What ^should^ feminism be about these days?

[Monkeytrousers]

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Hi phdlife

bury/hide/evade sounds depressingly familiar to me, too. Are you still looking to break back into an academic career?

Which field do you work in PhD?

There is the Daphne Jackson trust for engineering and IT

www.daphnejackson.org/

Interestingly, it covers different types of career breaks, including leaving to care for a relative, and is open to men and women

Not hijacking at all, it is all completely relevant.

I'd say a good thing to be aware of Norksbride is that the idea that women wear makeup for 'themselves and other women' not especially men is backed up cultural studies and biology.

Women compete with one another in the looks department - as such you might be expected that if the demographic in a department is younger (and still in their prime) and especially if the boss is in this demographic, that there might be a tendency towards more care about appearance. In departments where the general demographic falls to 'women of a certain age' individuality as opposed to femininity might be the more obvious dress code.

What is your specific area Phdlife? And yours Fennel - don't think I've asked you before, sorry.

I am torn on this.

I think childcare is such a big issue for women.

But it makes me spit that it is considered a women's issue.

IYSWIM

Let me ask a question about childcare'

Is it subsidised childcare that you want - or for you to be subsidised to care for your children?

I know I would have loved to work part time much earlier - or study part time especially; but the idea of having to go out to work in the first 6 months of your baby's life, in a menial job that you despise and barely lifts you above the poverty line, is hellish.

Yet this is the reality for many women in the West.

Whe I say 'you' I'm addressing you all BTW

Both, MT. It is shocking that staying at home is so undervalued to the point of being seen as a drain on society. At the same time it is in the country's interests that those women who do want to work are helped to do so, and that the quality of care available is much higher than now, particularly with regard to babies.

Ideally, I would have liked to have had study subsidised to fit my child?s needs - he is nearly 3 and has only just accepted childcare. I would have loved to be able to use this time being primary cared to study, I would certainly have been much better prepared to enter the workforce and make a proper contribution.

If he would have settled with some form of childcare I would have had him go to a childminder 1-3 afternoons/days a week from about 1 - so even more ideally study and that childcare subsidised.

This would have been my personal choice (rather than the series of bitter compromises that we have had to take) and the system would accommodate other mums personal plans until the child went to nursery proper at 3/4.

Is this too much for any welfare state to offer do you think - not in moral terms just economical ones - would it buckle under the strain?

MT, on childcare what I really want is the flexibility to be able to do as much of it as possible AND work (which is obviously incompatible with a 9-5). And for my partner to be similarly entitled to flexible working so that we could cover the majority of childcare by ourselves (we do in fact - all of it). It is possible, but not without radical rethinking of how and where people work.

this isn't clear, sorry..

...from about one year old - so even more ideally, I would have chosen to have part time study and p/t childcare subsidised.

It is perhaps easy for us to see that the child should really become the central focus of society - but the cult of individualism started by the Thatcher years is a major obsticle to that.

I think that it doesn't fit not only with Thatcherism but with GB's economic policy, to invest in the children of working parents. GB wants as many mothers out to work as possible in order to have taxable income; this makes no sense if the state then funds decent childcare. The problem is that the type of mass childcare currently on offer has been shown not to be in the best interests of many children, and lack of investment now is going to prove costly in the future. It needs to be recognised that all children need investing in, not just those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

And from a feminist perspective we have to decide how a massive investment in children leaves those women who don't have children, for whatever reason.

But that's what being part of a society entails. You pay for childcare even if you don't have children, as much as you pay for the nhs even if you are unlikely to fall ill...

I'm for subsidized childcare. I'm for more support to family units so that these units don't get so "nuclear", iyswim.

Somehow the idea of the parents being the only carers of their children 24/7 kind of makes me anxious (hippish community emoticon)

I agree with you in terms of it being a necessary part of society - you support whichever part of it needs it - but if we ever become a society that places such a priority on parenting and children we do have to address the issue of finding value in the childless, apart from simply in fiscal terms. (am talking more abstractly rather than as something government policy should address.)

oh god, no I wouldn't place such priority in parenting ... no, you are right. I also hate the way "single" or "childless" women are depicted, don't you find? Either sad and bitter or some sort of Cruella De Vil

I meant not ,

it's commune not community isn't it?

franca, the idea of leaving my baby (especially one who can't yet talk) with a complete stranger who is being paid to look after it, strangely fills me with anxiety

Well, exactly. Career woman, no kids =hard nosed bitch. Career woman with kids =hard nosed bitch. Single woman, no career = sad misfit who likes cats. SAHM = sad woman who watches daytime telly.

Franca

I think it could be commune or community.

at startouched

I wouldn't leave my 2 month old baby with an untrained, underpaid carer. I'd be happy to leave my 9 month old with a well trained, well paid, respected for his/her job carer without much anxiety though.

I sort of think of my house as a hippy commune, except it's just us. I am so bloody lucky I haven't had to leave any of my dcs in order to keep a roof over our heads - I would have gone mad if I had.

My mum left me at six mo with a childminder.

Horses for courses.