Patriarchy

OP I'm just struggling to understand the wider significance of your decision to live a semi-surrendered-wife lifestyle.

Is it that you think you're a feminist? Or are aserting your right not to be a feminist?

I'm not really following your thesis.

“He said he’d fund me through an internship etc”

In my relationship this would be “we agreed that we as a family had the resources to fund me through an internship”

For someone raised in a house with a strong mother, you seem very submissive. Which makes me think she wasn’t an empowering feminist role model but a controlling bully. Women can be controlling bullies. So can men and it may be that you married someone familiar...

In our house if there was a discussion about work hours and childcare, it has recently gone like this... I say work might have more hours and I have found a place at after school care. DH and l look at the household budget. We discuss whether it will work practically. We discuss if DD will be happier. We talk about all the implications, we have similar outlooks so normally agree.

If we disagree whomever has more skin in the game ‘wins’. This particular time we agreed but I would ‘win’ because it affects me more. But when I was spending a lot of time travelling and DH’s work was adversely affected (while mine wasn’t really improving) he ‘won’ because he had more to lose. Ultimately no one decided for anyone else.

Some decisions take everyone agreeing (getting a dog), some just the person concerned (getting a tattoo) and some are discussed (getting a family holiday). It’s not hard.

I'm also going to complain to my parents that in other households the parents are unloading the dishwasher seeing as they seem to expect their offspring to do all these jobs. Strike forthcoming.

Whatever works for you. All I can say is from my perspective if my mum was like that I'd probably be a lot less confident and would be pretty shocked if I knew anyone with a household like that. To me personally the notion of a man ever telling me I "couldn't" do something would be horrifying and he'd not last seconds trying. I wonder what he'd think of someone in future telling your daughter she "couldn't" pursue her career ambitions, or anything else. He seems happy to stop you pursuing work you wanted to do but won't sacrifice his own when it's him who thinks the children should be with a parent at the weekends. I'd personally feel incredibly angry if my household was like that, and would lose respect for both parents.

You'll need to say more, daisy. It's impossible to answer your questions in isolation.

I'm baffled by the notion of a household having a "head". My grandparents definitely don't have a "head" of theirs either. I've never come across any households which have a "head", it seems quite odd to me.

Your not an engineer probably because you never tried. This victim mentality is stupid and unhelpful

What it is is reality. Perhaps you can't see it because you are far too ingrained to even know what it is let alone that you are parroting it to all and sundry.

I am not an engineer any more because after all, life is too short to be battling with ridiculous prejudices such as yours. Life is good without it to be perfectly honest.

I don't understand the notion of having a "head of household". There is no head of my household, neither my mum nor my dad is "the dominant influence". I'm pretty certain this is the same in the households of my friends.

I try to be the head and impose my authority on everyone but seldom succeed with my parents.

Why does a household have to have a "head"?

Why are you asking the question?

I did study all the sciences to at least as- level, physics then rest to a level. I have a science degree. No fucker stopped me, not least my "vagina or tits". my male teachers were really supportive, encouraging, no one held me back- patriarchy, no

Good for you Missy, I'm glad you've not experienced it. My male A-level physics teacher made no secret of the fact he didn't want girls in his class and hounded me and another girl out. I went on to do an engineering degree - and had more than one lecturer of a similar opinion (and plenty that didn't - but still). Repeated studies show that the moment you put a woman's name (or a foreign name) on a CV they are less likely to get an interview, their competence is estimated lower, and they are offered less money.

Alternative tentacle-
You really are rude and patronising. I did study all the sciences to at least as- level, physics then rest to a level. I have a science degree. No fucker stopped me, not least my "vagina or tits". my male teachers were really supportive, encouraging, no one held me back- patriarchy, no. Your not an engineer probably because you never tried. This victim mentality is stupid and unhelpful. If my daughters want to study stem subjects they will, I won't fill their head with this victim crap that they can't achieve because of their anatomy- it's not an obstacle to succeed.

V. welcome NoLove.

Thanks for the interesting link jellyfrizz.

There are clearly a number of barriers women still face in the workplace and a huge amount of misogyny women and girls face day to day in society.

hbr.org/2017/10/a-study-used-sensors-to-show-that-men-and-women-are-treated-differently-at-work

It's also in my opinion not supportive to dismiss the lack of women on boards, in the most senior roles as down to "choices". Plenty of women and girls aspire to huge success in careers and want to reach "the top" (myself included).

Also: the Prime Minister, the First Minister of Scotland, the President of the Supreme Court, the Director General of the CBI, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, the Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade, the Chief Executive of ITV to name but a few are all women. Hardly women not choosing to aspire to the top. Doubtless some would also use this as evidence women aren't held back but many women still are in the workplace, by lack of childcare, by outdated gender expectations when it comes to children (sometimes by senior colleagues/bosses when a woman returns to work after maternity leave from what I've read), sexism in the form of being patronised, passed over for promotions for less qualified men because of networking events which exclude women etc. Though I've not entered the workplace yet myself so I can only go on what I've read and heard from various sources. There are clearly a number of barriers women still face in the workplace and a huge amount of misogyny women and girls face day to day in society.

Don't feel I am brainwashed, I think some gendered differences are there because, dare I say it, perhaps there are differences between the sexes and this is reflected in the choices they make.

the choices they make are more because of societal norms than their vaginas or penises getting in the way. surely even you know this?

incidentally, my vagina and tits never stopped me doing engineering. societal norms and sexism did.

It's unsupportive to assume all women have same aspirations and goals.

But it isn't unsupportive to point out that all of our choices are based on our experience living in a society heavily steeped in patriarchal bullshit, and that even if there are slight steps in the right direction (like shared parental leave) the influence of the historical set up still has a massive impact on our ability to make a 'free' choice.

feminists don't all think the same things, were individuals. The nuclear family is problematic for women. It doesn't need to go but it is evolving. A lot of children are being raised in non-nuclear family set ups.