Can you be a feminist but be anti maternity leave etc

[BaresarkBunny]

Although I have children I often take a peek at the #childfree on Twitter.

One of the popular discussions at the moment is that maternity leave should be abolished as it is unfair to those without children and mothers should use holiday time.

One of the most prominent posters who believes this says on her bio that she is a feminist but is also anti breastfeeding in public and how mothers are a drain when working, as well as other anti-mother sentiments.

Can somebody with views like this count herself as a feminist?

[Xenia]

1. It is does not do good for babies to be with their mother 24/7./ That is a myth put about by sexists to keep women down. Children of working mothers and indeed children of families with more money in them do best. Children who go to a childminder, stay with granny or grandpa, go to ao nursery or stay with a nanny or their father do the same as children with a mother 24/7.
   

1. It is not true that in the past women never worked and men did. Women have always worked. My grandmother worked in the 1920s. Her mother worked etc etc. However those with an agenda to keep women down, to keep women thinking being glorified servants at home is some kind of haloed role like the peddle that myth to ensure men have a read supply of unpaid slave labour at home.

[LeBFG]

OP - of course you can be a feminist and anti-mat leave. THere's a whole brand of american feminists who adhere to this (hence low bf rates, so says the bf bible milk, money and madness).

There are all sorts of feminists: some are anti-strippers, others are pro.

Although I personally don't agree with the idea, the feminist line is to give women an equal employment footing to men - equal pay based on equal experience at the work face etc. Xenia puts this point across well. I just object to the notion of equality - being equal meaning to play the game like a man.

Problem with this is that men and women aren't (on the whole) equal biologically. The sexes aren't the same and have different desires (on average). Many, many men I've met could do without ever having children for example - I've only met one women happy with this life choice. Most women with newborns would feel unhappy to return to work a few weeks after giving birth. Although you could, and people do, use this as an excuse to keep women 'tied to the sink', I think the basis of the idea springs from the natural biology and, in and of itself, isn't 'wrong'.

[HalloweenNameChange]

I am sorry but I really can't take you seriously. I have seen where you previously stated that children of parents who stayed home were not as intelligent.. you made up some ridiculous pseudo science for that as well. Please show me the research that says children of SAHP don't do as well as other children?

I never said women haven't worked in previous generations I said since the beginning of time. Small farmers people in towns and villages did do jobs around their home they grew their own food they did things where their children were involved as well. This still happens around the world.
please explain how women breast fed their many children if they were never around them?

I have no problem with anyone choosing to work or stay at home I wish you would stop peddling the myth that women stay home because they are too stupid to do anything else.

[HalloweenNameChange]

^that was to xenia btw

[Xenia]

You take the baby to the fields to feed. I breastfed all 5 and worked full time from when they were 2 weeks old. Even if you read Tess of the D'Urb. her baby was brought to her in the hay field to feed. I think it died actually ...and indeed most babies died before age 5 but women have always worked.

Also on the point that children of working women do better, household income is the best indicator of child outcomes. If you have two wages coming in the family will have more income and ultimately the children of those homes do much better. My children graduated debt free for example because I chose to work rather than being a housewife.

On LeB, I don't agree with that - that it is a man thing to want money and power and success. I don't think those are male values and I think it's very anti feminist to suggest women are some kind of soft squidgy useless crying thing who wants to care all day. I think that types of prejudice keeps women down. Heaps of us adore to rule, gain power, out earn men ,compete. Competition is not just a male attribute It is as much a woman as a man thing. The stereotype of woman as pathetic little useless thing who wants to sit around sewing or kneeling in adoration at her hsuband's feet is not what women need nor what feminism is about. The power behind the throne is not what many women want. They want the throne itself. Let me have the back stage role and cleaning tasks if they want someone in a pinny in the kitchen. The throne itself is much more fun.

[HalloweenNameChange]

Do you really believe breast feeding is an option for most working mothers? I could not express milk at all, and I am not quite sure who was meant to bring me dd or ds while I was at work? Or should I have only breast fed for 2 weeks and then gone back to work?

Also on the point that children of working women do better, household income is the best indicator of child outcomes. If you have two wages coming in the family will have more income and ultimately the children of those homes do much better. My children graduated debt free for example because I chose to work rather than being a housewife.

Money will improve a child's life.. yes. Two working parents however does not generally indicate more household income. Many parents find the money made by one person working is negated by the cost of child care. MOst people aren't high earners xenia.. This is not due to being horrible stupid people..it's due to the fact that everyone CANT be a high earner. People make their money off the backs of the poor. If a family can provide money for food and shelter and education for their children while having a loving parent at home... I think they have done quite a bit for their child. Graduating debt free is not the end all, I would say having some concept of the value of money is nice lesson to learn to.

Once the stigma of being a sahm parent is lifted more men will choose to stay at home.. this is the problem people like you make others feel uncomfortable with their choices.

[MariaMandarin]

Yes exactly Halloween. There is an army of (mostly) women employed in low paid and low status work as childcarers. If it wasn't for these women then the likes of Xenia wouldn't be able to develop their own careers.

The only answer is for childcare to be provided by the state, at high quality and low cost. This has the effect of enabling all parents to work and also raising the pay and status of childcare workers. It would also raise educational outcomes for children from deprived families.

[confuddledDOTcom]

How about women in jobs that aren't office based? How about women in environments that aren't suitable for babies? How do they manage to EBF? Or are you differentiating between EBF and expressing? There's a whole other set of questions on that one!

[LeBFG]

Xenia - I don't agree at all that I suggested women should stay home and they were weak and useless....I am a woman after all so to suggest that would mean lumping myself into that category .

I don't think it uncontroversial to suggest women want different things to men...they sometimes want the same things of course....we wouldn't have had Thatcher et al if that wasn't the case.

Many things have already been done to get more women into the workplace, that's why in part so much has gone into mat leave and so on to encourage the very many women who want to be with their children to work too. These sorts of things would never have been brought in if women hadn't wanted them...and yet it still isn't enough. Plenty of women who can afford it jack in their jobs (for better or worse) when the family starts to grow, even with all these provisions. Despite the efforts gone to, women are still under-represented in top posts. Is it hard to believe that not as many women as men want this sort of work?

[Xenia]

I think it engrains sexism to suggest women have some huge urge to clean and do childcare and earn nothing and that men are a different species who want to have it all and are allowed to have it all because they have muggins at home who apparently adores her hours with the mop.

If women have been conned into thinking they will be happy at home then it behoves feminists to raise the scales from the eyes of those women and show them how wrong they are, not pat them on the back and say all hail madonna stepford wife you have found your true calling.

[LeBFG]

Who's saying women want to earn nothing and are different species to men? What is wrong with being happy at home? Many men would like to stay at home more too! In my posts I've taken care to emphasise that I'm talking in general terms.

[HalloweenNameChange]

I don't think anyone enjoys cleaning but it has to be done . So who should do it? Same with child care?

We can't all find nameless faceless nannies to do our bidding. I worked in child care for years and the condescending bull shit from parents who thought me beneath them really pissed me off.

Some people like kids thank god for that, or the world would come to a stand still. Does it occasionally getting boring? Yes, as does everything you do day in and day out. I have never held a job that didn't get monotonous sometimes.. I really don't get your disdain for people who enjoy doing things differently than you. Honestly, my kids are awesome, I love them. They are silly and funny and brilliant fun sometimes and sometimes they are smelly and horrible.. just like any other work.

[OhDearNigel]

well, if breeding is optional and we all decide not to do it she'll have problems collecting her pension in a few years time, won't she ?

I don't think we should dignify her by discussing it really.

[LRDtheFeministDude]

It might ingrain sexism to put words into other women's mouths, xenia.

Your bashing of other women is very tedious - why do you still assume that the only way for women to get ahead is by adopting the patriarchy's ways and stamping on other women to get to the top?

[summerflower]

You take the baby to the fields to feed. I breastfed all 5 and worked full time from when they were 2 weeks old. Even if you read Tess of the D'Urb. her baby was brought to her in the hay field to feed. I think it died actually ...and indeed most babies died before age 5 but women have always worked.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

That's interesting about maternity leave being for the benefit of the
Baby, I hadn't thought about it that way

[LRDtheFeministDude]

Though - and forgive me, because I'm now being serious and I know I don't realy know - isn't it now being found that it's very important to sort out maternal care because PND is so debilitating, and so common? I can believe that maternity leave may well have been brought in in the interest of babies, but I do believe that it matters hugely that a civilized society has a way of accepting that a woman who has had a baby does actually need and deserve some care. It seems really shit to me that many societies even today are predicated on the idea that a woman gives birth (thereby continuing that society!), and yet she's expected to continue on as normal, doing the same work with no statutory maternity leave and no provision for her health.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

That's true LRD. It's back to the old issue of what we want - equality of input or equality of outcome? If I am more vulnerable to flu because I am pregnant or elderly or asthmatic, I can get vaccinated when others can't because it makes the outcome more equal.

[summerflower]

I don't know either, LRD, I just know that the early arguments for antenatal and postnatal care were very much to do with infant health and reducing infant mortality and I was surprised I guess to see how current such arguments still are. I think women's health and well-being during and after pregnancy was a side-effect, rather than the main aim.

i absolutely and entirely agree with what you say about the physical and emotional upheaval, for want of a better word, that having a baby is, I think that is why, in many countries it is just not legal to work for a minimum period after birth. At the same time, and the answer to this is not necessarily work, I think there is also a recognition that isolation in the home and the change in a woman's life is a contributory factor to PND. So, I am not sure that placing infant care squarely on a woman's shoulders is the right solution either. There's a big gulf between everyday working lives and new mummy baby club and clinic life. But again, the answer to that is not no maternity leave, imo.

[FastidiaBlueberry]

"Which then leads to the cycle of the man continuing to pursue a career whilst the woman is juggling her career and childcare responsibilities."

Oh yes, that cycle is solely caused by women being control freaks and wanting to exclude men from parenting and childcare.

No other reasons at all.

[LRDtheFeministDude]

That makes sense, I'd not quite got my mind round it so clearly. I think it's equality of effort, rather than of imput, for me: people should all be required to try equally hard.

I don't think, though, that PND affects equality of input. I think it is simply that society has normalized those things that exclusively or mainly affect men, so they become part of the base level of society, whereas those things that affect women do not. So, male biology defines sex, but female biology does not define the outcomes of pregnancy. Male biology defines what is understood as 'strength', but female biology does not determine how medication in labour works - male doctors feel competant to judge that for themselves. It is unequal already, so I think we are conditioned to think that PND is debilitating per se, rather than thinking perhaps (and I don't know, but I do believe this) that it is debilitating largely because of the context in which we live, which doesn't make allowances for women as it does for men.

[Xenia]

The ones at home have the PND. The ones saddled with a baby 24./7 are the ones with the worse deal. The baby doesn't need you.

Anyone thinking being home alone with a 4 year old 2 year old and baby is some kind of holiday/care has never spent time with small children. You go to work for a rest. It's a picnic in comparison and you get paid and you have a fairer relationship with your other half,. winwin all round which is why most women of sense have always worked and always will

[LRDtheFeministDude]

Rubbish. You obviously know fuck all about PND.

Belittling it by pretending the cure is going out to work is crass.

As usual, your argument is predicating on exploiting some other, less well-paid woman, rather than on changing the system. You are helping the patriarchy keep women down, while being smug about it.

[FastidiaBlueberry]

Can you point to any reliable research which shows that SAHMs are more likely to suffer from PND Xenia?

Nah, didn't think so.