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Not to mention, moms are just downright underappreciated. A recent study on motherhood by the University of Connecticut and the University of Minnesota shows that not only do moms feel undervalued by the people in their lives, but they also don’t feel appreciated by society in general—nearly one in five moms said she felt less valued by society since becoming a mother.17 Now that’s screwed up.

A great organization (and website) that addresses these issues is MomsRising.org, run by Joan Blades and Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner—authors of The Motherhood Manifesto: What America’s Moms Want—and What to Do About It.

The organization, which has more than fifty thousand members and fifty national organizations aligned with it, aims to “build a more family-friendly America” through grassroots and online organizing. Its manifesto—which I think is fabulous—focuses on maternity and paternity leave; flexible work hours and options for parents; safe after-school options for children; healthcare for all kids; quality, universal, affordable childcare; and fair wages for parents.18 Seems simple and straightforward—and reasonable.

The United States is one of two industrialized nations (the other being Australia) that doesn’t provide, paid leave for new mothers.

So why the hesitancy by society (and politicians) to make these seemingly simple things happen? The truth is, as much lip service as mothers are given, folks just don’t care. If we cared about mothers and families, we would have universal childcare. If we cared about making motherhood easier, we would ensure that women and children got the healthcare they needed, got the flextime they needed, and got the support and—maybe most important—the trust they needed.

The sooner we start trusting women to make decisions about their lives and their families, the sooner we start valuing motherhood again.

9

I PROMISE I WON’T SAY “HERSTORY”

The history of feminism in the United States is generally thought of in an extremely limited way: Women got the vote, then some women burned their bras. Then it died ’cause women were equal. Done and done. Exciting stuff, huh?

Even the more complex version that’s taught in women’s organizations and classes often leaves out the racist and classist background of the movement. (Hey, we have to admit that shit.) Especially as everything stands right now in the feminist movement, there’s a lot of back-patting and selfcongratulation—as there should be, to some extent. But what we haven’t been doing is being really honest about the less-PR friendly aspect of the feminist movement, or looking forward in a substantive way.

After all, if we can’t be critical of ourselves and recognize our weaknesses, how can we be effective as a movement? The problem is, feminists are so used to people giving them shit—the constant backlash—that we’ve learned to focus on the positive. We’re always on the defensive, for good reason. Feminists have become very good at anticipating backlashy comments and putting forward a united front, because we have to. But there’s a way to do that while still remaining honest with ourselves.

American feminism—like a lot of social justice movements—has had plenty of growing pains. And we have to own them. Especially because many of those growing pains are still poking at us. Unfortunately, a lot of organized feminism these days is pretty damn cliquey—at least in terms of the “big” gals. National organizations, which are generally the public face of feminism, often don’t represent the reality of the movement.

The same people who were running shit back then are running it now. (Time to pass the torch, ladies!) Not that I blame them. You start something, you want to finish it. But one of the major problems with feminism today is its inability to recruit younger women and keep them interested. And this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone: If you get younger women into feminism but then don’t give them power or decision-making abilities, they