Reply to Touched Out: Is Motherhood a Scam?

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[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]

I mean, you answered your own question. Childcare workers are not fairly compensated. So even though I am all for celebrating the great strides women have made in the professional sphere, but I think celebrating that without looking at who now cares for the children (hint: it's NEVER men), and how those workers are compensated and treated, would be a failure in terms of feminism.

Also, to make this a bit thornier, I think it's important to consider the many, many professional women whose careers are compromised because the cost and difficulty of obtaining childcare pushes even women with strong education credentials and professional ambition into mommy-tracked careers for lower pay and less prestige. If we are looking at the economic power of women as a group, these losses are also examples of how we haven't really solved the problem of "women's work" being devalued, so much as we've just hidden the ball a bit. A bunch of professional women working the double shift is not exactly progress, and I think that is specifically the "scam" that is being referenced in the interview.

I have more thoughts on this, including thoughts on how every PTA is dominated by women (in many cases, women with full time jobs) and how that often makes me think about how this is yet another sphere that rests on the idea of women working for free. Just for example, at our school, the PTA fundraising is responsible for major line items in the school's budget, including multiple paraprofessionals, the ability to subsidize art and music programming, field trips, classroom supplies, you name it. And that fundraising happens because the mostly female PTA dedicates hours of their lives every year, time away from both paid work AND their families, to get that money raised. It's tedious, thankless work -- organizing fundraising events, calling businesses for financial or in-kind donations, organizing an auction, soliciting and managing other volunteers, and on and on. But that work employed people, educates children, makes the school more functional as a service to the community. So women are basically performing a government function (this is a public school) for free.

I mean... tell me again about how there's non scam and you just need to marry a man who does the dishes to solve this problem?[/quote]

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