Women who aren't feminists

[HumourlessFeminist]

I've been thinking about this for a while.

I was blissfully unaware of feminism for far too long 😳, probably until a few years after DS was born (and after a few years of MNing). Is this a relatively common experience for women? Are women more likely to become feminists as they experience more of what the patriarchy pushes upon them throughout their lives? And why do some women never become feminists?

meganc599
Actually what you’ve said is not backed up by science. These are stereotypes which are rooted in misconceptions and myths (some ignorantly assumed, some deliberately put about) based on the physical differences between men and women. Men don’t love their children less than women neither are they less capable of looking after them and providing emotional support and fundamentally everyone should be able to make their own choices. If you prefer to be a SAHM, you should be able to do it without judgement - and so should everyone else.

You just Have to look at other animals to back it up, the mother animal usually is the primary carer. I did not once say dad's love the child less, men have the provide mentality while mothers have the maternal instinct.
Sorry but if your having a baby but you should really put him/her first rather than your career.

That's a simplistic comparison and also not true. Either way, humans are not other animals and all women are not the same. If you have children, man or woman, they should be your priority. How you manage that should be up to you.

But we are animals lol.. Yeah people can do ehat they want but I just wouldn't let a stranger look after my baby.

Neither would most people.

The last bit of discussion is a good illustration of why radical feminism is the way forward (I would say that, wouldn't I?) The patriarchal system we have now really suits nobody when it comes to childcare and caring and so on-except some men who like it just the way it is. We need a radical rethink of the way society is structured to allow men and women to earn money and care for their children without anyone damaging their career or becoming dangerously financially depwndwnt.

Then why hire a baby sitter?! Haha

Different animals allocate care of their young differently. Some animals such as seahorses actually have makes giving birth. Even monkeys and other great apes don’t organise themselves in the same way humans do. It is categorically not true that women are innately better suited to be parents than fathers. It just isn’t. I can’t help you if you think they are other than to say do some reading and looking at actual scientific studies. A meta-analysis I read recently of some studies about gender differences showed that beyond sex drive (men have a higher one) and the way men and women are more likely to express aggression (physical v verbal), there is very little difference between personality traits which can’t be attributed to societal influence. Seriously, do some reading on it and it may change your opinion.

I m the kind of person that doesn't believe every thing that "science" says. This is just experiment and theory that some people believe they ve proved! Nobodu knows more than you do about the earth. It's just guesses that everyone believes in

We need a radical rethink of the way society is structured to allow men and women to earn money and care for their children without anyone damaging their career or becoming dangerously financially depwndwnt.

Yes but how will this issue be resolved in a post-patriarchal society? How can we create a scenario where women can choose to be a SAHP but at the same time not be financially dependent or take any kind of career hit, and do so in a way that's also fair to women (and men) who choose not to be SAHPs? If there's solution that is possible in a post-patriarchal world then we surely should be able to envisage now?

After a while it does start to feel like there's an element of magical thinking that if we just 'smash the patriarchy' then these really difficult and intractable issues will somehow resolve themselves.

"I m the kind of person that doesn't believe every thing that "science" says"

Neither does science! That's rather the point of science.

Well there you go science is a pile of bull

Oh don't be silly.

It's clear on this thread that most people don't know or understand the huge variations in animal behaviour. Or how even how hunter gatherer societies work.

Can anyone explain how cheetahs and bear child rearing practices relate to males as providers and females as carers?
Even in most birds both sexes leave the nest and provide food for the children.
In many mammal societies males do little more than protection or sperm provision.

In hunter gatherer societies females are the actual main providers, while men provide the much more random and haphazard meat.
Even when women used to stay at home, they'd plant food, rear animals, make clothes, etc

So, if you really want to use animal behaviour and primitive societies to illuminate how we should behave, I'd say it actually supports men and women out of the house providing for their children. And groups of women/some men pooling together to take care of the children.

Not really to have SAHMs with no other productive role.

Lweji - Sah parenting is what you make it. Some sah parents might have an allotment, some spend time cleaning, caring for relatives, cooking healthy meals. Add up the time spent on that and its monetary value is higher than some jobs - that’s why some parents of 2-3 under 5s are stay at home.

Recognise the value of caring. Allow flexible working. Encourage older people to help the younger generation with childcare and the younger people to care for older relatives/friends. Opportunities for older people start careers. Sort out housing situation so people live close to work and a network of people. Ideally both sexes would take on outside/domestic work at different points in their lives as suits them - would help with empathy when people see how hard each job is.

I think at the moment we’ve a bit of a mish mash and people muddle through as best they can with regards to childcare and work. The ones that seem to be coping better have at least one parent who has some kind of flexible working arrangement (pt, compressed hours, home working, family friendly shifts, flexitime or a combo). Most families I know struggle with childcare costs.

Raising kids is work and I think it should be recognised as such. As a sahm I get my national insurance contributions through child benefit, which I suppose is a hang over from the 50s and hasn’t come under someone’s radar yet to get clawed back, but lots of sahp don’t know about this so the working parent could easily be claiming the cb and they wouldn’t get this.

Perhaps if a proper monetary figure could be put on the worth of unpaid care work and it was recognised by society that the mainly women that do unpaid care work should have something in return we could change things? I’d like to think that’s not wishful thinking.

I'm not against SAHMs at all. It does vary regarding reasons and how it's done. It's entirely up to parents how they parent.

Just don't give me bull about it being stereotype breaking or try to justify it (in most of the present form and particularly alongside the pretention that child rearing should be a priority) with biology or animal behaviour or even with most pre-modern human societies.

Ideally, work practices should allow both parents to have realistic equal options of engaging in and sharing child caring.
Child caring should indeed be valued more than it is now, but I can't shake the feeling that it's way too overvalued by some SAHM.

And I do mean mums here and not parents.

In my more communist (as I'm called by my kids) I do wonder what it would be like if only one parent was allowed to work and the other was a SAHP but paid by the state - I know this isn't viable and is a fantasy Utopia - but having 2 parents at work isn't a choice for a lot of families it's a financial necessity.

I’m saying about payment in the context of the many 100s of posts on this thread that implicitly or explicitly cannot see beyond our current systems, which value work done for money above the work done for nowt and that also leave people who care for free vulnerable in the event of the person or people financially supporting them dying or leaving.

Anyway, I think it’s fine for women to not agree on the finer points of feminism but I don’t think it’s helpful to start judging each other, particularly around ‘choices’ that can be anything but. Not every woman wants the same thing but if she wants to be a sahm who spends her whole time in frilly pink dresses and making cookies then this should be as value free a choice as if she is a full time ceo of Widgets Inc. And if she is capable then she should have the chance to be the ceo of Widgets Inc and assumptions about her sex should not be used as an excuse to hold her back. And if men want to sah and wear frilly pink dresses and bake cookies then that should be as equally possible and value free choice for them too!

GoldenWonderwall

Totally agree

I would have loved to be a sahm but wasn't going to be able to afford that, so I'm glad to be able to do well in my career instead. But in reality being a sahm is a luxury many can't afford, and at the other extreme others can't afford to work due to childcare costs. Affordable childcare is an essential step to helping people into the workplace.

I think 1 big step forward for all parents would be extension of the school day from 08:00 - 18:00 and holiday clubs run at schools throughout all school holidays. Thus enabling all all parents to be able to work if they choose. The additional school hours could include increased physical activity, softer skills, and homework clubs.

Transferable tax allowance is the other side of the coin to allow people to choose to be a sahp, either way around.

Extended school days are simply not practical if you want teachers to have anything like a work/life balance. Many of them will be parents too. They have work to do outside of actually teaching and schools just don’t get the funding to get extra staff. Plus children need time off. I think the answer is for more companies to offer flexible working patterns. In this day and age, with modern technology, many people (particularly those who work in offices) don’t need to be in 9-5. As pp said, shorter hours for everyone not longer would be better all round. I also think the government need to commit to genuine affordable childcare that is funded properly and doesn’t leave preschools and nurseries short. With mat leave ending around your child’s first birthday and the universal free hours of childcare not starting until the academic term following their 3rd birthday, for most people, this leaves 2 years of trying to struggle through and make ends meet. This was why I became a SAHM.
I absolutely also agree with affordable housing. Where I live, most houses with enough room for a family need two salaries so I know that once my children are a bit older, I will have no choice but to go back to work so that we can move house. Obviously I will then be in the position of picking up my salary at the same rate I left, but a few years older while my husband’s salary has been constantly increasing over these years. Need any evidence of the gender pay gap, anyone?