Feminism - where are the threads?

[weepiper]

I was a SAHM until my youngest was 16 months (the others were three and nearly six) when I went back to work in my previous job two days a week. It cost me more than I earned to put the two youngest in private nursery and the eldest in after school club for those two days but because I was a single mum and we still had a Labour government at that point tax credits paid for 85% of the bill which made it viable. I was really lonely and bored by that point, having been a single mother for more than a year while living in a pretty isolated home situation (farm cottages five miles from the nearest town) so I was eager to get a bit of adult contact and feel like I wasn't 'just' Mummy. It was really hard going though because an eight hour work day sandwiched with being the only one looking after the three small children (so still getting up at night with one or more of them, feeding/dressing/nappies/potty training/collecting/dropping off at childcare/homework/washing dishes/housework, the fucking lot) meant on the days I was working I would pretty much not sit down between 6am and 10pm. It was pretty exhausting at that point and if they cried at nursery drop off or whatever I did sometimes find myself thinking is this worth it?

I don't know how it might have been different if I had a) been in a relationship with their father and b) lived somewhere less lonely. I might not have wanted to go back to work so soon. I don't know. I adored being their mum and miss them being tiny but it was pretty tough at the same time. I have contradictory feelings about it.

 

[kabbes]

I think part of the difficulty in understanding this is the way issues seem to be posed as if its external vs internal, social vs natural/ instinctual. When you say there's a massive social pressure and the subjective experience is one of choice, it's hard to conceive of how that external becomes internal to the point that it feels natural. How things appear or feel natural is what ideology is all about ( I think) but its hard to talk to describe that process without it sounding like something is imposed, mechanically, without any agency or resistance or negotiation.

I think this is partly where kabbes paper comes in, because he's interested in how identity is socially formed. And the dreaded psychoanalysis.

Exactly so! Possibly with or without the psychoanalysis. Not seen enough yet to form an opinion on that one...

 

[chilango]

When you say there's a massive social pressure and the subjective experience is one of choice, it's hard to conceive of how that external becomes internal to the point that it feels natural. How things appear or feel natural is what ideology is all about ( I think) but its hard to talk to describe that process without it sounding like something is imposed, mechanically, without any agency or resistance or negotiation.

Yep, this is how I'm using interpellation (and a bit of Lacan).

Althusser described interpellation as a form of "hailing" using the example of a police officer shouting "Hey you!" and the person turning around in response becomes the subject. Ties in a bit with Lacan's "the letter always arrives at its destination". This is how ideology becomes "as if natural".

It can be framed quite deterministically but there are theories of misinterpretation that I'm trying to build upon in my work a bit.

 

[chilango]

...and I guess I could hypothesise that we ensure an endless barrage of socially constructed ideologies of gender roles that we interpellate through our "choices" at moments such as who does the childcare, do the kids go to nursery etc etc.

But that's a very tough off the top of my head hypothesis which Is need to think through a bit.

edit to add: in a very crude sense it's a process of identification perhaps.

 

[friendofdorothy]

Feminism started to lose coherence and validity (for me) not long after the Greenham Common years. By the time I did a degree at Sussex in the 90s, I admit to finding academic feminist writing especially unedifying, obtuse and suspiciously complex. The female fucking gaze and bizarre, irrelevant psycho-analytical rambling. Thankfully, I fled to film studies, economics, some shite called 'Shamanic Consciousness' and mostly history and still got my first.
Probably says more about me (and a somewhat chippy wc belligerence) but 2nd wave feminism seemed apolitical, ahistorical but far worse, elitist. With nothing whatsoever to address the lived experience of just about all the women I know...and most heinously of all, it seemed that to even mention stuff like childcare, parenting, working hours and opportunities and even our actual bodies (unless as commodities of course), was largely dismissed. As FoD succinctly states - there are many shades of feminism but oppression is a overarching, prickling, stinging, ever-present background hum (rising to a shriek).

Congrats of the first!

Unfortunately (or is that fortunately?) I only studied or read feminist stuff in the 80s. Too busy living and being a lesbian activist after that. Seemed to me that by the late 80s feminism had become a niche interest, divisive and cliquey. Found myself rejected by many lesbians and feminists for wearing a frock. ffs. I aways enjoyed the the female fucking gaze!

I visited Greenham common, but only for the anniversary days. I was there for the 'surround the base' event - an amazing experience! never seen so many women of all kinds coming together - quakers, cnd, unionists, lesbians, pacifists, etc, etc of all ages and backgrounds.

Mysogeny is still everywhere and it still effect millions of women daily. It saddens me how little things have changed in so many ways.

 

[trashpony]

Yes. Childcare is crazy expensive, I was lucky enough to be well qualified, skilled and experienced yet the cost of childcare when I went back to work f/t (when my daughter hit about 2 years and needed the xtra socialisation and stimulation) still ate up my entire wage.

I've posted on here before about my experiences as a sahd, so I won't repeat myself, but it's no coincidence that stuff like Wages for Housework suddenly made sense to me.

I'm still the primary care giver and do almost all of the domestic labour. My career never really recovered from taking two years out, and I'm happier doing this than the rat race.

That said. the ongoing internal and external pressures on my sense of identity/self taking these roles can't be underestimated.

I'll try and shut up again now. sorry!

I think this is a really valuable post because for many women (me included) we believed that having children wouldn’t affect our careers and we found that to be completely wrong.

I have always been a single parent, went back to work when my son was 9 months but didn’t earn enough to employ a nanny. My inability to be there for 6pm or 8am meetings absolutely scuppered my career. Two well paid working parents can do it - or one with a SAHP. As a lone parent, my career was fucked.

But I was desperate to go back. So much of my sense of self was/is tied up in my professional achievements.

And there is a massive assumption that once you’ve had kids you’re not really focused on the job when you’re a woman. Because I think there’s a deep seated social belief that most women would rather be at baby groups and making cookies than leading a team or whatever, even if the idea of going to baby groups makes you want to stick pins in your arms.

Financially speaking, for most women in two parent households, it’s better for the family for them to stay at home looking after the kids until they’re in school. I think the women who go back are the ones who need - rather than want - to work.

Of course the other issue is that women are massively financially vulnerable if they stay home to look after their children

 

[Clair De Lune]

In my job we work in schools and colleges and have a set amount of clients to try to see in a day. We then have admin stuff to complete afterwards. A lot of us have kids and need to collect them from school. This has led to some of us requesting we see our clients earlier in order to leave in time. My bosses have insinuated that this is not fair on our childless colleagues ...that this is us finishing 'early' when in fact this is us not getting a break in the day in order to rush to pick up our kids and then complete our admin at home. Its more work, not less! A super sound colleague set my boss straight about this recently and I'm very proud of her for doing so. I hope this will result in a little more understanding and less sneering that we've somehow got it easier and are lucky.

 

[Red Cat]

...and I guess I could hypothesise that we ensure an endless barrage of socially constructed ideologies of gender roles that we interpellate through our "choices" at moments such as who does the childcare, do the kids go to nursery etc etc.

But that's a very tough off the top of my head hypothesis which Is need to think through a bit.

edit to add: in a very crude sense it's a process of identification perhaps.

Why do you say crude?

 

[Red Cat]

Exactly so! Possibly with or without the psychoanalysis. Not seen enough yet to form an opinion on that one...

Just to clarify, I wasn't saying you had an interest in that, i was saying that's where those theories come in, in terms of formation of identity.

 

[Red Cat]

In my job we work in schools and colleges and have a set amount of clients to try to see in a day. We then have admin stuff to complete afterwards. A lot of us have kids and need to collect them from school. This has led to some of us requesting we see our clients earlier in order to leave in time. My bosses have insinuated that this is not fair on our childless colleagues ...that this is us finishing 'early' when in fact this is us not getting a break in the day in order to rush to pick up our kids and then complete our admin at home. Its more work, not less! A super sound colleague set my boss straight about this recently and I'm very proud of her for doing so. I hope this will result in a little more understanding and less sneering that we've somehow got it easier and are lucky.

It's an interesting process though, how more work can be distorted into less work. This is what seems to happen on a macro level isn't it? Women's work becomes invisible.

 

[chilango]

Why do you say crude?

'cos "identification" can be understood in lots of ways, I'd like to be more precise in what I'm meaning by it. I'd need to think through a bit more before then.

 

[chilango]

'cos "identification" can be understood in lots of ways, I'd like to be more precise in what I'm meaning by it. I'd need to think through a bit more before then.

...I think there might be an interesting tension and relationship between "identifying with" and "identifying as" going in the process of interpellation.

(I bring in a lot of Bourdieu at this point cos my focus is education, be interested in seeing it in other fields)

 

[kabbes]

Just to clarify, I wasn't saying you had an interest in that, i was saying that's where those theories come in, in terms of formation of identity.

Sure. And while we’re back on that, actually, you said:

How things appear or feel natural is what ideology is all about ( I think) but its hard to talk to describe that process without it sounding like something is imposed, mechanically, without any agency or resistance or negotiation.

As I understand it, it is that agency question which brings about the argument about interpellation. That is, our social identity is not imposed on us so much as we are active in choosing to construct it. However, whilst the choice may be made by us, that does not mean it is conscious. It can be like a ball following a grooved path and every time it goes round the groove, it deepens the channel, making it more likely to be followed again.

I can relate that back to Vygotsky, and his famous observation that, “Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.” The groove starts with cultural tools that are used to introduce the child to the world. As the child uses those tools, talking to him/herself and trying to understand the world, the assumptions embedded in that tool are internalised. And so the groove grows deeper.

That’s just my own process of internally socialising a tool, by the way. I’m not trying to lecture anybody else.

 

[chilango]

"choice" is a very loaded word. It does a lot of ideological work in itself.

 

[Edie]

I was a SAHM until my youngest was 16 months (the others were three and nearly six) when I went back to work in my previous job two days a week. It cost me more than I earned to put the two youngest in private nursery and the eldest in after school club for those two days but because I was a single mum and we still had a Labour government at that point tax credits paid for 85% of the bill which made it viable. I was really lonely and bored by that point, having been a single mother for more than a year while living in a pretty isolated home situation (farm cottages five miles from the nearest town) so I was eager to get a bit of adult contact and feel like I wasn't 'just' Mummy. It was really hard going though because an eight hour work day sandwiched with being the only one looking after the three small children (so still getting up at night with one or more of them, feeding/dressing/nappies/potty training/collecting/dropping off at childcare/homework/washing dishes/housework, the fucking lot) meant on the days I was working I would pretty much not sit down between 6am and 10pm. It was pretty exhausting at that point and if they cried at nursery drop off or whatever I did sometimes find myself thinking is this worth it?

I don't know how it might have been different if I had a) been in a relationship with their father and b) lived somewhere less lonely. I might not have wanted to go back to work so soon. I don't know. I adored being their mum and miss them being tiny but it was pretty tough at the same time. I have contradictory feelings about it.

Honestly I think all women have contradictory feelings about it. You know me well enough to know I don’t pretend mothering is a bed of roses or that those early years with my kids were easy. I do hear what other women are saying about wanting to go back to work, and I did too when I could do something I wanted to do (I count myself as a sahm for their first 6 years but actually I worked in a pub on a night, and worked afternoons as a secretary for last couple but purely for money not for any love of the job).

I don’t understand the interpellation (not heard the word but have googled it). I mean obviously we do take on the values and norms of our culture. But again, no one has commented on the enormous and very improbable situation that all cultures across time and geography have coincidentally ended up with women caring for children and men providing.

Athos said:

Perhaps more importantly, why does it matter, politically speaking? Shouldn't we be aiming for a situation in which the important (and difficult) work of caring for children (and the elderly) is valued, and the burden/opportunity of any activity isn't based on sex?

That’s one of the thoughts I wanted to explore. I think it does matter, but I need help thinking it through.

Say we assume (and correct me if I’m wrong but this seems to be the ‘progressive’ view), that the aim is that there’s no difference in how children are raised or educated, that will result in women and men equally sharing the domestic and caring with the providing and financial roles, so women will achieve social/political/financial power equal to men’s.

But here’s the thing. What happens if it just doesn’t work like that? If, actually, women and men don’t want to share these things equally, even given the chance. Then, that way of achieving power doesn’t work, and may actually leave women weaker (‘well you had your chance’). That is what that video made me wonder.

 

[kabbes]

. I mean obviously we do take on the values and norms of our culture. But again, no one has commented on the enormous and very improbable situation that all cultures across time and geography have coincidentally ended up with women caring for children and men providing.

It’s not coincidental. That doesn’t mean there is a special set of caring-as-we-culturally-define-it alleles associated with the Y-chromosome though. There are ways for things to be systematic other than via genetics. I’d look instead to power structures and how the dominant structures are maintained.

 

[purenarcotic]

Cultures are not static though. We have always travelled around and shared different practises and taken on aspects of other cultures.

 

[Athos]

Honestly I think all women have contradictory feelings about it. You know me well enough to know I don’t pretend mothering is a bed of roses or that those early years with my kids were easy. I do hear what other women are saying about wanting to go back to work, and I did too when I could do something I wanted to do (I count myself as a sahm for their first 6 years but actually I worked in a pub on a night, and worked afternoons as a secretary for last couple but purely for money not for any love of the job).

I don’t understand the interpellation (not heard the word but have googled it). I mean obviously we do take on the values and norms of our culture. But again, no one has commented on the enormous and very improbable situation that all cultures across time and geography have coincidentally ended up with women caring for children and men providing.

Athos said:

That’s one of the thoughts I wanted to explore. I think it does matter, but I need help thinking it through.

Say we assume (and correct me if I’m wrong but this seems to be the ‘progressive’ view), that the aim is that there’s no difference in how children are raised or educated, that will result in women and men equally sharing the domestic and caring with the providing and financial roles, so women will achieve social/political/financial power equal to men’s.

But here’s the thing. What happens if it just doesn’t work like that? If, actually, women and men don’t want to share these things equally, even given the chance. Then, that way of achieving power doesn’t work, and may actually leave women weaker (‘well you had your chance’). That is what that video made me wonder.

If, when free to choose to look after kids or not, some women decide they want to, that's fine (as it'd be fine for men). The point is that any such choice ought not to be constrained by sex. And why can't it work like that? Society could be ordered that way; biology is no bar to that. There's no reason to strive for things to better than they always have - slavey always existed until it didn't.

 

[chilango]

If, when free to choose to look after kids or not, some women decide they want to, that's fine (as it'd be fine for men). The point is that any such choice ought not to be constrained by sex. And why can't it work like that? Society could be ordered that way; biology is no bar to that. There's no reason to strive for things to better than they always have - slavey always existed until it didn't.

I think the deeper question is what frames and shapes the process of choice.

 

[TopCat]

Because there’s massive societal expectation that the role of women is to look after children and the role of men is to be a provider.

It would have been cheaper for me to look after my kids myself rather than have two in nursery. Their mother, an espoused feminist refused to let this happen saying bizarrely that it would undermine her role as mother.

 

[kabbes]

It would have been cheaper for me to look after my kids myself rather than have two in nursery. Their mother, an espoused feminist refused to let this happen saying bizarrely that it would undermine her role as mother.

Why is that bizarre to you? I don’t mean the surface of it, more what was underneath her perspective.

 

[Athos]

I think the deeper question is what frames and shapes the process of choice.

Yes. I nearly put the word in inverted commas. It's the structures that dictate (limit) 'choices' that need to change.

 

[Clair De Lune]

It's an interesting process though, how more work can be distorted into less work. This is what seems to happen on a macro level isn't it? Women's work becomes invisible.

Yes indeed, its a very strange kind of self deception. I'm glad we've heard from some dads on this thread that understand how much emotional and physical labour is involved with being a sahp too as I used to get really fed up of people assuming I had it easy back then too.

 

[Winot]

Mrs W and I split the childcare equally (3 days in nursery and one day each at home). However I am well aware that the reason we were able to do this was that we were well-enough off to afford the drop in income and that I had the social capital at work to be able to go part time without it damaging my standing.

 

[kabbes]

My bil and sil now literally share a job. The same job. They do two days of it each a week whilst the other looks after the kids. The other day a week they both have off with the kids. It works brilliantly but of course it’s a pretty unique situation where you both have the same qualifications and working history that allows the job share plus that job is well paid enough to be able to support a family on a single four-day-week income.

Also, they tried to get a promotion as a pair recently and I’m sure you can imagine how well that went down with managers.

 

[Edie]

(Just wanted to say it’s been brilliant to discuss these things with everyone here, otherwise y’know it’s just me and Mr Knowland plus lots of new things to think about).

 

[ElizabethofYork]

I was a SAHM until my youngest was 16 months (the others were three and nearly six) when I went back to work in my previous job two days a week. It cost me more than I earned to put the two youngest in private nursery and the eldest in after school club for those two days but because I was a single mum and we still had a Labour government at that point tax credits paid for 85% of the bill which made it viable. I was really lonely and bored by that point, having been a single mother for more than a year while living in a pretty isolated home situation (farm cottages five miles from the nearest town) so I was eager to get a bit of adult contact and feel like I wasn't 'just' Mummy. It was really hard going though because an eight hour work day sandwiched with being the only one looking after the three small children (so still getting up at night with one or more of them, feeding/dressing/nappies/potty training/collecting/dropping off at childcare/homework/washing dishes/housework, the fucking lot) meant on the days I was working I would pretty much not sit down between 6am and 10pm. It was pretty exhausting at that point and if they cried at nursery drop off or whatever I did sometimes find myself thinking is this worth it?

I don't know how it might have been different if I had a) been in a relationship with their father and b) lived somewhere less lonely. I might not have wanted to go back to work so soon. I don't know. I adored being their mum and miss them being tiny but it was pretty tough at the same time. I have contradictory feelings about it.

I also have contradictory feelings about those years. My preference would have been to work part-time but finances didn't allow it. So I went back to work full-time after my statutory 3 months of maternity leave. At that time, feminism hadn't yet visited the ElizabethofYork household, so as well as working full-time, I also did all the domestic stuff and all the after-work childcare including getting up two or three times every night.

It was a torrid time. I remember sitting in my front room one night with a crying baby, thinking about work the next day, and wondering why the fuck I ever wanted children.

 

[chilango]

Just a little more on interpellation to - hopefully - demystify the term a little.

An example of how interpellation might function in the discussion here is looking at the role of advertising. (Judith Williamson's Decoding Advertisements is a great book on this, if dated)

Obviously advertising's primary function is to sell us stuff.

...but equally obviously the vast majority of commodities aren't sold/bought merely on a utilitarian basis (most stuff functions as well as most other simialr stuff in this regard).

So, the problem for advertising is how to get us to "choose" their product over other over comparable products. Cars, banks and fragrances are typical examples. They portray an idealised image of what they intend the customer to identify with (or to aspire to identify with) and through the act of consumption we can then identify as that idealised image (literally sometimes, "I'm more of Mac user personally..."

Of course, everybody doesn't buy everything, and wouldn't even if they could afford to. So, that moment of i"dentification with" that allows for the transformation into "identification as" is where I would locate interpellation as occuring in this secnario.

This only works if we have structures of socially understood meaning that we can use to read these idealised images, and the advertisers can use to write these idealised images. This where semiotics (to use another bit of jargon) comes in. There is a language of signs and signifiers that we are immersed in from birth, all around us, all the time (the "Spectacle" as Debord argued). Look at that "products for fragile masculinity" thread for lots of examples of crude signifiers of masculinity.

This language of signs includes (but is not limited to) the blue/pink binary, male and female roles and archetypes omnipresent in the media. It includes stuff like baby changing facilities being in the womens' toilets, not the mens'. That may be changing now, but we've all grown up with that message. It includes images of domestic labour almost always being carried out by women (and when it is by men, it's presented as "not quite right"), all that everyday sexism stuff too. You'll all have loads more examples I'm sure.

So, yeah, that's interpellation (and beyond) from my pov.

 

[kabbes]

Just a little more on interpellation to - hopefully - demystify the term a little.

An example of how interpellation might function in the discussion here is looking at the role of advertising. (Judith Williamson's Decoding Advertisements is a great book on this, if dated)

Obviously advertising's primary function is to sell us stuff.

...but equally obviously the vast majority of commodities aren't sold/bought merely on a utilitarian basis (most stuff functions as well as most other simialr stuff in this regard).

So, the problem for advertising is how to get us to "choose" their product over other over comparable products. Cars, banks and fragrances are typical examples. They portray an idealised image of what they intend the customer to identify with (or to aspire to identify with) and through the act of consumption we can then identify as that idealised image (literally sometimes, "I'm more of Mac user personally..."

Of course, everybody doesn't buy everything, and wouldn't even if they could afford to. So, that moment of i"dentification with" that allows for the transformation into "identification as" is where I would locate interpellation as occuring in this secnario.

This only works if we have structures of socially understood meaning that we can use to read these idealised images, and the advertisers can use to write these idealised images. This where semiotics (to use another bit of jargon) comes in. There is a language of signs and signifiers that we are immersed in from birth, all around us, all the time (the "Spectacle" as Debord argued). Look at that "products for fragile masculinity" thread for lots of examples of crude signifiers of masculinity.

This language of signs includes (but is not limited to) the blue/pink binary, male and female roles and archetypes omnipresent in the media. It includes stuff like baby changing facilities being in the womens' toilets, not the mens'. That may be changing now, but we've all grown up with that message. It includes images of domestic labour almost always being carried out by women (and when it is by men, it's presented as "not quite right"), all that everyday sexism stuff too. You'll all have loads more examples I'm sure.

So, yeah, that's interpellation (and beyond) from my pov.

I’d just clarify within the above that interpellation isn’t just the act of others to create and use the semiotics of society, but also the act of the self to recognise and accept them as applying to us. It isn’t the hail of the policeman in Althauser’s example that is the interpellation, but our willingness to turn around and respond to it as if that hail has meaning.

 

[chilango]

I’d just clarify within the above that interpellation isn’t just the act of others to create and use the semiotics of society, but also the act of the self to recognise and accept them as applying to us. It isn’t the hail of the policeman in Althauser’s example that is the interpellation, but our willingness to turn around and respond to it as if that hail has meaning.

yeah, good addition. we interpellate the signs.

Further edit: The bolting on of semiotics is mine. Not Althusser's.