Sunday, July 22, 2012

review: The Conflict




Having just finished French philosopher Elisabeth Badinter’s The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women, I remain conflicted.
On the one hand, I agreed with her about the return to naturalism, the rise of the child-free woman and the conservatism of dominant ideologies of motherhood. On the other hand, I found myself closing the book with a dissatisfied ‘and?’. I was right there with her as she critiqued the cult of the ‘natural’ starting off with Rousseau and coming into the present (including certain strands of feminism), I was interested to read about the origins of La Leche League in fundamentalist Christianity and its continued proselytising mission regarding breastfeeding, and I was intrigued by her diagnosis of the rise of child-free women as a ‘nuclear option’ - a kind of Lysistrata-like riposte to the impossible demands placed on women and mothers in the present moment. I was also interested in what she appeared to pose as an answer: individualistic hedonism, most especially as seen in France. Was the answer to the question of how to manage motherhood and everything else as simple as hopping on a plane?
Um ... no.
For me, alarm bells start ringing when exceptionalism is posed as an answer, whether it’s nationality-based or class-based. What France does do well is provide State support for mothering, in the form of at least four months’ paid parental leave, jobs held open for three years (although this is not solely applicable to new mothers) long post-natal stays in hospital, free community-based referral services to find childcare, affordable high-quality child-care and pre-schools, and after-school care that enables full-time working. What this improves, according to Badinter’s analysis, is not necessarily women’s options in the wider society, nor men's ability to fully enter the domestic sphere but the birth-rate, most especially the number of women having children. While France has a high, but not outrageously high, birth-rate by Western European standards (New Zealand’s is much higher, for example, for particular demographic reasons of our own), where France differs from other countries is that far fewer women choose not to have children at all. Badinter contrasts this with neighbouring Germany, where a third of women of child-bearing age are choosing not to have children. She concludes that this ‘must be because they feel that becoming mothers is not worth the cost ... it must mean they are fulfilling their potential through something other than the kind of motherhood imposed on them’. (The Conflict, p 169) 
US journalist Judith Warner, who spent her early mothering years in France before returning to the States, agrees that there are many positive aspects of mothering in France. Aside from the material benefits, she notes that:
Guilt just wasn’t in the air. It wasn’t considered a natural consequence of working motherhood. Neither was the word ‘selfish’ considered the necessary accoutrement of a woman with children who wanted to take time for herself. On the contrary, work was considered a normal part, even a desirable part, of a modern mother’s life .... Taking time for herself was equally considered to be a mother’s right - indeed, a mother’s responsibility - as was taking the time for romance and a social life. The general French conviction that a person should live a ‘balanced’ life was especially true for mothers - particularly, I would say for stay-at-home mothers, who were otherwise considered at risk of falling into excessive child-centredness. (Perfect Madness, p 10)
Warner is convinced, however, that ‘there is a price to pay for the wonderful (and expensive) benefits [French women] enjoy: a pervasive and all-but-unchallenged kind of institutional sexism.’ (Perfect Madness, p 281). According to Warner, this sexism can prevent women of childbearing age from being hired in the first place, and can affectthe rights of women who do become pregnant while working. Even Badinter admits things are far from perfect: French fathers take on few domestic responsibilities and the decisions regarding children are still the primary responsibility of the mother (The Conflict, p 167). She also has little to say - in this book, at least - about how women and mothers fare in the wider society. More women may work - but what do they work at and how do they deal with obstacles in their careers? What about French fathers - are they making strong inroads into the domestic sphere? What is the composition of the State-funded army of childcarers and how are they remunerated? More broadly, are French women free of the influence of the beauty myth, eating disorders and body fascism? What about domestic violence? In short, is patriarchy on its knees in France because of the more generous State support of mothers, and the cultural vibe that it’s okay to have a glass of vin rouge while pregnant? 
Um ... no.
In addition, France is not the only European country that has generous parental leave provisions (for both mothers and fathers). But here’s the thing.  It’s hard to read this as solely a feminist triumph, even though it undoubtedly benefits women, not least because the origins of some of these policies pre-date second-wave feminism. Leaving aside the issue that there are still numerous cultural obstacles to men and women sharing the benefits equally (Badinter notes that where paternity leave provisions exist, men may be unwilling or unable to take them up), these provisions were developed less to free women from the drudgery of childcare and home-making, but more to protect children. Arguably, they represent less an affirmation of women’s rights, than the rights of their children (this is a topic I want to address in a future post: why should it be one or the other?).

The conflict Badinter is concerned with, then, is that between 'the woman' and 'the mother' (the French subtitle of the book) - as if the two were somehow mutually exclusive. As some reviewers have noted, this opposition risks harking back to the untenable position that motherhood itself is at odds with women's emancipation. Others have noted that Badinter seems to let men off the hook when it comes to parenting, as if it's solely the responsibility of the mother, whether she be French and 'mediocre' or intensively attached. For the conspiracy theorists out there, still others have noted the links between Badinter and Nestle, controversial manufacturers of infant formula, and questioned her ethical stand-point.
Between all the myth-busting and truth-telling surrounding modern motherhood, there’s plenty of analysis about what the problem is (whether it's offered from an explicitly feminist point-of-view or not). Much more difficult, of course, is solving the problem. Looked at this way, Badinter’s recourse to individualistic hedonism as the answer seems limited at best. As that arch-feminist (ha!) Karl Marx once observed, ‘philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it’.