Proponents of 'equality feminism'- convince me that men will play fair!

[Sakura]

I've mentioned (rather a lot) on here about my choice to become a SAHM, but I've noticed that this decision seems to have been lumped into a chategory called "choice feminism" i.e the choice to wear high heels, cut up your body to look beautiful or work in the sex industry. Being a SAHM appears to be regarded as anti-feminist by women who believe that men and women are basically the same and therefore my choice is not really a choice after all, but a result of social conditioning.
So proponents of equality feminism envisage a world where men partake in 50% of the childcare and 50% of women are in the boardroom.

Now call me cynical, call me man-hater, but history has shown me that men do not play fair and in general they only agree to something if there's something in it for them. (Women were finally 'allowed' work simply because it flooded the market with a supply of cheaper labour, not because men suddenly though "OH yes, women are just as capable as us". So ultimately it benefited men. Rich men) I think that equality feminists are being very naive in thinking that once we get to a stage where men do half the childcare the world will all be peachy.

I think we should pay attention very closely to history. 10 years ago I read a very chilling message by Germaine Greer in The Whole Woman that I identified with completely: women are gradually losing their grip on motherhood.
And motherhood (child-bearing and rearing) is the only thing that sets us apart from men. We can do it better than men, and because men are stronger and wired differently there are other things that men can do better than us.
Because motherhood has been completely and systematically devalued by society, women see paid work as being the better option at this moment in time.
But I will not willingly give up my birthright as a woman to be a mother and be with my children when they are young until I see something better to replace it, and right now I do not.

Its happening already, where men are using the word 'equality' to advantage themselves. I think it was Leningrad who mentioned a woman she knew on maternity leave who was having to pay half the bills out of her maternity allowance in the name of equality.

The most shocking public example I see is of BRitney Spears. She had what seemed to be a nervous breakdown culminating in her shaving her head. Then when her relationship broke down her ex received custody of the children on the basis that she was mentally unstable. Then because she was the higher earner she had to pay him maintenance, so a law that was put in place to protect women was being used against a woman who was denied access to her children. Nobody thought to consider that she shaved her head in protest against being completely objectified (I think she was 17 when her first hit came out) and seen as being nothing more than a sex object. In shaving her head she was asserting her autonomous self.
Then (and this bit makes me sick), because she was "insane" her father took it upon himself to confiscate her assets. Her father and brother (a lawyer) fought for the right to wrest her assets from her until she was considered more 'sane'. Patriarchy at its worst. The courts thought this a perfectly reasonable request and her brother took over her money. Her father and told her that she could only have her money back once she'd got herself together i.e back into Barbie mode. She managed to do that, probably because she wanted to see her kids again.

Nowhere did anyone say: "But she's a mother, let's not separate her from her children when she at her worst. Get her some proper support so she can keep seeing then until she's back on her feet. She's going through at terrible patch at the moment, but lets offer her support and lets make sure she gets to stay with her kids. Nope, they wisked those children away, because "If you want equal rights, then equal rights you will get".

Rant over. Anyway, back on track. Please convince me that men will play fair and not just use the equality as another way to oppress and disadvantage mothers and motherhood.

"I think the upshot of the changes you suggest would be that any woman choosing to go back to work was unnatural and a bad mother who wouldn't deserve to have children. "

Yes, I realise that. Perhaps I am over-shooting a little. I do think that whatever the outcome for society or for women, that women themselves need to value what they do. Right now they don't. When I gave birth to my first baby I was just so incredibly shocked by the realisation that this is what women do, they give birth and it's fucking amazing. How did I reach the age of 25 without somebody pointing out to me how fucking amazing it is. But nobody does. Women are not given the respect they deserve. It's just taken for granted that the babies will keep coming- that rich men who run corporations will just keep getting a steady supply of customers from somewhere.

Another argument is, I suppose, that if we lived in a more feminised society, where female values took precedence, then funding motherhood wouldn't be too much of a problem (in the distant future, I suppose). I think a lot of society's stigmas result from living under patriarchy. For example, the stigma of getting pregnant out of wedlock, or even having sex out of wedlock, then having an abortion. I think the stigma attached to working women (saying it's unnatural and all that), was created by patriarchy. To keep women down. Society had no problem at all ripping little boys away from their mothers at the tender ages of 5/6/7 and sending them to boarding school to toughen them up. So historically patriarchy has never really been that sentimental about motherhood. It's just when women decide to leave the children it suddenly becomes unnatural.
But I see your point.
It doesn't mean that women can't value motherhood, thought. I don't think a mother and a father are the same thing. And that was the main point of starting the thread, because people are starting to say that we are and that worries me.

I don't like all this emphasis on mothering. Mothers aren't Gods. Fathers can be brilliant. Being a parent is indeed an incredible experience but it's not rocket science and most parents work too. It's just part of life. Most women and men don't want to be with the children all the time.

Yes, I can distinguish domestic tasks from being mother. Just because I work doesn't mean I don't interact with my children. In fact as I've been doing it for 25 years I will have had more hours with my children than anyone on the thread even house wives! I am the expert amongst us I suppose in terms of hours served - can I have my medal......

I just disagree with the issue on this thread. If we say motherhood but not father hood is some special thing and pay people to do it that will keep women down and damage their lives. It would be a terribly bad thing. We all knw that how we interact with those we love matters more than our work but that doesn't mean we have not to work. Most parents choose good people to care for their chidlren. 600,000 men in the UK now are that primary carer and grandparents are second but whoever looks after the children for whatever periods in the week they do as good if not a better job than plenty of mothers.

What we do need to encourge is much more gender neutrality - so if a man at work mentions his wife is pregnant ask whether he'll be giving up work or which of he or his wife will look after it or what childcare they will use. I ve had loads of conversations with involved fathers over the last 25 years about childcare arrangements. Obviously there are still plenty of sexist men (and women) around but it's all going in a very good direction.

I know this too Xenia. The last thing I want is for us to go backwards- to an age where women were told they couldn't do things because of their biology. But I fear we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater...

I think women have a bigger stake in children because they give birth so we'll have to agree to disagree on that. Lots of men aren't even around, or don't even know they're a father or aren't even interested. Some run off or shirk responsibility by trying to get out of paying maintenance. Maybe I have seen more bad examples than you, I don't know. Women don't do this to quite the same extent, so I think mothering and the value that is placed on it is a feminist issue. I don't think you can control men. Some men care deeply about fatherhood, true, but some men truly don't give a shit about it one way or another (I've met men from the underclasses- believe me on this one. Some men can't be socialised)

And mothering (done by whoever) is still deeply undervalued in our society (just like pregnancy and birth) and that must be addressed.

I mean I've met men from the underclasses who are like this.
NOt oooh, "I met a man from the underclass"

And by underclass I don't mean working class, I mean the non-working class...

Although don't want to be classist. There are good and bad men in all classist. I just don't know any high class men!

Highclass men and women abandon their children too. it's regarded worse if women leave their chidlren with their father than if men do though and I find that incredibly sexist. That's the sort of thing we need to root out not to say mother hood is special.

But gosh no one could disagree with your general point - men from year dot have raped and pillaged and spred their seed (read Adam's Curse) and populated this planet and pregnant women are left int heir wake... although apparently women marry dull men who are good providers and have their children with exciting men with better genes hence how many babies will not be their father's. I think there shoudl be compulsory paternity tests if you have an NHS birth. I'd be happy to pay extra tax to cover that.

Sakura - I agree with you completely that mothering is undervalued in our society, but I would argue that the best way to resolve the issue is to get men involved, get them spending time with their children, looking after them and participating in both the mundane and the amazing. The more men realise how hard it is to look after children the more the work is likely to be valued by the society we actually live in.

While I think there are ways of tinkering around the edges to pay women to stay at home - eg transferable tax allowances, I think anything more fundamental would not only allow the man not to play fair with regards to the work that becomes 'womens work' i.e. cleaning, childcare and anything he doesn't want to do but also make this the societal norm. It is my gut feeling that many men would be far happier to reclaim the world of work in its entirety than to actually take on the 'home' side of things.

It's true Sakura, we don't know the reasons behind any of the decisions people we know make. I think most of the women I know make genuine decisions to go back to work because they like it (but most of my friends are university educated and have professional jobs I admit) but equally I know women that are effectively forced to give up because partners won't help at home, work won't allow any flexibility or simply because they would be worse off financially once they paid for childcare. It works both ways, some women are forced to work, some are forced to stay at home.

The issue of working class women is interesting. I don't think that just because people don't earn much, they can't enjoy their jobs. My hairdresser friend is just one example of someone in a badly paid profession who loves her work. I'm sure there are others. I know the supermarkets are often cited as the worst examples of minimum wage work and assumed to be a vision of working hell. I used to work in a supermarket (behind the checkouts) when I was student. I hated it, but it's easy to forget that there were a lot of permanent staff who enjoyed the work. They tended to be older. The women were usually mothers with children of varying ages, and they just enjoyed getting out of the house, seeing friends, it was a sociable place. I honestly don't believe it's true that just because someone earns very little they would always prefer to be at home with their kids. Obviously these women benefited from part time work, flexibility etc but they liked the balance they had, it was healthy for them.

I think for most people the key is balance. Some people will want to be at home full time, others like Xenia will want to be back at work in a few weeks. Most will probably want something in between.

I think that the change that I have seen over the last few years in the UK that has been most beneficial to mothers has been the introduction of paternity leave and flexible working. I remember when paternity leave first came in and no one took it, but now everyone does. Flexible working has meant that women can strike that balance and hopefully work the hours that better suit them. And the fact that men have started to demand it too can only be a positive thing. Ten years ago it would be frowned upon to leave early, take time off, work from home. Nowadays, my male boss doesn't question it if I do any of these simply because he likes to do them too.

I know it's infuriating for a feminist to see that society only values the things that men do. It's a mixed up way of thinking, men do it so therefore it must be good. But the fact is that the more men take an active part in the upbringing of their children, the more they will value motherhood.

"...the best way to resolve the issue is to get men involved, get them spending time with their children, looking after them and participating in both the mundane and the amazing. The more men realise how hard it is to look after children the more the work is likely to be valued by the society we actually live in."

While this may be true, it is the very thing that should be challenged. That is to say, the fact that society only ascribes value to what men do. I am not content to accept childcare, or anything else, will only be valued when men do it - it's my society too - and it's these deep seated attitudes that need to change. Otherwise it will continue to be the case that anything women do is automatically undervalued.

"But the fact is that the more men take an active part in the upbringing of their children, the more they will value motherhood."

They won't, they'll value fatherhood.

"And I'm loving the fact that tortoise has reduced my argument to "sakura loves her husband". "

for fuck's sake, Sakura. I have engaged with your arguments over and over again on this thread. I have said, several times, that I understand that you are worried about men asserting legal rights without concomitant responsibility, I have talked about systemic change and 'neutralising' the groups of men you're worried about by encouraging some of them into the house. I have spent a LOT of time and passion on this thread.

My reference to you loving your husband (and I loving mine, by the way) was in direct fucking response to someone right before my post claiming that we are manhaters. I was making the point that neither side of this argument has said anything but positive things about the men in their own lives.

You are just being disingenous now, frankly. That was perfectly clear, and you are intelligent and well read and analytical, so you can only be trying to neutralise my arguments by deliberately mischaracterising them.

So I'm done.

toroise, yes sorry about that. that was wrong. no excuses- I didn't read your post properly. But to be fair, you did do your fair share of SAHM-bashing at the beginning of the thread without reading my posts properly which is why I just skim through your posts. BUt I'm glad this discussion has moved on to talking about what I am actually arguing for, rather than other things I am not. So I promise if you post again, I will read properly.

azazello said:
"Sakura - I agree with you completely that mothering is undervalued in our society, but I would argue that the best way to resolve the issue is to get men involved, get them spending time with their children, looking after them and participating in both the mundane and the amazing. The more men realise how hard it is to look after children the more the work is likely to be valued by the society we actually live in."

We discussed GardenPath's point further up the thread: that if the only reason things gain value is because men are doing them then that is a continuation of the devaluation of what women do. (Maths is a regarded as a female subject in Japan and as such it is seen as a soft subject, for example).

" It is my gut feeling that many men would be far happier to reclaim the world of work in its entirety than to actually take on the 'home' side of things. "

Very true. But it is also my gut feeling that many men, due to their high fertility (as opposed to women's low-fertility), may be pre-disposed, as a gender, to eschew fatherhood altogether (not all men before we go onto that). That makes mothering a female priority, as far as I can see.
How would you deal with this situation? I felt guilty after making my 'underclass' comment because I then recalled an unpleasant incident at uni (2002) There was this rich bloke, not a catch by any means. He got this girl pregnant; she was a local girl not at the university. When he found out about the pregnancy, because it didn't fit into his life plan (as if it fitted in with hers!), his reaction was to slander her to everyone who would listen- about how she'd sneaked into his bed when he was drunk and practically raped him. He got all his mates in on this and they'd snigger at her whenever she walked past (small town). Understandably, she didn't want a man like that to be in her life let alone be involved with her baby. In the end he left uni, never to be heard from again. As far as she was concerned it was good riddance. But this example is very pertinent. You can say it's because men have been nurtured to run away from fatherhood, but my gut instinct is that there is something more to it, something biological about it. WOmen do abandon their children, that's true, I'm not saying women are saints. BUt because of biology (pregnancy, childbirth , breastfeeding) they already have a bigger stake in parenting than men do, and so that could be why women abandoning their children is much less prevalent as far as I can see. So this idea of men taking over 50% of the mothering strikes me as being a little naive. BUt it's fine as a theory, just like my argument is fine as a theory. The reality of life is so different. And again, I'm very worried that women are handing over their rights to their children in the name of something elusive called equality, without really understanding how different men and women really are.

I also think maybe my view have been influenced by living in Russia.
I lived in the town (Yaroslavl), which is home to the first female astronaut in the world. Russian women were the first in the world to enter university, among the first to vote (1917)/ They dominate in academia, medicine, science- all areas really (not politics, for some reason).
They were the first to be involved in a mass daycare system designed to get all women out to work. Under communism, Russia wanted to increase its productivity to the max, so they used everything women had to offer: all of their brains and talent (especially in science because of the arms race).
So I was shocked to hear that Russian women felt very strongly that they weren't feminist, and I wanted to find out more about it. First of all, because women were doing those things, the monetary value seeped out of them immediately. When I went to Russia in 1995, shortly after the collapse, taxi-drivers were paid more than university professors, therefore naturally all the men were becoming taxi-drivers.
A mass daycare system was set up for all women, and while there was lots of good in this, the women for some reason were drawn to be with their babies. There was something about women being told they couldn't be with their babies that made them react sharply against it.
I know, I know- the last thing we want is for men to start thinking again that women's destiny is to be with babies; God even I'd rather give up being with my babies than be told that by anyone. BUt I'm asking other feminists to consider these issues, and discuss them with me.

Thanks Sakura; I wasn't going to check back here, but did.

I haven't been consciously SAHM-bashing; I have said several times that I enjoy childcare and housework (when I had more free time, I made my own jam and pickled my own onions, and an afternoon of cleaning is my idea of fun). I have also said that I'd quite like to be able to give up work and stay home, but it would renege on my agreement with my husband, and take away the time my daughter gets with him, and that's not fair to either of them.

But my main point stands:

"Women who want to work in high powered careers are often stymied because they are also expected to do the second shift of housework and childcare, and it's too much without help (partner or paid). It's one of the reasons for the persistence of the pay gap, the glass ceiling, etc. To improve matters for women, you need women in positions of legislative and judicial power. Not because those jobs, for individual women, are the best choice. But because if you want a society that supports and values women's work, you need a society where women hold meaningful power and can pass laws supporting the things you want supported.

Patriarchy exists by men bandying together, as you say, so to change patriarchy we need women to break into those groups. The second shift prevents us. The idea that we are naturally better parents and children will suffer if we don't stay at home with them prevents us. The idea that men are more naturally competitive and hierarchial (ideas which have been used to support the contention that men are naturally better equipped to be lawyers, politicians, generals, etc) prevents us. I'm getting passionate about your argument not because I'm naive, but because your argument is designed to keep women in the home and out of the boardroom, and frankly, fuck that for a game of soldiers.

Discouraging men from making career sacrifices to stay home with children also prevents us. Put aside all my feelgood posts about how good a father my husband is, and let's be cynical. That's one man who has been neutralised - taken out of the competitive bands of rich powerful men and introduced into the sphere of nurture and cooperation. Isn't that a good thing? Don't you want to see more of that?

The reason men won't use equality to their advantage is that it's not all one-way. If they're going to take on 50% of the childcare (which is NOT the same as having 50% of the legal rights, by the way, which is what Greer is talking about) they won't be able to keep undertaking 95% of the positions of power as well. The status of at-home parents will rise, which is what you want. And women will enter the positions of power and legislate for better, which is presumably also what you want. "

I do actually agree that expecting men to take over 50% of the mothering is naive. I don't think they'll do it, for a range of social and biological reasons. But I do think that if they did, it would help to break up the patriarchy.

This is the bit I disagree with "No! we sort out all the other shit first, then we give men half the rights. "

My argument is that encouraging men into childcare benefits women and benefits children. It is, in my view, an essential step on the road to equality.

tortoise in theory it's an essential step.

But I can see it going the same way as Nuts etc. Some time in the eighties or nineties, we were told that the main gains of feminism had been acheived and so we could all start larfing at sexism again, in an ironic, modern, post-feminist way. Being secure enough to laugh at old-hat stereotypes instead of challenging them, was an essential step on the way to equality. Only it didn't lead us up to equality - it's just led to the porn culture and a rape conviction rate of 6%. I very much take Sakura's point that any essential steps we take on the road to equality, will be taken and used by the patriarchy for its own ends and therefore we need to be extremely careful about what essential steps we take and bear in mind the law of unintended consequences.

Sakura, I'm glad that you found being pregnant and giving birth were wonderful fabulous things for you. That's great. Many people don't have that deep instant bonding thing. However that doesn't make your children your possessions. I really really object to the idea that children "belong" to anyone. They are not possessions they are individuals in their own right that as parents we have a huge shared lifelong responsibility for.

There is no way I have "delegated" mothering to the father of my children, or for that matter to the other carers in their lives. I think that this is an utterly pernicious approach, and a great deal of the reason for the second shift, and the idea of the "good" men who take their parenting role seriously. My husband is not a substitute for me, he is an equal parent. That I grew the children in my womb doesn't elevate my role, that I breastfed for a while doesn't make me a better parent to my school aged children. Of course dh and I are different as parents, we have our strengths and weaknesses, the ways we approach the children and the children approach us are different too. I think that difference is positive and enriching, and that children with two active and engaged parents do very well, and that being an engaged mother or father is a pleasure too.

I can't really add to Herbeautitude's post because that sums up my whole argument, I suppose.

tortoise,
Yes, we need to go further into breaking up patriarchy, a lot further. It's still everywhere. I went the natural childbirth route, not because I'm an earth-mother goddess, but because the patriarchy that existed within hospitals frightened the shit out of me. I want more women in top positions in hospital, women who know other women, not Thatcherish man-women; so I can birth safely in my own time without the fear of an unnecessary episiotomy etc etc. What you are doing is very important, very important.

But, but...

"they won't be able to keep undertaking 95% of the positions of power as well"

I rather think they will. Well not 95% but a good proportion of it. I mentioned the Russian example above. Taxi-drivers get paid more than uni professors in Russia, so somehow men become taxi-drivers and women don't. Women become trolley-bus and tram drivers, which takes far more skill and physical strength than it takes to drive a car. Quite why and how this happens I have no idea. Russia's a very dangerous place- very high crime rate towards women so maybe it's the safety issue..but this type of thing is everywhere. It's the men bandying together that I was talking about.

Got to return to Greer here:
"In understanding male power it is important to understand that masculine oligarchies exclude not only all women but most men."

So it could be that the kind of man who would co-operate with women anyway, the kind of man who would become a SAHD, may be the kind of man that would be excluded from the higher echelons of male power anyway, not being bloody or cut-throat or narcissistic or single-minded enough to vye his way to the top.

Your theory is that women can somehow wrest 50% of the power men. My theory is that, given what I know about men, given that a lot of them aren't interested in fatherhood, but are more interested in vying for power with other men, we can't. So my theory is, ok, if they want to live in a society alongside women, then we should damn well force them to pay for the raising of the children within that society. SO we tax the richest and distribute it out.
Some men don't even want to live in a society with women. The Taliban just went off to live in the mountains; in lots of religions men separate themselves from women and become monks. Look at the army. SOme men in these situations are happy to get sex from prostitutes (I am fiercly against prostitution BTW), or from weaker men, or from children ( the priests).

50% of the power off men

But yes, getting a father to do childcare and contribute his share in domestic tasks will free up women to work properly. I'm a SAHM while my husband is at work, but domestic chores are split well. He takes the kids whenever he's at home. This means I can concentrate on doing what I want to do, brushing up skills and such, for when I do return to the workforce. This may sound anal, but if one of us goes on a night out they don't get another one untill the other person has gone on a night out! (our kids are tiny so this is really important)

Men and women don't have to live together if they choose not too. Plenty of feminsts give up and gave up men. It's a perfectly rational choice. But most human beings do prefer to be with a partner and most don't want to leave their children, whether they are male or female.

The collective childcare of the Russians, the state control of family size in China, the kibbutzim in Israel where originally children went to live in houses without their parents and there was communal care - none of these things are that popular if imposed and the state rarely does anything very well whereas the free market does.

Women are increasingly gaining power. Everyone who chooses to become a housewife rather than the senior director on the board she was on or running or local Tesco or whatever equivalent is stopping the chances of that fair sharing of power. Women have a huge part to play in ensuring an equal world for their daughters and they achieve it by sharing the mop with their husband and having a career on an equal or indeed better footing than his.

As I say, I don't want communism, I do want a free market, but I want a socialist-style economy that distributes more money towards childcare than it does towards war, and as we've seen recently, a free-market system is also flawed and led to the credit crunch so maybe more state regulation woud be desirable..

Agree with all you say Xenia.

BUt I have to finish by saying tread carefully and if you hear some ranty feminist saying we shouldn't hand over equal childcare rights to men without a long, hard think, then it might not be because she's a man-hater who wants the world to be in favour women.
Don't worry about the men, There are more than enough women out there screeching "BUt feminists, what about the men? As Herbeautitude summed up so well, I don't want the patriarchy to deny women access to their children because women went to work.