Wednesday 4 July 2012

Women's work

3 comments:

Lindsay Mitchell said...

I haven't noticed 'rich moms' in NZ being praised for undertaking 'women's work'. They complain about getting it in the neck for abandoning careers and dropping out of the work force apparently.

And 'women's work' for pay is generally appreciated, though perhaps not monetarily. Some enterprising women are building strong franchise businesses on the back of it.

If 'poor moms' are beneficiaries (suggested because they are neither 'rich stay-at-home' nor poor and paid) then there is some justification for the 'idleness' idea. Lot's of welfare-dependent mums have one child only, often of school age, and still resist paid work outside the home.

There's only so much vacuuming to be done in one day.

Whatever 'women's work' is being done (and don't castigate me for using terms you promulgated), it should be VOLUNTARILY rewarded either through wages or support from partner, family or other non-state institution.

A Nonny Moose said...

"I haven't noticed 'rich moms' in NZ being praised for undertaking 'women's work'. They complain about getting it in the neck for abandoning careers and dropping out of the work force apparently."

As with anything women do, there's always a double standard. Also, you're operating on anecdotal evidence there - just because you don't see it from your privilege PoV, doesn't mean it's not happening.

I'm confused - you champion women building "franchise business" and making the most of their skills, and yet you turn around and say that women's work should be "voluntarily" rewarded, devaluing their skills, and a beneficiary's skills as a SaH mother as non-existent.

Seems to me you're quite happy to uphold the colour and class divide, and confirming the political cartoon commentary quite heartily.

Tamara said...

My thoughts on this were that it's pretty spot on unless you hear from people like Elizabeth Wurtzel in which case the first is denigrated as anti-feminist.