Today I failed as a feminist.

[youngblowfish]

I am a feminist and have a 14 month old DS. DH and I share childcare as my work is flexible and he gets a lot of time off.

Today during an argument, I realised that DH has not cooked a single meal for DS since he was born. Somehow, I shouldered the burden of feeding our child entirely, although we both work FT, without even realising it! How did that happen? Damn you, patriachy!

Just needed to vent - I am really disappointed in myself.

The boundaries between the personal and the political are not necessarily a feminist issue, but of course can be. And in this example, as OP sees the division of specific tasks within the whole project of parenting as gender-linked, then it is a feminist issue.

What seems to be going on here is the practical application of the theory of equal division with the actual day to day things that need to be done. Now, I have a start point that the home should not be a battleground. That's not and never is an excuse for one partner to be a doormat. It is a reminder that the aim (usually) is domestic harmony.

Patterns of behaviour are often the result of evolution not conscious decision. I am wondering if you BF, therefore making feeding your task for biological reasons, and then from that you kept the feeding role as it changed. Then, only now as DC moved so close to family food, you've realised the biological role is redundant and it's time to change. This is normal.

You say DH was shocked too. That demonstrates he made no conscious decision that any particular task was 'yours' (whether for gender reasons or any others). It just happened. Family life is like that.

Home life isn't a competition and shouldn't be a fight. It's about making every family member as happy as possible (and I don't mean that just in the fuzzy sense, it's about pursuit of aims in life too). You don't need to be constantly vigilant to every nuance, or in this case every meal. Things can jog on for ages before realisations occur - and that's fine.

What matters now , post realisation, is what happens next. As you say DH was shocked, and his early reaction was to start planning his share of cooking for the whole family, I don't see a problem here.

Agree Basil. And recognising unequal division of household labour as an issue is very very basic feminism.

LOL Youngblowfish, don't beat yourself up about it, it's very very easy to fall into those roles because the whole of society, the workplace and our own psyche's inexorably steer us towards them without our noticing. Some people take a decade or so to realise the trap they've fallen into and by then, the low level resentment about the loss of career and the sheer bloody exploitation of it, has corroded the love and respect. It's brilliant that you and your DH have woken up to it so early, congratulate yourself on that instead of blaming yourself for falling into the line of least resistance at a time your hormones and sleep deprivations affected your ability to analyse and resist.

I agree. It's good you noticed. Don't beat yourself up about it.

I think this pattern happens a lot. The one who is pregnant and BF reads more baby books, takes charge of weaning etc... Weeks turn to months, and before you know it you are the only one who knows what LO likes to eat, how to meal plan for family. It becomes something you have to delegate to DH, where before you were equally domestically skilled.

I do think it is important.

One piece of practical advice; to do this stuff equally you really do have to give up control. e.g. My DSs eat more whiite bread and sugary cereal than they would if I did all the shopping (or so I like to think )

Back2Two, this is how women get slapped down all the time.

Discussing the division of labour is trivial.

Wanting equality and respect in your relationship is trivial.

We should all be worrying about much bigger, more important issues.

You contradict yourself by acknowledging that perhaps some roles have been internalised, but that somehow that's not a feminist issue, it's just a discussion to be had between two people. If roles are so powerful that they can be internalised by intelligent, aware people who are doing their best not to internalise them, how can that not be an issue worthy of discussion?

Millions of couples have this discussion every day. Unfortunately for many of them, the internalisation of the roles is so strong, the slapping down is so crushing and the guilt for getting upset about something everyone is telling them is so trivial is so strong, that it effectively shuts women up about this.

And the upshot is, that the love and trust and respect many women have for their partners, is corroded and damaged because of a low-lying, simmering long-term resentment which they feel guilty for having (because wanting to be equal is so trivial) and can actually long-term damage a relationship.

And that is really, really sad. Because a lot of decent men who aren't aware of their privilege, find out far too late, that all those trivial little things that they deemed not worth discussing, have led to that gulf which means that when the children grow up, the couple find the friendship they once had, isn't there. They hadn't noticed, because the bustle of everyday life covers it.

The happiest couples I know, are the ones where the parties are real friends. You can't keep a friendship long term, if your friend is either exploiting you or you are exploiting them.

This isn't just a feminist issue, it's a real relationship one. Because it's deemed as too trivial to discuss, I'd hazard a guess that it probably causes as much trouble to relationships, as money or sex.

Luckily it looks as though the OP is married to a decent cove who wants to sort this out. So he doesn't think it's trivial either.

EdithWeston, you are spot on. I am still BF. I also agree that as much as personal is political, I don't want my home to be a battleground. DH and I are generally very supportive of each other and enjoy parenthood a lot.

Kewcumber, thanks for the postcards. Particularly love the one about dirty clothes from the floor magically reappearing clean in the wardrobe.

Basil and Brains, I am now off to embroider my pinny with beautiful cross-stitch spelling 'This is what a feminist looks like', in a self-congratulatotry fashion .

Basil, thank you for such a passionate defence of my point of view. DH certainly does not think this issue is trivial.

Himalaya, I relish giving the control to someone else. DH is grinding spices for some delicious baby-friendly concoction as I type. I know he will introduce DS to a lot of different foods I would not have thought of. Just this morning, I found them both sniffing and playing with a chill they picked from our plant ready for a meal DH is planning. It will be an adventure for them.

Back2Two, in addition to Basil's eloquent post explaining once again why this is an important issue to discuss, may I also add that the you come across as quite unpleasant in your dismissal of the work involved in feeding a child, and feeding them well. It takes a significant amount of planning and it is a drain on one's resources. It is why ruby commended my DH in one of her posts above for taking up the challenge, because it is a challenge. For you to sarcastically dismiss is as ridiculous just points to the fact most tasks that are historically viewed as women's work are considered unimportant. Yet, especially in the age of a childhood obesity epidemic, what could be more important than ensuring a healthy diet? Shockingly, my uterus has not participated in the cooking process even once. Bad uterus. It should learn to enjoy its exploitation, happily covered with a pinny.

Back2Two to summarise: you don't believe that discussing quality and division of labour is trivial. But I should be worrying about more important issues. I am impressed by how concisely you managed to contradict yourself in just a few sentences. It usually takes me at least a few paragraphs.

Moreover: you let your husband dress you?!?

sorry, not quality, *equality

I don't see why "we" need to focus on bigger, more important issues. It's not like all of the feminists on the MN board are planning a march through OP's kitchen in order to highlight this extremely important issue to her DH

I would have thought that it is an extremely good use of the board for indivudual posters to highlight small, everyday issues in their lives which they have noticed as being unequal. As well as getting input into how they can change it themselves, they're highlighting it and other posters, or lurkers, might have a lightbulb moment and think "Oh yeah - I'm always making dinner for DCs!"

As people have pointed out, it may not be an issue for individuals if this has been a conscious choice (such as one partner enjoying cooking more) or if they feel that their DP pulls his/her weight enough in other ways to make up for doing all of the cooking, but for some people it might be an issue they never even realised they had, and so it is worth discussing. Tiny steps are still forward steps!

Back2Two, I was not trying to be condescending - you understood my (not very funny) joke about the uterus very well, you even responded to it. Don't get angry, I am enjoying the banter.

It's so NOT a non-issue! The point, I think, youngblowfish, is that you and DH realised you had internalised gender roles, which is very easy to do.

During some years when I helped make a significant difference to women's lives, the law and gender expectations, I lived with a man who did absolutely nothing around the house. When I got overwhelmed, I hired people to take some of the load ... but I didn't notice he was receiving unbroken domestic & catering services The extent of it only hit home after we split (I wrote him a manual. He didn't know how to work the appliances or pay the bills.)
Cognitive dissonance a-go-go.

Until the skills required to run a home are elevated from "women's work" to "essential life skills", feminism and women's lives in general are on a back foot.

Another well done for noticing :)

Until the skills required to run a home are elevated ... - from a patriarchal pov, I mean! The whole caboodle needs to be yanked out of the female orbit and placed squarely in the middle of everybody's life.

What an interesting thread.
Some people arguing against this being a feminist issue really made it crystal clear in my mind why it was exactly that.
Well done OP for spotting it and sorting it out. :)

"We should all be worrying about much bigger, more important issues."

Do you not understand that that is a slap-down?

Really?

We don't get to decide what is a bigger and more important issue in someone else's relationship. If it matters to one person in the relationship, it matters and has to be dealt with.

We can worry about big important issues and small trivial ones. And we can argue about which is which, but it's possible to worry about world poverty and the bloody sock stuck in the vacuum cleaner hose at the same time.

Am liking the idea of staging a demo in the OP's kitchen. Can you get some lemon drizzle cake in and maybe one of those nice M&S apricot tartes with some creme fraiche?