Feminism is less about equality and more about celebrating gender difference? Discuss.

[Bumperlicious]

Oh, I am glad there is now a feminism topic (well done MNHQ - or was it that so many people wanted a topic they could hide?). Anyway, I have been meaning to pose this question for a while, but have been in Wales with no wireless and didn't want to bore everyone with another feminism thread.

So, I keep thinking about feminism and equality, and it doesn't quite sit right for me, probably especially because I am pregnant right now. What I mean is I don't want to do everything men do, I don't want to have to match them in strength and stamina. I am happy that DH puts the rubbish out, sorts the cars and my bike out, and I crochet and bake and cook. I don't think that is anti feminist, we both make the choice and play to our strengths. Yes he tries to cook sometimes, and yes, when I lived on my own, I could sort my own car out, put up flat pack furniture etc. but he likes to do it and I don't so I'm not going to try and make a point.

And yes, now I am pregnant I do kind of expect special allowances. I am growing a life inside me, and it is making me feel vile. And when my DC is born I want to have nearly a year off then work part time, I don't want to have to go back to work after two weeks and work full time competing with the men for promotion. But I would like to be considered for promotion on my merits and abilities, not based on how much 'evidence' I have managed to gather in my part time hours compared to people working full time.

I'm not sure if I am articulating my point very well here but the way I see it is that maternity laws, flexible working laws etc. exist not to make us equal to men but to allow for the differences between us. Yes, I choice to have kids, but I didn't choice to be a woman, the main carer, the one who bears and breastfeeds the children, so allowances (i.e. laws) should exist to allow for the fact that these are the differences between us.

At work we have a 'Gender Difference Network' and while obviously some of the differences in lifestyle and character go across the sexes, much of what they look at is the differences between the sexes and how to support that, which seems a sensible attitude for me. Being a feminist isn't about acting like a man, it is about acting like a woman and still having the same opportunities.

I hate to post and run but a friend has just text me about a free easter craft event (God, I hope that means chocolate!) but I have been itching to pose this question to see if I am really missing the point.

Bink, I think you're right. I worked for big US corporate for 10 years before I had DD. Worked for them while had maternity leave and afterwards. I then left to work for big UK corporate (admittedly formerly public owned) and in both places I was fully supported and given all the help I needed. I also wasn't treated any differently because I'd been on maternity leave or because I'm a woman.

I did leave the US company for the UK company because the UK organisation is much more family centric but I wasn't badly treated at my other company.

On the other hand I was treated very badly by my large multinational, on matters of pay, pregnancy, mat leave, flexible working.

Some employers are still into the whole boys club stuff.

ISNT - you're completely right. I work in technology/telecoms sector and it's fairly egalitarian in the UK/US but some of the European companies are still very stuck in the past. I think it's luck of the draw which is, of course, wrong.

But not so different men can't change nappies, work part time and hire the nanny though....

Gender differences are fascinating. I like the book the female brain and women tend not to ask for more pay (never been my problem but I think I'm rare) and thus do worse or they accept sexism at home but on the whole we are more similar than different and large nmbers of women with babies want and do work full time and adore it so we don't all want to be tarred with the part time or no working brush, thank you vey much just as not all men want to be alpha males earning what I do.

Totally agree with you there xenia.

Anything which is determined by the assumption that men are like this and women are like that is necessarily going to disadvantage huge number of people. Men and women are far more similar than different in my view.

I suspect that if men were given the opportunity to work more flexibly and take time out to raise children, and they were genuinely able to make the choice ie there were no repurcussions, then they would do it in droves. And that if there was no assumption in society about who stayed at home and curtailed their careers to look after the kids, loads of couples would choose to do it in the reverse to the current norm. We would have chosen that like a shot.

I earned more. My career therefore came first. Thus I earn what I do in my 40s. As long as women marry even unsexist men but those who are older, better, richer, who earn more then women's careers will come second. It's very simple but in practice most women don't choose the man who is beta male and earns less than they do and is less qualified and who is younger and thus earns less. They just don't for all kinds of biological and evolutionary reasons even if they aren't aware of them and thus women's beta position is maintained.

I know of a few women with "beta" men, I think it is gradually becoming more prevalent. Personally I don't understand why you would want to marry an old geezer with a bit of wonga when you could marry a fit young man and earn the money yourself. Working outside the home and earning decent money is a source of satisfaction and self-esteem that many women don't get from being at home with the kids.

Horses for courses and all that we should all be able to play to our strengths.

Before we had DSs me and DW agreed I would become SAHD and have a flexible careerto fit round child care. Unfortunately, DW was treated badly and her career was terminated and I was forced back out to work full time. Eventually we decided to start a business at home together and share child care. I went part time and found I was openly criticised and treated in a quite sexist way because I asked for flexible working. In the end I gave up work completely and we now work together at home.

Society still makes it very very hard for couples to choose what suits them - and still prefers to force women back into the home and men out to work. At least that was our experience.

The issue is surely that staying at home to look after children- a traditionally female role- is work, and needs to be recognised as such? It is my understanding that the goal of feminism was never to have all women working outside of the home, but to have the work inside the home recognised, rewarded and equalised in status to that of work outside the home.

We still talk of childcare/work in terms of 'taking time off' and even 'part time work'. It's very emotive and shows that perhaps we have not come as far as we should have.

I think also that a lot of women buy the idea that their place is at home with the kids, especialy when they're small, and that they will be fulfilled at home. After all, when you are pg and knackered and working full time, a good bit of "time off" sounds rather appealing.

I know as i did it myself - I didn't go back to my old job, opting instead for something part time, nearer to home, more "worthy" and less well paid (that old chestnut).

Of course now after me 2nd child I wonder what happened to my shiny career and why i am earning less than DH when for years I earnt so much more than him...

personally I don't like tha alpha, beta stuff, that surely has overtones of one type of person being superior.

We need to get to a place where all sorts of work are valued and people can do what they enjoy and are good at, without being pigeonholed, labelled or slagged off.

Agree tethersend. Totally right.

But not forgetting that lots of women want to work outside the home and lots of men want to be at home with the kids.

It's about people and what works for them.

I asked DH to enquire at work about part-time. They told him to piss off

"Society still makes it very very hard for couples to choose what suits them - and still prefers to force women back into the home and men out to work. At least that was our experience."

That very much depends on the culture and jurisdiction you live in. In Germany I think what you say is very true, for example, whereas in France it seems to me quite the opposite. The radical feminist is the woman who decides not to work in preference to taking care of her family, even if she could work in a high-powered job.

I think unfortunately abetadad your experience is pretty common - one of my (male) friends fought a pretty nasty sex discrimination case where he was refused part time working in a job where several women were already working p/t. He won, but ended up leaving anyway because his working life was made impossible.

Clearly this isn't a 'poor man' case - if we expect men to do their share of childcare, then we need to fight organisations that won't accept them having even the often crappy excuses for flexible working that women have.

Unfortunately I believe quite strongly that capitalism as it operates in Britain, plus our current political set up depends substantially on categorising and dividing people. I'm probably about to get jumped on here, but I think that there is quite a strong human impulse to fairness, but that it can be sidelined by defining groups (women, immigrants, those with skin of different colours, etc, etc) as 'other'. Hence they can 'justifiably' be treated worse, underpaid, and generally exploited by those in positions of power.

To my mind it is no co-incidence that in general societies (eg Scandinavia) where women are treated more equally are those where there is a lower level of inequality more widely.

Is that true across all the socio-economic groups bonsoir?

Certainly in the UK many (most?) women work out of the home, especially part time, but they do it in menial jobs for shitto money, even if they had a better job before children.

Certainly the upper echelons in most soceities play by a different set of rules.

In the US most women return to work very quickly I think, as they have very little maternity provision?

it's all economics isn't it, that's what it boils down to. A woman can only stop working if someone else can pay for her to be at home - her partner, family or the state. In countries where the cost of living is less, it is easier for families to exist on one wage, and so on.

What I am getting at is that all things being equal, women should be able to go back to work and men stay at home if that is what is right for the couple. In the French families where the women go back to work, are the men giving up work to look after the children? I'm guessing not - so that;s a different thing again.

That's sort of my point, ImSo- whilst work at home is denigrated as 'time off', it will usually be women who stay at home with the children. It's not really about assigning gender roles, more about women assuming the role with lesser status.

The cost of childcare is much more highly subsidized in France than in the UK, making it "easier" for mothers to WOHM.

At the very extremes of the economic spectrum, there are more SAHMs. I think that is probably an inevitability whatever your economic system.

My questions, bonsoir, would be: Who takes/fetches the dcs from childcare? Who stays home if they are ill? Who goes to school plays/assemblies etc.

If it is either parent, fair play, you have an equal situation where both parties choose to work. If it is generally the woman, you still have an unequal situation.

There are no school plays, assemblies etc in France. There are occasional outings which a few parents are invited to attend as helpers.

At my DD's school, a lot of fathers do the morning school run. Afternoon pick-ups tend to be done by nannies, babysitters and grandparents if the parents are working.

Yes, France is much better for women who want to work.

But my point was that as long as women want men they look up to, rely on, who are a bit older and earn more and men rather like that they out earn their woman and she is in a sense lesser you will continue to get 4 in 5 women earning less than their man. Then even if it's not a sexist relationship you have the conversation i had when I was 21 with my then fiance about which of us would look after the children if we couldn't find a nanny (we could and she stayed 10 years) and in our case he said him becuse I would earn more but in the 4 in 5 cases it would be the lower earner.

Get the women earning more than the men they choose and then over time it will get easier. Even in two career couples working full time again and again the woman earns less so she is the one who rushes home if the child is sick or has to be home at 6 every day to get the child from nursery/childminder. If the woman earned 10x what her husband did as I did then you don't get that power imbalance and if someone's career has to be shot to pieces it's not Mrs 10x it's Mr pin money.

xenia - that is our situation now. DH is a teacher so works school hours and terms. I earn more, have always done even when part-time, but now I am doing less of the household work. And yes I feel a great deal happier with life and more satisfied with my job.

In Belgium there is an equal parental leave entitlement. Lots of guys take it too.

Ah, well there is the way to go. Direct your teenage girls away from worthy female nursing and into being leadnig surgeons, away from being the typist to leading the board of Shell and happiness shall be theirs.

Bonsoir, what are average female earnings relative to male in France? (I think that earnings inequality in general is lower than in the UK - but I might be out of date?)

Here the Union's have a big influence on pay scales. Wages are set by your age, level of experience and the industry you work in. Gender doesn't come into it.

But surely you can still get unequal average earnings if jobs where there are more women are paid less than jobs where there are more men? (Disclaimer, I know very little about the employment situation in Belgium - perhaps it is a haven of gender equality and there are no 'female' or 'male' jobs?)