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?

That would be a nice thread, ...Give me your stories of gaining victory over the patriarchy

Sadly my health deteriorated 18 months ago and I had to give up work and I am completely dependent on my husband's income now apart from the £300 PIP payment I get.

So what about people like me? What are we? Failures? A disgrace to womanhood for being reliant on our husbands?

What if your health deteriorated and you had to stop working? Would that mean you are no longer a feminist? Would you be stripped of that title because you're now reliant on your husband to support you? What would you class yourself as then?

There sort of are though.

Patriachy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has been very clever at taking Feminism and twisting it back into Patriachy, using women's desire to be reasonable and fair to turn our "liberated" choices right back looking after men's interests.

So, "we should not allow men to control our sexuality or tie our value to our chasity" became "we should prove our liberation by having lots of casual sex with different men"

"women should not be shamed for enjoying sex beyond the missionary position" became "women should ignore their own sexual boundaries"

"prostitutes should not treated as criminals because they are victims of abuse" became "prostitutes should not treated as criminals because sex work is just another type of work"

And in the case of relationships and parenthood: "liberated women should be equal partners not kept by a man" became "liberated women should not care about a man's ability to contribute financially, just that there is an emotional connection". The cocklodger phenomenon is a distortion of feminism.

What we are seeing in the "Feminism was bad for women" narrative is taking those corruptions of Feminism as proof that Feminism itself was a wrong move.

That’s great, and of course you should do what works for you. But it’s quite different from your original post, which created a hierarchy of feminism (not very feminist in itself) by claiming the “ultimate” feminist act is marrying for money.

I feel like you know that there are potentially many regressive things about viewing male and female roles in the way you do, and that might be why you’re so keen to frame it as feminist.

One person having all or most of the money can create quite a power imbalance, and in some cases can lead to abuse. I totally see why you’d be invested in claiming agency to choose and that the choice is feminist: you may actually be anxious about the dynamic. And rightly so, given all the horror stories I read on here.

In general I don’t see a lot of people who are truly confident in themselves and their choices loudly claiming they are a feminist.

Having said all this, if my DP was loaded I certainly wouldn’t be sad! 😂

This ideal relationship sounds like it's actually a transaction whereby the woman gives kids and love and warm fuzzies in exchange for money.

Feminism gives me choice.
My choice looks like not providing for a man, but equally not procreating with one that cannot provide for his family.
I accept he may not continue to do so when the family breaks down, which is why I'm also going to have the ability to provide for myself, because that's what the feminists in my family have taught me.

You are dead wrong. Like laughably, tragically wrong. If you think that’s what feminism means you should consult a dictionary urgently.

Oh 😊

Yeah, however you look at it, this is a transaction.You might go out to work if you have to, because he's suffered some horrendous unexpected disability, but the basic plan is you give him emotional support and he pays all the bills. The '50's are calling you.

To answer your question, no, I don't think that being with a man who will provide is the ultimate feminist act.

The opposite is the ultimate feminist act: carving out your own career and marrying someone who wants to be equals both at home and work.

Men dump their wives ALL the time. And they hide money, or they go self-employed and get paid under the counter, meaning they don't have to provide child support.

A man is not a plan. Sadly.

Feminism doesn't exclude the notion of teamwork. Just that you don't pick a man for the sole or primary purpose of securing a provider. As a feminist, I'd look after DH if he got incapacitated and I sure hope he'd do the same for me.

What's feminism got to do with choosing a man for his income?

I absolutely agree

Feminism is about liberating women from patriarchy. You are describing a patriarchal relationship.

You can choose whatever man you like, but you can’t choose for him not to leave you, start to abuse you, die, lose his job. All of which would leave you up shit creek if you’ve got no financial independence or means of gaining it.

@ByUmberTurtle

We don’t “ensure” anyone won’t leave but we can choose not to build with someone whose shirks responsibility the moment life gets hard.

But what you’re not acknowledging here is that the first clause of this sentence counteracts the second.

You can choose to duck someone who parades a row of screaming red flags, yes. But you simply cannot guarantee that someone will stick around. You can think you have done the correct due diligence and you have minimised risks and the perfect Nigel with his six figure salary can still fuck off with someone else after years of presenting the perfect facade. Or die. I have seen it happen so many times.

Choosing sensibly is common sense. But the only iron clad way to protect yourself is to make sure you don’t depend on someone else’s money. Period.

Of course that isn’t the ‘ultimate feminist act’. What a strange idea.

There has been an influx of this sort of posting recently. Women lose their looks over the age of 35 and can’t get a man! Being a single mum is depressing and miserable and anyone who enjoys it is a liar! Being feminist means abnegating your autonomy to a man! Honestly? I feel sometimes that there is a war being conducted against our rights as women and it’s being fought on these pages. Sounds histrionic as fuck, I know, but that’s how I feel. We are hanging onto our rights by a fucking thread.

@Mewling - i agree there seems to have been a bit of an influx of would-be tradwives and, for me at least, their thinking is a bit depressing, especially their conviction all women should share their ambitions. But at least we can debate the ideas with them on MN so I see some benefit from them posting here and being exposed to other thinking.

"the difference is, I expect a man to be comfortable with providing when I need to step back too"...

So do you mean the difference between you and some hypothetical other women is that they don't expect that a man should be prepared to step up to financially provide if they were unable to? I would think in normal healthy relationships, people do expect that their partner would step up for them in a crisis, step up emotionally, financially or whatever other way when they need it, but that goes both ways. I worked part-time where my husband took on the extra financial burden, but at another stage he went part-time when he was working on a qualification and that was where I took on the extra financial burden.

Or when you say "the difference is, I expect a man to be comfortable with providing when I need to step back too", do you mean that you'd both be expected to step up if either of you needed a break, but "the difference is" that he'd have to be comfortable with financially providing, but you don't have to step up to support him financially if he steps back?

@ByUmberTurtleGet up off your arse and do some real work!

Powerful?
Nope, pathetic. Utterly pathetic.
I weep at some of the tripe I read on here and have to check the calendar to see what year we are in. Having said that, my more recent ancestors were hardworking businesswoman and actually supported the menfolk (doing the family tree and learning a lot about my great and great great grandparents).
They would weep too I am sure.

🤣🤣🤣

Also - tread carefully @ByUmberTurtle before you cite biology here. One of the single strongest forces in evolution is a mother's drive to protect her young. An economy that entraps women into dependency upon men (historically, the norm) is very dangerous to children, should the man ever become dangerous. No responsible woman would have designed it that way.

The real question, then, is: how did we end up with a system like this?