Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood
Our ability to procreate stands at the centre of centuries of gender inequality that’s no different today, but frustratingly it feels like it’s a challenge that is just too complex to solve, and, with such strength of feeling from pretty much all women (and some men) on anything related to motherhood, it can make the topic an intimidating one to ad
... See moreJoeli Brearley • The Motherhood Penalty: How to stop motherhood being the kiss of death for your career
I used to watch as she read Ms. magazine, sitting upright, at the dining room table. She came of age during second-wave feminism, when women kind of had a choice and kind of didn’t. This made my mom’s ambivalence about motherhood starker and more insistent: It’s within the realm of possibility that my mom’s life could have gone a different, more am... See more
Elise Loehnen • Opinion | The Lies Mothers Tell Themselves and Their Children
Our culture is really doing a ten out of ten job in caring in the worst possible ways. There is no infrastructure to support parents of caregivers, so care makes you poor and exhausts you. (Solution: Pay caregivers! Universal and affordable childcare and eldercare!) Parenting has become more instrumental than it used to be: kids are a project, anot... See more
Anne Helen Petersen • "I Went Into Motherhood Determined Not to Lose Myself in It."
It’s because there’s still a widespread reverence for the “ideal worker.” We commonly define the ideal worker as someone who starts working in early adulthood and continues, full-time and full force, for 40 years straight. The concept reflects a breadwinner-homemaker model that dates back to the Industrial Revolution and functioned fairly well thr
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