Women defining themselves as wife and mother.

[MissBax]

Two separate women fiends of mine who have married in the last couple of years - have changed their instagram handles to "The Smiths" and "Mrs Jenny Jones" (not real names, obvs).
I think it's a real shame that women still feel so defined by the fact they are married. Neither of their husbands have done this - they still have their same accounts documenting beers, food, football. Meanwhile these women have gone from posting about their interests, hobbies, work etc, to just tediously posting about their lives as wives and mothers.
I'm all for women having the choice about how they present themselves of course! But I just think it's sad that they never post anything about themselves anymore, they just seem totally defined as "wife/mother".
I feel we still have a long way to go for modern day women and feminism.

Exactly notanotherjaffacake. and i was lynched on here for saying this a while ago but I've never seen a man post a picture of himself and his bride on their wedding day on facebook on their anniversary.

I’ve never had femalxor male post pic of them and their partner on their anniversary. And ratio of men to women on my FB friends is 40/60

Go spend time with your family, enjoy it, just stop showing off about it and boring everyone to tears about it!

Completely agree!

You rarely see fathers falling over themselves to throw the biggest party / spoil their wives / bake the best cake etc

I can't think of a single man's profile which says "Dad & husband," either, even those who mostly post about their children or the wider family. How come women make the choice to identify as a parent, but men don't? What does that say about choice?

(Stick with your friends - things get better when the children get older and become less all-consuming.)

The first couple of pages of this thread read a bit bizarrely.
Was it moved to FWR?
My core meaning is being a mother. is not something I'd expect to see written in FWR.
I just don't see how the gender pay gap will ever be closed when some women are defining the purpose of their existence as bringing up children.

I've never seen a man post a picture of himself and his bride on their wedding day on facebook on their anniversary.

I have, but they're definitely a minority compared with women who do it.

If it's all completely fine and a good thing to define yourself solely by virtue of your marriage and family relations, how come I almost never see a man doing it?

That's interesting - because I see this quite a bit from some of my male friends. It's just as tedious, but I wouldn't say it broke down on gender lines.

"Crap housewife and constant taxi service"

Haha that made me chuckle!

But this is exactly the thing - instead of the focus of discussion and criticism being “why aren’t men being proud Dads/husbands on social media?” the focus is on judging and criticizing women who to it

I’d always intended to change my surname. I liked dh’s so it was a non issue at the time to change to his. However I’ve generally kept to Ms.( I only really get called Mrs at school )

I kind of know what you mean though. I have a friend on social media who has made her Facebook account joint with her husband. But then he still also has his own. I find it weird and moderate how I respond to her now and never use messenger as I don’t wish to always be talking to a joint entity. She is my friend, I don’t know him.

I just don't see how the gender pay gap will ever be closed when some women are defining the purpose of their existence as bringing up children.

I don’t see how stay at home parents are responsible for the existing gender pay gap ?! The issue is men being paid more than women in the same role. What has a woman who is choosing to raise her children full time got to do with this? How condescending.

I know what you're getting at OP. Whenever there's a debate on MN about women changing their name upon marriage, one of the justifications people use is that they're so PROUD to be married, they really wanted to take their husband's surname. Like marriage is a life achievement or an arbiter of success.

I'm a wife and mother (a SAHM) at that, but I'm under no illusions that it's actually a really unremarkable thing to do.

I don’t see how stay at home parents are responsible for the existing gender pay gap ?! The issue is men being paid more than women in the same role. What has a woman who is choosing to raise her children full time got to do with this? How condescending.

I can’t tell if you’re being thick deliberately obtuse or not.

Please enlighten me as I’m obviously thick

As a side note - don’t you think your arguments would be better recieved if you put less effort into being as insulting as possible whilst getting said point across

I have a 1st class degree. I had a great, well paid and high powered job. I am sporty. I am a mother and a wife. I've lived in 4 other countries and speak a few languages. How should I define myself when the only thing I really care about and feel the most sense of achievement is when I get something right when I am looking after my DC.

The most important thing in MY life is being their mother and loving them and being loved back. I am enjoying it whilst it lasts and don't care about anything else really.

The issue is men being paid more than women in the same role.

No it isn't!
That is illegal (although may still happen in some places).
The issue is women being paid less on average due to being in less senior roles.

Isn't the root of the problem that "wife" and "mother" have low value. If they had the same value as, say, Chief Executive, or Senior Manager, then I'm sure men would start putting "dad and husband" on their facebook statuses.

It is the lowly demeaned status of female roles that is the issue, not that women try and let the world know they consider those roles to be important by highlighting them.

Ok, but even so could you please explain how SAHM are responsible for this gap?

I know plenty of males who post photos of themselves, of wife’s and their kids too. How do you not know any.....

And I know men who put dad and husband too.
Having children/getting married is an achievement....so is having a career, running a extra mile....managing to fix something....keeping sane when having children. Why is it only the parent/partner roll that you all smear at?? That says more about you than them.

@NotAnotherJaffaCake
Being a wife and a mother aren't necessarily supporting roles though are they? I mean a wife can be an equal partner to her husband and a mother can be a/the head of the household, so why do you assume that these roles are inferior and must be therefore supporting a superior, more worthwhile roles?

I think all of the posters who feel sad for women who define themselves predominantly as mothers should question why this would evoke such a reaction. Since becoming a mother I've developed a view that the patriarchy works to undermine and demean the role of mothers (and fathers) so that society views it as inferior and lesser. The vast majority of us would say that our children are our absolute priority and most important people in our lives so when asked to define ourselves is it any wonder that some include "mother" in our definition. Are we meant to pretend that we aren't mothers or changed by motherhood? I think as other PP have suggested, the question would be why fathers don't define themselves similarly.

I think this is why there is such a disdain for SAHMs as underlying the judgement is the belief that you can't be an intelligent/interesting/worthwhile person if you are just being a mother the whole time. A person's value and interest has to be derived from outside the spehere of motherhood as society places so little value on it, probably because it's an area that's obviously dominated by women.

The husbands of these women seem to still keep their hobbies and be multidimensional and the women don’t. Why is that? It is very boring

ffs. Seriously?

In a thread loaded with spite, projection and sneery judgement, this one got under my skin.

I think feminism would achieve far more if we all stopped judging and criticising each other, personally

Quite. The 'feminism' on this thread is too much for me this morning.

Ok, but even so could you please explain how SAHM are responsible for this gap?

Not responsible, but being a mother, raising kids doesn't bring in a salary. No matter how much we value it.
And it doesn't count for work experience.
When women who have taken a long break because their *core meaning is being a mother" return to the workplace, they won't be at the same level and salary as they would be if they'd worked solid for 10 years.
I'm not blaming them for that, I'm just wondering how the gap can ever be closed when this is the case.