BHC, what is "support" ?

======= Date Modified 25 Feb 2009 19:54:30 =======
I think the 'get pregnant let my partner sort it out' comment implies (and I think the response from the other women illustrates this) that it is a manipulated thing. You may be backpedaling now but your comment implies that it is a premeditated disregard on the part of the pregnant woman to neglect any responsibility and be 'supported' and I echo PhDbug, what do you mean by support? Purely monetary? Emotional? Physical? Psychological?

BHC - I don't think that your remark was sexist, and agree with your explanation of it.

I just don't see where it came from and how it was relevant to the thread...

Nope. That is what you are inferring.

I used support mainly from the financial sense from my observations of people around me (bear in mind I was discussing this in the context of mortgages). Obviously I would like emotional, social and other forms of support too if I was to hypothetically get pregnant.

I would also like the generous maternity leave that is granted to women which is a good thing. What is a bad thing is that paternity leave is restricted to two weeks Which really IS sexist but another argument for another time.

Again, and I repeat, I would like the option to get pregnant and have someone else be in a position to take care of me. What is horrific about that? If you do want to take offence at that please contact a moderator, or better still, explain why this desire is so regressive or insulting (I am willing to debate it may be completely wrong for me even if it could happen but I am still allowed to wish for it).

Me or LM weren't talking of a pregnant woman's getting support haha!

You said more men support women than vice versa and me and Lim both found it relevant to define 'support' a bit before making such a remark.

Clearly, a solely financial definition of support is at the root of all this, and BHC you are not alone. Some of my very well intending male relatives and friends, even ones who are studying and researching social issues, have these ideas.

Finished my grant application now so I feel I can post more about my thinking regarding the "pregnant option" and mortgages.

There are certain social patterns such as women earning less, more likely to be in lower ranking positions in the hierarchy, less likely to want to date poorerer less succesful men (Not a sexist wisecrack but check out http://www.canada.com/Technology/story.html?id=1047914 for the point I am trying to make). This means that if two people are in a relationship, there is an increased liklihood of the man having to carry the financial burden in the event of pregnancy, which includes getting and paying off the mortgage (not in every relationship but still many).

This is unfortunate in itself, but from an entirely selfish point, crappy for me. Statistically speaking, I more likely to have a partner that is not in a position to financially support me by herself because of these unfortunate gender imbalances. I can't get pregnant either. If I could I would quite like to exercise this hypothetical option to have a wealthier partner take the financial strain, and not worry about the mortgage (the one I am yet to get in reality). Like it was commonly in the 1950s but even now in certain upper middle class families. I don't see this as a demeaning option or in any way unworthy. On the contrary it is desirable, as I evidently would like this option.

Getting tired for the day and will switch off computer shortly, but ref your first point BHC: please ask yourself "why", and second remember quantitative data must ALWAYS ALWAYS be "analysed". You are interpreting things too much at the face value of tables and charts, and we have still not understood why your definition of "support" is the way it is.


Having said that, this exchange may continue for a very long time, something for which I lack the energy. Comments and attitudes such as yours have been, are being and will be voiced by many (men) for years to come (albeit, garbed and rationalised in many different ways).

As I said, you are far from alone. If you run a survey of how many men feel the way you do, you can rest assured, the numbers may well tilt on your side, though indeed there are many who wont agree with you either. but bhc You are very far from alone.

''I think the 'get pregnant let my partner sort it out' comment implies (and I think the response from the other women illustrates this) that it is a manipulated thing. You may be backpedaling now but your comment implies that it is a premeditated disregard on the part of the pregnant woman to neglect any responsibility and be 'supported' ''

That was exactly my reading. How very often I see people make remarks with major inferences made indirectly - indirectly enough that when challenged they can simply put up their hands and claim no such inferences were intended. It won't fly. You'd have to have zero social competence to really be so clueless.

It certainly is a fact that many women are financially supported by their partner when they have children - nothing to dispute there. It's the unpleasant other inferences that are insulting and disagreeable.

And if you think being at home with kids rather than 'working' is 'being taken care of' I suggest you try it out as a lifestyle choice and see how relaxing and stress-free it really is (I only do it part-time - that's quite enough).

I would suggest we perhaps stop trying to explain these things Smilodon, Lim all others..I dont think BHC quite gets it.

I am not married, don't have children, in my early twenties and have not experienced any of this. But despite that, the moment BHC made the comments, I could immediately think of my working mum, aunts, and non-'working' stay-at-home friends mums or other relatives. And well..it's even bizarre that people can assume the things they do.

I come from a so called 'developing' country, but from a pretty exceptionally academic/liberal home. My mum was feeding me as an infant when she had to take up a lectureship in a distant rural town, far away from the city where we lived. She used to stay away from me, her infant, 4 days a week, to do the job, and still earned less than one-third of my dad at the time. I grew into a cranky toddler, used to tie my mothers clothes into my little finger in a knot and slept beside her on Sundays, so she couldnt take the early train on Mondays, but when I woke up she was gone..till thursday..I refused to eat from carers, grandparents, got high eye power, and was a scrawny, miserable kid. she did her PhD while pregnant, and while I was born, and mamaged the household, 'jobless' till before she took up this monstrous job.

I'm wondering...who was supporting whom? (my dad's wonderful btw)..but seriously, was it just 'dad' who was supporting that system then? No. Not at all.

Some things, I see, like some male attitudes are similar, wherver we go...isn't it...

Personally, I thought BHC's original comment was meant in a light-hearted fashion and was not intended to be offensive or to ignite a debate. I think anybody, of any gender, would love to have a partner who had a fantastically high-paying job or was otherwise independently wealthy, so that we wouldn't have to worry about such mundane things like paying the mortgage. Whether children enter the equation or not, freedom from financial drudgery is an extremely attractive option.

======= Date Modified 26 Feb 2009 06:48:09 =======
Saying that is a completely different thing than getting gender into the picture and then stuff like having the option of getting pregnant and have someone cover your arse...

anyway,,,

my god, i have created a monster! ;-)

not sure how the thread took a turn in this direction, but i love it when this happens - you start a thread on one topic and it completely turns into something else!

on the original topic:

my partner and i bought a house on a mortgage recently. my partner has a steady job as a lecturer, i have a stipend from abroad. when first we started looking for a mortgage, we found that my income didn't count for anything. it was completely disregarded. that was in july, august last year - BEFORE the big crunch.
we still did get the mortgage we needed. in order to do it, my partner had to be the sole applicant (rather than a joint application), and we had to make sure that i wasn't figured as a "dependant". in other words - if your income doesn't count, you need to get your name off the paperwork, or else you will be automatically assumed to be your partner's dependant. and if your partner has a dependant, he'll get (a lot) less money.
i've been watching the mortgage and property markets quite closely ever since - i've made it my business to know what we are getting ourselves into, although - or because - my name is not on the papers. i think if you have a 25% deposit, and your partner has a good income, you (that is, he/she) can get a good mortgage. if i were taking out a new mortgage right now, i'd go for a fixed rate, not a tracker - but that's another story. you can send me a PM if you'd like to discuss this further... i confess i've spent more time on these issues than on my PhD recently... ;-)

and now on the second topic ;-)

lots has been said already, but there is one thing i'd like to point out. BHC, good to see you are still around ;-) look here, i think (note: i think, not "i know") there might be something in your posts that you are not quite aware of. in a nutshell, you are wishing for less income (power), if only you could get rid of all that responsibility (worrying about the mortgage etc.).
that's the "perk" of being poor/powerless/discriminated against/dependent/the victim: you don't have to bear the responsibility.
the other way of looking at the same thing is of course: you don't get the make the decisions.
good or bad?
with power (even if it's simply "equality"), comes responsibility. i think that when looking at it calmly and clearly, very few of us would choose to relinquish power (or income, or favourable status positions, or our independence) in order to avoid responsibility. not you, either.
although we probably all have times when we wish, we so wish we could hide from that responsibility. we would be so much happier if we could just delegate all the difficult decisions to someone else (a "leader"...) and get on with our easy, cotton-wooled lives. oh, how i'd love not to have to worry about money!
i think that you might have been going through one of those times when you wrote your first post. a moment in which you were so burdened with the responsibilities in your life, that the option of being dependant just looked sooooo good. we all get those moments...

after reading this, do you still wish you could get pregnant, start earning 70% of what you earn now, and have a richer partner who provides for you? because this wish, i claim is nothing else than the wish to become dependent and not have the responsibility any more. wishing not having to make any decisions (and forgetting that this means not just not having to, but not being able to make decisions, as somebody else provides/decides FOR you).
do you understand now why some people reacted the way they did? women are still fighting for equal pay. now you come along, and in a sense you tell us we should be happy that we earn less, because that way we have the option of being dependent. we should be glad that we have less power, because that means less responsibility. saying this to people who are fighting for equal power, equal responsibility, for independence ..., is bound to be provocative... we are trying to become less dependent - more FREE - and you tell us our aims are all wrong, we should be happy as we are priviledged (!) to be powerless, to ear

oops - it's a long post - and the end was cut off! so here some more:

i was going to say that if you just replace "becoming pregnant" with "becoming a full time dad" in your wish, it would be totally do-able, if you really wanted it.

i totally agree with you, that fathers should get paternity leave. and that women should earn the same amount as men, in order to make the decision of who stays home, who goes to "work", not being biased by women earning less. (among other reasons for equal pay :-) )

but all that doesn't stop you from finding a partner who'd "provide" for you, as long as you look after her baby, her household, her social life, and her emotional needs... believe you me, there ARE women out there who'd like to have it both - a family AND a career! the way many men have it today, anyway. it's quite easy, actually, when you have someone at home doing that part!
but is that really your wish? to be provided for... to relinquish your financial responsibility... to get weekly house-keeping money... and when your wife leaves you for someone else in a few years, to become a welfare dependant single parent, because your career is of course in shatters after many years of "not working" (and you don't really have time to go to work anyway, the kids need looking after). aaah i'm getting carried away. it doesn't have to be like that of course.

shani - thanks very much for your reply re the mortgage - unfortunately, without my income being taken into account we do not have enough money to buy the property we want. we were very poorly advised by our mortgage broker that we would not have a problem finding a mortgage and indeed he had a couple of offers lined up... so we went ahead and made an offer on a property, only for him to do a complete 180 and decide that actually nowhere would take my income into account (which is what i suspected originally but he convinced us otherwise and i believed him :-s). so now we are scrabbling around trying to find someone to give us a mortgage and it's all very stressful! not having much luck so far, despite our 15% deposit which we were advised (again, probably wrongly) would be sufficient.