Mothers (and Families) Rising
When I wrote about the Motherhood Manifesto movie last fall, I mentioned that my colleagues had a good discussion about whether it was a mistake to limit the call to action to mothers. So I wanted to mention that Moms Rising now has a "Families Rising" section which includes a bunch of thoughtful dad-bloggers.
If you are in the DC area, and haven’t seen the movie yet, there will be a screening of it this weekend:
Saturday, July 21, 2007, 10 am – 12 pm
The
True Reformer Building
1200 U Street NW,
Washington, DC
Child care and snacks will be
provided
Please
RSVP to Liz at 202-293-5380 x110
Sponsored by Councilmember
Mendelson with the Center for Economic and
Policy Research, DC ACORN, the DC Employment Justice Center, DC Jobs with
Justice, Empower DC, Jubilee Jobs,
Inc., the National
Association of Mothers’ Centers, MothersOughtToHaveEqualRights, the National
Partnership for Women & Families, and the National Women’s Law Center.
I’ve got family visiting over the weekend, so won’t be able to make it, but it should be a good event. The discussion afterwards will focus on the DC paid sick and safe days act.
The "Liz" to whom RSVPs are addressed is not me, and I’m not one of the organizers, but I do claim a smidgeon of credit for pushing the folks putting the event together to figure out a way to provide child care. They said "kids welcome" from the beginning, but I knew my kids wouldn’t have the patience to sit through the movie, and I suspect most others wouldn’t either. Which means that at least some of the moms would probably have wound up either leaving early or taking their kids out into the hallway and missing half the movie. Far better to line up some people who have agreed in advance to do the child care, whether as paid or volunteers.
[David at Scrivenings had a couple of really good posts earlier about a discussion on Twisty’s blog about kids in public spaces, where some commenters started with the statement that when kids are around, there is often an assumption that all women will take responsibility for watching them, and then wandered off into nasty statements about how awful kids are. In brief, my take on the back and forth:
- it is a feminist position to say that mothers should not be individually responsible for arranging child care in order to participate in public life;
- it is also a feminist position to say that random women (whether parents themselves or not) should not be assumed to be available to provide child care simply because they are women and/or mothers;
- it is not a feminist position to say that women (or men) who dislike being around children should be a entitled to child-free spaces (or spaces where children are seen but not heard). They’re allowed to prefer such spaces, and there may be enough places to go around that they can even get their preferences met in some of them, but they don’t get to claim any particular feminist cred in support of their preferences.]
July 17th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
thanks, that link was an interesting discussion. as an educator (who therefore, at times, wants to be in a child-free environment to preserve what little sanity remains) and as a mother/grandmother (who gets a big kick out of kids having fun and learning, or just hanging out) i’m conflicted.
in thinking a bit more, i realize that what i don’t like is being where kids are wild and out of control and in danger of hurting themselves or others due to that condition, partly because that triggers a sense of responsibility after my many years in the classroom as the responsible one. but as someone else pointed out, i can always seclude myself in my own childfree environment if that’s what i want/need.
July 17th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
That is great. I always think it is unfortunate when progressive organizations can’t get it together enough to have child care for meetings, particularly when they’re trying to organize women.