Can you be a feminist housewife?

[wigglybeezer]

Can you be a feminist if you don't have a career but your DH does, especially if this situation has been going on for a long time (13 years in my case)?

I don't feel downtrodden by the way, merely a bit bored and lacking in choice ATM. I earn a small amount of money, so don't have to ask DH for everything but I'm wondering if my Granny (who was a hospital consultant) was a better feminist than me. I just found a photo of her and her pals at medical school where she has noted on the back that there were 18 female medical students out of 180!

if the nanny works then the mother doing the exact same thing is working. See your point about external monitoring of standards though.

scottishmummy, if some government official came along and wanted to vet and check and make sure i met basic standards adhered to by ofsted in return for paying me what an ofsted registered childcare provider earns a) i would pass with flying colours b) i would demand pay which reflects my superior level of qualification to most providers, very few of whom are educated to an upper second at degree level, and the advanced level of education i am therefore able to pass on to children in my care.

The definition of work is not being inspected to someone else's standards, nor is it being paid.

'Work is work.'

But not all work is paid. Wedding your garden is work, but the state won't pay you for it.

There is going to be a massive cutback in state funding. All of the political parties are in agreement on that, whatever they say to the public. There will be a much greater emphasis on self-reliance rather than reliance on the state.

"work" is absolutely not something that is confined to an institutional context. You are blinded by bureaucracy, scottishmummy.

weeding

nanny and cm, dont look after their own children for payment. who would they charge?certainly not clients
they are regulated
inspected by ofsted
and have certain demands and expectations put upon them

those of you demanding payment would you comply with regulation and inspection of your home and abilities?extenal governmental regulation such as coshh, observation of home

would you pay all mums?
would i submit an hourly timesheet for time undertaken
is it means tested or universal

scottishmummy is talking about "paid" work, which is something that someone else pays you for and whose standards and requirements you have to meet in order to get paid.

LeninGrad - IMO the only fair way to split costs is to try to capture the whole contribution of each partner to the household and to try to account for both financial and in-kind contribution.

Ie if one partner does nothing round the house, and the other does everything, why shouldn't the nothing partner pay 100% for the nanny, for example?

sahm is set of tasks not paid work
cm.nanny,nursery is paid childcare

I agree with Claig and SM. The state are pretty broke. And why would they pay for looking after your own children?

they could chrge the childrens father SM, 50% the going rate.

full circle?

I don't think women should be paid for doing housework, I think men should do more of it for nothing!

The key thing is that men have got to want to change the way they work. I only know one couple who genuinely split childcare 50/50, they both worked 3 days each until there two boys were at school and then the mother managed to get a term time only contract (they both work in the public sector BTW). They also split chores at home. They managed it very well but the DH confessed to my DH that he had regrets about the negative effect it had on his career and I detected an element of territoriality by the mother over discisions about the childrens' care.

My DH is trapped by our situation too, he has to commute and work full time when I know that he would love to jack it in and make indie films instead!

Maybe we should sell our house and buy a caravan and become new age travelers (quails at the thought of living in a caravan with three DS's).

As an aside. all the WOHMs I know have a maximum of two DCs, the SAHMs tend to have three or four.

Sorry for interrupting again, haven't been able to sit and follow the argument fully, busy evening here.

I got a job today which I regularly get entirely based on satisfied customer recommendations - absolutely no external standards exist for it where I live and there is no possible way of regulating it. Not all jobs are in faceless bureaucracies (yet) (thank God).

congrats on the new job Bonsoir

its untenable.in middle of recession to pay housewifes
there no money
and its an individual choice- sahm and partner can negotiate this individually if required.not the state role to pay

Can I ask a question? I wonder there are 2 different problems here. On one hand we are saying that society needs to recognise and value SAHP. I agree. However, does that have to immediately lead to a requirement that society pays the SAHP to do this work? Can it not value the action, legislate for the role to be recompensed in divorce proceedings and promoted as a positive choice whilst also saying that it will not pay the SAHP itself? Because after all this is a choice usually made by a couple, and so surely it should be the couple as a unit who ensure that the SAHP is properly recompensed for his or her work?
Alternatively society could take other steps to promote SAHP, by trying to ensure that it is a choice that more men make, eg by encouraging parents to share maternity/paternity leave, ensuring that equal pay legislation is adhered to and women are not discriminated against in employment etc. If we had equal numbers of SAH fathers then at that stage would it cease to be a feminist issue?

People once advanced huge numbers of arguments about why abolishing slavery was an an economic impossibility.

They were not being irrational, and people who disagreed were being idealistic, but nevertheless it happened, and now we look back and are horrified at what people did in the name of profit.

bonsoir your new job will presumably get feedback about your communication,and customer satisfaction rates, and expect tasks in a certain time frame or house style.all of that is external regulation. the organisation has a set of specifics which it clearly feels you can deliver

congratulations on your new post

No, scottishmummy, nothing like that! It's something I've been doing for several years now (seasonal PT work, albeit of the intellectual variety) and there are no external constraints - I am the one that sets the agenda with the client. I think you have very little experience of working independently!

anti-slavery movement caught a burgeoning moral mood and support,and fought for it agitating politically and a civil war

there is no such groundswell of support,or burgeoning feeling of yes pay the housewife,its morally right

Cross post Bellsaringing.

Bonsoir, my part-time job is thankfully not based in an institutional setting and my only judges are my customers. Incidentally I work in a job that is usually done by men.

bonsoir.congratulations on your job