I was listening to the new Galactic Suburbia podcast this morning and heard Tansy enthusing about a story called “Foundlings†by Diana Peterfreund. It is an SF tale about a future in which teens who get pregnant are disappeared by society. That’s not really SF, of course, it is exactly what often happened to unmarried women who got pregnant for much of the 20th Century. Their children were put up for adoption, and they were consigned to lunatic asylums, sometimes for life. But that isn’t what Tansy was talking about.
As a relatively recent mother, Tansy is only too well aware of how much pressure is put on pregnant women by the media. “You must do these exercises, you must eat these foods, otherwise your baby will be damaged and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT!” This isn’t by any means new. And it doesn’t stop once you have given birth. There are plenty of people queuing up to explain to you why you are a Bad Mother for failing to follow the latest child rearing fad. And most of the people who do this policing are other women. They would know, right?
Then it hit me that this is exactly what happens with trans women. As soon as you start to transition you get besieged by people eager to tell you that you are Doing It Wrong. And many of those people who get on your case are other trans women.
The explanation is the same in both cases. If something the women do is being heavily policed, people become so desperate for approval that they are only too willing to assist the process by dumping on anyone that doesn’t do that activity the same way that they do.
So: sisterhood. It is OK to be different. Enough with the policing of behavior.
Amen, sister! There’s no One True Way to be a mom or a woman (cis or otherwise) or anything else. It’s about time we learn that forcing agreement doesn’t equal approval – and that approval doesn’t mean “did it right” ;>.
Thank you. As a cis woman I’ve found the way my gender has been policed by some trans women difficult (though not all, by any measure and I’m grateful to some awesome trans women in my life who’ve helped me think even more deeply about gender).
Sometimes it’s hard to have the gentle conversation around can you please not gender police or I find what you just said policing. And I can see the reason, policing is often a way to get an easy pass – I mean that’s why being a teenage girl can be hell if you’re not being a girl the way other girls think you should be. My gender has often been “fuck you I’m a woman, you can’t take that away from me and no you may not call me tomboy. Why should I have boy in my name just because I’m doing things that I like?”
Saying “I find it troubling when you just said ‘genderpolicing thing'” can make some women feel like they’re not passing. I’d be troubled by cis women doing the same and speak out even more vocally- but there’s a whole different level of vulnerability and approval seeking from some trans women. It’s a very uncomfortable thing.
So thank you for saying this. Often I feel pressured by performative ‘femaleness’ with my trans friends and I worry about gender equality and perceptions of gender when a trans friend says “What’s wrong with you?” because I don’t shave my legs or get my nails done. We generally have useful conversations and better conversations than the hellish girling pressures of high school, but it’s still hard and I think we both are made a little sad by it.
I’m so grateful that there’s a critical mass of vocal, experienced people that can show gender diversity. It helps me be a better ally, and it helps me communicate to some battle weary older feminists so that I can move them away from fearfully thinking of trans as gender policing. Posts like this are important.
Oh girl, is this so true. Women are often the most critical and oppressive of other women. If a complaint is made about breastfeeding a baby in a cafe, it’s very often the older women of a couple, not the man. Last week on Facebook, I was treated to a thread where one of my friends had to out and say up front: “Please don’t tell me I got my rape wrong.” Her friend had actually started in with direct instructions on how easy it was to stop being raped in the first place, and how she would never be raped because of all the easy techniques to stop it (all you had to do was suffocate the male with his own shirt sleeve) and how to then recover quickly by discounting the male power. I was proud of my friend for her reply.
And, of course, this is one area where tension between trans and cis women can exist, as some trans women do proceed to tell some cis women they’re not being women properly. You know, because ALL real women wear make up, long for high heels and like to play hairdresser with their long tresses. I used to be quite scathing about this aspect of being trans until my partner pointed out, many years ago, that if the NHS forced you into this paradigm to ‘prove’ you needed the operation and hormone treatment, you couldn’t be surprised if the individual woman then operated on that level. Force someone into a mold to make them perform to the mold standard, you are going to get carbon copies. And no doubt the numbers of cis women telling trans women they get it wrong, is rather larger in number than the other way around…
Thank goodness more fluid definitions of being female are now pretty standard. I, for one, was quite excited to see some of the female Olympic athletes had tattoos! And they’d been ‘allowed’ to compete, short hair, piercings ink and all. My.
There’s a wonderful site called “That Baby Looks Cold” that details the ENDLESS criticism mothers get for not being mothers ‘right’. And then there is “My OB said what?” on how women are constantly regaled with how their bodies are failures in even producing a baby in the first place. My favourite one also hits the good old fashioned you can’t be fat and female either, as a woman was told she couldn’t give birth vaginally as her fat vagina would refuse to push the baby out – the fat cells would block the baby…
I’ve spent my life not being ‘right’ as a female. Adding my epic failures as a mother has been quite fun. Not becoming a mother until your 40s, has some serious benefits. You’ve given up on seeking public approval by then anyway.
My current battle on not being a proper mother is I ALLOW my seven year old boy to have long hair and to chose a bright red dance leotard as opposed to forcing him into a black one (and cutting his hair off). Ain’t nothing more bothersome to the world, than gender confusion in children. (The onlooker’s confusion, that is.) I do remember the outrage when I put him in pastel pink SOCKS when he was six months old. I almost had to pass round the smelling salts. I developed a standard answer back then. When ever anyone looked at my six month old baby and questioned why he wasn’t in combat fatigues, I’d smile and say “He’s very secure in his masculinity.” Still say it.
I must admit, I quite enjoy getting motherhood wrong. It’s much more fun. 🙂
Funny how it’s OK for my daughter to play “boy games” like soccer, but NOT OK for your son to wear pink socks or play with dolls.
Worse, it’s often these same people who then whing about “gender stereotypes” being imposed on our kids. Good Grief.
How about we all just let the kid where what the kid WANTS to wear (aside from weather needs ;>) and leave it the hell alone? Ya, I know, radical.
*sigh*
It started in pregnancy. Next door neighbour _needed_ to know what I was having, for the present.
I said I was having a baby. It didn’t make her happy.
A friend of mine had this exact problem when she was pregnant with her third – she already had two boys and so not only was everyone she saw DESPERATE to know what the gender of her child was, they also really wanted to know how disappointed she would be if she had a third boy, and constantly pressed her to “admit” that she was longing for a girl.
She always responded to the “what are you hoping for” question with “a baby.”
And funnily enough, when her healthy, gorgeous son was born, she wasn’t remotely disappointed. Because, you know – it was a BABY.
I note in passing that ante-natal tests won’t tell you much about possible intersex conditions (though I suspect that aborting an “abomination” would suddenly become the Very Moral thing to do if they did). Also you can’t really be sure about the gender of your children until they are at least 3 or 4 years old.
I’ve got a 19 year old grandson and we and he are not sure of his gender – yet.
The idea of trans women telling cis women they are not being proper women boggles me. Obviously many study femininity a lot, either to satisfy the doctors or because it is necessary camouflage, but we should know that femininity and being a women are not the same thing. Of course when I get told off by trans women it is normally for “reinforcing the binary” and “not looking trans enough”.
We should do a fandom tee-shirt campaign.
“I’m a better _____ than you are.”
mother
father
parent
con-runner
female
male
trans
gay
barbie doll
role-player
whatever
The list is endless. But, curiously enough, doesn’t work with ‘human being’. 😉
Oh, we’d be back in the 90s! We could put ironic ” ” on the word!
Reading these, I’m struck by the thought that you can’t win no matter what you do. If you in any way deviate from what is considered the norm in the group you find yourself in, someone will find something to criticize. I guess the only solution is to develop a very thick skin and an alert bullshit detector. Oh, and chose your friends carefully. Support them and make sure they know to support you.
Hi Cheryl!
I honestly believe that the awful culture of women policing & judging female behaviour comes about as part of a vicious circle because women are so horribly policed and judged for their whole lives that they become very defensive about their own choices, to the point of being aggressive and destructive themselves… but oh, it is such a toxic thing, and it’s really hard to suck up those mean comments.
I found during my first pregnancy that older women (whose children were now grown) responded the worst to what I was doing – for instance, becoming angry and aggressive about me following whatever current health recommendations were, because they did things differently (of course!) and their kids were fine. (my response usually had something to do with seatbelts and how people used to think driving without them was just fine too) Luckily my mother was not one of them, and finds it as hilarious as I do that my first solid food was liver.
Any argument about breast vs. bottle feeding or what kind of nappies are best comes with stacks of personal baggage, because so many of us went through a storm of other people’s judgement simply to choose what worked for us… but, oh. It’s such a sad indictment of our society that we have come to this, that women are so battered by public and private and FAMILY opinion (which batters us no matter what we do) that they pass the anger and toxicity on to other women when they are at their most emotionally vulnerable… it’s deeply sad.
Sad too that it translates to other aspects of women’s lives, not just parenthood. I’m not going to celebrate the fact that you were able to find such a similarity between the drive-by bitchery transwomen experience and that which mothers experience – I find it fascinating, but also depressing.
The idea that there’s only one way to be a woman (and somehow we are all doing it wrong) is just damaging and horrid.
Also depressing: I think that cis-female mothers and transwomen may likewise find common ground in their uneasy relationship with some corners of feminism (especially the old school variety), which often excludes us, and can be less than flexible about our opinions and needs.
Yes, “defensive” is exactly the right word. When you are so heavily invested in doing the Right Thing then the idea that alternatives might be equally valid, or that what used to be the Right Thing is now the Wrong Thing, becomes untenable, so you retreat into a bunker.
It’s also hormonal, in the beginning. The biology of pregnancy and birthing is about shared biology with the baby and mother, and about shared community in order to allow the mother to raise the child safely. Single human mammals in the wilds could not support a new life: the mother and baby dyad has to be supported by the community around it.
Birthing and breastfeeding hormones flood the mother’s brains with a potent chemical dose that makes her more sleepy, passive and susceptible to suggestion. Put that mother into a supportive atmosphere where she is being respected and her needs (social, food, drink, warmth etc) are being taken care of, the hormone balance relaxes her, allows her to step out of the social community for a while, and concentrate on getting her and the baby through the first six weeks.
Put that mother into an atmosphere of judgement, pressure, where she has to keep everyone happy and find time for the newborn… and especially if she isn’t’ breastfeeding and her body is sending mourning signals all round her body and brain as it thinks the baby is dead and she needs sedated in an entirely different way… the mother becomes crushed. Defending herself against criticism in this state is almost impossible. You’re naturally terrified of everything you do wrong affecting the baby anyway. You are fragile and new and not the person you thought you were. Grasping hold of the rock of “this is the way to do it” in order to survive is a pretty obvious way to survive. And then, for some, they go on to crush the next mother with the rock they clung too.
Also, women attack women to uphold the patriarchy just as much as men do. It’s not all one way oppression. Patriarchy gives some women more status and power than others. And some will do anything to keep that power: losing it is too painful. Around the world it’s mostly women who slice off the external genitalia of the female babies. The motivation for those women is mixed: some do it as they believe it’s right. Others as they want to save their child from stigma. Some, because it was done to them and they’ll be damned if they don’t get to pay it back. Being the one with the knife is a powerful position, not given up easily if you have only gained safety from more oppression yourself, by becoming the oppressor’s tool.
In our own culture, very few women get the birthing experience they want, and need, and very few get the post-natal support in being the sort of mother they want to be. Breastfeeding support from the Government pummels them into reacting against the messages, and then deserts them the second the baby is born. Nothing can drive a mother to the edge faster, than being abandoned with a baby by the support networks before feeding is established. Obviously, it’s their fault they can’t get the baby to feed, or settle, and they’ve failed in the most basic test of being a mother: they are not ‘natural’.
The medical language around birth is based on describing women’s bodies as failures. Your have an incompetent cervix, you have failed to progress. Women spend months being schooled to hear their bodies and their birthing experience as a test they have to pass, and their bodies are sure to let them down.
If a women finds the confidence to take control of her own birthing, she is pushy and a problem, and can be a danger. Women have found themselves referred to child protection services when they’ve stated they don’t want a medical intervention. They are told they cannot choose what happens to their bodies as they are not competent enough to make the choice. If they argue back, the ‘dead baby’ card is pulled – if you don’t do what I say, your baby will die. And if they don’t attend to that, it’s escalated up to the baby being more important than the mother, and you are threatened with the authorities taking charge in order ‘to protect the baby’.
I sat in a ward when I was over 8 months pregnant and said to the midwife (well, lay, actually as I could no longer sit) and actually said to the midwife who was attending to me “When did I lose control of my body? It’s mine, I get to say.” and she replied “That’s not true ‘though, is it. It’s not just yours now.”
I’ll never forget it. My body, my birth, my choice. My breasts. I choose who touches them.
I suppose, looking at the above, there is a huge over lap in experience between birthing and raising a child, and being trans. Maternal feminism is about the woman who is undergoing medical control of her body, and societal control of her body during pregnancy and the upbringing of the child. You have to fight for the right to own your own body, and you have to negotiate that with a system that wants you to do exactly what it deems is right and proper with your body. It’s the same with breastfeeding in public spaces: the end message is “Don’t do that in front of me.” and is all about controlling the female body in public.
Those damn pesky women. Let them out of the house and into the agora, and all hell will break lose…
Hormones are an issue during transition as well, of course. And the trans women in question will (at least historically, it is getting better) have just been abandoned by their family and friends, and fired from their job.