So, let's go back to politics, from babies. Although after Henna's comment, I was reading feminist literature and thinking about the proposal to fill the world with babies. This is what the Fidesz would have done. Following Nancy Frazer's discussion, Fidesz is proposing a Caregiver model of welfare for women. Creating half-time "women's jobs" to solve the problem of women - and they mainly talk about women often over fourty returning to workforce. This obviously means that the place of woman with small children is at home (usually here and at least in the country side three years), and when the children are at school they could be working in a part-time job.
Furthermore, we can conclude that children and caring is a women's job. Nancy Frazer proposes that instead of either women becoming like men - the Universal Breadwinner model where women have the same rights as men - we should deconstruct the gender stereotypes and allow men to become more like women. Caretaking and breadwinning are two parts of the same coin, and they can actually be combined. For this, sensibly given the increasing need for caretaking in ageing societies, Frazer is proposing a model where the working time would be decreased universally to allow for caretaking time.
I can only think about the situation with the breadwinner fathers in the financial centre of London, who work 12 hours a day and often the weekends too, drop down in their homes to get some sleep next to their wifes who take care of the home and the children alone. Why not cutting down that day into six hours. The father would have some family time and the mother some time working - in theory, there would not have to be a change in the level of the salary either even if 6-hour days would pay less if there's two breadwinners in the family.
Coming back to Hungary. What needs to be rethought is the role of women and men altogether. Here as well, there are tough women who equal to men in their workplace. There are also women who spend most of their spare time in finding themselves the husband who will liberate them from the workplace. When one looks at the models of the Hungarian politicians, one can see the differences. The leading woman in Fidesz, Dr Ildikó Pelczné Gáll, has a miracle of a career as a business woman, a scientist at the university as an engineer and an economist, and a wife and mother of three: and with her long hair she's feminine, pretty and harmless. The perfect Hungarian womand and the the role model for the party who wants the babies to fill the country and overcome the birthrate of the Hungarian Roma. Her first comment as the Fidesz vice-president in summer 2005 was: It's good that there's a woman in the Fidesz leadership, as who else than a woman could be representing family issues.
Well, Ildikó, it could equally be a man. At least I always thought that family issues and responsibility are something that are shared. Sure they can be between women only, but families could also be composed of men only. Perhaps most often, however, there are both men and women involved in a family and the process of raising children. In fact, I believe there are quite a few men, who actually want to be involved in the family and caring. What do you think?