Food For Thought

One of my favourite daily reads, Girl With A Satchel, today posted a telling article by Dr Karen Brooks, which considers if the current wave of "retro chic" is regressive to the feminist movement previous generations fought so hard for.

Did Germaine Greer & co set modern women up for a fall? No, according to the article. Someting just got lost in translation. Germaine reckons she never told women to get a career, merely a life.

But we can't agree on what kind of life that should be. Career mums have to defend their choice (or lack thereof) and continually reassure that they are just as caring as stay-at-home mums. Stay-at-home mums have to justify to society why that's "all" they do, as well as avoiding admitting to inevitable feelings of insignificance and isolation. According to the article, the smaller percentage of women who appear to revel in being a domestic goddess find it hard to keep the fact to themselves, much to the chagrin of others. Despite fulfilling the nostalgic ideal society is pining for, is this because they still feel the need to reassure themselves and others that their choice is "correct"?

Can we ever get it right? No. Are we too hard on ourselves? Yes. Dr Brook's article espouses the common sense approach of respecting and supporting each other's choices and situations, regardless of the subersive putdowns a "femeny" might direct at you. Bitch.

Baby or Balenciaga?

September is a really busy month for all the gorgeous S/S 08/09 deliveries, so forgive me for not having a spare minute to scratch myself, let alone write the blog. It will be back up and running as usual in about a week! Added to that, for once nothing has really got my goat enough to warrant a daily rant. Except for a little excerpt from Grazia magazine I noticed the other day over at GWAS.....

To Baby or Not To Baby is a genuine issue among women today. And men, probably, but who cares. None of the articles I've read in the last few months have asked a male opinion. In the one camp are the women who love the idea of motherhood, and the goal of having a family is one they hope to achieve. On the other side of the trench are the career-oriented people who can't see why you would give up your career, lifestyle, time and body for motherhood. In the middle is the fading argument "we all have a choice"; even though it's true. Every female does have the choice to choose career or family or whatever they like. There isn't a right or wrong answer, really. Just alot of strong opinions. Obviously I fall into the pro-baby group, to be perfectly honest I didn't intend to be a mother so young, but the best things in life are often unplanned. Like most, I thought travel, career etc etc until perhaps my late 20's when hopefully I would be in a stable relationship, financially secure and all that. That would've been fine, but the experiences and opportunities of having Charlotte in my early 20's have been worth it; I wouldn't change it for the world, and I've definitely not misse dout on anything except a lot of hangovers.

It's not for everyone, and I don't think anybody should have a baby just because they "have to", in the same way they "have to" have the latest shoes or bag. If you're not ready, then don't. It changes literally everything, and from many of the opinions I've read there are many women out there who have worked really hard to achieve their lifestyles and they don't want to give it up. Without sounding rude, I think that is an awfully selfish and materialistic way to put things (an honest Vogue columnist recently said she'd prefer Balenciaga to baby bags, props for being so bold as to admit to it but it still seems a bit crude). They complain because their friends with kids don't have as much time for them as before, or aren't as interested in them. That should be a pretty obvious given, really; if you're a high achieveing 30-something presumably you don't need looking after as much as a newborn. The best response to the issue has been good old Frankie magazine, which sensibly went along the lines of "I'm not read for a baby, but my friend gave birth to the most gorgeous little bundle of joy you could imagine, and even though our coffee dates are structured around naptime, we both give a little to make it work." Jetting off to Rio on a whim sounds glamourous, but sometimes good old fashioned family time, fattening as it may be, is much better for the soul. And probably the environment, even though the comments in Grazia that really pissed me off was; "the carbon footprint created by a single child is enormous,"; "having children is selfish, it's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet,"* say two childless-by-choice women. I'm sorry but that is mildly ridiculous. If nobody had kids in order to save Mother Earth the human race would have about 100 years left to exist, no? And I think the carbon footprint created by a stilettoed old bag would be bigger than a toddler's....again, I have to add, it is about choice. If one of my friends told me they never wanted to have kids, I wouldn't agree but it is their choice and I would respect it. I don't agree with people who would rather have designer bags then a child, by choice not by circumstance (I always feel so sorry for women and men depserate to start a family but can't when I read about this issue, how much must it hurt them to hear about people that can, but won't?), but it is up to them and it's not really my business how they choose the lead their lives. I hope they would have a better reason then a grand plan of rescuing the planet, but we should be thankful that we live in a society where we can choose such things.

*Gets off high horse*!

*courtesy of GWAS

Feminism: No Time for Babies

The other day I came across this article from The Australian, courtesy of MamaMia. I have to say I agree with it - in today's society, having babies "young" (like, in your 20's when your fertility is ripest) is generally frowned upon - you need to establish a career, finances, travel, education etc etc before you think about reproduction. Feminism has given women the chance to empower themselves and achieve all these things, but at what cost?

THE strategic silences of feminism are having profound effects on society. For all the brilliant choices ushered in for women - the freedom to forge ahead with careers, to stay single, if that was their wish, not to be tied down by family and babies, if that was their choice - feminism failed women by refusing to inform them that their new-found choices came at a price.
By failing to remind women about their biology and their declining fertility, feminism deliberately ignored the innate desire of most women to have a child. The silence continues. It is there in the classroom where, like previous generations of young girls, the present generation is still not taught that fertility cannot be taken for granted.

Fortunately, there are moves to fill in the silence about infertility. If it happens, it may allow young women to make more fully informed choices about work and babies, avoiding the sorrow that afflicted many of their childless forerunners.

Unlike women in the 1950s and ‘60s, the liberated generation of women that followed in the ‘70s and ‘80s had the world at their feet. Yet feminism’s mantra of choice made little room for women who chose to eschew careers for babies.

Indeed, if we are honest, feminism never had much time for babies. Having babies meant leaving the workplace, opting out of the career track, at least for a time. With its unwavering focus on encouraging women to make great strides in the professions, making their presence felt in the boardroom, the courtroom and parliament, the feminist movement deliberately ignored motherhood as a legitimate choice for women.

The cost of feminism’s silence about fertility is etched in the faces of those women who pursued dazzling careers and carefree singledom but ended up childless. Women such as ABC presenter Virginia Haussegger, who a few years ago openly wrote about the price she paid for listening to the feminist mothers, who encouraged us to reach for the sky but failed to tell us the truth about our biological clock. Said Haussegger: “Here we are, supposedly ‘having it all’ as we edge 40; excellent education; good qualifications, great jobs. It’s a nice caffe-latte kind of life, really.” But something was missing. “I am childless and I am angry. Angry that I was so foolish to take the word of my feminist mothers as gospel. Angry that I was daft enough to believe female fulfilment came with a leather briefcase.” (Click the above link to read the full article).

I was 21 when my daughter was born. Thankfully, I'd completed my university degree and spent a couple of years travelling, so I don't feel I've "missed out" on anything. Quite the opposite. I have this new sense of fulfilment that can only come with motherhood. Arguably, our fundamental point of existence is to procreate, so what happens when you've spent your 20's and 30's ticking all the other boxes? Do you then panic and think "shit! I'm going to be old and alone if I don't pop one out soon!" You can have all the money in the world but you can't really buy your own child. As fertility decreases, the need for expensive treatments and the emotional insecurity increases. Women in this situation are a product of their generation: they did what they were "supposed" to do and now one of the most innate desires of the majority of females has been left by the wayside. I am not in anyway trying to gloat, or to assume that women who are close to or in their 40's are selfish and money-obsessed. It's a catch-22 that we've created for ourselves. Instead of thinking/being taught, "I can, I must have it all", isn't it time girls and women were conditioned to think in a far more healthy way: "What do I want?"

Feminism is about choice. Women in the boardroom, strutting down the street in suits, company CEO's, those with large bank accounts all of their own doing, are but one aspect of feminism. What about the intelligent, university-trained woman who forsakes a career to spend her years raising her children? In today's world, that's almost as tough of a decision (and equally frowned upon) as women of generations past entering the workforce instead of staying in the kitchen. We've gone full circle.

I have got blisters in my arse from sitting on the fence so often, but as far as I can tell we should be looking at women's place in society in light of both ends of the spectrum: feminism has given women the choice and the power to enter the workforce on arguably as equal footing as men. By the same token, this has overtaken one of her most important roles, that of motherhood. If we've reached this point, surely the next is to take a teeny step back and admit that maybe we can't have it all. Men don't. And I've gone off track a bit. But the point is, what's the point of the feminist movement if it has begun to deny women of one of their primary tools of happiness? Any movement needs to develop and change over time. I think the time has come to adjust feminism to recognise, and to help girls and women recognise and appreciate, and choose to be a part of or not, that miraculous role they play within society, the role of life-givers.