In The Times today: Blind feminism has hurt our children

[twelveyeargap]

Blind feminism has hurt our children

Well, one way of solving problem 1 is to push for a better system of paid parental and paternity leave. the UK is particularly bad on this, many European countries have more paid leave for fathers, or paid leave which can be shared between both parents (for example the Scandinavian "Daddy days" - a month of parental leave which is paid but only the man can take, so it's wasted if he doesn't take time off paid work to do childcare).

Another way is by men being a bit more prepared to stick their necks out and push for their rights as fathers. This may sound idealistic but women have had to push pretty hard for their rights in the workplace over the last century, and before that their rights to vote and own property. Is it so unreasonable to expect men to be a little bit proactive about their rights to a life outside paid work?

Not unreasonable at all. Why d'you think they aren't then?

I totally agree fennel and caligula, but we are just not there, are we? We're nowhere near. And there is a prevailing mood turning against women working, of which Oliver James's article is just a taster really. So while we battle away in our homes and families and society for equality, we need to be out there at work in the interim.

All this battling sounds just so exhausting to me.

Maybe men have looked at us and how knackered we are and decided that battling's just too difficult and that's why they don't bother.

caligula, i think at the moment there is little incentive for them to do so. the current division of labour seems to suit many men just fine if mnet is anything to go by.

i have been thinking about this the last few days and have been mulling over a comment you made recently, along the lines that "society" backs up the view of many men that it is the women's role to perform the majority of housework and childcare and that calling women who put up with the status quo "doormats" doesn't help. Apologies if I have misremembered this.

without wishing to sound thatcherish, society is made of up individuals, and i think, now that we have equal opportunity legislation, the battlefield has moved to the home. i don't think substantial further change will be achieved without women standing their ground in the home. this will also achieve the benefit of demonstrating a balance in the home to their children.

and once you have men performing an equal share in the home, the pressure on them will provide an incentive to request flexible working.

is it somehow unfair that women have to do the battling on this issue? yes, but what is the alternative?

Well I do know a few men who have battled this a bit in the workplace, and others who work part time with young children too.

The ones I know tend to be fairly employable and skilled which does mean the employers are a bit keener not to lose them.

Some of it's due to the gender pay gap - men tend to be earning more than women. but of course that's perpetuated by women giving up work or working less so it's a circular problem.

I do agree that the battle has got to move to the home, because that's the only way men will start battling at work. If they came home at 7PM from work and then had to a shift of housekeeping until 11pm, they might decide it would be a good idea to come home earlier. (OTOH, they might decide to find a billet where someone else did all the domestic work and they weren't expected to.)

I don't think it's helpful to call women doormats though, any more than it is to call a victim of domestic abuse a doormat for putting up with being hit. It reduces the problem to an individual character failing, rather than acknowledging that there's a social/ political aspect to it.

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caligula, yes that's exactly what i was getting at.

"doormats" no, a completely unhelpful term, but formulated through exasperation sometimes.

you know the threads...

dh does nothing round the house, totally disrepects me, does not do any child related chores but i can't/won't do anything because he is such a great dad...

at this point i tend to have to step away from the computer and count to ten!

but you're right it isn't helpful.

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pruni, what do you think would be a fair split in your case?

God I wouldn't think he was a great dad in that case.

He's teaching his dd to be a doormat!

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I will tell you for a fact that I, and the other two WOHM married to SAHDs with whom I work, are out the door at 6 p.m. each night if we humanly can do so.

Whereas I know no WOHDs with SAHM partners who routinely do this.

Why?

I think in many ways it is another reflection of our womanly doormat status - we rush home to take over from our partners and see our children, to the detriment of our careers and earning power.

Agree Dino. And it's also because men still do see it as women's job to look after the home and children. And so do women. So the men feel no urgency to rush home, while the women do.

Precisely, Caligula, precisely.

I hate myself for going along with it, but I feel I would be cutting off my nose to spite my face otherwise.

And then there is the very thorny issue of who gets residence of the children in such a situation - one of the main things women can do to improve their potential position is to do as much as they can for their children.

I've studied feminism for quite a bit of time now and I struggle to find any actual evidence of the 'blind', work-obsessed feminism James (and his subeditor) refer to.

In the 1970s, the supposed decade of 'loony' feminism, feminism was about sharing childcare responsibilities, not only with men but with other women. Children were seen as the future of an equal, nonmaterialistic society in which women would not be seen as worthless, invisible domestic labourers. That was the message, not 'go to work and be a MAN my girl'. As other posters have rightly said, that message comes from Thatcherism and neoconservatism. The message now is that only wealth creation counts. If you're at home, you have to be creating little wealth creators. And some commentators think that would be better than making it yourself. Either way, women are still indelibly associated with childcare and all the emotional triggers around it which is why women actually feel more inclined to stay at home/worry themselves sick about childcare. If people and society in general really believed this was not a 'woman's problem' headlines like this one would not get written at all.

I find myself doing a PhD (for miserable grant money, now run out) and due to Dh's higher earnings, paying for a nanny whom I constantly flap about (she just doesn't do what I WOULD do if I were at home, etc...). I pulled him out of his nursery because I felt he just wasn't getting affectionate care & couldn't stand the guilt. DH just didn't feel this to the same extent although he is a very involved parent as far as he can be. No one at his work ever asks him about his childcare 'responsibilities'; his job is constructed as if he simply doesn't have any. He gets praised as 'wonderful' for 'allowing' me to study and paying for childcare which I couldn't otherwise afford. Society doesn't see us as equally responsible for our child and even I, the ranty feminist, have internalised that message to some degree.

It will take generations to get rid of this sort of gender typing. I just wish we lived in a world where little boys could push toy prams and say they want to be nurses or primary school teachers without being laughed at, because we are a really long way from encouraging men to consider themselves equally responsible for childrearing.

Great post, charlieq.

I think we all internalise a lot of this crap, don't we? I know I have (I was the classic ranty feminist at university, and sometimes now I wonder where she's gone - I miss her!).

Let that ranty old harridan out, dinosaur....

We're being driven alternately into a home in which we're held totally responsible for the behaviour and performance of our kids (IF our partners earn enough) or into an exploitative work environment in which our continuing childcare responsibilities are totally denied. And we're still held totally responsible for the behaviour/performance of kids we don't get to see much. I am very surprised more women aren't more angry. Maybe they're just too knackered.

Does OJ acknowledge that that's not what feminism was about though?

I don't actually think it's a bad thing that human beings "internalise" messages that children need affection, I don't think it would be a particularly healthy thing for humanity if women stopped feeling guilt / concern about that, I just wish men felt it too. About time they did some internalising, imo.

Why is it that they don't, though?

Yes, surely it's a good thing that Dino and others rush home straight after work to see their children, even when it trashes career and promotion prospects (been there, am doing that).

There should be more people, especially men, doing this, not fewer.

Well I guess for a start that no-one's telling them it's their problem. Everyone's telling them it's a woman's.

I certainly don't think that concern for children is a 'bad' thing & not sure how anyone got that from my post.

What is bad is that men are not encouraged in any real sense to feel this same concern.

It is a 'woman's emotion', we have all been brought up to believe that. And in the current economic situation that helps nobody.