So where does it go wrong for women?

[Falalalafishfingers]

I'm sure this has been asked a 1009 times!
Read so many times in threads that it makes more sense for woman to give up work/ cut hours as dh/dp earns so much more. This suggests that men are already earning more pre-children?
So where does it go wrong? My guess is university.

@GodOfPhwoar

I don’t think the patriarchy was ‘made’ by men. I think it’s more likely that it evolved that way over hundreds of years where work was mainly manual labour and contraception didn’t exist, meaning women were pregnant for much more of their life and suffered more injury.

What?! Of course the patriarchy was made by men, it didn t evolve because of lack of contraception. It was because men absurd their physical advantages and turned these into so called psychological advantages and oppressed women (as a class, I await your throwing individual examples into the ring to prove my point wrong) into purely biological roles. For thousands of years.

Men as a class have always found a way to prevent women from being able to get an equal share of the world. Whether this is by preventing them from doing jobs that has no biological barrier, or forcing them into child bearing endlessly by prevwnting access to contraception (or refusing to use barrier contraception which women have no control over).

Patriarchy wasn t a quirk. It was intentional.

@GodOfPhwoar

The other consideration is....what if it’s your children who turn into cunts and you end up estranged from them after having sacrificed your career? There are loads of situations on here where parents go NC with their parents.

I don’t think you can let fear govern your life outside of avoiding obviously bad moves like marrying an utter cock.

No of course you shouldn't let fear govern your life in any sphere. But I find it surprising how readily ordinary sensible and conservative people seem to accept this Russian Roulette approach to financial security when it comes to marriage.

People who wouldn't dream of not buying insurance when they buy a house, or not investing in a pension from an early age are happy to commit themselves to a lifelong financial contract (and let's be honest, that's what a marriage is), which leaves them with minimal protection in the event that the deal comes unstuck and which is underpinned by of all things, sexual attraction and a common threshold of parenting and domestic standards.

A woman who gets married and gives up work forever to raise children is essentially gambling on the idea that a man will find her sexually alluring enough, agreeable enough and competent enough as a mother and housekeeper that he will continue to disburse money towards her upkeep for the rest of his natural life. If that isn't a high-stakes game I don't know what is...

Silence
Apologies if I misunderstood your point, but a bald ' but that's a man problem' in response to my fucked career is hardly insightful. Weren't most women's problems a' man (or men) problem', including tolerence for having seven bells knocked out of us.

Doesn't mean it isn't ingrained inequality

*@GodOfPhwoar *
Men as a class have always found a way to prevent women from being able to get an equal share of the world. Whether this is by preventing them from doing jobs that has no biological barrier, or forcing them into child bearing endlessly by prevwnting access to contraception (or refusing to use barrier contraception which women have no control over).

Patriarchy wasn’t a quirk. It was intentional.

Well, reading the below quotes from mumsnet users I’d say that men cocked up their mission objective pretty badly! 🤷‍♀️

My sil is 44, rich and has NEVER had a job, lucky her! She has no trouble filling her day and has a great life.

Dp earns the money then gives it to me. Why would I feel oppressed?

I haven't worked in 8 years and bloody love it! I got to go shopping without ds today and have a long lunch with a friend. Going to the gym now.

My friend is married to the son of a billionaire and sometimes I have to block her on social media because her life is one long holiday.

I dont work, I was able to be a sahm with my sons, both in 30s now. I lunch, dressmake, walk my dogs for miles, spend time with friends and family etc....
I also volunteer for a small homeless charity, something I am so passionate about, being literally close to home.
I feel totally fulfilled!

My DSis married a very high earner and has never worked a day in her life.

My DH works 80 hours a week for a signficant amount of money, which allows me to be a SAHM and indulge myself, allow me to do all of my volunteering and my hobbies.

I work just a few hours a week in a job I love doing, I don’t have to work for financial reasons. I’ve accidentally ended up with a really high earning DH. I enjoy having lots of time to myself, I have hobbies, an amazing spa membership and an extremely fortunate to have some really good friends whom I’m able to see nearly every week.

My SIL is lucky enough to not have to work due to DB’s income. She has nice things, goes out for lots of lunches.

I'm a SAHM who has teenage children and is fortunate to be married to a high earner so I haven't needed to work since having kids. We do have a lifestyle that most people would find impressive.

I choose not to work. DH works really long shifts and odd hours so can be out of the house either days or nights, with each week being different. When the kids are grown I'll go and get some post-sahm work. Maybe in a shop, factory, cafe or something similar.

The funniest post was Monday morning when she started by posting “it’s going to be a long week, hoping the nanny isn’t late” followed by “anyone know a place I can get nails done, not happy with the place I’ve been going as I think they overcharge and wanting a day to pamper myself a bit.”

I feel lucky that I don't need to work. I am not getting any benefits because dh earns enough.

I'm lucky in that I didn't have to carry on working.

I am lucky enough not to work and stay at home with my son, as DH is a high earner. I feel extremely grateful for this every day, and try very hard not to take it for granted.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3764425-To-think-you-are-very-lucky-if-you-dont-have-to-work

No of course you shouldn't let fear govern your life in any sphere. But I find it surprising how readily ordinary sensible and conservative people seem to accept this Russian Roulette approach to financial security when it comes to marriage.

I do agree somewhat, but it’s also a risk to the man when he agrees to take the position as the primary breadwinner, because he no longer has his partner’s salary to fall back on and must assume all the stress of providing for his family and the following consequences should he ‘fail’, which which be laid at his feet rather than his spouse’s. I’m pretty sure that one of the most common causes of male suicide is business/financial failure.

And I’m certainly not always on the side of the man BTW. It’s just that I feel this is one particular area where opinions are often skewed on mumsnet.

Again, eh?

The work world is set up for men.

The reason it doesn't change or become more family-friendly is that men don't want that.

Men don't usually go PT, become SAHDs, etc. because they don't want to.

@godofphwoar

You know that patriarchy has been a success. And you know you have built a straw man argument.

I cannot see how your selection of comments taken out if context can possibly show that men have failed at the patriarchy game. It shows that women are still being kept, their life is dependent on the men they have married and if those men choose to change the situation the women are fucked.

I am sure you are having a great time playing devil's avocado right now. But don't ever imagine the patriarchy wasn t intentional or that it is over. It's ingrained and endemic. Your handy quote list doesn't change that.

Women usually get the choice to work or be a SAHP, whilst men almost never do. Most men graciously accept this and support their partner’s choice whilst continuing the office slog. They’re then seen as the bad guys.

[quote DanielODonkey]@godofphwoar

You know that patriarchy has been a success. And you know you have built a straw man argument.

I cannot see how your selection of comments taken out if context can possibly show that men have failed at the patriarchy game. It shows that women are still being kept, their life is dependent on the men they have married and if those men choose to change the situation the women are fucked.

I am sure you are having a great time playing devil's avocado right now. But don't ever imagine the patriarchy wasn t intentional or that it is over. It's ingrained and endemic. Your handy quote list doesn't change that.[/quote]
In what way are the comments ‘taken out of context’?

They’re from a thread titled ‘You’re lucky if you don’t have to work’ and they’re agreeing with that statement.

Or do you think that pursuing your hobbies all day and feeling ‘fulfilled’ and ‘lucky’ constitutes patriarchal oppression?

GodOfPhwoar

"I do agree somewhat, but it’s also a risk to the man when he agrees to take the position as the primary breadwinner, because he no longer has his partner’s salary to fall back on and must assume all the stress of providing for his family and the following consequences should he ‘fail’, which which be laid at his feet rather than his spouse’s."

Of course. It's a greater risk for the man than for the woman in many cases, which is in part why so many men are understandably so reluctant to marry and to play devil's advocate you can sort of understand why, having committed themselves to having most of the money they accrue during their careers wiped out in the event that their wife divorces them, they want to get as much bang for their buck when they are married and would prefer for the woman to do the domestic heavy lifting. Its an unpleasant way to look at it but if I were a man and were working hard I probably would be instinctively resistant to scaling back my career.

I think the whole institution of marriage as it currently stands is disastrous to be honest. I think the idea that you frame your future financial securities around something so paper-thin as romance is one of the worst ideas society has ever invented, although I would recommend any woman who is planning not to work to take advantage of the security that marriage offers. While it works for the children, its often a bad deal for both partners.

If marriage is to be made to work to fit the needs of a modern society with at least some women earning as much as men it needs to be completely overhauled.

Built into it IMHO should be the assumption that if men want to retain more of their assets in the event of a divorce it is incumbent on them to participate to a greater degree in domestic work and childcare. And while some women will always want not to work, there's an attendant responsibility on the part of women that if they want a degree of freedom and autonomy within the marriage they need to take some degree of responsibility for their financial independence.

I don't know how you get to that from a legal standpoint - maybe you can't. It's mainly cultural and societal and its getting to a point that both partners anticipate a degree of dual participation both in being economically productive and in maintaining the household. The degree to which they do that can be calibrated but that has to be built into it.

‘Devil’s avocado’

I find these threads so interesting and also so depressing.

As people have said, so many reasons. Some start v young with the whole teaching little girls to be kind, and little boys to be bold etc. So much is structural and ingrained. I've come to the conclusion that in many many cases for women the adage of 'having it all' ie successful career and family life means 'doing it all'. Obviously that's only defining 'success' in one quite narrow way, but it just seems time and time again that women are carrying the majority of domestic chores and childcare (and exacerbated by lockdown and homeschooling) and all of the emotional load.

I earn more than DP despite being considerably more junior in my respective field (career change) due to the nature of the fields we each work in. Both work FT and I work considerably longer hours. I feel I do more domestic stuff than him, and the emotional load is very real.

When we (hopefully) start a family I would like him to take shared parental leave for part of the time (not 50:50 due to the physical toll pregnancy and childbirth takes not to mention BF) as when we are both ultimately back at work FT I don't want a precedent to have been set that I am the primary care giver. Would like a period where I go back to work and he takes over as primary care giver, to hopefully make us more likely to find an equal balance when we are both working (or indeed more skewed towards him slightly by virtue of home working in a more flexible/family-friendly field).

@thepeopleversuswork

GodOfPhwoar

"I do agree somewhat, but it’s also a risk to the man when he agrees to take the position as the primary breadwinner, because he no longer has his partner’s salary to fall back on and must assume all the stress of providing for his family and the following consequences should he ‘fail’, which which be laid at his feet rather than his spouse’s."

Of course. It's a greater risk for the man than for the woman in many cases, which is in part why so many men are understandably so reluctant to marry and to play devil's advocate you can sort of understand why, having committed themselves to having most of the money they accrue during their careers wiped out in the event that their wife divorces them, they want to get as much bang for their buck when they are married and would prefer for the woman to do the domestic heavy lifting. Its an unpleasant way to look at it but if I were a man and were working hard I probably would be instinctively resistant to scaling back my career.

I think the whole institution of marriage as it currently stands is disastrous to be honest. I think the idea that you frame your future financial securities around something so paper-thin as romance is one of the worst ideas society has ever invented, although I would recommend any woman who is planning not to work to take advantage of the security that marriage offers. While it works for the children, its often a bad deal for both partners.

If marriage is to be made to work to fit the needs of a modern society with at least some women earning as much as men it needs to be completely overhauled.

Built into it IMHO should be the assumption that if men want to retain more of their assets in the event of a divorce it is incumbent on them to participate to a greater degree in domestic work and childcare. And while some women will always want not to work, there's an attendant responsibility on the part of women that if they want a degree of freedom and autonomy within the marriage they need to take some degree of responsibility for their financial independence.

I don't know how you get to that from a legal standpoint - maybe you can't. It's mainly cultural and societal and its getting to a point that both partners anticipate a degree of dual participation both in being economically productive and in maintaining the household. The degree to which they do that can be calibrated but that has to be built into it.

I agree with most of this.

I think opportunity of equality is key, but if some women don’t want to work then they shouldn’t have to if their partner is also happy with this setup.

I may be a bit biased about the extent to which these women are oppressed because it always reminds me of my ex boss’s wife. He married his mum’s carer and she divorced him after five years, walking away with ‘about five million’ according to her. She definitely did well as she was driving a £100k Bentley Continental.

In that example, there is no way on earth she would’ve bought a Bentley with another five years of her nursing salary, and I almost feel it should’ve been adjusted to reflect the ‘median salary’ that she would’ve been on with another five years nursing experience. I strongly suspect that she married for the money as her next partner was a striking toyboy ten years her junior (she was quite a looker herself).

My boss used to joke that she loved him for his wit and not his chiselled good looks, but clearly what she loved him for was his wallet.

Having children is a SACRIFICE....

Financially, due to maternity/paternity leave and then because of the cost of childcare.

Time, it takes time and effort to care for a child/children even those who are in childcare/school.

Emotionally, it’s an emotional tug of war once you have a child you naturally want to put them first, however it’s not always possible to do this. Sometimes work and finances have to come first, and whilst it can be of benefit to the family/child it doesn’t always feel that way.

Now for the big one....

Biologically women can only be pregnant, and only women can physically have babies so that’s an inequality right from the start. The mere fact you are pregnant demands time out of the workplace (even though we are entitled) for medical appointments, and that’s if you have a straight forward pregnancy, you require more time off if your unwell, have complications, high risk etc. An expectant father physically has to go through none of these things, and whilst he could or may have time off to support his partner, that time off is not viewed in the same way by his workplace in comparison to how it’s viewed to the woman’s. And this is just pregnancy/birth, what if you have a miscarriage and require time off work....at this point the cat is out of the bag and work will just assume that you are now on the path to motherhood, and assume your priorities towards work will change in the future. The same goes if your going through fertility treatments, and the time off needed for appointments etc means that your workplace is in the know. Then what about once you’ve had the baby, you’ve suffered birth injuries, require physio or other medical interventions to recover, pnd or any other range of things that women physically go through post birth. You may have fully intended or needed to go back to work 6-8 or whatever weeks post birth, but post birth complications mean that it’s not possible to return to work in the same manner as previously. My point being is that you could plan for a pregnancy/birth/child to have as little impact as possible on your career and earning potential but just because you plan for it doesn’t mean that it will be the case.

Raising and caring for the child, this has become such an either or for woman. Either you stay home and raise your child OR you go back to work. Whichever you do both carry a sacrifice, and it’s this sacrifice that is most keenly felt by women. You stay home and sacrifice your career and earning potential or you go to work use childcare and then feel guilty for doing so and feel like you are missing out on your child. I’ve known many women do this, myself included and not one of those women have been or felt guilt free in their choice. Men just don’t feel this in the same way women do, men who take extended or shared paternity are in the minority, men who become stay at home dads are also in the minority, therefore it’s just not as expected of the men in society or in the workplace. The assumption in general is that a man will have a family and will likely return to work as normal, the same expectation is not held of women.

The value of staying home and raising children has been diminished over the years by society in general, not much respect if any is given to those who choose this path. If anything it’s somehow seen these days as a lazy thing to do, yet anyone who actually does or has done it will tell you that it’s no walk in the park. Staying at home to raise children is either viewed as being workshy, and if it’s not that it’s seen as a privileged position to be in, that your able to do it. Staying home and raising children used to be seen as a necessity, and it was recognised that raising children is important. Somehow this important part of life has become the woman’s sacrifice to make, and why?? Because men have always been in the workplace, women being the more recent addition, so it has been up to women to make the adjustment of adding work and careers to the list of things they already do, whilst men for the most part carried on as they always have done.

I'm not sure it does go wrong for women per se. For a lot of women I think they just stop judging their worth by their career 'level' and wage, which is a pretty crude measure of success tbh, and instead have a greater investment in their relationships, including their children if they have them. I think we often have a greater investment in the social world and it's harder to measure love or community or family, it's not so quantifiable as is wage and career 'level.' The women I know, some of them have done well career/income wise and others haven't so much, but they are all managing lots of different roles. Whereas the men tend to have one distinct role (Full time job, or sometimes full time SAHD). They don't have multiple different caring responsibilities and community responsibilities. They don't tend to look after their grandparents, or their grandchildren. And I think that is most obvious around the child raising years. But the pay off is in their relationships with their children and the social world. It's not all negative. It's just different

@GodOfPhwoar

‘Devil’s avocado’

Terry Pratchett GNU

The main factors are:

• women tend to choose jobs/sectors that pay less. This is because we are taught from a very young age which jobs are 'girl' jobs and which are 'boy' jobs.

• there is some research that looks at the compromises we all make when choosing jobs and it shows that both men and women choose jobs that are 'sex appropriate' over jobs that interest them.

• girls and boys are taught to behave differently and attributes that are key to success are thought of as being typically male.

• the working work is designed by men and therefore suits men - the book Invisible Women given a very interesting insight into this.

• there are deeply ingrained societal expectations around how men and women should behave at home and in the workplace.

• in many relationships women are younger meaning when they take a break to have children they aren't as far along in the career as their male partner meaning it often makes more financial sense for the woman to give up work /go part time.

@Chalkcheese

I'm not sure it does go wrong for women per se. For a lot of women I think they just stop judging their worth by their career 'level' and wage, which is a pretty crude measure of success tbh, and instead have a greater investment in their relationships, including their children if they have them. I think we often have a greater investment in the social world and it's harder to measure love or community or family, it's not so quantifiable as is wage and career 'level.' The women I know, some of them have done well career/income wise and others haven't so much, but they are all managing lots of different roles. Whereas the men tend to have one distinct role (Full time job, or sometimes full time SAHD). They don't have multiple different caring responsibilities and community responsibilities. They don't tend to look after their grandparents, or their grandchildren. And I think that is most obvious around the child raising years. But the pay off is in their relationships with their children and the social world. It's not all negative. It's just different

This.

The barometer for success should be a family’s happiness, not their financial income.

They’re from a thread titled ‘You’re lucky if you don’t have to work’ and they’re agreeing with that statement

A few of those quotes are from posters talking about other sahm they know...not themselves

There’s an irony here: on the one hand we want men to step up, to take more responsibility for childcare and caring duties; on the other hand, our society generally portrays childcare as a menial undertaking, a waste of one’s talents and potential, a step back in your life, a risk too big to take. Why would men flock to a field of activity that is so consistently devalued and that women themselves are urged to step aside from?

How you do change this? Well, you partly begin by addressing the economic worth of childcare (or lack thereof). You move away from having armies of horrendously underpaid young women (often less than £5 an hour), leading to swathes of poor childcare settings with low quality provision, low staff morale, high staff turnover. You look to somewhere like Sweden, where 1/2 of all preschool workers have an MA, where the status of what they do is valued both economically and socially. Unsurprisingly, that has led to more men working within those early years settings.

TLDR: if you want to incentivise and condition more people to undertake a certain activity, you don’t do that by devaluing its worth. That’s just basic social psychology.

1. They pay for childcare. Family income will be 22+12-14=20.
2. She gives up work. Family income will be 22
3. He gives up work. Family income will be 12

This is such an important illustration.

For all those saying women lose out on pensions, career advancement etc - well, yes, but 2k is a lot on this kind of salary and 2k could be the difference between affording the heating bill or not, or having a car or not, or a repayment vs interest only mortgage, or renting a studio vs a 1 bedroom flat (or somewhere with a garden or without).

I think a lot of people really don't have a choice, the only way having a kid actually works is if the lower earner gives up work.

In my case, I didn't go back to work with my second because the only way we'd break even would be if I put her in the cheapest nursery. The one where, when I asked how long the staff had been there, the woman I was talking to said "I've been here quite a long time now" when asked how long "4 months". The staff turnover was dreadful. The nursery was full of screaming children. If I could have put her in the lovely 'forest school' nursery down the road where they spent most of the day outside in their own small woodland, with organic lunches, which cost almost twice as much then I'd have been happy to go back to work. We simply couldn't afford that. As it was, I felt that me staying home was better for our child. And we went to 'forest school' together in that time.

So I sacrificed my pension and career progression for a better early years environment for my child. I find that very frustrating now, yes, there are parts of me that wanted to go back to work. It wasn't really a decision I wanted to make, but it was the only one that made sense in terms of quality of life for the whole family, in terms of what we believed was best developmentally for our child, and finances for the whole family.

Can I just say there have been some incredibly insightful contributions here and a discussion which is largely without any rancor. Chalkcheese, I think there is great wisdom in what you said and others have mentioned it too. I think women both instinctively 'get' the wider picture around relationships and having a full life outside of just the money, narrow-definition-of -success thing, are socialised to do so and of course in some cases may suffer a bit if they don't conform to this. But for most women, most of the time, it's a benefit if you take a holistic approach to life, having a better balance between all of these things. I think on the whole, women nowadays have a bit more choice than men in where they decide or end up on the continuum of 'full on, give everything to it career' to SAHM. I'm not sure men have as much choice to be fair

I also observe that quite a few of my friends who try and juggle work/motherhood end up neglecting their health due to lack of time/energy. For instance, my best mate used to be an athletic size 8 but she’s a right chubber nowadays!