In my own timeline I didn't post any picture nor word about mother's day. I happened to not have those fancy relationship with mom. We love each other in a way only us understand.
Yesterday's social media got me thinking about mother itself. About women who decided to have kid(s). About how limited their choices are once they become mother.
My mother gave up her job long time ago. Now she has no life other than being mom. She is a very definition of domesticated women. To some extent, it is a good deal. The choice that she choose might be the reason why my family stick together up till now. My mother gave up her ego. She sacrifice herself for us.
Who watch Grey's Anatomy here? Raise your hand. Remember in Season 5 Miranda Bailey has a big fight with her husband because she got too busy at the hospital? I realized how complicated it is to be a gifted mother. Mother with capability to be taken seriously by society other than being mom.
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| She has to work her ass off to be good at both. Being mom and being a surgeon. |
This one below is an old archive of mine. See a woman with toddler on her lap? She is Licia Ronzulli, European Parliament member who took her daughter to work in 2010. I always remember one of its comment on the article: "Ridiculous. Not a daycare center. This woman either needs a lot of attention or is very irresponsible".
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| Being mom and being a member of parliament. |
It is generally okay for fathers to be busy outside home. When it comes to mothers, it is not okay at all. They would be considered as 'irresponsible' because they have 'neglected' their role to take care their child. Any self-realization of mothers must not that brilliant it could disturb their role as mom.
This 'little' thing is what bothered me. Women rarely recognized as a whole person. Women rarely seen as a whole person who also need self-fulfillment. A whole person who have their own voice, thought, and need to be heard and taken seriously. Women is women, they have their own responsibilities taken for granted.
What's going on here is, I believe, patriarchal family order that persist. Women often lose control over future after they perform their reproduction roles. After they become pregnant, give birth, and being caregivers, women have lack of future choices compared to men.
Thus, I always praise Scandinavian countries that has pioneered the transformation of parenthood into political issues. States has the necessity to politicizing the private sphere to undermine the patriarchal family order. Norwegian scientist Helga Hernes introduced a women-friendly state concept when she tried to describe a gender phenomenon in Scandinavia. This matter has steal my attention for a year. It is somehow became a hidden dream of mine, make my own country to be, in some degree, a woman-friendly state.
“A woman-friendly state would not force harder choices on women than on men, or permit unjust treatment on the basis of sex. In a woman-friendly state women will continue to have children, yet there will also be other roads to self-realization open to them. In such a state women will not have to choose futures that demand greater sacrifices from them than are expected of men. It would be, in short, a state where injustice on the basis of gender would be largely eliminated without an increase in other forms of inequality, such as among groups of women.” (Hernes, 1987)
Women are powerless but full of responsibilities.
In this very matter, I think no any celebration needed.
Reference: Hernes, Helga. (1987) Welfare State and Woman Power. Essays in State Feminism. Vojens: Norwegian University Press: 15.
