To ask why women are expected to do everything?

[HolyGuacamole28]

I read a depressing article in the Economist today ‘How Motherhood affects careers’ and it stated how more and more women are not progressing as they should after having children. And SAHP is on the rise as more people opt out of a system doomed to failure. I just don’t understand how mothers are physically supposed to work full time in a career/senior role (I do), manage a household (I have a 4 year old, 2 year old and a husband, also FT) that includes washing, cleaning, cooking etc and do activities with the kids, keep fit and see friends. Is this what society expects? Who is supposed to do the household role if both adults work full time? And why do we need two incomes just to survive? (COL is so painful re mortgages, childcare, energy, food). Rant over, just can’t see how society has evolved, it’s just put more on our shoulders. I’m personally at breaking point.

So at what point are women going to say no?...it's many people's human nature to let others do the work so we need to say no not wait around until people stop expecting it....did the suffragettes just wait to be given the vote saying the mean men won't give it to us? How long are we going to use the excuse of it's not our doing....it's just as much ours unless you believe every man is a coercive arse. If you go into a relationship and the division is not fair speak up or leave if you have kids say yes I'm home but I'm not doing everything....how many women on here are saying but he works 30 hours I'm home I must do everything? It's nuts.

Exactly

I think someone needs to read a bit more anthropology. It's a wee bit more nuanced than Big Men Run After Mammoth With Spears While Women Feed Babies And Gather Berries and interesting what assumptions were made over the centuries with zero (or even conflicting) evidence....

Sarah Lacey's work is a good place to start.

Post like this erase the reality of things. Most women have worked and have always worked in some capacity.

they took on washing, ironing mending etc because money was usually tight.

most women didn’t want to be a live in servant without agency or access to their own money subject to the whims of their husbands who don’t think that they need to be involved in family life past paying bills and a paltry wife allowance.

in an ideal world everyone would have the option to be a SAHP and there’d be safe guards against financial ruin and exploitation of the home based parent but there isn’t. so for many women there will always be safety and power in continuing to earn their own money and expecting their husbands to present parents and partners in family life.

reliance on another humans continual goodwill for your livelihood is a dangerous game

It’s not only women who are enabled to work by outsourcing domestic jobs. But it’s only women who outsource domestic jobs and then pat themselves on the back for their feminist career triumphs, ignoring the fact that they depended on a woman who doesn’t get to have a personally fulfilling, “empowered” career. If that doesn’t describe your situation, then I’m not talking about you. But it does describe a lot of the people who determine the media narrative about what counts as a “feminist concern” and what doesn’t, which I referred to in my post.

I'd love to live in a world where women just refusing to tolerate this changed the world.

Not going to happen. You only have to look at the gendered division of clothes and toys to see the social conditioning that women are subject to even as children (even if they are lucky enough to have enlightened parents). This is where it begins. Add in the fact that many women live in families and cultures where this is still expected. For many women doing the majority is a social norm still. Some women will be subject to abuse or violence if they protest or will have been manipulated into thinking somehow the situation is fair.

Women who can safely stand up and shout loudly should do so - I certainly do. But I don't expect all women to be able or even want to do that. Any why are we devaluing 'women's work' any way? Some women love being a mum and homemaker and those that do perform a valuable service that really works for children. Although I'd personally hate it, I'd far rather that these women were given respect and financial protection for what they do in the same way as those who support their family through working do. I believe both roles are equal. Some parents are better than others just as some people earn more than others, but in principle it's the same.

All 3 of my married/ long term partner sons are in equal partnership with their OHs. Raised by me alone.
It doesn't have to be any other way.

I think younger generations are starting to get this more. There was a fascinating article and thread on Twitter/X by John Burns-Murdoch recently looking at the increasing political divide between young women and young men, which in part seems to be driven by young women going "hang on, no, not for me" and a backlash by some young men against that who then turn to more conservative views, including on gender-related issues such as gender roles. So for eg in the US, way more Gen Z women call themselves feminists than ever before but fewer Gen Z males do that millennials.

It's particularly stark in South Korea around women's roles and inherent desires.

Better still, don't get into relationships with them in the first place.

There's no crystal ball that will tell you that the man who cooks and cleans now will sit on the sofa surrounded by coke cans playing video games in ten years.

If there was, Dsis wouldn't now be divorced because she would have not married him in the first place.

This

I honestly don't think they would change. Because, and this is the elephant in the room, typically, men are less bothered about having children and living 'family life' than women. So if women refused to have families with these men, there wouldn't be enough good ones to go round (because it's not just a few 'dinosaurs' is it? It's countless, if not most men who don't pull their weight) So many women would end up not having families at all. Meanwhile, Manchild over there on the X box gets to carry on his life undisturbed by the inconvenience, and if he's pleasant, reasonable looking and with at least some superficial charm, will probably by able to find female company when he wants it.

I think I fundamentally disagree that those women are much more than a construct of a certain media narrative rather than widespread reality.

But deconstructing your framing for a moment - the woman who has achieved that (depending on the paid labour of mostly other women) will have had a (generally) more challenging path to achieve that goal than the man who has achieved the same thing depending on the paid or unpaid labour of a woman or women.

So yeah, I do question the framing of whether women should be held to a more ideal standard and why these OTT tropes are wheeled out, while agreeing that fundamentally feminist issues are things like widespread access to affordable childcare, wage equality (where some of the biggest wins and strides in recent years have been won by poorly-paid women), accessibility and quality of healthcare and other issues that aid the equality and liberation of the vast majority of women. Is part of that having more women in boardrooms and the senior eschelons of power? Yes for sure - just look at Helen Macnamara's testimony to the Covid inquiry for some good case studies of why that matters.

Men at work don't clean their own offices and factories. Hell, a lot of them don't even wash their own mugs at the kitchenette unless their boss tells them to. A cleaner, usually female, comes every morning, really early, to clean the loos and empty the bins and hoover the floors. Men with SAH wives don't pay their wives a wage for housework.

Yet when men pat themselves on the back for their career triumphs that are enabled by a woman cleaning their workplaces, they are not criticised for standing on a poorer woman's back to get there the way that a career woman who hires a home cleaner is. I wonder why that is?

And when men pat themselves on the back for their career triumphs that are enabled by their wives literally working in the home for free, they are not criticised for standing on their wives' back to get there the way that a career woman who hires a home cleaner is. I wonder why that is too?

The second that you realise that there is no moral difference between hiring someone to clean the offices and the factory floor and the boardroom, and hiring someone to clean a house, you realise that criticising women who hire house cleaners is another form of misogyny.

The woman who pays to have her home cleaned recognises that this is work that should be paid for, unlike the man who expects his wife to do it for free.

Men with SAH wives don't pay their wives a wage for housework.

That actually should just say "Men don't pay their wives a wage for housework" because women with paid jobs also do more housework than men.

The 2008 crisis is a firm dividing line. The dividing line is roughly between age 41 and 45. Me and DH fall either side of it.

The difference is stark in our local community.

We have a lot of slightly older friends - they could afford much bigger properties despite having a much lower income at the same age. They paid the mortgage off by 50. They all had women who were able to be staying at home parents.

The parents of DS's peers are totally different. Both parents work in professional jobs or they can't afford to move to the area. Behaviour at school has plummeted. School who are desperate for parental support from volunteers for various activities struggle to get it because parents are working which was never previously a problem. The birth rate has dropped so considerably it's having an impact on all the local schools. The parents are constantly stressed and this impacts the kids. They are mortgaged up to the hilt and beyond and often have needed help to get started from parents

@RedToothBrush What you write here summarises so clearly what I’ve noticed among my peer group, and currently see playing out in local schools (ex-primary teacher and current governor and volunteer).

Most of my school and university friends had their kids relatively young - mid to late 20s - and prior to the 2008 crash. Back then I thought they were crazy to tie themselves down so young, but almost all of them are settled, comfortably housed (albeit generally in homes smaller than those they grew up in) and were able to work on a very part-time basis at least while their DC were in primary school.

DP and I, though, waited until 37 and 44 respectively to have DD and there’s a stark contrast to the above among our own peer group of parents. Almost everyone works FT. We still live in the same area as my friends with their now teenaged DC, but we’re all crammed into homes that are really too small for us, and no one can afford the next rung up on the housing ladder. Everyone is incredibly frazzled and distracted, all of the time. All the kids are in wall-to-wall childcare, during both term and holiday times, and behaviour in local schools has undoubtedly dipped (teachers in the school I volunteer in now talk of a second group of ‘disadvantaged’ children: those with two FT working parents, as behaviour and attainment among this group is becoming a big concern).

I count myself incredibly lucky not to be in this boat, although this is more by luck than judgment. DP is in IT and earns enough for me not to have to work at present (I am a massive outlier in DD’s primary and one of very few parents in a position to help out). We have just the one DD by choice, and are planning to move out of our Outer London suburb to somewhere more affordable within the next year - again, fortunate that we have this option available to us. Lots of our friends acknowledge that the ads simply ‘stuck’.

It's better to remain single or even have children alone by choice than be in a relationship with a useless waste of skin like that though. It might take time, but I do think one way (not the only way) men would be propelled into change is if women stop enabling them. I agree about other changes starting much sooner though, like relationship education in school driving the point that parenting and domestic tasks are as much a man's responsibility as a woman's.

I really take issue with some people's questioning of feminism and women working being a bad thing. Firstly, as many have pointed out, women working isn't a new thing. Secondly, working isn't a gendered pursuit, and I don't think viewing it as such is good for anyone. Everyone should have access to work and the same opportunities. But parenting and domestic tasks aren't gendered either – apart from the very obvious things men can't do in the early months/years like birth and breastfeeding, all other aspects can and should be shared.

I really don't think a world before feminism where women's role in society was limited and laid out for them was a good one. The problem is that society doesn't facilitate equality as much as it should, childcare is too expensive, as is housing and the cost of living, but the answer to that IMO is more socialist policies at a high level to control these things, not a model that sends women back to the home and takes away choice.

I also do agree with the posts about personal responsibility and agency. Yes, sexism and sexist expectations absolutely exist but some women on here, myself included, grew up in this society too yet manage to say no to being part of that, refuse to entertain relationships with men who don't pull their weight, don't care whether some irrelevant old gammons think we're womaning properly, and speak up for what we want and expect. I grew up in a house where my dad was a useless layabout and my mum did everything but I could see it was bullshit even as a kid. I don't have special powers that insulated me from the effects of a patriarchal society, I just made an active choice not to live like that or associate with men who think like that, and more women do need to make choices that protect their own needs. Like a PP said, it's not about training men, whose shitty behaviour is 100% their own fault, it's about not going anywhere near those men in the first place (or ending relationships that don't meet your standards, and protecting your own financial security).

I agree
Go back from mat leave and do everything
Yes several have cleaners etc
Dp has done
approx 1 dishwasher load this month (out of 30)
Tidied kitchen once
Cooked maybe 2 meals in a month

Honestly its not even just about the laziness but re the kids
he wouldnt send them with pe kit or in pe kit
Wellies
Lunch
Coats

Etc if i dont sort on a day out we have twice arrived with no coat for dc
We prioritises himself (his shower, his coat, wallet etc) never remind kids to go to toilet

Whilst im sure i his head he is doing too much (yes his own stuff!!)

I did 100% of night feeds (incl rill one was 3/5yo)

Ive done all homework with kids - i think he read with one 4 times

And for 7 years i was putting them both to bed

The disorganisation and lack of self motivation

We started equal --- until having kids

However some women are obsessed with cleaning and washing etc so i can see why men wouldnt raise to those particular standards.

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia (that’s a fantastic username, BTW) Personally, I’d love to hire a part-time employee to help me clean my house, and I say that as a SAHM. I have ADHD and my house is a disaster. But there is indeed a certain type of woman who depends on poorer, less educated women, who don’t have opportunities to advance far in life, so they can advance in their careers and pat themselves on the back for being feminist.

Last spring, I hired two professional organizers to help me with my house for a few days. They were women in their late fifties who have had a home organizing business since 2005; they had a real talent for organizing, and I was amazed at how much they got done. But most women who have long-term jobs cleaning houses aren’t business-savvy professionals. They’re a perpetual underclass, economically-speaking - unless this is very different in the UK, which I don’t think it is. (I’m American.)

Men aren’t criticized for relying on women’s domestic work to advance their careers?! Maybe, if you’re a time-traveler from 1965. Besides, this is Mumsnet, of all places. Surely we don’t need anyone to explicitly state, “Men depend on women to do the domestic work that they don’t do themselves!” as though it’s some kind of revelation.

My husband doesn’t need to “pay” me for being a SAHM and doing housework while he’s working at his job. All the money he earns is in a joint account, and we spend it on what we need and some things we want. I probably buy more non-necessary things than he does, because I spend more time in stores seeing non-necessary things. (And because he seems to think the only reason to replace his clothes is if they no longer fit or have literal holes in them.)

I'd love to see free childcare, up to 60 hours per week day or night (I'll explain that figure below) for all single parents, paid for out of general taxation. No woman (or man, even though that's the minority case) should be unable to leave an abusive relationship because they need the abuser's money to raise the kids.

The side effect of this would be that women could go it alone, using mat leave and free childcare to carry on working.

60 hours: the Working Time Directive specifies a maximum work week of 48 hours unless the worker chooses to sign the opt-out (which I think should be outlawed but hey ho). Add another two hours per day, six days per week, for commuting, and that gives 60 hours. This is on top of any time spent at school because shift workers can't always work during school hours on school days. All single parents would also have a right to access overnight childcare as part of their sixty hours.

It sounds dire but it's a lot less dire than cases I've been aware of where parents have come off a night shift and can't sleep before their next shift because they've got to care for the kids and end up being awake for 48 hours at a time or longer.

I completely agree. I think using taxes to pay for such a model would be a better use of public money than child benefit, personally. In the Nordic countries childcare is heavily subsidised, shared parental leave is standard (and longer I believe) and some companies have 4 day weeks or 6 hour days as standard. Genuine equality in terms of parenting, work and domestic duties is common there. Worth paying higher tax for IMO.

@YankSplaining My husband doesn’t need to “pay” me for being a SAHM and doing housework while he’s working at his job. All the money he earns is in a joint account

That's fine if you've bagged a bloke who isn't an abuser, doesn't have a gambling addiction, and isn't about to siphon all the joint account money into his new personal account so that he can run off with OW. Too many women find out too late that they've bagged a shitty bloke.

The women who clean loos and boardrooms in workplaces are also poorer and less-educated, often Black, yet this use of underpaid women is literally business as usual and does go uncriticised by the same people (Owen Jones I'm looking at you) who like to have digs at career women for hiring a cleaner.

My daughter is coming 30 she is in a professional career that she has worked bloody hard to get into, but is now beating herself up at the thought of having to choose between her career and a family, if she does have children and takes time off the men in the firm will move ahead and the mothers will always be playing catch up its not fair what is the point of women breaking down barriers to do these jobs then be punished for it !!

Can we also just pick up on the fact apparently we should just be hiring cleaners/nanny’s/childminders. Unless you are on a ridiculous salary (£100k plus), then the only person that benefits is the tax man as you end up working long hours and get minimum wage equivalent when all the jobs you don’t have time for you need to pay someone else to do.

Also, have you tried getting a cleaner and childminder / baby sitter because where I live you are lucky if you can find someone that does a half arsed job and then charges £18.50 an hour! And I live outside London. It’s not about just paying someone to do the things you cant. What you end up with is absolutely no time for your family or heaven help you start thinking about time for yourself.

I am afraid it doesn’t work when both parents work full time jobs (with a lot of free overtime) and have children. What we need is an acceptance of a 4 day week (not compressed hours), for men as well. Gen z don’t want to work a standard 9-5.30 working week, not when you make more money on tick tock or other nonsense, so I suspect it will change at some point.

I'm with you.

I just don't relate to the comments who describe housework etc as a full time job, especially when fairly shared between 2 people. I don't find it particularly stressful either.

It's just part of being an adult.

I agree housework isn't time consuming, but the things involved in running a family/household are.