Are women interested in current affairs? (And why I hate Woman's Hour)

[BrummieOnTheRun]

I spent the last few days ranting to DH about the fact that certain stories that primarily affect women don't appear in the media.
Like the nationwide policy of downgrading local maternity services (only reported locally, ignored by national media) putting 1,000s of women and babies' lives at risk each year. Or is that each month?
Like loans to women entrepreneurs being at higher interest rates than those to men as we are perceived to be higher risk.
Like the cost of childcare and impact on (primarily women's) employment being treated as a minority issue. We're 50% of the population and most of us have/will have children.
Blah, blah, blah.
Have always been pissed off that Woman's Hour, instead of having the political and intellectual clout of the Today programme, has spent approx 6 minutes superficially covering important issues to cut them off to discuss bloody borsch recipes. Or drama 'that women might enjoy'.
Then a depressing thought occurred to me...maybe it isn't that most 'current affairs' isn't interested in women, maybe most women just AREN'T INTERESTED in current affairs and that's why women-centric issues aren't widely covered?

Xenia, in the same way you tell your dds not to be pioneers and work in an overtly sexist arena, I don't want my dh to be a "pioneer" in his law firm and be the first person (male or female) to vie for equity partnership whilst having to duck out ever so often for childcare. We are cowards, I suppose, but once he has obtained the holy grail, that is when he is better poised to play the system from within.

Even now, during the time he is at home, he helps out equally in childcare and housework.

Men and women are 2 different breeds - if you are in any doubt about that just take a glance at the magazine section in your local supermarket or WH Smith...

Women whizz past and pick up a magazine that interests them.

Meanwhile there are half a dozen men standing there with magazines open six inches from the end of their noses - totally engrossed.

Our brains must work in different ways (unless you're Xenia, of course!)

Why do people think that men and women should be the same?

True equality is about everyone having the same opportunities. Men who stay at home to raise their children face even more prejudice than women do.

I was happy to give up my career to look after our children - I wasn't bored as Xenia thinks I should have been - in fact I have had far more opportunities to pursue my own interests than I would have done if I had been working full time.

And if I say so myself, I have also contributed quite a bit to my local community through various voluntary roles. SORRY XENIA - I know you think I'm letting the side down!

fp, I agree men and women differ but not so much as used to be tbought the case when it was thought women's brains couldn't cope with medical degrees or their psyche at looking at blood. We had to challenge a lot of beliefs to get where women are now and there are still more to challenge and work we can all do to ensure our sons are as involved with their families as they want to be and daughters as able to lead Britain or hedge funds as their brothers. I am very very encouraged. Indeed my biggest concern going into schools and talking a lot to teenage girls is a lack of knowledge of their biological clock rather than concerns they won't get firsts at Oxbridge and lead companies. They need to think as carefully about how to have their babies at an optimum time (if they choose to have them) as much as plan their career.

Many women wait to advance a career and then have babies (as do some men) because it's easier from a position of power and wealth to determine your hours and work. I have found that myself comparing having the 3 children at age 22/24/26 when I was powerless and relatively poor and the twins at 36 when I could in effect decide anything but I still was glad I had the children when I was younger.

I don't think I could have psychologically coped with economic dependence on a man and the bolstering of his career even when I was 15 and right through to now. I wonder why some women are happy with that and others aren't.

I can understand a rational that motherhood is as important as making the money even if the motherhood services can be bought in at £40k a year but the male earnings are nearer £1m (although men and some women dispute that on divorce obviously but are content to pay lip service to it when she's sacrificed her all to iron his shirts), but I don't think I could live it. I don't think I would like those feelings that he goes out and does things I would love to do and I'm doing the same dullness every day. Perhaps it's because my motehr hated so much the drudgery of home having worked for 14 years and we saw her deteriorate when we were adolescents and her usefulness as mother was largely redundant just as my father's career was ever more successful and I don't think her various hobbies replaced that feeling in her at all.

I have a conference call at 3pm today, Sunday and I would rather not but it won't be unenjoyable and I suppose like stay at home parenthood it's just part of the package and pros and cons you take on if you adopt one role. One issue for women who give up work is just be aware post divorce (and I see so many women in this position) where the husband manages to escape abroad, pays nothing and has taken most of the business assets with him. You can be left high and dry so keep that man happy at all costs if you're financially dependent on him and your children are. Indeed do women who would otherwise have earned a lot really owe a duty to their children to work in case the father disappears and standards of living plummet?

Xenia what do you do if you come across teenagers that don't anticipate firsts from oxbridge are they just not worth your attention?

I don't go into those kinds of schools....... okay they won't all get Oxbridge firsts even at my children's schools. What do I do? I think anyone in the UK can make their life what they choose it to be and we are more limited by the limitations we place on ourselves than anything else. You don't need a GCSE to lead an interesting career or start a busines in the UK.

We can all make sure children don't grow up in homes where when both parenst are home women because they are women do all the work and men sit around. Lots of couples share which is great but those that don't should look at the example they are giving to their daughters and sons when they say things like "he's hopeless", "it's easier to do it myself" etc.

I think you live in cloud cuckoo land..
there seems to be a world where Xenia lives and you just don't have any idea where other people live

I don't believe you do spend as much time absorbed in current affairs as you think because you don't seem to have any knowledge of everyday life

I have always been interested in current affairs; broadsheets, internet, Newsnight, etc. But this year the wheels have fallen off big time. When I have spare time on the internet - I'm on mumsnet and the 'news' stories on here are not what I'm looking for, we cancelled the paper because the standard of journalism was so appalling and I hardly ever watch the TV now. I have news on car radio but rarely hear it above the DCs being noisy.

I know things will improve as DCs get older and I have less work commitments. DH and I still debate issues but rarely have time to act on them - although we do have email access to our MP, which is a great help.

I should perhaps, add more serious threads to mumsnet news? That way, I kill 2 birds with 1 stone!

I am interested in lots of subjects not just current affairs. But I always like to read the papers.

But Xenia - doesn't it become a self-fulfilling prophecy for women to think 'ooh I'd better protect myself in case DH ups and leaves' ?? What happened to thinking positively about the future? Or am I just naive?

Interestingly DH married me thinking I had loads of money and that he would be sorted for life!! He looked at my family, the family house etc etc and came to all sorts of the wrong conclusions! My family are very much asset rich and cash poor so everyone is always broke but living in nice houses. I was always just broke! Having pursued my career for only about 10 yrs post-qualifications, I've got a tidy amount put by for my pension but I still view that as 'our' money. And that's even though DH and I have come 'this' close to splitting up over the past couple of years.

Re the education issue, yes I do agree that we set our own limitations and goals. But also, far more significantly in my mind, society sets huge limitations. And I mean society in fairly immediate, narrow sense. Young people are expected to behave in a 'normal' way, to have 'normal' goals whether that is to go to Oxford or have children at 16. So I go back to the importance of education and having the right inspirational teachers. It shouldn't be just the case that the best schools have the best pupils with the highest ambitions. I am for a more egalitarian education system and am quite interested in this idea that private schools are going to have to accept a percentage of children who would otherwise be in care. Hopefully that will help to break the cycle?

Xenia - I also wanted to ask you about the pressure you are putting on your children, particularly the girls. Talk about setting some high standards for them! What will happen if they want to settle down at 18 and have babies? I'm interested in how you would deal with that?

What papers do you read Xenia?

The Mail, obviously!

Sorry, Xenia - I don't really believe that even if many of your views are only just to the left of Attila the Hun!

agree with PA on so many things! But also agree with X that staying at home can be tedious drudgery! As Kaz Cooke (I think) said, if SAHM is so rewarding, why aren't men giving up directorships at Shell Oil to do it... The reality is that someone has to do it, and if your only other options are a childcare centre mainly staffed by 19 year olds on minimum wage, or staying at home yourself (uni educated mum committed to good food good play and no TV...) then it was an easy choice for me.

I had visions of working 3 days a week after DS1, but found the actuality of leaving him in childcare centre too awful. Having said that, i don't enjoy a lot of being SAHM some of the time (X is right, talking about brands of suncream can be tedious), but i do believe it is the most importnat job i can be doing at the moment. But you can believe i will be looking forward to working more when kids are finally all off at school

No pressure on the girls. I?m very laid back with the children. I?ve never looked at piece of GCSE course work. I explain career options. I provide career books and sometimes I?ve been able to arrange work experience. None of the older three tried Oxbridge. The girls have a huge range of interests (including intimate knowledge of London nightclubs.. I think one got into conversation with a famous chef at ChinaWhite one night when he ought to have been dealing with his children and being with his wife, rather than chatting up pretty blondes wearing fur?.) I like to give children an education that gives them choices, confidence but most of all emotional intelligence and a solid base of love and respect for them as individuals. As there are five I think that means much less pressure on each one actually. I?d like one at least to breed. I?d like one or two to have interesting careers so we?ve stuff in common on that front. Each child has a very different personality from each of the others so it?s hard to generalise about them. I would love one of them to have a baby soon. I loved having babies in my early 20s. I also want them to pick work they enjoy. The only pressure I put on them is making it clear once they leave university it?s up to them to support themselves. I love it that their views often differ from mine. It would be dull if they were ?Xenia clones?.

On state education where 94% of children go and most do fine I would like to see every parent given a voucher of £5k a year or whatever state education costs. You then spend that anywhere you like. That would cover some private schools. It would just need a little bit of a top up which many middle class parents could afford for some others. It could may be also then by academic test and means teseting be topped up to the total fees for Manchester Grammar in some cases too for children of the very poor. I don?t think the state is much good at running anything so churning money into that is rarely wise. It?s often like burning pound notes.

I agree with you about people being normal which is why a lot of parents buy private school places so it is normal everyone works hard and goes to university as teenagers often do want to be normal and cool. Grammar schools used to give children a way out in some areas which route is now blocked which is a pity. I certainly agree about inspirational teachers or role models. It?s great that so many people in the City give their lunch breaks to go into schools and just talk or be with children to show them what possibilities there are.

Papers? The FT and Times each day and at the weekend I also get the Telegraph. I'm not involved in politics in an active way. I enjoyed my political discussions with the 18 year old when we got his stuff from univesrity today. He is my resident Chavista and conspiracy theorist and I love him for it.

wearing fur?

ceba, what I most hated was having to do jobs which then have to be done again. you tidy up and very soon you have to do it again. You never progress. Of course the children progress but domestically it's the same jobs over and over again and by the way I do tons of those. I've the dishwasher on at the moment. I'm not living in some glorious work only world where I never wield a loo brush.

Fur... of course. Surely from my posts you could tell my family would wear fur? 160,000 vicunas now roam Peru I think it is because they had been dying out but then were farmed for their fur. It saved the species and yet Blair bans fur farming. There is no hope but thankfully the planet is big and the world our oyster.

I am intersted in current affairs - sorry haven't read whole thread. I read the broadsheets and love the radio. I am amazed though at how few others I know do either. I am no great intellectual but some people have no grasp as to wht is going on around them, yet they can tell you the whole of what happened in Coronation street last night..

sorry, don't read your posts really, re the fur ...

I don't watch TV although my last two years' New year resolutions have been to watch more. Not against it in principle or anything.

Did you mean I wasn't clear on fur ro you think we can wear leather shoes and murder plants but not something that looks sweet and fluffy (unless it's a calf in which case then it's okay to kill it but only if the skin is a by-product even though we no more need to eat meat than we need to wear skins)? Thankfully a week today I will be somewhere amongst many fur wearers and away from the warped collective British conscience.

One of these days Xenia will disappear up her own a**e and suffocate herself (hopefully before she bores us all to tears with the one track argument we are all fed up with listening to. Xenia - if you really are a well-rounded and interesting person, how about talking about something new besides than this dull and done to death SAHM/WOHM thing......

Ooh no QM, you've got it all wrong. The fur debate is about to kick off! Watch this space. (I'm not going to get involved in this one!)

I absolutely agree - there is plenty about SAHM which is pure, unadulterated drudgery. It can be utterly hateful. After DS, I couldn't wait to get back to work. I loved my job but now I also realise that I was desperate to return because I felt my job gave me a status that being an SAHM didn't. On maternity leave, I found myself answering the question of "what do you do" with "I'm on maternity leave, I'm an HR director donchaknow". Now I look back and think how sad is that? And also bizarrely I am more interested in current affairs now that I am not working. I think because a) I've more time to read the papers and consider various issues, and b) since my breakdown and the cancer, I'm a kinder person! I have more empathy with people. I used to compare myself to people and if I thought I was better than them, I used to judge people so harshly. Whether it be because of their clothes, their looks, their choice of career, their lifestyle etc. And I think that's partly what disturbs me about some of your views Xenia. There appears to be a lack of empathy, of basic kindness towards fellow humans. Now I never met any pioneering Emily Pankhurst types, and maybe they were all as strident as you can be. But the feminists I know are all firmly carving out their way in life, but without an apparent need to judge others so harshly.

I agree that there are plenty of 'conversations' which can be utterly inane and dull as ditchwater, but I go back to the argument that we, as people, need to be well-rounded. And society needs people who can do the intellectual, pioneering, career stuff as well as people who either can't or won't.

I take back what I said about Xenia's views being to the left of Attila the Hun.

Abhorrence of the fur trade has nothing to do with whether animals look cute & fluffy, Xenia. It's all about the pain and suffering caused to the animals and stupid bitches wanting to look like prostitutes quite happy to wear the skin of a big cat that's been killed by having a red hot poker stuffed up its anus so as not to mark the skin.

You say that you've 'worked hard to fit in' with British society since coming to this country.

You haven't got a clue. Why do you think that out of 10,000 people on mumsnet the only one who consistently agrees with you is mohze?

Your smug, sanctimonious opinions are despised by every apparently decent person on this site.

You would do well to examine your attitudes.

?I think anyone in the UK can make their life what they choose it to be and we are more limited by the limitations we place on ourselves than anything else.?

I?m sorry but you?re an idiot and a boring one at that.

I?m sure vicunas are very happy to be saved from extinction to be skinned alive for you an your family. Your lack of insight and total self-absorption is nothing if not consistent. A*

Monkey - she was entirely wrong about vicunas - they are not skinned for their fur at all - there is a very successful breeding programme and they are no longer endangered because their fleece is shorn for the wool - the skin stays where it belongs - on the animal's back

It was never a stron logical argument anyway Forty. But as I steer clear from bores in the pub so I'm going to steer clear of Xenia and her limited world view. I now understand that her idea of current affairs is whatever is happening to her. No wonder she has women tuning out where ever she goes. Here's me tuning out now..