In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

54 thoughts on Mommy Dearest

  3. Very right; the howls of outrage we’d hear if this appeared in the US would be heard would be deafening. The whole shoot doesn’t do much for me. The shoes though…those look like torture devices. On the whole, one big meh.

  5. I like the idea that someone is mocking our devotion to the angelic mother blah blah stereotype. But the siren mother in heels isn’t much better. Of course, I cannot think of a way to represent motherhood that doesn’t piss me off. Hmmm – maybe that says something about me.

  7. My discomfort with the “humor” in pictures like these doesn’t come from fetishizing motherhood, it comes from wanting to defend the bodily autonomy of entities that can’t physically or verbally defend themselves. I don’t think tossing babies, or smoking in their faces is playful. I wouldn’t find a photo shoot with people blowing smoke in pets faces, or a man tossing around a woman playful either.

  9. I couldn’t even tell she was supposed to be pregnant. It looks like she has a small rectangular pillow stuffed into the waist of her shorts. Is that part of the joke/satire/artistic statement?

  10. Eva, those babies are plastic. And how does smoking around or handling a baby playfully threaten their bodily autonomy more than being a baby? As I’m sure you know, babies do not *have* autonomy (self-government). They are dependent upon others. (Perhaps you meant bodily health?) And while secondhand smoke is not good for anyone, mothers’ behavior is often policed (see: your comment) in ways that other people in a family (smokers or otherwise) are not. You make the damn point for them really.

  11. Sally Mann’s whole career revolves around the implying that she’s a bad mother. And some folks think she’s the greatest American photographer working. However, she is incredibly controversial. Make of that what you will.

  12. I actually agree with Eva about the baby tossing picture, for her same reasons (bleh, that one pic definitely does not depict “handling a baby playfully”), even if it is just a doll.
    The rest of the pictures I love though. So irreverant! In my mind it’s how Roseanne would have depicted motherhood if she were ever asked to do a similar shoot back in her heyday. I do like that it shows “actual” motherhood and not this perfect ideal that all childbearing women are expected to strive to.

  13. I see the “trashy mom” stereotype (woman pregnant with a baby, smoking, hair in curlers) mixed with the high-glam designer look of the clothes and the high-fashion beauty of the model. I think it’s a thoughtful and interesting piece of art.

  14. It makes me laugh.
    And that one “tossing the baby aside” shot seems like a dark fantasy a lot of new mothers have, and I think it’s good to acknowledge that mothers have those feelings sometimes, rather than to promote the destructive myth that being a perfect mother is easy or even possible, and that women are naturally good at motherhood. I like the whole piece more and more, the more I look at it.

  16. Ha! I love it that this fashion spread has managed poke fun at ‘beautiful motherhood’. I’m glad so many here are on a similar wavelength!

  17. But Kayla, you made a judgment about a woman’s body fat percentage based on how she looks. There is no way for you to know for sure how much they weigh or what their body fat percentage is just based on some photographs.

  18. @ Kayla: unless it’s camera tricks, I think that woman is actually pregnant. So to say “those women don’t weigh enough to have a baby” is untrue.

    I am all for this. I am sick to death of the double standards regarding moms vs. dads, as well as the “saintly” depiction of motherhood. Dads are almost always allowed to be separate individuals after baby, pretty much maintaining who they were and their hobbies without scorn. But moms have to censor their habits and curtail their lives after baby. If she doesn’t, she’s bound to get a lot of disapproving clucks from family and friends.

    Just because my whole life doesn’t revolve around my son and I still engage in the hobbies that make me happy doesn’t mean I am “selfish” or that I don’t love my son.

  19. Hmm. Let’s face it, the only thing “controversial” about this caricature is that it’s appearing in a fashion magazine. This is pretty much standard representation of working class mothers in other forms of media (like film). The cult of motherhood isn’t operational for all of us.

    With that said, yeah, I get really sick and tired of the sterile representation of mothers in most media. and speaking as a mother, it doesn’t really take much to get the “bad mother” tag. I’ve gotten the “bad mother” tag online for casually admitting my daughter doesn’t have (and never has had) an official bedtime—she just goes to sleep when she’s tired (kids’ll do that, y’know). All that non-smoking didn’t do a thing to offset the bad mom points…..

    I think this could appear in a U.S. magazine—it’s just that the conversation surrounding it would probably be different.

    I am all for this. I am sick to death of the double standards regarding moms vs. dads, as well as the “saintly” depiction of motherhood.

    Right there with ya, jennifer, with bells on. Down with the sanitization of motherhood!

  21. The other photos make it clear that this model is actually pregnant. That picture looks like she has a pillow under her shirt because she’s wearing high-wasted shorts that are flattening out her belly a little. And I didn’t realize that she has a smoke in her mouth and her hand. That’s kinda funny.

  22. I’m not sure of the extent to which American women would relate to the French Vogue (rather tired) “woman as feminist rebel” perspective in this context.

    The real rebels are folks like Terri Christoph over at Smart Girl Politics:

    http://conservativehq.com/blog_post/show/178

    There’s a serious Revolution Brewing in this country, for those who are cognisant enough to notice it…

    Peace and Liberty to all.

  23. I’m not sure of the extent to which American women would relate to the French Vogue (rather tired) “woman as feminist rebel” perspective in this context.

    The real rebels are folks like Terri Christoph over at Smart Girl Politics:

    http://www.pjtv.com/video/American_Tea_Party/Gearing_Up_for_April_15th/1621/;jsessionid=abcNzslTsE6MM5cxt1Kbs

    There’s a serious Revolution Brewing in this country, for those who are cognisant enough to notice it…

    Peace and Liberty to all.

  24. I really like these photos. I like them because they are artistic, they bother people, they make us question motherhood, safety, health, etc. It is really provocative and interesting. Unlike mainstream American PC-ness, this photo-shoot makes us think about what we believe and what why we believe it. If we disagree with the images, fine. But at least we are being challenged to believe SOMETHING. Mainstream American media is so predictable and never challenges us… only reenforces what we already are inundated with and have already been acculturated into. Surprisingly, these cigarette pics are a breathe of fresh air.

  25. Meh. I don’t care if you’re a father OR a mother–you shouldn’t smoke around children. You shouldn’t throw them away either. And sure as all get out *nobody,* of any gender or sexual persuasion, who values their ankles, should wear those shoes.

    It didn’t strike me as a deep piece of art de-sentamentalizing motherhood. It struck me as a cheap ploy to get attention by exploiting images of women, and just for extra kicks, babies as well.

    And what’s wrong with Kayla mentioning that in the real world, these models probably DO NOT weigh enough to carry to term? Or that their extreme thinness is dictated by the fashion industry, leading to drug habits, anorexia, etc, etc in an effort to achieve that weight. I have a relative who used to model, and some of the stories about how they made weight will make your hair stand on end (eating toilet paper, heavy coke use, etc, etc).

  26. I am with you. Did you notice the comments on the other blog. They are all about the fantastic shoes and how great her legs are. So essentially, it makes fun of a stereotype, but is still successful with the objectification.

  27. oops. Didn’t mean to put that in block quotes. I meant to put Bleh’s comment in block quotes:

    But the siren mother in heels isn’t much better. Of course, I cannot think of a way to represent motherhood that doesn’t piss me off. Hmmm – maybe that says something about me

  29. I’ve gotten the “bad mother” tag online for casually admitting my daughter doesn’t have (and never has had) an official bedtime

    That’s so annoying. While it’s good to have somewhat of a regular schedule, some kids are not going to adjust to whatever you try to force on them. I became insomniac at age 8, and some of my mother’s friends would get on her case that I wouldn’t go to bed at 9pm (because I would lie awake until 1am otherwise). You can’t treat children as a monolith any more than you can treat any other group as such.

  30. I can’t stop staring at her panties. I don’t know why. I really like how they fall on her thighs or something like that.

    I think discourse around motherhood (both radical and, uh, fashion) tends to be taken up in a white-normative way.

  31. I love this as well. It playfully strips away the saintly notion of motherhood. Oh and I think the model, who is obviously pregnant, looks fantastic.

    There was an article in the newspapers here in the UK about a pregnant woman who was told to leave the pub after she had a pint of beer and attempted to get another (hate to promote this trash but you can find it in the Daily Mail online). Women’s bodies, especially when it comes to reproduction, sex, health screening, menopause ecetera, ecetera are considered the property of the patriarchy, foaming at the mouth religious fanatics ecetera, ecetera. Because we have such tiny minds we couldn’t possibly hope to be trusted to know what’s good for us…

  32. I like these a lot. The spread reminds me of all of those commercials for products that aren’t for women who are “pregnant, or may become pregnant.” As if a woman for whom certain products, pharmaceuticals, foods, and lifestyles might make a positive difference does not get to enjoy that positive difference if it would effect her ability to be a brood mare. (The merits of consumer culture, consumerism, and advertising aside). I think these photos point out the difference in the way we expect moms to live their lives differently than non-moms.

  33. Maggie gets to the root of the issue. I wrote about this stringent control of mother’s and even potential mother’s bodies here

  34. “Kayla, can we please not invoke body shaming? Thanks.”

    Thank you.

    I was 90 pounds when I got pregnant with both of my children. I carried two full term pregnancies and gave birth to two perffectly healthy children. When I was pregnant with my son, I looked about like the woman in that picture when I was 6 months pregnant…and I did not nor have I ever had an eating disorder.

    Thin shaming is just as dangerous as fat shaming.

  35. “Some people who are really thin are anorexic or on drugs, and really thin people can’t conceive babies, and we have a job to inform them of this” is just the flip side to “some people who are really fat have heart problems and joint problems, and we have a job to inform them of this.”

    Is it true? Frequently. Do the people in question already know this? Probably. Is it our job as the fat/skinny police to judge them for something they may or not be able or compelled to control? Nope. Is a judgment on the woman’s skinniness a derailment from a thread about society’s romanticism of motherhood? Just a bit. Am I contributing to that derailment? Probably so.

  36. Pingback: The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : A Conservative Rorschach Test?

  38. Here’s my question: if you had never seen these photos, and were asked to come up with imagery that would de-sentimentalize motherhood, what would you have visualized? Would it have looked anything like this?

  39. “Some people who are really thin are anorexic or on drugs, and really thin people can’t conceive babies, and we have a job to inform them of this” is just the flip side to “some people who are really fat have heart problems and joint problems, and we have a job to inform them of this.”

    Of course there are women who can be perfectly healthy and quite thin, even quite thin and tall. But if we’re talking about modeling and the fashion industry, let’s call a spade a spade here. We don’t have a “job to inform them [who is them?] of this,” but we don’t have to be happy about yet another piece of fashion advertising telling us what to look like–especially when that advertising is built on institutionalized starvation and drug abuse. No, not ALL models starve themselves, but many do, especially once they pass adolescence.
    If you can be healthy and pregnant at 110 lbs and 5’11 (guessing the weight and height of the model), bully for you. There are people out there who are just built like that.
    Most of us can’t, and get sick of pictures like this (because I see it as just another fashion mag spread) telling us that we should.

  40. This spread speaks selfishness to me.
    I love being in the cult of motherhood, taking care of my own kids, scrubbing my own floors, and cooking for my own husband.

  41. Most of us can’t, and get sick of pictures like this (because I see it as just another fashion mag spread) telling us that we should.

    Then make that point, because it is valid. But Kayla made (and you defended) the absolute statement that essentially model thin women can’t (shouldn’t?) get pregnant. That is body shaming, and it’s inappropriate on a feminist blog.

  42. My original post spoke specifically about the fashion industry and about the modeling industry and its effect on women’s health and weight. To wit, “these models probably DO NOT weigh enough to carry to term? Or that their extreme thinness is dictated by the fashion industry, leading to drug habits, anorexia, etc, etc in an effort to achieve that weight.”
    While yes, the rare post-teenage model achieves that look without harming themselves, it isn’t common. Do I, or anyone else, then have the right to decide they should, or shouldn’t, get pregnant? Legally, no. Do I think that it is a wise decision for anyone undernourished or drug addicted to put their body under that kind of strain? Again, no, but it isn’t my call. I do, however, object to the media portraying it as a ha-ha moment or as a physical reality that is attainable or desirable by a majority of women.

  43. I think Kayla’s point was that typically, women need 22% body fat to ovulate. Models, who usually have very unhealthy lifestyles in order to maintain their expected physique, oftentimes do not meet that requirement. That means that they cannot conceive. Not that they should not. Stating a fact, although it sounded accusatory, is not body-shaming.

  47. Actually, I think it’s hilarious to read self-identified feminists praising the corporate fashion press’s decision to print yet another spread of an anorexic, unhealthy woman with no clothes on. Subverting the sentimentality of motherhood! Hell, it would have been even better if they’d given her a black eye and some needle tracks.

  48. Pointing out body shaming is not trying to shut anyone up, it’s trying to have a discussion about whatever the topic is without resorting to shaming women for their body.
    You can point out that the fashion industry body shames women every day (something I doubt many people would object to) without resorting to body shaming yourself (assuming all models are anorexic and unhealthy).

  49. Exactly, Bloix. Which is why the lack of response to my question @#38 is no surprise, I guess. I’m disappointed that this spread was seen as challenging one confining view of women when all it really does is affirm another.

  50. Well, I shouldn’t have said people’s responses are hilarious, because that was just gratuitous nastiness. But really, I find that these pictures make me genuinely angry and I’m suprised, I guess, that most others don’t have the same reaction.

  51. To me, this spread is reminiscent of shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy, the irreverence of which I personally enjoy.

    Interestingly, I had a more negative reaction to this spread than I normally do to the portrayals of awful fathering in those shows, probably because there is a double standard in this society regarding parenting and I’ve absorbed it. When fathers mistreat their children, it’s funny. It’s clearly just a joke. The children aren’t real. But when mothers mistreat their children, it seems ugly and wrong.

    Now, you can certainly argue that it’s wrong to normalize mistreatment of children. You can say this isn’t something we should be poking fun at. Just check your biases and try not to apply the double standard.

  52. Oh, and also, I strongly disagree with this:

    As if a woman for whom certain products, pharmaceuticals, foods, and lifestyles might make a positive difference does not get to enjoy that positive difference if it would effect her ability to be a brood mare.

    I figure, if you voluntarily choose to bring a fetus to term, then you are creating a human being. It’s not okay to do bodily harm to anyone – how is it okay to do it to your own children? If you’re not willing to accept the responsibility to treat your own children like human beings, then you ought to avoid becoming pregnant, or have an abortion if you do.

    Moreover, I’d say parents have a responsibility to try to be good parents. That should not be in question. I’m on board with questioning whether any particular thing should be seen as a mark of good parenting or not (for instance setting a bedtime for your kid), and I definitely think it’s wrong that the majority of the child-rearing-related pressure falls on mothers instead of fathers. I also don’t think parents should feel obligated to give up their entire lives for their kids.

    But saying or implying that a woman who voluntarily becomes pregnant and wants to bring the fetus to term doesn’t have a responsibility to not harm the fetus is like saying an elected politician shouldn’t be accountable to their constituents because OH NOES it might be unpleasant and voters might have opinions about the way they do their job!

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  54. @bluey52, I don’t think the point of what you quoted was that it’s fine and good for a pregnant woman to take something that will harm the fetus. I thought the focus was on *women who may become pregnant* and the idea that the most important thing about a woman’s health is her fertility–that her well-being as a person is far less important than her ability to bear children.

    I also think there’s a difference between taking precautions not to harm the fetus and obsessing about the effect of every move you make and every bite of food you put in your mouth.

    Plus which, you have to consider your health and the fetus’s both, not only the fetus’s. For example, I wouldn’t assume that a pregnant woman who’s had major issues with depression is an awful person if she looks at the risks and discusses it with her doctor and decides that staying on her SSRI is a better choice than going off it to decrease the risk of birth defects.

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