A favour...

We know that very many women are not feminist, and/or haven't thought much about the assumptions that go with their gender. This is true on mumsnet, which is fairly 'feminist' as women's message boards go. I suspect such women are not playing their womb as a trump card (love that expression!) so much as thoughtlessly following the assumptions that label them.

Childbearing is woman's power source - the only inalienable one; also her shackle. I'm getting a bit polemic here and I think it's because I'm trying to enter into the vocabulary of this thread. Sticking by what I wrote earlier, though. And I did get andre's irony.

why a women? i can barely type. woman, obv.

great.
so difficult to pick up deep irony from text.

i'm curious why a women would need to play a trump card like having a womb though. could it possibly be that every other aspect of 'power' has been systematically withdrawn, leaving them no other card to play?

if it helps, anyone daft enough to come on here and say 'oo dh never looks after the bairns - he's not capable' is usually given a good shooing and told to leave him alone with them for the weekend. not much playing of the womb trump card in these environs.

it's amazing what a lack of choice does for your decisions, really.

madwomanintheattic

I was being deeply ironic. We've all got brains and are capable of judgement but only women have wombs. You would be surprised how often it's used as a trump card. Most of the time, I suspect, you don't notice. That's how it is with people (me included)- they tend to notice stuff unless it disadvantages them.

When it comes to matters relating to children, women will play their card if they need to and most women will support them by excuse or justification. When you unpick it all carefully some interesting prejudices and assumptions are revealed. Those prejudices take some effort to overcome because they're much more ingrained and vociferously defended than you'd expect. Like a lot of prejudices they are not even acknowledged. That's my experience, anyway!

worse. you're saying a man can't work out a family's needs and priorities. only a woman can.

why's that then?

as far as i can tell, we've all got brains and are capable of judgement.

omfg. 'she's a woman and understands about these things'. what things?
'only natural that she would be the final authority'

never mind. i thought you were looking at it rationally. obviously i was mistaken.

i assume you aren't really saying that men are incapable of working out a child's needs?

or are you?

madwomanintheattic

You misunderstand. She did want me to be involved with the children - it's just that she wanted it to be on her terms as she knew our (mine, hers and the children's) respective needs and priorities. She's a woman and understands about these things and so it was only natural that she would be the final authority. You can't argue with that. The test for me is speaking to women about it! One ends up in some very interesting territory, none of which is 'a feminist issue' so far as I can tell!

HerBeX It' very useful to name things but names can obscure as well as illuminate. 'The patriarchy' exists to the extent it does by sustaining the illusion, where it suits, that naming things is enough.

One of the things that I think was a significant contribution of feminism was the insight that 'the personal is the political'. But this cuts both ways.

You can't have 'the personal is political' and a meta-narrative that explains and determines everything. I think there are battles to be fought at all levels but they are not the same battles.

The way YOU get around it HexBeX is to make absolutely certain you are fully aware of the bias I'm talking about, identify it as a serious issue and make certain you're not perpetuating it. That would help me greatly because it would be one less fucking person telling me I'm an arsehole without meaning to.

Sorry - not meaning to be stroppy.

why did you accept it andre? did you ever discuss with your wife why she didn't want you too involved with the children?

Yes but how d'you get round that Andre?

It's like any shorthand really. Like "capitalism". There's no conspiracy, it's just the way things are. That's why it's so important to define and name things isn't it, so that it's no longer seen as just the way things are, always were and always will be.

AgeingGrace

Great that you went broader than you intended to - you made some interesting and thought-provoking points!

I think there is a real trade-off between the domestic sphere and the public sphere. I hated the fact that I couldn't be more involved with my children. In practice, the greatest resistance came from my (now ex) wife. She wanted me to be involved- but not too involved (to know my place, as it were!). It's very difficult to overcome this resistance because most people, men and women, don't seem to get it. I hate the fact that if I talk about it many feminists will also say it's a non-issue and if only men would sort themselves out it wouldn't be a problem (i.e. it's my own fault!)

I suspect that, typically, there are some dispositional differences between men and women but these have been translated into particular social and cultural structures that are horribly confining and result in difference becoming a seriously 'loaded' issue.

OP: I personally think the feminist conception of 'the patriarchy' is seriously over-baked and too often takes on the appearance of some kind of conspiracy theory (at least in the careless way it's often used).

I do think the fact that I'm male is probably the reason.

Do you? I don't. I think that in general, in any couple, one ultimately is the decision maker. In my case it works like this: for most decisions, DH isn't really bothered, so I decide. Meaning that when he expresses a view it tends to be pretty deep-seated, so unless I strenuously object I go with what he wants. If strenuous on both sides, we'll normally try to go for a compromise.

Do you think it's male, or personality type, or some combination of the two?

Feminism for me is making choices as people, not constrained to choices that are dictated by gender.

One of the reasons I split with my xp, was that I was always the final arbiter of everything, because he wouldn't take responsibility for decisions. It drove me nuts and I resented his refusal to be an adult.

Not saying that's the dynamic going on in your relationship deepheat but god, how can you stand it?

I'm a feminist for the same reason I'm an anti-racist or anti-homophobe. I think it's ludicrous and unjust to organise societal structures around something as unimportant as sex or race, and disadvantage or privilege individuals within those groups jsut on the basis of belonging to a group and whatever the media and majority opinion says, we patently still do that and when we've stopped doing it, there will be no need for feminism.

Why do you think compromise is unhealthy? I think it is often the best solution.
Occasionally - say when you are going to the cinema and can't agree on a film - compromise is the worst solution, far better to pick one film than sit in the lobby. But in the few cases like that can't you just alternate?

deepheat wrote - "the issue of me being the final arbiter on decisions ... Why was it me? As I said, I do think the fact that I'm male is probably the reason."

What is it about your maleness that you (and your wife?) think qualifies you to be the final arbiter?

Congrats on reviewing your own attitude to the extent that you've become an advisor against discrimination!

In your 08:12 post, you said Possibly we arrived at these decisions because of the prevailing culture rather than based on ourselves solely as individuals? Honestly don't know, but I suppose I'd be surprised if there wasn't an element of that.

I would, too. This is, for me, the sole purpose of feminism - to eliminate the cultural assumptions that assign values to people based purely on their gender - this happens to men and women.

Taking childbirth as one instance: Every woman giving birth needs some mat leave because she has to undergo a physical trauma. Also, every baby needs full-on attention and every family benefits from baby bonding with both parents. These are separate issues, but are still generally treated as one. Women give birth, therefore (supposedly), women get the leave which they should then use to attend to baby and promote bonding.

In reality, some women need a lot of rest before and/or after childbirth, whereas others can drop the sprog in between meetings. A baby is content with full-time attention from any qualifie adult of either gender, as tribal villages and the employers of nannies have always demonstrated. Both parents need to bond with the child, so wouldn't it make more sense for BOTH to spend extra time with the child whilst it's new?

If you split these questions out, mat leave is still desirable in the majority of cases but I think you'd find that - all other things being equal - the majority of families would prefer to share this leave between both parents. My problem is that all other things aren't equal. Social expectations still push the woman towards using her leave for baby care, and so does economic bias. Whenever significant paternity leave reform is proposed, the business associations screech that it'll cause them to lose too much time from key workers: their obvious assumption being that male workers are more 'key' than female ones.

In summary - and this is only my view - women's inequality stems entirely from a simultaneous pathologisation and idealisation of motherhood. Unfortunately, it's spread to the whole of female life. We are either potential mothers, women who are or should be mothers, or women who are past their use-by date. That's only one aspect of our lives and of our selves, but it currently defines all others. To escape this definition is still a battle.

Sorry, I went much broader than I intended to. Leaving my post as is, though - I always learn from replies on this board!

The reason that I replied to you deepheat, was that you do seem aware of some pretty crucial things (e.g. that feminists are all individuals who may well disagree), and you are being pretty honest about yourself. In terms of your personal relationship with your wife, I think reassessing it is probably a good idea. If your wife is the same age as you, the last time the "rules" were established she was only a teenager. Look back at 19 year olds now - they're pretty different in confidence, ambition and understanding than 30 year olds aren't they? It may be that your wife was happy to be treated as the junior partner then, but has since come to grips with adult life and might grow to feel that you are domineering/patronising in your continued assumption of the last word. I hope this doesn't sound too harsh, because you don't sound like a bully at all, but you are doing the right thing in looking again at how your life works.

Also, look at your relationships with other women - your mother/sister/colleague etc. Do you find that your home life is affecting the way you feel about women in general? That you expect to have some kind of authority over them?

I would say that I am a feminist almost by default because I beleive that our society should be meritocratic, and everyone should be given equal opportunities according to their abilities

Re your comments, you are of course right that there huge differences between men and women in our society - but I very strongly disagree that those differences are innate. Men and women become different because they are treated differently.

I welcome your post, deepheat, though some of your remarks set my teeth on edge. Are you and DW christians? That thing about you being the leader - and it working as long as you're a considerate H - sounds very like the christian ideal to me. This does matter, because christianity involves several tenets that I consider antithetical to feminism.

Given that you're clearly an intelligent, thoughtful individual and that your life seems to be working pretty well for you in a not-all-that-feminist way: Why do you ask? What is it that you wish to learn?

that would have been more succinct, yep.

Oh indeedy

can you all explain for the billionth time why you should be treated as if you were human, really explain it

why did the op get a biscuit indeed

Here have another

oh, but howdy.

what does your wife do? what do you do? talk to us about your child care choices and how you (as the final arbiter) arrived at them. (doesn't matter a jot what the actual answer is, there's no right or wrong btw, just curious how this 'decision-making' happens in your household)

fwiw, the bare facts of my life would lead you to conclude i had never heard of the word feminist. appearances can be deceptive, eh?