Can you be a feminist but be anti maternity leave etc

"Which then leads to the cycle of the man continuing to pursue a career whilst the woman is juggling her career and childcare responsibilities."

Oh yes, that cycle is solely caused by women being control freaks and wanting to exclude men from parenting and childcare.

No other reasons at all.

I don't know either, LRD, I just know that the early arguments for antenatal and postnatal care were very much to do with infant health and reducing infant mortality and I was surprised I guess to see how current such arguments still are. I think women's health and well-being during and after pregnancy was a side-effect, rather than the main aim.

i absolutely and entirely agree with what you say about the physical and emotional upheaval, for want of a better word, that having a baby is, I think that is why, in many countries it is just not legal to work for a minimum period after birth. At the same time, and the answer to this is not necessarily work, I think there is also a recognition that isolation in the home and the change in a woman's life is a contributory factor to PND. So, I am not sure that placing infant care squarely on a woman's shoulders is the right solution either. There's a big gulf between everyday working lives and new mummy baby club and clinic life. But again, the answer to that is not no maternity leave, imo.

That's true LRD. It's back to the old issue of what we want - equality of input or equality of outcome? If I am more vulnerable to flu because I am pregnant or elderly or asthmatic, I can get vaccinated when others can't because it makes the outcome more equal.

Though - and forgive me, because I'm now being serious and I know I don't realy know - isn't it now being found that it's very important to sort out maternal care because PND is so debilitating, and so common? I can believe that maternity leave may well have been brought in in the interest of babies, but I do believe that it matters hugely that a civilized society has a way of accepting that a woman who has had a baby does actually need and deserve some care. It seems really shit to me that many societies even today are predicated on the idea that a woman gives birth (thereby continuing that society!), and yet she's expected to continue on as normal, doing the same work with no statutory maternity leave and no provision for her health.

That's interesting about maternity leave being for the benefit of the
Baby, I hadn't thought about it that way

You take the baby to the fields to feed. I breastfed all 5 and worked full time from when they were 2 weeks old. Even if you read Tess of the D'Urb. her baby was brought to her in the hay field to feed. I think it died actually ...and indeed most babies died before age 5 but women have always worked.

It might ingrain sexism to put words into other women's mouths, xenia.

Your bashing of other women is very tedious - why do you still assume that the only way for women to get ahead is by adopting the patriarchy's ways and stamping on other women to get to the top?

well, if breeding is optional and we all decide not to do it she'll have problems collecting her pension in a few years time, won't she ?

I don't think we should dignify her by discussing it really.

I don't think anyone enjoys cleaning but it has to be done . So who should do it? Same with child care?

We can't all find nameless faceless nannies to do our bidding. I worked in child care for years and the condescending bull shit from parents who thought me beneath them really pissed me off.

Some people like kids thank god for that, or the world would come to a stand still. Does it occasionally getting boring? Yes, as does everything you do day in and day out. I have never held a job that didn't get monotonous sometimes.. I really don't get your disdain for people who enjoy doing things differently than you. Honestly, my kids are awesome, I love them. They are silly and funny and brilliant fun sometimes and sometimes they are smelly and horrible.. just like any other work.

Who's saying women want to earn nothing and are different species to men? What is wrong with being happy at home? Many men would like to stay at home more too! In my posts I've taken care to emphasise that I'm talking in general terms.

I think it engrains sexism to suggest women have some huge urge to clean and do childcare and earn nothing and that men are a different species who want to have it all and are allowed to have it all because they have muggins at home who apparently adores her hours with the mop.

If women have been conned into thinking they will be happy at home then it behoves feminists to raise the scales from the eyes of those women and show them how wrong they are, not pat them on the back and say all hail madonna stepford wife you have found your true calling.

Xenia - I don't agree at all that I suggested women should stay home and they were weak and useless....I am a woman after all so to suggest that would mean lumping myself into that category .

I don't think it uncontroversial to suggest women want different things to men...they sometimes want the same things of course....we wouldn't have had Thatcher et al if that wasn't the case.

Many things have already been done to get more women into the workplace, that's why in part so much has gone into mat leave and so on to encourage the very many women who want to be with their children to work too. These sorts of things would never have been brought in if women hadn't wanted them...and yet it still isn't enough. Plenty of women who can afford it jack in their jobs (for better or worse) when the family starts to grow, even with all these provisions. Despite the efforts gone to, women are still under-represented in top posts. Is it hard to believe that not as many women as men want this sort of work?

How about women in jobs that aren't office based? How about women in environments that aren't suitable for babies? How do they manage to EBF? Or are you differentiating between EBF and expressing? There's a whole other set of questions on that one!

Yes exactly Halloween. There is an army of (mostly) women employed in low paid and low status work as childcarers. If it wasn't for these women then the likes of Xenia wouldn't be able to develop their own careers.

The only answer is for childcare to be provided by the state, at high quality and low cost. This has the effect of enabling all parents to work and also raising the pay and status of childcare workers. It would also raise educational outcomes for children from deprived families.

Do you really believe breast feeding is an option for most working mothers? I could not express milk at all, and I am not quite sure who was meant to bring me dd or ds while I was at work? Or should I have only breast fed for 2 weeks and then gone back to work?

Also on the point that children of working women do better, household income is the best indicator of child outcomes. If you have two wages coming in the family will have more income and ultimately the children of those homes do much better. My children graduated debt free for example because I chose to work rather than being a housewife.

Money will improve a child's life.. yes. Two working parents however does not generally indicate more household income. Many parents find the money made by one person working is negated by the cost of child care. MOst people aren't high earners xenia.. This is not due to being horrible stupid people..it's due to the fact that everyone CANT be a high earner. People make their money off the backs of the poor. If a family can provide money for food and shelter and education for their children while having a loving parent at home... I think they have done quite a bit for their child. Graduating debt free is not the end all, I would say having some concept of the value of money is nice lesson to learn to.

Once the stigma of being a sahm parent is lifted more men will choose to stay at home.. this is the problem people like you make others feel uncomfortable with their choices.

You take the baby to the fields to feed. I breastfed all 5 and worked full time from when they were 2 weeks old. Even if you read Tess of the D'Urb. her baby was brought to her in the hay field to feed. I think it died actually ...and indeed most babies died before age 5 but women have always worked.

Also on the point that children of working women do better, household income is the best indicator of child outcomes. If you have two wages coming in the family will have more income and ultimately the children of those homes do much better. My children graduated debt free for example because I chose to work rather than being a housewife.

On LeB, I don't agree with that - that it is a man thing to want money and power and success. I don't think those are male values and I think it's very anti feminist to suggest women are some kind of soft squidgy useless crying thing who wants to care all day. I think that types of prejudice keeps women down. Heaps of us adore to rule, gain power, out earn men ,compete. Competition is not just a male attribute It is as much a woman as a man thing. The stereotype of woman as pathetic little useless thing who wants to sit around sewing or kneeling in adoration at her hsuband's feet is not what women need nor what feminism is about. The power behind the throne is not what many women want. They want the throne itself. Let me have the back stage role and cleaning tasks if they want someone in a pinny in the kitchen. The throne itself is much more fun.

^that was to xenia btw

I am sorry but I really can't take you seriously. I have seen where you previously stated that children of parents who stayed home were not as intelligent.. you made up some ridiculous pseudo science for that as well. Please show me the research that says children of SAHP don't do as well as other children?

I never said women haven't worked in previous generations I said since the beginning of time. Small farmers people in towns and villages did do jobs around their home they grew their own food they did things where their children were involved as well. This still happens around the world.
please explain how women breast fed their many children if they were never around them?

I have no problem with anyone choosing to work or stay at home I wish you would stop peddling the myth that women stay home because they are too stupid to do anything else.

OP - of course you can be a feminist and anti-mat leave. THere's a whole brand of american feminists who adhere to this (hence low bf rates, so says the bf bible milk, money and madness).

There are all sorts of feminists: some are anti-strippers, others are pro.

Although I personally don't agree with the idea, the feminist line is to give women an equal employment footing to men - equal pay based on equal experience at the work face etc. Xenia puts this point across well. I just object to the notion of equality - being equal meaning to play the game like a man.

Problem with this is that men and women aren't (on the whole) equal biologically. The sexes aren't the same and have different desires (on average). Many, many men I've met could do without ever having children for example - I've only met one women happy with this life choice. Most women with newborns would feel unhappy to return to work a few weeks after giving birth. Although you could, and people do, use this as an excuse to keep women 'tied to the sink', I think the basis of the idea springs from the natural biology and, in and of itself, isn't 'wrong'.

1. It is does not do good for babies to be with their mother 24/7./ That is a myth put about by sexists to keep women down. Children of working mothers and indeed children of families with more money in them do best. Children who go to a childminder, stay with granny or grandpa, go to ao nursery or stay with a nanny or their father do the same as children with a mother 24/7.

1. It is not true that in the past women never worked and men did. Women have always worked. My grandmother worked in the 1920s. Her mother worked etc etc. However those with an agenda to keep women down, to keep women thinking being glorified servants at home is some kind of haloed role like the peddle that myth to ensure men have a read supply of unpaid slave labour at home.

But you don't become unemployable, because maternity leave is a guaranteed right in the UK Monster. You stay off for up to a year and then your employer takes you back. It's not like you made a choice to end your job then try and find a new position. Maternity leave is a joke in the states (I'm American) I felt so bad for a waitress we had a few months ago, fit to drop and really struggling. BUt she had to work because she was only allowed 6 weeks leave and didn't want to waste it before her baby was born.

Scandinavia has longer parental leave, but not the same level of discrimination of women and mothers. What's different though is that almost all mothers return to work after the leave and mostly full time, not to "term time school hours only jobs", as there is affordable child care. (And of course fathers are fully expected to share the leave and take time off too.)

I think the long maternity leave has been detrimental to many women, based on what I've read here. It does presumably do good for babies, but again, that argument brings us to the why do babies have more rights than women place, doesn't it?

And when I say detrimental, it seems that (again, this is from reading this site, there isn't much maternity leave in the States) many women who do stay home end up staying longer, or due to length of unemployment (mainly due to this downturn) becoming unemployable.

It troubles me because I don't think work equality is the only way to measure success, but I do think it adds to the male-centric view that women can't/won't earn equal money and be able to support their families.

And I also see many women bashing others for NOT taking a long maternity leave, which confuses me too.

However, the person in the link is just mean and nasty, and that's not a feminist issue at all.

mardyI am not really sure of your point, my response was to xenia's idea that women hate being around children and that the only real work you can have is a job.. which to me is a totally artificial as Jobs aren't real, our society invented most of them.. why would anyone have a natural urge to do something unnatural? My dh absolute would prefer to be home with our children.. he doesn't want to spend all day in an office.. we need the money and as he hasn't got breasts I won and got to stay home. When they are older I think we will probably switch and he will stay home while I work. Or we will each work part time.

I can't see feminism is helped by women slagging off the work women have done since the beginning of time while simultaneously praising the work men have traditionally done in our society. How is men=better/important a feminist principal? Sounds awfully misogynistic to me. It's this kind of shit that gets jobs done by females paid less as they aren't valued.