why are some women content to do all the housework?

[honeydew]

I meet lots of mums in my local area who, like me, are stay at home mums with very young children but are prepared to do absolutely everything for their partners and DH's! They slave away cooking, cleaning and washing at home with no help and at the weekends, they still don't expect
their partners to do anything! I have friends who never get a proper break from their children, even if it's only for a couple of hours. Their DH's leave them to it 24/7. Is it just me who has found that old style patriarchy is alive and well in society once a woman gives up work to raise her brood? My DH does help me with baby DS, he also puts my older daughter to bed and washes up after I've cooked each night, so we work as a team. So many women I speak to say that their DH's are not 'hands on' parents and do virtually all the chores and baby changing/feeding. Oviously, if one partner is working during the week they can't do that much, but some men don't want to contribute at all it would seem! Are they just lazy or simply 'expect' women to fulfill that role?

Message withdrawn

Bloss: If we say people don't understand it isn't cos we haven't explained it, as you rightly say we've given alot of detail. I find myself cutting & pasting previous postings! It's only a guess but it might be that people don't understand cos it's so far from what is considered the norm nowadays and people are looking for clarification. I really don't know.

I haven't said you can't make judgements, I wouldn't post on MN if wasn't expecting judgements, that's part of the fun. You're welcome as long as you're not nasty.

What about my daughters? Don't worry, you don't have to live with us, the house is nearly full, not quite, though

Hello SS, yes I'm still here. Nearly didn't make it due to crappy postings yesterday. However, I decided to do everyone a favour and return.
I mean what's a good debate if you haven't got someone to rail against eh?!

No, Bloss I don't know about you but I do Know about some people.

Caligula I kind of take your point but if most mothers did breastfeed then it would become the norm no? And unless they don't it won't. It was you that was saying you can't separate the family from society earlier wasn't it?

Kittywit, you're right that there is no objective way of judging which family dynamic is better than another. My feeling is though that

1. MOST women would prefer men to take a more active role in the house-work and with child-care as do many men.

2. MOST people would like men and women to have the opportunities which allowed them to do the above more easily (e.g. less pressure at work, more flexible hours without being made to feel this is a cop out or they aren't working hard enough or whatever).

3. MOST people would like to see an end to inequality in pay and conditions when women and men do the same job.

4. MOST people would like to see women be able to make a real choice about whether to return to work after having children with quality and affordable child-care and flexible hours and understnading employers allowing women to choose paid work more easily while financial and other recognition was given to women who chose to stay at home.

5)MOST women would like to see women having more power and control in the public sphere (with more women MPs and more women in top jobs).

6. MOST people see the idea of subjects, work, opportunities and activities being divided along gendered grounds with each sex being restricted in any of these areas purely because of their sex (apart from obvious biological restrictions like men not being able to breast-feed) as being out-dated, unfair and unjustified.

7. It is becoming increasingly uncommon for work and activities in a family to be divided entirely along gendered grounds with men taking v little or no part in child-care or house-work and women taking v little or no part in financial decision-making or paid work.

Given all of the above (if you accept it) my family dynamic may equip my children to cope more easily with life and gender relationships as it is in the 21st century and as it will increasingly be than yours which doesn't make it better or worse no. And as you and others have pointed out gender identity isn't everything.

MissChief, I'm surprised and saddened that you don't know anyone like my DP. I do know men who do participate very actively in child-care and house-work and at least 2 partners of women who work at my college are full time SAHDs (but I honestly don't know what their position is on housework). I have got a friend who works three days a week, her dd goes to nursery 2 days a week and her dp stays at home with her dd 1 day a week. But, as I was saying earlier your experience of how families work is likely to be limited to how your own family worked, how your dps family worked and how your close freidns families works and it's likely that many of these will be fairly similar to your own. I suppose again one of the good things about Mumsnet is you get to hear about completely different ways of life. Where would I ever get to meet a Kittywit in real life?

BTW I hope none of you have got a false impression of my DP. He is nothing like the man from those Mr Muscle ads and he never wears a pinny. As I said he's a football-playing, fit and active PE teacher who is also a good communicator and is a wonderful dad. I say this because I think it's really important to challenge the idea that a man who loves his kids and wants a really active part in their lives (not because he wants to be a good dad but because he wants to be a good parent) and thinks house-work is just that and not women's work is somehow 'unmanly' or 'put upon'. I have never had to persuade him to do anything he does. He just does it. Another good thing about this thread I suppose is that I realize I probably don't appreciate him enough. I really just thought this is what men were like in the 21st century.

Er ... yes bawc, that was the point I was making (badly, obviously)

I don't know about MOST people believing that list of things. I suspect most people don't even think about them. I don't think it appears on most people's radar. I'm inclined to believe most people think about beer, sex and celebrities. But that could be because I'm feeling quite jaundiced after just having watched Jade Goody vs Chantelle on Mastermind.

Really? How horrid.

Bawc your statements, obviously well thought out, are based, are they not on a prediction that current gender trends are going to continue to move in the same direction?
I believe that the new man situation we have now will make a turn around, not 180 degrees, but it will shift. I think men have been getting alot of stick for decades now, and I think that they have to put up with things that women don't even though women go on about being equal.
For instance on television it is pretty common to see men sworn at, belittled and physically attacked in the name of comedy. Some people will find it funny. How would it be if the boot were on the other foot. Would we women find it ok to see that happen to a woman? I think there would be an outcry. That's not equality and men will begin to fight back.

You don't think women are belittled, sworn at and physically attacked on television and in reality as a matter of course as well as judged purely on their physical appearance etc etc and often just because of being women? Watch a couple of programes on tv tonight and just decide who is represented as victims and who are the heroes, who is passive and who is active, who is young and physically attractive and who is older and clever and powerful. Yes women have come a long way, yes girls are out-performing boys in school. But women are still earning less than men, are massively under-represented in parliament and in most of the top jobs and they own a tiny percentage of the world's wealth relative to men. We've got a long way to go still. I've just been reading in the paper about the 17 year old girl who was murdered by her own family because she wouldn't submit to the marriage they had arranged for her. Her 2 and 4 year old neices were apparently made to witness the murder as a lesson that they should not fall in love with someone their family deemed inappropriate when they got older. It's really quite hard to feel as though we've reached a position of equality after reading that.

I do accept that men are victims of gender-stereotyping too and of their own success in some ways also. Take your husband in the position of sole bread-winner but you said he hates his job and wants to work less. And everyone loses out by this peculiar and out-dated idea that house-work is women's work and if men get involved they are emasculated.

But how very very depressing to hear a woman thinking (hoping?) that men will 'fight back' against women achieving equality. If women themselves don't want or feel they deserve equality what hope?

Interestingly enough bawc you say that MN gives you the opportunity to meet women like me whom you would otherwise not meet. You would not know if you HAD met me because I keep these views to myself because I know that they are controversial.
It's great to have something like MN where I can express my views without worry.
Even though we are very different you and I, I think we respect one another and I think I might even like you, well just a little bit!

Just a thought, perhaps we recognise that in our different ways we are both trying to fly the flag for our own causes. A sort of perverse kindred spirit?

As I said, I think it's helpful to separate the person from their views. I don't think trading insults is ever helpful but hearing others' opinions even if you don't agree with them is. One thing we can be reasonably sure that all of us have in common is a love for our kids and I think we can all relate to the passion with which we express this albeit in very differnt ways.

Bacw I watched G . Ramsey on t.v tonight, a male chef, yes, but VERY masculine and clearly adored by LOTS and LOTS of women. I can understand that totally,can you?

How do you define masculinity and femininity? Surely someone who feels their masculinity threatened by doing housework must have a really fragile masculin identity? Sounds more mouse than man to me....

"Someone even had the temerity to ask whether I had ever come across balanced realtionship/ household or some such thing." Kittywits, I asked you this question. Ia sked it because you appeared to be under the impression that households were one extreme or the other. Your way, with the woman doing everything childcare and cleaning related or otherwise a home whereby the man did so much related to childcare and cleaning that he ended up emasculated (your words).

There is an inbetween and plenty of variation either side. I wonder if you have convinced yourself that it can only be one extreme or the other to excuse your DPs refusal to be involved in anything cleaning and childcare related.

I did not insult your sons. I said I hoped my dds never hooked up with yours. That's not because I am doubting that your sons may be turned out into the world with some admirable qualities but because if my dd had children with one of your sons, I would worry about the strife that might arise between her and her inlaws if they modelled their roles on something that was completely alien and (not currently respected) by you and Mr Kittywits.

"No one who feels secure needs to attack anybody else." But that's exactly what you did kittywits. I think people got on the defensive because you threw the first stone, not because they felt insecure about their position.

Caligula "I'm inclined to believe most people think about beer, sex and celebrities. But that could be because I'm feeling quite jaundiced after just having watched Jade Goody vs Chantelle on Mastermind."

"How do you define masculinity and femininity? Surely someone who feels their masculinity threatened by doing housework must have a really fragile masculin identity? Sounds more mouse than man to me...."

That's an interesting point FM. I always think that Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham feel safe to follow their desire to wear two diamond earings because they are footballers and football is seen as a masculine, macho profession to be in. . Ditto with all the hugging and kissing that footballers feel safe to do, because they feel safe to epxpress themselves in this typically non-masculine way because they are macho footballers.

I wonder how many men feel repressed by what is considered the norm of masculinity and wonder if those who make the biggest song and dance about doing anything that threatens their masculinity, aren't so secure.

Re Caligula's point. Actually I think men and women all over the country from all walks of life are talking (and arguing) about house-work, child-care and paid work. These are more real and important issues for most people on a day-to-day basis than Chantelle and Jade Goody. And I doubt if there are many families where both partners agree they're totally happy with who does what and how often in their house.

I do find it odd and depressing that there is someone here who is obviously intelligent who not only chooses an old-fashioned model for her family structure where her man participates in child-care and house-work in such a limited way but also bemoans the fact that other people choose another way (men doing house-work are emasculated, women leaving their children to work are uncaring) and almost appears to wish these choices didn't exist. I doubt if there were many women who were happy with the kind of model Kitty describes a 100 years ago when they had to stay at home with almost total responsibility for kids and house-work while their men earned and chose how to spend the money. I suppose the fact that Kitty has chosen her life-style (not a choice available to women 100 years ago) makes it more attractive for her but there can't be many other modern women who would make this choice.

'I wonder how many men feel repressed by what is considered the norm of masculinity and wonder if those who make the biggest song and dance about doing anything that threatens their masculinity, aren't so secure. '

Absolutely agree. You want to witness a class of male (and female) teen-agers who are the most insecure about their gendered identity discussing sexuality and listen to the way they use 'gay' as the worst insult.

And the fact that my dp does house-work without even showing an awareness that this is considered by others to be 'women's work' shows he is completely secure about his masculinity (I hope). I'll have to get him on here to discuss it but he does find the Mumsnet thing a bit mystifying.

Don't you think this conversation isn't quite so interesting if I am not there to give you something to fight against?

Don't be depressed for me bawc, if you ever saw my life you would think i had it sorted. Icould feel depressed for you beacuse your vision of the world is so very rigid. you make many assunptions about how the world will be in 20 years time.
Here on MN wehave a reasonably large pool of views, however, it is by no means representative of the country as a whole. I think you are very wrong to think that I am in such a minority. You have not met anyone like me? Your sister is like me!! There are many, many, many women out there like me/ there are many, many, many, men p*ed off with the new man movement. perhaps it is that you just don't move in these circles and even if you did you would turn a blind eye because it is NOT want you want to see.

It matters not one jot to me that you will reply denying every point I have made (as you always do) with some sort of statistic/ proof/ survey or other. That is meaningless to me. YOU fit the information to suit your case and ignore everything else that does not.

Please do tell me why Gordon Ramsey is such a sex symbol? Are ALL those women mad? No. Many women like a traditionally blokey man

What has been going on here, please? Could I have a summary? I keep seeing this title in active convos and have nothing to add to the debate at all, but would very much like to know how it got to 8000 posts or whatever

Also, yesterday I asked my nearly 8 year old about some of the issues we have been discussing here. I asked him if he thought he would change a nappy, etc, etc, etc, and he said to me that he could possibly say now because that would be in at leat 10 years time and he had no idea how he would feel about things then. Quite an outstandingly mature response from a child with such an old fashioned an limiting role model.

Franny we ahve been discussing:
The role of the woman and man in the home

The role of the above in chuldrearing

Whether doing traditionally feamale roles emasculates a man

Why G. Ramsey is adored despite being real bloke

I am on one side and pretty well everyone else is on the other. I say things that annoy them and so the debate goes on.

Please, do join in, you must have an opinion on the subject!