Dally <
[email protected]> writes:
> Jason Earl wrote:
>> Dally <[email protected]> writes:
>> I would never even suggest that women are more lazy than men.
>> Women have always been obliged to work, and feminism didn't change
>> that one bit. However, feminism has done a disservice to society
>> in that it has created a perception that a woman that works outside
>> of the home is more "successful" than a woman that focuses on being
>> a mother first and a "worker" second.
>
> That's not feminism. I'm a feminist and I'm arguing that women work
> in economically significant ways and always have. Feminism is
> arguing that women ought to be able to work at the levels that
> they're capable of in non-traditional fields. They were always
> working outside the home as stillroom maids, Feminism says they
> ought to be allowed to work as a pharmacist.
OK, then I am a feminist too. That comes as a bit of a shock
.
Only an idiot would argue that women haven't contributed economically
in significant ways. I would argue, however, that in the past it was
much more socially acceptable for a woman to just be a homemaker than
it is today. Sure women used to work, and even work outside of the
home when necessary, but the home was definitely seen as the woman's
place.
There was a sound economic reason for this as well. 100 years ago
(and pretty much throughout all of history) the primary investment
that people made for the future was their children. Parents with
large families of children that survived to adulthood were assured of
family to look after them when they were old. In fact, in most cases
the children could make themselves economically useful to the family
at a relatively young age. The care and nurturing of these children
was an important economic activity.
> The person creating the perception that women working outside the
> home are more successful is whoever says women are just now entering
> the labor force, as if they are only now becoming engaged in the
> economy.
Once again, it's not a perception. There is no question that far more
women have been entering what the Department of Labor considers the
"workforce" since the 1950s. Now you can pretend that the workforce
is fundamentally different since the 1950s (or even since the 1970s
when the amount of women in the workforce was still significantly
lower than it is today), but that's not really the case. It certainly
hasn't changed enough to account for the huge difference in the
numbers.
Your theory really breaks down when you start taking into
consideration that the rise in women participating in the workforce
has a strong correlation with the increase in women's education.
What's really happening is that far more women are receiving higher
education and entering the workforce. Are you going to try and tell
me that women have always received as much higher education as they do
today as well? If they did, they certainly didn't bother to tell
anyone.
Yes, women have always worked, but in the past women generally worked
in supporting roles that required far less time and education--and
made far less money. The reason for this was simple, raising children
takes a tremendous amount of time, and in the past raising children
was not something that a mother could "outsource" to the same extent
that is popular today. Of necessity most women that worked had to
take jobs that still allowed them to watch their children. That
severely limited their earning potential.
This change in society has been profound. Not only has it changed the
workforce, but it has also change the size and shape of the typical
American family.
Now, I am not laying all of these changes at the feet of feminism, and
most of the changes really are for the better. Our society today
offers much more opportunity for the woman that is raising a family by
herself, and that is definitely a good thing. An increasingly
educated population of women is also a good thing. Most of the
changes in our society are the direct result of the increasing
affluence of our society. Instead of raising and caring for large
families the women of today are having much smaller families and are
outsourcing the care of these children to "specialists." Children are
no longer the investment that they once were.
That's the reality.
Jason