Was your own mother a feminist? What would you consider to be the definition of a feminist? What do you perceive ‘feminist mothering’ to be? The definition most used by people to describe feminism is that it is trying to understand the nature of the issue of gender inequality and women’s rights but there are so many more things that feminism is then just about equality and rights.

Feminist theory is like a lead into the more philosophical aspects of feminism. What are those you ask? Feminist theory is a long list of items, such as women’s social roles and the politics of many fields such as economics and education and other things that are explored are stereotyping, discrimination, oppression and sexual oppression.  There are also themes that can be explored that relate to feminism such as history, art history and aesthetics. There are also several theories about feminist mothering that all aspects of feminism stem from things considered to only be concerned with a mothers care.

Feminist mothering is the practice of women’s empowerment and how  to bring about social change in their home, community and society. Feminist mothering is also considered a way of mothering that breaks away from what is considered “normal” and that wants to challenge and bring about social change in the terms of what a typical “mother” is seen as. The social constructing of motherhood is that feminist women are seeking ways to break the typical mold of what mothering is by expanding their beliefs and incorporating paid employment, using nonsexist child rearing techniques and to have a life outside the care of their children. This also includes involving others in their children’s lives, such as other caregivers who have beliefs along the same lines that the child’s parents have. It would seem that it is not at the total opposite end of the spectrum from what is considered the “normal” raising and mothering of a child.

There is no easy way to describe what “feminism” means to everyone or even what is perceived as being feminist mothering. The complexity of the issues is not easy to unravel and are integrated into one another in the sense that you cannot have one without the other. There are a vast number of feminist theories and each will have its own approach to the issues involved in feminism. Feminism cannot be said to be about one particuar issue when it involves all the parts of all of our lives.