trolly's comments on her female relatives and work reminded me of something I wrote about Ancient Greeks' urns! Issues around what is 'women's work' is class and culturally bound and filtered. i found this in images of Ancient greek women and some closer to home - The more things change the more they stay the same...

I learnt that the appropriate female sphere for women in ancient Greece was private rather than public. War, politics and law were men’s business and women were bound to their household and family. Of course this view of the womanly sphere reflected the culture of the ruling classes and not just men in general. A woman whose sole domain is her home also symbolises her husband’s wealth. I realised how similar this was to the Victorian ideal of the woman as mother and guardian of the household. I also recall the satisfaction of working class women in the South Wales of my youth in the 60’s and 70’s who “didn’t have to work”, reflecting the pride of the husbands who were “good providers”. While the housebound wife was true for many of the moneyed Victorians and held as an ideal for many years in post-war Britain it was not typical of much of the working class in any era where a woman’s paid labour was essential for the survival of herself and/or her family. Similarly in classical Athens poor women lacking slaves could not live this secluded “ideal” as they were the ones who needed to fetch water, wash clothes, market and perform other tasks for the well being of their families. Poorer women of ancient Greece also went out to work. Mostly they pursued occupations that were an extension of women’s work in the house such as wool working and clothes washing. Selling, nursing and midwifery were also seen as female trades… Sadly I realised how much ancient Greece reflected my formative years in South Wales. Add factories and the dizzy heights of a teaching career for ‘the clever ones’ and there you have it! It also had a familiar resonance to every era in which women’s labour choices was decided by the needs of the market:
Not enough workers due to war or change? Wheel in the women – and while we’re at it aren’t old people and the disabled wonderful? And of course let’s not forget our ‘friends’ in the colonies - well, here’s their chance to contribute…
Too many workers and not enough jobs for our war heroes? Well, a woman’s place is obviously in her home; and if it isn’t her poor children will become delinquent misfits. Besides, someone has to care for the sad but needy old and disabled…

Why I'm a Feminist

My neighbour had excellent reasons not to be a feminist - she wasn’t like the women at Greenham Common, she believed in Conservative values of non-intervention of the state and she didn’t wear dungarees. She did however complain about being judged by her hair colour (blonde), size (higher than twelve) and sex (female) and hated being patronised for any of the above. But no, she was pretty certain she wasn’t a feminist… Identikit feminist has a lot to answer for.

As well as men and non-feminists I happen to have friends who did support Greenham Common, wear dungarees, love their Doc Martens, hate bras (I’ve yet to meet a bra burner but I can only deal with so many myths at one sitting), are vegetarian, are lesbian (political or otherwise) and/or wear dangly ear-rings… found your stereotype yet?

So where does this leave me? I’ve been a feminist “of sorts” since my teens. Of course I believed in equal pay and equal treatment but had no idea of “the personal is the political” until much later. The equal pay legislation that came into being during my teens made perfect sense to me. The idea however, that women may have had babies because of societal norms, pressures or expectations had not occurred to me in the seventies. In my infinite wisdom I knew marriage was all about love and that having babies were a personal choice. I was aware that the world of work was inflexible but to my shame saw this as their problem and not society’s. I lacked the insight to realise the basic injustice towards mothers wanting or needing to enter the world of paid work.

And feminism since the seventies? We’ve had campaigns, applied our “This image degrades women” stickers, complained about “girlie” calendars in the workplace and demanded our dignity as customers and workers. There are anti-sexist policies and some builders follow a code of non-harassment and wouldn’t dream of whistling or commenting on our bodies. We are, apparently ‘post-feminist’. It seems that a Spice Girl showing her knickers and pinching the bottom of the heir of the throne is “girl power” and “ladettes” as well as blondes have more fun… And it seems we can be really liberated by raunch culture, look like sex workers and learn to pole dance...

So why does it seem to me that “post-feminism” and “post-modernism” are just an intellectual con trick to get to to get our tits out for the lads? I am uneasy with the censorship of willing adults indulging in willing behaviour. I can appreciate the “Page 3 Stunna’s” “right” to take off her top and Sophie Dahl’s “choice” to pose naked and advertise perfume but Page 3 and Sophie on a billboard make me uncomfortable. These women are far from “victims” but I hate seeing their bodies and others displayed “for general consumption”. Like the sticker said, I feel the images degrade us as women although I think Sophie looks lovely – I’d just rather not see her displayed in such a public setting.

In our new millennium I am eternally grateful for the pioneering and determined women who have paved the way for me and others. I don’t believe that as a woman I have equality any more than those who are disabled or from ethnic minorities have now achieved “equality” through legislation. The advancement, rights and freedoms I do have, nonetheless, are remarkable and hard-earned progress. I can, however, still be angered, crushed or astonished on a regular basis:

*A recent piece of research revealed a woman was more likely to be successful in a job interview if she seemed “demure” and “non-pushy”. Men were rewarded with success at interviews for being (surprise, surprise!) “bold and confident”. This was regardless of the nature of the job and the interviewers were personnel staff of both sexes.

*A significant number of teenage boys feel that girls have now got too many advantages and life is unfair to boys.

*Some “religious” Kenyan males find women in trousers so “offensive” that they strip the women who wear them in public.

*The use of semi-clad “glamorous” women is once again selling peanuts. The women are revealed in their semi-dressed state as more packets of peanuts are removed from the backing card. What was it I was saying about the seventies?

*Abortion rights are still felt to be under threat in the USA

*Selective abortion has led to shortages of available brides in parts of India.

* There is a need to separate and guard women in refugee camps because otherwise they are routinely raped (See Oxfam reports)

* *Worldwide domestic violence is biggest cause of female death (See Oxfam reports)

(These are just a few of the news stories on which I’ve recently picked up in recent years that caused me to scream at the newspaper, radio or T.V.)

As an educated white woman with a working class heritage, living in Wales I count my blessings and appreciate my privileges while feeling anger at such injustices. I am aware of how disadvantaged women remain in Wales, the UK and globally, as do other groups. I constantly see mostly men and a few women in positions of power and influence.

When I worked as a manager my peers were usually male, apparently heterosexual, usually married, looked white and appeared to have no noticeable disabilities.

Social work and education remain mainly female occupations but there are still few role models in power. The fact that so many women still do not have a higher profile appears to be a sociological statement that tells us something about British and Welsh organisations.

I know that many women choose not to seek a higher profile in the workplace and many are happy to do the invaluable work of bringing up their children or working independently or working on a voluntary basis, but I believe that the powerbrokers and boardrooms are not a welcoming place to many of us.

I too, am familiar with the rhetoric and fuzzy assumptions that all jobs are open to women, people with disabilities, those from ethnic minority backgrounds and any of us who are “different”. I have witnessed the vague puzzlement at why such people are not yet at “top table” – the easy assumptions that “they” or we simply don’t want to be there or "they"/ we’d apply. I have seen the equal mystification when those who are “different” leave. To me this is summarised well, by Joanna Russ in her comments on bad faith:

To act in a way that is both sexist and racist, to maintain one’s class privilege, it is only necessary to act in the customary, ordinary, usual, even polite manner. Nonetheless I doubt that any of us who does so is totally without the knowledge that some thing is wrong.
(How to Suppress Women’s Writing)

It is this knowledge that something is wrong that makes it important to me that I claim the proud, though sometimes burdensome, frustrating and exhausting badge of my feminism.

Call myself a feminist? Yes