I keep realising I'm causing threads to digress at the moment! So I thought I'd start a new one! About how I think (although happy to be dissuaded by intelligent stimulating discussion!) the world would work better for women (and children...and even men!). Sorry to do a thread about some threads!
Sakura, I hope you don't mind - you wrote on the 'is it easier to be a feminist if you're a lesbian' thread:
"It's the economic dependancy and security that woman gets"
I don't see it that way, though, in an equal marriage - to me, it's not about being dependent or independent, but about us both being interdependent. Yes, I am economically dependent on DH to a certain extent, but if he refused to give me money, I would be fine because my family believe in community spirit and would help me (like my mum's parents helped her when my dad left her) to get to a point of economic independence asap.
However, DH and I see it more that we are a team and we both rely on eachother to do different jobs that mean that the family works. For instance, I get dinner ready for the family because otherwise we wouldn't all get to eat togehter and we find that eating together keeps our family strong. He relies on me doing that and not sitting down with a good book and expecting him to get his own dinner. He doesn't expect me to do the dinner, but our family works better when I do.
By the same token, I don't insist that he works (he'd like to be a SAHP). I could have gone out to work instead and we could have paid for childcare, or my mum would have had the children. But the family works better when he does the paid work and I stay 'at home' with the children, so I rely on him to fulfil that part of the family work.
"I think it's the same for the SAHM who doesn't go back to work after raising children but instead relies on her husband."
I can't see me doing that! I'd get bored out of my mind! And I think that that is different, because it is not necessary for family peace for a wife to stay at home if there are not children in the family any more IMHO. I think that would be lazy too - after having 4 young children and a house to care for, I can't see how working full time would mean you couldn't look after a house as well quite easily, if your husband was also doing half the house work.
"Oh, and I just read your posts about attatchment theory on the other thread and I feel exactly the same way as you about those issues, which is why I've taken the path of sacrificing my economic independance for being with my babies ( am still BF my 1 year old). For me, my identity as a mother outweighs my identity as a worker or a wife and I have arranged my life accordingly. However, it has made me very very vulnerable"
I don't see it as a sacrifice, but as a positive life choice - this is the career I have for the time being, knowing that I have time for a different career later on in life. And surely it only makes you very, very vulnerable in our society? If society worked the way I described in this thread (post at 17.55 on 20 Aug), then you wouldn't be vulnerable making this choice at all...in fact, you wouldn't even need to make the choice!
"WOmen have always been forced to leave their babies to work. "
Not so. Before the industrial revolution, many mothers were able to undertake paid work - cottage industry type things - without leaving their children.
Also, wrt to bumwiping jobs, I feel sad that these jobs are also seen as shit jobs, just like SAHMing 
. I used to be a nurse on a busy, exciting medical admissions unit. I thought I only wanted to do exciting nursing...but as time went by, I realised that the most rewarding nursing was the really, real nursing - caring for people who were in need. If I ever went back to nursing, it would, through choice, be to elderly care work. It's because it's a woman's job that it's seen as shit, not because it actually is shit. Cleaning up a distressed, frightened elderly person is a privelege and very rewarding, and takes skill to do it in a caring, empathic way. How sad that that isn't recognised. Just as the huge skills and fascinating work of being a SAHM aren't recognised .