Oh dear. A split.

[Redlake]

Kellie Jay ranting against feminists.

@KimikosNightmare

What's sad about it? I wanted to work ; if women don't want to, that's their decision but I don't see why tax payers should be expected to subsidise stay at home mothers.

I wanted to work too. Unfortunately, we couldn't afford to pay for childcare and had no family to step in to allow me to work. I certainly didn't make the choice to stay at home, it was the only option available to me at the time.

I felt this one aspect of life in the UK was like a throwback to the time when women were expected to stay at home to raise their children. That's because I come from a country where every child has the legal right to a place in affordable childcare near home from age 1 for at least 20 hrs a week, regardless of whether either or both parents work. In many places this childcare is free or very low cost, with around £50 monthly parent contributions charged. In other places it can cost up to £500pm for a full-time place, but it's free for people on low incomes and those who qualify for benefits. If parents work, they are entitled to up to 45 hours childcare per week. In the latter case, for parents who work, are in training or education, receive income support or looking for work, this legal right to childcare starts from birth.

Each council has the legal obligation to ensure that all children who require a place are offered one. If not, and the parents have to give up work or work part-time because of a lack of childcare, they can sue for compensation. The costs for this are paid by the council.

Some of the laws regulating the right to childcare are over 50 years old, although the right to sue was brought less than ten years ago, I think.

The end result is that women making the choice to work or stay at home can focus on other aspects of that decision. The cost and availability of childcare is not the decisive factor anymore.

But you need governments who believe that affordable, high quality childcare is an important step towards equality for mothers and who are willing to act on that belief to get there.

CharlieParley -- what you describe is state support at its best and how it should be. Your last sentence shows why it doesnt always happen as it should.
I would add that access to flexible hours and decent pay, also makes the difference.
And my own personal view is that mothers (and fathers), should be supported to stay at home with nursery age kids if they wish to.

think Posie upsets some feminists because she demonstrates that feminism is not central to the fight for women's rights.

Now THAT is an interesting thought! I'd have thought there was no difference between these two things - what do you see the difference is?

Ok I admit I haven't explored feminism deeply other than the books written in the 1970's. However to me feminism seems to have a rather narrow ideologically left wing viewpoint which focuses on patriarchy and oppression. Yet feminism values what was traditionally the male world over the female world. A woman who becomes head of a large organization or becomes a firefighter is lauded. A woman who becomes a mother, focuses on her family or cuts hair for a living, is ignored.

Most women don't consider themselves feminists, yet support women's rights. They want to live in safety and dignity and protect their children.

@Sillydoggy

I think Malaga makes some good points. It is an issue that feminism is not comfortable with. Perhaps the problem is that feminism centres women only but in a family women are one piece of a puzzle. What is good for a woman is not necessarily good for a family and for a child.

Feminism seems to have been keen to give women the same role as men without taking into account that this leaves either a woman doing two jobs(home and work) or the children left with less emotional care. I think feminism hoped that men would step into the gap and share but apart from some lovely exceptions it hasn't really worked like that.

Both parents do need to put children first and sometimes that will conflict with their own wants. Of course we should sacrifice our wants for our children's needs. Making a family is a fine balancing act which neither history or the modern world has got right.

We need more discussion about area of women's lives.

I think the problem about men stepping in is connected with the tendency, which we saw a lot of in the 80s and 90s, to say that apart from the most essential elements of carrying and birthing a child, men and women are entirely interchangeable. It's why a lot of feminists are so keen to deny the possibility that there could, in the aggregate, be differences in terms of personality or interests between men and women.

If the solution to inequality or patriarchy or whatever is having men and women in the same roles in the same proportion, either they have to want those things, or you have to make them do it when they don't want it. The latter doesn't sound very liberating so those who think this way are left with the former.

The idea that the birthing and caring for infants in itself creates enough of a difference to, for example, mean women are more likely to decide to stay at home, is bad enough. If more women want to stay at home, it's impossible. The plan to solve inequality by making men and women behave in the same ways will fail.

The modern idea that we find happiness by following our dreams or being free to do whatever we want isn't really born out. A world where everyone did that wouldn't be very nice, and even people who do find it doesn't lead to happiness and contentment and a sense of meaning.

I'm not convinced UBI, or subsidized childcare, are necessarily the answer either. The problem as I see it with state provided care is that it doesn't just make it possible for a mum to decide to work, it changes the whole balance of the financial decision. She may not be able to decide not to work when care is cheap or free.

UBI does potentially give a lot of control to the state and more, people who are paying taxes to the state, which makes me suspicious. But also - while it isn't something that people on the left have been comfortable talking about, I think we can see, maybe more as we age, that some kinds of social programs that are meant to help can ultimately be disempowering at a psychological level. And not just for individuals, but communities. What begins as a much appreciated opportunity over time can become something quite different.

I also wonder whether it would work pragmatically. For example look what has happened with the tow parent workforce - it initially gave an advantage and then it became a necessity.

It seems to me that it may be impossible to simply have a society where there is complete freedom for adults to choose what they want with no generally accepted/structured expectations. But I think, maybe what we really need is that in a family, there is a social expectation that there is one or maybe one and a half incomes, rather than two. And that prices and housing and minimum wages need to reflect that, and laws need to protect both members of the family. And not just in early childhood either, the fact is that under normal circumstances there needs to be someone available to kids right up through the teen years, even if that means a more flexible job rather than no job.

I think there could be a lot of benefits to this, but it would mean lower productivity, with all that entails, and also I suspect we would have to accept that it tended to mean different career outcomes for the male and female populations. But I think it would be better for kids and actually a lot of adults would prefer it too.

@ArabellaScott

think Posie upsets some feminists because she demonstrates that feminism is not central to the fight for women's rights.

Now THAT is an interesting thought! I'd have thought there was no difference between these two things - what do you see the difference is?

NB Get a cuppa first.

It is depending on what the definition of feminism is.
Was it early feminism or a women's rights campaign to have women and children banned from working in coal mines and other dangerous industrials?
It pushed the working class women out of the workforce, and into economic dependence on men and marraige.

The focus of modern feminism includes the drive for equality in modern life. Equality was and is being seen as gain or goal by benchmarking against the achievements of men. Equality is getting women out into the workforce. Getting women on a career track to be CEO of [ insert top stock market company]. Breaking the glass ceiling as it's called.

Goal achievement has a problem. Women are the baby growing workforce. Without artificial means of leaving the baby growing workforce, a woman has a distinct disadvantage when compared to a man who wants that CEO job too. Society can create laws but these reduce the sperm producer's potential gain.

Then once the baby growing workforce has done their job society needs a baby raising workforce. If feminism is for, about and by women, there is a gap. Who is going to campaign for the sperm producer to step up, they are already unhappy about the risk to their ambitions.

So how should social change happen? Who caused shock by saying if my senior staff can't manage the business while I do baby raising stuff I did not do the CEOing right? (Hint it was not a baby growing person).

But anyway, baby growing, everyone can do it. Right? So it has no economic growth value for (western) society.

For human survival the baby growing workforce are the most important workforce. We don't want to be dying off from starvation once we get too old to farm and isnt it nice when someone else makes the tea?

In an industrialised consumer society the baby growers are not seen as producing economic value and the baby raisers need to be cheap labor to allow more productive workers achive higher output cheaply. It's not sexy, it won't make for an exciting main character in a tv series and the only ceiling involved will have been stained with projected baby food.

So feminism has to turn 180° to support keeping women in the home as baby growers and baby raisers. Getting women on a career track of homemaker.

That s feminism too but not the most popular branch.

Warning :New cuppa is recommended.

Ireland has an interesting dilemma of what should feminism do?

CONSTITUTION OF IRELAND
THE FAMILY
ARTICLE 41
1.1° The State recognises the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.
1.2° The State, therefore, guarantees to protect the Family in its constitution and authority, as the necessary basis of social order and as indispensable to the welfare of the Nation and the State.

2.1° In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.

2.2° The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.

Note the Constitutional protection of marraige comes after this section.

So did the writer's (mostly men) recognise the woman as the foundation stone of her family and society as a whole or mandate that she, when ever possible, should stay in the home?

Family is not defined in the constitution as mother father and 2.5 children (actually 30's Ireland = no birth control). At the time multigenerational families would also have been the norm with the woman providing for care of the elderly etc.

Even today In 2021, the woman as baby grower is recognised as having automatic parental rights. The sperm producer has to "earn" legal recognition.

So what's the feminist dilemma?

First very (long) loose potted history

World War One (1914-1918) women had replaced men called up to war in the workforce and Ireland was still part of the UK.
Post WWI economic and social forces pushed women back out of "men's" jobs for mainly "suitable for women" jobs and women still had only limited scope for economic advancement in most industries.
theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/11/women-first-world-war-taste-of-freedom

Some limited political gains were achieved. In June 1918, the franchise had been extended, and women aged over 30 gained the vote, though it was to be 10 more years before all women were enfranchised. Then, in December 1919, the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act allowed women access to the legal profession and accountancy. and Paradoxically, the only woman to be elected was Countess Markievicz, a member of Sinn Féin, imprisoned for her part in the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland.

The Easter Rising was 1916, Irish 'Free State' was 1922, civil war 1922 to mid 1923, the Constitution was voted on in 1937.

1957: Married Women's Status Act giving a married woman the same legal personhood she had before she got married and a legal personhood if there was a legal marraige separation.

The 1956 debate interestingly explores the (pre 1922 UK) laws on women as a "legal person"
www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1956-11-08/38/?highlight%5B0%5D=married&h

Up until the 70's upon marriage, Irish women could be lawfully sacked from their pensionable government jobs (the marraige bar) and private business did similar. So limited ability to gain economical independence within marraige. On retirement qualifying tax contributers get a higher pension.

1976: Family Home Protection Act protected spouses (mainly women) from their spouse selling or mortgaging the family home when the deed was only in one (his) name.

1982: Murphy v Attorney General Irish Tax law treated the maried couple as one legal taxable person and as such disadvantage them as a two married people rather than as a co-habiting couple. Note the man was the taxable person and the final line of this article:
www.irishlegal.com/articles/irish-legal-heritage-well-heeled-articulate-women

In another tax case (I can't find) a legally separated married woman had no tax and there no financial privacy. Her husband was still seen as the taxable person. They could not divorce. He was allocated the tax breaks and had access to any details on their joint tax file etc. She won and a married woman becomes a separate legal taxable person from her husband.

1983: Eight Amendment of the Constitution acknowledged the right to life of the unborn, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother. (Not abortion but allows medical treatment/terminations)
The 8th

1987: Status of Children Act removal of illegitimacy.
The 1974 debate records women organising to campaign for the rights of their children
www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/1974-12-04/12/

1990: Criminal Law (rape) (amendment) Act section 5 allows a man to be tried for raping his wife.

1992: Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution guarantees freedom to travel between Ireland and another State (e.g. UK) for an abortion.

1992: Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution guarantees freedom to get/give information on abortion in other States.

1995: Fifteenth Amendment of Constitution allowed married couples to divorce.

2000: long after the 1957 Act and multiple tax law cases married women were still given their husbands social security number with a "W" on the end to indicate wife
www.gov.ie/en/policy-information/84e306-pps-number-phasing-out-of-w-numbers/

2002: Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution on abortion was rejected.

2010: Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act allowed same (& opposite) sex partners have a legal recognised union and gives rights and obligations to co-habiting couples with no legal recognised union.

2012: Amateur historian Catherine Corless publishes an article entitled "The Home"

2015 Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes is launched.

2015: Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution allowed same sex couple to legally marry.

2015: Gender Recognition Act
18. (1) Where a gender recognition certificate is issued to a person the person’s gender shall from the date of that issue become for all purposes the preferred gender so that if the preferred gender is the male gender the person’s sex becomes that of a man, and if it is the female gender the person’s sex becomes that of a woman.

So females can gain legal recognition as being male and a man, and males female and women.

Current day is a correlation between Irish feminists who are "TWAW" (including supporting placing violent males in Irish Women's Prison) and Repeal the 8th (pro-abortion)? On twitter, yes.

2018 Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution provides for abortion, Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act provides for "elective" termination.
^“termination of pregnancy”, in relation to a pregnant woman, means a medical procedure which is intended to end the life of a foetus; and “woman” means a female person of any age.

Spot the problem two years on, for people who are legally male and men?

Mini dilemma: Do Irish TWAW/Repeal the 8th feminists also support TMAM to the fullest extent of the law? (=no abortion)

2019: Thirty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution divorce (again).

All of that was women working to make it happen. But also men and women voting directly or by electing (mainly men) politicians to pass the laws.

So feminism and/or women's rights?

If you have not yet drown in the teapot keep on the history lesson is almost over 😅

Now remember this "the State recognises that by her life within the home? Women, mother's to be who have constitutional protection in the home?

Not they were unmarried or in an otherwise social unacceptable situation and pregnant. They could be locked up and their baby removed to be placed for adoption or die of neglect. So I am guessing the "home" referred to in the Constitution was not the converted Poor Houses or Mother and Baby Homes as they are now called.
This is grim a read:
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54693159.amp
After years of research into the history of the Tuam mother and baby home, amateur historian Catherine Corless publishes an article entitled "The Home" in a local history journal.
And
Under its terms of reference, the commission is tasked with investigating practices in Irish mother and baby homes over a 76-year period, from the foundation of the state in 1922 through to 1998.

The findings in the report itself has been disputed:
www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-40334789.html

So what's all that got to do with feminism???

One of the improvements which is recommend to help to achive "equal rights" is to remove these articles:

2.1° In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.

2.2° The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.

So, feminism credential to hand, how should the citizen's vote?

Feminisms aim was not to get mothers out to work. It was to give mothers choices. Lots of working-class mothers did work in low paid jobs such as home working or cleaners. But many better-paid jobs were not open to married women or mothers.

There's no official set of feminist aims/ beliefs/ etc. There are many many branches of feminism, and many women who would say I'm X type of feminist would be unlikely to agree with all the output and views of the overall set of priorities, let alone individuals who often didn't and don't see exactly eye to eye anyway.

Women who say they are feminists, and a reminder that there's no exam.
Plenty of women care hugely about women's rights and issues. Obviously. It's not only women who say I'm a feminist who care about prevalence of rape, girls not getting same level of education as boys in X countries. About sexual assault in schools and that it's standard to brush under carpet. And so on.
Plenty of women who don't say I'm a feminist, take action to do with women/girls specifically.

Plenty of women who say they are feminists, have views that many people would say are misogynist, harmful, do the opposite of supporting women.

Tbc

Some views from various feminist strands / individuals. That say they are feminist. Well known or niche ones I've heard.

Sex work is work just like any other job.
Empowering and lucrative. Flexible hours which is great for women, students.

Sex work is an umbrella term, biggest issue is prostitution. Being paid to perform sex acts for men is not a job like any other. Prostitution causes massive harm all over the world. V dangerous, v risky for the women girls (men boys) being paid. Also harmful to society generally.

Women and girls should keep being encouraged to go and do things that are male dominated and can be lucrative etc. Women getting into top jobs, gaining power and influence etc breaks down barriers which exist to keep us down.
They can work to improve things for women generally from the inside.

Women and girls gaining increasing representation in male dominated potentially lucrative roles, getting to the top in corporates, earning lots of money. Is all well and good for the individuals who want that and can manage it. A v small proportion of women, tiny. If that's what individuals want then they can aim to do that.

It's nothing to do with feminism though. It changes nothing for the huge numbers of women who for a host of reasons don't want/ can't/ would never cross their minds to do that.

Aiming to succeed in a system set up by men for men. Fitting in with systems, structures, hierarchies, norms that are designed for men. Joining them to fight from inside?

What's needed is fundamental change. Societies to change wholesale to recognise the value of all activity that keeps society going. To actually address inequality. To stop the huge financial disadvantages women face simply because we are the ones who have children. Etc.

Individual women trying to push for success in patriarchal capitalist systems? Not interested.

The push must be for wholesale change that will improve things for all women and especially the ones who struggle most.

Anyone can call themselves a feminist, and say whatever they want.

Anyone can say nope not a feminist but constantly express a passion for women's rights, talk about issues women/ girls have around the world, and act irl do things to try to change things/ help.

Feminists disagree all the time, and it can get brutal. As with other individuals/ groups with a shared political viewpoint.

And that's what feminism is. Not an organisation, or a network, anything like that.

It is a social/political ideology/approach. A philosophy. At the heart. It's studied and argued over and new ideas are written about. Liberalism, socialism etc political ideologies. Capitalism an economic theory/ ideology.

I say I'm s feminist because from I was a young child I noticed that boys girls were treated very differently. I didn't understand why. I didn't get why I was supposed to feel, think, enjoy certain things when many of them I didn't like or wasn't interested in.

It's just who I am, a fundamental part.

I haven't studied it or read many books. I don't follow this or that strand of beliefs.

I think the things I think because of how I think and feel and the news and experiences etc.

And I put stuff together and consider for myself.

In my 30s I found out that the fundamental view meant radical feminist. Radical meaning from the root, the root cause of all of our problems everywhere and through history.

I don't call myself a radical feminist because I know a bit but not enough to say yep that's me.

Great posts SolasAnla and SantaClawsServiette!

You’ve both articulated the issues so well and made great points. Thank you!

I love that a thread set up to be goady has turned into such an interesting discussion.

Is it really 'subsidising' women to allow them to work, if the work they do eventually pays money back into the tax system, allows them to keep earning and benefiting from promotions, keeping key skills and learning more and the small outlay in the first few years is paid many times over by the 20-30 additional years of increased tax income. Not just from their earnings but the things they then buy with their wages and their increased pensions.

It is very short sighted to say it is 'subsidising'. And I haven't got kids, nor did I ever want them but I want more women in the workplace with the independence to get out of bad situations if they need it.

UBC seems a good starting point for many issues. I do wish they'd at least start trialling it.

So feminism has to turn 180° to support keeping women in the home as baby growers and baby raisers. Getting women on a career track of homemaker.

I think I see what you mean, but I would be wary of going to far down that path... This is going to sound very contradictory but even though I am happy to say personally that having my child was one of the most significant things I did (for me) I don't like it when that's turned around and it becomes the case that my having a child is the most important thing the state (or whoever) thinks I did. Or to broaden it "the baby growing workforce is the most important workforce". I don't think that attitude will lead to greater respect for mothers/women in general. In fact I think it could all get a bit Handmaid's Tale-esque

Such an interesting discussion. This is such a complex area and so important.

There is also the fact that women's participation (or non-participation) in paid work has a wider impact. For example,
There was the recent study that showed the risks of being operated on were higher for women operated on by men.
There are numerous examples (from drug trials to flak-jackets) of the default human being a man when products are researched/developed sometimes with deadly consequences for women/girls. Having more knowledgeable women involved at the testing/design/research stage could help.
I would not want to be in a country where politics was dominated by men. (None of the discussions here on what is best for mothers matter at all if all the political power is in someone else's hands)
If silicon valley/the various social media giants were dominated by women rather than men then the internet would probably look very different. Not necessarily better, but a different kind of bad.
Having female police officers, doctors, midwives, security guards etc etc really matters if you want to be able to request a woman for medical procedures/searches etc
As a young women I found it was older woman in supermarket/restaurant/bar jobs who were the most protective in terms of preventing sexual harassment of younger women etc

If women stop participating in the workforce entirely when they have children/if they all step back in their careers then we stand to lose a lot.

@ArabellaScott

UBC seems a good starting point for many issues. I do wish they'd at least start trialling it.

I kind of think there was a chance to do that when the first lockdown happened but I don't think there was/is much political will for it from either party.

Currently there is little respect for mothers and for the work of raising children which has to change. Caring roles need to be recognised as an important part of society. We need to stop thinking only of economic contributions and start considering the value of social contributions.

Also we need to focus on the shift between states from full time home to full time work and everything in between. None should have to make one choice that lasts them for the rest of their life but at present it is difficult to shift without facing loss of skills, loss of respect, judgement and so on.

Structural and governmental change is important but the attitudes of individuals are just as important. For example When additional childcare was brought in for disadvantaged 2 year olds in Scotland there were women complaining about how those 'lazy mothers were getting freebies when hardworking mothers weren't'. Sometimes we have to look at the bigger picture if we want to change society and we have to change social attitudes to make it work.

Solas, thanks! Yes, interesting points about the tensions between obligations and freedoms.

2.1° In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.

2.2° The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.

Historically I think we could go back further, to ... well, possibly to enclosure, but certainly the Industrial Revolution. It's the tension between the family and the state, really, isn't it?

We have the latter situation produced here, in Scotland, now. Recently introduced universal childcare widely criticised by experts in childcare. High cost of living forces women back into the workplace, free childcare gives them no good economic reason NOT to go back. Yet this can, we know, be detrimental to children and is not what all women want. We also don't have enough properly trained staff to care for the children, so what problems are going to be unfolding?

Women are obliged to maximise their earning potential just to stay afloat, you will be paid to have someone else care for your child but your own care, although of higher quality in most cases, will not be recognised or recompensed.

Not even looking at the unpaid labour of women caring for other family members, which is another enormous elephant in teh room.

@ScreamingMeMe

I love that a thread set up to be goady has turned into such an interesting discussion.

Indeed! A common mistake, underestimating women.

Another problem is the fact that care work makes other methods of participation in society difficult - women in politics being a good example. It's not even just the relentless 24-hoursness of early years care, it's the vulnerability that children gives a woman - how many mothers were targeted recently by police visits, and how many of them were more worried by their children's responses than their own experience?

The mother-child dyad/bond is described by Elaine Morgan in The Descent of Woman as the primary bond in human life. Far stronger and in evolutionary terms more important than any kind of pair bonding or mating bond etc. While this coudl be undoubtedly be argued, I do think it's interesting to consider how this, looked at as the fundamental building block of social interactions, cornerstones of society rather than marriage/partnership, or worker/boss, might change our views of women and mothers.

Sorry for typos, am supposed to be wfh while also caring for children (with snuffles so attention is divided. Personal is political etc)

Looking at late neo-liberal capitalism and the looming climate change crisis I wonder how much choice and agency we are going to actually have over all of these issues? House prices? National security? Air quality? Health service? Migration? International tensions?

I think we need pragmatic solutions, quickly. But not that optimistic we will get them. Maybe we need to start refusing to participate in reckless consumerism so much, rethink the whole social contract. Degrowth, reduce, downsize, dismantle the stories about what 'success' means and our ideas of life as a big competition. Is it too late? What else might work? What can we live without?

some kinds of social programs that are meant to help can ultimately be disempowering at a psychological level. And not just for individuals, but communities

Agree, SantaClaws. But it would be interesting to consider possibilities.

I've noticed several posts mentioning the importance of independence, and yet I honestly don't know how we square that with motherhood. When I had a baby it was pretty much the first thing that went out the window. If you're not dependent on your partner, it's on your mum / friends / childcare provider / manager and colleagues / the state, etc etc. I'm not just talking about financial independence, I mean for practical, emotional and everything in between support.

I guess it's no wonder feminism shies away from talking about it. It's too uncomfortable.

Soz, I meant 'I'm not just talking about being financially dependent....' etc