I just received my Long Island Women's Agenda newsletter, and there is an interesting article. I am quoting the article below. Apparently, the media has been using the term "mommy wars" when describing issues relating to mothers and work.
"The MOTHERS Initiative of the National Association of Mothers' Centers (NAMC) launched its Ceasefire in the "Mommy Wars" Campaign...This effort is focused on the media...
"This isn't a playground and we don't have to choose sides...At issue is the perceived battle between mothers who work and mothers who stay home. In reality, women aren't just one or the other. Many women are in one category for a time, transition to the other, and perhaps transition back again at another stage in their family's development. The real issue is the lack of societal supports for the caregiving work that still falls most heavily on women's shoulders. This work can be the care of children, of elderly parents, of a partner who has taken ill, or of oneself.
"Framing the conversation with this devisive rhetoric promotes the notion that women are against each other when the opposite is true. The same policies, practices, customs, and laws that would benefit at-home moms would also benefit at work moms and all those in between who cobble together some kind of schedule to make a living and care for their families and themselves. Of course this would include fathers and non-parents, too!
"Join the campaign! Respond to those who try to divide women unnecessarily."
The campaign materials can be found at www.MothersOughtToHaveEqualRights.org.
Thanks, LIWA, for this interesting and informative article. I have been out of the Mommy loop, with my chicks out of the nest for some time now. But I have friends who are dealing with this issue, an important one, I think. While this could certainly be called the Age of Communication, and the media can definitely be an asset, it also can really add unnecessary fuel to the flames of just about any issue. Off my soapbox now. What do you think?
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5 comments:
Wow! Interesting. Wouldn't it be nice if the caregiving function, which is large, were given a little more air time in this country? Of course, some would say women brought this on ourselves over the years. I don't care if a woman wants to stay home or go to work or some combination thereof, but I do mind all the hatefulness and backbiting and gossip and pettiness and materialism! (Whoa, guess I had one foot up on your soapbox there for a minute.)
Yeah, you got yer own soapbox! Seriously, you can step up onto my sopabox any time your little heart desires. That's what I'm here fer!
Yeah, I agree, I have been a f/t mommy, and have worked p/t, and have never given a second thought about the women who work f/t and made comparisons. Why would I? I also don't know anyone else with an issue, so I think the media makes up this stuff. I think we're all out there trying to get by and deal with our own situations. Either way, it's still great and alot of work, it's just that some women are making money and the other's aren't, which can be a bummer sometimes, for the effort.
I think you are right, the media makes up tons of stuff. While there are certainly anti-female women, I try to make sure I surround myself with sistahs. Go grrrrl power! ;)
I hope there is a little room on your soap box for me because in my volunteer work I often felt like a UN Peackeeper during the mommy wars.
It's hard for me to get behind any agenda put forth by the National Association of Mother's Centers. When I went to the Mother's Center in Massapequa for the New Mother's Coffee Hour, they would not let me participate unless I left my three-week-old infant in a babysitting room down the hall.
It was a grim room with about ten other infants and an adult stranger with a cough.
I wouldn't have left my baby in there if Johnny Depp had been pouring me coffee in the nude!
They kept telling me that to be a good mother I needed my "alone time" when I thought I just needed to hang out with some other mamas and enjoy a cup of coffee while my baby slept in the sling.
If I had wanted to be alone, I wouldn't have ditched the kid and walked into a room full of women. I would have ditched the kid and gone into isolation.
Maybe I'm just a bitter attachment parenting mama who needs to let it go, but my first real taste of the mommy wars was not from the media. It was from the Mothers' Center, where women preparing to put their six week olds in day care were a bit judgmental about mommies who stayed at home.
I find their white flag ironic, and (a decade later) somewhat amusing!
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