Motherhood Triumphs in the Face of Feminism

Ideologies, for better or for worse, are lived out on the pages of a life story. Testimonies often give us helpful glimpses into people’s lives and allow us to see them in their own words. In a recent article in United Kingdom’s Daily Mail, Rebecca Walker, daughter of The Color Purple author Alice Walker, speaks out against her mother’s feminism. Whether her mother approves or not, Rebecca’s experience as a daughter of feminism sheds considerable light on the trajectory of this movement that now has spanned many decades.

While her tone in speaking about her upbringing is harsh and can’t be condoned, the outcome of her life is telling. After all, she was raised by a mother who believed that “motherhood was the worst thing that could happen to a woman” and “children are millstones around your neck.” The younger Walker does not share this view. Rather she says that “having a child has been the most rewarding experience of my life. Far from ‘enslaving’ me, three-and-a-half-year-old Tenzin has opened my world. My only regret is that I discovered the joys of motherhood so late—I have been trying for a second child for two years, but so far with no luck.”

In fact, the lie of feminism was apparent to her even early on. As the child of divorced parents she was sent to her father’s house sometimes for two years at a time. It was in these time periods that she was exposed to a step-mother who doted on her own children—which caused Walker to long for a mother that was non-existent in her own life. She knew in her heart that something was missing.

Who told Ms. Walker that she should feel the desire to be a mother? Her inclination towards motherhood is not a result of social conditioning. If it was, then she would have followed the path of her own strong mother. Instead she rejected what she was taught, following an unknown path that led to great joy. From the very beginning God created women to be givers of life. Eve was named the “mother of all living” (Genesis 3:15). The fact that Rebecca Walker rejected the only path that she has ever known reveals that God has bestowed common grace on her to still desire to be, even in some small measure, a woman.

Rebecca Walker is not the only one moving away from her upbringing. Sarah Odell, a junior at Wellesley, recently wrote an article in the Washington Post responding to the lack of interest in Hillary Clinton’s campaign among her fellow peers. She likens it to the fact that her generation is far more conservative than their parents generation. Young women, who have been raised by feminist mothers, have come of age wanting something more than what they were dealt as children. Many of them are finding that fulfillment in bearing children—the very antitheses of what their mothers were trying to accomplish. The stories of these young women tell us something that is far more profound than simply conditioning, peer pressure, and perceived low expectations.

When women completely deny their God-given right and ability to bear children we are seeing a complete giving over to the desires of the flesh (Romans 1). To see children as a burden to be thrown off is a reversal of the created order and a sinful repression of the desire that probably once burned bright. It should make us weep for them.

Rebecca Walker’s story, though very sad, reveals something that no movement can ever squelch—God has created women to be givers of life. While we continue to discuss the hurdles that we face in the gender debate, we can see hope in the fact that God will not allow his design for womanhood to be completely effaced by sin. We can read with hope, but also read with sadness knowing that there are hundreds of young women out there who are just as confused about what it means to be a woman. And we should continue to give them the answer.