To think that all those generations of women who battled for equality for women have actually achieved nothing!

[flixx]

All that has changed is that women are now expected to go out and work and well as still being souly responsible for the vast majority of domestic stuff and childcare.

Womens lives aren't better or easier, infact they are now so complicated that half of us are so stressed and knackered we don't even remember who we are anymore.

The role of a mother is less valued by society than it has ever been when we all know that it truely is THE hardest job ever.

Do you literally mean you bought an island????!

Most mothers in the UK work and have children and most prefer that. My grandmother and great grandmother worked by the way and would have starved if they hadn't. Work is not a new things women are suddenly doing. Many of you will have had women working in factories in the 1880s or on farms or as domestic servants in homes.

I have not watched TV or films for 20 years but I don't feel that's a loss. Life for everyone is basically hard - it's a veil of tears, the via dolorosa and it's when people expect it to be some kind of fun picnic that they tend to be less happy. It is hard and is probably supposed to be hard. it's hard being a mother at home full time and hard working full time. I just think it's just so much more fun to have loads of lovely children, work full time and make a lot of money. Sounds like the best combination for me and I was married for 19 years and we genuinely did both pull our weight at home.

I suspect it's the part timers who would never have earned whta their husband earned anywasy as he's cleverer or better at work than they who lose out , lose out even over the housewives and have the worst of all worlds.

Generations of women have achieved nothing! Are you for real? How about the vote? How about the legal right to be paid the same as a man for the same job? How about not having to leave your teaching job when you got married? You're not serious are you? And the only thing you can grumble about is that mothers who don't work aren't taken seriously. Unbelievable.

Besides, having children isn't a job. It's having children.

Besides, having children isn't a job. It's having children.

xenia, i cant think of anything worse then getting my sleeping children out of bed so i can get them to the childminders by 7.30...
that would make me unhappy...no matter how great my job was or how much money i was earning.

I agree with everything you say in theory Xenia, but you are lucky (?) that you didn't feel as emotional about having children as a lot of women do.

You're right, every woman should find a man who earns the same and does 50% of the housework. That's what I spent ten yrs looking for. HONESTLY. Then I gave up and had children with a man who was quite sexist I suppose.

There aren't enough of those men who'll do 50% of the house work to go round!

And seriously, did you really buy an Island? Or was that a metaphor for something? !

Interesting post by stillstanding (which has consequently been completely ignored )

As to having children not being a job - I'm not sure what's meant by this. One doesn't get paid for it, so it's not a job in that sense. But show me someone who thinks that raising children is a piece of piss, and I'll show you someone with badly-raised children.

I realised on one of these threads recently that there's a big divide. There are those who think that the baby/very young child years are crucial in developmental terms, and that 'high-touch' (blueshoes's phrase I think) care is immensely important to a young child's development. Then there are those who think that the baby/young child stage is less significant developmentally than the older child stage. Those who fall into the latter camp can be a little uncomprehending of those who choose to devote themselves to the care of very young children; those in the former camp can be uncomprehending of those who don't.

Yes Geansai, Xenia owns an actual island with water all around it!

Re. this child rearing thing, and devoting care to young children, I think we honestly spend too much time worrying about it!

I honestly believe this idea of devoting yourself to child care is such a modern invention. In those "pre-feminist" days, if you had money you had a wet nurse, and a nanny and then maybe a governess. If you were poor, you were probably far too busy with domestic tasks/other children and maybe a paid job too. Even comparitively recently, say WWII, women had to work to cover for the men.

In my own case, my mother had my sister and I close together and was then diagnosed with a brain tumour. In the period before she died, everyone made the best of it and managed between themselves and part of the solution was a nursery. So in reality I have experienced very little one to one care from my own parents.

So, the outcome of this: I still feel loved and cherished by my family. I still did well at school and went to a Grammar School. I have a good job. And I put my dd in a nursery at 5 months old and went back to work.

So she is now nearly 5 and happy and intelligent. She loves her friends and is very sociable and easily adapts to new situations. My ONLY regret is that my mum is not here to see how beautiful she is.

Yes, not far from the equator but it doesn't have a house on it yet. This is what real women do who work hard and have proper careers rather than relying on men who make them clean and scrub for them etc.

If you're with a man who earns a tenth of what you do then it's usually not to difficult to suggest it might be a little unfair if you do 100% of the housework or even if you both earn 50.50. If you marry up as most women still seem to and his income is like a God's money and yours is tiny pin money then it's much harder to argue with some men that it should be as likely he as you clean the toilet.

But your mistakes are made the first time you enable sexist behaviour. How did it ever start? I wouldn't have ever put up with it and most of the men I know aren't sexist nor my daughters' boyfriends (my girls are 24 and 22 now).

I never left a sleeping chidl to work. We had a daily nanny who came to the house and as the children went to bed reasoinably early (as I like some time after they're asleep without them around) there was time between 6 and 8 to breastfeed etc.

Thanks for noticing me, policy - you've made my night!

Xenia, I was with you until the bit about part-timers? wtf?!!!

Sorry - but you are pretty exceptional in owning an island. I work very hard, but even the retirement cottage in France will be a bit of struggle. Let alone a whole island. You spoil your strong argument by saying this is what we can ALL achieve, because even if women ruled the world this would NOT be the case.

I just mean that you tend to shoot your career to pieces if you go part time. Chance of leading the organisation goes plus your husband regards your job as less important and you're the one saddled with dull domestic stuff too as your income is less important. If instead you just are a housewife then you can argue that you provide say £25k worth of domestic services and he earns £25k of money which is equivalent. If you work part time but your hours of work and child care and cleaning are no longer than the man's and you still get the chance to achieve your career dreams later than it may be okay.

Agreed Panto. Ludicrous statement to say that all "real women who work hard and have proper careers" buy islands.

I see what you are saying on parttimers, Xenia - I agree that one's career suffers but with a supportive partner I don't think it necessarily has to be the worst of both worlds. For me it is absolutely the best scenario and makes it possible for me to balance my roles effectively (although not without compromises on both sides).

Not everybody cares about their career as much as you do, Xenia. Some people are grafters and high achievers and some people aren't. That's true of men as well as women.

Stillstanding: I was shocked because the woman was saying that men's lives (not some, all) are not affected by having children. At all. Not their careers, but their lives.

I think it is easy to forget how much has changed, and how there are still many many many countries where women don't have equal rights. There is a senior women I work with (who is based in Dubai) who had a meeting with a government department, along with the Global head of our division. she had to be fully veilied, walk two feet behind him and they directed all the questions (about her job) at him, rather than her. Because she was a woman. But, even that's understandable on some level. What is abhorrent is when babies are aborted or left to die because they have the "wrong" genitals, or where girls are married off at 12 to some old, lecherous man (like happens in Yemen. There have been spate of court cases about this in Yemen recently; young girls forced into marriage, now seeking divorce).

"I honestly believe this idea of devoting yourself to child care is such a modern invention"

Yes. Exactly. It is not a 'job'. It is just what you do. I said that earlier and annoyed anna . For most mothers it was what you did alongside everything else. Unless you were wealthy and then the nanny did it and then packed you off to boarding school as soon as humanly possible.

Hands on, up to your elbows, constantly involved parenting is a modern conceit. So is the angst that goes with it. I'm not sure that the adults now are producing are that much better.

Hi Stillstanding. Yes I agree that there is some juggling to be done. By having it all I meant that women can have a career and children too. Of course there is a lot of hard work involved, but that's the deal. I have to say that my job appeals to me far more than any household chores.

I don't understand the point on part-time working, Xenia. I think parttime working can work well but it depends upon the level of support in the home. If the deal is that the woman (or man but it usually is the woman) works for three days a week and then gets to do all the chores and shoulder the responsibility for managing the childcare then that isn't a particularly good deal.

Yeah but...

Although it was and is just what people did/do, does not mean it does not have economic value. Child rearing and housework are productive and valuable activities. If people didn't remove themselves from the workplace to do them, or pay someone else to do them, how would work happen?

Just because women always had to look after kids and work before housewifery was invented doesn't mean that housework and care is irrelevant.

I prefer the opposite position to the individualising one. I prefer a society that values care not by ghettoising women but by recognising the essential economic productivity of caring roles. In essence, wealthy families already can recognise this because they can afford to pay to either supplement their own care or to stay home themselves in comfort.

If we all recognised (in taxation for example) that someone has to do it, working parents might feel less scrutinized and home-caring parents might be less poor.

Xenia, it's interesting that talking about sacrifice, you mention not watching TV. I guess my thoughts were more that you must have missed out on significant "child" moments. I know you have kids, that you BF them and that they are all fantastic now, but nothing else about them.

All the posts that I have read by you refer to working, making money and how by not doing this you somehow spoil things for other women. If you have 5 kids it surely cannot have all been plain sailing all the way. God knows I have one and she drives me crazy sometimes.

I think the best thing we can do for our children is to ensure that our sons realise that raising children and running a home are just as important as bringing in an income- if we raise our sons to do 50:50 at home - then our daughters will have a better chance of equality.

Good point EPPM. It's not just down to women is it?

On the subject of sacrifices made to work, I never watch any TV either. I had not really thought of this as being noble or self-sacrificing. Perhaps it is . Oh well the honest truth is that I was never interested in the TV anyhow.

A disproportionate number of senior female employees seem to be being cleared out of some of the large professional services firms at the moment - not the finest hour for equality of the sexes unfortunately!