I'm not convinced that feminism has helped the women it should have?

[soapona]

I think on these discussion boards and on my Facebook I see women. They don't insist on marriage so they partner remains married to the ex for years and year, they live together and I wonder what will happen should the man die. I also see women with no security living with men with no intentions of marrying and having children. Women moving in with men too soon. In the days gone by women would and could have insisted on commitment. So now the position for women is worse hanging round waiting for a proposal.

I know they don't have to I'm fairly wealthy and a single parent so have choices and always have. I don't have a lot to gain from marriage.

I'm not sure things have got better for women we are expected to do a lot now two incomes are the usual for a mortgage instead of one in the olden days . So it's a given women work, do the most childcare do we honestly think these thing will change when the power imbalance is there from the beginning?

Also the women marrying "beneath themselves", that's not the correct term but a man earning less and not likely to come into a decent inheritance. What is the point in getting married there if you're a women? Perhaps if the woman is wealthy to avoid inheritance tax for her children but other than that I don't know?

So would woman not be happier marrying the same or above and insisting on marriage early on, like it was a given in days gone by?

Surely Women are now in very risky positions due to this living together in a man's property. I see much more domestic abuse these days. I believe the stats are much higher with non married couples. Surely living together unmarried has been caused by equality and feminism and the very people feminists has been trying to help they've hindered.

From my observations, some of the reasons for believing it's viewed as a low status role come from the fact that we haven't yet adjusted society to allow women to have children without a significant effect on their career.

However, previously this was likely viewed as unnecessary as the man was nearly always the breadwinner and hence the wife didn't need to work.

From what I've read, I'm not sure monetary hardship was necessarily the driving factor behind women's desire to enter the workforce so much as the desire to prove that women are just as capable as men (which they are) and the goal of abolishing gender stereotypes. If anything, many couples are now worse off with the increased workforce and you often hear people complaining that both partners now need to work to afford a mortgage.

Personally, I see work as a necessary burden rather than a privilege. Most people wouldn't work if they didn't have too but they'd likely still have children. I think the value of work for many men is not intrinsic and traditionally it's valued because it's allows one to support their family which was the societal expectation men faced.

But surely the neovagina is just a poor substitute for the real vagina they'd have had if they'd been born into the 'right' body in their eyes.

I'm sure most genuine transsexuals would change sex if it really were possible.

Not saying they get to enter women's spaces etc, just trying to understand their thinking and I'm not sure it's as convoluted as some of the previous suggestions propose (although I could of course be wrong, as could we both).

LordRudolphVII

Your history of man as breadwinner is so far off reality I actually find it painful to read.

How so? And also, I do think many women (feminists especially) are responsible for looking down on SAHMs. I could definitely find you an article or two within minutes.

Regarding breadwinners, are you saying men weren't then principle breadwinners in the past and that women were always as present in the workforce as they are now?

If we are to value children and child raising then we need to tackle views like the below. These are just two random articles I found within 60 seconds on Google and there are likely many more.

I Look Down On Young Women With Husbands And Kids And I’m Not Sorry

by Amy Glass

thoughtcatalog.com/amy-glass/2014/01/i-look-down-on-young-women-with-husbands-and-kids-and-im-not-sorry/

Being a mum is not hard. Stop pretending it is.

by Shauna Anderson

www.google.com/amp/s/www.mamamia.com.au/being-a-mum-is-not-hard/amp/

How so? And also, I do think many women (feminists especially) are responsible for looking down on SAHMs.

I totally agree

It's a fundamental mistake to think you can liberate people from their biology, that they need to be liberated from their biology

@Goosefoot, I actually dont get that. Could you explain a bit more about that?
For me biology goes as far as making babies and that's a very small proportion of the time overall we spend as a woman in our lifetime. The rest of the time, the time spent rasing children, cooking, cleaning should imo be shared with the other parent. Because it's about PARENTING our chlidren, not MOTHERING them iywim.
On the other side, I would be very worried about reducing women to their biology beause, well thats exactely what patriarchy has done to be able to put women into a nice little box, the one that looks after babies. The one that says that, beause of biology, women cant be at the head of compaies, cant do x and y.

How so? And also, I do think many women (feminists especially) are responsible for looking down on SAHMs.

Fully agree with that and its all over MN too.

How so? And also, I do think many women (feminists especially) are responsible for looking down on SAHMs. I could definitely find you an article or two within minutes.

Erm I've been a SAHM and I'm arguing for women to be with their babies.

Personally, I see work as a necessary burden rather than a privilege.

Is it? for many pople, and especially men, their work is their identity. Remiove work and you destroy who they are (see one of the first question on meeting someone is 'so what do you do?').

For me work is one part of who I am. I am a mother, I am a (chronically ill) woman, I am . And I would be very grumpy if someone was taking that away from me tbh. But more importantly, it has been my window where I was able to be me, only me in the middle of being a mother (overwhelming) or a wife (suffocating) or a chronically ill person.

@sakura184 but maybe some women just do NOT want to be with their babies 24/7?
Maybe they want something else in their life than he relentless task of looking after a small human being.

I think many people, male and female, feminist and not, look down on SAHM

I think there is a lot of work to be done to have feminism be inclusive of all women... and respect all choices... and not pigeonhole women in a victim hood narrative when they didn’t ask for it.. and not paint liberation using one brush...

There is work to be done to diversity feminism so it values women of all kinds and choices.

How so? And also, I do think many women (feminists especially) are responsible for looking down on SAHMs

Not especially feminists. Just everyone. As a SAHM myself. It’s the overriding view across society. It is not valued as a legitimate and worthy role to raise children- that’s why child carers, nanny’s etc don’t get paid well too.

Exactly jessica

I agree with a lot of what you say Goosefoot BUT isn't the entirety of human history about doing exactly this. If we were reduced to simple biology we wouldn't be the species we are today. First we develop tools, then complex languages etc etc. Our brains are the most significant thing and there are no pink and blue brains. We need to value children and child raising, it should be at the very centre of society and we should never accept that it's a low status role. On the other hand it should not be the sum total of a woman's identity. It's organising all society around children and the community that matters.

I don't think this necessarily follows, because I'm not saying that we need technology to be fully human and have a good and just society. I think can still be fully human while using tools. If I build a block and tackle to lift something heavy, I'm not becoming less human. But I don't need to have a block and tackle to be fully human, to have an intrinsic dignity. A society doesn't need that technology to live as a good human society either.

There may be some technologies that do in some way make us less human, some people would say that body modifications that destroy healthy body function are like that for example, and some people would put contraception into that category, but that isn't what I am getting at.

I'm saying that there is something amiss if we say that in order to make women free, or to fulfil their real nature as women, they have to be able to modify their bodiy and it's particularly female functions through technology. having a female sexed body with all of its functions is what makes us women. So what are we saying if we make that statement that to have real dignity we have to be able to suppress those very functions?

I don't think that's feminism, or if it is I don't want any part of it. I also find the idea that if a society doesn't have those technological capacities, we might as well give up on women's dignity and equality, disturbing.

We like to think we live in a society that values children and childhood, the safety and well-being of children, as one of our top priorities. If that were true, we would value those that care for, guide & nurture them. We don’t.

I do think I’m communities where feminism hasn’t prevailed, motherhood is valued more. SAHM parenting is encouraged and respected for its compromises. Strangely.

So there seems to be an influence of feminism on ppls perception of what’s a “llberatee” woman

I'm not sure monetary hardship was necessarily the driving factor behind women's desire to enter the workforce so much as the desire to prove that women are just as capable as men (which they are) and the goal of abolishing gender stereotypes

This is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read on Mumsnet. And the most myopic.

the pill was designed to free women from the burden of having a baby every year until they variously died in childbirth, gained so many children they couldn’t support them, or they suffered crippling birth injuries. Or were seriously lucky and survived all the possible hazards. It gave women agency over their birth control rather than having to rely on a man to use a condom. The sexual freedom was a side-effect and one that was viewed with such horror by the establishment that birth control was only available to married or engaged women. Even in the 60s women still had to pretend to be married to get it.

For me biology goes as far as making babies and that's a very small proportion of the time overall we spend as a woman in our lifetime. The rest of the time, the time spent rasing children, cooking, cleaning should imo be shared with the other parent. Because it's about PARENTING our chlidren, not MOTHERING them iywim.
On the other side, I would be very worried about reducing women to their biology beause, well thats exactely what patriarchy has done to be able to put women into a nice little box, the one that looks after babies. The one that says that, beause of biology, women cant be at the head of compaies, cant do x and y.

Well, women aren't just women, they are also people. So there are all kinds of things that are true about you or me or anyone else that are more about us being persons than women or men particularly. But when we are taking about ourselves as women, we are talking about or biological role, or things related to that in some way.

But it's also not a part of ourselves that we should need to suppress in order to be respected or be considered to have equal dignity as persons. If you say that to live in a society with equal dignity I will be obliged to suppress my particular femaleness that is not a pro-woman sentiment.

Or maybe a less direct way of saying the same thing: I think that often women today think so much in terms of the late 20th century and its technological abilities that we don't put enough weight on the extent to which biology, including our sex, determines how we live. I think it's important when we talk about what we are as women and men to take a broader perspective, because what we see at this moment in time is a very narrow slice.
For example, consider what it meant to be a women in 1300. Women were not less worthy of dignity and respect. But contraception and abortion were both pretty minimal affairs, ineffective or dangerous. Options were really motherhood, or celibacy, not because someone was oppressing women - it makes no sense to talk about nature as being oppressive, any more than you would talk about gravity as oppressive. So what would a just society look like for women in that situation? Would feminism in the year 1300 have been impossible?

I think when we talk about needing to remove or suppress healthy biological capacities in order to be free, we are really talking about transhumanism, artificial wombs and sticking brains in starships - not feminism.

I'm not sure monetary hardship was necessarily the driving factor behind women's desire to enter the workforce so much as the desire to prove that women are just as capable as men (which they are) and the goal of abolishing gender stereotypes

This is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read on Mumsnet. And the most myopic.

So, it's not partly about proving that women can also be capable CEOs, leaders, etc?

@goosefoot
Could you give us a concrete example of how biology affects how live as women? And an example of femaleness?

This is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read on Mumsnet. And the most myopic.

Which part. It's true that the women going into the workforce in the 60s and 70s wan't mostly about hardship.

I'd have said a lot was about dissatisfaction with being homemakers, but not feeling as valued as men was also a factor in that dissatisfaction. And some did also want to abolish gender stereotypes, wasn't that what a lot of second wave feminism was about?