R4 Womens Hour, young women preferring to stay at home?

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

Hi just wondering if anyone else was listening to Womens Hour today?

There was a really interesting article on younger women choosing not to work.
I was busy (meant to be working) whilst listening so I didn't give it the attention it deserved. I think they were saying that young women are choosing more any more to stay at home with their kids.
Seems they have seen their mums trying to have it all / do it all and decided it's best to stay at home.

Im sure that the lack of well paid part time work and stupidly expensive child care is having an impact. Anyone else hear the broadcast and was hopefully paying attention unlike me

[WordGetsAround]

I know the thread had moved on, but I am always surprised about ralk of 'outrageous' childcare costs. Why do people expect such a significant role to be carried out cheaply? Already our childcarers are paid very poorly. Do people really expect this to be subsidised from central government funds?

[almondpudding]

I was referring to the contemporary situation in the UK Leedy, in terms of pregnancy.

But birth spacing is commonly practiced in societies all over the world where women have control of reproductive choices, and has been throughout history.

There are numerous frameworks that ensure human rights for groups who behave in very different ways and make different choices. It is the basis of thinking around diversity.

And actually yes, people do refrain from doing and saying very sexist, racist and homophobic things because it is wrong and contrary to human rights resolutions, because we are taught that those things are wrong and often illegal throughout education and compulsory training during employment.

As for care of ten year olds, yes many governments globally will be aware that as there is a greater amount of care of children of all ages by mothers and as a consequence provide additional workplace assistance to mothers, including in some cases affirmative action. This is exempt from rules around sex role stereotyping.

[leedy]

"As for care of ten year olds, yes many governments globally will be aware that as there is a greater amount of care of children of all ages by mothers and as a consequence provide additional workplace assistance to mothers ... This is exempt from rules around sex role stereotyping."

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about here. Certainly my workplace (which is extremely family friendly) provides extra assistance to new mothers in that we have, eg, a mother's room in which to express milk, etc. but otherwise they provide benefits THAT ARE AVAILABLE TO ALL PARENTS IF THEY WANT THEM (eg parental leave). Which is entirely appropriate. I would be horrified if they offered special assistance just to mothers of any age child in my work because it would cement the idea in the workplace that fathers are committed to their jobs, mothers need special help and special arrangements.

In terms of things like assistance getting lone parents back into the workplace, again, those are offered to parents, not mothers (even if the majority of lone parents are women).

Also I am genuinely baffled by the "women having control of reproductive choices throughout history". So all the countries where women don't have access to contraception or abortion, well, it's fine, because "birth spacing is commonly practiced". I grew up in Ireland just before the really widespread availability of contraception and (while it was getting rarer) some of my peers were one of nine or ten children. One of DP's classmates was one of twenty. Go back a generation and it's even more common. I'm sure all those women didn't choose to be mothers quite so many times.

And you really didn't understand the thing about unconscious bias/assumptions. Yes, lots of people don't do things because they have been explicitly told not to. But lots of people do them anyway because it wouldn't occur to them that it could be wrong. Like the employer and that solid assumption in their head that women don't come back after maternity leave. Oh, they might not get so far as stating out loud, or even to themselves, but strangely enough they might find lots of other "good" reasons to reject a lot of female candidates of childbearing age. I am almost charmed by your idea that nobody is sexist anymore because they have been told not to by HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIVERSITY.

[almondpudding]

Supporting affirmative action for mothers is not the same thing as denying rights in the workplace for fathers or other carers.

Acknowledging global trends in birth spacing is not the same thing as denying the importance of access to abortion.

Believing that human rights goals can be achieved through monitoring and directly addressing equality of outcome is not the same thing as denying the existence of unconscious bias.

I will only engage on MN with someone I believe to be commenting in good faith. I don't think the three examples above suggest you are doing, so I will not be continuing to respond to your posts.

[leedy]

I'm sorry you don't want to respond to me. I assure you I am commenting entirely in good faith, I'm very interested in this topic, I just don't actually understand many of the points you're making. Of course I agree with the existence of monitoring and anti-discrimination legislation and all that good stuff (as I said upthread, I was discussing improving diversity in hiring in work yesterday) but the stuff I was talking about in terms of changing attitudes towards traditional gender roles isn't something that can necessarily be mandated for.

"Acknowledging global trends in birth spacing" is all well and good, but it doesn't remove the fact that for most of human history and in quite a lot of the world now, women have had very limited choices in terms of whether to have children or not (other than a lot of breastfeeding and hoping for the best, or possibly becoming nuns). Which makes your argument that "mothers want to care for children more than fathers because they chose to take the risk to have them" at the very least only applicable to a tiny percentage of women and certainly not something we could claim is "natural". The idea that women are inherently more suited to and keen on caring for children than men is a LOT older than reliable birth control, and appears in societies where women have no control over their fertility at all.

And I would genuinely like to hear an example of legally mandated "affirmative action for mothers" that doesn't just apply to special provision for mothers of infants. Unless you mean things like it being illegal to discriminate against mothers specifically for being mothers, which is obviously right and good, but doesn't protect eg (as it was the example we mentioned above) the rights of the mother of a ten year old to stay at home with them versus the rights of the child's father just because "they're a mother".

[leedy]

And now that I think of it, stuff like it being illegal to discriminate against mothers at work is because previously mothers were discriminated against (eg being fired for getting pregnant), not because we need to "recognize their special role as mothers". It's recognizing them as a discriminated-against class, not a to-be-privileged class.

[leedy]

On a lighter note: www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/banish-daddy-guilt-10-tips-for-frazzled-working-fathers-1.2489957#.Vpdk_IcxAbw.twitter

(also the comments from people who Just Don't Get It...)

[Chilleman]

leedy your points about unconscious bias are true. It is very powerful. In our house we are in fact very conscious of it though: DH gave up work to look after our DC a couple of years ago. Ever since, he's had comments like "what do you do with yourself now your not working", "a man like you really needs a job, you'll get bored". People who know I work and he doesn't still ask "so what do you do with the kids?" It's inconceivable to them that he could be looking after them!