Is coercion the new gaslighting?

Another trap set by the “good mother” narrative

“I think part of what makes [the show] Severance so resonant right now is that it depicts coercion and control that is normalized for women’s bodies, but applies it to men too. And only then do we see how messed up and diabolical it is…

The show literalizes the mindfuck (pardon my French, but that’s actually what severance is) that is surviving in a woman’s body.”

–

Lane Anderson

,"Severance" is what happens when we treat men's bodies the way we treat women's”

Cut the strings. Adapted from art: retrorocket for iStock

Last month, Lane Anderson sent a message to ask my thoughts on the show Severance and the theme of body control and women’s sacrifice. I am a bit obsessed with the show and went DEEP in my analysis back to her (sorry, not sorry, Lane!). In her writing, Lane picked up a thread I actually had not seen coming – coercion and the female body – expertly weaving her ideas and some of my thoughts and prior dives into abortion access with Gretchen Sisson’s research on relinquishment following forced birth.

Note: if you aren’t into Severance, don’t worry, this is the extent to which I talk about it here. It’s the overall concept of Lane’s writing about the show that got me thinking about the “mindfuck” she discusses in the context of surviving in a woman’s body and how it relates to control of our own bodies and those who wield “paternalistic coercion”:

"Severance" is what happens when we treat men's bodies the way we treat women's

After reading her piece, I kept turning that word over in my head – coercion.

This word always seemed a bit extreme to me. I had not used it in the context of maternal stress. But, turning it over, I thought “should I use it more?”

So I did the lamest thing a writer can do and looked up the exact definition of coercion: the act of compelling someone to do something by using force or threats.

In the context of how other people can affect the way we think about our own bodies, I often think about medical gaslighting as something that predominantly affects women (vs. men¹). I have brought it up before (as have many others) and how medical gaslighting shows up in the context of women’s pain and pain dismissal. Gaslighting seems passive compared to the use of force or threats defining coercion. Gaslighting exists in the dismissal of concerns, the nothing-to-be-worried-about response that makes someone feel crazy for feeling/ noticing/ bringing up an issue. But now that the word coercion has stuck in my brain, I think it’s closer to what is actually happening with maternal martyrdom. Instead of the gaslighting effect of making us feel crazy, the use of coercion aligns with the ways society compels women to sacrifice our body, our health, our identity, by making it seem like it is just another part of motherhood. ²

So, is paternalistic coercion the new gaslighting?

Maybe not “new” in practice but in concept. Here me out (and please comment below if you think I’m going too far!)

Here is how coercion, though not used as a word directly, may have actually shown up as a theme in the last three things I wrote:

“All that matters is a healthy baby” while dismissing maternal health risks = coercion?

The ignored health risk of motherhood

“Breast is best” and the deprioritization of maternal sleep = coercion?

“Even when the risk is quantifiable, it's just not part of the equation”

C-section and intervention during birth without consideration of psychological safety = coercion?

“I did not feel seen as a whole person.”

You may be thinking – ok, Molly, but where is the use of force? Where are the threats?

I think the force and threats of coercion are hiding in the stories we tell ourselves, the language we use, and the outcomes we accept. The use of force or threats is far more subtle than textbook forms of coercion. It’s the threat of social shame, the force riding on the guilt-avoiding drive to not feel like a “bad mom”. It’s the way we get on board and agree with recommendations/ procedures /advice because we experience an internal pressure that our baby or child’s needs should ALWAYS take precedence over our own. Even if the health risk to them is low and the health risk for us is high. It’s in the way we nurse until our nipples bleed or in how we walk away from a traumatic birth experience thinking that everything done to our bodies was justified³.

Coercion via psychological force/threat in the form of the “good mother” narrative.

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Isn’t it natural to willingly sacrifice our bodies to be a “good mother”?

Nature documentaries love to anthropomorphize maternal sacrifice. I have brought up the Japanese Red Bug (go watch this video and crumble). I have had friends send along videos, including this fucking octopus mom (my friend's text message: “we need to die to be good moms”). Both examples (and many others) lean on how the mother cannot feed herself while she tends to the needs of her offspring and so, ultimately, she wastes away and dies. For the octopus, an accompanying article observes: “as the hatchlings depart in search of cold water currents, their mother passes away but does so having accomplished her goal, a true testament to a mother's love.”

I’m sorry, what? The octopus is not doing this out of love. Yes, they are very smart creatures and maybe they are capable of some form of love, but also… evolution.

While I love a good biology lesson, I am not interested in the red bug or the octopus as an example of “natural” maternal sacrifice. I am interested in the red bug/octopus story as an example of how the good mother narrative pops up EVERYWHERE. Even nature documentaries. Emphasizing how maternal sacrifice, the ways we give up our body and our lives, is what motherhood naturally requires. This adds power to the coercive pressure.

But is there any truth in our natural inclination to give up our bodies? Naturally, I had to talk with

Nancy Reddy

, author of The Good Mother Myth: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas About How to Be a Good Mom:

“In the early pandemic, when I had one kid in pre-K and one in 1st grade (it was a bad time!) I thought about this spider all the time--after her babies are born/the eggs hatch, she literally dissolves so that her kids can eat her. And that's what a lot of that time felt like for me. And it still feels like that's what our culture expects of moms--that you should be willing to literally turn yourself to goo if that will somehow serve your kids.

The fact that we're so quick, in our culture, to claim that certain approaches to mothering are "natural," or to see "natural" things as superior, and as easy/gentle/peaceful, actually shows how far many of us are from nature.

I'm very interested in how animals have been used by scientists to bolster arguments about what's natural/normal/etc for mothers and babies. And a lot of that is really wrong-headed. Dr. Harry Harlow [based all of his findings on attachment theory] by studying rhesus macaque monkeys in a lab. But non-human primates actually have so much variation in how they raise their young. If Harlow had stuck with baboons and orangutans (which were his original primate test subjects) or if he'd observed any kind of primate in the wild, he would have had entirely different findings.

We've tended to extrapolate from animals, especially non-human primates, when those findings confirm what we already believe--so the animals that have been taken up [by research] are ones that look like the kind of all-adoring, constantly devoted mothers we believe human women should be able to become.” — Nancy Reddy

Ah, yes, biased, sexist science, perpetuating myths about motherhood. We’ve seen this one before. So, how does this all relate back to coercion? How does the “good mother” narrative, lodged in our brain, force us to accept turning into goo as an inevitable requirement of motherhood?

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Breaking the cycle as an act of rebellion

I think all of this comes back to stress and health, with the “good mother" narrative creating a damned if you do, damned if you don’t cycle revolving around mom guilt and shame. While guilt is defined as a self-conscious feeling of having done something wrong, shame is defined as the internalized feeling of failing in front of others. The stress-related health impacts of mom guilt and shame likely relate to the way we physically respond to the tension of expectation mismatch and the feelings of failure. If you prioritize your own health, you endure the long-tail effects of the mom guilt and shame; if you want to avoid mom guilt and shame, you must deprioritize your own health through maternal sacrifice. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Always reverberating the subconscious thought: we signed up for this, we are choosing to prioritize the wellbeing of others and ignore our own needs/health risks, because that is what a “good mom” does.

This all goes all the way back to an question I posed in an earlier piece: “Can we change the narrative of self sacrifice and maternal martyrdom?”. Maybe the question should now be framed as: can we resist coercion towards sacrifice and martyrdom by breaking the hold of the “good mother” narrative?

Back to Nancy Reddy:

“Being a "good mom" is so ephemeral--it's not a state you can ever really attain. You're always kind of chasing the dragon of goodness.

My whole book is about the long process of divesting from "goodness" and focusing instead on who my kids actually are and what they need, and learning to take my own needs seriously. In a way, that's been one of the gifts of motherhood for me--an awareness of my own needs and a keen sense of how things go really wrong in our family if I don't treat my own needs with the care I treat our children's.

The big picture is about learning to distinguish between "goodness"--the external ideals we're aiming to meet--and what really matters in our own families.” — Nancy Reddy

On a broader level, breaking the cycle requires recognizing and pushing back on the “good mother” narrative. This is what

Dr Devika Bhushan

and I spoke about in the context of sleep prioritization, breastfeeding, and maternal mental health. This is what

Rachel Somerstein

and I spoke about in the context of pain dismissal, birth trauma, and psychological safety.

Expanding into the context of patriarchal parenting research and advice,

Emily Edlynn

did an excellent newsletter last week that speaks to pushing back in that space as well:

“we all — regardless of gender — absorb the larger society’s message of what makes a good woman and a good mom and unwittingly perpetuate it….

Despite current examples of rising anti-feminism, the modern version of oppressing women has largely been more insidious—we’re no longer burning witches but the smoke still permeates the air. Reading the news these days, though, it can feel like witch-burning may make a comeback and I anguish over what I can do to stop it.

What I know that I can do is to speak up against the use of parenting guidance and experts as another way to keep women separate and unequal.

I propose this radical act: stop listening to and following any parenting advice that relegates our emotions, needs, time, space, and identity. Notice the underlying messages and discard the harmful ones. Speak up in the comments on social media posts…Share this Substack with partners who need to hear it. Amplify voices that celebrate the whole, authentic mother rather than the impossibly "good" one…Think about what it would be like to relax into the whole of your authentic self rather than expending so much energy adhering to impossible ideals. Consider the mental and emotional reserves you would have to act outward for change when you’re not so inward focused. If we can make change in the parenting world, maybe there’s hope for the rest of the world." – Dr. Emily Edlynn

Pushing back against the coercive “good mother” narrative as a radical act of feminist rebellion.

(and a radical act of self care)

They can’t burn us all!

There are so many angles to explore with this question. It’s an evolving theory and I would LOVE your input and any thoughts you have!

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1. Of course, there are lots of examples of medical gaslighting outside of the gender binary and amongst different communities, socioeconomic levels, race, etc.

2. Another voice that made me consider how coercion shows up in this context came from reading

Lexi Eikelboom

shortly after reading Lane’s piece. In her piece, coercion was used in the context of patriarchal motherhood and the similar goals of sexist men and institutional management:

"That shared goal, in short, is to coerce you into accepting a reality that is bad for you and good for them. But it’s not only the goal that’s shared; it’s the playbook, the moves that sexist men and institutions use to coerce you into accepting your situation and the attitude that underlies the endeavour."

While I trust that individual healthcare providers have the best interest at heart, Medicine is still a patriarchal institution and society is still built around patriarchal ideals.

3. I just listened to this episode of The Longest Shortest Time featuring discussion between author

Ali

Yarrow and host Hilary Frank where Hilary notes that she for year, accepted the painful and traumatic elements of her birth as "saving my life and saving the baby". The discussion they had fits perfectly into the context discussed above.