Every now and then something really pisses me off. I am the queen of letting criticism or negative comments go. I have had people call me fat. Stupid. Feminazi. You name it, I’ve been called it. Over the years I’ve had numerous death threats. More recently when approached by authorities the person said ‘I felt bad so I thought I’d take it out on Mandy’.
Weirdly that made me feel OK. I guess that makes me useful.
For over two decades I have written this column with a singular purpose. To say things that aren’t being said. To make people think. And if I’m pissing people off I’m successful. The day the haters leave is the day I have stopped hitting the mark. They’re my indicator species.
I don’t mind having my ideas shredded. But criticism rarely stays there. It becomes personal. I usually don’t engage. I just let people fight it out with themselves. But I came across this one comment, on a thoughtful post I’d written, that enraged me. The writer accused me of making ‘motherhood statements’. That statement was like acid. I couldn’t let it go.
That expression seems to have slipped past the feminist radar. One writer defended the use of the word, chastising me for not knowing what it meant. Oh, I know what it means. But do you? Sometimes the implied meaning is bigger than the literal meaning.
So why does that term piss me off so much? Let’s start with a google definition of a ‘motherhood statement’: ‘A vague “feel good” platitude, especially one made by a politician, that few people would disagree with.’
I studied semiotics and linguistics at university. Implied meaning and the way language is weaponised against oppressed people is my bag. Language is the vehicle with which we transport our prejudice and social bias to future generations. It’s how we signpost values. ‘Motherhood statement’ is a classic patriarchal hit-and-run.
‘Motherhood statement’ is not a compliment. It’s used to diminish and reduce. It’s pretty well like holding someone down and calling them a girl. Because our gender is so offensive, it’s an insult. It means you are a generalist. You are shallow and ineffective. And weak. Just like mothers?
This tells us how poorly valued the insights, learning and experience of mothers are. It’s probably why being a mother is so fricking hard. When women have kids, it impacts their careers big time. They earn less. Mothers enjoy a 60% drop in earnings compared to fathers in the decade following the birth of the first child. In the gender pay gap we call it ‘the motherhood penalty’. We do more than 20 hours a week of unpaid work more than men.
I googled ‘fatherhood statement’. Oh, guess what. Nothing. Because fatherhood in the patriarchy IS PATRIARCHY! It is taken seriously and not used as an umbrella term to describe inadequate and shallow intellectual practice. Fatherhood is big men in suits who study law and make big hard decisions with their big man brains that we vagina bearers can’t. And motherhood is… stupid and silly, and careful you’ll hurt yourself with that big hard idea. Put it down and let one of the fathers lift it.
And we wonder why politics isn’t safe for women? Why women MPs are photoshopped into midriffs, and aspiring young staffers are left naked and raped on ministers’ couches?
Here is a clue. Nothing has changed. The beast still lives in the corridors of power.
So let me redefine a motherhood statement by starting with how we define mother. Because it seems the current definition of motherhood statement has been made by men. Mothers are forces of nature. She understands justice. She understands vulnerability and nurtures it. She’s tireless. Selfless. She builds strength. She protects. She loves.
Imagine if under that definition, politics was full of people who made those sort of motherhood statements, and empathy and compassion was valued instead of derided.
This country would be a different place.
That is my motherhood statement.
If you want to hear more motherhood statements, from women who dare to wish for a better world, come to the Vagina Conversations at Brunswick Picture House this week. It has sold out, but on writing there were tickets to the extra show on Sunday. Oh, BTW we are raising $ for DV services in the region. We’ve raised over $100k over the years performing this show.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
