Mothers For Women’s Lib

I too am a new blogger for Feminist Mums, and very glad to be here. Ruth and I managed to write pieces, quite separately, on issues to do with Feminism and Motherhood for The F Word in the same week, and I enjoyed Ruth’s very much. I ought to be able to do the same sort of whizzy linkage that she did, but I’m technologically challenged, and shall just say that mine was on gender issues, was called Why My Son Wears Pink, and can be found here – http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2008/08/why_my_son_wear

I have a particular interest in gender issues. I had to give up my MPhil, which was on the topic of Gender in Children’s Literature (to be specific, in The Chalet School books - a series of girls’ school stories), which I regret. But given a not-so-small son (he’ll be three in a couple of weeks), a slight financial crisis and a long term disability (I have ME, aka CFIDS, and have done for the past 15 years), it has not been feasible to continue. But I am very interested in gender issues – and, also, in children’s literature, of which I read a great deal (and no, not just for my son’s sake, but because of my own unashamed love).

I also care deeply about environmental issues and disability issues: I write occasionally for the magazine Disability Now, for example; and am trying to get publication in green magazines or websites. Interestingly, reading Ruth’s latest post I was reminded once again of a place where mothering and disability problems overlap – she was writing about the difficulty of getting pushchairs round many shops, and I can assure you that the same applies to wheelchairs!

My primary ‘work’ is looking after my son and loving my family (an easy job), but I also work one day a week in support services at a university and write fiction and non-fiction for publication in a wide range of styles, genres and forms. And I’m glad to be here, and to feel that I may be adding something to resources for mothers.

I was really excited when, upon emailing Debs about writing for this blog, she said she’d had me in mind when she set it up. Those of us who are feminists and mothers are in a unique position, especially those of us raising boys. My son Orion is two years and nine months old. He is the most important person in my life, as well he should be – but how does one reconcile a feminist lifestyle with raising a boychild in a patriarchal society?

Shirley Chisholm said that the emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, “It’s a girl.” This is true also for the emotional, sexual and psychological stereotyping of boys, and it can be just as harmful if not more, to the women’s movement and the fight for women’s liberation. On the day my son was born I was in denial that I was in labour; I entered the maternity centre with no clothing or nappies for my impending child. He was a big baby, at 9lb 10oz there was very little in the centre’s emergency wardrobe that would fit him. I didn’t want to cover his skin, to a new mother, newborn skin is heaven. But they told me he would become cold, and finally found something which would fit him. It was a Disney sleepsuit, featuring a motif of that famous bear Winnie-the-Pooh, along with pink collar and cuffs and a selection of pink and lilac flowers and butterflies. I thought he looked adorable. Everybody else laughed, and various family members swung into action to get some ‘proper boy clothes’ for him.

At the time of course I was exhausted and I didn’t think much of it. Now though I wonder why they laughed. I wonder why it was so important to clothe my newborn son in something, anything, other than pink. At only a few hours old he couldn’t care less what he was wearing, or about anything else at all other than that my breast stayed within reach of his face. Newborns are the only human beings in this society who not only don’t know about the gender dichotomy, but they don’t care either. It is not until later that it dawns on us that what we have between our legs is supposed to dictate the way we appear, speak and behave. I looked down at my son, half a day old, milk-drunk and sleeping peacefully in his clear plastic cot and I have to admit that neither of us could have imagined just how much his penis would affect both the way he was expected to behave and the way I was expected to treat him.

Now he is nearly three. He is gaining control of his language and his bodily functions with alarming rapidity, and every day he surprises me with something new he has learned. He had a major accident when he was a few months old which delays his development slightly, but even with that he is basically doing everything a normal toddler is supposed to do. Why then, does it seem that every action of a child seems to have a gender? My son loves cars and trains. Not a day goes by where I don’t nearly break my neck in an unintentional attempt to rollerskate across the room with Thomas the Tank Engine stuck under my foot. We have more cars on our living room floor than appear at the local Honda showroom. Orion could stand at the bus stop watching cars and buses and lorries go by for hours and not get bored. The kid likes movement, he likes things which go ‘brum’ and ‘zoom’ and ‘beep beep’. Things like that are cool when you’re nearly three. Of course, when people see him playing with his cars, telling me about vehicle sounds or getting excited about seeing the train pull in at our local station, they invariable comment on what a ‘proper little boy’ he is. Likewise when they see him bouncing around the playground like a boy possessed, kicking a football around the basketball court or when I tell them about his crazy, dynamic, unstoppable little personality. These things are never put down to healthful energy, or his age, or my parenting styles. They are all universally shoved into this little box of ‘boyness’.

On the flipside of the coin, my son has approximately four million stuffed toys, dolls and other approximations of people and animals. He has a child-sized pushchair, plastic bowls and spoons and demands I create chairs and tables out of Sticklebricks for him so he can sit them down and feed them dinner. He likes to cuddle ‘Baby’, a little doll I bought him after seeing how he fell in love with a baby doll at one of his occupational therapy sessions, and pesters me for baby wipes so he can clean its face after ‘breakfast’. He likes to shove as many cuddly toys as possible into the pushchair, then bimble down the road beside me as we walk to the supermarket, waxing lyrical the for the whole journey about where we are going, telling his stuffed friends about what he can see, and stopping every few minutes to lean down and plant a squishy kiss upon an inanimate furry nose or cheek. I had some workers in my house a few months ago, measuring my fireplaces so they could be covered. Orion was pootling around the house playing ‘shops’; he had one of my cotton carrier bags over his shoulder and was pushing ‘Kangaroo’ (can you see how original we are with cuddly toy names around here?) around in the pushchair. He pushed it into the lounge, and the workman looked up at me and asked if Orion was a boy or a girl. I figured well, he has massive dark eyes and rosebud lips, easy mistake to make, and told him Orion was a boy. He immediately turned to my son and said “Well then you don’t want to be playing with that, that’s a girl’s toy!”

I was a bit dumbstruck to be honest. This total stranger walked into my house and basically dictated to my son what was acceptable and unacceptable for him to play with, based solely on his genitalia. I rallied a bit and said “Nah, you love looking after your babies and friends don’t you Orion?” and he looked at me, a little confused, and said “Yes…” and then looked at the workman, almost asking for his approval. My son, my beautiful son, who is so little and innocent, is at an age where he is eager to please everybody, especially adults. He yearns for approval and validation. Nobody should ever feel invalidated, and my little boy was made to feel wrong by a man he had never met before. That man could have kept his mouth shut, but for some reason the world and his dog think they have a right to comment on women’s parenting and to give uneducated, unsolicited advice.

I have a whole lot more to say on this particular subject but if I carry on here I’ll end up with nothing to write in further entries. With a son Orion’s age I see sexism every day, not just perpetrated against me as a woman and a mother, but also against my son who is gradually becoming the person he is destined to be and is fighting against ‘well-meaning’ idiots left, right and centre who want him to restrict certain parts of his unique personality because they are too ‘female’ while also praising other parts because they are ‘male enough’. To a toddler this is all very confusing, and it pains me to see it happening every single day. Being a feminist and a mother is a hard job, and sometimes it feels like I’m just fighting one battle after another. I am thankful that now I have a forum to share those battles and to get feedback and discuss them with others in similar positions. Thanks for your time.