Kinder, Kuche, Kirche

Baroness Deech

Since the very welcome announcement by the Chancellor that there is to be a little tax relief on childcare for working mothers, the Daily Telegraph seems to be running a campaign against them.  Day after day, stories and letters about discrmination against stay-at-home mums, as they call them, and nothing presenting the other side.  Giving a tax break on expenditure is hardly discrimination against those who do not incur that expenditure, and who get taxpayer funded benefits of their own.  There may be more to this than meets the eye.  In times of recession, the old stereotypes about women come to the forefront again, because, after all, if educated and successful, they are competing against men for jobs. 

This is the letter from me that the Telegraph did not publish:-

“Sir – Unsurprisingly,  the Bishop of Exeter adds his voice in support of mothers who do not go out to work.  Ironically, it was his predecessor, Robert Mortimer, Bishop of Exeter, who in 1966 gave the Church’s seal of approval to a reformed easy divorce law (Putting Asunder SPCK). The ensuing Divorce Reform Act 1969 removed the security of enduring marriage from all wives, and generated the high rates of divorce for blameless spouses that followed its coming into force.  Quite apart from the real danger that higher education and employers will remain unconvinced of women’s right to places if the good mother is depicted as staying at home, she runs the risk of having insufficient means of support if her husband divorces her. Moreover, large numbers of qualified women staying at home make a mockery of the government’s call for women to take half of top jobs.  Employed mothers do not have the time to lobby as a group, but fortunately all 3 leaders of our main political parties have wives who are mothers and work outside the home, and it seems they understand.”

Let me expand.  In the paper of 27 March, the Bishop of Exeter was reported as saying that the government was unfair to stay-at-home mothers. Regardless of the benefits of having a mother at home full time, frustrated as she may be, with a lower family income than if both parents worked, there are societal reasons why it has become the most risky of positions.  Before 1969 we had a divorce law based on matrimonial fault.  In short, if a woman did not commit one of the matrimonial offences, as they were known – adultery, cruelty, desertion – she could be very confident that she could not be divorced, for the grounds were absent.  It was also less likely in those days that her husband would readily desert the family, and births out of wedlock were only a fraction of what they are now.  So a woman could be reasonably confident in giving up employment to stay at home.  All that changed in 1969 when a new “fault free” easy divorce law was introduced, with the blessing of the C0fE, led by the then Bishop of Exeter. His report, Putting Asunder, theorised that marriages could be terminated when they were irretrievably broken down, without fault, and that a secular attitude could be taken.  Thereafter, with the change in the law, much of the moral disapproval of divorce vanished and as all will know, we now have one of the highest divorce rates in Europe.  The wife of today who stays at home has no guarantee that her marriage will last, or that her children will receive adequate financial support from her ex-husband.  And of course the numbers of single mothers, who are most unlikely to receive proper maintenance from the father of the baby, have risen dramatically.  A recent calculation is that 42% marriages fail, and there are legions of unsupported fatherless children.  For this the Church bears some responsibility, and it is no good preaching at women to stay at home, especially when they are are now equal with men in higher education opportunities.

Might one suspect that some clergy fear competition from women for bishoprics in the future?

15 comments for “Kinder, Kuche, Kirche

  1. maude elwes
    04/04/2013 at 4:05 pm

    Baroness Deech, from my point of view, you misinterpret the meaning of ‘feminism’ and the needs of men and women within that concept, to such an extent, it beggars belief. You, and many others around you, are not in the ordinary class of woman, you belong to a privileged section. One that doesn’t feel the same kind of draw to be allowed, freely, to enjoy and thrive in the female role of nurturing. Which means, first and foremost, to favour the needs of an offspring, home and family before that of desire or personal ambition. And throughout your entire post, in the letter you wrote to the Telegraph, you work in a put down of those who ‘choose’ to remain on the softer side of womanhood. Those who make domesticity a priority as their sense of satisfaction and fulfilment. You reject this as the choice of many women because it is a choice you cannot relate to. There is nothing wrong with your personal choice. Except, you want to impose it on the rest of the female gender to the exclusion of all other needs they may have. In fact, you deny these needs exist at all. You and your ilk claim it was foisted on them, by a male dominated society, which led them into that female sense of fulfilment and was not because of the different natures we have. Which, from where I come from, is as unintelligent as you can get. It doesn’t take in the broader view at all. And unfortunately, your view has had a crushing blow on society as a whole.

    What you crave, with your superior sense of self entitlement, does not run in the veins of the majority of women. Regardless of what the PC group push for, it goes against those natural instincts that men and women have. The urge to compete intellectually and often physically, as in Lara Croft, with the male of the species, is not the nirvana the female psyche desires. The ambition of most women is not for self aggrandisement, but, for the issue of their body to reach their full potential. Most women have what they want when they have their child with them. All else is secondary.

    Now, lets get to the points you make in respect of the changes in law and the trend of society, in general, which has, indeed, led us to where we are today. That trend has been misogynous from the onset.

    Women were right in there with the men of power when they pleaded for the changes in the divorce laws. Those sixties Marianne Faithful types were not kept in the dark. They simply didn’t look ahead or trust what they had been led to believe, as it was inadequate in explanation and reason. And, more importantly, they didn’t realise how far toward the masculine principle women who had power as feminists had become, or, the way those devotees wanted the scope to test their experimental theories. No one considered how far from their own sense of need they had drifted, or the penalties they would pay as a result.

    Yes, the so called divorce laws did not take care of women or their children as they should have. However, being tied in an unholy marriage to a beast, was and is, no better for women than it was for men. What went wrong was, women too easily took to the notion that they didn’t deserve to be maintained and cared for when the male of the species deserted them. They believed, as many still do, that they are no longer worthwhile as a wife if ‘he’ doesn’t care any more. They are too fat, have got frowns or creases in their faces and having children has made them too maternal for the sexual urge to regurgitate. The reason for this being that old creep, Capitalism, that free market of materialism and greed. Nothing matters except what you appear to have been able to purchase through debt. The rat pack in force.

    I could elaborate on that, but, truthfully, whether the notion is accepted or not, to rehash the matter here is a waste of time and effort.

    What needs to change and fast, is the idea that when a couple take up together and produce a family, either of them can, without a second thought, clear off leaving the other bearing the brunt of the changes their relationship has brought about.

    Snap to attention ladies. Being easy to bed will leave you treated as a whore, easy to mount for a halfpenny. The male psyche does not respond to that trend the way their eyes and hands tell you it does. Not at all. In reality it’s the reverse. And as society is being conned into that notion more every day, both sexes are losing out big time. Not simply women as we get here. Men have lost their sense of redemption. And women have lost the feeling of worth. Both sacrifices niether should be making for political policy, or, the states need to enslave. Which women working ten hours a day six days a week personifies. Did you listen carefully to the new Conservative answer to unemployment? Reduce the minimum wage to half its existing level and, voila, growth will be the result. If you go along with that, the next post you find to keep you going will pay less than half what you are getting today. And the need for two jobs to make a living, will become four. This goes for men also. Because they have faired no better over the years than their female counterpart. And by the way, forget the big earners, they run the show and the politicians go along with them, so whatever they move toward suits their need to have more of the pie. No matter the cost to the rest of us.

    It is the responsibilty of women to look after themselves when they are entering into relationships with men. And vice versa. The one night stand is not the man or woman you should be taking home to family as a prospective mother or father of your children. The commitment doesn’t exist and cannot exist, for the need to conquer and be wooed has been bypassed. The result is an unfulfilled sense of achievement or aquisition of the best there is on the market. So, although covert, the hunt for that paragon continues in the consciousness of the parties involved. You are only suitable until he/she finds someone who is more ready to dance the game of nature with.

    So, what can you do. Well you can make rules for yourself. And those rules go like this, keep yourself elevated. Sought after rather than seeker. Let him go on the quest he needs to experience in order to conquer that which he desires. Take careful consideration before believing this ‘love’ is constant. And demand a contract before moving in.

    In other words, return to a concept of marriage being a contract. Whether the relationship is pesented as forever or not. Decide, before you make the move to occupy the same dwelling, that what you will need should you conceive is a father for your child or children and a father is more than a guy wo comes around to take them out for the day or play at horses on the floor occasionally. Get what is termed by the rich, a pre nup.

    And if he/she doesnt want one, tear your heart out and leave before a bump changes the shape of you and your life.

    The contract must assure you, and any court, that the intention is to be a family and that family must be protected by the father and nurtured by the mother, either until death do us part, or, until the children leave university. In which time, you whoever stays at home, should have made some effort to keep up with needs to support yourself should you be mentally ready to remove the, death until part, line. Which, I would never agree to under any circumstances.

    Everything you amass or have as a couple is a fifty fifty deal. Because the concept is a fifty fifty deal. Otherwise you don’t deserve what it is you seek. Which usually is the continuation of admiration and devotion from the chosen one.

    What the Baroness is putting to the Bishop in her letter, is a politically correct mish mash that drains the life out of the nature of the male-female relationship. And as it does, takes with it the satisfaction it can and does offer, if you play by the game of nature. Because the strangest of all things natural is, unless you play by its rules and the expectations that it sends out, you cannot get the sense of fulfilment you seek. The psyche is the ruler of your destiny, not your sex appeal.

  2. GaretHugHowell
    04/04/2013 at 5:03 pm

    The Baroness writes cogently.
    Hywel Dda in His Law book “Law”,(945ad) one of the first Law books of these islands, wrote one chapter on the “Laws of Women”.

    It was Archbishop Sigeric, who later described it as the work of the devil, so there is not much new about the opinions of Clergy on the subject.

    Without refering to my copy, the most striking things about the chapter is the classification of women, not a working class or upper class the 20thC, but as women of substance, as whores, and so on and so forth.
    They were all to be treated in different ways, according to the law.

    I have not seen any analyses of the different classes of women in the 21stC, but it might be useful to have one. Some of the more extreme women’s rights campaigners do useful literary work on the subject (isn’t that so about Karl Marx and Machiavelli too)but a statistical analysis I have not found to read.

    Divorce law cracked up my own life as an 8 year old never to be healed, but I have since put it down to the newness of divorce law in 1954,which was woefully inadequate and continued to be so, possibly until that 1969 act which was radical.

    There must be a at least a dozen different ways of classing women in 2013, according to
    professional job, career as mother, parttime worker/career as mother,single mother, and so on.

    Talking to a an army tank driver, as I was yesterday,it did occur to me that women still do not want to do that particular job, and quite what the annual intake to the Royal School of Mines is at Imperial College, I really have not bothered to look.
    There is a certain number of women in most of the scientific professions but… not many.

    What may be a concern is that the women are taking the academic subject professions, law,accountancy and so on, in a way that will/has tilted an IN-equality of gender superiority, which was previously the masculine domain. That must have an effect on their choices.

    If they were taking up the hard scientific, engineering disciplines in the same way as they have Law, (for the professional bodies to set 50% limits on intake), then I would be impressed by the fairness of it all.

    Childbearing WAS difficult. In Africa a considerable minority of women do die in childbirth. So it was in these islands in the days when women of a certain class, were tied to their men for life.

    There are so many different permutations.Apparently, although there is about 50% women doctors these days, they tend not to marry male doctors. SOME switched on couples succeed in running family, AND two higher professions, along with the necessary nannies and possibly cook for all I know. Full marks if they can do it, and yet TWO higher professions in the family means unemployment for a man who would otherwise have done the woman’s job.

    What is needed is the number crunching statistics.

  3. GaretHugHowell
    04/04/2013 at 5:15 pm

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jun/03/gender

    Merely quoting a different news paper but they do have the numbers there.

    I shudder to think what the medical profession standards will be like, if a limit is not set on the intake of women to it.

    One poor dear young Male GP starting out in a rural Dorset practice lost all his patients when a petition was put round by a homophobe calling for his resignation. He certainly would not have told everybody he was one, in the 1950s, and might equally not have left the work open to a woman GP as a consequence.
    But then where would Sappho be in all that?

    I actually singed the petition gladly, but only because the man really should not have “come out” in a rural practice in such a way. Old beliefs die hard.

    • maude elwes
      10/04/2013 at 12:15 pm

      He should have indeed ‘come out.’ Not least because of the high rate of AIDS in the homosexual population. And women, far more than men, are at risk from being treated by someone who may carry this disease.

      In fact, it is an appalling statistic that surgeons, in particular, are not given compulsory AIDS testing during their professional life. Or, come to that, any other health issue that is not conducive to blood connecting work performance. Blood parasites being another. But there are many of these diseases we are not made aware of in order to protect the few, rather than the many.

      http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=698177

      Too many females in professions is not a question to be considered. What needs to be addressed is, are they pushed into these professions without the true requirements needed because of politically correct selection. Because that is a dangerous way to choose suitable candidates for such a vocation.

      If a person is talented and has a high level of ability, the highest level in the bunch of candidates, then their gender has nothing to do with it. They are first amongst equals and should be recognised as such.

      What should be done, is their ability recorded without defining characteristics that could be used to raise their chances, when factually, they are less suitable than others for selection. A blind selection scheme would eliminate this ruinous politically correct form of imposing sub standard bodies on the population as a whole.

      As the female of the species is at particular risk, they should be extremely picky about who they choose as medic. They, after all, give birth.

  4. ladytizzy
    04/04/2013 at 5:59 pm

    B Deech, a quickie: “…especially when they are are now equal with men in higher education opportunities.” What (or which) opportunities?

    • Baroness Deech
      Baroness Deech
      05/04/2013 at 6:51 pm

      57% recent graduates are women, and the majority of women are going into higher education.

      • maude elwes
        06/04/2013 at 11:24 am

        As a person who ran a London company for some years, I can state with some accuracy, that most women educated to university level or otherwise, find the strain of a work life balance not conducive to the quality of life they seek.

        Therefore, the figure given as 57% of all graduates are women, is not measured by the reality of life expectations of those women or what prospects they have when they leave their university with the huge debt they accrued.

        This is simply another example of political chicanery and a lack of interest in the real world of women, or men come to that.

        http://www.aaup.org/article/why-graduate-students-reject-fast-track#.UV_sGvLD5_Y

        The truth for this push at women being shown as deeply interested in advanced education and therefore, making them more suitable as a work force than men, is purely to feed the desire for those who want cheap labour. Women, no matter their level of education or their suitability for full time employment, find, in day to day life situations, they are exploited and disappointed by the lack of quality their life has a result of being fed a politically correct fairy tale.

        And, here is a down to earth practical view from the male of the species, who also have the right to speak about their life hopes and expectations.

        http://www.forbes.com/2006/08/23/Marriage-Careers-Divorce_cx_mn_land.html

        If you doubt this comes anywhere close to what women graduates feel, then read the comments pages at the end of each newspaper report on the statistics you show. That way you may be able to get in touch with life in the street.

        However, more than likely you will deny that it is down to the need for and desire to have, relationships that satisfy, but, is down to the underlying political spectrum not doing enough to give us all the changes you would like initiate and experiment with.

        • Baroness Deech
          Baroness Deech
          09/04/2013 at 5:10 pm

          Extremely nasty comments on Mumsnet on the death of Lady Thatcher prove the point – there are women who cannot bear to see other women’s success in careers because this might lead to doubt being cast on their nice existence at home . . .

          • maude elwes
            10/04/2013 at 9:52 am

            Mumsnet, and any other group of women who feel they have been betrayed as a species, is what you should be taking on board. Not firing canons at their depth of frustration by the betrayal of women who pretended they were going to raise their status. Instead, face their distress for what it is that created it. A denial of their humanity and species and the removal of any power they felt they had and deserved.

      • ladytizzy
        07/04/2013 at 6:48 pm

        Thank you, B Deech.

        Of course, the CofE were not alone in constructing the Divorce Reform Act, 1969. If I may quote you (from 2009):

        “I was there when [the Act] was being devised at the Law Commission, and it shaped my career.”

        http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/divorce-law-a-disaster

        If “…the Church bears some responsibility…[and women] are now equal with men in higher education opportunities.”, how much blame do you apportion to the Law Commission?

        • Baroness Deech
          Baroness Deech
          08/04/2013 at 1:36 pm

          They initiated the reform, and it was in keeping with the mood of the late 1960s, the liberalisation of rules about abortion, suicide, homosexuality etc. But as I well recall, nothing could be done without the assent of the CofE , which was duly obtained.

          I am not giving an opinion on the superiority of one lifestyle over another. Just pointing out that women need to work, and there are very few whose husbands/partners can afford to keep them at home for years, often for a lifetime, since it might be difficult to resume a career after a long period away. And of course women have their rights and desire to be equally considered for places at universities and top jobs. No, they are not half of plumbers, etc, but men do not take half the jobs in primary schools or domestic cleaning either!

          • maude elwes
            15/04/2013 at 9:06 am

            The inference in this post is, women at home and running a household, do not ‘work.’ That is one of the craziest statements to date. It is one of those nasty complaints made by those who cannot abide domesticity and would rather we all lived in squalor than, God forbid, want to be taking care of family rather than being exploited by the company slave drivers.

            It is always peddled dramatically by those who have kids who look as if they are being raised by the dregs of society. Green slime snotty noses, unwashed faces and un-ironed clothes. The kids who never know what it’s like to have a home cooked meal or who stop whining, I want my Mummy.

            http://www.babble.com/mom/work-family/the-mommy-track-working-moms-stay-at-home-mother/

            How does that saying go? Ignorance is bliss?

  5. GaretHugHowell
    04/04/2013 at 6:15 pm

    These are all questions not about what women do, but what they do, when they do it during their working lives.

    They are questions about the acquisition of intellectual capital/ intellectual property and the realization of it during those working lives, and in the case of children, what sacrifices they are prepared to make in terms of their children’s peace of mind,or happiness, in order to do so.

    It is hard to put a value on happiness, and the protestant denominations do their level best not to include it in their deliberations at all, as far as I know. Having recently read a good deal more about
    “Happiness” and its value, in Catholic literature, I should say that the bishop of Exeter is guided more by the importance of happiness in life than by the rights of women, in his theological opinion!

    Discussions in parliament about “what women do and when they do it”,during their professional working lives is,of course an exercise in knowing how to TAX it wisely, and very little else.

    On the more superficial question of merely “What they do”, I shall be convinced of the fairness of gender equality when women are 50% plumber, 50% electricians, 50% steeple jacks, 50% builders, carpenters and so on.

    Until then I am certain that it is merely women jumping on the bandwagon of the power of intellect over sheer physical work, the bandwagon of theory over practice, of design over drudgery!

    It may be 50% in those high professions but
    what percentage is it in trade occupations, remembering that many people are deluded in to thinking that because a nurse is described as “professional” it means that she has a high calling.

    Usually she has none at all, but will respond to child care facilities as a “professional” woman, whereas he functions as a pee and poo cleaner are not really in doubt.

    The union definition today is that she is BOTH a professional AND a person with a trade, which gives her working rights, which are unassailable.

    Whichever she is, she is in a low job, with low aspirations, and would do much better to be at home looking after her children and husband, in the excellent and time honoured (and high) calling of mother, rather than doing what “professional” women do.

  6. GaretHugHowell
    05/04/2013 at 12:39 pm

    Maude’s post is well argued, and of course the baroness is concerned with the higher professions, but the “pursuit of Happiness” is surely a better way of arguing it?
    It applies to all cases and classes of man and woman, and stresses the family unit as the way to approach it.
    Maude may forget that by no means all family units are victims of the Roman Law of matrimony. Their relationships are based on trust rather than contract.

    I mentioned intellectual capital, and its realisation. Matrimony was the old way of transfering value, when women badly needed the security of it, whilst bringing up their children, without washing machines,cars,televisions and so on.
    For those girls today who still believe in the sanctity of marriage, as the basis for a career as a mother and nothing else, it may still be.

    Most, if not all, divorce occurs at a time when the partners of a written contractual marriage differ in their perceived needs for capital. If there is no personal profit in divorcing, it is less likely to take place.
    If there is a distinct loss, as there is now, since 2009, with stagnating residential property markets, then it probably does not take place at all.

    They did say that the most acrimonious divorces took place as a result of liastening to the 6 or 9 o’clock news on the BBC, and arguing over it.

    I am not aware of the proportion of people who do not get married in order to have a family. It really is not necessary(to get married) You may not have heard. It may not even be necessary now, for a joint mortgage. A woman who does not insist on a joint mortgage, possibly because she is not going to contribute monetarily to the developing relationship, may well understand that she will be going back to her Mother, if they split up, without children.

    The principle of “No man putting asunder”
    a marital relationship is really only put in to practice, with the arrival of babes. The children are the indissoluble bond.
    Attempts to dissolve the relationship can only result in “UN-happiness” of the children, although there are many variations; for example the Dad living round the corner in another house that he has bought thereby giving himself more space, and away from irksome children. Is that a dissolved bond?

    The Baroness certainly has the interests of the elite woman as her focus, and even their
    happiness should be our concern. For a woman to find un-happiness from pursuing her ambitions in an honorable way, and subject to the laws of the land, is not a panacea for unequal rights, and it is our concern.

  7. GaretHugHowell
    06/04/2013 at 11:52 am

    A child which is taken to a nursery at the age of 4 months is scarcely loved by its mother.

    I have seen any number of cases of professional mothers, BBC, banking and so on , who want a fashion accessory of having had a babe, but are not in the least bit interested in child development, the way they grow up.
    I can think of three cases, in my most immediate knowledge, where the child suffers from stunted growth, if not downright starvation, from an early age, for the sake of the mother’s (in her opinion) high powered job.

    Does the Baroness think it is worth providing facilities, for such misfortune?

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