Why, in two thousand mother-flippin' fifteen, are we still giving women grief when it comes to decisions about children?
Recently, a woman named Holly Brockwell garnered international attention after she made it known that she didn't want children.
The negative fallout saw total strangers calling her "selfish" and writing nasty things on her Twitter feed.
A New Zealand woman named Virginia Braun made a similar decision and had herself sterilized in her 30s.
"There's a deeply embedded idea that to be a woman is to be maternal," she said.
She's right.
Even in these modern times, there's a persistent assumption that all women have an inborn need to become nurturing mothers.
Fatherhood, on the other hand, is still pretty much a thing that some men dabble in when they aren't at work or watching the big game.
Braun says society does a great disservice to women when it questions their choices about children.
"Society" does not raise individual children so, in my view, it can keep it's damned opinions to itself.
It's no one's business what a woman does with her womb.
The human race is not in danger of dying out.
Motherhood isn't some state of grace.
It brings a flood of negative judgments about your every decision.
One child is not enough. Two or more is too many.
The teaching style, clothes and toys you select will always be wrong.
If you give a child formula you are poisoning them. If you feed them breast milk, you had better not let anyone see your boobies.
If you stay at home with your children you are a drain on the economy but if you go back to work you are abandoning them.
Dr Ana Gilling, a Victoria University teaching fellow writes,
"Suppose a child comes into the picture. Some may suggest men increasingly stay at home but the reality suggests otherwise. Say both parents are working full time. Imagine the child gets sick and needs to come home from school. A subtle gender norm would see that the woman is called to pick up the said child, for example. Household survey figures suggest male/female housework disparity occurs, irrespective of whether both parents work full time, where women going back to work have the same amount of housework... if men return, housework is said to drop by 20-50%."
So in addition to being under constant pressure to "mom the right way" women are also expected to manage the house and make whatever sacrifices are necessary to put the child first.
Until society puts more pressure on fathers to do their fair share, women will continue to suffer personal and professional setbacks.
Given these facts, is it really surprising that some women don't want children?
Recently, a woman named Holly Brockwell garnered international attention after she made it known that she didn't want children.
The negative fallout saw total strangers calling her "selfish" and writing nasty things on her Twitter feed.
A New Zealand woman named Virginia Braun made a similar decision and had herself sterilized in her 30s.
"There's a deeply embedded idea that to be a woman is to be maternal," she said.
She's right.
Even in these modern times, there's a persistent assumption that all women have an inborn need to become nurturing mothers.
Fatherhood, on the other hand, is still pretty much a thing that some men dabble in when they aren't at work or watching the big game.
Braun says society does a great disservice to women when it questions their choices about children.
"Society" does not raise individual children so, in my view, it can keep it's damned opinions to itself.
It's no one's business what a woman does with her womb.
The human race is not in danger of dying out.
Motherhood isn't some state of grace.
It brings a flood of negative judgments about your every decision.
One child is not enough. Two or more is too many.
The teaching style, clothes and toys you select will always be wrong.
If you give a child formula you are poisoning them. If you feed them breast milk, you had better not let anyone see your boobies.
If you stay at home with your children you are a drain on the economy but if you go back to work you are abandoning them.
Dr Ana Gilling, a Victoria University teaching fellow writes,
"Suppose a child comes into the picture. Some may suggest men increasingly stay at home but the reality suggests otherwise. Say both parents are working full time. Imagine the child gets sick and needs to come home from school. A subtle gender norm would see that the woman is called to pick up the said child, for example. Household survey figures suggest male/female housework disparity occurs, irrespective of whether both parents work full time, where women going back to work have the same amount of housework... if men return, housework is said to drop by 20-50%."
So in addition to being under constant pressure to "mom the right way" women are also expected to manage the house and make whatever sacrifices are necessary to put the child first.
Until society puts more pressure on fathers to do their fair share, women will continue to suffer personal and professional setbacks.
Given these facts, is it really surprising that some women don't want children?
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