From a British 1940’s Communist Party poster that hangs in my kitchen
I bet when this was written it wasn’t intended to turn into someone’s feminist anthem! Probably the opposite but really, have you heard the words?
My baby takes the morning train
He works from nine ’til five and then
He takes another home again
To find me waiting for him
I love it. I belt the words out and a smile comes to my face. Is she really just waiting at home for him every day? Is that her lot in life? That’s it? And yet, look how happy it makes her.
I grew up in a world where just this happened. My mother and her friends did not work, in the traditional sense of the word. They managed their houses and in my mother’s case, the farm, and all that that involved. I do too but I also work and have done so for 40 years. I am sure however that my house looks nothing like my mother’s. I’ve always said that the most positive thing I can say about wearing spectacles is that when you don’t wear them, it’s amazing how much faster housework goes!
But I don’t think that made my mother any the less busy or valuable, especially to my father. What it did do however, was reinforce the ‘women’s place is in the home’ viewpoint. It was a conversation we never had: it hadn’t been discussed in my youth and when she died, I was too young to have gone anywhere beyond the home to learn other points of view. I feel however that she would be the first to tell women today that they should be with their children and they should support their husband, but also that the role women play in the home and the relationship is important. She would have deplored bad treatment of women in any form and expected men to be courteous and responsible in their roles. But perhaps this emphasis on ‘roles’ is the crux of the matter.
Feminism is one of those hot potato subjects. My prospective sister-in-law once told me as I was about to meet my staunchly right-wing Afrikaans father-in-law “Just remember three things: don’t talk politics, don’t talk religion and whatever you do, don’t talk English”! She could well have added “don’t talk about women” because certainly, it was a subject just as fraught with divisive politics. But I do wonder why people still today look askance if you say you are a feminist.
To me, feminism is about power – and choice. Or the other way around? Having choice gives me the power to control my life. I want to have the power to choose my job, to earn as much as the next man for the work I do, to be educated how and where I want to be, and to be treated well as I do it all. This is what equality is all about – the same treatment, the same opportunities and rights, be it in politics or economics, or the social or personal sphere. Why is that considered subversive or divisive? Why does one even need to debate it?
Although perhaps my view of feminism is too moderate. Perhaps I have missed nuances or even basic premises that are all important. I will probably get told so if that’s the case – but then, that in itself is a power and choice worth having. The freedom to debate and to be considered worthy of the debate.
And then again ... 