I'm relaxed enough to take part in the latest installment of Breastfeeding Mafia vs. Formula Rocks crowd following the posting of a couple of breastfeeding-related items on Broadsheet, Salon.com's women's blog. Without getting into it again, I want to say that what I feel primarily when I read these ongoing flame wars passing for discussion about modern motherhood (and they come in many guises, from the BF vs. FF, to the Dr. Sears crowd vs. the Dr. Ferber crowd, to the cloth vs. disposable, to the old saw of mothers who stay at home with their kids vs. those who work outside the home) is that we've all been duped bigtime. While we squabble over whether the woman who chooses disposable diapers is doing more harm to the environment (and her child's tender backside) than the woman who gets cloth diapers and a service, progress for women and mothers is at a standstill.
I can be denied access to my birth control prescription in an increasing number of states. Abortion is legal but unobtainable. Guaranteed maternity leave is non-existent, and paid leave is a pipe dream. Women pay way more for health care while making less. Women are pressured to breastfeed but are forced to go back to work after a few short weeks. Daycare is expensive and poorly regulated.
So what do we as women do? Do we rise up and demand better? Do we look to Sweden and other family-friendly progressive states to help us find models that allow us to be good employees, citizens, AND mothers?
No.
We snipe at each other in chatrooms. We talk behind each other's backs about parenting practices that we don't agree with. We gather together in huge, like-minded communities to bash those who make different choices from us.
Ladies, womyn, and grrrls, we have been duped. While we bitch at and about each other, our situation is only getting worse. What we need is not to engage in endless flame wars but to band together behind those things we *can* agree on so that maybe someday things will change.