Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - Posts
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I'm sure Marjorie is right that we don't know the half of the Walkers' feud—how can we, since we're only hearing Rebecca's side? And I agree with Marjorie and Maureen that feminism should entail a little effort to think from the perspective of a woman who makes a choice that's not your own.
I also think, as others have pointed out, that Rebecca Walker's critique makes us uncomfortable (or at least makes me uncomfortable) because it entwines being an ardent feminist with being a bad mother, at least in one daughter's eyes. I can't stop myself from rushing to state the obvious: Lots of feminists are great mothers! Devoted! But I also have admitted to myself since I started work after my first son was born that there's a cost as well as a benefit from having a job that takes me away from my kids for a good chunk of the day. Tonight (after they went to bed) I picked up Meg Wolitzer's new novel The Ten-Year Nap, and the passage below jumped out at me. Amy, the 40-ish napper of the title, is talking to her second-wave feminist-novelist mother Antonia, who is forever disappointed that her daughter hasn't worked (as a lawyer) since her 10-year-old son was born.
"Oh come on, you're very smart," said her mother, "and very capable. You've always been that way."
"And I expected things of myself," Amy said. "But not everyone is that driven. And not everyone is really talented. And also," she said, "sometimes it's too difficult to make it happen."
Amy recalled herself and her sisters standing outside their mother's door, banging with their fists, telling themselves they were undermothered, when in fact for so long they had been so well and fully mothered by their intellient and creative and adoring mother that surely her mothering would have a long half-life.
But all they knew, then, was that Antonia had said. "This is my time," and that she'd gently closed her door. The girls played Jane Eyre once in a while over the years: they imagined themselves orphaned by their wonderful mother and even, somehow, by feminism itself.
This, I confess, makes me want to cry. Am I falling down the guilty-mother rabbit hole?
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There I was, all set to jump up in defense of those Pharmacists for Life whom Will and the Washington Post wrote about. Given how poorly they're likely to fare in the marketplace, their position struck me as both principled and doomed; how could I resist? I don't happen to agree with them, because limiting access to birth control seems so likely to lead to more abortions. But they have the right to sell only what they feel OK about selling, don't they? What's more American than that? Then, alas, I glanced at their Web site, which refers to an "abortoholic babe from NARAL'' and calls Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, "the Dictator of the Midwest, Guv 'Slobodan' Blagojevich ... the totalitarian abortoholic Serb reigning in Springfield, but who much rather prefers the shores of Lake Michigan to the boorish 'fundies' downstate as the kook left-wing radicals refer to anyone with Christian beliefs. Now, there's tolerance!'' Where? You guys are on your own. (And really, isn't that how you want it?)
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The Walkers' feud is way too complex and layered for us to assume we really understand what is going on between them. Clearly there's family dysfunction, old resentments, past disappointments—all the stuff that most families deal with on some level or another. I also wonder if Rebecca has some unresolved identity issues that she may also be blaming on her mother and on feminism. After all, as E.J. noted, this is a woman who for many years lived as a lesbian. She is also a biracial woman who grew up being shuttled between the two very different worlds of her divorced parents, an unconventional black mother and a conventional white father. Being raised by, and in the shadow of, a famous parent also can't be easy.
What any of this has to do with the feminist movement, I don't know. Isn't feminism all about women having choices, the freedom to live our lives as we choose without having to stay within some circumscribed set of societal parameters? Can't both of the Walkers' lifestyle choices be considered just that, choices? Rebecca chose to live as a lesbian without a biological child, and now she chooses to be married to a man with whom she has a biological child, fine. I doubt very much that she checked with the Misguided Angry Feminists Council before she made either of these decisions. The feminist movement never made me want to swear off motherhood, burn my bra, hate men, or denounce women who made choices different from mine or choices with which I disagree. The last time I checked the feminist movement has never tried to control my womb, so why is it the feminist movement's fault that Rebecca allowed her mother to solely shape her image of motherhood, and for that matter womanhood and self? I love my mother but I am not my mother, my worldview and life experiences are very different from hers. Did she make some mistakes in how she raised me? You bet. Does she also get credit for the better parts of me? Absolutely. Our mothers may define us as little girls but we define ourselves as women. My mother could never make me want or not want children, and if I were to solely blame her for either of those choices, it would be intellectually dishonest. I would never give one person so much power over me but if I had, I would also give myself some of the blame for allowing it to happen. I'll leave it to others to decide if Alice Walker deserves all of her daughter's criticisms, but I think if Alice had just supported and respected Rebecca's choices they probably wouldn't be where they are now. Women supporting and respecting one another's choices has everything to do with feminism.
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