I am a feminist and a sahm

Yes, but couldn't some of that lack of confidence be a result of the undervaluing? Most of what I hear regarding SAHMs is that they're all lazy and probably thick or Stepfordesque. That doesn't help me, as a sahm, feel very confident. I struggle with confidence anyway as my parents already consider me a failure because I failed at academia, I'm never going to be athletic and I'm not slim. And while I like SAHMing, I don't find it easy and I am trying hard to learn new skills as the children develop.

Funnily enough, the only place I hear nice things about SAHM is here on this board. So OP, you can indeed be a feminist and a SAHM.

I don't have any choice. He earns alot more. I am the carer to our disabled dc. He admits he couldn't hack this and they need and want it to be me.

But I don't do the 'wife work'. He organises the bills, cleans more than me and pays a cleaner for the rest. I have a great deal more personal or free time within our set up than he does. My job within our family may not be a free choice but it is highly valued.

'It's worth pointing out that you can get every bit as screwed over by a bad employer as you can by a bad husband. maybe not literally You can't escape patriarchy in the workplace any more than in the home. Sure, you might need a job and a source of income if your husband leaves you. Likewise you might value a good husband's emotional and financial support if you ever lost your job. One is not an automatic remedy for the other's failings.'

I agree to an extent Gallicos, except for the fact that being out of the workforce doesn't just prevent a woman from earning money there and then. For every year she stays at home a woman loses more of her value as a worker so that if she does divorce, or she decides to go back to work, her earning power will be severely damaged. Add to that the difficulty of finding a job when you've been out of work for a while and the decrease in confidence that many SAHMs experience and many women are screwed.

Our society is structured so that access to money is a key driver of success and there are certain conditions around having that access - employability being one of them. When SAHMs lose employability they lose access to personal success, something that can have massive repercussions.

GallicosCats that is a rather simplistic analogy that doesn't stand up to much examination. There is not the same web of complex emotional and familial ties with an employer. You don't have sex with them, you don't bear their children. There will not always be in your life as the father of your children. Hence, one can have greater self determination in the workplace in choice of employer, retraining and changing careers. The domestic sphere has many more complex snares for unwary women, as the relationship boards attest.

There's so much patriarchy inherent in these discussions too. It's always assumed the man is constant, working, providing and every decision the woman makes around working or choice she does or doesn't have is in the context of "other" to the working, providing husband. Also assumes every couple is heterosexual or that every woman wants to be or will be in such a relationship.

It isn't about achieving equality. It's a liberation movement. I consider it to be both. What it isn't, is 'about choice'.

It's worth pointing out that you can get every bit as screwed over by a bad employer as you can by a bad husband. maybe not literally You can't escape patriarchy in the workplace any more than in the home. Sure, you might need a job and a source of income if your husband leaves you. Likewise you might value a good husband's emotional and financial support if you ever lost your job. One is not an automatic remedy for the other's failings.

agree with luminaries the choice to stay at home affects everyone - it dictates how work is structured and also how school and childcare is structured.
I've always been a WOHM - with a SAHP - my life is hugely affected by SAHM- whether it be in how my work place is structured , when events and meetings take place at school etc. In a world where both parents had to work I think a great many things would have to be different (how would long commutes work? childcare etc) and to a degree these are stymied by the presence of SAHM,
On another note , i don't think its necessarily about valuing paid work v unpaid work - i do think that there is more credit/respect given to SAHM with preschool children than those with school age for example - because of the size of the role for example.

It isn't about achieving equality. It's a liberation movement.

However, as I said, this is an emotive topic.

I also find the whole concept of slagging off SAHM as being somehow lesser than their WOHM counterparts repulsive

Agreed, but that shouldn't be a reason to shy away from a feminist discussion of the broader structural implications of the 'choice' to stay at home with the children always inevitably being made by women, why that is and what impact that has, on society as a whole.

I do think 'feminism is about choice' misses the entire point. Feminism is about achieving equality for women and sometimes we have to examine choices through that lens, rather than lazily thinking that whatever women do is to be applauded. Like all liberation movements, change can require hard graft and sacrifice. As feminists we should try and live the change we want to see in the world, to support our sisters and daughters.

I also find the whole concept of slagging off SAHM as being somehow lesser than their WOHM counterparts repulsive and you see an incredible amount of that happening on various MN boards.

I've seen and heard far more slagging off of mothers who work, both on here and elsewhere, but both are unacceptable.

the SAH option for women, in the event of divorce, often does lead to poverty.

Agreed, those can be the consequences of that choice, but again, when a baby is born some parents have a range of options and most don't and it tends to be the parents who have the narrowest range of choices who bear the brunt of the consequences as well.

I also find the whole concept of slagging off SAHM as being somehow lesser than their WOHM counterparts repulsive and you see an incredible amount of that happening on various MN boards. Not everyone wants or can achieve their own private island and not all women can make an active choice to work outside the home.

It's always going to be an emotive issue.

I concur TheLuminaries. It's also a sign of how men's lives take precedence that women are still so often expected to sacrifice careers they've built up and put a great deal into if they have children, to support the man in his. This doesn't apply to the SAHPs who've posted on this thread but does often happen, yet men are rarely if ever expected to make any sacrifices to support women's careers if they have children together. Because men's careers and ambitions take precedence and we're taught that from a young age.

Also mothers working isn't bad for their children, just as fathers working isn't. On the contrary, my mum is a fantastic mum and has a fantastic career.

By the time they were 9 months old my children weren't breastfeeding during the working day day and hardly any one breast feeds past a year and when they do it is usually at night as a comfort thing. So given the length of maternity leave in this country, breastfeeding is a red herring.

I do think there is a structural issue with the sheer number of women who opt out of the work place enabling men to continue to progress to positions of influence and authority. That is not to blame individuals for their choices, but these choices do impact on the shape of society.

Work in the home is important and should be valued but larger political and economic decisions that effect us all take place out side the home and all these lovely SAHMs, while doubtless wonderful for their husbands and children, cannot have any influence unless some are prepared to put on their smart clothes and get out there and influence in the workplace.

I don't think feminism is about choice - or certainly not always making the easiest choice for you. Change is hard earned and won by women who dared to step outside the domestic sphere.

I'm not 100% sure where this rant was meant to go, but the whole concept of choosey choice without understanding the background against which those choices are made seems a bit one dimensional to me

Oh I agree - but I also think that part of the issue is that men and women have different choices and they are not made under the same circumstances and with the same conditions. Also, the debate re whether the choice may be 'free' (or not) has tended to overshadow the issue of the consequences of that choice - and the SAH option for women, in the event of divorce, often does lead to poverty.

the vast majority of women aren't employed in jobs that could be called a career, they just have jobs. Because those jobs tend to be less well paid than their husband or partner's job or trade

To the first part: neither are the vast majority of men. To the latter, I've read a few times women in their 20s now out-earn men in their 20s. I'm not sure of the exact figures but regardless, whatever the case, it's not acceptable that jobs associated with women are underpaid compared to jobs associated with men (due to sexism and undervaluing of women's work again).

Also this doesn't explain the posters on various threads on boards here who've said they were the highest earner upon having a child but still felt pressured to give up work for a variety of reasons including being "less of a woman" or "bad mothers" if they didn't and assuming the man would still go on to earn more.

I also dislike all the criticism mothers who work get in so many quarters.

I forgot who said this a few pages back

That was me.

Women have always done paid work, there have always been women who have worked outside the home, they just tended to be invisible. What the WLM advocated for was women to be allowed to remain in the kinds of jobs that, even in my lifetime, a woman would be expected to give up when she had children, if not when she married.

I get that some women are defined by their career, but the vast majority of women aren't employed in jobs that could be called a career, they just have jobs. Because those jobs tend to be less well paid than their husband or partner's job or trade, and because childcare in this country is relatively expensive, they have little choice but to give up work for at least the primary years or to have to take on a second job in order to keep the family afloat (very often women where I live take on a part time job around their partner's hours to keep the family afloat anyway).

The OP is very lucky in that she is able to make this choice out of a selection of options and will probably be able to keep up with her previous career and be able to return to it. The vast majority of women don't have those choices, and this is where I can't agree with "feminism being all about choice". Choice sounds fabulous, until you recognise that most women don't have actual choices between an array of equal options, what they have is a Hobson's choice between the potential that they might be made supervisor one day, but might not be able to eat properly until then because of childcare costs, or staying at home with any children they have. If we say that feminism is about choice, what are we saying to those women?

While we live under Patriarchy, I think we just have to trust that women are doing the best they can with their own circumstances while encouraging them to think critically about those choices and where they come from and working to expand the range of options they have to choose from. Even the women who 'choose' to go back to work between 3-12 weeks and put themselves through expressing are making that choice because of circumstances or peer judgement or because they live in a regressive country that fails to provide women with adequate paid maternity leave.

I'm not 100% sure where this rant was meant to go, but the whole concept of choosey choice without understanding the background against which those choices are made seems a bit one dimensional to me.

RunLogan I'm not talking about 'performing' sex roles, rather about human biology. Women lactate, men don't. In order for men to take over this part of parenting, women must do extra work (pumping). This needs to be considered.
I also think there is something misogynistic about taking a perfectly designed female function, packaging it up and selling a sanitised version of it back to us, at a profit. "Women, put away your tits and buy our pumps and bottles so that your partner can feel equally important!"

Well put!

If he is not doing at least 50% of the work involved in running and maintaining a house and the people who live in it, he's not much of a feminist

Why should anyone working full time be expected to do 50% of this if there is a stay at home person?

Earning money is nearly always seen as separate. Earning money is as much part of running and maintaining a household as children rearing and laundry and cooking and vacuuming and so on - exact details, including pet care and gardening will depend on each individual household.

There are obviously restrictions on who can do what - it is unreasonable to expect someone who is out of the house from 8am to 7pm to do exactly the same amount of physical chores as a SAHP, because you do have to physically be there. But it is also unreasonable to expect the SAHP to do 100% of the work in the physical house, particularly once children are involved, which need 24x7 care - you can ignore the vacuuming for another day, but not a dirty nappy or feeding a child. And I think seeing paid work as entirely separate, rather than an essential contribution to the household means it's easier for some people (mostly men) to opt put of doing their fair share of the entire workload.

(Though I do say this from the position of it all being 100% down to me, and not having the option of sharing with someone else.)

@fruitlovingmonkey - Most of the breastfeeding mums who gave birth in my circle returned to work 3-12 weeks after birth and performed their 'sex roles' with a breast pump while their DP looked after the baby.

I'm a SAHM and a feminist. It was a choice I made and am happy with.
My child is one so at this stage I would argue that I am a better SAHP than DH could be, because of my female biology (still breastfeeding on demand).
Saying that either parent should be able to choose to stay at home is fine in the long run but I think we need to be more honest about sex roles in the first couple of years of a child's life.

I disagree with your friend's assumption that self worth is contingent on paid employment.

However I do believe that, unfortunately, the 'cause' of feminism is hindered by the current situation in which lots of women are SAHPs and hardly any men are. And I guess you are contributing to that to a tiny extent.

But I do realise that it's completely unrealistic to expect everyone to make decisions for the greater good rather than their own personal happiness.

I'm sure you don't need anyone to tell you to keep up to date with issues in your previous workplace and to ensure you have money available to you should the worst happen

I forgot who said this a few pages back - but for me it is the core of why I would not give up paid work and also why the WLM initially advocated for women to enter paid work. Of course, at the time, this was about creating paid work as an option for women and making sure it was a place where women were treated equally (it still isn't). But even though I could theoretically be supported by a man I choose not to because (i) I define myself through my career and (ii) in the event of breakups stay at home partners often get shat on from a great height. I heard a woman who had been shat on describe this once as "one man away from welfare". Plus, we don't make choices in vacuums. Women are still not treated equally in the workplace and men still do not see being a SAHD as a real life choice. It remains a gendered choice.

Unfortunately lots of women still become SAHM because it is still an expectation that if any parent SAH it should be the woman. So it's not that surprising that it is viewed as an unfeminist thing to do.

I was a SAHM for only a couple of years but have worked only part time ever since (dc 11 and 9). I've only really become a feminist since having dc, and although I am now happy to be part-time and have no desire to step back on the career ladder, I don't feel that I really approached that decision with my eyes fully open when planning to have dc. I just assumed if either of us took a career pause, it would be me, even though I was the higher earner at the time. I used to love my job, but once I had the dc I lost all ambition and motivation for it tbh.