Will true equality ever be achieved?

[bridie69]

By which I mean women are paid the same as men there are the same expectations on men and women re childcare, men are as expected as women to control their fertility, 50% of Parliament/Cabinet/G8 leaders women, women action heroes in media, no more unachievable body shapes in magazines, same prices for MOTs, etc etc. When I look at DD aged 21 I am horrified that many things have actually gone backwards for women. So, can we have hope that things will change anytime soon?

So you don't want equality toast

Oh no, I've been caught out.

Anyways, I'm going to go bang my head against a wall for a bit and maybe by the time I come back the conversation will have moved on.

I was talking about myself not Women, I was content to be a SAHM and do voluntary work. I didn't ever have a burning desire for a career, work was all about £££, I was socialised that way. I think the other thing is I have poor health and that may have been a contributing factor. I could only do one thing well and I poured it into my children. I was also a young Mum. I am almost free now, the youngest is finishing GCSE exams now and is self motivated. I am just there for guidance, support, an ear and taxi now. I am almost free!

Sorry, I thought I was entering the same discussion, yes. Everyone is saying they don't want control at the same time as insisting their standards must be met.

It is interesting how much the feminism section has moved to the right.

If more men become SAHPs and primary carers, the inequality will simply shift to different individuals.

We either get rid of parents being SAHPs/part time workers, or we change society to give those parents financial security. Steps to improve financial security would be things like reducing the cost of housing, providing long term secure tenancies, reducing child care and public transport costs. You know, making the basics of family life more affordable so people weren't working long hours and still ending up in poverty.

Making equal numbers of men and women financially insecure is not an improvement.

I don't think I've said that - I've said that I leave them to it, although personally I think that giving the kids breakfast within an hour or two of them getting up is a fair enough minimum standard to set.....

I'm lucky enough to be able to balance a full time career with my young kids. I'd like to work a few less hours sure, but I get to drop them off at school, and I can always be there if they're sick or there's a nativity to get to. I also know that I'll be able to support us should something bad happen.

I want that for everyone. (including DP) - I want him to feel that he can push back and say that since he's on call all the time, then in return he can be out of the door on time most days to do pickups, or he can stagger his hours so he can do drop offs - and at the moment, he feels he can't - be that because of his boss, or societal pressures, or because he just doesn't prioritise the kids.

Once he feels equal responsibility for making sure there is milk in the fridge and the kids are warm, fed and have been picked up I will feel pretty satisfied

It would also require men not to look down their noses at us because we're weaker than they are. A more even split of the sexes across different jobs as well, e.g. how many women want do you see working as manual labourers ? More men in caring professions. So long as people use violence to get what they want and that's accepted, those who are the most effective at it seem to have primacy. The privileged life most of us lead in the west is down to men being good at fighting which is very depressing.

Making equal numbers of men and women financially insecure is not an improvement.

Not in itself. But we live in a patriarchy. Once an equal number of men is equally insecure because they are stay at home parents, things will get moving. Financial security for stay at home parents will be there in no time once it is parents, not mums.

So long as people use violence to get what they want and that's accepted, those who are the most effective at it seem to have primacy. The privileged life most of us lead in the west is down to men being good at fighting which is very depressing.

Yes, it is. I believe that almost all societies are patriarchies because they are simply more interested in, and therefore better at violence.

In "Guns, Germs and Steel" there's this story about a peaceful little island where everyone talked through their problems and there was democracy and no violence.

Then invaders came with weapons and annihilated the peaceful tribes.

Increasing numbers of women in the military will go along way to changing both the attitudes of women and towards women in society. The current plans to permit women into the front line are indicative both of how far attitudes have changed and how fast they are changing; the distinction this enormous cultural shift will make between our societies and those hostile towards us will exponentially accelerate the process, even as the (like it or loathe out) trans/ngb movement break down artificial gender distinctions. Eventually, perhaps soon, male and female will be irrelevant descriptors save for the requirements of genetic medicine. This year an uterus was transplanted from a mother to a daughter born without one. I doubt it will be long before a woman with a transitional history might receive a similar donation.

I have no doubt that soon, men will be seen to be just as precious as women, and women just as disposable as men, and no one will know of care who is which - true equality.

You have no way of knowing that Vestal.

I think it would be better to aim for equality for people who are actually lacking it - SAHPs, primary carers, people living in poverty.

I don't believe that the way to solve poverty, hatred of primary carers or any other issue mostly experienced by women is to put loads of men into the same situation. I think that is pretty warped tbh.

You have no way of knowing that Vestal.

No, but I have good reason to assume it.

People often get too focused on what they consider ideal, so that they cannot see the way that leads there anymore.

I have always been in favour of same sex marriage, even though many (and I, too) want to see the unfair tax benefits, etc. for married couples abolished altogether.

Once everyone can get those benefits, and the system doesn't take resources away from single women (often with children) and gives them to married couples anymore, conservative politicians will put up less resistance to the abolition to benefits for being married.

I actually think that it'd be easier to get financial security for stay at home moms, than to get men to stay at home in equal numbers to women (let's face it, men just don't sacrifice themselves just so willingly) but if it were the other way round, I'd be in favour of that, for the aforementioned reasons.

On here my experience has been the opposite.

Posters have defended two parent families whether living together or not getting better parental leave than single parents on the basis that lesbian couples get it too.

I am in favour of gay marriage because some gay people have religious beliefs about marriage, not because I believe it will undermine unfair advantages for couples. It seems to be used as a defence for unfair treatment of single people.

I think a truely equal society would look so different to our current one it's almost impossible to imagine how it would be structured.

This discussion seams centred in liberal feminism. Tinkering with current structures but mainly remaining the same.
Your society is so unequal that an overhaul if the structures is required to create equality. I think too when I think of equality I'm not so concerned with people being treated the same but rather people being treated justly.

Setting aside the idea that women are the biggest barriers to equality it's obviously going to be a long time (if ever) that we truly have gender equality in terms of wealth and power.
That said, we shouldn't stop aiming for it. Bill Gates (I think) had the vision of a desktop computer in every home at a time when that was utterly inconceivable so having an ambitious vision isn't always completely fruitless!

Until men with children are treated the same way as women with children, then no, there won't be true equality.

I'm not talking about maternity leave here. I'm talking about the open suspicion employers have that any woman with children will be less reliable than a man with them because she'll always be off when they're sick etc. That SAHD are somehow lesser than SAHM.

Not sure what that kind of society would look like though.

Maybe society needs to value parenthood in general more than it does ? I always felt that no one would lie on their death bed lamenting the fact that they spent too much time with their young children and not enough in the office. The whole idea that parents should get back to work ASAP and give a huge chunk of their salary to a nursery so that their kids can be looked after by someone else has always seemed insane to me. I appreciate however that people do not share this view. In this context I thought that the tax breaks for marrieds thing was because it was felt that married women would be less likely to need state support or something ? Did i just make that up ?

@plays - re the assumption that women are the main carer and therefore overlooked etc, women can easily disabuse employers of this notion if they actually are not the primary carer and can fly to another city overnight at short notice, i see it happen. Once it becomes clear that they can work whatever hours are required, i generally see women being treated the same as men in my field. The trouble is that of course they usually actually are the primary carer and in most cases this is a choice they made.

@Meph - Our whole society is still based on the premise that if you stray out with what is deemed acceptable, you forcibly have your liberty removed. Men are the ones usually doing the straying but equally are the ones doing the locking up. I cannot imagine a group of fit aggressive well armed men being overcome by a group of fit well armed women. I guess what I'm saying is that it almost seems like a pre condition for equality is that men stop being violent and using violence and intimidation to get what they want....

That presupposes that most women have careers. They don't. The vast majority of people, let alone women have jobs. It also presupposes that women make these 'choices' in a vacuum. Which is a farcical idea.

Also note that the woman has to prove that they can fly to a city at short notice - ie. a hurdle that men don't have to jump.

My issue with that (and it's not a sexist one, it's a shit boss one) - is that these extra hours are rarely really needed, or if they are, it's generally because someone either didn't do their job or didn't employ enough people to do the work.

@greentomatojam - I honestly have not seen the presupposing thing, my experience (which is by no means universal) is that both men and women generally only get asked once to go somewhere at short notice, if they don't go they don't don't tend to get asked again and someone more amenable is put forward. Some people simply do not want to fly to a customer site at the drop of a hat, some do, but generally you have to make it known that that's something you're willing to do in the real world, both men and women need to prove it.

@plays - I don't understand the distinction you are making about whether to call it a job or a career ? What sort of context would a mother not want to spend more time with their children than sat at a desk doing some menial office job in order to afford an overpriced house ?

What sort of context would a mother not want to spend more time with their children than sat at a desk doing some menial office job in order to afford an overpriced house

Presumably the same context in which a father would? I know that personally, I need to have some time away from my kids, and in the absence of a huge inheritance, that means that that time has to be spent working, not lounging by a pool. As I said, I'm lucky enough that I really love my job and it pays well, but plenty of women just need some time out, and plenty of women need the money.

Perhaps not with the flying (in my job there aren't generally emergencies of that nature - although it's happened twice, to escort hardware, and each time a single male was approached first, and a man with children ended up going the second time - no women were approached in either case - either single or with children - although to be fair it was an IT dept so we were thin on the ground). For staying late, I've only ever seen women questioned about childcare - men it was always assumed their wife would take care of it, unless those men raised it themselves.

This is why I'm grateful to be at a small company where we nearly all have kids and childcare responsibilities, both men and women (in fact, the only childless one is a woman, and she does all the flying about generally)

Presumably the same context in which a father would?

Ok Yes, good point.

I generally assume that the father would only do so because someone has to pay the mortgage and the impression I get from my own generation is that actually a lot of women are more than happy to quit their job for 5 years or so and be a SAHM. There are not any SAHD in our group and I wonder how easy it would be for them to fit in with the mums and arrange play dates and all the other stuff. Up until the point that the child arrives, its quite common to see women as the higher earners these days. I also think that woman see it as a plus that they are primary carer and would usually get custody if the sh!t hit the fan which it often seems to....

All of these things could be chucked up in the air I suppose, but there are probably at least an equal number of men and women who would not like to see what they regard as being their decisions described as actually just the inevitable outcome given the societal context they were made.

'Everyone is saying they don't want control at the same time as insisting their standards must be met.'

Vintage, assuming that you think it's important for children to grow up in a stable, organised household with nutritious food, clean clothes and a decent routine, why is it that you think that women should lower their standards rather than men raising theirs?

Really, if men were left to get on with it children wouldn't be fed, clothed or clean?

Of course they would, but their birthday party might not be quite what mum had in mind and diet/appearance might not be exactly the way mum would have done it. Which a lot of women (including me) find difficult to deal with

The instances that other posters mentioned here was when men were left to it and the children weren't clothed or washed and they were fed rubbish. There are plenty of fathers out there, my father included, who wouldn't do a birthday party at all if left to it. One of the very few SAHDs I know sent out invites for his son's Saturday party on the previous Tuesday, meaning only four children could come and his son was very disappointed. That's not doing things not exactly the way a mother would do it, that's being lazy and letting a child down.

Have to say I don't know any of these useless men. I know a few who find it easier to let their wives do it all because they can't ever get it right and I know some who are lazy and get away with it but I don't know any who would let their dc starve or go unwashed if the had (or were allowed) to do it their way.

Choosing not to do a birthday party is just parenting differently, it's hardly neglect

Really? My dad is far from useless, but if he cooked us dinner it was sunny side up eggs or beans on toast. DP's dad the same.

DP is a competent cook and at work he manages multi-million pound budgets and a load of staff, but he doesn't take responsibility or plan ahead for naps/meal/bedtimes so the kids are constantly whining because they're tired or hungry (which must be awful, yet he doesn't change anything).

It's not that they're useless, it's that they don't take responsibility, they assume that someone else will do it if they don't - which isn't a luxury I have.