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Jordan Braunstein's avatar

One of my good female friends is currently struggling with the inner conflict of being both an independent, educated, feminist, career oriented, self love and self care fixated, fun seeking, cosmopolitan woman and... a new mother of a 1 year old. She loves her kid but her resentment of her *situation* burns red hot.

She has an involved partner who makes high six figures and tries his best to share the burden of child care. They spend thousands a month and spare no expense on supplementary help, nannies etc, and she still laments and mourns the death of her freedom; the loss of her formerly independent self. Coming to terms with how motherhood has narrowed and constrained the possibilities of her life has been very disturbing to her, and she copes by seeking out examples of women in the media who seem to have managed to keep their personal dreams and goals alive (artistically, educationally, professionally) despite having kids.

The complaints about the unfairness of it all is the connecting thread - contempt for the biological and social role that has forced her to subsume her own interests, in what she still feels is the prime of her life.

In fairness to her, the pregnancy was unplanned and she never had a strong desire to have kids and be a mom as a core identity. It's something she wanted in the abstract, but she also didn't realize how much of her former self/life, which she liked a lot, she'd have to sacrifice.

I think women like her feel this sense of injustice more because of the optionality of their former lives. Materially and culturally, she had an incredible amount of youthful personal freedom for about 15 years, which suddenly plummeted to almost zero. Of course such a drastic change would be a shock. This in contrast to women who for cultural and economic reasons have long internalized expectations of motherhood, and actually desire that social role as the defining aspect of their identity.

For women like my friend, Motherhood is not only a huge burden and responsibility, but also a huge sacrifice - one for which they think they deserve all manner of compensation and privileges from their spouse and society under the rubric of equity and egalitarianism. Views

like "motherhood is it's own reward" or "it's nature, suck it up", have obvious non-egalitarian premises and implications that crash head first into core liberal progressive ideology.

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Kitty's Corner's avatar

Reading this, I wonder if this is essentially the crux of western feminism; the feelings of injustice and unfairness at having been born with a uterus, desiring emotional connection more than sex, and seemingly wanting kids more than men.

I think a lot about how much resentment white women have toward men, and my feeling has always been that white women desire to become white men. And white women feel "oppressed" because they cant escape their bodies.

I actually wonder if wealthy women who want children simply wont make use of poor surrogates. Or if motherhood wont be pushed onto poorer women so wealthy women can be mothers without the burden of motherhood.

I also think of women who wanted to get themselves sterilized or tubes tied but faced opposition from doctors out of concern they might want kids one day. Even though they decidedly did not, hence the desire to remove childbearing capabilities.

I wonder a lot about what will happen. I read a post on Free Press' substack today about how men are opting out of dating because the criteria of what women want from men is too high and most men cant measure up.

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