Why Is Fixing Sexism Women’s Work? (#TimesUp)
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Definitely worth the read.
It reminds me of something I read in, of all places, a book on cleaning. (Unf*ck Your Habitat, by Rachel Hoffman. Good book, incidentally.) She talks about the traditional gender roles and housework - such as how men are "expected" to ignore messes and women are "expected" to clean them up - and the concepts of learned helplessness and strategic incompetence. The former is when Dad doesn't know how to cook, fumbles around in the kitchen, and Mom swoops in to save him from himself so he never has to learn how to do it himself. The latter is when Dad doesn't really want to sweep the floor so he deliberately makes a mess of it, knowing Mom will not only clean up after him but never ask him to help sweep up again. Hoffman has a lot to say about those ideas and the stereotypes they perpetuate... (Spoiler alert: she's not a fan of stereotypes.)
Likewise, we're seeing this huge problem where women are victims - but wouldn't be victims without male aggressors - and women are automatically expected to deal with it ourselves because (ha, ha) men just don't see the mess, and they don't know how to fix it (because a woman will surely step in when they fumble it up, so why learn?), and if they do a half-arsed job of it 'cause it's not top of the priority list for them, well, the ladies will sigh and put on their aprons and make it all right so they can watch football and be sexist slobs like a guy's supposed to be. Cue sitcom laughtrack and advertising jingle...
(As they say, "not every guy...", but obviously more than enough...)
It reminds me of something I read in, of all places, a book on cleaning. (Unf*ck Your Habitat, by Rachel Hoffman. Good book, incidentally.) She talks about the traditional gender roles and housework - such as how men are "expected" to ignore messes and women are "expected" to clean them up - and the concepts of learned helplessness and strategic incompetence. The former is when Dad doesn't know how to cook, fumbles around in the kitchen, and Mom swoops in to save him from himself so he never has to learn how to do it himself. The latter is when Dad doesn't really want to sweep the floor so he deliberately makes a mess of it, knowing Mom will not only clean up after him but never ask him to help sweep up again. Hoffman has a lot to say about those ideas and the stereotypes they perpetuate... (Spoiler alert: she's not a fan of stereotypes.)
Likewise, we're seeing this huge problem where women are victims - but wouldn't be victims without male aggressors - and women are automatically expected to deal with it ourselves because (ha, ha) men just don't see the mess, and they don't know how to fix it (because a woman will surely step in when they fumble it up, so why learn?), and if they do a half-arsed job of it 'cause it's not top of the priority list for them, well, the ladies will sigh and put on their aprons and make it all right so they can watch football and be sexist slobs like a guy's supposed to be. Cue sitcom laughtrack and advertising jingle...
(As they say, "not every guy...", but obviously more than enough...)
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This whole "if you want something done right" thing is a pervasive problem. One of my cousins used to be married to the quintessential "useless around the house and with the children" man. Of course, she chose to marry him, and once she had, she enabled his incompetence by stepping in and doing things he didn't do. The problem is, when she honestly felt like she couldn't trust her husband (who tended to lock himself in his "man cave" and play video games) to keep the kids from setting themselves on fire if she went out and did something on her own, tough love can be a difficult proposition. Even when she was working more hours than he was, or he was between jobs, he wouldn't do things that needed to be done around the house or watch the kids carefully.
On the other side of things, I had a recent conversation with my brother, who is an oncologist (and very much a workaholic, like our father and unlike me or my mom). He brought an assistant, (whom he hoped would work towards a partnership), into his practice a couple of years ago. He felt that he made the demands of his practice (5 days a week, often much longer than 8-hour days, on call every other weekend) clear, but she'd only been in a couple of months when she started to ask for Fridays off. It was a religious and family thing--Friday evenings were the start of her sabbath, and she needed to go home early on Fri to start cooking. She also needed to leave early on other days to get the kids and take them to appointments, meet with their teachers and so on. Her husband was very traditional (and was also a doctor), and someone had to take care of them.
It was a tough situation for my brother, who had taken on an assistant to grow his practice and also to have a bit more time to spend with his family (since he was leaving the house before 7 each morning and rarely getting home before 8 or so).
He had sympathy for her situation and understood she was between a rock and a hard place (and he really liked her and thought she was a talented and good doctor), but it didn't work out. And he basically said the same thing re the work environment that women say about the home environment--if she didn't do something that has to be done in the practice, he ended up having to pick up the slack. In his opinion, this has a lot to do with why women tend to advance less and get paid less, and why specialties and professions that are female dominated are compensated at a lower rate.: women don't tend to put their all into their careers.
Aside from studies that show that this is not the entire reason for differential pay and for glass ceilings, I pointed out that one reason women don't put their all into their careers is because their partners won't do their share at home (indeed, my sister in law has to do lots more at home, even though she has a career too, so his work life benefits from the traditional division of labor), he ceded me the point. I think he thinks it's a problem with no solution, though, because he posits that women generally care more about what's going on at home and men ultimately care more about their commitments at work. Except for couples who can pay someone to raise their kids and take care of their household needs, someone has to spend more time at home caring for them and dealing with all those things that have to be dealt with during the week when managing a household.
I don't think it's a hard-wired thing, but there is certainly a lot of socialization and history that makes it hard for both genders to rethink their priorities. It's probably true that no one can give more than 100% to two different full-time commitments for very long. There's also the issue of women not being able to do anything right. If she devotes 110% to her career, the way many men do, she will be shamed as a bad mother and wife. If she tries to balance work and home duties, she's told she's shirking her share of responsibility at work and this is why people don't like to hire women in certain jobs (and she still won't be a good enough mother). If she stays at home or goes for a profession that is less demanding, then she's confirming all stereotypes about dependent, unambitious women. And she will be very economically vulnerable if the couple divorces some day.
The problem with expecting men to work harder to end sexism, though, is that men benefit from sexism in many ways. Even the guys who genuinely believe it's unfair and want to change the status quo won't have the same fire in their bellies. I think some are starting to see the ways the traditional arrangements hurt them too. But overall, the system is set up by men for men, and everything from the way advanced education and career training in elite professions to the way workplaces and the work week are set up, are based on the concept of a male breadwinner who has a helpmeet spouse. And of course the way women are regarded (and even regard outselves to some extent) centers around our suitability as helpmeets and accessories for men. Many (probably most) people still don't even see or question the ways patriarchy permeates almost everything.
On the other side of things, I had a recent conversation with my brother, who is an oncologist (and very much a workaholic, like our father and unlike me or my mom). He brought an assistant, (whom he hoped would work towards a partnership), into his practice a couple of years ago. He felt that he made the demands of his practice (5 days a week, often much longer than 8-hour days, on call every other weekend) clear, but she'd only been in a couple of months when she started to ask for Fridays off. It was a religious and family thing--Friday evenings were the start of her sabbath, and she needed to go home early on Fri to start cooking. She also needed to leave early on other days to get the kids and take them to appointments, meet with their teachers and so on. Her husband was very traditional (and was also a doctor), and someone had to take care of them.
It was a tough situation for my brother, who had taken on an assistant to grow his practice and also to have a bit more time to spend with his family (since he was leaving the house before 7 each morning and rarely getting home before 8 or so).
He had sympathy for her situation and understood she was between a rock and a hard place (and he really liked her and thought she was a talented and good doctor), but it didn't work out. And he basically said the same thing re the work environment that women say about the home environment--if she didn't do something that has to be done in the practice, he ended up having to pick up the slack. In his opinion, this has a lot to do with why women tend to advance less and get paid less, and why specialties and professions that are female dominated are compensated at a lower rate.: women don't tend to put their all into their careers.
Aside from studies that show that this is not the entire reason for differential pay and for glass ceilings, I pointed out that one reason women don't put their all into their careers is because their partners won't do their share at home (indeed, my sister in law has to do lots more at home, even though she has a career too, so his work life benefits from the traditional division of labor), he ceded me the point. I think he thinks it's a problem with no solution, though, because he posits that women generally care more about what's going on at home and men ultimately care more about their commitments at work. Except for couples who can pay someone to raise their kids and take care of their household needs, someone has to spend more time at home caring for them and dealing with all those things that have to be dealt with during the week when managing a household.
I don't think it's a hard-wired thing, but there is certainly a lot of socialization and history that makes it hard for both genders to rethink their priorities. It's probably true that no one can give more than 100% to two different full-time commitments for very long. There's also the issue of women not being able to do anything right. If she devotes 110% to her career, the way many men do, she will be shamed as a bad mother and wife. If she tries to balance work and home duties, she's told she's shirking her share of responsibility at work and this is why people don't like to hire women in certain jobs (and she still won't be a good enough mother). If she stays at home or goes for a profession that is less demanding, then she's confirming all stereotypes about dependent, unambitious women. And she will be very economically vulnerable if the couple divorces some day.
The problem with expecting men to work harder to end sexism, though, is that men benefit from sexism in many ways. Even the guys who genuinely believe it's unfair and want to change the status quo won't have the same fire in their bellies. I think some are starting to see the ways the traditional arrangements hurt them too. But overall, the system is set up by men for men, and everything from the way advanced education and career training in elite professions to the way workplaces and the work week are set up, are based on the concept of a male breadwinner who has a helpmeet spouse. And of course the way women are regarded (and even regard outselves to some extent) centers around our suitability as helpmeets and accessories for men. Many (probably most) people still don't even see or question the ways patriarchy permeates almost everything.
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I find it's amazing how it's turned back on victims who speak up more than 10 seconds after an actual incident. "You didn't do anything to fix this? To protect other women? You're complicit!" I'm not sure why we would expect someone who couldn't protect themselves from assault, harassment or discrimination to suddenly become Wonderwoman and protect her sisters from the same, but you're right. It's a mess, and it's not even men's job to stop making the mess, it's women's job to clean it up.
I wonder if Roxxmom's brother ever notices the hostility towards women who don't immediately jump up and sacrifice their careers for the greater good. A lot of the current harassment victims have to put up with further harassment by people lifting their noses and going "Well, you accepted this? Just because you were worried that complaining would hurt your career? A *decent* woman would have immediately quit/summoned HR/gone to the media/punched him in his privates. Sure, your career would have been toast, but that's nothing compared to the Greater Good! Why do women need a career anyway?"
I wonder if Roxxmom's brother ever notices the hostility towards women who don't immediately jump up and sacrifice their careers for the greater good. A lot of the current harassment victims have to put up with further harassment by people lifting their noses and going "Well, you accepted this? Just because you were worried that complaining would hurt your career? A *decent* woman would have immediately quit/summoned HR/gone to the media/punched him in his privates. Sure, your career would have been toast, but that's nothing compared to the Greater Good! Why do women need a career anyway?"
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Couple of years ago I attended a panel at Readercon on toxic masculinity. This being a book con, they linked the concept with current SFF, picking out books where it was handled well and books where it wasn't handled at all. All four of the panelists were men, and they all spoke thoughtfully. All felt strongly that change was needed, all had ideas on how to make those changes, and all had anecdotes about men in their communities with whom they'd spoken, and who were genuinely happy to have someone to discuss the issues - and possible solutions - with.
I left that panel feeling really hopeful, and I met a bunch of people for lunch. One woman who hadn't attended the panel expressed strong disapproval that all the panelists were men. I said "But it's their problem," and she glared at me.
And I know what she meant: toxic masculinity hurts everyone. But women have been tasked with figuring it out, and naming it, and fixing it, and we can't. Part of toxic masculinity is that men don't listen to women, but listening to these men made it clear to me that there are a lot of men out there who want to talk about it, who want to discuss it with other men, who want to brainstorm ideas on how to take it out of their lives and the lives of people they love.
I dunno. I can see how it could easily get co-opted into yet another iteration of "The Menfolk Must Protect The Vulnerable Women," but more and more I'm recognizing that my part in all of this is to say "yes, this happened to me, yes, her experience is credible, yes, this is a real thing that's prevalent everywhere and I support you in getting your buddies to knock it the @#$%! off."
If women could stop this, it would have stopped centuries ago.
I left that panel feeling really hopeful, and I met a bunch of people for lunch. One woman who hadn't attended the panel expressed strong disapproval that all the panelists were men. I said "But it's their problem," and she glared at me.
And I know what she meant: toxic masculinity hurts everyone. But women have been tasked with figuring it out, and naming it, and fixing it, and we can't. Part of toxic masculinity is that men don't listen to women, but listening to these men made it clear to me that there are a lot of men out there who want to talk about it, who want to discuss it with other men, who want to brainstorm ideas on how to take it out of their lives and the lives of people they love.
I dunno. I can see how it could easily get co-opted into yet another iteration of "The Menfolk Must Protect The Vulnerable Women," but more and more I'm recognizing that my part in all of this is to say "yes, this happened to me, yes, her experience is credible, yes, this is a real thing that's prevalent everywhere and I support you in getting your buddies to knock it the @#$%! off."
If women could stop this, it would have stopped centuries ago.
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I think he does, and he admits that his erstwhile assistant had a real bind. She is from a very traditional culture, and her husband was also a doctor. They both felt it was her job to cook and do most of the child care. She probably would be better off with an HMO or some other setting with more flexible work hours and even the possibility of being "part time" for less pay.
We've been back and forth about this, and he admits that women have to deal with a lot of pressure to be more domestic than their partners (he also admits that these domestic chores are important and need to be done by someone). Where we differ is that he (as more of a type A workaholic) believes that spending a life consumed by work or other meaningful activity is the best way to live. He often asks me (who has been employed part time for many years) what I do with my extra time. The fact is, that this "free" time disappears pretty quickly (I end up taking care of a lot of day to day things my husband can't, and I don't even have kids), plus prepping for my classes takes a lot of time outside anyway, but I do have more time to read, play computer games, walk the dogs and so on as well. I like this about my life. I have my brother a movie for Christmas a couple of years ago, and he still hasn't watched it, because his weeks are consumed with work and sleep, and his weekends are all about taking the kids to different activities, Church (when nothing else is going on) and so on. Never time to just sit and be. He vaguely disapproves of the fact that I'm not using my free time more "constructively."
This is one thing our culture requires of people of both genders who are engaged in certain high-status careers. A life spent doing with very little down time. This is where my brother and I disagree, because I think this grind, grind, grind expectation (which is especially bad in the US and some Asian countries, less so in Europe, as I understand) where you live to work instead of working to live, is not very good for people of any gender in the long term.
The hard part isn't that all men are like my cousin's deadbeat ex, who had at least as much time as she did to be a true partner with the kids and around the house. Women eventually figure out that they're better off as single parents than as parents to their kids and an extra manchild (my cousin's own words). If women stop marrying or having kids with guys like this, their strategy will become non viable. It's the system that makes it so someone has to work overtime every single day to get ahead, leaving their partner to put in the extra shifts on the home front (even if they don't want it to be that way). Or maybe it's a value system that considers anyone not working 60+ hour weeks to be "lazy."
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This is the change that I'm really hoping (and probably with much more confidence than I should) that the Young People are going to bring about.
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Or at least there will be change in a more equatable direction as the younger generation ages.
Mind you, I once hoped and expected that things would get better as my own generation aged, and it looks like there are plenty of "boy men" still.
At some level, the only thing women can do is to refuse to enable the system as it stands. Back in the day, there was talk in feminist circles of women "going on strike" in their homes and not performing all the unpaid labor that was taken for granted. There's also the possibility of simply not doing the chores one's partner has agreed to but refuses to do. Those uncleaned bathrooms can get pretty disgusting, though, and I once had a roommate who was happy to leave his dishes coagulating in the sink for days. I broke down and started washing them when the cockroaches started to appear. Fortunately, it was a temporary housing arrangement.
It's much harder when one's life partner doesn't care about the shower curtain giving rise to new strains of fungi or that cockroaches are doing conga lines around the kitchen sink. It's also impractical when there are younger kids who can't care for themselves, so someone has to step in and do their laundry, bathe them, transport them to appointments, or prepare their food.
This is why I'm happy I live in a province where Family Status is a protected right that employers must respect. You don't have to come from a "traditional" home where the man is the head of the house etc or the man doesn't support the woman working etc to have the right to accomodations in the workplace. And here in Ontario most likely her dismissal would have been deemed unlawful. For instance I don't work past 3pm and I don't start until after 8, this is to accommodate my family situation, it doesn't cause an undo hardship to my employer since I was honest and open about what hours I could work when hired, I would never be able to do this in a hospital setting since you have to relieve staff etc and there are exceptions to this in many workplaces. Employers, who are generally men although not always, need to accomodate families, regardless if its a man or woman, I know many many men who are very devoted to their families and refuse to come in for extra shifts, refuse to work overtime and are hands on fathers, so even men in the workplace their roles and what they work is changing.
Every family is different. My husband is the primary bread winner so if a child is sick at school it's me who cancels work or leaves work early. We need a roof over our head and we need food on the table, my income is gravy, if I lost my job tomorrow we would be ok, but if he lost his job it would be very difficult, so the sacrifice is that I am the one who takes a back seat for my career and there is nothing wrong with that. It's a choice we made together and I'm fine with it and I don't feel bad about it. My husband isn't "old school" and he is the farthest thing from being sexist. I'd never marry a man who believed women weren't equals.
My daughter will be the primary bread earner in her relationship especially when she goes back for her masters, her boyfriend is the one who will make the accomodations if they choose to have kids. Even now he does 80% of the housework even though he works full time, it works for them, and I see a huge difference in this upcoming generation.
Women, at least where I live, fought to have maternity benefits, we get 1 year paid leave when we have a child, and for some couples the woman doesn't take the leave her partner does, this includes adoption too. We have modified work and fought for benefits in the workplace regarding maternity leave. Meaning, and employer can't penalize a woman for having children. We can have both. A career and a family. A woman doesn't have to work gobs of overtime and weekends to advance, just like many men are no longer doing this either. Men are starting to demand a better workplace balance too. My husband will go and help his dad on weekends in his logging company since my father in laws mechanic/welder doesn't work saturdays. THIS is a huge shift, my father in law is from a generation that many men worked 6 days a week, my husband has said "dad its not like that anymore, men are raising their kids, they are going to hockey tournaments and spending time with families, those days are gone."
My husband is lucky that I don't mind him working gobs of overtime and if his employer calls when there is a major issue at his company they know they can depend on him, it is very rare that I say "no don't go." This works for us.
Women create the big babies at home when they cater and pamper their husbands and allow them to control everything. They need to take responsibility for creating the monster. We have one of those in the family, an aunt who's husband is useless and she can't do anything without him because he's a giant fucking baby and she has no independence from him, it's super frustrating to see, but she allowed him to do this and she created the mess, so it's her bed and now she has to lie in it.
Men aren't going to fix this. Women need to start in their own lives by not marrying into it, and opening the dialogue with their kids, girls and boys. However just because a woman stays home and runs a household doesn't mean she isn't her husbands equal. Just because I don't earn financially what my husband earns doesn't mean anything, we share everything 50/50 meaning that OT bonus is half mine, why....because without me he couldn't work that over time and he respects my role in his ability to work the OT. That's respect. He treats me as his equal, we make decisions together.
#learningcurve. Slower than expected in our house, too...
I'm waiting it out, though.
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This is the classic odd-couple conundrum (I've run into it with a couple roommates over the years). You get sick of someone never cleaning, so you're like, "fine! I'll let it get disgusting!"
Only the disgustingness doesn't bother them; it bothers you. It gets nastier and nastier, until finally you break down and clean the dang mess, and then you're angry because you had to clean a far nastier mess than usual. All the while, the slob roommate has no idea anything even happened and is blissfully going about business as usual.
The worst I ever saw was a feud between two roommates who both owned a cat. Each insisted that the litterbox was the responsibility of the other and it got so gross that the cats refused to use it and started pooping in the shower.
It was at that point that I, the non-cat-owner, was like "screw both of you idiots" and just started cleaning the box myself, not only because it was disgusting, but because I felt bad for the poor cats.
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There's an episode of the American version of The Office, in which Pam notices the break room microwave is gross and leaves an unsigned note suggesting that, as it's a shared appliance and workspace with no designated kitchen cleaning person, whoever uses the microwave and makes a mess should take the responsibility of cleaning said mess. People get upset with the anonymous note.
Ryan, the epitome of the hipster tool who thinks he's self-aware but is anything but, conspiratorially tells Pam he agrees with her but, at some point, someone just has to clean it (not-so-subtly suggesting she be the someone). She wonders why he can't clean it, and he protests, laughingly, that he's no good at those things and would just make it worse.
Pam: "how would wiping it with a paper towel make it worse?"
Ryan, laughing and walking away: "oh, I would find a way!"
Ryan, the epitome of the hipster tool who thinks he's self-aware but is anything but, conspiratorially tells Pam he agrees with her but, at some point, someone just has to clean it (not-so-subtly suggesting she be the someone). She wonders why he can't clean it, and he protests, laughingly, that he's no good at those things and would just make it worse.
Pam: "how would wiping it with a paper towel make it worse?"
Ryan, laughing and walking away: "oh, I would find a way!"
It's all around us in advertising. I personally always swiffer my floors in high heels smiling. Or the advertisement for some medication I can't remember which one...but it's straight out of the 1950's with the woman in a dress and heels serving her man breakfeast before he goes to work....good grief. I get that the reality is most women do do the shopping so advertisers are reaching to that audience...but come on....high heels while cleaning?
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I think it was more a mutual agreement that working towards a partnership in a two-person oncology practice wasn't the best fit for her either.
This is a tough thing, as I can see my brother's problems. Oncology practices are already getting hit hard in the US--struggling to provide the best patient care and turn a profit within a system that makes this hard for them to do both. And to be fair to my brother, he made the demands of the practice and his goals for it clear. In the US you aren't allowed to ask about an applicant's family status, but reason why employers would discriminate if they could is that workers who have large family responsibilities can't put in the hours that are required of them.
In the US, we are still very much a "live to work" culture, and we also have fewer of the protections and subsidies that exist in other countries for health care practices and for other kinds of businesses as well. And cultural expectations about accessibility are different here too. When I've been to the UK (most recently in 2002, so maybe there have been changes since), I was amazed at large grocery stores like Sainsbury's that closed at 7 PM and at smaller businesses that closed even earlier (and often didn't open until 10 in the morning) and were closed on weekends. How could people shop if they themselves have the same working hours as the businesses do? Even as a tourist it was a tad inconvenient. Of course, one side effect over here in the US of everyone working longer and more erratic hours is that businesses have to be open longer and more erratic hours to attract their custom.
But with medicine, a lot of the work is after one has seen the last patient for the day anyway. There are forms to fill out, drugs to order, patient records to update, cases to review, treatments to research, phone calls to make and return and so on. Not all of this can be handled by office staff.
This is one of those things where I can see both sides, because my brother is right. If his assistant is leaving work early, it means he has to stay later to get the things that have to be done. But people have lives outside of work as well, and it's hard for most people who want to be involved with their families (this would go for men who want to be more active in parenting or other outside commitments too) to sustain the kind of schedule this profession appears to require.
I agree that it's ridiculous for someone to have to work from 7 AM to 8-9 PM to be viable in any profession, but that's what it's been like for my brother for years. He was hoping an assistant and eventual partner would make things more reasonable for him as well. I think he's looking at canning his private practice and joining the masses of doctors who work for HMOs as salaried employees with more predictable hours, but there's an issue with getting out of the lease and other problems with declaring bankruptcy, if he went that route. And of course he won't have much control over the kind of patient care he can provide in an HMO setting.
Things are different in most other countries, with health care being single payer and with stricter laws protecting workers with families and so on.
I think it can be more complicated than that. Yes, women can and do enable irresponsible partners, but sometimes these patterns develop slowly over time, and by the time it's apparent what is happening, the woman is in a situation where she (and the kids) are going to be financially hosed if she leaves. And there's always the question of whether or not it's better to stay with a guy because it's better for the kids to have a flawed dad than no dad at all (or one who is even more distant). That's why my cousin stayed with her husband as long as she did. And there was the worry about possibly losing the house without his (however sporadic) financial contributions. She has no regrets about the relationship finally ending, though, and she's been fortunate enough to finally find a decent job doing accounting for a local school with some benefits for her and the kids.
It's not always as clear cut for every woman in that situation, though. Plus, when relationships are abusive, there is a steady erosion of the victim's self esteem and confidence, not to mention the fear of being pursued by a vengeful ex.
Sadly, I think it's true that many men aren't going to change as long as they're enabled in the "old ways," but blaming women for creating all those manbabies is, imo, a tad unfair. Surely men have some responsibility for their own behavior and for their own perceptions of what is appropriately "manly" behavior.
Perhaps women should do a better job of banding together and supporting one another in the refusal to enable--swapping strategies, being willing to help one another out with these chores that have to be done, and so on. But this doesn't mean women have any control over how men will react to these changes. Indeed, women have changed a lot over the past several decades. Some men are reacting very badly to this.
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Ahhhhhhhh, this is cathartic.
I feel I am constantly reminding the pro-equality dudes in my life that sexist assholes don't listen to women, and therefore it is their job to speak up to these sexist assholes, not mine, and that if they never notice sexism until it's pointed out, then maybe they're not as woke as they'd like to think they are.
If he's religious, that may be part of it. That "you must always be doing Something Worthwhile with your time because GOD!" was a big thing, and hard to shake when I deconverted. In fact, I still feel mildly guilty about things that I do purely for my own enjoyment.
I feel I am constantly reminding the pro-equality dudes in my life that sexist assholes don't listen to women, and therefore it is their job to speak up to these sexist assholes, not mine, and that if they never notice sexism until it's pointed out, then maybe they're not as woke as they'd like to think they are.
If he's religious, that may be part of it. That "you must always be doing Something Worthwhile with your time because GOD!" was a big thing, and hard to shake when I deconverted. In fact, I still feel mildly guilty about things that I do purely for my own enjoyment.
There's a big thing in the UK at the moment about companies publishing their gender gap (i.e. difference in average hourly rates for male and female employees). Personally, while I think it's vitally important for all companies to address this and do everything possible to prevent sexism in the workplace, I think there are too many factors that are outside the employer's control to blame everything on them.
For example, I'm a single mother. I didn't choose to be a single mother. I'm not going to say why I left my ex (I'm not one for airing dirty laundry in public), only that if I did tell you, the typical response would be "omg I can't believe you didn't leave him much sooner". Being a single mother means that I've had to take a job that's compatible with looking after children, which basically means I'm earning probably less than 50% of what I'd be earning if I did the professional level job I'm qualified to do. I was unable to stick with this job due to the hours/workload being unmanageable and incompatible with looking after children. It got to the point where the stress was affecting my health so much that my doctor told me to change careers. I also was very unhappy about never having enough time or energy to do anything with the kids beyond the basic things such as keeping them clean and fed. There was no other parent around to take up the slack and I wasn't willing to risk my kids' future mental health. A single parent is both the breadwinner and the primary carer and it is impossible to be both at the same time without one taking a back seat. And, due to the fact that children are little people who are completely dependent on you both physically and emotionally, it can't be the parenting that takes a back seat.
Single mothers, however, are near enough universally shat-upon by society in general, seen as scum and a drain on society. Assumed to have become single mothers by sleeping with millions of men without using contraceptives so therefore have brought it all on themselves, seen as unintelligent, chavs, irresponsible, crap mothers, unemployable, the reason why society is going down the pan... you name it the stereotype is out there. It's so grossly unfair because we're actually taking on the responsibility of two people at the same time. Even when the absent parent contributes financially it's only a small amount. My ex pays what the CSA (government agency to make sure absent parents support their kids) expects of him. The amount of money is about three quarters of what one week's grocery shopping costs... and it's a monthly payment. Yet according to all the prevailing stereotypes, I'm the lazy, chavvy, irresponsible one. Even just typing the words "single mother" makes me feel like everyone's going to judge and look down on me. (I know not everyone thinks like that, but the negative attitudes are hard to miss...)
So if the relationship breaks up, the father's free to pursue his career and earn lots of money - if he's responsible then he'll make the maintenance payments, while the mother has now got severe limitations to what she can do as a career and how much money she can earn. I know one single father, a widower. He's faced the same restrictions and difficulties that single mothers face, plus the added difficulty that people are even less understanding of men facing these difficulties. It isn't just women that are affected, but women are disproportionately affected because so many more women than men are in this situation.
I have now got a 9-5 office job. My childcare provider covers 8am until the start of the school day, and from the end of the school day until 6pm. This means that I can't do any overtime, unless I do a half hour lunch and squeeze half an hour overtime in then. It limits what jobs I can go for within the company. They're big on helping employees progress up the company and my boss (who's female) has suggested certain higher up roles that she thinks I'll be good at and should go for. It'll have to wait until both my kids are old enough to get themselves to school and back alone and not need any childcare though. So right now, I'm not really helping my company with their equality stats, and it's not their fault at all. I don't see any sexism going on at work. There are plenty of female employees at all levels (albeit the CEO is male, but there's only one CEO). I feel confident that if I went for an interview for any position within the company that I wouldn't face sexism and they'd employ the best person for the job. But it's me that's not going for the interviews in the first place because I can't commit to the extra hours.
There was an article in one of the major UK news providers recently (probably the BBC but I can't remember) about a young mother who'd just graduated from uni but was unable to find any professional level jobs that would allow her the flexibility to pick up kids etc, so she's ended up with a minimum wage entry level job.
IMO one of the biggest thing employers can do to address the inequality is value parents and parenting a lot more for the fact that we're doing our bit to raise a mentally healthy next generation, and allow parents (male and female) flexibility, part time roles and job sharing at all levels, not just entry level jobs. There is legislation in the UK that outlaws discriminating against parents and part time workers, and against women for having a baby, but at a practical level, women still end up not getting jobs or not going for jobs in the first place due to childcare commitments. And cases where women have babies then their career progression ends still happens... it's illegal to fire someone because they got pregnant but that is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what actually limits primary carer parents from progressing.
I think it's vitally important that society in general reevaluates its opinions towards parenting in general. Why is it that a woman who chooses to work less (or not at all) to focus on the kids is seen as doing something negative? When my kids were little I was berated online by a male "feminist" (he called himself that) because I was at home with the kids. He called me all sort of names. I gave him what for and said that the version of "feminism" he was calling for was still men telling women what they can and can't do. It also ignores the fact that someone has to look after the children! This ties in with men's rights... look at all the toxic masculinity attitudes towards men who are the primary carers or stay at home dads. Why? Historically it's been seen as "women's work" - low status, unimportant, invisible, stuck at home, etc. While it's essential for feminism to have a strong focus on enabling women to succeed at all levels in the workplace, it's also important to stop debasing motherhood in this way (which inadvertantly debases fatherhood should a man be the primary carer because he's seen as lowering himself to do low status women's work, but fatherhood when the man goes to work and leaves the primary caring to his partner isn't debased). Women are always going to have babies and if women stop having babies our species will go extinct. Good parenting is vital for society and neglecting children results in long term serious mental health consequences for the children and the adults they become, and future society in general. Why doesn't society already respect mothers and primary carer fathers far more? Being the primary carer should be respected for the bloody difficult and extremely important job that it is.
This lack of respect for parents influences the attitudes of employers. Like when they see someone leaving early to pick up the kids as "slacking" and "not being committed to their job". It's not a lack of commitment. It's having two major responsibilities in your life and trying your hardest to juggle them both. Employers should understand and respect that.
These people were raised by someone... their mother or someone else who was their primary carer, in most cases, a woman. Why isn't there more respect for primary carers? Why is respect only given to the parent who earns the money, not the other one who makes sure the kids are properly cared for while their partner's out earning money? Why are single mothers seen as the scum of the earth when they're actually doing both parents' roles?
For example, I'm a single mother. I didn't choose to be a single mother. I'm not going to say why I left my ex (I'm not one for airing dirty laundry in public), only that if I did tell you, the typical response would be "omg I can't believe you didn't leave him much sooner". Being a single mother means that I've had to take a job that's compatible with looking after children, which basically means I'm earning probably less than 50% of what I'd be earning if I did the professional level job I'm qualified to do. I was unable to stick with this job due to the hours/workload being unmanageable and incompatible with looking after children. It got to the point where the stress was affecting my health so much that my doctor told me to change careers. I also was very unhappy about never having enough time or energy to do anything with the kids beyond the basic things such as keeping them clean and fed. There was no other parent around to take up the slack and I wasn't willing to risk my kids' future mental health. A single parent is both the breadwinner and the primary carer and it is impossible to be both at the same time without one taking a back seat. And, due to the fact that children are little people who are completely dependent on you both physically and emotionally, it can't be the parenting that takes a back seat.
Single mothers, however, are near enough universally shat-upon by society in general, seen as scum and a drain on society. Assumed to have become single mothers by sleeping with millions of men without using contraceptives so therefore have brought it all on themselves, seen as unintelligent, chavs, irresponsible, crap mothers, unemployable, the reason why society is going down the pan... you name it the stereotype is out there. It's so grossly unfair because we're actually taking on the responsibility of two people at the same time. Even when the absent parent contributes financially it's only a small amount. My ex pays what the CSA (government agency to make sure absent parents support their kids) expects of him. The amount of money is about three quarters of what one week's grocery shopping costs... and it's a monthly payment. Yet according to all the prevailing stereotypes, I'm the lazy, chavvy, irresponsible one. Even just typing the words "single mother" makes me feel like everyone's going to judge and look down on me. (I know not everyone thinks like that, but the negative attitudes are hard to miss...)
So if the relationship breaks up, the father's free to pursue his career and earn lots of money - if he's responsible then he'll make the maintenance payments, while the mother has now got severe limitations to what she can do as a career and how much money she can earn. I know one single father, a widower. He's faced the same restrictions and difficulties that single mothers face, plus the added difficulty that people are even less understanding of men facing these difficulties. It isn't just women that are affected, but women are disproportionately affected because so many more women than men are in this situation.
I have now got a 9-5 office job. My childcare provider covers 8am until the start of the school day, and from the end of the school day until 6pm. This means that I can't do any overtime, unless I do a half hour lunch and squeeze half an hour overtime in then. It limits what jobs I can go for within the company. They're big on helping employees progress up the company and my boss (who's female) has suggested certain higher up roles that she thinks I'll be good at and should go for. It'll have to wait until both my kids are old enough to get themselves to school and back alone and not need any childcare though. So right now, I'm not really helping my company with their equality stats, and it's not their fault at all. I don't see any sexism going on at work. There are plenty of female employees at all levels (albeit the CEO is male, but there's only one CEO). I feel confident that if I went for an interview for any position within the company that I wouldn't face sexism and they'd employ the best person for the job. But it's me that's not going for the interviews in the first place because I can't commit to the extra hours.
There was an article in one of the major UK news providers recently (probably the BBC but I can't remember) about a young mother who'd just graduated from uni but was unable to find any professional level jobs that would allow her the flexibility to pick up kids etc, so she's ended up with a minimum wage entry level job.
IMO one of the biggest thing employers can do to address the inequality is value parents and parenting a lot more for the fact that we're doing our bit to raise a mentally healthy next generation, and allow parents (male and female) flexibility, part time roles and job sharing at all levels, not just entry level jobs. There is legislation in the UK that outlaws discriminating against parents and part time workers, and against women for having a baby, but at a practical level, women still end up not getting jobs or not going for jobs in the first place due to childcare commitments. And cases where women have babies then their career progression ends still happens... it's illegal to fire someone because they got pregnant but that is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what actually limits primary carer parents from progressing.
I think it's vitally important that society in general reevaluates its opinions towards parenting in general. Why is it that a woman who chooses to work less (or not at all) to focus on the kids is seen as doing something negative? When my kids were little I was berated online by a male "feminist" (he called himself that) because I was at home with the kids. He called me all sort of names. I gave him what for and said that the version of "feminism" he was calling for was still men telling women what they can and can't do. It also ignores the fact that someone has to look after the children! This ties in with men's rights... look at all the toxic masculinity attitudes towards men who are the primary carers or stay at home dads. Why? Historically it's been seen as "women's work" - low status, unimportant, invisible, stuck at home, etc. While it's essential for feminism to have a strong focus on enabling women to succeed at all levels in the workplace, it's also important to stop debasing motherhood in this way (which inadvertantly debases fatherhood should a man be the primary carer because he's seen as lowering himself to do low status women's work, but fatherhood when the man goes to work and leaves the primary caring to his partner isn't debased). Women are always going to have babies and if women stop having babies our species will go extinct. Good parenting is vital for society and neglecting children results in long term serious mental health consequences for the children and the adults they become, and future society in general. Why doesn't society already respect mothers and primary carer fathers far more? Being the primary carer should be respected for the bloody difficult and extremely important job that it is.
This lack of respect for parents influences the attitudes of employers. Like when they see someone leaving early to pick up the kids as "slacking" and "not being committed to their job". It's not a lack of commitment. It's having two major responsibilities in your life and trying your hardest to juggle them both. Employers should understand and respect that.
These people were raised by someone... their mother or someone else who was their primary carer, in most cases, a woman. Why isn't there more respect for primary carers? Why is respect only given to the parent who earns the money, not the other one who makes sure the kids are properly cared for while their partner's out earning money? Why are single mothers seen as the scum of the earth when they're actually doing both parents' roles?
I agree. They do as adults. As children, it comes down to the parents (mother and father) for not teaching them basic life skills in the first place. It's preposterous that someone could leave home without being able to cook a basic meal, wash up, use a hoover (vacuum cleaner), bag up the rubbish (trash) and put it out, tidy up, clean food preparation surfaces etc - my 11 year old can do all those things. I'm teaching my 7 year old already - she can use a hoover, prepare her own breakfast (cereal, not cooked) and sort of tidy up.
Thing is, when my 7 year old does a bad job of tidying up, I can point to the stray bits of lego and tell her I'm going to hoover in a minute and if she doesn't pick them up they'll got up the hoover. I can tell her that she can't watch TV until it's done. A spouse/partner is not in a position to do this if their partner isn't pulling their weight with household chores. Trying to do so just intensifies the adult wife / man-baby husband dynamic in the relationship which will potentially become toxic (all those stereotypes about nagging wives... wonder where they come from?). A spouse/partner is not a parent and can't fix what parents didn't do. If male partners are acting like stroppy 7 year olds when faced with household chores, they need to bloody well grow up and get over it. Don't know how to use a hoover or change a nappy (diaper)? Fucking learn. It's not rocket science.
I don't believe that incompetence is the problem in 99.9% of cases anyway. It's a combination of laziness and entitlement. They see it as women's work and feel their masculinity is somehow damaged by having to do it or just that men are better than women and shouldn't have to lower themselves to do it. Or maybe it's just being lazy and trying to get away with doing as little as possible. How's their partner supposed to fix that? Maybe by threatening to leave because they don't want to live with an entitled brat for the rest of their life. I can't think of any other way, because if a partner's that selfish and entitled the relationship's going to be shit anyway. Trouble is, there's a society-wide expectation that men behave like this and women are supposed to put up with it, such that leaving someone over this is seen as a massive overreaction. Women are supposed to put up with that level of disrespect. This is where the problems lie. Not with wives/female partners. And it's very hard to fix a problem when you're not the cause of the problem in the first place. The only way women can fix this is in how they raise their sons, and that's an uphill struggle without the support of the father. If he's a man baby then it's really hard for the mother to raise the son not to be a man baby.
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I've always wondered what happens when a lazy man runs into a lazy woman?
I was once in an unfortunate house-sharing situation with some young women who escaped the parental nest without learning that they would have to do their own chores when living independently. They went ten weeks without doing dishes. They preferred to let garbage rot in the kitchen rather than take the bags out. One of them got a dog, and when it soiled the rug she would just splash a little water on the spot instead of scrubbing with carpet shampoo. Obviously, the vacuum was treated with great suspicion and never touched. (Yes, they were accustomed to Mom and Dad doing everything. One weekend, I found a mother in the kitchen doing dishes. Another was cleaning her daughter's room. Dad was fixing the daughter's bike. I've never been so grateful for my own mother's repeated, "I'm not going to college with you, Pinto," when I was growing up.)
Anyway, does social pressure result in the woman finally learning to do housework? Or does the man break down and learn because he can't handle the mess anymore? Or do they slowly drown in a pile of rotting food and dirty dishes? What happens?
ETA: On the dog front, she would also leave the waste on the carpet until someone complained about it to her. She was not remotely proactive about cleaning it up. And they wondered why guests complained the house stank.
I was once in an unfortunate house-sharing situation with some young women who escaped the parental nest without learning that they would have to do their own chores when living independently. They went ten weeks without doing dishes. They preferred to let garbage rot in the kitchen rather than take the bags out. One of them got a dog, and when it soiled the rug she would just splash a little water on the spot instead of scrubbing with carpet shampoo. Obviously, the vacuum was treated with great suspicion and never touched. (Yes, they were accustomed to Mom and Dad doing everything. One weekend, I found a mother in the kitchen doing dishes. Another was cleaning her daughter's room. Dad was fixing the daughter's bike. I've never been so grateful for my own mother's repeated, "I'm not going to college with you, Pinto," when I was growing up.)
Anyway, does social pressure result in the woman finally learning to do housework? Or does the man break down and learn because he can't handle the mess anymore? Or do they slowly drown in a pile of rotting food and dirty dishes? What happens?
ETA: On the dog front, she would also leave the waste on the carpet until someone complained about it to her. She was not remotely proactive about cleaning it up. And they wondered why guests complained the house stank.
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This comes from both sides though. While staying home with kids can be devalued by some, it can be overvalued by others, which kind of leads, imo, to part of the devaluing, which leads to the overvaluing, and round and round we go.
I've seen PLENTY of comments on line and heard from people that the hardest, most important job any woman can do is to be a mother. While I get what they can mean, my instinct is to say, 'really?'
Again, I get the grander, shaping-a-human-mind, parenting-is-an-unending-slog component, but I've also heard it used PLENTY in the much more mundane way, by people who say things like if you added up everything a stay-at-home mother (because often for these people it is only mothers), do during the day, they should make more than CEOs, they're doctors, teachers, etc., yada. Well, yeah, but no. That sort of thing is what I mean. Yes, of course parents teach their kids and respond to all the little illnesses and scrapes, but if a kid is really sick, they go to an actual doctor. Most people send their children to actual schools, with teachers who have degrees in education, or use curriculua crafted by experts.
Teenagers can look after little kids just fine. It's hard, non-ending, repetitive, boring, menial work taking care of infants and small kids. It can also be fun and enjoyable, but it'll never be neurosurgery, or working air traffic control or whatever. It's not the hardest job in the world if teenagers with the bare minimum of experience and know-how can do it, nor would it earn a mid-six-figure salary. People can also get really ridiculous and offensive about it, in the 'I'm doing what's BEST for my children, sacrificing my career to stay home,' way. Hence people push back against that kind of glorification of staying home, and then the people who do stay home feel undervalued and round and round we go.
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+1
Additionally, pay equity is not just a goal, but a means of promoting equality. Yes, a primary caretaker can potentially lose earning power due to having obligations that force them to invest less in their careers than their childless peers. However, why is it so often women who end up in this situation?
Let's look at another circle. A couple expexting a child will likely sit down together and decide one of them should stop working and be a full time parent (if they make amazing money). More likely, they'll both keep working, but look at their respective careers and decide which one will take the hit . Who will cover the bulk of doctor appointments and school pickups and all those other things that prevent someone from working late?
Nine times out of ten, they decide it'll be the woman who lets her career take a back burner . One might argue that this is due to sexism, where the couple agree that women are just better at childrearing. However, among my own acquaintances, the men aren't bumbling morons, and they plan what to do purely as a financial decision.
The woman, before having children , is already making less and has a career path less likely to advance than a man (also before having children). So of course women take the hit, because they have less to lose in the workplace. And that's not even taking into account that parental leave isn't alloted equally to both sexes. While US employers are notoriously stingy with both (and that's unpaid leave, paid parental leave is as rare as hen's teeth), maternity leave is offered more places and in larger quantities than paternity leave. In countries where there's just plain "parental" leave, whether via equal allotment to both parents or by providing a single pool that can be divvied up between mother or father however they see fit, lo and behold, the disparity in time taken off reduces drastically.
So employers push women into this corner, where anyone with half a brain would look at the options and decide they can better afford to damage the woman's career than the man's. Then when people make the obviously wiser choice, employers take this as justification for their actions, saying, "why bother advancing women? As soon as they have a kid, they'll just let work slide, take lots of time off, and maybe even quit."
Additionally, pay equity is not just a goal, but a means of promoting equality. Yes, a primary caretaker can potentially lose earning power due to having obligations that force them to invest less in their careers than their childless peers. However, why is it so often women who end up in this situation?
Let's look at another circle. A couple expexting a child will likely sit down together and decide one of them should stop working and be a full time parent (if they make amazing money). More likely, they'll both keep working, but look at their respective careers and decide which one will take the hit . Who will cover the bulk of doctor appointments and school pickups and all those other things that prevent someone from working late?
Nine times out of ten, they decide it'll be the woman who lets her career take a back burner . One might argue that this is due to sexism, where the couple agree that women are just better at childrearing. However, among my own acquaintances, the men aren't bumbling morons, and they plan what to do purely as a financial decision.
The woman, before having children , is already making less and has a career path less likely to advance than a man (also before having children). So of course women take the hit, because they have less to lose in the workplace. And that's not even taking into account that parental leave isn't alloted equally to both sexes. While US employers are notoriously stingy with both (and that's unpaid leave, paid parental leave is as rare as hen's teeth), maternity leave is offered more places and in larger quantities than paternity leave. In countries where there's just plain "parental" leave, whether via equal allotment to both parents or by providing a single pool that can be divvied up between mother or father however they see fit, lo and behold, the disparity in time taken off reduces drastically.
So employers push women into this corner, where anyone with half a brain would look at the options and decide they can better afford to damage the woman's career than the man's. Then when people make the obviously wiser choice, employers take this as justification for their actions, saying, "why bother advancing women? As soon as they have a kid, they'll just let work slide, take lots of time off, and maybe even quit."
A lot of the time they hire someone else to do it. A lot of the time that someone is a woman. A lot of the time her work is very underpaid.
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I think about this a lot.
The Kid was in day care when she was an infant. I took the maximum allowed maternity leave (6 weeks), plus some vacation, plus did some work-from-home for a couple of weeks, plus recruited my mom to help out for a while. All of this was important, because no licensed day care would take her without her immunizations, and she couldn't get the required shots until (IIRC) 12 weeks old. (May have been 16; it's all kind of fuzzy.)
We hit the jackpot on day care: a well-established place, low turnover, a lot of teachers and assistants who were studying early childhood education at the local voc tech. The Kid loved it. It was hideously expensive, although it got cheaper when she got older.
Some of the teachers at the time were making less than $7/hour. Not a living wage by any stretch. So in order for me to continue my career without penalty, for us to continue building our future as we had before she was born, we were paying these lovely, talented people next to nothing.
And yes, with very few exceptions they were women.
Other countries handle this better. (Actually, I think most countries handle this better.) But it feels really strange to think I escaped much of the Mommy Penalty in part because other women were willing to work for lousy pay.
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Women's work, in general, is underpaid, because they're women.
I bring up again, veterinarians -- the happy little demonstration of the effect of gender on salary. The discussion of what's influencing it goes on and there are several studies on the flip and the consequences (by the NIH and others), however, it's the clearest, quickest gender flip of a profession we've seen, and as the field becomes completely feminized (in a few decades, it's gone from 80-90% male to the complete opposite), salaries are apparently dropping for the profession in accordance.
I bring up again, veterinarians -- the happy little demonstration of the effect of gender on salary. The discussion of what's influencing it goes on and there are several studies on the flip and the consequences (by the NIH and others), however, it's the clearest, quickest gender flip of a profession we've seen, and as the field becomes completely feminized (in a few decades, it's gone from 80-90% male to the complete opposite), salaries are apparently dropping for the profession in accordance.
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Possibly apocryphal, but I was taught in college that in the early days of typewriters, typists were typically men, and the work was highly paid. When women began to do the work, suddenly touch typing had "always" been women's work because our hands are smaller, and was therefore not specialized and the pay dropped.