Reply to Touched Out: Is Motherhood a Scam?

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "Touched Out: Is Motherhood a Scam?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think both of you have a point. Agree that women as a demographic were devalued by patriarchal systems that kept them out of paid work or participating in intellectual or professional work except in "pink collar" roles like secretary or nurse (which also had less power than they do now). I am grateful to the work of feminists for fighting for women to have access to professional careers and, importantly, the educations that enable them to have them. I don't want to live in a world where women can't be doctors or go to business school. We can't go back there.

But I also agree that we continue to devalue care work that continues to be primarily done by women. [b]From a feminist perspective, it should be viewed as problematic that a mother who who becomes a doctor will generally just shift the work of childcare and housework onto other women[/b], for no or low pay (nannies, housekeepers, and female family members). Just as women previously made men's work possible by tending to their homes and children (and to the men themselves, let's not forget all the work women have done over the centuries to feed, clothe, type notes, entertain clients, etc.), women CONTINUE to facilitate professional work of other women.

I don't think this means feminism was wrong to fight for women to be allowed into the professional and academic worlds. I think it means that feminism is nowhere near done in addressing this issue. And we do need to overcome the fact that many professional women have simply internalized the attitudes of professional men in demeaning the work of childcare and housework as unimportant compared to their jobs.[/quote]

Childcare workers should be fairly compensated, I agree. But I'm not sure why it's a problem or should be a source of guilt that women are the ones doing those jobs as other women are working at other jobs. The vast majority of construction workers are men and without them we couldn't live in houses. I mean, so what?[/quote]

NP. That’s not the argument. Construction workers are being paid a fair wage that takes into account the demand for and value of what they’re building.

What is problematic is when a grandma, SIL or oldest sibling is pitching in to watch kids for free from 3:30-6 pm until working moms get home from work, or when a SAHM is the one driving the carpool at 4 pm because the working mom is at the office. Or someone is being paid cash off the books as a nanny or cleaner, or the daycare worker is making $14/hour to watch 5 kids when the parents pay the center $2500/month/kid. The mom (and dad!) can be at the office because of other women’s low or unpaid roles.

Everyone should feel guilty…or admit that they don’t think people who take care of children deserve much compensation for it. We’ve decided that there is an actual value to making widgets or even just BSing in an office, and that keeping children alive has less value.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics