Mothers For Women’s Lib

Welcome to the ninth edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting. Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you who are celebrating it today! I’ve come to the realisation that I’m not very good at writing these introductions to the Carnival, so I might as well get right on and present this month’s submissions!

Pregnancy and Birth

• In Media Coverage of Burton v. State of Florida, The Unnecesarean writes about the case of a woman who is fighting the court order which confined her to involuntary bed rest during her pregnancy.
• Lauredhel talks about That Homebirth Study in South Australia, and how the data has been skewed by the obstetric community to mean something totally different to what it actually says.
• In When will the police come knocking?, Renegade Parent tells us about the hospital who sent the police to a woman’s house after she didn’t turn up for the induction she didn’t want.
• In The system is broken if it doesn’t leave people whole – Part 1, Kenzie writes about the medical model of childbirth – I’d recommend browsing her blog for parts two, three and four as well.
• The blog Don’t Get Me Started has a wonderfully angry post titled Chop Shop, talking about what she sees in obstetric wards and why she would choose home birth.

Breastfeeding

• In Covering up is a feminist issue, PhDinParenting writes about the insistence by certain people that breastfeeding mothers ‘cover up’, and why this is an issue for all feminists, not just mothers.

Adoption

• Skylanda writes On the fetish-ization of Haitian orphans, talking about the problematic sudden surge of white would-be adopters of Haitian ‘orphans’ and the problems with orphanages.
• In Want to adopt a Haitian orphan? WAIT!,Veronica talks about the ten white USians who have been arrested for child trafficking out of Haiti, covering many of the same ideas.
• In The Dangerous Desire to Adopt Haitian Babies, Atlasien writes about her opinions as ‘a foster care adoptive parent’, on the topic of international adoption and specifically adoption from Haiti.

Education

• Ashley writes Female Students, Female Teachers, and Math Anxiety ? Oh My!, about the study that appears to show that girls learn maths anxiety from female teachers, and how this isn’t necessarily the case.
• In The Hands On Museum, Michelle Bell writes about her experience taking a young friend to the Ann Arbour Hands On Museum.
• In Wow, so Anne Frank was a girl?, BitcoDavid talks about the worrying news that the Diary Of Anne Frank has been banned in one Virginia school because of ‘sexual content’.

Sex Education

• In Get your hands off my daughter Tony Abbot (or what I will tell my child about virginity), Spilt Milk writes a beautiful letter to her daughter about her body, sex and virginity.
• Meloukhia asks that we Give Teens With Disabilities Access to Sexual Education, talking about the denial of sex education to teenagers with disabilities, reminding us that PWD have sexual feelings too.
• In The virgin diary, or: What Tony Abbott should have said to his teenage girls, Muliercula covers the same topic as Spilt Milk above, talking about Tony Abbott’s worrying opinions regarding virginity.
• Thomas writes It’s The Ears, talking about the ‘jokes’ other fathers make about their daughters’ virginity and his own response to them.

Disability

• In Do you REALLY trust women? AmandaW talks about the problematic lack of intersection between disabled rights and the pro-choice movement, specifically the problems with disabled parenthood/childhood.

Violence Against Women

• Marcella Chester writes about the Research On Link Between Pregnancy Coercion And Relationship Abuse, and talks about the lack of education on domestic violence when sexually educating teens.
• Cara has a heartbreaking post titled Court Ignores Man’s Domestic Violence Prior to Murder-Suicide, bringing us news of a man who killed himself and his infant son despite the child’s mother warning police of his violent tendencies.

Race

• Blue Milk writes Sunny, with a chance of racism, explaining an incident of racism her four-year-old had with one of her friends at the swimming pool.
• Laura Woodhouse has a piece titled Asylum seeker mothers fight to be reunited with their children, writing about asylum seeker mothers who have had to leave their children in their country of origin and are fighting for their right to join them in the UK.
• Tami asks Is a diverse environment enough to inoculate against racism?, with a post about trying to raise anti-racist children.
• The Independent on Sunday has an article titled Detaining children in Britain: No place for the innocent, about the horrible treatment of asylum seekers and in particular, their children.

Body Image

• Levi Pulkkinen has an article titled Charge: Parents didn’t want ‘fat’ baby, so they starved her, about parents so concerned about their infant daughter becoming obese that they starved her to the point of emaciation.

Gender Stereotypes

• Gina Crosley-Corcoran writes about her experience of her attempts at Raising an Equality-Minded Male, and asks her readers how they are attempting to do the same.
• Victoria Brooke Rodrigues says I feel neutral about gender-neutral parenting, with a post about the difficulties she’s had even from before her son was born in raising him outside of gender stereotypes.
• Mistress Mom writes a fabulous list of answers to the question “Why is your son wearing pink?“

Natural Parenting

• Woman, Uncensored has a post titled “Just let her cry” drawing a parallel between the ‘cry it out’ parenting method and what we’d think if someone treated a sick or disabled adult in the same way.

Mothers’ and Children’s Rights

• Stef has written a thoughtful and poignant list of 10 things you should never say to a stepmother.
• In Intersecting Needs: Maslow, interdependence, parenting, caregiving, relationships, PhDinParenting writes about the intersections between a child’s needs and a mother’s needs, and how to find a balance.
• In today’s kids… Boheime writes about how the children of today aren’t different but the society around them is, and why that’s actually a good thing.

Teaching Equality

• In Quantity time, Spilt Milk writes about how doing the ‘boring bits’ of parenting can be just as important for bonding with your child as doing the ‘fun bits’ is.
• Horry reminds us that Some mothers actually like bacon sandwiches, talking about her experiences of being a working mother and how that differs in people’s perceptions from being a working father.
• In Voices Of Men, CJ talks about how we teach our children, both male and female, about domestic violence.

That concludes this edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting. The next edition will be Sunday 14th March with a submission deadline of Sunday 7th March. Submit your (or someone else’s) blog article to the next edition by using our carnival submission form or sending the URL in an @ reply to @m4wl on Twitter. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival home page.