The Politics of Motherhood

New York Radical Feminists sponsored a conference entitled "Politics of Motherhood" on May 19, 1974, which revealed the institution of motherhood as one of the central concerns of feminism. In exploring the effects of women's role as mother, many other topics more widely recognized as key feminist issues were illuminated marriage and the family, sexuality, medical care and psychiatry, and aging.

The conference began with a Speak-out, in which women spoke out describing their own concerns and experiences. After lunch, a series of small workshops explored in more detail the myths and realities of motherhood, drawing upon the thoughts and feelings of each participant through a consciousness-raising approach.

The five hundred women who attended the conference were of all ages; all were daughters, and many were mothers. The strongest feelings expressed were that the definition of motherhood is seldom in the hands of mothers. Pressured from childhood to see motherhood as the inevitable zenith of their lives, many women became mothers with little real knowledge of the enormous impact it was to have on their lives. Other women who want children feel that as mothers they would be asked to give up too much of their lives in return for being parents. As daughters, women were saddened by their frequently painful relationships with their mothers, they felt they were being denied many of the real pleasures of motherhood by society's impact on them as mothers and as women. The participants saw little opportunity and no encouragement for a woman to structure her mothering functions so as to suit her own welfare and her child's.

Many workshops, however, ended with an optimistic message: "We can regain control over our own lives, working together to solve the immediate problems like day care and abortion, and then to find new ways of relating to children and to adults as unique individuals rather than only as the ragged roles we personify. Our goal must be to obtain for ourselves and our children the growth of each of us to our full powers and greatest joy in each other."

The aim of the conference was more clearly to define the feminist issues, and in this it only partly succeeded. There was a sense of a begin. ning; much work needs to be done before we are free to be ourselves with mothers and as mothers, Several continuing workshops, were formed to page 8/ What She Wants/ October 1974

explore further their topics, and New York

Radical Feminists will produce a book and video tape based on the day's events. The conference organizers urge other feminist groups to consider these issues, and they welcome requests for further information and assistance. A list of topics discussed at the conference follows:

CHILDREN AND SOCIETY.

Day care. Welfare and low-income mothers. Illegitimacy. Taking children out into the world. Schools, professionals, psychiatry and mothers. Media impact on mothers and on children. Children with special problems. Mothers as unpaid workers. Mothers as paid workers.

MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS.

Ambivalence and conflict, can it be resolved? Does feminism help or widen the gap? Why do we have such strong feelings toward our mothers? How do the mother/daughter roles influence our adult relationships? Lesbianismmother/daughter as lover. What is "mothering"do we do it? do we seek it or avoid it from others? Do we affirm or reject our potential to be mothers? Motherhood and creativity is sublimation only for men? Mothers and guilt.

MOTHERHOOD AND FEMINISM.

Do we rear boys and girls differently? What futures do we see for them? How do we deal with their sexuality and with our own? Roles in the family and in our heads can we rear role-less children? Can a feminist be a mother? A mother a feminist? What is the future of motherhood?

TO HAVE A CHILD OR NOT?

Why do women have children-maternal instinct? masochistic trip? to give love? to get it? to

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prove their womanhood? to satisfy their husbands

or parents? Can we lead full lives without

children? with children? How to accept not

having a child? Are fathers necessary?

OBSTETRICS AND GYNECOLOGY.

Abortion. Pregnancy, myths and realities. Childbirth methods and experiences, providing alternatives. Post-partum depression.

STAGES OF MOTHERHOOD.

Infancy life changes, learning to be a mother, fathers. Toddler playgrounds, day care, nursery schools, "formative years." Middle years back to work? babysitters, socialization. Adolescence mother as punching bag, role of fathers, are mothers obsolete? Adulthood empty-nest mothers, rewards and punishments, is there life after motherhood? Grandmother as super-mother,

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FAMILY STRUCTURE.

Mothers at home and at work. Role of fathers. Do grandparents have a role? Divorce singleparenting, split custody, absentee mothers. Lesbian mothers. Illegitimacy. Adoption. Step-mothers. Alternate life styles partnerships, communes, collectives. Does the nuclear family have a future?

When a woman inclines to learning there is usually something wrong with her sex apparatus.

Friedrich Nietzsche

For her world is her husband, her family, her children and her home...We do not find it right when the woman presses into the world of the man... The man upholds the nation as the woman upholds the family...Reason is dominant in man. He searches, analyses and often opens new immeasurable realms. Adolf Hitler