Women as Carers........[hmm]

Thank you, SmokedDuck. Constructivism sounds like simplistic, poorly thought through nonsense, in that case.

I read a study a while ago that looked at brain changes in new parents. What causes the change is doing the caring. Not biology.

I posted a thread about dementia here on MN, today, that mentioned very briefly how pregnancy hormones impact on mothers - makes the brain more plastic, able to learn new things, apparently. Very interesting!

It’s built upon unpaid labour. No more serfs. No more slaves. The vast majority of unpaid domestic and care labour is done by women.

It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I know 2 SAHDs. Every group or class is overwhelmingly women. They are trying to get out and do stuff and it’s awkward. No one asks fathers what their plan is for child care or flexible hours.

Women got employment protections and then suddenly didn’t need male guarantors to get store credit or mortgages. Financial equality came after employment rights.

It’s all built on the structure of men important decent pay work, women pin money work and doing everything else.

We’ve gone from woman, leave your job when married, to woman being shamed no matter what they do. Full time, part time, mummy track, SAHM.

Unless there is decent legal financial protection for the non-working parent who is a dependent I’m not keen on the idea that one parent gets paid enough to facilitate it as a default because it would end up with men being the high earners even more than they are already because we are all conditioned to think all the domestic labour is women’s work.

I don’t know what the answer is. I read a study a while ago that looked at brain changes in new parents. What causes the change is doing the caring. Not biology. Being a care giver is an active process but I breastfed, it was not conducive to working with a bottle/cup/anything refusing cows milk allergic baby.

The answer can’t ignore biology. But it can’t base everything on it either.

Because I think that would be great. It would be great for me personally and I think it would be great for many families. I suspect it would mean more women not in paid work, though it would be good for families where the man stayed home as well.

But I think don't have much confidence that it would gain traction in a feminist discussion.

very much an expectation that they will care for their children and often parents too

Depending on where you live, and the availability of adult social care, you're increasingly expected to pitch in and care for neighbours. Before Covid–19 it wasn't unusual for neighbours to be discharged late at night with no prior notification. The ambulance service normally knew that they could knock at the door of one of us and we'd nip round to settle someone in, take supplies etc.

I'll never forget one case where a widowed neighbour was discharged unexpectedly at 23:30 (after a 14 week stay during which she'd been in isolation because she acquired MRSA and C. Difficile while in hospital). - By the time they got her home, the ambulance personnel thought it was too late to knock at our doors. They took her inside, did what they could and left her. Around 01:30, she went to the bathroom, fell and fractured her pelvis and a femur. She couldn't move and the phone wasn't with her. She was found the next morning (the ambulance personnel had put a note through our doors so a neighbour checked on her) and straight back to hospital.

In my neighbourhood, a number of the women pitch in in various ways with neighbours. The neighbour who gets all the recognition for being "such a help" is the one who mows the handkerchief-sized lawns - take a wild guess as to the sex. The house cleaning, food preparation, help with medication, appointment-booking, transport to hospital/GP etc., and (during Covid–19) assistance with Virtual Wards seems to become people's entitlement when it's delivered by female neighbours. And it's depended upon by the LA.

Agree with so many of the posts on here.

Care is so unrewarded and unrecognised. I lived in a much more socially conservative country for a while and it was better - childrearing was respected and valued. Salaries were expected to be sufficient to support an entire family. It was SO MUCH better than here where so many women are burnt out trying to do it all.

The care discussion needs to be had and - to the PP wondering if everyone knows what a women is when there's caring to be done - yes, it seems to be the case that XY humans who 'identify as' women rarely have any desire or inclination to do caring work. Read the Transwidows thread for evidence. Also, seemingly, there is no societal requirement that they do so, which also invalidates their claim to literally be the same as XX women, for whom there is very much an expectation that they will care for their children and often parents too, as the article linked in the OP suggests.

Constructivism in this context says that apart from very specific things, like actually carrying the baby, differences in male and female populations doing things like caring for babies, or working less time, etc, are down to a society that expects that, either in terms of attitudes or how they structure institutions.

So, a simple example is that people who take this approach will sometimes argue that instead of maternity leave a couple should have a parental leave that they must share equally. They will tend to emphasise childcare rather than a parent at home so both can work.

Basically, if the conditions in society were really equal they feel there would be no difference in choices the male population and the female population would make.

To be frank though, the underlying idea that men and women are the same in interests is unproven and ideological - there is some evidence it's not the case and that women as a population do have more inclination toward care work.

And it tends to ignore that the really physical elements of reproduction - pregnancy, post-pregnancy, breastfeeding, hormonal effects of these things, etc, may themselves lead to different views on career, values, childcare, and so forth, between the male and female population.

As a result, it's left with a narrow set of possibilities discussing solutions, and those solutions tend to be ones that focus on outcomes for men and women being broadly the same in terms of things like workforce employment.

The women's strike in Iceland I think is interesting. All the women did nothing for a day and it was a catalyst for change.

*Would the economy collapse if women were paid for the care they gave to family?

Does that mean everything is built on the backs of women's un-remarked upon labour?*

Yes and yes again. Absolutely.

thanks, wonderstuff. I shall look into it.

Marxist feminism looks at exactly that.

Interesting and crucial discussion.

I don't know what constructivism is, nor enough about feminist history, but I'm a bit surprised by how feminism (as I experience it) doesn't seem to have very much to say on care - childcare or elder care. It's such an absolutely enormous, perhaps even fundamental - part of so many women's lives. It has life changing impact. I mean, lots of women don't even have time to consider feminism or anything at all very much, as they are so laden with caring for family.

I read that the SNP are proposing a 'revolution in childcare' - which means that women will be effectively penalised for looking after their own children.

A few days ago I was told women's biology shouldn't have any impact on a woman's life/career. That if I wanted a career I should have chosen not to have kids, or to have chosen a partner who would do the care. That maternity leave had fixed any disparity between men and women. (This from a woman I imagine would call herself a feminist, btw. Though I suspect a very priviliged one).

The irony was I didn't actually have time to discuss the subject properly because of childcare issues.

Would the economy collapse if women were paid for the care they gave to family?

Does that mean everything is built on the backs of women's un-remarked upon labour?

Completely agree @AnyOldPrion I describe myself as a radical feminist for this reason.

Yes, I don't know that I think radical feminism has really done better on these issues than any other type of feminism, and in particular with the workplace stuff. I think it's been hamstrung by too much constructivism.

I’m no feminist historian. I grew up very equal and gradually took the modern version of the traditional path of having children then becoming financially dependent on a man who didn’t respect me.

I used the word radical simply to mean we need a root and branch change, to rebuild everything and not just agree that slotting women into new tasks while expecting them to fulfill the old ones, then deriding them for failing is an acceptable way forward.

As with child care and other domestic labour, you can outsource it but it's still women who do it, what happens is women are poorly paid by river families freeing up middle class women to do more profitable work. Invariably it's women who commission and monitor the carers, be they employed for children or elderly relatives.

Until such time as we both see the real economic value of domestic labour and/or men take on a share of this labour women have a problem.

Even when they are in a really good care facility, for an elder to be cared for properly takes time and attention from the family. That is just the reality.

Yes! This is at the heart of so much misunderstanding about care homes. For really good care, the care and input from family continues, but it's now in a different venue. A family member who would only eat if assisted by one particular person at home, will still only eat if assisted by that person in the care/nursing home. There are family and friends who spend 5hrs+ a day with someone, and a lot of that time is spent in personal care.

Flexible working - hard fought by women, then opened up to everyone. Which is good. Flexible working shouldn’t be classed as some sort of temporary situation for parents only.

Shared parental leave. Sounds great. But actually took maternity leave and made it available to be shared. It didn’t actually add anything and opened up the potential for a new form of domestic abuse.

Traditional models of work operate on the basis that pretty much everything necessary to exist outside of work is outsourced. Cleaning, laundry, child care, elder care. The higher up you got the more things that were outsourced, like transport. Hardly anyone is in the income bracket that means they can do that. More to the point, why is that still the model?

main effect of feminism surrounding women working has resulted in women being worse off, in some ways, rather than better?

In some ways, wasn't this at the heart of the sense that women were to be legally tolerated in the largely male valorised workspaces on male terms rather than re-imagining how we support everyone to achieve their goals and maximise their competencies throughout their lifetime.

I look at how long it's taken to have anything approaching a decent set of HR policies to educate colleagues that sexual harassment/discrimination is deplored in the workplace, that family-friendly policies reflect people's actual lives etc. Along came the pandemic and a number of items that were thought to have been hard won rights have been revealed as concessions that can be removed virtually overnight.

He's a Tory. They're inherently misogynist.

Yet they seem to be the only party that has a inkling of what a woman is. Strange times.

I don't think the idea that we can turn over care of elders to professionals, to a degree that means that it won't impact the families of those elders, is a non-starter.

Even when they are in a really good care facility, for an elder to be cared for properly takes time and attention from the family. That is just the reality.

As a society we've moved to this two career model for families, but in many cases it ends up shortchanging people. Kids in the family, elders, the working parents themselves in many cases. It's not a great recipe for family life. Money to hire out work helps but some work can't be hired out and some probably shouldn't be.

Which means that there needs to be room in families for that work to be done, by one person or shared. Not all jobs can accommodate that equally, and not all people have the same inclinations either, so we aren't likely to see every family do things the same way.

While I think a lot of men should be more willing to pitch in - I know my uncles left a lot of the nitty gritty stuff with elder care to my aunts and it was unfai, though I think largely unconscious. But I suspect think that there is likely to always be more women in that role than men, as a spin off of the consequences of reproductive role.

Either way, I think the answer has to be to find ways to socially manage the kind of time and care that families have to give or may choose to give beyond that. Elders need care and there should be robust ways to manage that as a society.

Anyone ever find themselves wondering whether the main effect of feminism surrounding women working has resulted in women being worse off, in some ways, rather than better? This is why radical feminism is needed and not some lesser mash-up where we are fitted into the workplace which was built around men with wives at home to take care of everything

Agreed. historically, though, radical feminism tended to discuss issues related to sexual oppression (rape, prostitution and pornography and so on) and overlook material issues such as who does the housework, paid labour and the like.

Anyone ever find themselves wondering whether the main effect of feminism surrounding women working has resulted in women being worse off, in some ways, rather than better? This is why radical feminism is needed and not some lesser mash-up where we are fitted into the workplace which was built around men with wives at home to take care of everything.

successive governments have known for at least 30 years that the demographics of the UK means that 1. there will be far more older people and 2. a lot more people wont have children in their old age (estimated 20% of women over 50 are not mothers)

There has been a continued unwillingness to engage with the reality that women are already run ragged caring for elderly parents because despite what the government thinks or finds it convenient to believe most people help their parents as much as they can. The problem is with more people living to a much older old age, serious health problems are more likely and they're not the sort of thing that can be dealt with by popping round to do the shopping and phoning up to make sure mum is OK, they are the sort of problems that need intimate personal care or nursing care.

I expect the can to be kicked down the road again tbh. it's not an issue that matters enough to enough people so the government will issue some bland assurances about everyone getting care when they need it but in reality do nothing

That's such a good (and rightfully angry) article from Catherine Bennett. It's funny how little has changed in so many areas for women - while so many of the gains are being removed by men determined to muscle in on them.

Sick of this.

Retirement age has gone up. People are living much longer. Elder care is not small cost and short term. It is expected to have children with disabilities and difficulties at home and in mainstream education to the point where there is barely any provision for those where this is not the right setting, not to mention not enough funding to support those who would benefit from mainstream. The economy has got to the point where 2 incomes are needed to even try to get a mortgage or pay rent because social housing has been severely reduced.

So the former unpaid carers who were early retirees and stay at home mothers are in short supply.

So instead of doing ANYTHING to mitigate the factors that have lead to this the answer is suck it up proles. Has it occurred to them that every person who has to give up their job in order to be a carer has an impact on what that person is contributing to the economy? I bet they have, and the answer is it costs less than any alternative.