That it’s women who are still locked down?

[Sadie789]

My DH goes back to work next week and rightly so, long overdue in my opinion.

However, I can’t go back to work as with two young DC we have no childcare and it’s not possible to do my job from home.

Under normal circumstances without childcare it wouldn’t really be an issue as there would be classes and clubs and play parks and soft plays and friends to meet up with, so a full weekly schedule out and about with things to do.

I can’t take them to the supermarket or round the shops either, no grandparents allowed etc.

As it stands none of these things are available nor are likely to be for a while, so for me my situation has not changed from the initial lockdown - stay at home, go out for exercise (weather permitting).

Meanwhile my DH and the Hs of my friends are all back at work out of the house living normal days. At the weekends the golf is back on so that’s a leisure option.

Many of my friends are also trying to work from home while looking after children, some also homeschooling older ones.

Women who don’t have children are also on the back foot as many of the professions which are traditionally female - hair and beauty, retail, hospitality - remain closed and will be for some time.

Meanwhile men are back in the workplace. When furlough ends it will be those who are able to present for work and give all their attention to their job who are preferred by employers. Recruitment will be skewed by this too. It’s the traditionally male industries that are able to return earlier- outdoor and manual work.

When it does return childcare is likely to be limited in hours and more expensive- Scotland has quietly dropped the 30 free hours from
August that were going to make it financially viable for me to work. Now it’s going to be a matter of me earning a couple of hundred pounds extra per month instead of nearly £1000 that was previously the case.

I am far from a feminist, but it feels like any equality women had gained is being seriously eroded by lockdown and the exit strategy that has deftly avoided any conversation around how women, especially with younger children, are getting the raw deal.

Not all nurses are low paid.

@BoujiSnail
Because they do different jobs with different economic values. You might aswell ask why someone who stacks shelves at Asda is paid differently to a brick-layer.
You're trying to look at it in purely gendered terms when there's much more to it.

@BoujiSnail
Not seeing career-minded women is as much a result of socioeconomic choices as anything. I saw my mother having a career growing up.

She had 3 kids by 3 different men.
I guarantee she would have preferred the luxury of one of those men who fathered her children sticking around and being the breadwinner, making chasing a career an option rather than a necessity.

Traditional women's jobs are always paid less than traditional mens jobs. And as soon as a women's job (programming, photography) became men's jobs the pay went way up. Conversely, when professions become female dominated they are devalued.
Some men like to claim that women are better suited to doing more drudge work, or that men have the drive to earn more because they have to support whole families ( apparently no women are supporting their families single handed) but the simple fact is that men have wives.
I have know 2 lone dads in my life and by some astonishing coincidence both of them worked in flexible, safe but lowish paid jobs and both did all the child related stuff. Because they didn't have a women to prop them up. Women are absolutely expected to be the support staff of society.

It’s complete bullshit to deny that in the society we live in, mothers are more likely to be penalised by the lack of school provision. Women are more likely to be: single parents, lower earners, part time workers. I can’t believe the hysteria around schools has led to a quiet acceptance that mothers have to jeopardise their jobs. We need to tell them all to fuck off.

Agree with this 100%

And I'm not at all offended by the bitch in the boardroom comment I thought it was funny. I would love to be that bitch!

I absolutely identify as a feminist. The biggest thing I did for my career was to marry a man who sees me as an equal.

I'm passionate about parental leave - all new fathers should take at least 3 months. The early child-rearing years are where women lose so much career ground.

Women do have an unfair disadvantage in society's expectations and in systemic sexism (yes, professions do pay less as women enter), but we can choose to overcome some of it (not all of it). There's no reason why men can't ask for flexible working just as much as women do. There's no reason why it has to be the woman going PT when they have kids rather than the man (or both parents, in my case - we both dropped to 4 days/wk for a while). There's no reason the woman should be doing all the childcare at weekends, or the man be the only one to have a hobby on the weekends.

So much depends on having a husband who views you as an equal. And then having the confidence to seek out what you want in the workplace. (And I acknowledge the privilege that is required for that.)

OP - has your husband had a conversation with his work about the need for flexibility due to childcare demands?

And I'm not at all offended by the bitch in the boardroom comment I thought it was funny. I would love to be that bitch!

I also aspire to be that bitch

People will say that women choose all.this but if we care about the wellbeing if our children we are often set up to fail

Still a choice, and they can also choose whether they are in the 'set up to fail' families/sectors/environs.

Why does it always have to made into a feminist issue.

"My career has been sacrificed because I went part time/chose to have kids/wanted to be a SAHM and that's not fair because men have it all". Umm okay choose to work full time then? Make a choice with your partner for him to take a step back?

Women can't keep choosing to want to be home more and then complain that the world isn't equal. Some people choose family time over work and that's ok but it's a choice you made. Blame yourself and your partner, but leave gender out of it.

I absolutely identify as a feminist. The biggest thing I did for my career was to marry a man who sees me as an equal.

So did I.

He lied. 🤷‍♀️

@PicsInRed so did mine

@Sadie789 why don’t you just have a conversation with your husband and say that you are tired of looking after the kids 7 days a week and would prefer it if he could not play golf with his friends and do something with the family instead? Or is that something a feminist would do?
Otherwise stop moaning and accept the fact we are in the midst of a global pandemic and therefore life can’t just go back to ‘normal’.

It would be ideal for women who have children and need to earn a living/ want to have a career for someone (the state or private businesses) to ensure that there is decent, safe, affordable, reliable childcare available to whoever needs it but the reality is that it isn't actually incumbent upon anyone to provide this. If you live somewhere where this is a priority in your society, you pay lots and lots of tax to fund it and keep voting for politicians who plan to uphold this system. Otherwise, it is ultimately the parents' responsibility to care for their own children. There is obviously inherent inequality in child-bearing because women are the ones who must do the actual bearing. Really the only things that can be done to try to equalise the responsibility of child-rearing are for societal attitudes to change so that the majority firstly agree that women and men should be equally responsible for caring for children and secondly to organise widely accessible communal childcare facilities. Your own description of feminism (the belief that women should the right to equal social status to men btw) is an excellent representation of the kind of attitude that undermines this.
The way in which the imposed restrictions for dealing with Covid 19 are being reversed don't seem to me to intentionally unfair to women but if it has exposed to you an unfair imbalance in society between men and women in relation to caring for children and adult dependants and having equal opportunity in the workplace and you want to address this, perhaps you should educate yourself on the subject of feminist beliefs...although it sounds like you'd be very, very late to the party tbh.

My sympathies PicsinRed and SharonasCorona :(

Bricklayers are generally independent contractors and can (to an extent) decide what to charge and how much to work. They are in short supply, so the market rate is good. Nurses are also in short supply but the vast majority are employed by the NHS, which has considerable buying power and can therefore hold down the wage. I think there is also an element that nursing is thought of as a vocation and vocations are badly paid. Then you've got the downwards drift of wages in female dominated industries and the fact that nursing is exhausting and not family friendly, so nurses may choose to reduce shifts if they can, bringing down the total wage.

The nurses, however, may get the last laugh as it is feasible to automate bricklaying.

IKR Pics
They do that on occasion don't they?
" Darling, shall we have a baby"
"Great!"

"Hold your horses! Do you agree that we should be equal parents, share childcare, and both take the hit to our careers equally"?
"Of course!"

I know some women breed with absolute Neanderthals-I know plenty-but equally many women do have the conversation, they do demand that their career takes equal importance, and they believe their idealistic 25/30 year old partner, because at that point they are both probably at similar points in their lives, earning equal money, housework is minimal, they are eating out a lot and having lovely holidays...
It's only when the reality of the hamster wheel of drudgery shows itself, when they have a lot less money because of nursery fees, and they have to negotiate who can stay late at work, or go away for work, or pick up when the child is sick, it's only then that SOME men realise that it's much nicer to not bother pushing against societies expectations and let the woman be the default carer.
I mean FGS in the K men aren't even expected to PAY for their own children, if the thousands (millions?) in unpaid child support is anything to go by!
I know MN is fill of wives whose husbands are totally equal parents but I have never met one of these men in real life. Some of my friends are still working (teachers, nurses) and their husbands are furloughed, but even then these women are so stressed and guilty because the husbands do the bare minimum in the home and with the kids.
That's reality, and it's not the fault of the women. If we waited to have children with men who took on their full responsibility the human race would die out.

If we waited to have children with men who took on their full responsibility the human race would die out

This belief is the reason that the situation perpetuates. Women believe that it is not possible to do better, so they settle.

Bollocks. They believe the men who say they are feminists and that they should both be equal parents.
I refused to have children with my ex husband because he wouldn't even lie about it haha! I still got left with the shitty end of the stick down the line.
Also, a lot of the time, for coupled up women, its the boiling frog effect. Long maternity leave has not in actual fact done a lot of women any favours in the long term as by the time they go back to work they are already doing the bulk of the laundry and cleaning "because they are at home anyway.."
Add to that the fact that men's employers do not expect fatherhood to change anything for them, and most men refuse to challenge this assumption.
Add to that the fact that lots of women just don't know at 25 how unequal life really is, because the media will have us believing that modern men and women are equal and women can be anything they want. Hey, girls are outperforming boys at school, poor boys, how will they catch up...
It can be a slow dawning realisation, that giving birth can be the start of a gradual shrinking of opportunity, and that is quite apart from the fact that almost all lone parents are women, and we are ALWAYS bottom of the pile because society and the law just accepts that men can walk away from responsibility.
I'm sick of women always taking the blame for a mess of obstacles, some of which are really insiduous.
It's interesting actually, the aggressive response OP's thread has received. Even some women get very very angry when you point out the glaringly obvious.

This belief is the reason that the situation perpetuates. Women believe that it is not possible to do better, so they settle.

Absolutely.

I have a very well paid 0.8 fte job. I am also divorced with children and shared care with their dad.

There is NO WAY I'd be able to manage my job if either I was trying to do it FT or if i had a manchild husband not pulling his weight at home. As it stands I have at least 3 childfree days a week to get work done.

A lot of women are stuck with men who won't share 50/50, either cos "their job pays more and should be prioritised" or because they are just idiots.

A lot of idiots don't show their true colours until babies come along - and single parenting is no fun either.

There are structural disadvantages to working mothers and the pandemic is showing them for what they are.

**It’s interesting actually, the aggressive response OP's thread has received. Even some women get very very angry when you point out the glaringly obvious.

The angry response is due to OP being frustrated at the lockdown situation and saying that women are bearing the brunt of it, but at the same time disassociating herself with feminism. The ignorance is disturbing.

There are some responsibilities of having kids though. Yes women should be allowed to work obviously if they want to and they should leave their partners and find someone that will support them if this happens. Why is the work so unattractive to some people? That's what I find interesting.

But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading because you think being a girl is a degrading

Quite Happy

There are some responsibilities of having kids though. Yes women should be allowed to work obviously if they want to and they should leave their partners and find someone that will support them if this happens. Why is the work so unattractive to some people? That's what I find interesting.
I find it interesting that the responsibilities are always portrayed as the womans, even if the man doesn't do his share, that's her fault for "choosing badly".

I think what's unattractive is seeing "work" as a paid job, and not realising raising and looking after children and the home is also "work". Its not attractive to go and do 8 hours + at work and then come in to do the majority of the childcare and housework.

In lockdown its impossible to work and lock after children- and that's not even starting on homeschooling. And lots of men just opt out.

“Allowed” to work?!

Don’t think many women consciously “settle”. A more frequent issue is that men seem to be pro-equality, share domestics etc, but, when it comes to it don’t want to do a fair share of parenting, the hugely increased domestic work or - probably most importantly - make any changes as regards paid work.