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!
[…] I suspect a critical difference in Gilmore’s and my feminism is covered in this post, “Why we should be careful taking the ‘maternity’ out of ‘parental leaveR… […]
Hi all, I’m Toby from Queensland Australia. Currently, the topic amongst our two election candidates is the introduction of a 6 month fully paid parental leave scheme [only for mothers]. Under the scheme, women who earn up to $150,000 are eligible.
Men, under the scheme, will receive 2 weeks paid leave. Personally, I find it extremely sexist and frustrating. I agree that the mother needs to recover, and establish a close bond with the child. Perhaps a three month split share is feasible. Breast milk can be bottled and used sometime after by the father. I think this argument by feminists reveals the sinister revenge that is being carried out. Society has portrayed mothers as being the only people who can raise children. Dad’s are viewed as clumsy and neglectful. It’s a complete reversal of the woman in the 1950s who stayed at home – if anyone tried to portray these days there would be such a hysterical uprising. But why does no one care when a male is portrayed as a lacklustre care-giver?
Forgive my pointed comments but its as if women nowadays are saying – we want it all, we want equality [but only for things we want, no compromise]. Why is the word feminist treated more fairly than chauvinist? It seems mens rights are being dragged down more and more. In 50 years time, this whole process will turn around again and repeat itself.
In your replies, I only ask that you think without bias and be fair. Equal.
Again – the mother needs to spend the initial period with the child. But I think dads should also get an equal amount of time. It will hurt businesses more, but maybe the message this will send – that parental leave will affect men and women it will stop workplace discrimination
Toby apart from blaming feminists for this, you will find this exact argument everywhere on this blog and many other feminist blogs.
Toby – you’re blaming feminists for the Liberal Party’s sexist scheme, based in “traditional family values” and gendered division of labour? It didn’t occur to you to blame, oh, I don’t know, Tony Abbott and his advisors?
Expressing breastmilk might not be the answer for every family either. If only breastfeeding were that simple! Perhaps you don’t know how much work expressing is, or about any of the other factors that make breastfeeding from the breast beneficial. You seem to have a very simplified view of what breastfeeding actually entails.
It would be lovely if it was simply a matter of squirting some milk into a bottle and handing it to dad before heading off to work for the day!
Hi, Toby, did you know that under Qleave in your state and other schemes in othr states – which are all reciprocal, so it’s Aust-wide – the (overwhelmingly male) construction workers are entitled to a very generous portable long servide leave scheme, for which it only takes 7 years to qualify, and which is paid out on the current wage? If you’re getting a ridonkulous wage, that’s what youre paid out at, as long as it checks out with your payroll people.
Of course women would be equally eligible for this if they were in the construction industry in equal numbers, but funnily enough, due to the same gender role enforcement that keeps women as the primary child carers, most of the construction workers are men!
I don’t support Tony Abbott’s ppl scheme in its present form, but I think people are still very quick to spot any inequality when it’s women getting some extra pay or perk, while pay/perks to men are never discussed.
To those of you who think Parental leave should be kept as Maternity leave: as someone whose mother died, I think you should think that through to its logical, real life-denying conclusions. And coding vulnerability and dependence as female is just continuing essentialism.
So we generally take the bulk of the burden if we’re able to breastfeed. Fine! That’s what I did with mine. But it doesn’t always work out like that. As feminists why shouldn’t we embrace difference and try not to encode essentialist notions into law all the time? THat’s why we’re in the state we’re in now.
Helen, I certainly agree that it is essentialist to argue that women are inherently better carers than men, and therefore men should not have equal access to a decent amount of parental leave. But do you really think it is essentialist to suggest that carrying a child to term and giving birth have significant physical impacts on the mother’s body, that she needs time to recover from?
[…] Why we should be careful taking ‘maternity’ out of parental leave […]
can you explain to me more details about those two ways of feminism ?
[…] *[Via blue milk] […]
Thank you for writing this! I have always, and absolutely continue to consider myself a feminist and I am often very saddened at what I see put forward as being feminist arguments which so often speak of birth and mothering as inconvenient stuff women annoyingly still have to deal with. I am now a mother, quite employable, not in any paid employment (a rare choice these days!). When I first studied anthropology, I learned that the primary human bond is between mother and child. Perhaps I am an “essentialist”, but for me the experience of becoming a mother was not merely about the physical act of giving birth, and breastfeeding my children is not about mere nourishment. We are animals and we need closeness, relationship and bonds. I don’t think it is impossible for men to make close bonds with their children, or to be very competent carers, however, I do think that human physiology means that women fulfil those needs at least in the very early stages. To my mind, you are absolutely correct in saying that these bonds are not so interchangeable.