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I agree with everything you wrote except the part about women not being allowed to keep their children in the case of a divorce. Most judges automatically gave the mother of the children custody in days past unless she was really really unfit. The prevailing view was that children belong with their mothers period.
I think what the op is trying to say is not that rights for women are bad but that the idea that a woman should not ever choose to be in a traditional role in life, of mother or housewife is bad .That maybe feminists sometimes took it too far and didn't want to be any different from a man in any way. And some woman lost touch with that part of themselves.
My list covered women's issues that go back to the Early National Period in American history, and that was one of the realities in women's lives in the early 19th century. A divorced woman was was considered a loose woman and an unfit mother, no matter why she was divorced. This attitude changed in the frontier areas first and gradually drifted eastward but it was slow in coming.
I think feminism eliminated many courtesies originally extended by men to women. Due to the actions of some women, all women have to deal with the consequences. I don't know if women gained more or lost more.
Really? You don't know if we gained more or lost more? On one hand we got the right to vote, the right to own property, to earn a decent wage...on the other hand men don't open the car door anymore.....that's a tough decision, a toss up?
Last edited by Oldhag1; 03-18-2015 at 05:34 AM..
Reason: Removed icon
I think there are very few people indeed who feel that there was anything wrong with some of the early gains attributed to feminism - things like women having the right to own property, establish their own credit rating, hold professional careers, that kind of thing.
But women entering the workforce en masse has caused problems in that there are simply not enough hours in the day. The reality is that women still do the lion's share of household chores and childrearing tasks, regardless of how many hours each spouse works. What happens then is you have a woman with a demanding, full-time career plus the full-time job of running a home and caring for young children.
You could argue that husbands need to step up to the plate more - but if Mom works 55 hours a week and Dad works 80, how is he supposed to do that? This transition has also coincided with a movement in parenting where societal pressures tell parents that their kids need constant and direct supervision until they're 16 years old, and that their toddlers need to be shuttled from organized activity to organized activity in order to get ahead. Parenting has gotten more demanding during the same few decades as large numbers of women have begun building careers for themselves, resulting in many women being pulled in two different directions on a daily basis.
These competing demands on a mother's time are why you see this barrage of articles and books on the whole "Can women have it all?" debate. Time is a limited resource.
This is not due to feminism, it's due to the economy and the collapse of unions, offshoring almost all manufacturing jobs, and the subsequent decline and near-death of the middle class. My niece's would give their eye teeth to be able to stay home with their babies, but we haven't lived in a world where that is a realistic possibility for most in a long time.
Last edited by Oldhag1; 03-18-2015 at 05:35 AM..
Reason: Removed icon
I think there are very few people indeed who feel that there was anything wrong with some of the early gains attributed to feminism - things like women having the right to own property, establish their own credit rating, hold professional careers, that kind of thing.
But women entering the workforce en masse has caused problems in that there are simply not enough hours in the day. The reality is that women still do the lion's share of household chores and childrearing tasks, regardless of how many hours each spouse works. What happens then is you have a woman with a demanding, full-time career plus the full-time job of running a home and caring for young children.
You could argue that husbands need to step up to the plate more - but if Mom works 55 hours a week and Dad works 80, how is he supposed to do that? This transition has also coincided with a movement in parenting where societal pressures tell parents that their kids need constant and direct supervision until they're 16 years old, and that their toddlers need to be shuttled from organized activity to organized activity in order to get ahead. Parenting has gotten more demanding during the same few decades as large numbers of women have begun building careers for themselves, resulting in many women being pulled in two different directions on a daily basis.
These competing demands on a mother's time are why you see this barrage of articles and books on the whole "Can women have it all?" debate. Time is a limited resource.
Actually, married women, and mothers, have been working in this country since at least the mid 1800s. Married women supplemented the family income by working in the early textile mills in New England and New York. Married farm women worked outside their homes tending gardens and chickens that were essential to family survival. Poor rural women, black, white, Hispanic, immigrant, worked along with their children and their husbands in vegetable fields, cotton fields, tobacco fields, etc for decades. Even today, married Amish women earn money by selling baked goods, doing quilting, and hiring out to clean houses. One Amish lady I know whose husband was disabled in a fall runs a large nursery with her children. Her husband mans the counter in his wheelchair.
The idea that women before the 1970s were all SAHMs is really a fantasy. It really applied mostly to upper middle class families, and to some other families where the father had a good job or the family settled for living poorly.
When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, most of my aunts and friends' mothers worked. My mother originally operated a "corner store" and then ran the vegetable operation and the farm market stand. My sister in law's mother worked right along with her husband to make a go of their small supermarket, and she was a "latch key kid" long before the phrase was invented. Most of my teachers were "Mrs Smith" or "Mrs Jones" and they all had jobs. As others have said, feminism didn't change that many women worked outside the home; it just changed the jobs they could work in.
Im a guy in my 30's, I have no interest in having a family for another 10 years atleast.
This choice has always been available for men but not for women, so its more fair.
An overwhelming majority of my lady friends has, like me, worked and partied away their 20's just to wake up to their biological clock alarming in their 30's that they should have babies.
Men dont have that clock.
So while society is pretty fair, I dont think biology is fair.
Actually, married women, and mothers, have been working in this country since at least the mid 1800s. Married women supplemented the family income by working in the early textile mills in New England and New York. Married farm women worked outside their homes tending gardens and chickens that were essential to family survival. Poor rural women, black, white, Hispanic, immigrant, worked along with their children and their husbands in vegetable fields, cotton fields, tobacco fields, etc for decades. Even today, married Amish women earn money by selling baked goods, doing quilting, and hiring out to clean houses. One Amish lady I know whose husband was disabled in a fall runs a large nursery with her children. Her husband mans the counter in his wheelchair.
The idea that women before the 1970s were all SAHMs is really a fantasy. It really applied mostly to upper middle class families, and to some other families where the father had a good job or the family settled for living poorly.
When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, most of my aunts and friends' mothers worked. My mother originally operated a "corner store" and then ran the vegetable operation and the farm market stand. My sister in law's mother worked right along with her husband to make a go of their small supermarket, and she was a "latch key kid" long before the phrase was invented. Most of my teachers were "Mrs Smith" or "Mrs Jones" and they all had jobs. As others have said, feminism didn't change that many women worked outside the home; it just changed the jobs they could work in.
That is an excellent point. My mother, both of my grandmothers, and two of my g-grandmothers all held full-time jobs. In 1930, one of my g-grandmothers was running a corner bakery that is still in business today. My husband's grandmother became a teacher in 1922. She retired in 1975 having never missed a day of work!
I don't think in terms of groups. Some women I know did not have kids and have worked in engineering. Others had kids and work in engineering. Individuals have choice. I regard women as potentially equal. I deliberately say "potential" because it is hard to find any two people even in the same sex who are equal! I am attracted to smart women actually. Being that all my siblings are female maybe I learned from them not to be chauvinist.
So the original question is ridiculous. People have their own values and philosophies. To think in terms of roles is so 15th century.
A Truism I have heard all my life is : "Be careful what you wish for you might get it".
I think that may be true of the Feminist movement of the last fifty years. Let me point out a few observations from my close to seventy years on the planet and reading a few History books. Women have had the VOTE for close to 100 years. So there probably aren't more than a few hundred Women alive today that have ever been denied the right to vote (with the exception of Native American and Black Women prior to 1964).
Women took the place of Men in many professions during WW2. Many of these jobs were Blue Collar skilled jobs but fairly high paying. When I was in elementary school MOST of the teachers were Women. During the 1950's and early 1960's the two professions College educated Women worked in were Nursing and Teaching. Nursing positions are still held by a large percentage of Women. Teaching positions may also be held by more Women than Men but I wonder if the Women currently in teaching are the "cream of the crop"? The Female teachers I knew when I was in school were very competent and most were probably in the tops of their graduating classes from both High School and College. Today those Women near the top of their class probably take more lucrative paying jobs.
Now Women do have many more choices in their work than they had in the past. However I wonder about this: Is there any more important JOB than teaching our kids the skills needed in life? In the past the Women that did this were school teachers and stay at home Mothers. Thanks to Feminism many Women have abdicated this MOST important job in part to others. Maybe that is one reason why our schools are in so much trouble.
An unintended consequence of all the Women entering the work force in the last fifty years is the fact that many families must have BOTH parents working to support the family. Many Women would like to be "just a housewife" but they HAVE to work outside the home to make enough money to keep the family going. Is it possible this might be a contributing factor to higher crime rates among our youngsters?
I won't even start on the contempt many of the modern Feminists have about traditional families.
A Truism I have heard all my life is : "Be careful what you wish for you might get it".
I think that may be true of the Feminist movement of the last fifty years. Let me point out a few observations from my close to seventy years on the planet and reading a few History books. Women have had the VOTE for close to 100 years. So there probably aren't more than a few hundred Women alive today that have ever been denied the right to vote (with the exception of Native American and Black Women prior to 1964).
Women took the place of Men in many professions during WW2. Many of these jobs were Blue Collar skilled jobs but fairly high paying. When I was in elementary school MOST of the teachers were Women. During the 1950's and early 1960's the two professions College educated Women worked in were Nursing and Teaching. Nursing positions are still held by a large percentage of Women. Teaching positions may also be held by more Women than Men but I wonder if the Women currently in teaching are the "cream of the crop"? The Female teachers I knew when I was in school were very competent and most were probably in the tops of their graduating classes from both High School and College. Today those Women near the top of their class probably take more lucrative paying jobs.
Well, maybe if teaching paid better and was better respected, especially by all the people who claim to be soooo concerned about children and families, maybe it would be more attractive to more men and women who are the "cream of the crop".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gunluvver2
Now Women do have many more choices in their work than they had in the past. However I wonder about this: Is there any more important JOB than teaching our kids the skills needed in life? In the past the Women that did this were school teachers and stay at home Mothers. Thanks to Feminism many Women have abdicated this MOST important job in part to others. Maybe that is one reason why our schools are in so much trouble.
If teaching was such an important job, why has it always been so underpaid, especially in the past when it was predominantly a female occupation? If raising children is so important, why is it just the mother's responsibility? Children have two parents. They need their fathers' nurturing as well as their mothers'. It seems to me that many middle class and upper middle class fathers abandoned their roles as fathers to chase after the almight $$$ long before mothers supposedly did.
Oh, yeah, and what about women who don't have children or whose children are already grown? Should they be relegated to being poorly paid teachers and nurses, too?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gunluvver2
An unintended consequence of all the Women entering the work force in the last fifty years is the fact that many families must have BOTH parents working to support the family. Many Women would like to be "just a housewife" but they HAVE to work outside the home to make enough money to keep the family going. Is it possible this might be a contributing factor to higher crime rates among our youngsters?
This is nonsense.
It wasn't feminism that "forced" two income families to become the norm in the US because lots of married women have always worked outside the home. In fact, multi-income families, with contributions from husband, wife, and children, have been the norm throughout most of the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the big crusades of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was to end child labor, especially the practice where children as young as 8 or 10 were sent to work in textile factories and similar industries.
Feminism didn't cause economic changes like automation and off-shoring, nor the transition from a industrial economy to a service economy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gunluvver2
I won't even start on the contempt many of the modern Feminists have about traditional families.
I don't have any contempt for traditional families. What I have contempt for is people who advocate turning the clock back to some idealized past because they want to impose their ideology on everybody else.
Women took the place of Men in many professions during WW2. Many of these jobs
were Blue Collar skilled jobs but fairly high paying.
And after the war they were told to go home and be wives and mothers and homemakers. Essentially, women were good enough in a pinch but the general consensus was that their place was in the home.
Quote:
When I was in elementary school MOST of the teachers were Women. During the
1950's and early 1960's the two professions College educated Women worked in
were Nursing and Teaching. Nursing positions are still held by a large
percentage of Women. Teaching positions may also be held by more Women than Men
but I wonder if the Women currently in teaching are the "cream of the crop"? The
Female teachers I knew when I was in school were very competent and most were
probably in the tops of their graduating classes from both High School and
College. Today those Women near the top of their class probably take more
lucrative paying jobs.
Initially teaching positions were held by men generally as stepping stones to better higher paying positions. It was concluded that women could fill those positions, at a lower wage of course, until they married/had children, then there place was in the home.
Todays teachers and all women choose their career path generally before entering college so I don't see how being the top of their class has any bearing on taking more lucrative paying jobs. Some choose the field of education and other choose a different path depending on their interests and aptitudes. There was a saying when I was in college, "Those who cant, teach".
Quote:
Now Women do have many more choices in their work than they had in the past.
However I wonder about this: Is there any more important JOB than teaching our
kids the skills needed in life? In the past the Women that did this were school
teachers and stay at home Mothers. Thanks to Feminism many Women have abdicated
this MOST important job in part to others. Maybe that is one reason why our
schools are in so much trouble.
I defiantly don't dispute the notion that raising and teaching children is an important job. Today school teachers still do this, as do mothers and fathers. It is very common for women to re-enter the work force when children start kindergarten at 5-6 so the job was basically abdicated at that stage anyway. The difference now is that children are in daycare often very soon after birth. I don't think any of this, feminism, is the reason our schools are in trouble.
Quote:
An unintended consequence of all the Women entering the work force in the last
fifty years is the fact that many families must have BOTH parents working to
support the family. Many Women would like to be "just a housewife" but they HAVE
to work outside the home to make enough money to keep the family going. Is it
possible this might be a contributing factor to higher crime rates among our
youngsters?
There are many variable contributing to crime rates among children, certainly broken/single parent homes is one. WWII had a great impact on the feminist movement and helped open the was for the career and lifestyle choices women have today despite the slow start and struggle for equal pay and respect in the workplace. I don't think this aspect of the feminist movement is necessarily a negative in regards to families and child rearing. It has created a different dynamic but I see the positive perhaps unintended consequences being that men and women have learned that Dad is as perfectly capable of nurturing and parenting as Mom. With two earners, Dad is given a choice of being a STHD, he is more involved in the upbringing of his children. Feminism has shown us that we don't have to live in a predefined gender box, men and women can work together equally, providing and nurturing, to raise a family and still have room to complement the family unit thru their gender differences.
Last edited by Oldhag1; 03-19-2015 at 12:43 AM..
Reason: Fixed formatting
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