Men still being seen as the laboring class - "research" team calls for men to work 47 hours and women to work only 34

transgirltradwife · 2020-01-07T03:59:26+00:00

as if men aren't already working more hours in the workplace, on average. Now they just want to legally codify inequality.

How would such a proposal even apply to gay couples? Someone does the chores there. What about situations with a stay at home dad?

LacklustreFriend · 2020-01-07T07:59:42+00:00

It's actually amazing how regressive this proposal is, wrapped up in a feminist message. It's actually pretty indicative of the problems with modern feminism.

Protective legislation (including maximum working hours, mandatory breaks, protection from heavy loads and other safety protections) for women is not a new idea. Women enjoyed many of the labour protections we have today before men did. You can find it from the 19^th to the mid/late-20^th century. The traditional justification behind protective legislation was twofold: women need to be protected from harsh and strenuous labour, and that women should not compete directly with men in the labour market.

Attitude towards protective legislation from feminists was mixed. Labour (and social) feminists (who I would argue are not dissimilar to the gender feminists of today) supported protective legislation, wanting to preserve the special privileges women enjoyed and that equal rights would actually be detrimental to women. Labour feminism is the major reason why the Equal Rights Amendment took decades to pass Congress and why it hasn't been ratified by the states. The Hayden rider proposed for the ERA was suggested to specifically protect the special privileges women enjoyed, and appease labour feminists (ironically, undermining the whole point of the Amendment).

While labour feminism itself lost popularity during the 70s and 80s, in part due to obsolescence as labour protections for all were improved, the ideas underpinning labour feminism did not die - specifically the idea women needs special protections and privileges from an oppressive male society. Those who believed feminist patriarchy theory cemented themselves in academic, teaching, political and other influential positions, leading to the modern feminism we have today.

So we end up with feminism now advocating for ideas not dissimilar to traditionalist ideas that have their legal roots in the 19^th century. This is why I say the feminist worldview and the traditionalist worldview are extremely similar.

meringue-smooth · 2020-01-07T07:42:09+00:00

This article claims that women spend 4.5 hours every day doing unpaid household chores. That's completely baffling to me.

I'm a man in a gay relationship and neither of us spend that much time doing housework, and we're not living in squalor. Who are these people who think it's normal/necessary to spend that much time on unpaid work? And why can't they swap their mangle for a washing machine?

ElderApe · 2020-01-07T07:23:01+00:00

What if you aren't in a relationship and don't get the benefit of combining all your household chores with another person. How many hours should that person work? What if you and your partner have seven kids and that takes up a lot of time at home, how many hours should you work compared to a childless couple? This kind of logic breaks down fairly quickly for pretty simple reasons, mostly that it's your private life and has nothing to do with how much your employer values your work.

Melthengylf · 2020-01-07T14:34:15+00:00

Wage gap is a direct consecquence of men being more at work than women, because wage grows quadratically with time, not linearly. So this is a stupid idea. It is also a stupid idea for women: it would increase the wage gap.

orbitaldecayed · 2020-01-07T13:08:31+00:00

Incorrect headline. The suggestion is to lower the average working week to 39 hours for everyone. And yes, they anticipate it will benefit women on average more since on average they tend to do more domestic work. They inaccurately call it "demands placed on women", when for the most part the disparity in domestic hours worked is down to choice - women tend to choose jobs with shorter hours and more part time work as a better work life balance is more important to them than pure wages are to a man. It's all trade offs.

But of course it's always framed in these articles as unfair impositions on women while caddish men are 'getting away with it'. "Men have a time advantage in the labour market that women don't have," Professor Lyndall Strazdins tells Broadly. Hmm. Or Women have a time advantage in the home, that men don't have, no?

I do 60 hours a week when I'm "on", so yeah, I'd like to work 39 hours instead. I'm all for it. I also spend about 2 hours a day on domestic chores but doing more would be literally impossible unless I reduce my sleep from an average of 6.5 hours to even less. I know, I know, I'm a bastard. I'm disadvantaging women. But on the flip side, my earnings advantage my wife, who needs my dough. Shall I reduce my hours and force her to work another job?

LeftNatTay · 2020-01-21T04:11:37+00:00

The Marxist-Leninist in me is screeching at this proposition

ExcellentTraffic123 · 2020-01-07T06:29:19+00:00

The author of the article was very clear that the paper was saying that all other things being as they are today, he thought that it would be fair for men to spend more time at paid labor to make up for women's unpaid domestic work.

I think that the way that the conclusion is presented is highly problematic, to say the least, but I do agree with feminists that as a society, we need to convey more value to domestic labor performed by women.

cromulent_weasel · 2020-01-07T23:44:28+00:00

It's really just pointing out the disparity in domestic hours of work, no?

Men still being seen as the laboring class - "research" team calls for men to work 47 hours and women to work only 34

Crosspost "So a feminist research team suggests a 34 hour work week for women, and 47 hours for men. For equality." from /r/MensRights:

Comments

Title	Men still being seen as the laboring class - "research" team calls for men to work 47 hours and women to work only 34
Author	TC1827
Upvotes	27
Comments	51
Date	January 7, 2020 3:56 AM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/el5w16/men_still_being_seen_as_the_laboring_class/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/men-still-being-seen-as-the-laboring-class.1064206 https://theredarchive.com/post/1064206