The Motherhood and Porn

These are some thoughts I've been stewing on for a while. Recently in a conversation with a woman of non-feminist persuasion, I was accused of looking down my nose at mothers (presumably, including myself) and devaluing motherhood. I think this is a really important point to clarify, since I feel like it's a common misconception about feminists. I suppose there are some feminists who disdain motherhood. There are some feminists who do/say just about anything. It's a varied group with a spectrum of opinions, but third wave feminism (the feminism of now) is generally characterized by being accepting and supportive of all women's choices, and their right to make those choices.

The conversation usually goes like this:
"I think women in the church should have institutional power, visibility, and voice."
"Men and women will never be the same."
"Innate differences aside, I still think women should have equal institutional power, visibility, and voice."
"Women have motherhood."
"Motherhood is great. I still think women should have equal institutional power, visibility, and voice."
"You must not care about motherhood, since that doesn't satisfy you."

Motherhood has been a privilege for me. No other experience in my life has given me more insight into the nature and attributes of God. I've never experienced love like the love I have for my son.

I still think women should have equal institutional power visibility, and voice in the church. The thing is, this does not have to be an either/or thing. Men can be engaged, loving fathers and have institutional power, visibility, and voice. So can women.

So what's with the title? How does porn come into this? I'm one of those rad feminists who believes that pornography is a tool of oppression that is almost without exception used to propagate harmful, misogynistic paradigms of sexuality that portray women as sub-human sex toys that exist for the pleasure of domineering masters.  How does pornography do this? By portraying women as sex. Notice how strips clubs don't have to put out signs that say, "Sex! Sex! Sex!" Because our society has hypersexualized women to the extent that "Girls! Girls! Girls!" sends the same message. One equates femaleness with sexuality. This reduces women to their sexual services to heterosexual men.

The other side of that coin is a doctrine that defines women by their biological function. Women are baby makers. Creators. Nurturers. Anything else they do or say is secondary to their use of The Motherhood. Their greatest realm of influence, only true source of power, lies in their righteous exercise of The Motherhood. Undue emphasis is placed on her body, its power and proper use. She represents the flesh, that must submit to the spirit.

I reject both of these philosophies because they both stem from patriarchal ideals. They stem from viewing women from a male perspective, only in relation to a man. I am a woman. I am my sexuality, and my nurturing, and my voracious appetite for knowledge, and my ability to lead, and to heal, and my love of science, art, music, and literature. I am my relationship with my son, my husband, my family and friends. I am a hundred other things.  I can't be first and foremost any one of those things, because myopically focusing on just one of those things would give you a distorted picture of who I am.

Viewing women as primarily mothers and secondarily anything else, I believe, gives us a distorted image of women as well. It is part of why we teach our daughters to view themselves from a male perspective, dress themselves from a male perspective, and plan on making their life choices to cater to the desires of the males they hope to attract. I think it may also be why such a one dimensional depiction of women as exists in pornography is so overwhelmingly attractive to LDS men. It's the hypersexualization of our cultural ideals for women.

So my ability to be a mother does not make up for a lack of institutional power, visibility, and voice in the church, not because I don't value that great privilege, but because I think women are more than that one thing. And focusing too much on one aspect of who/what a woman is gives us a skewed and inauthentic image, regardless of how wonderful that one thing may be.