Pro-Egalitarian

Men-opause, weighty decisions by suffering businessmen

What troubled me about the Stats SA 2011 Census form is that the name of the household head had to be entered first. Now in a home of equal partners, what do one do? Be that as it may ... the world is still predominantly run by men. "The top honchos ar mostly men, most north of 55" observes Caroline Southey aptly. Download Men(opause)_Suffer_the_middle-aged_businessman_Caroline_Southey_MG_Business_21-27October2011

In the case of women the menopause issue had been "flushed out following decades of debate, experimentation, medical research and billion-dollar hormone replacement therapy business. Not so with male menopause".

The problem is, suggests Southey "that these illutrious men do not even know they [might] have a problem ... or they do not want to know what it is". She elaborates about the telltale signs and remarks that the "consequences hardly need to be spelt out. Weighty decisions are being made ... on a daily basis by men suffering from some, if not all, of these afflictions. Ill-tempered and crabby [and egoisticly], they are deciding on matters ..."

"... there is a stong case to be made for middle-aged men in power to start popping pills or nibbling on some liquorice route. Or klep could be served at board-meeting tea breaks."



Genderless marriage

"A marriage in which roles and responsibilities are determined irrespective of gender considerations" and exchanged based on practicalities (Maushart 2003:13).

I've grappled for a long time with the notion of true equality, what it means, how it plays out in marriage and how to explain it. Susan Maushart sketches (p. 12) the contemporary relationship where partners believe in equal sharing but the woman ends up with the biggest domestic burden and when she protests the man challenges her "Just tell me what to do and I'll do it" (p. 12). Or a couple believes in equal parenting, but he goes back to work after a few days of paternity leave (to "bring the bacon home") and "she stays home, frying it and feeding it to junior". The couple tells each other it is only temporary (while she is on maternity leave) but when she does return to work the pattern has been set.

Married to Martie, who is domestically challenged and not socialised to be a mother (but I do love her dearly, all the same) I think I am privileged to understand what Susan Maushart is conveying. If a man really wants his woman to be an equal partner he should not need to be told what to do in order to do it, but must just know—the way a women just 'knows'. To illustrate, Martie and I looked after a friend's toddler for a weekend. The little guy appeared to be uncomfortable. Having co-parented a son in a previous marriage I just knew it must be a wet nappy, thirst of hunger and proceeded to explore and resolve the little guy's discomfort.

If equal partners are co-parenting either partner should be in the position to SMS or phone the other, checking if the other could take charge as she/he has a business trip, a work commitment and would be late, etc. The other would just step in and fulfil the necessary roles.

When I go away, I make sure that Martie has ready-meals. I do it because I love her and because I know she is domestically challenged. This is not equality; it is a case of swapped traditional gender roles.

Mothers, if you want to socialise your sons to be equal partners, let them check junior's nappy to feel if it needs changing. Let you boy/s change junior's nappy and do all the necessary things. Let your boy/s bath and dress junior. Let jour boy/s help in the kitchen, experiment with cooking, make dinner, help with the washing and/or cleaning, etc. etc.

Fathers, the same apply to you. Socialise your daughter/s to confidently do traditional male things and fulfil male roles; encourage them towards equalism—do not allow them to be subservient.

Maushart Susan. 2003. Wifework—what marriage really means to women (paperback edition). London: Bloomsbury.

Wifework

is a lifetime undertaking of unpaid domestic labour, including cleaning, preparing meals, drudgery of child care … everything from tidying the underwear drawer to social life management. And if you want a career, wifework is second full-time job on top of any other paid employment.

During the past week I enjoyed reading Too Beautiful to Dance in which Diana Appleyard depicts Sara as wifeworker supreme, acting as hostess for her husband's fiftieth birthday—twenty six year of loyal services to Matt and their two daughters—Sara's entire life revolved round enabling Matt. During Matt's speech, his longstanding friend drop a bomb by adding to Matt's praise of Sara "… and a beautiful girlfriend".

The novel captures Sara's initial devastation and then her growth as independent woman.

Today, on the way back home, I found a book titled Wifework in a Coffee Shop—Heike's Place—at the Bergview Complex, on the N3, outside Harrismith.

The Loot review states that two-thirds to three-quarters of all divorces are now initiated by women. The inescapable conclusion is that women are more dissatisfied with marriage than men.

In Susan Maushart first marriage she was landed with all the cooking and cleaning and the marriage broke up. In her second marriage she thought she'd secured a 'new man' as well as a new baby but rapidly found herself playing out the same old script. When that relationship disintegrated, she became a single parent and was struck by the amazing amount of free time she suddenly possessed. It was obvious that the help that husbands provide nowhere near covers the amount of work they actually create! 'A resident man creates extra chores, more washing, higher standards for cooking and more organisation to suit his schedule.'

Sociologists have taken so long to discover 'wifework' because of the exceptional camouflage provided by 'love'. Two other factors have also hindered our recognition: men's willingness to be cared for and women's eagerness to collude in this set-up.

For women, becoming a wife still entails more responsibilities and more sheer hard work than it offers privileges or perks. Becoming a wife erode their mental health, reduce their leisure, decimate their libido, and increase the odds that they will be physically assaulted or murdered in your own home.

Chapter titles such as the following captured my attention:

• of marriage, metamorphosis and rotten eggs
• why do we do it to ourselves?
• rising expectations and diminishing returns
• mars and venus scrub the toilet
• and baby makes two and a half: the myth of shared parenting
• equality go bye-byes: parenthood and partnership
• giving, receiving … getting depressed
• not tonight darling: wifework and sex work
• sleeping with the enemy

I am looking forward to the read and will share my views in future posts.

Appleyard, Diana. 2007. Too beautiful to dance. London: Black Swan.

Maushart, Susan. 2003. Wifework — what marriage really means for women (Paperback edition). London: Bloomsbury.

Dual-workaholics impacts women unfairly

If a woman works 60 hours or more per week it does not significantly affect her husband's odds of quitting, however, if a man works 60 hours or more per week it increases his wife's odds of quitting by 42 percent; by 51 percent if she is a professional; and by 112 percent if she is a professional mother. Youngjoo Cha, Cornell doctoral candidate in sociology, finds that when long work-hours introduce conflict between work and family in dual-earner families, the tendency is to resolve the in ways that prioritize the man's career—women are still expected to do more housework and perform most of the caregiving responsibilities. This leads to separate spheres arrangement, namely, breadwinning men and homemaking women.

Work addiction is a psychosocial problem that is characterized by two primary features, namely, if on top of working excessively, individuals also work compulsively in order to reduce anxiety and feelings of guilt when not working (Mario Del Líbano). Spanish researchers have developed a new scale for measuring addiction to work, called DUWAS (Dutch Work Addiction Scale). The scale has been validated as a result of the criticisms about its validity and reliability made by two evaluation tools that have been most used to date – the WorkBAT (Workaholism Battery) and the WART (Work Addiction Risk Test).

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) about eight percent of the working population devotes more than 12 hours per day to their profession in order to escape from personal problems, such as:

• financial, family and social pressures
• fear of losing one's job
• competition in the labour market
• the urge to achieve a desired level of success— self-esteem related to work achievement
• fear of overbearing, demanding or threatening bosses
• inability to delegate or too high standards of perfection
• lack of personal affection, with the person trying to make up for this with their work

Workaholic people can end up taking illegal substances to help them work harder, enabling them to increase their workplace performance and overcome tiredness and the need for sleep.

Equal partnership in marriage?

Marriage as an equal partnership is the goal of many enlightened couples today.

During the past week I had the privilege to take part in the selection of doctoral candidates at a local university. A young man told with pride about leaving for hospital after the selection process to take his wife and new born boy home.

His motivation for wanting to obtain a doctoral qualification, namely to improve his career advancement prospects, had been sound (in my opinion). However, his wife had been working and would return to her career in six months time. In response to my question about attending to the needs of the new born baby, he responded that his wife would take care of the baby and is in agreement with him pursuing a doctorate now.

A reviewer of Claire Rabin's book, Equal Partners Good Friends, makes the remark that marriage "equality is often limited by the ways that power and gender interact in the relationship, leading to dissatisfaction and ultimately the break up". She "examines the connection between inequality in marriage and marital distress". She draws "on extensive research and personal interviews in the UK, USA and Israel, she stresses the role of friendship in establishing a truly equal relationship". "Focusing on issues of gender, sex roles and power, she provides" insights for couples who are truly committed to pursuing equal partnerships.

  Available from among others Loot

He also remarked that he wants the best for his boy and that the child would know his daddy is called Doctor. It is a matter of opinion what would be best for a baby, an absent father due to literature review, empirical data collection, analyses of research data or documenting a dissertation.

My own late father turned down an offer of promotion to another subsidiary of the group of companies he worked for in order not to put strain on one of my siblings' final school exams. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, he had never been offered such an opportunity again.

But why do women often have to put their careers on hold to enable their equal (but different) partners' to further their careers?

'Mompreneurs'

What a lovely notion - see advert for workshop Saturday 25 July 2009 Download Mompreneurs

Be in the driver's seat! Future proof your child! Finding the balance!

Escape dependency!

Women juggling

Professor Venitha Pillay undertook her doctoral research about being both academic and mother - to teach, research, network and mothering responsibilities - and produced a popularised version of her dissertation: Academic mothers.

She start off by saying "motherhood is probably the only job from which one can rarely, if ever, resign. Once you are a mother, it's a done deal and there is no turning back". Women enevitably find that live is about juggling, there is rarely the opportunity to neatly balance work and life, it is more about integrating the two and coping with it all.

I recall taking my infant son to work with me when his mother (my first wife) had to undergo some medical procedure. My manager was not impressed with the baby in my office. Venitha writes about a women breastfeeding her child while invigilating an examination. She also talks about a mother taking her child with her to attend an international conference.

Pillay, V. 2007. Academic mothers. Stoke on Trent, UK: Trentham Books.