My 2c:
- Legislate that both parents must stay home for a year after childbirth.Force employers to take them back afterwards, and have the government pay the parents an appropriate amount during.
- Nationalise childcare, and make it free. Allow parents to return to work maybe after the kid is in childcare.
- Tax rich people more.
haha what?!
edit: whaaaaat?!
whaaaaaaaaaat?!
edit2: I guess so this has more content, you want to force parents to stay home regardless of what various work duties are required at their job. Then their office has to keep them on payroll and reintegrate them into whatever is going on in a year (maybe!). What happens to the extra person hired to take over for you a year ago? Are they simply let go whenever a parent is permitted to work again?
and -maybe- allow parents to work again? How benevolent!
Yes, and the maybe was for a shortened enforced period if the child is placed in childcare early, because a year is just a number and the parents maybe should be allowed to choose to put the kid in early.
In any case, I believe the gender wage gap needs a standardised resume time gap across both parents to be fixed.
The person who is taken on to cover the parent would be in a temporary position.
And if employers/jobs aren't able to accommodate, then they can be fined until they can accommodate.
If your solution to the gender wage gap is to have both parents put their careers on hold for a year a kid, that's a hard pass from me. Even guaranteeing re-entry, parents would miss a lot of opportunities to climb the ladder under your policy.
Sure.
I just suspect that if the fathers have lost the same opportunities as the mothers, then, suddenly, having that uninterrupted work history is going to become less important to employers.
It isn't about how employers care about "uninterrupted work history", it's about winding down your workload for your planned absence and not being able to be put on projects the work that gets you the promotion. Your idea puts families at a distinct disadvantage over childfree couples.
It’s horrifying and anti-choice.
Being forced to not have kids or not have a job to come back to is anti-choice.
Obviously, people should have family leave. Your post doesn’t address my concerns at all wrt MANDATORY parental leave for both parents for a year. Do you not understand the implications of your proposal or do you need it explained more simply?
My 2c:
- Legislate that both parents must stay home for a year after childbirth.Force employers to take them back afterwards, and have the government pay the parents an appropriate amount during.
- Nationalise childcare, and make it free. Allow parents to return to work maybe after the kid is in childcare.
- Tax rich people more.
haha what?!
edit: whaaaaat?!
whaaaaaaaaaat?!
edit2: I guess so this has more content, you want to force parents to stay home regardless of what various work duties are required at their job. Then their office has to keep them on payroll and reintegrate them into whatever is going on in a year (maybe!). What happens to the extra person hired to take over for you a year ago? Are they simply let go whenever a parent is permitted to work again?
and -maybe- allow parents to work again? How benevolent!
Yes, and the maybe was for a shortened enforced period if the child is placed in childcare early, because a year is just a number and the parents maybe should be allowed to choose to put the kid in early.
In any case, I believe the gender wage gap needs a standardised resume time gap across both parents to be fixed.
The person who is taken on to cover the parent would be in a temporary position.
And if employers/jobs aren't able to accommodate, then they can be fined until they can accommodate.
If your solution to the gender wage gap is to have both parents put their careers on hold for a year a kid, that's a hard pass from me. Even guaranteeing re-entry, parents would miss a lot of opportunities to climb the ladder under your policy.
Sure.
I just suspect that if the fathers have lost the same opportunities as the mothers, then, suddenly, having that uninterrupted work history is going to become less important to employers.
It isn't about how employers care about "uninterrupted work history", it's about winding down your workload for your planned absence and not being able to be put on projects the work that gets you the promotion. Your idea puts families at a distinct disadvantage over childfree couples.
It’s horrifying and anti-choice.
Being forced to not have kids or not have a job to come back to is anti-choice.
Obviously, people should have family leave. Your post doesn’t address my concerns at all wrt MANDATORY parental leave for both parents for a year. Do you not understand the implications of your proposal or do you need it explained more simply?
Well, I didn't want to just repost my response from the message preceding your own:
My 2c:
- Legislate that both parents must stay home for a year after childbirth.Force employers to take them back afterwards, and have the government pay the parents an appropriate amount during.
- Nationalise childcare, and make it free. Allow parents to return to work maybe after the kid is in childcare.
- Tax rich people more.
haha what?!
edit: whaaaaat?!
whaaaaaaaaaat?!
edit2: I guess so this has more content, you want to force parents to stay home regardless of what various work duties are required at their job. Then their office has to keep them on payroll and reintegrate them into whatever is going on in a year (maybe!). What happens to the extra person hired to take over for you a year ago? Are they simply let go whenever a parent is permitted to work again?
and -maybe- allow parents to work again? How benevolent!
Yes, and the maybe was for a shortened enforced period if the child is placed in childcare early, because a year is just a number and the parents maybe should be allowed to choose to put the kid in early.
In any case, I believe the gender wage gap needs a standardised resume time gap across both parents to be fixed.
The person who is taken on to cover the parent would be in a temporary position.
And if employers/jobs aren't able to accommodate, then they can be fined until they can accommodate.
If your solution to the gender wage gap is to have both parents put their careers on hold for a year a kid, that's a hard pass from me. Even guaranteeing re-entry, parents would miss a lot of opportunities to climb the ladder under your policy.
Sure.
I just suspect that if the fathers have lost the same opportunities as the mothers, then, suddenly, having that uninterrupted work history is going to become less important to employers.
Or not having kids becomes more important
I'm not sure that people forgoing kids in pursuit of their career then furthering their career more than parents is necessarily a problem.
Work demanding that sort of mindset and dedication from all their staff is a problem though, and forcing employers to recognise the parents' choice without retribution is a step against that mindset.
Apologies if I've missed some points or I'm rehashing things, I skipped in from the OP and page one.
The idea that women staying home to raise kids is something that a) entrenches gender roles, and b) should be discouraged or even prevented, is right up there with TERFs in terms of Bad Things the 2nd Wave Feminists Did. Crafting policy that drives women away from a perfectly valid, legitimate, understandable life choice because you believe that women should be a certain way is pretty terrible, calling that Capital F Feminism is even worse, and taken as a whole the attitude has driven a generation of women out of the movement.
The thing that entrenches gender roles is a patriarchy taking away a woman's choice for their own good, be that abortion rights, property rights, workplace rights, or any other rights including the right to stay home and raise a child. If government is crafting systems that push women into the workforce when they'd rather raise their children, your government is to that extent sexist.
It sucks that Norway is having trouble integrating immigrants. I'm not surprised, but maybe they should try supporting and then respecting the choices of immigrant women from other cultures rather than labeling some of them Bad For Women and trying to stop them. Here in the USA, we're trying to move past the 2nd wave feminist ideas but attitudes like this remain, and that's why Belasco doesn't call herself a Feminist very much anymore - she's had plenty of experiences of people treating her as lesser, as a traitor, as an enemy of the cause, because she made the choice that was right for her.
Labeling that choice inherently bad is antifeminist.
On an individual level sure, but on a societal level it becomes a problem.
Which is why the Norway policy seems good on its face, but when applied to a population starts conforming to current gender dynamics. It's good to look at why (we know why and has been covered in the thread already) and then see how we can shape the policy to counteract that, so that it's an actual choice on the part of the parent and not an expectation crafted by a patriarchal society.
Apologies if I've missed some points or I'm rehashing things, I skipped in from the OP and page one.
The idea that women staying home to raise kids is something that a) entrenches gender roles, and b) should be discouraged or even prevented, is right up there with TERFs in terms of Bad Things the 2nd Wave Feminists Did. Crafting policy that drives women away from a perfectly valid, legitimate, understandable life choice because you believe that women should be a certain way is pretty terrible, calling that Capital F Feminism is even worse, and taken as a whole the attitude has driven a generation of women out of the movement.
The thing that entrenches gender roles is a patriarchy taking away a woman's choice for their own good, be that abortion rights, property rights, workplace rights, or any other rights including the right to stay home and raise a child. If government is crafting systems that push women into the workforce when they'd rather raise their children, your government is to that extent sexist.
It sucks that Norway is having trouble integrating immigrants. I'm not surprised, but maybe they should try supporting and then respecting the choices of immigrant women from other cultures rather than labeling some of them Bad For Women and trying to stop them. Here in the USA, we're trying to move past the 2nd wave feminist ideas but attitudes like this remain, and that's why Belasco doesn't call herself a Feminist very much anymore - she's had plenty of experiences of people treating her as lesser, as a traitor, as an enemy of the cause, because she made the choice that was right for her.
Labeling that choice inherently bad is antifeminist.
On an individual level sure, but on a societal level it becomes a problem.
Which is why the Norway policy seems good on its face, but when applied to a population starts conforming to current gender dynamics. It's good to look at why (we know why and has been covered in the thread already) and then see how we can shape the policy to counteract that, so that it's an actual choice on the part of the parent and not an expectation crafted by a patriarchal society.
It's blatantly wrong to decide that "current gender dynamics" in a macro sense means that you should advantage the choice you believe is better, rather than enable that choice. You're fundamentally imposing a belief, i.e. women should not raise their own children in the name of gender equality, on women who want nothing to do with that choice.
The very determination that "it becomes a problem" is patriarchal and sexist at its core. It's among the worst expressions of the 2nd wave and it leads to a rejection of the movement.
+6
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
Apologies if I've missed some points or I'm rehashing things, I skipped in from the OP and page one.
The idea that women staying home to raise kids is something that a) entrenches gender roles, and b) should be discouraged or even prevented, is right up there with TERFs in terms of Bad Things the 2nd Wave Feminists Did. Crafting policy that drives women away from a perfectly valid, legitimate, understandable life choice because you believe that women should be a certain way is pretty terrible, calling that Capital F Feminism is even worse, and taken as a whole the attitude has driven a generation of women out of the movement.
The thing that entrenches gender roles is a patriarchy taking away a woman's choice for their own good, be that abortion rights, property rights, workplace rights, or any other rights including the right to stay home and raise a child. If government is crafting systems that push women into the workforce when they'd rather raise their children, your government is to that extent sexist.
It sucks that Norway is having trouble integrating immigrants. I'm not surprised, but maybe they should try supporting and then respecting the choices of immigrant women from other cultures rather than labeling some of them Bad For Women and trying to stop them. Here in the USA, we're trying to move past the 2nd wave feminist ideas but attitudes like this remain, and that's why Belasco doesn't call herself a Feminist very much anymore - she's had plenty of experiences of people treating her as lesser, as a traitor, as an enemy of the cause, because she made the choice that was right for her.
Labeling that choice inherently bad is antifeminist.
On an individual level sure, but on a societal level it becomes a problem.
Which is why the Norway policy seems good on its face, but when applied to a population starts conforming to current gender dynamics. It's good to look at why (we know why and has been covered in the thread already) and then see how we can shape the policy to counteract that, so that it's an actual choice on the part of the parent and not an expectation crafted by a patriarchal society.
It's blatantly wrong to decide that "current gender dynamics" in a macro sense means that you should advantage the choice you believe is better, rather than enable that choice. You're fundamentally imposing a belief, i.e. women should not raise their own children in the name of gender equality, on women who want nothing to do with that choice.
The very determination that "it becomes a problem" is patriarchal and sexist at its core. It's among the worst expressions of the 2nd wave and it leads to a rejection of the movement.
Our current numbers for things like STEM, Stay at home parents, income gaps, power positions etc. is pretty dire.
Framing the decision to try and balance that as "women are no longer allowed to raise their own children" is just plain wrong, and not really what's being argued. Society is making the woman stay at home the default choice, either by convention or pay scales or a million other things with the force of history behind it, so craft your policy to account for that.
Apologies if I've missed some points or I'm rehashing things, I skipped in from the OP and page one.
The idea that women staying home to raise kids is something that a) entrenches gender roles, and b) should be discouraged or even prevented, is right up there with TERFs in terms of Bad Things the 2nd Wave Feminists Did. Crafting policy that drives women away from a perfectly valid, legitimate, understandable life choice because you believe that women should be a certain way is pretty terrible, calling that Capital F Feminism is even worse, and taken as a whole the attitude has driven a generation of women out of the movement.
The thing that entrenches gender roles is a patriarchy taking away a woman's choice for their own good, be that abortion rights, property rights, workplace rights, or any other rights including the right to stay home and raise a child. If government is crafting systems that push women into the workforce when they'd rather raise their children, your government is to that extent sexist.
It sucks that Norway is having trouble integrating immigrants. I'm not surprised, but maybe they should try supporting and then respecting the choices of immigrant women from other cultures rather than labeling some of them Bad For Women and trying to stop them. Here in the USA, we're trying to move past the 2nd wave feminist ideas but attitudes like this remain, and that's why Belasco doesn't call herself a Feminist very much anymore - she's had plenty of experiences of people treating her as lesser, as a traitor, as an enemy of the cause, because she made the choice that was right for her.
Labeling that choice inherently bad is antifeminist.
On an individual level sure, but on a societal level it becomes a problem.
Which is why the Norway policy seems good on its face, but when applied to a population starts conforming to current gender dynamics. It's good to look at why (we know why and has been covered in the thread already) and then see how we can shape the policy to counteract that, so that it's an actual choice on the part of the parent and not an expectation crafted by a patriarchal society.
It's blatantly wrong to decide that "current gender dynamics" in a macro sense means that you should advantage the choice you believe is better, rather than enable that choice. You're fundamentally imposing a belief, i.e. women should not raise their own children in the name of gender equality, on women who want nothing to do with that choice.
The very determination that "it becomes a problem" is patriarchal and sexist at its core. It's among the worst expressions of the 2nd wave and it leads to a rejection of the movement.
Our current numbers for things like STEM, Stay at home parents, income gaps, power positions etc. is pretty dire.
Framing the decision to try and balance that as "women are no longer allowed to raise their own children" is just plain wrong, and not really what's being argued. Society is making the woman stay at home the default choice, either by convention or pay scales or a million other things with the force of history behind it, so craft your policy to account for that.
You craft policy to prevent it? Because you believe it's wrong to do?
Let's be fair here, I said that the policy declares that women "should not" and you changed that to become "should not be allowed to". I'm not suggesting that ending the Norwegian law would prevent women from choosing to raise their own children.
I'm just saying that a position that declares "women should work, that's what's best for society" is just as patriarchal as saying "women should stay home, that's what's best for society". It's completely misguided to look at the number of women who raise their own children and conclude that because it's higher than x, women are oppressed and we should work to reduce their ability to choose this option.
And yes, that's exactly what removing the Norwegian program would do.
I mean, flip this on its head. What are you saying about women who do raise kids at home? Because I can tell you what lots of women said to my wife about it, and none of it was very kind. The best you can get to with this angle is something like 'oh, it's fine, that's her choice, not judging the thing she dedicated her entire life to... it's just that we want the government to make sure we have less of it because too much is Bad For Women".
spool32 on
+4
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
Apologies if I've missed some points or I'm rehashing things, I skipped in from the OP and page one.
The idea that women staying home to raise kids is something that a) entrenches gender roles, and b) should be discouraged or even prevented, is right up there with TERFs in terms of Bad Things the 2nd Wave Feminists Did. Crafting policy that drives women away from a perfectly valid, legitimate, understandable life choice because you believe that women should be a certain way is pretty terrible, calling that Capital F Feminism is even worse, and taken as a whole the attitude has driven a generation of women out of the movement.
The thing that entrenches gender roles is a patriarchy taking away a woman's choice for their own good, be that abortion rights, property rights, workplace rights, or any other rights including the right to stay home and raise a child. If government is crafting systems that push women into the workforce when they'd rather raise their children, your government is to that extent sexist.
It sucks that Norway is having trouble integrating immigrants. I'm not surprised, but maybe they should try supporting and then respecting the choices of immigrant women from other cultures rather than labeling some of them Bad For Women and trying to stop them. Here in the USA, we're trying to move past the 2nd wave feminist ideas but attitudes like this remain, and that's why Belasco doesn't call herself a Feminist very much anymore - she's had plenty of experiences of people treating her as lesser, as a traitor, as an enemy of the cause, because she made the choice that was right for her.
Labeling that choice inherently bad is antifeminist.
On an individual level sure, but on a societal level it becomes a problem.
Which is why the Norway policy seems good on its face, but when applied to a population starts conforming to current gender dynamics. It's good to look at why (we know why and has been covered in the thread already) and then see how we can shape the policy to counteract that, so that it's an actual choice on the part of the parent and not an expectation crafted by a patriarchal society.
It's blatantly wrong to decide that "current gender dynamics" in a macro sense means that you should advantage the choice you believe is better, rather than enable that choice. You're fundamentally imposing a belief, i.e. women should not raise their own children in the name of gender equality, on women who want nothing to do with that choice.
The very determination that "it becomes a problem" is patriarchal and sexist at its core. It's among the worst expressions of the 2nd wave and it leads to a rejection of the movement.
Our current numbers for things like STEM, Stay at home parents, income gaps, power positions etc. is pretty dire.
Framing the decision to try and balance that as "women are no longer allowed to raise their own children" is just plain wrong, and not really what's being argued. Society is making the woman stay at home the default choice, either by convention or pay scales or a million other things with the force of history behind it, so craft your policy to account for that.
You craft policy to prevent it? Because you believe it's wrong to do?
Let's be fair here, I said that the policy declares that women "should not" and you changed that to become "should not be allowed to". I'm not suggesting that ending the Norwegian law would prevent women from choosing to raise their own children.
I'm just saying that a position that declares "women should work, that's what's best for society" is just as patriarchal as saying "women should stay home, that's what's best for society". It's completely misguided to look at the number of women who raise their own children and conclude that because it's higher than x, women are oppressed and we should work to reduce their ability to choose this option.
And yes, that's exactly what removing the Norwegian program would do.
I mean, flip this on its head. What are you saying about women who do raise kids at home? Because I can tell you what lots of women said to my wife about it, and none of it was very kind. The best you can get to with this angle is something like 'oh, it's fine, that's her choice, not judging the thing she dedicated her entire life to... it's just that we want the government to make sure we have less of it because too much is Bad For Women".
I don't believe it's wrong for women to raise kids. I think it's wrong that society's shaped that women raising children are the default role.
I'm sorry that your partner had a bad experience with being a stay at home mom, that sucks and shouldn't happen. My partner encounters a lot of sexism, both explict and lowkey, in her work and with her efforts in the mentoring young girls thinking of entering the tech field.
Like her work isn't to discourage men from entering the field or forcing women who aren't actually interested to programing into the program, but to encourage and assist women choosing it as an education and career. Likewise parental leave policies shouldn't be to discourage women from staying at home, but rather to encourage men to do so.
Again, focusing on an individual level doesn't mean anything. It's the societal numbers that paints a picture that our culture still has a long way to go on gender roles.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Apologies if I've missed some points or I'm rehashing things, I skipped in from the OP and page one.
The idea that women staying home to raise kids is something that a) entrenches gender roles, and b) should be discouraged or even prevented, is right up there with TERFs in terms of Bad Things the 2nd Wave Feminists Did. Crafting policy that drives women away from a perfectly valid, legitimate, understandable life choice because you believe that women should be a certain way is pretty terrible, calling that Capital F Feminism is even worse, and taken as a whole the attitude has driven a generation of women out of the movement.
The thing that entrenches gender roles is a patriarchy taking away a woman's choice for their own good, be that abortion rights, property rights, workplace rights, or any other rights including the right to stay home and raise a child. If government is crafting systems that push women into the workforce when they'd rather raise their children, your government is to that extent sexist.
It sucks that Norway is having trouble integrating immigrants. I'm not surprised, but maybe they should try supporting and then respecting the choices of immigrant women from other cultures rather than labeling some of them Bad For Women and trying to stop them. Here in the USA, we're trying to move past the 2nd wave feminist ideas but attitudes like this remain, and that's why Belasco doesn't call herself a Feminist very much anymore - she's had plenty of experiences of people treating her as lesser, as a traitor, as an enemy of the cause, because she made the choice that was right for her.
Labeling that choice inherently bad is antifeminist.
On an individual level sure, but on a societal level it becomes a problem.
Which is why the Norway policy seems good on its face, but when applied to a population starts conforming to current gender dynamics. It's good to look at why (we know why and has been covered in the thread already) and then see how we can shape the policy to counteract that, so that it's an actual choice on the part of the parent and not an expectation crafted by a patriarchal society.
It's blatantly wrong to decide that "current gender dynamics" in a macro sense means that you should advantage the choice you believe is better, rather than enable that choice. You're fundamentally imposing a belief, i.e. women should not raise their own children in the name of gender equality, on women who want nothing to do with that choice.
The very determination that "it becomes a problem" is patriarchal and sexist at its core. It's among the worst expressions of the 2nd wave and it leads to a rejection of the movement.
Our current numbers for things like STEM, Stay at home parents, income gaps, power positions etc. is pretty dire.
Framing the decision to try and balance that as "women are no longer allowed to raise their own children" is just plain wrong, and not really what's being argued. Society is making the woman stay at home the default choice, either by convention or pay scales or a million other things with the force of history behind it, so craft your policy to account for that.
You craft policy to prevent it? Because you believe it's wrong to do?
Let's be fair here, I said that the policy declares that women "should not" and you changed that to become "should not be allowed to". I'm not suggesting that ending the Norwegian law would prevent women from choosing to raise their own children.
I'm just saying that a position that declares "women should work, that's what's best for society" is just as patriarchal as saying "women should stay home, that's what's best for society". It's completely misguided to look at the number of women who raise their own children and conclude that because it's higher than x, women are oppressed and we should work to reduce their ability to choose this option.
And yes, that's exactly what removing the Norwegian program would do.
I mean, flip this on its head. What are you saying about women who do raise kids at home? Because I can tell you what lots of women said to my wife about it, and none of it was very kind. The best you can get to with this angle is something like 'oh, it's fine, that's her choice, not judging the thing she dedicated her entire life to... it's just that we want the government to make sure we have less of it because too much is Bad For Women".
I don't believe it's wrong for women to raise kids. I think it's wrong that society's shaped that women raising children are the default role.
I'm sorry that your partner had a bad experience with being a stay at home mom, that sucks and shouldn't happen. My partner encounters a lot of sexism, both explict and lowkey, in her work and with her efforts in the mentoring young girls thinking of entering the tech field.
Like her work isn't to discourage men from entering the field or forcing women who aren't actually interested to programing into the program, but to encourage and assist women choosing it as an education and career. Likewise parental leave policies shouldn't be to discourage women from staying at home, but rather to encourage men to do so.
Again, focusing on an individual level doesn't mean anything. It's the societal numbers that paints a picture that our culture still has a long way to go on gender roles.
The difference here I think is that I'm arguing for a position that doesn't disadvantage your partner and doesn't cast their work in a negative light, and you're arguing for a position that does both to mine. The individual level absolutely matters here!
OP is explicitly arguing for policies that do disadvantage women who stay home, specifically because of a belief that it is wrong to do so.
Spool, your last clause is an opinion not held by anyone here that I'm aware of, right? It's specifically refuted on the post you're quoting, for example, in the opening paragraph.
Apologies if I've missed some points or I'm rehashing things, I skipped in from the OP and page one.
The idea that women staying home to raise kids is something that a) entrenches gender roles, and b) should be discouraged or even prevented, is right up there with TERFs in terms of Bad Things the 2nd Wave Feminists Did. Crafting policy that drives women away from a perfectly valid, legitimate, understandable life choice because you believe that women should be a certain way is pretty terrible, calling that Capital F Feminism is even worse, and taken as a whole the attitude has driven a generation of women out of the movement.
The thing that entrenches gender roles is a patriarchy taking away a woman's choice for their own good, be that abortion rights, property rights, workplace rights, or any other rights including the right to stay home and raise a child. If government is crafting systems that push women into the workforce when they'd rather raise their children, your government is to that extent sexist.
It sucks that Norway is having trouble integrating immigrants. I'm not surprised, but maybe they should try supporting and then respecting the choices of immigrant women from other cultures rather than labeling some of them Bad For Women and trying to stop them. Here in the USA, we're trying to move past the 2nd wave feminist ideas but attitudes like this remain, and that's why Belasco doesn't call herself a Feminist very much anymore - she's had plenty of experiences of people treating her as lesser, as a traitor, as an enemy of the cause, because she made the choice that was right for her.
Labeling that choice inherently bad is antifeminist.
On an individual level sure, but on a societal level it becomes a problem.
Which is why the Norway policy seems good on its face, but when applied to a population starts conforming to current gender dynamics. It's good to look at why (we know why and has been covered in the thread already) and then see how we can shape the policy to counteract that, so that it's an actual choice on the part of the parent and not an expectation crafted by a patriarchal society.
It's blatantly wrong to decide that "current gender dynamics" in a macro sense means that you should advantage the choice you believe is better, rather than enable that choice. You're fundamentally imposing a belief, i.e. women should not raise their own children in the name of gender equality, on women who want nothing to do with that choice.
The very determination that "it becomes a problem" is patriarchal and sexist at its core. It's among the worst expressions of the 2nd wave and it leads to a rejection of the movement.
Our current numbers for things like STEM, Stay at home parents, income gaps, power positions etc. is pretty dire.
Framing the decision to try and balance that as "women are no longer allowed to raise their own children" is just plain wrong, and not really what's being argued. Society is making the woman stay at home the default choice, either by convention or pay scales or a million other things with the force of history behind it, so craft your policy to account for that.
You craft policy to prevent it? Because you believe it's wrong to do?
Let's be fair here, I said that the policy declares that women "should not" and you changed that to become "should not be allowed to". I'm not suggesting that ending the Norwegian law would prevent women from choosing to raise their own children.
I'm just saying that a position that declares "women should work, that's what's best for society" is just as patriarchal as saying "women should stay home, that's what's best for society". It's completely misguided to look at the number of women who raise their own children and conclude that because it's higher than x, women are oppressed and we should work to reduce their ability to choose this option.
And yes, that's exactly what removing the Norwegian program would do.
I mean, flip this on its head. What are you saying about women who do raise kids at home? Because I can tell you what lots of women said to my wife about it, and none of it was very kind. The best you can get to with this angle is something like 'oh, it's fine, that's her choice, not judging the thing she dedicated her entire life to... it's just that we want the government to make sure we have less of it because too much is Bad For Women".
I don't believe it's wrong for women to raise kids. I think it's wrong that society's shaped that women raising children are the default role.
I'm sorry that your partner had a bad experience with being a stay at home mom, that sucks and shouldn't happen. My partner encounters a lot of sexism, both explict and lowkey, in her work and with her efforts in the mentoring young girls thinking of entering the tech field.
Like her work isn't to discourage men from entering the field or forcing women who aren't actually interested to programing into the program, but to encourage and assist women choosing it as an education and career. Likewise parental leave policies shouldn't be to discourage women from staying at home, but rather to encourage men to do so.
Again, focusing on an individual level doesn't mean anything. It's the societal numbers that paints a picture that our culture still has a long way to go on gender roles.
The difference here I think is that I'm arguing for a position that doesn't disadvantage your partner and doesn't cast their work in a negative light, and you're arguing for a position that does both to mine. The individual level absolutely matters here!
OP is explicitly arguing for policies that do disadvantage women who stay home, specifically because of a belief that it is wrong to do so.
I think there's been a misunderstanding then because I didn't actually state a policy position, mostly because I don't know how you would fix society on this scale without doing something extreme and definitely worse.
But if you implement a policy that is making the ratio worse you should look at that and either replace it with something else or tweak it to address the imbalance. Kind of like affirmative action but for childcare.
HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I’d rather have being a stay at home parent not be related at all to economic reasons, that seems like a good way to prevent women from being forced into it.
That seems like a daycare cost vs salary question. Instead of a subsidy for staying at home I would prefer very generous parental leave, and completely free daycare. Supported on the back of some form of UBI for everyone who does not work for an employer.
If someone wants to stay home then it’s because they want to, and they aren’t being forced to do so because it’s the only way to make ends meet. Yes this would mean losing your wage-UBI in income but you are giving up a job so this seems logical to me.
Spool, your last clause is an opinion not held by anyone here that I'm aware of, right? It's specifically refuted on the post you're quoting, for example, in the opening paragraph.
Well, let's be specific here - OP's opinion is that the policy of making it easier for women to stay home and raise their own kids is bad, and the reasons why the policy is bad are that they succeed in letting women stay home, a thing with strong enough downsides that it should be discouraged regardless of the desire to do it.
That's a pretty fine hair to split, and I don't think anyone can credibly do so. if you think staying at home shouldn't be subsidized because it's bad for feminism and for society to support that behavior, you also think at least partially that staying at home is itself bad for feminism and society. If you don't, your position is incoherent.
I would still be interested in seeing stats on Norway stay-at-home parents, before and after the policy.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Apologies if I've missed some points or I'm rehashing things, I skipped in from the OP and page one.
The idea that women staying home to raise kids is something that a) entrenches gender roles, and b) should be discouraged or even prevented, is right up there with TERFs in terms of Bad Things the 2nd Wave Feminists Did. Crafting policy that drives women away from a perfectly valid, legitimate, understandable life choice because you believe that women should be a certain way is pretty terrible, calling that Capital F Feminism is even worse, and taken as a whole the attitude has driven a generation of women out of the movement.
The thing that entrenches gender roles is a patriarchy taking away a woman's choice for their own good, be that abortion rights, property rights, workplace rights, or any other rights including the right to stay home and raise a child. If government is crafting systems that push women into the workforce when they'd rather raise their children, your government is to that extent sexist.
It sucks that Norway is having trouble integrating immigrants. I'm not surprised, but maybe they should try supporting and then respecting the choices of immigrant women from other cultures rather than labeling some of them Bad For Women and trying to stop them. Here in the USA, we're trying to move past the 2nd wave feminist ideas but attitudes like this remain, and that's why Belasco doesn't call herself a Feminist very much anymore - she's had plenty of experiences of people treating her as lesser, as a traitor, as an enemy of the cause, because she made the choice that was right for her.
Labeling that choice inherently bad is antifeminist.
On an individual level sure, but on a societal level it becomes a problem.
Which is why the Norway policy seems good on its face, but when applied to a population starts conforming to current gender dynamics. It's good to look at why (we know why and has been covered in the thread already) and then see how we can shape the policy to counteract that, so that it's an actual choice on the part of the parent and not an expectation crafted by a patriarchal society.
It's blatantly wrong to decide that "current gender dynamics" in a macro sense means that you should advantage the choice you believe is better, rather than enable that choice. You're fundamentally imposing a belief, i.e. women should not raise their own children in the name of gender equality, on women who want nothing to do with that choice.
The very determination that "it becomes a problem" is patriarchal and sexist at its core. It's among the worst expressions of the 2nd wave and it leads to a rejection of the movement.
Our current numbers for things like STEM, Stay at home parents, income gaps, power positions etc. is pretty dire.
Framing the decision to try and balance that as "women are no longer allowed to raise their own children" is just plain wrong, and not really what's being argued. Society is making the woman stay at home the default choice, either by convention or pay scales or a million other things with the force of history behind it, so craft your policy to account for that.
You craft policy to prevent it? Because you believe it's wrong to do?
Let's be fair here, I said that the policy declares that women "should not" and you changed that to become "should not be allowed to". I'm not suggesting that ending the Norwegian law would prevent women from choosing to raise their own children.
I'm just saying that a position that declares "women should work, that's what's best for society" is just as patriarchal as saying "women should stay home, that's what's best for society". It's completely misguided to look at the number of women who raise their own children and conclude that because it's higher than x, women are oppressed and we should work to reduce their ability to choose this option.
And yes, that's exactly what removing the Norwegian program would do.
I mean, flip this on its head. What are you saying about women who do raise kids at home? Because I can tell you what lots of women said to my wife about it, and none of it was very kind. The best you can get to with this angle is something like 'oh, it's fine, that's her choice, not judging the thing she dedicated her entire life to... it's just that we want the government to make sure we have less of it because too much is Bad For Women".
I don't believe it's wrong for women to raise kids. I think it's wrong that society's shaped that women raising children are the default role.
I'm sorry that your partner had a bad experience with being a stay at home mom, that sucks and shouldn't happen. My partner encounters a lot of sexism, both explict and lowkey, in her work and with her efforts in the mentoring young girls thinking of entering the tech field.
Like her work isn't to discourage men from entering the field or forcing women who aren't actually interested to programing into the program, but to encourage and assist women choosing it as an education and career. Likewise parental leave policies shouldn't be to discourage women from staying at home, but rather to encourage men to do so.
Again, focusing on an individual level doesn't mean anything. It's the societal numbers that paints a picture that our culture still has a long way to go on gender roles.
The difference here I think is that I'm arguing for a position that doesn't disadvantage your partner and doesn't cast their work in a negative light, and you're arguing for a position that does both to mine. The individual level absolutely matters here!
OP is explicitly arguing for policies that do disadvantage women who stay home, specifically because of a belief that it is wrong to do so.
I think there's been a misunderstanding then because I didn't actually state a policy position, mostly because I don't know how you would fix society on this scale without doing something extreme and definitely worse.
But if you implement a policy that is making the ratio worse you should look at that and either replace it with something else or tweak it to address the imbalance. Kind of like affirmative action but for childcare.
Because the effects are wide reaching.
I feel.like we need to examine why some ratio of women raising their own kids would be worse than some other ratio. That's the core thing I'm taking issue with here - what I want is for choice to be supported, and what you are seeming to want is the right balance regardless of choice!
I would still be interested in seeing stats on Norway stay-at-home parents, before and after the policy.
this turned out to be really hard to find
I'm idly searching SSB for this so I might come back with some
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Spool, you should maybe consider reading the pages you skipped so that you have a better handle on where discussion has actually been at in this thread.
My impression has been that most have been arguing that systems such as Norway's are a good thing, but should be tweaked in such a way that people don't just default to the mother staying home. That subsidized or free daycare is a good thing to have early on so that parents who want or need to return to work quickly can do so, and that policies regarding parental leave and stay-at-home subsidies should be made in such a way that all parents feel equally comfortable with staying home. You're arguing against a position that hasn't been espoused much aside from the OP.
this is the percentage of children receiving the kontantstøtte (so therefore a graph of how many kids are in daycare versus being at home - do note that this is not either/or, you could have had a child being in daycare two days a week etc)
green is all children, blue is children of parents with immigrant backgrounds from the EU, black is children of parents with immigrant backgrounds from "Africa, Asia, etc" [sidenote: writing "rest of the world" would have been easier here I feel]
Spool, you should maybe consider reading the pages you skipped so that you have a better handle on where discussion has actually been at in this thread.
My impression has been that most have been arguing that systems such as Norway's are a good thing, but should be tweaked in such a way that people don't just default to the mother staying home. That subsidized or free daycare is a good thing to have early on so that parents who want or need to return to work quickly can do so, and that policies regarding parental leave and stay-at-home subsidies should be made in such a way that all parents feel equally comfortable with staying home. You're arguing against a position that hasn't been espoused much aside from the OP.
ED right up at the top of pg4 is arguing that the "ideal solution" is for parents to leave their kids in daycare from age 1 and go back to work! No one checked or challenged it at all.
ED right up at the top of pg4 is arguing that the "ideal solution" is for parents to leave their kids in daycare from age 1 and go back to work! No one checked or challenged it at all.
I mean
yah
it is
+5
Options
KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Spool, you should maybe consider reading the pages you skipped so that you have a better handle on where discussion has actually been at in this thread.
My impression has been that most have been arguing that systems such as Norway's are a good thing, but should be tweaked in such a way that people don't just default to the mother staying home. That subsidized or free daycare is a good thing to have early on so that parents who want or need to return to work quickly can do so, and that policies regarding parental leave and stay-at-home subsidies should be made in such a way that all parents feel equally comfortable with staying home. You're arguing against a position that hasn't been espoused much aside from the OP.
ED right up at the top of pg4 is arguing that the "ideal solution" is for parents to leave their kids in daycare from age 1 and go back to work! No one checked or challenged it at all.
Perhaps because that's essentially the same position they took right from the OP, and it had already been addressed? I know I just glazed over it after realizing it was just a restatement of things.
ED right up at the top of pg4 is arguing that the "ideal solution" is for parents to leave their kids in daycare from age 1 and go back to work! No one checked or challenged it at all.
I mean
yah
it is
No
It's not ideal to separate a child from their parents at age 1 in favor of 1/20th of a daycare employee as the primary caregiver.
Edit: even if you do believe it is, enforcing that decision or advantaging it / disadvantaging other ones because you believe homemaking is antifeminist is still a bad opinion.
Apologies if I've missed some points or I'm rehashing things, I skipped in from the OP and page one.
The idea that women staying home to raise kids is something that a) entrenches gender roles, and b) should be discouraged or even prevented, is right up there with TERFs in terms of Bad Things the 2nd Wave Feminists Did. Crafting policy that drives women away from a perfectly valid, legitimate, understandable life choice because you believe that women should be a certain way is pretty terrible, calling that Capital F Feminism is even worse, and taken as a whole the attitude has driven a generation of women out of the movement.
The thing that entrenches gender roles is a patriarchy taking away a woman's choice for their own good, be that abortion rights, property rights, workplace rights, or any other rights including the right to stay home and raise a child. If government is crafting systems that push women into the workforce when they'd rather raise their children, your government is to that extent sexist.
It sucks that Norway is having trouble integrating immigrants. I'm not surprised, but maybe they should try supporting and then respecting the choices of immigrant women from other cultures rather than labeling some of them Bad For Women and trying to stop them. Here in the USA, we're trying to move past the 2nd wave feminist ideas but attitudes like this remain, and that's why Belasco doesn't call herself a Feminist very much anymore - she's had plenty of experiences of people treating her as lesser, as a traitor, as an enemy of the cause, because she made the choice that was right for her.
Labeling that choice inherently bad is antifeminist.
On an individual level sure, but on a societal level it becomes a problem.
Which is why the Norway policy seems good on its face, but when applied to a population starts conforming to current gender dynamics. It's good to look at why (we know why and has been covered in the thread already) and then see how we can shape the policy to counteract that, so that it's an actual choice on the part of the parent and not an expectation crafted by a patriarchal society.
It's blatantly wrong to decide that "current gender dynamics" in a macro sense means that you should advantage the choice you believe is better, rather than enable that choice. You're fundamentally imposing a belief, i.e. women should not raise their own children in the name of gender equality, on women who want nothing to do with that choice.
The very determination that "it becomes a problem" is patriarchal and sexist at its core. It's among the worst expressions of the 2nd wave and it leads to a rejection of the movement.
Our current numbers for things like STEM, Stay at home parents, income gaps, power positions etc. is pretty dire.
Framing the decision to try and balance that as "women are no longer allowed to raise their own children" is just plain wrong, and not really what's being argued. Society is making the woman stay at home the default choice, either by convention or pay scales or a million other things with the force of history behind it, so craft your policy to account for that.
You craft policy to prevent it? Because you believe it's wrong to do?
Let's be fair here, I said that the policy declares that women "should not" and you changed that to become "should not be allowed to". I'm not suggesting that ending the Norwegian law would prevent women from choosing to raise their own children.
I'm just saying that a position that declares "women should work, that's what's best for society" is just as patriarchal as saying "women should stay home, that's what's best for society". It's completely misguided to look at the number of women who raise their own children and conclude that because it's higher than x, women are oppressed and we should work to reduce their ability to choose this option.
And yes, that's exactly what removing the Norwegian program would do.
I mean, flip this on its head. What are you saying about women who do raise kids at home? Because I can tell you what lots of women said to my wife about it, and none of it was very kind. The best you can get to with this angle is something like 'oh, it's fine, that's her choice, not judging the thing she dedicated her entire life to... it's just that we want the government to make sure we have less of it because too much is Bad For Women".
I don't believe it's wrong for women to raise kids. I think it's wrong that society's shaped that women raising children are the default role.
I'm sorry that your partner had a bad experience with being a stay at home mom, that sucks and shouldn't happen. My partner encounters a lot of sexism, both explict and lowkey, in her work and with her efforts in the mentoring young girls thinking of entering the tech field.
Like her work isn't to discourage men from entering the field or forcing women who aren't actually interested to programing into the program, but to encourage and assist women choosing it as an education and career. Likewise parental leave policies shouldn't be to discourage women from staying at home, but rather to encourage men to do so.
Again, focusing on an individual level doesn't mean anything. It's the societal numbers that paints a picture that our culture still has a long way to go on gender roles.
The difference here I think is that I'm arguing for a position that doesn't disadvantage your partner and doesn't cast their work in a negative light, and you're arguing for a position that does both to mine. The individual level absolutely matters here!
OP is explicitly arguing for policies that do disadvantage women who stay home, specifically because of a belief that it is wrong to do so.
I am arguing for policies that do not advantage parents to stay at home.
That you assume that that is women is the problem.
Plenty of women (also here in Norway) stay at home with their young kids without being incentivized. Why should we add the incentive?
Sic transit gloria mundi.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
Why should I have to go to work if I don't want to?
Why shouldn't I have the option to stay at home?
Why should I commit myself to the corporate world of being a wageslave for corporate masters?
What about people that do Work from home? Or want to start up a small cottage industry in their home while watching their kid?
Why should that be a decision that is made across the board full stop?
I personally went back to work. I do not have the emotional or mental health capabilities of taking care of my child 24/7. Having her in daycare and me working makes me a better parent. But that solution doesn't work for everybody
My government gave me the first 19 weeks paid. My company then added another 14 weeks at half pay on top of that. I also had 2 weeks of annual leave that i took before the kid was born. so I got some income for about half a year. THe kid went into daycare at 14 months old (mom was here for those 2 months between). When she turned 3 the government funds 20 hours of early childhood education.
Most parents that stay home with their kids down here (which tbh is mostly mums) will usually put them into daycare at 3 for the minimum of 20 hours. This usually enables them to do some Work at Home or cottage industry type business (lots of kids clothes, reusable diapers/menstrual pads, knitting commissions, soap making, etc) while having a break from their kid. Or to focus on the newborn that seems to happen.
I dunno, I'm just confused as to what the goal really is. Isn't making a decision about myself, my life, and my family the most feminist thing that I can do?
Why should I have to go to work if I don't want to?
Why shouldn't I have the option to stay at home?
Why should I commit myself to the corporate world of being a wageslave for corporate masters?
What about people that do Work from home? Or want to start up a small cottage industry in their home while watching their kid?
Why should that be a decision that is made across the board full stop?
I personally went back to work. I do not have the emotional or mental health capabilities of taking care of my child 24/7. Having her in daycare and me working makes me a better parent. But that solution doesn't work for everybody
My government gave me the first 19 weeks paid. My company then added another 14 weeks at half pay on top of that. I also had 2 weeks of annual leave that i took before the kid was born. so I got some income for about half a year. THe kid went into daycare at 14 months old (mom was here for those 2 months between). When she turned 3 the government funds 20 hours of early childhood education.
Most parents that stay home with their kids down here (which tbh is mostly mums) will usually put them into daycare at 3 for the minimum of 20 hours. This usually enables them to do some Work at Home or cottage industry type business (lots of kids clothes, reusable diapers/menstrual pads, knitting commissions, soap making, etc) while having a break from their kid. Or to focus on the newborn that seems to happen.
I dunno, I'm just confused as to what the goal really is. Isn't making a decision about myself, my life, and my family the most feminist thing that I can do?
The premise of the OP, is due to the fact of how gender equality currently is in society, the policy as implemented is having the effect of disproportionately pulling women out of the work force, and thereby exasperating all the other issues with pay and advancement etc.
I'd like the policy to be tweaked a bit to count for the various imbalances in society.
edit: There's also the issue with immigrants that I don't actually know how to fix without removing the stay at home aspect and just doing the paid-for-daycare.
Maybe always do both, a set sum per child not tied to employment status and a daycare allowance?
edit2: actually, I've talked myself out of it. Free professional daycare would be my preferred policy, the parents can do whatever. I feel that having an educated and trained 3rd party to look after children for a portion of the day has the dual affect of giving parents some time off, whether to work or go tramping, and as a regular check in for its well being.
Why should I have to go to work if I don't want to?
Why shouldn't I have the option to stay at home?
Why should I commit myself to the corporate world of being a wageslave for corporate masters?
What about people that do Work from home? Or want to start up a small cottage industry in their home while watching their kid?
Why should that be a decision that is made across the board full stop?
I personally went back to work. I do not have the emotional or mental health capabilities of taking care of my child 24/7. Having her in daycare and me working makes me a better parent. But that solution doesn't work for everybody
My government gave me the first 19 weeks paid. My company then added another 14 weeks at half pay on top of that. I also had 2 weeks of annual leave that i took before the kid was born. so I got some income for about half a year. THe kid went into daycare at 14 months old (mom was here for those 2 months between). When she turned 3 the government funds 20 hours of early childhood education.
Most parents that stay home with their kids down here (which tbh is mostly mums) will usually put them into daycare at 3 for the minimum of 20 hours. This usually enables them to do some Work at Home or cottage industry type business (lots of kids clothes, reusable diapers/menstrual pads, knitting commissions, soap making, etc) while having a break from their kid. Or to focus on the newborn that seems to happen.
I dunno, I'm just confused as to what the goal really is. Isn't making a decision about myself, my life, and my family the most feminist thing that I can do?
The premise of the OP, is due to the fact of how gender equality currently is in society, the policy as implemented is having the effect of disproportionately pulling women out of the work force, and thereby exasperating all the other issues with pay and advancement etc.
I'd like the policy to be tweaked a bit to count for the various imbalances in society.
edit: There's also the issue with immigrants that I don't actually know how to fix without removing the stay at home aspect and just doing the paid-for-daycare.
Maybe always do both, a set sum per child not tied to employment status and a daycare allowance?
edit2: actually, I've talked myself out of it. Free professional daycare would be my preferred policy, the parents can do whatever. I feel that having an educated and trained 3rd party to look after children for a portion of the day has the dual affect of giving parents some time off, whether to work or go tramping, and as a regular check in for its well being.
The problem is that the scale of 'professional' daycare you're talking about is like orders of magnitude greater than currently exists, and presents remarkable problems in implementation.
I mean, I'm only experienced in the US here, but - the US has ~3.5 million babies born per year. Licensed infant daycare (at least in CA in the US) is a mandatory maximum 1:4 ratio (teacher : child) at all times, so you're talking about needing >1 million (likely bit over that to cover sick days, bathroom breaks, etc) caregivers. Even if those people make $40k/year (I'd argue that if you're saying that having educated, trained 3rd parties, they shouldn't be making less than that), you're now at $40 billion per year in salary alone - that's not including overhead, benefits, etc. To give a sense of scale, that's about the size of the entire State Dept budget in 2020 ($42.8B).
The reason the system works currently is that either a lot of families have one parent stay at home (especially once you have >2 kids, because the economics are insane for daycare unless you're both pulling down $100k+ salaries), or people use crappy, unlicensed day cares that may be 'safe' but are certainly not super nurturing (my nephew was way behind in reading for years because his 'daycare' was largely sitting in front of a tv).
ED right up at the top of pg4 is arguing that the "ideal solution" is for parents to leave their kids in daycare from age 1 and go back to work! No one checked or challenged it at all.
I mean
yah
it is
No
It's not ideal to separate a child from their parents at age 1 in favor of 1/20th of a daycare employee as the primary caregiver.
Edit: even if you do believe it is, enforcing that decision or advantaging it / disadvantaging other ones because you believe homemaking is antifeminist is still a bad opinion.
I really have to agree with spool here - this really seems like a case of perfect being the enemy of good. Would it be better if families split parenting responsibilities more evenly? Sure! But if families are going to have one parent stay at home, paying them to do so seems like a great way to provide financial support, and taking that away isn't going to solve the underlying gender role issue; it's just going to mean that that family is going to have the mother stay home and struggle more. Providing more support for people to put kids in daycare isn't necessarily a terrible idea, but seeing as the first few years of childhood development are clearly enormously important, I'd have to see a lot more evidence that we can identify and get rid of bad daycare teachers and situations before assuming that throwing an order of magnitude more kids into that system will be a positive development.
Why should I have to go to work if I don't want to?
Why shouldn't I have the option to stay at home?
Why should I commit myself to the corporate world of being a wageslave for corporate masters?
What about people that do Work from home? Or want to start up a small cottage industry in their home while watching their kid?
Why should that be a decision that is made across the board full stop?
I personally went back to work. I do not have the emotional or mental health capabilities of taking care of my child 24/7. Having her in daycare and me working makes me a better parent. But that solution doesn't work for everybody
My government gave me the first 19 weeks paid. My company then added another 14 weeks at half pay on top of that. I also had 2 weeks of annual leave that i took before the kid was born. so I got some income for about half a year. THe kid went into daycare at 14 months old (mom was here for those 2 months between). When she turned 3 the government funds 20 hours of early childhood education.
Most parents that stay home with their kids down here (which tbh is mostly mums) will usually put them into daycare at 3 for the minimum of 20 hours. This usually enables them to do some Work at Home or cottage industry type business (lots of kids clothes, reusable diapers/menstrual pads, knitting commissions, soap making, etc) while having a break from their kid. Or to focus on the newborn that seems to happen.
I dunno, I'm just confused as to what the goal really is. Isn't making a decision about myself, my life, and my family the most feminist thing that I can do?
The premise of the OP, is due to the fact of how gender equality currently is in society, the policy as implemented is having the effect of disproportionately pulling women out of the work force, and thereby exasperating all the other issues with pay and advancement etc.
I'd like the policy to be tweaked a bit to count for the various imbalances in society.
edit: There's also the issue with immigrants that I don't actually know how to fix without removing the stay at home aspect and just doing the paid-for-daycare.
Maybe always do both, a set sum per child not tied to employment status and a daycare allowance?
edit2: actually, I've talked myself out of it. Free professional daycare would be my preferred policy, the parents can do whatever. I feel that having an educated and trained 3rd party to look after children for a portion of the day has the dual affect of giving parents some time off, whether to work or go tramping, and as a regular check in for its well being.
The problem is that the scale of 'professional' daycare you're talking about is like orders of magnitude greater than currently exists, and presents remarkable problems in implementation.
I mean, I'm only experienced in the US here, but - the US has ~3.5 million babies born per year. Licensed infant daycare (at least in CA in the US) is a mandatory maximum 1:4 ratio (teacher : child) at all times, so you're talking about needing >1 million (likely bit over that to cover sick days, bathroom breaks, etc) caregivers. Even if those people make $40k/year (I'd argue that if you're saying that having educated, trained 3rd parties, they shouldn't be making less than that), you're now at $40 billion per year in salary alone - that's not including overhead, benefits, etc. To give a sense of scale, that's about the size of the entire State Dept budget in 2020 ($42.8B).
We managed this here in Norway. But I'm sure it's impossible in the richest country in the history of the world.
America: Doing the least with the most since 1779!
So I guess an exception for mandatory parental leave needs to be made for time limited occupations, as I can't see a way of divorcing being a politician from the electoral cycle.
Nor how you could realistically rank family and being in power to change your family's outlook in the country you've been elected to represent.
Apologies if I've missed some points or I'm rehashing things, I skipped in from the OP and page one.
The idea that women staying home to raise kids is something that a) entrenches gender roles, and b) should be discouraged or even prevented, is right up there with TERFs in terms of Bad Things the 2nd Wave Feminists Did. Crafting policy that drives women away from a perfectly valid, legitimate, understandable life choice because you believe that women should be a certain way is pretty terrible, calling that Capital F Feminism is even worse, and taken as a whole the attitude has driven a generation of women out of the movement.
The thing that entrenches gender roles is a patriarchy taking away a woman's choice for their own good, be that abortion rights, property rights, workplace rights, or any other rights including the right to stay home and raise a child. If government is crafting systems that push women into the workforce when they'd rather raise their children, your government is to that extent sexist.
It sucks that Norway is having trouble integrating immigrants. I'm not surprised, but maybe they should try supporting and then respecting the choices of immigrant women from other cultures rather than labeling some of them Bad For Women and trying to stop them. Here in the USA, we're trying to move past the 2nd wave feminist ideas but attitudes like this remain, and that's why Belasco doesn't call herself a Feminist very much anymore - she's had plenty of experiences of people treating her as lesser, as a traitor, as an enemy of the cause, because she made the choice that was right for her.
Labeling that choice inherently bad is antifeminist.
On an individual level sure, but on a societal level it becomes a problem.
Which is why the Norway policy seems good on its face, but when applied to a population starts conforming to current gender dynamics. It's good to look at why (we know why and has been covered in the thread already) and then see how we can shape the policy to counteract that, so that it's an actual choice on the part of the parent and not an expectation crafted by a patriarchal society.
It's blatantly wrong to decide that "current gender dynamics" in a macro sense means that you should advantage the choice you believe is better, rather than enable that choice. You're fundamentally imposing a belief, i.e. women should not raise their own children in the name of gender equality, on women who want nothing to do with that choice.
The very determination that "it becomes a problem" is patriarchal and sexist at its core. It's among the worst expressions of the 2nd wave and it leads to a rejection of the movement.
Our current numbers for things like STEM, Stay at home parents, income gaps, power positions etc. is pretty dire.
Framing the decision to try and balance that as "women are no longer allowed to raise their own children" is just plain wrong, and not really what's being argued. Society is making the woman stay at home the default choice, either by convention or pay scales or a million other things with the force of history behind it, so craft your policy to account for that.
You craft policy to prevent it? Because you believe it's wrong to do?
Let's be fair here, I said that the policy declares that women "should not" and you changed that to become "should not be allowed to". I'm not suggesting that ending the Norwegian law would prevent women from choosing to raise their own children.
I'm just saying that a position that declares "women should work, that's what's best for society" is just as patriarchal as saying "women should stay home, that's what's best for society". It's completely misguided to look at the number of women who raise their own children and conclude that because it's higher than x, women are oppressed and we should work to reduce their ability to choose this option.
And yes, that's exactly what removing the Norwegian program would do.
I mean, flip this on its head. What are you saying about women who do raise kids at home? Because I can tell you what lots of women said to my wife about it, and none of it was very kind. The best you can get to with this angle is something like 'oh, it's fine, that's her choice, not judging the thing she dedicated her entire life to... it's just that we want the government to make sure we have less of it because too much is Bad For Women".
I don't believe it's wrong for women to raise kids. I think it's wrong that society's shaped that women raising children are the default role.
I'm sorry that your partner had a bad experience with being a stay at home mom, that sucks and shouldn't happen. My partner encounters a lot of sexism, both explict and lowkey, in her work and with her efforts in the mentoring young girls thinking of entering the tech field.
Like her work isn't to discourage men from entering the field or forcing women who aren't actually interested to programing into the program, but to encourage and assist women choosing it as an education and career. Likewise parental leave policies shouldn't be to discourage women from staying at home, but rather to encourage men to do so.
Again, focusing on an individual level doesn't mean anything. It's the societal numbers that paints a picture that our culture still has a long way to go on gender roles.
The difference here I think is that I'm arguing for a position that doesn't disadvantage your partner and doesn't cast their work in a negative light, and you're arguing for a position that does both to mine. The individual level absolutely matters here!
OP is explicitly arguing for policies that do disadvantage women who stay home, specifically because of a belief that it is wrong to do so.
I am arguing for policies that do not advantage parents to stay at home.
That you assume that that is women is the problem.
Plenty of women (also here in Norway) stay at home with their young kids without being incentivized. Why should we add the incentive?
Hoo boy, lets circle back since you didn't retain pages 1-3:
Not all women can afford to stay home without compensation, leading to poorer households or problems of income, food scarcity, and stress on the children in their infancies as caregivers are forced back into the market.
Full time care-giving at home in the first 1-4 years of child development is shown to have significant positive impacts on child development (though, as PantsD pointed out, this impact lessens with age until becoming inconsequential by schooling age).
The cost of daycare is prohibitively expensive, and daycare quality is generally poorer in subsidized daycare than in more expensive ones. Both of which have poorer outcomes in years 1-4 than the average parent taking care of their kids.
The assumption that this only applies to women is specifically labeled by you, Expletive, both in the thread title, each version of your revised OP, and in most of your posts here. Most folks, Spool included, have discussed how this is fine for either gender and the option should be available for any parent, regardless of gender.
The concept that this is giving an advantage to parents to stay at home is a biased analysis from the get-go that implied that child-rearing is a luxury rather than the primary societal need.
Your thesis in this post and elsewhere also assumes a level of misogynistic dismissal of the actual labor and value of the act of childcare, which implies that it is perfectly fine for us to pay someone at a daycare a barely minimum wage to do, but not the parents doing it themselves. As with other forms of education and other fields dominated primarily by female employees, the standard here is to dismiss both aspects of work as worthless simultaneously, both in removing a valuable societal incentive to ensure the next generation succeeds and in ensuring that those responsible for such work are inevitably overburdeoned by being tasked to review too many children in a daycare situation with less reason to care and even less pay.
As Spool mentioned, second wave feminism is highly regressive. Telling women NOT to do something is still telling women NOT to do something. No one forces women to have children and stay home with this law, but those women who choose to have that role can do so.
If you are concerned with a larger societal problem of too many women staying home with their children, that isn't solved by removing this law, but by making greater incentives to also remain in the workforce for women and greater incentives for men to stay home with children as well. The latter could be done by successful marketing. The former could be done by ensuring that equal pay is actually a thing in Denmark across the genders (as that choice is more likely to be determined by who has the higher salary than anything else.
Essentially, across the board the assumptions of this thread have been regressive to women's health and choice, antagonistic against male caregivers and their equivalent needs to their spouses, and generally a bad time for anything looking like fair human resource policy.
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Why should I have to go to work if I don't want to?
Why shouldn't I have the option to stay at home?
Why should I commit myself to the corporate world of being a wageslave for corporate masters?
What about people that do Work from home? Or want to start up a small cottage industry in their home while watching their kid?
Why should that be a decision that is made across the board full stop?
I personally went back to work. I do not have the emotional or mental health capabilities of taking care of my child 24/7. Having her in daycare and me working makes me a better parent. But that solution doesn't work for everybody
My government gave me the first 19 weeks paid. My company then added another 14 weeks at half pay on top of that. I also had 2 weeks of annual leave that i took before the kid was born. so I got some income for about half a year. THe kid went into daycare at 14 months old (mom was here for those 2 months between). When she turned 3 the government funds 20 hours of early childhood education.
Most parents that stay home with their kids down here (which tbh is mostly mums) will usually put them into daycare at 3 for the minimum of 20 hours. This usually enables them to do some Work at Home or cottage industry type business (lots of kids clothes, reusable diapers/menstrual pads, knitting commissions, soap making, etc) while having a break from their kid. Or to focus on the newborn that seems to happen.
I dunno, I'm just confused as to what the goal really is. Isn't making a decision about myself, my life, and my family the most feminist thing that I can do?
The premise of the OP, is due to the fact of how gender equality currently is in society, the policy as implemented is having the effect of disproportionately pulling women out of the work force, and thereby exasperating all the other issues with pay and advancement etc.
I'd like the policy to be tweaked a bit to count for the various imbalances in society.
edit: There's also the issue with immigrants that I don't actually know how to fix without removing the stay at home aspect and just doing the paid-for-daycare.
Maybe always do both, a set sum per child not tied to employment status and a daycare allowance?
edit2: actually, I've talked myself out of it. Free professional daycare would be my preferred policy, the parents can do whatever. I feel that having an educated and trained 3rd party to look after children for a portion of the day has the dual affect of giving parents some time off, whether to work or go tramping, and as a regular check in for its well being.
The problem is that the scale of 'professional' daycare you're talking about is like orders of magnitude greater than currently exists, and presents remarkable problems in implementation.
I mean, I'm only experienced in the US here, but - the US has ~3.5 million babies born per year. Licensed infant daycare (at least in CA in the US) is a mandatory maximum 1:4 ratio (teacher : child) at all times, so you're talking about needing >1 million (likely bit over that to cover sick days, bathroom breaks, etc) caregivers. Even if those people make $40k/year (I'd argue that if you're saying that having educated, trained 3rd parties, they shouldn't be making less than that), you're now at $40 billion per year in salary alone - that's not including overhead, benefits, etc. To give a sense of scale, that's about the size of the entire State Dept budget in 2020 ($42.8B).
We managed this here in Norway. But I'm sure it's impossible in the richest country in the history of the world.
America: Doing the least with the most since 1779!
And, in general, this sort of thing is really disgusting to me in the same way that the "Oh, silly Japan" memes, calling poor nations "third world," or any other national put down garbage. There are significant, complex reasons that the US capitalism is as fucked up as it is, and hundreds of years of layering prevent a lot of that from changing at the whim of common people like those of us here on the forums. When folks use US daycare as an example, its because its the example they have to work with in the framework of our society. We can't change that except by voting, and pretty much everyone on these forums historically votes to try and improve that, and is stymied by a system that has grown since the early 1800s to prevent such changes without years and years of support. This sort of thing is essentially blaming those of us who acknowledge and want the problem corrected for hundreds of years of corporate bullshit and frankly, it's both exhausting and bullshit.
I'm not at all a "patriot" or whatever bullshit for my country. I fully understand how terrible and unfair it is to those in these most important of jobs and such. This sort of cheap shot is really goosish, and does little aside from fluffing up your own ego at the cause of our suffering, just as the assholes who claim that the US is exceptional do to other countries. Both groups can fuck right off, and maybe learn to treat people as people regardless of what flag flies on their bullshit courthouses.
Actually, in Denmark, the wage gap seems heavily based on childcare expenses - despite specific Danish laws that address the wage gap directly. Kind of makes me think that some of the equal pay ideas that make sense and that countries are actually doing have less than expected empirical yield.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Apologies if I've missed some points or I'm rehashing things, I skipped in from the OP and page one.
The idea that women staying home to raise kids is something that a) entrenches gender roles, and b) should be discouraged or even prevented, is right up there with TERFs in terms of Bad Things the 2nd Wave Feminists Did. Crafting policy that drives women away from a perfectly valid, legitimate, understandable life choice because you believe that women should be a certain way is pretty terrible, calling that Capital F Feminism is even worse, and taken as a whole the attitude has driven a generation of women out of the movement.
The thing that entrenches gender roles is a patriarchy taking away a woman's choice for their own good, be that abortion rights, property rights, workplace rights, or any other rights including the right to stay home and raise a child. If government is crafting systems that push women into the workforce when they'd rather raise their children, your government is to that extent sexist.
It sucks that Norway is having trouble integrating immigrants. I'm not surprised, but maybe they should try supporting and then respecting the choices of immigrant women from other cultures rather than labeling some of them Bad For Women and trying to stop them. Here in the USA, we're trying to move past the 2nd wave feminist ideas but attitudes like this remain, and that's why Belasco doesn't call herself a Feminist very much anymore - she's had plenty of experiences of people treating her as lesser, as a traitor, as an enemy of the cause, because she made the choice that was right for her.
Labeling that choice inherently bad is antifeminist.
On an individual level sure, but on a societal level it becomes a problem.
Which is why the Norway policy seems good on its face, but when applied to a population starts conforming to current gender dynamics. It's good to look at why (we know why and has been covered in the thread already) and then see how we can shape the policy to counteract that, so that it's an actual choice on the part of the parent and not an expectation crafted by a patriarchal society.
It's blatantly wrong to decide that "current gender dynamics" in a macro sense means that you should advantage the choice you believe is better, rather than enable that choice. You're fundamentally imposing a belief, i.e. women should not raise their own children in the name of gender equality, on women who want nothing to do with that choice.
The very determination that "it becomes a problem" is patriarchal and sexist at its core. It's among the worst expressions of the 2nd wave and it leads to a rejection of the movement.
No, it's literally the opposite of blatantly wrong to say that current gender dynamics are sexist, therefore we should attempt to address that problem via policy. This is literally the point of policy.
The entire point of the Norwegian example in the OP is that, like with many things, it is not sufficient to just say "Well now you have the freedom to not be sexist" and expect that to actually accomplish anything. Because that "freedom" drops into pre-existing dynamics. Specifically in this case, sexist gender dynamics and sexist economic disadvantages that effect women.
The point of the entire example is that it's not enough to just tell people that men could totally take that parental leave or be stay-at-home parents or whatever, if they wanted. Because they won't. If you want to stop women being forced to do a disproportionate amount of the labour of child-rearing and suffering a disproportionate amount of the negative effects of it, you need to explicitly craft policy that rewards men for doing it too.
Honestly, your entire argument here doesn't really make much sense in the context of this discussion because the objection you raise is based in some idea that people are saying women shouldn't be stay at home moms. Which is literally not what any of this is about. The problem is not that any women is a stay-at-home mother or a primary caregiver or whatever. It's that a disproportionate number of them are. The desired outcome is not that no women stay home and raise their kids. So saying people gave your wife shit for doing that is a bad thing that happened but not actually relevant to the policy discussion because that's not what the policies in question are trying to achieve.
I don't think there is a good argument for supporting this over supporting subsidized daycare.
It also seems like one of those programs where the people it benefits most do not need the support. It's not generous enough to replace an entire income, so the people who need 2 incomes still need to work. So it basically serves as a sweetener for people who can afford to single income it, and is only critical for that narrow band where they need like 1.2 incomes to get by.
I'm not following the logic of "we'll pay your income to not show up for work while taking care of your child" is not immediately better in all situations here. Walk me through it.
1) Daycares are licensed and regulated. Arguably not enough, but parents just are. There is this beautification of stay at home parents, but there is no intrinsic reason they are better for early child development than someone who does that as their chosen profession. It like most "women's work" fields is probably under compensated but that can be address as well, which would likely attracted more talented people to the career which would increase the outcome difference. I'd argue there would also be a selection bias that would amplify this. More educated parents, having generally better career prospects, thus would be more inclined to choose daycare. It is harder for someone who just got their masters 2 years ago to pause their career for years than someone who never graduated HS to give up their McJob. Yes its not a straight line more educated therefore better parents, but the trend is there. It is the same concept as all the head start type programs, just extended out years earlier.
2)A single daycare worker can watch up to 4 kids at a time(as 0-2 year olds, and up to 8 3-5 year olds). It's relatively unlikely/uncommon for a single parent to have 4 or more kids too young to attend school. Take 3 kids with 24 month spacing. To pay for home care, till they were 5 would cost 9 years salary. To pay for equivalent child care would be 2.625.
3) Even if it doesn't save money it is better for the economy. Rather than paying 4 parents to each watching a single kid. It would be better to pay one of them to watch all 4 kids, and then the other 3 to do pretty much any other job. Is it better to have 4 child care providers working at 1/4 capacity, or 1 child care provider, a social worker, a bus driver, and a parks worker. This actually becomes more egregious as the education level continues to increase- not utilizing the investment educating 4 house cleaners or landscapers is a lot less harmful than not utilizing the hours spent training an engineer, a nurse and a speech pathologist.
4) If set up properly (aka not like the US school system), it helps encourage diversity. It isn't just kids in Whiteburbia, doing play dates with their Whiteburbia neighbors. This is actually easier to do than with schools as well, because the ideal place for daycare centers is near where a parent works and commercial areas aren't as segregated.
5) It doesn't encourage the lowest earner(typical the women) to ditch their career. Which is potentially isolating/trapping in an abusive relationship and makes it harder to reenter the workforce later - either by choice or by circumstance. This is again, something that is generally more important the more educated the person is. Even if there was no "why this gap in your resume" stigma. A waiter who doesn't work between 24 and 32 can reenter their career pretty seamlessly. A programmer who hasn't worked professionally in 8 years is in a much tougher spot for pure skill maintenance reasons.
6) This get into a lot of other social safety net policies or lack there of, tax policy etc, it enables dual lower earner households that need two full incomes. Unless it is 100% salary, there is a section of people who will need that gap between the couple making say $50k combined, or them making 25k, plus a 15k kid-stipend.
7) This is probably a bit US specific, but benefits that are universal are better supported. Everyone gets Medicare, so cutting Medicare is untenable. Only "certain people" get WIC or whatever other benefits, so they are always on the chopping block.
That sure is a lot of words that doesn't address what I asked whatsoever, but that's partially my fault because I wasn't so much interested in why daycare is better, and I failed to be more specific there. You're right, it's "cheaper", though, arguably, not necessarily better. I was interested in why you thought giving someone their income to stay at home wasn't better than just... not and making them pay for daycare out of pocket, which is what you were implying in your route to say "daycare is better!"
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Why should I have to go to work if I don't want to?
Why shouldn't I have the option to stay at home?
Why should I commit myself to the corporate world of being a wageslave for corporate masters?
What about people that do Work from home? Or want to start up a small cottage industry in their home while watching their kid?
Why should that be a decision that is made across the board full stop?
I personally went back to work. I do not have the emotional or mental health capabilities of taking care of my child 24/7. Having her in daycare and me working makes me a better parent. But that solution doesn't work for everybody
My government gave me the first 19 weeks paid. My company then added another 14 weeks at half pay on top of that. I also had 2 weeks of annual leave that i took before the kid was born. so I got some income for about half a year. THe kid went into daycare at 14 months old (mom was here for those 2 months between). When she turned 3 the government funds 20 hours of early childhood education.
Most parents that stay home with their kids down here (which tbh is mostly mums) will usually put them into daycare at 3 for the minimum of 20 hours. This usually enables them to do some Work at Home or cottage industry type business (lots of kids clothes, reusable diapers/menstrual pads, knitting commissions, soap making, etc) while having a break from their kid. Or to focus on the newborn that seems to happen.
I dunno, I'm just confused as to what the goal really is. Isn't making a decision about myself, my life, and my family the most feminist thing that I can do?
The premise of the OP, is due to the fact of how gender equality currently is in society, the policy as implemented is having the effect of disproportionately pulling women out of the work force, and thereby exasperating all the other issues with pay and advancement etc.
I'd like the policy to be tweaked a bit to count for the various imbalances in society.
edit: There's also the issue with immigrants that I don't actually know how to fix without removing the stay at home aspect and just doing the paid-for-daycare.
Maybe always do both, a set sum per child not tied to employment status and a daycare allowance?
edit2: actually, I've talked myself out of it. Free professional daycare would be my preferred policy, the parents can do whatever. I feel that having an educated and trained 3rd party to look after children for a portion of the day has the dual affect of giving parents some time off, whether to work or go tramping, and as a regular check in for its well being.
The problem is that the scale of 'professional' daycare you're talking about is like orders of magnitude greater than currently exists, and presents remarkable problems in implementation.
I mean, I'm only experienced in the US here, but - the US has ~3.5 million babies born per year. Licensed infant daycare (at least in CA in the US) is a mandatory maximum 1:4 ratio (teacher : child) at all times, so you're talking about needing >1 million (likely bit over that to cover sick days, bathroom breaks, etc) caregivers. Even if those people make $40k/year (I'd argue that if you're saying that having educated, trained 3rd parties, they shouldn't be making less than that), you're now at $40 billion per year in salary alone - that's not including overhead, benefits, etc. To give a sense of scale, that's about the size of the entire State Dept budget in 2020 ($42.8B).
The reason the system works currently is that either a lot of families have one parent stay at home (especially once you have >2 kids, because the economics are insane for daycare unless you're both pulling down $100k+ salaries), or people use crappy, unlicensed day cares that may be 'safe' but are certainly not super nurturing (my nephew was way behind in reading for years because his 'daycare' was largely sitting in front of a tv).
I mean, this kind of argument is basically the whole problem with the discussion of childcare. We don't want to actually grapple with what it actually costs. We are instead content to let that work be done by family and such so that the actual work being done doesn't show up in government economic analyses as easily. The difference between a daycare worker watching 4 kids and a stay-at-home parent watching 1 is mostly that the SAHP's labour is not recognized as such in salary analyses. If the problem is that daycare for everyone would cost too much, that suggests that a massive dollay amount of unrecognized uncompensated labour is going on every day. But because it's unrecognized, it's better, because then we don't have to explicitly acknowledge the value of what is being offloaded onto parents and their families and other support networks.
If we can afford to do it under the table, we can afford to do it above.
Everything we do to encourage people to have more children puts a strain on the environment. Look around and see what having too many humans on this earth has done, it’s doubtful we’ll even survive climate change beyond the next century.
The education system is also pretty fucked, I’m tired of seeing shitty overworked teachers trying to wrangle classrooms overflowing with kids, and it’s always the least privileged kids who suffer, because low income parents who benefit most from programs like the one proposed are always the ones who end up having a pile of kids as a result. And even when these kids grow up they put further strain on healthcare industries and social security.
If you want to increase the population of the nation get used to immigration. If you really want a kid but can’t afford those first few years where they require constant attention then consider adoption. It’s time to make child-free households a default.
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Obviously, people should have family leave. Your post doesn’t address my concerns at all wrt MANDATORY parental leave for both parents for a year. Do you not understand the implications of your proposal or do you need it explained more simply?
Well, I didn't want to just repost my response from the message preceding your own:
On an individual level sure, but on a societal level it becomes a problem.
Which is why the Norway policy seems good on its face, but when applied to a population starts conforming to current gender dynamics. It's good to look at why (we know why and has been covered in the thread already) and then see how we can shape the policy to counteract that, so that it's an actual choice on the part of the parent and not an expectation crafted by a patriarchal society.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
It's blatantly wrong to decide that "current gender dynamics" in a macro sense means that you should advantage the choice you believe is better, rather than enable that choice. You're fundamentally imposing a belief, i.e. women should not raise their own children in the name of gender equality, on women who want nothing to do with that choice.
The very determination that "it becomes a problem" is patriarchal and sexist at its core. It's among the worst expressions of the 2nd wave and it leads to a rejection of the movement.
Our current numbers for things like STEM, Stay at home parents, income gaps, power positions etc. is pretty dire.
Framing the decision to try and balance that as "women are no longer allowed to raise their own children" is just plain wrong, and not really what's being argued. Society is making the woman stay at home the default choice, either by convention or pay scales or a million other things with the force of history behind it, so craft your policy to account for that.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
You craft policy to prevent it? Because you believe it's wrong to do?
Let's be fair here, I said that the policy declares that women "should not" and you changed that to become "should not be allowed to". I'm not suggesting that ending the Norwegian law would prevent women from choosing to raise their own children.
I'm just saying that a position that declares "women should work, that's what's best for society" is just as patriarchal as saying "women should stay home, that's what's best for society". It's completely misguided to look at the number of women who raise their own children and conclude that because it's higher than x, women are oppressed and we should work to reduce their ability to choose this option.
And yes, that's exactly what removing the Norwegian program would do.
I mean, flip this on its head. What are you saying about women who do raise kids at home? Because I can tell you what lots of women said to my wife about it, and none of it was very kind. The best you can get to with this angle is something like 'oh, it's fine, that's her choice, not judging the thing she dedicated her entire life to... it's just that we want the government to make sure we have less of it because too much is Bad For Women".
I don't believe it's wrong for women to raise kids. I think it's wrong that society's shaped that women raising children are the default role.
I'm sorry that your partner had a bad experience with being a stay at home mom, that sucks and shouldn't happen. My partner encounters a lot of sexism, both explict and lowkey, in her work and with her efforts in the mentoring young girls thinking of entering the tech field.
Like her work isn't to discourage men from entering the field or forcing women who aren't actually interested to programing into the program, but to encourage and assist women choosing it as an education and career. Likewise parental leave policies shouldn't be to discourage women from staying at home, but rather to encourage men to do so.
Again, focusing on an individual level doesn't mean anything. It's the societal numbers that paints a picture that our culture still has a long way to go on gender roles.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
This reminds me of an interesting article that found that in countries with greater gender equality, the proportion of women going into STEM fields actually drops. There are a bunch of theories why this is
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The difference here I think is that I'm arguing for a position that doesn't disadvantage your partner and doesn't cast their work in a negative light, and you're arguing for a position that does both to mine. The individual level absolutely matters here!
OP is explicitly arguing for policies that do disadvantage women who stay home, specifically because of a belief that it is wrong to do so.
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I think there's been a misunderstanding then because I didn't actually state a policy position, mostly because I don't know how you would fix society on this scale without doing something extreme and definitely worse.
But if you implement a policy that is making the ratio worse you should look at that and either replace it with something else or tweak it to address the imbalance. Kind of like affirmative action but for childcare.
Because the effects are wide reaching.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
That's interesting and I have some ideas as to why, but they're mostly because of anecdotal experience so probably not worth sharing.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
That seems like a daycare cost vs salary question. Instead of a subsidy for staying at home I would prefer very generous parental leave, and completely free daycare. Supported on the back of some form of UBI for everyone who does not work for an employer.
If someone wants to stay home then it’s because they want to, and they aren’t being forced to do so because it’s the only way to make ends meet. Yes this would mean losing your wage-UBI in income but you are giving up a job so this seems logical to me.
Well, let's be specific here - OP's opinion is that the policy of making it easier for women to stay home and raise their own kids is bad, and the reasons why the policy is bad are that they succeed in letting women stay home, a thing with strong enough downsides that it should be discouraged regardless of the desire to do it.
That's a pretty fine hair to split, and I don't think anyone can credibly do so. if you think staying at home shouldn't be subsidized because it's bad for feminism and for society to support that behavior, you also think at least partially that staying at home is itself bad for feminism and society. If you don't, your position is incoherent.
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bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I feel.like we need to examine why some ratio of women raising their own kids would be worse than some other ratio. That's the core thing I'm taking issue with here - what I want is for choice to be supported, and what you are seeming to want is the right balance regardless of choice!
this turned out to be really hard to find
I'm idly searching SSB for this so I might come back with some
My impression has been that most have been arguing that systems such as Norway's are a good thing, but should be tweaked in such a way that people don't just default to the mother staying home. That subsidized or free daycare is a good thing to have early on so that parents who want or need to return to work quickly can do so, and that policies regarding parental leave and stay-at-home subsidies should be made in such a way that all parents feel equally comfortable with staying home. You're arguing against a position that hasn't been espoused much aside from the OP.
this is the percentage of children receiving the kontantstøtte (so therefore a graph of how many kids are in daycare versus being at home - do note that this is not either/or, you could have had a child being in daycare two days a week etc)
green is all children, blue is children of parents with immigrant backgrounds from the EU, black is children of parents with immigrant backgrounds from "Africa, Asia, etc" [sidenote: writing "rest of the world" would have been easier here I feel]
EDIT: prosent is norwegian for percent.
ED right up at the top of pg4 is arguing that the "ideal solution" is for parents to leave their kids in daycare from age 1 and go back to work! No one checked or challenged it at all.
I mean
yah
it is
Perhaps because that's essentially the same position they took right from the OP, and it had already been addressed? I know I just glazed over it after realizing it was just a restatement of things.
No
It's not ideal to separate a child from their parents at age 1 in favor of 1/20th of a daycare employee as the primary caregiver.
Edit: even if you do believe it is, enforcing that decision or advantaging it / disadvantaging other ones because you believe homemaking is antifeminist is still a bad opinion.
I am arguing for policies that do not advantage parents to stay at home.
That you assume that that is women is the problem.
Plenty of women (also here in Norway) stay at home with their young kids without being incentivized. Why should we add the incentive?
Why shouldn't I have the option to stay at home?
Why should I commit myself to the corporate world of being a wageslave for corporate masters?
What about people that do Work from home? Or want to start up a small cottage industry in their home while watching their kid?
Why should that be a decision that is made across the board full stop?
I personally went back to work. I do not have the emotional or mental health capabilities of taking care of my child 24/7. Having her in daycare and me working makes me a better parent. But that solution doesn't work for everybody
My government gave me the first 19 weeks paid. My company then added another 14 weeks at half pay on top of that. I also had 2 weeks of annual leave that i took before the kid was born. so I got some income for about half a year. THe kid went into daycare at 14 months old (mom was here for those 2 months between). When she turned 3 the government funds 20 hours of early childhood education.
Most parents that stay home with their kids down here (which tbh is mostly mums) will usually put them into daycare at 3 for the minimum of 20 hours. This usually enables them to do some Work at Home or cottage industry type business (lots of kids clothes, reusable diapers/menstrual pads, knitting commissions, soap making, etc) while having a break from their kid. Or to focus on the newborn that seems to happen.
I dunno, I'm just confused as to what the goal really is. Isn't making a decision about myself, my life, and my family the most feminist thing that I can do?
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The premise of the OP, is due to the fact of how gender equality currently is in society, the policy as implemented is having the effect of disproportionately pulling women out of the work force, and thereby exasperating all the other issues with pay and advancement etc.
I'd like the policy to be tweaked a bit to count for the various imbalances in society.
edit: There's also the issue with immigrants that I don't actually know how to fix without removing the stay at home aspect and just doing the paid-for-daycare.
Maybe always do both, a set sum per child not tied to employment status and a daycare allowance?
edit2: actually, I've talked myself out of it. Free professional daycare would be my preferred policy, the parents can do whatever. I feel that having an educated and trained 3rd party to look after children for a portion of the day has the dual affect of giving parents some time off, whether to work or go tramping, and as a regular check in for its well being.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
I dunno. it's tough to unmuddle personal micro from macro sometimes. Especially on something so personal as raising your kids.
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The problem is that the scale of 'professional' daycare you're talking about is like orders of magnitude greater than currently exists, and presents remarkable problems in implementation.
I mean, I'm only experienced in the US here, but - the US has ~3.5 million babies born per year. Licensed infant daycare (at least in CA in the US) is a mandatory maximum 1:4 ratio (teacher : child) at all times, so you're talking about needing >1 million (likely bit over that to cover sick days, bathroom breaks, etc) caregivers. Even if those people make $40k/year (I'd argue that if you're saying that having educated, trained 3rd parties, they shouldn't be making less than that), you're now at $40 billion per year in salary alone - that's not including overhead, benefits, etc. To give a sense of scale, that's about the size of the entire State Dept budget in 2020 ($42.8B).
The reason the system works currently is that either a lot of families have one parent stay at home (especially once you have >2 kids, because the economics are insane for daycare unless you're both pulling down $100k+ salaries), or people use crappy, unlicensed day cares that may be 'safe' but are certainly not super nurturing (my nephew was way behind in reading for years because his 'daycare' was largely sitting in front of a tv).
I really have to agree with spool here - this really seems like a case of perfect being the enemy of good. Would it be better if families split parenting responsibilities more evenly? Sure! But if families are going to have one parent stay at home, paying them to do so seems like a great way to provide financial support, and taking that away isn't going to solve the underlying gender role issue; it's just going to mean that that family is going to have the mother stay home and struggle more. Providing more support for people to put kids in daycare isn't necessarily a terrible idea, but seeing as the first few years of childhood development are clearly enormously important, I'd have to see a lot more evidence that we can identify and get rid of bad daycare teachers and situations before assuming that throwing an order of magnitude more kids into that system will be a positive development.
We managed this here in Norway. But I'm sure it's impossible in the richest country in the history of the world.
America: Doing the least with the most since 1779!
https://www.yasstribune.com.au/story/6380924/keep-preschool-spend-pledge-labor-senator/
Her kid was crying in the gallery towards the end.
She asked for the baby's forgiveness.
So I guess an exception for mandatory parental leave needs to be made for time limited occupations, as I can't see a way of divorcing being a politician from the electoral cycle.
Nor how you could realistically rank family and being in power to change your family's outlook in the country you've been elected to represent.
But it seems a very edge-case exception.
Hoo boy, lets circle back since you didn't retain pages 1-3:
Essentially, across the board the assumptions of this thread have been regressive to women's health and choice, antagonistic against male caregivers and their equivalent needs to their spouses, and generally a bad time for anything looking like fair human resource policy.
And, in general, this sort of thing is really disgusting to me in the same way that the "Oh, silly Japan" memes, calling poor nations "third world," or any other national put down garbage. There are significant, complex reasons that the US capitalism is as fucked up as it is, and hundreds of years of layering prevent a lot of that from changing at the whim of common people like those of us here on the forums. When folks use US daycare as an example, its because its the example they have to work with in the framework of our society. We can't change that except by voting, and pretty much everyone on these forums historically votes to try and improve that, and is stymied by a system that has grown since the early 1800s to prevent such changes without years and years of support. This sort of thing is essentially blaming those of us who acknowledge and want the problem corrected for hundreds of years of corporate bullshit and frankly, it's both exhausting and bullshit.
I'm not at all a "patriot" or whatever bullshit for my country. I fully understand how terrible and unfair it is to those in these most important of jobs and such. This sort of cheap shot is really goosish, and does little aside from fluffing up your own ego at the cause of our suffering, just as the assholes who claim that the US is exceptional do to other countries. Both groups can fuck right off, and maybe learn to treat people as people regardless of what flag flies on their bullshit courthouses.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
No, it's literally the opposite of blatantly wrong to say that current gender dynamics are sexist, therefore we should attempt to address that problem via policy. This is literally the point of policy.
The entire point of the Norwegian example in the OP is that, like with many things, it is not sufficient to just say "Well now you have the freedom to not be sexist" and expect that to actually accomplish anything. Because that "freedom" drops into pre-existing dynamics. Specifically in this case, sexist gender dynamics and sexist economic disadvantages that effect women.
The point of the entire example is that it's not enough to just tell people that men could totally take that parental leave or be stay-at-home parents or whatever, if they wanted. Because they won't. If you want to stop women being forced to do a disproportionate amount of the labour of child-rearing and suffering a disproportionate amount of the negative effects of it, you need to explicitly craft policy that rewards men for doing it too.
Honestly, your entire argument here doesn't really make much sense in the context of this discussion because the objection you raise is based in some idea that people are saying women shouldn't be stay at home moms. Which is literally not what any of this is about. The problem is not that any women is a stay-at-home mother or a primary caregiver or whatever. It's that a disproportionate number of them are. The desired outcome is not that no women stay home and raise their kids. So saying people gave your wife shit for doing that is a bad thing that happened but not actually relevant to the policy discussion because that's not what the policies in question are trying to achieve.
That sure is a lot of words that doesn't address what I asked whatsoever, but that's partially my fault because I wasn't so much interested in why daycare is better, and I failed to be more specific there. You're right, it's "cheaper", though, arguably, not necessarily better. I was interested in why you thought giving someone their income to stay at home wasn't better than just... not and making them pay for daycare out of pocket, which is what you were implying in your route to say "daycare is better!"
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I mean, this kind of argument is basically the whole problem with the discussion of childcare. We don't want to actually grapple with what it actually costs. We are instead content to let that work be done by family and such so that the actual work being done doesn't show up in government economic analyses as easily. The difference between a daycare worker watching 4 kids and a stay-at-home parent watching 1 is mostly that the SAHP's labour is not recognized as such in salary analyses. If the problem is that daycare for everyone would cost too much, that suggests that a massive dollay amount of unrecognized uncompensated labour is going on every day. But because it's unrecognized, it's better, because then we don't have to explicitly acknowledge the value of what is being offloaded onto parents and their families and other support networks.
If we can afford to do it under the table, we can afford to do it above.
The education system is also pretty fucked, I’m tired of seeing shitty overworked teachers trying to wrangle classrooms overflowing with kids, and it’s always the least privileged kids who suffer, because low income parents who benefit most from programs like the one proposed are always the ones who end up having a pile of kids as a result. And even when these kids grow up they put further strain on healthcare industries and social security.
If you want to increase the population of the nation get used to immigration. If you really want a kid but can’t afford those first few years where they require constant attention then consider adoption. It’s time to make child-free households a default.