Can you be a feminist housewife?

This is an interesting discussion, lookhere. Despite sm's inability to grasp the concept of which we are discussing.

Don't go.

lookhere,i post where and how i wish on an open forum
and you'll see its generated plenty responses.
hijack?well is suppose one would say that if you only want threads you like to read...trot over to style and beauty they never disagree,and no one hijacks the which shoes thread.

no,this would be so huge it would end up cost borne by all.disproportionately affecting those earn less. yes there are many rich folk and tax exiles,but realistically this would be borne by all who work.not Philip green et al

youre all in la -la land no govt is ever going to advocate payment for that which is already provided for free at the moment

its untenable.read your local paper and see the nhs and la cuts. nhs and la are shrinking budgets not expanding.there is no more money.none,nadda

and its a moot point as housewife isnt a job.hard,arduous - yes
job- absolutely not

would you pay all parents?
would i get an hourly rate for time put in
free childcare for all? does that include all families

An economic model which depends on the unpaid work of a designated class ('women') is an economic model of slavery.

^This

This was such an interesting thread until it got hijacked by SM. What a shame.

THis is why I said that taxes should be raised for high earners and they should also be raised for corporations, with a few more loopholes closed. An economic model which depends on the unpaid work of a designated class ('women') is an economic model of slavery. Even if you set the SAHM model aside for a moment, the current economic situation is that a few corporations and a few individuals have enriched themselves considerably by cutting the wages of the lowest paid, removing their job security and them blaming them for their poverty. No wonder we have riots.

some of you suggest increase tax burden as if there is an infinite amount of money to state via available via tax and ni. a lot of people do bloody hard jobs often for minimum wage,it is not practicable that they pay even more earn even less on order for a housewife to be paid watch her own kids (which she is dong unpaid anyway). but i guess if you dont work and sahp you dont grasp the impact of working for less money ,to facilitate housewife at home paid. and just conceptualise as raise taxes.

pragmatically,the state is making vicious cuts across la and nhs.front line services getting cut,day centres close,front line staff leave and are not replaced.open any local paper look at how local authority and nhs already cannot met demands put upon them. glibly saying increase taxes and magically pay some enhanced carer benefit is simply not a solution. the state is shrinking and decreasing services under current coalition,not increasing and expanding provision

and some of you are tying yourselves in knots. suggest pay sahp salary and provide free childcare. thats is contradictory. if your child in childcare you're not providing direct hands on care so what would any housewife payment be for?

other parallel issues
unaffordable childcare, yes its costly.and can disbar return to work. any enhanced childcare should be offered to those who need to return to work as a priority.to support working,which puts tax and ni back in economy.

Don't tax credits cover most childcare for low earners?

It's insane to tax higher rate tax payers even more to pay women to SAH.
Insane.

SAH is a choice. I've been at home, I've got four kids and a husband working mad hours, often abroad.
Being a housewife is a complete piece of piss compared with being a working mother.
Few things infuriate me more than women bleating about how they can't cope with a couple of kids.

So in many ways I agree with SM. It's not a paid role, it IS an important one, absolutely, but it is not as difficult as being a working mother, no bloody way.

I agree with SGB and theRealMBJ.

but OP - this has obviously moved on from your original question and my answer would be yes, you can be a feminist.

For a start, if you are earning money then it is your personal viewpoint that this isn't a career. A lot of this is down to an evaluation of your capabilities - I do it too, I have a job rather than a career (or "proper job" as i tend to refer to it). There are other people doing the exact same job as me though who view it as being a proper job - just because i took a massive pay drop and am over-qualified for this particular position doesn't mean that it isn't a proper job...

I do think that some women are better feminists than others in that they break down barriers, make a stand, make a noise - so it seems likely that your gran had to make more of an effort to follow what she wanted to do, but the fact that what you want to do isn't breaking boundaries doesn't make you a bad feminist IMO.

Out of nosiness, what choices do you feel have been closed off to you? And are they closed off because of earlier choices you made in support of your husband?

Good points about capitalism depending on the free labour of women, SGB.

The system cannot function without women's cheap (and mostly free) labour, however, as SM has so clearly demonstrated, those same women are vilified for not 'having a job', 'dipping into partner's wage', 'asking for pin money'.

This is not about individual set-ups (which most of us seem happy with) but about society and the value society places on 'woman's work'

Anyway, Lenin is right. All over the place women are going on reproductive strike and governments are panicking about their ageing populations. It is hardly surprising when the only work that is seen to have value is that which earns money outside of the home.

I like sAf solution of heavily subsidised/free child-care and tax credits if not used.this should be paid to the parent caring for the children and home, not the one earning outside the home.

We should no forget that society depends on all the labour done within it, and it is not just about our own little family set-ups.

SM: I think that domestic care work should be recognized as deserving of an income and therefore both child benefit and carers' allowance should be increased to the point of being a living wage - this to be funded by higher taxation on higher earners, because there is a societal benefit to this work being done in the home rather than outsourced, and therefore it is work deserving of an income in the same way that maintaining the drains and the streetlights and the road surfaces is work that benefits everyone. A percentage of our taxes funds hospitals even if we as individuals never get ill, and schools even if we as individuals remain childfree.
I can't see this happening in the current political and economic climate, of course, but I think it's something to ask for, discuss and campaign for.

and?again it interests me ,the nuances of paid to be housewife if kids are absent.its a contradiction

It was a comment on your vocabulary rather than your ideology. You say the same thing over and over again. Not the same argument. The same words. I think that's what Lenin meant by "going Paxo".

sgb,do you want men paying women for housewifery and family childcare .that sits badly with me.and has enormous implication for sense of entitlement or notion of services paid for attached to it

people usually maintain the same ideological stance
did you call it on a loop
and yes that means a consistency in how idea is framed.loop or not im not likely to say hey up.lets have wee change. it is too much loop

Look, the basic premise of post industrial capitalism is that it depends on women's slavery. That is, that men earn money and own women(as in each man owns at least one woman; women who are not in a couple-relationship with a man are owned by a father or brother, to do all the domestic work, childcare (and caring for elderly relatives as well). It's not that long ago that women were legally forbidden to own any money - if they inherited any, it became the property of their husband or other male guardian, if they earned any it was the property of their husband or male guardian (because poor women, working class women, always earned, they had to in order to keep the family afloat). Up until about 40 years ago it wasn't hidden, it was accepted and legally endorsed that women should be paid less than men for doing identical work; the man's wage was a 'family' wage (even if the man was childless and unmarried) while the woman's wage was 'pin money'.
This is why, even now, all the jobs that are percieved as 'women's work', all the caring, childminding, tending the sick or dying, cleaning etc, are atrociously paid. When DS was a baby, his keyworker at nursery, who was NVQ3 qualified in childcare, left the nursery to go and work on a supermarket checkout as the pay was considerably higher.
This is all very wrong, and what worries me at present is that the current government might decide to reintroduce the idea of a 'family wage' ie paying men more in order to put more women back under male control and make them work doing cleaning and childcare for free.

Through taxation.

Don't understand the 416 post ideological stance bit.

how would you finance it
wouldn't more childcare mean less housewives,is that your intention?
if using ft private nursery would you get free and/or subsidised state childcare

equally extolling virtues of paid housewife doesnt make it desirable or fact either

you see that how mn usually goes people tend to remain within an ideological stance

dont tend to go.hold on 416 posts time for a wee change.liven up the party

Good Lord, you're on a loop!

do you know of any countries who pay housewives?does anyone do it