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What is this anyway? Who is Zawn Villines? Why do mothers need liberation?

Mothers have had enough of the bullshit. We’re tired of being told motherhood requires no skill, that we have to just accept bad treatment from everyone, and that our time, lives, and dreams don’t matter. Abuse of mothers affects everyone, and everyone with a conscience should care about mothers’ issues.

This is a page about motherhood, feminism, the intersection of the two, and how heterosexual relationships help drive women’s oppression.

Women should not have to sacrifice everything so that men don’t have to make a single change—but that’s what motherhood demands in a patriarchal society.

If you want to see my most popular pieces, scroll to the bottom of this page for links.

If you prefer not to subscribe on Substack, or if you’d like to help fund scholarships to my newsletter and support group, you can subscribe on Patreon. I also sell tons of fun merchandise on Tee Public.

You can review a comprehensive guide to some of my most helpful pieces here.

What is Liberating Motherhood?

Readers often ask me if non-mothers are welcome here. Of course they are. That’s because mothers’ issues aren’t just for mothers, just as feminism isn’t just for women and anti-racism isn’t just for racial minorities.

Anti-mother misogyny intersects with every other axis of oppression—racism, childism, ableism, classism, and more. If you care about women, feminism, children, and building a better world, this page is for you—even, and perhaps even especially, if you are not a mother. Because one important measure of character is the extent to which we care about issues that don’t affect us.

In an abusive patriarchal society, mothers bear the brunt of many forms of oppression, particularly in heterosexual relationships. The mainstream feminist movement has largely ignored mother’s issues. Society stereotypes mothers as uninteresting, our issues as “mommy wars,” and pretends that if we want to talk about motherhood we’re being selfish and entitled. In a world where mothers are cringeworthy and ignored, it’s no wonder so many mothers feel so alone.

This sexist approach to mothers serves another purpose, too: it divides mothers and non-mothers. Childless people pay little attention to mothers’ issues. So young women who eventually want to become mothers have no idea what motherhood is actually like. They thus enter relationships with men poorly prepared for the harsh realities of heterosexual parenting. They lose their dreams, their sense of self, and sometimes their very lives. The cycle replicates generation after generation, and it’s time for that to end. It’s time for us all to care about mother’s issues, because mother’s issues affect us all. The survival of our species depends, in large part, on the well-being of mothers.

The fact that so many people are reluctant to read a page devoted to mother’s issues speaks to how desperate the need is for more people to learn about motherhood in patriarchy. Feminism has a motherhood problem, and cannot fully serve all women until it serves the majority who are mothers.

I think, though, that you’ll find a lot of relevant content here no matter who you are. This is a page about building better relationships, a more just world, and a better life. It just so happens that my primary audience is mothers.

Some of my most beloved content includes:

• The Weapons Men Use series: This is a serial guide to the tools abusive men use to escape accountability and win arguments. The scripts you’ll learn and unpacking tools you’ll gain can help you in a wide range of relationships.

• Surveys: I’ve conducted a number of surveys on life as a mother and/or a woman in patriarchy. I post new surveys a few times a year.

• On writing: I’ve been a professional writer for 15 years. I reflect on my career, offer writing advice, and share industry tricks in this irregularly published column.

• Gaslighting inequality: This is a series on how society teaches women to ignore their own needs and encourages them to stay with abusive men.

• Feminist Advice Friday: The advice column that will never tell you to just be glad you have a man. I’ve answered hundreds of questions through a feminist lens. If you’d like to ask a question, email zawn@zawn.net. All questions are completely anonymous.

I take seriously the notion that women’s time and lives matter—something the rest of our culture seems not to believe. That’s why we think it’s fine for men to buy their free time with women’s labor, for men not to offer their partners any love or support during the postpartum period, and for everyone to tell women that their oppression is their own fault.

Why should I subscribe, and what will I get?

I treat my Substack as a sort of magazine, with lots of different sections and topics. I want you to get a ton of value out of your subscription, so I follow a weekly editorial calendar. Here’s what you can expect:

• Every Tuesday, I publish a paid piece of content about sexism, often focusing on sexism in marriage, or how society uses sexist notions to keep women in bad relationships. You can find my entire library of paid content here.

• Every Thursday, I publish a free piece of content—usually about relationships, feminism, or motherhood. Free and paid subscribers get full access to this piece.

• I’ve written Feminist Advice Friday on my Facebook page every Friday for several years. Now, Substack subscribers get early free access on Thursdays. Free and paid subscribers get full access. View the column here. I also publish a bonus Feminist Advice Friday to paid subscribers only every Friday.

• I irregularly publish other content that doesn’t fall into these categories on Saturdays. These pieces are often apolitical. I’ve written about my plants, my geckos, paper planning, success on Substack, and more.

Paid subscribers also get access to the completely private, totally safe, heavily screened and moderated Liberating Motherhood Facebook group, where I often answer personal questions for a smaller audience. If you subscribe, please check your email for instructions on how to join.

I offer free, no-questions-asked scholarships to anyone other than cisgender men who cannot afford to pay. Simply email zawn@zawn.net and put “Substack Scholarship” in the subject line (any other subject may mean I don’t see your email). In the body of your email, please state explicitly that you are seeking a scholarship because you cannot afford the monthly fee. There is no need to provide proof or explain your financial situation.

If you can afford to pay, I hope you will. Your payment funds my work, and funds scholarships for people who can’t pay.

Buy a membership here.

Give a gift membership here.

I post other content elsewhere. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook to see it all.

You can contact me by emailing me at zawn@zawn.net.

Who is Zawn Villines?

I have a varied academic and early-career background. But most of my academic training is in philosophy, and I spent much of my twenties volunteering as a domestic violence advocate, rape crisis counselor, suicide hotline support provider, and court-appointed special advocate for abused children.

These experiences heavily influence the feminist activism and writing I do now.

But mostly, I consider what I am doing to be philosophy. That’s because if you take seriously the notion that women are full human beings whose existence matters, if you really believe that mothers are moral agents, and if you stop romanticizing and centering men, then logic points to just about everything I assert.

So much of what we’ve sold women—that men are somehow too stupid to see mess, but smart enough to be world leaders; that making the right kind of list is the solution to household inequality; that inequality is an accident he wants to fix, not something that privileges men by design that he wants to maintain because it’s good for him; that women, not men, are the emotional and irrational sex—is just obvious bullshit if you take a few minutes to observe and reflect on the world.

I’m the daughter and granddaughter of feminists and activists. I’ve been both for my entire life. It’s been a huge advantage. I was taught to look critically at men basically from birth, and I’ve done so. So when I started dating, I had a very low tolerance for bullshit. That, coupled with a little luck, empowered me to find and marry a feminist man who treats me as an equal. He’s a civil rights attorney who litigates police shooting, jail death, police misconduct, and similar cases. We don’t have the sort of squabbles most couples have. Spending my life with him has not meant compromising my dreams or myself. I want that for everyone.

I've been a professional writer for 15 years, but mostly wrote about science and medicine until recently. I’ve focused much of my work on mental health, and on investigating problems in the mental health industry. I’ve published numerous pieces on bad, harmful, and abusive therapy, and many more on research into effective therapeutic techniques (and how few therapists are actually using them).

I started writing about feminism, mothering, and sexism in marriage shortly after we had children. And it resonated deeply. Women are really pissed off about the shitty hand we’ve been dealt. My Facebook page grew and grew, until I started this Substack.

Substack is now my full-time job. I love it that I get to write about feminism for a living, and that I get to devote so much of my time to counseling others.

I have three kids, one of whom did not survive birth. I respect their privacy by not publishing personal information about them. I generally endorse gentle, neurodivergence-informed parenting practices, and think critically and deeply about parenting. I believe that following any single parenting guide too rigidly is a recipe for disaster.

I run a small reproductive justice nonprofit organization. I love plants, reading, philosophy, paper planning, quiet, animals, microbiology, and doing all I can to make the world a slightly better place.

Not sure where to begin with my work? Here are my top pieces: