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Is working part-time antifeminist?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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Its a article in an american-based magazine, thus has that perspective, but I think provides some very valid points on both parts, especially:
If possible I would much rather have a smaller house and less material wealth, but be happier and achieve what I want to achieve at my pace. It would allow me to still have a career and have children. It does allow women to achieve a good work-life balance, but as the article says, (even though it talks about it in US terms), how many part-time managers, directors, surgeons etc are there? I personally think its a great idea, even if you don't have kids, but how can we still have this work-life balance and achieve in our current society? Is it possible? Is working part-time anti-feminist?
Your thoughts.....?
Its a article in an american-based magazine, thus has that perspective, but I think provides some very valid points on both parts, especially:
Maybe this will turn out to be the fourth wave of feminism. Women protect the possibility that one day we’ll wake up to realize that life is not all about acquiring more material wealth, power, status. Many Dutch women that I know want to stay sane, happy, relaxed.
If possible I would much rather have a smaller house and less material wealth, but be happier and achieve what I want to achieve at my pace. It would allow me to still have a career and have children. It does allow women to achieve a good work-life balance, but as the article says, (even though it talks about it in US terms), how many part-time managers, directors, surgeons etc are there? I personally think its a great idea, even if you don't have kids, but how can we still have this work-life balance and achieve in our current society? Is it possible? Is working part-time anti-feminist?
Your thoughts.....?
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I'm not going to apologise for this but, that's just crap and it just underlines what the quote in the OP suggests - there is more to life than materiel weath, power and status. To be honest, if I could still afford to run the household I would happily go part time too.
Right now I'd prefer to work part-time so i can study more, and also for health reasons, but I feel because I'm a graduate, I should be aspiring to do great things, not work part time and be happy...
If you're working part time, or not working at all, merely because you are a woman, and the workplace is not where you belong, then yes, that's antifeminist. But if you are working less because you choose to, because you can afford to, because you want to be at home to raise your family, then no, of course it isn't.
Guff.
'Just' work part-time? I do 3 days at work and those are by far the easiest three days of my week!
I work only as much as I need to to keep our family in the black. If we could afford for me to not have to work, I wouldn't. I don't consider it my moral obligation to get anywhere in anything, and I don't consider myself a failure for preferring to educate and spend time with my daughter while she is small than spending the majority of her waking hours lining some else's pockets.
:yes: absolutely this
I remember being at an event and there was a very educated, middle class woman talking about access for women to higher jobs and business. The response was actually, we should be focusing on women on the other end of the scale... The affluent will always have money to fall back on, to have internships, savings, money for education ect... Then you have working class families on low incomes, some who become trapped in unemployment because the state does not offer affordable childcare, amongst other issues.
This is especially difficult for single mothers (and fathers, but the majority of single parents are women). I think that if anything is a feminist issue, it is poverty and wealth distribution, not crawling to the top of the pile whilst your sisters are getting in debt because they chose to heat their front room for a couple of hours a night. Poverty affects both women and men, but women tend to usually be in the lowest paid jobs, have more child care responsibilities and often are more likely to be in poverty when they retire.
I don't believe that somebody should be disadvantaged by a top job because they are a woman, but I do believe that really, it's tokenistic. The only battle that has been won is that somebody reaches one ideal of 'success'. I don't think that there's anything wrong with women, or men wanting to spend time with their family over earning big bucks... But what I do have an issue with is people telling others what they should do because of their gender and also, being so blind of their own class privilidge that they set the bar impossibly high for some women who are living in poverty, thus arguably, stigmatising their situation further.
Note: I'm not sure how much social mobility people have in the Netherlands though.