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Let me get this straight as it’s quite confusing. We are supposed to work up until our due date to prove how seriously we take our work, then we should birth at home (with a doula or midwife) so that we are not supporting the patriarchal medical establishment, and then we are to feed the infant breast milk so that we are not supporting the multi-national plot to make money on formula, but we need to pump this milk because we are to return immediately to work to show how serious and liberated we are. We are not to be taken in by the artificial construct called “motherhood” but we are to fully embrace the equally ludicrous construct called “work week” and if we do not we are taking the easy way out. If you get a c-section, feed your kids formula, work part time, stay at home, go to work, gain too much weight, gain too little weight…then you are lazy, stupid, underachieving, overachieving, servant, bitch, whore, frigid, too vain, not sexy enough. You should attend school functions, but too many. You can like your job…but don’t tell people you love it. Applaud the woman who puts her child in daycare to go and teach but deride the woman who chooses to teach her own children. We want to hear about the daughters of frustrated housewives but not about the latch key daughters of driven workaholics. Vacuuming in demeaning, but getting botox so that you stand a better chance at a promotion isn’t. Mothers who work are selfish, money hungry shrews; those who stay home are deluded bon bon eating morons. We really are dupes and instead of true liberation we have, sadly, settled for an ersatz facsimile.
