"Being happy is not a feminist issue"

[HerBeX]

This caught my eye on another thread, but I didn't want to de-rail and I thought it was interesting in the context of marriages, relationships etc.

My immediate response was "isn't it"?

On one level, of course it isn't, it's an overall human issue (but that's true of lots of feminist issues too).

But then I thought, well, there's this whole hetero-normative monogamy propaganda out there, women are constantly being told that the way to gain happiness is to bag a man and live with him until one of you dies and yet nearly half of all marriages now end in divorce, usually instigated by women, because clearly that hasn't made them happy - or maybe it made them happy for a while but no longer does?

Mumsnet is full of threads with unhappy women asking why they are unhappy and so far as I can see, it's generally bcause their DP's have an enormous sense of entitlement which neither partner has analysed or realised is there and so therefore can never be effectively addressed. And because men and women appear to expect very different things from marriage and partnership. And surely feminism arose from the big enlightenment question of how can people be happy. Feminism arose because lots of women realised that many of the causes of women's unhappiness, were structural rather than just individual.

All of which are feminist issues and possibly interesting enough to kick a few thoughts around?

I also like cooking, Mother. But I hate the day to day grind of putting a dinner on the table at the same time every night. I'd be very unhappy if it was expected of me. As it is, I generally do put a dinner on the table every night because I'm here and DH is not. I'd love to try different recipes etc, but I live with a load of fussy buggers

Growing up is largely about relying less and less on receiving from others towards gradual autonomy, and then moving forward to giving. You seem, LRD, to be stuck on the intermediate developmental stage of autonomy and cannot see that there is a next step of transmission.

I think it's slightly different, LRD: that we are expected by definition, because we are women to be fulfilled by doing these things and not to want anything else. Cue lots of pseudobollocks about male and female brains, and so on and so forth.

It doesn't make sense to say adults learn without teachers and children don't. It's just not true. People who are experienced in a particular kind of learning don't need teachers. As an adult, if you try to learn, for example, a totally new language, you will make an idiot of yourself if you try to do it without human interaction. It won't work. If as a child, you didn't pick up literacy skills, you will need teaching as an adult. If I left my (adult) students to themselves, they'd take hours reinventing the wheel.

I love teaching, which is why I do it, but I don't feel that my happiness should depend on how selflessly I act as a conduit for knowledge.

Bonsoir, explain how I'm 'stuck'?

I like giving; I like teaching. I'm just aware that I am not a God-like repository of knowledge and must tehrefore learn from others at times.

UMS - good point. Besides which, I think that attitude is so rude to my students. They give me a huge amount when tehy are learning. It is not a one-0way process!

Learning for yourself is far from meaningless. If you qualify in your 20s, as most people do, those qualifications are generally meaningless by your 40s. What counts in your 40s are the skills and experience you have acquired in your life off your own bat and can talk about and apply with knowledge and confidence. All your qualifications will have done is give you a springboard on which to launch yourself into adult life.

People who don't move beyond the skills acquired within the education system don't go far at all.

You can add in the rest of your phrase (which is implicit in my response) and it changes my response not a jot.

If you want to progress in your career, you need to be able to learn for yourself. It's dog-eats-dog out there - you can't rely on anyone teaching you anything to help you get ahead!

Bonsoir - but that's sort of what I am saying: it's so sad when women don't feel able/allowed to go beyond certain skills because they're too busy passing them on.

Cross-post: I expect it depends on the career, but in mine, you would never get anywhere if you did not learn from others.

That is not the preserve of women though, or of home life. It happens also when you are senior at work - as a senior manager you will spend most of your time devising (a) strategy and (b) coaching (ie passing on skills) to your senior management team, to fill in the gaps in their experience.

"What counts in your 40s are the skills and experience you have acquired in your life off your own bat"

But this is nonsense.

People grow and develop all the time. Or they should do. To do this, they learn from others.

If someone aged 40 gets a new job they learn from others how to do it, from the layout of the workplace to who to talk to about what to how the systems work and so on.

People continue to take professional qualifications throughout their professional careers in many cases. Or go to seminars, training sessions and all the rest of it.

Your argument is peculiar Bonsoir in that it is just not how things are, anywhere.

LRD - "learning from others" and "teaching" are not synonymous.

'That is not the preserve of women though, or of home life. It happens also when you are senior at work - as a senior manager you will spend most of your time devising (a) strategy and (b) coaching (ie passing on skills) to your senior management team, to fill in the gaps in their experience.'

Exactly. When being a SAHM is valued as much as being a senior manager, we can all stop worrying.

Well, since I have coached a lot of very senior people, I think I am ever so slightly experienced in this issue and in senior jobs nobody tells you what to do - you are supposed to have the skills to do the job when you are employed and when you lack skills you need to identify those for yourself and find out how to fill in your own gaps!

Um, no, I know they're not synonymous ... I'm telling you, in my area, if you didn't learn from others, you'd be up the creek without a paddle. It's an observation. Learning and teaching are much, much less rigidly distinct than you are suggesting.

Eh? You've coached senior people ... but senior people didn't need coaching ...

What?

Read my post. Senior people identify their own skills gaps and look for ways to fill those gaps in. Coaching is one of those ways.

So ... senior people need coaching? Yes? And this is in some way different from not needing teaching?

I'm sorry, that makes no sense at all.

Bonsoir your original point was that people should gain satisfaction and delight from teaching their children to do things, and that adults should not require anyone to teach them anything.

You went on to say that not delighting in teaching things to your children was selfish.

I think that you are sending this thread off at a tangent which is a shame, and that your point is quite wrong. It is not selfish not to delight in teaching things, and many people do not see their childrens achievements as their own (rightly IMO).