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.

The media are merely tapping into a very jittery generation of current mothers hence front page of Times 2 is often something like "Children in Daycare Grow Up to be Hooligans" or the like. I am pro choice. I have friends who are high fliers at work and friends who are high fliers at home! I think individuals who feel the need to justify their choice - or impose it on their daughters! - are misguided. Freedom is all about having a choice.

And men should as freely have a choice as women, very important part of a fair country and fair relationships.

I thought we were discussing feminism.

Men do not feel jittery about working full time - whoever minds the children (wife or paid for care). Noone asks a man how they are managing to combine 3 children with such a demanding job. It is just not something that most men concern themselves with, not cynical on their part.... just their natural inclination.

Feminism means fairness ,It means no woman being entitled to assume if she chooses to stay home she can even if her partner would rather like to do so. It does not mean choice and an easy ride for women at the expense of men.

They can both stay at home and mind the children, and go shopping at Lidl together. Xenia, you are fighting a battle on behalf of men. A battle that does not really exist. I do not know any men who would rather stay at home and mind the children and keep house.

Somie do. Some resent the burden of having to be sole financial supporter. Even if they don't want to they ought to. Many women want to be housewives. That doesn't mean they should. They should be forced out for the their own good into the workplace contributing to the economy etc.

Xenia, I understand the kind of SAHMs you know do not pull their weight and seem to contribute little to the wellbeing of others or the running of the economy. I'm a SAHM and this is what I've done this week

• taught recorders as a voluntary helper at local school (no one would do it if I didn't).

• looked after friend's toddler when her childcare arrangement fell through at short notice, so that she could honour a work commitment.

Tomorrow I'm going to take advantage of some free career development to improve my performance in the 4 hours or so paid work I do per week.

Friday I'm going to spend most of the day at my aged ps in-law who are very elderly and infirm.

This is over and above running my own household and looking after my school-aged children, one of whom, incidentally was home sick for the whole week before the Easter break.

?Some resent the burden of having to be sole financial supporter.? Resent? Can anyone go through live without encountering resentment or without making compromises? Women are not to ?blame? for these state of affairs. Sometimes Xenia you sound like a 70s radical feminist, others a female chauvinist pig. An easy ride at the expense of men? Having children and looking after them? That is an easy ride at the expense of men? Is that how you actually see it?

And what does ?fair? mean? Things are far fairer now. We?ve been through this before; equality does not have to mean sameness. Would you agree?

bump

Life isn't fair anyway and yes it's a lot fairer and better than it was. More and more parents are sharing childcare and involved with their children whatever their sex and more and more women are choosing to work. No, fair doesn't have to mean same but I still think there are far too many marriages where the woman does too much at home - just look at the countless mn threads on it, whether they both work or one stays home.

Xenia - it seems reasonable to assume from your last thread that you feel that SAHMs do not make a valid economic contribution. This is an incorrect perception of yours. There are a variety of SAHMs - you seem to lump them all together - as if in your eyes you are either a working mother (and therefore worthy) or a non working mother (totally unworthy). It does not seem to matter to you that some families have made a conscious decision (often quite separate from the hard economic decision making) to have a SAHM. My being at home for my children is worth far more to me personally than the loss of my salary. Luckily we earn enough as a family unit to have been able to make that decision. I don't know why it makes you so uncomfortable.

And you are making a valid contribution to society by caring for your children in the environment proven to be best for them.

Just because it confirms women's position as serving men in a fairly submissive way, woman's place in the home, not contriuting to the economy, value just as care and cleaning up, not exactly what women fought for, is it? Also I find it hard to see how women can enjoy it but I accept many do. Also never is the man making career sacrifices, is it? So I think women if they have a choice ought to work at least until we have a fairer society and consolidate female gains a bit better and then they can settle back into domesticity if that's what they really want.

I do not feel I am serving a man in a submissive way or even in a fairly submissive way. We are a team. Also I do not feel like I am at war with men ("not what we fought for"?). I think it is misguided to only be in the workplace because you believe in some outdated notion of "equality". All that is required is for women to be allowed to be true to themselves. Some, like me, will choose to stay at home and some, like Xenia, will be working for shiny wonga and paying other (women probably!) to look after their children and homes, in the misguided belief that this is a just fight. I think it is absolutely fine to go to work if that is what you want, but to go to work just because you feel the battle is unwon - that is just nuts!

I think we are lucky to have the luxury of wondering whether feminism has done anything for us. I for one am extremely glad to live in one of the 'islands' of female equality in the world. It is only in Western society that women have 'equal' rights.

As for the problems regarding combining childcare and housework with working full-time, it could be that we haven't yet really worked out what to do with our relatively new rights. We are mid-way through a cultural change where many of our mothers would have done the majority of domestic work and childcare, with secondary careers.

It would be no surprise if it takes more than a generation to work out what sort of role we now play. We need to cherish the rights we have, or run the risk of taking them for granted and slipping back into the tyrannical patriarchy that much of the world still inhabits.

And most women post children are in low paid, menial jobs - serving men in fairly submissive ways.

Caring for your children is putting them first, not your partner. Those Victorian patriarchal days are well and truly over.

Very well put Cloudhopper. I have said before, I am pro choice. There is no need to seek to justify the eventual choice - just be grateful to have it. And be grateful that your friend had a choice too, and be not jittery that she chooses differently!
Look at what is happening in Iraq - Muslims at war with different Muslims. Sometimes minor differences escalate into major conflict because a minor departure from "the choice" is somehow much more uncomfortable. There was a piece in the Times last week and it had 5 (if I remember correctly) personality traits/skills that we should all have to be effective humans. One of them was "acceptance of difference".

Agree with CH, particularly about rest of the world and indeed many communities in the UK.

Interesting issue is that if women don't exercise their rights whether they lose them. If 99% of working women on having chidlren make flexible working requests to come back 2 days a week for example who on earth is going to want to hire women in the first place as they're just a complex liability. If only 1% do then the rest aren't tarred with the same brush etc.

But Xenia, in an industry like the one I work in, 80% of the skilled employees are women, so there is no choice over whether to employ them or not. Yes men are given more responsibility and better promotion prospects because of their lack of fertility. But to be honest these days this just looks more like common sense to me than discrimination.

Childless women seem to be treated equally - and to be honest the ones of us with small children are less reliable sometimes when we have to concede to our role as the main carer. There I've said it.

I am still musing over my choice between all out career progress full time and the part time route where I will get to see my children. I feel incredibly spoilt by the choices I have.

I don't feel there are any barriers to this choice other than my own conscience and what I want to do. This is incredible given that most of my mother's generation were nurses and teachers by default and expected to give up work when they had children. Equally in many communities women have always covered home responsibilities as well as low paid jobs.

i do think we have more choices than previous generations, but that doesn't make life easier. i've just applied to reduce my hours slightly (less than 1 day a week) because otherwise i would have no contact with dd's school when she starts in sep. dh doesn't have to make that compromise - his work will be more flexible about his start to the school day. my work could be more flexible if they wanted to be but have an active DON'T help working parents policy! so, he earnes more than me, but he is the emergency childcare during term time.
incidently, he would resent me being a sahm shile he worked full time, particularly if that continued for a long period - ther's a reason why men die earlier!
i do think that discussing the rights of men should be part of feminist debate, if we are after equality, we need to consider everybody's rights.

also, whilst i believe that both men & women should have the freedom to choose whether to work or stay home, i do wonder what is the result on children if both parents have very 'full on' careers which keep them away from home. i have taught many children where parents work shifts & children are left at home. this can put the child into quite important decision making & they don't make the best life long decisions at 13/14, but they don't have parents around enough to discuss things with. if we have a society where everyone HAS to work ft, i worry about the social effects. isn't the increase in dual income families partly responsible for the rising house prices? what has feminism given me? a big mortgage!

I suppose you might have been in a small rented house - my grandfather in 1911 share a house with 26 young men - we can hardly imagine that now, all cramped presumably on mattresses 6 men per room many unable to get married until they were well over 40. We're all a lot better off now.

I certainly agree that status, high earnings and power at work gives you power to determine work, hours, children. I have so much more of that now at 45 than I did at 26 working full time in the City with 3 children under 4. That's my key difference now. Money and control over your working life makes a massive difference which for me means girls really should pursue that if they can because it makes them more able to be there for their children. A secretarey may find it hard to get time off to watch a Christmas play. The MD probably just says - I'm going out and goes. Obviously that's a generalisation but if you run the place you can often determine your hours - that may mean you work harder than everyone else but at least you're in control of it all.

The rights of men are part of the feminist debate - don't let anyone get away with that one!

What, so we should all be the boss? Don't think that is possible somehow

Many women achieve that. On a personal basis for many posters that gives them more power and ability to manage their ives and work so if mothers have an aim it shouldn't be the rubbish job with low pay and no power but the job at the top with high pay and lots of control. Far too many women aim low.