Is it even possible to make SAHMotherhood a feminist option?

[Emphaticmaybe]

As a SAHM how can I be a feminist if I am not contributing in the work place and striving for greater equality through employment. What do I need to do to make my situation as feminist as possible or are the two fundamentally impossible to reconcile?

You are contributing, you are bringing up a family. If you have chosen to be a SAHM then surely that is just as valid as choosing to work.

Argh! As if the ONLY valid choice is work.

The world is a bigger place than that. There are other things that validate people.

I still feel that I am a feminist, I was working until recently and currently a SAHM. I feel that I chose. If I was forced to be a SAHM or was not allowed to work then that would be very different.

Raising the next generation of workers is just as valid as engaging in paid employment.

As a feminist you could see the value on workplace above home as a perpetuation of patriarchal and capitalist systems.

the only issues for me are first your position and influence at home, those outside (family, neighbours etc) will tend to treat the wage earner as the household head. you need to ensure that this does not let this influence the way you and your partner treat each other. second is the role model that you give to your children. Here you just need to ensure that they accept that men and women can work both inside and outside the home, that the fact that you have chosen one route does not mean that you think this is the best role for all women

The work of childcare is still work, it's hard, it's skilled (with a hell of a learning curve when you have your first!) and it needs doing. Part of my feminism is about according respect to the unpaid tasks that women have traditionally undertaken, and about striving for those to be shared equally throughout the population so that individual women and men really do have a choice. Otherwise the people who do this work will forever be seen as some kind of underclass.

People telling me I'm letting down the movement by staying at home with my daughter tend to get a steely-eyed glare.

Since I have been at home I have started to knit and bake . Totally out of choice, I am really enjoying it. Sometimes I have joked with DH that I am turning into a 1950s housewife. But actually, I would have loved to do these things before but I didn't have time.

I do plan to go back to work, but at present it would be unworkable (both parents do work requiring irregular shift work) If DH wanted to swap then I would consider it (in theory - but in practice I want to be a SAHP and he doesn't)

For me being a WAHM is having a clear definition of roles and a clear division of labour. For that to work you need to have equal division of the spoils of that labour be it domestic labour or waged. ie does the unwaged partner share the wealth generated. Wealth and welfare are of equal value to the family as a whole. So you might say ironing his shirts is mind numbing but it does actually add to both welfare and wealth.

The other major issue is socially necessary labour time, are you run off your feet at 10pm doing chores while the waged worker sinks into the sofa? So there has to be an agreement about the equal need for free time as well as equal distribution of money.

Hi thanks for all the replies- a lot of the responses echo may own thoughts, but, and this is a big but, my husband does support me and if he wanted to, could have economic power over me, ( he was raised by a Liberal Feminist in the 70s and doesn't have a dominating bone in his body) so it's not likely he would try.
We were discussing this last night and although we have a joint bank account, I felt really for him to acknowledge the true value of my work and support, we should have two separate bank accounts and divide his earnings equally and then split all bills and expenses equally. Thus giving me a salary.

What do you think? My argument is we both wanted children, we both wanted a parent to look after them, therefore I'm facilitating him working as much as he is supporting me. It would raise the value of Childcare even if only symbolically. Or is this pointless as no matter which way I try to twist it I'm still dependent on a man - a very nice, reasonable one but still a man?

In terms of the money, I think it is up to you. Having a joint bank account is fine as long as you both have equal access to it and feel and behave as if you have equal access and a right to it. If however you feel you don't, however valid that feling is, then what you suggest may work better. Personally my DP and I always see all our earnings and income as family joint money whoever earns it - but you have to feel that and act like that for that to work.

I don't think you have to earn a salary for him to show he values you. That said, its what works best for you.

To be honest the joint bank account works fine - and we both take equal responsibility for financial matters. I was just wondering theoretically about ways to readdress the balance, how far would you need to go to get a truly equal partnership?

If the joint bank account works fine I don't think you need to change that. Is it ever possible to get a truly equal partnership whatever the gender of your partner? I don't know. I do think as well as the everyday stuff, its about you both supporting each other to achieve your ambitions in life whatever they may be. Maybe also if possible, making time to tackle or campaign on issues affecting other woman as well?

My DH and I have always considered ourselves an equal partnership - just bringing different contributions to it (as in any partnership). As we had our own company I got 50% of all the income anyway even though I did not personally generate any of it when an SAHM. Also part of my role as an SAHM was to manage and control the finances of both business and family. My DH as always acknowledged that my role was equal to his - we have each played to our strengths over the years.

May be worth paying into a pension though?

Some of my thoughts have been in response to a Radical Feminist (Julie Bindel) feeling it is really difficult for heterosexual women to be radically feminist -as you have to keep engaging with the patriarchy so to speak.

It made me think, would a Radical Feminist think it was even possible for a SAHM to be a feminist because of the economic dependence angle. Also does feeling like a feminist make you a feminist? Does supporting equality with your views and opinions, making sure you are treated as equally as possible in your relationship, supporting other women in being treated equally undo the possible damage to all women as a whole by removing yourself from the front line?
I like havingabaths take of turning the patriarchy on it's head by valuing traditionally feminine work and skills -but wouldn't the best way actually be to encourage men to take the SAH role instead?

"Or is this pointless as no matter which way I try to twist it I'm still dependent on a man - a very nice, reasonable one but still a man?"

OP, he is as dependent on you as you are on him. He's relying on you to bring us the family and look after the home. So don't feel that your contribution isn't equal.

Regards the bank account, I don't see the need for separate ones if the relationship you have is built on trust and mutual respect, which is sounds as if it is, and if you feel you have as much access as he does.

To be honest, you sound as if you have a great setup

You will feel like true a feminist if you know that you can always get your own way any important negotiation with your DH (and without him feeling remotely aggrieved ).

Emphatic I personally have very conflicted views on this.

On the one hand I do not believe a person needs to work to bring value. And I do believe that the rasing of children is valuable work.

However, my biggest issue is that I view feminism from an almost missionary stance. I trully believe that we feminists have to take it out there to the patriarchy. And one of the easiest ways to do that is in the workplace. I'm not saying that a SAHP cannot do this, but most seem not to.

Certainly when I gave up work it seemed deeply unfeminist to me. But then that may have been to do with the fact that I was in a position to make a difference to many women and children's lives and also to have some impact on policy. Ducking out of that for my family felt like the right choice on a micro level but the wrong choice on the macro one.

"Also does feeling like a feminist make you a feminist?" I would say no (pls don't throw things at me) I would say thinking like a feminist does. It's about what you think and what you do with that knowledge.

I think a SAHP should be just as valued and so should their contribution be. I think the working parent is also dependent. Supposing your DH came home and sat down whilst you continued to work, or spent all the spare income on himself, would that be fair? No. But wouldn't life be hard for a working parent if they then had to do a full shift at home and work until 10 pm doing there own washing.

So whilst the working parent supports the non working parent in parenting the children through financial contribution, likewise the non wage earner makes it possible and supports the working parent. It's a simple dialectic which gets bogged down in arguments about money. If everything is reduced to people only being valued for waged labour we might extend that to being actively discriminatory of the basis of how much someone earns, not just if they earn.

What has contributing in the workplace got to do with feminism?

Why compete against men?

Why not lobby for better recognition for your own contribution to society?

Why not insist that childcare vouchers can accepted by SAHMs?

Possibly emphatic, though maybe swopping trad male and trad female still perpetuates the systems built under patriarchy.

I stayed off, have 'lost' easily 400 000 plus pension this far. Have retained work when I want, control our household money, feel merrily outside the system.

We are a team, we chat about role swops and I think we will though not for a few years. I used to be the breadwinner. Our dynamic doesn't change in response to jobs.

Yes Word that makes sense to me too.

That's interesting, wordfactory. I certainly didn't feel that I was furthering the cause of feminism (or even humankind) in any shape or form in my latter career, though I had worthier aspects to my work in my first working role, where I was sometimes in the happy position of being one of two decision-makers (then rubber stamped by a board) in allocating scholarships to excessively deserving students, many of them women and all from developing countries, to study useful things in the UK.

I do get plenty of opportunity for worthy feelings about furthering the cause of women, and humankind, in my current life, thankfully. Not that I will get a Nobel prize or anything, but I don't have a trophy-seeking personality and knowing how I made a difference (even if no-one else particularly knows it) is just fine with me.