M/Other by Rishma Dunlop

The f/act of m/other
contains us in differences
yet we are pulled
by the heart's tides
the pulses of our children's veins
the salt of their tears
the radiance of their laughter

we grow up knowing
bittersweet symphonies
body-memories
of blood and milk
the consciousness of
the precarious cadences
in the disordered music of love

and everywhere
mothers write stories
of sons and daughters
this one will be fierce
this one will be tender

and they will sing
terrifying, beautiful prophets
for the world

in the gaps between our words
our children's voices pull us
relentless magnets
anchoring us
to the earth.

Women

The following quote may not really have anything to do with being a mother, but as we all know being a mother has much to do with being a woman. We are constantly wrapped up in trying to find a way to be women, to be moms or to just be people.

"The complicated silence that has prevailed about woman's inhumanity to woman."While women may not be aggressive in the same way that men are, cross-cultural studies confirm that girls and women are equally aggressive in "indirect" ways,and mainly toward each other. Women envy and compete against other women instead of men and tend to deny this, even to themselves. Like men, many women also hold sexist beliefs and are often unaware of it. Women depend on each other for emotional intimacy and bonding, but their power to form cliques, gossip about and shun one another enforces conformity and discourages self-confidence and psychological clarity from girlhood on. Are women oppressed? Yes. Do oppressed people internalize the oppressor's attitudes? Without a doubt. Women, therefore, must acknowledge their own sexism and gender double-standards before they can practice sisterhood, resist sexism, treat other women ethically, and forge realistic and compassionate personal and political coalitions."

By Pamela Viddal

I know that many of you who've read this blog, our very personal feelings on being mothers, and people, have come away feeling somehow like we've managed only to see the down side of being a mom. This is so far off base. What we are doing is trying to listen to ourselves, and give ourselves the chance to say what we are honestly feeling, difficult or not. This is not earth-shattering, it doesn't expose us for the monsters we are, it just is what it is. Sometimes what is being said sounds cold and lonely, but in reality, that is how it feels some days. Other days, being a mother is wonderful, the most joyous, beautiful thing in the world. Should we be strung up for being the ones who have the gall to talk about it? I sure hope not.

We've said it before and will say it again, it never gets easy to open yourself up and share these things, but for us, it is very important. Some of you might say, talk to your friends, talk to your spouse, why put it out there for others to see? Why? Well for me, it is because I have finally found the courage and the voice that was hidden for so long, that is all, nothing more than that.

When I was younger, still a parent, I didn't have the voice to say the things I needed and desperately wanted then to say. Sure there were a couple of times when I was heartless enough to complain aloud. As quickly as the words left my mouth, I found other women condemning me for having the nerve not to enjoy every single moment of motherhood. Why do women do this to each other?

I can only speak for myself , but I do talk to my wonderful, loving, respectful and intelligent spouse about all of this, every hard -to -hear detail. The most incredible thing about it, is he really understands; he supports and he is proud that the person he has chosen to share his life with, feels, thinks and challenges beliefs.

I am so happy that I am loved enough to feel safe, unjudged, even when some of you might wonder how a woman who chose to be a mom could ask hard questions both of herself and other women.

Harder yet, is coming to the realization, that even today, in a climate of change, women still feel like they have to hold back, not upset the balance (news flash, there has never been balance). We would rather turn our backs , judge, ask why one has to stand up and say things that we know are real, and we've at one time or another, felt ourselves.

Quietly we are asked not to tip the scales, not to want for more, not to scream, if need be.

Sure some of you say, we've all felt it, just keep it to yourselves!!

Not on your life sister!!

Cinderella's Stepsisters

When I was in university I had to analyse a piece of writing. I was looking for something that had meaning to me, and I connected with emotionally. Most of those years I was tired. I was a single mom of three small kids, living on a student loan, and alone in a city I'd never lived in before. My family lived too far away to help--as far away as Japan, and the kid's dad lived on the other side of the world.

I was lonely, scared, dog-tired, and poor. I would go to school all day, pick up the kids, play with them, make them supper, bath them, put them to bed, and then start my homework. It was hard.

But this one time, this one assignment, I had to analyse some one's writing. I found this. A speech by the Nobel Prize winning American author, Toni Morrison, to a graduating class at Barnard College (an all-female university). I cried as I read it. I want to share it with you:

Cinderella's Stepsisters

Let me begin by taking you back a little. Back before the days at college. To nursery school, probably, to a once-upon-a-time when you first heard, or read, or, I suspect, even saw "Cinderella." Because it is Cinderella that I want to talk about; because it is Cinderella who causes me a feeling of urgency. What is unsettling about that fairy tale is that it is essentially the story of a household--a world, if you please--of women gathered together and held together in order to abuse another woman. There is, of course, a rather vague absent father and a nick-of-time prince with a foot fetish. But neither has much personality. And there are the surrogate "mothers," of course (god- and step-), who contribute both to Cinderella's grief and to her release and happiness. But it is the stepsisters who interest me. How crippling it must have been for those young girls to grow up with a mother, to watch and imitate that mother, enslaving another girl.

I am curious about their fortunes after the story ends. For contrary to recent adaptations, the stepsisters were not ugly, clumsy, stupid girls with outsize feet. The Grimm collection describes them as "beautiful and fair in appearance." When we are introduced to them they are beautiful, elegant women of status, and clearly women of power. Having watched and participated in the violent dominion of another woman, will they be any less cruel when it comes their turn to enslave other children, or even when they are required to take care of their own mother?

It is not a wholly medieval problem. It is quite a contemporary one: feminine power when directed at other women has historically been wielded in what has been described as a "masculine" manner. Soon you will be in a position to do the very same thing. Whatever your background--rich or poor--whatever the history of education in your family--five generations or one--you have taken advantage of what has been available to you at Barnard and you will therefore have both the economic and social status of the stepsisters and you will have their power.

I want not to ask you but to tell you not to participate in the oppression of your sisters. Mothers who abuse their children are women, and another woman, not an agency, has to be willing to stay their hands. Mothers who set fire to school buses are women, and another woman, not an agency, has to tell them to stay their hands. Women who stop the promotion of other women in careers are women, and another woman must come to the victim's aid. Social and welfare workers who humiliate their clients may be women, and other women colleagues have to deflect their anger.

I am alarmed by the violence that women do to each other: professional violence, competitive violence, emotional violence. I am alarmed by the willingness of women to enslave other women. I am alarmed by a growing absence of decency on the killing floor of professional women's worlds. You are the women who will take your place in the world where you can decide who shall flourish and who shall wither; you will make distinctions between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor; where you can yourself determine which life is expendable and which is indispensable. Since you will have the power to do it, you may also be persuaded that you have the right to do it. As educated women the distinction between the two is first-order business.

I am suggesting that we pay as much attention to our nurturing sensibilities as to our ambition. You are moving in the direction of freedom and the function of freedom is to free somebody else. You are moving toward self-fulfillment, and the consequences of that fulfillment should be to discover that there is something just as important as you are and that just-as-important thing may be Cinderella--or your stepsister.

In your rainbow journey toward the realization of personal goals, don't make choices based only on your security and your safety. Nothing is safe. That is not to say that anything ever was, or that anything worth achieving ever should be. Things of value seldom are. It is not safe to have a child. It is not safe to challenge the status quo. It is not safe to choose work that has not been done before. Or to do old work in a new way. There will always be someone there to stop you. But in pursuing you highest ambitions, don't let your personal safety diminish the safety of your step-sister. In wielding the power that is deservedly yours, don't permit it to enslave your stepsisters. Let your might and your power emanate from that place in you that is nurturing and caring.

Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about "us"; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us.