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 Women's Liberation and Cruelty to Children
E.T. Barker, MD
From the perspective of the CSPCC, one of the most important aspects of the. struggle for equality in all dealings bet- ween men and women is the prevention of permanent emotional damage to children.
An emotionally "put-down" mother, a woman whose relationship with her husband is characterized by arbitrary male dominance, will have negative feelings (conscious or unconscious) resulting from her unequal or powerless position.
Infants, being extraordinarily sensitive to the feelings of the mother are affected by these feelings. The infant is affected directly by the mother's conscious or unconscious anger or resentment. Indirectly, the child is affected by rationalized excesses of arbitrary authority (unnecessary eat this's, do this's, don't do that's), and other psychological defence manoeuvers necessary to cope with the feelings generated from an unequal position vis-a-vis a father whose arbitrary male dominance is unquestioned.
When the norm for all relations between men and women becomes one of equality, and especially when parents re- late on a basis of mutual respect and cooperation, then our children will have a major source of emotional abuse removed. Not until women are themselves treated as persons, will it be reasonable to expect them to treat their infant children as persons, bathing them in the empathic, affectionate care so necessary during the earliest formative years.
Editorial, Journal of the Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Vol 4, Issue 2.
In a sense everyone's liberation depends on the liberation of white males, precisely because they have the power to prevent women and minorities from seeking a broader range of alternatives if they do not play the game by the rules of the masculine value system.
Madonna Kolbenschiag
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