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?

Agree with so many of the posts on here.

Care is so unrewarded and unrecognised. I lived in a much more socially conservative country for a while and it was better - childrearing was respected and valued. Salaries were expected to be sufficient to support an entire family. It was SO MUCH better than here where so many women are burnt out trying to do it all.

The care discussion needs to be had and - to the PP wondering if everyone knows what a women is when there's caring to be done - yes, it seems to be the case that XY humans who 'identify as' women rarely have any desire or inclination to do caring work. Read the Transwidows thread for evidence. Also, seemingly, there is no societal requirement that they do so, which also invalidates their claim to literally be the same as XX women, for whom there is very much an expectation that they will care for their children and often parents too, as the article linked in the OP suggests.

very much an expectation that they will care for their children and often parents too

Depending on where you live, and the availability of adult social care, you're increasingly expected to pitch in and care for neighbours. Before Covid–19 it wasn't unusual for neighbours to be discharged late at night with no prior notification. The ambulance service normally knew that they could knock at the door of one of us and we'd nip round to settle someone in, take supplies etc.

I'll never forget one case where a widowed neighbour was discharged unexpectedly at 23:30 (after a 14 week stay during which she'd been in isolation because she acquired MRSA and C. Difficile while in hospital). - By the time they got her home, the ambulance personnel thought it was too late to knock at our doors. They took her inside, did what they could and left her. Around 01:30, she went to the bathroom, fell and fractured her pelvis and a femur. She couldn't move and the phone wasn't with her. She was found the next morning (the ambulance personnel had put a note through our doors so a neighbour checked on her) and straight back to hospital.

In my neighbourhood, a number of the women pitch in in various ways with neighbours. The neighbour who gets all the recognition for being "such a help" is the one who mows the handkerchief-sized lawns - take a wild guess as to the sex. The house cleaning, food preparation, help with medication, appointment-booking, transport to hospital/GP etc., and (during Covid–19) assistance with Virtual Wards seems to become people's entitlement when it's delivered by female neighbours. And it's depended upon by the LA.

@IloveJKRowling

Agree with so many of the posts on here.

Care is so unrewarded and unrecognised. I lived in a much more socially conservative country for a while and it was better - childrearing was respected and valued. Salaries were expected to be sufficient to support an entire family. It was SO MUCH better than here where so many women are burnt out trying to do it all.

The care discussion needs to be had and - to the PP wondering if everyone knows what a women is when there's caring to be done - yes, it seems to be the case that XY humans who 'identify as' women rarely have any desire or inclination to do caring work. Read the Transwidows thread for evidence. Also, seemingly, there is no societal requirement that they do so, which also invalidates their claim to literally be the same as XX women, for whom there is very much an expectation that they will care for their children and often parents too, as the article linked in the OP suggests.

About this business with the salaries, I think that is really interesting.

Because I think that would be great. It would be great for me personally and I think it would be great for many families. I suspect it would mean more women not in paid work, though it would be good for families where the man stayed home as well.

But I think don't have much confidence that it would gain traction in a feminist discussion.

It’s built upon unpaid labour. No more serfs. No more slaves. The vast majority of unpaid domestic and care labour is done by women.

It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I know 2 SAHDs. Every group or class is overwhelmingly women. They are trying to get out and do stuff and it’s awkward. No one asks fathers what their plan is for child care or flexible hours.

Women got employment protections and then suddenly didn’t need male guarantors to get store credit or mortgages. Financial equality came after employment rights.

It’s all built on the structure of men important decent pay work, women pin money work and doing everything else.

We’ve gone from woman, leave your job when married, to woman being shamed no matter what they do. Full time, part time, mummy track, SAHM.

Unless there is decent legal financial protection for the non-working parent who is a dependent I’m not keen on the idea that one parent gets paid enough to facilitate it as a default because it would end up with men being the high earners even more than they are already because we are all conditioned to think all the domestic labour is women’s work.

I don’t know what the answer is. I read a study a while ago that looked at brain changes in new parents. What causes the change is doing the caring. Not biology. Being a care giver is an active process but I breastfed, it was not conducive to working with a bottle/cup/anything refusing cows milk allergic baby.

The answer can’t ignore biology. But it can’t base everything on it either.

Thank you, SmokedDuck. Constructivism sounds like simplistic, poorly thought through nonsense, in that case.

I read a study a while ago that looked at brain changes in new parents. What causes the change is doing the caring. Not biology.

I posted a thread about dementia here on MN, today, that mentioned very briefly how pregnancy hormones impact on mothers - makes the brain more plastic, able to learn new things, apparently. Very interesting!