Feminism has always been about choice. For decades, it was about choice in a legal aspect — the right to vote, own property, earn money. Though it is certainly still about legal choice in several parts of the world, the focus has shifted for many American women to emotional and familial choice.
With the resurgence of the “tradwife” phenomenon on social media platforms — where typically young white women detail how much they enjoy the traditional domestic tasks that occupy their days — questions have emerged about the choice to be traditional. Can being a stay-at-home wife and mother be a feminist path? I'd argue: absolutely, as long as it's voluntary.
In conversations about choice feminism, there is nothing more significant than the underlying stance that all choices hold equal validity. There is great depth and strength in the choices that millions of American women make daily when they provide for themselves and those around them through inhuman acts of generosity. Whether it be in the home or in the workplace, Western society has generally come to the collective and true understanding that there is no one correct way to be a woman.
Unfortunately, some seem to disagree. A recently re-circulating video of current vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance shows him dismissing the Democratic party for being run by “childless cat ladies,” including Kamala Harris.
Ridiculousness aside for a moment, this claim has no factual basis. Kamala Harris is the stepmother to Ella and Cole Emhoff, both in their 20s. Many of the most influential couples at the core of the Democratic party — the Obamas, the Clintons, the Bidens — have children. More significantly, however, this claim represents the narrow-mindedness surrounding femininity in the Trump-Vance campaign.
Traditionalism is not inherently a negative thing. But the conservative push toward traditional notions of womanhood, even going so far as to insist that being childless is somehow a taint on feminine credibility or validity, is dangerous.
In degrading subsections of women, Vance effectively degrades all women, from all walks of life with different opportunities and circumstances. He is targeting women who cannot have children due to physical incapabilities, infertility or threat to life. In degrading Kamala Harris, he is targeting step-mothers, older sisters, grandmothers, godmothers, women who step up in village-carrying moments to raise children who are not biologically their own.
Degrading women who are childless does not boost or elevate women with children — on the contrary, it devalues their personal choice or their intentions and equates their worth to their childbearing capabilities.
Motherhood is vital, critical and sacred. I do not support a vice presidential candidate dismissing anyone regarding their choices surrounding it. Social politics revolve around our views of community, marriage, family and children. Choices about these topics are undoubtedly more personal and meaningful than any onlooker could ever comprehend, and they are certainly more personal and meaningful than Vance seems to comprehend.
