To think in the real world it's become openly acceptable to vilify and abuse benefit claimants?

[Pantone363]

Years ago people might of gossiped about people on benefits, or moaned to their partners etc. but there wasn't this acceptable open hostility towards them.

In the space of a week I've heard people openly call them "breeders" (ie single mothers), it seems ok to expect any benefit claimant to explain themselves to anyone who feels they are funding their lifestyle (taxpayers).

It really seems the tide is turning towards an open contempt for anyone claiming benefits whilst not working.

I can't think of any other group of people it's ok to shame and gossip about in public!

So AIBU?

Two wages are needed where one would have sufficed, in 1/3 of households the women is the main wage earner, growth in welfare, the feminisation of work, liberal attitudes to sex before marriage coupled with gains in women's rights has led to a point where men are surplus to the demands of both capital and families. Working class women are often better off financially without the dead weight of a man, be they working mothers or single mothers on benefits. Disenfranchised men, who are surplus to labour requirements, who have no aspiration because there are no opportunities, men who's only power is to display uber masculinity by consuming alcohol, porn, picking fights or dealing on the black market.

The tax payer is basically picking up after the party of the liberal/capitalist hijacking of civil rights at the end of the 1960s. Capital subsumed into itself sexual liberation, women's liberation, gay rights and campaigns around race equality in order to devalue and feminise labour. Drive down wage rates, get two workers and twice the productivity for the price of one and ensure we have either two jobs per family or no jobs per family.

The media is corporate funded with powerful vested interests in the perpetuation of social and economic inequality, politicians are working to extend their own class interests, as inequality creates more poverty, they will sell us any old story about the causes of worklessness and benefits claimants. The fact is we are probably in decline and at least a small percentage of us on this thread will at some point in the not so distant future be joining the ranks of "useless eaters and breeders"

I know two single parents. One fled an abusive violent partner. The other was dumped by her oh-so-loving H when he met a younger, tighter, child-free version of his wife so that he could go back to being a bachelor lad.

I know it's a small sample, but it doesn't point to the majority of lone parents being to blame for their situation because of their 'bad choices'

Glad there are so many normal, compassionate people on this thread.

I think the trouble is that we just don't have any reliable facts, so we all look around us and think that is the way it is for everyone. So it's good to have people tell it as it is on MN.

A bit off on a tangent, maybe, but I wish that parents who stay at home to look after their children could be properly valued for the job they do, and not envied by others who go out to work and have to leave their children with other people. Looking after kids is a job, like any other, imo. And today's young parents (whether they work in or out of the home) need as much support as we can possibly give them, because they are doing the most important job in the world - making sure the next generation grows up healthy and happy.

You stint on the money available to feed a young family on benefits and your own children and grand children will then have to pay more taxes to support them and their healthcare. The problems caused just continue down the generations.

Some of the posters on here are very anti men.

Not anti men.

Anti abuse, anti victim blaming(whatever the gender of the victim), against the automatic blaming of single mothers without proper consideration of how they actually became single mothers, anti vilification of benefit claimants because of the actions of a few.

Most of all I am disgusted at the lack of compassion that exists in society today. I despair that empathy is viewed as a weakness.

Which posters, and why?

I've had two husbands, both my own before you ask , and I have a much-adored DS.

I'm very anti-cunts, which is why I am happily married to a man who isn't.

I don't think people are more anti-benefits now.

I remember people really were back in the booming Labour years. There were plentiful jobs, albeit low paid but many people simply didn't want to take them. Sickness benefits were handed out on what was a virtually no questions asked basis. Benefits claimants were very visible and identifiable with the 'chav' culture. And prices were low and benefits were generous so it was possible to have a fairly easy enough life on benefits. Wages were already stagnating so for many people a life on benefits was better paid than a life working.

I think people realize now that most benefits claimants are genuine because there just aren't the jobs around, rather than through a lifestyle choice.

I find it quite rare to hear people moaning about it now whereas 3-10 years ago it was really common.

The posters on here who are condemning men who abuse and walk out would on the whole also condemn women who do the same thing.

Pointy - yes I agree

And what Grumpy said, extremely well.

I went from being a 38 year old middle class SAHM to being a 'single parent on benefits' overnight.

Even the guy who went on to become my DH thought 'single parents on benefits' were usually illiterate promiscuous teenagers. He was too embarassed to introduce me to his parents for the first 3 years we were together. I was a professional woman living with her mother in our 23 room naice detached family home, but I was nothing but a 'single parent on benefits' as far as his family were concerned, ergo a fiendish older woman gold-digger.

Oh, Lapsed, that's awful. I always felt judgement from the ILs. I was living in a flat with DD when I met DH, working at the time in the same profession that MIL was (very successful) in, but I think they expected me to be like Bianca from Eastenders when I went to visit.

SoloPower

You are a star, and so beautifully phrased.

Minitheminx, your post is brilliant are you Melanie Phillips from the Mail?

I wouldn't write for the mail if they paid me and they wouldn't!

Some of the posters on here are very anti men

I know I am, but not anti all men I'm just anti the ones who beat and rape there partners and the ones who walk away from the children they jointly make without a backwards glance or consideration for how those children are going to be maintained both financially and physically I'm also anti the ones who job hop,lie,go self employed, or transfer assets along with many of the other tricks they use to minimise or avoid the csa.

I'm really quite keen on the other ones, incidentally I'm also anti women who do the same thing.

Handcream, did you know if a nrp quits a job and claims benefits or has a job but also has a benefit like a army disablement pension the csa only ask for £5 pw no matter how many children he has, so 5 children means £1 pw for each child if he owes back pay ( one of the main reasons for going to the csa in the first place is none payment of a private arrangement) they can't collect unless they were responsible for initial collection and even then if he earns less than £100 pw (or that's all you can prove he earns) then you get your arrears at £1 pw and they take 6 weeks to collect £1

Rape within marriage only became a crime in the early 90's. it was also only then that we became more interested in dealing with abuse and violence so about the time that more people realised they didn't have to put up with it.

Abusive people don't start being abusive at the beginning of a relationship, marriage pregnancy and birth are well known triggers.

Do you seriously believe that even as many of half of the single parents around are single parents because they met a known feckless twat and decided to get pregnant with the intention of being single? If so your not thinking this through and are quite possibly not as bright as you think you are.