Equality at home - Can this really be achieved?

[marga73]

There is an issue I've been wanting to discuss for a long time. It's the issue of equality inside the house.

Even though women now work and are able to gain respectable positions in the workplace, and we can say that some level of equality has been attained, it seems to me that once they have children, women lose more than men in terms of work opportunities and financial independence. And all because the house and the children still seem to be a "woman's job".

It's all great to find women who are happy being the SAHP, but don't these women feel sometimes that being 100% financially dependent on their husbands is frustrating? Doesn't this situation make them feel trapped and powerless? Is it OK for women to sacrifice their independence for the sake of their children and the house keeping?

I work part-time, and have two small children, and still feel trapped sometimes. I'm grateful in many ways that my husband earns enough so we don't have to worry about paying for mortgage, food, childcare etc - and I contribute to this too - but I feel it's far beyond from the ideal I had when I was young and it really annoys me. If I'm honest, it makes me very angry.

I would like a society where men and women work part time, share domestic tasks 50/50, and look after their children part time, and therefore pay for everything on equal terms. Is this too much to ask in the fierce capitalist society we live today? Am I naive to think that should be the case?

Minipie- most men never ever think about that.

i am a female employer, & other than in an emergency when common sense must prevail, i would look very strangely on a women telling me she has more responsibility at home so i had to account for that, beyond legal rights, without me getting something in return.

this is business. we are very profitable and growing but i cannot be complacent. she is not the only woman looking out for her own family.

Thanks a lot Blueshoes! And thank you so much for all the different views and comments! I don't agree with everyone but that's what makes the debate more interesting.

I think opening men's eyes from inside, at home, like Blueshoes, is so crucial for the situation to change.

I don't think I'm inferior to the PM, or the CEO's of banks and big business. On the contrary, I think I'm equally intelligent and capable. But what I see more and more is that external factors, such as the access you have to certain jobs and certain education because of your sex (and to some extent family background and class, but that's another issue that I am not going to discuss here), will determine whether you get to those positions of power or not.

I'm not personally power hungry in any way (God, I even have a hard time bossing around my six year old friends when they come for tea!), but I'm not stupid so as not to see that if you have power, you are able to make decisions that are going to affect the lives of a lot of people. Big business and politics affect a lot of decisions couples make when they have children, whether we see it directly or not.

What's a real shame is that there are a lot of women out there, and young girls, as clever and capable as the PM and many other guys in big positions, that will never have access to those resources because they had children.

Men also have children but only now they're beginning to realise what an important and hard job it is. We even hear politicians telling us all the time about the importance of the family. But that's it. They are not willing to give up politics to raise their children, what they might consider "the most important job in the world". So the most important job in the world goes unpaid, or very badly paid, and no men wants to spend their whole life doing it? Isn't this ironic?

A just want a fairer society for my children, because I don't think things as they are are fair on women.

And now I have to go because my two year old doesn't let me spend any time on the computer if I'm with him :) That's how hard it is!!

I must say I always loved a good old testosterone fuelled brawl in court. Nothing like it!!!

But DH is quite the opposite. He's a negotiator. He is calm, with nerves of steel. He tells me he never ever shouts or gets aggressive during negotiations (I can quite belive it as he never shouts at home) and if someone else becomes aggressive or rude or demanding he either laughs at them or leaves the room. His partners tell me it is quite his trademark. And he is uber successful so as a tactic it must work very well.

Wasabi, as an employer, do you get any sort of government subsidy when women (or men) decide to go on maternity leave?

Would you rather employ and male or a female, considering that the female might go on leave for six months or more given the situation of parental leave in this country?

Would you like men to have equal parental leave as women? Do these issues affect your business in any way?

do you get any sort of government subsidy when women (or men) decide to go on maternity leave? yes.

Would you rather employ and male or a female? you hire the best person.

Would you like men to have equal parental leave as women? yes, male staff might take PL, but i think most woundnt. & DP could take PL. my company is not large enough to function for months without me. ML is completely irrelevant to me.

Wordfactory, I don't doubt for a moment that women can be as or more aggressive than man when it comes to real business. That's more to do with personality than sex. There are men out there who are extremely shy, not very succesful, not big earners either. Yet, when children come, their lives don't change much. They continue to go to work and do very little childcare or housework. They don't suddenly realise or see the joys of housework and childcare and leave their jobs.

What's a shame is that the men (aggressive or not) never have to even consider leaving the professional arena when they have children, whereas women do, in a big way, to the detriment of their personal development and careers.

Can you be successful as a lawyer if you take five years off or more to raise your children?

Wasabi I completely understand. I imagine most employers feel the same. That's why I think it's important that men do more of the childcare/domestic stuff, so that it isn't always the women who have to juggle domestic stuff and work and have their career suffer as a consequence.

IMO employers should be in a position where anyone they employ, of either gender, is likely to have some domestic responsibilities - but not 100% of the domestic responsibilities. In other words, they can't expect an employee to have handed over all domestic responsibilities to a SAH spouse, but neither should they have to put up with an employee who is bearing 100% of domestic responsibilities and so is always being the one to take a day off when a child is sick, etc. (except, I guess, in the case of lone parents - who will need a very understanding employer and/or a great support network.)

minipie: that's exactly what I am trying to get to :) Thanks!

wasabi: it's good to hear there are businesses out there where gender and parental leave are not an issue. However, what would you do if a woman you employed is pregnant after three months of starting a new job? Would you react exactly the same if a man tells you his partner is pregnant after three months of starting a new job?

If we had compulsury parental leave e g six months for the mother, six months for the father. I'd like to see how employers would react when a man says his partner is pregnant. That would be a real test to equality.

Every wolman on here who puts her career second to her husband, who takes a long maternity elaven, who goes for flexitime or part time working is making it harder and harder for large numbers of full time working mothers who wants to work full time not to be tarred with the women equals part time brush. Therefore there is a moral duty on women at the current state of paly in terms of gender politics to ensure if one of their family will go part time it shoudl be the one with the penis. If they do that consistently so that more and more often men are the ones at home if anyone has to be then women will start not to do so badly at work. Every part time women is kicking other women in the teeth at the moment. It is a political decision if you decide to be home centred and not to push ahead at work. It is very damaging.

Xenia, I can see from what you're saying that your ideas belong to the so called "bourgeois feminism" of Thatcherite Britain, oriented towards market success, full time working hours and probably paid childcare from birth, as not taking maternity/parental leave only means that you have to pay someone to do the job. Personally, I don't think that's a viable model, as the bonding of an infant and a small child with their parents is extremely important for their future development. It's not about me missing the so called "firsts", it's about the kind of human bond you're going to have with your own children from the start.

I think that the reality for most women is very far from the archetype your are suggesting. Not all of us can be the Thatcher or Madonna type, for all the reasons I explained before in other posts.

As it was pointed out by others in the thread, you are only proposing reverse inequality as a model, where men will find themselves in the unfair situation, rather than women. So that is not a real push for equality. Sorry.

xenia I hear you. And indeed I did feel very bad about not taking thepositrion on the bench. Women from my background are hugely under represented there.

However, are you really saying that women must forge forward even if they belive it's not right for their own family? Are you asking them to put society before individualism?

Because that sounds suspiciously like socialism to me

I don't think Xenia mentioned the betterment of society at any stage. She enjoys working full time because it allows her to earn lots of money, gives her a sense of power, independence and control over her life, which a very valid point. And also she has lots of fun doing it, which is also great. But it all sounds very individualistic to me, so she's far from being a socialist. She just wants every woman to do the same as she would be validated in her choice, and gradually men would be pushed to the back seat.

She basically wants to have the cake and eat it, which is what men have been doing for centuries at the expense of women.

My only concern about Xenia's attitude is that she seems to want to eat her cake at the expense of others, in this case men, or I can only presume, very badly paid domestic workers.

Marga, you have to do what the law says, otherwise you waste lots of time and legal expense. you cannot judge someone on getting pregnant after 3 months. They might be a great worker when they are back. But I would look to get as much from them as possible in the short term, put them on the projects no one else wanted etc, then see what they wanted to do on their return.

if they worked well afterwards, I would write off the cost of their ml. If we could comes to a reasonable compromise, they get something, I get something, that's fine. If they are in Lala land about whats reasonable for them/ me that's not going to work and I would suck up whatever I had to but be looking to exit them within the law. Employees have rights. Employers have rights.

I have sack two men who weren't performing during the downturn knowing they would find it difficult to get their next role. I feel sorry for their wives and families but am indifferent to their personal welfare. Being youngish and female, you do get piss takers so i take the time to understand employment law so i know my rights and responsibilities.

Marga you say xenia is individualistic, but most sahm mums are looking after their own family and not benefiting others, i dont see anything great about looking after your own. If xenia had a penis, wouldn't (s)he be a provider?

Where are women idolised for caring for their own and men elevated to providers? We seen to see behaviour through a lens of sex.

Obviously I put one view here. Most parents of either gender seek to maximise time with children outside working hours. Sensible women ensure they have gender neutrality at home and fairness there.

yes, it's all looked at through gendered eyes. How many threads have we ever seen or newspaper articles suggesting a man is not giving his child the best start in life because he isn't at home with it? Ever since I was a teenager I've turned the sexes round to see how things look when you swap the passage over and that reveals the sexism usually.

"Personally, I don't think that's a viable model, as the bonding of an infant and a small child with their parents is extremely important for their future development. It's not about me missing the so called "firsts", it's about the kind of human bond you're going to have with your own children from the start." What is this meant to mean - that in any marriage one of the two parents must not work otherwise the child suffers?

I would argue that working mothers tend to be the ones with the higher IQs who earn more and are less likely to give up work and they also tend to be the ones with the better knowledge of child psychology and therefore they make better parents and their children do better. Those with below average IQ not many qualifications and who would never have earned much more than the cost of child care tend to be the ones who stay at home and usualyl are therefore not quite as clewed up as the working mothers in bringing up children so don't so such a good job of it.

I certainly don't dispute the human bond part of it. I am not a child free person or someone who sent the children to board abroad for 13 years or who is never home. I did and adored masses of breastfeeding and none of the child slept through the night for years so we're talking hours of bonding in any working week int hat sense with the wretched little sweetie pies bonding away between 1 and 3am whilst they suck and suck. I just don't agree that if parents work they don't bond and child suffer at all. I think it's a myth made to keep women down and we need to shout it down at every opportunity. What I do believe though is that children need loving parents who spend some time with them and generally working mothers are better organised and able to ensure that than plentyo f housewives who may be physically there but who are often depressed or chatting to friends and the like never mind all the housework they have to do because they don't earn enough to delegate it to anyone else.

Bonsoir - why should employers be sensitised to the needs of women at work as mothers more than men at work as fathers (beyond the pregnancy and BF years)?

It just feeds into the self fulfilling prophesy that women need more flexibility because they are the ones that have more domestic responsibility.

I think the men at the top may be made a little aware of what it takes to combine work and family responsibilities because their wives point it out to them. But imagine how aware they would be if they actually had equality at home and had the experience of changing their own working patterns - then something might change!

You are on to a loser, HopeForTheBest, I have been saying the same to no avail. Xenia seems to think that if you are not in paid employment you are stuck in 4 walls and doing housework. The housework takes no longer than if you are working and once done you are free. Evenings and weekends don't have to be taken up with mundane tasks. Xenia couldn't understand the lawyer who married a high earner and stopped work to write a book- this was seen as letting the side down rather than being liberating,the chance to do something new and exciting that might ultimately earn more. Nothing counts unless it earns pots of money, immediately.
The country operates because whole armies of people volunteer and give their service for free in ways that are interesting and fulfilling.
I agree entirely with you-and refute that Iet the side down in any way.

It is because many women love the freedom. Xenia would have been very scathing about J K Rowling staying at home with her DC,in poverty, and writing, but she is a lot better off than having got a job and paid for child care.
It seems beyond her understanding that someone may have a few years in a high paid job and then change to being a potter, keeping sheep or teaching in an inner city school-all things that people do- through choice.

Xenia, I dont know what age your children are, or indeed if you have any. I have read about 10 pages of this, not the rest.

If you do not spend much quality time with your children, my guess is you will regret it every bit as much as a man would.
I know a woman who talks about her children incessantly, and everyone knows it is because she personally missed milestones, stuff going on at school etc etc, and can never get it back again.
It makes no difference that her husband sometimes covered for her.She personally missed out.

Dont miss out. For your sake.

Men are the same. I read about a very successful doctor who gave it all up to bake cakes and set up his business and he was much happier.

She has at least 4-probably 5 and she will tell you -at great length,that she and they have not missed out.