If Gloria Steinem were a mother

A SYTYCB Entry.

Could Gloria Steinem be Gloria Steinem if she had kids?

I know this is an unfair question.  It’s inflammatory and controversial and no one would ask this of a successful man.  I know that even writing such a thing seems anti-feminist.  I don’t care if Gloria Steinem has/had/wanted/didn’t want kids.  I am concerned that part of what we admire about her might be that she didn’t take the conventional path of motherhood.  Maybe that says something about what we really value as a feminist community, and which choices we quietly endorse.  Maybe, in the end, our feminism does not encourage every choice.  Maybe we need to take another look about what is being said – and what is left unsaid – about women who are also mothers.

We talk about motherhood as a choice:  This is, in part, why we are so focused on access to abortion services, birth control and other women’s health services.  We want women to be informed, educated, trusted and responsible for our bodies and our decisions.  Choices are valid, options are necessary, and every woman will decide for herself what is right for her.

Part of the challenge is that once the decision to become a mother has been made, it is not easily undone.  I am not suggesting that mothers and fathers are not both challenged and changed by the arrival of a child.  In a perfect world, we would all be discussing work-life balance and everyone would know if a child’s next dental appointment is on Thursday or Friday.  In the reality of most heterosexual relationships, we also know that women do more housework, more childcare and assume more domestic responsibilities than their male partners, regardless of whether or not they work outside the home.

I am suggesting that in our narratives about women’s choices, we sometimes leave out the piece that involves how and to what extent the result of some choices – the children themselves – require our care.  And we further assume that because men should be contributing more, that they actually are.   We often fail to acknowledge that women are professionally undermined – not only by patriarchal structures, sexism, and various forms of discrimination – but by the choice most women make to become mothers.  Immediately, this choice puts more demands on their time, energy and ability to pursue professional goals.  Even in the most egalitarian household, sometimes a kid gets the flu the night before an important deadline and a mother is usually the one who tends to the baby all night.  Sure, there are similar unexpected catastrophes for those who are childless, but children present a very immediate, ongoing unpredictable need to which mothers are the primary respondents (whether we believe they should be or not).  We all wish men also woke at 5am to a feverish child, but we also know that most don’t.  Changing this dynamic is another discussion entirely.

Powerful women exist in every aspect of public (and private) life.  They are not always represented to the extent that we want them to be, but they are there.  Whether or not they have children, are married, are heterosexual or able-bodied, “conventionally” beautiful or privileged in any number of ways should not be important.  But we know that it is.  We know that ideas of “what a woman should be”, how she should act and what she should (not) say or do, are all part of how women are evaluated, scrutinized and taken seriously.

I just wonder sometimes if we would take the same approach, if we would value someone like Gloria Steinem the same way, if she were a mother.  Somehow, I suspect we wouldn’t.  I’m not sure she would have been taken as seriously 50 years ago, or even today, with a nursing child or a cranky toddler also demanding her attention.  Let’s be honest.  Could the icon of second wave feminism really have succeeded on the strength of her words and her intelligence alone?  I would like to think so.  But I don’t believe it.  I believe she had – and continues to have – a tacit endorsement from the feminist community precisely because she is childless.  I don’t believe this makes her contribution less valid or her words less revolutionary and true, but it does mean that we have quietly created an environment in which the way we regard feminist success is partly related to choices that are made concerning motherhood.

We talk so much about feminism as choice and about motherhood in particular as a valid and important option for those who desire it.  But I often wonder if – as feminists – we really are valuing every choice equally or if some choices in this conversation seem more “equal” than others.

[cross-posted at youngfeministmother.blogspot.com]