Notes
- While this paper says many sensible things that are rather obvious, much of what the author claims is rather inept, to my mind.
- Firstly, I think that the author sees gendered issues everywhere just as some people of colour see racial issues everywhere.
- The example from the Introduction – around which the paper revolves – is a case in point. Women run marathons too (though about half as many as men). ‘Big muscles’ are a handicap (note how muscular the Kenyans and Ethiopians aren’t). Also, it is alleged that the longer the distance the less of an advantage men have over women: it seems the cross-over point is 195 miles, so the headline ‘women are better long distance runners than men’ is a bit quirky1, given that ‘distance running’ is defined as ‘over 3k’.
- Now, of course, pregnancy and giving birth are marathons in one sense – they take a long time and a lot of effort. Of course, this deserves recognition rather than being taken for granted. It’s essential for the preservation of society – not to mention the species. This is a vastly more useful activity than marathon running.
- However, praise – if any – for marathon runners is for completing an optional and difficult task that most people can’t attempt. It’s very rare for anyone to complete a marathon – especially in a good time – without significant training. The amount of training and sacrifice to achieve a good time is considerable.
- I suppose the parallel – not a good one – would be of ‘marathon training’ vs ‘pregnancy’ – and ‘the marathon race’ vs ‘giving birth’. It’s possible to ‘drop out’ of all of the 2 x 2 parallels: by abortion or elective caesarean in the maternity case – both can be for good medical reasons, as can both ‘droppings out’ in the marathon case.
- Now – pathology aside – being pregnant and giving birth is something any woman can do. It’s a process that can be performed well or badly, but the effort involved in doing it well – not smoking and avoiding drink and drugs (common to all with any claims to being an athlete), attending ante-natal classes and the like – doesn’t compare well with training for any marathon, let alone an elite one. Sadly, in many parts of the world – unlike the comfortable middle-class world of academia – it’s part of a woman’s lot whether they want it or not. That’s what they exist for, in such societies, after all.
- I don’t think the positive aspects should be underestimated; for those that are ‘bought in’ to the process, it – and the subsequent nurturing – is something of great value and meaning that - again pathology aside – any woman can enjoy. As the author points out, it’s not compulsory (in affluent, liberal societies) and not definitive of womanhood. But it’s something almost any woman can do and find meaning in, irrespective of their educational achievements, natural endowment, social status or whatever. Motherhood is a ready-made ‘identity’ open to most women that is closed to all men.
- So, pregnancy, giving birth and the nurturing role is hard praiseworthy work that can be performed well or badly, but the comparison with marathon-running isn’t particularly apt. Praise for marathon-running is partly reflective of the training that goes in preparation for the race, and for the ranking obtained in the race (and global timings). There is no real parallel with the route to maternity. Not all can win prizes. We abstract out what anyone can do – walking bipedally, chewing gum and speaking one’s native language are difficult tasks – try getting a robot to do them - but are rarely praised other than when first learnt by one-year-olds.
- Finally, I didn’t think ‘philosophy’ had much to do with this; not everything written by a philosopher is philosophy. Nor has it much to do with BUMP2.
Author's Introduction
- An email pings into my inbox. It informs the faculty that Dr BigMuscles has completed a marathon. We’re told the impressive time and how many months of training it took: we should all congratulate him for his amazing achievement. A moment later, there is another email, just for me. It is from my favourite colleague who is always ready to poke fun at gendered double standards. She describes the whole-faculty email she would like to see, encouraging everyone to congratulate her for her epic first labour, complete with the vital statistics of method of pain relief (none), length of each stage of labour (second, or pushing, stage about the same as her partner’s marathon running time), and weight and head circumference of resulting baby.
- During pregnancy, birth and the early days of parenthood, humans do amazing things with our bodies, easily comparable to the achievements of any marathon runner. When we are pregnant, our bodies shelter and nourish the growing human from microscopic blastocyst to full-term foetus. We push the boundaries of human endurance with peaks of energy use comparable to those of elite athletes. In labour, the cervix dilates to 10 cm wide, roughly the size of a bagel. When we lactate, we produce milk that is tailormade to meet our baby’s needs, becoming higher in calories when the baby signals a growth spurt by feeding frequently throughout the day and developing just the right kind of antibodies to protect the baby when either the mother or the baby gets sick.
- But pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding are treated very differently from other physical achievements, such as running marathons. They are either celebrated in the wrong way – treated as yardsticks for motherhood with shame doled out to those who don’t measure up – or they are ignored or diminished, treated as a simple matter of luck or an uninteresting happenstance of biology. But that’s not right: pregnancy should be accorded a similar kind of recognition as other feats of physical prowess.
Author's Conclusion
- Why is it assumed that we must choose between idolisation and invisibility? There are several underlying mistakes in common thinking.
- The first mistake is essentialism: one element of this is the assumption that all mothers and all women are the same and should have the same goals. It is as if recognising something as an achievement for one woman implies that any woman who has not done the same thing has fallen short. But another aspect is that the goals and standards applied to women are reproductive: women are judged by their reproductive abilities. We need to remember that there are many ways of being a good mother – and that while being a good mother is great, women are more than just mothers. Some women might not want to be mothers and most mothers will have other things in their lives that they care about.
- This is closely linked to the second mistake, misattribution. It is often assumed that if GERAs are achievements to be celebrated, then this must be because they make women better mothers. But even though they are reproductive achievements – they occur as part of the process of creating and raising children – GERAs as achievements don’t really say anything about how good a mother you are. We can admire GERAs as physical achievements without seeing them as signs of how much you love your child. This point is a little complicated for some GERAs, such as breastfeeding, which are also loving interactions between parent and child and which provide health benefits for the child. Our admiration of breastfeeding as an achievement is wrapped up with understanding that breastfeeding is often this kind of beneficial loving interaction. But there is still room to recognise breastfeeding as a physical achievement – and to do this while recognising that there are many other beneficial loving interactions with one’s children – including responsive bottle-feeding.
- On the other side, when people say ‘It wasn’t you. It was just your body’, they ignore the agency needed for embodied achievements. Pregnancy and labour require physical endurance and mental strength. Breastfeeding is a learned skill. We should be able to feel proud of what our bodies do, not least because these are things that we do.
- Then there is the problem of luck. All achievements involve some luck. Elite athletes need hard work, natural talent – and lucky breaks. It can be hard to celebrate our achievements while recognising how lucky we have been, and that not everyone has the same good luck. We are pushed in different directions: into arrogance (when we forget the role of luck) or into erasing our own agency (when we focus only on the lucky background conditions). We need to balance the two thoughts: I did something amazing and I was lucky to be able to do it. Like other achievements, GERAs such as pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding can be celebrated while acknowledging the role of luck.
- So GERAs such as pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding should be thought of as a bit like running a marathon. Not everyone wants to run a marathon, and not every woman wants to be pregnant, have any given type of birth, or breastfeed. And people who run marathons aren’t better people, just like women who are pregnant, or who give birth or who breastfeed aren’t better people or better mothers: they just did something cool with their bodies, and deserve a kind of recognition and celebration.
- This article is part of the BUMP3: Better Understanding the Metaphysics of Pregnancy Project ...
Author Narrative
- Fiona Woollard is a professor of philosophy at the University of Southampton in the UK. She is the author of Doing and Allowing Harm (2015).
Comment:
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 1: Footnotes 2, 3:
Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2025
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