Where did all the Feminists go?

[Portofino]

MN seems to have had a reorganisation of FWR when I was on holiday and me no-likey. Why do we now have a Rad fem section and Feminist light chat. So many of the dynamic, knowledgable and interesting posters have disappeared. I have to say that some of the more radical stuff posted really made me think about my views and re-align them. There doesn't seem to be much of that anymore. I am disappointed to be honest.

Yes ha indeed. That's not great. I'd like to know more about Scandinavian countries, and if they've cracked it.

Ignore the question of who looks after the chidlren of men and women who work which is a separate issue and look at the balance within marriages. We need many more men not taking women for granted, many more men who do their own cleaning even if they get back from work at 10pm and many many more women not accepting sexist set ups at home who fling the apron at sunny Him and say "Oi mate if you want the loo cleaner I suggest you get down on your knees now with the loo brush I'm off to study the latest HMRC press release. I will check later if you ahve done it properly."

"YY to that. The day DH cleans the bathroom is the day I will think my marriage is equal. I think that is a basic tenet of feminism."

Why would you marry someone who doesn't?

The day I don't have to check to see if Dh has cleaned it properly is the day......... so if he cleans and I check that is equal, when was the last time a man checked to see if your housekeeping skills were up to it?

I cannot imagine circumstances where I would check to see if dp had done a household task properly......or vice versa.

If you hand a man a mop and then check the result it only shows that you are still taking overall responsibility for the job.

Yes, I'd never check dhs cleaning. He's not a child, and neither am I!

Um, mini, summer didn't say that she would check it

But I agree - checking the job is not the way to go.

Agree. I would never check. I sometimes thinkg that's why at age 22 with baby number 1 (not long after 1970s feminism was at its height) I found it dead easy to delegate to the baby's father all manner of jobs and indeed we did it fairly. He washed the cloth nappies and I breastfed. I did the night waking for the first year of a baby and he did the 2 years after (as our babies all woke for 3 years but weren't feeding in years 2 and 3 mostly).

I certainly did not mean check it. I just meant those who have men who talk about checking or complain put the book on the other foot. But never enable male learned helplessness. If it's done worse than you would do it - so what.

Just divide things fairly and based on time spent on the jobs.

Obviously the main thing most of us do is never marry the sexist ones in the first place.

Xenia is the checking advocate. Just as a threat, to look bad-ass, I presume. Still not how I'd like to live.

X-post.

I had said checking. I only meant it in that context. I don't check. Not checking is why my last 30 years have been fun and good. Delegate and don't worry. That includes delegating work and delegating childcare and all sorts of things. Just don't fret it all, don't be a perfectionist, just have fun. Too many women seem to be seeking some perfection and run themselves ragged. So what if the chidlren go to school with some food stains on their clothes?

""Oi mate if you want the loo cleaner I suggest you get down on your knees now with the loo brush I'm off to study the latest HMRC press release. I will check later if you ahve done it properly." Xenia, it was in response to xenia wanting to baby men, or should that be demean.

If "drudge work" is demeaning in its nature, it's characteristics make it boring and demoralising then MAKING anyone do it will be demoralising. Except what is it that makes child care and domestic work demeaning? Is it the natural characteristics of the job or the fact that it is unpaid and unvalued? or both? Seems xenia would create another under class in her brave new world of high flying women. She doesn't much care if they are black slaves, men or the ill educated as long as they whistle while they work.

you know how to live, Xens

You're like, wild

Xenia- who does the childcare?

She may indeed be wild, didn't she suggest running up the mall topless.

Delegate and don't worry. That includes delegating work and delegating childcare

But you sneer at the women you delegate to. Were your nannies men or women? Did you hire them because they were good at their jobs, or to feel superior?

oh seeker how you do bang on

childcare smildcare

some of us have countries to run

I never said it was demeaning - no work is. Jesus washed the feet of the poor etc and plenty of us adore gardening in small doses... I just meant day on day cleaning and childcare of lots of under 5s is boring and very tiring, low status and largely unpaid.

Who should clean? Who should paint the house? Who should clean the windows and dust the lamps? People who cannot do much else obviously of whatever gender and in families where neighter husband nor wife can earn mucyh they should share it equally rather than muggins mummy getting lumbered with hours of dull stuff whilst the husband spends 2 minutes w week putting out the bins.

I have no problems with pecking orders from proles to plebs to whoever and stick housewives anywhere you like in that order and indeed some are entitled to half their husband's £1bn fortune - I am not sure how much time a day Tina Green in Monaco cleans the loos...

So are you saying human beings range from scum to top doggers and all the way along that spectrum they should share the shit work?

I think the topdoggers can have slaves, hully.

When is Bonsoir coming? This is getting a bit dull now.

amillionyears, I posted too flippantly there - I don't know about everyone but I definitely remember reading a newspaper report of a study which shows that while people think they suit their actions to their principles, in a surprising number of cases it is the other way around.
I like to think I do not do this, but apparently no one thinks they do and a surprising no. of people do.

In the article I was reading, there was handwringing about student debt because forcing young people into debt before they have even started life proper (according to this theory) habituates them to the idea of being in debt so that they have no burning desire to escape it - it does not feel wrong in the way it would to someone who had never borrowed before - and thus they are more likely to take on more debt and never be free of it.

It makes sense to me. I have never put a supermarket bill on a credit card, and I can imagine telling dd when she is older that you "should" not do this, but I would if the alternative was to go hungry, and then I would perhaps eventually get used to it and find myself saying, "everyone does, it's just how money works these days."

Bringing this closer to the subject at hand, I think this is at the heart of anti-feminist cognitive dissonance. People do what they have to, women don't necessarily spend all their waking hours actively fighting the patriarchy, then they wake up one morning to find that very sexist structures are dictating how they lead their lives, but they (some of them) would do ANYTHING rather than admit this and say things like "he doesn't see dirt" and "his surname is so much nicer than mine and I wanted to have the same name as my children" and "he works such long hours, why shouldn't he come back to a nice house" etc etc

I just meant day on day cleaning and childcare of lots of under 5s is boring and very tiring, low status and largely unpaid.

Fgs, according to you! My god, you are offensive.

Jesus washed the feet of the poor????????but did he really. I wonder if Mary Magdalain stood over him to ensure he did the job properly. If not he might have half done the job and watched the footie.

It is though, Cuervo, I can't argue with that. Whether you should talk about people who do that as though they are morons who could be running global corporations if they were a bit cleverer like Xenia is, however, another matter.