In the Covid-19 Economy, You [Women] Can Have a Kid or a Job. You Can’t Have Both.

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[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The upshot of this is women doing that much more unpaid labor.

having children comes with setbacks and responsibilities and is a choice parents have made when having them.

But men by and large don't have to make that tradeoff choice--it's the women who get the setbacks and responsibilities. I don't have children either...but whenever I think about the toll this is having on women who do, I'm really bummed for them. Yes, the cost needs to be shouldered by the community with higher taxes, but that's not where we are, and I really feel for them. And from a selfish perspective, the inequalities that come out of this have an effect on all women as a class.

[–]Camberian 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, the cost needs to be shouldered by the community with higher taxes, but that's not where we are, and I really feel for them. And from a selfish perspective, the inequalities that come out of this have an effect on all women as a class.

If anything, I would hope that afterwards, when there is the leisure and ability to reflect about what happened, that women would again band together realising that equality hasn't been achieved yet by a mile and then some. That there are more changes to actively work for, especially by those women who want to combine work and children. I think that liberal feminism has become too complacent in that respect and somehow believes the war has been won, when it was just a squirmish or two.

[–]jet199 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think that what gets forgotten is that when men let someone else bring up their kids that means they have a very different relationship to those kids than people who actually take the time out to raise them. I know so many people who don't even speak to their fathers and I'm sure you do too. My mum used to run a sheltered housing block and one guy had 10 kids but still ended up in a bedsit on his own because they all hated him, those kids looked after their mothers at home though. So men can't have it all either, they also have a trade off, they just worry about it less.