Breeder and other words we use to hurt our own.

[evolveme]

Also, and I meant to state this in the post preceding, piggybacking off firie's words:

To insist that all of motherhood is necessarily and by virtue a sacred thing, is really only a hair different than the very real and damaging religious dogmatism that insists that women are not worthy unless they achieve motherhood, that this is their function, and that this is the purpose of the union of marriage - a concept which is used to prohibit the LBGTQI community from access to that right.

Even if we don't have "religious beliefs," our "spiritual" ones can and do matter, particularly at the level that they begin to bleed over into points of public policy. In the U.S., anyway, an unfortunate percentage of laws are formed at the behest of religious and spiritual bias.

[SuperFemme]

What I really wanted to explore was the offensive way we use the term against one another (or anyone) but I can see that that is limiting so let's just discuss.

[firie]

Originally Posted by evolveme

My experience of motherhood is sacred to me.

This does not erase the reality of innumerable women and girls all over the world who are daily forced into the condition of motherhood against their ability or right to choose such a condition for themselves. To denounce the use of the term "breeder" even in an effort to construct a framework in understanding how it is used against women by the very paradigm that has created these conditions, seems to me, another method of limiting our choices in how we work to combat what has happened/is happening to us.

No one here - not one person - has argued that this word is not harmful. The original intent, to my reading, was to discuss exactly how harmful the basis for the use of this word is. And, yes, it's pretty fucking horrific. But not to be able to utilize it as a means of discussing the origins of its nefarious uses -- whether mine, yours or the patriarchy's -- is only another way to make secret what should be emblazoned across the consciousness of every woman everywhere.

Originally Posted by evolveme

Also, and I meant to state this in the post preceding, piggybacking off firie's words:

To insist that all of motherhood is necessarily and by virtue a sacred thing, is really only a hair different than the very real and damaging religious dogmatism that insists that women are not worthy unless they achieve motherhood, that this is their function, and that this is the purpose of the union of marriage - a concept which is used to prohibit the LBGTQI community from access to that right.

Even if we don't have "religious beliefs," our "spiritual" ones can and do matter, particularly at the level that they begin to bleed over into points of public policy. In the U.S., anyway, an unfortunate percentage of laws are formed at the behest of religious and spiritual bias.

Exactly. And I would admit to typically trying to avoid the word "sacred" when describing motherhood unless a mother tells me that is her word to describe her experience, because I tend to quite shy away from words that do have a certain "religious" quality to them (it's my stubborn atheism perhaps) . But if that is the experience of the mother, then that, to me, is a beautiful, marvelous thing.

[Martina]

So how about saying parenting is or should be sacred -- in the sense of being among a culture's highest values.

Parenting should be more highly valued and rewarded in our culture.

Raising girls with no other goal other than that they will procreate is dehumanizing. (i don't even like the word "grooming," btw.)

But the people who experience it are still fully human. And parenting itself is not dehumanizing. On the contrary. For most people it is an experience that gets them more in touch with their humanity.

For others it is a nightmare. That is when we should all help.

Part of the reason it isn't as pleasant as it should be here in the west has nothing to do with how voluntary it is, but the fact that parents are left on their own without the support of extended family and community.

But the assumption that women who are parents involuntarily are necessarily living any lesser a life than you and i are is incredibly elitist. Do i think the world should change so that all women get to choose? Absolutely. But those who aren't given the choice in the sense that we mean here -- and that is probably most women on the planet -- are not by definition dehumanized by this. It's arrogant to assume so.

One of my best friends -- a man -- just called. He didn't really want to have kids, but his wife did. He chose to have children in the sense that he didn't absolutely refuse. Well as things turned out, his wife's career took off in a big way. Guess who became the primary caretaker? This has been the case for over 14 years now. This guy is a genius. He is highly educated. He is emotionally healthy. All he has done other than parent for these many years is teach part-time. That's a contribution. But i am sure some people might think all that IQ power and education have gone to waste. i do not. He does not. In fact, he has loved every minute of it. His kids, especially, do not.

[evolveme]

Originally Posted by Martina

But the assumption that women who are parents involuntarily are necessarily living any lesser a life than you and i are is incredibly elitist. Do i think the world should change so that all women get to choose? Absolutely. But those who aren't given the choice in the sense that we mean here -- and that is probably most women on the planet -- are not by definition dehumanized by this. It's arrogant to assume so.

I'm confused by this assertion. While I think that much of what we assume about the rest of the world can be and is effectually ignorant, I'm unclear on what looks like a contradiction in standards in the above remarks.

While a certain contingent holds that Western interference in, for example, the genital mutilation of girls taking place in certain African nations is misplaced and "elitist," I disagree. I believe that our global citizenship is more important than our ethnocentricities would have us believe, and that while we need always be mindful of other regions' cultures and perspectives, whenever and wherever a woman or girl is being harmed in the name of social ideology, I say down with that social ideology. But that's me, just one of the 'elite.'

Women and girls all over the world are harmed and, in fact, killed because of a lack of access to contraception, no access to safe and legal abortion, and forced social ideologies which impress upon them a standard which says 'no' to education but 'must' to childbirth as soon as their bodies are capable and until their bodies are no longer able. I do not and cannot see how this way of life is acceptable for any of my sisters. I'm just that arrogant.

[Random]

Originally Posted by evolveme

While a certain contingent holds that Western interference in, for example, the genital mutilation of girls taking place in certain African nations is misplaced and "elitist," I disagree. I believe that our global citizenship is more important than our ethnocentricies would have us believe, and that while we need always be mindful of other regions' cultures and perspectives, whenever and wherever a woman or girl is being harmed in the name of social ideology, I say down with that social ideology. But that's me, just one of the 'elite.'

Women and girls all over the world are harmed and, in fact, killed because of a lack of access to contraception, no access to safe and legal abortion, and forced social ideologies which impress upon them a standard which says 'no' to education but 'must' to childbirth as soon as their bodies are capable and until their bodies are no longer able. I do not and cannot see how this way of life is acceptable for any of my sisters. I'm just that arrogant.

I'm one of the people who says that country/nation/people need to do it for themselves, and that it's not the west place to place our standards on any other country but our own..

Not as a cop out.. not because I don't hate what is happening to women/children around the world..

But simply because... The center doesn't hold.

When you try to force your way of thinking on a people who think another way.. It doesn't work.. Because you are going to have to police those people.. Make them live by your laws... Watch them... Make them dependent on someone else to enforce the laws..

It's only when the people of that country/nation/culture stand up for them selves and so.. HELL NO!!!!!! That true change in a positive way is possible... When people are ready and willing to die for that freedom, that change happens...

I come from a very long line of men abusing their women... It was a way of life.. No one thought twice about back handing their wife is she got smart with them...

My mom tells the story of the first time my dad went to swing at her.. She told him, that he had better kill her with that first blow, because she wasn't going to be hit and if that meant she had to kill him first, then that was alright with her.. (paraphrase)

My parents have been married 45 yrs in September and he has never laid a hand on her... Some of her sisters weren't so lucky.... Some of my cousins... But some were.. and from my mother generation, the cycle has been broken for them and their daughters... It spreads out like a wave...

I have never been hit by a lover, partner, or boyfriend... Because of my mother.. Because i say.. you better kill me.. because I'm NOT being hit.. It's something I am willing to die over...

In my mind it's always like an abused person... You can remove them, you can councile them, but until they are ready, change is not happening..

We can offer resorces, support, money.. But they have to do the work...

[evolveme]

Random,

While I hear what you're saying, this essentially sounds like the Bootstraps argument to me. Sometimes, somebody ain't got no straps, you know what I'm saying? There has been a time that I was so down that not even my own legs would hold me.

Granted, it takes more than coming in and stopping the immediate threat to truly end a systemic problem like global reproductive rights issues. I certainly don't have the answers. The whole system of patriarchal influence needs to go, if you ask me (and clearly that's not a real-world plan for the time being).

People (women & girls especially) need help. They need to help each other.

[Martina]

Originally Posted by evolveme

While a certain contingent holds that Western interference in, for example, the genital mutilation of girls taking place in certain African nations is misplaced and "elitist," I disagree.

i do too. And that's an extreme example of . . . of not what we are talking about.

Originally Posted by evolveme

whenever and wherever a woman or girl is being harmed in the name of social ideology, I say down with that social ideology. But that's me, just one of the 'elite.'

Calling the parenthood of people who may not have had an option to be other than parents a form of harm is extremely ethnocentric and privileged.

Originally Posted by evolveme

Women and girls all over the world are harmed and, in fact, killed because of a lack of access to contraception, no access to safe and legal abortion, and forced social ideologies which impress upon them a standard which says 'no' to education but 'must' to childbirth as soon as their bodies are capable and until their bodies are no longer able.

And these are extreme cases. Not uncommon, but extreme. It is not how most women of the world feel about being parents. And to characterize their parenthood exclusively in these pathological terms is ethnocentric.

i just read a book called Three Cups of Tea about building schools in rural Pakistan. It's amazing how much those villagers -- the men of those villages -- want their daughters to be educated. Were there a few asshole mullahs saying it's wrong? Yes. There are places in the world where we only hear bad stories about -- places where miracles are happening.

WHo would have imagined thirty years ago the success that international development has had through investing in women's work -- the work of mothers who want money to educate their children. They are changing the world -- for all of us.

[evolveme]

I was half-way through with labor before I realized I was in it (5 centimeters dilated). She was born in under 2 hours. My obstetrician looked at me and said, "You need to be camped out on the hospital grounds the last two months of your next pregnancy. You're a natural breeder."

He really said that. I was twenty years-old. I knew enough to be mortified.

[Nat]

Originally Posted by evolveme

To insist that all of motherhood is necessarily and by virtue a sacred thing, is really only a hair different than the very real and damaging religious dogmatism that insists that women are not worthy unless they achieve motherhood, that this is their function, and that this is the purpose of the union of marriage - a concept which is used to prohibit the LBGTQI community from access to that right.

I'm not sure about insisting- I don't insist that other people agree with me and to me there is a definite difference between faith, belief, dogmatism and the perversion of religious beliefs to control others.

It's part of my own belief system that all life is sacred. I have loved very dearly a few people who had extremely bad - criminally terrible, unfeeling, thoughtless - mothers. But they still gave life - by choice - to people I have loved very much and I do personally consider that a sacred act on their part.

I also think in a few of those cases, abortion or giving the kid up for adoption would have been the better choice. I recently lost somebody I loved very much. Witnessing the pain of his childhood was the best argument I ever encountered for abortion. When parents are incapable of loving their kids, of refraining from abusing them, of abstaining from cruelty toward them, of refraining from drinking or drugging through their pregnancies or parenting, then abortion may well be the kindest thing a person could do for their would-be child. But I still consider the act of bringing a person into this world to be a sacred act and a sacrifice on its own. I don't think it erases terrible behavior.

I know that's part of *my* belief system and I don't have any desire to force that belief onto anybody else. I just hate seeing that belief attacked here as it was earlier when somebody else posted about their own spiritual beliefs about and appreciation for motherhood.

I think it's really easy from the outside to be derisive or dismissive about other people's spiritual or religious beliefs, and I hate to see that happen within this thread or in this community.

Yes, there are dangers when people dogmatize a belief in the sacredness of life or motherhood and then use that to implement laws that oppress.

I think there are also dangers in treating life and motherhood as entirely unsacred things. I think doing so leads to some really horrific ideologies and practices (slavery, the Holocaust, genocide - incidentally all situations in which the forced "breeding" of women has happened).

ps. when I use the word "sacred" it is from a religious/spiritual place. There are other words that an atheist might be more comfortable using. I think there are atheists who very much see the value of life, who can certainly recognize the difference between birth and death, who can see and understand how much is given in the creation of another human being. "Sacred" may be a religious word, but I'm pretty sure there are atheists who value the lives, experiences, sacrifices and hard work involved in carrying and giving birth to a child and/or raising one.

[evolveme]

Originally Posted by Nat

I think it's really easy from the outside to be derisive or dismissive about other people's spiritual or religious beliefs, and I hate to see that happen within this thread or in this community.

Natalie,

Just as in my response to your private question, my post was not a direct response to your post, although my thinking did evolve from it, and as I said to you privately, I appreciated your thoughts very much on a personal level. There was nothing "derisive" or "dismissive" in my words here, nor my intent. I meant only to speak to the other side of what damages women in terms of how patriarchy has labeled us for sole use as "breeders," and that is to discuss the slippery slope we encounter with the sacred mother archetype. It's a lot to hang our hopes on.

I am not in the practice of dismissing peoples' religious or spiritual beliefs (I believe this is truly rude), only in examining the results our belief systems have on our thinking and our lives.

Julie

[Nat]

Originally Posted by evolveme

Natalie,

Just as in my response to your private question, my post was not a direct response to your post, although my thinking did evolve from it, and as I said to you privately, I appreciated your thoughts very much on a personal level. There was nothing "derisive" or "dismissive" in my words here, nor my intent. I meant only to speak to the other side of what damages women in terms of how patriarchy has labeled us for sole use as "breeders," and that is to discuss the slippery slope we encounter with the sacred mother archetype. It's a lot to hang our hopes on.

I am not in the practice of dismissing peoples' religious or spiritual beliefs (I believe this is truly rude), only in examining the results our belief systems have on our thinking and our lives.

Julie

My response to your post was similar to your response to mine.

"my post was not a direct response to your post, although my thinking did evolve from it"

I quoted you and responded, but my response more evolved from yours than rebutted it.

I have tried very hard to be clear in both my posts what I do believe is sacred about creating life, while not slipping down the slippery slope you reference.

I may be a bit sensitive about this subject. The majority of my friends are highly intelligent atheists who like to pick everything apart - especially other people's religious beliefs - and I think it's an area where i'm experiencing some level of soreness/fatigue. The honoring of life, honoring the sacrifices involved with creating life, those things aren't so much of an intellectual-debate-type thing for me. So maybe I shouldn't have brought them up in this thread. (I do worship a mother goddess, for what it's worth).

Thanks for your thoughts, Julie. I really heart your brain. I was not intending to say *you* were being dismissive or derisive - more that I hoped things weren't going to go down that path. I'm sorry I wasn't more clear.