ABOUT
About Liberating Motherhood
Motherhood is a source of immense power. Bringing life into the world is arguably the most important thing anyone can do. It’s certainly a potent form of activism, and an immense intellectual, emotional, and physiological challenge.
Yet for generations, motherhood has been a primary driver of women’s oppression. Patriarchy has taken a source of power and turned it into a cause of suffering. And how does the culture react?
With headlines about “drowning mothers” that never mention who’s drowning them. With thinkpieces about the “mommy wars” that never bother to consider why patriarchy might want to pit mothers against one another rather than encouraging them to come together to demand real change. With incel and manosphere content telling women that their real power comes from giving all their power to men. And with supposedly progressive content that treats household labor inequity as a minor inconvenience—not as the act of literally stealing women’s lives by robbing them of all of their time.
Patriarchy exists because it serves men. Because it allows men to treat women like appliances, not people. Motherhood is one of the main tools through which patriarchy objectifies women—turning us into sex bots and in-home servants, and eroding our potential.
How much more could women do if they weren’t playing nanny, therapist, sex slave, and housekeeper to entitled men? How much more could you do with your life if the men in your life didn’t steal so much?
Human liberation requires liberated mothers. And when women are free, men benefit too. Healthy mothers build a healthier, more just society. Everyone should care about this, because everyone should care about all forms of human oppression.
If you’ve had enough mom-guilt, blame, and exhaustion; if you want to see all human beings thrive; if you want this generation of women to break the cycle of misogyny and exploitation forever, then this is the place for you.
About Zawn
I started my newsletter, social media, and practice of yelling at men online and in-person because I was tired of seeing mothers suffer. I was tired of seeing motherhood and marriage transform vibrant, brilliant women into shadows of their former selves.
I’m a lifelong feminist who pursued, and was lucky enough to build, an equitable feminist marriage. I believe that this lens makes it easier for me to see the oppression all around us for what it is. Freed from the notion that male bad behavior is inevitable, that change has to be a long process, and that men oppress women by accident, I can see the patriarchy that infects all of our lives.
I have a philosophy degree that I think helps me slice through the bullshit. I’m a career writer. For the past 15 years, I’ve written professionally about mental health, science, and medicine. Over and over, the same theme emerged: Sexism is destroying women’s lives, and everyone wants to pretend it’s something other than sexism. So I started writing about that trend. Eventually, it became my full-time job.
I now support women to get comfortable being single, to leave bad marriages, and when possible, to advocate for better lives with their partners.
I also run a small reproductive justice nonprofit that greatly informs my work—especially my belief that misogyny and racism are the primary drivers of poor maternal mental health and maternal mortality, and that nothing will change until we demand accountability from the society and individuals who want to pretend women’s suffering doesn’t matter.