I want everything, just like men get to have, except without having an easy life buttressed by inequality.
The quote is from a commenter at a feminist website. It can be an odd experience reading these sites. There are feminist women who seriously believe that men are a privileged class and therefore have it easy compared to women. As the operator of one of these sites put it:
... the dude merely has to show up at the wedding.
I couldn't help, therefore, but notice the striking contrast between the attitude of these feminist women and that of Bettina Arndt in a recent Herald Sun column.
Bettina Arndt didn't like recent media reports portraying men negatively as domestic shirkers, so she looked up the data on male and female workloads. She found, contrary to assumptions, that fathers generally work harder than mothers:
You have to look very hard in the ABS website to find data on total work for men and women.
All they have at the moment is 1997 Time Use data, which will be updated later this year.
But surprise, surprise, it shows most fathers work harder than mothers.
The only group of mums who put in more hours were the small proportion, just over a quarter, who work full-time, clocking in more than 71 hours total work, compared with the full-time working dad's 69.
These dads averaged three hours more than mums working part-time and 10 hours more than homemaker mums.
Why is this not a story?
It's a similar outcome with the Australian Institute of Family Studies data. This shows that men put in more hours if the couple is childless and when the children are aged 5 to 14. It's only when the children are aged under 5 that women put in significantly more hours (7 hours per week).
Bettina Arndt doesn't want marriage to be based on hostile account keeping:
Yes, women put in tedious hours sorting whites from darks and wiping tiny noses.
But many men face hours behind the wheel in snarling traffic, often working long hours in dreary jobs to pay the mortgage.
It makes no sense, this endless gnawing at the bone, examining, dissecting, predicting married life on the basis of how many dishes washed, how many floors swept.
In real life, in good relationships, there's always much more that adds to the ledger of marital happiness.
7 comments:
FYI
For those interested, the Time Use Data Arndt refers to in 'Stop Putting Down the Dads', Herald Sun (23 July 2007), is located at the Australian Bureau of Statistics web site here.
The catalogue numbers are: 4150.0, 4151.0, 4153.0, 5240.0, and 4152.0.
PS
I'm not sure, but the 'HILDA' survey referred to in Arndt's piece, may well be this one too:
Headey, Warren & Harding, 'Families, Income and Jobs: A Statistical Report of the [Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia] Survey', University of Melbourne (2006)
... all 116 pages of it.
Excuse the incessant postings (I'm going through this in the odd moments of repose at work), but just to narrow down the statistical info I've linked in my first post re the ABS, the actual information that is being referred to in Arndt's piece I think is this: 'How Australians Use Their Time 1997', Australian Bureau of Statistics (cat. no. 4153.0).
Certain women (say, feminists alienated from humanity) work harder than men at certain things. Whingeing about men comes to mind.
I'm just sick of whining (or whinging) from "victim groups" in general. When did we become such a generation of babies anyways? Our foundational culture was notorious for its reserve -- and resolve in the face of adversity. Bring back the stiff upper lip, the "let-it-all-hang-out" society is NO improvement.
I would really love to know exactly what hours are considered working hours? I wake up every morning, get both of my kids up, make their lunches, drop them off at school, go to my full time job, pick the kids up from the day care after work, go home, make dinner, do laundry, clean up the mess from the day, pay the bills, take my daughter to gymnastics every tuesday, and still try to manage to have some non busy time with my kids. Im a single mom now, but this is the same routine I had while married. I had to struggle to wake my husband up (usually took about 30 min), make his lunch to, he went to work, and didnt come back home until around6 or 7 (which was not an option for me since the day care closed at 6). Please tell me how more men work harder than me? I work roughly 14 days, plus weekends.
Behind every good man there is a strong amazing woman.
Also, women's work will never be valued as much as a man's because we don't get money doing it. money=power and power is what everyone wants.
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