I consider myself a feminist...and a housewife.

[darcymum]

I don't want a job, I just want to stay home look after my children and cook nice dinners. I dread the day my youngest goes to school as I know I will have to get a job. DH goes to work I do most of the house work... I like it that way. I am not a surrendered wife, my husband doesn't tell me what to do.

And yet I consider myself a feminist, I am a feminist, and am a very strong supporter of women's rights, and men's rights if they want to stay at home and be 'mum' like me.

Am I deluded and oppressed and just don't know it?

FioFio, I don't think so, I would probably say I'm both. I believe that people should be free to make whatever choices suit them as individuals (therefore I would say I'm a libertarian). I would also say that I believe that men and women should have equal rights and choices (therefore I would say I'm a feminist). I don't think these two things are mutually exclusive. I happen to think that women have fewer real choices than men.

sorry, that all sounded a bit cross, didn't it? not meant to be.

however, at least I'm disproving the widely held belief that men are direct while women are polite

On imagine's good point about assessing household needs (money, childcare, housekeeping) and then working out privately between you and DP how to achieve this - I absolutely agree that this is the right approach.

However, I think you need to think longer term about the issue, and this is where Lenin's points about pension, divorce etc come in. It's particularly relevant on the money side.

This household needs

• Money now, and the ability to earn money in the future, and an income in retirement, and some kind of insurance / plan B capability in case one of the adults falls under a bus/leaves
• Childcare, quality of care, enough stability for children, ability to cope with childhood illness etc
• Housekeeping - erm, and long-term maintenance? (this bit more dodgy, ok!)

I think as a feminist, you need to take responsibility for the choices you are making now and for the future, as well as fight to change how the system penalises short-term choices to stay at home with long-term impacts.

Thinking about it, I'd probably add something to imagine's list along the lines of "adults who are as happy with their individual situation/share as possible". I think that's probably implicit, but maybe helps to make some of the choice element in the feminist thing explicit.

What's wrong with being a libertarian? Well as long as you are happy to permit everything. To have no provisos or restrictions on behaviour. To see the freedom of the invidual as the main goal of society. But I don't think most of us do. I would suggest that most of us are happy to accept that our actions have an impact on others and to care about that. I will happily put my hand up to being a liberal but not a libertarian.

Who is this Zenia person? Is going to put me right and show be how in fact I am being oppressed?

darcymum... oh yes.

Does she breath fire?

I have to admit, I am a little bit scared.

actualy an experiment where a mixed group were left to wait in a waiting room (believing they were waiting to be experimented on) found the men talked more than the women, on average. 'women talk more' has always seemed to me to be bollocks.

I have a dream that one day my daughters will be entitled to a 5 year career break to have children and to look after them. Or choose this opton for their partners. Then return to work at previous level. If I could gave had this I could be brow beating all the SAHM's right now.

My 'choice' to stay at home (dd3 is 10 months) wasn't based on ideology, but on practicalities.I never gad laid maternity leave, j worked 6 month vontracts, reduced to a daily rate. Being a SAHM Is an imperfect choice for me as i rely on DP financially and we are up shit creek if he has an accident.

And be afraid of xenia, be very afraid. Her logic is relentless. It's terrifying.

Surely you can only "choose" to be a sahm if you happen to have children with a man who earns enough to enable this to happen. I'm not sure where the feminisim is in this personally.

Yes you're right, I am very lucky to have this choice. I am not saying being a SAHM is a feminist choice, I'm just saying it doesn't mean I am not a feminist because this is what I do.

As for my husband earning more than me (which he did even when I worked) he trained for six years to do a job I just pissed around and when travelling etc. As I have said I have never been career minded.

Minipie, returning to my earlier point, I've heard a few times on here, and elsewhere that people often choose to bottle-feed (or are pressurised into stopping bf) so that the father can bond, and 'have a go'.
That it's selfish to breastfeed.
Sharing maternity leave would give another reason for men to feel jealous.
In order to be 'equal' couples would split the maternity leave.
It could be a disincentive for some women to bf.

As an aspiring feminist, I have to confess to being a bit intimidated by all the academic views on this thread.

I work part time, which in my view, is a compromise (possibly in the pejorative sense) between my desire to continue my career and to care for my children. I have to say that working PT in a male dominated industry is crap, and the views of my employers are pretty questionable.

My DH would love to also work part-time, so we could share the childcare arrangements, however the sexism of his employer creates an obstacle. There is one woman who works PT in DH's work, and he can see that as a result, her career opportunities have been limited. If DH asked for PT hours (even by a reduction of 1 day a week) he is pretty certain he would be demoted.

"Staying at home was the least ideal, though. My DH is a fabulous and fair man who was happy to take a 'what's mine is yours' approach, yet I still loathed the idea of being financially dependent on a man. How can anyone bear it in the long term? It is just anathaema to me as a feminist. That was the crux of the matter for me. Work = financial independence = being a truly free and adult in this big bad world. Anything else is misery to me. "

Totally agree. I'm financially dependant on my husband, even though I made a feminist choice to SAHM. I am arguing the case for paying mothers out of taxes here

There are definitely pros and cons to this and they're being discussed in detail

But we definitely should callenge the assumption that only paid work is work, paid work being defined as what a capitalist system can milk out of its labourers. We should also challenge the assumption that if a family prefers to have one person at home (father/mother whoever) because they may be non-materialistic and may feel that the person at home is making an economic contribution through cooking, making things, creativity rather than bought entertainment etc, and most importantly taking the job of child-rearing upon themselves, that they are taking the lazy option.

I want to add to my point about the capitalist system only regarding paid work as work and other work (usually care-work) as being trivial.
Some people have been duped into believing their work is important because its paid, while a housewife's work is irrelevant.
Anyone who really thinks this should really reflect on an article I just read in Newsweek about American-stylee capitalism.

"Whether it was Frederick Taylor, the inventor of scientific management, walking around Victorian era factories with stop-watches, timing worker's motions; or Henry Ford perfecting the assembly line; or W Edwards Deming developing totally quality management; or Walmart's insanely effective supply chains--the pursuit of efficiency is as American as apple pie"

What's to bet that the workers in the victoria era factories were women? They timed their hand movements so they could calculate how much profit they could get out of each particular worker, and no doubt how little they could pay each worker per hand-movement.

THis is one, among a milion other reasons, why women's traditional work in the home has systematically been completely trivialised by the patriarchy.

I don't want women back in the home and kept out of the public sphere, but I want the women who are in the public sphere to realise the value of child-raising, because children are a feminist issue IMO

We studied scientific management the other day (I'm taking a leadership course), and no mention was made of the sex, age, class or otherwise of the workers involved, but the key point is that they were considered as essentially machines, and as entirely motivated by money. It's a very reductionist view, and having looked at American industrial history factory workers were all treated very harshly (lots of strike breaking, shipping in workers from other countries etc). The other thing to know is that as a movement it has been pretty much abandoned (now it is mainly taught as a how wrong they got that and how time has moved on type lesson). However the reason that it has moved on is that at least in the West, most companies rely on their workers as rather more than a pair of hands because of the complexity of work.

Ford is interesting because one of the things he did was to pay his workers more than the market to reduce high turnover. He did talk about them being men, so I don't know if he employed women.

I don't know why Demming was included in that list, he was all about systems, but also about how individuals at all levels play a very important role in learning an teaching and continuously improving systems (so pretty much the opposite of scientific management).

Walmart are of course well known for discriminatory practice as well as for lean supply chains and using their bargaining power.

But yes they were all about efficiency, and in work at least, there is nothing wrong with that. Working in inefficient systems and being able to do nothing about them is incredibly frustrating for everyone, empowering people to bring about positive change generally makes people happier.

For me the question for darcymum is why she dreads going back to work so, and how can she find something that she would enjoy, because life is long and whilst I think the orthodoxy that it's only babies who need a parent on tap is wrong, I don't think that making your entire life centre around house and home is very healthy.

For DeirdreB I'd ask whether she would give a son different advice from her daughter, and if so then I can't see that that is compatible with feminism.

Sakura's idea about people who care for children being paid out of taxes is pretty much the way the French system works and nobody bats an eyelid at it here.

As I said before, in France when the second child is born the family gets 3 years paid parental leave. Either parent can take the leave. In order to qualify for this the person must have contributed to the national insurance system for a minimum of two years in the last 4 years before the birth of the child. I happen to think this is pretty fair and it stops too much abuse of the system.

The amount paid is not huge but added to child benefit it comes to nearly 600 Euros a month which I think is very generous when you think it is over a period of three years.

If neither parent chooses to SAH the family gets money towards childcare costs (you also get this with the first child).

The French system is of the view that if the tax system can pay for people who are out of work or who cannot work for health reasons then it should also pay people who are not working in order to bring up children.

The cut off is three years old because all French children are offered a school place from 3 years old.

I think this is a very fair system which allows people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to to spend the early years with their children. I think it is important that parents who choose to work receive a similar sum towards childcare.

Also the money received is not taxed and the state contributes to the person's pension during the 3 year leave period. The leave period is flexible, the person can work part time if they choose and receive a reduced sum.

Beachcomber- When you say that either parent can take the three years, can I ask is it usually the woman who does this, or the man or is it an even split would you say?
What is the general attitude in the work place to this arrangement i.e. is it frowned upon for the man to take the three years?

Also, are there arrangements made to keep which ever parent takes the three years in the loop industry wise, so their career isnt effected?

Sorry to bombard you but Im intrigued!

Wow beachcomber that sounds so civilised.