ANOTHER ANTI-MALE MYTH IS UNDERMINED - HOUSEWORK AND CHILDCARE

One of the stars who stands up for men (and women) and brings an injection of academic common sense and realism in the fight for equality and honest debate is Dr Catherine Hakim at the LSE. She really lays into the myth-making of the feminists.

She has been outspoken before on the Equality Act and speaks sense on the gender pay gap.

This week she published a report in Renewal (press release and report), a journal for social democracy, where she said that:

"Feminists are wrong to claim that men should do a larger share of the housework and childcare because on average, men and women already do the same number of hours of productive work. In fact, if we consider the hours spent doing both paid work and unpaid household, care and voluntary work together, men already do more than their fair share..."

and also as keen by this case, she says that:

"Furthermore, there is evidence that men are beginning to demand the same options and choices as women, with more claims of sex discrimination from men. Policy makers need to be aiming for gender-neutral policies that cater for all three main lifestyle choices..."

The importance of this report cannot be said enough.

Not just because it shatters another of the anti-male myths used by feminists to beat down men by suggesting they are slackers leaving women to work and then do all the housework while they skive off down the pub, it also highlights the choice that women make. This is the cause of the gender pay gap not discrimination which is what Flint, Harman and the Fawcett Society think.

Lastly, what is great about this report is that it is written by a women.

It shouldn't matter of course but if it had been written by a man, the report would have been ignored, condemned and patronised with the "he would say that would't he?" nonsense.

Posted by Skimmington

Media Coverage - Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph plus Neil Lyndon in the Telegraph

Comments

[paul parmenter]

Yes, the report does debunk some feminist myths. But I note it is still a massively female-oriented piece of work, concentrating almost entirely on what women do and what women want.

Men barely get a mention. The two quotations picked out by Skimmington are about the sum of it. But neither comment is followed up, despite their massive importance. The tables in the report have some glaring gaps against men's lifestyle choices, because there is simply no evidence of what those choices are - presumably nobody can be bothered to do any research on the subject. And the proposal to pay people who choose to stay at home out of the public purse would inevitably mean just another way of taking money out of men's wage packets and giving it to unproductive women.

So while the report is useful in its way, it is far from offering men any real hope that policy makers will be forced to take their views and choices into account for a change. And Hakim demonstrates again that even the most enlightened of women still struggle to commit at the fullest level to the concept that men's lives count every bit as much as theirs do.

[Groan]

This was reported in the daily mail and with an exellent piece by Neil lydon in the telegraph. In the past decades economists have reported much the same results in a series of studies. In response to one such last year the Fawcett society conceded the equal work but
claimed women did more emotional work in the family. Hakim is of course an economist and what seems to happen is that their work gets ignored by the policymakers, dominated by social sciences. I agree that discussion largely assumes men choose to work longer and die earlier . I think largely this is because if men chose to work less and not provide more women would not have the options they have now.

[paul parmenter]

Groan: your comment is exactly right.

Everyone who makes a lifestyle choice that they cannot afford to pay for out of their own earnings, must necessarily be reliant on somebody else's earnings to take up and pay for their slack. It has become a well-established tradition that the great majority of those making those lifestyle choices that they cannot afford out of their own earnings have been female, and the great majority of those having to provide the extra earning power to pay for those choices - earnings that the earners will never use for their own benefit - have been male.

Of course this dynamic has played out historically at an individual level, whereby the husband supplies the extra earnings for his wife and children. However with the advent of the welfare state, women can now obtain their extra funding through the state; which is to say from taxes paid by the earners. So the only change is that women now have their lifestyle choices funded by a large body of earners rather than from just the one.

Now I wonder what would happen to our society if men not only demanded the same range of lifestyle choices as women already have, but they actually started to put their demands into practice? What would happen if, say, 50% of the male population refused to do any more work than was strictly necessary only to fund their own lifestyle, with no surplus available for anybody else to have? How would women cope with this army of "slackers" who, for many of them, would be the only men available?

And why on earth should it not happen?

[John Kimble]

Some good posts and a good article.

Gender feminists are constantly trying to portray women as super-human beings in temrs of the work they do, and men as spoilt bone idle oafs.

It's important to dispel such myths. Just as with most things gender really doesn't determine one's work rate or whether someone is a decent human being.

I remember a previous study where feminists had highlighted that men spent more time watching tv than women and they used that as evidence of women working harder.

It later emerged that the difference in tv watching was the same as the difference in time spent in bed - so while the men were watching tv, the women were asleep rather than slaving away cooking or cleaning or wahtever.

[Bob]

Exactly Paul. Well said. Men pay for the system that is set-up to allow women to replace them in the family.

There are thousands of men out there who sit at the dinner table every night under the illusion they have their place in the family.

In reality they are only there because their wives don't exercise the power the state has given them to have the men removed from the family and replaced with a "Tax Credit" or some other form of "Wallet to Purse" hand-out. That is if he was even allowed in the family home in the first place.

In my experience the biggest barrier to men claiming their right to have the same choices in life as women, is the old in-grained idea of chivalry, where it is expected that men sacrifice themselves for women. When we finally see an end to this out-dated 'gallantry', especially in the media, then that will be the start of equality.

[Groan]

I recall a piece by Boris Johnson as he dozed on a train he overheard the usual female complaint that there were no decent
men to date. He evesdropped further and came to the realisation that decent really meant better paid than the women speaking. Reasoning that this simply reflected feminisms advance. Why should men seek to be the provider when women can provide for themselves. Possibly this is behind the so called marriage strike. Men are simply not taking responsibility and letting women marry the state. Turns out all this cost a fortune. I expect much more about slackers on future as more young men grow up without the family breadwinner drive. Why should they if no one values them if they do take up such responsibilities. Of course it's all mess for society and children.

[Bridget]

You guys are full of absolute crap. When marriages break up men have the option of sueing for custody and when they do they are more likely to get it than their wives.

Most men don't want their kids because they don't want to be poor. Its far easier for them to just drop in and visit and leave the rest to the EX.

What I see in many familes is both parents coming home from work. The woman starts doing housework. The man sits down and minds the kids.
So the mother (gods natural choice for parent) never gets quality time with her kids. Shes just the unpaid help with no breaks.

Watch wife swap to see this scenario repeated consistantly. Housework participation differs between families and countries but in the UK the figure is only 10% of men do any at all. The rest do none.

Some men do work longer hours but when work hours are even I see this scenario repeated very very often. Not always but most of the time.

As for dying earlier most of this is due to the fact that smokers used to be predominently men. There are now more woman smokers so as time goes on we should see a change in that. Also women seem to get up to 10 more years of life if they have a child later. If you remove late mothers the stats are very different.

If total work done evens out with men doing more paid work the problem is that women loose out with superannuation etc.

In Germany the male/female superannuation ration is men get tripple what women get due to years looking after families. Many older women were on the street with not enough money to survive after years of working for free this is what they got.

And you are crazy if you think mothers at home do nothing. The average hour on houswork fo mothers with 1-2 kids is 50 hours. This amount doesnt guarentee a tidy house.
men that have looked after kids and also gone out to work have described the job as the hardest thing they have ever done and would never inflict this on future partners.

You guys are mental.

Remeber the household in the US that had rubbish more than a foot deep and had to be cleared.
That is what you get with the wife on strike. Even in that mess everyone was still doing their own washing etc.
Get a cleaner cook etc into your home to tend to your needs at the level you would expect from a stay at home wife and see how much it cost you.

You live in fantasy land and its high time perhaps you stayed at home with kids and found out just how much hard yakka women do every day without break.

Many women never retire and wait on their husbands till they or their partner dies.

[Jon]

"You guys are full of absolute crap."

Welcome to the forum, Bridget!

"When marriages break up men have the option of sueing for custody and when they do they are more likely to get it than their wives."

Cite please as I strongly suspect that is false.

"Most men don't want their kids because they don't want to be poor."

Cite please.

"Its far easier for them to just drop in and visit and leave the rest to the EX."

And yet you have no evidence that this is how men think, you just assume that a man has no desire to look after and care for their own child. That's pretty sexist, actually.

"What I see in many familes is both parents coming home from work. The woman starts doing housework. The man sits down and minds the kids."

And? Both parties are working for the good of the household, are they not? Why is caring for a child "sitting down" work when a man does it, but some sort of back-breaking nightmare when a woman does it?

"So the mother (gods natural choice for parent)"

I'm an atheist, and your argument has no relevance outside of your religion, I'm afraid.

"never gets quality time with her kids. Shes just the unpaid help with no breaks."

Because when a dad does it it's "quality time", but when the mum does it it's "unpaid help with no breaks"?

"Watch wife swap to see this scenario repeated consistantly."

You SERIOUSLY think that "Wife swap" is representative of domestic married life in this country?

I can't believe you actually posted the above on the Internet.

"Housework participation differs between families and countries but in the UK the figure is only 10% of men do any at all. The rest do none."

Rubbish. Er, sorry, I mean "CITE!"

"Some men do work longer hours but when work hours are even I see this scenario repeated very very often. Not always but most of the time."

Oooh, some more anecdotal story-type 'evidence'? Was this one from 'Wife swap' too?

"As for dying earlier most of this is due to the fact that smokers used to be predominently men."

Cite please, as I suspect that is pure fiction.

"There are now more woman smokers so as time goes on we should see a change in that."

Cite please.

"Also women seem to get up to 10 more years of life if they have a child later. If you remove late mothers the stats are very different."

But why would you remove late mothers, Bridget? Are they not 'women' anymore?

"If total work done evens out with men doing more paid work the problem is that women loose out with superannuation etc.

In Germany the male/female superannuation ration is men get tripple what women get due to years looking after families. Many older women were on the street with not enough money to survive after years of working for free this is what they got.

And you are crazy if you think mothers at home do nothing. The average hour on houswork fo mothers with 1-2 kids is 50 hours. This amount doesnt guarentee a tidy house.
men that have looked after kids and also gone out to work have described the job as the hardest thing they have ever done and would never inflict this on future partners.

You guys are mental.

Remeber the household in the US that had rubbish more than a foot deep and had to be cleared.
That is what you get with the wife on strike. Even in that mess everyone was still doing their own washing etc.
Get a cleaner cook etc into your home to tend to your needs at the level you would expect from a stay at home wife and see how much it cost you.

You live in fantasy land and its high time perhaps you stayed at home with kids and found out just how much hard yakka women do every day without break.

Many women never retire and wait on their husbands till they or their partner dies."

Just a load of anecdotal waffle and bigotry in equal measure, I'm afraid.