Feminist Mothering

The phone rang last night and when I answered, my daughter asked me in a very concerned voice if I felt oppressed or dissatisfied. This came out of left field, so I asked her why. My daughter had attended an acas (academic and cultural arts series) event at her college yesterday. She is required to attend twenty such events during her college career, as she is graduating in May and has four classes left to attend, she felt like she had to attend whatever came available. The speaker was Dr. Andrea O'Reilly and the topic was feminist mothering, also the title of Dr. O'Reilly's newest book.

In response to my daughters questing I asked her if I gave her the impression of an oppressed, dissatisfied, unhappy woman? We had a good laugh over this. While there have been times in my life where a seed of dissatisfaction has had to be rooted out, the longer I am home the more I love the calling of God on my life. The more I walk in obedience to this calling, the deeper satisfaction I feel! DOD, having been raised in our home, where family meals are the norm, where mom does the work of the home happily (most days) is able to see right through the agenda of woman like Dr. O'Reilly. The good Dr. believes that if a woman does not put her needs first she will be sending the wrong example to her children. A mother who puts her family first will not be using her full potential and will be lacking in areas of education and career fulfilment. The focus of feminism as self centered is illuminated in these comments.

One of the observations my daughter made was that O'Reilly used many of her daughters life experiences to show how she had raised them to feminist. The majority of those experiences showed her daughters having an extreme reaction of anger to situations and people around. The description of her daughters left my daughter with the understanding that these young woman were not nice, kind, gentle, pleasant, or positive in their social interactions. Rather they would react with physical violence and verbally attack the people around them if they felt like their feminism had been threatened. O'Reilly came across as a proud mother, because her children were defending what she believed to be right. She is also very proud of one daughters s-xual preference.

Another observation was that although O'Reilly has a live in boyfriend and a son, neither were mentioned until someone asked how they felt about the feminist agenda being lived out in their lives. She commented that she really had not intended to leave them out of the discussion, yet that is exactly what she had done. O'Reilly believes that the term mother should be gender neutral. Men should be expected to deposit more than their seed, they should mother their children as well. Both parents must work, and both parents should have the same jobs in the home and with the children. She also makes a distinction between mothering as an act and motherhood as an institution. The following quote came from a press release of a speaking engagement for a different book tittle Rocking The Cradle.

"Dr. Andrea O’Reilly from York University, Toronto is the author of the critically acclaimed books Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart and editor of Mother Outlaws: Theories and Practices of Empowered Mothering.
Her lecture “Rocking the Cradle: Feminism, Motherhood and the Possibility of Empowered Mothering” is based on her book published by Demeter Press. Dr. O’Reilly will talk about the oppressive and the empowering dimensions of maternity, as well as the complex relationship between the two, first identified by Adrienne Rich in Of Woman Born, has been the focus of feminist scholarship on motherhood over the last decades. How do we challenge patriarchal motherhood? How do we create feminist mothering? How are the two aims connected? Rocking the Cradle, composed of 12 essays, will explore these questions."


According to trends, woman are finally waking up to the lies that they have been fed and are choosing to return to their homes, their husbands and their children. The feminist movement is focusing on the reason for their return and attempting to pervert it by focusing its attack on motherhood. Last year it seemed that the feminist movement was focused on attacking tradition home making using guilt. I saw several interviews on morning shows and in the news where feminist leaders essentially said, look at everything we have done to empower woman. How dare woman be returning to their homes. It was a slap in their faces and they were angry. Now they can tell woman to go home but to raise the next generation of neofeminists, who will take the feminist movement to the next level and give everyone their choice. Everyone except Christians, who were noticeable left out of the inclusion statement as follows.

"Neofeminism must do better, and fight to mean women of color, working-class women, fat women, Jewish women, Pagan women, Hindu women, Muslim women, lesbians, bisexuals, male-to-female women, women who are now men, women who are both, old women, rural women, women with disabilities, women with AIDS, women with cancer, battered women, and men who are oppressed from the same sources and reasons as women. We cannot change the world unless we understand that everyone and everything in it is connected in this way."
http://www.neofeminism.org/defined/neofem2.html

This brings us to the final observation that my DOD made. While her college goes out of its way to bring speakers all kinds they have never brought in a Christian to speak. While the author who came to speak was able to present boldly her views on homos-xuality and feminism from an anti christian perspective, the other side of the coin will never be represented. While Dr. O'Reilly was so proud of her daughters in your face feminism I can only imagine her reaction to an in your face gospel presentation.