All the biggies: feminism, motherhood, environment, food

A review of Elisabeth Badinter's Conflict: The Woman and the Mother on the NYTimes caught my eye because it reminded me of a post on the Racialious blog I read a few weeks ago. Both say that certain modern trends imply that women should return to their traditional domestic roles.

Badinter is a French academic. I hadn't heard of her before but it seems she has a significant body of work criticizing (evaluating?) feminism. She previously wrote that feminists are undermining themselves by popularizing the notion of women as victims.

But I want to focus on a point in her latest book, which takes up the issue of motherhood in modern times. She writes that the green and natural movement erodes the gains of feminism. It pressures women abandon modern inventions that have eased childrearing for old, labor-intensive ways.

From the New York Times:

But Ms. Badinter thinks that new social pressures are hard for many women to resist. The “green” mother, she says, is pushed to give birth at home, to refuse an epidural as the reflection of “a degenerated industrial civilization” that would deprive her of “an irreplaceable experience,” to breast-feed for both ethological and environmental reasons (plastic baby bottles) and to use washable rather than disposable diapers — in other words, to discard the inventions “that have liberated women.”

 This reminded me of criticism leveled by feminists against advocates of the food reform and sustainable agriculture movement. Michael Pollan, the figurehead of the food reform movement, is criticized for being alienating working women and women of color.

This comes from Racialicious:

First, Pollan and others situate the current state of American consumption in a patriarchal paradigm. These writers speak about a disappearance of food culture that for the most part accompanies male privilege. For example, Pollan, in an article for the New York Times on cooking and entertainment aptly titled “Out of the Kitchens, Onto the Couch,” explores the relationship between second-wave feminism and the gender politics of cooking. He argues that Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique convinced women to regard their housework, specifically cooking, as drudgery. Friedan did not, in fact, construct this sentiment herself; she merely observed the existent trends in white women’s attitudes about food and housewifery. Pollan goes on to describe how Julia Child inspired his mother and other women like her, empowering them to channel their creativity into the kitchen. This is apt praise for the lively and engaging cook, but can Pollan not drive home the point that Americans need to cook more often without guilting American feminists?

Feminists and progressive people like to talk about the overlaps among their passions. And I agree too that there are many, not just the issues, but the people in one camp have overlapping interests. There are, I think, obvious intersections among feminism, environmental movement, organized labor, ethnic movements, and other social justice movements. I think my readers are well-informed about these intersections.

Both these critiques really resonate with me, not because I'm denouncing the benefits of reusable diapers or fruit and vegetables, but because they show an ugly reality. People who call themselves feminists or progressives or generally working to help people don't always agree. There are dividing lines.

It made me happy to see vocal feminists of color voiced their criticism of other progressive movements. I think sometimes there's an implicit assumption that feminists are uncritical of activists in other progressive areas. But this isn't entirely true. I care about the environment and about eating better, but not as much as I care about some other feminists issues. That's why I was the co-chair of Women's Council. Though I worked extensively with other progressive and racial ethnic groups on campus, I had one focus where I directed most of my attention.

You could argue that Michael Pollan doesn't want only women to return to the kitchen but both men AND women to cook but the truth is also that women are still the one who do most of the housework. So when you say, "go make (a nutritious) dinner (of locally grown, organic produce that will bring together your whole family)", it's women that are heading back into the kitchen.

In the end, I think both Badinter and Michael Pollan and the food reform movement hit on the same point: women are judge by society, by other women, by themselves on how they raise their children, be it the food they eat or the diapers  wear.

The Mysteries of Pre-Teen Life Revisited

Teen Magazine really had the pulse on the mysteries of pre-teen life: boyfriends, makeup, and periods. Basically these aspirations translated to crushes, lip gloss and bright nail polish, and period mishaps.

I had a jolly good time flipping through the July 2000 issue of Teen Magazine with a couple of Women's Council members. I don't think I have read an early teenage girls' magazine since that time and I had forgotten about the content of those magazines. I can look back and reminisce and laugh about that time.

I saw a Bonne Bell Lip Gloss ad in the July 2000 issue for lip gloss with a top that flipped open when you pushed a sliding button. I remember that model lip gloss. They don't even make it anymore; I checked the Bonne Bell website. We were all "addicted" to lip glosses, especially Bonne Bell's LipSmackers, in its simple cylindrical tube. They used to be as cheap as $0.99 each, but they're probably close to $2 now. That seemed like make-up to me.

One mainstay of pre-teen magazines were the Embarrassing Moments combining bodily functions, friends and family, and very bad timing. The submissions rated most embarrassing reliably combined periods, boyfriend, and extremely bad timing. A sure winner would be: I got my period when I was having dinner with my boyfriend's parents for the first time. I was wearing a white skirt and I stained their dining room chair!

Cooties did not follow me from fifth grade to sixth grade. I left them scattered like wood chips around the elementary school jungle gym. The pre-teen years made me see boys in a different light. Teen Magazine -- very timely -- was on hand to guide me through this feeling that I really wanted to talk to this boy who was in my class. It answered such burning questions as "How do I know if a boy likes me" and provided valuable advice on a very grown-up skill called flirting. Today I read an article in which a genuine teenage boy described the signs that a girl is interested in a guy: she touches you on the arm or the shoulder and smiles and laughs at everything you say.

Somehow in middle school (and to some extent high school), everyone followed the same conventions of what pre-teens thought romance. It's really cheesy to recall now, but at least we all agreed on those conventions. Yes this shows he is interested in you, no, this means you're just friends. "Going out" meant you were entitled to very intimate privileges such as going to the movies together (even though your parents had to drive you there), holding hands, and slow dancing with the same partner during Fun Nights (6-8pm in the gym with the cougar logo on the floor about once a month, I think).

If only it were still that simple. In my early adolescence, I couldn't imagine something like friends with benefits. Well, I still can't really figure that out. Oh, did we just make out? I didn't mean that. Oh, let's have sex. But I don't mean it either.

What Makes a Family, Part Two

After my post a few days ago on my personal feelings on family and children, I found this article about motherhood and marriage on the population level: “Out-of-Wedlock Birthrates Are Soaring, U.S. Reports“. The data are interesting in that they reveals the changing composition of families but the measures feel a bit antiquated and leave me wanting a better survey of families.

First, the stats: The Center for Disease Control released analysis of data collected in 2007 shows that 40 percent of all births in 2007 were to women who were not married. (Original data is here.)

Furthermore, parsing out the data reveals interesting trends in pregnancies and family composition. Teen pregnancies do not make up the majority of

Before 1970, most unmarried mothers were teenagers. But in recent years the birthrate among unmarried women in their 20s and 30s has soared — rising 34 percent since 2002, for example, in women ages 30 to 34. In 2007, women in their 20s had 60 percent of all babies born out of wedlock, teenagers had 23 percent and women 30 and older had 17 percent.

Lots more stats on nonmarital births through the decades, by race, by mother’s age, and compared to other industrialized countries.

But these data are interesting in what they measure and what they leave out. It keeps track of “nonmarital births”, birth to a woman who has never been married, or is widowed or divorced. It’s a question asked when a birth is registered. But the terms “nonmarital birth”, “unwed mother” and children “born-out-of-wedlock” have gradually lost the same meanings they did when these studies were originally done. That is, it is becoming more mainstream and less … shameful that marriage is not a requirement for motherhood. I suppose being “born-out-of-wedlock” is one step up from being “illegitimate.”

My feelings on this were confirmed by a New York Times news commentary piece about these stats. I think one commentator sums it up very well:

The fact that 40 percent of American children are now born out of wedlock is yet another example of why policymakers and researchers need to discard one-size-fits-all generalizations about the causes, consequences, risks and benefits of different family forms. Average outcomes from married and single parenting hide huge variations.

There is great variation among mothers who are not married. It did used to be that teenagers made up the majority of nonmarital births, which means that we could have a whole host of assumptions about the kind of life the children of teenage moms would have: probably low-income, low-education, no father, etc. But unmarried moms are now in general older and their lives are far more complicated. They could be cohabiting, could have other children, etc.

I’m not exactly faulting the CDC for the results because they are, by themselves, interesting. Their data come from birth registrations, so it really shows that even our data collection is antiquated. It is less and less meaningful to only know whether or not a mother is married. It would be even more interesting to read about a comprehensive sociological study of the state of motherhood.

x-posted at Choice Words