To think a lot of women are worse off than 50 years ago?

[Tsort]

A certain type of person is nostalgic for the old days when ‘men were men, and women were women’. I am not. However, it must be noted that at the time when women were expected to be docile acquiescent homemakers, men were expected to foot the bill. They paid for dinner, sorted the mortgage and brought home the bacon. Not for me, but a fair division of labour.

Now, we have a generation of women who ‘pay their way’, go Dutch and refuse to let men pay for them as they don’t want to be indebted. Grand.

But, these same women also do the lion’s share of housework, because ‘men don’t see it’ and shoulder the emotional labour because ‘that’s just the way men are’.

So, women are now shouldering some of the traditionally male burdens while the traditional female burdens have remained firmly in place. How is this an improvement for women? And why do so many tolerate it? This is a profound misunderstanding of feminism and it hurts so many of us.

Of course it's implying it's an immoral choice if you're saying the choice harms women.

Which is one of the reason we have a housing crisis. Something that no government will admit publicly

Case in point, of many on here. www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4641254-to-ask-how-messy-your-house-really-is

"DH works away a lot of the time. Weekends seem to slip away. Do people manage to do things when they have 2 small DC - I can't leave mine for more than 5 mins really. And the small one just clings to me constantly. He won't let me go.
WHERE IS THE TIME?
I promise you - it's not usual levels of mess. it's making me so stressed. Every where I look there is dust, dirt, random socks.
I think I need to stop looking at Stacy Solomon on Instagram.
Any tips at all? How do I get on top of my life?"

Just why? The child wants their mum, the house needs to be seen to, proper meals, less stress.

Just why do you all advocate for this hellish existence all the time?

I really resent this feminism guilt tripping by which the only way a woman can ‘be a true feminist’ is to have a career that may well be making her stressed and miserable, just because she can, and to wear unisex clothes and have short hair and refuse to acknowledge the natural differences between the sexes beyond the physical.

Because that isn’t equity. We don’t need to play men at their own game. It isn’t necessary and we won’t win. What we should be looking at is whether women are happy, have options and feel able to take them, feel valued and respected in society regardless of whether they’re a mother or have a career or are single. Whether our healthcare is up to scratch and takes into account our biological differences, whether motherhood is being supported both as SAHMs and in the workplace.

Trying to force us into the ‘man’s mould’ just means we’re playing the game by their standard and their rules. Whereas the two sexes have different needs.

@MsPincher

Your mistake is that you think having different roles in a relationship is “unequal” and therefore bad and also you mistake “achievement” as having to mean career success. There are all kinds of achievements. A happy family and situation for yourself is also an achievement.

What a grey oppressive world you seem to want where all couples must be forced into equal amounts of payed work and house work/child rearing regardless of personal inclination.

Ever heard of people complimenting one another?

@keepmywifesnameoutchagoddammouth

Changing it to provide rather than career doesn't negate the point.

You still can't have it both ways.

Either its a natural instinct or it's not

And if its natural it can be natural in women aswell as men

It patently is and always has been.

Lol - she doesn’t even say she works or doesn’t. Her post is about small children being hard work. Which they are. And horrendously messy. But that stage passes.

She does, she says she works full-time.

@keepmywifesnameoutchagoddammouth

No. I dont think its immoral for women to opt out of the workforce.

People will do what they want.

You just can't deny the impacts

I think it is fairly uncontroversial to note that men and women still use (or have to use) time very differently - that men (on balance at a population level) have more leisure time, less demands on their time from family and care, more time for career advancement.
One could argue that the mistake of feminism was to argue for female advancement along the lines of how male time was spent - so equality as equal pay for equal work, the ability to work unencumbered by childcare, the ability to have sex without the consequences of pregnancy, ability to basically do what men do (does anyone seriously want to argue we should be without these things?)
However, in the 1970s (and before) that was only one half of what has argued for by feminists - antenatal and maternity care, infant welfare and provision, family allowances have been fought for and achieved. There have also been campaigns for ‘wages for housework’ - less successful but those arguments were made in the 1970s.
But were there ever arguments that men should adapt to female patterns of time use, who advocated that? That was left to the few enlightened men to adopt, or for the house to become a battlefield over chores (which wealthier couples side-step by simply buying in (female) help). No-one was arguing that men adopt female patterns of time use because these were devalued and not appreciated. And it is this problem - that men have not adapted to female patterns of time use, and women basically need to fit it all in somehow - which is the crux of the matter. The problem is not that women have sought political, professional and civic equality and their lives were better without that; it is that there has been no collective will by men to take on the roles which took up/take up women’s time in any meaningfully balanced way.

My choice harms women, but it doesn't harm me.
Something's amiss.

@Topgub

If the impact is other women who want the choice seeing it is possible and then doing it then that’s a good impact.

I dont.

I advocate for men to do their share.

Not to fuck off and leave it all to the wee wife at home

@keepmywifesnameoutchagoddammouth shall I start posting the numerous "my husband has cheated and left us" posts by jilted SAHMs now financially vulnerable?

Who has said anything about “couples being forced into equal amounts of paid work”? That poster’s husband does nothing in the house or with childcare and prohibits her from working outside the home so she can run about after him. Of course that’s an unequal relationship!

@TinaPoopsy52

Nah.

The impact is men not parenting equally and furthering their careers at the expense of women.

Women don't need to be shown that being a sahm is an option. It'd forced down their throats as what they should be doing from birth

We need to teach girls to aim high.

It’s not a benefit to women as a group to see that they can submit themselves to men.

But it’s like this - why have women only started to want careers now? Now you may say because men stopped them on the past but in reality it’s only the last hundred years we’ve even been pushing for it.

This simply is not the case; not least, previously it was less about whether women wanted careers or not but the simple matter of survival. From the dawn of our species, women have worked. In early hunter gatherer societies, both the hunting and the gathering were equally essential. Without both elements coming together, the tribe would starve. As societies began to develop, it was only the very wealthy of both sexes who didn't work. Pre-industrial revolution women worked in fields. Cottage industries sprang up everywhere: consider where the word 'spinster' originally comes from. Back in the Victorian era, working-class women had no choice but to throw in their lot as far as paid labour was concerned, others worked as paid governesses, and as for World War I, there were few women not throwing in their lot for the common good.

Those are the 'traditional' wives and women. What's referred to upthread as 'trad wife' is the anomaly. That figure only came into being with the interwar marriage bar on professional females and then came to be accepted as the social norm. It isn't. And it never was.

All this stuff about 'natural inclination' is simply the reinforcing of specific gendered stereotypes which are as inaccurate as they are regressive and unhelpful. On that theme, my above comment wasn't intended as another variation on the everlasting theme of WOHM vs. SAHM. I've little interest in how other households structure their lives. But if you've opted for a full-time career and STILL find yourself picking up the bulk of the housework and childcare, then this outcome is (as ever) working to the benefit of men and the detriment of the woman concerned. In which case, something's gone badly wrong somewhere.

And (continuing my thoughts) the fact is that without financial independence, social and reproductive autonomy, women have vastly fewer choices in life.
going back to the early 1970s, my mother could not keep her PhD funding when she had her second child; she could not open a bank account when married without her husband’s permission; there was no childcare if she wanted to work; her single friend was paid less than men for the same job; she had no options if she wanted to leave her marriage because she was not earning any money; she didn’t even have an automatic washing machine to make the domestic work easier.

@TinaPoopsy52 it’s also not good for men or children for women and men to show the example of women doing everything at home and men being disengaged.

Sure, but you also get those for working wives so what point would it prove?

People don’t exist to propagate somebody else’s worldview. If they’re happy, that’s the most important thing. And since when did people copy their parents? Did you?

Just why do you all advocate for this hellish existence all the time?

That's not my life. You make realise it's different for everyone. I work full time and bring in more than my husband (a lot more) I work flexibly, I go to every play, every parents meeting, every sports day. I WFH 4 days a week. I have a cleaner, I cook, DH cleans up and does laundry. We both do homework and share pick ups. We are financially stable with excellent pensions, big house, extra curricular and lots of experiences and holidays for our kids BUT most importantly, I bloody love my job. DH and I are close with our kids, and they're thriving and happy. Sometimes I'm stressed, sometimes I'm tired, (though genuinely not often, only when it's one of those weeks where everything happens at once, we all know the ones!) but I'm fulfilled, and I do a job that does a lot of good, and I believe we are modelling very healthy roles to our kids and good work ethic. (DH has a good job too, but this is about me )

How is it submitting to a man?
I'm not financially independent, no one in a family is.

@MsPincher

If one person in the couple does all the payed work and the other does all the house work and day to day grunt work of child rearing (I assume he still spends time with his kids hopefully) I would regard that as an equal relationship. It’s just one with divided responsibilities.

Might not be for you but works well for many as people can get on with their role and be master/Mistress of their own chosen domain. Frankly it’s a lot less stressful than both trying to do it all and constantly re arranging work and kids scheduling. I can’t imagine anything worse than that kind of “equality”.