I consider myself a feminist...and a housewife.

Yes, we were/are. Hard to tell with my career as I would be the only person in the company with my role, if you see what I mean. But the role I had prior to my last was in a big firm within which there were scales...regardless of gender there were set things you needed to do to move up scales.

Now I'm a teacher I am on pay scales again. Yes, there will be men earning more but they will have taken more responsibility...I have enough on my plate walking from one side of school to the other without worrying about that at the moment!

As for my sister, she is an officer on a cruise ship. One of only 3 females of an intake of over 200 on her apprenticeship, and very good at what she does. (Put me in charge of a cruise ship I'm not sure what would happen!) All by the age of 26. Yes, I'm sure there have been times that she struggled during her training, I know she found it hard being the odd one out...but she is certainly paid the same. As far as I understand it there are pay rgades according to stripes earned. My father was a pilot and despite being a very 'old-fashioned' man in a very traditional, patriachal male role he was very keen for her to follow in his footsteps and has been pivotal in helping her. In his eyes there are no jobs that are male/female etc. So I guess maybe he isn't that old-fashioned at all!

My husband is a blend as well I think. He was brought up in a family with a SAHM as I was, and does genuinely feel the need to be able to provide for his family. But he does that for himself, as against me if you see what I mean. When we met I was far outearning him, we have swapped around a few times since and are now pretty equal as he is retraining. He wouldn't feel the need to play a part in my deciding whether or not to work after this one is born, bar the usual discussions on how we want our children raised. If I went back to work we would both bear responsibility for our child. He does more around the house, my main responsibility is ordering the online supermarket deliveries...mainly because I quite enjoy it. He is a far better cook than me, and does more than his share of housework. We have joint finances, and when I sotp work altogether all money will go into the joint account. We chare all decisions, despite the fact that all large lump sums of money are his. I think we're pretty equal in all things.

Bit of a ramble so will stop now. I have also noticed the number of typos in my earlier post.

For me, being a feminist doesn't depend on what you do, it depends on what you believe. It comes down to believing that men and women should be treated equally in every respect (barring the very small amount of different treatment necessitated by our different bodies).

Choosing to be a SAHM /housewife/whatever, is still completely compatible with this belief.

It is only a "non feminist" choice if you have made that choice for "non feminist" reasons - for example because you believe that "a woman's place is in the home" or "women are always better at housework and childcare than men are" or other such rubbish.

Ask yourself: Would you have been happy, in principle (leaving aside issues like different pay), for your husband to stay at home while you went out to work? If not - you are probably not a feminist.

I'm a feminist.

I've been SAHM, worked part-time, freelanced and worked full time (crazy hours, weekends etc) since having children. Nothing is ever ideal.

Staying at home was the least ideal, though. My DH is a fabulous and fair man who was happy to take a 'what's mine is yours' approach, yet I still loathed the idea of being financially dependent on a man. How can anyone bear it in the long term? It is just anathaema to me as a feminist. That was the crux of the matter for me. Work = financial independence = being a truly free and adult in this big bad world. Anything else is misery to me.

I would class my mother as a feministy, despite having put her career on hold to look after my sister and I. She was a firm believer that my sister and I should be able to follow whatever path we wanted to in life, with no limitations. She and my father instilled in me detemination and self-belief...to the point that even as a young adult I didn't really understand the concept of women being seen as second class citizens etc in the workplace...because I have never experienced or seen it. My sister now works at a high level in a very male dominated inductry, and I had a very high powered career before switching to what I do now. Obviously I know it is a problem now that I'm older, but I still haven't experienced it.

However, when our first child comes along in the summer I will be staying at home...for at least a few years but timings undefined as yet. I don't feel this makes me less 'feminist' in my attitudes. I am choosing to ctay at home, my husband doesn't mind either way. He agrees with my decision whole-heartedly, but would do so were I to go to work. I don't think not wanting a job (when not financially necessary makes a person lazy. There is far more to life than wage slave work!

I'm a feminist who has been a WOHM, a SAHM and am now a WAHM. My politics did not change as my lifestyle/role changed.

What did change was that I realised that things are a lot more complicated for women then I naively thought in my childless 20s.

Before having children I thought I was living a pretty equal experience and saw my opportunities as being the same as DH.

Then we had children and I was hit by the fact that it is still really difficult for women to achieve equality and be mothers at the same time in a patriarchal society and that most men do not face the same dilemmas.

So you do what you have to do to 'thrive in the patriarchy' as tortoise puts it.

I have managed to wangle things so that I work for myself as it is the only way for me to combine what I want from my work with what I want for my children and need for my finances. This solution which we are told is 'having it all' is really just 'doing it all'.

I think it is perfectly possible to be a feminist and a housewife just as it is possible to work and not be a feminist. If a women is in an equal partnership with her DH and she has as much control over shared finances as he does whether she works or not does not define her politics IMO. That women are influenced to not work and men are influenced to not SAH with children is part of the structure of the patriarchy however.

Are you referring to a particular study?

I think it's perfectly reasonable to point out that the unpaid work of society is disproportionately done by women, that some of it is quite skiled, and that if women didn't do it unpaid, someone would indeed have to pay for it.

Just as I pay for someone to look after my child while I'm at work.

Some women are more equal than others?

"Various second wavers have done huge amounts of research into how much a SAHM/housewife would earn if her jobs were priced on the open market; childminder + housekeeper + chef + nurse etc."

Is that the same guff which concludes that doing the grocery shopping is equal to being a buyer? FFS

Sakura - who should pay for this then?

And those who work still have to look after their children, and do all that housewifey stuff, too, after getting home from their jobs.

Yes, absolutely there has been a move that way. Various second wavers have done huge amounts of research into how much a SAHM/housewife would earn if her jobs were priced on the open market; childminder + housekeeper + chef + nurse etc.

And of course, it's feminists who have fought for paid maternity leave, female custodial rights (it used to be that the man automatically got custody of the children, I assume everyone knows that), the Married Women's Property Act and related legislation that meant a woman didn't give up her legal autonomy and property on marriage (married women didn't use to be able to enter into contracts for debt, for example), legislation that allows us to breastfeed in public (don't know if that exists yet in England but it does here in Australia, and in Scotland), access to maternity services, etc.

All things that support women to run a household and care for children.

"Eh? You mean the 'freedom' to say "I don't want a job"? That's not choice, that's laziness"

Eh? you mean looking after kids is not a full-time job in itself? Not more demanding than most other jobs that exist? Oh yeah, its unpaid. Can't be a job then, can it.
FFS
Let's ask ourselves why this work is still unpaid in the 21st century.

Of course you can be a housewife and a feminist, I certainly am. As the lovely MNer on that BBC 4 documentary pointed out, there's a difference between capitalism and feminism.

What do I do that could be considered a 'feminist action'? I look after my family and my home and I expect my contribution to recognised and respected for the inherent value it has. My husband and I have an equal say in how the family runs, I certainly don't exist to service his needs.

I don't claim to be well read in feminist theory but wasn't there a move to value the work of women which doesn't generate income, the child rearing, the homemaking? Feminism surely doesn't = paid work?

If darcysmum is a strong supporter of the rights of men to stay home if they wish, and doesn't believe that it is her role to stay at home because she has a womb, that's at least a non-sexist attitude.

We're getting tangled up in whether her choice to stay at home is a feminist choice vs whether she is a feminist.

The latter - absolutely. The nonfeminist choices I make don't preclude me from being a feminist. Whether they put the 'cause' backwards is another matter but, you know, I do what I need to do to thrive in the patriarchy.

Likewise, I don't think choosing to stay at home is an overly feminist act, but I also don't think it's antifeminist, and it certainly doesn't 'disqualify' one from being a feminist.

Personally I think you are only disqualified if your views and choices are actively designed to limit the choices of other women. I don't believe you can be an anti-reproductive-rights feminist, for example.

This issue is much more complicated now because women now make up more than 50% of the workforce in the US (says Nancy Fraser last year, presumably that's still correct?) and I imagine the situation's about the same in the UK too. So women are in the workforce in huge numbers, mostly doing low paid service sector jobs with no job security, temporary contracts etc. I don't think it makes sense to lift the 2nd wave feminist critique of the 'housewife' role straight from 1970 - the dying days of that post-war period of Keynesian social democratic capitalism - and plonk it down again in 2010 - after the gains made by the women's movement and 30 years of neoliberal capitalism - unchanged tbh. The backdrop is completely different.

I'm not a housewife (not even a mum - yet! ) and I think you can be a housewife and a feminist. What IS worth examining, is why some women are housewives (i.e. because their partners earn more, because it's expected) because they might have felt pressured into making that decision otherwise they're not good mothers, etc, etc. But I trust women, I tend to think they know their own minds. If you're a housewife I'm not going to tell you it's NOT a feminist choice. But the choices behind how/why we work at home or outside of the home are always worth feminist scrutiny.

I don't get the chance to stay at home with my LO when s/he arrives, cos feminism is not sufficiently advanced in this country (USA) to grant me any maternity leave. I'd quite like to stay home for a bit, but I can't as we can't live on DH's salary (and pay for healthcoverage for LO and me). Plus, if I stop my career now I have to start again from the beginning, basically (and after 5 years of training at crappy wages I'm not going to do that). So what am I going to do instead? I'm going to pay some woman with fewer degrees than me, probably from a lower social income bracket, and probably an immigrant to this country - to take care of my 4 week old baby. I have to say, that doesn't feel especially feminist either, to be honest.

I'm shocked by the implication that the OP is lazy because she's a housewife. My mum was a housewife and she worked blardy hard the whole time. Not sure if it's a job I'd ever want, full-time. Might be too hard!

I'm in a bit of a muddle with this one, can you tell? Certainly, I don't think being a housewife excludes you from being a feminist. Nor, however, do I think that it's a feminist act because you choose to do it. I found this post very insightful, it might be of interest to some.

I agree wastingaway re "no dignity in working a shit job for some 'work ethic' when it's not monetarily required"

"Because whatever choice you make as an individual, unless you are making it as part of a collective struggle to advance the liberation of women, then it is not a feminist choice"

Depends upon your perspective about what 'advances the liberation of women'. This is inevitably subjective. My personal view is that hotpants and poledancing is deleterious to the cause of feminism as it encourages the objectification of women. I see no such problem with choosing to be a SAHM however.

Also, you can be a feminist without each and every one of your choices being about advancing the cause. How relentlessly tedious would that be? To live your life by manifesto? As long as you don't engage in anything anti-feminist, I would suggest that there are neutral choices (which are neither feminist nor anti-feminist) that are perfectly compatible with being a feminist....

I'm a housewife and feminist.

Being a wage slave is no better than being a kitchen-sink slave.
At home I'm in control of my work.
And yes, I know it's possible to earn money while being the boss. I shall be working on that while I'm at home.
No dignity in working a shit job for some 'work ethic' when it's not monetarily required.

Am I hallucinating the bit of this thread where the OP was accused of laziness?

As if looking after children is not work.

WTF

Okaaaaaaay- what if I choose hotpants and then choose to go poledancing? Is that a feminist choice because I as an individual feel 'empowered' to choose it? Or does it actually contribute to a view of women as sexual objects and make some women's lives that bit more difficult?

Because whatever choice you make as an individual, unless you are making it as part of a collective struggle to advance the liberation of women, then it is not a feminist choice.

Otherwise all that feminism boils down to is 'I can do what I like, me', and that, as I say, is libertarianism and can end up reinforcing the oppression of other women. Choice in itself is not a feminist act.