Feminism and me

[morningpaper]

After spending the first three decades of my life being a raving feminist, I can't help wonder WTF? when it comes to being a mum.

Basically my skills (in order of usage) are: cleaning for DP and DD, cooking for DP and DD, washing for DP and DD, Microsoft network technician (0% of time).

After an exhausting days cleaning/cooking/ washing, once I've settled into bed to read my (imported) copy of MS. magazine, I wonder what's the point? What useful lesson has feminism really taught me?

I noticed at a recent gathering of mummy-friends that I was the only 'Ms.' and when I commented on this (may have been a tad drunk) all my (intelligent) friends said things like "Well I like people knowing I'm married!" and it made me feel VERY depressed to think I was raising a daughter for ... what kind of future? Probably the same as mine - cooking, cleaning, and washing - all while being (of course) very enlightened and feminist about the whole thing.

Does anyone else worry about this... or am I letting the post-election blues get to me?!?

Forgot the 'mrs.' part!

I'm a 'mrs.' - have been since the day I got married. DH was always very jealous that I got to such a public, everyday symbol of my change of status and he just got a ring!!

I don't wear a ring either - that really confuses people. never understood why people need to be able to label others. Love the knowing (or so they think) look on people faces when I'm a Ms and no wedding ring on show.

I was brought up in a very traditional environment. Women and girls looked after everything to do with the house and babies, 'golden boys' worked and couldn't even be trusted to dry the dishes. When I think of being brought up like that and how we run our own home now I know exactly what reading Cosmopolitan did for me(about the only remotely feminist tract you could find in my bit of Wales in the 70's)
We both work - dh 5 days, me 4 but that was my choice and my job let me do this and his wouldn't.
Shopping we do together, we have a cleaner who we pay fairly and have encouraged to become a friend as we feel guilty about 'paid help'. Gardening we do together. If one of us is putting dd to bed the other is preparing tea, we share staying in so the other can go out, I sort the bills and any mending, he does the car and any DIY - because that's where our skills are.
We came unstuck when it came to cards and presents because I refused point blank to be responsible for his family as well as mine and our mutual friends. His family got a bit hurt because they didn't get anything at all - or something strange 6 months later (they all lived abroad) Then his sister arrived here and now she sorts it out for him (I can be ruthless). I know it's a small thing and may seem petty but for me it was all part of it.
Anyway I look at how things are now and I feel quietely satisfied. We'll see how having another one 'challenges' us but I am not becoming my mother or her mother! And that is what feminism gave me. (apart from the spirit to go after a bloody good job with good money )

Good for you Welshmum. I grew up in a similar environment to yours as far as boys and girls roles were(except that my mother has been married seven times). With each husband my mother would fetch and carry around after them like a bloody fool.
Imagine this scenario;
Number five Hubby comes in from work, bath ready (temperature actually tested with thermometer), towels and newly opened soap on hand (we had an enormous jar of partially used soaps - for the rest of the household. She would turn on the cooker and go upstairs (to where he would somehow manage to undress and lower himself into the bath wthout her help - sarcasm intended). Once she had washed his back and his feet (pause to throw up here), she would leave him to get himself dried and dressed (clothes laid out, freshly ironed on the bed) whilst she finished cooking. He never ate at the dining table, but liked to be served alone. Once settled in his favourite armchair, she would lay his dinner tray with cutlery and his plate with the food placed accurately on the plate as follows; meat positioned on the plate at 2 o'clock, potatoes at 10 o'clock and veggies neatly divided between 5 & 7 o'clock (I am not joking!!). He would then sit, hands clasped whilst she went back into the kitchen for salt and pepper - not allowed to carry them with her or place them on his tray (because she claimed he didn't like other things on his tray & apparently, carrying them, warmed them up). When he had eaten around 60% of his food, she would go back into the kitchen and make him a cuppa. Then back into the living room to collect his tray. She would then carry his cuppa back to him along with his cigarettes, lighter, newspaper and slippers. Once, the delicate little creature was settled, she would then go and clean the kitchen. Then upstairs to the bathroom to clean the bath and his clothes which he'd dropped where he'd stepped out of them.
Now you might think that this is a form of oppression - WRONG. This was my mothers desperate way of trying to hang onto a husband by giving him exactly what she thought all men want. She did this with everyone of them. They all started as reasonable, somewhat normal males and ended up as every woman's nightmare. She once didn't speak to me for four years because she arrived unannounced at my home and caught DH doing the dishes (No exaggeration here).

Think I am agreeing with welshmum: feminism for me (now - was something quite other when I was at college) is about bringing up sons & daughters to have an equal handle on all the detail, the "plumbing" of life, the boring and the excitingly challenging alike. To know: "if I don't do it, someone else will have to".

My mum did this, but goodness she wouldn't have called it feminist - she called it "making good husbands".

I'm very much a Ms. (despite having just changed my passport into my married name, though that was after, er, seven years.)

jamast. Cross-posted.

wow

Agree with Binkie and welshmum -- but it is all so much more complicated than it seemed when we were at college and assumed everything would be split 50-50.

I've tried the full-time work thing and couldn't hack it -- not because I had to do all the housework, but simply because there was never enough time to do anything properly and I was perpetually exhausted. Now I do consultancy from home, fitting around the children, but actually earn more than dh does.

On the plus side, he doesn't have a problem with this, and does accept that the children are as much his responsibility as mine. BUT because I've arranged my work around the children, he does tend to behave as if it's a big concession when he has to rearrange his work for family reasons. When I (occasionally) have to leave home early for a work trip, I have to brace myself for the confrontation, which usually begins, "Well, you've got to understand how busy I am at the moment..."

Again on the plus side, before my last business trip, I seriously contemplated making the kids' packed lunches, the baby's bottle and food, sorting out the nappy bag, laying the table for breakfast and getting something out of the freezer for children's supper. I then came to my senses and walked out on the whole shooting match at 6am having done none of the above. When I phoned from the train at 8.30, everything seemed to be perfectly under control. He'd even run the washing machine and got the kids to hang the stuff up.

Now that's feminism.

Sorry Haven't got time to read this as I am just on my way out but sounds very interesting - have printed out to read in he doctor's waiting room - would just like to say for me feminism is having the choice to be working mum or SAHM - not being told I have to do one or the other - (as far as I know feminism has nothing to do with being a man hater or all those other things that certain sections of the media would have us believe)I know it has gone out of favour a bit but let me say I AM PROUD TO BE A FEMINIST

I haven't read all the thread as I should be going to work but I will but my tuppence worth in.

I always have been and always will be a strong feminist, some of my friends think I ahve compromised this by being a SAHM and I have wondered myself but my desire to be at home with my dd is so strong I only work two afternoons. I don't do housework just childcare, apart from just general tidying, while I am at hoem during the day. My dp and I share this, we probably share cooking although I will do more of the big meals as he can't cook. As a feminist I also see no contradiction in being a strong woman and stopping at home to ensure that my dd benefits from my education, example and strength rather than paying another woman a pittance to look after my daughter while I go out to work so I can pay her that pittance. I am not having a dig at working mothers, i work two afternoons myself but just feel that you can be a feminist and a mother and even a SAHM,

Right now being a feminist I am off to apply the make up, straighten my hair and wear some outrageous heels that are wrecking my feet but make my legs look fab!!!

I think you can't take feminism out of an economic context. You can only choose to be a SAHM if you can afford to be one. If the economics of your life mean you have to go to work in order to afford to live in a house big enough to fit your children in and pay for their heating and food, then where's the choice? As with most things in life, choice is determined by money.

Feminism for me has been about taking responsibility for my own actions and choices, and not judging men by different standards. I am not sure how much of dh and my characteristics are biologically determined or socially conditioned - some of each I would imagine. Being a woman is a major part of me and being a man is a major part of dh but it is not all of us. Likewise I am no good at a lot of the things that women were 'supposed' to do (perceiving emotions, listening without trying to find solutions, cooking, sewing, feeling the cold, having a waist). Growing up as a feminist means that I do not have to feel inadequate as a woman because I can't do these things.

The kind of man-hating, 'all men are bastards' stuff that the Daily Mail would have us believe is what feminism is, can actually be found, at least in our culture, hundreds of years back long before we had the kind of freedoms and choices that technology and political change can give us.

sorry, yes caligula, absolutely agree.

I agree completely that I am in a fortunate position to have the choices I do to stop at home.

Although when me and my dd did ahve no money and were practically homeless I lived with family so I could stop at home , and I have also lived in a crappy rented house eating baked beans so I could stop at home. But i suppose not everyone has family to help them out so even that was a choice.

My dp also now go without things so i can stop at home, but as I said I am not having a dig at working mums, as I work part time and she does go to nursery two afternoons . I was trying to make the point that you can sacrifice your career for your children and still be a feminist just as you can be a feminist working mother, they are just different ways of living, one isn't better or worse just a choice, preference or in some cases a necessity.

I agree with just about everything said here - but also think that so-called 'choice' is not only detremined by money - but also by circumstances. I recently decided to give it all up to become primary carer for my grandson after he was placed with us on a residency order by social servicea & the court. Prior to this I was earning over £22,000 a year - pocket money. Whilst DH is very good as far as seeing me as an equal, we've spent over 20 years arguing about who should pay the bills. when I started earning decent money, he still insisted that it was his job to pay and as he earns double what I did - I finally gave in and let hm get on with it, agreeing to keep my money for whatever I decided to spend it on. NOW THAT'S BEING A FEMINIST!

But is IS a choice to end up doing all the domestic drudgery. It isn't our fate or somehow inevitable. It simply isn't. As for not employing a cleaner, well that's a choice too, but I don't see the guilt element. I pay an accountant to sort out my tax, an electrician put in the low-voltage lights in the kitchen, a plumber mended the blocked loo, the bus driver takes me into the West End, and bin men take my rubbish away - and I don't feel guilty about any of that. Why is it that cleaning is the only work that has to be done by you? And why on earth not read the paper instead of cleaning. I do. It wouldn't occur to me to feel guilty. I presume your husband studies for his own self-development and enjoyment. It's only the same as reading a book or the paper. A bit of mess won't kill you! I think sometimes we make choices and then rail at our own choices as if they have been imposed on us by someone else (society? men?) which seems pointless and I also think, illogical. I do not regard my husband taking care of our children as 'babysitting', and I do not regard his contribution to the home as 'helping out'. Neither does he. We aren't such freaks you know. My dh comes from a very traditional, working class, Northern background. Yet he can do all this. We simply both agree that things should be fair. I think what feminism gave women was a sense of possibilities and I hate seeing women close down their lives, put up and shut up and never really question whether things can change in their homes and their personal lives. If it's worth complaining about, it's worth changing, surely?

I think Caligulas post of 9:25 was spot on. Women still don't have real choices, because tehy have to make their choices within a male constructed society. So if we want to be career women, too often that means acting as men do in the workplace, which is very difficult if you don't have a wife at home to look after you and the kids.

My DP and I are held up as a beacon of equality amongst our friends! I work four days - he works three days and we share care of the children. He has taken extended (months) time off work to care for both our children before they went to nursery. We (mostly) share cooking, clearing up, shopping duties. He loves spending time with the kids with our without me too.

But only some of this is about choice and the kinds of people we are - we're both adults and both parents so we do our bit. But it's also ecomomic - I am the main breadwinner so I have to work and have no choice. To enable me to do this my dp has to do his share. And he also has a lot of guilt about not being on the 'traditional' male role and so is often super-dad to make up for it - although in my mind only part of being a father is supporting the fmaily financially - what he has given our children is far more valuable.

I do a lot of the organising - from our social life, to childcare to planning the week's menu - simply because I'm better at it. My DP has a different kind of brain - this is reflected in the kinds of work we both do too.

Just two things I thank feminism for

• mine and DPs shared assumption that men and women are equal in nurturing and work capability.
• my ability to work in a family friendly environment that is unquestioning re: the importance of being a parent and how sometimes that has to take priority over work.

Funnily enough my monther, who worked from when I was 7 years old, expects me to work full time and do everything at home. When she was sorting out some washing for me just after my dd was born she noticed a button missing on one of DPs shirts. "Why on earth don't you look after him properly" she asked me....

On the topic of motherhood & feminism, I'm about 1/4 way thru "Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breasts". It's written by an Ozzie feminist (Fiona Giles), contains discussion by FG & essays by other women about their experiences of breastfeeding (or failure 2 do so). So far, it's a provocative & evocative read.

that sounds good zebra

But you do have a choice as to whether to clean or read the paper. It's hardly a new dilemma - I was always more of a Martha than a Mary. And we know whose side Christ was on, eh?

did you know she has also written a book called Dick for a Day ?

I also earn more than my dh, but so what? That doesn't mean I do all the work and he does all the childcare or that I feel I don't have choices. I think Puddle's arrangement sounds similar to ours except I work freelance from home and therefore have even more flexibility. We need very little childcare. But even when I've been home all day, my dh certainly doesn't expect dinner on the table. It's just not that kind of relationship!

& Chick 4 a Day, too. I imagine Dick 4 a Day is a good read; Fresh Milk is really intimate w/out being ponderous or silly (so far). Really makes u think.

To be flippant for a moment: anyone else with an avowedly Feminist partner (I know, cringe) who gets it farcically wrong?

Eg, changed his trousers in the office he shared with female colleague "because that's what I would have done if she were a man and it would be offensive to act differently because she was a woman"?

LOL, Binkie. I'm confused what feminism neans nowadays, too. Not surprised he get it wrong.