Women as Carers........[hmm]

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/18/if-boris-johnson-has-his-way-a-womans-work-will-truly-never-be-done

I have skin in this game, as many others have here no doubt.

Thoughts?

He's a Tory. They're inherently misogynist.

I think conversations need to be had within families long before it comes to the age where parents need caring for. Obviously if you want to keep your parents at home, something has to give, either financially or time wise.

something has to give

It usually does - the physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional health of the caregiver(s).

@Creepygnochi

I think conversations need to be had within families long before it comes to the age where parents need caring for. Obviously if you want to keep your parents at home, something has to give, either financially or time wise.

Of course it should happen. In a lot of cases it doesn't. I've had this discussion with DP and you will never in a million years guess what he said. "My sister will do the care if mum needs it"

Honestly I was gobsmacked. It never actually occurred to him that she might not want to, she might be busy , she might want to stay at work all the things that woman night want to do, but he's already decided for her.
The arrogance.

Do we know what a woman is when it comes to caring then?

Speaking personally as a woman who has cared for over 20 years and who has also worked full time in a breadwinner role and who is fucking exhausted and who has frequently wondered how different her fate would have been if she had been born male.

Sick of this.

Retirement age has gone up. People are living much longer. Elder care is not small cost and short term. It is expected to have children with disabilities and difficulties at home and in mainstream education to the point where there is barely any provision for those where this is not the right setting, not to mention not enough funding to support those who would benefit from mainstream. The economy has got to the point where 2 incomes are needed to even try to get a mortgage or pay rent because social housing has been severely reduced.

So the former unpaid carers who were early retirees and stay at home mothers are in short supply.

So instead of doing ANYTHING to mitigate the factors that have lead to this the answer is suck it up proles. Has it occurred to them that every person who has to give up their job in order to be a carer has an impact on what that person is contributing to the economy? I bet they have, and the answer is it costs less than any alternative.

That's such a good (and rightfully angry) article from Catherine Bennett. It's funny how little has changed in so many areas for women - while so many of the gains are being removed by men determined to muscle in on them.

successive governments have known for at least 30 years that the demographics of the UK means that 1. there will be far more older people and 2. a lot more people wont have children in their old age (estimated 20% of women over 50 are not mothers)

There has been a continued unwillingness to engage with the reality that women are already run ragged caring for elderly parents because despite what the government thinks or finds it convenient to believe most people help their parents as much as they can. The problem is with more people living to a much older old age, serious health problems are more likely and they're not the sort of thing that can be dealt with by popping round to do the shopping and phoning up to make sure mum is OK, they are the sort of problems that need intimate personal care or nursing care.

I expect the can to be kicked down the road again tbh. it's not an issue that matters enough to enough people so the government will issue some bland assurances about everyone getting care when they need it but in reality do nothing

Anyone ever find themselves wondering whether the main effect of feminism surrounding women working has resulted in women being worse off, in some ways, rather than better? This is why radical feminism is needed and not some lesser mash-up where we are fitted into the workplace which was built around men with wives at home to take care of everything.

Anyone ever find themselves wondering whether the main effect of feminism surrounding women working has resulted in women being worse off, in some ways, rather than better? This is why radical feminism is needed and not some lesser mash-up where we are fitted into the workplace which was built around men with wives at home to take care of everything

Agreed. historically, though, radical feminism tended to discuss issues related to sexual oppression (rape, prostitution and pornography and so on) and overlook material issues such as who does the housework, paid labour and the like.

I don't think the idea that we can turn over care of elders to professionals, to a degree that means that it won't impact the families of those elders, is a non-starter.

Even when they are in a really good care facility, for an elder to be cared for properly takes time and attention from the family. That is just the reality.

As a society we've moved to this two career model for families, but in many cases it ends up shortchanging people. Kids in the family, elders, the working parents themselves in many cases. It's not a great recipe for family life. Money to hire out work helps but some work can't be hired out and some probably shouldn't be.

Which means that there needs to be room in families for that work to be done, by one person or shared. Not all jobs can accommodate that equally, and not all people have the same inclinations either, so we aren't likely to see every family do things the same way.

While I think a lot of men should be more willing to pitch in - I know my uncles left a lot of the nitty gritty stuff with elder care to my aunts and it was unfai, though I think largely unconscious. But I suspect think that there is likely to always be more women in that role than men, as a spin off of the consequences of reproductive role.

Either way, I think the answer has to be to find ways to socially manage the kind of time and care that families have to give or may choose to give beyond that. Elders need care and there should be robust ways to manage that as a society.

@YetAnotherSpartacus

Anyone ever find themselves wondering whether the main effect of feminism surrounding women working has resulted in women being worse off, in some ways, rather than better? This is why radical feminism is needed and not some lesser mash-up where we are fitted into the workplace which was built around men with wives at home to take care of everything

Agreed. historically, though, radical feminism tended to discuss issues related to sexual oppression (rape, prostitution and pornography and so on) and overlook material issues such as who does the housework, paid labour and the like.

Yes, I don't know that I think radical feminism has really done better on these issues than any other type of feminism, and in particular with the workplace stuff. I think it's been hamstrung by too much constructivism.

He's a Tory. They're inherently misogynist.

Yet they seem to be the only party that has a inkling of what a woman is. Strange times.

main effect of feminism surrounding women working has resulted in women being worse off, in some ways, rather than better?

In some ways, wasn't this at the heart of the sense that women were to be legally tolerated in the largely male valorised workspaces on male terms rather than re-imagining how we support everyone to achieve their goals and maximise their competencies throughout their lifetime.

I look at how long it's taken to have anything approaching a decent set of HR policies to educate colleagues that sexual harassment/discrimination is deplored in the workplace, that family-friendly policies reflect people's actual lives etc. Along came the pandemic and a number of items that were thought to have been hard won rights have been revealed as concessions that can be removed virtually overnight.

Flexible working - hard fought by women, then opened up to everyone. Which is good. Flexible working shouldn’t be classed as some sort of temporary situation for parents only.

Shared parental leave. Sounds great. But actually took maternity leave and made it available to be shared. It didn’t actually add anything and opened up the potential for a new form of domestic abuse.

Traditional models of work operate on the basis that pretty much everything necessary to exist outside of work is outsourced. Cleaning, laundry, child care, elder care. The higher up you got the more things that were outsourced, like transport. Hardly anyone is in the income bracket that means they can do that. More to the point, why is that still the model?

Even when they are in a really good care facility, for an elder to be cared for properly takes time and attention from the family. That is just the reality.

Yes! This is at the heart of so much misunderstanding about care homes. For really good care, the care and input from family continues, but it's now in a different venue. A family member who would only eat if assisted by one particular person at home, will still only eat if assisted by that person in the care/nursing home. There are family and friends who spend 5hrs+ a day with someone, and a lot of that time is spent in personal care.

As with child care and other domestic labour, you can outsource it but it's still women who do it, what happens is women are poorly paid by river families freeing up middle class women to do more profitable work. Invariably it's women who commission and monitor the carers, be they employed for children or elderly relatives.

Until such time as we both see the real economic value of domestic labour and/or men take on a share of this labour women have a problem.

Yes, I don't know that I think radical feminism has really done better on these issues than any other type of feminism, and in particular with the workplace stuff. I think it's been hamstrung by too much constructivism.

I’m no feminist historian. I grew up very equal and gradually took the modern version of the traditional path of having children then becoming financially dependent on a man who didn’t respect me.

I used the word radical simply to mean we need a root and branch change, to rebuild everything and not just agree that slotting women into new tasks while expecting them to fulfill the old ones, then deriding them for failing is an acceptable way forward.

Completely agree @AnyOldPrion I describe myself as a radical feminist for this reason.

Interesting and crucial discussion.

I don't know what constructivism is, nor enough about feminist history, but I'm a bit surprised by how feminism (as I experience it) doesn't seem to have very much to say on care - childcare or elder care. It's such an absolutely enormous, perhaps even fundamental - part of so many women's lives. It has life changing impact. I mean, lots of women don't even have time to consider feminism or anything at all very much, as they are so laden with caring for family.

I read that the SNP are proposing a 'revolution in childcare' - which means that women will be effectively penalised for looking after their own children.

A few days ago I was told women's biology shouldn't have any impact on a woman's life/career. That if I wanted a career I should have chosen not to have kids, or to have chosen a partner who would do the care. That maternity leave had fixed any disparity between men and women. (This from a woman I imagine would call herself a feminist, btw. Though I suspect a very priviliged one).

The irony was I didn't actually have time to discuss the subject properly because of childcare issues.

Would the economy collapse if women were paid for the care they gave to family?

Does that mean everything is built on the backs of women's un-remarked upon labour?

Marxist feminism looks at exactly that.

thanks, wonderstuff. I shall look into it.

*Would the economy collapse if women were paid for the care they gave to family?

Does that mean everything is built on the backs of women's un-remarked upon labour?*

Yes and yes again. Absolutely.

The women's strike in Iceland I think is interesting. All the women did nothing for a day and it was a catalyst for change.

Constructivism in this context says that apart from very specific things, like actually carrying the baby, differences in male and female populations doing things like caring for babies, or working less time, etc, are down to a society that expects that, either in terms of attitudes or how they structure institutions.

So, a simple example is that people who take this approach will sometimes argue that instead of maternity leave a couple should have a parental leave that they must share equally. They will tend to emphasise childcare rather than a parent at home so both can work.

Basically, if the conditions in society were really equal they feel there would be no difference in choices the male population and the female population would make.

To be frank though, the underlying idea that men and women are the same in interests is unproven and ideological - there is some evidence it's not the case and that women as a population do have more inclination toward care work.

And it tends to ignore that the really physical elements of reproduction - pregnancy, post-pregnancy, breastfeeding, hormonal effects of these things, etc, may themselves lead to different views on career, values, childcare, and so forth, between the male and female population.

As a result, it's left with a narrow set of possibilities discussing solutions, and those solutions tend to be ones that focus on outcomes for men and women being broadly the same in terms of things like workforce employment.