August 15, 2010

Department of WIN: Polarn O. Pyret

Posted by rosemaryterrace under clothing, gender stereotypes, links | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
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What a slogan!

Not for girls.

Not for boys.

We make clothes for children.

I love this slogan. It sums up everything I want in a clothing store for my child. We gender children’s clothing way before there is much in the way of difference between body shapes, to the extent that even clothing that we might describe as “neutral” (no bows and ribbons; no skulls and crossbones) is gendered by the colour it is (olive green for boys, pale yellow for girls, for example; even blue clothing, for example, has a “girl” shade and a “boy” shade), and vice versa (and orange top, for example, will be marked as “girl” or “boy” by either a subtle puffing up of the sleeves or a small car motif, for example). And it will be gendered, in most shops, by actually putting clothes in different aisles according to gender. (In my local Asda, for example, “boy” and “girl” clothes are even separated by the service counter!) And I’m sick of it and have been sick of it for a long time. (Also, lest we forget, “boy” and “girl” are not the only two genders in the world; we also don’t know for certain that our female assigned child is a girl, and our male assigned child is a boy, until they tell us, which relies on them having the words and us listening. So talking about “children” makes much more sense!)

So in terms of slogan and the idea behind it, Polarn O. Pyret gets my vote. Also in terms of placement within online store; clothes are sorted by type (trouser, dress, top, etc) rather than by gender. This is exactly how I want to search for clothes for my child; does he need a new pair of trousers? Let’s look at trousers then; rather than having to sort by boy or by girl, I can get the full range and choose for myself.

The clothes also look to be of a good quality; outdoorsy, rough and tumble clothes rather than decorative (actually, I don’t have a problem with decorative, and most children enjoy self-adornment; it’s when it’s limited to one gender that I’ve a problem).

The only drawback? The price. And here’s the thing; once again, being able to afford to support a shop with such important ideals, being able to dress your child in good quality, ethically sourced clothing, is very much the privilege of those with a certain amount of money. For example, should I want to buy my child a pair of trousers, I’m looking at over thirty quid. I couldn’t even justify spending thirty quid on a pair of kecks for myself, let alone a child that’s going to grow out of them in about a year’s time.

I do understand why places like this are expensive; it’s not cheap to be ethical, it’s not cheap to care about who makes the clothes you sell and it isn’t cheap to care about where the material in your clothes comes from. I get that; I’m glad they exist even though they’re way out of my price range. I hope parents (and anyone who buys clothes for children) with money will support this store as much as possible.

What doesn’t cost a company money, however, is having a unisex slogan like Polarn O. Pyret; it also doesn’t cost money to sort clothes by size and type rather than by gender. I hope the kind of companies I can afford to shop at follow suit. I might even add one or two bought pieces to my child’s lovely pre-loved hand-me-down collection then!

 

October 13, 2009

Stop “stop acting like a child!”

Posted by rosemaryterrace under Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , |
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NB: this post is for people who are on board with wanting to erase insulting language from their own personal lexicons. If you’re going to argue the toss about “politically correct language ZOMG you won’t be able to say anything soon” – this isn’t the place. This might be a good place to start.

I think some people are just starting to get their head around the fact the language they use sometimes has meanings they didn’t intend.

For example, saying someone is “crazy” to mean that you’re unhappy with the way they’re acting, you think they’re making no sense or they’re being unpleasant is ableist. You’re saying the person is acting like they’re mentally ill, and that to be mentally ill is synonymous with unpleasant and nasty. Which is insulting to people who are mentally ill, usually a specific type of mental illness. (And “crazy” can be a pejorative term all by itself; one thing for mentally ill people to reclaim the term “crazy” – another for people who aren’t mentally ill to use it.)

There’s something I’ve noticed recently, mainly in internet arguments but also “in real life”.

You’re acting like a child!

My two year old makes more sense than you.

You’re behaving like a spoilt brat.

Stop being so childish!

And so on. Thing is – sorry – but this isn’t okay. What they’re trying to say of course is “you’re acting ridiculously/ badly behaved / irrationally / etc.” but by invoking the child, they’re implying children are bad, ridiculous, badly behaved, irrational etc. Spoilt brat and other phrases like that are particularly bad as they’re not only using “child” to mean “bad” but the phrase itself is out and out child hate. (General rule? If it sounds like something an abuser might say to a child? It’s child hate.)

Comparing oppressions is often a bad idea, but if you’re a member of the oppressed group you’re using as a comparison, I think that’s a different kettle of fish. So here goes:

You’re acting like a woman!

My wife makes more sense than you.

You’re behaving like a nasty bitch.

Stop being such a girl!

Do you get what I’m saying now? So can we knock it off? Thanks.

 

October 10, 2009

We are all alloparents part three: what can you do?

Posted by rosemaryterrace under breastfeeding, general public | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |
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In part one of We are All Alloparents, I looked at why alloparenting was necessary, and in part two, why a world without alloparenting is bad for everyone.

I now want to look at what people who want to help, who want to stick it to the kyriarchy by modelling “how not to abuse privilege” to the next generation, can actually do, on a real, day-to-day level.

But I can’t speak for all parents, obviously. And I certainly can’t speak for children. You know; privileged person speaking on behalf of oppressed group, that doesn’t go down so well. I suppose it is slightly different than other privilege/oppression dichotomy in that I was once a child myself. But it was a long time ago, and as someone who has had many long years of adult privilege, I can’t completely trust myself to put myself back into that way of thinking.

So I’m going to keep this short. A few things I’d like to see, and then turn it over to you. As a parent, how could your life be improved by other alloparents? What would you like?

Here’s my two pence worth:

Understand basic child behaviour. “Tantrums” (or the less demonising “episodes” or “meltdowns”, as I’ve heard them called) are normal. They’re not naughty behaviour, and they don’t need to be dealt with or the child taught a lesson. They’re often a response to over stimulation, or not yet having the emotional ability to cope with disappointment. If you see a child having a tantrum, don’t tut or glare. If anything, it’s this that causes the frazzled parent to feel obliged to discipline, harshy, their child. A sympathetic smile goes a very long way. An offer of help – “do you need a hand?” – even longer. It can be hard to intervene if the parent’s already at the point of shouting.  But even there, walking on by and not staring is better than looking and making the parent feel even more uncomfortable. Meltdowns are normal. High pitched laughing and screaming is normal. Not wanting to be touched or patted on the head is normal. And for heaven’s sake, don’t take it as an insult if a child hides behind Mum when you approach. Saying “aw, is she/he shy?” is just irritating. How’s a mother meant to say “no, s/he’s not shy. Just natural healthy weariness at a stranger approaching”.

Offer to help with non-baby stuff. A new mother often has no shortage of friends and relatives who want to “help” with the baby (carry it, coo over it, cuddle it) but this leaves her, often worn out and exhausted from the birth, doing the drudge work; cooking, cleaning, tidying, washing – while others can claim they were helping. Tidying up, at the very least after yourself after a visit, is a start. Wash the dishes you’ve used. While you’re at the sink, why not wash a few more? Don’t expect to be waited on. You know where the kettle is. Why not bring your own food? A lot of this applies even after the child is out of babyhood. Offering to help with the child is good, don’t get me wrong; but offering to help with housework might be even better. And if you’re offering to take the baby for a bit so a mother can get some more sleep… why not do a quick whizz round the house picking up toys off the floor while you’re doing it? Besides, the government in the UK seems determined to stop informal babysitting arrangements (thanks, UK government, for legislating against alloparenting) so this might be the only way you can go anyway!

There are certain types of “help” that are never good alloparenting. I once had a man think I needed “help” to pull my dress down at the back after putting Bertie up in the sling had made my dress ride up at the back (which I knew, and which I was about to rectify). His help consisted of pulling down my dress without my permission, and in the process, ripping it. Also, I don’t need directing to a “private room” to breastfeed in. No, I’d not feel more comfortable there. Especially not if it’s the disabled toilet, as it often turns out to be. If I’ve chosen to sit down and nurse my child there… I’ve done it because that’s where I want to do it.

Over to you. How could good alloparents make your life easier?

 

August 16, 2009

We are all alloparents part two: why should you care?

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In part one of We Are All Alloparents, I talked about how difficult it can be to get through the day even as a TAB mother of one without the help of alloparents.

I’m very much of the opinion that alloparenting is one of many ways to stick two fingers up at the kyriarchy, and probably a feminist act too.

But why? Why should you care? Especially if you’re not the guardian of a child yourself?

Firstly, I wanted to look at the old “but you chose to have children” card that is often pulled out when guardians of children usually the mother dare to ask not to be discriminated against and possibly even helped because of their childed status.

Two things. First of all, you don’t know whether or not someone actually did choose to have children. Until contraception and abortions are freely available to all who want them, you can’t know for sure if someone really did choose to have a child. (And conversely, you don’t know for sure if someone really has chosen not to have children; they may have, but they also may not have been able to.)

Secondly, so what? So what if I chose to have a child? I also chose to rent my house from a private landlord rather than buy it or rent from a housing association. I still think I’m entitled to protection and rights in law even though it’s a choice. I chose to work part time at the local council; I could have gone onto income support or taken a full time job elsewhere. But I still should be entitled to, for example, union representation, even though I made that choice. Why does something being a “choice” immediately mean “and therefore you have no right to complain ever”?

But it’s not just that. It’s more than that. See, yes, in my case, I did have a choice. But here’s the thing. My child? Another human being? He didn’t have any say in the matter. He came into the world without a choice about it.

Even if you don’t think I’m entitled to any special rights because I made the choice to have a child, surely my child is, as another human being? I mean, children are people too, aren’t they?

And if you give a shit about standing up to kyriarchy at all, then isn’t standing up for someone in an oppressed group (and yes, children are an oppressed group – one day I will write that “adult privilege” checklist) one way of saying no, I’m not going to accept this “rule of masters” thing?

And if you give a shit about feminism at all, isn’t helping out another sister a worthwhile thing to do (and I say sister because it is usually the mother of the child who is in need of the help – usually, although not always)?

But it’s about more than that. It’s about the fact that alloparenting – assisting the parent and child who are struggling – is a great way to model to the next generation that this is what you do. That if people struggle, you don’t make it worse for them; you make it better. That you don’t discriminate against people because they’re acting in a non-kyriarchy approved way. That you don’t kick shit out of an already oppressed group. Aren’t these the lessons we want to impart? What better way then, than modeling those lessons?

And let’s not forget kyriarchy is cruel. And one day those children will become the “masters”. Do we want to be “ruled” by them? Or do we want to break that cycle?

 

May 17, 2009

Feminist Guilt

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I knew there would be people who criticised the way I brought up Austin, because they’d say that I was (in my father-in-law’s words) “making a lass out of him.” I was ready for that, and have been able to live with it. But the awful realisation came to me just the other day, when Austin was telling me about his ‘best’ friends – I, too, have a good amount of these gendered ideas left in me.

Austin has five close friends, of which four are girls. And when he went through his list of friends, I found myself wondering whether I’d done something ‘wrong’. Whether I’d forced my views on him so much that he could only identify with girls (ignoring, of course, the boy amongst his friends, as one does when guilt tripping happens!). I was pleased that he could make friends with girls, of course, but realised that I felt guilty about the amount of female friends he had compared to male. I want my son to have the friends he wants – if he made friends with lots of traditionally-masculine boys I’d put up with it, though I’d wonder what I’d done to him to make him feel so comfortable with them. I never thought I’d worry about female friends.

It just SHOWS how central the gender divide is in life, though. The first thing you know about a child is hir  sex: zie is labelled “boy” or “girl” from the moment of birth, and that knowledge affects what the child wears, what zie is shown, how zie is treated. No matter how much we disagree with the gender divide, it’s still THERE – and it still affects us to some extent.

I’ve never put Austin in dresses. Although I say I let him choose his clothes (hence his pink tops and purple trousers), I’ve never given him the option of wearing a dress as ‘normal’ wear (he tries things on, of course, at home). I’ve done this so that he won’t be teased, but as long as everyone (including me) continues to make this distinction between what is suitable for boys and what is suitable for girls, the teasing is always going to be an issue.

There are two problems here. Firstly, the fact that no matter how much we may agree or disagree with them, gendered ideas are fairly central to our world. Secondly, given problem #1, it is difficult to know how far to push the boundaries with our children. I want my son to be a happy, well-balanced boy. The fact is, if I ignored all gender ideas and (for example) sent him to pre-school in a dress, the teachers would have some sort of negative/weirded out reaction to him, and so would some of the children he goes to school with. I might think that the idea that “boys are like this” and “girls are like this” is an unhelpful way of looking at the world, but do I have the right to make an example of my son? As an adult, I can choose to accept/reject the gender ideas and understand what I am doing. But Austin is three. He’s too young to understand all the background to it, so is it fair for me to ask my son to do things which will almost certainly make his young life harder, and get him teased, perhaps bullied, by his peers?

 

April 13, 2009

You’ll never truly be “child free”

Posted by rosemaryterrace under accessibility, education | Tags: , , , , , , |
[42] Comments 

Edit, 4th July 2010. Hello everyone dropping by from CF Hardcore, which I understand was created when the usual LiveJournal Childfree community just wasn’t hardcore enough in its hating of children (“crotch droppings” I understand is a phrase some of you like to use for children, people like you used to be). I understand one of your own members was so upset about the hatred of children within your community that they donated a toy to a children’s charity for every hateful thing you said about children, back in 2005. Must have been a lot of toys! Just to clarify matters for you, as you seem not to want to read the post in its entirety before you comment. No one wants you to have children when you clearly don’t want to. We just want our children, and all children, to be respected fully as people. Thanks.

Sorry, no children allowed.

No Children Allowed

How often have you seen a sign like this? No children allowed. I’ve written before that not only does this discriminate against children (obviously) but also has a knock on effect in discriminating against the carers of children, who by and large are female.

It’s interesting to me as a feminist that many of the reasons given in support of child free spaces are very similar to the reasons given for excluding women from male spaces which, even until very, very recently, were totally legal.

Men spend all day with women; they need somewhere they can go and relax away from women at the end of the day

A lot of the language used in these places isn’t suitable for a woman anyway

Why would a woman want to come into these places in the first place? It would be very boring for them!

Listen, I don’t like women. In fact I chose not to marry or partner with a woman. So why do I have to have women shoved in my face?

These kind of places are dangerous for women. Plus we’d have to install another toilet and we just can’t afford that!

And so on. The more militant child free would tell you “but there IS a difference! It is acceptable to discriminate against children in this way because, unlike women and men, who people only thought were different, children actually are different than adults and do display some annoying characteristics that I want to get away from!”

It’s this reasoning that is used to justify all discrimination against children. Children are different than adults.

Over time this has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination against children. From sending children out to wet nurses (and no, these aren’t the milk producing angels you might have in your mind; wet nurses were very poor women who often had far more children than they could ever produce milk for; the children were often not nursed at all but were fed pap and gruel and swaddled and put on pegs for hours on end) which was often a death sentence, to justifying the regular beating of children (which tradition still continues today in that it’s perfectly legal here in the UK to smack a child).

The history of child rearing is one massive train wreck and although we have improving, here in the UK, there are still many throwbacks to the days when children were almost another species, not quite human.

I’ve mentioned the smacking, which is a major thing. Also, we still see it as acceptable to shut children out of many public places. We still see it as acceptable to force a baby to cry unattended for up to hours at a time so we can get some sleep. We still see it as acceptable – even, a good thing – that children who attend school must stay there at all times and be accountable for. If they are not interested in a subject they must still learn it. It’s good for them. If they would prefer, for example, to get a job, that option is not open to them. If their learning style is different from the mainstream – it’s tough. It is acceptable to talk down to them; their attempts at learning are often mocked and derided; shouting at them, tutting at their normal behaviour, glaring at their parents, saying “no” to all their requests without actually considering whether or not their reasonable…

This is all acceptable.

Now, before I carry on, I do want to make something clear. Often, I’ve heard discrimination against children couched in the following terms:

“You wouldn’t say that about a black person”

For a start, I’m a white woman, so even if that was the case, it wouldn’t be my place to say it. But secondly (and Renee says it so well here) this kind of sentence assumes that there is No More Racism. Which plainly is a nonesense. So in order to explain how children experience discrimination, we have to do it without further marginalising other groups that experience oppression in their daily lives.

So why am I using the comparison with women, as above? Well, I am a woman, and although there is still a hell of a lot of discrimination against women (some groups much more than others) I feel that it is something that society is at least aware of. I feel that we’re gradually working towards an awareness of sexism and misogyny and how if affects our daily lives, even if we’re still not completely sure what to do to combat it.

I also feel that it is my place to make this particular comparison. I am not downplaying the discrimination that I, as a woman, face; rather I’m using it, as it exists, to show you how the ways that children are treated are in fact discriminatory.

So, with that cleared up, what is the justification for the anti-child bias?

It appears to be, as I mentioned earlier, that they are different. But also, there is a part of it which is this: “I was a child and I experienced this, therefore it is not discrimination, otherwise that would mean I’d have to accept that I was discriminated against, and that might make me angry.”

Children are different. But they are also not one big homogeneous group. It is a continuum from baby to young adulthood. Essentially, all children are adults in learning. Strangely enough though, all adults are – to some extent- adults in learning, too; we never stop learning, it is just that the rate of it slows down as we get older. We develop more in the period birth-one year than we do in the period 30-35, for example. All people are people in learning, just different stages of knowledge accumulation. It really isn’t “them and us”. They are us. Some people may require more care and attention, especially early on in their lives, but they are people still, and should be treated with no less respect than others our own age.

Which brings me to the title of this post.

I’ll be honest. I don’t like the phrase “child free” one jot. But I understand wh it was coined; a swift “fuck you” to the legions of people who insisted that the only way to be fulfilled was to have a child or children, and those without, the “childless” were slightly pathetic and incomplete in some way.

“Childless” implies that the state of having children is one which is the norm, and to not have children is a kind of “loss”. However, “child free” does the exact opposite; implies children are some kind of a dreadful burden and in doing so discriminates against them.

And here’s the thing; you’ll never truly be child free. Because children are everywhere. As they should be. As people in learning, they have as much right to exist as anyone else. But it’s not just that. There’s an old truism that you should be kind to the people you meet on the way up, because you’ll see them again on the way back down. Or the oft-quoted phrase, “be nice to kids; they’ll be wiping your arse in the nursing home one day.” Cliches, maybe, but there is a lot of truth in them.

You’ll never truly be child free because learner people are all our responsibilities. I’m sorry, but they are. Because nursing home staff or not, the children of today are the adults of tomorrow. If you shut them out, you are training them up to shut others out.

Children will treat the world how they are treated. What you model towards them, they will model towards the world. This is not just parents; parents and guardians have a huge influence, but the world at large also dictates to our children how they behave in future. If they grow up in a world where it is perfectly reasonable to hit a person in learning, to shut them out, to ignore their cries, to talk down to them, to shout at them, to force them into institutions where they just do not want to be…

… then this is the kind of world they will create for you, once they get in charge.

 

January 23, 2009

Pro-choice. All the time?

Posted by rosemaryterrace under Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , |
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by Ruth Moss

Well, yesterday was blog for choice day and I missed it. But by the power of twitter, and thanks to blue milk, I’ve managed to get my act together in time for today.

I have a confession, which is that I haven’t always been pro-choice. To be fair, I was raised as an evangelical Christian and my “only in cases of rape and incest” views were actually pretty damn liberal amongst my peers!

When I rejected the religion I was brought up into, I started to reject the “pro-life” stance I’d been taking. It happened slowly, mind you. I came, at first, to view abortion as a kind of “sometimes-necessary evil”. I supposed, that in some cases, say, where contraception had failed, or where economic circumstances were such that a baby would be born into breathtaking poverty, or where a baby would be so severely disabled they would have no quality of life or… well, you get the picture.

I thought of abortion kind of in the way my sister-in-law (a vegetarian) thinks of meat eating. Not particularly nice, and she’d never do it herself, but as long as it’s done as humanely as possible and as little as possible it was the best of a bad job.

Gradually my views started to change. But it wasn’t until I became pregnant and had a baby myself that I realised I really was totally pro-choice. Because pregnancy was awful; the morning sickness (and afternoon, and evening sickness, and night sickness), the exhaustion and lethargy and sheer inability to move on occasion; and then the labour, with the pain which was like torture to me and about which I still get flashbacks; then the episiotomy which had me weeing standing up for several weeks (and I still can’t use my mooncup even now); the pelvic floor problems, the occasional leakage; the sleepless nights… and this was all for a much-wanted and much-loved child.

(Don’t get me wrong, I know not every woman’s pregnancy is like this. There were some complications in my case – won’t go into them now – and I know for some women a pregnancy is a joy. I think if I ever have a second child it might be a different story.)

The thought of putting another woman through this, against her will? Seems like torture to me. And that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about being anti-abortion. Forcing women to endure pregnancy and labour against their will.

However, once you identify as “pro choice” you have some uneasy decisions to make. Are you pro-choice all the time? Are you, for example, pro-choice whe it comes to women aborting only female foetuses? Are you pro-choice when it comes to abortion for foetuses where the resulting child could have a disability?

And… are you pro-choice when it comes to the other choice, the choice to keep the foetus, and have a baby? Are you pro-choice when it comes to, say, a post-menopausal woman gaining fertility treatment to conceive  a child? Are you pro-choice even in an over-populated world? Are you pro-choice even though you believe motherhood is a problematic, even patriarchal construct?

Are you pro-choice, all the time?

 

December 8, 2008

Breastfeeding a toddler – sexist reactions

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by Ruth Moss

My toddler is nearly twenty months of age and I breastfeed him. Mainly during the night and at weekends, but also before and after work and in the evening.

Already I’ve started getting comments, which I want to explore further. But first let me explain why I am “still” breastfeeding.

A difficult induced labour, episiotomy and blue baby recusitated and sent to special care almost immediately did not get me off to the best start, it has to be said. I also did not get good support for a long time, and suffered with sore, cracked and eventually bleeding nipples and a perma-crying perma-hungry baby. For a while I even expressed practically every feed. It was only due to a chance meeting, in fact, that I eventually found a good support group where my baby’s poor latch was improved almost immediately and pain free feeds became possible.

As a result I decided to become a breastfeeding peer counsellor myself, although the reliance on the voluntary sector to support breastfeeding when the people whom you expect to know their stuff (midwives, doctors, nurses, health visitors) more often than not have very little training in breastfeeding and perpetuate myths, still angers me sometimes. But that’s another story!

Anyway, I was lucky to be able to breastfeed, and aside from all the health reasons, for both me and my child, to continue doing it, there is one huge reason I don’t want to stop.

It would be more effort to stop than to continue.

By this stage, breastfeeding is easy. He is now happy to eat foods and drink water when I’m not there, so no more pumping in work. It’s not painful and now he has most of his milk teeth there is no more experimental biting. I don’t have to worry about whether his cry is for milk or for something else because he can now tell me (“ilk!”) or show me (pulling on my top). He can also now tell me when he doesn’t want milk. Breastfeeding in public I will cover later, but it doesn’t happen as often, because outside is now far too interesting.

The good stuff is still there though; it still acts as a sleeping draft when nothing else will get a tired toddler to sleep; it calms a tantrum, and of course it still contains antibodies that soothe the many colds at this time of year; still has all the fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals he needs in the right order and still enables lots of “stealth cuddles” (he’s not the cuddliest toddler in the world; sometimes this is the only chance I get!)

Again, I know I’m lucky to have this at my disposal. I know the vast majority of women who do want to breastfeed do not get to this stage for a variety of reasons.

So given all of that, why on earth would I put effort into weaning, when eventually there will come a day anyway when my child turns to me and says  “no thanks, I’d rather have an apple / have a glass of water / play cricket / watch telly / tidy the house from top to bottom”?

Because according to commentors on any story about “extended” (or full term) breastfeeding, there are various reasons why it’s just plain wrong. These tend to be along the lines of:

1. After a certain age, there’s no nutritional benefit and it’s just for comfort

2. If you don’t stop at this time, you’ll never stop

3. Various reasons around social embarrassment for the child (e.g. if her/his schoolmates found out) and the “school railings” analogy

4. It’s more about the mother than the child

5. After a certain age, he might actually be old enough to remember it, how much would that fuck him up!?

6. What does your husband think (or, “I wonder what her husband thinks”)?

 

The first two are not the most relevant to a feminist blog but I’ll cover them briefly anyway:

1. Just plain incorrect. Can you name me any food with “no nutritional value” anyway? Even water is needed as part of a healthy diet. But the milk doesn’t change to water, or poison, or malibu; it maintains nutritional value and its composition even changes slightly to make it more appropriate for your toddler, not less. And besides, what’s wrong with comfort anyway?

2. This ties into the “rod for your own back” theory behind many of the more pernicious methods used in childrearing. And yes, it’s incorrect. Children wean themselves. Some earlier, some later. In the end, nature intervenes; once a child has their permanent teeth, it becomes more difficult for them to extract the milk and eventually they have to stop.

3. The urban myth of the mother putting her boob through the railings is just that; a myth. In reality a school-age child would probably nurse before and/or after school. I could see how it could potentially “slip out” to the child’s peers during conversation, but with careful handling such a situation needn’t become a big issue.

However the “boob through the railing” also gets to the heart of one of the issues here; the reason this myth has passed into our consciousness is because we find something inherently disgusting, but also sadistic in the thought of a sensitive part of a woman’s body squashed and trapped by metal. Women’s bodies are perceived as a bit yucky anyway, especially when they leak a fluid; and the glee with which this myth is related I personally think is partly due to this distaste.

4. This is where we really start to see the inherent sexism in the issue.

Let’s examine the phrase: it’s more about the mother than the child.

Before we even get into whether something being more about a mother than a child is always a bad thing let’s look at what else this throws up. The idea is that the mother is trying to curtail the independence of her child by encouraging baby-like behaviours; why? Because the mother prefers a baby to a child in this scenario. But why would we believe that mothers prefer babies to children; where have we got this from?

The younger a baby, the more needy and dependent it is. The less it can do for itself and the more has to be done for it. And because all mothers just love doing absolutely everything, they must love younger babies. And younger babies, though adorable, are less interesting than older babies and children. They can do less; they can’t even smile until they’re a few weeks’ old; they certainly can’t walk or talk. And because mothers actually prefer less interesting to more interesting, they must just prefer younger babies and stop at nothing – even, shock horror, breastfeeding – to keep those children from growing up and being independant.

It’s true some mothers prefer younger babies. Some prefer older. Some prefer toddlers. Some children. Some have no favourite age. It’s almost as if mothers are all individuals with their own preferences!

Anyway. The myth needs debunking; it’s not physically possible to force a child to breastfeed. If a child doesn’t want to nurse, he or she will refuse. The child sets the tone, rather than the mother.

And anyway, even if it was “more about the mother”, is this always a bad thing? Sometimes my need for peace is more important than my son’s need for The Tweenies. We reach some kind of compromise where we’re both happy. Perhaps the mother’s need to reduce her risk of breast cancer is even more important than her child’s need for a natural protection against type 2 diabeties, just as an example. 

And besides, it’s circular logic. We see breastfeeding as something for babies, only because we don’t see toddlers and children breastfed that often. And we don’t see it happen that often, because (amongst other things) it’s not done, because it’s seen as something only for babies. If more people did it, it would become normalised, and we would lose this myth.

5. The child might remember!

This is a curious one as I’ve only ever heard it applied to boys who breastfeed into childhood. What if he remembers? Won’t it ruin his sex life (or sometimes I’ve even heard ”turn him gay”?)

You barely need to scratch the surface of this one to see the sexism. The idea is that grown men have a right to see women’s breasts as purely sexual objects and by creating a memory of breasts being used as something other is removing that right.

Well, personally I would hope my son does decide to nurse long enough to form a memory of it. Maybe then he might be able to avoid this absurd fetishisation of the female breast, which contributes amongst other things to eating disorders, unnecessary plastic surgery, painful bras and breasts not to mention fear of breastfeeding in public.

I’ve also heard the “but after a certain age they get sexual feelings” which is along the same lines. Again, I’ve only heard it used for boys. This ties into those “oedipal” fears that somehow the mother is engaging in an incestuous relationship with her son, and again ties into the “more about the mother than the baby” myth but in a more dangerous way.

It is possible to enjoy a thing for sensual rather than sexual reasons but our “raunch culture” struggles to understand this. If a mother is enjoying breastfeeding, there must be something sexual in it, because it involves breasts and nipples. And besides, mothers aren’t supposed to enjoy themselves!

The sucking that a baby does on a breast is different to that which an adult does (the permanent teeth, remember) and is highly unlikely to cause arousal. However, even in the very rare event that it did, surely the mother, if she did want to continue breastfeeding, could distinguish having the feelings from acting on them?

6. This ties into the idea that somehow the breasts are the man’s property and the man gives his permission for them to be “loaned” to the baby. However, after a while, he will want “his” breasts back!

Sadly, there is an element of truth in this with too many men being unsupportive of breastfeeding because they feel that “their” breasts are being taken from them. This is unfortunate, because a father’s support can make a big difference.

Not to mention the fact this question also makes the assumption that the breastfeeding mother has a husband!

The fact is, the breasts don’t belong to the baby, though she may choose to offer or refuse them to him/her. They don’t belong to the father. They belong to her.

When you next come across a post about full-term breastfeeding, analyse the comments, not just for myth, but also for sexist assumptions and misogyny. Sometimes you need to look deeply but you’ll find it.

Just a note on public breastfeeding. I have found myself recently trying to distract my son, or offer him water / food instead of milk, in public, now that it is easy for others to see he is clearly a toddler and not a baby. Writing this has made me realise that I’ve been doing this out of fear of people’s perceptions; I never shied away from nursing in public when he was a baby; and I’m going to notice next time and examine my motives, and nurse him.

 

October 22, 2008

Smacking Is A Feminist Issue

Posted by rosemaryterrace under discipline, violence | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |
[12] Comments 

Male violence against women. It’s one of feminism’s biggest issues. Our right not to be hit, punched, pushed, physically hurt, raped or killed by a man is one of the core things that all different strands and variations – and all the different waves – of feminism totally agree on.

And yet smacking, and the way in which we discipline our children, is a bit of a “no go” area. Certainly, to criticise a mother for smacking her child is seen as disrespecting her parenting choices and her right to punish her own children as she sees fit.

(With that in mind I’m aware that what I’m writing might actually be controversial and ruffle a few feathers in places. Obviously, my views are my own, and not necessarily the views of all the writers here at Mothers for Women’s Lib.)

And yet the correlation between adult violence and childhood violence is there, and it’s a powerful one. And an obvious one if you think about it for any longer than a brief moment.

We know our children mimic everything we do. This is how they learn. It’s well known – from the joke about the parent who screams “stop fucking swearing!” at their child, to the (very gender stereotyped – but a subject for another post) UK anti-smoking advert which shows a child watching her parent have a cigarette, pretending to do exactly the same with a crayon – everyone knows that children do as we do, not as we say.

And yet, we want our little boys to grow up to be men for whom hitting a woman would be an anathema. We want our little girls to grow up without equating pain and violence with love.

But then we hit them. Sometimes we even hit them for hitting – and the irony, and inherent hypocrisy in that somehow escapes us!

Please bear in mind that the “us” and “we” do not necessarily mean you or I. I have never hit my son, though I was hit often myself as a child. I mean “us” as a society, and the fact that here in the UK we sanction the hitting of children under the guise of “reasonable chastisement”. You or I may not hit, but “we”, as a society, hit our children.

And those children will be very likely to grow up to hit. For some reason, boys that are hit tend to grow up to be violent, whereas girls that are hit are more likely to internalise it and expect to be hit – perhaps the difference between the way in which the sexes react to childhood hitting is a product of society’s expectations rather than the way they’re hit. Either way, hitting your child will ensure they equate a loving relationship with pain.

So yes, smacking is a feminist issue.

I just want to run a few phrases by you:

“But if we ban all domestic violence, this will criminalise good husbands who perhaps only hit their wives now and again, say, if it’s all got too much and they’re at the end of their tether.”

“But what is a man supposed to do when his partner just won’t do what you tell her?”

“But it works! I smack my partner sometimes – all my mates comment on how good she is.”

“My Dad hit my Mum – are you saying my Dad was a criminal?!”

“I only ever hit my wife as a last resort, when all attempts at explaining have failed.”

“I’d never hit my own wife, but I don’t judge other men who do hit. I certainly wouldn’t want them criminalised.”

“I don’t condone it when someone actually beats their wife up, but a small, loving smack from a well-meaning husband – what’s wrong with that?”

“I would never hit my wife in anger. I always wait until I have calmed down and hit her then. I always tell her when I’m going to hit her, and explain why I’m doing it.”

“How a man disciplines his wife is a family matter, not a matter for the state.”

“I was smacked by my husband but only when I deserved it. It never did me any harm.”

Don’t these phrases sound awful? You probably would have heard phrases like this back in the days of the “rule of thumb,” where it was joked that a man could legitimately beat his wife with a stick as long as it was no bigger than his thumb (there was actually no such rule – but it has not always been illegal for a man to hit his female partner). Thankfully, a man can now be prosecuted for domestic violence. It’s illegal to hit your wife. Even a “small smack”. Even if the man is at the end of his tether. Even if his wife won’t “behave”. There is no excuse. Things still are far from perfect – we’re only just tidying up the loopholes in the law for example, and there are other problems – but we’re on the right track.

Unfortunately, all the phrases I gave as examples above are used regularly to defend the legal smacking of children. “Reasonable chastisement” is still legal. How is this any different than the “rule of thumb”? It’s legal to hit your child… as long as it doesn’t leave a red mark. So the darker the child’s skin, the more okay it is to hit them? So it’s better to hit a child on the head than on the hand? This is not a clear rule – because there can be no clear rule. Because while there is still a “grey area” people will still abuse their children and get away with it.

And because, just as a man and a woman can have a great relationship, where each understands and respects the other, so too can a parent and child.

We must call an end to the legal condoning of hitting children by their parents, just like many years ago we made illegal the hitting of women by men.

Because if we hit our children:

We teach them pain and love go hand in hand

We set them up to expect pain in a loving relationship

We teach them that those who are smaller or in other ways more vulnerable than them are there to be controlled and overpowered

We risk turning our boys into men that hit women

We risk turning our girls into women that expect to be hit

(And that’s before we get into what it might do to our parent/child bond.)

Let us call a halt to it. Sign up to the NSPCC’s full stop campaign and join them in their campaign against smacking. Join the “Children are Unbeatable” alliance. If you do smack, learn alternative methods of parenting (there are plenty of resources out there). And when you think up a reason for why smacking shouldn’t be banned, apply your reasoning to a man hitting a woman, and ask if that would be a reasonable excuse.

Ruth Moss

 

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