Xenia, im sorry for this but, you brought it up - "On women getting good jobs I would like to see girls from council estates wanting to be prime minster, surgeons, running companies and I hope we can make all our daughters feel those choices are open to them and they should go for them rather than them saying women become housewives and men work because that's the role model they see at home. Once it is as likely a woman as man does a lot of things as is increasingly so then we don't need to worry so much.
Some very clever children are artistic and do well at academic schools. Some children are good at art and music and not very clever and I am sure parents try to pick the right schools for them. I have never said human beings aren't all entitled to equal rights under the law. I believe they are entitled to that but I do think we're all born very different and that any system which thinks they can make us all clones with the same IQ, same level of good or bad looks, same income, is doomed to failure. "
WTF???? All the while we have a teired education system then it is highly unlikely that children (boys or girls) from council estates, average working class families, etc will EVER be prime minister, or even get a foot into parliment. I am reasonably intelligent, and have a PhD to prove it. I was raised on a council estate, my mother was a cleaner and my father a railway worker. I went to the local comprehensive school (albeit a catholic one), was systematically bullied for being well spoken and a bit of a swat. It didn't take me long to find every excuse i could not to go to school. I left school having not sat my O levels even. I wonder if it would have been different if i had gone to the local private school (a very high profile public school). Whether i wouldnt have been bullied or the school would have dealt with it appropriately instead of my being labelled a pain the arse because my parents were always at the school tittle tattling to the head!
So there is already a divide, regardless of whether my mother worked. If she had a better job than she did they still wouldnt have been able to afford private school - so what, must I blame my mother now?
I feel so very strongly about private school - why Xenia are your children entitled to a better education than mine, simply because i have less money? I know that is a simplistic argument, but that is fundamentally what it boils down to. It is reasonable to expect that a child with less intelligence but a better education will do better than a child with high intelligence and poor education.
Also, expectations are not just set by our parents, its society. I AM an intelligent woman. I am a SAHM, and whilst my DD is little that is my choice. But i still don't have the confidence to chase that high flying job that im more than qualified to do. But we both know i have issues, so i cant really use myself as an example here.
Your last paragraph made me die laughing (well almost)"I do think we're all born very different and that any system which thinks they can make us all clones with the same IQ, same level of good or bad looks, same income, is doomed to failure" But isnt that exactly what you want us to do - we should all go out and get high powered high paying jobs in order to send the right message to our daughters about what is expected of them. If we don't do this, not only have we let our daughters down, we have let the whole of the human race down and any human suffering lies at our lazy SAHM feet!!
I think that is the key word here EXPECTATIONS, i think a truly happy person will only listen to their own expectations. Not their parent's, not societies, but to their own heart.
The toilet has to be cleaned, someone has to do it - i tend to be the chief toilet cleaner in this house - even when i worked beyond full time. I honestly don't think my DP has ever done it. I'm not sure why that is, he does pretty much everything else (i do it mostly now because im home). Thing is, i do actually quite like cleaning the toilet - its cathartic. I like the shineyness of it all. Do i feel put upon? No, not at all - often i can be on mnet being bone idle and DP will be running me a bath!! I just think it worked out that way, i hate housework and if i could afford it i would hire a cleaner. Toilet cleaning is just one of the household chores that i hate the least. I know plenty of men who clean the toilet though - its not a valid argument. I think feminism has (or at least should have) moved on a little since then.
Now im cross with myself, i said i woudlnt get involved, i said i woudlnt post an argument with you on this thread, because i hate that this has become personal. I like you, honestly i really do.
But don't you tire of the same old argument again and again and again? The problem with doing that is, you end up contradicting yourself. I'm going to go and clean the toilet now as a form of self punishment (good catholic girl that i am)