Women who forget not everyone has access to money from men

[windygallows]

With 34.5% of the population aged over 16 in England ‘single and not cohabiting’ (2015 stats), it’s clear that a significant number of women in the UK, many parents, are single and having to fend for themselves/live on one income.

Yet I'm amazed at the number of women who forget that not every woman has access to a second income from a partner. In fact the privilege of having access to another’s (usually a man’s) income is often naturalized and many women are, or become, totally oblivious to this privilege.

For example just this last week I experienced:

• A woman at work going on and on about the importance of her life/work balance and suggesting I drop my hours to have similar. She works just 2 days/week and seems to forget that such a setup is an absolute privilege, thanks to a husband who works FT.

• Another woman I know who is on quite a low salary bragging about her 3 luxury holidays per year, again thanks to the income from an IT Director husband. She thought she'd give me travel tips in case I wanted to go to the same 5star holiday.

There are a million reasons why women might have to rely on men’s income but I don’t think I ABU in asking women to recognize that their lifestyle and having access to men’s money isn’t the NORM for up to 1/3 of women, who are having to get by on their own accord and lack the same privilege or financial flexibility.

It's also worth pointing out (mass generalisation alert: clearly this doesn't apply to all SAHDs) that SAHMs do generally seem to be much as their job than SAHDs.

Again - not all of them. But you so often hear on here of working women having to pick up the slack at home, on top of their paid job, because the full-time Dad is a bit hopeless, doesn't have high standards of cleanliness, forgets things, doesn't see or do things, is incapable of carrying the mental load, etc.

So this is also why women (MNers) will sometimes get in behind a woman who's splitting up with her partner, and she's been the main/sole breadwinner, because the fall-out often is different.

That should be - SAHMs do generally seem to be much better at their jobs...

And similarly men seem to be much better at being breadwinners. Of course this may or may not be down to structural disadvantages etc, but nonetheless men ultimately seem able to bring home more money.

Yes - one CEO lady I know from my first DC, often tells me that she’s sat in airports trying to find random costume bits for school plays, or kids party gifts on Amazon. And her DH gave up work after he was made redundant (though he now renovates property). Do you think my DH is aware of costumes or whatever detail it may be as he sails out the door. No. He’s not even aware that he’s unaware! And there is no way he’d have the patience to be at home as a SAHD. No way. If we’re not out by 10am on a Saturday he goes off on his bike because he gets restless. Even if he was a SAHD, I know full-well I’d be doing more than 50%, no matter how many hours I was working. If I’m not in, he orders Deliveroo. He has never ironed, Never vacuumed. He does the bins if he’s home, that’s it. It’s not like he’s going to change at 48. There’s no point asking him to do anything because from his point t of view, I should just “organise the cleaner” better. But she only comes twice a week and she cleans, not tied up, deals with laundry / beds or organises his or anyone else’s life!

Indeed, they do tend to be better at it, on the whole, thanks to biology, patriarchy, privilege and the gender pay gap.

tidies up - not tied up!

With all due respect Zaeem he sounds fairly awful. Sorry, I know he's your DH!

I would struggle to maintain a close, intimate relationship with someone like that, being honest.

DH and I both work and I fully admit that I carry most of the mental load (I work fewer hours than him, so I'm OK with that), but DH absolutely does 50:50 of the physical load around the house. And he definitely does his own ironing!!

Plenty of men are not CEOs, investment bankers, entrepreneurs etc and are no better at bringing home the cash than women. Of course they do have the benefit of institutionalised bias and the gender pay gap.

He doesn’t really have a regular time when he “comes home”. Even when he is home he’s often on the phone or working as he’s self-employed so no clear cut off. I guess I don’t really need him to do housework so I just don’t factor him in, in that respect. I’d be more likely to get paid help if I couldn’t cope, than ask him. He does do all financial admin though which is very time consuming. He sorts my car etc and all the bills. And he will always give the kids a life anywhere, that kind of thing if he’s around. I realise this would not suit everyone, but it’s normal for me.

"Of course they do have the benefit of institutionalised bias and the gender pay gap."

Exactly. The average man earns more than the average woman. Even though it's changing and there are more and more women who outearn their husbands, most women are still married to men who earn more than them.

That's fair enough Zaeem - as long as it works for you, it's all that matter.

Being an adult - earning money, looking after a family and a household, is hard. It's laden with responsibility, and we all just do the best we can, in a way that works for our own family set-up.

Will it be perfect? Will others judge it? Probably, but as I say, we all do the best we can with whatever we have at our disposal, to make it work.

Obviously opting out entirely - no spouse/partner, no children, entirely self-sufficient, is one option, and certainly a way to 'beat the system', if that's so important to you.

But it's not one many people would actively choose, I don't think

Who are these women who give up work because a man tells them to?! Why do you put up with your DH treating you like a housekeeper Zaeem? There is so much wrong with those men’s attitudes I don’t even know where to start. Just as I don’t think women should opt out of financial responsibilities men can’t just opt out of parenting! Society won’t change if people just roll over and accept this as normal!

My brother and his partner of 15years are not married, neither of them believe in marriage and they do not have children.

She has currently had to cut her hours, she suffers from bouts of mental health problems, so she she now move out into a shelter as her earnings have dropped and can't keep up with my brother financially ??

dodgeballchamp - what you want and what other people want are not one and the same thing, funnily enough. You cannot expect people who do not want their lives to change to support you in your personal desire to change society to suit your views. "Rolling over" is your interpretation of another person's idea of getting exactly what they want. Of course there are women who feel forced to do all the parenting, because the fathers refuse to get involved, either practically, financially or emotionally. There are also those who refuse to get involved practically, but will get involved emotionally and financially, and those who would like to get more involved in all ways but find it impossible to juggle the financial, practical and emotional burden evenly, resulting in one partner doing more of some and the other partner more of the other.
Plenty of men and women who work full time pay for a large part of the practical burden to be done by someone totally unrelated to the child - and that inevitably means some of the emotional support and responsibility is taken on by someone else, too, because nobody wants to employ an emotionless robot to care for their children, so that they only receive loving care and comfort when Mummy and Daddy are home. Are you saying in this case both parents are failing in their parenting responsibilities, because they are opting out of doing it all themselves?!

I see the difference very clearly with two of my daughters. One has a partner, they both work and have a fairly nice lifestyle. The other works but is on her own. She struggles to pay the bills, can't afford luxury's, holidays etc.

Dodgeball keeps re-appearing on this thread offering - what she thinks are - piercing insights, and then (completely conversely) total judgment, alike.

She doesn't have a clue. Not a clue of what life is actually like for most women.

Walkabout if you honestly can’t see what’s wrong with “she stopped working because her husband told her to” I literally despair. Robert the life of subjugation being described on here does not represent any of the women I know. I honestly cannot even begin to express how maddening and disappointing it is that anyone could read a post like Zaeems and think yeah, everything’s fine, women are fine. The suffragettes would be rolling in their graves

Plenty of men and women who work full time pay for a large part of the practical burden to be done by someone totally unrelated to the child - and that inevitably means some of the emotional support and responsibility is taken on by someone else, too, because nobody wants to employ an emotionless robot to care for their children, so that they only receive loving care and comfort when Mummy and Daddy are home. Are you saying in this case both parents are failing in their parenting responsibilities, because they are opting out of doing it all themselves?!

Don’t be obtuse, you know full well this isn’t what I’m saying. Anyway, I’m out. I don’t think I can stomach any more reading women being willing architects of their own oppression. Turkeys voting for Christmas and all that.

Before I go I’m just going to leave this here and encourage everyone to read ‪medium.com/p/kids-dont-damage-women-s-careers-men-do-eb07cba689b8‬

<a class="break-all" href="//‪medium.com/p/kids-dont-damage-women-s-careers-men-do-eb07cba689b8‬" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">‪medium.com/p/kids-dont-damage-women-s-careers-men-do-eb07cba689b8‬

Yes, we know Dodgeball - if you were to become a wife and mother, you'd do it so much better than all the rest of us.

After reading this depressing thread of willing slaves to the patriarchy I’m more than confident I would, yes. I sincerely hope the next generation is more familiar with the concepts of choice, autonomy and challenging the status quo.

After reading this depressing thread of willing slaves to the patriarchy
I have literally never read anything so far removed from people have actually said, talk about living in ones own bubble of bitterness.

I sincerely hope the next generation is more familiar with the concepts of choice, autonomy and challenging the status quo
I could not agree more, I will be teaching my child, to do what is best for their family and themselves not to listen to people on their soapboxes trying to pull them down if they choose to live differently.
I hope, as I have done, they will be strong, secure and confident enough to live their lives how they see is best, and have enough self worth and know it does not need to be given by others.

Dodge - if you don't even realise you're having the piss taken a bit (honestly, I'm cringing for you, given your own admissions on this thread), then I highly doubt you have the cop on to do anything better than anyone on this thread.

dodgeballchamp - of course I see what is wrong with a man telling a woman she is not allowed to work. Clearly you are hard of reading, as I pointed out that some women will more than happily choose not to take on paid work if that is also what the man wants and that they will not change their lives for you just because you rant at them from your position of childlessness. Not all women are oppressed into this, regardless of what it suits you to think. But then you know that, because when it's pointed ou to you, you start wittering about men being oppressed, too.