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?

I don't have any issue with those mags being in existence and the people who buy them...I'll sneak a look if one's lying around .

But it's sad there aren't also more serious mags, news websites, etc, aimed at women who are interested in current affairs.

Yes, there's Time, Spectator, etc, but you only need to look at the threads on mumsnet to appreciate that women's perspective and priorities are frequently different and it would be nice to see those reflected in 'serious' media. We've got a different - and equally valid - viewpoint.

'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."

This is simply a ridiculous statement. You are suggesting that women forsake their womanhood, to forsake caring for their children, to become more like men. You expect women to step up to the plate, not men to step down or even better for the playing field to be levelled so no one has to do either.

Women who stay at home are being economically active. Their work is not recognised by the state however, but the state benefits from it in billions of hours of unpaid labour that statutory maternity pay and other benefits couldn't hope to compete with.

Most women don't actually want to be men - they want their roles to be of equal value - especially the role of primary carer. I do get bloody angry that women like you, who enjoy what feminism has accomplished, turn on women who make different choices as you see it someway as a tacit criticism. Your insecurity just leaps out of every post! If you are so privileged and happy with your choices, why do the choices of others make you mad? You are a male mini-me - good for you, but no thanks.

"I don?t go along with the idea that work = satisfaction and freedom, whereas SAHM = downtrodden depoliticised drudge."

You are right Texasrose; that's because it's an idiotic argument that is premised on prejudice rather than logic.

Good post MT.

I would argue that Xenia is in fact the OPPOSITE of a feminsit: she is disempowering women, just in another way. Instead of keeping them in the home, keep them out of the home. But whatever you do, don't value their choices.

Brummie- the issue eprhaps with time etc 9apart from the local newsagents that don't stock them...) is perhaps that women tend to grab a cuppa and a read for ten minutes whereas men schedule blocks of time (eg an hour at work for lunch)? A huge generalisatrion, just thinking, looking at the articles length and all

Female Chauvinist Pigs Corporate style

"But whatever you do, don't value their choices."

Absolutely Peachy. I am just flabbergasted by the bad will involved. Why attack a women for being different from you; or even more despicably, because they aren't like men??

I think the fact that Xenia is single may have something to do with this. It would be nice to have a nuanced discussion about it, but there's nothing subtle about the men/good, women/docile false dichotomy.

Peachy, i think you're right about men block-booking time to read...often on the toilet! at least i assume that's what they are doing in there for hours at a time

MT - animosity like that created by Xenia's posts has much deeper implications too. I can't help thinking that what should have been the next stage of the feminist movement - the right to be a parent as well as to work (most people want to combine both during their working life-time, either as career-breaks or part-time working but can't) - would have shifted a lot faster if we'd not been stabbing each other in the back.

Brum, that is exactly where feminism is today - while also looking into our evolutionary past to understand the choices we make today, different choices between men and women - and fighting policy that puts female choices on a lower economic rung.

It is an indisputable fact that men and women are intellectual equals - but there are differences and equality should not mean women have to forsake what it is that makes them women and be more like men.

There is nothing inferior in womanhood.

[Boys] get to fart, they get to be loud; now we're saying we can fart and curse and go to strip clubs just as well.' Betty Friedan, anyone? Susan Brownmiller? Gloria Steinem? How naive those women were to think they'd achieved anything; equal-opportunity farting - now that's what I call progress.

That sums it up for me. I am an intellectual equal to any man but I have no desire to be like a man if it comes to down to that.

The other rather stupid assumption being made by certain posters is that SAHMs do just that - stay at home. We don't. Many thousands of us work in the voluntary sector - as undervalued as motherhood because it doesn't have a visible £ value. Some of us do fairly demanding, intellectually challenging work as volunteers. In fact, if all women went back into paid employment, this society would collapse around our ears because those who work in the voluntary sector really are the backbone of this country.

society would indeed collapse: I have been a volunteer manager and I am wella ware that wthout the army of volunteers, social services and the caring sector (inparticular- these my fields) would very posibly have collapsed. HomeStart is one good indicator of that: for every £8 spent on a volunteer, it saves £80 by social services

Speedymama- I don't want to do those things. But I love it that if I wanted, I could. freedom is at least as much about what you could do, if you wanted.

Absolutely Peachy, I totally agree. If I do not see those things as a feminine thing to do, I should have the freedom to say it without being labelled a prude etc. Similarly, those proporting that women are doing themselves and womankind a disservice because they choose not to go out to work in order to be with their young children are wrong, imo.

it's understandable why motherhood, and women's roles as mothers, had to be denied in the 70s in order to fight for access to the workplace. To talk about the importance of parenthood at that stage would have muddied the debate. And it's probably true that society hadn't yet seen what a mess mass BAD parenting could produce. So we got (pretty much) equal access to the workplace and brushed the motherhood thing under the carpet.

Until i unexpectedly had children (whoops!), i thought that feminism was a done deal. I had a good job, good pay packet, wasn't held back (much). I'd stab the office sexists in the head with a stilletto heal. On the way to a strip joint. And most people do feel feminism is a done deal.

But you hit parenthood, and realise there are so many new issues you face that the state should be dealing with: Maternity services are becoming life-threatening; part-time work is still incredibly difficult for professional women to find and thrive at; starting your own business is extremely difficult with such high childcare costs, taxation and the financial community's attitude to women; statutory maternity pay is insufficiant and taxed (!); and working households are being crippled by childcare and taxation.

Now, i don't know if you can refer to the issues that women face as parents as being feminist issues or not. For me, they are if it's women that mostly feel the burden. And there's still so much work to be done!

And that's were my irritation with the media stems from. No voice = no political clout = no change.

When I was growing up (with wonderfully liberated inclusive parents) I had no idea that such a thing as sexism even existed. Even as a young adult I thought that the world was just as much my oyster as any bloke's.

Hah! Due to my work I've come face to face with the horrific scale of domestic violence (one woman a week in the UK killed by her partner or ex). On a smaller but still very annoying scale, I've met so amny men who judge me 'as a woman' rather than as an individual (i.e. 'She's great with the kids, and she makes a lovely cake, you've got a great wife there mate' - to dh). And the maddening thing is that these are compliments! Not insults. Yet it is insulting to feel that I am being judged by a set of criteria which is different to that with which men are judged. Because in doing that, men fail to see all the other qualities women have - like my intellect, moral and ethical courage, knowledge of current affairs and the world - are all irrelevant. Maybe because men are still slightly threatened by these things in a woman? Oh, I don't know. Why isn't there a festive emoticon? Is it against the spirit of the season or something??!!!

Ah, Texasrose, imagine what is like when you are black female scientist like me working with mostly white middle class men.

I remember when I first joined my organisation I was asked by one of the men if I was the new secretary. Later that day, one of the women in the admin office asked if I was the new clerk. You can imagine how that made feel after I'd spent years studying for my degree and PhD. It did not occur to either of these people to ask me what I was actually going to do, they just presumed they knew by looking at me. One has to accept unfortunately that years of pre-conditioning is not going to change overnight.

At least they did not think I was the new cleaner!

Bloody hell Speedy. I'm surprised you didn't poke them in the eye!

I think this thread now demonstrates aptly that women are interested in current affairs and can also hold discussions about (but not limited to) sun cream, nail polish and boy bands. All hail diversity feminism!

As for WH Brum - where?s the tumbleweed emoticon

sorry

speedymama - Ive yet to meet a black female engineer. I did meet 2 black, English male engineers last year though, both working abroad.

btw, Im white, but I have also been mistaken for the secretary on many occasions, as I am usually the only other woman in sight. Sigh.

I know a black female engineer - had dinner with her last night!

there is hope then
there are so few female engineers anyway. I cant believe that there arent more now, than there were 20 years ago when I was studying. whats wrong with engineering as a career???

I do find though that often it is other women who are prepared to put down a woman who is trying to compete on even terms with men.

When I first started working for a small firm of solicitors I had quite a hard time with one or two of the secretaries. I was the first female lawyer to work for the firm. One day the receptionist/telephonist called in sick at the last minute and, as was usual, the secretaries organised a rota to cover her work. They came to me asking when I was going to take my turn (none of the other - male - lawyers was expected to do so), so I just told them to fit me in between X and Y (naming two of the male lawyers). They looked aghast and said they couldn't of course ask them, so I asked why they thought they could ask me. They looked rather bemused but never asked me again.

WWJD, I just asked dh how many female engineers he thought were in the N Sea oil business. He reckons they'd number in 10's, not 100's.

I do actually know a woman engineer who works offshore while her dh is a SAHD to their twins. And now I come to think of it, she's black too - she must tick all the boxes against stereotyping!

Hmmm. There is an issue in general with women into science and engineering - there is still nothing like the expected gender balance across the traditional sciences unlike law or medicine, for example. There aren't the role models and with fewer coming to read science the problem is going to persist because there will be naturally fewer going into teaching etc to inspire on the ground.

At the moment there isn't a critical mass for women in N Sea engineering - e.g. it isn't cost effective to send the possible solitary woman out to a rig because she occupies a twin room and they could send two men...(because they literally don't have two women to send).

So how do we get women into science or engineering - answers on a postcard please .