what has feminism ever done for us?

[SenoraPostrophe]

right girls, it's timne for a proper debate which isn';t about blardy weaning.

the motion is this:

feminism has not really acheived anything. women got the vote and were accepted in the workplace because of the world wars and not because of reason. Later, we accepted careers, but ended up neither having our cake nor eating it what with all the housework and childcare we were doing. and male hegemony still reigns supreme.

discuss.

now this is the real issue - child rearing is seen as not a valuable occupation for a modern couple.

my hubby is a house-husband and the only benifits he gets from the state is a clap on the back, and his Ni contributions paid!

however, if he was looking after someone elses children, he would be paid, pay his own pension, Ni contributions. this is the distortion that i think affects our whole society. as the main carer he is ignored by society until he comes back into full-time paid employment. i think this is the problem to alot of societies ills.

what women have achieved is recognition in the workplace, but in doing so made home-life seem a poor woman or man's occupation.

NB saying this as a fulltime working mother!!

It won?t change Xenia. Or it will change over millions of years. The power you advocate is nonsense, sorry. You cannot swap the sexes. Culture can?t affect the world around it in such a way that evolution does. What seems to be culturally entrenched in the west today is an illusion, helped most of all by THE PILL! Women can control their fertility and therefore have some power to stop being exploited because of it ? but only where they have access to reliable birth control and latterly abortion services. These are two of the most important developments in the history of womankind. If anything happens to ?civilisation? these will stop and women will be vulnerable once more. And if society becomes unstable expect war, and in war expect rape. It isn?t a pretty picture to paint. I think the feminist imperative should join with the environmental one, as women (as well as men of course) have a huge amount to lose if we don?t wake up soon.

When you talk of ?work? are you alluding to work after the industrial revolution? Men and women worked before then, but didn?t get ?paid? for it ? they worked as part of a community or were serfs/slaves.

The birth rate is high when child mortality is high. That?s the same today. Birth rates fall when the chances of your children surviving to adulthood rise.

Anna, yes there is more interest, but like you say there will never be any sex role reversal on any significant scale.

Good post Casbie, but we are probably all discriminated against because we are all poor - in relative terms, and of course black peoples are one of the poorest and most exploited on earth.

Xenia, can you please define what you actually mean when you use the term ?sexist?? It seems that you are saying of you are treated in any way like a woman, that it?s sexist.

Exactly Tatat, your post of 14.12. But about your nagging suspicion, I think you should talk to your DH and find out for sure, don?t let it eat away inside you. Once upon a time the slogan of feminism was that the personal was political, now we need to ask how we stop the cultural becoming personal! Most women, and an increasing amount of men too actually, want a better work life balance ? for the family to be the primary focus, not the job. Relationships break down under the strain of the career vs the family. When they get into trouble people spend more time working away from the source of conflict, exacerbating the problem and then the family breaks down. It?s a very unhealthy cycle and actually only benefits business in the long run ad millions of men and women shag around rationalising the single life and then die alone and lonely.

"however, if he was looking after someone elses children, he would be paid, pay his own pension, Ni contributions. this is the distortion that i think affects our whole society. as the main carer he is ignored by society until he comes back into full-time paid employment. i think this is the problem to alot of societies ills."

Excellently put!

casbie - I quite agree, and I think that the feminist movement has done a lot of harm as well as good to children.

It is a very good thing for children to be brought up by an educated mother who has seen the world and who can prepare them properly for their future place as adults within it. It is also a good thing for children to have mothers who are not economically dependent and who can support their families if the need arises.

However, if that mother is out at work full time and the children spend their days with low skilled carers, the benefit of an educated mother is largely eroded.

I don't like the idea of state intervention in family life. I do like the idea of greater education giving women (and men) better skills for negotiating their own way through the potential minefield of a shared life.

I agree Anna, and I think being educated on sex differences from an evolutionary POV would be a great start in avoiding the usual pitfalls most seem to fall foul of.

monkeytrousers - I am surprised that you take the position that the state should make greater financial acknowledgement of child rearing by parents in their own home.

Personally, I think that divorce law in the UK does an excellent job of that.

monkeytrousers - I agree wholeheartedly that being educated on human evolution and the inherent differences between the sexes is a critical issue going forward.

What's more, I think that many people in our generation suffer from an education in which we were told, misguidedly, that girls could do anything boys can and that sex differences were more about nurture/culture than nature/genes.

Ah, but once it's got to divorce it's already too late, isn't it?

Agree re the nature/nurture false dichotomy

maybe my issue is that maybe we should pay carers - more? better? anything? because they are contributing more than most people to the continuation of life.

i just find it ironic that my hubby is looking after three potential tax payers who will be paying for everyone elses pension - yet my hubby doesn't earn anything in his own right to provide a pension for himself.

(i also find it criminal that pensioners pay for council tax - but that's another issue!)

i should run for MP!

; )

what about the fact that there is a rising birth rate? people are starting to have bigger families again. ould it be that the introduction of the pill & better family planning, easier access to divorce, and the feminist movement led to a temporary dip in family isxe, but that many of us who grew up in a 2.4 children family, actually prefer the bigger family. tht is going to have repercussions, because it is easier to look after one or two children & work, not so easy with more children, particularly if you're in low paid work. also, although in theory you can still apply for jobs/promotions during pregnancy/maternity leave it is less likely to happen, so a woman going through a number of pregnancies is unlikely to advance her career as much as a man who doesn't have time off.
could the rising number of children lead to less equality?

monkeytrousers - divorce law is part of the marriage contract ie when you get married you sign a contract which gives you certain legal obligations if the marriage breaks down. So, even though some (stupid) people don't read the fine print until after the event, divorce law does signal what society believes about the value of roles within a family.

Where I live, in France, there is very little if any alimony and limited child support after divorce. Non-working women are expected to go out and support themselves almost immediately after divorce. That signals something about the value placed by society on child rearing (very low, the French employ cheap, low skilled childcare with no qualms).

In the UK, divorce law is much more favourable towards non-working mothers and the qualifications and pay of child care workers are also much higher than France.

I wasn't aware that the birth rate is increasing in the UK; on averge around the world, yes, but not in the west. I thought the west was trying to promote it however as there's going to be a crisis when all of us reach pensionable age and old people outnumber young ones. I might be wrong though..?

I didn't know that Anna - what of cohabiting couple though, which is the trend these days?

trying hard to remember where i saw this & need to go now, but i thought that in the last 5 years the birth rate in the uk was starting to rise again - women are having more babies. partly due to 2nd families, but also more peolple are having 3 or 4 children, rather than 2. the implications of this are enormous - have wmen decided that they don't want to go out to work & therefore have more kids so that econimicallythey justify it?
gotta run now, but enjoying this discussion - will try to evict dh from the puter tonight so i can catch up!

I don't think the UK birth rate is particularly high amongst people born in the UK. Some non working or well off middle class working mothers like me have larger families but I doubt that is much of a trend.

Sexism? For me it just means being unfair and on grouds of sex. So where both a couple work full time but she does all the domestic stuff too that's sexist and unfair.

On value if you as an individual value a stay at home mother's care and housework (and many many men really do value that highly in their spouse) and you as a woman know it's a valuable thing may be because of your own views or your religion (here religion can help a lot of stay at home mothers I think in traditional roles because it does value that role) then can't you just ignore what society and many working women and men think about housewives? In other words just because you live in one society doesn't mean you have to let it get to you that we as a whole tend to value people's paid work than the rest of their lives/caring for others parts of their lives. Or would it be easier to move to your won town in mid West America like the Amish or other groups or the local Brethern group we have near me who are "apart" in a sense with women submissive to men or the veiled women I just passed when I went out to Tesco. They all maintain their values whilst to a greater or lesser extent living in our capitalist society.

monkeytrousers - what do you want to know about cohabiting couples?

In France, there is an optional legal contract for cohabiting couples which, strangely, is in some ways more favourable towards the non-working partner in case of breakdown than marriage is.

Most cohabiting couples here choose not to have any legally binding contract since there are fiscal advantages for second earners in not doing so.

Here in France the birthrate is the second highest in Europe, and the percentage of women in the workforce the highest in Europe.

This is often touted as a victory for feminism. Personally, I think it comes at great cost to children (child rearing is a very institutionalised business with parents spending very little of their own money educating their children) and a great cost to women, who are very fraught.

Sound like France is doing wonderfully well and their women look good too.

Xenia - yes, wonderfully well, also has the highest rate of antidepressant users in Europe.

sorry, meant to say the highest rate of antidepressant users in the WORLD

UK children have the highest rate of ADs prescription compared with France, Germany, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and the US (2004 data).

The US seems to have more people on ADs here (not a very scientific link, quick though) Anyway, why are we exchanging these data? Let me read and see what this discussion is about.

maybe 'the home' is being excluded and not valued because 'the home' is no longer the main focus of society - work is?

so where as before (generalising terribly and fumbling in the dark) 'the home' was central to the community, where women would meet, talk discuss, support, b*tch, we now talk on-line to bring that feeling of female soliarity.

summary:
women's work has moved from the home and therefore community/society has fractured?

"we now talk on-line to bring that feeling of female soliarity" Hmm, it's beautiful day so I'll agree with you that we find solidarity online.