Feminism Catch-All (with FAQ)

Conversely, I make more money than my husband and have severe problems with basic arithmetic and balancing a chequebook, so he's the one that handles the finances. It's awkward, but it works. Its conflicted at times because the disparity between our incomes isn't too great so its a bit of a responsibility tug o war.

I grew up in a household like Larry describes (I'm not sure how much of that could be attributed to my mom's filipinaness) and it worked there, but there was a huge difference in income.

In the states, many households are becoming dual income where each participant is bringing home more or less equally, so it can be difficult to break up breadwinner and home runner between two people because both jobs tend to get juggled evenly between both parties.

LarryC wrote:

Recent posts and conversations had me thinking about this. I never pushed it very hard before, but would it improve male-female power relationships to equalize in the US to introduce the concept of balance of power in the household? By this, I refer to the Filipino tradition of entrusting all money to the home manager or homeowner (literally, "maybahay" in Tagalog), who is typically the family matriarch.

That's basically where my wife and I landed, largely for reasons of simplicity. She is home with the kids right now and runs most of the errands, so to stay on budget the easiest thing is just to have her manage the household account and pay the bills. Once she's back in work I imagine we'll do things a bit differently though, since we'll be balancing those responsibilities a bit more.

LarryC wrote:

It occurs to me that this dynamic may be necessary to equalize power relationships in a two-adult household where one gives up their employment in the salaried workforce to work as a crèche instructor/household manager.

realityhack wrote:

Uneven division of labor in long term relationships can be a problem but I don't think that particular solution is a panacea. Starting with the fact that it (at least partially) assumes a male 'breadwinner' and a woman who prefers to do the books.

Yup.

I'm all for rebalancing power dynamics in relationships, but what Larry is suggesting is too presumptive for my tastes. Mainly because I honestly believe that it's a rare relationship that requires equality - I think every relationship has a comfortable equilibrium point, but it's rarely a 50/50 split in any direction.

I would strongly advocate people in relationships talk about the power balance in their realtionship - that's how effective "rebalancing" can come about (assuming both parties are seeking an optimal relationship, of course, which isn't a given).

Amoebic wrote:

In the states, many households are becoming dual income where each participant is bringing home more or less equally, so it can be difficult to break up breadwinner and home runner between two people because both jobs tend to get juggled evenly between both parties.

Also this.

In my home we're both breadwinners and both home runners. It's kind of like how the kitchen operates in our home. My wife does the cooking (I'd burn water) and I do the dishes (at least until my son is old enough to do them ;)).

Amoebic wrote:

In the states, many households are becoming dual income where each participant is bringing home more or less equally, so it can be difficult to break up breadwinner and home runner between two people because both jobs tend to get juggled evenly between both parties.

Yup, this is more and more the reality in the US. I actually only personally know one couple my age where only one partner is full-time employed, and that's my sister who is an extreme Christian fundamentalist and is homeschooling her kids full-time because of that.

LarryC wrote:

How acceptable is a powerful female/weak male relationship pairing in the Western sphere? How commonplace is it?

Acceptable to whom?

There's still a lot of cultural hangover from the 50's knocking about, what with machismo bound up with being the "breadwinner" and "providing for your family".

And there's definitely a cultural meme around things like "his wife keeps his balls in her bedside cabinet". So the guy in that relationship is going to lose some face from his peers, most likely. The woman is probably going to lose some face from some of her peers for being "bossy" or "overbearing".

That said, it's pretty commonplace. Certainly not the norm, but not unusual at all.

I was struck by how "p*ssywhipped" appeared to be a powerful and universally understood insult in Big Bang Theory. Surely, a man losing face among his peers for not being dominant in his romantic relations is a gender equality issue worth fighting for?

It is with some chagrin that I divulge this but my parents also operated a dual income household, but my mother still insisted on abiding by tradition. Many homes are like this, since single incomes rarely support a household comfortably. This has led some men to note that in marriage, "What's mine is ours, but what's hers is hers!" In all fairness, my dad is a bit of a spendthrift, so having my mother manage the budget was probably good on the whole; and no one could fault her for not indulging my dad if the money allowed for it.

All that said, I'm strongly in favor of a full-time creche/house manager even if other people pitch in. In a dual income household, a third person may be necessary to fulfill all the duties required.

Jonman:

I'm all for rebalancing power dynamics in relationships, but what Larry is suggesting is too presumptive for my tastes. Mainly because I honestly believe that it's a rare relationship that requires equality - I think every relationship has a comfortable equilibrium point, but it's rarely a 50/50 split in any direction.

With the above divulged information, it becomes clear that my mother's aggressive personality combined with strong matriarchal traditions made her the more powerful partner in my childhood home. In fact, she was an extremely powerful person in our community beyond the household. If there were a "Godmother," she would be it. People owe her, and she doesn't hesitate to call in favors.

How acceptable is a powerful female/weak male relationship pairing in the Western sphere? How commonplace is it?

LarryC wrote:

I was struck by how "p*ssywhipped" appeared to be a powerful and universally understood insult in Big Bang Theory. Surely, a man losing face among his peers for not being dominant in his romantic relations is a gender equality issue worth fighting for?

Definitely.

And I think that fight is ongoing, and gaining ground. Like I said, a lot of it is old culturally ingrained stuff, the 1950's definition of manhood, and while there's still a lot of it around, there's a large generational aspect to it too. It's a school of thought that is, to some degree, literally dying off.

EDIT - I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to mentally translate the word "p*ssywhipped" to "I have no idea how functional relationships work"

Jonman wrote:

EDIT - I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to mentally translate the word "p*ssywhipped" to "I have no idea how functional relationships work"

I normally interpret it as "I only understand relationships from sit-coms".

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Jonman wrote:

EDIT - I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to mentally translate the word "p*ssywhipped" to "I have no idea how functional relationships work"

I normally interpret it as "I only understand relationships from sit-coms". :)

So, we're saying the same thing then.

Jonman wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Jonman wrote:

EDIT - I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to mentally translate the word "p*ssywhipped" to "I have no idea how functional relationships work"

I normally interpret it as "I only understand relationships from sit-coms". :)

So, we're saying the same thing then. :)

I usually think plastic dolls or my dominant hand rather than those.

Lady, you really aren't crazy. Well, there's a difference between the douchebag definition of "crazy" and "mentally unstable."

Jonman wrote:
LarryC wrote:

I was struck by how "p*ssywhipped" appeared to be a powerful and universally understood insult in Big Bang Theory. Surely, a man losing face among his peers for not being dominant in his romantic relations is a gender equality issue worth fighting for?

Definitely.

And I think that fight is ongoing, and gaining ground. Like I said, a lot of it is old culturally ingrained stuff, the 1950's definition of manhood, and while there's still a lot of it around, there's a large generational aspect to it too. It's a school of thought that is, to some degree, literally dying off.

EDIT - I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to mentally translate the word "p*ssywhipped" to "I have no idea how functional relationships work"

I think, like many topics in these forums, it's a big deal if you make it one. My wife is the clear breadwinner. She's a lawyer who just got a bonus worth more than I ever made in a year. I worked as a retail mangers for years, but I' now a student. And my plan is to get a job as a teacher, so the power to bring in money is still dominated by her.

It's never bothered me or her. I've had people bring it up occasionally, but I just brush it off. In the end, we have both found roles that have made for a good life for our daughter. I'm the one who actually drive her and her friends around, goes to school for meetings, and does most of the day to day stuff. But my wife uses that to spend more time helping my daughter to plan her future in regards to music, art, and college. Occasionally I grouse that they just create a myriad of activities that I'm now stuck being the driver for, but really, we just found a system that works.

I could easily spend my days logging comments and perceived attitudes in regard to being a kept man. I could focus on how mean people are and how it affects me so terribly. But instead, I've spent the last 18 years of marriage (the first several of which I was the breadwinner that put her through school) working with her to use our resources to do whatever is needed to make for a happy family. The answer, as Jonman mentioned, is just talking out plans. We spend a lot of time talking about where we want to be, whether in a year or in ten years.

As for money, I handle all of it. Teresa hates, hates, hates doing bills and budgets. It creates some tension, when I tell her we don't have money for something she wants, yet she has made all of the money we have right now. That creates sticky situation in which I might get something I want, and she doesn't. So I tend to say yes to everything, mostly because she deserves it. She works freaking hard and long hours. It's hard to say no when I just got something expensive. So we work through that.

Personally, who handles the money is pretty much meaningless. If you don't have open lines of communication and talk constantly, you are going to struggle, and possibly blame the power dynamic. I think money is a common element that causes strife in a marriage, but it is not actually the lynchpin. If money was ridiculously plentiful, the lack of communication would reveal another problem.

Jayhawker wrote:

Personally, who handles the money is pretty much meaningless. If you don't have open lines of communication and talk constantly, you are going to struggle, and possibly blame the power dynamic. I think money is a common element that causes strife in a marriage, but it is not actually the lynchpin. If money was ridiculously plentiful, the lack of communication would reveal another problem.

I believe this is pretty much it. Like others, while my wife and I both work full-time, she is the breadwinner by a wide margin. I do the budgeting, but that's not a result of a deliberate division of labour. Rather it's that she loathes money management, while I've always done it for myself so naturally took it on when we got married. I was going to post that earlier today, then go into all the other ways we divide the chores, errands, baby toddler (good God when did that happen)-changing/bathing/chasing, etc.

But none of those balances, insofar as there are any, are the ticket to a (or at least our) largely harmonious marriage. It's always been about communication, every day. Communication can effect balance, even with something as simple as when one person does all the work for a day, the other remembers to acknowledge that and thank them.

(Observing a close family member's marriage, a lack of simple gratitude causes more resentment than a reallocation of responsibilities would assuage—since, again, the crux is communication, in this case not good to put it charitably.)

LarryC wrote:

Recent posts and conversations had me thinking about this. I never pushed it very hard before, but would it improve male-female power relationships to equalize in the US to introduce the concept of balance of power in the household?

IIRC, in many Japanese households women control the finances and give a 'husband salary' as per tradition, and they are still struggling with gender roles/misogyny embedded within their culture as much as the West is. Someone more knowledgeable about Japan may correct me, but I've learned a little from this (edit: some slightly NSFW images, they're stories on sex) recent Observer article and the critical response it got.

Apologies if it was unclear before. As far as I know, local tradition instructs the breadwinner to surrender their salary to the homeowner. Ownership of the money is not joint; it is wholly the homeowner's to dispense with as they please, hence "homeowner." Like, they literally own the money. If breadwinner wants to have property, they have to save it up from their stipend and buy it under their name. Legally, all acquisitions are jointly owned, but that's not how it usually shakes out.

I did not see this setup operating in Japan, Mermaidpirate. In fact, I gather that the reverse is true. The man remains the master of the household; the woman is only his servant. She manages the finances, but at his direction. In our culture, the woman decides what to do with the money. This is not universally observed: steadfastly Chinese families do the Chinese thing, and many of the wealthiest Westernized families do the Western thing; but traditionally, you turned over your paycheck every month and that's the last you'll see of it. It is not for nothing that wives are jokingly referred to as "Commanders."

LarryC wrote:

The man remains the master of the household; the woman is only his servant. She manages the finances, but at his direction.

Yeah, this doesn't surprise me, that it's really the men that are getting looked after. I found the article I was really thinking of when I wrote the post -http://kotaku.com/the-world-of-japanese-husband-salaries-506417591

LarryC wrote:

Apologies if it was unclear before. As far as I know, local tradition instructs the breadwinner to surrender their salary to the homeowner. Ownership of the money is not joint; it is wholly the homeowner's to dispense with as they please, hence "homeowner." Like, they literally own the money. If breadwinner wants to have property, they have to save it up from their stipend and buy it under their name. Legally, all acquisitions are jointly owned, but that's not how it usually shakes out.

...

but traditionally, you turned over your paycheck every month and that's the last you'll see of it. It is not for nothing that wives are jokingly referred to as "Commanders."

Interesting. That's basically what happened in my home, except it was a two-income household, and my mother was the main breadwinner. She signed over the check to my father, and he gave her a ridiculously small stipend (as in barely enough to pay for gas and tolls to go to work). If she wanted anything "extra," like clothing. In fact, he'd buy her clothing most of the time. It still boggles my mind to this day that she let it go that far, since it meant he had a ridiculous amount of control; there are times she contemplated leaving, but she didn't have the money to do so...

It's kind of like that, except with gender roles reversed. The thing is, if you're the breadwinner, you always have money. If it comes to it, you can just pack your bags and live in the car or in a shelter for a month until your next paycheck. Of course, you won't be turning any of that in anymore! Being the person who makes the money is inherently a position of power in this sense. The homeowner can't piss you off so much that you prefer to leave.

LarryC wrote:

It's kind of like that, except with gender roles reversed. The thing is, if you're the breadwinner, you always have money. If it comes to it, you can just pack your bags and live in the car or in a shelter for a month until your next paycheck. Of course, you won't be turning any of that in anymore! Being the person who makes the money is inherently a position of power in this sense. The homeowner can't piss you off so much that you prefer to leave.

That would be true, if and only if money were the only factor in the power dynamic.

I would say rather, "if money were the deciding factor in the power dynamic," or at least powerful enough to force a decision. There are other power dynamics in these relationships. For instance, in Mermaidpirate's Japanese article, my impression of how it is in Japanese households mainly comes from the husband's retained power to decide on large purchases, to own them legally, and to veto pretty much any purchase decision. Filipino husbands traditionally get none of this power. In addition, it is typical for Japanese husbands to not do any household chores. Filipino wives traditionally have a great deal of discretionary power around the house - more than enough to order her husband to do any household chore, on pain of eviction. She does, after all, own the house. Most men are wise enough to just do it. After all, if it's a household chore, it's for everyone's benefit.

If it sounds like men (or working wives) don't get enough power in this relationship, I may be overstating the power of the maybahay. Their power is still mostly limited to house and familial management. They naturally have little power in the workforce, and since each person manages a separate household, they generally have little collective power.

In any case, it's not true that breadwinners are limited by money from leaving an abusive relationship. They have ultimate control over that, so it's usually something else.

I really feel like focusing on the finances, especially with an increasing number of dual income households isn't really the right place to put the attention.
Even in a single income household if the 'bread winner' keeps the books things can still be very much equal depending upon how decisions about purchases are made, and how all the other multitude of factors and specific personalities interact.

I think the approach of talking openly about the fact that there ARE power dynamics in relationships, what they are, and wither the people in the relationship are truly ok with them is a better approach. Phoenix Rev mentioned something recently in another thread about his church allowing dom/sub couples to get married with different vows than the require for others (http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/4...)

My point is that cohabiting couples married or not are never going to be equal in every way. Trying to balance the use/spending of money seems myopic to me. In addition I know a lot of people where each partner gets an 'allowance' and the remainder goes towards bills etc. when they need a new appliance or whatever both parties are involved and redoing the kitchen might be predicated on a vacation the other wants to take.
While I am glad that the system being described works for people I think many MANY other cultural factors are at play and it is unlikely to be the best solution for even the majority of people.

Just like making time for each person to do their own thing, and time to be together, and splitting up chores, money doesn't have one solution IMO. It is all about teaching people before they are in that position to know that it is NECESSARY to talk about such things openly. Just like you might tell someone they should talk openly about STD risk factors or what they expect out of a relationship.

A lot of people may be making the mistake of thinking that I want this tradition imposed on everyone. It's for discussion. It is a cultural tradition that says things about women and men and what they're good at and where their broad powers are. This is the Feminism thread, after all. The similar Japanese tradition is a good comparision in that it's similar in some ways, but profoundly different in everything else, such that the overall effect is different. In one state, the homeowner wields a great deal of power, in the other, the housewife is just a poorly paid accountant.

LarryC wrote:

In any case, it's not true that breadwinners are limited by money from leaving an abusive relationship. They have ultimate control over that, so it's usually something else.

Captain Obvious strikes again! Of course there's something else. But not having access to anything past your current paycheck does limit things, especially when kids are involved.

Real Female Role Models As Disney Princesses

Not a Hawkeye Initiative level of win, but still.

"Holocaust Princess"

Bloo Driver wrote:

"Holocaust Princess"

I was going to say, I'd have sent that back for a rewrite.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Bloo Driver wrote:

"Holocaust Princess"

I was going to say, I'd have sent that back for a rewrite.

Well, it's supposed to be intentionally ridiculous. But maaaaann...

LarryC wrote:

In any case, it's not true that breadwinners are limited by money from leaving an abusive relationship. They have ultimate control over that, so it's usually something else.

Wait am I reading that right? We are expressing concern of the breadwinners ability to leave an abusive relationship?
Shouldn't the concern be over non-breadwinners leaving?

Sorry I am just confused.