To wonder if feminism fucked us over

[splendidisolation]

Looking around at lots of relationships -

Women got the right to work and make money.

In many cases this seems to mean that they now have the right to pay bills, rents and mortgages as well as doing the lions share of cooking, household chores and childcare whilst feeling under intense pressure to engage in hardcore grooming and be sex goddesses.

In the 60s many women didnt work and let their lady gardens grow free - it was all men really knew or wanted.

Fast forward 50 years and they're expected to have careers and strip it all off.

Im muddling loads of points here but does anyone see what I mean?

My DP is pretty good but I still pull more weight than him. The other evening I got home late and started to get up to make dinner. He was like "dont bother yourself making dinner, lets just make sandwiches".

Sandwiches? Bother? I mean, I appreciate the gesture mate but its like...why not just make fucking dinner yourself?

Sorry for this rambling, ranting and general mish mash of thoughts.

Feel free to muse!

The problem isn't feminism but that you either married someone thats an idiot or someone that has different ideas about whats acceptable to eat for dinner to you. Hard to tell from your example.

Dh cooks dinner pretty much every night in our house. If he's away I have marmite on toast with cheese.

Dh cooks dinner pretty much every night in our house. If he's away I have marmite on toast with cheese.

That wouldn't work for us. Do you have kids?
My OH works very long hours, rarely home by 7.30pm.

Should I make the kids wait or give them toast for dinner?

What woman has the time or energy after working a full time job, cooking, cleaning, raising children only to have to make a man pull his weight on top of all of that. Also as for marrying lazy fuckers....who the bloody hell has a crystal ball to predict men becoming lazy fuckers? In my experience things start out equal enough, have a baby, maternity leave, change the status quo and equal workload often goes out the window. What are you options after that? Fight tooth and nail when exhausted already and plead with him to do what he should? Go on strike, but it's the kids that suffer as a consequence? LTB and do it all and more because now your a single parent....oh and hope that he steps up and pays child support, still sees kids etc.

Point I'm making, is you can be as smart and as cautious as you want about carefully picking a life partner and father of your children. However, it doesn't mean that what you hope will be good, fair and equal will actually turn out that way, and if it doesn't it's still on you to be the one to do something about it!!!

If I could go back in time I would thank feminism for some things but ask them to think a bit more carefully about the potential long term consequences of women working outside the home. I can see that a fifties housewife was probably more than annoyed that her husband was out at work all day and when he came home she was expected to have dinner ready, clean, well mannered and polite children awaiting, pipe and slippers etc but really would she rather have both of them arriving home after a long hard day, both tired and grumpy, nothing ready and then both spend their evening catching up on chores and maybe snatching a few minutes for the children before bed cos that’s the reality now for some women. As others have said we were brought up to look down on the role of the stay at home mum, to strive for a career, to work long hours, best men at their own game, the advice received by our mothers to find a rich man with good potential was scorned. Well I’m going to be giving that advice to my step daughter and I won’t apologise for that. At least then she will have that genuine choice (provided he’s a decent man) whether to forge a career or concentrate on Home and family. The only woman I know who has it all is her mum who moved back in with her own parents when she had her first child and is still there having all the housework and childcare done for her while she works.

I cook for the kids (3,5,7) earlier. DH cooks for us later.

No it hasn't. Patriarchy has fucked us over.

Feminism will eventually liberate us from patriarchy.

My point is the OP's DH did say, don't worry lets do sarnies.

For me that would be ok.

For her (and for my DH too) that wouldn't be ok because of how they feel about dinner.

Not sure that deciding feminism is bad because your DH has different dinner standards is very logical.

I think a huge part of this is the bloke thinking that he is solely responsible for bringing a wage into the house, and not recognising that his wage is dependent on a whole load of practical work done in the household. This also leads to iniquitous situations where the bloke "claims" all of the money coming into the household, even though his partner is raising his children, doing his washing, and enabling him to work the hours he works.

There is a LOT of feminist writing on this over many years - there was a whole Wages for Housework movement in the 70s and 80s (with good arguments on both sides).

Until we approach this problem from an economic angle, in terms of taking a good, hard look at capitalism, it will be difficult to solve.

"No it hasn't. Patriarchy has fucked us over."
This.

most mothers did not work, they cared for children, did housework, men worked and relaxed in the evening.

When did women relax though?

Fianceechickie you talk as if feminism was some kind of government agency or official organisation in control of aspects of society. The feminists that fought for changes in law and in society were groups of women (and male allies) who self-organised, lobbied, debated, demonstrated etc etc until public opinion and the opinions of those in power were changed. They were fighting for basic human rights.

What you are complaining about is our patriarchal, capitalist, workaholic society. Not feminism.

This is such a difficult issue. I believe in feminism & think it's done a lot of good. It pisses me off that women have had to fight & still have to fight for their rights. We are not a friggin minority (not that that makes it ok) but 50% of the population. Why do we take this shit?!
However I do think kids are a game changer & they certainly taught me that the world was a lot more sexist than I realised. Sometimes I do think that it is a biological thing & woman are just more nurturing & put others before themselves whereas men are inherently more selfish.

All the woman I know well educated, professionals etc. do more of the lions share then their husbands largely for the sake of their kids.

Capitalism has fucked the vast majority of us over globally- feminism should be celebrated for having made things better/less bad for some women within that system and hopefully it will gather in strength to help more people.

All the men I’ve had long term relationships with, including my first and my second husband have questioned whether, if we were to survive on one salary, it should be theirs. Why not mine? They would both have been prepared and even preferred to be the stay at home one so I guess that means they thought the grass was greener! We all think that to some extent I think. I’ve done full time high pressure job and some time (much less) staying at home and, given the choice I’d pick my Home and kids every time provided we were comfortably off.

who the bloody hell has a crystal ball to predict men becoming lazy fuckers? In my experience things start out equal enough

Not in my experience - or I guess depends on the definition of 'equal enough'. But all the lazy fecker husbands were always lazy, considered housework her task and maybe 'helped' a bit in the beginning of the relationship. Put laundry on 'for her'.

The difference was that it wasn't a big deal and women were happy to let it slide. Not so happy any more when kids arrive and workload multiplies 100fold. But the signs were always there.

It's ignoring what women do regarding housework and childminding. Obviously there is no debate when it comes to outsourcing this work to others, usually paid for by the female who wants to return to work.

As for cooking? So long as they do breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus feed the children two days a week, standard, every week, without complaint if they 'go to work' and the woman 'stays at home'.

Things do start out equal though.

Once children come along, it's an entirely different set of circumstances.

Well I happen to totally agree!! Of course we are so fortunate to have our rights, our votes, our independence. We have it so much better than so many.

However...

We have a 'traditional' family set up. My DH works full time and I am a SAHM. I do the night feeds, clean the house, do the washing, make dinner and put all of my energy into that. I can not imagine working as well.

Feminists would literally hate me I think... but I just can't do it all. I think we should celebrate our differences, he is better at being a mechanic than me, I'm am better at cooking than him! So that's what we do.

I don't think anyone should feel guilty for that. I am typically more emotional than him, he does not understand subtle hints, etc, just some minor examples of how we (personally) conform to gender stereotypes! He really is the man and I really am the woman and I like it that way.

I've decided I'm a 'peopleist' rather than a feminist. Feminism makes me feel guilty for not having a successful career or changing the world in any way!!

Not in my experience - or I guess depends on the definition of 'equal enough'. But all the lazy fecker husbands were always lazy, considered housework her task and maybe 'helped' a bit in the beginning of the relationship. Put laundry on 'for her'.

Yes, this is why I asked about this upthread. I wonder a lot about whether having children creates this inequality or just exacerbates it. It was something I thought deeply about before we started trying for a baby (at which point it of course turns out I have serious fertility issues, because life likes to laugh at you if you think deeply about things - we're still hoping we will have children, though). I am often shocked on Mumsnet by just how unequal some relationships are, and that people just take that as not fine but normal. I do think it starts earlier - I had always thought that 'woman desperate for baby, persuades reluctant man into it' was a misogynistic myth, for instance, but then I started reading conception boards and seeing how many people think that's totally normal. That can't help to set up an equal partnership after the baby comes.

"Things do start out equal though"

While they are perhaps more equal before children, they're still not equal. There's still a gender pay gap that kicks straight after graduation.

www.totaljobs.com/insidejob/gender-pay-gap-uk/

When you add this to research that suggests that women who are top of their class at university are assumed to be less bright than their male peers, you can see that inequality starts very young indeed and is then exacerbated by such things as inequalities around childcare and promotion.

Surely feminism hasn't gone far enough?

That so many women accept their lot as doing the bulk of housework and childcare on top of working FT is because women haven't got out of the conditioning that it's 'women's work'. Neither have men.

"Feminists would literally hate me I think... "

Not for being a SAHP. But certainly eyebrows might be raised at the casual gender stereotyping.

Feminists would literally hate me I think.

You are a feminist.

"Feminists would literally hate me I think"

No they really wouldn't. Feminism isn't about making you work, or fix cars, or change your personality if it happens to conform to gender stereotypes. It's about stopping any women from being/feeling compelled to do any of the things if that's not what they want to do. It's to prevent women who don't conform to stereotypes from being abused or disadvantaged. It's about protecting women from discrimination if they do work.It's also about the flip-side to this for men as well, so they don't feel compelled to do things that are stereotypically masculine etc etc.

What absolute piffle.

Women had a shit time in the 50s, the vast majority were tranquilised to the eyeballs.

I think some women (and men) have used their greater social freedom to make bad choices, but I have a career, something to do all day, and my DH pulls his weight (because he is a bit of a neat freak and because I do not suck up all the chores and secretly resent him).