Can you be a feminist but be anti maternity leave etc

I can see the argument for restricting maternity leave, if only looked at from the point of view of women's advancement in careers and ensuring gender equality in the workplace. If you feel this is the ultimate goal of feminism then it makes sense. But if you have other considerations, such as the needs of the baby, then I am afraid there is no argument. Babies need to be with a primary carer with whom they can form an attachment. Great if you can afford a nanny or maternity nurse, not so great otherwise. This is why Xenia's arguments are always flawed, because she was in the financial position to make things work for her and her children. The majority of people are not, and never will be, no matter how hard we all work.

I don't know, my mother had her children in the 1970s and without affordable childcare, found it very difficult to pursue her chosen career. I suspect her experience may have been more common at a population level than yours, I don't know.

I had no tax credits or childcare vouchers 28 years ago. In fact that is my point - the absence of those things made women return to work which meant more fairness at home and equality in relationships.

I was a product of the 70s and women really were aware of feminism then. We were reading all the feminist books as teenagers. In the mean time after that came girls brought up on MTV, soaps, woman as visual item rather than woman as business leader and those equality gains which followed inr elationships just after the Equal Pay Act 1970 seem a little to have been lost.

However I amn ot disheartened as (a) things are now better -feminism is going back to how it was - not a dirty work (b) most parents bring up their children in gender neutral ways (c) most women work and have the sense not to enable sexist men.

Women continued to marry up even if they had degrees so when it came do - does this woman on £40k give up work or her husband on £100k even with advancement of women the woman was pin money second earner so her career came second. When women are as likely to marry men who are worse than they are at careers etc then decisions about if either will stay home will be made on gender neutral grounds. It is happening but not that quickly as even though women are doing wellthey still marry someone a bit older who earns more.

You could argue that the reason I earn what I do now after 5 children is because I broke the rule and ended up earning 10x my other half. Had he earned double what I did I might have put less into career and earned less or gone part time. I am of course delighted I didn ot.

Surely rolling on nearly 30 years men have not become more sexist and women haven't gone back to some kind of sexist role?

It is strange how some women see children as their issue. What makes them like that? It is not age. 30 years ago my children's father and I saw this as a joint issue. We interviewed a nanny together. He arguably did more than I did with hiring and keeping her.I think I dealt with the nanny tax/admin and he usually got home first to let her go home.

Surely rolling on nearly 30 years men have not become more sexist and women haven't gone back to some kind of sexist role? That would be very very sad to see. Most men I know or have known over all that time are as competent as a wife at finding and hiring childcare and women with sense avoid sexist men and do not tolerate sexism even for a day - they throw up their hands in horrow, say not on you nelly, here is the phone book, find the emergency nanny, I will be back at 7pm. Or more likely work out who has the most important tasks that day and organise things accordingly.

The 6 weeks of maternity leave on 90% pay is fine. We are about to give women and men more transferable rights and that is great too as chidlcare is a parent issue not a women's issue. the more rights you give to women but not to men the more you chain women to sinks and ensure they do dross dull jobs at home which you need a lobotomy to enjoy and men get to have the balanced lives of work and children.

'In small villages around the world where the men and women look after their children and farm and hunt.. do you think they secretly all long to go be selling shares?'

Since a large proportion of those women will also suffer injuries, disability and death from childbirth- I don't think we should be idealising it too much. Frankly, I would MUCH rather be a blowhard in an office- I would last two minutes in a 'traditional' village.
As a feminist, I would be much much happier if maternity leave was not seen as 'just' a woman's problem- presumably all these women are procreating with men- at some level?And as a disabled feminist, I would be happier to see MORE flexibility in the workplace, not less.

"it is entirely possible to be feminist and challenge received orthodoxies"

Yes it is, but categorising motherhood as a lazy skive, isn't challenging received orthodoxies, it's re-inforcing them.

Also this nonsense of anyone can call themselves a feminist - yes, obviously that's true, but only if you don't believe the term feminist has any meaning.

I can call myself a book if I want. The fact that "book" has a distinct and generally agreed meaning in the English language is irrelevant - I've decided to be a book today.

Much like women who have some sort of emotional investment in promoting women's disadvantage and then calling themselves feminist. It's meaningless and sensible people recognise that words have meanings because if they don't, then we're all sitting here talking incoherent nonsense all the time.

Um

dont be so harsh on yourself ,we don't concur but I wouldn't say unvarying drivel
your not the only poster on fem topics who writes formulaic posts
the anti feminists,mra apologists they quite dribbley too

I like looking after my children xenia. It does happen. Sitting in an office staring at a bunch of blowhards so full of their own importance they can't make room for dinner would bore the fuck out of me. I pity your kids you find them so boring, and whoever you paid to look after them as they clearly wouldn't have been shown any respect. The "jobs" you are talking about aren't even jobs in some countries.. why should people aspire to do them? In small villages around the world where the men and women look after their children and farm and hunt.. do you think they secretly all long to go be selling shares?

I think the only way to reconcile being a feminist with opposing maternity leave, would be to say that it should change to parental leave and be take-able by either new parent. IMHO.

Your twitter lady there is just being an arse. Tis an equal-opportunity vocation though.

I think them as needs it is already onto it, TBH. That or the unvarying drivel comes naturally.

what inane thing to say?
do you cut and paste from a file
is that an idea you want to share or advocate

Xenia, I'm curious, do you have a file that you copy and paste from?

No, you can't. You can be deluded or ignorant, but not a feminist. IMHO.

Of course you can. The fact I had no maternity rights meant that I had a fair femniist marriage where we both from day 1 did as much with the babies and is the direct result of my having done so well with career and achieving equality at home over the years.

Ghettoising women at home with extended maternity rights is a bit like attaching them by a chain to a kitchen sink (although I certainly accept that the 6 weeks at 90% pay and then tiny amount per week you get does reflect recovery time of the physical birth element).

Also the making mother hood into some kind of job it isn't and men who say - my wife is wonderful, I could not do what she does is a way to keep women down. We all know cleaning and childcare is as dull as ditchwater and any woman with half a brain wants work and children just like men do, not a life of domestic servitude and no money and power. However that myth is peddled of sacred wonderful housewifery by sexist men and women who probably could not do much more than scrub a floor so have to suggest that their cleaning and childcare role is some kind of job for which they get a special halo. Instead that attitude is a conspiracy to ensure women never get anywhere. If it's such fun to clear up baby sick let men do it.

I'm a childfree feminist who is pro-public breastfreeding and indeed anything that makes mothers' (and fathers') lives easier - particularly in the working arena. For me, it's all about supporting, not judging, people's rights and choices.

I think that your friends ideas lack pragmatism.

To use holiday time to have children - say 4 weeks a year - would mean that women would get (if they saved all their holiday up) 2 or 3 weeks after giving birth to recover. Depending on timings and health complications it could be 1 week, 0 weeks or (actually probably quite frequently) a negative amount of time off!

If it were my friend I would forget the feminist argument and come from a basic human argument. If a woman works until she goes into labour, is in labour for a couple of days, and ends up with a CS, then she is going to need, medically, 6 weeks and 2 days off (assuming she heals OK etc). So this woman will forfeit her job. As will women who stop work on their due date and go overdue and have a CS, or women who have infections or complications post birth, or who have to stop work prior to their due date due to medical problems.

In a time of recession this course will result in women who are not fit for work, returning to work.

I would ask her if she feels that people with other medical conditions should have their time off work restricted.
If it's to do with "lifestyle choices" then does she think that anyone who has time off work due to "lifestyle choices" eg playing sports, riding motorcycles also needs to take recovery time off after injury out of their holiday time and be sacked if their condition (eg neck injury from rugby) be sacked if leave does not cover it?

And so on.

I think her attitude is illogical and impractical, and on a personal level I believe it is not in line with feminism as I understand it.

However I suspect your conversations will not get you anywhere except wound up so I recommend simply avoiding her

if woman op refers to wants to call herself feminist thats her call imo.
plenty dispute camille paglia credentials calling her anti-feminist as she doesn't toe the line
its entirely possible to be feminist and challenge received orthodoxies

motherhood isnt biological destiny,its a choice.some do it.some dont
maternity leave is not a jolly or elongated holiday.and no i dont think it detrimental to anyone else
but having child doesnt elevate women to godess and ardest job in world ststus
the sentimentality of mutha as ardest job in world is toxic and it smacks of wimmin know your place - sticke to what youre good at eg nurturing,dont bother with hard jobs now you have ardest job in world etc

we live in a world that makes child rearing a burden. since even childfree 'feminists' will benefit from other women having the kids who will grow up and work in seniors' facilities when cff's are aged and frail, she is clearly an arse to believe childrearing is the private business of the biological mother.

I do feel that maternity law is not a great idea from the feiminst perspective. But I don't think it should be abolished - it should simply be parental leave that can be used by either parent. As currently employers view hiring women as more risky, as they can at some point take the leave - would be hemful for women on the job market if employers had similar chances with male employees taking the time off.

As for the original question, no I don't think a person so negative about all mothers can at the same time claim to support womens rights.

Yes breeding is optional.

It's a shame her parents opted to do it.

Sorry, I know that is an awful thing to say, but women like her really piss me off.

I have know several women who are child free by choice, but none of them are like that, they realise that women who have children need time off to do so. They know that it's important to keep the population going.