I don't agree with the MN feminists. AIBU?

[jennyvstheworld]

I consider myself an active proponent of equality of opportunity and a stern critic of discrimination... and yet I find that I can't identify with many of the viewpoints I encounter on the MN feminism page (and often say so). AIBU?

As an aside, I'd be extremely interested to see any figures on childcare as a percentage of income, and how much that has risen. I attended two nurseries as a child - sometimes I went to one more than the other, sometimes I didn't go at all, etc. I think my mum paid less than a fiver a week for this flexible service that fitted in with her temp work, and that was nothing in the context of my parents' (not very big) income.

Conversely, I had friends who worked in nurseries, admittedly in London and a while back, where the fees are £50+ per day. The cost of going back to work is phenomenal.

SAF - interested in this statement:

"without having to end up doing twice the amount of work as a male partner -without having to be forced to compete for the very few jobs that are possible to fit around school hours"

How do women end up doing twice the amount of work of men?
What system do you recommend to replace competing for jobs?

How, in your view, is the situation different for women as opposed to men? Are you suggesting, for example, that childcare is the women's responsibility whilst the men can merrily swan off to the workplace? Perhaps you just mean single mums, but it does seem that you are saying the situation is different because you are naturally excluding men from childcare responsibilities.

SaF, if that was the message that I got consistently from the feminist board about boys and men, I would be delighted. That is exactly the sort of future I want for my son and daughter as well.

I think that some people assume feminism has a starting point that women need protecting from men. And this is what alienates me. Because I am raising two soon-to-be men. I look at my sons, and I don't see entitlement. Or the need to oppress. Or general arsehole-ness. I just see my lovely little boys. Who will one day be lovely men. I am uncomfortable with a viewpoint which states that because they have a penis, they are a threat. So a lot of the feminism debates and topics here are alien to me. Before I had my children, I would have considered myself a feminist. But the feminist I was thought that adverts on the tv which showed men being incompetent were funny. I joked that once science had the female embryo cloned, we wouldn't need the feckers for anything. My viewpoint has somewhat changed. Yet a lot of the feminists I know in RL are still laughing at the adverts and making the same jokes. So I'm not quite sure where I fit in. I won't raise my sons to apologise for owning testicles.

'I think Feminism can only be positive for men because it is fundamentally about accepting people for who they are and not what they should be based on very prescribed gender roles.'

I like this definition too.

Feminim isn't about eradicating anything intrinsically female. As if it could.

It is about discouraging the invented 'feminine' that so many women have become convinced is the essence of being a woman. Feminine being the assumption that a woman has to be submissive, sexually available but also chaste, domesticated, pretty, gentle, good with kids etc etc. All of these qualities being hugely useful to the status quo. Any woman (or man for that matter) might have these qualities but they should not be used a straitjacket to define what a woman should be.

Saf I'm guessing your DS is pre-school or very early in?.

Be interesting to see your take in 5 years time.

'twice as much work because women end up working AND maintaining the bulk of responsibility for all things childcare related and home related. not because they should but because they still are doing in the majority of cases hence the obvious fact that we live in an unequal society.'

There's already a thread on this running in feminism, with a range of different opinions as to why many women still do the bulk of the housework, and why they see it as their job.

I don't think it is SAF that is exluding men from childcare responsibilities. It is more the fault of the mindset that women ARE responsible for childcare, and it's them and not men that have to work round it and "pay" for it. If work was structured that EVERYONE had flexible working rights, for example, it would make it much harder to discriminate, imo.

And as the mother of 2 boys as well as a girl, I am keen to eradicate concepts of 'femininity' and 'masculinity' for their sakes.

Chickens I think you're feeling what so many women do about career v childcare.

My point is that in a country where 52% of the inhabitants are female, why should we have a system that is heavily skewed against the half that have children. Why should having children mean that your career is affected for the rest of your life just for taking say a 5-year career break.

Mothers are not a minority group and 82% of people become parents - that's men and women. Why shouldn't we have a society organised around the fact that 82% of people have children and therefore working practises should take this into account as much as they take into account that people need sleep and food breaks.

SAF I couldn't have twisted what you said because you just confirmed my interpretation, namely, women are responsible for childcare whilst men are not.

I have a solution: don't be. At an individual level, every woman can go into their relationship and feel empowered to negotiate roles and responsibilities as it suits them. SOLVED!! What's next?

(Oh yes, I forgot the evil patriarchy which means that women have to remain dowdtrodden and obedient and can't take responsibility for their own lives... silly me. Hang on. Which of us is for women feeling empowered and which one of us is pushing out messages that they can't be? Bugger me sideways - I'm more of a feminist than you are SAF!!!)

Portofino, sorry for taking the mick, You make a serious point and this is where I would like to see some solutions offered rather than just moaning. Do we think that the UK can retain a competitive advantage in the world if the majority of its populace work between 1000 and 1400? I exaggerate, but hopefully you'll take my point...

If that happened, more men would become primary carers, more women would return to work and the role of SAHP would finally achieve the respect it deserves.

But jenny - you are talking bollocks - employers do not (for the most part) entertain the idea that men have childcare responsibilities. You end up with a situation where there is still no fair choice. And it assumes that every woman can find a well enough paid job.

jenny, 'pretending there isn't a problem' isn't a particularly effective political position. Just sayin.

Yes, but no matter how hard I try & fight it - I still end up sniffing fabric conditioner in Waitrose - no one taught me that, I just do it. I try and fight gender stereotypes in my head - but I always revert to the typical female -

ChickensHaveNoEyebrows - going back a bit, but feminists tend to hate adverts that infantalise men, like you mention. Those adverts give gender roles for who can and can't do housework etc. I frequently see people here (as anywhere) say that men can't see dirt, or don't know how to clean, need telling what to do, or aren't good at looking after kids, or can't help their 'urges' etc, a version of what happens in those adverts. It's the feminists that challenge that. For precisely the reasons you state.

But your boys, chicken, are going to benefit from patriarchy. They themselves might not, ever, behave in an entitled fashion or oppress anyone. They will be kind, considerate, pro-woman men.

But if they did act in an an oppressive, entitled way - if they shouted out of car windows or pinched women's arses or much, much worse - patriarchal society wouldn't raise an eyebrow. There are men out there who attack their partners, and receive no punishment. Men who rape are more likely to find themselves unpunished than caught, convicted, and jailed. Patriachy is not men; it is a system that disproportionately benefits men and routinely silences women. I don't know any feminists who condemn men or boys for having testicles. I do know plenty of women who condemn the system that blindly promotes those parts of humanity that have testicles.

This is where I think a bit of feminist parenting comes in handy. Boys who can recognise patriarchal behaviours - through watching their parent(s) and peers rather than academic lectures! - have got to be better prepared to face a society that tells them that male ownership of women's bodies is totally normal.

FWIW, I've never known a feminist in real life or on MN who finds those adverts amusing.

Flexible working doesn't just mean working school hours. It means being able to divide up the paid employment and domestic responsibilities to suit your own family needs. ie working more from home, flexible starting and finishing times, equal time off with sick children etc etc

That's true. I hate the whole 'Oh, he can't clean the bathroom! He's rubbish at it! Doesn't have the skillz!' thing. Not much brain power required in scrubbing a loo. But it's an abstract to me, because when I hear women complaining that their husband/partner/Great Uncle Fred won't pull their weight I tend to think 'More fool you for putting up with that shit with a martyred smile on your face'. Some women seem to enjoy infantalising men. My Grandmother is a case in point.