The demonisation of single mothers.

As us women should not have sex until marriage then I suppose any more than one sexual partner is considered slut like. You wouldn't want to know my track record then!

Excellent reasoning Bill Hicks

So if I sleep around whilst using contraception carefully does that still make me a slut? Or should I be called a stud instead?

Oh and as to your reputation you silly little man, you don't have one on MN.

Though I'm sure you will have soon - as a bitter woman-hater.

"As for you posh, there is a damned good reason the word SLUT got invented and DAMN good reason it is still used. "

"Posh was complaining about how women who sleep around are labeled sluts, I simply explained why such a term came into use"

You didn't actually explain why such a term came into use BH, but feminists already know why such hatespeak is used against women. We'd have a different explaination from your's, because we believe that women are fully human and not defined by their bodies or their sexual behaviour.

Herbeatitude, you clearly didn't get my reference... Posh was complaining about how women who sleep around are labeled sluts, I simply explained why such a term came into use. :p I never once attacked Poshsinglemum once and I find it offensive that you have impinged upon my reputation by suggesting I have called anyone a slut. :p

poshsinglemum Fri 03-Dec-10 19:21:28

It really annoys me how women are labelled as sluts for sleeping around.

I have always wanted relationships with the men I have slept with. They are the ones who have bogged off to the next lady. I am the one left with the bad name. Oh well.

Yes he's a useful illustration of what we're talking about though.

Yes, hence the difficulty of re-entering a career path.

I don't agree with you re not demonising previously married single mothers TFP. I think all single mothers are lumped together, pour encourager les autres.

I've just ignored that dreadful white noise....I'm implore others to do the same. No good engaging with such drivel.

A man becomes distinguished in his forties, a woman becomes irrelevant.

Oh god ranting mysogynist alert, coming on to a feminist section of a parenting website and calling one of the posters a slut. You poor, pathetic, bitter man, you have my pity, as Buzz Lightyear would say.

Single mothers are only demonised if they also fall into the 'living off the state' bracket. We also don't demonise the woman who was married and then left holding the baby.

It's the woman who carries the unborn and therefore will have much more connection than a man who had less than a day being part of this woman's life.

"But if the father had more time with the children wouldn't the mother be able to get her career going again?"

No.

Sorry, but that's the simple answer to that. Middle aged women simply aren't as welcome in the world - or the workplace - as young women or as men of any age. Once you've downshifted, there is a massive resistance to upshifting again, the so called glass ceiling.

At the moment anyway. In a world where the workplace was more flexible, that vision should be possible.

I'm not sure men and women don't want it Truck, just that they're not ready to do it yet. It takes critical mass doesn't it.

I don't think the children should go with the father if the mother has sacrificed her career.

But if the father had more time with the children wouldn't the mother be able to get her career going again?

I think the idea where no one sacrifices their career, and childcare is split equally is the way forward, i know
lots of people who work long hours and don't see enough of their children and i don't think they realise what they are missing

But I think I'm in a minority with this opinion as I don't think men and women are ready for this or really want it.

This is the problem isn't it. In our current society where men seemingly hold all the cards, any idea that changes might erode mothers "claims" on their children are understandably greeted with concern.

I think the idea of everything being equal is great, if everything really is equal. In society as it stands, the idea that the children go with the father on break-up of a relationship, leaving the woman without children, and with her financial situation stuffed due to being female and having children, then that's just a horrifying idea. It is only a short while that women have been able to have their children in these circs after all.

The other problem with our utopia (and I did smile at "non frictional co-parenting") is that many people are bastards/wankers/out for revenge/whatever and that is not going to change. it may get better without a patriarchal system, but it's not going to go away. A lot of people just aren't nice and reasonable, especially at the end of a relationship.

And I am too steeped in teh current setup to imagine a setup other than man+women taking off in a big way IYSWIM. I just can't imagine living in free love communes with shared childcare. No matter how appealing it might be. Well the free love less so, the shared childcare lots!

ISNT "If things were genuinely equal - in society and for the experiment to work in each individual relationship - then I suspect that people's personalities would come to the fore and there would be equal numbers of homebods and people wanting to be by themselves of each sex."

I think that's a really relevant, overlooked point.
One problem is that under patriarchy, men have a lot of power when it comes to children. They get shared custody and they DO fob the childcare off onto their mothers and new girlfriends.
Two of my uncles fought tooth and nail to get custody of their daughters when their wives filed for divorce. The first received full custody (even though he had been violent in the marriage, but he was high up in the army) and then dumped her in a boarding school for 4 years. Her mother was allowed to look after her during the holidays

The other uncle fought his Irish wife for custody. She had gone back to Ireland and her daughter was really small, 4 I think, and he insisted on bringing her back to the UK every month. Fair enough, you might think. He wants to see his daughter. But he stayed at my grandmothers, and she did everything . Or some random cousin, like me, who happened to be there, was also expected to look after her. I think he really believed he was looking after her himself

ive just come back-so havent had time to look at all of the thread but-
i think feminism did a lot for single mums
and i feel that for a while-things was going ok!
we often saw articles on single parents that was doing good.
i feel that single parents had more rights aswell-which was good.
having said this-i feel that single dads have always been seen in a better light!
unfortunatly-thanks to the current climate of cuts and finger pointing-with the help of the media-single parents are now the scum of the earth again-history repeats itself!
im a single parent-and at the moment i feel we re getting it left right and centre!
some dont realise that some of us are doing our best despite difficult circamstances-
actually-im very proud of what i have achieved with my daughter-
but im having to make exuses and trying harder to make people see this!
i feel that we are going backwards!
sorry if this has already been said!

Oh God, let's not go there.

Though there is a feminsit ding-dong to be had about that...

Probably not here though...

"If you see feeding the child as part of childcare Janos, then I don't think you can argue that it is a social construct."

No that's true...I was thinking out loud!

But then babies can be bottle fed...(whole other thread there of course).

I don't know HB. They are all men in their 40s so a pretty narrow demographic.

I think it's probably about the fact that they feel that they contribute something very special as fathers and that I should acknowledge that my DS is missing something major in his life by not having a dad.

that's really interesting and quite surprising LadyB.

Why on earth would men feel so threatened by women going it alone, unless they felt their own behaviour was such, that their own DP's might get wrong ideas? Maybe this is why the need to persecute women is so strong - their own shaky sense of where they fit in? Or maybe your friends are just all rather insecure?

I wonder if your friends are unusual or representative?

I talked about it with his partner and some other of my female friends (I have known all them for about 20 years so can be very open) and they all admitted that their partners were very threatened by how I have chosen to become a parent which I think is rather sad

LadyB - it's not surprising that feeling "surplus to requirements" would make someone feel uncomfortable in a society where status, money etc. are very important. I wouldn't feel comfortable if I were surplus to requirements.

But what's the definition of that? If a man is a loving, involved father, then surely he'd never be surplus to requirements, irrespective of how his DP sees him?

Yes I can imagine non-frictional co-parenting being much more the norm in a non-patriarchal society.

Not that there'd be no such thing as romantic happy couples as well - just that there would be less pressure to be in one of those, or pretend to be.

The tiny baby/highly dependent phase lasts a relatively short while though, in terms of a lifetime, now that we can control our fertility and are generally opting for less children.

I come back to thinking that you need to restructure society so that gender roles are completely broken down, and families can make a genuinely free choice as to what suits them, combined with employers and society being totally flexible and everyone being cool with that.

So eg if DH and I wanted to do half the work outside the home each, then our employers would agree in a flash, it would all be fine, our career prospects would not be harmed etc etc. People would be more relaxed about career breaks generally.

Just a move away from this slog yourself into the ground and everyone has to do things in quite a proscribed way, into a more relaxed, flexible and cheerful way of doing things.

Loads of studies say that happy employees are better ones, and that presentee long hours cultures are not the way to get top performance. Why does nobody listen.

Bottom line is that many single mothers are demonised as the perception is that they don't work. We worship money too much in this country, the pursuit of it, the villifying of anyone who does not pursue it at any cost.