To be infuriated by this (school related!)

[ChippaChoc]

I am just about to send an email out to my DCs class to invite them to an event (the parents) via 'classlist'. This is an event for all parents (and DCs). Classlist is the way that parents and the PTA are supposed to communicate about any events, parties, social stuff outside of the normal school day but is also used most days to remind parents about things happening In the classroom too (e.g. Forest school days, sports day) which kids need kit etc for.

There's 30 parents on the list, not one is a father / male. I can't believe that still in 2017 when most of the parents at my DCs school work, plenty of them full time, it's only Mums that are on the school comms list. It has massively annoyed me. I know it won't change anything, but it just feels we are so far away from an equal load in terms of parental responsibility I can't see it will ever change. The class list sign up went out to all parents earlier this year (there's approximately 54 emails on that list, mums and dads) and low and behold only the Mums have signed up to receive communications regarding event / parties / anything outside of the formal school comms. I wasn't involved in that sign up admin process.

Off to hassle my DH about why he isn't on it now (I thought he was!)

Nobody is victimising women on this thread

Women aren't victims and I never said they were.

I said we live in a society where men tend not to take on the burden of looking after children. That is a fact.

It doesn't matter whether we have a queen or a female PM, we still don't have an equal number of men and women in parliament or an equal number of men and women in positions of power in business.

'Is that how your raise your daughter? You will have to marry a lazy man, who will refuse to do admin and you will have to fight for your so-called rights? You are born a victim?'

No, why on earth would I do that? I raise my daughter in a family where the father takes on his fair share of the responsibility for the family admin so that when she grows up she will expect her partner to do the same.

Why would a society be better or worse because people have preferences

Really, Coddi? Really? If I thought you would engage in this debate with an open mind I could give you 100 reasons why "people's' preferences" are not always in the interests of a fair and just society. I bet you could too if you put your brain to it.

I am a "so-called feminist" (or as I prefer, a feminist) and I can be happy with my own lot and weep over the injustices for others and try to change them.

Why can't you accept that it's a worrying symptom of how society views and organised child-related activities and responsibilities that of the parents of 30 children, 30 MOTHERS signed up and no fathers. That means EVERY household on that list has made the "individual choice" to divide that responsibility on gender lines. That doesn't happen in a vacuum.

You do realise also Coddi, that 100 years ago women weren't even allowed to vote, never mind be Prime Minister. It was the 'so-called feminists' who fought and fought and in some cases lost their lives to gain the right for women to participate in politics. Nothing changes unless someone points out the problem first. It's not about playing the victim, it's about looking at how society is and changing it for the better for ourselves and our daughters.

if I had started my career with such a snowflake attitude I would not have gone anywhere

Perhaps you had to fight so hard because the system is unequal?

Regardless, no one is raising snowflakes who expect to have to marry men and put up and shut up if they can possibly help it. That would be very extreme parenting in this day and age. But a lot of seemingly intelligent people can't see the prejudices and biases that they are unwittingly conforming to, and it feeds into making it harder for the next generation to become free of these expectations.

I wouldn't wand my Dds to marry a man who had no interest in the day to day aspect of raising children because he was lazy disengaged or thought himself so important for such flippery as school,friends or Drs appointments because that was a mumjob

And it is not precious snowflakey to expect dads to be involved

Or at least interested in the mundane.

Yanbu op. Our dc school exactly the same. I work 5 plus days a week, dh only 4. Still all the pa and school mails come to me. Also they call me Mrs Dh's name- never been known as that anywhere else in my life, sign all letters and mails in my own name.
God knows what's wrong with these people

Perhaps you had to fight so hard because the system is unequal?

Exactly the opposite, I didn't have to fight anything, just get on with it and not play the "woman victim card" all the time. Those who did, for no real reasons, didn't go very high.

What I hate is perfectly sumarised here:
seemingly intelligent people can't see the prejudices and biases that they are unwittingly conforming to
which is a completely twisted way of presenting a family arrangement chosen and preferred by some couple. So much negative judgement if you don't fit a so-called feminist model, it's depressing. Stop making a problem of a situation which isn't one! it's the same people who abuse SAHM it's wrong.

Don't worry Coddi, so-called feminists will continue to fight for every single right you enjoy, no matter what you think of them. The only reason you can even have a job or are able to vote is because of them.

Ach, coddi it's OK - as I said, everyone is free to do & think what they like. I happen to think society is prejudiced towards men. Hasn't yet stopped me having a fulfilling successful career, or made me a "woman victim", or made me foam at the mouth about SAHM or people who organise their families along traditional lines, but I'll sure as shit feel free to point out my own prejudices/feelings about rabid "so-called" feminism to the next generation and leave them to decide what they think. You can do the same, I don't mind. But you certainly seem to passionately think people like me are wrong, and trying to force an agenda that simply can't possibly exist. which is why posters have suggested perhaps you're not being very open-minded about considering the possibility that those so-called feminists might be onto something, even just once. None of it is an attack on you, how you live your life or what you believe, although you do seem to be taking it very personally.

Glad to have found this thread. I was thinking similar only just this morning. We (I) get a LOT of emails from the school, on average 10 - 15 a week. We also have a whole year mailing list that parents and the school both use to communicate with each other. I say parents. I mean, of course, mothers. Not one single man is on that list of about 35 parents.

As I think has been pointed out upthread, that is statistically beyond the realm of coincidence.

Fair enough there are a number of SAHMs in our year (no SAHDs as far as I'm aware) so logical that they would be the one to do the child-related admin. But lots of us work too. Last week a few of us (all women) went for coffee after drop-off. There was a bloke at the table next to us probably annoyed that we were chatting while he wanted peace to read his paper and I thought what a stereotype of middle-class SAHMs we probably looked like, meeting for coffee and a gossip with the rest of our day to ourselves.

Except the four of us were a corporate lawyer, a consultant surgeon, an academic and a corporate accountant. All F/T and I suspect all better paid than the male partner, just all happened to be WFH/not on shift/day off.

And STILL we're doing all the 'wife-work'.

Do we have to change it one woman at a time? Because I can't see societal expectation changing any time soon. Is it up to us all to push the men into these kind of roles within our own families and normalise it that way?

TheSparrowhawk

what a lovely over-simplification and slight twist of the historical truth

I have exactly the same rights than a man (even more rights if you look into it) and I will defend the rights of women to be SAHM or mother first if they chose to do just that, whether "feminists" like it or not. I am not even going onto the damage it does to working mums to have to be treated "equally" as a single man (or even women), whilst recognising their private circumstances would be better. Never mind, it has to be 50/50 apparently.

I have never abused a mum for her choices coddi but sometimes a womans choices are taken from her and occasionally those losses are because of the man they live with the man who is the father of their children she isn't a victim she is a product of a shitty societal norm

Because if she didnn't to kid admin nobody would and the family would be in chaos imo

Good god, there are some depressing posts on this thread. It infuriates me that so many men are entitled enough to simply step away from the more mundane aspects of bringing up children and running a household, safe in the knowledge that their wife or partner will pick it up instead.

I read an (old) interview with the politician David Davies this morning, who talked about how he chose to teach his children how to ski, rather than changing their nappies (presumably these two activities occurred at slightly different points in his children's lives...). How astonishing to have the luxury to see those two things in the same way!

Totally agree OP. Beyond realms of coincidence that oops look the woman in essentially the majority of families is the default parent.

I think its a jumble of

• men quietly stepping back. Women can't because its our DC that suffer/us that are negatively judged if DD isn't picked up from Brownies etc totally unfair but it is.
• some of us can't let go.

That whole going away for the weekend. I went away for 4 days I had to leave a fucking spreadsheet. He packs his bag and just goes.

'what a lovely over-simplification and slight twist of the historical truth'

WTF? Feminists did fight for your right to vote and for your right to have a career. Are you saying they didn't?

I'm just adding that to the list of reasons why David Davies needs to have his head kicked in Florence

Women are the default parent because we are the ones who get pregnant, give birth, breastfeed, have the hormones from that permanently change our brain and need to take time off work to nurture our babies. Men contribute the sperm, they are not and never will be equal. While there are always exceptions, women are generally the better parent, that's biological.

What about women who adopt Hilda, are they better or worse parents than women who give birth?

You can't pretend that biology has no impact to make people feel better about themselves. Anyone can be a good parent if they want but effects of hormones in pregnancy changes women and that's the reason why we are the nurturing, caring parents.

'You can't pretend that biology has no impact to make people feel better about themselves. Anyone can be a good parent if they want but effects of hormones in pregnancy changes women and that's the reason why we are the nurturing, caring parents.'

So anyone can be a good parent if they want - is it the case that men don't want to be good parents? Or that women who give birth will always be better parents than women who don't give birth and men?

Hilda - I believe studies have demonstrated hormone changes in men where they are active caregivers

Is your sentence really meant to imply that men are NOT nurturing or caring?