We
all know the drill: in the past, motherhood was held to
be an idealized state, glorified through myth and pithy statement
to keep women anchored to their homes and families. The myths became
the justification for political and economic restrictions on women,
the foundation for placing on the mother sole responsibility for
how her children developed. Luckily, things have changed, the myths
have been discarded, women have been freed from accepting only one
role and are launched into being everything and anything they want
to be.
Except not. Myths of
motherhood still permeate our culture and are the lens through which
we frame and discuss mothering. The lens may not be as outwardly
restrictive as it was in the past and include the language of choice,
but it is still centered around the unachievable myth of the perfect,
all-available Mother. This cultural image of who a Mother is and
how she should be encourages mothers to judge their own and other’s
behavior through standards proscribed by “experts” rather
than speaking their own truth and connecting with each other. Above
all, the language of mothering wipes out any recognition that it
is actual women—real human beings with their own needs, interest
and obligations—who mother.
For example:
This is the cover of
the Oct. 26 2003 New York Times Magazine: a picture of
a white woman, probably in her late 30s, casually dressed but her
wrists and fingers weighed down with glittering, expensive jewelry.
She sits on the floor underneath an empty, glowing ladder, a toddler
nestled in her lap. The headline reads:
Q: Why Don’t
More Women Get to the Top?
A: They Choose Not To [this in bold black
print]
Abandoning the Climb and Heading Home
Through this language,
the New York Times has framed the issue so that we don’t
have to actually read the article, or investigate the conflicting
demands of career and motherhood to know what to think. The readers
certainly don’t have to imagine ways fathers, corporate culture,
government regulations, or social norms might change to better accommodate
workers who also are parents. Instead, through the rhetoric of the
cover, particularly the use of the word choice, the New York
Times has done all of our thinking for us. Women don’t
get to the top because they don’t choose to. End of story.
Choice is the framework
through which work and mothering has been discussed in America for
years, thus reducing any conflict or consequences, personal, professional
or economic agony, to personal preference and maternal whim. Do
I choose to wear blue jeans or khakis? To go to this movie or that?
Do I choose to stay home with my child or go to work? We, as a culture,
need have no serious discussion about how to combine the child’s
needs, the woman as mother and woman as worker’s needs (don’t
even think about woman as a woman having needs, that’s just
not allowed for mothers), the economic needs of the family—none
of these issues need to be raised because mothers choose what they
do and choice is personal, and often frivolous. |
