#4 am I a bad feminist?

the internal struggle

I started writing this week’s newsletter from the waiting room of a radiology office. I was waiting for my ultrasound appointment that I had scheduled frantically at 10am that morning fearing that I had ovarian cancer (note to self: do NOT google symptoms). When they (tried to) call my name, I was chaperoned into a dark corner far, far away, sectioned off with a curtain. A small sign above me read ‘Ultrasound Room 1’. When I got inside, I underdressed (bottom half only) and spread my legs for the lovely Penny to shove a paddle up my vagina, laugh and tell me that I do not, in fact, have ovarian cancer. So yes, I’m a feminist. 

I’ve been a feminist ever since I saw Miranda finally make partner at her law firm, in Sex and the City (Season 3, Episode 8). I’ve never been afraid to call out problematic statements or to fight for my voice to be heard. The phrase “I haven’t finished talking” has definitely escaped my mouth more times than I would like. 

In 1968, The New York Times printed a story called ‘The Second Feminist Wave: What do these women want?’. The author, Martha Weinman Lear, described “twelve comely feminists, dressed for cocktails” that crashed the hearings of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission on Sex Discrimination in Employment. Martha said that the protestors “make it clear that women are valued not for their intelligence but only for their sexuality – i.e., as wives and mothers – which, stripping the matter of its traditional sacred cows, reduces the Women’s Role to a sort of socially acceptable whoredom.” Some things never change.

Today, women are still fighting against the “socially acceptable whoredom” now more than ever. We’ve seen it in the rise of the #MeToo movement, the choice of Grace Tame as Australian of the Year, in the Women’s Marches and quietly, but surely, in Australian homes. 

In the biggest bid to escape “whoredom”, feminists have pushed and clawed their way into the workplace. As a matter of fact, approximately, 47.2 percent of all employed people across Australia are female. That’s not too bad of an effort if you ask me. But it got me thinking…do you have to be a working women to be a good feminist?

When I googled ‘can a feminist...’ these are the suggestions that appeared. The two that stuck out to me were: can a feminist be a housewife and can a feminist be a stay-at-home mum. (Special shout out to everyone googling: can a feminist be a man? answer: definitely).

This google sent me down a rabbit hole of doubtful women, questioning whether their decisions made them feminist failures. As women, we are constantly held to an unachievable standard, so it’s natural for us to have feminist doubts – wondering if some of the choices we have made make us ‘anti-feminist’. I often wonder whether I’m lying to myself when I say that I shave my legs because I like the way it feels under freshly washed sheets, or that I’m only enhancing my natural features when I spend 30 minutes getting ready for a night out.

I never thought it was ‘anti-feminist’ to be a stay-at-home mum. The most influential feminists in my life were. But recently, I’ve been second guessing myself. Am I a disappointment to feminism for wanting to be a full-time mum?

Most of my female friends talk about how they want to get established in their career and how they fear children will prevent them from climbing the corporate ladder. It makes me sad. Children and motherhood (what the continuation of the human race depends on) shouldn’t devalue your position or ability to climb the corporate ladder. But it does. 

It is because of this paradox that some interpretations of modern-day feminism undermine the importance of motherhood. I often hear the phrase “but women are more than that” thrown back in response to people suggesting women should stay at home. I fear that rhetoric has counterproductive implications for feminism as a whole. 

By suggesting that women are more than being mothers, it undermines the women who choose to ‘just’ be mothers and places an unnecessary amount of pressure on people who want to dedicate their lives to raising children only. It judges those women. It implies those women are not enough ­– that those women should not be valued. “Oh, the women who just stay at home and do nothing, they are ‘anti-feminist’”. I don’t think so. 

It’s not anti-feminist to not want to focus on your career necessarily. It’s not anti-feminist to want to be a stay-at-home mum. It’s anti-feminist to put down other women and judge the choices they make. Feminism gave (and still tries to give) women the ability to paint and create the life they want for themselves. I will not allow others to put down women for taking advantage of their ability to choose just because you think their choice drags you down, doesn’t allow you to be taken seriously in the workplace, because you think women are ‘more than that’.

Don’t you see? The problem isn’t the ‘anti-feminist’ women who stay at home to raise their children. The problem is that women can’t win. We are judged for one thing or another – for staying at home or for going to work. We are being pitted against each other. At the end of the day, we are still losers. 

We need to fight against the real problems – the workplaces that don’t value and accommodate mothers, despite mothers being who raised them, the idea that ‘strong’ women are the only women worth the protection of feminism, that being a mother somehow means that you are of less value to society. 

Career driven boss ladies are painted as ‘strong’ women who pioneer feminism and this is definitely true. However, this narrative has left behind stay-at-home mothers, leaving them with implications of weakness – not strong enough to ‘keep up with the times’. I resent and completely reject that implication. The strongest woman I know was a stay-at-home mum who raised me to believe in my strength and I am forever grateful. I hope to do that same with my children if I will be so blessed to have them. Women are strong. All women.

I will always fight for working women to get seats at the table (the head of the table baby!). At the same time, I will fight for the women who want to work part-time, who rush to the school pick-up briefcases in hand. I will fight for the women who don’t want to work traditionally, and stay-at-home, to care for their children. Because that is what feminism was and is about – giving women the right to choose. 

So, am I a bad feminist? I don’t think so.