My Kind of Feminism

Hallelujah, Amen, now pass the potatoes…it seems I’ve found someone who seems to have experienced the same problem with feminism that I’ve recently encountered. During my googling marathon, I happened upon a blog called Mean Feminism. The first post I happened upon was an old one from July of 2006 titled, “Non-Motherhood and Feminism. Party On.” I read a few more of their posts (the blog was the work of “Edith” / “Vicky Vengeance”), which were all excellent. Unfortunately, it appears the blog has been inactive for nearly a year.

Let me give you a couple of the highlights:

All well and good. Here’s where it gets tricky: because we are so fearful of that stereotype, because we are so adamantly clinging to “choice,” feminists are often very involved in motherhood issues and not involved at all, or even downright opposed to, issues facing childless women.

…

When you have children, when you are straight, when you are pretty, you are definitely NOT immune to a ton of issues. You do, however, pretty much always have society’s thumb up in your direction. I want to talk about, for ten minutes or so, the people who don’t have society’s support, or even most feminists’. I want to talk about Ms. Stereotypical for just ten minutes, and how we can start bringing her back into the fray.

And then there was a kick-ass comment by Laura Linger, who has her own blog, Monkey Love:

Mothers don’t have to give a hot damn in a whorehouse about their childfree “sisters,” but whoa to any childfree woman who says that there is more to feminism than passing meaningless tit-baring laws so Junior can latch on whenever he likes. I personally don’t have a problem with public breastfeeding anyway. Don’t we have more important things, as a gender, to focus on? How about the continued wage gap between men and women for the same work (one could suppose that this is largely due to The Mommy Phenomenon in the workplace, but I’ll leave it at that)? The lack of insurance coverage for birth control, when HMOs are willing to shell out BIG BUCKS on fertility treatments? How about insurance coverage for those of us who want or have received tubal ligations? How about love, caring, compassion, and acceptance for ALL women and the choices that they make, instead of being exclusionary to those only belonging to the Tau Iota Tau sorority?

The “feminism” that these mothers spew leaves me cold because it is fraught with self-sabotage. By refusing to acknowledge lifestyle choices other than their own, these mothers fulfill every single shitty stereotype men hold about us.

Seriously, it’s nice to know I’m not alone in feeling that the feminist movement has left some of its sisters out in the cold – women would could be extremely helpful to the movement, women who have something to contribute. I’m thinking that, when it comes to feminism, those of us who have chosen to be childfree might just have something in common with the stay-at-home-moms. Wait…stay with me here for a minute. You see, I’ve seen feminists jump all over the shit of SAHMs, too. And I think I may have a handle on part of the reason. Maybe it’s because one of he big tenets of the feminist movement was that women should be able to “have it all,” just like men. And the SAHM and CF contingent have acknowledged that they didn’t want to “have it all.” And maybe that is pissing off the feminists.

Although, I admit I think the CF population gets a lot more bullshit from the feminist front than do the SAHMs, because even with the SAHMs, they can still get behind them on the breast-feeding in public issue, which appears to be a really, really big with feminists. But the Childfree contingent? Nope. We opted out of the we can/want to “have it all,” at least as far as the “all” means career and children. It doesn’t matter that we made the choices we deemed to be right for us. It doesn’t matter that we, too, still get paid less than men for the same work. It doesn’t matter that we, too, have to deal with employment discrimination because potential employers assume we have or will have children, which has the potential for the employer to have to deal with more unexpected absences, maternity leaves, etc. And it sure as hell doesn’t seem to matter to them that most of us believe that all human beings should be treated the same across the board, regardless of race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, reproductive status. Because it seems that, in their opinion, women who chose motherhood should be treated better than everyone else.

Originally posted on March 27, 2008 on EriePressible.

Choice

I am unpopular in some feminist circles, because I make no secret of my questioning a woman’s ‘right to choose’.  I do not think that right is paramount, because I think sometimes people choose poorly.  I also think that ‘choice’ is not necessarily informed, and a bad choice is worse than no choice.

You can imagine how this opinion flies in feminist circles.  It doesn’t.  It’s a bit of a lead balloon.

Take this article about gender selection, for example. Technology has allowed people to see the gender of their unborn child early on. So early, that an abortion is no problem if you don’t like what you see.

In some countries, it would appear that the ratio of girls to boys is now 800-1000. This is choice gone mad. When you give the ‘average’ woman in these countries a choice, of course she will CHOOSE to have a boy, because having a girl means paying the dowry where having a boy means receiving it. Having a boy is socially and financially preferable, so of course it’s the better choice. It would be like choosing between a life where you do very little and earn $100,000/yr or one where you wash everyone else’s laundry and cook and clean and perform thankless chores for $6000 a year. What the hell kind of choice is that?

Some would argue that these countries need to get out of the dark ages and feminists have to work a lot harder at ensuring basic human rights for women everywhere. Fair enough, but we can’t even get pay equity or some women’s rights in our own countries, let alone make the world a better place.

I still cringe when I hear the term “domestic violence”. Why should it matter if it’s domestic or not? Why is violence not violence? “Spousal assault” is a term that I will never understand. Why do you have to qualify it? It’s as outdated as “lady doctor” or “male nurse”. The adjective is unnecessary. It doesn’t matter what gender your nurse is. It doesn’t matter who assaulted you.

So long as we have such harsh gender divides in our our backyard, we can’t expect the world to suddenly value women and men equally.

Another ‘choice’ that I find perturbing is the ‘choice’ to be a Stay-At-Home-Mom. bell hooks would argue this is a VERY white, middle class concept, and I would agree. Very few people in the world can choose this life — it’s only for the richest women in the richest countries with a spouse (likely male) whom they can financially depend on. Choosing to be a SAHM is kind of like choosing housewifery. In years gone by, when one income sufficed for basic living expenses and women were discouraged for being financially independent, it was the norm. In our current era where that is no longer socially acceptable, SAHMhood is the socially acceptable way to staying out of the paid workforce.

It’s marketed in such a way as to be the ‘choice’ of a loving mother who wants what is best for her child. If you disagree with the concept, you are pooh-poohed in the SAHM-eco-mom feminist circles who think that their right to choose to stay home should trump the idea that it’s a whitebread, rich ‘choice’ in the first place, and doesn’t do anything for women who don’t have that ‘choice’.

And to take it a step further… I offer you a personal example: My own ex-boyfriend’s ex-wife was so hellbent on being a SAHM (claiming it was her choice, when in actuality, she’d never worked in the paid workforce, couldn’t conceptualize it, and didn’t want to), she chose the path of welfare mom over working mom. I remember at the time doing the math and shaking my head. She was currently ‘entitled’ to $1100 a month from the welfare system, as the mother of three kids. Her ex-husband paid her $800 a month in child support, and welfare made up the difference, cutting her a cheque for $300. The father was spending about one third of his pay on child support, effectively forcing him to live in poverty. The mother chose not to work, choosing instead to live on $1100 a month, choosing to put herself and all the children in a life of poverty. Had she chosen to work even a minimum wage job at the time (the kids were all in school, and daycare would have been minimal), she could have brought home $1200 of her own, plus $800 in support and at least bumped the whole family up into a higher tax bracket.

But she chose not to.

Her choice not to work directly impacted five lives, all of whom were living in poverty as a result of her choice.

Of course, the social reprecussions of being a welfare-mom-my choice/SAHM-by-choice were daunting as well — alcoholism, smoking, working illegally under the table to make extra money for smokes and booze… a downward spiral for all involved. And the resentment of the father, who, if he chose to work extra to pull himself out of poverty, would pay a larger percentage of his income as child support, and still only have the exwife and kids capped at $1100, with welfare paying a smaller portion of that total.

I don’t understand how ‘choice’ is always considered to be the best option.

Ignore This

No, really, you may ignore this post.

It’s just Technorati schtuff.

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A Possible Solution?

While I wait patiently (foot tapping and fingers drumming on the desk in front of me) for the other authors on this fledgling blog to think of something to write about, I’ll the “stay tuned” portion of my previous post. These are my possible solutions to mothers/parents needing special accommodations in the workplace and how they can be equitably dispensed to all employees, not just those who have made the personal choice to have children. This post originally appeared on EriePressible on August 1, 2006.

Okay, as promised, here’s an idea that could work in appeasing all employees and alleviate the bad feelings between parent and non-parent employees…and make it easier on the employer, too. It’s not my original idea, but I’ve tweaked it a bit.

Employers give “points” to employees based on years of service, merit, or some such employment related condition (similar to how many employees accumulate more vacation/sick/personal time off as years of service increase).

Then the employer assigns a certain number of points to a smorgasbord of benefits, from which each employee can choose.

For example:

A new employee at Vandalay Industries is awarded 10 points upon being hired. After one year of service, his/her point allocation is increased to 12 points. After three years of service, his/her point allocation is increased to 15 points. Additionally, points could be awarded as bonuses or alternate compensation for overtime. And, importantly, points can be carried over from year to year.

Vandalay Industries then provides the employees with a menu of benefits to choose from and the point value of each benefit, such as:

Health isurance for employee – 2 points (2.5 points if you want vision and dental coverage added)

Health insurance for employee’s spouse or domestic partner – 2 points (2.5 points if you want vision and dental)

Health insurance for employee’s children – 2 points (2.5 points if you want vision and dental)

One week of vacation, personal, or sick leave – 1 point

Tuition reimbursement for one college course – 1 point

Bus pass – .5 point

Parking space – 1.5 points

Life insurance – 1 point

Disability insurance – 1.5 points

Each company is free to designate the number of points it gives its employees and the point value of each benefit, depending upon the cost of the benefit to the company. Obviously, the companies that give the most points and have the lost point value assigned to each benefit are going to be the most desirable companies.

So let’s take me…

I would choose the best health insurance coverage, costing 2.5 point. I would also choose the life and disability insurance, which would cost me another 2.5 points. That leaves me with 5 points left. Depending upon the city, I would opt for either the bus pass or the parking space, take a college course, and take the rest as vacation/sick/personal time. I could rollover my points to the next year if I didn’t use all the vacation/sick/personal time I chose, or if I ended up not taking a college course.

Parents would probably choose differently…opting to spend more points for family health insurance and vacation time. Keep in mind, however, that only one of the spouses would have to “buy” the family insurance. The other spouse could bank points with his/her company in anticipation of having children. Just as a single person or childfree individual would be able to anticipate taking a two or three month trip around the world by banking enough points.

Make sense? Is anyone slighted in this scenario?