Stupid feminism

I don't know how I wandered over there, but somehow I came across this post entitled Get Your Kid Off Your Facebook Page. I could've commented, but that would involve registering for yet another site, so instead, blog fodder!

The author argues, basically, that having a picture of your kids in lieu of yourself on your FB profile is somehow a statement that we don't value ourselves as women. Here's an excerpt:

It telegraphs a discomfort with even a minimal level of vanity. Like wearing sneakers every day or forgetting to cut your hair, it is a way of being dowdy and invisible, and it mirrors a certain mommy culture in which its almost a point of pride how little remains of the healthy, worldly, engaged, and preening self.

She also likens it to not being able to have an adult conversation without talking about the kids in detail.

Those of you who are my Facebook friends know that, indeed, my profile pic is of my kids.

At the time, I simply didn't have any recent pics of myself that weren't with other people (usually, my kids!). I chose the pic of my kids because it was easy and convenient. I wasn't saying my kids were everything. I was saying, this is what I have in my pics file at the moment.

Since then, I have managed to rustle up a couple of pics of myself, but it wasn't easy! I actually had to schedule an appointment with my mother to please take a picture of me. (Riley loves taking photos, but generally, a good portion of my head is cut off. No thanks.) And yeah, I pretty much hate pictures of me. It's like listening to my voice on a voice mail: "ick, that's what I sound like?!?" Is it a weakness? Whatever. It's not top on my list of priorities right now.

Does that mean I don't care about feminist issues? Absolutely not! Nor do I think that it would make Betty Friedan turn over in her grave, as the author believes.

I can't speak for every mother (or father) that posts a pic of their kids rather than themselves; I can only speak for me. But if by doing so, I've somehow offended the feminist cause, then I think feminism needs to re-examine its priorities.

It can start, by the way, by not bashing on mothers all the time! We're exploiting our kids, we're not "real" writers, we spend too much time "tweeting."

And let's take a step back for a moment and see, oh maybe, what the moms are doing when they're on FaceBook? Hey, look at that! We're trying to connect with people! We're finding old friends, and newer ones. We add our schools (i.e., our accomplishments). We join causes. And yeah, sometimes we have a little fun taking quizzes about which '80s movies we remember.

It's not even just about being a mom on Facebook. It's about all that we are, and have been. And sometimes, finding an old friend on FB can remind us of who we used to be. Neither my friend (whom I haven't seen since high school!) nor I hid behind our kids when we met over lunch. Sure, we talked about our kids. We also talked about our exes, work, school, politics, the economy, and the poor teacher we were horrible to when we were in high school!

I think our feminist movement could get a lot further if we stopped arguing with each other about such stupid things. Instead of telling me what to do with my profile pic, or opining whether or not Jon and Kate should stay together, maybe we can concentrate on ensuring that working mothers have access to affordable child care. Maybe we can question more Fortune 500 companies on why there are only 27 female CEOs in their group (or 5.4%), even though women constitute 46.5% of the workforce.

Of course, I guess now that I've blogged about it, that makes me part of the problem!