There is a pre-existing dynamic that assumes that everything done by a women is inherently inferior to the same action done by a man. And yes, that even comes out in parenting, even with the sexist trope that men are all thumbs when it comes to raising children (especially babies/toddlers). Mothers are not seen as having sufficient authority to raise children effectively.

Single fathers do not experience the questioning of their parenting skills or practices the way single mothers do. And for that matter, in areas of discipline or education, married mothers can get the same questioning of their parenting that single mothers get. When it comes to performing the day-to-day scutwork of parenting (what would be called “unskilled labor” if it was done for pay) mothers are seen as doing a “naturally” fine job. When it comes to what could be called “skilled labor” parenting decisions, all of a sudden a mother’s word isn’t good enough.

Anyway:

# La Lubu says:
But we don’t live in a neutral world. We don’t live in a world where the contributions of women are viewed as important, valuable, or correct as the contributions of men—even when they are the exact same actions. Women are still seen as inferior, still seen as needing the guidance and headship of men.

No debate there.

I am confused, though, about how this paragraph ties into the paragraph below.

It makes no sense to treat equivalent actions as more or less valuable based on the gender of the person doing them. But it is fairly reasonable to treat different actions as more or less valuable because, well, they’re different.

Use of the term “mothering” isn’t about claiming a different set of practices based on some essentialist version of parenting. It’s about claiming a female identity along with authority.

Are you claiming an identity which can be defined as “the parenting style which I believe should be universal, as practiced by someone who happens to be female”? Or you claiming an identity which can better be defined as “the style of mothering, as it is inextricably linked to femaleness?”

If you are choosing to distinguish your identity as a parent based on your gender and not your parenting choices, then you lose a lot of your claim that there shouldn’t be any good/bad distinctions made on gender. Obviously there should never be a “women bad men good” dichotomy, but to the degree that you support parenting identities based on gender then it would be unsurprising if different genders were evaluated differently.

And as long as any world I live in still has an issue with female authority, I’m still going to simultaneously claim my female identity along with my “neutral” (not!) human identity. I fully agree with laprofe63 that we are embodied beings, and that our bodies are perceived differently. I want to change the perception of a female body, a female mind. And I can’t do that by solely using “neutral” terminology.

You are not capable of being neutral, but words are certainly capable of being neutral.

If you choose to define genderspecific terms like “mothering” and “fathering,” and within those terms include or exclude selective characteristics, then you are fighting against neutrality.

It seems fairly obvious to me that we will as a society generally continue to reach different value judgments about different things, and this seems to be an eminently appropriate act. If you are supportive of the concept that women will sometimes win and sometimes lose in such a comparison, then there is no need for neutrality. But I am having trouble fitting that into my admittedly limited knowledge of feminism.

But we don’t live in a neutral world. We don’t live in a world where the contributions of women are viewed as important, valuable, or correct as the contributions of men—even when they are the exact same actions. Women are still seen as inferior, still seen as needing the guidance and headship of men.

Use of the term “mothering” isn’t about claiming a different set of practices based on some essentialist version of parenting. It’s about claiming a female identity along with authority. And as long as any world I live in still has an issue with female authority, I’m still going to simultaneously claim my female identity along with my “neutral” (not!) human identity. I fully agree with laprofe63 that we are embodied beings, and that our bodies are perceived differently. I want to change the perception of a female body, a female mind. And I can’t do that by solely using “neutral” terminology.

So why go there? While i am a father, I mostly think of myself as a “parent” and not a “father figure.”

Even those who attribute traditional values to men and women understand that they’re both parents, and therefore pretty much anything gets lumped into potential parent action. If you’re going to try to change things with semantics, parenting is a better choice of neutral term.

I know it seems petty, but I think this “girls like pink, boys like blue” thing is very damaging