Are you a feminist?

[spacedonkey]

I was born in 1968, so I'm one generation on from the 1960s/1970s women's rights movement generation. Growing up I was more focused on hating Thatch than women's issues - it seemed the battle for equality had been won. But it hasn't. And increasingly I find myself reaching for the dungarees, so annoyed do I get about the continuing inequalities women experience (still paid less than men, getting sacked for being pregnant, still doing most of the unpaid work in the home, not to mention the tyranny of "beauty" etc).

Where is feminism these days?

But so many women come here to then moan about it.

Herc, I liked that thread and did contribute - did we come to any conclusion? Because men will be lazy arses if women/anyone let them, just as many women would be?

Well it doesn't really matter does it - what most families would look at, I assume, is the incremental increase in salary for the lowest earner to return to work less any child care costs.

Now in many families the person with the lowest income is still going to be the woman - don't shoot me, I didn;t make the rules!!!!

So when making the decision the women's salary minus the childcare costs will be how better or worse off the family is from the lower earner returning to work.

It doesn;t really matter who physically pays the fees - the economics still have to make sense!

Wasn't really trying to be contraversial WWW but it definitely seems to be true amongst a large group of the middle class mums I know. Of course the first few years are really tough, but once the children are at school, you've got to admit it is pretty dossy! 9.30am to 3.00pm free every day for the majority of the year. The women I know who are at home now with children at school have a really great time.
I was stunned when I sat in my NCT group 6.5 years ago and 4 out of the 6 women said that they couldn't wait to give up work & had no intention of going back. All university educated and just stepping out of the labour market in their late 20s.
I do think that bringing up children important job but so is paying your way. This is when I get in a muddle though - because I don't know what the answer is. I want women to have a choice and I don't begrudge the fact that some women have the economic freedom to solely stay at home and raise their children - but how on earth can we be expected to be taken seriously in the work place when every employer knows that a women in her 20s may at any moment disappear from their team?

I am sure part of the reason my dh isnt like so many other men is because he had male and female servants and then went to boarding school from the age of 11 never returning home. He never had the role model of a woman doing all the housework.

Sure they do, to an extent Soapbox but if a woman likes her job and wants to work then the economics shouldn't be used as an excuse to get her to perform full time childcare/housekeeping/cleaning/wifely duties for FAR far far less than the actual market rate would be were a person to go out and buy them. And that is often what happens. OOh, I sound like a wages for housework 70's feminist now, I know!

Well Bugsy kind of wasn't wrong IMHO! But only part of the equation was described.

I do think women think of it as the easiest option, only because the man in the relationship will not pull their weight on the domestic front. So instead of being at home all day looking after children it changes to being at work all day, home in teh evening to do all of the housework, pick the children up from childminder, feed them, bathe them get them to bed, make dinner, collapse in bed ready to start the next flipping relentless day of stress and flipping misery!

Where's teh choice in that then?

Although my dh and I are very happy I am comforted by the knowledge that if we ever split up I am quite capable of financially supporting myself. That's not to say women staying at home arent doing a good job too but I would hate to have to then depend on an ex if anything happened.

"but how on earth can we be expected to be taken seriously in the work place when every employer knows that a women in her 20s may at any moment disappear from their team?"

so in order to be taken seriously in the workplace we should stop breeding then?

What you described Busgy is awful. WHo is to blame for that?

Oh Bugsy but the logical conclusion to that argument is why bother educating women and girls at all? They're only going to pop off and pro create aren't they, bless 'em!

This is speeding up a bit and I can't keep up now

WWW - but paying a home keepers wage is about the only way you would address that, or great big tax rebates on second earners earnings. Pigs flying by the window anyone

But Bugsy - a COUPLE make a child and when a COUPLE make the decision that one of them will do more child rearing and the other will do more work (as they are then enabled to do) then who is not 'paying their way'?
And men in their twenties are not known particularly for their dogged, selfless loyalty to their employer! In fact, men in their twenties change jobs more often then women (men of any age, actually) and in companies where there is good flexible working and maternity pay etc, women are far more loyal employees than their male counterparts.
However, I do agree that some women are very keen to find a man with lots of money so they can be comfortably supported while they choose what to do with their lives, and would be absolutely horrified if that man decided he wanted the choice to stay at home with the children or work part time for less money.

SD and WWW - I think you are both missing Bugsy;s point - she is saying that if more women did return to work after having children then employers would see women as worthwhile investing in them. She is not saying women should not be in the job market at all!

Well the law is sort of beginning to accept this more than it ever did before too, look at the Ray Parlour divorce. Damn right too.

no - bugsy was implying that it is women's fault that we are not taken seriously in the workplace because of our tendency to go off and breed!

But soapbox, men change jobs far more than women. Is that an argument that companies shouldn't invest in male employees?

Definitely not suggesting that women shouldn't be educated or work - absolutely not. There is something fundamentally wrong with our society.
Maybe if we all had the same economic capabilites and proper, really good childcare was freely available then men & women could be more equal. If your earning capabilites are the same then there wouldn't be this absurd thing, oh well the woman earns less, so she can give up her job because childcare is too expensive for her to go back to work!!! ARGHHH - how ridiculous is that?

I had a similar argument with a friend a while back who said she wouldn't employ someone of childbearing age at all in case she went and got pregnant (the employee, not the friend, friend has 3 children!) Soapbox, but just because an employer may have been minorly inconvenienced by a woman working for him for what, over a year? (has to be to get anything) only to go off and have children, because the govt reimburse mat pay and the amount a co is obliged to pay legally is pitiful, the cost is low. If this low amount is the difference betwewen being in business and not then it isn't a viable business anyway imo. And as Aloha points out, men move jobs and no-one says 'oh I won't employ him because he might leave and get himself a £10k payrise in a year' businesses deem the risk worth taking because the benefit of the work outweighs the risk! And having children is ensuring survival of the human race, it's economically necessary for people to keep having them, the govt WANTS us to!

But surely there also needs to be changes in womens own expectations of their place.

Bugsy, despite the Equal Pay act, women still earn considerably less than men for the same jobs.

No Sd - to go off and breed and not return to work!

Aloha, I think in many professions men leaving the profession for years before returning would be viewed as a waste of investment, yes.

Again only IME - but I have to say that I see no move in my profession to stop investing in women because they might leave, nor in slowing down in promotion prior to having babies. Generally up to having children things are pretty equal. Thereafter, I have to say it all goes kind of pear shaped!

Partly due to men working 65 hours a week and women reducing hours to 30 a week. In a bill by the hour job, it is a killer for women's prospects!

It is getting very middle classed, but it is a factor up for discussion on a frequent basis with many of my friends and collegues who are in dual career households. It is incredibly hard to sustain when the average working week is so long!

www - the programme I mentioned lower down the thread did a survey of recruitment agencies: they were asked whether employers had requested them not to put forward women of childbearing age as candidates. All of them said yes. I found that very shocking.

I know WWW (on the equal pay point) and that is very depressing. We shouldn't be penalised for "breeding" but how can we be taken seriously when after a few years in the workplace, so many of - often the more highly educated women - just disappear?

WWW - teh govt don't reimburse mat pay if total annual NIC for the employer exceeds £11k. This means that for any company with about 4 employees there is no reimbursement.

The training costs are seen as the most costly though IIRC.