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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

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Original poster

Patriarchy

42 replies

Footlong · 30/09/2010 01:33

A certain poster declared that once half the MP's were females then she would accept that patriarchy didnt exist.

Well what if a western country.. had a female PM or president, nearly 40% female MP's, head of the largest corporation was female, the governer general was female (if they had one), the speaker of the house was female, large portions of the opposition leadership were female, the mayor of the capital city was female... I am guessing that poster would think Patriarchy was non existant there?

OP posts:

NickOfTime · 30/09/2010 22:30

mm, otherwise it's making it easier for women to stay at home (and denying men that option) - and that's not ideal in an equal society. one could even say supporting a patriarchy? and retaining childcare as women's work...

Original poster

Footlong · 30/09/2010 22:32

This is the description...

Paid parental leave is available to female employees who give birth to a child, or to either parent where a couple has assumed the care of a child under six they intend to jointly adopt. You may transfer all or part of your paid parental leave to your spouse/partner as long as they are also eligible.

I am guessing therefor it is gender neutral.

OP posts:

NickOfTime · 30/09/2010 22:40

'paid parental leave' is how long? (is this the mat leave? or a more general time-off in the early years?)

is there a provision for sharing this entitlement between a couple?

NickOfTime · 30/09/2010 22:41

sorry, not clear - is this the mat/ pat leave? ie immediately after birth/ adoption?

NickOfTime · 30/09/2010 22:43

elephants - not meaning to ignore you btw, just not getting involved in a continuation of the argument. it's not relevant to me who said what - just think it's an interesting scenario to explore, whatever kicked off the discussion.

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 30/09/2010 23:02

No, god I don't mind. Just had to put my twopennorth in. Can't really get involved in the discussion when it's just game-playing (IMO) on one side. But I admire you for engaging with what is of value, and what you're saying is really interesting. :)

Beachcomber · 30/09/2010 23:50

Are we talking about France here by any chance? Just wondering because I live there and the laws quoted sound familiar.

However that doesn't take away from the fact that the OP said;

"A certain poster declared that once half the MP's were females then she would accept that patriarchy didnt exist."

and then went on to say;

"I wasnt to interested in the exact details of what I thought the poster said, I was just using it as a starting point. I dont even remember who said it, and to be honest I didnt much care, it was a just a comment that got me thinking about the issue."

Sorry but those two statements do not compute in an honest way.

The use of a 'certain poster' and 'declared' just don't fit in with the second statement I'm afraid.

Faux innocent seems to be a recurring theme with you OP.

sprogger · 01/10/2010 00:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Beachcomber · 01/10/2010 00:12

Or possibly New Zealand.

www.ers.dol.govt.nz/parentalleave/employees/what-is-available.html

NickOfTime · 01/10/2010 05:02

any idea what the take-up of parental leave is in nz by gender? state childcare provision? it's not a country i've heard much about from a political pov tbh, not like scandinavian ed/ welfare systems etc

(couldn't get switzerland link to work)

Sakura · 01/10/2010 06:18

Oh GOd, is he still here...

nooka · 01/10/2010 06:49

Sweden has a high proportion of female MPs (it has just dropped from 47 to 45%) and is often considered a world leader in gender equality. Policies on prostitution are very different there than most of the world and I think that more women in law making roles influenced that. Income inequality is low too with a very large welfare state.

The country with the highest proportion of female MPs, and the only legislature in the world with more women than men is apparently Rwanda (Sweden comes second) news.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/mar/09/slide-show-1-women-in-parliament-rwanda-afghan-beat-india.htm

The UK has less than 20%.

Original poster

Footlong · 01/10/2010 09:37

Yes the country is New Zaland.

OP posts:

Original poster

Footlong · 01/10/2010 09:42

NIckoftime - Dont know the answer to all your questions (i just traveled for business there).But the state apparently pays for 20 hours childcare for children over the age of 3, and heavily subsidised (based on income) under age 3.

OP posts:

larrygrylls · 01/10/2010 09:56

Footlong,

I think your thread is interesting.

I am not sure how wonderful "state" provision of childcare is. "State" means people's taxes, it is not money created out of thin air (although some gvts are now having a go at printing it, we shall see how successful that experiment is).

It seems strange to me to pay someone to look after someone else's child unless there is a net economic advantage. And, if there is, the person can pay for it themselves.
That is not a man/woman argument, merely a right wing argument.

There is another debate to be had about how much people should or want to look after their own children. These threads make a lot of assumptions about how boring it is to bring up a child and the fact that it is a lower form of work. Provided you have the right support (and I do not see why people object to paying for a cleaner yet don't object to paid childcare) it can be very rewarding. I am at home at the moment and sharing it and it is (most of the time) frankly quite enjoyable and far nicer than supervising a bunch of spoilt adult children on a bank dealing desk (whoops, did I say that?!).

It seems to me that a lot of what is described as "feminism" on these boards is also a version of a left wing utopia. It seems to require a lot of state intervention.

Equality is surely served by making laws to prevent discrimination and enforcing them. Most successful businesswomen (of which there are plenty in the UK) seem to agree with that.

Blackduck · 01/10/2010 09:56

But the point is changes will not happen overnight just because there are 50% or over 50% of women at the top. They still have to work within the systems set up and thus you will not see instant change. Look at our own system, we change government, but wholesale changes do not happen overnight (but why am I even bothering to engage with this....)

NickOfTime · 04/10/2010 02:54

larry - mm, not going to get involved with the 'what is feminism' debate confusing it with the welfare state. afai am concerned, whatever benefits on offer (be they state subsidised childcare/ early years/ mat pat leave/ etc etc) should be offered equally regsrdless of gender. not sure that your comments re welfare state can be correlated to feminism, except where an obvious imbalance is affecting the status quo in favour of men? anyway, i think you might have got the wrong end of the stick.

i would disagree that the be all and end all of equality is anti-discrimination laws though. we have those in place. 'surely'?

anyway, this has obviously died a death due to the refusal to interact with the op, (and i've been teaching kids how to build survival shelters and mapread all weekend) so never mind.

i'll read up on the nz angle myself. like i said, it hasn't really been something that has crossed my horizon, unlike sweden et al.

it is interesting (larry) though, that a country with a huge and expensive welfare system also has a much more equal society, with many more women in positions of power, engineering, law, just more equal overall... and a later school starting age too. go figure.

but who am i to rule on causation?

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