Posts Written by Lyla
By Lyla Cicero • 11 years ago

I DO want to have it all, starting with what women in 178 other countries have

Originally Appeared on Rolereboot.org.  

Iceland, Germany, Japan, Malta, New Zealand, Latvia, Belarus, Moldova, Romania, Czhech Republic, Macedonia, Bosnia, Croatia, Ecuador, and a total of 178 countries have federally mandated paid maternity leave. Fifty of these countries offer leave to fathers. (Yes, they all should!) The United States has no federally mandated paid parental leave. ZERO.

I have read so many reactions this week to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Atlantic article Why Women Still Can’t Have it All (which discussed societal barriers to women achieving the work-life balance the feminist movement has been striving for). So many of these responses have disregarded and negated an important feminist policy agenda by blaming women and feminists for the inability to “have it all,” and drumming up in-fighting among groups who should be banding together to advocate for the policies Slaughter calls for. They have criticized the idea of wanting to “have it all” as a privileged, selfish pursuit, bemoaned women expecting too much and having too high expectations, and discussed the fact that men, too, struggle to “have it all.” They painted an overall picture of neurotic, perfectionistic modern mothers driving themselves crazy and needing to take it down a notch.

OK, maybe no one “has it all,” as this Jezebel article argues, but women in Malta have 14 weeks of 100% paid maternity leave. Women in Sweden enjoy 16 months of 100% paid parental leave, which they can use or share with the child’s father until age 8. In France, every child has access to ...
By Lyla Cicero • 11 years ago

To the Queer Kids of America: Amendment One is a Form of Bullying

Originally appeared on RoleReboot.org.

This letter is to all the queer kids, the gay, lesbian, and bi kids, to the young adults who identify as transgender, genderqueer, pansexual, and/or androgynous, to the questioning kids, to the kids who were born intersex, to the high school and college kids in North Carolina and around the country. This is to the elementary and junior high kids who are gender variant. This is to all the kids who don’t fall neatly into the categories of “man” or “woman” or whose sexual and/or affectional orientations aren’t exclusively toward someone who falls into the opposite neatly-defined category.

This week, a group of grown-ups voted overwhelmingly to use constitutional powers in the state of North Carolina to ...

Originally appeared on RoleReboot.org.

This letter is to all the queer kids, the gay, lesbian, and bi kids, to the young adults who identify as transgender, genderqueer, pansexual, and/or androgynous, to the questioning kids, to the kids ...
By Lyla Cicero • 12 years ago

My Husband Does Do That: My Journey out of the Equal Parenting Closet

Originally Appeared on RoleReboot.org 

The first time it happened, I was at a Mothers of Multiples Club welcome brunch.  My fantasy was that my terror at the impending birth of my twins would dissipate as soon as I met the wise kindred spirits who would be guiding me through the transition to multiple-motherhood.  Much to my surprise, however, brunch soon descended into a husband-bashing session, replete with the kind of ominous warnings I would receive over and over during my pregnancy.

“Make sure you leave the house when they’re a few months old.  I waited three years to leave my kids alone with my husband, and now he refuses to babysit,” one mom insisted.  My initial response was confusion.  I ...

Originally Appeared on RoleReboot.org 

The first time it happened, I was at a Mothers of Multiples Club welcome brunch.  My fantasy was that my terror at the impending birth of my twins would dissipate as soon ...