"(Getty) I used to keep a list called What's Women's Fault? It was quite substantial: poverty (single moms), crime (single moms again), rape (short skirts, drinking), domestic violence (women responsible for most of it), incels (women declining to date men they don't find appealing), divorce (women file the majority of cases), population decline (replacing overpopulation, somehow also women's fault), and of course everything that can go even a little bit wrong with pregnancy, childbirth, and children."
"There is virtually no aspect of women's lives that the culture does not manage to infuse with doubt and fear and guilt. And that goes double for motherhood. Just ask any middle-class woman who doesn't breastfeed her baby. It doesn't matter if she knows intellectually that the baby will be fine, the way boomer babies like me were fine on formula; she'll still feel selfish if she chooses not to breastfeed, and like a failure if she can't."
Women are routinely blamed for a wide array of social problems, from poverty and crime to demographic change and complications of pregnancy and parenting. Mothers face impossibly high standards, judged whether they work or stay home, while fathers face minimal expectations. Cultural messages infuse women's lives with doubt, fear, and guilt, especially around choices like breastfeeding. Historical details change but the underlying pressures persist, with medical advice once endorsing beer for lactation and now prescribing different norms. Mothers internalize responsibility for potential future harms, feeling the need to produce perfect children despite uncertainty.
Read at The Nation
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