Carnal Nation reports that “Scottish Women’s Aid, an organization dedicated to helping the victims of domestic abuse, has flatly refused a £600 ($1000) gift from 11 women who posed semi-nude for a calendar.” A spokesperson from Scottish Women’s Aid states, “We are opposed to the sex industry, and we have an issue with women removing clothes” as their reasoning for rejecting the donation. Certainly, the organization has every right to deny gifts from anyone they choose, but their reasoning does not sit well with me, especially coming from a feminist organization, and especially after reading that many of the women who posed for the calendar had been victims of domestic violence.

Generally, I’m a member of the boat that says that women should be able to define what they find to be empowering. We see this debate often regarding Muslim women’s modest dress, or hijab. Some people argue that the hijab is always demeaning to women, that it only serves to perpetuate the notion that women are naturally immodest and that men are inherently unable to resist their beauty. On the other hand, proponents of the hijab argue that wearing modest clothing creates an atmosphere in which women can be treated as human beings, rather than as pretty objects for men to look at. From my point of view, each perspective has its merits, and each woman should be able to choose to dress modestly or not depending on her opinion, without repercussions.

I have a similar attitude when it comes to nudity. Certainly, the porn industry can be incredibly degrading to women, especially in places where health and safety regulations are not enforced. On the other hand, nudity can be very empowering. If a woman feels confident, comfortable, and safe enough to take off her clothing of her own free will, it means that she has claimed control over her own body, and she is simply allowing other people to look at her body, as she chooses.

I feel like the assumption of Scottish Women’s Aid is that nudity is always demeaning to women. But isn’t that perspective harmful in and of itself? It implies that women always lack control over their own bodies. It takes agency away from women before they even have a chance to claim it–and in the name of feminism, no less. On some level, of course, I agree with their perspective. At times, female nudity can be demeaning. When female nudity is forced, or when the nude women are presented purely as sexual objects, it does take agency away from women. Some women take their clothes off merely for men to look at them, or out of pressure or coercion from men. But women can and should also have the freedom to choose when and for whom (if anyone other than themselves) they would like to remove their clothing. I think that women who make this choice out of a sense of self-confidence and self-respect are empowered women.

I will admit it: I enjoy watching Jon and Kate Plus Eight, and as such, I’ve been hearing a lot about all the drama surrounding their and their children’s lives. Of course, most of what I hear about has to do with Kate Gosselin. She’s a mean bitch! She’s a terrible mother! All she cares about is fame and her book tour!

I get really sick of hearing about it, especially when I am trying to sit peacefully in my own living room and my family members rant on and on about how much of a “bitch” Kate is literally every time she opens her mouth.

There are a number of allegations about some “cruel” things that Kate has been doing to her children, including spanking a child, threatening her children, and denying one daugher a drink from a bottle of water upon request. Supposedly, all of these terrible and horrific crimes make Kate Gosselin more monster than mother. Supposedly, all that Kate cares about is her work: her writing and her book tours. Supposedly, Kate “uses” her children for financial gain.

Now, it’s hard to say what really goes on in these people’s lives. Their lives are so public, yes, but there are still a lot of private elements that have not yet been revealed. But I get very tired of the constant accusations against not just Kate, but against all mothers in this country. Because the way that people talk about Kate, calling her a terrible mother and a bitchy wife, is the same way that people throughout the US talk about every other woman who is a mother and a wife.

What Kate does on-screen is probably not much different from what plenty of other mothers do with their children in private. And especially considering the fact that this woman has eight children of young ages to worry about, I’m not surprised that she does get pissy once in awhile. I know I’d probably just throw myself out a window if I had to deal with that every day, on top of all the paparazzi and comments and constant judgment that occurs as a result of her being in the public eye.

I don’t really know the extent of Kate’s treatment of her children, but I’m sure that if it were anything truly damaging, her children would have been taken away a very long time ago. I personally am not an advocate of spanking or hitting, but plenty of parents (particularly those belonging to certain Christian religions, such as the Gosselins) do believe that spanking is an effective and acceptable means of punishment. I am positive that if Kate were brutally spanking or otherwise abusing her daughters, the entire world would know about it and the department of children and families would have swooped down to claim and protect the children the very second it had happened. I don’t think that minor spanking immediately constitutes child abuse. I found this article regarding Kate hitting her daughter and I have to say: plenty of mothers get stressed out and angry at their children and hit them.

Regarding Kate threatening her children: I think all mothers spew out threats. I think many mothers threaten their children in various ways on a daily basis. Why? Because children are children, and they do not listen, and when you have eight of them running around screaming, you need some way to bring some damn order to the household. Threatening your children is not some completely new and outrageous idea. I didn’t grow up in the greatest of environments, but there were plenty of times where my mother threatened to lock in my room, to leave me somewhere alone, to not let me eat dinner, and all sorts of other scary things. But it made me do what I had to do when others means would not have worked. I don’t think this is anything particularly disturbing.

Finally, Kate and the bottle of water issue. Supposedly Kate denies her thirsty daughter a sip of water. Sure, it’s not very nice, but guess what? Kids whine. A lot. Kids act like everything is a big deal, including thirst and hunger. I’m sure all mothers can agree that when it comes to dinner time and they are dealing with hungry kids, all they hear out of the kids’ mouths are “MOMMY I’M HUNGRRYYYYYY!!!!!!” over and over and over again. It’s not that they are literally starving. They’re just whiny kids. Kate’s situation here seems more a case of “whiny kid syndrome” than “bitchy, evil mother syndrome.”

Plus, the commentary really gets to me. According to one genius,
Reformed and recycled ugly fat chicks, like Kate, are the reason wife beaters has proliferated over the ages. We’ve all seen the real, non-TV Kate (well, at least the phucking losers who watch this show and somehow elevated her to be a constant subject on this board) and we all know it’s only a matter of time til she’s once again, a pig.

Oh, how nice! Because women have kids and become ugly, it’s somehow okay to abuse them! Fortunately, because they are fat, ugly pigs, they are dispensible, and no one really cares.

This is precisely what bothers me about the concerns over Kate. Sure, I don’t really know. Maybe she is an abusive mother and a terrible wife. But what irritates me is the way people talk about her–because it’s not just about her, it’s about every other woman who is married with children. Women are supposed to get married and have kids, but if they “let themselves go” while trying to balance children, a husband, a job, and whatever else, then automatically they are fat, ugly, stupid, and essentially worthless. I only stick up for Kate here as a way to stick up for every other mother who has had to put up with this constant judgment and second-guessing.

Another good example is my very, very good friend Samantha. Samantha got pregnant when she was nineteen and got married out of wedlock. Her husband at the time was a bum and would go out and cheat on her, come home drunk, and was constantly out of work due to his own laziness. Samantha spent her time caring the best she could for her two beloved daughters, walking back and forth to the grocery store because she didn’t have a car so that she could get her daughters their necessities. Sam gained some weight from having children and being stressed, and her husband hated her more and more for it. Sam, who is low-income and not particularly well-educated, found herself and her role as mother being judged by her neighbors, who falsely accused her of neglecting her children and called the police on her constantly. The department of children and families got involved, though after awhile, things were starting to look up.

One day, Sam made her usual trip to get milk and cereal for her daughters. “Dave,” she said to her husband, who was, as usual, hungover and half-asleep on the couch, “keep an eye on the girls for me.” He agreed, and Sam went to get cereal and milk. Half an hour later, she returned, only to find DCF at her house, accusing her of neglecting her children yet again. The social worker had shown up while Sam was out and Dave had fallen back asleep.

They took Sam’s daughters away, and they used “photographic evidence” of pictures of her daughters in the bathtub to accuse Sam of not only neglect, but sexual abuse as well. They placed the girls in foster care and separated them despite Sam’s wishes. Sam has not seen her daughters in nearly ten years, and will probably never see them again.

It’s a prime example of the judgments and expectations we place on mothers. We judge and question famous or privileged mothers, such as Kate, and low-income, disadvantaged mothers, such as Sam. Motherhood can never win, and yet is the role we must fulfill. No woman, from Kate to Sam, can ever be a perfect mother. Mothers will always make mistakes. Sometimes the mistakes will be grave (the woman who, when her babysitter did not show up, was forced to go to work or lose her job; her children died in a fire while she went to work so they could at least have food), but grave mistakes happen all the time. Don’t we sometimes say it is a “grave mistake” when a man rapes or kills a woman, dubbing it a “crime of passion” instead of calling it what it is? Sure, some women are truly unfit to have children… just as some men are truly unfit to have children. But women who make everyday mistakes, such as stressed-out Kate Gosselin striking one of her children, or Sam leaving her children alone with an unreliable husband, do not deserve to be labelled as bitches, or evil mothers, or neglectful, or cruel. They are doing the best they can in a world that despises and yet needs them, and I think that Kate, Sam, and every woman beyond and in between needs to be respected for the enormous job they work hard to fulfill.

When I was about twelve years old, I discovered the meaning of abortion. Ever since that moment, I have been adamantly pro-choice. Fortunately, going to college has made me question my old perspectives, and I’ve learned to respect and appreciate an argument sometimes found on the pro-life side: women shouldn’t need to get abortions. There should be better options for women.

Women should, of course, have a lot of better options in many other areas of life. The fact is that a woman’s life–or what is traditionally expected of it–is often in a lose-lose situation.

For example, we are supposed to have children. This is the womanly role; it is our ultimate expression of femininity and all of its “best” attributes: selflessness, maternity, love. At the same time, however, mothers are looked down upon, no matter how they mother their children. If they go to work and put their children in daycare, they are selfish. If they quit their jobs to stay at home with the children, they are domestic and lazy. And if a woman chooses not to have children at all, there is something very wrong with her.

It’s the same with abortion. It’s true: women shouldn’t need to get abortions. But in reality, we do–because of the systematic oppression against us throughout the world. We are supposed to be mothers and selflessly love all children that come to grow in our wombs, even when we cannot afford to mother them “properly,” even when our own lives are threatened, even when the fetus is guaranteed to be born dead. When we have abortions to spare our lives, or to spare unborn children a life of disease, pain and/or poverty, we are suddenly vile baby-killers and outright murderers.

Of course, when it comes to abortion, no one truly wins. Many women feel great relief after terminating unwanted pregnancies, but at the same time, no one wants to have to experience that dilemma in the first place. No one (who is at least sane and rational) wants to have to end a life, for any reason. The options, though, are pretty terrible. Birth control, especially hormonal contraceptives, can be unreliable (maybe you forgot to take your pill; maybe the pharmacy is half an hour away and you don’t have a car) and expensive (even with health insurance; though many, many women go without it). The foster care and adoption system in this country is in shambles. Rape and incest are not going to be eliminated altogether anytime soon. Abstinence-only sex ed still reigns, and so young women still have unprotected sex thinking that they can’t get pregnant “the first time.” The issue isn’t to outlaw abortion, because abortion is not the problem. It is all these deeper lose-lose situations, these often useless options, that make abortions necessary in the first place.

I just heard word about this lovely product, a Japanese-made bra that “has a built-in digital timer indicating how much time’s left before the woman wearing it must get married.” Sounds awesome. I love how it says that she “must” get married–what, is it going to blow up if she doesn’t stick the engagement ring/key in it?

I’m not too familiar with the situation in Japan in terms of marriage and families, but I don’t think the solution is to lure women into marriage by making ridiculous (and pretty useless) brassieres. The women who choose to work rather than have husbands and families are just weighing their options. Where will I get paid the most? Where will I feel most fulfilled in my everyday life? Where will I have the most financial security and independence? Where will what I do actually be of value to someone? A lot of women in the United States ask themselves the same questions, and for some women, the options just really seem limited. I think if there were better options for women who face this kind of choice, options such as flex time/part time work or free daycare or something to help them balance work and family, then maybe this wouldn’t be as big a problem. And maybe then we wouldn’t have to come up with really stupid ways to convince women to get married.