Being Female

Our baby is 11 weeks old! We have been to visit the grandparents AGAIN this weekend, a flying visit but they were insistent and I know it will be quite a while before we can see them again. The visit did incorporate Miri's first swim however. I armed myself with waterproof nappies and mentally prepared for Miranda to scream the place down. But she didn't! She was very well behaved; a little unsure at first but certainly happy to try and she kicked her legs about enthusiastically enough that we took her again the next day. Actually I think she just liked the excuse to rid herself of her clothes and nappy, she does love being naked!

As usual, she got admired wherever she went but fortunately no-one thought she was a boy this time - possibly because she was wearing the little purple dress I got her in Guatemala. I was ranting on Facebook the other day about this and sparked a bit of a debate. It annoys me that people assume that Miri is a boy, not because I have any objection to her being masculine in character if that is the way she turns out, but because I know that assumption is based solely on my refusal to dress her in pink, and preference for comfy, practical baby trousers. The lack of pink isn't even a feminist statement, I just can't stand the colour. But people see her wearing baby jeans or black t-shirts and ask "how old is he?" This winds me up no end.

I have even been advised to put a ribbon in her hair "just so you know". Now, which is more infuriating, the fact that ribbons in hair must denote gender, or the idea that babies MUST be seen to be one gender or the other? She is 11 weeks old! Surely we shouldn't be inflicting constructed social dichotomies on her just yet? I don't think of her as being feminine yet, or masculine for that matter. She's just my baby, and she's beautiful. And until she can choose her own clothes, she can wear what I think is cute, which is predominantly purple and black. Her gender isn't really part of her personality yet. Of course, her name gives it away, but really that is a social norm that it would be too cruel to break. A little girl going off to school named Donald or Keith or something will be teased even more than if she were called Ophelia or Esperanza or any of the other names I loved but we decided were to weird to inflict on her.

A comfy baby, with pink socks on "just so you know"!

I don't wear pink, and I rarely wear dresses, I do wear giant boots though and I am very tall, and yet few mistake me for a bloke. (I did however once convince people I was a very passable transvestite, just so I could use the men's loo in a oub and avoid the queue...but that is a different story!!). Pre-pregnancy, I didn't even feel very female, although I have never been sure exactly what that is supposed to feel like anyway. I did a project for a gender studies class years ago about transexualism and gender identities. One friend in an interview put her views very succinctly: "I am Me, my body is female. That's about it.". I almost subscribe to that view myself although I am dimly aware that it is never that simple.

At the moment, I am feeling more female than I ever have, and it's all to do with being Mum. Ooo and now I can hear my more feminist friends howling in the background.... Miri's Uncle Ol already accuses me of being anti-feminist, I am never quite sure where he gets that impression from. I am not anti-feminist; most of the time I am just apathetic to the whole issue because it's never been an issue in my life. Selfish, I know, but there we go. Now, though, it throws up a whole new set of dillemmas. I am suddenly feeling Female, because I am a mother and I am breastfeeding my child, which is something you have to be a woman to do and really understand. And I really, really love it. According to some branches of feminist argument though, it is breastfeeding and child-rearing that 'holds women back' and is used as a justification of female oppression. Instead, I should be striving at least for equality (read: getting Carl to share half of the Miri-minding - which I have no problem with if it wasn't for more pragmatic things like the fact Carl has a job and I don't)  - if not matriarchal dominance. And feeding her would obviously have to be done with formula milk and a bottle, thus 'empowering' mother to go back to work, of course....

Caca del toro!

This is another idea that annoys me intensely. I can't think of anything more empowering than being indispensible to your child, able to provide her with everything she needs, adapting as she grows, for free and on demand, particularly when men are incapable of doing the same! If that does not fit in to the routine of the (male-dominated) workplace, then it is the workplace that needs changing. Or better still, I'll just invent myself a job that I can take Miranda along to!

"If a multnational company developed a product that was a nutritionally balanced and delicious food, a wonder drug that both prevented and treated disease, cost nothing to produce and could be delivered in quantities controlled by consumers' needs, the annoucement of this find would send its shares rocketing to the top of the stock market. The scientists who developed the product would win prizes and the wealth of everyone involved would increase dramatically. Women have been producing such a miraculous substance, breastmilk, since the beginning of human existence, yet they form the least wealthy and least powerful half of humanity."
(from "The Politics of Breastfeeding" by Gabrielle Palmer.)