The absent baby in such discussions is matched by an equally absent mother in other public commentary. Feminist writer and ethicist Leslie Cannold is a case in point. She is a key public advocate promoting the removal of references to ‘maternity’ in discussions of family leave. In an article for the Melbourne Age entitled ‘Baby leave is not a women’s issue’– and in other interventions on this topic – Cannold argues that, in the interests of gender equity, the maternal should, once and for all, be written out of the leave equation.
Cannold promotes a conservative and conventional model of the contemporary family as dual-income and dual-carer that fits in perfectly with today’s workplaces. One parent is encouraged to take leave and look after the baby, so that the other can swiftly return to work. At first glance, this seems ideal – an important step towards emancipating women from an unequal care burden. Few would argue against the social, family and personal benefits of men accessing leave to better contribute to the care of their children. Dramatic shifts in conditions around employment and care are well overdue.
There are, however, problems with the model. It presents care as a transferable and marketable commodity, further marginalising questions about the impact different forms may have on those who depend on care the most (in this case, babies). It also fails to challenge work-practices that demand impossibly long working hours, and measurements of performance that ultimately devalue children and caring responsibilities.
Moreover, as an example of a dominant strand of feminism in Australia, the gender-equity paradigm is paradoxically de-gendered. Indeed, Cannold argues for ‘the parenthood conundrum’ to be ‘articulated in gender-neutral ways’. This, however, taps into a productivist ethos entirely consistent with the demands of the neoliberal marketplace, with caregivers replaceable or interchangeable in much the same way as employees in workplaces. In addition, a feminism promoting gender neutrality (in the name of equality) denies the bodily experience of women after they have given birth. Though a boon to the productive workplace, the breast pump may not necessarily protect the emotional needs of women and babies. To deny that baby leave is a women’s issue, to decouple ‘maternity’ from ‘leave’, is also to conceal human vulnerability and dependence. It reproduces what Iris Young has called ‘the normalising but impossible ideal’ that we are autonomous, unencumbered self-sufficient individuals, somehow beyond human dependency.
While researching an article I am writing I came across this and so am only now catching up on a 2010 article by Australian academic, Julie Stephens, “The Industrialised Breast” at Overland. (My use of bold in the above). I recently properly discovered Stephens’ work – I think we met briefly at a conference once – and I am thoroughly enjoying her writing. I agree with Stephens’ scepticism about certain aspects of gender-neutral parenting.
These two ways of feminism approaching issues of maternity leave and mothers working outside the home more broadly, reflect a deeper split in feminism in coming to terms with motherhood. It’s no surprise this division is deep – it’s decades old. I’ve talked about that here before with “How to explain desire”, “The split” , “Let’s get something straight about maternity leave” and “Feminists, a little perspective please”.
When we first started talking about starting a family, I had an idealistic idea that we would share income earning work and caring work more or less equally.
The reality is of course, he gets paid much more than me, I want to breastfeed for at least a year, he works when he’s not at work – giving me visions of neglected children while daddy sorts out work crises on the phone, and I have had more experience caring for other people’s children (starting at a young age with siblings and cousins) so will be better at it (at least to start)…
He will do a better job earning, and I will do a better job caring – I wish we could so easily snap out of these roles, but a lifetime of conditioning makes it harder than that – not to mention breastfeeding.
I’m all for better leave provisions for men in the time around and after the birth of a child – it’s important that fathers are involved in the early bonding process and there to provide support etc, and family/parental leave is a good tool to help facilitate this. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that pregnancy and childbirth have a significant physical impact on a woman’s body, and the fundamental purpose of maternity leave is to address that impact. It’s really a special category of sick leave.
Taking the ‘maternity’ out of the leave equation writes out the physical part of the birthing process, the impacts of which the non-birthing partner just does not experience. There should always be a period of leave reserved for the person who did the actual birthing. This is not sexist, it’s just a reflection of physical reality.
Yes, I agree that ‘there should always be a period of leave reserved for the person who did the actual birthing’ and I think there should also be a concurrent period of paid leave for a support person – whether the partner, grandmother, aunt or someone else – to help the person who birthed and the family during the initial recovery period. Then it really would be a recovery period. And if it was generally the father/partner taking the concurrent leave, I think it would really help new parents’ relationships get off to a much better start post baby.
But it seems to me that the provision of appropriate employment leave is not about nurturing quality relationships. It’s about what the minimum is to raise the ‘next generation of consumers’ (thanks Mr Key for that gem) – the northern countries offer better parental leave because women will be more likely to have more children/consumers, not because they care more about families. (Too cynical? Statement of the obvious? I dunno today).
I think this is linked to the competitive intensive mothering talked about in the paper linked to in the most recent post – these mothers are trying to raise their children to be economically successful, which means to be consumers of the highest order. They/we bring the same approach to mothering as to paid work.
Bluemilk, I love your blog, so much food for thought. I think you must be sustaining a lot of us through the sleep deprivation years!
Another issue to reflect upon in redefining maternity leave to parental leave relates to surrogacy. For example, as a surrogate mother I would be pregnant but I would not be a parent. I would use maternity leave to heal physically and emotionally after birthing. Yet, if it were defined as parental leave, would I as a surrogate still have access to this time? The focus for the surrogate is on the person birthing/healing and not the care and emotional bond that is required for a healthy mother/child relationship.
In Norwegian rules governing parental leave, the three weeks leading up to the due date and the six weeks following the birth are reserved for the mother. I guess this goes some way towards addressing those concerns… In most cases the mother takes a full ten months and then the father takes two or three (12 weeks are reserved for him… The father also gets two weeks when the baby is born). Some couples sort it out more evenly though. (I just took a whole year and while my partner had his leave we spent two months together with family in Australia. This was great though it meant he got off extremely easily.)
On the one hand, I really get where the push for gender-neutrality is coming from. In theory it could “even things up,” and make leave more accessible for new dads (i.e. if it’s not just thought of as “maternity leave for dads” due to a name change). It even feels more inclusive for the few dads and babas out there actually giving birth, which is – really nice.
But – well, yeah. The person who actually births the baby is going to need a greater recovery period, and like Chris I don’t think it’s sexist to reflect that in leave practices – it’s just physical reality.
I’m still chewing on the bits from the quote about how care work esp. parenting can’t/doesn’t/arguably shouldn’t follow the same model as employees, with caregivers being completely interchangeable.
Yeah, I was just replying with very similar thoughts. We push for gender-neutrality in so many other areas (e.g. men and career/children balance), but this is one area which is not gender-neutral.
In terms of the recovery period being like sick leave, perhaps, we really should distinguish between the recovery period and the childcare. Women who have had a cesarian, or a particularly traumatic birth, who are at risk of PND, are often expected to look after a new baby almost by themselves. Perhaps this is where the paternity leave should come in, not for the measly days or couple of weeks that many people take, but for at least six weeks post birth.
Or “partner leave” if the partner is not male, or some other system of support if the woman does not have a partner…
it wasn’t the same – i was the person who was sick in pregnancy – but my partner could have really used some leave around the time our son was born. He did so much caretaking when I was on bedrest, he just about collapsed after we all came through okay (so, about a week after we got kiddo out of the NICU).
Lucky for him his form of collapse is to go to work and not think about anything but work for as long as possible every single day until the emotional upset subsides, because he was completely out of time he could not work and have the stuff that really only he can do be covered even remotely near his deadlines.
We have both maternity (17 weeks) and parental leave (35 weeks) in Canada, during which the recipient is paid (un)employment insurance*, a federal social program, not by the employer. 17 weeks are designated as “maternity,” and may begin up to 17 weeks before the baby’s due date or once the baby is born. The 35 weeks of parental can be split between parents and used concurrently or consecutively. Job protection is in place for the entire 52 weeks. Adoptive families do not qualify for maternity leave. I do not know whether surrogates do (but I would guess yes.)
In my social circle, the maternity leave and parental leave is used entirely by the mother – mainly for the same reasons noted by Alien Tea. When fathers to use parental leave it is usually for 1-3 weeks around the time of the baby’s birth or for the last 1-2 months of the 12 available.
Our leave system isn’t perfect but it’s not a bad compromise between maternity and parental leave. I do like the idea of some leave also reserved for partners. I suspect that there would be a higher uptake of parental leave among men, which might level the playing field for people applying to jobs where the employer sees hiring women of child-bearing age as risky.
*EI benefits are 55% of your salary to a maximum benefit of $500/week, which is about 50 hours of the minimum wage.
I do find it frustrating when reading about these things that it is often unclear what a writer means by “leave.” In some cases, they just mean job protection. Even “paid leave” is ambiguous. Some mean “paid at full salary” by either the employer or the state or paid some other level of benefit, again by either the employer or the state.
“to decouple ‘maternity’ from ‘leave’, is also to conceal human vulnerability and dependence.”
amen and amen
These contradictions make feminism fun. I have an instinctive niggle in my heart about the push for uniformity as a kind of feminism because it just doesn’t ring true for me – having said that, I understand why. The whole stay at home vs paid work debate is another one that gives me a slight funny feeling (as if you can’t be feminist and be a stay at home mum). It seems to me that society doesn’t really value the nurturing and caring ‘work’ that is involved in child rearing… I see around me that it is devalued regardless of who is doing it. If it were valued, I think more dads would find it easier to negotiate time off or part time work with their employer. If it were valued, my friends who identify as feminist and find themselves being primary nurturer would not feel like they are somehow letting the side down. People would stop saying “I’m just a mum,” which I don’t think readers of this blog would say, but some mums still do. People at my work wouldn’t ask me, “so what do you do all day?” on the days I am not in the office. And my friend who is 2 weeks into a 3-week solo-parenting stint while her husband is on a business trip, wouldn’t be told “oh no, not this again!” when she tells him on the phone she’s over the whole solo-parenting thing!