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?

It is, as you say smallorange, very civilised!

No probs for the questions foureleven. IME it is nearly always the woman who takes the time off. Employers have a legal obligation to keep the person's job open for them or offer them a similar position with the same level of responsibility and pay on the worker's return. AFAIK it is up to the worker to keep themselves up to date with their industry as necessary. I think technically an employer can refuse to accept the request for leave but in practice this never actually happens.

I don't think employers love the scheme particularly, but it is so widely accepted as part of the benefit system that they have no choice but to go along with it. I know plenty of women who have taken their leave from all sorts of jobs and nobody has had a problem with their employer. Obviously a person will miss out on promotions/pay rises, etc. during their leave.

The leave is divided up into three one year stints. At the beginning of each year the worker decides if they want to work full time, part time or not at all. It is possible for example to not work at all the first year, part time the second and then go back full time or at 80% the third year. Again the employer has to agree to this and it isn't always possible for them to be fully flexible.

I suspect that it more acceptable (in employers' eyes) for women to take parental leave than men. I don't know any men that have done it so don't have any experience of this.

I think this scheme is excellent and very fair but I don't think it has changed the male/female dynamic of childcare. It does however open up choices for working mothers and places value on the role of childcaring.

I know women who have never worked and therefore do not fill the criteria for the leave, they tend to think that this is fair enough. Mostly these women are either from households which do not need the extra money or they are on benefits which they continue to receive after having children.

Thats great that people can go back in to the job they left. I think thats a huge problem in the UK, if you take a 3 year career break you're pretty much at the bottom of the list for re-employment. Thus, women are pushed further back down the career ladder, as its them usually left holding baby until it starts school. By which point confidence levels have also dropped and the two factors together often mean a woman will then 'choose' to just stay at home ongoing.

Does it also somewhat give preferencial treatment to lower earning women because women who are the bread winner of a couple would have higher outgoings than this scheme could support..

Still, an interesting concept, and more forward thinking than UK.

Beachcomber, that sounds really good. That's the kind of thing I'd be happy with.

For me the main flaw in this system is that the leave is only available for families with two or more children. I forgot to say that it is not just available for the second but also for subsequent children. A parent with 3 children may have taken 6 years leave for example.

I think it is unfair that it is not available for the first and don't really understand why this is the case although I suspect it is part of French social policy to encourage people to have children.

Interestingly this leave is very much seen as 'leave' and not 'being on benefits'.

Yes it shouldn't be seen as being 'on benefits' because it's a job. I always find it shocking that in the UK a teenage mother with a baby is sort of lumped into the same group as an unemployed male. She's already got a full-time job, I think.

I agree that they probably want people to have more kids. Same in Japan- your benefits go up the more kids you have (still a measly amount though).

The main problem I have with staying home and looking after my babies is being dependant on DH financially. So if a woman (or man) stays at home to raise kids its either a) be dependant on someone or b) poverty trap
I just don't think those two options are good enough really for what the job is.

My two pence.

1. Feminism, womens rights is the right to be treated equally, both men and women should have the same rights in everything, men should be entitled to exactly the same maternity laws as what women are, it should be the families choice who is the Housewife/husband etc.

1. Feminism is not the right to be given preferential treatment, so called positive discrimination and giving women more rights then men, is a backwards step IMO.

So IMO being happy to be a feminist housewife is a perfectly fine and normal thing as long as it's your choice to be a housewife.

Ryoko,

"2. Feminism is not the right to be given preferential treatment, so called positive discrimination and giving women more rights then men, is a backwards step IMO. "

Lots and lots of back-history though isn't there... We still live in a patriarchical society, so that has to be taken into consideration when you discuss these things...there are also social and cultural issues that disadvantage women, feminization of poverty, women being objectified etc etc. All else being equal I completely agree with your second point. Society as it stands right now...Completely disagree. We need moves such as positive disgrimination in business and politics to help enfranchise women IMO. IN the future I hope to see a society where men and women can be treated equally.

Of course feminism is about choice. In the past, women had little respectable choice but to marry and produce a lot of children, or else to enter a nunnery. These days, women have more life choices than men, thanks to feminism. And if they wish to use their skills and education to be great mothers and wives/partners, why not?

Sakura

I think positive discrimination and the like, makes things worse, no one likes to think someone is getting preferential treatment and it makes things harder for those that got somewhere due to merit.

like MPs for example and this all female shortlist thing, makes people think they are where they are simply because of sex and people will think less of them, if I was an MP who'd worked hard to get where I was I would be very annoyed.

I am a SAHM and often describe myself as a neo-feminist. We are told that e can have the perfect career and the perfect family but for many woman this is a myth. Lots of women find they work ful time and still do the majority of the childcare and housework. How is this equality? I believe we need a new type of feminism to reflect this, hence the neo in my self description.
I do the majority of housework and cildcare whilst my husband does paid work to ay the bills but this is what works for us. TBH he would love to be a SAHD, and we would ideally do half each but a she earns 3 times what I would financially it is not viable. He is more jealous of my time at home than I am of his time at work.
However I would strogly support anyone who wanted to be at work. We have the right to choose. Surely that is feminism and nbot being forced to fit someone else's definition of what you should be.

I completely disagree. Fewer than 20% of our MPs are women. This is a problem and needs to be solved as soon as possible. That's not going to happen on its own: positive action is needed.

(sorry, that was in reply to Ryoko)

We need to look at why more women don't become Mps and tackle it that way too though.

Still waiting for Xenia!

Ryoko (are you Japanese by the way?)
Without positive discrimination we'll be waiting forever.
In Japan they let the odd woman into politics but they make sure she's as thick as shit and doesn't know what she's doing to reinforce the notion that women are thick and can't handle politics. If 50% of MPs were women that attitude would change pretty swiftly because it would be clear then that women are just as intelligent, if not moreseo, than men.

But we don't need to worry about Japan because if this attitude continues much longer, the entire race will die out. Women are looking at this sort of thing and refusing to have children in protest (0.4% fertility rate and dropping). The only people left will be the grey-headed males at the top discussing whether to what extent they should "allow" women represent themselves.

I'm always amused by people who think that positive discrimination is a new thing. You don't think positive discrimination in favour of men hasn't existed for centuries? You think perhaps that men are in fact just naturally smarter and better at being (eg) MPs? Because if you don't think that, you'd have to admit that the reason male MPs are where they are, is as a result of positive discrimination.

It's just that the word 'discrimination' wasn't used until it was applied in favour of women.

Totally agree with you tortoise re positve discrimination.

Enhanced maternity rights for women damage women and are not feminist. All they do is ghetto women within relationships nito service roles. If we gave men more rights which could not be transferred in the UK or we gave UK women in the public sector what the private sector gets (just 6 weeks at 90% pay and thereafter a pittance) then things might improve.

Staying at home is a political anti feminist choice which ruinously damages other women, a kick in the teeth to your daughters and women who worked hard to get women into senior roles. By all means take the choice but you're choosing work society values at zero which is so dull women in all times and cultures outsource childcare and cleaning as soon as they have money and power because it's dull. It may well be more pleasant than a minimum wage job if that is all the woman would ever have had but it is not a feminist choice.

Xenia, how does one breastfeed exclusively and on demand if 'out' at work?

That's the only issue I have with women/men staying at home, or WOHM/SAHM really.

No I'm not Japanese I've just been calling myself Ryoko the demon caller on forums for years.

Yes we have had a predominantly white male dominated sociality for hundreds of years but I still think giving people jobs based on skin colour or sex to balance things out causes more trouble then it solves, rather people seeing that women can do the job just as well or better it will be seen as "they get given better then us" and create more sexism.

I think the main reason for the low birth rate in Japan is money, they have to pay for everything, I was told by a man at work who married a japanese women that it's £10 for a doctors appointment, £50 when you see the doctor, 4 grand for the birth and theres no benefits or maternity pay or anything.

"I think the main reason for the low birth rate in Japan is money, "

Who told you that ???!! They are desparate for women to give birth. YOu get a flat out cash sum as a "gift" of about 2 grand. MOst of it gets spend on the clinic or hospital (if you have a midwife birth like I did you get change). That covers a 5 day stay in the hospital of your choice, meals etc. 7 pre-natal visits are free if there is no problem with the pregnancy.　If there'S A problem you get more help.

"Xenia, how does one breastfeed exclusively and on demand if 'out' at work? "

Good question, Xenia, and one I've been wanting to ask for a while. The WHO reccomends breastfeeding for two years. Breastfeeding builds a baby's body and brains. The negative effects of FF are huge, though not politically correct to say so because some women aren't able to breastfeed and need to use it. I should imagine there would be a dramatic drop in breastfeeding if women didn't take time off to be with their babies.

Or is your point that man - made milk is an adequate replacement for breastmilk? Is this another devaluation of what women do?

desperate

it's not 4 grand for the birth, unless she decided to go to a fancy hospital with a French menu and a "famous" doctor or something like that.

LAst question for Xenia,
don't you think all the faff with expressing breastmilk, which is extremely difficult to do, is all part of women having to conform to a society structured by men. I breastfed DD till she was 1.9 months and am still breastfeeding DS and I've only ever managed to express on bottle in my life. IT was difficult and time-consuming. Breastfeeding is a learned skill anyway, so why should women have to learn another. MOst of the reason women fail to breastfeed is not because they had no milk but because they didn't have access to a lactation consultant, and society makes it difficult for them to feed in public, which is very shocking in the 21st century. I think there's something obscene about it bring more acceptable to bottle-feed in public than breastfeed.
Shouldn't feminists be working on re-structuring society in a way that values women's contribution to it, rather than forcing women to re-structure themselves in order to fit into a patriarchal society?