Owen Jones on Twitter today

[Bouledeneige]

twitter.com/owenjones84/status/1260134887165739009?s=21

A tweet that middle class people should pay their cleaner to not work quickly descended into 'rich women paying poor women to clean their homes.' So frustrating the casual sexism. Why is it assumed women are responsible for cleaning their homes and not men. Most working women who can afford a cleaner do so because they have 3 jobs - their work, their childcare and their household. Why aren't the men they are married to taking more household responsibility?

[DidoLamenting]

A tweet that middle class people should pay their cleaner to not work quickly descended into 'rich women paying poor women to clean their homes.' So frustrating the casual sexism

Eh? I got bored with the virtue signalling but that isn't what I saw. It was the middle classes who were being attacked- not women.

I couldn't care less what Owen Jones has to say about anything.

[Goosefoot]

Well, OJ says middle class professionals.

But I think there are two ways you can look at a discussion like this, and it comes down to the difference between "is" and "ought".

Are the people in the discussion assuming women should be the ones who are in charge of this? Or have they simply observed that is is the case that generally they are? The latter doesn't necessarily mean the former.

[Bouledeneige]

It was a very long thread and got to the point where men were saying it was rich women paying poor women. I didn't say Own said that.

[FloraFox]

Interesting how OJ can think about the power dynamic for women cleaning (for other women). I don't think I've seen him express this for women in prostitution.

[Goosefoot]

I suppose it would be interesting to see who in fact makes the decisions in households about hiring and paying cleaners. I would strongly suspect it's mostly women. But I don't particularly think that men, if they were making those decisions, would be more likely to pay fairly, but maybe they would.

But the conversation often goes in that direction because there was a real class divide in terms of the benefit of women entering professional work in great numbers. I'm not sure that has ever really been satisfactorily reconciled and so it continues to be discussed.

[TheHoneyBadger]

Prostitution is horrendous abuse of women - not sure how they are doing it for other women though? Men must have access to women's bodies ergo if I don't give it to them I'm supporting prostitution? I'm sure that's not what you meant.

[TheHoneyBadger]

He also can't see the power dynamic in male bodied people (aka men) being in women's prisons tbf. He does seem to have some glaring blind spots like a lot of right on leftie men.

[Mummyoflittledragon]

Surely the common theme here with men or male bodies people having power over women and women having perceived power over other women is that the former is fine and the latter is not. Ergo nothing to see, move along for prostitution and male bodied transwomen in prisons. But women not paying other women for cleaning their homes is an outrage. His internal map how of how he sees the world is very skewed.

[TheHoneyBadger]

sense mummy!

[TheHoneyBadger]

I just hate the smarmy fucker. He spouts so much having had so little real life experience and tells women what they should feel about things that effect them, not him. Do fuck off little boy and stay out of the kitchen where the women are trying to talk.

[FloraFox]

THB I said women cleaning for other women as opposed to women in prostitution. I wasn’t saying they are in prostitution for other women.

[TheHoneyBadger]

Thanks for confirming - your wording left me questioning but I was pretty sure you wouldn't be saying that. Though I can imagine some men claiming prostitutes are the result of other women fulfilling their roles. Incels most likely.

Will never forget reading that it was wrong that women (like me) who were single mum's who had obviously had other sexual partners were allowed to somehow attract and be with high order (in their minds) men when it should somehow be the law that we're delegated to having to have sex with the incel types give we're not 'high order/top shelf' women. It didn't occur to them that we were fine thanks and would rather have no man than some needy whining sexually entitled boy who identified as 'involuntarily celibate' re: desperate for, and feeling entitled to sex and horrified that no woman wanted to sleep with them.

From that weird world of logic I can quite imagine the idea that prostitutes wouldn't exist if women would just play with the rules and sleep with the strata of men that these guys thinks they should service.

Crazy world.

[RapunzelsBuzzcut]

Meh, Owen Jones thinks lesbians should accept having transwomen last penises inside them whether they want it or not, but that the mere suggestion that gay men might possibly, conceivably even think of putting their genitals near a transman’s icky vagina is homophobia.

Funny how “lady penis” is a concept but “bloke vagina” is not.

[Mummyoflittledragon]

Honeybadger.
What! That would make women unpaid prostitutes. Righto.

[TheHoneyBadger]

Not even prostitutes mummy - lower than prostitutes because they wouldn't even get paid for being raped by entitled men and that would be their just desserts because they were sullied or failed women because they were single parents and hadn't managed to secure the father of their child into marriage

It might have been on here years ago that we unpicked their manifesto - yes it was a manifesto I remember suggesting how the world order in terms of who women had to shag should be to avoid ills like rape and child abuse and prostitution (not that that isn't rape and linked to child abuse) - the I'm pretty fucking fine thank you very much and more sexual attention than I want or need single mums were the most offended because their place was to service men who no one else would have sex with. These pricks could not get their heads around the fact that women who had kids could get laid if they wanted to by decent guys when these poor little 'i'm a nice guy, i've done everything right' pricks were still virgins at 30. It was nothing to do with them or their attitudes towards women it was the unfair way that women weren't kept in their place and meant to service men according to their perceived stature.

I'd entirely forgotten about this but am now remembering it vividly. It was vile and they were utterly convinced they were right.

[TheHoneyBadger]

Apologies for illiterate post. No sleep and the it's starting to get light outside

[Mummyoflittledragon]

They were failed women, who hadn’t managed to secure the father of their child into marriage.

Okaaay is this the 19th century? They’re less enlightened than the men depicted in Jane Austen novels!

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

Isn't the incel subreddit pretty much the only one Reddit has ever quite openly shut down? Like, other assorted nutbags are fine, but the incels were just too much.

[ThinEndoftheWedge]

Whilst there is a valid discussion about whether cleaners are at (more) risk going back to work in other people’s homes - and whether there is other things that can be done to support them - I.e continue to have them furloughed etc, LOJ is a misogynistic arse who tried to pretend to care about low paid women as a route to criticise women.

But It’s true - there are many other groups he really should have criticised instead - men still soliciting sex etc, (no social distancing there) but of course he doesn’t give a shit about that - sex work is real work and empowering and all that. These men / pimps etc aren’t ‘shockingly selfish’ but people read women with a cleaner are.

Lets have another excuse to criticise women and be seen as liberal and progressive. Virtue signalling BS.

[Floisme]

I didn't follow the whole thing but, from what I did read, it was OJ's assumption that we all had more free time because of lockdown that started it. Parents (mostly mothers) quite rightly pointed out he clearly had no idea what he was talking about. And to be fair, I think Jones did concede that point, but then went on to dispense advice to Sarah Ditum on raising teenagers, at which point it really did kick off.

[DidoLamenting]

It was a very long thread and got to the point where men were saying it was rich women paying poor women. I didn't say Own said that

Your boredom threshold must be very high then to carry on reading it.

[deydododatdodontdeydo]

'rich women paying poor women to clean their homes.'

I've seen that opinion expressed on here, though, by feminist women.

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

There seems to be such a broad crossection of people who can't stand Sanctimonious Morph that I'm always left wondering who his audience is. Has he been banging the support the NHS drum? Because if so it's pretty funny that it hadn't occurred to him that some people are still working full time during lockdown, especially for someone who has aspirations of being seen as right on about class issues.

[HorseRadishFemish]

... quickly descended into 'rich women paying poor women to clean their homes.' So frustrating the casual sexism. Why is it assumed women are responsible for cleaning their homes and not men..

It is assumed that all cleaners are women as well?

[TheHoneyBadger]

Yes that opinion is worthy of discussion but in the context of, jesus even when women manage to get liberated from domestic slavery and take on decent high paying jobs it is on the backs of low paid women who they outsource their domestic labour too. Yes you could say that's women exploiting women but you could also say look at a fucking patriarchal system that places such low value on domestic work and childcare that it is done for free without thanks by mothers and wives or it is done for minimum wage by workers who need relatively flexible hours who in this system happen to be women because they're trying to work around their domestic labour and childcare too.

Ergo the issue isn't women exploiting women but it being inescapable in a patriarchal/capitalist system that work traditionally done by women will be undervalued and underpaid and the only way women can escape that, given men STILL refuse in the majority to take on their fair share of that, is to pay someone else to do it and they'll be other women.