Motherhood and the culture of misogyny in America are not often explored in tandem. The connection is women’s bodies.
When Amanda Montei became a parent, she struggled with the physicality of caring for children, but even more with the growing lack of autonomy she felt in her personal and professional life. The conditions of modern American parenthood—the lack of paid leave and affordable childcare, the isolation and alienation, the distribution of labor in her home, and the implicit demands of marriage—were not what she had expected.
After #MeToo, however, she began to see a connection between how women were feeling in motherhood and the larger culture of assault in which she had grown up. In American society, women are expected to prioritize their children, often by pushing their bodies to the limit and ignoring their own desires and needs. As she struggled to adjust to the new demands on her body, this stirred memories of being used, violated, and seen by men. She had the desperate urge to finally say no, though she didn’t know how, or to whom she might say it.
Written with the intellectual and emotional precision of writers like Roxane Gay and Leslie Jamison, and drawing on classic feminist thinkers such as bell hooks, Silvia Federici, and Adrienne Rich, as well as on popular culture from The Bachelor to Look Who’s Talking, Montei draws connections between caregiving, consent, reproductive control, and the sacrifices women are expected to make throughout their lives. Exploring the stories we tell about psychology, childbirth, sexuality, the family, the overwhelm mothers feel trying to be “good,” and the tender bonds that form between parent and child, Touched Out delivers a powerful critique of American rape culture and its continuation in the institution of motherhood, and considers what it really means to care in America.
You know, on second thought, I'll admit that I can empathize with some of the kinds of challenges cited here.
Not that I'd likely agree with what kinds of political solutions I'm sure she proposes, but even between a happily married couple the first year of trying to take care of a new baby can be pretty brutal and draining. And I won't deny that mothers do get the brunt of it.
At the same time though, while it's not glaringly obvious in the cited text, I wouldn't be surprised if it parrots a lot of the usual feminist rhetoric that paints anything related to the experience of motherhood as a violent and heinous act committed by men upon them.
See, 20 years ago men would've given a shit about the hardships women can face.
But since then, they've gone mask off and don't even pretend that men suffer, or if they do, they don't care about it, so.
I really don't give a shit what women go through anymore. It was almost never worse than what men traditionally suffer.
We always lent an ear to women because they supported us and so we supported back, and we cared for the struggles of people we love.
Aye. I'll maybe extend my sympathies on a case by case, individual basis, with a woman I know, but I rarely reserve sympathy to the broader female-population at large. Or at least not since I was young and naive.
I think the person who wrote that article also wrote this "masterpiece":
https://archive.is/DFjqy
Archive doesn't include the whole excerpt, so I'll copy and paste it in a followup comment.
You know, on second thought, I'll admit that I can empathize with some of the kinds of challenges cited here.
Not that I'd likely agree with what kinds of political solutions I'm sure she proposes, but even between a happily married couple the first year of trying to take care of a new baby can be pretty brutal and draining. And I won't deny that mothers do get the brunt of it.
At the same time though, while it's not glaringly obvious in the cited text, I wouldn't be surprised if it parrots a lot of the usual feminist rhetoric that paints anything related to the experience of motherhood as a violent and heinous act committed by men upon them.
See, 20 years ago men would've given a shit about the hardships women can face.
But since then, they've gone mask off and don't even pretend that men suffer, or if they do, they don't care about it, so.
I really don't give a shit what women go through anymore. It was almost never worse than what men traditionally suffer. We always lent an ear to women because they supported us and so we supported back, and we cared for the struggles of people we love.
There is no love in the Modern American Woman.
Aye. I'll maybe extend my sympathies on a case by case, individual basis, with a woman I know, but I rarely reserve sympathy to the broader female-population at large. Or at least not since I was young and naive.