Before March is officially over I wanted to squeeze in a post in alignment with Feminist Coming Out Day and the Feminist Portrait Blog Carnival.
There’s a series at Blue Milk where mamas provide answers to 10 questions about feminist motherhood. If I weren’t so busy mothering, I might have something interesting to say about all ten, but as it is I have an answer for #7.
7. Motherhood involves sacrifice, how do you reconcile that with being a feminist?
I don’t usually see what I’ve done as sacrifice. I’ve made compromises, bargains, deals with myself and my partner and my daughter, but sacrifice has a ring to me of submission and I don’t feel I’ve submitted myself to anything. I’ve been the agent choosing to bend my resources where I willed in service of what mattered most to me.
Or I can read the question differently. The word sacrifice has “sacred” at its heart. Yes, I’ve given my time, my energy, my body, my heart, my will, my planning, and my love to raising my child in the way I believed was best for her and for me. I’ve lent my resources toward that most sacred of pursuits, human life lived right. That hardly conflicts with my feminism. That is my feminism.
And this is what a feminist looks like:
Yes, this! I love your answer about sacrifice.
I’ve been sketching out replies to blue milk’s questions for about a year now, long enough that it would probably be interesting (to me) to see how my answers have changed over time. I really enjoy that blog.
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