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?!?

I grew up in a council house, as did my parents (grandparents grew up in hovels before social housing existed). I still don't feel uncomfortable employing a cleaner. I employ her for her skills as much as I employ a carpenter or a gardener or amy accountant for theirs. I am an intelligent person. I could do my own tax return. I hate it and prefer not to and know my accountant (a working mother who works freelance when it suits her, btw) will do it better, hate it less, and pays her mortgage out of people like me who employ her. I am also capable of sorting out my own garden, but not as well as the gardener (also a self-employed woman) or with as much flair. I can use my time to concentrate on doing things that a/I enjoy b/pay my bills. I simply fail to see the difference between those people and my cleaner, who works for herself, when she wants at a hourly rate considerably over that she would get doing most other jobs and certainly is much more convenient for her. As I've said before, my cleaner loves her job - too much sometimes. Much more than she would working in a supermarket, a call-centre, a cafe or a factory. I've cleaned myself in the past. There are worse things to do.

BTW, my mother who grew up in a rented tenement and then council flat in the East End regards herself very much as a feminist.

This is such an interesting thread, I'm really enjoying it. I have no answer to why (some) men assume women will do more of the housework/domestic chores in this day and age. I can only say that from my experience, at the moment I am on maternity leave with second child and so do the majority because I'm here and don't mind. Before I had children though I did insist that my husband did his fair share. He went to boarding school but I have to say was the most undomestic man I had ever met. He couldn't even boil an egg. It amazes me that his Mum hadn't even shown him how to do that. Its a legacy I am not passing on to my own two sons, who will most definitely know how to cook dinner and use an iron. When I go back to work next year it will be part time and so I guess we will share some of them, with me doing a bit more as I'm at home more often. As for the Mrs/Ms points, I always thought I would be a Ms. I did contemporary feminist thought as a minor at university (law as a major) and really think of myself as quite forward thinking in regard to womens rights etc. But it boiled down to this when I took my husband's name a. he had a nicer one that I did b. it was already double barrelled (not in a posh way, its a common Welsh name) so to link the two names was out of the question and c. I was so massively head over heels with my husband and had been dreaming out being married to him for 10 very very long years I couldn't wait for us to have the same name! I know there are lots of people who will think that is really sad, but I just wanted to do it and never thought twice. To me, that is the greatest gift feminism gave us, the ability to make choices like that.

I also worked as a cleaner when I was a student. It wasn't such a bad job. I also now pay for a cleaner. She is excellent at her job, is self employed and asks for, and deserves, a wage which is far about the legal minimum. When our pipes need sorting we emply a plumber, a handyman for roof tiles, electricians and service engineers all come round when we need them. Without this input I would live in a hose from 'Life of Grime'. I could do it I suppose, but I don't want to. I feel no shame. I work and so do these people. We are all equals.

It does worry me that the 'respect' towards cleaners some people are showing here is a very misplaced kind of snobbery. For those 'embarrassed' to hire someone to clean for them are you sure it's not you that think it is a 'lowly' job rather than the cleaners themselves? My brother's gay and his partner worked in IT since leaving school until the last 6 months in which he's teamed up with a female friend and they've started a cleaning round. They are so much happier with this work and he says he earns more money an hour and has a more flexible work arrangement than he had in all his years of office work. He would be slightly mortified to think that people think this is a job to be ashamed of.

well maybe not the greatest gift. voting was pretty good

I don't 'respect' my cleaner any more or any less than I 'respect' anyone who can get themselves together enough to sort out a job that they can do well. I'm not posting about my cleaner because I'm a snob. I'm posting about why I don't feel guilty about employing her. She earns a good wage and works hard for it. So do I,, no difference as far as I am concerned.

Cleaning is not a job that you need any training or qualifications to do. It is good practise to have risk assessments on chemicals being used etc if you are running your own cleaning business, but anyone can up and do it. For that reason it is perceived as a lowlier job in the great scale of jobs. The lowliest of jobs however must be that of 'mother'. And a mother who can't even do her own cleaning is even lower down the list than one who pays a cleaner. It all comes down to guilt in the end. Misplaced guilt not misplaced snobbery. And where did all that guilt come from?

Er, I don't know, because I don't feel any.

That womens work is undervalues it unarguable. In the Soviet Union teachers and doctors were paid less than factory workers. The reason, mostly women did those jobs. It isn't what women do that makes their jobs undervalued it is the simple fact that it is women that do them

Absolutely agree with that. When most teachers were men, teachers were the social and financial equals of bankers, lawyers and doctors. When the profession started to be dominated by women, look how far teachers slipped down the scale. Same with estate agents and solicitors. Wherever women move into a profession, the average wage in that profession falls, because it's not the work that counts, it's who does it. Which is why the private sector can justify having a wage range for a job of £18,000 - £35,000, depending on who does it. (I'm not exaggerating, I've seen ads with this age range.) After an initial period of 6 months or so, the work of the job will be the same, but depending on whether you've got black or white skin, a penis or a vagina, a degree from Cambridge or Portsmouth, etc. etc. etc., you'll either be earning ca. £20K or ca. £35K.

Sorry, off on a tangent there, but connected I think!

Look, I think I said 'respect' regarding cleaners. I guess I just want to have the same consideration for them that I would expect from anyone who employed me. And that's wrong why? I respect her right to a decent living wage, I respect her right to holidays and time off. I respect her, as my employee, because that is what she is - that is what anyone working for anyone is - because she's doing a damn good job.

So what, respecting employees is years behind and hopelessly out of date? I guess I'm a snob, then.

Oh shit, look, I've got totally misunderstood here. I meant the 'respect' that people claim to have for others that leads them NOT to employ a cleaner, not people who happily employ one. So hmb etc. I'm totally with what you're saying. If you read the whole of my post you'll realise what I was getting at.

Out of interest - those who employ cleaners, do you pay their National Insurance, as you are legally required to do as their employer? Do you pay into a pension for them? Do you give them paid sick and holiday leave?

I think it takes more than 'respect' to make the employer/employee relationship right - it should also be legal.

At least cleaners paid through agencies have these basic employment rights (and pension is especially important) - talking about 'paying a very good hourly rate' isn't really enough, IMO. I feel very uncomfortable paying someone 'in cash' a good hourly rate - sure, it might not affect their tax/benefits, but it also doesn't pay their pension, or afford them protection in case of sickness etc.

I did have a cleaner several years ago - and this was the position I found myself in. It made me very uncomfortable.

Prefernot: I see you point, but I don't know any cleaners (amongst my friends that do it - that would be another thorny issue, finding a cleaner that wasn't a friend, and then having my friends insulted because I hadn't employed them...) who are doing it legally. The people I know clean to supplement their meagre wages from other jobs or benfits. It isn't their choice of career. Perhaps you can quote people who don't fit into this description, but I think they are likely to be the exception to the norm.

Morningpaper.

Cleaners are not the employees of those that they work for unless they work more or less full time for one person. As cleaners usually work for an assortment of different people during the week this makes them self employed and as such they are responsible for their own tax and national insurance. This does of course mean that paying a good hourly rate is important as they need to pay tax and national insurance out of this amount. I do pay tax and national insurance for the one employee that I have that works mainly for me.

As regards holidays my cleaner is always paid for them and also for weeks when she cannot attend due to illness or family problems. She is however ultra reliable so when she doesn;t come I know it is for a serious reason!

Soapbox: You can have as many employers as you like, that doesn't make you self-employed. If she is self-employed, she will need to be covered by professional insurance to work in your home. Does she hold this insurance? Do you have a contract with this person?

If you do - great! But let's not pretend that it isn't - in the main - a black economy.

By the way, my cleaner was called Miss Daisy, and the first time she came, she found my floral-patterned vibrator under my bed, dusted it off, and left it neatly on the mantlepiece, where it stood proudly to greet me as I returned home from work.

Moprning paper - actually it does! The number of employers and the time that you work for each one is the main criteria that the Inland Revenue take into consideration when determining whether or not some one is an employee or whether they are self employed.

Whether or not one has a contract or not does not, as far as I am aware, have any bearing on the matter.

I think you are right that the market is mainly a black market, but that is not due to employers not fullfilling their obligations!

TBH, I'm fairly tolerant of cleaners keeping the earnings they get and not declaring them (because the onus is on them to do so) as most of them are at least trying to improve their lot! I have no idea whether my cleaner does or doesn't

... Also Miss Daisy (who was a Pentecostal) would perform a short exorcism and blessing before she started work, for "Jesus to bless this house." Which I thought was a rather nice added extra.

I should really add, that as far as paying tax and national insurance goes, I would far rather see those mega earners pay the tax that they should rather than exploiting a myriad of different loopholes, than see my cleaner hand over any of her hard earned dosh! But guess which group is more likely to be pursued?

This thread has a lot of strands to it. The cleaner issue is very interesting - we don't have one, and our place is pretty untidy, but DH and I do share the chores 50/50 (we both work). We would both feel rather uncomfortable about having a cleaner - perhaps it's an invasion of our privacy (you have to be tidy to in the first place to let someone in to clean). i don't like the black economy either, but cash-in-hand plumbers don't seem to have the stigma that cleaners have because they're men, not women, on a higher wage. Having said that, the hourly rate for cleaning seems to be higher than that for childcare and I hate the implications of that.

The Ms/Mrs debate - I'm trying to keep up two names since I married but that seems a lot hard than sticking to one. I never thought I'd want to change from my maiden name, but since I had dd, having a family name seems important. Now I've taken a new name (part of the time), being called 'Ms' or 'Mrs' seems irrelevant - when I write letters, I don't use titles at all as it seems old-fashioned.

Miss Daisy sounds an excellent cleaner

I don't mean that feminism is old-fashioned at all, I just don't care any more about being called 'Mrs' rather than 'Ms' by a complete stranger. Because after all, no one who knows me will call me by anything other than my first name (I'm firstname lastname at work, no title).

How much time does Miss Daisy spend cleaning, and how much experimenting with your, ahem, objets de plaisir, at the risk of sounding pretentious, moi? !

In terms of the name thing, I'm a Ms. because I'm not married but I'd have no problems being a Mrs. if I was married though it'd probably be strange as I'd be unlikely to take dp's surname. What I really can't get my head around is that unmarried couples with their own surnames seem to automatically give the child the surname of he father. Why is that? That seems to me to be an incredibly old-fashioned behaviour. I've never managed to get a good explanation out of friends I have who've done it. To me it doesn't make sense as if a couple break up the child will be left with a different surname to the mother who they are most likely to stay with ...

We double-barrelled our surnames to get round the problem and hope that when dd's old enough she can choose which name she'd rather have if she thinks it's too long.