quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I mean, I'm a member of the intellectual elite and I am overjoyed that people are realizing that having both parents working full-time jobs is not a good thing for the children. I hope that society comes to realize that many non-Ivy League graduates don't really have the luxury of this choice due to their economic situation and make changes so as to bring it more into their reach.
Who knows, maybe I'm more representative of the "intellectual elite" than Dr. Wexler. That certainly seems to be the case from my empirical experience.
Of course, I also (edit: don't) think that women's sole role of value is to be mothers and that any one who doesn't become one lives a life of lesser value than one who does. Nor do I think that it's necessarily the mother who should stay home with the kids while the father goes out to work. Form what I can tell, these are opinions OSC holds and, again, I feel my way of looking at these things is representative of many people in the "intellectual elite". [/QB]
Squicky, I have to say I agree with your view of the "intellectual elite."
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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quote:...I am overjoyed that people are realizing that having both parents working full-time jobs is not a good thing for the children.
been something social conservatives have been saying all along?
Granted there are other problems...such as the fact that social conservatives have often tack on a bunch of sexism with that belief in the past.
And Mr. Squicky...am I understanding you correctly? Are you actually saying that it's your belief that OSC's opinion is that women's sole role of valus is as a mother? And that every time, it should be the mother who stays at home while the father goes out to work? And that he doesn't also think that a life spent as a good father is equally more 'worthwhile' than a man who does not spend it so?
I'd just love to hear a single quote, implication, or even muttering you can provide from OSC on any of those accusations.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
"I hope that society comes to realize that many non-Ivy League graduates don't really have the luxury of this choice due to their economic situation and make changes so as to bring it more into their reach."
Thanks for pointing this out, Mr. Squicky.
It was the part that was irritating me the most when I read the article. There is nothing I would have liked better than to work from home while raising Nathan. In fact, I did private contracting/consulting to be able to meet that goal. Unfortunately, the tax structure in our country (and my state particularly) make it impossible and fiscally non-solvent. (I.e., no health care benefits - affordable, anyway; no sick leave/vacation leave, etc.)
I do think that article was fairly offensive to women in general, and some women in specific. I get looks of dismay when I say things like, "I missed my calling - I was really meant to raise about a dozen kids."
But with my multi-tasking skills - how could it be otherwise? Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:I was never given the impression that anything I wanted to do with my life was closed to me because of my gender. It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I actually grokked that sexism was related to me. And then it was only because I finally realized that all of those people telling me I could be anything I wanted to be were saying so because they thought I would be worried about sexism.
I've had much the same experience as blacwolve. Even now, I still sort of forget that sexism is supposed to apply to me... the only time I've really experienced it was from female supervisors who seemed bent on making everyone around them unhappy. I have yet to come across the group of "good ol' boys" who don't want to see women in positions of power, or feel like my opportunities are limited because of my sex.
Also, having done the Ivy League education thing, I'd hazard to say that those wanting a pure "education", not just hoops to get a job, would probably be pretty happy at Cornell. Cornell loves theory, and knowledge for the sake of knowledge (and lucrative research grants). Of course, as someone who just wanted career training, I hated it. But my department, at least, was determined to produce students with "critical thinking skills" and such.
And Belle, a lot of what you say about UAB sounds just like me throughout my four years in undergrad. I once packed up and moved completely off campus in the middle of a semester just to avoid the mandatory meal plan for on-campus residents. Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I'm preparing for my interviews this week. One of the judges is a woman, and I remarked to bunbun that I've always gotten along very well with women professionally compared to other people I know, whether they've worked for me or they've been a client to whom I report.
bunbun said, "That's because you actually listen to them, respect their ideas, and discuss things rationally with them. You don't just dismiss them."
*blink*
What struck me was that, if just doing this is enough to make women like working with me, then there are men who do these things when talking to men but not when talking to women. I can't comprehend this from a business perspective. Why would someone do this?
And it's not as if I didn't know there were lots of sexist guys around who really do hire the incompetent frat boy over the productive woman. I'm talking about people who I've never really seen act sexist in a way I could detect who seem to have trouble when working with women. It surprised me that the difference could be something so simple.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
One of the things that has always bothered me about certain types of feminist is the argument that women who want to be stay at home mothers are somehow setting the movement back. The whole point of the feminist movement is that women should have the right to choose to have a career if they want to, and that if they do have a career they should be treated as equals and receive equal pay.
We should also have the option to stay at home if we want, without being made to feel like we are doing something to harm other women. You'll never hear a feminist criticize a man for wanting to be a stay at home parent.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Yeah my thoughts are almost exactly the same as blacwolve's, although I did play house pretty much all the time as a child, even if it was a lot more than let's carry around dolls, we usually had very elaborate households worked out, and most of the time the mom's were single mom's with a very high powered job (ie president, queen, space cowgirl). I guess it was because my brother moved out when I was a baby, my dad was usually at work when I was home (he worked nights till kindergarten, but was the one who got me ready for pre school) and most of the guys I went to preschool with are either now gay, bisexual, going to a girls college (well I guess it doesn't count since it isn't but 2 are at Vassar) or I had little interaction with them.
My mom didn't have the opportunity to go to college at 18, got married at 19, started college with the goal of a home ec major, art minor, and teaching certificate, had to quit when her first husband had Leukemia, then was a single mom, until she was in her 30s, finally went back to get a bachelors when i was 3, finished 4 years later with English Education and a computers minor. But didn't teach because while I was in school that was too much, instead she worked as a study skills instructor and computer lab tech at IU for 6 years about 15 hours a week, then when I was a seventh grader started subbing full time, usually for six or so weeks at a time for one teacher. Having my mom home while i wasn't at school was fantastic, she'd help with homework, take me wherever, and we'd just have fun.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
I almost always played with my brothers toys more than my girly ones. Only exception were my Pretty Ponies and Breyer horses. The Legos were all mine and I had the castle system.
I got disgusted with dolls at a young age, (3ish) when I cut the finger off of one of mine, and I realized a) it wasn't perfect anymore and b) it was just plastic plumbing that made her pee.
My mother also encouraged non traditional thinking I guess. I remember when to get us out of her hair, she gave my friend Becky and I an old mechanical wind up alarm clock, a couple of screwdrivers and a hammer and told us to go take it apart out on the patio.
posted
I’ve also not experienced any outward sexism, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I’m on my second job since university (where I had my first job) and in both cases you could follow my line management chain to the very top of the large organisation and there were only men in it above me.
I know that there is coincidence in these cases as there were a few women in higher positions, but particularly in my previous organisation there were very few (the most senior in my section was a team leader managing about 5 people where employees were approximately 50/50 men and women). Even now, where there are a few more women further up the average grade for a women is the one I’m on – the main working grade for the job I do (some new people with little or no experience start one grade below for their first year to 18 months), with no line management responsibilities. The people reaching higher grades are not all in their 50s or older so the argument that there were not many women in the workforce when they started does not explain the situation.
I’ve also heard several men say that they do not know why businesses employ women under 40 as they will leave to have babies. I am at the age where I could have children, but I don’t plan to, so why should I not be employed on my merits?
Posts: 169 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I realize the discussion is continuing without the NYT article, but here's something interesting I read on Slate. It points out how that article is plain, bad journalism.:
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