Thanking mums for juggling childcare/work during pandemic

[MedusasBadHairDay]

Just seen a tweet by Emma Barnet (and RTed by WEP) where she was reacting to Rishi Sunak saying "We owe mums everywhere an enormous debt of thanks". Her response was, "Did you forget a parent group?"

I'm torn on it because, while men clearly should be stepping up, we know that actually women have been the ones most likely to take on the childcare and homeschooling and housework and have to give up or reduce their hours at work. So thanking parents instead of mums seems blind to the gendered nature of the situation to me.

I do very much doubt he's approaching it from a feminist perspective though, and women could do with more than just thanks right now - so I'm a little loathe to agree with him. But I do lean towards thinking he is right to phrase it like this.

Thanking mums just puts it back on to mums and lets dads who dont pull their weight off the hook.

It also excludes those dads of whom there are plenty stepping up.

So fair criticism I think.

Thanking mums just puts it back on to mums and lets dads who dont pull their weight off the hook.

No it doesn't. Are there really going to be many families watching where they listen to that one statement and say fuck it love, you're on your own here as rishi said I didn't have to do anything. It is the truth that in the vast majority of cases it is women who are bearing the biggest brunt of this. Especially single mothers, of which there are more than there are single fathers who have children the majority of the time. Are men that fragile that they cannot hack a small sentence recognising the burden many women have taken on?

@ivfbeenbusy

If he had said "parents" then people would have complained that he hadn't singled out mothers in particular so I don't think he could have won either way

Oh absolutely. There would be a thread here doing just that.

@VegetableLove

I agree with *@Helsbels44* but I also think EB's comment is 'What about the menz!' writ large and if it was intended otherwise it's very poorly worded from a journalist.

Yeah, that's how I read it. I hope that wasn't what she intended.

One reason that men’s jobs often get prioritised over childcare is because men very often get paid more than women would do, just for doing their jobs.
Structural and highly damaging problem there.
Maybe Rishi and Emma could make suggestions to help sort that shit out.

I heard Rishi's comments as being that he thought it was the job for women to do the house/child related activities, so was equally infuriated by his comments.

He would have been better to thank all parents and then to acknowledge that he realised that this disproportionately meant women (even better if he'd then talked about how this could be addressed, but that would probably be hoping for too much).

He was asked specifically about women.

If he'd talked about parents the person asking might have pointed out they'd asked specifically about women- not parents.

I thought it was an odd thing to say until I saw the context.

He was asked specifically about women

Exactly, this is just more nonsense spin, really. Context matters.