Motherhood and equality, what does Eutopia look like?

I mean the expectation that I'll need/want to step back from my career for a bit. Not helping.

That as "default" expectation doesn't help women or equality.

I agree (that FT childcare from 2weeks old etc isn't the solution) but at least those workers get paid! Offred is spot on.. deeply uncomfortable that childcare is monetised only when "women don't do it"...

Think employers could get used to more people having career breaks if many more men and childfree people did it too. Of course having kids has an impact but I'd like it not to be assumed that I'll want to step back please.

In the Daughters of Egalia (satire where sex roles are reversed), the menwim (who have all childcare responsibilities) have to take the babies across town to the wom's workplace for every feed. In this world because women are the ones that create life, they are they only ones that can truly add value (create stuff and ideas). The masculists in this society talk a lot about how their liberation is constrained by their biological role as fathers, read it if you haven't already it does make you think

Yy 53rd

This aspect of patriarchal control; waged work to attain the means to survive and thrive and selective monetisation based on cultural values IS going to die and it will either need to be artificially propped up OR thrown out.

Patriarchy is obviously invested in propping it up IMO.

I also worry that making trade-offs with the system that work to help well-paid women succeed in corporate jobs just displaces the problem.

If we can only succeed by outsourcing the tasks that used to fall to us - childcare, housework - then we’re relying on a large group of people to be the nannies and the nursery workers and the cleaners. And guess who’s doing that? Not the men.

‘How is attaining the means to survive and progress going to be affected by technology?’

I think this gives us an opportunity to consider things like; ‘is financial recompense related to seniority the best way?’ ‘Is waged work the main contribution a human can make to society?’ ‘What is the purpose of waged work?’ ‘What is important about waged work?’ Etc etc

I think the whole concept of ‘career progression’ is changing TBH.

Even now the vast majority of waged workers do not have ‘a career’ (in the sense of training in a discipline, working in said discipline and climbing the ladder bit by bit) and for my children, I expect anyway, the primary issue will be about the ability to translate skills across more diverse areas of waged work and for training to be across a lifetime rather than at the start of ‘a career’.

As for breastfeeding meaning the Mum HAS to take the baby, well that’s irrelevant for the many formula feeders and is maybe a decision to be made in conjunction with who takes leave first.

But then it becomes “well either you can breastfeed or you can advance in your career, pick one” and that’s also not what we need.

Right now we have a system where ‘work’ clashes with our reproductive biology as women. We are the ones that get pregnant and give birth lactate - not all of us do any/all of those, but we’re still the only ones who do. Tinkering round the edges of that to let us opt out of bits this biology - “well we don’t have to lactate, we can choose formula” - isn’t fixing the underlying problem. We need a system that isn’t hostile to our biology to begin with.

And I definitely don't think Eutopia is everyone working full time and putting their children in childcare full time.

And even writing that I can see that thinking about ‘not doing’ childcare is so politicised culturally along sex based lines that the idea of ‘not doing’ childcare for women is deeply uncomfortable when associated with men ‘not doing’.

Eutopia would be men and women taking an equal hit when children come along.

Controversially, I don't think that having children should have zero impact on your career. I think it should be possible to take time out but it should be treated as any other career break e.g. for travel, study etc. It seems logical to me that this might slow down career progression.

I think the issue is the cultural expectation that it will always be the woman who goes part time, takes a career break, does pick up and drop off, funds childcare. I'd like to see parenting responsibilities shared more equally and no default expectation that it's primarily down to the mother.

I'd also like to see employers being more flexible around working hours but not just for parents, I think it would be beneficial to many people e.g. those with health issues who can't work full-time, those caring for elderly parents etc.

It is the same for the majority of caring work. This is inextricably linked to low pay for waged caring work in a cyclical way.

When fathers don’t do childcare it is not monetised except in rare cases of absent mothers. The vast majority of the time when fathers don’t do childcare mothers do it by default and then become dependent on/constrained by patriarchal systems.

The cost of childcare I agree is a massive issue which is making women dependent (and therefore controlled) by patriarchy (husbands/partners/fathers even if absent or the partriarchal state).

That things have financial implications under current form of capitalism is the means through which patriarchy imposes control.

The monetising of childcare only when mothers don’t do it I think is something I think about a LOT!

Also paternity leave needs a change, statutory pay is not enough.

I particularly like it when someone says something that I think cuts through the ‘tinkering around the edges’ and gets to the heart of the issue, which is what I saw that post as... basically ‘ok but if we cut through it doing away with the cultural understanding of motherhood and the expectation that it is something for individual women to perform individually is surely it?’

I believe that access to affordable, good quality childcare is at the heart of this. Also better financial support for families in general. Many women stay at home or sacrifice their career in other ways because the financial hit of childcare is too much.

Stupid emojis!!! Ha ha ha

yes there is something that looks like a "nice" biscuit under the hands!