Oppression of Pregnant Women and New Mothers

Pregnant women and new mothers, especially those who breastfeed, are being oppressed in several ways. This population is denied many benefits women have when becoming pregnant or new mothers. This occurs because society sees pregnant women and new mothers as inferior, emotional, incapable of day to day tasks, and over all useless in a way. Oppression of this population occurs on the individual, institutional, and structural levels. On the individual level, pregnant women and new mothers are judged for their appearances, their personal healthcare during a pregnancy, and the way they act as mothers. Many mothers are called lazy, slobs, or even useless because they are a little less mobile, have less energy, or are not fully educated on

motherhood. In social media, this is being known as “mommy wars”. Other people, especially other moms, are criticizing new mothers verbally on how they should be parenting their child. A blogger recently posted a picture of her and her young child on her blog. This picture showed the two after a mommy and me class. A woman reading this blog post on the blog topic, Real Parents, Real Judgement: Let's Stop the Mommy Wars, had some criticism to give blogger, Tina:
A comment that I received on my post was quite judgmental: “Quinn should be wearing socks, shoes, and a jacket! Really, the way you care for your son is so questionable….”. The comment really surprised me. It also hurt my feelings, but I assumed the reader just didn’t know the whole story and made an assumption, so I replied, hoping to clear things up: “Quinn was dressed perfectly for our class at My Gym. The babies have to be in bare feet to prevent slipping since many of them are just learning to walk. It was also in the 70s here yesterday, so he didn’t need a jacket.”. (Real Parents, Real Judgement: Let's Stop the Mommy Wars)
Another type of oppression pregnant women and new mothers face is institutional oppression.

This occurs when pregnant women or new mothers use maternity or new parent leaves at work. While legally businesses and corporations do have to provide a woman with excused leave during her pregnancy, birthing, and after birthing, they do not have to pay their employee while she is on leave. This makes becoming pregnant and having a child very different on a couple because while someone can take care of the child, only one person is receiving an income until the baby can be placed in daycare or in the care of a family member while the mom goes back to work. Structurally, new mothers are oppressed by being told where and when it is appropriate to openly breastfeed their child. This oppression goes even further when a woman decides to openly feed her child bare breasted. This is something that society sees as disgusting and just inappropriate to be done in public. This truly is oppression towards this population because there are several instances where bare breasts or visible breasts are accepted in society. For example, men are allowed to be topless at public beaches and pools, visible breasts are broadcasted live on the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, and bare breasts are shown in movies available on television and in movies. These are all ways the public is subjected to bare breasts, but are offended and criticize mothers when they are bare breasted in order to sufficiently feed their

baby.