To think the ultimate feminist act is ensuring that a man will provide for you and your children?

[ByUmberTurtle]

Life is hard and motherhood is even harder. There’s no shame in struggling to balance work, kids, housework and everything else. Sometimes you have to step back from work, whether it’s due to childcare, burnout or health. In those moments, knowing that your man has your back financially isn’t just practical, it’s powerful.

I’m not a trad wife and I grew up with very ‘independent woman’ kind of parents. But honestly? I think the real regressive choice is staying with a man who can’t or won’t take care of you when it matters. I’d rather be a single mum than build a life with a man who leaves me vulnerable. Feminism should include the right to choose a relationship that brings security, not just survival.

AIBU?

OK so your partner is out there providing and protecting for you. Those are the things that he's demonstrably stepping up for and carrying the weight of. While he's doing all that, what weight are you carrying? What are you building? Are you just admiring him dreamily while you recline on the sofa eating grapes, or are actually doing something constructive and productive that helps build the relationship and your lives together?

@ByUmberTurtle just wondering what you think about this perspective?

People really do believe any old crap they want don’t they 🤦‍♀️

Obviously never (knowingly) been fucked over by one of these great providers.

Just because he can, it doesn’t mean he will.
He also may lose the ability to over the 18 odd years it takes to raise 1 child.

No amount of ‘discernment’ will prevent a car crash or messy divorce that leaves you both skint.

I don’t believe most women intentionally choose unreliable partners. But I also don’t think it’s shaming to say that discernment matters or that we can get clearer on what to prioritise in a long-term partner.

We’re allowed to talk about patterns. We’re allowed to reflect on the kind of traits that tend to create stability, not just charm or chemistry but emotional maturity, consistency, and yes, sometimes financial readiness. That’s not gloating, it’s learning, often from our own mistakes or what we’ve seen around us.

This isn’t about blaming women for being let down. It’s about saying that you are allowed to expect more and you are allowed to be selective. You are allowed to say financial readability matters and not feel ashamed for that. That’s not the opposite of feminism. In my view, it’s an expression of it.

Yep

Often shamed by who?

You can't seriously be telling me that women are "often shamed" for having children and being parents?

This is what I mean when I'm saying it's not tallying with real life. There are literally no main stream media sources disparaging women for being SAHMs. In fact, as you well no Mrs "I'm not a trad wife but", it's becoming more and more common in mainstream media to actively celebrate and romanticise the role of homemaking.

And when I say drivel, it's because you're just repeatedly going on and on about what you expect from a partner, and are correlating that (for some unknown reason) with feminism. In fact, the only way you're correlating this ever so strong desire for a "provider" with feminism, is to claim feminism doesn't want you to have a husband who provides for you. And then you say your opinion isn't political. Okay babe.

Another thread passively aggressively blaming women for the ineptitudes and inadequacies of men. How refreshing. 🙄

You do know that there were ancient societies in the world where women were warriors and hunters? That it was always assumed that skeletons buried with armour and weaponry were bodies of men, but with DNA testing many have now been discovered to be women? People fling around reductive and ill-informed ideas that assume 'the past' was a homogenous place but there is huge variety in the ways in which people have always lived. Go and do some reading around it; it will blow your mind - and all of your false assumptions.

Exactly and that’s part of what I’m saying. Feminism gave us the freedom to choose, not just freedom from mistreatment but also the freedom to aspire to more in our relationships.

For some of us, that means choosing a partner who offers emotional and financial stability, not because we have to but because we can. The fact that we can walk away when things go wrong is powerful but I’d also like us to feel equally empowered to choose well from the start, to honour our needs and to seek out partners who show up fully, not just when we hit crisis point.

“For me, that includes admiring a man who feels good about providing”. @ByUmberTurtle this sounds so idealistic. He does the work while you admire from a distance and he does it gladly? I married a man who at times (to be fair most of our relationship) has contributed more financially than I have. He's done it gladly because I don’t take the piss! We have choices and we have control and I’m not giving up all of my financial control for anyone. Even when I earned less than him I knew I could financially support myself and my children if he ever left. That’s my ideal. Also, I could name you a million other ways that he supports me, it’s about so much more than financial .

How do you tell the difference between someone who says their values align with yours but they were lying to please you or maybe they did align but twenty years later the two of you no longer share the same values? What surety does anyone have that another person will grow with you and not away from you?

This is all what people under 40 think, and those of us over 50 know is just cute optimism.

100%. And even in the time period of homesteading which is really popular to romanticise at the moment, the vast majority of women worked fucking hard. Hours of hard labour. They were providers of the family too.

What traits are you bringing to the relationship that tend to create stability? Apart from charm and chemistry? Clearly it's not financial readiness so what value is it that you're adding?

Is the sole purpose of men to provide for women?

Can someone be a feminist and choose to have children with a man who provides financial security? Yes.

Is it 'the ultimate feminist act'? No. How laughable that you'd say this in a world where women have in some cases had to go on hunger strike or to DIE for their desire to see women independent and free? Ultimate my arse.

Feminsim is about many things, and of course feminists do not all agree on what those things are. What I can say for sure though is that feminism is not just about seeking financial security for yourself and your children via a man.

Why cant a woman work and be the main breadwinner and man stay home? Why is it always women who have the choice and men just have to do what the woman have decided, how is that feminism?

I think you’re imagining a chaise lounge that doesn’t exist. Providing and protecting are important to me, yes, but they don’t cancel out my own contributions. The weight I carry might not always look the same as his but that doesn’t mean it’s any less real or constructive. Emotional labour, practical decision-making, managing the flow of life, nurturing a home, and yes, often working or earning too, are all part of what I bring to the relationship.

I’m not interested in a man who needs constant applause. I’m interested in a man who finds dignity in showing up for his family, just like I do in showing up for mine, in ways that suit both our capacities. That might not be a 50/50 split on every spreadsheet but it is mutual investment and balance.

So no, not grapes on the sofa. Just a relationship where both people give deeply, sometimes differently but always intentionally.

It’s not about keeping score, it’s about choosing someone who values the protector-provider role rather than resents or avoids it

But this should not be linked to masculinity. Otherwise you will get a man who resents you working especially if you become the higher earner. I have had several friends husbands who only became abusive when they wanted to return to work after the kids were school age. These men valued the provider role as a masculine role. They didn’t want that role usurped from them by the mother of their children.

It’s one I don’t disagree with. The systemic failures around childcare, parental responsibility and economic safety nets do disproportionately burden women and that shouldn’t be the case. Feminism at its core is about structural change, not just personal choice and you’ve articulated that really clearly.

Where my post sits is more at the individual agency level. While we wait (and fight) for systemic shifts, women still have to make choices in the world as it currently is and one of those choices, for me, is seeking a partner who won’t leave me carrying the load alone. That means someone who sees provision not as a weapon or burden but as a form of care. It’s not about dependency, it’s about discernment in a context that’s already uneven.

So yes, society needs to fix the wider structures. But I also believe women are right to want security in the meantime and to ask that the men in their lives meet them with integrity, responsibility and grounded partnership.

Yes and in the ‘hunter-gatherer’ societies of temperate climates they have found that over 75% of the caloric and nutritional needs of a family were provided for by the gatherer/herder not the hunter.

These posts are popping up over Mumsnet all the time right now. Tradwife-adjacent, with absolutely nothing to say beyond some wafty drivel about finding a rich man and not bothering your pretty little head about the pressures of work (because of course no woman could have a fulfilling and rewarding career that she enjoys!) It's all very Instagram-platitudes, zero substance, no engagement with specifics or answers to any questions. It's designed to be placed over a photo of a sun setting over the fields while a woman stands there in a long dress and perfect hair and adorable children at her bare feet while she smiles blissfully at her handsome 'provider' husband.

In short, this flood of conservative posts we're subject to right now are wildly patronising and assume that the women of Mumsnet are a lot stupider than we are. Shows you what they think of women in general!

I'm trying to work out what it is you're bringing to a relationship given you have very explicit requirements for your partner but very vague ideas about what it is you'll be bringing to the party to balance his effort and responsibilities. If you'll not be reclining on a sofa, and you clearly expect your partner to take the lead in financial responsibilities, what exactly do you see yourself doing all day while he's out at work keeping a roof over your head?

Eg, surely you would expect your partner to be doing emotional labour, practical decision making, and "managing the flow of life" (whatever that's supposed to mean) as well as you? That all sounds like basic adulting to me. So while he's doing all that PLUS he's providing and protecting for you, what are you doing to balance out his extra effort? What else are your capacities that can't necessarily be shown on a spreadsheet that equal everything that he's doing that you're not?

So you want a relationship where a man provides for you when you’re incapacitated for any reason, and where you provide for him when he’s incapacitated? Sounds fine, v much like a healthy relationship.

You’re right that there’s a cultural swing towards romanticising homemaking right now but that doesn’t cancel out the fact that women are often mocked, side-eyed or accused of “lacking ambition” when they express a preference for traditional dynamics in a relationship. It’s not about being shamed for having children, it’s about the conditions in which we’re expected to have them. Expressing a desire for security, stability and a partner who provides consistently is still met with suspicion in many circles, especially online. You’re doing it yourself by calling it “drivel” and accusing me of playing dress-up in a trad wife costume when I’ve been quite clear that I work, contribute and value mutual support.

You may not agree with me tying my personal boundaries to broader themes, that’s fine. But feminism, at its core, is about the freedom to choose the life that aligns with your values, not about shaming other women for wanting something different than you. If I choose a relationship model rooted in mutual care, financial provision and role complementarity, that doesn’t mean I’m holding a placard against women who do things differently.

The idea that every personal boundary must be scrubbed clean of political meaning is, frankly, naive. We live in a society where relationship norms are politicised, whether we want them to be or not. I’m not claiming victimhood, I’m claiming space. And if you’re truly secure in your own values, mine shouldn’t bother you this much.