The Conflict Read Free

sense of identity specific to each. But once men and women were able to take on the same roles and carry out the same responsibilities—in both public and private spheres—what was left of their essential differences? While motherhood remained the sole privilege of women, where is the exclusive sphere preferred for men? Are they to be defined only negatively, as people who cannot bear children?
    All this has provoked profound existential disorientation for men. The question is made all the more complex by the possibility of removing men from the process of conception altogether, and by the necessity, perhaps, of essentially redefining motherhood. Is the mother the one who provides the egg, the one who carries the baby, or the one who raises the child? And what does all this mean for the essential differences between being a father and being a mother?
    In the face of so much upheaval and uncertainty, we are sorely tempted to put our faith back in good old Mother Nature and denounce the ambitions of an earlier generation as deviant. This temptation has been reinforced by the emergence of a movement dressed in the guise of a modern, moral cause that worships all things natural. This ideology, which essentially advocates a return to a traditional model, has had an overwhelming influence on women’s future and their choices. Just as Jean-Jacques Rousseau succeeded in doing,
troops of this movement intend to persuade women to return to nature, which means reverting to fundamental values of which maternal instincts are a cornerstone. But, unlike in the eighteenth century, women now have three options: embracing motherhood, rejecting it, or negotiating some middle ground, depending on whether they privilege their personal pursuit or a maternal role. The more intense—or even exclusive—that role is, the more likely it is to conflict with other demands, and the more difficult the negotiation between the woman and the mother become.
    In addition to the women who feel fulfilled by having children and the increasing number who, voluntarily or not, turn their back on it, are all those who, aware of the demanding ideologies of motherhood, attempt to reconcile their desires as women with their responsibilities as mothers. The result of these competing interests has been to shatter any notion of women forming a united front. This is another reason to reconsider how we define women’s identity.
    This evolution is apparent in all developed countries, but there are marked differences depending on history and culture. Women from a range of backgrounds—English, American, Scandinavian, Mediterranean, but also German and Japanese—all engage the same issues and reach their own conclusions. Interestingly, French women seem to form a group of their own. It is not that they are oblivious to the dilemma confronted by others, but their concept of motherhood derives, as we’ll see, from an older notion, one that took
shape more than four centuries ago. 1 It might well be thanks to this that they have the highest rate of pregnancy in Europe. Which makes one wonder whether the eternal appeal to the maternal instinct, and the behavior it presupposes, are in fact motherhood’s worst enemies.

ALSO BY ELISABETH BADINTER
    Dead End Feminism
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    The Unopposite Sex: The End of the Gender Battle
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    Mother Love: Myth and Reality—Motherhood in Modern History

Copyright © 2010 by Éditions Flammarion
    English-language translation copyright © 2011 by Adriana Hunter
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    eISBN 9781429996914
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