Authority as maternity is an important concept and I have not figured it out at all. I have always marveled, though, at how authoritarian married women and mothers can be, and how invasive … and not only of their children. I get condescended to a lot by these women; they assume I know less about the world than they do and that I am less mature. I have always assumed it was some kind of patriarchal effect, that is, that these women were disempowered already and acting out where they dared. But maternity as will to power, as Kelly J. Baker puts it, is an interesting concept indeed. I must investigate this.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Nobody responds to this but I am interested in it.
I keep noticing poor behavior by a certain kind of married women and mothers. Matrons. They mistreat their children, if they have them, and they also mistreat me in a similar way, perhaps because I am a child since I am unmarried and not a mother. Meanwhile they relate somewhat differently to their husbands: mega respect and deference on the one hand, but at another level or in some other arenas, scorn and bossiness.
I used to think it was due to disempowerment, taking it out on someone, needing to confirm for themselves that someone else can be made more unhappy than they, at least temporarily.
Now, though, I am wondering whether it is about maternal / matronly authority and entitlement.
Patriarchy sucks, in any case. And I don’t understand why people think feminism is against men – do they have any serious information on it at all?
P.S. and … matrons who have read any kind of self help, or who read magazines, are the most destructive, I find.
This, plus the realization that most people really do believe that they are good and the world is bad (I learned this Clarissa’s blog, and it explains a lot), is why I find people depressing.
Cynicism coupled with condescension and bossiness … this is what I do not like about women, and also about men.
I think you nailed it with the “and they also mistreat me in a similar way, perhaps because I am a child since I am unmarried and not a mother. ” I am married, but since I’m young and don’t have children, I get treated like a child by married women who do have children (though possibly to a lesser degree than you do? I don’t know). I think they have some kind of expectation that we (speaking as women without children) don’t have the level of responsibility or wisdom than they do, because we have never tried to raise a child. But I think there is an assumption underlying that; the assumption that raising a child is heinously difficult requires enormous personal strength. I haven’t had that experience, so I don’t know. But I sort of doubt it. If these people knew what grad school was like (have any of them tried to write a final exam while having an hour-and-a-half long panic attack during the exam, knowing that this exam is worth 50% of their grade in the course, which is worth 25% of their gpa?), maybe they would understand that other people have been through things too, and would look down on childless women less. (that said, fat chance!)
…although at the same time, mothers and motherhood are said to be the most discriminated against class and category.
…you’re right, raising children is supposed to be heinously and mysteriously difficult. Perhaps just the hardest thing _some_ people ever did, I don’t know.
…there also seems to be this idea that having a child makes you an expert, automatically more mature than everyone and more of an expert than everyone on everything — the way men think they are, actually.
?
I guess the only way to find out is to have a child….but….I don’t want one!
Well, if I ever have one, I’ll refuse to become that kind of a person! It can be done!