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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask why women financially dependent on men are viewed as morally superior to those dependent on the state?!

601 replies

Primarkismyonlyoption · 06/02/2018 19:10

Just that really, my experience and something I see everywhere.
Having a baby on benefits? Irresponsible. Single mums? A drain on society raising kids without fathers who are growing up to be uncontrollable. A government document citing such women as raising the 'psychopaths of the future'. Women to blame for a cycle of poverty which never ends.
What scroungers. Lack of morals. Less so than married women whose husbands work. Why?
Why are women in relationships where men provide financially known as SAHMs but single mums are just that. Implying thay staying at home is only a morally acceptable choice if you have a partner. The single parents are pushed to find work by baby aged 2. Housework for them isnt seen as work at all but sitting on their arses all day.

Instead of the moral segregation of women based on their relationship status why can we not view their lives as equal in the case of any woman whom cannot be financially independent in their own right, and start to look at how more women can become independent of both men and the welfare state?
And to stop double standards as if mums hide what money they have in order to claim money for their kids they are done for benefit fraud.
If men do it by hiding capital in court for maintenence or divorce, the woman is still gets judged for having to live off benefits whilst men get off scot free and go on to impregnate more whomen whom may or may not stay together. Worse, imo, the judgement of women recieving welfare assistance is doubled if there are more than one father, the children are mixed race, the more children there are or the fact the woman dares to have a sexual relationship with another partner whom she cannot afford to live with because most men cannot or won't take financial responsibility for children who aren't theirs just because they love their mum. And why should they?
As it happens I had babies on benefits and have fucking grafted to get to where I am. I work equally hard as I did then but in a totally different way. Yet the difference in how I am treated is astounding.
AIBU to ask for your views on this and what can we do to change it?

OP posts:
g1itterati · 08/02/2018 18:35

Backenette - I found your post interesting, however, I must admit, I'm struggling to thing of a single society or culture in which women are not the default primary care-givers to children. I really can't think of a time or place when it was more common for men to stay at home?

I grew up in a very rural part of another European country. The men did the outdoor work, the women the domestic stuff in and around the house. Children were mainly playing around mum and other female relatives would help out with each others' kids. It was a more "extended family model", but still, it was the women watching or occupying the children and as girls got older they naturally took on this role.

Nobody ever debated about the sexism of the situation because it was just the most practical way to live. Where the work is physical, then roles for men and women become more defined, obviously. This is the case in vast swathes of the world. Even in developing countries with no childcare centres or welfare systems where women do have to work, it's their female relatives / neighbours / older daughters etc who pick up the slack - not their husbands!

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