Describing dads as 'baby-sitters' is sexist - against men??

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www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-36144487

I'm glad these men are making the point that their decision to take an equal role in parenting their own children should not be seen as a huge favour to the mothers of their children.They also point out how annoying it is when TV ads for domestic products imply that men are hopeless at housework. However, how can they regard such an attitude as sexist against men? Surely the sexism here is against women as this attitude implies that women are the sex that are 'naturally' good at housework, and that women are the sex who should be providing the childcare.

The fact that these men have decided to play the victim card seems disingenuous and, in fact, sexist in itself.

Isn't the -ism feminism? Prejudices about women and men based on sex can equally be sexism. But in response to the overwhelming bias against, and structural issues faced by women, feminism has arisen. Masculinism hasn't, for the lack of it.

I agree absolutely that 'racist' behaviour by black people to white people isn't the same as the reverse situation. A white person racially abusing a black person is an oppressive act that sits within a framework of oppression . The other isn't. It pretty much naturally follows that the parallel point applies wrt sex.

I'm uneasy about the practice of promoting a meaning for a specific word, such as 'racist', so that it only encompasses behaviour aligned with an oppressive framework. To suggest that white person stabbed to death by a black person because of his race isn't a 'racist' attack, because slavery etc. feels very wrong. This isn't a million miles away from mitigating or partially excusing the attack, and that can't be right.

Take also a situation where an Asian man has murdered a black man because of his race. Again it just feels incorrect to say this crime would not be 'racist' because it had not occurred against an background of oppression between the relevant groups.

It seems to me that where sex is concerned, the word 'misogyny' fits the bill fine for describing systemic abuse, and individual acts within that system. I'm slightly suspicious when people try to say acts based on a prejudice in the 'wrong' direction are 'not racist' or 'not sexist' are looking to minimise that behaviour. I can't see how the anti-racist or feminist movements need that additional proposition to stake their case, and I think some people could be alienated by it.

Buffy, I don't think, as a matter of ordinary English, that 'prejudice' is quite the right word for abusive behaviour of any kind. I've always understood prejudice to mean the state of mind that leads to that behaviour (literally, the 'pre-judgement' of the victim based on race, sex, etc).

Obviously not trying to 'mansplain' or 'tell women how to do feminism' or anything like that. just my humble two penn'orths.

It seems to me that where sex is concerned, the word 'misogyny' fits the bill fine for describing systemic abuse, and individual acts within that system.

This seems to fit for describing discrimination which is systemic, so far as sexism is concerned. Not sure what the parallels might be for racism etc.

This is an argument that undermines efforts to point out how, for example, it is overwhelmingly people of colour who are killed by the police in the US, because if a white person is killed in custody it is a personal tragedy of entirely equal seriousness and impact on the victim's family, but it would not be part of an overall social and political phenomenon that harms people of colour but not white people.

To my mind, arguments like that are so disingenuous it scarcely needs pointing out. But I suppose it is probably naive of me to assume that the majority of people would have the intellectual honesty to recognise that, so I take your point.

(...still unsure what to do about it though.)

We can always couple the words racism and sexism with words like systemic and structural. This can achieve the desired effect without erasing instances of sexism and racism that are very real and distressing to those who experience them, even if they are neither systemic not structural.

I personally disagree that you can't call any attack on a white person racist - but I do see where you are coming from.

But what I don't understand is why it isn't sexist towards men to call them babysitters. If sexist is reserved for structural phenomenon surely assuming men don't look after children is a structural assumption.

There is still an assumption that childcare is women's work. That's a structural thing. There is an assumption that childcare is not something men do, that's also a structural thing.

Personally I think the phrase "I see you are babysitting the kids today" (said to a man). Is sexist against women and men. That man is going against the structural notion that the kids should be with their mum, so why can't it be described as sexist.

You are right in that calling men babysitters plays into the structural inequalities. But I'd argue that it's sexist towards women. It benefits men. It means they can still park childcare at women's door but get the brownie points for 'helping'. It recognises that men are doing something but at the same time recognises that women aren't doing something I.e. Looking after their children. I must have said this about three times this week but it reinforces that men's parenting is recognised by what they do and women's parenting is only recognised by what they don't do (a phrase I got off another wonderful FWR poster!).

Hi scallops it's definitely sexist towards women. But why is there this assumption that all men want to shirk the respinsibility of caring for their child?
If 16% of primary carers are men that's a hell of a lot of men. Women get pissed off when random strangers try to help e.g. "that baby looks cold, tired, hungry" etc

I'm sure men dislike it too. And they probably hear a lot more of it - baby cries random stranger assumes the baby is missing it's mum.

Having to explain to school yet again that they need to call the father not the mother, as he is the primary carer.

Yes it's no one near as bad or regular as the sexism women face but it still looks sexist to me. I'm glad men are asking to be taken seriously as parents.

There isn't an assumption, it is an observation. I don't think 16% is a particularly great statistic. It means that 84% of primary carers are women. It is pitifully low in fact.

I think it's great too that men want to be taken seriously as parents. But I'll believe when I see it. I'm not seeing it if they are railing already against a system that has benefited them up until now. What is happening is that they aren't being treated seriously. Something mothers and women, in a whole host of different ways, have been battling again for millennia. My sympathy is somewhat limited.

However, as I said in my previous post men don't actually have to do that much to be hailed a wonderful parent. That is a huge benefit of being a SAHD. They are already thought of as being extraordinary. A few assumptions on men's roles being called sexism is erasing the benefits afforded to men in that position. It also upholds structural sexism, framing it in a way that men can't possibly overcome these (relatively minor) barriers and forgo the status that comes with paid out of the house work.

From glosswitch's article Palmer linked to: "We treat the imposition of gender roles as equally unfair on both men and women, failing to register that it is through these assumed roles that men have acquired the vast majority of the world’s wealth and resources. When men suffer due to gender, it is a side-effect; when women suffer, that’s because it’s the whole sodding point."

So well put scallops and I love that line from the glosswitch blog.

I also agree that 16% is a low figure and not at all "a hell of a lot of men." Imagine 16% in other contexts where it would be fairer if it were actually 50%:

16% of people passing GCSE Maths are boys.
16% of people learning to drive are men.
16% of people on juries are men.
16% of MPs are men.
16% of people who enjoy a night out once a week are men.

Suddenly 16% is not looking like a hell of a lot of anything.

TheDancingBear and whenshewasbad the law on racially motivated crime does not make the distinction of "prejudiced behaviour " (bad) and "ism" behaviour (really bad) and that's as it should be.

^A woman attending a conference is asked who is looking after her kids when none of her male colleagues are, we call it sexism.
A man gets asked if he's babysitting his kids today when none of the women with their kids are, we call it sexism.
If we say, hang on, are those things really equivalent^

No they are not equivalent. They are both sexist (imo). Anytime someone describes something as sexist they tend to explain the situation. So you know the context. No one is saying thing A is sexist and thing B is sexist therefore they are equivalent.

scallops

I do agree that 16% isn't a huge number. I'll bet it's moving in the right direction though.
I have not a clue what % of men were primary carers in the 1960/70s but I bet it's a lot less than 16%.

If we want the figure to get a lot higher than 16% campaigns like this could help.

Thanks lass

buffy I don't think we disagree at all in the substance of what we're saying

I think you are right. It's pretty much a difference in semantics.

Very interesting, Buffy's post at 11:56:05.

But at the "mancriminate" thing. I have had that kind of thing said to me, about holding doors open. FFS.