It’s the fact that white women are quietly erasing the horrors of women of color who haven’t been able to be mothers by implying that, a child free life is empowering for ALL women. When we talk about pro-choice, when we talk about being child free being empowering for all women, and set that as the standard of what is empowering for a woman, you are being ignorant to the fact that so many women of color think opposite.
So many women of color see motherhood and children just as empowering as living a childfree life. Yet, no one talks about that. No one actually discusses how women of color have faced things like forced sterilization, forced abortion, their kids being kidnapped by the government, etc. as we’ve had discussions about how it is empowering not to have children, we have been ignoring the other side of the coin, which are the discussions of how empowering it is for a woman to have children, and to get pregnant and give birth IF SHE WANTS TO, because she is a part of a marginalized community where the government does everything to take that away.
Outside of ethnic communities, there are rarely any discussions of residential schools, children being taken by the governments, forced sterilization and abortion, etc.,–in fact I have never heard of white women talking about that.
More so, in some feminist circles, women of color who do choose motherhood as empowering are often silenced and shamed because in this white progressive feminist movement, there is already this idea that being a mother is by default oppression and that just isn’t the case for a lot of woc it’s the opposite.
I don’t believe that as a whole, white women are actively trying to silence women of color, but by being ignorant to the issues we faced or our ancestors faced, then that it certainly ignoring our struggles.
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