We Can't Have a Feminist Future Without Abolishing the Family
February 22, 2020 6:59 AM Subscribe
To spend any amount of time with [Sophie] Lewis is to feel that the world she imagines is nearby. Whether we realize it or not, many of us are already familiar with her arguments for abolishing the family. When we talk about the prevalence of domestic violence and child abuse—when some of us find ourselves inside family units that perpetrate these crimes—we acknowledge that, in horror movie parlance, the violence is coming from inside the family.
We may not call it “family abolition” or “full surrogacy,” but many people have begun to erect the caregiving communes Lewis wants to see realized. Queer people build “chosen families,” as do other marginalized groups who depend on each other for their survival. And even within traditional nuclear households, parents might find themselves saying that it “takes a village” to raise children—an acknowledgement that it’s not a job one can do on their own.
In many ways, Lewis shows us, the family has already been abolished. At the same time, the “open-source, fully collaborative gestation” she imagines remains on a distant horizon. Riffing on a famous quote from the philosopher Fredric Jameson, Lewis considers that “if it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, it is perhaps easier still to imagine the end of capitalism than the end of the family.”
We may not call it “family abolition” or “full surrogacy,” but many people have begun to erect the caregiving communes Lewis wants to see realized. Queer people build “chosen families,” as do other marginalized groups who depend on each other for their survival. And even within traditional nuclear households, parents might find themselves saying that it “takes a village” to raise children—an acknowledgement that it’s not a job one can do on their own.
In many ways, Lewis shows us, the family has already been abolished. At the same time, the “open-source, fully collaborative gestation” she imagines remains on a distant horizon. Riffing on a famous quote from the philosopher Fredric Jameson, Lewis considers that “if it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, it is perhaps easier still to imagine the end of capitalism than the end of the family.”
I think of this in the same way as I think of prison abolition: there are good ideas here, but in the same breath you have got to propose an alternative, or people will turn away, thinking you are completely isolated from human functioning and can be safely ignored. But I also think Lewis has a lot to say that I want to hear.
If I understand Lewis, she's not truly arguing for the destruction of family, but for a radical expansion of family. She wants a world in which kids are not trapped with an anti-feminist father and a bitter mother until they are adults, a world in which no children are unwanted, and if they feel unwanted, they have alternative care providers to rely upon. Ursula K. Le Guin, as Lewis references, imagines expansive redefinitions of family in her works, all of which combine a sense of tradition and cohesion without suggesting that compliance with its demands will bring happiness.
(Also, I extremely do not love the use of "Feminism Against Family" as her book's subtitle, because that brings you back around to Pat Robertson. Still, I don't know if that was her choice or the publisher's.)
posted by Countess Elena at 7:55 AM on February 22, 2020 [19 favorites]
If I understand Lewis, she's not truly arguing for the destruction of family, but for a radical expansion of family. She wants a world in which kids are not trapped with an anti-feminist father and a bitter mother until they are adults, a world in which no children are unwanted, and if they feel unwanted, they have alternative care providers to rely upon. Ursula K. Le Guin, as Lewis references, imagines expansive redefinitions of family in her works, all of which combine a sense of tradition and cohesion without suggesting that compliance with its demands will bring happiness.
(Also, I extremely do not love the use of "Feminism Against Family" as her book's subtitle, because that brings you back around to Pat Robertson. Still, I don't know if that was her choice or the publisher's.)
posted by Countess Elena at 7:55 AM on February 22, 2020 [19 favorites]
As noted briefly there, even Metafilter's beloved (joking!) David Brooks is saying some similar things.
posted by PhineasGage at 7:55 AM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 7:55 AM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
This is a brave person, in this day of endless cyber stalking. The short sighted author of the article gives way too many clues about the immediate neighborhood where Sophie Lewis lives, images of her front windows. I guess there is an innocence in this on both the subject and the writer's parts. I guess it is one of the pitfalls of the semi-professional new journalism of the digital age.
I found many surrogate mothers, or people to admire, whose traits I incorporated into my personal journey forward, out of family. Once, in high school, my mom was standing near me in a hallway, when a woman, who was softly well dressed, (who had my same initials,) walked up, smiled and shook my hands. I plainly admired her, and my mom said, under her breath, as the woman walked away, "Oh Oyéah, another one of your fake mothers!" I had many mothers as it turned out, only one father.
I have always been a practitioner of chosen family, only in my later life have I come to respect and enjoy family I inherited via the second marriage of my dad. My closest friends ride the same sea surface, we are always in the same time, reaching out to stay secure in our floating mass of common memory. It is very important to stay within reach of surrogate siblings, or else we are perpetually outside the glass looking in at the scene, which can be rosy in moments, and predictably horrific in others. As we grow older the choir grows smaller, and every note is closer to the solo, the soliloquy of our final thoughts.
posted by Oyéah at 9:21 AM on February 22, 2020 [6 favorites]
I found many surrogate mothers, or people to admire, whose traits I incorporated into my personal journey forward, out of family. Once, in high school, my mom was standing near me in a hallway, when a woman, who was softly well dressed, (who had my same initials,) walked up, smiled and shook my hands. I plainly admired her, and my mom said, under her breath, as the woman walked away, "Oh Oyéah, another one of your fake mothers!" I had many mothers as it turned out, only one father.
I have always been a practitioner of chosen family, only in my later life have I come to respect and enjoy family I inherited via the second marriage of my dad. My closest friends ride the same sea surface, we are always in the same time, reaching out to stay secure in our floating mass of common memory. It is very important to stay within reach of surrogate siblings, or else we are perpetually outside the glass looking in at the scene, which can be rosy in moments, and predictably horrific in others. As we grow older the choir grows smaller, and every note is closer to the solo, the soliloquy of our final thoughts.
posted by Oyéah at 9:21 AM on February 22, 2020 [6 favorites]
Well, not a new idea as the article does point out, but always a worthy enough thought experiment and an idea worth incorporating into one's life. Many people already have a blend of close relations and "chosen family" forming something like the networks she envisions.
Still, always filter for wishful thinking and romanticism about human possibility. Sure, conventional nuclear families pose certain risks, have flaws and do not solve all of society's needs (especially when isolated from extended family in the way Brooks points out in the piece linked above). But if anyone thinks that a future utopia of "caregiving communes"are a solution to those needs, they should have a look at the history of actual communes, which I'm afraid have also shown themselves to be vectors for human behavioral issues like rape, sexual harassment, substance abuse, psychological persecution, and plenty of other things, and have not shown themselves to be remarkably more stable or functional over time than inherited families (in fact, markedly less so, if anything). Families don't have the monopoly on fucked-up human relationships, and attempts to extend or rebuild the family generally result in about the same exposure to risk (or sometimes even multiplied by the number of individuals who have unregulated daily access to any one person), barring interventionist institutions (which themselves can be corrupted; see churches and schools).
posted by Miko at 9:27 AM on February 22, 2020 [31 favorites]
Still, always filter for wishful thinking and romanticism about human possibility. Sure, conventional nuclear families pose certain risks, have flaws and do not solve all of society's needs (especially when isolated from extended family in the way Brooks points out in the piece linked above). But if anyone thinks that a future utopia of "caregiving communes"are a solution to those needs, they should have a look at the history of actual communes, which I'm afraid have also shown themselves to be vectors for human behavioral issues like rape, sexual harassment, substance abuse, psychological persecution, and plenty of other things, and have not shown themselves to be remarkably more stable or functional over time than inherited families (in fact, markedly less so, if anything). Families don't have the monopoly on fucked-up human relationships, and attempts to extend or rebuild the family generally result in about the same exposure to risk (or sometimes even multiplied by the number of individuals who have unregulated daily access to any one person), barring interventionist institutions (which themselves can be corrupted; see churches and schools).
posted by Miko at 9:27 AM on February 22, 2020 [31 favorites]
Man oh man. While the depth of thought in this article is fascinating and worth thinking about, titling the thesis “abolish the family” is just red meat for reactionaries. And more than a bit hyperbolic.
I doubt it’s going to convert many people to it’s cause outside a very narrow bandwidth of the choir when the first reaction will inevitably be “omg. This crazy lady wants to make families illegal!” Which is a shame. Because people can’t face the trials of modern life with out more social sharing nor go it alone. We need a new way.
This is a perfect illustration of how the left has great ideas and just terrible presentation. Because it’s only thinking about talking inside the bubble.
posted by Everyone Expects The Spanish Influenza at 9:43 AM on February 22, 2020 [7 favorites]
I doubt it’s going to convert many people to it’s cause outside a very narrow bandwidth of the choir when the first reaction will inevitably be “omg. This crazy lady wants to make families illegal!” Which is a shame. Because people can’t face the trials of modern life with out more social sharing nor go it alone. We need a new way.
This is a perfect illustration of how the left has great ideas and just terrible presentation. Because it’s only thinking about talking inside the bubble.
posted by Everyone Expects The Spanish Influenza at 9:43 AM on February 22, 2020 [7 favorites]
I'm agreeing with Miko-- extended or expanded family is good for a kid whose parents happen to be abusive, but it doesn't work if the child is defined as a scapegoat.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:56 AM on February 22, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:56 AM on February 22, 2020 [3 favorites]
Is the idea of individually rejecting the motherhood role seen as bourgeois?
posted by Selena777 at 10:10 AM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Selena777 at 10:10 AM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
@selena777 I don’t think rejecting motherhood by not having children or refusing to participate in the nurturance of a community because patriarchy makes a person bourgeois, that said I do think women outsourcing family labor in a way that creates class divisions within womanhood definitely sets up a women’s bourgeois and cuts a divisional class line along gendered and racial stratifications.
I also don’t really get on well with her gendered implications of motherhood, gendered roles are warped by the patriarchy and I’d rather we find a way to equalize the labor in the home in a way that sidesteps gendered conversations completely. I like to call that “nurturance” and avoid gendered terms altogether when I try to think about different ways our communities can function.
posted by nikaspark at 10:36 AM on February 22, 2020 [7 favorites]
I also don’t really get on well with her gendered implications of motherhood, gendered roles are warped by the patriarchy and I’d rather we find a way to equalize the labor in the home in a way that sidesteps gendered conversations completely. I like to call that “nurturance” and avoid gendered terms altogether when I try to think about different ways our communities can function.
posted by nikaspark at 10:36 AM on February 22, 2020 [7 favorites]
Critical reviews of her book in New Politics and Catalyst
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 10:39 AM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 10:39 AM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm agreeing with Miko-- extended or expanded family is good for a kid whose parents happen to be abusive, but it doesn't work if the child is defined as a scapegoat.
It seems like a big part of the point would be to have outside supports before the parents have firmly pushed a kid into the scapegoat role, not wandering in late in the game after things have already fallen that far apart.
posted by bile and syntax at 10:56 AM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
It seems like a big part of the point would be to have outside supports before the parents have firmly pushed a kid into the scapegoat role, not wandering in late in the game after things have already fallen that far apart.
posted by bile and syntax at 10:56 AM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
Having broken up my own family unit I've thought a lot about how it would be easier for my kid and ex if we were part of a larger group such that breaking up wasn't so traumatic. If we couldn't figure out a way to end partnerships in ways that didn't require so much upheaval.
That plus all the Crone Island jokes just makes me wonder what is possible
posted by emjaybee at 10:57 AM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
That plus all the Crone Island jokes just makes me wonder what is possible
posted by emjaybee at 10:57 AM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
While I haven't read her work beyond this article, I'd like there to be more about women and AFAB folks opting out of having and nurturing children, and more about men stepping up.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:01 AM on February 22, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by bile and syntax at 11:01 AM on February 22, 2020 [4 favorites]
I also don’t really get on well with her gendered implications of motherhood, gendered roles are warped by the patriarchy and I’d rather we find a way to equalize the labor in the home in a way that sidesteps gendered conversations completely.
I'm loathe to "yes, but" this statement because dear god, yes, let us be critical of performed gender and yes, let us be mindful of the fact that men can be birthing parents and yes, let the work of nurturance be done by all (not just women) and double yes, let us release nurturance work from the denigration/devaluation associated with all feminized forms of labor.
But.
Gestation is real work. Birthing is real work. Breastfeeding is real work. There are types of nurturance that can only be provided by birthing parents. All of this is intrinsically gendered work. (Yes, trans men can give birth, but work with me here: I am searching for vocabulary to describe the bodies of birthing parents, note the fact that these bodies are the ones with uteri and vaginas, and underscore the essential fact that bodies matter, here more than anywhere else perhaps.)
Not that any baby is doomed if they can't have these specific types of nurturance that only their birthing parent can provide, but ... it is a loss, and that loss is a trauma. This much is documented fact.
In our zeal for a post-gender world, we are invisibling and erasing some truly essential and difficult work simply because IT IS FEMININE. We are afraid to notice that this work is feminine because that sounds dangerously like the status quo we need to challenge.
Is there a way for us to say both of these things at the same time: that mothers perform a unique, essential, highly gendered function... and also, nurturance work as a whole needs to be stripped of its gender connotations?
posted by MiraK at 1:26 PM on February 22, 2020 [14 favorites]
I'm loathe to "yes, but" this statement because dear god, yes, let us be critical of performed gender and yes, let us be mindful of the fact that men can be birthing parents and yes, let the work of nurturance be done by all (not just women) and double yes, let us release nurturance work from the denigration/devaluation associated with all feminized forms of labor.
But.
Gestation is real work. Birthing is real work. Breastfeeding is real work. There are types of nurturance that can only be provided by birthing parents. All of this is intrinsically gendered work. (Yes, trans men can give birth, but work with me here: I am searching for vocabulary to describe the bodies of birthing parents, note the fact that these bodies are the ones with uteri and vaginas, and underscore the essential fact that bodies matter, here more than anywhere else perhaps.)
Not that any baby is doomed if they can't have these specific types of nurturance that only their birthing parent can provide, but ... it is a loss, and that loss is a trauma. This much is documented fact.
In our zeal for a post-gender world, we are invisibling and erasing some truly essential and difficult work simply because IT IS FEMININE. We are afraid to notice that this work is feminine because that sounds dangerously like the status quo we need to challenge.
Is there a way for us to say both of these things at the same time: that mothers perform a unique, essential, highly gendered function... and also, nurturance work as a whole needs to be stripped of its gender connotations?
posted by MiraK at 1:26 PM on February 22, 2020 [14 favorites]
Is there a way for us to say both of these things at the same time: that mothers perform a unique, essential, highly gendered function... and also, nurturance work as a whole needs to be stripped of its gender connotations?
I'd point out, again, that you can be a mother who does not give birth or breastfeed, and that for an increasing number of people, giving birth is not feminine but badass masculinity and that having their identities erased on top of the work of giving birth is horrific. I'd make this into a discussion of the work of birthing and nursing parents and how this labor is feminized rather than how it is somehow inherently feminine. A uterus does not a woman make.
posted by bile and syntax at 2:41 PM on February 22, 2020 [6 favorites]
I'd point out, again, that you can be a mother who does not give birth or breastfeed, and that for an increasing number of people, giving birth is not feminine but badass masculinity and that having their identities erased on top of the work of giving birth is horrific. I'd make this into a discussion of the work of birthing and nursing parents and how this labor is feminized rather than how it is somehow inherently feminine. A uterus does not a woman make.
posted by bile and syntax at 2:41 PM on February 22, 2020 [6 favorites]
being born with a uterus is (at this point in medical history) a hard requirement for gestating a baby, but being born afab is NOT a hard requirement for breastfeeding. amabs have breast tissue. they can produce milk. they do sometimes spontaneously in sympathy, they do sometimes with deliberate nipple stimulation, they do sometimes by tinkering with hormones. can all amabs produce milk and in quantity enough to be a baby's sole food source? no, but not all afabs can either.
(also, they can get breast cancer. they have a much lower incidence of it, but when they do get it they have much worse outcomes. this is in large part because they are diagnosed at later disease stages, because they don't think anything of it when the first symptoms appear, because every october they're inundated with pink things telling them it's a woman thing. it is not, and education and visibilty on the issue would directly save lives.)
um... derail over.
posted by Clowder of bats at 2:42 PM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
(also, they can get breast cancer. they have a much lower incidence of it, but when they do get it they have much worse outcomes. this is in large part because they are diagnosed at later disease stages, because they don't think anything of it when the first symptoms appear, because every october they're inundated with pink things telling them it's a woman thing. it is not, and education and visibilty on the issue would directly save lives.)
um... derail over.
posted by Clowder of bats at 2:42 PM on February 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
bile and syntax, note that I was responding specifically to:
I’d rather we find a way to equalize the labor in the home in a way that sidesteps gendered conversations completely.
There is no way to do that. This labor is feminized - i.e. it is gendered. Men may do feminized labor but that doesn't make the labor itself masculine/non-gendered, nor can we divorce the labor from either gender or our bodies (two separate things, to be sure), and it certainly isn't labor that can be equalized in the home unless every adult in the home has given birth to an equal number of children at the same time.
We really do need to grapple with the lopsided reality of procreative labor. The birthing parent does SO MUCH that cannot be equalized and cannot be shared. (Not even if all AMAB people did all that work to try and lactate - it's extremely rare and almost never works.) What is a just division of labor in this scenario? It's not an easy handwave of "Let's strip the conversation of all gender considerations and distribute the work equally, duhhh."
posted by MiraK at 5:07 PM on February 23, 2020 [3 favorites]
I’d rather we find a way to equalize the labor in the home in a way that sidesteps gendered conversations completely.
There is no way to do that. This labor is feminized - i.e. it is gendered. Men may do feminized labor but that doesn't make the labor itself masculine/non-gendered, nor can we divorce the labor from either gender or our bodies (two separate things, to be sure), and it certainly isn't labor that can be equalized in the home unless every adult in the home has given birth to an equal number of children at the same time.
We really do need to grapple with the lopsided reality of procreative labor. The birthing parent does SO MUCH that cannot be equalized and cannot be shared. (Not even if all AMAB people did all that work to try and lactate - it's extremely rare and almost never works.) What is a just division of labor in this scenario? It's not an easy handwave of "Let's strip the conversation of all gender considerations and distribute the work equally, duhhh."
posted by MiraK at 5:07 PM on February 23, 2020 [3 favorites]
can all amabs produce milk and in quantity enough to be a baby's sole food source? no, but not all afabs can either.
It's specious to argue equivalence from fringe cases. By your argument we should also take into consideration the fact that fertilized proto-babies can be gestated partially in test tubes, so hey, machines are also doing procreative work. Can machines grow a baby to full term? No, but not all pregnant people can either! So, what, test tubes and human pregnant people must be spoken of as if they are doing equivalent gestatory* work and/or have equivalent capacities for it??
*apologies, idk if this word even exists
posted by MiraK at 5:16 PM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
It's specious to argue equivalence from fringe cases. By your argument we should also take into consideration the fact that fertilized proto-babies can be gestated partially in test tubes, so hey, machines are also doing procreative work. Can machines grow a baby to full term? No, but not all pregnant people can either! So, what, test tubes and human pregnant people must be spoken of as if they are doing equivalent gestatory* work and/or have equivalent capacities for it??
*apologies, idk if this word even exists
posted by MiraK at 5:16 PM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
Still reading, but this:
The Handmaid’s Tale...is a feminist utopia, portraying a fantasy of solidarity where all women experience exactly the same form of oppression, regardless of other identity categories like race or class.
and this:
Gilmore Girls...casts men as marginal characters while the women drive the action, she explained.
“All of the women are men and all of the men are women,” Osterweil added.
...wat.
The most reasonable explanation I can conceive is that the Lewis had a difficult idea that needed specialized vocabulary and lots of caveats, and the author omitted all of that.
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 6:05 PM on February 23, 2020 [3 favorites]
The Handmaid’s Tale...is a feminist utopia, portraying a fantasy of solidarity where all women experience exactly the same form of oppression, regardless of other identity categories like race or class.
and this:
Gilmore Girls...casts men as marginal characters while the women drive the action, she explained.
“All of the women are men and all of the men are women,” Osterweil added.
...wat.
The most reasonable explanation I can conceive is that the Lewis had a difficult idea that needed specialized vocabulary and lots of caveats, and the author omitted all of that.
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 6:05 PM on February 23, 2020 [3 favorites]
@mirak there’s a way to observe what is fact now and ponder what can be in the future in ways that both acknowledge what exists now and allow us to imagine totally different futures altogether.
Your conflict isn’t with my comment.
posted by nikaspark at 9:38 PM on February 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
Your conflict isn’t with my comment.
posted by nikaspark at 9:38 PM on February 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
Also I think you are projecting a lot of your own shit into my comment and I don’t appreciate it at all.
I’m not handwaving shit.
posted by nikaspark at 9:49 PM on February 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
I’m not handwaving shit.
posted by nikaspark at 9:49 PM on February 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
nikaspark, I'm sorry, did my comment come across as disrespectful or something? I only disagree, nothing more. And clearly I misunderstood what you meant, so any clarification as to what you were actually saying would be very welcome.
posted by MiraK at 5:06 AM on February 24, 2020
posted by MiraK at 5:06 AM on February 24, 2020
This labor is feminized - i.e. it is gendered.
This sorta gives the game away, though, doesn't it? Because you have to then ask, is it inherently gendered, or has it been gendered? That is to say, so much effort goes into the feminization of the birthing process, it looks like a nearly conscious political act, to combine multiple forms of labor into one that men as a category are to be liberated from.
There is so much work with babies, and while a few important bits do require certain body parts, it's politically interesting that all the hard parts are feminized, nearly all the effort has been gendered. We can ask, what would a fair distribution of labor look like? If only one parent can do the actual birthing, what labor would balance that out? And must we picture that balancing being done by only one other person? And what would a non-feminized birthing and newborn nurturing look like? What would the politics of the delivery room--the weird, tense, really unearthly-strange delivery room--look like, if the birthing parent were not defaulted to female, feminized, marked? What would postnatal care look like if the birthing parent's wish for closeness were not immediately disregarded as a sort of unscientific softness, so the baby could be whisked away for washing and warming and other mechanical activities?
There are a lot of interesting questions you can start asking, if you un-gender birth.
posted by mittens at 5:37 AM on February 24, 2020 [9 favorites]
This sorta gives the game away, though, doesn't it? Because you have to then ask, is it inherently gendered, or has it been gendered? That is to say, so much effort goes into the feminization of the birthing process, it looks like a nearly conscious political act, to combine multiple forms of labor into one that men as a category are to be liberated from.
There is so much work with babies, and while a few important bits do require certain body parts, it's politically interesting that all the hard parts are feminized, nearly all the effort has been gendered. We can ask, what would a fair distribution of labor look like? If only one parent can do the actual birthing, what labor would balance that out? And must we picture that balancing being done by only one other person? And what would a non-feminized birthing and newborn nurturing look like? What would the politics of the delivery room--the weird, tense, really unearthly-strange delivery room--look like, if the birthing parent were not defaulted to female, feminized, marked? What would postnatal care look like if the birthing parent's wish for closeness were not immediately disregarded as a sort of unscientific softness, so the baby could be whisked away for washing and warming and other mechanical activities?
There are a lot of interesting questions you can start asking, if you un-gender birth.
posted by mittens at 5:37 AM on February 24, 2020 [9 favorites]
This sorta gives the game away, though, doesn't it? Because you have to then ask, is it inherently gendered, or has it been gendered?
Yes, this to me is the crucial point. If it is acknowledged that trans men are real and actual men, and that they can gestate, give birth, and breastfeed, we really should question if the labor of gestation, birth and breastfeeding are "feminised" in some gender essentialist way, or culturally so. I think mittens asks some great questions here that deserve exploration.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:16 AM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
Yes, this to me is the crucial point. If it is acknowledged that trans men are real and actual men, and that they can gestate, give birth, and breastfeed, we really should question if the labor of gestation, birth and breastfeeding are "feminised" in some gender essentialist way, or culturally so. I think mittens asks some great questions here that deserve exploration.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:16 AM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
(Not even if all AMAB people did all that work to try and lactate - it's extremely rare and almost never works.)Citation needed for the "almost never works" part. I know several trans women who have successfully induced lactation for their babies, and several who have even had accidental lactation just from hormonal changes.
It's specious to argue equivalence from fringe cases. By your argument we should also take into consideration the fact that fertilized proto-babies can be gestated partially in test tubes, so hey, machines are also doing procreative work. Can machines grow a baby to full term? No, but not all pregnant people can either! So, what, test tubes and human pregnant people must be spoken of as if they are doing equivalent gestatory* work and/or have equivalent capacities for it??This is bad argumentation, and borderline offensive. The comment you're replying to is specifically about breastfeeding, which at least a few cis(probably) men have done, and many trans women do. There is nothing partial about their breastfeeding. Comparing it to in vitro fertilization is trivializing and insulting.
posted by Tabitha Someday at 7:57 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
>>> we really should question if the labor of gestation, birth and breastfeeding are "feminised" in some gender essentialist way, or culturally so
Ahhhh yes, this! Thank you for this wording! Yes, I was trying to say that the labor is culturally feminized, and I expressed myself horribly.
>>> There are a lot of interesting questions you can start asking, if you un-gender birth.
Yes, there are! I feel a bit stupid talking about the other side of the coin when we have barely glanced at this side of it... But I feel like I must, because I see us repeating some mistakes that second wave feminists already made and we have had to learn from.
In the 1960s and 70s, white middle-class feminists talked about "The Problem With No Name" and made this big push to liberate white middle-class women from being sequestered at home and get them into the workplace. Their rallying cry was, "Why can't women do that? And that? And that? Girls and women can do anything! WE ARE EQUAL!"
This was great. It opened up new avenues of power to middle-class white women.
But it took feminists as a whole and our culture as a whole quite a bit longer to recognize that the women had been doing some pretty important and difficult work when they were home, and that domestic work had been made invisible in order to accomplish the task of getting white middle-class women into the workplace. We paid the price and are still paying the price for this deliberate invisibling of women's work. As long as domestic work remained invisible, women bore that burden and that struggle in silence, working the Second Shift (and Third Shift of childcare). It's only now that we have started to halfway address it by asking men to do their share.
Now here we are again, keeping the work of birthing and breastfeeding resolutely invisible in the effort to accomplish the task of domestic equality. We're making the same mistake - only this time applied to the next problem in the sequence.
Far be it from me to object to the great list of questions you are asking. I mean, I'm a mom! I'm a divorced mom with shared custody, and I promise you I've thought about the problem of sharing parenting labor and lived out many my own radical solutions for more than a decade. I could no more object to your questions than I could object to us as a culture opening up male-dominated fields of paid work to women!
But just like back then, we ought to have paused and said, "ummm excuse me who's going to do the domestic labor when your white middle-class wife gets the high powered career she's entitled to and equally capable of hacking?" we should now pause a moment and say, "ummm excuse me but birthing and breastfeeding are HUGE parts of the task of creating family and they cannot currently be shared equally by all... so maybe let's look at this, engage with it, deal with it, and factor this into our calculations of justice and equality?"
>>> Citation needed for the "almost never works" part
Really? Sigh. Okay. Here are several articles that underline exactly how rare it is for AMAB people to breastfeed. [1] [2] [3] [4]
It's disheartening to have to show citations for this, as if you or anyone else is unaware that AMAB people breastfeeding is vanishingly rare in our current reality. Literally the only way AMAB people have ever breastfed at all is if they are on a sustained course of several different hormones. How many AMAB people do that? Why must we pretend as if breastfeeding ability is already body-neutral?
The pretense isn't harmless, you know. It's what leads to shit like this: An Iowa woman went to the US Supreme Court with a sex discrimination lawsuit against her employer who terminated her job because she’s a breastfeeding mom. The US Supreme Court rejected her petition saying that “breastfeeding-related firings aren’t sexist because men can lactate, too.”
I understand why you would be offended by me saying these are fringe cases, because cis-normativity is so strong (and my previous comments WERE offensive in this respect - I sincerely apologize), and the few trans rights we have are so hard won, and bodies being culturally gendered is a burden that's heaviest for gender-diverse people.
But denying the reality of who actually does the work of breastfeeding in OUR universe and OUR reality is a harmful way to fight against the paradigms of gender. We, the people of now, have to live in the bodies we currently have, doing the work these specific bodies currently do (and other bodies mostly cannot do), and we need recognition that this work CAN'T be shared equally by all - not yet.
And we need to talk about what that means when we speak of sharing labor equally between all.
posted by MiraK at 12:18 PM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
Ahhhh yes, this! Thank you for this wording! Yes, I was trying to say that the labor is culturally feminized, and I expressed myself horribly.
>>> There are a lot of interesting questions you can start asking, if you un-gender birth.
Yes, there are! I feel a bit stupid talking about the other side of the coin when we have barely glanced at this side of it... But I feel like I must, because I see us repeating some mistakes that second wave feminists already made and we have had to learn from.
In the 1960s and 70s, white middle-class feminists talked about "The Problem With No Name" and made this big push to liberate white middle-class women from being sequestered at home and get them into the workplace. Their rallying cry was, "Why can't women do that? And that? And that? Girls and women can do anything! WE ARE EQUAL!"
This was great. It opened up new avenues of power to middle-class white women.
But it took feminists as a whole and our culture as a whole quite a bit longer to recognize that the women had been doing some pretty important and difficult work when they were home, and that domestic work had been made invisible in order to accomplish the task of getting white middle-class women into the workplace. We paid the price and are still paying the price for this deliberate invisibling of women's work. As long as domestic work remained invisible, women bore that burden and that struggle in silence, working the Second Shift (and Third Shift of childcare). It's only now that we have started to halfway address it by asking men to do their share.
Now here we are again, keeping the work of birthing and breastfeeding resolutely invisible in the effort to accomplish the task of domestic equality. We're making the same mistake - only this time applied to the next problem in the sequence.
Far be it from me to object to the great list of questions you are asking. I mean, I'm a mom! I'm a divorced mom with shared custody, and I promise you I've thought about the problem of sharing parenting labor and lived out many my own radical solutions for more than a decade. I could no more object to your questions than I could object to us as a culture opening up male-dominated fields of paid work to women!
But just like back then, we ought to have paused and said, "ummm excuse me who's going to do the domestic labor when your white middle-class wife gets the high powered career she's entitled to and equally capable of hacking?" we should now pause a moment and say, "ummm excuse me but birthing and breastfeeding are HUGE parts of the task of creating family and they cannot currently be shared equally by all... so maybe let's look at this, engage with it, deal with it, and factor this into our calculations of justice and equality?"
>>> Citation needed for the "almost never works" part
Really? Sigh. Okay. Here are several articles that underline exactly how rare it is for AMAB people to breastfeed. [1] [2] [3] [4]
It's disheartening to have to show citations for this, as if you or anyone else is unaware that AMAB people breastfeeding is vanishingly rare in our current reality. Literally the only way AMAB people have ever breastfed at all is if they are on a sustained course of several different hormones. How many AMAB people do that? Why must we pretend as if breastfeeding ability is already body-neutral?
The pretense isn't harmless, you know. It's what leads to shit like this: An Iowa woman went to the US Supreme Court with a sex discrimination lawsuit against her employer who terminated her job because she’s a breastfeeding mom. The US Supreme Court rejected her petition saying that “breastfeeding-related firings aren’t sexist because men can lactate, too.”
I understand why you would be offended by me saying these are fringe cases, because cis-normativity is so strong (and my previous comments WERE offensive in this respect - I sincerely apologize), and the few trans rights we have are so hard won, and bodies being culturally gendered is a burden that's heaviest for gender-diverse people.
But denying the reality of who actually does the work of breastfeeding in OUR universe and OUR reality is a harmful way to fight against the paradigms of gender. We, the people of now, have to live in the bodies we currently have, doing the work these specific bodies currently do (and other bodies mostly cannot do), and we need recognition that this work CAN'T be shared equally by all - not yet.
And we need to talk about what that means when we speak of sharing labor equally between all.
posted by MiraK at 12:18 PM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
We can have a thousand simultaneous conversations and I guarantee that fertile cis women are not going to be erased if you update your reality model to include trans and non-binary people in it.
posted by nikaspark at 12:22 PM on February 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by nikaspark at 12:22 PM on February 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
Literally the only way AMAB people have ever breastfed at all is if they are on a sustained course of several different hormones. How many AMAB people do that?
[raises hand]
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:35 PM on February 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
[raises hand]
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:35 PM on February 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
Mod note: MiraK I think you're may be having some trouble seeing how your comments are coming across and I'm going to ask you to please give this thread a rest for a day or so?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:41 PM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:41 PM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
Okay, I hear you all. In trying to talk about a thing I want to talk about, I have been finding it very hard to find the right words to talk about gender and bodies and who does what work.
But I think I'm finally understanding what many on this thread are saying, which is: intrinsic gender isn't the issue, not even assigned-at-birth gender. By trying to make this about gender and assigned-at-birth gender, I'm repeatedly using cis-normative and transphobic terms all over my comments.
You're right, and I won't do that anymore. Thank you for engaging with me even though I'm messing up.
posted by MiraK at 12:42 PM on February 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
But I think I'm finally understanding what many on this thread are saying, which is: intrinsic gender isn't the issue, not even assigned-at-birth gender. By trying to make this about gender and assigned-at-birth gender, I'm repeatedly using cis-normative and transphobic terms all over my comments.
You're right, and I won't do that anymore. Thank you for engaging with me even though I'm messing up.
posted by MiraK at 12:42 PM on February 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
What’s fundamentally broken is our consent model of what gender is, what sex is, how sexual and romantic relationships are negotiated in a cis/monogamous/straight frame and how bodies are remotely policed by guessing at all these things based on perception alone.
The labor of child rearing and child raising falls largely to cis women because duh. These are well observed facts, how we talk about now is important in order to enumerate the struggles that all sex minorities experience and asking for that language to be inclusive is not denying a biological reality, it’s expanding it.
posted by nikaspark at 12:48 PM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
The labor of child rearing and child raising falls largely to cis women because duh. These are well observed facts, how we talk about now is important in order to enumerate the struggles that all sex minorities experience and asking for that language to be inclusive is not denying a biological reality, it’s expanding it.
posted by nikaspark at 12:48 PM on February 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
There's a subtle distinction here that might be useful.
You can think that pregnancy is always a feminist issue without thinking that all pregnant people are women.
Pregnancy is always a feminist issue because, as a matter of political reality, misogynists everywhere do use it as a tool to hurt cis women. They do this ignorantly, not knowing that trans men exist, not counting them as men, or not knowing that they can get pregnant. Or they do it callously, knowing most of the people hurt will be the women they want to hurt, and not minding if a few trans men are hurt as collateral damage.
We, as feminists, should fight those misogynists — including when they hurt trans men by accident or callousness. But we should also know better than those misogynists. We do know trans men exist, can get pregnant, and are valuable as people in their own right.
So we can call pregnancy a feminist issue. But because we know better than those assholes, we can't call it exclusively a women's one.
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:09 PM on February 24, 2020 [11 favorites]
You can think that pregnancy is always a feminist issue without thinking that all pregnant people are women.
Pregnancy is always a feminist issue because, as a matter of political reality, misogynists everywhere do use it as a tool to hurt cis women. They do this ignorantly, not knowing that trans men exist, not counting them as men, or not knowing that they can get pregnant. Or they do it callously, knowing most of the people hurt will be the women they want to hurt, and not minding if a few trans men are hurt as collateral damage.
We, as feminists, should fight those misogynists — including when they hurt trans men by accident or callousness. But we should also know better than those misogynists. We do know trans men exist, can get pregnant, and are valuable as people in their own right.
So we can call pregnancy a feminist issue. But because we know better than those assholes, we can't call it exclusively a women's one.
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:09 PM on February 24, 2020 [11 favorites]
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
We must redefine labor to include the invisible working class of women in the home and how race and class pits women against each other and co-opts and divides women as an action block.
Mostly I think about voting patterns in the US show a distressing number of white women voting for capitol interests over labor.
I think some finer grained analysis is needed, and one that I really don’t know how to dig into. This is just more me seeing broad strokes and trying to stitch a hazy narrative in my head together, I’m open to critique, and that said I totally agree with the fundamental assertion that the notion of family has to be completely remade.
posted by nikaspark at 7:12 AM on February 22, 2020 [16 favorites]