BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Today's Woman = Emancipation?

I guess I question the assumption that bringing in money is the cornerstone of being an equal, contributing partner to the relationship. That seems slightly more like a commercial arrangement. For example, you may not be bringing in income but you can be contributing in other ways through ensuring that all they have to do at the end of each day is come home & relax or making sure all the bills are paid etc. That is its own form of contribution.

That is an excellent point, Malamutes, and it is one I ponder often. I think to me the problem is that that mental image brings up a discussion we had in this forum several months ago, on this topic -

BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

Um, in our household, it was my husband at home, studying and ensuring that the house ran smoothly. He would also have the car packed for camping trips etc so that when I came home from work, we just got in the car and went. Given that I wasn't the healthiest at that time, he'd also usually take 100% of household responsibilities on so that I could just focus on going to work each day and then coming home to rest.

I don't know, maybe it's just a lack of gender bias on my part, but I don't see it as a gender specific "wife waiting for husband" type thing. If anything, now that I have a day off a fortnight, I enjoy having the time to prepare a nice meal or organise something fun for us to do when hubby gets home.

I agree completely that men are quite as capable at cooking and keeping a house clean! In our home, my partner of 13 years does all the cooking. I am very appreciative of that.

I thought you were responding to the previous posts involving women being jealous of finding a rich man so they did not have to work. I thought you were explaining that while the women were not "working" in a money-bringing sense, they were acting to keep their partner happy in the come-home-and-relax arena. I apologize if you meant that as a separate thought.

That is a very interesting idea, then, if we simply look at a barter system separate from any "looking for a rich man" idea. The question then is are chores really a barter. To me, both partners in a relationship share chores based on interest and aptitude. If I really care about the cat litter being clean, then it makes the most sense for that to be my chore. Otherwise I might yell at my partner frequently for not doing it often enough according to my cleanliness standards.

I'm not sure I could imagine a situation where I did enough chores around the house to feel I was "holding my own" with my partner working a full time job. I'm not sure most houses have that many chores any more. Back in the "old days", washing clothes was a full day 8-hour task of hard labor. Cooking every night was very time intensive. Washing plates and floors took hours. It really was a full time "job" to keep a home clean and run properly. With all the modern conveniences, it is maybe a one hour job.

Which then brings up an intriguing idea. What if you deliberately chose to go back to the old lifestyle and pour 10 hour days into maintaining your home? That would be a huge effort. I think if I was doing that then yes, I could begin to feel comfortable in having that count as equity against what my partner was doing in an office job.

But you would feel that way if it were the other way around? If your guy met you at the door and told you dinner was almost ready, and asked if you would enjoy a glass of wine after you kick your shoes off, would you feel the same?

Sometimes I think today's women get too sensitive and specific about what feminism and equality really mean. It's about having the choice and the voice to wisely choose what works in your own home and life, not a strictly enforced structure of "everything must be 50-50." It's also about being able to be flexible with traditional gender roles, and changing the household dynamic when necessary. It's not about fearing the roles of a half century ago, but having the option of choosing them and adjusting them to the modern world (referring to the recent discussion on how a forward-thinking SAHM would be wise to keep her foot in the door career-wise in this unpredictable world).

For six months, a couple of years ago, I did what I referred to jokingly as "the Susie Homemaker gig." I purposely did not immediately replace a miserable job and "kept house" for half a year. My fiance was working 60-80 hour weeks (salaried, so the number of hours had no impact on our income). I learned to cook at age 24. I (tried to) learn to knit. I took over all the household chores we had previously shared. I read, I wrote, I hung out with my friends. I kept a weird and irregular sleep schedule. I enjoyed the experience thoroughly.

But those six months had no impact on the feeling of partnership in our relationship. I was still an equal, despite spending so much time trying to guess when he'd be home so I could time my dinner preparations well (not by demand, but by choice) and he could come home to a ready meal and a quiet, relaxing evening. I loved doing that for him.

Why did we choose to try that experiment? Well, for a few reasons. First of all, I needed a break. I'd had a few straight years of bad work experiences following my knee surgery and was just burnt out with dealing with managers who wouldn't cut a break on physical work to the girl with the limp. I was over it. Secondly, we could. We were in a financial position at the time that allowed us to take that time and knew that a better job opportunity for me would be coming available in about six months, when a certain company opened a branch in our town. Finally, I wanted to try being "just a housewife." It was something new to add to my experiences. I'd been working pretty much non-stop since age 16 and hadn't tried taking on that traditional female role in any capacity (as evidenced by my refusal to learn to cook until that time).

We made that choice, and figured it out as we went. If you look at the situation strictly from a fiscal standpoint, I was just a mooch for half a year. If you look at it from an overly strong feminist standpoint, I was doing my part to set back a couple of generations of women in the pursuit of equality. But we never looked at it that way, and never treated it that way, so it wasn't that way. We were equal partners before, during, and after the Susie Homemaker experiment because that's what we chose to be. And then I went back to work and we changed our household dynamics yet again. There was nothing shudder worthy in my choice to stay at home for six months. It was just something that worked for us at the time that we both learned from.

Myrabeth - my partner *does* bring me wine, and a delicious dinner, when dinnertime comes around. I work at home barefoot.

I don't think at all it is about gender to me. It is completely about productively contributing an equal amount to the maintenance of the joint household.

In your example, if my partner (male or female) was off working at an office job, and I was home hanging out with friends and reading books, that would make me very uncomfortable.

If I was working hard to ensure our bills got paid, and pouring effort into maintaining a steady stream of income to keep us stable, and my partner was out drinking with friends and playing video games, then that would make me very uncomfortable as well.

It wouldn't matter male or female. It is the inequity that would bother me.

That's exactly my point. We CHOSE as a couple to lessen my work load for a specific period of time, despite that fact that it would mean we had VERY unequal workloads for that time.

As I said, the equality our feminist fore-mothers sought was not that every couple have a "50-50 is the only acceptable ratio" house rule, but so that every woman would have the same choices in how she ran her life as a man. The equality they sought was equality of OPTIONS, not equality of workloads and monetary contributions.

I am uneducated, and work in a field that is described as "unskilled labor." I could work 80 hours per week and still not come close to matching the income of my "white collar" guy. If by some chance my future career takes the shape I dream about, I could eventually eclipse him in annual income, but that is highly unlikely, given the type of dream I'm pursuing. So we have had to accept the fact that I will probably never be an equal to him monetarily.

I have minor mobility problems. I often spend all the energy I have at work and spend my evenings with my leg propped up, moaning every time I move. Sometimes I can't handle my share of the housework (which is more than half to compensate for the fact that he works more hours than I do) and have to ask him to help with my chores, or tolerate a delay in getting them done.

On the other hand, I'll often spend my days off doing thorough cleanings of areas of our home that fall in his area of responsibility (with frequent "sit and rest for a bit" breaks). Whenever I feel I physically can handle extra work I'll take his turns to make dinner off his hands(usually one or two night per week is his share). I'll do the laundry a day earlier than planned, so he gets the surprise of not having to do it. And so on.

We balance things out as best we can in the situation we're in. It isn't an equal workload. It isn't even consistent. Some weeks, I get an extra day off and have no arthritic flare ups and he doesn't have to do a single chore, no matter if he's working 30 hours or 60. Some weeks, I'm picking up extra shifts and he's making dinner every night and tending to other little tasks while I'm on the couch with a pillow under my knee. Some weeks, we work over 100 hours between us and are doing just enough housekeeping to survive. It's always a little uneven, and sometimes it's a lot uneven!

But it is what the feminist pursuit of equality was all about: Being able to say to your guy "Honey, how would you feel about doing the dishes for me tonight? I've had a rough day at work" and offering to help him with one of his chores at the next good opportunity... not in pursuit of a "50-50" relationship, but because you are equal partners who care enough about each other to help each other out.

"I thought you were responding to the previous posts involving women being jealous of finding a rich man so they did not have to work."

No, no, no! I wonder who posted this? I certainly didn't. I hope I did not get the wrong idea across. What I meant to say in my original post was that sometimes, just sometimes, I would love the luxury of being a bit "spoiled", if only for a day, a week, or a month. And that's because I have never been in a situation where I could count on anybody but myself to take care of me. And being spoiled to me would mean just getting out of the rat race, if only for a short time... it would be bliss. (I'm equally convinced that some men - who may have loads of responsibility, whether at home or at work - would welcome the opportunity to get away from it for just a little while, and if they can't, well, you can daydream, right?)

Now, I love to work, I do like the mental stimulation and being productive member of society. If I had to stay home for more than a month, I would probably go batty...

Myrabeth, I wholeheartedly agree with your two previous posts, you took the words right out of your mouth! It's not about "having" to do certain things, but "wanting" to do them, out of love for somebody.

Fatina - I completely understand wanting to get out of the rat race! Many if not most of the married without kids couples I know have one or both of the couple who explicitly chose to drop out of the rat race and to work for themselves. I am a HUGE proponent of working for yourself, finding a job you love and spending all your time doing something your love.

It is definitely very possible, I have hundreds of pages online on how to find a way to make money working from your home doing something you really enjoy.

Shoot my flight is about to leave and in fact it's oversold so I need to run, but I'll post more later!