Liberation for women OR men?

I think that each individual needs to do what makes them happy and feels right. Sure, it is a lot of pressure for men to have to support their families, especially these days when it's difficult if not impossible to make ends meet on a single income. I consider myself liberated. I am a SAHM, I take care of my son, I cook and clean, I do the grocery shopping and the laundry. I make sure my husband has something to bring with him to work for lunch each day. I manage our budget and make sure everything gets paid. I do these things, not because it is my duty as a woman, or because it is what my husband or society expects of me. I do them because I want to. It makes me happy to take care of my family. It makes me feel good to pay the bills even though we have only one income. I am so lucky to be able to stay home with my son and raise him myself instead of paying someone else to do it for me. My husband has made lots of sacrifices in order for me to be able to stay home. He works overtime. He rarely takes days off. He has cut back on spending. He has adjusted to my budget cuts. He is under a lot of pressure because without his income we'd be up a creek without a paddle. I'd have no choice but to go to work, leaving our son with someone else. Or I'd have to work nights and we'd lose our time together as a family. So, to answer your questions, I don't think either one is a trap- it is a choice. Both have responsibilities and both make sacrifices. Both are under pressure. I don't think either one has a better deal. If I could earn enough to support our family, my husband would have the choice of staying home to take care of our son and our home. If I felt trapped, I have the option of getting a job instead of staying home. Both men and women need to make their wants and needs known and make a joint decision about whether to work or stay home. If they do that, no one will feel like they got the short end of the stick.

I don’t think men have it better either. Financial responsibility is a huge one to shoulder and till a century ago (maybe) men had to do it all alone. The constant fear of failing in that and to search for viable alternatives, has to be any man’s living nightmare. And then the outside world is not exactly a piece of cake…to deal with different people and come out unscathed is a challenge in itself. Staying at home did give women that immunity, that security, that peace which eludes many men at the workplace. After all, its always easier to shout at your children than at your boss. The only flip side was that we had to accept men as our masters. Initially it was OK, but I think men went to town with it in their zealousness to prove themselves and that really got our goat. Now if men really want some respite from the 9-5 routine, they would have to reorient the nuts and bolts up there (which is easier said than done)…accept women as equal partners, remember to keep the milk and pick the paper, plan for dinner and go to the grocer’s accordingly (in short, learn to live with being a house-husband) and there!….they can have all the liberty they want. And for us women, we should stop whining that our hubbies don’t do anything worthwhile and instead be thankful if they remember to change diapers on time. Only thing is that we should not expect the hot cup of tea on returning from office …at least not so soon

Your point may be more relevant in the scenario when the husband is working and his wife is the house manager. In that case, he is required to look after his family and he is required to put in hard efforts to maintain a dignified standard of living. I do not think in this scenario either of the two husband or wife feel liberated. Both would say that they work very hard to run the show. In the other scenario, when both are a working couple, I feel the husband has slight edge over his wife. His wife is not only required to look after her work place/office but her house hold affairs too. Undoubtedly, husbands do lend a helping hand to their working wives, yet the wife feel more supressed.

It really depends on the society and culture we belong to. But as far as I'm concerned, liberation for both sexes should be served. In our contemporary world now, women are empowered as well as men. So, it's just good that equality and fairness will prevail.

This is a very delicate subject matter... since i do believe that women from different parts of the world should be liberated from traditions that consider them as third class citizens... or not even a citizen at all... i think men are a lot more better off than women since civilization started... but some are not... so if they want to be liberated... then they should stand up and let their voices be heard...

I completely agree with your implications here. If men are not free there is no way in the world that they can learn to have empathy for women. Everyone must be free. It is an exciting time in the world today when so many women are able to have a much greater degree of freedom than we have, as a group, ever experienced before, but we have such a long way still to go, and so do men. Only two weeks off in a whole year is ridiculous; everyone needs at least 5 weeks just to get caught up with all the bureaucracy of the modern world, but I myself have worked jobs where they only gave 4 days in a year. Yes the law said 12, but that did not happen. I think men are under incredible pressure to conform and that makes it hard for them to be human when they get home from work. It is the same with women who have outside jobs, but then most women still have all the housework to do in addition to working 40 to 50 hours a week, even more.

I think rather than speak as societal wholes we need to be free within our own relationships. We need to have permission to become our best selves. Too often now a woman may be working 8-10 hours daily, be responsible for the children, and the home and that is no more freedom than being bound to the home. Men may work one or even two jobs to try to provide, or take off and not participate at all. I think we all need to be responsible partners in our lives and our marriages, whether men or women. If we are working we deserve adequate pay and safe, respectful environments, men or women. If we are at home, we need the respect of those who matter to us.

It all comes down to the country and the culture in my opinion. Some cultures are still greatly oppressive when it comes to women and their equality and on the other side of the fence you could argue that some countries and cultures have taken feminism and political correctness WAY too far as well! I remember ridiculous phases in my own country where feminists were arguing about the use of woreds like "MANhole" and "huMAN" and even "AMEN"! This to me is beyond overboard and taking things way too seriously and way too far. Marriage should be an equal partnership, raising children should be an equal partnership, paying bills and taking care of the household should be an equal partnership..... And of course employment standards, wages and benefits etc should all be on an even par as well. So based on the partnership comments I have made, I feel it is perfectly reasonable to have a woman who chooses to stay at home look after the home and it's associated responsibilites while the man is out working. Both have their specific roles of equal importance and this is a true PARTNERSHIP! If both the man and the woman work outside of the home then the home duties should be shared equally. Pretty straightforward if you ask me! Overall though, yes I do feel that if you were to accumulate all statistics and circumstance outlines from all over the world it would show that men DO still get the better deal compared to women.

IF women got the same benifits that a man does in a job for taking care of the house and children, I would say great. But as long as the state views a woman staying home and taking care of her home and children as "not working" then there is a problem. Why can't a woman who is taking care of her family receive the same compesation at 65 (or whatever age) as a man working out in the world? They don't call it house WORK for nothing.

I think nowadays it is a 50-50 win-win situation. Women are now doing what men used to do! We are working from 9-5 and we are entitled to 2 weeks holiday a year like men. This generation, bills are being split between husband and wife and househelps have taken over the work women used to do in previous centuries. Like now, hubby and me we bring our salaries home budget for the month and then save the remaining amount in a joint account for future use.......so to me I dont know the real meaning of liberation.

I'm an equal opportunist. My partner is a stay at home dad, actually, we are both at home all the time, and he probably does about 90% of the 'care' of the girls (hehehe, he's on permanent nappy duty!). We share the role of supervisor, though I'm really the boss. I think that everyone should be treated equally, whether in the workplace or the world at large, and yet, there is still unequal pay between the sexes as well as discrimination of which gender can work in which job. Construction industries are still male dominated, and I am yet to hear of a male midwife. These industries seem to prefer sticking to how it has always been.

I think equal is like you say equal. People should be paid the same price for doing the same job, people should charge the same price for administering the same services and sterotypes of what different professionals and tradies look like vanish. I think it is all good in theory but will probably never actually happen. there will always be jobs more men or women do, and there will always be people that keep the stigma flowing throught the generations.

I think in the primitive society it was defined that this is the duty of man to make two ends meet of the family consisting of wife and children and other members like younger brother sisters and old parents. The woman was to look after the house holding and child care. But now when equal rights have been granted to the woman at par with the men,to me the responsibilities are also to be equally shared. But still in the unorganized sectors, the treatment towards women is not encouraging. This is the reasons that various governments have to notify various legislation to protect the rights of women. Still in some communities the woman are not at par with the men and their problems are required to be redressed as yet.

Hi Sviswan.I think there has been a lot of confusion over the topic of women's liberation over the years.I believe womens's liberation was originally intended to free women from abuse and ill treatment and oppression due to illiteracy and false religious beliefs in the olden days.But liberation and equality of today just does not appear to be practical.Men were considered as bread winners and women looked after the home and children in the olden days.But now times are changing.If both men and women are working and contributing to the family kitty ,there is no harm done in sharing the task of attending to the house hold and rearing of children.I believe if there is mutual understanding and respect for each other,the question of liberation or equality will not arise at all....

Well times are changing.Girls are placed in high places and earning a lot.And the partners discuss everything before getting married like the responsibilities of each other.Families are being built on that understandings.If both the partners know the importance of the contribution of the other one there wont be any chances of being a partner struggling with a particular responsibility.

When they dont share in the house work when both work I think men get better deal. My daughter has to get on to her man all the time about helping around the huse mainly spending time with daughter. To give her a break! BUt as he works all the time she lets him slack some around the house . But his brother lives here too and not working right now! and we really have to get on to him to do the little jobs we hand him like mop thefloor once a week how hard is that to do. He lives here free dont pay for anything right now!

Hi SV How sweet of u to think of Men Liberation too. i think they are most depressed of gender as he has to work like ASSS whole life just to meet responsibilties. and if bad luck he has diominatining wife then he is doing office work as well as domestic work, Ahhhhh Just Kidding Well, if u ask me, i would say that its mutual understanding that Man is responsible for Earning and Female is responsible to take care of home, birth ans raise kids and built a healty and stable society, and both share good time. I dont know what kind of liberation they want, I dont Believe in These NGO and Ladies working in it Take care

since time in memorial the task of a man is to feed his family consisting of his wife and children and then the extended family, i think a man is still supposed to cater for the financial and material part of his family, as for women, they were supposed to rear children and manage the home, at the time it was possible, because most social-economic systems were still functional and fair in financial terms, but today's world life is expensive, basic things like housing,food are not that cheap anymore so it takes the effort of both sexes to work and have the home running,now if a woman will go to work for the same hours as the man and bring in slightly more or same or slightly less amount of pay at the end of the day, dont you think she is entitled to equal rights as that of the man too?

Men sometimes do get the short end of the stick as it were. Sometimes, because of minority hiring requirements or the particular field, a man will get overlooked for a position because there are not enough women employed in that particular area. I also feel that men should be given the option to stay home. My ex husband stayed home and I worked. Some females are quick to complain about a man without a job, when they dont intend to work themselves and want to be SAHM. Women, when applying for a job, are almost always questioned on their childcare arrangements as businesses do not want to employ a woman who may need many days off for sick children. I know housework is work but there is one huge bonus imo to staying home and doing housework. You dont have to put up with annoying co-workers, you dont need to worry about promotions. I realize being at home with the kids all day can be taxing but when some co-workers act like children you cannot, unfortunately, put them in a time out.

Well, we are in 2008 now that's why everyone must be open minded about that...