is feminism acutally, er, anti-feminism?

[loopyloops]

I would like to consider myself a potential feminist, but have a real issue with the whole thing. A century ago I wouldn't have been pressurised to go out to work and have children, would I? OK, in the lower classes probably you would have to, but in a comfortable middle class family, would I be expected to for ideological reasons?

I love being at home with DD but it is absolutely knackering, and if having more is on the cards I simply cannot bear the thought of going back to work. Do I have to? Is it really anti-feminist to wish this wasn't the assumption?

Yes they're the type of "feminists" we kick of the feminist team.

You bulgy-eyed zealot, you.

I agree with msyikes, I would really have preferred to be a SAHM instead of returning to work and having a SAHH. Sadly, the huge difference in salaries and holidays meant that I was the logical choice of partner to work.
I did find it much easier to care for my children 24/7 through the holidays than be a primary teacher.

Why do so many people feel that women are the ones who 'have the children', even way after the birthing process is over? If you're in a two-person partnership, don't you both have children?

Currently my DP is contributing to the incubation process by doing any house-related stuff while I'm ill or exhausted, allowing me to sleep lots and maintain what passes for health lately. We both do what we can.

When we have actual present children (this is still a theory, obviously, but I certainly hope I can stick to it), I intend to continue to keep things in mind under the basic heading of 'what needs doing'. Some of this is going to be economic work - work done to get paid by external sources so the house can keep going. Everything else is 'internal work' - organising bill paying, house cleaning, food shopping and preparation, keeping child fed, clean, engaged and supervised.

If we're doing equal amounts, putting the same time and energy into any combination of the above, then great. If we have different preferences or things we're good at, great, and if these overlap, we'll have to negotiate. We've managed thus far like this, and hopefully child-related stuff will be managed in the same way.

But I find it really annoying when people (male and female) assume anything that isn't economic contribution is automatically the responsibility of whoever happens to have ovaries. If your partner and you disagree over who should do what, then the correct application of feminism (entirely in my opinion) is to talk about it as two functioning contributing people, not as if only one of you is the actual parent.

Why do so many people feel that women are the ones who 'have the children'

The pain of childbirth drove it home to me.

I think it's a dangerous and rocky slope for women if we pretend that men also carry a baby, go through labour and breastfeed, and therefore have as much of a stake in the child as the mother. They don't. That's not to say women are all great mothers, or that men can't be the better parent, not at all.
But never forget that we live under patriarchy, and once you go down the line of thinking that mothers just ain't that important to their kids and vice versa, then you're fighting on behalf of men.
In all patriarchies over the world children have traditionally belonged to the father, and do so worldwide today. Patriarchy believes fathers' rights supercede mothers. In some cultures, like Britain, the children's rights are taken into consideration, and in those cases the mother receives custody upon divorce. But that has nothing to do with mother's rights. The fact that she carried and laboured and fed the child from her own body counts for shit under patriarchy.

Where does that leave mothers of adopted children Sakura?
In an equal relationship with their partners that men paired with those who have Actually Given Birth can't achieve?

And we could get into the thorny issues of women who don't go through labour and/or don't breastfeed.

But I'm not brave enough today.

Sakura, giving birth doesn't make you a parent. Parenting makes you a parent, regardless of sex, childbirth choices, infertility etc.

Adopted children- definitely whoever carries out the most work has the greater stake, because both the mother and father are starting out on an equal footing. This is not the case when the mother has carried the child herself.

Women who don't go through labour, you mean adoption? If you mean surrogacy then as a feminist, I am against it. I think it's the commodification of women's wombs. IT is often women of a particular socio-economic status who become surrogate mothers. There was a horrendous case in the US where the birth mother had to go on the run in order to keep her baby. They took him off her when they found her

WOmen who don't breastfeed? They still went through pregnancy and labour.

And lets talk abotu all the men out there, like Louis de Bernieres, who want 50% of the custody on divorce, because they believe they carried out 50% of the childcare, only to find out that their own friends confess that they were never there.

I'm not saying it's cut and dried. I'm just saying, let's be realistic. Some of us on here are lucky enough to have fantastic partners who take on 50% or more. NOt all women are that lucky. Many women would go to the ends of the earth not to have the father in their life.

But giving birth gives you a headstart and a stake. WOmen aren't carrier cases, or walking wombs. I find that line of thinking chilling. Most women have an emotional connection to the child inside them, otherwise why would miscarriage be so traumatic? Many women talk to their babies, feel them kicking inside. NOt to mention the PAIN of birth and the fact that childbirth is life threatening. In my world, that all counts for something.

I agree, mostly.

Labour: I was thinking of friends of mine who chose elective Cs and consider themselves not to have gone through labour. But of course they've gone through a major physical operation in order to produce a baby, so by your effort-reward logic of course they get a bigger stake than the person who does not have an abdominal scar and healed tissue to show for a baby.

It's just dangerous to tie the physical act to the rights model, because there are degrees of it. I mean, I had a five day no-drugs labour, and breastfed till 16 months, do I have more of a stake than a woman who had a 2 hour labour with a full epidural and FFed? Of course I don't.

No you don't. All women who have given birth are amazing, no matter how they did it.

Sakura, I'm not saying that giving birth doesn't count for anything. But I am uncomfortable with the assertion that women care more for their children from the start because they carried them (many many of my friends admit to not having that wave of bonding that seems to come to some - remember that your experience of birth and mothering isn't the same for everyone), that miscarriage is more traumatic for women than for the fathers involved. I can assure you from my own painful experience that this is simply not the case. At the risk of sounding like I'm saying "what about the menz" saying things like this just gives some men the handy excuse to get out of parenting that they look for, and risks undermining the men we actually want around - ie the ones who are involved and engaged all the way through.

'I agree with msyikes, I would really have preferred to be a SAHM instead of returning to work and having a SAHH. Sadly, the huge difference in salaries and holidays meant that I was the logical choice of partner to work.'

That's not wat msyikes said. She said it was 'easier' to stay home. You said you preferred it. One of those statements is stupid, and it isn't yours.

I hate housework and would go stir-crazy 'keeping house'. I really do know that, I did it for nearly a year and I couldn't stand it.

The whole point is that in a difficult world, we don't take the piss out of each other's work.

My OH would be very distressed by your argument Sakura. I just think that you are wrong.

I am a SAHM and a feminist.

I believe it is about choice, and couple is free to decide if one parent stays home. I do wonder there are so few SAHD`s, only 2 in this village.

I will not be bullied into work outside home, but neither will I let my DH decide for me.

Also, its not as if working in an office is a right and a privilege...Its work.

When the DC were small, life was definitely hader for me than for DH. Now they are at school, life for him is defo tougher.

work is work after all, it is not always a great laugh. Same with being at home, it can suck too.

But as a family, this works for us. There are some probs with DS1 and one of us just needs to be here.

It's pretty interesting the views on this thread. Certainly the founders of feminism ie Betty Friedman, Simple de Beavoir, were insistent that women could only find fulfilment through paid work. I've always thought that isn't feminism but capitalism...

Goblin - so would my DH. The thought that someone would belittle his experience of miscarriage because he wasn't carrying our baby would be fairly horrific to him. Plus I think the very argument does reduce women to being walking wombs.

TBOM, I agree with you. Women aren't born with a mothering gene. Mothering is learned for the most part. Giving birth helps, however. The rush of oxytocin, the love hormone, is real, and is partly why mothers can gaze for hours into their baby's face without getting bored, but the baby in the bed next to them looks like a monkey.
And I'm not trying to sanctify motherhood, but I'm saying that what women do- in this case creating life- is always undervalued, or devalued. I don'T think women should buy into that, and I do think women who have given birth should be given credit for the massive feat they have accomplished, and should be given first refusal in the decision-making when it comes to deciding who is to care for her child.

" I just think that you are wrong"

No hard feelings, Goblinchild. Most people would agree with you.

Englebert Betty Friedan changed her mind in a big way. She wrote "THe Second Stage", saying that women had been swept up by capitalism and were caught in "reaction", as she called it. She was ridiculed by feminists such as Susan Faludi (who was also a brilliant feminist writer in her own way)

Men feel that rush of love as well, Sakura, men can and do have that same nurture and gaze instinct. You say motherhood is undervalued, but in the same breath, you undervalue fatherhood in the most arrogant way. Again, that may have been your experience, but I can assure you it wasn't mine.

I think that if one persists in saying that a mother's opinion and rights come first with regards to child-rearing because they are "better" at it due to childbirth, one only has oneself to blame if men event ually decide that biology means they are OK to abdicate responsibility for any parenting at all. Talk about digging your own grave!

I don't undervalue fatherhood. Take a look around you. It's impossible to undervalue fatherhood. If a father take a modicum of interest in his children he's hailed as a hero. Louis de Bernieres is a perfect example. Brittany Spears lost custody of her children for her lifestyle. They were given to the father, who had exactly the same lifestyle as her, but that wasn't held againt him.

Men can choose whether to abdicate responsibility, as can mothers. Do you think it's sheer coincidence that patriarchy has been designed in a way that freed men from child-rearing? Women don't want the entire burden of childcare, and they need political power, but would women have designed a society where they were never home to see the kids?

"Again, that may have been your experience, but I can assure you it wasn't mine."

To add, my DH is a very loving and involved father. But I guess that he intuitively feels, as do I, that me giving birth gave me the edge.