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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

"Working for nothing"

178 replies

CogitoErgoSometimes · 17/05/2011 15:24

Probably just me.... but does anyone else get annoyed when a woman in a partnership says 'after I've paid for the childcare there's nothing left out of my wages'? The implication being that childcare is the woman's sole responsibility and that, if she doesn't stay home to do it herself, the cost of hiring someone else to look after the children is entirely hers... even if there is a wage-earning second parent. The conversation then goes on to something like....'I'd be better off if I stopped work'...or ... 'It's hardly worth me going out to work'. As if her contribution is totally negated and her job worthless.

More accurate to say that paying for child care reduces the household income in total. Shared cost, shared responsibility. But no-one ever phrases it that way. Wonder why.

OP posts:
sakura · 25/05/2011 05:59

It's also important to point out that as women gain more social power, violence against women increases. This has happened in the US and the UK. Men will fight us tooth and nail, they will come in packs (gang rapes), they will come after our children (men wiping out their children is scarily common, as is child abuse)... I'm not even sure women will ever be free because men might kill us all first. Do I sound like I'm exaggerating? Snuff movies (always women killed) exist. THe Congo exists... to give men the benefit of the doubt at this stage of the game is so naive and women keep making this mistake..

After all, they're women and women are good, and therefore see good in others, despite all the evidence presented to them that shows the people they believe in are not good.

snowmama · 25/05/2011 08:38

Hmm, yes some common ground, I think on the agreement front, but actually I am not sure how useful it is to measure levels of agreement, because then we start heading towards a 'one size fits all' feminism which is not that useful.

One of patriachies greatest strengths is that it can absorb conrtadiction and disagreement without fundamentally changing (think politics, business or wars). It is a comprehensive system incorporating policies, cultural narratives, belief structures etc).....it is my personal belief that feminism has also got to be able to manage disagreement and contradicton. Every single one of us will have contradiction in our lives, belief system, that should someone be minded to, could go 'aha, that makes you not a feminist'...

Not sure why I have wandered up this tangent, I think it is a combination of your comment about Annie, plus my own response to your post, some of which I agree with, some which I don't. I am also aware that lots of my response will be anecdote, which often is not comprehensive enough...but...

We are not in a dire situation, the Congo where women literally have no rights and are at real risk of being violently raped and mutilated for going shopping, where the risk of dining in child birth is phenomenal and many worse atrocities is a dire situation

Are we in the UK, being pacified and persuaded (very sweetly, via romantic love narratives) to take on the lions share of care /domestic work as per this thread topic, a situation that makes more vulnerable to domestic violence then yes. But, do British woman living in the UK have being gang raped as one of my key concerns as a result of gaining more social power then no, I disagree.

My challenge to you is how do you plan to break the root, because the devil is in the detail. If you outlaw the sex industry without a parallel cultural shift in attitudes towards transactional sex (for which you eould have to engage men)....the net result would simply push the sex industry further underground putting vulnerable women and children further at risk.

If you are not able to engage men to recognise the benefit of their male privilege, then all the legislative change in the world will mean fuck all.

I do not have the same view of women's goodness. People have the capacity for great good or great evil, men and women. As women we are raised to be caters , selfless and people pleasers...so in the main that is what we do...there is nothing inherent about that situation.

snowmama · 25/05/2011 08:41

A million typos sorry

Dining = dying
Caters =carers

The rest are hopefully decipherable.

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