Motherhood: blessing or penalty?
I didn’t even know we were asking this question, but I’m apparently not in charge of decision-making and/or social media strategy at the United Nations, because they clearly see one of life’s most incredible gifts as an unspeakable burden.
To make this even more tone-deaf, the tweet was issued on Christmas Day.
Here’s the tweet, which came from the U.N. Women official Twitter account.
The agency, according to its profile, “is the UN entity for gender equality and women’s empowerment.” And what’s more empowering than telling women who have children they’ve chosen to incur a penalty?
3,663 people are talking about this
The penalty card, issued by Officer P. Atriarchy (insert sad trombone sound here) and in force from the beginning of time, lists a number of penalties mothers face:
- More unpaid care and domestic work
- Irregular work
- Reduced employment
- Limited maternity benefits
- Gender-based occupational segregation
- Gender pay gaps
- Higher rates of poverty in older age
This didn’t go over quite as planned. As the kids like to say, I’m just here for the ratio:
Not every woman can afford the penalty.#WomensProgress2019 #FamiliesOfToday
"If you have a family you won't be able to waste your life as one of our corporate drones"
See Dwight Spelvin's other Tweets
Not every woman can afford the penalty.#WomensProgress2019 #FamiliesOfToday
Motherhood is the greatest blessing, never a penalty, just ask a woman who struggles with infertility, but Merry Christmas
See needsanap's other Tweets
Not every woman can afford the penalty.#WomensProgress2019 #FamiliesOfToday
Not every woman can afford the penalty.#WomensProgress2019 #FamiliesOfToday
I'm 8 months pregnant and can't wait to start my new "job". Get outta here with your nonsense.
See Ursa Minor's other Tweets
Not every woman can afford the penalty.#WomensProgress2019 #FamiliesOfToday
Another reminder that the UN is a garbage scow of an organization that serves no reputable purpose beyond the permanent security council membership.
See Dan's other Tweets
The question of a motherhood “penalty,” of course, involves whether or not you believe mothers would willingly make trade-offs to raise their children the way they want to and whether or not the goal of U.N. Women is to ensure that members of the distaff gender are fully employed no matter what their motherhood status.
It’s pretty easy to see the fallacies in the arguments being put forward, even without statistics being offered. Women work less hours more irregularly after having a child because women generally raise the child.
If you don’t like traditional gender roles in terms of raising children, that’s your prerogative. But many people still do around the world, which would obviously account for the discrepancies.
The question is whether the “penalty,” in the minds of the United Nations, is motherhood itself or an arrangement where mothers — usually by choice — reduce their working hours and pick their professions based on familial availability.
Except for increased poverty in old age, every one of these onerous bullet points on the motherhood penalty card can be explained by simple choices.
Beyond that, you have the insane tone-deafness of this. Did the U.N. think that insulting mothers by calling motherhood a “penalty” would endear themselves to Twitterers? Did they not think this wouldn’t go over well with women who have fertility issues? Was there no self-awareness here?
No one said that parenthood is easy. It’s also one of the most rewarding human experiences there is. To flippantly reduce it to a “penalty” is both mind-boggling and a sick anti-family message.
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