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?

Honestly, soapy, I'm not the brightest light in the harbour, but c'mon there is no way to EVER overcome the basic fact that men are NOT women. Therefore, they are NEVER going to think and feel exactly the same way. And vice versa.

I thought that was a no brainer.

At our core, there is difference.

And when this is not so, others can sniff it out like a pheremone, like that guy in 'Perfume' who had no smell and he repulsed everyone, but no one could put their finger on why.

B/c he was unnatural and freakish.

And of course the differences in nature aren't just between men and women, but all of us.

Can you imagine how boring it would be otherwise?

As if life hasn't got enough skulldrudgery as it is.

[rolls eyes]

soapy what happened abotu your nnay prob

That sounds sophmoroic, but damn, I have to say, the most I ever learned about Shakespeare came from youth offenders I tutored in reading as a condition of their probation.

And if we don't open our eyes, and LISTEN to ALL experiences, to all choices, to all opinions as valuable, then we're the poorer for it.

Even if it's about suncreams.

Write people off b/c the first time you met them, they talked about suncreams.

Nice.

Your loss, I say.

Ity's a pity you don't like work as we all spend so long at it. Can't you find work you love? I enjoy my work. I enjoy my hobbies and I enjoy my children. Do we think it's psychological? That some people are happy on a milk round or serving in Tescos and others hate brain surgery? That the pleasure is not really related to the complexity or mundanity of the task but your own psychological state and that the solution is to try to find pleasure in the things you do, whether that's work or cleaning the toilet?

Oh - I agree with that Expat - I enjoy people - I enjoy diversity - even if it means listening to the old and crmbly great and good from time to time.

Even they have the odd flash of something intereting thing to say now and again

Hang onto your prejudices about women if it makes you feel better about yourself Xenia. I?ve definitely got better things to do than have such a one track discussion.

I find all these generalisations very hard. My dh travels abroad a lot and works long hours when he is in the country and trust me we (me and the children) are uppermost in his minds. He worries about not spending enough time with all the children, but with ds even more so after reading that bloody Steve Bidulph book.

I don't work, because WE chose for me not to even though my salary was slightly higher than his at the time. It means that we are financially very tight, but we decided that we'd be happier as a family this way.

I don't find being at home very satisfying, but this is a recent development and so I'm planning to study for a new career. I know I will have all my dh's support, not just financially, but in the ways that matter ie. he'll run the hoover around, put some washing on etc.

I spend my days listening to radio 4 - it's my way of keeping in touch and without it, I would go completely mad. Question Time and Newsnight are on our Sky + I don't claim to be the most intellectual woman in the world and yes I love Womens Mags too. Why do we have to catagorise ourselves and our partners?

GofW, yet another woman at home, not the husband. Sexism all the way even where women earn more they give it up. But there's hope. Things change for the better always. May be one day we'll get back to women being economically active as for most of history they have always been across the planet.

xenia is it not possible that you have been brainwashed in a the men you so revere. Most men are afraid to voice opinions the differ from the mainstream, theirs is a homophobic, stifled existence with severely contstrain 'normal' parameterers. I know quite a few people who earn in excess of £200k per year within their profession they are confident. outside of that they hide behind severley restricted norms and they all long to retire early to be with thier families. I pity that you feel in a position to judge and pity those who do not follow your norm. the board room is for lemmings trapped by materialism and sterotypes - oh yes something to aspire to.

I really don't think it is always sexism, my dh would have swapped places with me and still would now. Not because he thinks its a cushy number, he knows its not, he did it for a month once while i was ill and it made him understand how tough it is being at home full time. If anything the decision about who stayed at home was weighted against him because it could have been either of us staying at home we both wanted to do it, but the moment I said I wanted to he felt he had to back down purely because I am a woman.

In this household we don't have roles/jobs that are just mine or just his, apart from going out to work - and that's just temporary.

should be most very successful men in traditional careers especially....

Why is it a pity some people hate work?

We're ALL different, that's not a pity, that's the spice of life.

Dh has run this household for periods of time- when I was pg with ds2 and had hypermeesis ( had to care for a 5 month old too as I was on medication that knocked me out for almost 3 months) and then later on when he was ill and off work for 6 months and I was working in a good job. Now I'm (mostly) at home and he works. That's not sexist yet if you applied the Law of Xenia and just looked at the picture now you might think it is.

Dh sisn't particularly like being at home; I do. To reverse that on grounds of feminism would be beyond bizarre, frankly. Feminsism is supposed to work for females, not force them into roles they ever actually wanted and that don't suit their famillies.

Just read last night's comments. There seems to be a pervading notion that DH's all work in the city,r ead the FT and get immense satisfaction from high flying jobs. Sorry?????? DH works as a transport controller (a good job, mind) which involves working shifts he loathes (permanent nights) and because he is so good at it and there's a shortage of qualified personnel, he can't get a promotion otherwise there'd be nobody to do the complex stuff. He ahs sacrificed LOTS yet there is this idea that if a woman makes a sacrifice its bad and that men's lives are just A1 OK.

As it ahppend, Dh loves electronics and working on DJ stuff (light controller units which he then sellds on E-Bay and yto his many DJ friends and contacts). He's also rather good at animatronic design and would dearly love to go do a degree in it, but cannot. Why? Because he is paying for my life because I chucked in a career I didn't want and am at Uni. Who's making the sacrifices? Not me.

And Dh doesn't read the FT, he reads the Daily Mail and The Sun. Not because he likes them but because he works in their offices. he buys me The Times or (preferably) The Indie each day but doesn't have time to read them himself.

I don't go along with the idea that work = satisfaction and freedom, whereas SAHM = downtrodden depoliticised drudge. I was a SAHM for 4 yrs and my dh didn't skip off to work in the mornings, delighted to be free of the burden of caring for his family and go off to tackle important manly things in the city. As if!!! No, he envied me the freedom to stay at home and his frequent comment was that I am his queen bee and he is my worker drone. Quite a different perspective to Xenia!

And yes I have made choices that have made me personally more finanicially 'insecure' in the sense that I do rely on my dh's pay packet. However for me that is part of the trust which our marriage is based on, and even if the worst did happen and dh died, he has set up lots of insurances and funds for me and the dcs. Divorcing would be messier obviously but even then I trust dh that he would continue to provide for his dcs.

I think what it comes down to for me is that money does not lead to satisfaction and freedom. eyond a certain point where you can eat and stay warm, a litle more or less money honestly doesn't make much different to personal happiness or fulfilment. This is well documented. In fact the children of high-earners are far more likely to self-harm or become addicts - the recent statistics are very eye-opening and have challenged my idea of needy kids.

As for being de-politicised - eh????? What does being a SAHM have do do with that? If you care, you care. If you don't, you don't. I can think of so many city fat cats who don't give a fig about politics (except inasfar as it affects their earnings). In fact of the people I know it's those who work in the public sector (in lower-paid jobs) who care the most about politics and the entrepreneurs and city workers who either haven't got the time or are generally too money-orientated and selfish to care.

Finally just because you are a SAHM does not pre-suppose that you are any less intelligent than the 'drones' (to quote my dh! ) I am just starting a course in an arcane, obscure corner of academia that will never ever make me rich (New Testament Greek). I'm doing it out of love and I am thrilled that my dh's job enables me to make choices not based out of financial necessity but out of love (that also goes for looking after the dcs) and genuine interest. Money doesn't bring freedom or happiness! People do. Invest in yourself and in othes as much as you can and you will be much happier.

Sorry this has been so long - once I get on my soapbox...

soapy your childcare prob
what happened

I became her nanny, cod.

It's all sorted now.

I have to say, I agree with Xenia. Not the bit about women being fluffy, but the bit about the expectation that women should give up their jobs and retreat into quiet domesticity, and just how damaging that is.

There is still the double standard about articulate women. Remember the quote "People call me a feminist when I express an opinion that distinguishes me from a doormat". An example: I am a part time student and post on the student's union discussion board. They are anonomyous, but your gender is identified. I once expressed some dissatisifaction with the representation part time students got. This elicited a lot of invective from the union executive who didn't like their failings being pointed out. They couldn't attack my argument, because it was valid and backed up with statistics and evidence, but they could attack me on the basis of my gender. I got some truly neantherdal comments about getting back to the kitchen and if that failed comments about my looks (even though none of them knew me, they just imagined me as a hachet faced harridan) A similar argument posted by a male student did not get anywhere near the same level of viciousness.

The fact is that men mostly earn more than their partners. This does not mean that they are incapable of restructuring their careers to take on childcare. DH left his job to be a full time parent, despite the fact that he earned more than me and had better prospects. How did that affect me? It made me behave more like a man in the workplace. I've become quite ruthless about money and position at work. I have a family to support after all.

And I do agree that the media has an anti woman bias, something I gave Piers Morgan a bit of grief over. Last week in the Guardian there was a piece about a part of London and how dangerous it has become. 3 killings in 3 months I think. I looked at it and thought about how biased the media is. Imagine if every killing of a woman by her partner or ex partner was reported in the national news. That would be twice a week the news of yet another killing. How long would it be before a public outcry started? Yet it is ignored because it's 'only women' and presumably men, who the news is targeted at, are not interested.

I was really disappointed when the Guardian started a new Women supplement once a month. Here's an opportunity for a bit of in depth journalism about issues that affect women disproportinatly; childcare costs, flexible working issues, women being fired during maternity leave etc. But what did we get? Pages and pages of shopping, fripperies and expensive girly clothes.

Slug did you complain abut the comments on your SU board? Just imagine if those comments had been based on race rather than gender but just as prejudiced - the idiots would have been hung out to dry for racism.

It is depressing how 'women's stuff' is dumbed down. But maybe that's the culture in which we live. Look at all the 'lads' mags'. Not exactly highbrow either.

Far too long a thread to read but in being female, working in professional capacity on a part-time basis with 2 small children - I ADORE women's hour. Leave it alone grumpy people!

Oh yes. The problem was they couldn't find any reasonable answer to my questions so they resorted to name calling. It's quite juvenile really, but most of them simply couldn't see what was wrong with their comments.

But W/hour is such a missed opportunity, Hannahsaunt! That's my only real bugbear with it. 25% of the content if fine. It's the 75% fluff that's bloody irritating.

And none of these women-focused media are any different. The Times is the same. Was not aware of Guardian section as haven't read it regularly for years.

You know, I searched the BBC website after reading a post on mumsnet last week by a midwife who was desperately trying to build a business case for the local trust to try and stop them downgrading the unit to m/wife only. The nearest obstetric dept for medium-high risk pregnancies was 2 HOURS away. God help those women in an emergency.

The search pulled up at least 7 stories of similar situations around the country in the last year. All reported regionally, none nationally. Had the BBC joined the dots and reported this as a clear NHS policy/trend? Not at all. The obvious place would be WH. And if they report it, would anyone in govt take them seriously? No, because it has no clout.

Talking of the dumbing-down of female things, has anyone else noticed that marie-Claire mag used to be a lot meatier? I used to love the reportage but I've given up reading it now that it's indistinguishable from all the Cosmo / Elle variations.

texasrose, i think it's all part of this damn 'sleb culcha' these days. we're all supposedly obsessed with underweight stars with overweight handbags.

If people weren't though thoe mags wouldn't sell.

I don't even pick them up at the GP's on principle, they're irrelevant shite. I do however buy First which gets stocked amongst the Take A Break mags yet has some fab stuff i like to share with the kids- articles such as what a school meal around the world consists of, or a weeks grocery shopping. Not in depth to be sure, but enough to inspire a woman to look further if she so wishes (or a man, though doubt many read it). And far better to share with the kids than MediaSponsoredViolenceRUs (AKA most of teh syndicated comics available- note my kids are all male).