but not fully educated by them in the oppression she would face. We also get a glimpse into obstacles she faced trying to mother not-patriarchally. Author and psychotherapist Janna Malamud Smith remarks in her book A Potent Spell: Mother Love and the Power of Fear, “If we are really interested in improving the lot of children, our best method would be laws and policy that supports mothers and mothering.” She points out that conspicuously “no society has ever voluntarily turned its laws and riches towards liberating mothers.” In fact, very often the reverse occurs. Society is structured to make mothering even more difficult than it is inherently.

• If she got married now, she would keep her maiden name
• At the time it was expected and also exciting for her, and she didn’t think of changing her name as losing her identity or being underneath her husband
• Her husband also supported their daughters, rejecting the notion that sons were more valuable and they must want a son
• She did therapy during the Equal Rights Movement, and one conflict they saw a lot with couples was a renegotiation of household and parenting duties

This was particularly fascinating, to hear about how a cultural movement affected the family structure of so many households, and how it caused initial conflict, but rarely tore families apart.

• Grandmother says here that in therapy her husband would tell men that helping with tasks like changing diapers was something they should accept, but we hear in my mother’s interview that he never helped change diapers himself
• “I loved babies. I loved children…Although I was a feminist, I was not a woman that didn’t like that. I loved it. I did not want my children raised by anybody else”

Through this quote, we can see that she holds a common belief that feminism is inherently anti-mothering. At the time, and even now, that is widely accepted, although untrue. To reject something natural to many women, such as giving birth and raising children, would be anti-feminist, just like rejecting any other part of the female experience. In her chapter “Feminist Mothering” in The Routledge Companion to Motherhood, feminist scholar Fiona Joy Green explains: “Unlike previous feminist theorizing about motherhood, which often viewed mothers as dupes or victims of patriarchy, feminist mothering allows for the agency and autonomy of mothers within the patriarchal institution of motherhood.” Unknowingly to herself, my grandmother was not anti-feminism by embracing her mothering side. However, because she did not understand the distinction between the institution of motherhood and the practice of mothering, she saw her actions as anti-feminist, and was not able to see all of the oppression she faced working within the structure of motherhood society forced her into.

• “Our kids also saw me very active in things like politics”
• Belonged to the League of Women Voters, hosted them at their house often
• Worked to evaluate preschools and set up training
• Volunteered in the church
• Talked about politics within their nuclear family a lot
• “It’s healthy for all children to see their mothers as independent capable persons, whether they are women or not, but I have known women who were very angry about men and who men were and I don’t think that that’s helpful. I think standing up for yourself and looking at equality for all people is very important”

We can see she places value on empowered mothering, something she also demonstrated by returning to work and continuing to engage in politics while bringing up her children.

• “When I was being raised, it was important to be a feminist in terms of knowing how to stand up for yourself, that wasn’t expected by society”
• She goes on a tangent about Roe v. Wade
• She tries to bring up Roe v. Wade to everyone she talks to
• She’s proud of me as a “positive feminist” and my “creative independent thinking,” in part I have her to thank in large part for who I am

Next, I want to descend a generation to my mother, Kirsten. This is the third generation of feminist mothers we’ve heard about so far!

KirstenInterview

Summary/Notes:

• Thinks her mom is “absolutely a feminist” even though she has some traditional ways, she was always proud of her feminist side
• Mentions how Marjorie was part of the League of Women Voters and also did work to teach women about their sexuality
• Mentions how her dad, Marjorie’s husband, never changed a diaper once, even with four children
• Just one example of how traditional motherhood was enforced in the household
• “They had a lot of discussions about breaking gender roles and doing things in non-traditional ways, and yet there was a lot of tradition as to who did what”

While my grandmother in many ways was a feminist and broke some harmful cycles, she still played into motherhood. Fiona Joy Green defines: “feminist maternal practice is a political act whereby mothers trouble and challenge the effects of patriarchal power structures, particularly around motherhood.” Perhaps Marjorie troubled patriarchal effects on motherhood, but my mom noticed ways in which she also reinforced it.

• Reflected on the traditional things her mother did that she wanted to let go of like never leaving the house until it was clean
• Felt pressure from “supermom” fad to be the perfect mom, but had to let go of some of that and prioritize because it simple wasn’t possible, especially as a working mom

O’Reilly describes this pressure: “Non-normative mothers…can never be the ‘good’ mothers…so they must rely on and develop non-patriarchal practices of mothering to raise their children.” In many ways, my mom was non-normative. Most notably, she was a working mom, but as we will see later, she also did not fit traditional gender stereotypes or even fully identify with cis-womanhood. It is also notable that in many ways my household was matriarchal. While my mother and father co-parented and made many decisions together, my mom was in charge. If I asked my dad for something, he would typically say “fine with me, ask your mother.” He had veto power, but hers was the governing opinion. After talking to my grandmother about her own childhood, I wonder if this is correlated to her father’s heart attacks, and how her mother and sisters took on the responsibilities of the household. Interestingly enough, in almost every family on my mom’s side, I would describe the power structure as matriarchal. Was this because of my grandmother’s example? Certainly all of the women in our family are incredibly empowered and strong-willed.

• “I remember she would clean up the house before my father came home from work too. So there was this sort of notion that somehow she was still maintaining the house to please him or something like that…and my dad’s a very progressive person, so I experience some dissonance around how both could be true at the same time”

In this quote again, it is evident that Marjorie still was very much controlled by the oppressive expectations of motherhood.

• Considers herself a feminist
• Taught high school science partially because she wanted to model that women could be scientists
• Taught empowering self-defense to women and girls, she also took time to pass this on and teach my friends and I some self-defense before we went to college
• Different ways being a feminist influenced her mothering
• She took her kids to protests from a young age
• Didn’t want her daughters to feel like they were in a box, “in terms of what they wore or what they played with or how they dressed”

According to Green, “Feminist mothers actively resist traditional patterns of gender acculturation in their parenting and willfully encourage their children to develop who they are without necessarily adhering to sex/gender stereotypes.” Not only did my mom encourage us through a feminist lens to be ourselves, but as we will see later her own “queerness” contributed another angle.

• Was shocked when one of her daughters said at age four “girls don’t climb trees” and was conforming to many societal gender expectations like wearing dresses and liking pink
• Determined that at this age, kids are trying to figure out their identity, and they often do this by exaggerating stereotypes they are told or see around them
• To combat this, my mom provided examples which contradicted these stereotypes

O’Reilly states that “feminist mothers challenge and change, in the home and in the world at large, the gender roles that straightjacket our children and the harm of sexism, racism, classism and heterosexism more generally.” While my mother may have been missing some of the intersectionality O’Reilly mentions, she certainly worked to free us from this “straightjacket” of gendered expectations. In her interview, my mom expresses:

“Part of feminism for me is like knowing that you can be who you want to be and that you don’t have to follow a stereotype. Having permission. So I feel like my feminist self has given — I hope it’s given — my children permission to be who they want to be and be less controlled by societal expectations.”

• As a feminist, she also wanted to “keep [her] adult self and the things [she] was interested in present at the same time she was a mother”
• She wanted to model the balanced life she wanted for her kids, which she felt many mothers abandoned, instead devoting themselves entirely to motherhood and hoping their daughters wouldn’t have to do the same

Following the positive example her mother set, my mom worked hard to balance her mothering with her own life. According to Smith, what a child needs most “is a free and happy mother.” My mom certainly strived to be free and happy, both for herself and as a model for us.

• Has seen activist sides in both her daughters, and has seen them interrogate themselves and their identities critically
• Growing up she got a lot of pressure from relatives to marry early and have children
• Found pressure more difficult to deal with when it came from family, not just society
• Was so annoyed that she went so far as to tell her uncle once that she was a lesbian, even though she got married to a man a year later. Both problematic and an interesting rejection of expectation

“Part of my feminism was an identity of rejection. So as opposed to embracing who I was, I was also rejecting, and I think that sometimes that got in my way. So like I rejected the color pink…but then I also rejected hyper-feminism also because it felt like that was putting me in a box. So for a long time I wouldn’t wear dresses…so I identified by rejecting and I think that maybe if feminism could be more about…supporting who it is you are and want to be, and not having to reject what society tells you to be, that I think would be a healthier way to go about it.”

This was intriguing to hear, because I have thought a lot about my own identity of rejection, and how I am trying to unlearn that and embrace my femininity. In my first writing project, “Misogynistic Feminist, A Revolutionary in Progress” I discuss my own journey with internalized misogyny and rejecting my societallly-feminine attributes:

I rejected my own femininity, and even looked down on girls who embraced theirs. I was not like them: my favorite color was blue and I dressed and acted like a boy. I was superior, they were falling prey to stereotypes and societal expectations. But really I was the one internalizing and conforming to stereotypes. At 7 years old, I had already adopted the “not like other girls” mentality. Society had taught me that the “typical” woman was weak, and a strong woman adopted masculine traits, so that’s what I had done. So young, I was already contributing to patriarchal oppression, even behind the guise of feminism.

Unsurprisingly, comparing my story and my mom’s, there are striking parallels. We both rejected our femininity in an attempt to reject traditional gender roles, but in doing so lost a part of ourselves and looked down on other women who did not do the same. It is more than likely that I adopted this perspective from my mom, and I hope that I can break the cycle with my children.

• Worried that how she modeled lack of confidence for her daughters through unintentionally demonstrating she had to prove her worth at work
• Depending on the definition of feminist, she agrees that all mothers should be feminists
• She thinks about gender on a continuum, and considers herself in the middle. This definitely influenced how my sister and I dressed and viewed gender

She didn’t mention it here, but she also repeatedly told my sister and I that she viewed sexuality as a spectrum and that she was more in the middle. While she never labeled herself anything specific, in fact she often rejects all labeling, she was in many ways a queer mother. Growing up, my sister and I were much more experimental with our gender expression than many kids our age, and now we are both out to our family as members of the LGBTQ+ community. Thanks to my mom’s mothering and open-mindedness in how she conducted herself and viewed the world, we are much more confident in being ourselves.

Comparing my own views with my mother’s and grandmother’s it is fascinating how we are all products of the feminist movements of our times. My grandmother began to challenge motherhood, my mom furthered this and added elements of queerness around gender and sexuality, and I hope to mother with even more queerness and knowledge of intersectional oppression.

Reflecting on the four generations of mothers I have learned about before me, I am grateful for their work to progress our lineage of women and work to dismantle traditional patriarchal motherhood. I aim to build off of this, starting with unlearning my own internalized oppression. The more I manage to uproot, the larger effect on my descendents and the world around me.

Works Cited

Heaney, Kerawin Nelle. “WP1: Misogynistic Feminist, A Revolutionary in Progress.” Medium.com, Medium, 20 Feb. 2022, https://medium.com/writing-150/wp1-misogynistic-feminist-a-revolutionary-in-progress-53c58184abde. Accessed 7 May 2022.

Joy Green, Fiona. “Feminist Mothering.” The Routledge Companion to Motherhood, edited by Hallstein D Lynn O’Brien et al., Routledge, London, 2020, pp. 36–50.

O’Reilly, Andrea. “Feminist Mothering” Mothers, Mothering and Motherhood Across Cultural Differences: A Reader. Demeter Press, Bradford, Ontario, 2014.

Park, Shelley M. “Queering and Querying Motherhood.” Routledge Companion to Motherhood, Routledge, London, 2021, pp. 63–76.

Smith, Janna Malamud. A Potent Spell: Mother Love and the Power of Fear. Houghton Mifflin, 2004.