Is it even possible to make SAHMotherhood a feminist option?

The problem i believe is the idea that it 'should' be the women who stays at home. But there is nothing wrong with being a sahp. It is a very positive thing to do and is just as worthwhile as work. Making money is not the only way to advance the lives of women and fight patriarchy. Sending a child to a nursery that is full of women earning almost nothing doing a job that is only seen as approriate for women to do is hardly feminist.

WTM, i don't want to propose a set of solutions that are, as one MNer entertainly said, summed up as the Marie Antoinette approach, 'if only the poor ate food from my organic vegan cookery book, they wouldn't be in this predicament. Neither do I want to come across as some kind of survivalist.

But, I think it is worth considering that in my grandparents' generation, work was only one part of what people did to get something out of life. People were expected to grow some of their own food, repair their own houses, organise some of their own education, rely on neighbours and so on.

I don't think the idea of the 'big society' is a good way of dealing with or justifying keeping people in poverty, but I do think that the idea that everyone can solve their problems by the whole of the UK working in powerful and well paid careers is not really an option. It is based on an idea that the wealth of the UK and its global position, the current global energy situation, and the strength of our service and financial sectors are going to be the same for our children or grandchildren.

Where I live, our community now owns and runs our former town hall and volunteers organise the services available there. The community also now owns and operates the local cinema, and various other services. It is a lot easier for us to live here on a now much reduced income because we have services available to us at no cost or a reduced cost. That situation has arisen by people in the community forming connections and support networks.

If you look at some of the things people on MN spend their wages on, an example might be tutoring of their children. This costs thousands of pounds. Some of the reasons for this is down to lack of knowledge of the parents of how to tutor or lack of time - there are other options with this. The first is not to help kids and expect schools to do everything. We can see how that is working out in schools! Another option is for people to organise themselves and have groups like the workers educational association that allowed people to collectively educate themselves and their families in addition to what went on in school. That is what my grandparents did. Another option is to have one parent who does know what to do who helps other parents. So I got DS into grammar school using books, and then when my friends who couldn't afford a tutor wanted to enter their children for the 11plus, I taught my friends about the 11 plus and passed on the materials.

Now I know that lots of people will say they work and also hugely participate in the community, have plenty of time to do various things, but it remains the case that many people do not know their next door neighbours let alone participate in the local community. I'm not saying the past was wonderful (there were some really terrible things in my grandparents' generation) but I do think we have to look at ways of combining economic work with ways of supporting ourselves that don't depend on money. Because I don't think this austerity situation is going to go away, and while DS and DD seem to be keen on recession proof careers, I don't think them choosing to be financially comfortable while surrounded by a society of many other people living in poverty with a much diminished community is going to be a happy society for them to live in.

And while many people hate this section, I've had a lot of support from people on here. And it is a kind of support you can't pay for.

I agree with Himalaya.

The reality is that SAHParenting can be a feminist option in certain circumstances such as Himalaya suggests - where both parents go PT at the same time, or at different points in their careers. Where long term rights (such as pension provision) are maintained EQUALLY, and where day to day household donkey work doesn't become solely the domain of the SAHP whilst finances/freedom/choices become the domain of the WOHP.

Unfortunately, and you only need to flick over to the Relationships board to see this, being a SAHM often leads to less choice/financial freedom/equality. That said, there are many WOHMs (especially those who work full time) who have the worst of both worlds - the freedom to work hideously long hours coupled with the guilt of not fulfilling the traditional wife/mother role leading to them working in a domestic role into the night.

SH - i thought your comments on the power to help people earlier were interesting. a different type of power.

what sort of thing do you mean by 'building up networks of knowledge, support and skills outside of the system'?

No, but if one of you is building up networks of knowledge, support and skills outside of the system, it probably means your family unit has more of a chance of coping and preparing children for future society than families that have all adults entirely dependent on the system.

Arguments about the importance of work seem ridiculous to me now that DH has lost his job after 15 years of career building. It can all be taken from you in the blink of an eye.

I think being financially dependent upon a man who makes his money in 'the system' can a. hardly be described as autonomous and b. hardly puts you outside said system.

Bonsoir - so it's fine that there are so few women politicians, women barristers, women judges, women CEOs, women getting patents, women running investment funds etc.., because they are outside creating new structures.....?

Except the point we are discussing here is that they are not, they are at home living off the earnings, and bringing up the children of the politicians, barristers, judges, CEOs, senior scientists, fund managers etc... It is not exactly bucking the system.

I agree with SeaHouses - I think autonomy is powerful and that participating in institutional structures is not necessarily as powerful as people like to imagine. In our 21st C society, many institutional structures are fearfully antiquated and creaking at the seams. Isn't it more powerful to stay on the outside and create new ways of living that perpetuating structures that are no longer fit for purpose?

Seahouses - I don't think it's just about power as in management, it is also about influence - writing books and newspapers, making movies, inventing things (women register something like 20% of patents), coming up with new business models, having ideas and spreading them, changing corporations from the inside, making investment decisions, making and implementing the law.

A smallholder and a SAHM are quite similar jobs in some ways - both
aimed at survival and self sufficiency of your own family, both come with limited influence. As societies develop fewer and fewer people
need to be smallholders, but the number who are SAHMs remains high...

WTM, I should also that in many ways I do agree with you. The reality of our society is that a lot of power structures do exist, and we can't just ignore them, and women need to participate in them.

I don't want to give the impression from my other posts that I entirely disagree with you. I can see the importance of what you are saying.

To look at another example perhaps more relevant in the UK, I used to work as a homelessness support worker. My manager, in society's terms held more power. She got to tell me and my male colleagues what to do, and she got paid more.

But my impression of her job was that she didn't really do very much at all. She wasn't moulding the world very much at all. I didn't have much power, but I had huge opportunities to mould the world because I got to go out and help various formerly homeless people change their own lives.

That situation happens over and over again with people who work in management. I have seen various male family members get pushed into management in different fields and they hate it. They are no longer doing the job they really wanted to do.

I would say that a SAHM has a very wide range of opportunities to mould the world particularly in her own community. And actually, operating outside of the mainstream economic structure and building networks of support and influence away from capitalist structures does mould the world. It just requires a lot of people to work together, rather than one individual attempting to make themselves more important than those around them.

It doesn't mould the world more. One person wielding power over four other people means that one person moulds the world more than the others. Five people holding equal amounts of power over their own lives by owning their own land and determining their own future rather than working for somebody else changes and moulds the world in many ethical ways.

SH -I don't think it is preferable to be a businessman than a smallholder

i agree there is nothing inherently better, but the former can mould the world more than the latter. and, its not as though no one will get the better paid job.

if the women doesnt even try for the promotion, a man certainly will get it and so the world continues as it is.

someone once said to me: if you always do what you have always done, you will always get, when you have always got.

Wasabi, I don't think it is preferable to be a businessman than a smallholder. I think one of the major problems of the world is that too much of it is organised around holding power and influence over others than actually getting work done. 5 smallholders may have little power or influence over anybody other than themselves. If 1 person starts up a business and then holds power over the other 4 smallholders who work for them, 1 person has a lot more power but 4 other people have a lot less.

A lot of positions of influence are primarily about maintaining social structures based on hierarchies and controlling other people so that people can maintain power for their own benefit. The power doesn't primarily exist for the good of people in general.

For half of the jobs which wield power for ethical reasons to do be done by women, it only takes a few women to take up those jobs. It isn't necessary for most women to have any involvement in them at all.

OP, I think you should look at what influence you could have in your own community as a SAHM, rather than think you have no influence at all.

you are correct that the coal miner, or a crop picker, or a fish gutter, or smallholder dont have much power may be none more than a SAHM but consider if half of these jobs were done by women:

and some of them become the foreman of the miners, the team leader of the crop pickers, the production manager of the fish line, and the successful smallholder who becomes a successful business person.

now the world is changing: lots of men start to work for women and maybe Mr Average starts to value women more.

If you are a coal miner, or a crop picker, or a fish gutter, or smallholder or any other essential job that most people worldwide are involved in, do you have any more influence than a SAHM?

Now, I'm sure that if every smallholder in the world got up and said that it was more important for women's equality (and most of them are women) that they went and took on a job that had more influence, then there would certainly be a lot more women in influential jobs.

But a lot of people would, as a consequence, starve to death.

Yes, but most jobs that need to be done don't really involve any power at all. Where there are large numbers of jobs involving people holding various amounts of power over others, it is generally because that area of society has organised itself in a way that is wasteful of human time and energy.

when i am talking about power, i am not just talking about 'great power' - i am talking about all levels of power.

e.g. in school, 50% of all the different roles being occupied by women, not just women mainly doing the lowest paid jobs (cleaner/TA), and men the highest (senior management).

Most people on the planet will never get into a position of huge power and influence though. Because most of the work that needs to be done is actually child care, care of older people, essential medical work, creating energy supplies, building and farming.

It doesn't actually benefit anyone for everyone to be attempting to get into a position of power. It is just that the gender, ethnic, class background and national mix of the people who are in positions of power should match that of the global population.