The Scandinavian cases also provide alternatives to both Iran and "left"
view of "feminism." In Scandinavia children are encouraged both
socially and as part of state policy. Both parents work: they must
because of high taxes (in addition to women's rights issues) but they are
supported by the state for child care, maternity leave for both parents,
etc. I would agree with Yoshie that there are wide variety of sentiments
regarding work. My own significant other did not feel justified
commuting to work, which left fewer hours for family and child care. Of
course any policy that is state-dictated and if coerced must be opposed
but this does not mean that the state policy itself is out of sync with
what people want. It's a very "culture-specific" issue.
Cheers, anthony
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Anthony P. D'Costa, Professor
Comparative International Development
University of Washington
1900 Commerce Street
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA
Phone: (253) 692-4462
Fax : (253) 692-5718
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 24 Oct 2006, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
On 10/24/06, Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Oct 24, 2006, at 5:27 PM, Jim Devine wrote:
> On 10/24/06, Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > The president said he was ready to decrease the working hours of
>> > married women or women with children to make it easier for them to
>> > have more children.
>>
>> Without pay cuts?
>
> I'd bet that there would be no _hourly_ paycuts (unless they are
> happening anyway), but that adds up to weekly pay cuts.
Regardless of the pay issue, how admirable is it to turn women into
breeding machines, more dependent on their husbands?
I don't have any children and I don't intend to have any, so the
policy proposed by the President of Iran doesn't appeal to me. But
not all women feel the way I do, and therein lies the difficulty for
the Left.
Some women prefer wage labor to their own children, and they prefer to
work more than spend more time with children (even when their
financial situation allows the latter option), for work confers not
only wages but also social recognition, new circles of friendship,
adult conversations, new sexual opportunities, etc.; other women
prefer children to work, for most workers, male or female, are stuck
with difficult or boring jobs (some times difficult and boring at the
same time), far less interesting than interacting with their own
children and helping them grow (some men feel the same way, except
that they are not encouraged to express that preference). A certain
kind of maternalist welfare and work policy, which is different from
equal-rights feminist policy, appeals to and gets support from the
latter kind of women.
How leftists are to respond to both kinds of women at the same time
and make things easier for both, while creating conditions for men to
weigh the costs and benefits of wage labor and parenting without
feeling that they must be the breadwinners, would be the question for
us to consider.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
