In yesterday’s brief essay I alluded to a news story about a women-only beach on the Adriatic. Almost as an afterthought I included the detail that the children as well as men are banned from this beach.
Because I just fell off the turnip truck yesterday, I had not expected this seemingly minor point to ignite a referendum on children. But naturally it did, because kids, whether by design or by unavoidable circumstance, are pretty much the exclusive purview of women, and patriarchy blamers, whatever else they may be, are women.
With opinions.
For the radical feminist, this discussion is lousy — if a facet can be said to daunt — with daunting facets. Such as:
Is it useful to demand a woman-only venue? Is it antifeminist to ban kids from a women-only venue? Is it antifeminist to expect that women have a duty to mind the young’uns at all times? Oughtn’t a woman to have considered the impending culturally- and legally- mandated dissolution of her human rights before she decided to reproduce? Is it antifeminist to argue that women-and-children are designed by nature as an indissoluble amalgam? Is there some kind of metaphysical fusion between women and their children creating a unit that is greater than the sum of its parts which, having so fused, thereafter supersedes any claim to individual sovereignty its previously (and biologically) discrete parties might subsequently make? Or is this fusion, if it exists, merely the unnatural result of relentless external patriarchal pressure? Is it an act of domination — and therefore antifeminist — to reduce kids to a class without rights or recourse upon which there operates social strictures and persecutions — such as their thralldom to one or two ‘guardians’ selected, cosmically speaking, more or less at random — that do not apply to other classes?
Or how about this: can apartheid — whether based on sex or juvenescence or skin color — adequately address, either as a temporary stopgap or as a permanent social policy, the myriad insults visited by a given oppressor upon the oppressed? This is the question that must be asked by those victims of oppression seeking immediate relief from intolerable conditions.
Or this: will the overthrow of patriarchy result in a world order that obviates the perceived need for apartheid? This is the question for intellectual spinster aunts whose obstreperal lobes are as sponges soaking in pungent vats of viscous utopian theory.
For my part, I have stated on numerous occasions (following the materialization in my personal sphere of a pair of nieces), children are an oppressed class. Their universal and legitimately reviled unruliness is not natural. It is a product of neurosis generated by patriarchy’s two main replicatory units: the nuclear family, which directly supports male dominance, and the single mother household, which indirectly supports male dominance a) by acting as an underclass dependent for its survival on paternalism and b) by incubating a ready supply of disadvantaged candidates for membership in the all-important working and military classes.
Of course kids are obstreperous hellions. They dislike oppression as much as the next guy.
It is my firm belief that although children are not born with an innate sense of propriety and obeisance to the bizarro social order currently imposed, neither is there inherent in the human species a biological imperative to behave neurotically, except when neurosis is imposed by crippling external forces. Which it is.
In other words, we may blame the patriarchy for obnoxious kids. Just as we blame it for rape, marriage, FGM, and God.
Look here. Male dominant culture so alienates women from the fully-realized default human experience that we end up arguing on honky American feminist blogs, not just the merits of some penny-ante old woman-only beach in Italy, but whether children, the only life form lower than we are, are human. Faugh.
Meanwhile, once again I am pressed for time; I would be obliged if the incorrigibly cerebral commentariat would condescend to enbiggen the discourse by addressing some of the above questions.
Maybe the Italians could split the beach in half: on one side, children would be allowed, on the other they wouldn’t. Then, women who for one reason or other (either another guardian couldn’t be found, the household is “traditional” ie. the father works and the mother does unpaid labour at home, the mother wanted to bring her kids, etc.) bring kids to the beach are not automatically reduced to objects of the Lacanian male gaze. Also, women who maybe don’t find there kids adorable all the time and can find another guardian can take a much deserved break. Italy should maybe also consider adding a day-care service at the beach.
You know, the more I think about this, the more it simply sounds like what feminists are pushing for in the “real” world, that is, basic structures allowing women to participate in the world as humans.
And sorry for all the “maybe also’s” up there.
And an ugly “there” where it should read “their.” Gah! Sorry for taking up two spaces with editing.
“Or how about this: can apartheid — whether based on sex or juvenescence or skin color — adequately address, either as a temporary stopgap or as a permanent social policy, the myriad insults visited by a given oppressor upon the oppressed?”
To this I think the answer is ‘no.’ Because apartheid is structurally a system of exclusivity, its apparent advantages (freedom from oppressive gazes/harrassment, from annoyances/inconvenience, etc) it is foundationally predicated on making a set of things temporarily invisible. There is relief in this when those things are patriarchal oppression. But it is a fiction of relief, not only because those things still pervade outside of the quarantined sector, but also because it assumes the possibility of quarantine, which is not truly realizable. Many of the women on this beach with me are perhaps endorses of the patriarchal male gaze; they are perhaps sizing up my physical insufficiencies, commenting or snickering on my cellulite. Has the gaze really been eliminated? No.
Further, and as was my original objections, when children are among the ‘things’ excluded, women are more disproportionately effected/de facto excluded. I realize this is a product of a patriarchal system we would do well to subvert, but the very fact of a segregated beach is a product of the self-same system. In other words, to say the inconveniencing of women is a lame excuse because it is predicated on patriarchy is to say that the beach itself is a lame idea since it is predicated on patriarchy.
A New London School Where Boys Can Be Boys And Girls Can Be Girls:
Middle school classes, where boys and girls will get targeted instruction, and boys will find that sitting is optional.
New federal regulations in effect since November are providing more freedom for public schools to offer single-sex classes. Bennie Dover is one of several schools trying single-sex classrooms as a way of providing more opportunities within public schools and narrowing the achievement gap between boys and girls.
Since I’m not all that clever, I’d like you folks to critically assess this school segregation plan. I feel it is a huge step in the wrong direction for a host of reasons. What do you think?
Hope I’m not out of line here. Please accept my apologies if I shouldn’t post like this. Though I would really want you people’s insights.
I provided this link:
http://www.theday.com/re_print.aspx?re=1e41ec96-ea3f-4e2e-bec5-8f896b986fbb
What about the inconvenience of those of us who wish to be in a quiet adult space from time to time? Do our opinions and preferences not matter because we aren’t mothers? Hardly fair.
Not that long ago I watched as a 50-ish waitress nearly broke her arm falling over a toddler who had been let run loose all over the restaurant. She had a tray full of food - heavy dishes, coffee, breakfast food - and nearly broke her neck trying not to land on the child itself. That kid had been running wild for a solid thirty minutes, and the parents acted like the waitress was at fault. They never even inquired whether she was okay, even though she was clearly in pain and in tears when she left the room. I’m thinking that waitress might enjoy going somewhere without screaming toddlers on her day off. Just a guess.
“will the overthrow of patriarchy result in a world order that obviates the perceived need for apartheid?”
Certainly, as men are not inherently obnoxious leering self-important pricks - that is a product of the patriarchy. If one takes away their power and their cultural impetus to perform power, won’t they learn to behave nicely on the beach and everywhere else?
“What about the inconvenience of those of us who wish to be in a quiet adult space from time to time? Do our opinions and preferences not matter because we aren’t mothers? Hardly fair.”
Give me a fucking break. A) because as you have demonstrated in the previous thread, you are aware of many child-free venue; presumably, your very own home is a quiet adult space that you can go to from time to time, B) because the equalizing or inconvenience that you are doing here is flawed. You may be inconvenienced by badly behaved children at eateries or beaches, etc, but I doubt you are often told you *can’t* go somewhere because you don’t have a kid in tow, C) I am not able to construe your subjection to the presence of children as a legitimate feminist complaint. I am, however, able to construe the segregation of the childfree from the mothers and children as a feminist matter.
As far as utoptian theories go, I’d like to think that post-patriarchy it would not be such a loaded and potentially dangerous act to ask someone to change their behavior, and so some of those apartheids could be avoided by simple communication of needs and wants.
Jezebella, isn’t that exactly Twisty’s point? The patriarchy oppresses children, and they act out because they’re in pain. Where might the waitress go to escape the entire patriarchy?
Is it actually apartheid if, as an oppressed class, you decide to create a delineated recreational space into which the oppressor may not bumble? Apartheid worked the other way round, and rather more seriously. The use of the word here somewhat demeans the struggle of black South Africans for many horrific years by comparing them to some Italian men who aren’t allowed to ogle the bella signorinas on a specific and short stretch of coastline.
Anyway, yes, separatism has its limits. But, Rachel, I don’t think anyone imagines that the segregated beach will eliminate the male gaze in a wider sense or change society. It’s just a place for a little time off.
As for the question of kids, I agree with Twisty and Shulamith Firestone on this one. In a post-patriarchal society, there would be no need to separate kids from women because the former wouldn’t be half so irritating. Of course, in a post-patriarchal society, there would also be no need to segregate, or even distinguish, women from men.
So the beach is a stopgap, and one that only exists as a coping strategy within patriarchy. Perhaps it’s a retrograde one, perhaps it’s an ideologically unsound one; but I bet loads of women love it. And if it’s just about making women’s lives easier for right now and giving them a space to be left alone, I would have thought a bit of time off from being a serf in the womenandchildren caste would be part of the attraction.
Why not also have a family beach just out of earshot, predicated on the basis of no entry for adults without a child? That would exclude a good proportion of the leering pervs and paedophiles, and would allow anyone who has found themselves in the position of nuclear parent to let the little monsters off the leash for a bit in relative safety. I don’t see any reason to exclude bona fide dads or other male carers from a child-friendly beach.
That kid had been running wild for a solid thirty minutes, and the parents acted like the waitress was at fault. They never even inquired whether she was okay
This, I think, has far more to do with the bullshit permissive parenting that’s far too common these days. Every action junior makes is just an expression of hir unique and precious snowflake-ness. Setting healthy boundaries has all of a sudden become a major roadblock in early childhood development. Ick.
FYI, I quite like toddlers. They’re totally tactless, there’s no predicting them, their sense of fun is totally whacked, they say hilarious stuff. Of course these are all the reasons that they can be a total pain to other people too, so I appreciate it when parents actually, you know, parent.
“It is my firm belief that although children are not born with an innate sense of propriety and obeisance to the bizarro social order currently imposed, neither is there inherent in the human species a biological imperative to behave neurotically, except when neurosis is imposed by crippling external forces. Which it is.”
Twisty, THIS is why I love you so much! It is not only that I agree whole-heartedly, but that you explain it so succinctly. I have tried time and time again to explain to folks that children are, in fact, people and deserve to be treated thusly. However they always seem to feel that one is not fully human until they have learned to sublimate their anger at their own oppression. Lipstick and high heels, anybody?
“So the beach is a stopgap, and one that only exists as a coping strategy within patriarchy. Perhaps it’s a retrograde one, perhaps it’s an ideologically unsound one; but I bet loads of women love it. And if it’s just about making women’s lives easier for right now and giving them a space to be left alone, I would have thought a bit of time off from being a serf in the womenandchildren caste would be part of the attraction.”
I agree with this, but I would argue that it’s potentially more than just a stopgap. Don’t you think that the very experience of being at a women-only beach, of enjoying the sun and waves without constantly being reminded of one’s sex-class status, might be politicizing? Cause I’m thinking a lot of women might never have experienced such a thing, and might not recognize how empowerful it could make them feel. Sorry if I’m repeating from the last thread, which I haven’t yet read.
I’m in complete agreement with Rachel’s first comment, about segregated spaces producing only an illusion of freedom from oppression, whether it be patriarchal or otherwise.
Furthermore, I think they may lead to a dangerous outcome, where the victim is blamed for any harassment that ensues when she leaves the designated oppression-free apartheid zone. (”Well, she was on the mixed-sex subway car/not wearing her veil/wearing a bikini on the mixed-sex beach… what did she expect?”)
On the other hand, what if we imagined a situation where there were enough of these patriarchy-free venues for women to spend enough consecutive time there that they could actually begin to believe that freedom from harassment ought to be the default condition? What if they then took this new knowledge of themselves as fully human back into the wider world, and demanded changes, under the threat of secession? Sure, the Patriarchy would do like any other regime under threat would do: clamp down quickly and brutally.
But… what if the revolution were armed?
In my albeit limited experience, children in traditional societies are much better behaved than American children. They probably are significantly less neurotic for not living in nuclear families and not being the center of attention, but I would not say that they are any less oppressed.
I found the children I knew in Paraguay to be an absolute delight. They were very well behaved, yet still curious and engaged. I would love for my child to behave the way those children did. But I couldn’t treat my child the way they treat their children. And I wouldn’t want him to grow up to be as subservient and risk averse as many of those children (in a poor, rural village) did.
I don’t really know what the answer is. We claim that in a post patriarchal world children would not be the holy terrors some of them can be some of the time. But we also blame permissive parenting for such behavior. Wouldn’t a world in which children aren’t oppressed have to be a permissive world for those children?
I am not advocating the oppression of children. I just don’t know what this future world would look like. My son is still quite young, so I don’t know yet how this will play out in our lives.
I live in a world of women and many have children. Some are lesbians that did AI, some are women who used to be married but have abandoned that life and now live happily as lesbians and raise their children from the previous relationships together. Some are single mothers, some are still married, while others are still young and bucking the traditions of my culture, have chosen to either postpone or completely forgo motherhood. A few are just crusty, kick ass women who would sooner wear a big ol flowered bonnet that be pregnant. Some are white although most are not. Most of us had our children young and many of us because of cultural differences were not really exposed to feminism until later in life. But here we are, with children, trying to find our way. I admit that my response on the other thread was based in my experience of white women often being repulsed by women of color with our children and they seem quick (as one poster on the other thread) to provide a definition of “feminism” that excludes women unlike themselves. White women wielding their privilege are annoying at best but blindly destructive at their worst. Their sense of entitlement is amazing and although it may provide an ersatz feeling of power and liberation I truly believe that none is free until all are free and their actions at the expense of women (especially women of color) and children, while providing a self-deluding medicated state, does nothing to bring about real change. To flippantly state that having kids is a choice so suck it up completely ignores the reality of many less privileged women who desperately need feminism. There are many people who choose to sequester themselves from lives they find distasteful but just like blacks at the lunch counter, children in the pool or on the beach need to be seen and tolerated even if they exhibit manners that make you uncomfortable. Yours is not the standard to which all must conform. Yours is not the definition we must all embrace. There has to be room for other voices and other lives. To embrace prejudice as a means to an end makes me wonder what kind of end that path will create.
Children are probably banned from the beach to prevent the inevitable legal issues that would follow if unaccompanied minors were to visit the beach without permission, or to prevent minors from being exposed to nudity for some religious reason that a country with a Roman Catholic majority might be more inclined to put into law than say, the USA. The only nude beach I know of in my state (Mass) allows families and singles, which means children and adults who might be sexual predators are mixed. Perhaps Italy has the right idea after all?
Actually, I spoke too quickly. At an all female beach, allowing children would not endanger the children to the high percentage that allowing children at a mixed-gender beach would. Basically, the profile sexual predator is a single adult male. There would be none of those at the all-female beach. I think YOUNG children should be allowed, because their mothers should not be excluded from the beach on the basis of having children. To assume that all women can materialize some sort of child-sitting service whenever they want to go to the beach is inane. Those young children should simply have to follow the rules of behavior like all the other beach residents.
“Why not also have a family beach just out of earshot, predicated on the basis of no entry for adults without a child? That would exclude a good proportion of the leering pervs and paedophiles”
Most pedophiles are married men with kids.
Didn’t this all get thrashed out in the last round of feminism, with the upshot being that discrimination against children was acknowledged to be discrimination against mothers and thus sexist? So feminist conferences all provided creches and political discussion continued.
Women-only, women-run space is a powerful tool for women to reclaim our power from men. There is a huge taboo in patriarchy for women to separate ourselves from men as male supremacy is built on stolen female energy and men need constant contact to maintain their supply. I don’t suppose this particular beach will be that subversive as it is owned by a man but it must give Italian women a nice rest from the constant ogling from Italian men.
Hampstead women’s pond sounds much more fun:
http://www.charlottecooper.net/docs/pool/pool_hampstead.htm
Kali said:
Hmm. Good point. But most married (or unmarried) men with kids aren’t paedophiles.
CafeSiren said:
Also a good point. OK, I’m now reconsidering my previous notions of harmless all-women beachside bliss.
Speaking only for myself, I’m lazy and selfish, and the idea that I might not at any moment throughout my day have a space that is perfectly adjusted to my needs is vexing for me. It’s all about me and what I want, after all.
I think the problem is one of entitlement, certainly, but also of independance as a worthy goal, because it’s my independance, my autonomy, my right to the free enjoyment of my own pursuits in any space I occupy that has given me the idea that children are a nuisance. If I had more of a sense of responsibility to my fellow humans, be they big or little, I would not so cavalierly wish them into the cornfield.
Perhaps we could expand the IBTP Foundation’s mission from activism to the formation of an enclave for women and children where everyone takes some responsibility for each other’s comfort, safety and well-being? Perhaps we could do this at Twisty’s house, because I, for one, would love to meet her.
Let me clarify: in the aforementioned toddler-tripping-waitress incident, I do not blame the child. I blame the parents for letting him run loose, unsupervised, in a crowded restaurant.
Kids will be kids; they get rowdy sometimes. I like them fine in small groups. I get along with children better than adults, most of the time. However, I do NOT like being around children whose parents have no intention of reining them in appropriately, or who expect them to sit still and be quiet in boring adult spaces while boring adults ignore them. I just think it’s civilized to yank the kids up, get your food to go, and hit the road if your kid has lost her patience and needs to run around.
I am sure all of you have perfect, darling angel children who never do anything annoying at all. It’s all of those OTHER children I would prefer not to be seated next to.
The thing is, post-patriarcy, non-oppressed, non-neurotic children will still be little bundles of energy and will need to just run around in circles now and again. And in that same culture, there will be cranky middle-aged women who want a little peace and quiet now and again.
Somebody suggested that I was free to stay home if I didn’t want to be around kids. Nope. I have new next-door neighbors who house anywhere from 6-10 hollerin’ children on any given day. These kids are barely, if at all, supervised. They stand in the yard and have screaming contests, these toddlers. They make a LOT OF FUCKING NOISE. ALL DAY LONG. RIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW. So you can see, I’m a leetle bit sensitive on this topic right now.
Yeah, I agree that children are an oppressed class. After all, they are below women on the patriarchy hierarchy. Men-> fetuses-> women-> children-> animals-> plants-> earth (air, soil, and water).
I am very attuned to the mistreatment on non-human animals. I love them. I mourn for them. All our society can do is eat the tasty ones, kill the vicious ones, corral up the ones who are too stupid to be afraid of us, and tax the ones who live in our homes. I think that birds and squirrels and alley cats that roam around the streets are my neighbors. I’ve always been very sensitive to animals and their plight. But that doesn’t mean I think it’s okey dokey for a dog to be left out all night to bark and keep up every neighbor within a two block radius. Sure, animals are oppressed, and I love animals, but I want some peace and quiet, and I would have no compunction about taking someone to court over a nuisance animal.
I am very sensitive to noise. I don’t like crowds of people for that reason (among others). I even requested permission from my boss to show up for work 15 minutes late during the school year, b/c the bus I took to work was the one the highschoolers rode. It would be standing room only, and no matter whether there were elderly people on the bus or a woman with small children, these teenagers would say the most vile disgusting things. By the time I got to work, I was stressed out.
I’m noticing in just my lifetime (I’m 37) a lowering of my quality of life when it comes to the public sphere. There are 6 billion humans on the planet, about 300 million of which are in the U.S. People can only really relate on a meaningful level with 150 people. Coincidentally, primitive tribes operate around that number, give or take. We’re living in completely unnatural circumstances. People gripe about the isolation of modern life, but it’s a defense mechanism against the constant barrage of strangers. If I were a primitive human living in a tribe, I could walk for miles and only see fellow tribespeople or kin. Now, I walk from my apartment to the busstop and see a dozen complete strangers, some of whom may actually wish to do me harm. It’s not natural to be living this way, but this is what we have to deal with.
I stopped going to the library on Sundays b/c EVERYONE goes there on Sundays. When I was growing up, I was taught to be QUIET in the library, but apparently that’s not enforced anymore. I’ve had to stop going b/c even the ADULTS were driving me crazy. There was the old man with the phlegm, the one guy who kept sighing every 30 seconds. I go to the library for peace and quiet, and if I’m the least bit cranky, I can be driven batty. So, I avoid the library on Sundays.
When it comes to the public sphere, there are two parts. One part is that we need to remember that it’s impossible to be in public without someone doing something that we might find offensive. So, we need to work at being less offended. The second part is that we need to try not to offend people as much as possible. Some possible offensive behaviors are smoking upwind of someone, cussing and swearing, being overly loud, doing rude things like cutting in line, etc. I agree that children are oppressed and that it takes time for them to learn to behave in public, and we should try to overlook things. But it’s also the responsibility of the parent or caretaker to reign in as much as possible behavior that may disturb others.
Marcy, I’m sensitive to noise, too. I have to wear my mp3 player to the store or I get all hinky about the hideous beeping, booping, hollering, and whining. Give it a try. Better your own soundtrack than the one that’s making you crazy.
Marcy and Jezebella - me, too, on the sensetivity to noise. I wear my mp3 player in noisy and annoying public spaces, often with something like Rage Against the Machine playing. For some reason, this makes me feel calm and happy.
“sensitivity” - you know I even looked at it before I posted and decided I’d spelled it right. It must be brain damage from all that loud music.
If I ever open a store selling severely Modernist, hard-to-use plumbing fixtures it will be called Daunting Faucets.
When a puppy leaps all over my female dog and gets annoying she gives a growl, and a nip if need be. Young ones have tons of energy, and they should run, jump and play, but it can be irritating to adults. In a cooperative society, everyone should be tolerant of different ages and needs, but we need age appropriate time too.
I would argue that the pressure on women to like and tolerate children is part of the patriarchal expectation that women accommodate everything all the time and never make any demands of their own.
And speaking of being antifeminist, the shared loathing of the (white, yuppy) mothers and the male staff at my pool toward the single (white, nerdy) women who dared to object to the new Kid’s Swim is patriarchy in action. They might as well be chanting “burn the witch.”
It’s not about objecting to the children’s existence. The kids take over four of the six lanes previously reserved for lap swim and jump all over making waves and throwing balls on your head. It’s pretty much a nightmare for us serious swimmers, most of whom are women.
If there is a class and/or entitlement issue, it’s the yuppy mothers who are the ones who seem to me to feel entitled in this case. They don’t want to take their kids to the Y with all the riff raff, so of course we should all be thrilled with Johnny’s bomb dive.
Also, teachers don’t necessarily hate kids just because we need a break. I happen to enjoy children more than anyone I know, but hasn’t anyone ever heard of a busman’s holiday?
There sure is a lot of emotion around all this. It’s dismaying to me that we can’t seem to put ourselves in other women’s predicaments and meet somewhere in the middle. Meanwhile the men lounge by the pool reading the paper or ogling the eye candy.
I don’t feel at all confused about why some people don’t like to be around children - they are noisy, you are sensitive to noise; they do a lot of running around, they make spaces feel frenetic; etc. Continual justifications as to how your personal space/life is affected, thereby justifying your desire to exempt yourself from exposure to kids are, to my mind, entirely beside the point of “embiggening” the discussion, as Twisty put it.
And one aspect of said point is not that you shouldn’t feel annoyed by kids, but that the patriarchal system in which we live essentially mandates that you feel annoyed by them. This mandation is enforced by a societal structure that 1) does not supporting a culture that allows children to grow up free from unnecessary neurosis 2) denies children a well-developed relationship with adult units or “culture” at large beyond their than parental units 3) does not afford parental units adequate social support such that they can pursue fully realized lives beyond parenting, thus rendering them better exampels for children 4) does not romanticize childhood to the effect of voiding it of any and all intellectually engaging experience, 5) does not support spaces (public, retail, governmental, etc) that are kid friendly beyond those space that are kid-exclusive (amusement parks, etc) and therefore marginal 6) insists that any inconvenience children manifest is the fault of the parents (by which we nearly always tacitly mean mother) for not “parenting” properly without indicting the non-intuitive system to which the child is asked to adapt.
Etc. All this is to say, the issue isn’t to explain why you rather avoid kids, or to necessarily force yourself into more exposure. This issue is recognizing that the very fact that you don’t want to be around kids is the product of the patriarchy.
My #4 above (and I do love lists) should read: “romanticizes childhood to the effect of voiding it of any and all intellectually engaging experience,”
I got a little carried away with the “does not”s
Addendum: I just realized that I used the forbidden elipses. Sorry. Just trying for some drama, I guess.
No. Because reproduction is no more a choice than sex or marriage is. Anyway, we need the next generation. Well, I do, even though I dislike the larval stage.
The childless don’t want to be housebound, either.
There’s just too much wide-brush kind of shit going on here. And way too much “I just hate kids” whining, without real thought about it in the context of the patriarchy. I’ve been at this too long, I guess, I’m feeling utterly intolerant of ignorance, and the thought of having to try to educate ya’ll is just exhausting. I see some really good analysis, and then it’s just ignored and tromped over with reactionary crap that I wouldn’t be surprised to hear from MEN.
Now you wouldn’t want to deprive the little lads of their first lessons in female anatomy, would you? Nothing irritates me more than little boys gazing their fill in the woman’s locker room. Or even little girls, to tell you the truth. Most mothers teach their children to be discreet, but some don’t. Some have this odd belief that the whole world is a “learning experience” for their kids. Mothers of sons are the major offenders along those lines.
I think a woman’s only beach is a great idea. Just because it’s outdoors should make no difference.
Hattie, nothing bothers you more than little boys and girls looking at bodies in the locker room? Firstly, this is an nenviable set of irks you have. Secondly, is it at all possible that children can look innocently, like actually look, at bodies, because they are there and without the all the trappings of the gaze? Does forbidding children from looking at bodies do *anything* to naturalize them or suggest they are anything other than tittilating objects?
“Little boys gazing their fill”??!!! “Mothers of sons are the major offenders”????!!!! What the hell.
Patti, if you don’t think a ten-year-old boy has been exposed enough to patriarchy to be ogling in the locker room, you’ve got another think coming. I can’t say there is a firm line where boys shouldn’t be in locker rooms, but, you know: eeww. I don’t want a pre-teen boy looking at me naked. I just don’t. I realize no mother of a boy wants to think he’s ogling (Not My Nigelito?), but they do.
I think little girls probably would benefit from seeing the variety of possibilities of the adult female body, so that she doesn’t think all women have to look like the semi-naked ones she sees in the media.
Catherine Martell: “Apartheid worked the other way round, and rather more seriously. The use of the word here somewhat demeans the struggle of black South Africans for many horrific years by comparing them to some Italian men who aren’t allowed to ogle the bella signorinas on a specific and short stretch of coastline.”
While I somewhat agree with you on the implications, the word ‘apartheid’ is actually Afrikaans, and in that language literally means “separate/apart”. So the use of the word here is appropriate, I think, in the same way that the use of other words from other languages, vis-Ã -vis (ha) French, etc are in everyday speech.
I also think the implications are correct and do not demean the South African (it was not only the blacks who fought or suffered, but minority Indian and Coloured populations as well), but, in fact, highlight it as a shining example of what people can achieve in the face of oppression. And, as we are talking about exclusivity and separatism in a radical feminist light, I find it to be highly appropriate.
I think it’s pretty ridiculous for anyone to say that they like, or don’t like, kids as a class.
To me, kids are people, and that means that I like a few of them, but mostly not, as with most categories of people. I don’t think that’s because I’m exceptionally cranky, just willing to admit to some of my prejudices. I like people that are reflective and authentic, two things most people are very afraid to be. And most afraid of all during the school years, for reasons Twisty has pointed out.
As someone said in different words upthread, toddlers are often reflective, authentic, and utterly unpredictable, and can be the very best of company at times - but it seem like most kids start clamping down on that type of behavior somewhere in the 5, 6 or 7 neighborhood. Maybe it has something to do with starting “real” school around then, as opposed to pre-school?
As for the Italian beach, my thought is that maybe they need some kid-free days and some women-and-children days, or times of day, with the kids that can go being six and under. I know it’s not working so well for the lap swimmers at roamaround’s pool, but I think at a beach most women, moms or not, would be okay with not going every day, so maybe it could work.
Most of the time when someone refers to permissive parenting I think that what they are seeing is neglect. It is easier to let children do whatever they want than it is to teach them what they need to know. It is easier to give a child whatever they want than it is to teach them to negotiate or make informed choices. Most children act out because it is their needs, not their wants, that are not being met.
“There’s just too much wide-brush kind of shit going on here. And way too much “I just hate kids†whining, without real thought about it in the context of the patriarchy.”
Damn right. Feminists without children getting all defensive about their awful, terrible, annoyance-filled lives due to the bad parenting, imposing needs, irresponsible attitudes of other mothers and the atrocious behavior of their children — which they insist on carting around everywhere! Even the pool! — sound far too much like the assholes out there who complain about how many parking spaces are given to handicapped vehicles or, for that matter, the white and male folks who complain about the preferential treatment being given to women and people of color. Perhaps we need a new term? “Child-free privilege” sounds about right to me. Once those of us who have it start owning it maybe we can actually get some work done.
It’s actually funny now, because I realize that in your own post, Catherine Martell, you used the Italian “bella signorinas” in an english language context. The same goes for the word “aparthied”, only, it just happens to be more politically weighted than “bella signorinas”.
I also meant to refer to the South African struggle, not just ‘South African’.
Actually Frumious B brought up an interesting point. Do we need the next generation? I mean, do we really expect the human race to go on and on forever? Because I sure as shit don’t. Perhaps we’d all be better off if everyone in the world made very deliberate attempts to limit themselves to one or two children. Especially the way we’re mucking up the environment right now. (And now I’m flashing back to ‘Children of Men.’Good movie, by the way.)
Perhaps marriage and sex and children aren’t a choice for everyone. That’s a damn shame, because they should be, and we know what to blame if they’re not.The question here is, as things stand now, do we shoot for the ideal and say everyone should be welcome to the beach because we’re all human? Kids should be allowed because they’re an oppressed class too? Only women because women have the right to go someplace without their kids screaming at them for attention for twenty-four hours solid?
Which brings me to my next comment — why is it that kids scream for their MAMA’s attention twenty-four hours a day? Would women need beaches where kids weren’t allowed if the men who sired the little dears were more involved in their lives? Or if society had advanced to the point where kids didn’t have to be neurotic balls of neediness?
My opinion is that in the world we inhabit today there is no ideal compromise. In our society, women are expected to have children, to love them, and to bury their own desires for the sake of their children’s needs. (And I’m not even getting into their husband’s needs here!) These expectations are not made of men. If they were, this wouldn’t be a feminist issue. So let women have a child-free beach, preferably with a supervised child beach nearby where they can drop off their young ones if they have no one to watch them for an hour or two. Because although we all want to think that children are wonderful, the truth is, the way they’re socialized now, they can quickly become insufferable with their screaming and running. Blame the patriarchy, but in the meantime, let women get a little rest.
Personally, I like kids the same way I like everybody else. That is, some are simply delightful and others I’d just as soon drop-kick into the nearest river.
“Which brings me to my next comment — why is it that kids scream for their MAMA’s attention twenty-four hours a day? ”
I swear to god, if I made this sort of crass generalization, even in the service of an ideological point, about any other group in society I would get flamed out of the blogs I read.
Rachel posted this:
“Which brings me to my next comment — why is it that kids scream for their MAMA’s attention twenty-four hours a day? â€
I swear to god, if I made this sort of crass generalization, even in the service of an ideological point, about any other group in society I would get flamed out of the blogs I read.
The only group who demands mama’s attention as much or more than children are Teh Menz and you can post your blame of the patriarchy that Teh Menz never grow up and out of being attention whores here 24/7.
I don’t see the point of banning kids from the women’s beach. Unless the kids in question are adolescent or teenage boys, who can be champion oglers if they’re not properly trained. I’m sure mothers of young children would like access to an ogle/body-judgment-free beach too. Besides, I’ve always felt kids and dogs made beaches more fun. Who wants to just lie there in the sun or wade in the waves? When I go to the beach, I want to see kids and dogs getting rowdy.
As far as women-only spaces, obviously we shouldn’t need them, but until dudes learn to behave themselves, it’s good to have places where you can get a break from their bullshit. I’ve never been to Italy, but from what I hear it’s notorious for ogling and groping. Just setting places aside like this might make the point to them that when we say we don’t enjoy being leered at, we actually mean it. Maybe at long last they’ll finally start to get it through their thick heads.
The camera operator sure had a thing for that brunette, did he? It might be wrong to presume the camera operator was a he, but I can’t imagine a woman repeatedly going back to one subject like that.
I don’t have a problem with children per se. I deal with children well and talk to them like people. What I find really annoying are the people that immediately start screaming “what about the CHILDREN?” every time something goes wrong. The oil refinery has a toxic spill “what about the children living downwind?”, the public park gets closed for maintenance “What about the children?” An ice cream shop proprietor posted a small sign asking that children “Please use your inside voice” was pilloried. Give me a break. Yes, children are people too. No argument. But I am supposed to be well behaved. So can they. It can be taught. It should be taught. By BOTH parents. A child-free zone on a beach is not the problem. The assumption that children who have not been taught the basic politeness that the rest of us have should have the right to run roughshod over us polite people is ridiculous. If a child kicks sand on me and I ask little Johnny to please go over their and kick, I should be able to expect that Johnny will not start screaming at me and kick more sand on me and THEN have mother-hen mommy telling me I am a bad woman becasue I don’t think her kid is the cat’s meow!
“Mother-hen mommy”. What is up with the language people feel so free to use about all this???? Of course he shouldn’t kick sand on you!!! Quit mother-bashing!!!!
Rachel: “And one aspect of said point is not that you shouldn’t feel annoyed by kids, but that the patriarchal system in which we live essentially mandates that you feel annoyed by them.”
In my neck of the patriarchy, the system mandates that I fawn over children and wait on them. Not doing so marks me as a deviant female. My emphasis in this discussion is on the antifeminist dictate that women’s natural role is to want and care for children, which is another point brought up by Twisty:
“Is it antifeminist to argue that women-and-children are designed by nature as an indissoluble amalgam?”
I agree that children are oppressed as a class and that society forces them, and thus adults, into neuroses. We’re arguing different things.
Angry Young Femme: I’m aware of the derivation of the word ‘apartheid’, but I think the understanding of it in its political context is more significant than its literal meaning. Though, also, I was teasing. Not that this was necessarily obvious, but I believe Twisty was deliberately stirring the pot - one of the many things I love her for doing on a regular basis - and I trust that she is more than able to cope with me poking her in the ribs for doing so.
And yes, mi dispiace: I shamelessly Anglicised the Italian. But you’ve already noted how that doesn’t matter because it was a linguistic joke rather than the reassignment of a loaded political concept. Also, my Italian is appalling.
Point taken, though I could go on for some time about the complex racial tensions inherent in the Indian struggle in South Africa if I wanted to make everyone never read one of my posts again.
Yes, except for what you seem to have missed (apologies if I’m mistaken) is that we’re not talking about the struggle of women against patriarchy. The apartheid in question is about barring men from the beaches. The comparison that is being made is not, therefore, between women’s struggle to be seen as human and non-white South Africans’ struggles to be seen as human - that comparison I might well have gone along with. The comparison is being made between apartheid - the deliberate separation and subjugation of non-white peoples - and the exclusion from Italian beaches of men.
If you think that the Italian men’s struggle to be fully and freely included in the beaches is a shining example of a fight against oppression and directly comparable to the struggle of non-white South Africans against apartheid, then you’re quite right that the use of the word is appropriate. Naturally, I think the complainants in the beach case are a bunch of whining ninnies. And, if you have chosen to interpret Twisty as meaning that the women in question are going in for some form of voluntary apartheid, then I would jump up and down shouting a lot about the concept of voluntary apartheid being a different kettle of fish altogether from enforced apartheid. It’s called separatism, and it is just dandy if you choose it.
Anyway, I would stick a giant winky emoticon on the end of this post if I didn’t know that Twisty would eviscerate me for doing so. I do love getting my inner pedant out for a quick once around the block of an evening. Thank you for the challenge!
On another note, I have a lot of sympathy with Antelope’s and Silence’s points above, and I think by saying that kids scream for mama’s attention 24 hours a day Silence was indicating a widespread trend that many children have been deliberately socialised to perpetuate, rather than blaming this behaviour on inherent child dreadfulness. In fact, I think s/he was at pains to point out that kids vary between delightful and dreadful just like all other people. Apologies if I’m speaking out of turn here: I’m sure Silence can defend him/herself, but that was just how I read it.
I would argue that the pressure on women to like and tolerate children is part of the patriarchal expectation that women accommodate everything all the time and never make any demands of their own.
I think roamaround has a point here. I don’t hate children, but I’m not keen on the idea that I’m expected to always like them either. Like isn’t a strong enough word, I’m expected to coo and make a big fuss over them, and gush about how many I want to have some day. Once they reach an age where I can understand what they’re trying to say to me, and we can talk about books, games or dinosaurs, I get along great with them, but until then they just make me uncomfortable. My husband gets along with all kids, but nobody expects anything of him, me they treat like a monster if I don’t automatically start acting “maternal”.
I’ve got rather unique problems, I get migraines so easily that I have to avoid going out anywhere where there might be a child who could scream. No movies, no restaurants, no shopping except after midnight, no cookouts, no beach, no park, no library, no job, my life has shrunk to the four walls of my apartment because if there are childfree spaces, I haven’t found any yet. I’m not advocating for the complete removal of children and mothers from the public sphere, but it would be nice if there were a few places to go have some quiet adult time. Surely even parents can get behind the idea of having a place that’s available where they can get away from kids for a bit. I don’t think having one childfree space out of thousands is going to hurt anyone.
As to the women-only beach, I don’t know. I think being in a man-free space wouldn’t protect me from having people call me a fat cow and yell at me for daring to appear in public. Just because you can’t see men leering at you doesn’t mean it’s an patriarchy-free space. I’m sure there’s the same amount of fertilizer being shoveled, it’s just in the form of gossip about fashion and adherence to femininity. There’s nowhere on Earth where one can take a vacation from the patriarchy.
Apropos of this topic, here is an excerpt from the comedian George Carlin’s “You Are All Diseased”:
“”And what’s with all this talk about children? Save the children, help the children, what about the children…well, you know what I say? Fuck the children! Fuck ‘em, they’re getting entirely too much attention already!”
thebewilderness said, “It is easier to let children do whatever they want than it is to teach them what they need to know. It is easier to give a child whatever they want than it is to teach them to negotiate or make informed choices.”
I’m not so sure about this one. I think part of the problem of parenting is that society places such a huge onus on parents as pedegogical tools. I think psychoanalysis is pretty much right in this case–after-the-fact, we can go back and analyze why something happened, but it’s never predictable. In the same way, I don’t think anyone can predict the effect of “teaching” a child something upon that child. Patriarchy doesn’t work because we were “taught” it. It works by means of force, ie., oppression. Society is not simply a “good teacher” of patriarchy, and individuals as students do not learn in that way. Instead, individuals are forced to exist as best they can in a system based upon dominance.
Really, why are people reactionary to women wanting a few acres of nude beach to themselves?
Why NOT an adult only beach?
Hey, you guys, support diversity! Some women want a childfree environment that is not a smoky bar, which seems to be your only opinion these days. In fact, sometimes I say I want to sit in the smoking section just so I don’t have to sit with kids. I don’t smoke. I just crave adults only from time to time.
Patriarchy has nothing to do with the craving for adult-only environments where I can be rebellous if I want and talk with adults with adult things without spelling.
Stop your demands that I be the same as you. But I will say it is good for women from time to time to be in a child free zone, so they don’t have to mother their own or other people’s kids. So they can cut themselves free of that constant monitoring they have to do with kids around - that divided attention wondering if little Jeffery will stab himself in the eye, are they hungry, are they bored, are they stimulated, are they too stimulated, are they annoying the woman with the one breast at the nude beach…women take responsibility for everything with kids around. Give us a few acres of childfree from time to time.
Even the old matriarchy cultures had women only retreats, for if nothing else, spiritual renewal.
If you want to be with kids…fine, allow us that want a childfree zone a few acres. Allow that diversity in the world.
Well Sean, there’s an old saying that children learn what they live. My experience, and what I see happening around me, is the managing of children in service to the parents needs.
Children begin learning the dominance/submission lesson of the patriarchy the day they are born.
They absolutely learn the lessons of the patriarchy as soon as they come into the world, but the patriarchy is not an individual. Parents, however, are individuals, and as much as anyone would like their children to be “good,” this is not something over which they have direct control. The incredible variety of input along with the mysteries of the individual psyche prevent any parent from effectively predicting his/her child’s personality at “maturity.” Anyway, after “maturity,” the individual can still change and change, beyond whatever the parent raised them to be.
“But… what if the revolution were armed?” - CafeSiren
Surely you jest.
Sean:Parents, however, are individuals, and as much as anyone would like their children to be “good,†this is not something over which they have direct control.
You seem to be saying that you can teach a child to eat with a fork, but you cannot teach them not to stab you with it. The nature/nurture argument.
Parents have almost exclusive control over the experiences of their children for the first few years of their lives. During that time children learn from their parents how to think about things. Not necessarily what to think, but how to approach thinking. Children are dismissed, persistently, and consistently, by their parents and other adults. Not surprisingly, most people are very dismissive of each other, and have to work hard at not being ‘instinctively’ dismissive. This and the previous thread are full of examples. I don’t think there is anything instinctive about it, it is, rather, one of our earliest learning experiences.
Patriarchy doesn’t work because we were “taught†it. It works by means of force, ie., oppression. Society is not simply a “good teacher†of patriarchy, and individuals as students do not learn in that way. Instead, individuals are forced to exist as best they can in a system based upon dominance.
said Sean
I think it does. Submit, or die. That is the lesson of the patriarchy. Sez I
Just took me having a second child to make me throw that tabula rasa thing out the window. Mine were different from the day they were born.
I have to wonder about all this contempt of children, no matter how artfully veiled.
When one is victimized and oppressed, unless the nature of the oppression is brought to light,and fully understood by the victim, the natural tendency is for the once-oppressed to perpetrate the same oppression in order to consolidate the illusion of ‘power.’
That’s a complicated way of saying we remember the oppression we were subjected to as children, and as soon as we gain any distance or sense of power, re-enact what we were subjected to.
That’s either by parenting in a similarly repressive manner,by parenting froma powerless perspective, or by taking the stereotypical ‘child-free’ stance.
There’s no getting away from this without some serious insight and soul-searching.
Hate kids? Well, most of ‘em? It reflects the degree of oppression, overt and covert, you were subjected to as a kid.
Who in her right mind wants to be that powerless ( and slammed into submission) ever again? Let’s stay far, far away!
Hold moms and parenting in thinly-veiled contempt? Guess whose mother was subjected to societal contempt and restriction even more strongly? Guess who looked at this and decided it looked bad, but without larger context, ended up blaming the victim/s ?
Child-free beaches are trivial in the face of all of this.
I will say that for many, many women, acess to childcare is a luxury. So an ‘adult-women only’ space smack in the middle of what is typically women and children’s space strikes me as rubbing one’s socioeconomic status into the stinging eyes of one’s less well-off sisters.
Unless you really want to say “No-one currently mothering allowed. Unless she’s well-supported.”
Which kind of blows the argument about women-only spaces being nurturing safe havens for all women right out of the water for me.
I’ll re-edit this and try to clarify my points when I’m not quite so exhausted.
Go rachel! by the way.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: don’t get me started on the grownupiarchy.
A split beach would be better. That way, when I want to get away from kids (mine included) I can and I dont have to listen to someone elses screaming brat on the very very few occasions I cant actually have time to myself. Im dirt ass poor and child care, hah. Unless its free, Im shit out of luck. So when I DO actually get to get away for awhile, and adult woman only beach would be the only slice of heaven Id get in the midst of struggling to keep the electrity on and a roof over our heads. Im not child free, but damn, sometimes its nice. And no, it doesnt just stop at my kid not being around.
“children are an oppressed class. Their universal and legitimately reviled unruliness is not natural.”
Deepest apologies if anyone finds this off-topic, but the post brought it to mind and I found it incredibly apropos. Now, I just hope the darn link works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqlutnHRA3I
(If it doesn’t, then just go onto youtube and search “Neil Gaiman.” The thing I’m trying to link to is his reading of “Babycakes.” It tends to be one of the first things whenever I search his name on that site.) The story in question encapsulates so many horrific underlying ideas about social hierarchy and what can and can’t be human or worthwhile so incredibly well. I always find the growing sound of silence as he continues reading and the audience figures out that he’s serious quite amusing…in a very disturbing way.
Well, I am a mother of two kids and a grandmother, so you could hardly describe me as childless. But I still don’t like strange kids staring at me in locker rooms. I was not put on this earth to provide anatomy lessons to random young humans.
I don’t mind little toddlers, but when they get to be over six, they can wait outside.
To anyone who objects, I wish you a good stare down from a six to eight year old boy when you are 68 years old.
So about all this gym locker room business, let me tell you how my gym does it. No kids are allowed in either the mens or women’s locker rooms until they are, I think, 16 years old. No kid can participate in the gym unless they are 16 and have taken a class on safety and ettiquette.
However, the gym provides 5 generously sized “family” bathrooms that include accessible shower, private toilet stall, sinks, towels what have you. This is not only great for moms with kids but is also great for my partner who is quadriplegic and needs extra help and time. The whole mom with sons awkwardness is taken care of, and by the time those sons are able to go into the regular locker rooms, they go to the men’s.
The gym also provides a nice childcare facility on site for reasonable rates, as well as classes specifically designed for families and children. Since I can’t afford a lot of childcare, this has been the main way I get to have a bit of alone time, not to mention take a nice private shower, albeit in a room full of other women. Other classes and lap times are designed specifically for adults.
I bring this up to show that accommodating adults who would like some non-kid time and adults and kids who want to spend time together is not all that hard or unimaginable. The thing that my gym does right is to actually disallow kids from certain areas and activities BY PROVIDING SUITABLE ALTERNATIVES. This is the key to respecting the comfort levels of various people while still respecting the needs of kids and their (most of the time) mothers. Why is that hard?
Also, I said on the previous posts that while I’m a parent, I do understand the need for some adult only time. But I am rather dismayed at all the kid bashing, here. I am not going to restaurants being targeting by prepubescent food fights. I am not constantly getting sand thrown in my purse. Have I witnessed some very irritating behavior from children? Yes, from time to time. But I have also been irritated from time to time by some woman’s gross perfume or obnoxious giggling or some man’s loud misogynistic diatribes or even a crotch-sniffing dog or two. Kids don’t have the corner on these kinds of minor irritating behaviors.
I often take my kids to restaurants. I take them to more casual, kid friendly places. I expect them to sit in their chair and treat the wait staff and other customers with respect. But they are preschool age and this takes time. Some of you act like you can just talk to a 3 year old once and lay down the law and they are actually going to instantly comply with your wishes. Learning respectful behavior in public takes time and only can be practiced in public. I have taken my kids to restaurants countless times, and can only think of two incidences where they were so awful I had to remove them, pack it up and go home. So one for each kid over a course of years is not bad, I don’t think. Although when I listen to some of the comments here, I am sure that there were people in those restuarants that probably thought my kids were rotten to the core, I was a horrible parent who did not raise my kids right, and they shouldn’t be allowed to exist. Kids are not all good or all bad. Neither are parents or anyone. Kids and parents have bad days. Condemning the whole kid or mom or all children in general is being very prejudicial.
Professionally I work with developmentally disabled kids. Sometimes they don’t act appropriate in public. Some of them never will. It really makes you think about how “appropriateness” is decided and by whom. People often treat the disabled kids and adults I go to public places with as if they shouldn’t be there, they are an incredible annoyance, and have no right to exist because they aren’t up on perfect-by some arbitrary standards-ettiquette. And I just want to say, suck it up. They deal with more disrespect and annoying behaviors from the public than you’ll ever know. To some extent, kids do to.
Yes, kids need to learn to be respectful. Yes, it is okay to have adults only activities as long as their are suitable alternatives for parents with kids. And, yes, I agree with some of the commenters, and I believe, Twisty herself that find some of these blanket “I hate all children” statements to be extremely prejudicial. Blaming overpopulation, effects of the patriarchy on mothers and children, lack of adequate childcare, or whatever else on the current children right in front of you really is blaming the victim instead of the perpetrators of the oppression. And guess who that blame should fall squarely onto? IBTP
Love that Neil Gaiman story. Thanks for that.
Carol said: What I find really annoying are the people that immediately start screaming “what about the CHILDREN?†every time something goes wrong. The oil refinery has a toxic spill “what about the children living downwind?â€, the public park gets closed for maintenance “What about the children?â€
Yeah, but “children” includes boys.
From the time he started kindergarten, my kid, who is generally well behaved at home and in public spaces, became a “problem” at school. He talked out of turn. He couldn’t sit still. He made inappropriate jokes during quiet time. I dreaded parent-teacher conferences and even listening to my phone messages. I clamped down on him to the point where he dreaded listening to me. We were all miserable.
Finally one night when he was 10, and I was once again enumerating all the charges against him, he forced me to listen to him. He explained that school felt like jail. Somebody was always yelling at him to do something he didn’t even know he was supposed to do. He wasn’t allowed to talk without permission, and adults talked so much he couldn’t even think. He said, “If it was up to me I’d never go back there. I’d just learn how to do a job, then I could do the job and talk and go to the bathroom when I needed to.”
I know this can be read as the plaint of an entitled little Nigelo and/or a “boys will be boys” argument, but I think it illustrates Twisty’s point about induced neurosis. The patriarchy is set up to punish and repress the weak. Even many institutions “for” children aren’t “child-friendly”–they exist for purposes of indoctrination and control. Of course kids will react to that. I don’t think the choice is between “permissiveness” and repression, but between treating children as fully human beings who need to learn social skills and treating them as monsters who need to be controlled or banished.
Of course kids shouldn’t be allowed to run wild in restaurants. In a post-patriarchal society, someone besides the parental unit could have intervened before the situation got out of hand, because the parents wouldn’t be considered the “owners” of the child.
I keep thinking about Twisty’s proposed binary restroom system, one for neat elilminators and the other for sprinklers and litterers. Maybe the (again, post-patriarchal) solution would be to have “quiet beaches” and “running-around” beaches; “lap swim times” and “play swim times,” and so on. It’s the exclusion of an entire class of humans as unworthy to socialize with us civilized folk that’s problematic, I think.
Thank you, Catherine Martell. You hit it exactly correctly. (And yes, I’m a she.)
Frankly Rachel, I think you’re being a little too defensive. No one here is bashing you or any woman because you’re a mother. We’re here because we blame the patriarchy, not your personal choices. So kindly don’t jump down my throat or assume I’m an evil, child-hating bitch.
My emphasis was on ‘mama’ because I read the article and one of the women was quoted as saying that the beach was a place she could go without having her child scream ‘mama mama!’ at her for hours on end.
And I don’t know you or your child personally, but I have been to many public places where I have heard children doing just that. In fact, this weekend in New York, I was trying to enjoy a pastry in a cafe with my sister and the child at the other table was doing just that. His poor mother was trying to hold a conversation with a friend and her child kept screaming for attention, over and over. I’m sure she loved her son, but I also dead certain that at that moment she wished she were in an adult-only space where she could enjoy her coffee and conversation for a time. I say, until society improves and children are socialized in a way that is better and more understanding for them, we need to give women their private space just so they can relax. It’s a baby step, but damn, why does it have to be such a huge issue? Why do we have to raise such a fuss over the idea that women may want a break from children as well as from men?
Oh, right, because society says women aren’t complete until we have children, and that we have the natural instinct to nurture and console wee ones. If you’re sensing any hostility towards children in my posts, it’s directed towards that assumption, not towards the children themselves.
I love talking with children — the friendly, imaginative ones anyway. They often have such fresh insights into life and quirky ways of speaking. A month ago I was at a party and this eight-year-old girl with an absolute bush of red hair plopped herself down next to me and announced: “I have ham, I have bread. This is great!”
How can you not love a child like that?
On the other hand, I was ready to strangle the ‘mama mama’ kid at the cafe. I don’t think it’s oppressing children to expect them to mind their manners in certain public spaces. There should just be an equal number of spaces where they’re allowed to go and muck about without adult interference as well. If all people were valued equally, we’d either be able to stay in each others’ presence without pissing each other off, or we’d all have our own spaces to retreat to when we wanted peace. But the world belongs to men and we have to squabble over the scraps. That’s the bottom line. If men were expected to invest as much time in child care as women are, women wouldn’t need a child free beach because they would only be in charge of the child half the time.
And kids would be just as likely to yell ‘papa, papa’ as ‘mama, mama.’
That is, (continuing the thought from above)if they had to scream for attention at all. Maybe in an ideal world, children would feel safe enough and loved enough that they wouldn’t seek constant affirmation that they’re not going to be abandoned at any moment.
I really can’t say. The atmosphere we all breathe is so poisonous for children — for all of us — that it is almost impossible to tell what life would be like for children if the big P went down. Ditch the schools for a start, and those ghastly banal TV shows. But what then? Personally, I’d like a society where everyone has a hand in raising children and they don’t belong to their parental units. This idea that a family ‘owns’ a child really creeps me out. It gives parents the right to dress their baby up as a sunflower or a bumblebee and have people take pictures of it and sell them as postcards. Because it’s so ‘cute.’
I shudder when I see those babies-in-fuzzy-costume cards and other such trash, because folks, that’s the face of oppression. No one should force another human being to dance around on television in a diaper or dress up like a chicken for another person’s entertainment. Never mind that the human being is pre-vocal; it’s still an act of contempt towards their rights and dignity.
And sorry, I veered off the topic a little there. But yes, I’m angry at the way children get belittled in this society. I just don’t think women should automatically be the ones who have to suffer in silence for the sins of the patriarchy. Let’s put the blame squarely where it belongs.
Three cheers for the Italians.
However, it seems we’re only talking about the indulged, pampered children of the developed world here. In undeveloped countries, childhood doesn’t last long. Children learn what constitutes acceptable behaviour from being with their families or the wider community. They have responsibilities and learn skills that affluent American and European children don’t. We should expect more of children, and they’ll mostly respond to those expectations.
Meanwhile, women-only areas are a great idea. It’s complete nonsense that women should tolerate other people’s children just because we’re women. They are, after all, just immature people.
Here’s the thing, Silence: when you ask about children screaming for mama “24/7,” I understand that you intend to indict a system that makes children too dependent on their mamas, the the exclusion of their papas. I further understand that this is a hyperbolic generalization that draws on sitcom-level sophistication in its representation of children. That is my objection.
I am incredibly defensive, it’s true. These threads have pissed me off.
No doubt the woman you describe at the coffee shop would have been happy to have a conversation with her friend without interruption. Do you get that if the coffee shop were to ban children, that wouldn’t automatically mean the woman benefited? Do you get that she might not have been there at all? Private businesses can do whatever they want, of course, such is the iron rule of capitalism. I’ve no doubt many on this thread would pay extra for plane tickets if they were guaranteed children-free flights. Here in the south, the more exclusive and expensive golf clubs do a very good job of quietly keeping minorities out. There is always a way to make sure your sensibilities are as little offended as possible.
This topic has got me to thinking. I have many children and I spend most of my waking moments with one or all of them. When out I am forever riding them to BE QUIET! and BE STILL! and BE NICE! I am very concerned that other people might be put out by the walking circus that is my family. I tell them not to BOTHER people. To RESPECT others. To WAIT until other people go, because we don’t want to make them wait for us. I come home from the grocery store exhausted with the constant monitoring of whether or not my children have impacted someone else’s life in any way. And the children are tired too, I mean, who wants constant instruction on PROPER BEHAVIOR? I am aware of people looking down on me and mine because, well, if I can’t keep
them corralled I shouldn’t of had them. I automatically take second best because I have children with me and people shouldn’t have to suffer having to spend time with my reproductive choices.
I have a hard time seperating women from children, in that taking care of them usually falls to the female, even if its the hired help. Someone has to raise them. And I think that as long as children are considered not fit for public consumption the women taking care of the children will be shun worthy as well. I find it odd that the next generation aren’t considered palatable until they have accepted their place in society. A place that is well beneath those that were born before them. Trust me, training kids not to demand what they want, when they want it takes years, and sometimes even then it doesn’t stick.
This is not to say that I don’t believe that there are certain places children, and the impulse control problem that travels with, should not be. But the Beach? The friggin’ beach?
I also wanted to point out that women are constantly under the microscope for their parenting technique. Are you too permissive? Are you too controling? Is a swat on the behind abusive? How about sending them to bed without dinner? Is sarcasm a useful parenting tool? What are you really teaching them? Is it because the kids are going to be members of society that people feel they get to judge your progress without having the bother of actual responsibilty? I don’t understand it. I try to leave as small a “footprint” as I can when out, but when people don’t want the irritation that having kids around entails, short of gagging and binding them, there isn’t alot I can do. And get off my back already, cause I got enough fuckin’ problems. Ahem. Not that I’m personalizing this or anything.
“However, it seems we’re only talking about the indulged, pampered children of the developed world here. In undeveloped countries, childhood doesn’t last long. Children learn what constitutes acceptable behaviour from being with their families or the wider community. They have responsibilities and learn skills that affluent American and European children don’t. We should expect more of children, and they’ll mostly respond to those expectations.”
If you want to start talking about all those children in China who were just rescued from the brick making factories they were kidnapped to keep running, I’m happy to. Their childhood didn’t last long. And it’s true that American and European children don’t know much about brick-making. But I don’t think this is what you meant. Which “undeveloped” countries and which skills in particular are you talking about?
This is an excellent resource for people who don’t hate children or for people who are thinking about changing their child-hatin’ ways:
http://www.naturalchild.org/
“Our vision is a world in which all children are treated with dignity, respect, understanding, and compassion. In such a world, every child can grow into adulthood with a generous capacity for love and trust. Our society has no more urgent task.”
I’d also recommend all of Alice Miller’s books.
In a world where so many children are abused and mistreated, including in the affluent West (although that affluence is restricted to certain sections of society) it’s disconcerting to hear such hatred and contempt being expressed towards children. Picking on people smaller than you is never good.