'Womens Work'

"Women's work": I think the base thing is that the closer to the core of what we (either individually or as a society) need: food, nappy-changing, primary care, the more it's made to be a dirty word.

Historically, consider this: in devout religious communities, nobody was allowed to 'work' on Sundays. People would walk to church - many individuals expending more effort - because harnessing a horse was considered work. Did these people go hungry on such a day? No. Did babies wallow in their own filth? No. Would an elderly patriarch have not had his needs tended? Fuck no.

And it's like that in general: things that are truly important to us, we can't allow to be important ! Gods forbid.

'I think any feminist argument against SAHM is that it makes the SAHM financially dependant on another person and their income rather than disapproval of the people who choose to do what we all know involves a lot of drudgery.'

There is no feminist argument against SAHM or WOHM. There are a number o feminist arguments about why both groups are treated unfairly in different ways by wider society.

I didn't say childcare was an insecure job, nor did anyone else. I don't want to be confrontational at all, but you have something in quotation marks and I'm not sure who you are quoting.

Child care is poorly paid in the UK. For example:

'The report also found that the early years profession has been in a cycle of low pay since the 1970s and childcare staff in other European countries are often significantly better paid. Average annual salaries for early years staff in the UK were between 13,300 and 16,850 in 2012. In Denmark, the average salaries were between 20,350 and 32,800, while in the Netherlands they were between 22,100 and 34,400.'

That is from here: www.employeebenefits.co.uk/childcare-workers-caught-in-low-pay-cycle/101073.article

Low pay of childcare workers is a feminist issue. Being in a low paid job increases insecurity for families because they end up more likely to live in poverty. That is not the same thing as the job itself being insecure.

As for many mothers choosing to become childminders because it suits their own family arrangements, flexibility of a job so that people with caring responsibilities can do it isn't a justification for that role being poorly paid.

I don't recognise the 'childcare is an insecure job' description. The nursery my children go to invests in its staff and many of them are graduates (including a couple of trained teachers who much prefer the flexibility that nursery offers them in comparison to working in a state school). The childminders I have spoken to on the school run have become childminders because it fits round their family responsibilities, they are all graduates, and again a lot of them are ex-teachers.

I think any feminist argument against SAHM is that it makes the SAHM financially dependant on another person and their income rather than disapproval of the people who choose to do what we all know involves a lot of drudgery (arts and crafts with my 6 year old this afternoon is great fun, crawling around under the table picking up the half chewed remains of my 18 month olds tea, not so much). And the fact that so many men (who have more choice in this patriarchial society) choose not to become the dependant partner sets off klaxons. DH (who works part time so he can do his share of the childcare) says being literally on his knees for much of the day when we first had DD1 was a real shock to the system, I think a lot of men just don't need to bother to try and overcome that.

In terms of some women going out and collecting water and clearing fields while also looking after kids, that surely isn't the best kind of childcare? Wherever you live in the world, a lot of childcare is about educating children beyond the immediate tasks they see the mother doing - reading, writing, geography etc.

The skills children have to learn if they are going to have a good chance in life are highly complex and require a lot of support outside of school. I don't think we can really characterise good quality childcare as having ypur children present all day while you clear fields etc.

Otherwise we would be saying that it was childcare when 5 year olds worked in coal mines with their parents. Hopefully we now see childcare as an important activity in its own right, not something women should ideally carry out while manuring a field (although many still do).

One of the issues seems to be if you are not a SAHM, who looks after your kids? I know there are families where two parents work part time and split childcare, and families where grandparents have the kids. But for a lot of families equality between the sexes means two working parents and children looked after by underpaid woman in low status childcare job with low status, poor prospects, poverty and insecurity for her own family.

The whole thing only really works with state funded high quality childcare.

Perhaps the real reason we need more men on childcare is to increase the status of childcare and stop treating it like brushing a cat.

Reading through, there's a lot of support for SAHM in the posts.

Important to note that being SAHM does not have to be forever and does not mean that you can never go out and earn an income again.

Also the posts seem to offer some confirmation that being a SAHM is not seen - by mums at least - as the easy or the lazy option.

Financially, SAHM can save money by being around to cook and do child-care.

Extra benefits are that SAHM support neighbourly communities - especially poor ones - forging friendships locally and reducing crime opportunities by being around during the day, and potentially, SAHM's look after weaker members of their communities (as happens in Benefits Street).

If fewer SAHM's around, all the above benefit has to be provided by the government at huge cost, so SAHM save public money too, possibly.

This is all apart from - in addition to - any SAHM benefits to their DC's.

Tbh it has not mattered one jot from paid work to sahm one thing has been constant; if I do it it's not VIP. If a man does the same task that task has value.

My daughters will get better. Won't be letting them put up with any shit! Grrr!

I am a single parent of 2 boys so they see me doing paid work and the housework. I struggle a bit with this as they are growing up to see me doing all the housework. If I had a partner they'd see him doing the housework too. I worry that when they have their own children they'll see childcare and housework as women's work.

A friend of mine was a SAHM until her daughter declared that she wasn't bothered about her homework as she'd never need to work. Her mother found paid work pronto.

Oh, god, don't quote me on it.

It's just what I've read. It's probably way more complicated. My mate who is a proper archaeologist sounds off about it quite bit, though.

Also the work required in the home has evolved over time. Once making your own clothes was part of domestic work. Post-industrialisation it became professionalised and men owned the means of production while women (and children) were the workers. Now making your own clothes has become an expensive hobby for wealthier women.

See also: food & catering, hairdressing, cleaning & laundry services.

The more profit something generates the more likely it is that men will become the primary producers and beneficiaries. How many women work as hairdressers? How many women have branded shampoos named after them?

Also, it is laughable to think that in early silent times women made up a large proportion of film directors and production staff because cinema was considered a lowly art form and men stuck with theatre. As soon as it was clear it would be a mass market profitable industry - the men came.

Indeed - men and women always worked. Men might hunt meat in some societies and women dig up roots and pick berries. The ridiculous idea that women do nothing but clean and mind children is perhaps a myth perpetuated by sexists who want to keep women in the home and con women into thinking there is something natural and right about 24/7 domestic duties.

This is the basic feminist argument, isn't it?

I agree with autumn that this is not a new thing at all.

My suspicion is that, by defining work that is most done by women as a 'hobby', society gets another way of guilt-tripping women. But that's always been the same. Relatively recently, I believe, archaeologists and anthropologists more or less agreed that in early societies, it's likely the main food source came from gathering, not hunting. Did that mean we've all suddenly started to picture early women gatherers as the 'bread winners'? Not at all. What's happened is we're encouraged to picture both men and women gathering food.

There seems to be no trace of embarrassment that what was once pictured as a nice little hobby for women appears to have been re-interpreted as necessary to the survival of all people - all that was needed was that we re-imagine men at the centre of what used to be pictured as 'women's work'.

Helpfulchap SAHP are not creating job vacancies, there is not a limited number of jobs in this world that means that one person working denies another a job. If a person works and gets paid for it then they can go and spend that money in ways that creates jobs for other people, whether that is manufacturing jobs (making food, clothing, household goods, luxury goods) or services (hairdressers, cleaners, childcare, personal trainers) or paying taxes (paying taxes to pay doctors, teachers, social workers) Our economy is heavily based on serrvice jobs, we're all working for other people.

It shoudl be and is shared in most families. Most women work and always have outside the home and most families have always had both parents sometimes relatives, sometimes friends, nannies, child minders nurseries etc helping with children and cleaners helping with cleaning etc etc

If staying home doing all this domestic stuff were so much fun men would be jumping at the chance to do it and the price for those kinds of services would be sky high.

Men and women should share the work.

We have a family unit where the role of the parents is to provide food, clothes and a roof and care for all members of the family unit.

In a modern society where specialisation has taken root elements of this is done by exchanging labour for goods rather than producing the goods yourself. Some elements continue to be done directly by the family.

There is no earthly reason why you need a gender split in these two ways of providing for and caring for a family. Yet we have one.

My interpretation is:

Work that is paid and has status = mens work
work that is unpaid and has low status = womens work

There are an interesting variety of views as to what 'work' consists of including Autumn's 'chance to interact with the outside world', making meeting a mate for coffee potentially qualifying. Equally, is a stock 'analyst' earning £300k to write about his stock predictions 'working' even when his predictions are as accurate as a monkey throwing darts at the FTSE 100 listing? Is he working because he turns up at an employer and gets paid?

Personally I think the difference between work and a hobby is the fact that you have to do it and, in that sense, a SAHP is definitely working as it is a full on commitment. It becomes a little different, though, when children are in full time school. Then maybe it is more like a part time job.

I think the concept of work, though, is endlessly debatable.

I take an issue with the notion that everything has to have an economic value and make a contribution to society. If I was a SAHP, I would not give a rat's arse that I was not "contributing" and instead lying on the couch and painting my nails while my kids were at school, if I was so inclined. I would not be hurting anyone, would I? When did this participation in the hamster wheel become compulsory? Why are we constantly measuring each other up by the amount of martyrdom we undertake?

I would never call it women's work. Its family work, if that family includes a man it's his bloody work as well. I find it shocking how many of my well educated, self identified feminist friends work yet do all the child care and domestic work as well while their male partners just have their paid work.

I agree that SAHMs aren't valued whatsoever, but that's a slightly different issue I think

I read Tim Harford ("Undercover Economist") recently and he was at it too - maligning unpaid contributions and having a crack at SAHPs. Gah, Economists!