to be a bit sickened by the apparent 'feminism' under study in the Women documentary?

[mrsbean78]

Dad staying at home to care for kids = househusband
Mum staying at home to care for kids =
full time mum

Each man challenged about how much housework he does, yet "househusband" also challenged about how well he does the housework by a wife who is irritated that he shrinks her cashmere jumpers and doesn't clean the bins, when clearly, as she says, she couldn't be expected to work and do housework.

All participants apparently comfortably well off enough to make the 'choice' about who works and who doesn't, living in beautiful leafy-suburb/rural pad type homes.

I don't feel it is at all representative of my life and am finding it terribly patronising to the men, don't know how others feel?

I've only skim read this thread but on the subject of capitalism and two income household this lecture is interesting.

It's a bit long, but it basically explains how in America (similarly in UK I would imagine) the increase in two income households has not resulted in greater propserity, just lower wages, and made it very hard for single income families to manage. And how housing costs are the biggest issue.

dittany, to see the cameras, you have to read between the lines.

when you first mentioned it I thought it was laughable. Many feminists in Spain think it is laughable too, and think that it trivialises feminism. But they were never consulted, they have no say in it. It is something that has been dropped on them from on high. They have been told that it will help with their cause. But they disagree.

"A number of women's rights groups in Spain say they oppose the housework law because it belittles the issue of sexual equality, making it laughable.
Almudena Rodriguez del Llano, a spokeswoman for the group Women for Democracy says: "This law is ridiculous and impossible to enforce."

Thinking more about it, these feminists are wrong. The people who have introduced this have not done it for a laugh, they fully intend to enforce it. The people who have decided to do this are not feminists, they have other objectives.

The idea is to harm, control and destroy the family. This is one of the planks of the Communist Manifesto. Another plank, involving the family and the middle classes, is the one discussed in the video link that peppamum provided.

Causes are often hijacked by those who have a different agenda. Beware of the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Ah thanks for that post dittany - I was just heading over here to say that housework is only seen as trivial because women do it. The division of household labour is absolutely not a trivial issue and it saddens me to hear (well, to read) women saying that focusing on housework is trivialising feminism

I am interested in this idea that the need for two parents to be economically active (as well as raising children) is a result of capitalism. Can anyone making that claim give an example of a non-capitalist society where women are not economically active?

I think the existence of women whose role is predominantly to raise children and look after a house is something that has arisen out of capitalism. I cannot think of any other kind of society in human history where that kind of role has ever been possible other than for a tiny number of extremely rich families.

I don't think it's about whether mothers have been economically active, but don't forget we've had capatalism of some form for a long time now.

Aren't we meant to have become a more affuent society? So why does a family unit have to put in so many more working hours to put a roof over their heads? If you need to do 70-80 hours combined to keep your household as opposed to, say 40-50 in the seventies to do the same, then essentially you've had a massive wage cut.

I don't know Peppamum. It would be interesting to see some comparisons on it. This is obviously just anecdote but, I know that in the 1970s my Dad was a head of department in a school and my Mum was a SAHM. We lived in a flat, had no car and my mum hand washed nappies because we had no washing machine. Holidays were in a tent.

Many middle class people simply would not accept that as an acceptable way to bring children up now. When DS was born, I worked 1 day a week and DH worked full time. We lived in a back to back, with no washing machine, no car and no holidays.

DS was 5 when we got a car, 9 when we got a freezer and 11 when we got central heating.

I think many middle class people just want to have a higher standard of living than that.

In terms of feminism, obviously it is a great thing that women are able to become educated and have a chance at a career and in a better society we would have used the opportunity to either lessen the working hours for men adn women or genuinely increase our standard of living.

However, the profit-at-any-cost nature of capatalism menas that it was seen an over supply of workers in the workforce and it was used to drive down wages.

Sorry. crossed posts.
There has been some increase in the standard of living, but not as much as you would expect if most people were doubling their income ( or x 1.5)

I agree that there is a lot of problems with capitalism, and the way that a lot of work is organised is terrible - you only have to look at all the people who end up with work related stress to see that, particularly in the UK.

I also dislike the idea that the only purpose of education is to improve people's job prospects. Having many educated people is essential for the functioning of a democracy.

Perhaps we need to look at entirely different ways of organising working patterns and structures. It isn't really escaping capitalism if a wife doesn't work but the husband has to work really long hours. There have to be other solutions.

Sorry, I am rambling a bit.

Dittany, I agree entirely with you! Just in case you feel you're shouting into the wind, here.

It's absolutely documented that the second shift is partly why women - well, I don't know if it's documented as a link to the instigation of divorce, but it's absolutely linked to the reasons why female happiness rises after divorce, and male happiness decreases.

Rich women paying poor women - it's like the whole issue of women who say, it's not worth it for me to go to work because I pay my whole wage to the child carer. Why is it the women's wage that gets paid to child care? I've never heard a man say this, because he's never the default carer.

Last post! In that video, she explains how little of the money is going on consumer goods and food. They're all very cheap (at the mmoment). It's going on housing, transport, debt, childcare and higher healthcare costs

Debt is also a big factor now. Some of that stuff hasn't been bought out of wages, itg's borrowed.

MillyR, it depends (as it always does, in these definitions) on your definition of middle class.

Many dual-income, professional families have insufficient income to pay for very much more than a flat and a tent holiday. Granted, most people probably run cars, but then again, it has become a necessity for many jobs.

agree with peppamum, much of the wealth isn't real, it was borrowed. People are sucked in and encouraged to overstretch themselves, then periodically there is a crash, which wipes everybody out. The standard of living has declined as shown in the video. Many surveys of real wages in the States show the same thing. This keeps everybody's head just above water, rather than being comfortable. Everybody is kept busy and there is not much real growth. I think there has also been a decline in the growth of family size. Most of the current movements such as the green movement are essentially anti-growth, with Jonathan Porritt even suggesting that there should be a 2 child policy. The capitalist policy is really working to keep people busy and struggling and to limit family growth, with periodic shocks to the system to knock people back down off the ladder.

Totally agree with Dittany re housework. It's so insidious.

Dh ignores lots of housekeeping jobs unless I ask him to do them (he's ok with a list), and tbh does a half arsed job quite a bit of the time. But:

• He didn't grow up watching his mother do these jobs. He wasn't expected to because he was a son. I was a daughter so I did.

• He doesn't read about men with "lovely homes", have reviews for time saving products and cleaning tips in his music mage, advertising for cleaning/freshing products aren't aimed at him. They're aimed at me.

• He wasn't brought up to have a good wad of his self-respect tied into the appearance of his home environment. Again, he was a son. I was a daughter and saw how my mum would run around cleaning madly if someone was going to be coming to the house.

• I am ashamed if someone comes round and the place isn't clean/tidy. He doesn't notice and I think it's because society doesn't expect him to.

So where do you go with that? Dh & I divide things up as much as possible and he's better than he was. I suppose I've got a job to do with ds, but I don't know if society is changing that much.

To summarise, yes I agree - there's no housework gene, but men are brought up by society not to care/expect someone else to do it. Not right and it needs to stop.

Totally agree shonaspurtle. Especially this: "I was a daughter and saw how my mum would run around cleaning madly if someone was going to be coming to the house." and the "lovely homes" comment. In fact had an interesting chat with my parents about this documentary. While they have a very equal (in terms of amount of work) relationship, my dad was shocked to hear from me that IMO my mum has the list of everything to do, housewise, in her mind. She owns it IYSWIM, and unless he or I or someone else happens to carry out one of those tasks, she will do it. The default is, they're her jobs. That's why if I come round and iron for example, she would thank me. He wouldn't. My mum just sat there agreeing.

I too agree about the housework thing and I think shonaspurtle makes good points about the way men and women are conditioned to see housework.

I also agree with dittany that the housework issue is not trivial and that it is about respect and whose time is considered valuable.

Another one that pisses me off is why it seems down to the woman to organise Christmas, birthdays, family presents and regular telephone calls to family members. Although it is possible that this is more prevalent in France than in the UK. I know there are a couple of the female members in DH's family who think I'm not a very good wife because I don't call them once a week to talk about trivia and update them on the kids (they're fine they are the same as when you saw them 2 days ago). They would be if they knew I don't iron his shirts and that he puts the children to bed most nights. Of course they don't think I have a real job because I work from home.

One aunt took me to one side the other day and gave me a bit of a telling off because I don't phone the elderly grandmother once a week. Surely if anyone should be phoning it is DH, she is his grandmother and would rather talk to him than me anyway (he does regularly call and visit her BTW).

Can you imagine my aunts telling my DH off because he doesn't phone my grandmother/sick uncle/sister/elderly aunt regularly. No way.

I refuse to do this just as I refuse to be the one who is responsible for buying presents for DH's mum, sister, dad, whoever. Of course if I have an idea or see something I will get it/tell him, just as he would for my family.