All those clever SAHM who feel undervalued

[jonicomelately]

I've put in AIBU for attention.

Perhaps I should let the dust settle over the Riven story but...

I just want to say that there are lots of amazing, clever, savvy women on here and yet we have thread after thread about people feeling useless and how our talents, lives are going to waste.

The Riven story demonstrates the immense responsibility of Local Governments and the power they have to change lives.

When the time arises I want to ask all of you out there to consider standing as Councillors. Only then will we have a chance of getting the society we want. It will be tough and time-consuming but I see a lot of people on here with better ideas and a damn sight more humanity than many of the local politicians I've encountered.

That's all really.

Did anyone notice how on the 'three things you wouldn't know about me' thread there were AT LEAST 100 women on there with first class degrees / MAs / PHDs etc. All saying that you wouldn't know it now and that they did bugger all with it (there words not mine).

Women shouldn't be prepared to put up with low pay or being shoved into volunteering just because they are 'bored at home'. These jobs are still necessary but a decent wage should be demanded for them. Why be a councillor when you can be an MP?

or a Xenia tv series, it would reach more people.

Pretty sure there was a Xenia TV series, wasn't there?

(not this Xenia, of course. But pretty similar )

Ahyes but even that is voluntary unpaid. I speak aruond the world to the highest bidder so not sure it woudl be consistent with those principles to give free talks in schools.... (but I have done some careers stuff at my daugthers' schools before now)

So Duchese we are pushing for a generation of women doing jobs they don't want to do? To tell you the truth that is exactly what many of my male friends are doing now, they work stupidly long hours, never see their children during the week, often flying to the other side of the world twice a month. Yes they are high level managers but they aren't happy. In fact one wants to retrain as a paramedic, as that is what he really wanted to do but went into engineering because he thought he should for the money. I see nothing that would draw me to that life.Is that what you want for your DDs? To be encouraged (guilted) into high paying jobs for the good of future generations? Men get paid too well yes, and the pay divide is disgusting. But while I don't know the answer, I don't think putting women in the same chains as many (not all) men is the answer. Some simply just want a life.

I did more than my fair share of hours helping out at DSs school (i work in the arts and was useful at times) - as did other parents. But you know what, you sell yourself for nothing and that's how people come to think of you. And then you start thinking it yourself. I have been there.

For the record I don't do committees or voluntary work I.am just not a joiner. However, my husband does. That kind of his thing.

No vagola, we are pushing for all women to achieve what they want to achieve. If you are happy at home, that is fine as long as you feel you have the choice. What I would like to see ending is the assumption that because the women bear the babies that they are by implication not as career-minded and shouldn't be.

So, how would you go about becoming a local councillor?

Ok Duchesse, that I'm ok with, personally mine was a choice so for me this bright future already exists. However, I resent the view which Xenia has that I have somehow failed women because of my decision and my choice of career and my decision to stay at home are all worthless. Clearly both our attitudes will not change so that's that I guess. But thanks Duchesse.

Alouiseg I'm really not sure in the UK? Here in NL and in Australia I think its as simple as running at the local govt elections. I should know as I did the British citizenship exam and studied local politics a bit for that. But it (ironically) was a lot about encouraging people to do voluntary work in their local communities.

Why the HECK does everything have to come down to monetary value??

Just because it "always" has done?

Just because some people benefit and their idea of "spreading the love" is making everyone do what they do or go without?

Just because we're now at a point where we KNOW that making money which is largely invisible and abstract in terms of world economics causes huge huge problems in comparison to however may it ALLEGEDLY solves?

I tell you what, unless people truly accept that MONEY means NOTHING and PEOPLE (and animals and the world itself) mean EVERYTHING, we're not going to get off the treadmill.

Sigh.

Going to look for more aspirin. And remove the brick wall from my forehead.

Because in our society more money=better standard of living, on the whole. Worldwide, if women earn more they tend to spend more on their children, including educating their children better in places where education is not free. More money= more autonomy and more power. It's all very well for us in the developed world to be airy about money when we're talking about the difference between say £25,000/year and £40,000/year when arguably there is little increase in standard of living. If you're talking about the difference between $2/day and $10/day in the developing world ( far greater degree of magnitude) that would be the difference between barely surviving and actually having a pretty good standard of living.

Let's not kid ourselves that money doesn't matter. It'll matter to all of us long term when we're struggling to live on the £3000/year state pension

Okay, I'm just going to peel myself off the ceiling, where my uncontrollable laughter caused me to float to.

Money only matters if YOU LET IT.

Your standard of living is utterly subjective in an allegedly civilised society eg ours.

People suffering from lack of provisions in a civilised society ie lack of shelter, food and water, just want shelter food and water, not a bigger and better shack, an M&S ready meal and Evian.

That is all that money does. It puts labels on needs and turns them into wants.

Sort out needs and wants, neither of which have to be relative to money. Unless society wants it to be.

JMHO.

Actually, it's quite nice on my ceiling.....

In the past I didnt think money was important because as a child the important thing was education.

With money, its certainly what you do with it that counts, and that equals a higher standard of living. duh.

Ladytremaine.

I mentioned SAHMs because there was a thread recently where lots of posters were reeling off their qualifications and yet said they felt worthless, useless etc. It was this particular group of people who I felt should look at how they can stimulate their obvious excellent brains and at the same time do something useful.

I never meant to exclude WOHMs but to be honest who the hell could work full time, bring up a family and get involved in local politics.

Well perhaps Xenia...

Another thing, a poster said why not become an MP? Yes of course, do that if you want to but my specific point is that local government is actually the place where major decisions (like Riven's funding) are made. Personally I think you can do a hell of a lot more as a councillor than as an MP. There are also a lot more people needed to run local governmenr compared to the limited number of MPs.

Hello up there toxic, very true though. We are lucky that we are ok financially but if I worked or even if DH took a job where he worked crazy house and was away from home a lot we would be quite well off. But we don't need big expensive holidays, because we're not stressed, we don't need a big house, and due to our shared love of cooking we rarely eat out. So we earn what we need at the moment.

Also that whole capitalist thing where, everyone has to earn as much as they can, it's not going so well at the moment. Companies and multinationals are falling and will continue to fall but you will always need carers.

But back to the topic, is getting involved in politics not good thing too? Do we all have to be corporate leaders, change happens through government at all levels also surely?

Ffs hours not house. Right Im orf to play with my boys, boring I know but I love it.

YOu can work smart as well as hard and plenty of people in successful jobs including many many women with families are very happy with that. The fewer women we hvae volunteering in the big society the better. Let us leave it to the men and the cabinet posts to the women

Very nice sentiment Xenia but there are so few Cabinet posts. We can't all get around the big shiny table.

I read somewhere a few months before the general election that the Conservative party was struggling with funds mainly because of their enormous reliance on ground-roots support, where most of the fundraising is traditionally done by extremely capable women working as volunteers. With this damnable increase in women returning to work, their grassroots fundraising had gone to pot.

So to summarise: a bunch of second-rate, self-obsessed, mostly men, getting themselves elected to parliament so they can fiddle expenses thanks to unpaid volunteer women. And Cameron's Big Society means afaic, getting more women out of the marketplace and doing stuff in the community for nothing.

I'm sorry I'm confused, was the OP encouraging women to go into local politics or to volunteer for the cake drive?

For the record everyone I think more women should be taking on the big roles in politics, not organising the raffle

Thoughts so Joni. And I can understand why, considering what has been going on recently.

thanks for answering my question jonicomelately

Most of the SAHMs I know would have you beleive they have no more time on their hands than WOHMS though so not sure if this would work