A TRUE Feminist View on Motherhood

I watch the news a lot. According to my wife, I watch it too much. I guess it comes out in the amount of agitation and worry I show over certain topics, the way the media handles things, and the fact I want to start a movement to kidnap Keith Olbermann, stuff him in a box, and send him to a far away country. Wherever he ends up, even if it’s on an island of 100 or so, he will have as many loyal viewers as he does now.

To be honest, I think we all naturally gravitate to reporters, commentators, etc., who tend to share our viewpoint on things. I think that’s human nature. I mean, let’s be honest, given two choices, would you want to be in room one with 100 people who have political views the polar opposite of you or would you prefer to be in room two with 100 people that view the world in a similar fashion as you do. In order to affect change, I suppose going into room one is a good thing to do from time to time, but our comfort zone will be found in room two.

In actuality, I do try to listen to commentators, political pundits, and journalists, with whom I’m on the opposite side of the political fence. In fact, there are three or four I enjoy listening to. They aren’t like Olbermann who makes me want to wrap my head in duct tape, so it doesn’t explode (okay, I stole that line from one of my favorite commentators).

One of those people is Kirsten Powers. Even when I disagree with her, which is often, I feel she states her position honestly, with passion, and generally avoids the all too often tactic of simply calling the other side names. She actually makes me evaluate my own opinion on an issue, reexamine it, and reflect which is what a good analyst does. In short, she seems like a very nice person. I usually see her on TV, where she often appears on FoxNews to speak from a left point of view. She sparked enough interest in me that I googled her, looking for articles she may have written. One of the first ones I found made me respect her even more and I thought it was appropriate to share since tomorrow is Mothers’ Day, and it is about women and motherhood.

Ms. Powers describes herself as a feminist, but based on her definition of it, I’m a feminist too!

Her words come from a post she wrote back in June 2006 titled, "This is Why So Many People Hate Feminists." I won’t tell you what she said; I will let her speak for herself, but understand I am only pulling some of the main points found in the article. It was written in response to a Washington Post entry by Linda Hirshman, a "feminist philosopher,” whatever that means. Ms. Powers responds in part, and I quote:

"In a Washington Post op-ed yesterday, Linda Hirshman, a self described feminist philosopher, treats full-time motherhood with the curiosity of an anthropologist who has stumbled upon a previously undiscovered tribe of people. Like SNL's "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer,” Hirshman seems to be "frightened and confused" by this bizarre creature called the "stay-at-home mother." What could possibly account for their freakish behavior?

According to Hirshman: "The tasks of housekeeping and child rearing [are] not worthy of the full time and talents of intelligent and educated human beings. They do not require a great intellect, they are not honored and they do not involve risks and the rewards that risk brings."

It's incredible that the drudgery of working full time at a law firm is deemed worthy of women's "full time talents" but a woman dedicating herself to raising a family isn't. Hirshman then bizarrely asks: "Oh, and by the way, where were the dads when all this household labor was being distributed?" Umm, if they have a stay at home wife, they are probably working all day. And for most people, it's actually called being a mother and a wife, not "household labor.”

I saw Hirshman on 60 Minutes and was shocked when she announced that women graduates of Ivy League schools who had left their careers to raise families were making the "wrong choice.” There it was laid bare: feminism really isn't about women having the freedom to make choices. It's about women making the "right choice" as determined by people like Linda Hirshman. Hmm…this reminds me of how Sarah Palin was treated. Regardless of how her politics strike you, she was called stupid, maligned, and even accused of exploiting her handicapped son. Her family was treated like garbage from the likes of “moral pillars” like David Letterman, and I never heard a word in her defense from the "feminists". But I digress, back to Ms Powers…

“Hirshman is perplexed by the resistance she has received, but quickly surmises that all the opposition she is receiving is manufactured by religious freaks bent on imposing a biblical view of motherhood on society. She clearly could stand to take a stroll along the Upper West (or East) Side of New York -- hardly the beachhead for Christian childrearing -- to disabuse her of this notion. It is littered with highly educated ex-career women who are happily raising their children full time.

I didn't mean to imply that everyone hates feminists or that they should hate feminists. And while some people thought that using the word "hate" was too strong, I'm sorry to inform you that many people do in fact "hate" feminism. I know this in part because I have considered myself a feminist for the better part of my life (though as I said in my post, the meaning of this word today remains unclear considering that Hirshman also considers herself a feminist) and have all sorts of people tell me how much they disagree with feminism -- and most of those people were Democrats and people who consider themselves liberal in every other way. Most often, the reason people cite is that they feel feminists are judgmental about their choices and seek to impose a worldview on everyone else, rather than truly letting women make their own choices.

To me, feminism has always meant supporting the idea that women should be able to pursue their dreams, whatever they are, and for many women their dream is to have a family and be dedicated to that full time (though most women can't afford to do this). And if they choose to pursue a career or have to get a job to add to the family income, there should be an even playing field, they should earn what their male counterparts earn, and they should not have to tolerate sexual harassment. Feminism meant making sure that when women were raped that they were not further victimized by the court system. Feminism meant women being able to get credit cards in their own name and have control over their own finances. Feminism meant girls shouldn't be told they can't do math (remember the Barbie who said "Math class is tough?") or become mechanics, or pilots, or anything else, merely because they are female. It meant getting equal funding for government research of diseases that affect women at a time that all such research was done only on men. It never meant --and does not mean to me today -- that women who choose to stay home and take care of their children, and dare I say it, their husbands, should be maligned the way they are in Hirshman's Washington Post op-ed." ..end of quote.

Bravo Ms. Powers, bravo!