FEMINIST LETTER NO 4
To all feminists
The first month of the year was short. At least it was for me who enjoyed a badly needed rest up to the mid-January. Then we had a flying start with a debate in Parliament on parental benefits.(Se information below) This debate needs to be wider known and involve a greater number of people. Write articles and letters to the editor! Organize debates with union and political representatives!The responsible minister defends the current construction of parental benefits with the argument that these benefits are already shared, while allowing the handing over of days to the other parent. She does not wish to abolish this possibility, meaning that the flexibility of the system allows parents “a free choice” to judge what is best for the children. She does not want to force fathers to stay at home - this would not be good for the children. It might even result in children having less time in their homes, should fathers refuse to use their share of parental leave. And this would not be a good thing for the children either.
I think we should approach the issue from another angle. Why should there be a choice of handing over days where this particular form of benefit is concerned, when this is not possible in any other form of social security? In our social security systems we have after all consciously gone in for building them round the individual. This is the case over taxes and most forms social security. We are individuals. We stand on our own two legs, with individual responsibilities, whether we are women or men. Does this not apply to us as parents? Does not each parent individually have a responsibility towards his or her child? Surely it isn’t possible to have a 25% or 15% responsibility towards a human being? To be a parent must naturally involve individual responsibility in everything that concerns the child, from AD-drops to teenage hassle. How we choose to share and organize practical tasks is, however, a completely different matter. It is hardly practical to be constantly alongside each other doing exactly the same thing. But the relationship with the child can only be a whole, unsharable and a 100% individual responsibility. To underpin this, to facilitate combining parenthood with having a job, we must have a system of individual parental benefits.
We know what the alternative leads to:
the subordination of women in the work market, to begin with; insecure forms of employment, reshuffles and dismissals during parental leave, lower wages, lower levels of compensation in all social security systems, and, finally, lower pensions. Employers are free to favour those (men) who are in the workplace the longest hours. Exhausted women with two full-time jobs, one at home and one at work, struggle to cope.
Then there are the conflicts round the kitchen table, a constant battle for time for oneself and a fair sharing of the housework, conflicts which slowly but surely undermine relationships that had everything going for them. There is evidence all around us of this state of affairs!
So how does all this rhyme with the talk about “what is best for the children”? Can what is best for the children be set apart from what is best for the parents? Is equal opportunity in fact a threat to children?
I believe we need at this point to clarify what we mean. It would seem that the gender power structure renders “free choice” in sharing parental leave impossible. When the parental leave system once was constructed, probably not enough people were conscious of the fact that every political reform is shaped by the power structures that exist in society, and that reforms even can contribute to recreating and strengthening outmoded concepts about differences between women and men. But today, in the year 2004, with a government in power that has feminism on its agenda, things should be different!
This should be made known to the government (as is the parliamentary phrase when proposals are submitted). What I want to say is:
Full steam ahead!
Today’s system of parental benefits in Sweden provide altogether 480 days to be shared between the parents. During these days a parent allowance is paid. During the first 390 days the allowance is the equivalent of 80% of the declared income. (For those parents who lack income altogether, or whose income is less than 180 kr per day, the allowance amounts to a basic 180 kr per day.) The last 90 of the 480 days the parent receives an allowance of 60 kr per day. These are known as “the lowest level days.”
In the case of shared custody each parent has a right to half of the total number of days. A parent can transfer his or her parental leave to the other parent with the exception of 60 days.”
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