Racialicious Crush Of The Week: rosasparks

May 4th, 2012 by Andrea

My identity has many facets, which includes being a mom. And while we’ve made progress with women’s reproductive rights, what we’ve sortof let fall by the wayside is that choosing to be a mother is as important as choosing not to be one. A lot of times, I feel the double-whammy of being a WoC and a mom. Add in being very low on the economic totem pole and it makes for some heavy, heavy thoughts, none of which are particularly positive.

I look at feminism, as an umbrella, and wonder if I can squeeze under to be protected from the elements. Sometimes, there’s room for me, other times, I get stuck in the rain and have to slog home.

What conversations are missing in progressive, specifically feminist, spaces? What other conversations do you think are missing on the ‘net/in media? 

I’d like to see feminism address motherhood and have the discussion be positive. Most days, I feel like mothering children is a competitive, contact sport. Who’s feeding their kids the best foods? Who’s child has the best sleep schedules? Who is the most wonderful mother, etc…? It’s HORRIBLE and destructive to womanity.

One of the reasons I think women have gotten this bananas over mothering is because feminism has effectively empowered women to choose not to have all the babies and therefore, and maybe by accident, we’ve excluded women who do have babies. When you’ve, essentially, dismissed women who have kids and choose to parent, as though their choice was ‘wrong’, I think some women will try that much harder to justify their choice. If you make mothering into a ‘thing’, then maybe your attempts are to make it as legitimate as being childless? We have clearly identified and made understood that choosing to be childless can be giving the world a fuck-you for expecting me to poop out kids.

But the ‘fuck you and your expectations’ should be united. It is equally as empowering to be a mother as it is to not. The issue isn’t whether or not your uterus housed and later pushed out a baby, it’s what you do, either way. I can be a feminist mother. I can be a feminist non-mother. The issue is I refuse to adhere to or accept the staid, sexist, and misogynistic constructs of our society. I am not required to stay at home and change diapers and Swiff my floors all day, but if I want to, I will, and I will do it with the awareness and the cognizance that I will also require the world to treat me as their equal and with respect.Whether I have 20 kids or none, that is the only expectation I have as a woman. And that what I think is lacking in feminist circles, everywhere, especially in the media. We’ve established that women circumvent biology and we’re are not required to birth all the babies for the sake of society. At this point, women are the ones holding all the cards, which has everyone running scared. We can choose whether to further or species or not.

But, being childless doesn’t inherently mean you’re a feminist. Just as being a mother doesn’t mean you’re not a feminist.

Check out the rest of the R’s interview with rosasparks on our Tumblr!

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Posted in Racialicious Crush Of The Week, african-american, blog, casting, class, community, feminism, gender, parenting, politics, poverty, queer, queer and trans, racism, women, women of color | 3 comments

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  • Anonymous

    I just read her Girls post – A-men!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Christina-Franklin/1662885944 Christina Franklin

    Thanks for this – I had never heard of rosasparks before and now I have an awesome new person to follow. I read all of the linked pieces above – TOTAL. LURVE.

    I did think her perspective on motherhood and feminism are a little baffling. I’ve never once thought that, when it comes to feminism/women and motherhood that society was favoring childless women. In fact, by and large, I see women still defined by if they have reproduced. If you’re a woman and you haven’t or don’t want to have children, there must be something morally broken in you – you’re selfish, cold, etc. One of my chief issues with “mainstream” (white, upper-class) feminism in fact is how I perceive it to not focus on the still very real, very dangerous issues that face women of color, but seem to really expend more time and energy on making things like breastfeeding in public at the forefront of their ideology. Which is definitely an issue, but it’s certainly not more pressing than the levels of sexual/street harassment and violence in communities of color and the ongoing devaluing/objectification of female bodies of color. 

    Am I the only one who feels like motherhood IS a pretty central tenet/focus of current feminism?

  • Rosasparks

    Ooh, I should clarify myself. I meant within feminist circles; meaning the emphasis on being childless could lead to exclusion of women who are mothers. In society as a whole, the opposite is still definitely true. In fact, I’ve had a lot of ish with folks who find my way of being and how I raise my daughter as antithetical to motherhood. Of course, I wholeheartedly agree and find their criticisms to be bullshit, but it’s something I run into, on the regular.