Understanding men

[cailindana]

I've had some interesting conversations with DH lately (who has recently got into feminism in a big way) about how patriarchy has affected him. It's something I'm interested in as I think it's part of the bigger picture and worth knowing in terms of combatting the effects of how our society is structured, both on women and men. As a woman of course I have limited insight into how men see the world and so would appreciate views specifically from men.

What DH has said to me is that he has been trained by his upbringing to overvalue what men do and undervalue what women do.
He says he has found it extremely hard to be in any way honest about his feelings as he has learned that it is not acceptable for him to share how he really feels.

Both of these things have contributed in large ways to the problems in our relationship and now that he's recognised them and tried to overcome them things have changed. I have to admit though I am a bit discombobulated by the change almost as though he doesn't quite fit my expectation of how men should be (indoctrinated in me by my sexist asshat of a father). So I've also had to change my attitude.

Any thoughts?

Caitlin, I am on the fence about it. I would be concerned that celebrating pregnancy and childbirth rather than an individual mother might a. make it seem like something that society owned as some kind of celebratory concept rather than something actually happening to individual women and b. create some kind of pretence allowing society to claim we love and celebrate mothers, while ignoring the actual state if maternity care.

I mean, society manages to celebrate breasts pretty well while despising breastfeeding mothers. I am sure it could celebrate aspects of pregnancy while despising actual pregnant women for ruining the great public celebration of pregnancy with their claims of pain, life long disability and requests for adequate nutrition during pregnancy.

It would be five minutes before people would start claiming that pregnancy was central to our culture, and pregnant women had no right to make special claims about what pregnancy meant.

Sarah ditum on the topic of the recognition of women's work sarahditum.com/2015/05/10/lace/

Give men and women equal access to parental leave (what about - maybe - paying men more pro rata for taking it?). Remove from a potential employer's mind any assumptions that it will always be the woman who takes parental leave, and therefore all things being equal, offering the job to the man.

Are there any cases for making a minimal split compulsory? E.g. a man, if his partner has a baby, has to take 4 months off minimum. Probably unworkable, but this for me is the last real barrier to equal opportunity in the workplace (from my male perspective, so the usual caveats apply).

There is already equal access to parental leave Yops. Why should men be paid nor for it? Genuine question.

I know it is imminent. Is it now truly equal in every respect? I don't know - I hope so.

My thinking was that if an employer has two candidates, a man and a woman of a young enough age, they may think that the woman is more likely to take significant time off if she starts a family. Extra pay would incentivise men, and would halt the employer's thought processes in their tracks. A bit like all-women selection lists for Parliamentary candidates - it kick-starts the process to a more balanced cross-section. Probably both illegal and unworkable though, now I think about it.

I do think. There should be a use it or lose it component of paid leave for both parents. I don't think men should be paid more for it!

MrN, your contention was that the wars of the roses affected everyone simultaneously. They didn't. Battles were localised and sporadic.

You know what did affect all women simultaneously? The risks of childbirth.

And as for "well, mostly women want kids so it's OK" - WTF? Henry VIII killed/ betrayed wife after wife through his desire for male children; this urge in order to have someone to inherit was not unique, but it's women deemed to benefit? Lovely.

Apart from a mandated recovery period, the mother can cease maternity leave at any time and shared parental leave can start. As of last month.

Going back to "but women get the prize of a baybee" - before contraception (and after in countries that thought it a sin) - how much choice do you think women had in getting pregnant? Few women could eschew men and marriage in self defence against pregnancy (as Elixabeth I perhaps did) as they were restricted from holding property in their own right eyc.

"The most deadly countries for mothers have maternal mortality rates of 1,000 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births. That's about a 1% chance of dying each birth. (Well, probably greater, when you consider that some women are going to die after a stillbirth, or from an obstructed labor with no live birth.) In the countries with the worst maternal mortality, 1 in 6 childbearing women die from pregnancy-related complications in that country. That's in Afghanistan and Sierra Leone. It's 1 in 7 in Niger. (For comparison, in Europe, it's 1 out of 30,000 women. The worldwide average is 1 in 74 women. Source - Lancet article.)"

"The article notes first that, of course, the evidence is flawed and incomplete; any estimate of maternal mortality from the 16th to 18th centuries cannot be any better than a very rough, error-riddled estimate. That said, here's what they found. In one parish in England, church registers counted 23.5 maternal deaths per thousand baptisms (so, per thousand births, assuming each birth results in a baptism). The London Bills of Mortality count an average of 15.9 maternal deaths per thousand baptisms from 1666 to 1758, not counting plague years. That's a maternal mortality rate comparable to that in modern Afghanistan. The paper notes that these are "certainly underestimates." For example, deaths from ectopic pregnancies or early miscarriage complications might not have been counted if they couldn't be recognized.

Continuing on, death rates in the mid-1800s were apparently lower, on the order of 5 maternal deaths per 1000 live births. That's a bit higher than Bangladesh's rates today. Odds of the mother dying were much higher when the baby was stillborn, ranging from 57 to 137 maternal deaths per 1000 stillbirths. That's as many as 13% of women dying while giving birth to a still baby. Sort of an intuitive result: unknown pregnancy complications, on which we can only speculate, mean a much higher chance of both maternal and fetal death.

Overall, the paper estimates about 25 deaths per 1000 live births from the 16th to 18th centuries. That's a 2.5% chance of death per birth, or 2500 in 100,000 live births. That's quite a bit higher than the rate in Afghanistan today, which is 1800 maternal days per 100,000 births. "

Those quotes from this blog which references the two papers the figures were from:
birthnerd.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/pre-modern-death-in-childbirth.html?m=1

Estimate of length of Wars of the Roses: 30 years.

Estimate of overall death toll: 50,000

Estimate of population of England at the time: 3.5-5m.

Answer: a hell of a lot more women died in childbirth than men died in war in those 30 years.

Yonic, I was wondering if these sad mortality rates are consistent through out nature. I wonder if they are inline with other species that carry their unborn. (Maybe not now with the improvements in medicine).

I don't know. My understanding is that the relative size of the human head at birth and the kink in the birth canal from humans moving to upright posture are detrimental vs apes but no idea how it translates to mortality.

Interesting looking paper here, thank you google:

www.glowm.com/pdf/PPH_2nd_edn_Chap-07.pdf

We should campaign to get Ray Davies removed from all birth canals.

I have to admit I did lol

That is my understanding too Yonic. Bipedalism increases the risks of childbirth.

I feel I have to say (on yet another thread) that many families do not involve two parents and parental leave for fathers will not mean that men and women are equally likely to be the one requesting childcare.

A quarter of children are brought up in single parent families.
92% of single parents are mothers.
About half of working single parents use informal childcare. Of all children with working single mothers, fewer than 10% of the fathers provide childcare to cover part of the working day. Grandparents of those children are twice as likely as fathers to provide childcare.

So the parental leave issue needs to factor in the quarter of families in the UK who are not headed by two parents, including the one in seven families who start out as one parent families.

Ha! king.

I think the view of childbirth in the past was that yes it was painful and dangerous, but at the same time it was mundane, just a part of ordinary life and therefore not worth remembering.

At the same time as women were routinely dying in childbirth, men were working for pitiful wages in dangerous occupations, and again it was routine and not worth much worry unless a large number of men died at once, and even then, normal business soon resumed. So who got more concern, women giving birth or miners, or sailors? The answer is, nobody got much.

Oh, and some of the miners were women. Yes, while they were pregnant.

I was going to post something quite different, in response to the op's request for male viewpoints, but it seems the thread has moved on in a historical direction.

In that area, whilst I am all for venerating the act of carrying and creating life I think we must be careful here.

It is very easy to fall into the trap of objectifying women's capacity to bear children. There is precedent for this, look at the Mary in Catholicism, she is venerated in the extreme (and also provides an impossible template for all women to live up to).

By all means cherish the act of motherhood, and all who choose that path, but we as a society must be crystal clear in celebrating all female achievements.

Fair point, Dervel. I think the objection was the straight dichotomy of memorialising (not necessarily glorifying) those who took away life or died in the attempt whilst about those who brought forth life or died in the attempt.

Happy to return to the original topic though!

Bit reluctant to post here as I have neither given birth nor fought in a war. So I'm obviously just a pimple on the face of society. Oh well.

But I think the question of which is awarded public recognition is not just a question of male vs female, but also the directly related dichotomy of the political vs the private. A worker dying horribly on the battlefield does so in the service of the state. A woman dying in childbirth does so as a result of a personal choice to get pregnant.

Of course, this overlooks the fact that human reproduction does serve the state, supplying it with future members of the labour force, taxpayers etc etc. And equally, it overlooks the fact that many women, even today, do not actually choose to give birth but are forced or coerced to do so. But even so, that's how motherhood is often framed: a personal, even selfish choice, not serving the greater good (even though it definitely does). Like many typically female activities, motherhood is viewed as natural and private and therefore not deserving of recognition.

I've started a thread on childbirth in History Club - apologies for the derail and if I made you feel bad, swan.

I like the Edith Cavell statue near Trafalgar Square.