Mothers For Women’s Lib

Welcome to the twelfth edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting!

Sorry it’s late – I intended to get working on it on Saturday but my computer’s graphics card chose that day for its capacitor to burst open rendering my entire PC useless! Thankfully my partner came to the rescue, bought and installed a new graphics card and I’m now able to get on with the Carnival. Unfortunately life has been very busy (as it always is with kids around!) so this is the first moment I’ve had available to sit down and properly work on it. So my deepest apologies for the tardiness, I hope you’ll all forgive me!

I’m ashamed to say it’s a lazy Carnival this time round; usually I write a sentence or two describing what each post is about but I simply do not have the spoons. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that it’s a bumper issue this time around – I believe I’ve had nearly seventy submissions! So make sure you have a couple of hours spare, make yourself a nice cup of tea and sit down to enjoy all the wonderful pieces included in this edition.

Pregnancy and Childbirth

• When fighting rape culture means changing birth culture posted at Spilt Milk.
• Who Cares About Pregnant Women? posted at Her Authority.
• Another Doula Ban, Another Bad Birth Plan posted at Birthing Beautiful Ideas.
• Birth Trauma Can Cause Women to Develop PPD & PTSD posted at Associated Content.
• Reclaiming Birth, and the Albany Midwives posted at London Anarchafeminist Kolektiv.

Adoption

• Adoption, Race, Disability and the Vaule of People posted at The Trouble Is….

Bodily Autonomy

• Pregnant Women to be Tested for Smoking posted at Feminist Philosophers.
• Who Owns a Woman’s Body Pt 2 – Pregnancy posted at Finding Summer.
• Fragments of Evolving Manhood: Do You Like Your Body 4 (More on the Expendability of the Foreskin) posted at Alas, a blog.
• Honey, I poked holes in all the condoms posted at f/law.
• A different sort of female genital mutilation posted at Morrígan Reborn.

Reproductive Freedom

• My Mother’s Abortion Improved All of Our Lives posted at Women’s eNews.
• The love is the same; it’s the parenting that’s different. posted at abortionclinicdays.
• Word to the wise: Never date a guy who reads Details posted at Feministe.
• The Horror of Forced Abortions and Sterilizations in China posted at Women’s Rights Change.
• “Un bebé no se hace solita, or, You can’t make a baby by yourself” posted at Womanist Musings.

Breastfeeding

• What does feminism have to do with breastfeeding? posted at Breastfeeding Medicine.
• A Dad’s View on Breastfeeding posted at Tales of a Kitchen Witch Momma.
• Society is creepy (not breastfeeding) posted at PhD in Parenting.
• Breastfeeding is a feminist issue posted at Spilt Milk.
• normalizing breastfeeding through solidarity? posted at Living Peacefully With Children.
• Small fries, a coke and a McBreast please. posted at wood turtle.

Gender Stereotypes

• Where’s Mom? posted at Shakespeare’s Sister.
• It’s a boy! posted at Think Mama Think.
• Do we pigeon hole our children early on? posted at Single Mummy.
• I’m a little teapot posted at Living Peacefully With Children.

Motherhood

• Feminism Beyond the Veil posted at Courtroom Mama.
• Cyberbullying not just for kids: moms get bullied too posted at Feminist Mom in Montreal.
• My classes must be over because this post is damn long. posted at Bitch. Ph.D.
• Mother’s Day in the War on Terror posted at Sajid Malick Blog.
• Paris-Ankara Express: The Weekend Charter posted at Paris-Ankara Express.

Fatherhood

• Review: Do Men Mother? posted at A Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land.
• Guest post: It’s a MAD dad world posted at fertilefeminism.com.

Fat and Sizeism

• Where the Fight Against Child Obesity Can Go Very, Very Wrong posted at Huffington Post.
• Do Overweight Pregnant Women Need Separate High-Risk Hospitals? posted at Unnecesarean.

Employment Choices

• Tell me something I didn’t know already posted at In a strange land.
• Yes, I am a feminist housewife posted at Offbeat Mama.
• EU rules on pregnant workers’ pay posted at BBC World News.
• Me, a Radical Homemaker? posted at Laura Grace Weldon.
• Is stay at home motherhood a class issue? posted at used to be somebody.
• Downing Street goes family (time) friendly posted at Fertile Feminism.

News and Media

• I Can Slay the Jabberwocky! Disney’s New Alice Serves as a Strong Role Model for Girls posted at DisZine.
• Why My Daughter Doesn’t Watch Disney Movies posted at domestic dilettante, humorless feminist shrew.
• Birth and Breastfeeding in Season 1 of Lost posted at Birthcycle.
• Sexualised Girls and Macho Heroes – Gender Depictions in Children’s TV posted at Goethe Gender.

Race and Racism

• If You’re Not In Prison and Not Making Babies What Are you Doing? posted at Womanist Musings.
• Quick Hit on Hair: Not-White Is Not Other posted at Raising My Boychick.
• Daycare Subsidy and the “Good Single Mother” posted at Womanist Musings.
• My Daughter, Her Hair, and the Seattle School District posted at The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

Disability and Ableism

• Too Disabled To See Your Children posted at Womanist Musings.
• This Is Not Education: Abuse of Autistic Students in Pennsylvania posted at FWD/Forward.
• ‘Crazy’ Mother Kills Presumably Autistic Son, Media Reports posted at Astrid’s Journal.
• Signing with my baby posted at BBC – Ouch! (disability).

Sex and Sexuality

• Trans Children – Challenging the Myths posted at UnCommon Sense.
• Is That a Boy or a Girl?: Talking to Kids About Gender posted at Womanist Musings.
• No, You Mean to be Hateful to Gay People posted at Womanist Musings.
• Kids of lesbians have fewer behavioral problems, study suggests posted at CNN Health.
• Nudity and Gender posted at Finding Summer.
• The hypocrite in the room: Views on female sexuality posted at fertilefeminism.com.

Sex Education

• Protecting Boys with Condoms for Kids posted at Sociological Images.
• Rape discussed at school: shocking or sensible? posted at We Mixed Our Drinks.
• What kind of mirror did your mom make you look at your vagina with? posted at Feministe.
• Rape myths debated in schools posted at Pickled Politics.

Children’s Rights

• My Child Takes Up Space posted at Womanist Musings.
• Children Take Up Space (and Notice When We Don’t Notice) posted at random babble….
• Hay festival video: ‘No child is born a criminal’ posted at Comment is Free.

Miscellaneous

• Because I’m a mother now… posted at Surges of a Heart.
• India’s Growing Surrogacy Trade Faces New Restrictions posted at Time Magazine.
• Kids: screw ‘em posted at Pandagon.

That concludes this edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting, I hope you’ve enjoyed it! Submit your (or someone else’s) blog post or article to the next edition using our carnival submission form or by sending a Twitter message to @m4wl. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our carnival home page.

Welcome to the eleventh edition of the newly two-monthly Carnival of Feminist Parenting. It looks like my decision to make it two-monthly – and the hard work of readers plugging it in their own blogs – has paid off, because I’ve had lots of submissions for this edition!

If you submitted an article or blog post which isn’t included in today’s carnival (and which wasn’t a spam submission!) please let me know as I think some of the submissions got lost when I switched the carnival from monthly to two-monthly.

So here it is. Many, many thanks to Earwicga for her help in putting this together, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you! The first half was compiled by me (Anji) and the second half by Earwicga. I hope you enjoy it!

Pregnancy and Childbirth

• The Unnecesarean explains Why VBACs Should Be the Norm, Not the Deviant Care Pattern,detailing her horrible experiences with unnecessary caesareans and her attempts to have VBACs which were foiled by anti-VBAC medical professionals.
• Fertile Feminism has a post titled Selling out on the postnatal ward, about how advertising has permeated those first precious few moments with one’s baby, in particular the problematic allowing of ‘Bounty ladies’ to roam the postnatal ward peddling their wares and coercing women to give up personal details.
• The Unnecesarean talks about Good Little Girls, in a post explaining why so many women don’t fight for their birthing rights, because we have been taught from a very young age not to make a fuss or be a ‘troublemaker’.
• Amy Gates writes For Better or For Worse? Childbirth in Popular Culture, about the problematic way in which childbirth is portrayed in the media, and how that portrayal affects women’s beliefs and expectations surrounding it.
• In Secret Oppression: Epidurals, Mamapoekie talks about epidurals as a feminist issue and explaining why she thinks that in most cases epidurals are unnecessary and presenting her case for an epidural-free birth experience.
• Courtroom Mama asks Why is VBAC a vital option? Because anything less is anti-woman, explaining that “VBAC bans” in hospitals are an example of society having no trust in women to make the right decisions regarding their own bodies.
• Molly Westerman writes Manly Men and Blundering Dads: On Men’s Guides to Childbirth, about the stereotypes that plague new fathers, specifically the ones presented in books aimed at men whose partners are pregnant or who have young babies.
• In When fighting rape culture means changing birth culture, Spilt Milk talks about how society creates a culture where birth rape is acceptable.

Breastfeeding

• In It was either the Deech, or Jan Moir, Renegade Parent takes apart an anti-breastfeeding article in the Daily Mail by the ever-problematic Jan Moir with aplomb, discussing why it is in business owners’ best interest to ‘allow’ breastfeeding on their premises, among other things.
• Gina Crosley-Corcoran tells us that When It Comes to Breastfeeding, We Can’t Handle The Truth, explaining that, as breastfeeding saves lives, it should be advertised in the same way car seats are advertised, and reminding us that breastfeeding advocacy is not intended to bash those who don’t choose it.
• An “Other” Mother writes Pincer Grasp – Dealing with Anger as a Feminist, about how she copes with the painful side of breastfeeding and how being a feminist shapes her anger at those experiences.
• Motherhood Denied has a post about Toddler breastfeeding: Good for mother and child, but society says no, talking about full-term breastfeeding and the negative comments she receives for doing so.

Sexualisation and Rape Culture

• In Boys, Babes and Balls: Hooters mascots for U16 boys footy, Melinda Tankard Reist writes about how Hooters have joined forces with an under-16s football club and discussing how this may be teaching boys/young men that women are nothing but their bodies.

News and Media

• PhD in Parenting writes All I think about is princesses… where she sets a challenge for Disney, discussing how Disney has ‘rebranded Rapunzel to appeal to boys’ and asking them to rethink their strategies.
• Veronica has a post titled Women’s History Month: Why I love Ariel & Belle, discussing the least ‘princessy’ of the Disney princesses.
• In TV for feminist kids, An “Other” Mother talks about the pros and cons of children’s television and the programmes she has approved for her daughter.
• Elena Perez writes a review of the film How to Train Your Dragon from a feminist perspective, and it’s positive! I saw this film myself (twice!) and I have to say I agree with her on pretty much every point and would be happy to show this film to my young son.
• Pissweak Parent writes about The other taboo topic and marketing mania, a discussion about parenting as a taboo topic of conversation and talking about the problem of the advertising aimed at parents.

Reproductive Rights

• In Woman as womb, Julie discusses the reduction of women’s worth and interestingness to nothing but their reproductive capability and how especially when pregnant, people seem interested in nothing more than what’s in their wombs.

Work Choices

• Jaelithe writes about the pain of children and mothers who spend days apart due to paid work, and applies some wonderful logic to this situation in To My Friends Who Work Outside the Home.
• Society’s supposed opposite option to full time working parent(s) is discussed by Maman a Droit in Staying At Home: A Valid Choice, in which she discusses how women who are able to choose to bring up their children full-time are dismissed by society and shamefully by other women.
• In When mothering isn’t work? Pissweak Parent outlines the bizarre notion that taking care of your own child isn’t work and it only becomes work when a third-party does the job with the requisite money transfer.
• Spilt Milk takes a subject that I have always wondered about – how parents (in this case mothers) leave young children to go on reality shows – and teases out some issues. In Dishing it out the decision of a contestant, Sarah, to leave a show and the consequent ‘vicious criticism’ is shown rightly to be utterly sexist, hypocritical and unfair.

Relationships

• Only one entry in this section but it is a pure delight to read so heartfelt thanks to the submitter/Anji who found this article for the Carnival. Christina Campbell in Single Mothers Trashed For Not “Choosing” to Marry takes a Daily Mail article, which par for the course has great scope for criticism. Campbell decodes the language used surrounding welfare for single parents and other forms of welfare which have different names, such as ‘tax breaks’. Lots of good links too!

Teaching and Education

• Lynne Marie Wanamaker shows how a playground conflict provides a teaching moment for self protection and assertiveness skills in the interesting and inspiring Self Defense Snap Shot: Queen of the Kick-ball Crew.

Gender and Stereotyping

• Have a think about what “Mom Idol” could mean – how wonderful it could be – and then click into this post written by Saraline Grenier. A clever little post that I just know will keep me thinking throughout this week.
• In Reconciling the primacy of motherhood with the rejection of binary gender, Elizabeth Willmott Harrop tries to understand her dilemma between gender and biological sex and the consequent ‘fundamental behavioural differences’ in the context of breast feeding and biological ‘programming’.
• Pissweak Parent makes another appearance this Carnival with The ins and outs of gender politics, with a four year old in which a tantrum opens an opportunity to explain to a four year old (obviously) a version of feminism’s views/theories on clothing and gender.
• Melissa McEwan’s I Write Letters is a letter to parents to reject the reductive terms ‘she’s all girl’ or ‘he’s all boy’ and is partially successful, actually very successful in explaining this. But, to my eyes this post is also a great big fail when you consider transgender and gender dysphoric children, which I don’t think this post, or McEwan does. You may disagree but go read it with the knowledge that these children exist. They exist everywhere and you will know them. But they may not know how to explain it to themselves, let alone you. I was particularly struck with a fact that Natacha Kennedy blogged – trans children do not learn any language surrounding transgenderism for an average of seven and a half years after their initial realisation of being trans.

Race and Racism

• Renee Martin provides the actual opposite of People magazine in Sandra Bullock and her Secret Baby. Stirring and strong!
• A follow up post on the same blog, Motherhood and Homelessness, exposes the realities of motherhood and reproductive choices for young poor women who are statistically more likely to be women of colour. Renee’s words are elequently backed up by Katerina Cizek’s short film Unexpected which introduced me to the term ‘Only Parent’ describing my life way more than the term ‘Single Parent’!

Mother’s Rights

• Ghost in the Dwelling written by Dw3t-Hthr is a personal post describing how it feels to have other people’s ideas of the label of ‘Mother’ forced onto the author, and the anger it can engender in particular to her own mother where the experience is very different and isn’t seem to be at all helpful.

That concludes this edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting. The next edition will be in two months’ time on Sunday 11th July 2010. Submit your blog article (or one by someone else!) to the next edition using our carnival submission form or in an @ reply on Twitter to @m4wl. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our carnival home page.

As I am receiving so few submissions for the Carnival of Feminist Parenting, I am considering changing it to a two-monthly Carnival (six per year) instead of the current monthly one. Thus this month’s carnival is not happening – there were very, very few submissions – and I will be trying to publicise it a lot more than I have been, in the hope that people will submit more articles.

The next Carnival of Feminist Parenting will be held on Sunday 16th May 2010. Submission deadline is Sunday 9th May 2010.

If anyone has any ideas on how I can better publicise the Carnival, please do comment here or email me!

Welcome to the tenth edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting. A very happy Mother’s Day to all our readers in the UK, I hope you’re having a lovely day.
It’s a very short Carnival this month, as there haven’t been many submissions (well, from people who aren’t me anyway!) but this is a good thing today as I’ve been off this afternoon visiting my dear Mum and want to go to bed soon!

• Stef presents Pity the blended family? No thanks we’re fine the way we are, talking about family structure and why that has no bearing on the happiness of the family.

• Fertile Feminism presents Mindful language: what does ‘mothering’ mean?, jumping off from a discussion about what to call Mother’s Day with a post about how we use language to describe mothering and parenting.

• Sparky presents A Spark of Wisdom: You’re already teaching kids sexuality, pointing out to heterosexist parents that they are teaching their children about sexuality every time they say “When you get married” or mention a boy/girlfriend.

• AnneE presents “Working mums” can’t win, a brilliant take-down of an article written about flexitime including some choice quotes from a woman who seems to equate having children with expensive outdoor hobbies.

• In The very gendered baby, Blue Milk discusses her inbuilt gender stereotyping problems and how they manifest in her different choices in how to dress her daughter and her son.

• Terri presents Barbie Becomes a Computer Engineer, showing off Barbie’s newest career and giving her thoughts on it.

• Sazz has four posts about co-feeding, also known as cross-nursing: A Cross-Nurser’s Response To Hatred, Articles About Co-Feeding (Cross-Nursing), Our 2nd Year Breastfeeding Anniversary and My 1st Cross Tandem Nursing Experience.

• Weaver points out that Shockingly, teenage motherhood is not the end of the world, talking about teenage parents, inspired by an article on the same from the Guardian.

• Liz has a slightly angrier post titled, appropriately, Warning: I’m angry, also discussing teen/young pregnancy and asking how its detractors intend to stop it happening.

• Roxann Mitjoy writes about the Pregnant Iowa Woman Arrested for Falling Down, the terrifying story of Christine Taylor who was detained for two days “for admitting to thinking about an abortion at some point early in her pregnancy and then having the audacity to fall down some stairs a couple of months later.”

• Renee Martin also uses Christine Taylor’s story as a springboard for her post Abortion: The Choice We Do not Speak Of.

• PhD in Parenting asks Should we parent boys and girls differently? discussing the different lessons we need to teach our boys and girls so they can better tackle the different challenges the world with throw at them.

• Fertile Feminism presents Getting it, talking about well known feminist/Fat Acceptance blogger Kate Harding and imploring her to understand the parallels between the FA/HAES movement and that of children’s rights.

• Megan has a guest post at the F-Word titled Contraception and Control – Teenage Rights, discussing the rights of teenagers to good sex education and access to contraception and emergency contraception, and above all the right to control over their own bodies.

• The Unnecesarean presents Too Polite to Fight, talking about “a cousin of the “Too Posh to Push” archetype”.

Thanks for reading, folks. The next edition will be Sunday 11th April with a submission deadline of Sunday 4th April. 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.

Welcome to the January edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting. This month as always, the blogosphere has been awash with some really excellent writing from feminists, parents and of course all those wonderful people who are part of both groups. So as usual, instead of me waffling, let’s get straight to the interesting stuff!

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Children’s Rights and Mother’s Rights

• Grace Fletcher-Hackwood kicks us off with an article at the F-Word demanding an end to financial discrimination against young people.
• Chally has a post taking apart an advertising campaign which stated that “working mothers are bad mothers”.
• The Independent on Sunday has an article about the detention of children in Britain, calling immigration centres “no place for the innocent”.

Adoption

• BlackKittenRoar talks about how it feels to be told you’re going to be “sent back” and the effect this has on adopted children.

Pregnancy and Birth

• Brandann Hill-Mann has an article about the bad implementation of court-martials for pregnancy in the US military.
• Jill writes about an interesting parallel between abusive individuals and bullying doctors/obstetricians.

Gender Stereotyping

• Sally Whittle asks What exactly is a “girl’s” toy, anyway? after an experience with her daughter in a gender-segregated toy shop.
• Paige Schilt writes at the Bilerico Project about Stilettos, Sissy Boys, and the Limits of “Gender-Neutral” Parenting Advice.
• Jen Nedeau has written an article about a group of children suing Toys R Us for gender stereotyping in their Christmas catalogue.
• Lisa at Sociological Images posts about Socialization and Gendered Job Segregation, showing the disparity in gendered toy packaging.
• Jon Henley has an article about the power of pink, about the wonderful PinkStinks campaign.

Breastfeeding

• Brandann Hill-Mann has a disturbing story about Target employees who called the police on a breastfeeding woman.

Disability

• Jennifer Chimber shares an anecdote from a recent restaurant visit, reminding us that discrimination against people with disabilities is unacceptable.
• Sara Olkon tells the heartbreaking story of a mother with disabilities who is fighting to keep her son.
• Sarah writes about her difficulties in meeting the ‘requirements’ of her gender as a person with disabilities.
• Meloukhia has a short anecdote at FWD about parents teaching about ableist language and doing it well.

News and Media

• Ananova has an article explaining how Thomas the Tank is ‘sexist’, talking about the lack of female characters in the programme.
• In The Mommy Myth That Will Not Die, Natalie Wilson talks about the problematic view that the Twilight series gives of motherhood.

Body Image and Sexualisation

• Lindsay talks about fat acceptance for 4 year olds, sharing a story about one of her pupils who is already concerned about being fat.

Feminist Parenting

• In Motherhood is Political, Valerie Young talks about how motherhood changed her world view and politicised her.
• Dw3t-Hthr has a post humorously titled The Cult of Mommon, challenging the idea of motherhood as a ‘gift’.
• Lynne Marie Wanamaker presents a round-up of her posts about teaching children self-defence and how she does so with her daughter.
• Gina Crosley-Corcoran writes about Raising an Equality-Minded Male, talkingabout how she is trying to do so, and asking her readers how they are doing the same.

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That concludes this edition, I really hope you’ve enjoyed it!

As usual, the vast majority of the posts here were submitted by myself. The Carnival can’t continue without your support, so please please submit your blog article to the next edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting using our carnival submission form, or by sending the link in a Twitter reply to @m4wl.

The next edition will be held on Sunday 14th February, with a submission deadline of Sunday 7th February. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our carnival home page.