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.

Yes, it's only been since the industrial revolution and 'time' was reorganised to fit into work patterns to optimise productivity that people, including, slowly, women entered what we now think of as the modern workforce.

Before that women had the support of their families who often lived close by in small communities. Women could go on 'working' or contributing to that community whether they were pregnant of not.

It's a facet of modernity that women were segregated and isolated when they had children. The net is a great way of finding the kind of community and support that was traditionally on our doorsteps, before the 'workforce' was put into motion and mass migration from rural areas occurred and the cities grew to what they are today.

Interesting though that if you just look at my family - father psychiatrist often seeing patients at home in and amongst us, my sister psychologist sees her clients/patients at home, me - my office largely based at home, my ex husband often here in and among the children teaching the piano here all day from another room when he wasn't at school, loads of accountants we know who work for themselves based at home. The traditional doctor's premises would be ground floor of his home. In fact my brother is seeing a patient here at my home next week. All these teleworkers based at home. So perhaps we had a mere blip of 100 year s or so with people going out to work and now they're going back into their own houses to work

interstingly, whenever i tell people i work ft, i get the comment 'how do you manage it all?', but dh doesn't get the same response - there is such a wealth of assumptions in that comment that i don't know where to start. typically, women are asked if they're giving up work when they have children, men aren't. so as a society we do still expect women to be the homemakers, although we acknowledge their right to a choice, but very few men are expected to have the same range of choices. i do wonder if it is good for society, both on a macro & micro level, whether two ft working parents (particularly where ther are no flexible hours) is best long term. perhaps we should be more flexible towards either parent spending some time at home with young children, and having the right to return to work, without having to start again at the bottom & work their way up.

But then if you say to someone who has a baby "what you do" and she's a housewife she looks at you crossly.

just part of the complexities of having those extra choices, ones which men don't seem to have.
although people assumed i'd give up/go pt when i had dd, they accepted me working ft, but the same flexibility wan't extended to dh!

a 'blip'? ..yes

I've styaed at home with ds for two and a half years - in that time I've never been a 'homemaker' I've been primary carer.

Sorry to be so long in answering your question Monkeytrousers, I get lost in this thread. Re dredge up - what's wrong with that expression? - it's not like I'm calling you a liar. It's just that attitudes are hard things to prove scientifically and I would like to know more about the way this particular evidence was gathered before I let it change my own opinion on the matter.

Furthermore, I contend that as personal vanity is to be found in both sexes, what does it matter which sex has more of it? You might as well say that because MOST men are physically bigger and stronger, then NO woman should ever work on a building site or other physically demanding task. It is also said (and there may be scientific evidence of this, I don't know) that women have better fine motor skills than men and that's why they are more likely to do things like fine needlework. But should that be a reason to prevent men from having a go if they want?

But doesn't that mean you've shirked your proper duties, MT, if you care for the child but don't do the house stuff and been a proper home maker. Doesn't that mean the man supporting you being there at home is not getting the proper housewife services he's entitled to expect?

Don't be so silly and provocative Xenia.

And stop equating mother = housewife.

I'm a mother, but not a housewife (no house, not married) and I don't do any domestic work I don't enjoy. I subcontract what I don't like and keep what I find fun and rewarding, like any sensible manager does.

Xenia - on the doctors working from home - here in France there are still lots of doctors working out of their own homes in private practice. This is a dangerous model IMO as they get out of touch with developments in medicine. In fact, it has become such an issue here that all kinds of legislation is being passed to ensure medics keep up to date and hone their skills. But I still prefer an NHS type model, far less dangerous for the patient in areas like psychiatry.

"But doesn't that mean you've shirked your proper duties, MT, if you care for the child but don't do the house stuff and been a proper home maker. Doesn't that mean the man supporting you being there at home is not getting the proper housewife services he's entitled to expect?"

Could just as easily say.....

But doesn't that mean you've shirked your proper duties, Xenia, if you have a child but don't do any of the looking after the baby stuff and been a proper mother. Doesn't that mean the baby you had is not getting the proper motherly services its entitled to expect?

Not that I hold that opinion since I don't feel it is anyone else's place to define what a proper wife or proper mother is

Why should a woman call themselves a housewife if their prime reason for leaving paid employment is to be their child's main carer?

LOL Xenia!

Elastica, will get back to you anon

monkeytrousers I have tried to flag you on another thread but no joy. Have lost your email as my pc died a while back. Sorry for being useless - would love to hear from you & hope you are well

I just emailed you NG. Is your email the same?

Anna, you're a special and rare case that can afford because of the man you live with and your own savings / income to look after a child but not scrub floors. Most women aren't in that position.

You do get a lot of stroppy housewives in 2007 which even though they don't earn a penny are pretty bad at the basic job too and look after the child but don't do any of the other housewife things. I'm not sure that's fair on the man although I suppose if the couple have agreed you can let the house be in as bad a state as you like and we always have run out of milk and food and I will do the cleaning when I get in from work then that's fine if it suits them.

Your imagination on relationships is wonderfully limited Xenia.

I don't believe it is true what Xenia says about it being a rare thing in the past to have servants. As I understand it, even the moderately badly off had ladies maids (one each!) who would come in and help with the chores..... and the moderately well off had live in maids. You only need to look at average Victorian or Edwardian terraced housing (not exactly the housing preserve if the solely super wealthy!) to see that the house has been specifically architecturally designed to house a live in maid as well as the family.
I am a stay at home mother and house keeper cum gardener (I do have a weekly cleaner and a gardener once in a while). I have three children and am expecting no. 4. I am professionally qualified (in law) and choose to be at home with my children and running my home (which I love!). I do not feel in the least bit cross when people ask me what I do...... I alwys answer that I am a stay at home mum. Although I do have a friend who answers that she is a Barrister but looking after her children at home "at the moment" (being at home with her family is a job she loves!) when in fact she has not practised at the Bar for 14 years!

Edwardian England is hardly a substantial part of the past though, isn't it?

Even then it wasn't most people. It was the very few who were middle class. Although it's true that abroad where labour is cheap servants are common. India just banned live in servants under 16 I thikn and there are at least one million of them apparently so a massive legal change. My ex nanny her indian family in Africa when they went home there they had lots of African servants, very cheap labour indeed.

May be our households have just got too small. Today in my house are 2 children, 3 adult children, a cleaner (this morning) and a nanny (and me working) so the youngest children always have someone around and about to talk to.

i think mothers of the house have always had help - only now we pay for it.

think of granny cooking stew, older daughters/barren sisters helping out with other chores as well as looking after children.

it's only now that we have become so estranged from community life that we have to employ cleaners, gardeners etc whereas before neighbours, family would have done it for free or a nice meal!

talking about roles, i'm always having to explain that actually i've got three children and that's why i'm buying three different pairs of children's shoes or interested in someone's baby. i do feel a bit like i've lost a few limbs, if i haven't got lots of children running around (it's so much fun!).

until the time of electricity in the home, it was common to have some help - even the moderately poor, the equivalaent to someone ina 3 or 4 bed house on a development, one or two adults working, would have ahd a day maid & a genearl man - you only need to read your literature to see this. my gran always had at least 3 staff, though not ft - she had a mother's help, a cleaner & a gardener. my grandparetns weren't poor, but they certainly weren't wealthy & they had 4 children to support, my gran was a sahm and would have been shocked at the idea of working - she worked whilst married, but without children, during the war, but certainly knew better than to take a man's job once the war was over!

In that Channel 4 documentary The 1900s House, the family were very definitely working class but they still had a lady's maid who came in to help out with the chores. Households who had paid for help were in the majority not the minority. In constrast to today. Although we do have more labour saving devices and no fires to set etc so I suppose it is understandable to some degree. How often do you all blue your washing?

I was somewhere abroad where you can hire labour at seven US dollars a day and woe betide if you upset the local economy by going up to 10 dollar as one US lady found to her cost. We just aren't a country with huge difference between rich and poor and very low wages any more, that's all in terms of servants. Plenty of british expatriats enjoy lots of servants abroad.

Also I find my 3 adult children being around is really helpful not because they're scrubbing floors but just in terms of being there, the other children always having someone else around.

Perhaps really there's no previous or future nirvana we should hark back to or want now and just get on with things now ensuring they are reasonably fair. Plenty of things in the past were dreadful, life expectancy of 40, most children dying before 5 etc. We have never had it so good as now.

so now we have washing machines instead of 'staff' those of us who would have been staff are now working in offices, we get to choose whether to be wohm or sahm, but frequently seem to end up in charge of appliances & children as well. we frequently have gulit pored upon us by the media whicever choice we've made, the respect for role of sahm seems to have disappeared, and the cost of housing is so high that we have to work ft no matter what.
however, we do have more choices than men, or at least they're more easily accepted, and we are allowed to wear short skirts without being accused of 'asking for it'
hmm, quite glad of femninism, but think i'd like to see some more respect between individuals, whatever they've chosen, so that we don't feel some roles are valued more than others