Is 'Housewife' an occupation?

[Soontobe60]

First contestant on Mastermind tonight has given her occupation as housewife. Does that mean she is employed by her husband? She looks too old to have children that need looking after, and if she had an adult disabled child then her occupation would be carer.
Surely in this day and age no one claims that their occupation is housewife?

PuffHuffle5

Are you a single parent? Or do you have a totally lazy husband?

Apart from single parents, no woman should be doing all the household chores after a full day at work.

Or do you have a totally lazy husband?

Not lazy in the slightest thank you. Military and works away from home for sometimes months at a time. Single mum or lazy husband are not the only reason someone might have to do household chores alone - some parents have jobs that involve being away from home for a prolonged period of time (not just military). Sometimes a partner can be ill and the other partner a carer. What an ignorant thing to post.

I always put housewife, until i divorced.
Then my car insurance needed renewing....flipping nightmare, I had to put living off private funds. Best category I could find.

Not sure why anyone would care really.

What an ignorant thing to post. this is almost exactly what I thought when I read your post @PuffHuffle5 How is it possible that you think you are doing the same as someone who doesn’t go out to work?

I think we need a different word for people who are choosing not to work rather than unemployed/between jobs. Some will be living off a partners income, some will be on benefits, some will have inheritances. I know people of both sexes in all 3 categories, vast majority SAHMs of course, but also a SAHF (surely these 2 should all be calling themselves SAHPs now!), a couole living off benefits and a couple living off a large inheritance.

Housewife is just such a loaded and, imo, sub-servient sounding term. I cringe when I see intelligent, educated women putting housewife as their job description on facebook. I'm sorry but there it is. We need a new word without the negative or historical connotations.

I suppose if your children go to school, and you work school hours only then you could claim to do the same as a SAHP. But otherwise you will be paying someone else for childcare, unless you have family who look after your children for free (which is as big a privilege as being able to afford a SAHP in my opinion).

But any new word will quickly become judged because the underlying attitudes won't have changed.

I really don’t think there’s anything wrong with the words we have.

How is it possible that you think you are doing the same as someone who doesn’t go out to work?

It’s possible, as I previously explained, because I have experienced both things and can make the comparison - I’m not making presumptions, I’m not just imagining or thinking things or having an opinion, I’m talking about my life and first hand experiences - I really don’t know why that’s so difficult to comprehend and neither am I ignorant - I could understand your point if I was saying it having never been a SAHM, then obviously I wouldn’t know or understand - but I have - how can I be ignorant about my own experiences?

I agree with the posters who feel the reason for declaring an occupation is so everyone can express patronising when a secretary beats a brain surgeon.

Would also agree that the concept of John Humphreys delivering misogyny is not a surprising one.

@PuffHuffle5 Unless you can split yourself in two it’s not possible to simultaneously be at home caring for your child, and other stuff and at work. You are paid to leave that behind and work.

@Soontobe60 I wonder if it has occurred to you that a lot of couples have a partnership? I stay at home and do 90% of the home, family based management. It is my choice. I worked until after my second DC was born, earned a high salary and certainly helped towards saving a large deposit for our very nice family home. My husband also has a very senior role and earns a high salary. It is "our" money, as the contribution I make allows him to go to work and not think/ worry about home and family life. It does not impact on his day and he does not have to take time out to deal with any issues. I actually feel I am incredibly lucky to be able to choose not to work. If the term applied to me is housewife, I really couldn't care less.

5zeds

To be fair she could work at Brittas Empire, or even be Barbapapa you just don't know these days.
The children are in the drawer safe and sound.

I have done both SAHM and work with different patterns (eg 3 long days per week and 5 short days). Personally I was able to do more with the kids and at home when I was Sahm.

Unless you can split yourself in two it’s not possible to simultaneously be at home caring for your child, and other stuff and at work. You are paid to leave that behind and work.

I manage it now as as I work in my kid's classroom and my mum worked from home while simultaneously being a stay at home mum. But overall someone who is doing a job is doing less childrearing and the less of the child associated housework than an SAHM. My mum was a childminder when I was a teenager and it was our house that had all of the mess of a day with toddlers. It was my mum who shopped for, cooked and cleaned up after their main meal of the day. It doesn't mean that their parents did nothing, they parented the other hours, did the laundry, any night waking etc. But they came home to a house that was in whatever state they left it that morning. My mum tidied up toddler created mess after toddler created mess throughout the day. My mum played with the kids, fed them, included them in her baking, taught them songs, colours, read them books, brokered their arguments, stopped what she was doing to comfort their upsets, etc. For 10 hours a day, 50 hours a week. 50 hours of child-rearing and mess cleaning that their parents weren't doing. While also having her own teen and preteen kids, our associated extra housework and an ill husband to deal with.

I don't know why women just don't own this. If you're a house wife you're a house wife, trying to find other titles for it is ridiculous and smacks of shame,

I have a friend who's a house wife. She introduces her self under all manner of shite depending on her mood. Artist, poet, you name it.she is nothing of the sort, but she'd still rather say it than own being a house wife. The shame is in her head only. No one else gives a fuck.

Women do themselves a disservice by trying to find themselves a different title. Everyone knows what it is. Own it. There is no justification needed.

The woman on mastermind had the right idea.

The problem I think is that the word housewife was born in a time where women were expected/forced to give up work when they got married and had little or no financial equality by definition. It also suffer from the same loaded connotation as SAHM in my opinion - alway the bloody women! What about SAHM and househusbands? Language is powerful and housewife is an anachronism that carries negative connotations, conscious or otherwise.

What about:
Working In the Home Parent (WIHP) - aka housewife/husband
Working Out of the Home Parent (WOHP)
Working From Home Parent (WFHP)

I've been all three and many people do a mixture of these roles nowadays. Why sell yourself short by self-describing as a Housewife, which many people find has a negative connotation/look down on/see as sexist or old-fashioned, even if you don't?

Just because a word has negative connotations based on its history, it doesn't mean we can't reinvent it.
I can well remember the time when the word "queer" as applied to gay people was just about the most horrific thing you could say. Now it's the worst.
I own the word housewife (or rather I did). I'd like to see it rehabilitated for women of the present AND the past.
I'd like the sneering about 50s housewives to just stop.

Unless you can split yourself in two it’s not possible to simultaneously be at home caring for your child, and other stuff and at work. You are paid to leave that behind and work.

I don’t think you can say you are paid to leave all that behind. The housework still needs doing regardless, you just need to fit it in at a different time, usually after work when you’re exhausted and at the weekend when you’d rather be relaxing. And children still need to be cared for. Mine are with a childminder but I’ve had to pick them up before due to one being ill and then try and do my work from home/finish work in the evening while looking after them. The childminder obviously nurtures them and looks after them, but I’m still preparing lunches, doing a load of washing in the evening, organising activities around the weekend that I would otherwise probably do in the week if I was a SAHM, we eat breakfast a lot earlier/have tea later probably than if I was at home... so although our childminder is amazing there’s a lot of things she can’t do for me. So no these things aren’t really ‘left behind’. Maybe if you have a nanny or a housekeeper you could say that.

But to answer the the OP, of course you can call yourself a housewife. Because, you know, they haven’t died out some women (and men) don’t go to work, they look after their home instead. What else should we say?

I don’t think you can say you are paid to leave all that behind.
I didn’t say”ALL” though. You can shift domestic chores into the evening/weekends but surely that means you aren’t parenting at those times as you would have if they were done in the day. The job you pay your childminder to do, the more expensive part prepared meal, the breakfast/after school club, the favours of friends and family, are surely easily seen. Unless when you were a housewife you did nothing productive during your now working hours at all, ever, you aren’t doing the same job.

Earn money and outsource, or go hands on, there is no shame in either option, and people should choose whichever they please.

@Soontobe60

Lucky you. Are you able to do this because you bought the large house with large garden and saved a shit load of money when you did work, or because you have a husband who earns a lot?

What a nasty sounding post. I paid for half of the house myself thank you very much. Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean that I couldn't work my ass off and save money to do so. I clearly mentioned the large garden and house because I spend a big part of my day maintaining it. Are you jealous that you need to be nasty about it?

The direction this thread was going to take was inevitable and I'm sure that was op intention.

Getting women feeling they have to justify their lives, pushing for judgement, bit of nice pitting sahm and wohm against each other etc.

Men simply do not get this shit about their lives. Unless they are criminals or junkies or something...

Definitely not an occupation, same goes for ‘full-time mum’!

What word or words do you suggest should be used?

Men simply do not get this shit about their lives. Unless they are criminals or junkies or something...

They get massive amounts of shit for not working and living with a partner who does. Search cocklodger on this site and see. DH doesn’t work and I do and we get lots of real life criticism too.