The Myth of Sisterhood

Mostly, when we speak of women and or motherhood, we use a lot of words like community, support, networking, and so on. Lots of happy, helpful terms that fill us with visions of women pulling together. Of women who just by gender and maternal status alone, can and willingly leap in where needed, offering aid and support to their fellow womenfolk - the sisterhood.

And while yes, this does happen and women DO help each other out, it is not the whole truth. And I wonder if the concept of this 'sisterhood' is a hindrance or something we SHOULD be all struggling to attain.

The feminist movement came up against this (and still does). The mighty 'WE' seems to be made up of many voices with diverse ideas about what a feminist is and or wants.

The biggest example that we have seen for a while was the whole 'Mommy Wars' thing. Who was the better mommy? The one who stayed at home or the one who went to work? These sweeping questions left a lot to be desired. Some people felt like stay at home moms were 'letting' down the team,' so to speak, for not following their career dreams and smashing that glass ceiling. This assumed that ALL women seemed to be career women before they 'sacrificed' all to stay at home with their kids.

Again, massive generalizations about the needs and wants of women.

While basic rights and freedoms, respect, understanding, etc is a necessity for not just women but all human beings. The details really need to be left up to the individual.

But this is where the sniping and griping and bitchiness seems to show up.

The sister 'hood' is a dangerous and tricky place to hang out.

It is filled with groups and loners alike. All with very different interests and attitudes and those individuals will either have their own groups of like minded individuals around them or they will be lone rebels. Don't expect help or sympathy from someone not in your circle.

We have all seen it or been a part of it. We have watched topics on blogs explode with nasty comments, snide remarks and clear lines drawn in the cyber sand.

We see the wagons circle to protect the one in the centre of the fray and thus the ripples of outrage and disgust flow from blog to blog.

People roll their eyes and mutter that it is just like high school again. And yes, it is. I don't think things really change all that much. Anyone who has worked in a largely female workplace will recall moments of backstabbing bitchiness. Snide gossip that filled coffee rooms. Women can be and are their own worst enemies sometimes.

So while I have met some extraordinary women. I have become part of some amazing communities online and in real life where, yes, the women ARE amazing and strong and supportive, I get the feeling that this is not the norm and instead something we perhaps need to all strive for.

I recently listened to Kirsten of Motherhood Uncensored on Blog Talk Radio have a chat with one of my fave's Crank Mama about the whole 'alterna hipster' label and parenting. It was a fun and light look at the big hoora that had been circulating around the blogosphere. You can hear my take on this on CBC Radio One on Monday at 11 am. (End Shameless Plug!) Now some at Strollerderby have me labeled as the 'anti-hipster' and that is fine, but not entirely true. I think some people have a strong dislike of me because of my comments on the whole drinking thing too. (all too much linkage to dig up!) And that is fine, we all can't be pals. We all can't share the same views on issues. That is life.

Now, Kristen and Elizabeth did a great job of keeping it light and I could tell that they worked very hard to not sound judgmental or snobbish about the various topics around the hipster thing. But I think they had to work quite hard at this. And this is not saying anything negative about them at all. I think we all can come of sounded very self righteous when spouting our opinions vs. other opinions - just look at this post!

But I think their radio discussion was a perfect example of why we are not and never will be a 'Sistah hood.' Not in the sense of total feminine solidarity.

We all have our ways of doing thing and our opinions about them. Different things are more important to one woman than another. And thus we compare. We compare, we size up, we evaluate. We use outward appearance to gage the person/woman before us. We judge by what is said about parenting choices, lifestyle - suburb vs. urban, marriage vs common law vs singledom, working or non working and on and on.

I don't think we can help it. And I sometimes think it isn't meant in a bad way. We use others to reflect back a report of sorts back to ourselves. Similarity or Dissimilarity means we must be doing something right...or wrong.

No matter what, we seem to be very insecure. Is this a generational thing? Is it because we do tend to overanalyze things? Are we more insecure about our choices as women and mothers than previous generations? I don't know.

But I can't see how the self and other analysis that goes on can encourage sisterhood, except in that we may shed a glaring light on the total lack of it. Or very little of it that really is around no matter how much we chuck around nice phrases and huggy awards to nice blog posts or whatever.

I would like to see everyone step back see each other without the veil of evaluation of everyone and everything around us. Maybe putting ourselves in other's shoes more or something. Maybe by admitting how insecure we are.

Not that disagreement is wrong. But especially in the blogging world, I don't think we should take so much so personally. We shouldn't get shirty. We can debate and agree to disagree and so forth. We can try to 'turn' someone sure, but I think the high schoolness needs to go.

Everywhere.