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!

I'm not flaming anyone.

I am happy, personally with my situation. I have weighed-up the pros and the cons and have decided that this is what I want for now. BUT it doesn't make it equal. And feminism isn't just about whether we are happy in our own little worlds.

what on earth,thats very machivellian

Machiavellian is your word of the day

Do you understand the meaning of Machiavellian?

popbiscuit,youre being all hidden message weird speak
i have not chosen.oh if you say so.is this a human condition fatalistic thing.all cogs in the wheel no choice?

Don't understand what's Machiavellian either.

I got distracted by DH and ended up talking to him.

Anyway, I agree that being happy with your own personal situation is important. I think the reason to carry on the discussion past that, though, is because we all contribute to constructing the market forces, so we're all a little bit responsible for the way childcare is valued in our society. That thought won't keep me (or anyone else I imagine) up at nights, but IMO it isn't a trivial thing to think about.

"It doesn't make it equal for women as a group to disregard the value of their unpaid labour."

Ok how do society judge the value of that labour?

Lost income - what if you have never had income?
Lost potential - how do you measure that across the spectrum?
Hourly rate (nursey fees, cheff, cleaner) - who ensures payment?

Who protects women from not being valued?

Or do we empower women to set themselves up so they protect their status?

I have been a SAHM, on and off, for 7 years (three kids) and am slowly getting back to part time work while I retrain (my old industry is dying on its arse.)

The major thing I found/find about being a SAHM is the lack of agency I have as an individual. I have to ask DP if we can afford this or that, ask him before I have a haircut (He is self employed so knows what money is pending etc) and as somneone who previously earned a decent salary it was a tough adjustment and one that I am still unhappy with.

But being a SAHM gave me space and time to think about a change of career, it gave me a chance to evaluate my skills and consider how to reapply them. It made me happy in that I could be outdoors enjoying sunbshine and fresh air, not hunched in front of a computer in a bunker-like office.

If I could do it again, I would have tried to maintain work, even shared childcare with DP as I think losing that part of my identity was a pretty high price to pay

pam, IMO:

If you never had income, you are still contributing work that isn't financially valued very much at all - if you care for your own children, that is of course cheaper than paying someone else to do it. But in the current climate, many SAHPs gave up big salaries - lots of people can't afford to be SAHPs.

Lost potential - no, I don't know how you value it either! But does that mean it shouldn't be acknowledged?

Lost payment - sorry, run that past me again? How do you mean, who ensures payment?

Sorry if that is a bit of a useless reply.

I wasn't accusing anyone of flaming but multiple restatements of one's own situation does lead to a flaming thread.

yes norman,your reasons for dislike sahm would dissatisfy me too. well done with your retraining

I agree with Lenin, I think womens hould be paid for the economic hit they take when they have babies and stay home to look after them.

Either that, or change the economic system so that having babies and looking after them, doesn't imply an economic hit.

Our economic system should be based around the notion that 80% of us are going to have children and that raising those children is a really valuable important job. It stands to reason then, that the people who do the physical labour of birthing and feeding those children, must not be economically disadvantaged when they do so. Only a deeply misanthropic society, as well as a misogynist one, would have developed such a stupid system and the only reason they could, is because they had women's free labour to draw upon. We should start charging to reflect the value of our work.

Agree with HBBX!

paid by individual partner if both agree.personal private arrangement to be negotiated as couple if desired
paid by state absolutely not. money for being economically inactive and undertaking lifestyle choice.no.sahm is not a job.

so if we go down this stste pay route do i get paid when i do drop off/collect
accompany dc to gp
cook dinners

I think there is a big problem that we look at our society, and we see that having and caring for children in the home is not valued, and we say 'but how could you put a price on that?'. But the fact that anyone has to stop and think about whether these things are valuable, whether your partner who works outside the home is getting economic value from you staying at home, demonstrates that these things are a blind spot in our economy, an issue no-one wants to see.

I would not pay women to stay at home to care for their kids, I would subsidise cheap affordable childcare which is of high quality.

Bringing up children is not economically inactive.

Our economy is built on the free labour of women bringing up children.

If they refused to do it, there would be no bloody economy.

Women looking after their own children is cheap, affordable high quality childcare.

Why so little faith in women NT, why the lack of trust in their ability to look after their own children?

I would give them the choice. Because some of them might prefer to give the vouchers to their partners.

no its an issue no one wants to pay sahm.untenable and daft idea
can you imagine trying to regulate payments and enforce quality prior to payment.would there be a regulatory body and inspection of tasks undertaken.? a wage = acceptance external responsibilities and monitoring

no govt will or should pay individual sahm to do own thing,in own time

'I would not pay women to stay at home to care for their kids, I would subsidise cheap affordable childcare which is of high quality.'

Who would do it, and would they by any chance be women, with kids? It's just that, if you subsidise cheap child care, that means you will probably be paying a low wage to someone, doesn't it?

LRD not useless at all. What I was getting at is - is legislation the answer and we move to value the unpaid work done by mums or do we take a different approach and change the traditional set up. Both seem like herculaneum tasks.

Btw - I'm just enjoying thinking about this - don't feel I know an answer.

Norman your perspective is really interesting - I'm thinking my time off will make me reassess my career. I know it is a shorter time just ovre a year but I have the threat of redundancy so would hope to change skill set a bit.

I know trading time isn't an option for me as OH is clear how his career is important to him. I have eyes wide open on that front from the day we met. I haven't made a compromise on my wishes as a result of this but it does remove an option.

Who should they charge HerBex?

pam - I don't feel I know the answer either ... you're right, they're huge tasks.

Thanks for saying it wasn't useless btw.

Men, beckybrastraps.

The men they live with, or the men in government.

The fact is, if our work were paid, men would change our economic system tomorrow and there'd be no more of this nonsense of women executives getting paid 10,000 pounds less than male execs 40 years after a law was enacted which said that was illegal.