the motherhood malady.

Yesterday, I read a bullshit article in the New York Observer about this new "faminism" trend, which fluctuated between typical trend-piece-stretch (a couple famous women and some spoiled New York housewives do not a trend make) and backlash propaganda. It's basically a story about how feminism is out, and tending to thirty thousand snot-nosed little brats instead of working is what women should be doing!

It's in full effect, ladies. Run for your lives.

'Women are defining themselves more by their families than they are by themselves,' said Pamela Paul, a 39-year-old mother of three in Harlem and author of Parenting Inc. 'It’s no longer about something as selfish and self-advancing as abortion or the pill.'

 Oh, right, because not having a child when you can't afford one and not bringing more human beings into an already-overpopulated planet are so SELFISH.

What the article is trying to drive home is that it is now popular - nay, the status quo - to forego our self-actualization in favor of strollers, and view the personal as not political, but parental. Again, yet again, women are expected to find fulfillment only through motherhood. And we call this a "choice."

But I want to know - what choices, as women, do we really have? Settle down, become mothers - for whom? We're told we have more reproductive freedom than ever before in history, and the preponderance of prophylactics available in 2010 absolutely makes it true, in a tangible sense. That doesn't stop society from reminding women that our "clock is ticking," that "time is running out on your fertile years," that it's "biological destiny." It's backlash like all other backlash, it's just another way of attempting to force women to fit the mold. I find it incredibly disheartening that, even this far along, we only have the illusion of choice. Choice would imply that all options are equally viable and acceptable. There is only one socially acceptable option for being an adult female in America, and we all know what happens if you don't take that road.

I just wish for a society in which our worth is not purchased by a diamond engagement ring, and our future is not formed in a marital bed. We should all be able to want any kind of life as women, be it full of children or without any - but you shouldn't need a certain life to be a woman. I want to be living proof.