Liberating Motherhood

My favorite t-shirt says, “Mothers are the resistance.” Virtually all of the activists I know are mothers. Yet mainstream feminism remains remarkably silent on mothering issues. Many self-proclaimed feminists know nothing about the American maternal mortality epidemic, obstetric violence, the abuse of women who choose to publicly breastfeed, and the massive disparities in household labor that most mothers experience.

A sexist society uses motherhood to control all women. That’s why the far right wants to ban birth control and prohibit abortion. It’s why every mother has a story of mom-shaming, and why child-free women are continually told that when they’re wiser, more mature, or more in love, they’ll change their minds. Under patriarchy, every woman is a potential mother. And every mother must be controlled.

I started blogging about my experiences with patriarchal motherhood when I was pregnant with my first child. As I evolved into motherhood, I found that my egalitarian feminist marriage was, and is, an extreme outlier. I started sounding the alarm bell, and yelling anywhere I could about how we use motherhood to steal women’s time and exploit women’s labor, all for men’s benefit. This gave birth to Liberating Motherhood, and to my Substack. This work is now my full-time job, though I do occasionally write guest pieces and give interviews on feminism, motherhood, and the intersection of the two.