Is it antifeminist to promote marriage

[HumanWrites]

instead of encouraging women to separately set up all the legal protections they believe marriage confers? It could be cheaper and more effective.

I would presume the best thing any person over 18 can do if they have the capacity to do so is remain independent of another person ie a partner.

But I am not sure what is worse marriage or not or people feeling they have the right to say how others should live or not, I find this idea controlling even when people try and dress it up as ‘concern’

My personal view is it is not the role of either solely the father nor the mother to financially provide for their child or children.
Even if my husband was a high earner I absolutely would still go to work. Why is still the expectation that "a man should be the provider."
My toddler is the financial responsibility of both myself and my husband.
We expect (quite rightly) these days for dads to share the childcare, as women we can't just have equality when it suits us!!

What if what is often called a 'gap' on a CV was actually a time that was valued by employers?

I consider a mother to most likely be someone who is organised, capable and dedicated. I don't see child rearing years as a 'gap', but as valuable experience.

The gap isn’t generally valued because the skills you gain as a SAHM aren’t generally particularly useful in most working environments. And the skills you had that were valuable tend to atrophy. While many mothers are organised, capable and dedicated, that applies at least as much to mothers who work as to SAHMs.

That isn’t to say there aren’t many SAHMs who find ways to build up more widely useful (to the working world) skill sets that rival those of people who stay in the workplace, but it isn’t the norm.

I do think society could and should do a lot more to get women who have a break to raise children back into higher skilled work. Which would, I think, be a policy we’d both agree on. But in general those women are still going to have less relevant experience and so have a lower career trajectory, than similar aged people who don’t take a break.

I find this interesting because it reminds me a lot of the common criticism many people who see themselves as politically progressive make of right-wing thought - that it believes we are all independent and should not be able to rely on others for support.

Whether or not that is an accurate description of right wing thinking, I find it interesting that progressivism is ok with social supports and obligations through the state, but not through family members.

I think there are a couple points here.

It's inevitably the case that people who have sorter rather than longer careers will have on average a different kind of career. That's not necessarily a bad thing. There are a variety of reasons people might take such a break.

It's increasingly common for people to have major career changes in a lifetime.

Many people live long enough, and in many cases have a long enough working career, that they can have several careers, or start late and have a full career even beginning at 30. The fact that we look askance at this is mainly down to prejudice, not any real assessment of people's skills.

Many, many, many people have jobs rather than careers.

Even while working, one or both parents typically need more flexibility in work commitments in order to manage the demands of family life, which often translates to a less demanding, and highly paid, job. This is especially true if one parent has an especially demanding job.

One way or another, someone in society is putting in the time to take care of the kids, parent or not.

The fact that child-rearing within the family can't somehow be worked into this, for men or women, isn't really about fitness to work or any intrinsic demands of work.

Men should be doing an equal share of parenting. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect anyone to financially support another adult when they no longer have any caring responsibilities and are capable of working. I don’t see those two statements as conflicting.

what makes one piece of paper that covers all basis worse than multiple pieces of paper that need a lawyer to write them up?

progressivism is ok with social supports and obligations through the state, but not through family members.

Not everybody is lucky enough to have family that can support "obligations" as you put it, for lots of reasons.

People who do have family to support them usually have other advantages too and are less likely to need state support, including financial.

I think that's right, I'd rather support families that need interventions than SAHMs who feel entitled to money because they think the state should recognise their role.

The settlement in this scenario is likely to be enough for her to separately set up a home. It's very unlikely to give her income until the child is 18 unless they are supremely wealthy, and I'd imagine they'd be buying in nannies and things to support if that was the case. She may also find that maintenance payments contested and if he offers 50:50 that she gets no maintenance. She's still not in a great position and men who don't pull their weight with fatherhood in the couple, are usually less involved out of it and not understanding of the costs and time involved in raising a child.

I agree with all of this. Although its terrible for women who lose their homes when their non-married partnership ends as the house was his, marriage does not give as much protection as some imagine and is expensive.

I think keeping your financial independence is the best option.

@TedMullins I agree with you. Absolutely. But when would a SAHM argue that these responsibilities end? School age? Up until 16? 18? Up until the "child" leaves home at 26?! And then of course they have to "look after" their husbands...

I have to ask - in what way is marriage expensive? the wedding? the cost of divorce? the cost of living together?

A lot of people who argue against marriage / civil partnerships do so by saying the law should be changed to reflect current realities but that's not how the law works so if you want the legal & financial protections now then the only realistic thing to do is get on with it. It doesn't have to be expensive if you just pop down the Registry Office - I doubt getting a lawyer to draw up similar paperwork to cover the rights endowed by marriage / cp would be cheaper than the £335 (fee listed by Hampshire Registrars from April 24).

Surely it's feminist to protect your rights before the law as fully as possible?

As for SAHM - they can keep up their skills if they chose to. I was one for 12 years as we had no family nearby to call upon & I would only have seen any of my wage after childcare costs in a 5 week month - so it was less hassle for both me & my children for me to stay at home (no rushing about between childcare & work). Once they were in school, I volunteered for charities, kept my IT skills up to date and became a school governor. Returning to work, my biggest issue was employers not taking voluntary roles seriously - despite schools req governors to legally operate, charities not being able to exist without the, etc. One interviewer even suggested I get a part-time job in retail to improve my CV - despite that not being the area I'm trained / was applying for.

Whoever ends up being the primary caregiver often ends up being part time / having a less high flying job. Financially it can make more sense for one half of a partnership to concentrate on their career (& chances of becoming a high earner) & the other to support them / deal with the life admin of their children & increasingly aging parents. Both sides of the coin need sorting and the legal protections of cp / marriage can make the decision to go with those roles easier.

But (unless you both work part time) who is looking after the child when you both work? No criticism - I worked when my son was a toddler and he was in childcare. But I don't consider the childcare workers as "freeloaders" or privileged unproductive people whose lifestyle I was subsidising by paying (expensive) childcare fees. Lots of couples decide to do things differently and one parent (almost always the mother) stays home to look after the child (there are big advantages to that). Of course it would be weird if the other half of the couple paid her a salary for that - marriage is supposed to be about teamwork. But its not if the parent doing the bulk of childcare is seen as contributing less/freeloading/not providing because they aren't bringing in a wage. Once children are older they need less childcare but the stay home parent has hurt their own earning prospects by taking time out and one or both parents still need to fit their work around school/after school finishing times/sick children etc.

Also, now my child is at school its glaringly obvious who does the majority of the extra stuff in school - helping out on school trips, putting in the grunt work for fundraisers etc. Its stay at home mothers or mothers who work part time for a smaller salary. I do my best to contribute but realistically cant help out as much because I am expected to be in work during school hours. Other working mums are similar but full time working fathers seem less involved. There is loads of value to society from work that doesn't bring in money or "produce" anything physical. Not everyone needs to do that but someone has to and those people need to be "subsidised" somehow because everything would collapse without it.

Feminisms is a pluralist set of movements, not a hive mind. And the various schools, movements, waves and ideologues comprising it love to tell other schools, movements, waves and ideologues that they are not feministing correctly. The marriage/SAHM movements are nothing more than a continuation of first-wave woman citizen vs mother/domestic work and second wave 'wages for housework' vs. workers' rights movements: all diametrically opposed (and each very scathing of the other). It's movements like this which finally brought about the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act, which served us for three decades but didn't really do the job is was meant to do. There's still a gender pay gap and inequality still exists.

The namby pamby pontifications emerging from the Third Wave would have been impossible without the far more high-risk measures of Waves 1 & 2. By Wave 3, older feminisms might well have brought about 'choice feminism'. Well, bully for them. The costs to the former generation are very quickly forgotten as we take their gains for granted and fall into the assumption that it's all about us as individuals. I doubt anyone really gives two shits about my personal choices and I'm not interested in other people's. The tedium of 'is that your father's name or your husband's?' has worn thin.

This is what the question of marriage mainly boils down to. That opposition Mumsnet now recognises as SAHM vs. WOHN is over a century old now (and are also a matter of privilege - if you were alive during the first wave, were female and working class, you worked). What's really changed?

Perhaps more importantly, whatever happened to that old gender stereotype of the 1990s 'New Man?'

No. You can't separately set up all the legal ramifications of marriage/CP anyway, because some of them are about how the state treats your relationship. So encouraging women to do something that isn't actually possible is not going to help.

How many working class women who stay at home and claim UC and have a husband earning the national average wage or below, do you think are really a SAHP through choice?

Based on my experiences of living in a working class community, quite a lot actually. Because poorly paid, frequently inflexible hard work that often takes a substantial toll on your body isn't necessarily that attractive to the people people who have to do it.

Which isn't to say no women in this cohort would benefit from better childcare, but a big part of the picture is that the jobs are often pretty shit.

No it is not anti feminist to advise women on the pros and cons of marriage.
It is possible to replicate some of the legal protections and advantages of marriage, but it is far more expensive and incomplete.
For example, you can’t pay for and sign any legal documents that allow you to inherit tax free from your unmarried partner.

CP is a state marriage either without the religious aspect or without the sex/romance aspect.

This 100%. The more childcare, more mothers in work isn’t to help mothers or children or women- it is all to boost GDP and generate more profits for the rich to reap.

Amazing post 👏

Also the "90s new man" are fathers today and a lot more equal parents than their fathers were.

My ex (90s "new man") and I did shared parental leave when it was first introduced, he's always been an equal parent, in fact on occasion done more because I was the higher earner. We do 50/50 care now.

My current DP (90s new man) also is very involved with his children and does 50/50 too.

Loads of my male friends are the same. A lot of "90s new men" continue to live to those values

I think I heard yesterday that young men now have more authoritarian and "traditional" views than their parents generation. I blame social media.

Agreed. My “90s New Man” was a SAHD for 8 years while he was doing his postgraduate degrees. He has always pulled his weight with child rearing and house/DIY. Still does even though I am early retired and he still works full time.

You've articulated that better than I did. My DH is the same and I'd think of him as one of the New Men. We both do an equal share in the house and are very involved parents, but it's still sobering to read the many threads on MN where women are on their knees because of their male partners' lack of input. Sadly, too many also seem prepared to accept far too low a bar.

My father's generation were dreadful and my father himself a prime example of that. He was quite happy to sit on his backside watching TV whilst my mother did everything, even when she was visibly tired and stressed. My grandfather, a generation older, was to some extent also a new man. For sure he and my gran had 'gendered' tasks, but he pulled his weight. If she had cooked, she never did the washing up, for example.

As to today's 20-somethings, my own anecdotal observations bear out what you say. I also think social media has had a large part to play. In our DHs' generation, the old sexist attitudes were antediluvian and articulating them out loud was frowned upon. Now a generation of MRAs have been able to find each other online and have their own views validated. Since lockdown, in particular, I've personally experienced more harrassment than previously. Trains I've found to be a particular problem. They can be quite a threatening environment for women these days, especially on Friday nights. The young women I work with are telling similar stories.

Perhaps it's more the case that these attitudes never truly went away, but were always simmering not so very far beneath the surface. (As such, it's probably fortunate that so-called 'Postfeminism' was only a short-lived phenomenon ...)