I know late entry but in the strangest entry in the "Mommy Wars" is this WaPo article about a Peter Thiel affiliated VC couple engaged in Puritan cosplay thanks to frozen eggs, IVF and repeated cesarian sections. The mother thinks "dying in childbirth" would be the greatest. Just as you predicted Jessica.
I'd like to also add that I did a lot of the stuff tradwives are doing now back in the 70's. I made my own yogurt, bread, baby food, and stuff like noodles, etc. I breastfed my children. I've tried raw milk. It just blows my mind that this lifestyle has been taken over by religious nuts and political extremists but I suppose it is a natural fit in some respects - if you are paranoid and decide to escape to the country, adopting it is a lot easier if you have room for a garden and some chickens and maybe other animals like goats or even a cow. I have lived in the country most of my adult life, and while I am less inclined to spend all my time working and doing chores (I just don't have the energy I had when I was younger) I still like to sit on the porch and read the Mother Earth News. And it just seems so weird to me that the back to the land lifestyle of the 70's and 80's has been co-opted by these raging authoritarian nutjobs. Sheez.
Wow this is some weak sauce - trying to hornswoggle American women into accepting the idea that mommy martyrdom is a good thing! I guess some will fall for this nonsense but surely most women would be practical - how is taking a chance of losing or ruining one's life and/or health for a nonviable fetus a positive thing, especially for those who already have children? If this is all they have to peddle, I think they will come up short. And I don't see judgey conservative women as a motivator to buy into this insanity. Although, after this last election, I will never again make the mistake of assuming as a given that Americans will do the sensible, sane thing.
I have always thought that the RARITY of various fetal abnormalities— trisomy 18, 21, congenital heart defects, etc — is what encourages laws and people to upend their lives, and governments to spend money supporting the education and health needs of the affected children. Remember the hysteria over Zika? The thought of children needing financial support mobilized the medical community to track the outbreaks of Zika and microcephalic babies. The idea of preventing the birth of children who will suffer offends someone’s world view. As a comparison, ask any cancer sufferer if they would prefer not to have gotten sick and I know the answer will be, “hell, yes.” Truly sad
Suffering does not build character. I say this as a nurse. Pain serves only one purpose; to let you know there is something terribly wrong and that you need to address it. It's the body's 911 system.
This mommy wars BS is so disgusting I want to scream. In the void. Again. Who are you to judge? Doesn't your fairy tale, I mean, holy book, tell you to alleviate suffering where you find it? And to not pass judgment on others? Jeez Lou Eeze...
Survivor of two unwanted pregnancies. Thank Mom Almighty I didn't have to carry either to term, since my reproductive organs are a mess and I know I'm not mom material. Since up to a third of all women are not driven to have babies, but some do (and that never turns out well,) having the audacity to choose your own life and priorities over biology should just be a fact of life.
And if I can't have choice, then life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has no meaning for me personally.
Just saw a headline on a digest assembled by Texas Impact, the faith-based justice organization I work with, from one of the anti-abortion groups the gist of which was “Kate Cox lied about her baby.”
The GOP makes powerful use, or misuse, of diction. We need a label for the type of woman you describe, one that both describes and satirizes/ridicules. Something like “drama mamas”, but better and more precisely targeted.
I am incensed that the forced birth misogynists want womtn eho have nonviable pregnancies to be forced to suffer emotional as well as possible physical injuries so that they can birth a dead or dying newborn.
How sick are thsee people?
As for the womtn who are playing the trad wife influence game, they need to be called out as hypocrites. These women are paid to pretend to churn butter, mill flour, have their own fabric, etc. In reality they either have other female family members raising their children while they play at being domestic goddesses, or they are employing nannies because being a well paid influencer has become a full time job.
In any case, they are selling a lie.
My mother was happy to be a full time wife and mother, but she depended on our father for an allowance. That still bothers me, even though thry had a happy marriage. I swore to myself that I would not be dependent on a man. Ever.
It's like the Martha Stewart thing, she's a great presenter, who has assistants doing all the chopping and preparation off screen. Never got the fascination with it, myself.
All of this is tinged with evangelical rhetoric. Those quotes square with the idea that suffering is noble because Jesus suffered for their sins. Everything is supposedly God’s will. Still trying to figure out how these evangelical men suffer like Christ but I digress. When your belief system is predicated on a set of unprovable ideas that some have decided must be true and you add that with a sinner turned saint story and they see proof of God. It’s like confirmation bias on steroids.the women who buy this crap have bought a bill of goods that pays lip service to elevating their subservient status to that of exalted motherhood. If feminists are less happy it’s proof ignorance is bliss because if yiu aren’t upset, you aren’t paying attention.
Promising that earthly suffering will ensure a happy afterlife in a mythical heaven is a way to distract people from acting to improve their lives on this planet.
I have written extensively about the source of this "it is a mother's/woman's duty to suffer" over the past year. It is a Christian Nationalist religious construct drawn from their belief that God cursed Eve for eating the fruit first and "tempting" Adam to fall with her. (We can trace this garbage to St Augustine, who couldn't control his own lust, so he became a priest and instituted the idea that it was up to women to control themselves because men cannot control themselves.) Anyone promoting this "narrative of female suffering" is promoting an extremist Christian Nationalist talking point. It is imperative that we as a nation start calling out this religious fanaticism and helping more Americans know it when they see or hear it.
Andra, you recently explained the psychological gymnastics that CN women go through to rationalize their lives and why/how demaning and judging other women is a key part of it. Perhaps you would like to include a link to it for those who are not familiar with your substack page.
In 1676 in colonial Virginia, black slaves and white indentured servants rebelled against plantation owners/landowners. The slaves and indentured servants outnumbered the landowners that depended on their labor. It was in the landowners interest to end indentured servitude and rely more on slaves and to make the white indentured servants think they were better than the slaves, so they were divided. This is what conservative men do with their wives......"you are so beautiful and feminine serving me, not like those ugly feminist women....I will protect you and you will go to heaven." They are keeping women from linking arms with other women to make all of our lives better. The conservative women think they are better than liberal women because they get the benefit of thinking that men like them more and will protect their position. I could go on and on. I posted a lot today. I took a break after the election and now I'm reinvigorated. Also, I'm in Virginia and we have a job to do to ensure the house of delegates and the state senate stay blue and that we get a blue governor (and a woman) this coming November.
Women are responsible for their own happiness. Nobody is going to do anything for you because you are a martyr. Maybe people who want women to be subjugated to a lower status will praise you for your sacrifice, and a bible written and translated by men will say you are going to heaven, but how helpful will that be to your life? If you truly want to carry that pregnancy, I believe you should be able to and I believe your insurance should provide you whatever support you need. But, same goes if you decide you want to terminate your pregnancy. None of this is black and white, just like none of the other mommy war arguments. We need to support women's decisions about their bodies. As far as the anti-contraception stuff, my girls who are in their 20s know that is bullshit and tell their friends the same. All women and men should be talking to their daughters about this.
The feminine mystique by Betty Friedan needs to be required reading for all young women and men! Limiting women’s human potential/influence to the corridors of their home is detrimental to the woman and the children!
I’m reading “Women Race & Class” by Angela Davis, more expansive history of feminism. Same with “The Trouble With White Women” by Kyla Schuller (a white woman). Both very illuminating multi-ethnic histories of feminism.
And the rest of society. I read The Feminine Mystique in college and it really spoke to me even though I fully planned to be a working mom when I read it, before I read it.
Jessica, you wrote: “The not-so-veiled implication, of course, is that those who decide to end their doomed pregnancies are selfish—unwilling to put in the requisite suffering that ‘good’ mothers take on happily.”
I disagree about wording: “those who decide to end their doomed pregnancies are—MURDERERS”—I believe that’s the language they’ll soon be using for women who want abortions.
But yes, suffering is a big deal for the far-right, and martyrdom.
I know late entry but in the strangest entry in the "Mommy Wars" is this WaPo article about a Peter Thiel affiliated VC couple engaged in Puritan cosplay thanks to frozen eggs, IVF and repeated cesarian sections. The mother thinks "dying in childbirth" would be the greatest. Just as you predicted Jessica.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/of-interest/2025/02/01/malcolm-and-simone-collins-pronatalism/
I'd like to also add that I did a lot of the stuff tradwives are doing now back in the 70's. I made my own yogurt, bread, baby food, and stuff like noodles, etc. I breastfed my children. I've tried raw milk. It just blows my mind that this lifestyle has been taken over by religious nuts and political extremists but I suppose it is a natural fit in some respects - if you are paranoid and decide to escape to the country, adopting it is a lot easier if you have room for a garden and some chickens and maybe other animals like goats or even a cow. I have lived in the country most of my adult life, and while I am less inclined to spend all my time working and doing chores (I just don't have the energy I had when I was younger) I still like to sit on the porch and read the Mother Earth News. And it just seems so weird to me that the back to the land lifestyle of the 70's and 80's has been co-opted by these raging authoritarian nutjobs. Sheez.
Wow this is some weak sauce - trying to hornswoggle American women into accepting the idea that mommy martyrdom is a good thing! I guess some will fall for this nonsense but surely most women would be practical - how is taking a chance of losing or ruining one's life and/or health for a nonviable fetus a positive thing, especially for those who already have children? If this is all they have to peddle, I think they will come up short. And I don't see judgey conservative women as a motivator to buy into this insanity. Although, after this last election, I will never again make the mistake of assuming as a given that Americans will do the sensible, sane thing.
I have always thought that the RARITY of various fetal abnormalities— trisomy 18, 21, congenital heart defects, etc — is what encourages laws and people to upend their lives, and governments to spend money supporting the education and health needs of the affected children. Remember the hysteria over Zika? The thought of children needing financial support mobilized the medical community to track the outbreaks of Zika and microcephalic babies. The idea of preventing the birth of children who will suffer offends someone’s world view. As a comparison, ask any cancer sufferer if they would prefer not to have gotten sick and I know the answer will be, “hell, yes.” Truly sad
Suffering does not build character. I say this as a nurse. Pain serves only one purpose; to let you know there is something terribly wrong and that you need to address it. It's the body's 911 system.
This mommy wars BS is so disgusting I want to scream. In the void. Again. Who are you to judge? Doesn't your fairy tale, I mean, holy book, tell you to alleviate suffering where you find it? And to not pass judgment on others? Jeez Lou Eeze...
Survivor of two unwanted pregnancies. Thank Mom Almighty I didn't have to carry either to term, since my reproductive organs are a mess and I know I'm not mom material. Since up to a third of all women are not driven to have babies, but some do (and that never turns out well,) having the audacity to choose your own life and priorities over biology should just be a fact of life.
And if I can't have choice, then life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has no meaning for me personally.
Just saw a headline on a digest assembled by Texas Impact, the faith-based justice organization I work with, from one of the anti-abortion groups the gist of which was “Kate Cox lied about her baby.”
Those rotten fuckers, just because that is what they are doing...it's always lying for Jesus with them.
The GOP makes powerful use, or misuse, of diction. We need a label for the type of woman you describe, one that both describes and satirizes/ridicules. Something like “drama mamas”, but better and more precisely targeted.
Practitioners of "Martyrbation".
I am incensed that the forced birth misogynists want womtn eho have nonviable pregnancies to be forced to suffer emotional as well as possible physical injuries so that they can birth a dead or dying newborn.
How sick are thsee people?
As for the womtn who are playing the trad wife influence game, they need to be called out as hypocrites. These women are paid to pretend to churn butter, mill flour, have their own fabric, etc. In reality they either have other female family members raising their children while they play at being domestic goddesses, or they are employing nannies because being a well paid influencer has become a full time job.
In any case, they are selling a lie.
My mother was happy to be a full time wife and mother, but she depended on our father for an allowance. That still bothers me, even though thry had a happy marriage. I swore to myself that I would not be dependent on a man. Ever.
It's like the Martha Stewart thing, she's a great presenter, who has assistants doing all the chopping and preparation off screen. Never got the fascination with it, myself.
I don't think most secular-oriented people are going to fall for this nonsense. Let the religious right live in their delusions.
A lot of naive young girls like and follow the propaganda.
Secular people might nit believe this, but secular people are subject to religious zealots enacting legislation that affect everyone-see Texas
All of this is tinged with evangelical rhetoric. Those quotes square with the idea that suffering is noble because Jesus suffered for their sins. Everything is supposedly God’s will. Still trying to figure out how these evangelical men suffer like Christ but I digress. When your belief system is predicated on a set of unprovable ideas that some have decided must be true and you add that with a sinner turned saint story and they see proof of God. It’s like confirmation bias on steroids.the women who buy this crap have bought a bill of goods that pays lip service to elevating their subservient status to that of exalted motherhood. If feminists are less happy it’s proof ignorance is bliss because if yiu aren’t upset, you aren’t paying attention.
Promising that earthly suffering will ensure a happy afterlife in a mythical heaven is a way to distract people from acting to improve their lives on this planet.
Didn’t someone say, “Religion is the opium of the masses.” Hint: It was Karl Marx.
And has been ridiculously successful beyond rationale.
I have written extensively about the source of this "it is a mother's/woman's duty to suffer" over the past year. It is a Christian Nationalist religious construct drawn from their belief that God cursed Eve for eating the fruit first and "tempting" Adam to fall with her. (We can trace this garbage to St Augustine, who couldn't control his own lust, so he became a priest and instituted the idea that it was up to women to control themselves because men cannot control themselves.) Anyone promoting this "narrative of female suffering" is promoting an extremist Christian Nationalist talking point. It is imperative that we as a nation start calling out this religious fanaticism and helping more Americans know it when they see or hear it.
St. Augustine and his apologist (the Catholic Church) have a LOT of explaining to do.
Andra, you recently explained the psychological gymnastics that CN women go through to rationalize their lives and why/how demaning and judging other women is a key part of it. Perhaps you would like to include a link to it for those who are not familiar with your substack page.
I think you’re referring to this newsletter, Tamarra. But I have many more on this topic:
https://open.substack.com/pub/andrawatkins/p/comparison-is-the-thief-of-joy?r=1ohjc1&utm_medium=ios
In 1676 in colonial Virginia, black slaves and white indentured servants rebelled against plantation owners/landowners. The slaves and indentured servants outnumbered the landowners that depended on their labor. It was in the landowners interest to end indentured servitude and rely more on slaves and to make the white indentured servants think they were better than the slaves, so they were divided. This is what conservative men do with their wives......"you are so beautiful and feminine serving me, not like those ugly feminist women....I will protect you and you will go to heaven." They are keeping women from linking arms with other women to make all of our lives better. The conservative women think they are better than liberal women because they get the benefit of thinking that men like them more and will protect their position. I could go on and on. I posted a lot today. I took a break after the election and now I'm reinvigorated. Also, I'm in Virginia and we have a job to do to ensure the house of delegates and the state senate stay blue and that we get a blue governor (and a woman) this coming November.
Women are responsible for their own happiness. Nobody is going to do anything for you because you are a martyr. Maybe people who want women to be subjugated to a lower status will praise you for your sacrifice, and a bible written and translated by men will say you are going to heaven, but how helpful will that be to your life? If you truly want to carry that pregnancy, I believe you should be able to and I believe your insurance should provide you whatever support you need. But, same goes if you decide you want to terminate your pregnancy. None of this is black and white, just like none of the other mommy war arguments. We need to support women's decisions about their bodies. As far as the anti-contraception stuff, my girls who are in their 20s know that is bullshit and tell their friends the same. All women and men should be talking to their daughters about this.
The feminine mystique by Betty Friedan needs to be required reading for all young women and men! Limiting women’s human potential/influence to the corridors of their home is detrimental to the woman and the children!
I’m reading “Women Race & Class” by Angela Davis, more expansive history of feminism. Same with “The Trouble With White Women” by Kyla Schuller (a white woman). Both very illuminating multi-ethnic histories of feminism.
And the rest of society. I read The Feminine Mystique in college and it really spoke to me even though I fully planned to be a working mom when I read it, before I read it.
I can't help but notice the Christian undertones through it all as well: women deserve to suffer because Eve ate the apple. Ugh.
🤮Yes, fuck that noise.
ding ding ding!
Jessica, you wrote: “The not-so-veiled implication, of course, is that those who decide to end their doomed pregnancies are selfish—unwilling to put in the requisite suffering that ‘good’ mothers take on happily.”
I disagree about wording: “those who decide to end their doomed pregnancies are—MURDERERS”—I believe that’s the language they’ll soon be using for women who want abortions.
But yes, suffering is a big deal for the far-right, and martyrdom.
That's true - I man, they're saying it already. Just not as explicitly. Sigh