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The feminist say you have a choice but in reality you really don't. What of the single mothers? Do they have a choice to stay home or work? I don't think so.
I don't think that's anything that's changed, though. A hundred or so years ago, if a woman's husband died in an accident or at war she would have had to find some sort of employment--taking in boarders, doing laundry, etc, or she'd have had to depend on the kindness of relatives to take her and her children in. If a woman was unmarried and had a child, she'd have either had to give it up or have had to work to support it. It's not as if feminism suddenly put single mothers at a disadvantage.
Last edited by fleetiebelle; 04-01-2015 at 11:32 AM..
I think the bolded above is so true. I also believe that this issue maybe the side effect of feminism. The feminist say you have a choice but in reality you really don't. What of the single mothers? Do they have a choice to stay home or work? I don't think so. If anything, feminism have made it easier on men and harder on women. Yes, the women have to take care of the home plus work outside of the home. imo
They have a choice of work or go on welfare or farm out your children. My husband died when our kids were little, we carried little life insurance then as a young family starting out. The extra policy I carried out at work helped. If not for feminism I would not 1. have had a job 2. an extra life insurance policy 3. been able to get my degree which 4. got me a good job in a male dominated field so I could 5. buy a house.
Many of you seem to feel working is some sort of evil thing and that feminism only gave us a choice between working or not. Feminism opened up career fields previously closed to women, it guaranteed equal pay for equal work, protection from sexual discrimination and unfair employment practices. Before these thing there were classes of women that never had the luxury of choosing not to work, feminism paved the way to insure that those women were treated equally in the workforce. Even pre-feminism women worked and took care of the home. As you pointed out feminism also made it easier on men by not having the entire financial burden placed on his shoulders. With women now on a level playing field and her career/salary just as important as her husbands women have leverage to NOT have to work and take care of the home by herself. Most couples work out some division of labor that works for them.
One of my wives friends summed it up pretty well
It used to be women were barefoot, in the kitchen cooking, cleaning, having kids, raising kids
NOW, they are barefoot, in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, having kids, raising kids, and with full time careers...be careful what you wish for
I DO know a few stay at home dads, who are laid off or whatever, and their wives resent the crap out of them...they get to spend a lot more time with their kids while the wives have to deal with the corporate nightmare of careers...both these girls blew their "empowerment" horns very loud back in the day...I wonder what they think of all that now...I know they are miserable
Why don't people want to admit women (with the exception of the well to do) have always worked be it grunt jobs, factory jobs, tending the garden and livestock, gathering food, etc.
Feminism has also allowed fathers to actually be active in raising their children and not just be a wallet. I see families sharing in the parenting, cooking and cleaning. I have seen a drastic change from the amount of sharing domestic duties from the time when I was a child and now. I think this is also a positive result of feminism.
It's roughly 30% of marriages the numbers are similar in both the United States and UK. A lot of that is due to the great recession with many men losing jobs and when they do get new jobs making less then what they previously did and those are all marriages not just new marriages. I will stand by what I have stated on this thread that if you make 30k or less then a woman does a year she generally will ignore you for LTR. Men rarely pursue women for LTR if they make a lot more money then they do as well which explains a lot of this.
Online dating is not representative of real life, and like all else, it's all in context. I guarantee if you put up a picture of a guy that looks like George Clooney or Ryan Gosling but he doesn't make much money, he'll still get plenty of messages. It also depends on what the job is...women are far more inclined to let money slide if the guy is a working artist, writer or something else "romantic". But if they are 46 and work at WalMart, then yes, most highly educated women will say no, but IMO it's more due to common lifestyles than money alone.
Why don't people want to admit women (with the exception of the well to do) have always worked be it grunt jobs, factory jobs, tending the garden and livestock, gathering food, etc.
Feminism has also allowed fathers to actually be active in raising their children and not just be a wallet. I see families sharing in the parenting, cooking and cleaning. I have seen a drastic change from the amount of sharing domestic duties from the time when I was a child and now. I think this is also a positive result of feminism.
I agree. What people also seem to be missing is the economy that prevailed when women stayed home is nothing like today, and THAT is why more women work, not because of feminism. In my parents' day, a man working at a grocery store or hardware store could buy a home and support a family, a family member with an illness didn't bankrupt the family with half a million in medical bills, etc, etc....those days are long gone and have nada to do with feminism.
My opinion is a valid as yours and isn't nonsense. The movement does not date back to the first time feminism was used. Had that been true, the 1963 efforts would not have caused a ripple.
My opinion is based on historical fact while yours is based on ignorance. The feminist movement has been around since the 1830s in Britain and the United States when women started agitating for rights. The first women's rights convention was held in July, 1848 in Seneca Falls where the participants created and signed this: Declaration of Sentiments
I would love to be a housewife and a stay at home mom rather than climb the corporate ladder and throw my kids in some nasty daycare and have them pop Ritalin. My mother, grandmothers, and aunts were/are all traditional women living in Eastern Europe and none of them are complaining about their lives being sooooooo oppressed by the patriarchy.
Why can't you be a "traditional" woman happy with living in patriarchy in Eastern Europe or where ever? Who's forcing you to "climb the corporate ladder"?
Well I'm a woman and I can GUARANTEE you that in the 70's the "you can have it all" was nonsense. And THAT'S the topic being discussed, I believe.
Somebody forgot to tell the women that the family burden would NEVER be shared 50-50.
The EASY part was replacing the wooden ladders for the lighterweight aluminum. How do you replace the biology or the mindset of the men. And the women, for that matter.
OH and there's that little detail called pregnancy, delivery, recovery and OH ...OOOPPPS. SOMEBODY has to bond with the baby.
No problem, though. Just shuffle them off to daycare and let perfect strangers do the "bonding" (LOL) for 12 hours per day.
We won't even discuss the "gotta have two cars and BIG ones" and the huge single homes with roman tubs etc. Thereby handcuffing BOTH spouses to full time jobs, aggressive career paths and even less time for "family".
So ridiculous. Women were not SLAVES before - IT TOOK TIME AND EFFORT to run a house. My grandmother had to go to the farm, kill the chicken (or have it killed), pluck it yada yada. She couldn't whip out a Lean Cuisine or call takeout. Just drying the clothes and ironing was an all day affair.
People who want two big cars and luxury homes are handcuffing themselves to full-time jobs and aggressive career paths. Everyone lives with the consequences of the choices they make. I don't know anyone with the two-big-cars etc. mentality. And many people who are in aggressive career paths are there because they want to be. If a couple is too driven in their careers, they don't have to have kids. That's another choice. They can opt out, and some do. Any couple making that much money can pay someone to clean the house, easing the burden for both of them.
Nonsensical rants like this do nothing to advance the discussion.
I'm kind of curious as to what all these female detractors think the alternative to feminism was. Maintaining the status quo? You really want to be living as a woman in the 1950s would? Really?
Guess what! Now in a post-feminism world, you CAN still live like a woman in the 1950s if you want - that's your choice. But you'll have to find a man who's willing to play along unless you want to be a spinster or old maid. And I can live a life where I am able to take out a mortgage with no co-signer, enjoy a field in a male-dominated industry where my colleagues treat me with respect and camaraderie (rather than scorn or sexual harassment), reap the benefits of an Ivy League education (from a school that did not accept women for most of its history), have access to birth control, wear pants without being looked at askance and about a gajillion other cool things that greatly contribute to my happiness.
What differences does it make. Your argument was that women will ignore you if you make less than 30K. Plenty of men marry making 30K or less.
To women in the same economic bracket. What I'm getting at is that women tend to marry in the same economic class as men or men above them in terms of economic class. Where as men tend to marry women who make less or roughly the same but not more then them. This also explains the reason why men tend to make more then there wives.
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Originally Posted by 2mares
I agree the majority of men and women make different career choices and most women are the ones that want to sacrifice career for children. I don't agree that husbands end up working more hours, they just take a income hit. At the same time, especially if her income is lower money is saved in daycare and domestic expenses. I don't see how this makes feminism a failure. It still allows for choices.
Every marriage I've seen where the wife cuts back her hours or stops working the guy ends up working more to make up for the income loss. I'm going by what I've personally seen your and others on here mileage may very in what you have personally seen.
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Originally Posted by 2mares
The suffrage movement is feminism. The suffrage movement was focused more on laws, right to vote, labor laws.
A lot of people will never agree with that statement. Since were talking about different events that happened decades apart.
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Originally Posted by 2mares
In the 1050's sex decimation bills had not even passed. By the 60's, feminism was concentrated on attitudes (which affected those law that had been put in place). The mid 60's saw the influx of married women with children into the labor force where it had previously been young single women. If you care to do some reading you will see a huge difference in attitudes and job opportunities for married mothers between 1950 and today.
Yet for all this opening up the job fields women went into in mass before feminism teaching, nursing, etc are still the same jobs most women enter into in mass today. So the more things change the more the stay the same. Which was what I was getting at in my last post.
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Originally Posted by 2mares
I don't think pull your weight implies everything be 50/50. I still think you are missing the point. Because women aren't the majority in STEM fields or the fact women generally earn less and spend more time with their children does not make feminism a failure. The fact the women can enter STEM fields, can earn a decent living, can work and be a wife and mother make feminism a great for women, men and children.
Again I got to question how much of this is due feminism and how much is due to the suffrage movement? Or even events prior to the Suffrage movement. We had women who were going to school and just starting to become physicians before the civil war broke out as an example. We in the US have had women's colleges around for well over a century now. I think the problem in here lies in the fact that a lot of supporters of feminism try to lump any and every single thing possible that happened to benefit women throughout history as being part of feminism regardless of how far removed time wise things occurred. The Women's Suffrage Movement being a prime example. No. I don't consider them the same thing since they happened decades apart. Now with all that said do I think everything was just always fine and dandy for women in history? The answer to that is no. I do however think feminism gets way to much credit than it actually deserves.
Last edited by cwa1984; 04-02-2015 at 05:10 AM..
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