Patriarchy and the Personal

[IseeGraceAhead]

I rarely use the word "patriarchal" in real life: I say "Male-dominated" or "male-directed" kind of thing.

As a personal project, I'm assessing my own beliefs about what it means To Be A Woman. I'm startled at how much of my self-perception - and perception of women in general - is patriarchal in origin. I don't mind if nobody joins in, but thought it could be interesting if some do :)

But Sunny, do you think the state here, in the uk, should do more to support families? Better childcare, working flexibility, etc?

Where was that from,sunny?

Twas me point

'Glacierchick, I very love your post (in fact, I loved reading it twice )
What you're describing is the kind of setup I believed I was fighting for back then. As you say, families benefit.

I'd never say the Sunnies of this world shouldn't get the chance to make their choices. I am saying it's not the only choice, not especially natural, and it TERRIFIES me that all the Sunnies think it's better for them. Meanwhile, all the decisions that affect what Sunny & I do; how we look, how we act, what we earn; what we can look forward to ... are made by men.'

I am saying you can carry on working though. You can have it if you want. Like Isnt for instance she said she had to quit her job because thats what womendo. who says this? She could have carried on working but she chose not to. A lot of women had this choice (not ones with sn children/special circumstances)They could have worked full time and not stepped off the career ladder but they wanted to. Of course you are never going to get backto where you were if I was a man in a top position and took 5 years off to go on a trip round the world then I would never make it as high as Iwould of done otherwise.

I dont care what women do if you want to be a ceo or a stripper all I am just saying it is often not the patriachy stopping you in this day and age. Its your choices.

'But Sunny, do you think the state here, in the uk, should do more to support families? Better childcare, working flexibility, etc?'

I get free childcare but if you dont then you are usually better off. I do feel for the ones just on the threshold though and dont think you can blame anyone else.

I think if you want it bad enough you would do it in many circumstances. It might mean only having 1 child so you can afford childcare or waiting for one to be at school to make it cheaper, it might mean moving to a smaller place etc but you make those choices.

Just to reply quickly to sunny's points.

I jacked in my well paid career job after the end of my maternity leave with DD1 for the following reasons:

• they would not agree my flexitime request to reduce my hours and i (thought) that i wanted to work less than full time
• it was 9-5 but a 1.5 hour commute on the tube each way
• i had found out just before i left to go on maternity leave that they were paying the men more than me for the same job

I did not take years out of work after my job refused my flexible working request I applied for and got a local job 21 hours a week. I then had DD2 and went straight back to work after my second mat leave. I am unsure where you are getting all this " years out" and "paying for nannies" stuff. I am very fortunate that my DH works shifts and my parents live nearby and between them they can manage the childcare while I work.

You have made an awful lot of assumptions in your reply to me and I don't know where they came from TBH.

I thought i was doing the right thing. i now realise I wasn't. It's OK, I am working hard to try and make up lost ground, and hopefully I will manage that at least. I'm just irritated that I did what you are supposed to do (cultural pressure and adhering to norms) and it turned out to be the wrong thing. None of us can predict how we will feel after children - and at the moment I think the "norm" means that a lot of women end up making decisions they regret.

'Where was that from,sunny?'

It was from the brussels journal. Cant find it again now and my computer isnt set to save history. Just google it though there is loads on it and I studied it for my degree. It is nowhere near a perfect model.

pogles yes it was the worst decision I ever made, problem is not having had children before I sort of went along with what is usual, as I had no idea how I was going to feel.

I also earnt more than my DH but there was no option for him to go part time. We ended up doing it teh "traditional" way and it has left me very frustrated. Still I am getting on at work and am starting an OU course soon so it's not the end of the world

Sunny, have you spent any time in Sweden, Norway or Denmark? Your article doesn't bear any relation to my experiences of those countries.

It also ignores the fact that levels of productivity in the Scandinavian countries have historically been extremely high compared, for example, to the UK - which of course makes it harder to achieve further relative growth.

I would note that unemployment rates in 2010 are as follows: Denmark, 6.6%, Sweden, 9.3%, Norway, 3.5%, UK 7.8%, Finland 8.5%, which doesn't seem to be an overwhelming argument either for or against the Scandinavian approach even simply looking at unemployment rates. (Link here, data from the World Factbook, all appear to be Eurostat harmonised data)

Sunny, you get free childcare? How come?

sunny I couldn't really have carried on full time in my pre-babies job as I would have had to have found childcare 7.30 - 6.30 and that isn't available around here.

Also the cost of the childcare would have been a huge chunk of my earnings.

In theory people should look at the earning potential of each partner, be able to both have some time off with the baby if they want, and employers would be more flexible.

So in our case we would have maybe realised that the sensible thing was for me to continue full-time and DH to go part-time and empoyers would have allowed that.

As it is most couples do a basic calculation of - who earns more should carry on working - and it's usually the man as he's usually older, but people often forget to take that into account. Also people look at the childcare and say that it's not cost effective for the woman to work - but they don't take into account that she will prob get pay rises, that it might make her much happier, that she won't have a huge career gap an dbe unable to get back in.

Of course lots of women want to stay at home or aren't ambitious about work and that is fine. But lots of women are and the way things are set up at the moment everything (from gender pay gap to even one bout of maternity leave ruining credibility) means that unless they are extraordinarily clear-sighted and single-minded (see xenia) they end up not fulfilling their potential as they would have liked.

However we are veering off, sorry.

I just see red when someone wheels out the old "oh but women don't want to have careers what they really want is to have babies and stay at home" stuff. Yes some do, but some don't, it's such a generalisation and makes me grrrrrrrrrrr.

sunny I don't think your article is actually a very accurate representation at all of the situation in Scandinavia on two levels. I think I would suggest living here rather than simply studying it as a "model".

Firstly, it seems to me to represent a very restricted "economic only" viewpoint and not what we are talking about which is actually about people's lifestyle choices and the development of a truly inclusive society.

Secondly, I would argue that it's actually factually incorrect or at least it misunderstands the true situation on so many levels. People are not 'forced to take a job', although after a certain period they are forced to apply to a certain number of jobs per week as a condition of receiving benefits (which is a sort of unemployment insurance btw that you are expected to have - the state doesn't just hand out money willy-nilly). If they are clearly overqualified or time-wasting, they won't get the job.
Yes it is easy to fire people here, but actually it's not much different to the situation in the UK and is designed to encourage labour mobility. What you have to understand is that in most of the Scandinavian countries the problem is labour shortage, not oversupply. Until recently the unemployment rate was about 3%, it's now about 8%, but falling again already. Economically speaking they are much stronger than the UK and have much lower budget deficits.

Yes, taxes are higher in Scandinavia. But so are salaries and support from the state when needed. There is nowhere NEAR the levels of inequality you see in the UK for instance (where the far right is also rising ) and if you talk to most nordic people they would argue that they prefer to pay their taxes because they get so much back for them. And even after all that tax, the disposable income you're left with is still phenomenal by comparison.

Having said all that, this is just a crude economic assessment, and as I said before, what we are really talking about is people's well being and the lifestyle we choose for ourselves.

I never claimed the scandinavian model was 'perfect' but I do think that by considering it as an alternative way to set up your society it allows you to view your own society (and personal priorities) in a very different light. And that is a valuable insight in it's own right.

I was based in Norway for a short while but only 10 days. I worked with people who complained about the high taxation. Sweden also has the second highest divorce rate in the western world.

'sunny I couldn't really have carried on full time in my pre-babies job as I would have had to have found childcare 7.30 - 6.30 and that isn't available around here.

Also the cost of the childcare would have been a huge chunk of my earnings.'
'

It would of took up your earnings but you still would of had all your husbands wage so you wouldnt have been any worse off. Also what about childminders or au pairs etc. I am not having a go at you I am just saying it is still often a choice.

I would never stay at home completely as I I work and enjoy my job. I am not saying all women want to stay at home at all (my mum didnt stay at home, no one in my family has stayed at home, none of my friends have stayed at home etc. I dont really know anyone that has even considered staying at home really). I am saying most want to spend some time with their babies as opposed to working long hours (is this not true?)

I do agree with Xenia in the sense that she wants it bad enough she went and got it. Not everyones choice but good on her.

My point is sunny that I made the decision as best I could, with the information I had avaiable to me. The majority of people that I know went part time after children or stopped working. I always knew that I loved working and so knew that giving up wasn't what i wanted, so I went for the part-time option.

Also DH and I would not have wanted both of us working full time with young children - we both think that it's nice for them to have a parent around a fair bit (Don't flame me anyone! just what we feel is right for our family). And his job doesn't do part-time so he would've had to find another job...

And then my job was paying me less than the men and refused to do anything about it, and I hadn't worked for a year on mat leave... and so the obvious answer was for me to get a different job and go part time.

We are going to try and find a way back, I hope to be able to go full time again when DD1 starts school next year I think. Where there's a will and a way and all that.

I think the point I am trying to make is that our society is structured so that a traditional structure re who has main childcare responsibility is the norm and I think that's a shame. I think it's a shame for all teh families where for loads of reasons a differenty structure would work better but they don't even think of it, because of society expectations, and it's hard to find employers who will accomodate.

'Sunny, you get free childcare? How come?'

Cause Im poor lol.

Cool. So you're benefiting from the social fund. It's not free, it's paid for out of taxes. Just like in Scandinavia

To get back to the OP, I am intrigued by the idea of defining "What It Means To Be A Woman".

This is something I have also been thinking about recently, albeit from a slightly different angle. I think what I am trying to say is that we all have multiple identities, different people see us as very different, and maybe 'Being a Woman' is only one (or perhaps more than one) of those identities.

For instance different people might define me as a 'climber', a 'cyclist', a 'scientist', a 'skier', a 'sister', a 'daughter', a 'sex goddess ' and mainly I have been thinking about this as I am adding a new identity "Mother" to my old ones and trying to work out how that fits in.

I would be sad if being defined only as a Mother or as a woman would limit the rest of my life (and my identities). Of course some of these identities by definition also define me as a woman, but what exactly those terms mean is probably defined by the social environment we live in and I suppose this is where the idea of the patriarchy comes in...

Does this make any sense at all?

'Cool. So you're benefiting from the social fund. It's not free, it's paid for out of taxes. Just like in Scandinavia'

Yeah but if I had the choice I would just live off my husbands income for a couple of years but now that things have been made so its a 2 income society I dont really have that choice. The government only pays it so I dont go off work. If I could have a couple of years at home with my kids I would probably choose that.

Sorry for the "me me me" massive side track. Got a bit carried away

glacierchick I think that our roles in society are still quite constraining is that if you put "mother" next to climber, scientist, skier or even cyclist, a lot of people will react with mild to moderate surprise.

One of my friends said to me the other day "oh still doing boy's stuff then are you" and I was just

we have a long way to go.

'
glacierchick I think that our roles in society are still quite constraining is that if you put "mother" next to climber, scientist, skier or even cyclist, a lot of people will react with mild to moderate surprise.'

Why? I know loads of women that are in to skiing, climbing, mountaineering, snowboarding, skating, have social lives where they are out all the time, runners etc. They are all normal things for a mum to do. I seriously dont understand it when women say that being a mum hasnt changed any of the things I do at all and hasnt affected my social life really.

My job involves climbing trees, lighting campfires, building things out of wood, making dens. I am still a runner and just as fit as I always was before. I still go out all the time. I am going to do a sponsored jump out of a plane soon. I suppose it is because I am a youngish mum but everyone in my age group who is a mum stays the same after kids ime.

Honestly,ISNT - can't you find some nice girl's stuff to do?
I am amazed that it still goes on,because when I was growing up(1960s and 1970s) it looked as if gender stereotyping of boys stuff and girls stuff was on the way out.In some ways things are better,and in some ways it seems worse...

'In some ways things are better,and in some ways it seems worse..'

Working with kids this is interesting to me. Can you explain in what ways?

sunny,you seem to have a fantastic well balanced life! I am quite .
and