Can you be a feminist housewife?

I also think many jobs which are unchallenging offer part time hours which fit around the children. I will work weekends and evenings and be able to look after children during the week.

And yy where I grew up most people had 'jobs' not careers and just wanted a living wage. Work did not define them, friends and family did.

that was to SGB, BTW

I don't agree and as a mum of boys I object to you belittling men so much, of course some men are sexist pigs, but some women love playing the little helpless woman too, IME these types of people are in the minority in life, I don't believe its a common problem at all

You get what you settle for, SGB.
Don't like it, don't settle for it. Simple.

SSD, the only person turning her nose up at shitwork appears to be SGB.

There are plenty of threads on here from women whose partners consider that, because they earn the money and have the penis in the house, they are entitled to offload all the shitwork onto the woman and take all the time they want to pursue their own hobbies and social lives. I am not saying that every SAHM gets treated like this, but it is a very common problem.

secretsquirrell, was that a few years ago?

I can imagine the same factory is now either shut down, or the staff have been cut and are now stressed to the hilt doing 2 peoples jobs rolled into one and the overtime is at a minimum

I know I sound bitter, I work doing shitwork that women turn their noses up at, only because they have a well paid dh and can turn their noses up

I worked in a factory for a few months as a student doing what SGB would, no doubt, call shitwork.
The men and women we worked with didn't consider it shit at all. They had comradery, set hours, set wages, no stress, Radio One's Our Tune every afternoon and they could do overtime for xmas or when they needed .
One person's meat is another's poison.

Mali, I don't really want to work either but I don't have your choices

I wondered that SSD.

DH works 80 hour weeks.
I have no kids at home 9-3.
Now, who do you reckon gets most leisure time?

Just how do you define shitwork?
I don't consider caring for children and running a home as shitwork at all.
Lots of jobs are at minimum wage, it's purely personal opinion as to whether they are "shitwork" or not, there are jobs I wouldn't want to do no matter how well paid (or not) they are, Nursing for one, care home work, restaurant work, I hated shopwork with a passion, even though I've done plenty of it.
To me, all paid work is shitwork because I don't really want to work at all, I'd much rather be at home.

As has been pointed out, plenty of men have jobs that are shitwork too, I'd much rather take care of babies and children than work where my husband does, his staff slaughter and cut up chickens for a living and they all run the risk daily of picking up some lovely infectious diseases, DH is management but still contracted campilobacter when he was splashed with poultry innards.
Unfortunately, all the really essential jobs are poorly paid, the country would grind to a halt if it weren't for all the men and women doing the shitwork, but even so, one person's dream job is another's shitwork.

true true riven, we share eevrything too, if SGB's experience is of a partner who lords it over her no wonder she sounds a bit bitter

My problem is the way shitwork is atrociously paid, the people who do it are given low or no status and yet told to find 'dignity' or 'pride' in being ripped off and exploited. THey are also regarded as unfit for anything else; shitwork jobs offer no possibility of progress or promotion (wouldn't be so bad if they did).
And, going back to the OP's question, the thing to watch out for when you are a SAH mother is finding yourself responsible for all the shitwork and being percieved as of lower status than the wage-earner and therefore obliged to serve him ie the wage-earning man gets first dibs on all the leisure time available becuase he 'works hard' despite having set hours to do so and despite the fact that looking after children is work.

There is dignity in work and dignity in caring for others.

I think there's dignity in work if you do it well. And you should be paid aliving wage to do it. But caring for children in your home? I'm not so sure.

I think SGB's point is that more women than men do low-skilled part time work with no prospect of advancement.

I suppose I will be doing shitwork soon in a call centre so that we can stop a further slide into debt . It's funny how concerns about self esteem while caring for your children become insignificant when faced with the need to keep family finances secure.

What would help me as a feminist would be some accessible subsidised childcare not a salary from DP for looking after our children - how the hell would that help us?

Exactly Norman.

SGB clearly has nothing but contempt for people doing this shitwork.

Plenty of men do low paid shitwork as you call it, too. BIL has colleagues who chef all day/evening and work as cleaners in the early hours. When you get off the train in the morning clutching your latte, it is these men who will have cleaned the station floors following a 12 hour shift in a kitchen.

I think talk of paying a salary to those at home is unrealistic. Affordable childcare is needed and if you find yourself short of cash use the childcare and get a job.

So SGB, a low skilled job is shitwork in your eyes?
Wow. I'm pretty gobsmacked at your arrogance.

All work is valuable .

And you STILL haven't told us what it is you do. I wonder if some of us might consider what you do a shit job? i suspect so, as you're so cagey on the subject.

SGB - I don't think people do dull, repetitive, low paid, low productivity jobs out of duty - they do them because they don't have a better option - they have to work locally or limited hours, they lack education, training or self belief to do something more rewarding etc....Women, and particularly mothers who've been out of the workplace for a long time face more of these barriers, but so do new immigrants etc...

These kind of jobs will always be low value whoever does them because they lack economies of scale or progressive development of high level skills. Wages are low because there are low barriers to entry (qualifications etc..), because more and more of them can be one by machine (automatic tills etc..) and because if they are too costly they are just not affordable to do at all (childcare..) .

Work out how to avoid ending up in a job that can be done by a robot or a school leaver seems like good careers advice.

do you do shitwork,or have you procured a non-shitwork worthy well paid job

Shitwork is still shitwork when it is done for pay - because the pay you get for shitwork is really low and this is born of the idea that it's women's work, and women don't need money, they work for love and duty and are kept by men. How your status is acknowledge in any kind of job is: the higher status you are the less shitwork you do - whether the shitwork in your particular line of business is errand-running, filing or data-entry. It's the repetitive but necessary work that is always delegated to the low-status, who are always told that it is their duty.

some junior do move about
i wouldnt know about that though