Motherhood based Feminism

This is a great post from a friend of mine's blog.

There is the false notion out there that feminists have better things to do than be stay-at-home mothers or even mothers at all. Even a truly wrong idea that educated women who choose to be a mothers/stay-at-home mothers, are flying in the face of all that generations of feminists have fought for. The thought being that stay at home mothers are apathetic and/or ungrateful for their foremothers work and struggles.


On the contrary I am a stay at home mom and I consider myself a feminist. I think the height of a woman's power can be found in motherhood. As a woman I can make, birth, and breastfeed a baby, something a man can never do. As a stay at home mom I am the one teaching my daughter about the world, which is a sure fire way to change it. I am the one who will teach her about womanhood and her rights as a woman. I think that feminism should be about respecting ourselves and our bodies as women, not in trying to show we are as just good as a man. I think true feminists should take issue with not mothers, but with the degradation of women through most forms of media especially porn, horror films, and advertising (sex sells). As feminists we shouldn't be content with a woman's bodily rights being mearly her access to an abortion. Why aren't feminists appalled by "Flash Fridays". Should the only thing we work for and care about be the work place, no! I suppose this is some sort of new feminism. But my friend had an important, but often overlooked perspective, feminism will keep being redefined by our daughters. In one generation women where trying to get the right to leave there home, now many woman are trying to claim there right to be there. I know women who's husbands wont let them be at home with their children. As mothers I believe it is our right to be there with them. I am grateful for the fruits of the feminists from every generation, they didn't start in the sixties and I hope they don't end there. Feminism will continue if we are the ones teaching our daughters and sons about it. I believe that teaching them will be a lot easier if we are fully present in their lives. I am sad that feminism a has become so narrowly defined and involves losing so much of who we've been. Here's to a new feminism which honors and respects us as woman, not in how we can be "as good" as a man. Motherhood is where our power lies and it's high time we claim it.