This story is everywhere today, and I’m finding the various spins on it so fascinating. First of all, I have yet to see any major media outlet put men at the center of the narrative: I can’t find any stories that talk about the 60% of MEN who are supporting their families. All the focus is on the 40% of WOMEN who are now out earning their husbands.
Feminist websites are all rah rah rah – ladies be kicking ass so hard!
http://jezebel.com/more-and-more-ladies-are-the-family-breadwinners-and-510255997
Instructively, Jezebel (linking in from a fellow Gawker site) follows their sneering piece with a gif showing a scantily clad woman punching a man in office setting, with the headline “Woman Shows How To Kick Ass At Work”.
http://kotaku.com/woman-shows-how-to-kick-ass-at-work-literally-510434703
One can imagine the outcry if it were a man doing the same thing to a woman.
Double XX at Slate has two stories, both trying so hard to spin the 40% as some kind of feminist triumph. Hanna Roisin confesses that the numbers are a teeny bit misleading, since economic factors (such as the wide scale decimation of male dominated manufacturing jobs) are one of the principle reasons men are unable to make a living wage anymore.
Women didn’t magically acquire more skills, or learn to use them in more productive ways. Men lost their jobs. That’s not exactly a triumph. Winning a race because your main competitor broke his leg at the starting line is not winning. It’s taking first by default. A victory dance might be premature.
Amanda Marcotte has nothing to contribute to the conversation, really, other than to mock another news site for their reactions. She pays at least passing lip service to the idea that stripping men of economic power leaves FAMILIES worse off, but can’t quite bring herself to suggest that, oh, men just might be good for something after all.
It’s true that these new breadwinner stats are not all good news, but the real problem is that men earning less means less money overall for the average American home. What’s really hurting Americans isn’t female equality, but growing income inequality between the rich and everyone else. Pitting men against women is simply a distraction from the real economic issues facing us all.
Amanda doesn’t really want to address the whole income inequality issue in any depth because the first fact that will leap out is that single mothers make up 25% of the so-called “breadwinners”, and single mothers tend to be dirt poor. Single motherhood remains a terrible choice for women and children, and for the fathers who are shut out of the picture from the get-go.
Income inequality highlights that little niggling fantasy of the “patriarchy”, too. When the top income earners, both men and women, are taking ever larger slices of the economic pie, it looks a lot like aristocracy and not patriarchy.
What nobody really wants to discuss is the actual Pew Study itself, but I think we should take a look because there’s some pretty interesting stuff lurking there.
Let’s leave aside the number of women who are currently working outside the home and look at how people FEEL about that situation. How many people think the ideal family is a male breadwinner with a full time mother at home?
51% think having a mom at home makes children better off.
74% think having moms work has made it harder for families to do a good job raising children. 50% think having moms work has made it harder for marriages to thrive.
And pretty much no one thinks being a single mother is a good idea.
Here is the graph that I find the most interesting:
People over 30 seem capable of understanding that having women work outside the home is bad for children and bad for marriage, but they don’t seem to grasp a very simple economic fact: women flooding the labor market has been a key reason men’s wages have evaporated. The number of “jobs” may have increased over the past few decades (mostly housewife or paper filing jobs), but the amount of money available to pay for those workers has not. Instead of having one very productive (usually male) worker earn a family living, we now have two workers fighting over the same wages.
People under the age of 30 seem to get that: having two people work doesn’t make it easier to live a comfortable life. It makes it harder. More people scrabbling for the same resources will obviously make workplace competition cutthroat, and no is better off in the long run.
What we are seeing is a Tragedy of the Commons playing out. We have a finite (more or less) set of resources in the form of jobs and money. We need those jobs and money to support families and children. Rather than maximize our potential as a family unit, we have set up a situation in which any given individual has to fumble after limited resources the best way they can, leaving everyone worse off.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/TragedyoftheCommons.html
The supply of money is not limitless. It really comes down to that. We can work together as families to maximize how much money we get in two ways: both adults compete and both take home less of a finite resource, or the two adults specialize. One takes care of the money and one takes care of the home and children.
Specialization wins every time. And it looks like lots of people know that instinctively, but the train is picking up speed on the way to Disasterville and no one seems to understand where the brakes are located.
It’s under the desks where all the women are sitting.
When the US government wanted to encourage home ownership, it made the cost of interest on mortgage payments a tax deduction. Lots of reasons that was a good idea, and lots of reasons it was a terrible idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_mortgage_interest_deduction
But the economic adage “if you want less of something, tax it; it you want more, subsidize it” holds true. Putting the brakes on the train could be as simple as offering generous tax deductions to men supporting families at home. Basic personal amounts, amounts for dependants, income splitting – there are lots of ways to reduce men’s tax burdens for the years they are winning the bread their family eats.
And that’s the sticking point for feminist culture in particular. Depending on men. It’s a strategy that has worked for thousands of years, and based on my iPhone, 3G wireless network, dishwasher, flush toilet, push-up bra and every other luxury I have access to, it looks like men are pretty damn dependable.
But that isn’t a story that gets told very often, anymore. Once upon a time, there were men who were loving fathers and husbands, who spent their lives toiling to bring home the bread.
Once upon a time? 60% of men still do exactly that. My guess is 100% of men would gladly be the family breadwinners, provided there was both opportunity, and rewards in doing so. In a culture that can’t bear to demonstrate even the tiniest slice of gratitude or acknowledgement towards the majority of men who continue to support and provide for their families, why on earth should they continue to be beasts of burden? Why march out daily to compete for resources against the very person with whom you are going to share those resources?
It makes no sense.
40% of women are the family breadwinners. Peachy, ladies. Let’s all fight over crusts.
And in the end, we’ll all starve.
Lots of love,
JB
judgybitch 
This was all over the news yesterday and the first thing I thought was what are they not telling us?
Not one broadcast I saw made any mention of the single motherhood stats.
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The most relevant stat from that study:
These “breadwinner moms” are made up of two very different groups: 5.1 million (37%) are married mothers who have a higher income than their husbands, and 8.6 million (63%) are single mothers.
Further, the study designates “single mother” to include: Woman who were never married, divorced, widowed, separated or married but the spouse does not live in the household.
That note is what makes this study very misleading and open to what ever spin feminists want to put on it. If you took all those divorced and separated women who initiated divorce, collect generous child support and alimony, and compared their earning to their ex’s or the “baby daddies” I wonder then what that stat would look like. Working part time while still sucking the ex dry does not all of a sudden make you the family bread winner. It makes you a leech.
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*applause*
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“Amanda doesn’t really want to address the whole income inequality issue in any depth because the first fact that will leap out is that single mothers make up 25% of the so-called “breadwinners”, and single mothers tend to be dirt poor.”
Far more than 25 percent, JB. Over twice that.
According to the report, 5.1 million (37%) of those “breadwinners” are married mothers who have a higher income than their husbands, and 8.6 million (63%) are single mothers. That would put the number of female breadwinner households with two parents at slightly less than 15 percent.
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Oops! freetofish beat me to it…
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I love it. This is Tom Sawyer painting the picket fence. Go get that job girl. I’m looking forward to the day when women live 3-5 year shorter lives then men due to health issues related to working stress and all the side effects that go with it. I’ll be by the pool relaxing and enjoying my short time on this planet. Oh, and girlfriend, you missed a spot on the fence.
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Yes, to say that 40% is a highly distorted number would be an understatement.
But that’s not my issue. The solution to the problem? Make Women Dependent on Men…again?
Hmm, I’m sorry judgybitch maybe in your life, but it does not ring true for all of us.
Let’s apply this theory to reality: Women Leaving the Workforce and Becoming Dependent on Men.
1. There would be no need for women to attend college. Realistically, not even high school, I don’t think you need algebra or chem to be a housewife. Heck, cut it at elementary school because I remember taking Algebra and Earth Science in middle school. Just learn to read, write, communicate effectively and make crafts- elementary.
2. Women would live at home with their parents until they marry. Yes, people used to marry younger back in the day, but you will still have a lot of ADULTS living at home. We would be going back to the time where women met their husbands in their “villages” or within a 10-20mile radius of where they lived. No college hubbies, No Mr JB for you.
3 Also, maybe in your theory younger men would be earning more, but probably not enough to support an entire family which will really only leave room for much older men. Women in their late teens or early 20’s will have to marry 30something/40something year old men. Ugh…
4. No, 100% of men would not “gladly” become breadwinners given opportunity and reward. The majority (no different from today) maybe but not 100% not even 85%. The majority of MY intended male demographic are not looking for women to support. Even if she’s Caretaker or the Year with all the attributes that make a great wife, she still needs a J.O.B or will be considered a B.U.M. Make no mistake about it.
I can go on with much more other reasons, but this is just the comments section. No one would dispute that divorce rates are higher today because women have the CHOICE to leave their husbands and still survive. Your solution? Take that choice away???
I do 100% believe men are under appreciated and should be respected more for the amazing things they do everyday. They create and run the world we live in. I am the only female at my company and yes I may run the office, but I don’t produce or create anything that our customers retain our company’s services for. I am aware of this. That will change when I graduate, but for right now guess how my tuition is paid? My Pink Collar Job. My apartment? My car? My clothes? Food? Everything? Paid by ME because of my JOB.
The reality is a lot of us don’t have parents we can leech off of, or dated our “soul mate” in High School so we can get married soon after, or want to marry a much older person or whatever other restrictions we would encounter if women were to leave the workforce. We are able to live and provide for ourselves now without the assistance of the Government, husbands or parents and that is sooooo important to me.
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Reading it that way, they would just interpret it as proof of a “culture of discrimination” against women. If women are earning more, it’s good for feminism, if they’re earning less, it’s even better.
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My experience has been a lot of women’s job are make-work, e.g., the whole HR thing. I suspect it’s because of the fear of lawsuits. For that matter, Affirmative Action means “white men need not apply.” For example, I had one guy, a college graduate who had been an officer in the Army, tell me he would never get a promotion at work, and that when he looked at the list of people to be promoted, it was eight white women, one black woman, and one Hispanic woman. I have seen these things many times.
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Its easy for women who are already married and reaping the benefits of their husbands’ income to agree that women being part of the workforce is a negative thing.
Just don’t forget about the rest of us. And don’t forget how you GOT that husband in the first place. (College, workforce, moving, traveling)
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Oh, yeah, right. There you go again JB. Actually looking at the study itself. Geez.
I loved the part in the Jezzie piece where she moans that “a lot of people” think single moms are a big problem (don’t want to actually use that number, do you? I wonder why that might be) but finds solace in the idea that these are just old white people, probably just conservatives, and they’re, like, so going to die off soon anyway and the stigma of single motherhood will, like, die with them. Yay Single Moms!! You grrrls Rock!
Of course the next phase was hinted at in a piece on this I saw on the news last night. A single mom was being interviewed and was complaining about the high cost of childcare and a remark was made that there’s not enough public support ($$$) for expanded childcare. So if you don’t have a man to care for you and your brood, get the government to do it (there’s that 60%, let’s put ’em to good use).
On an unrelated note, I noted on Jezzie’s main page, an article about a new reality show on the WE channel, called Pregnant and Dating. “Hi, I’m Keisha. Let’s get a coffee and see if there’s enough chemistry for you to be the one to raise another man’s spawn!” Yeah, that’s going to be ratings gold.
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Agree. Men complain when the wife works and she is not at home doing her housewife duties. Men complain when the wife do not work and they have to carry with all the economic weight.
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Emma, you miss the point by a wide margin.
I don’t think anyone here is saying that women shouldn’t work, period, they’re saying that families tend to work better and stay stronger when a wife remains home to care for the family and raise children. My mother worked in the late 30s, early 40s before she was married. True, she didn’t go to a 4-year college, but she’s still plenty smart.
Young men can certainly earn enough to support a family, especially when their wives are at home, frugally managing their expenses. It still happens even in this day an age. (We certainly wouldn’t want you to have to face the possibility of dating, let alone marrying those 30-something or (God Forbid!) 40-something men. Because everybody knows they’re just icky.)
No, 100% of men would not “gladly” become breadwinners given opportunity and reward…The majority of MY intended male demographic are not looking for women to support.
Of course young men in your age group aren’t looking to support women. Why should they? The system is stacked against them and they’re quite right to look to have their fun but not get married. What you miss is the point that the vast majority of men would indeed welcome and take pride in being the family breadwinner given the opportunity and sufficient reward. That last part is the key. Unfortunately that’s not going to happen anytime soon in the current climate.
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In Spain, a pregnant woman in her late thirties, who even does not know who baby daddy is (“it happened in a crazy night in a trip to Naples”) has hundreds of men behind her wishing to be her boyfriend, hubby and stepfather of her baby. Maybe even adopting the baby.
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I have to be honest.
I HATE the term “working mom”. I hate it for a few reasons.
1) It trivializes the work of real home makers by its very existence. It implies that stay-at-home-moms do no work.
2) By implying that SAHM do no work, it encourages the poisonous idea in some women that being a SAHM should be EASY. This is FALSE.
3) By implying that being a SAHM is not working, it implies that being a SAHM is being a worthless individual.
4) By elevating “working moms” above the SAHM, it directly implies that in order to be *more* valuable, women should be seeking work-force-approval by being corporate.
“Working Mom” should be renamed “Corporate Slave Mom”
SAHM should be renamed “Foundation of Society”
That is all.
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*standing ovation*
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Also, Judgy… your site keeps getting sporadically tagged and blocked as porn at my work. I think it’s because of all the cussing in your blog posts. I’m not asking you to tone it down, I’m a sailor I can take it. However, as an FYI, you might be making it harder for people to visit your blog.
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No, LostSailor, I know that JB meant families and not primarily single women. But it is not realistic. If the vast majority of women became stay at home mothers after marriage and children, no one would respect working women.
That’s why women in college and the workforce would be a joke to society if women stayed at home. Why would a woman invest thousands upon thousands of dollars into an education if she were to stay at home? Why even work in the first place if you’re going to be dependent on someone else for the majority of your life?
People would not respect women in college or the workforce if the majority of women gave up past a certain age to be caretakers. Companies would not employ women into serious positions because they would assume it was all “temporary” until she got “settled” at home. Even if women started working AFTER their children were grown, who would you hire, a 40 year old man who has been working his entire life or a 50 year old woman who technically has only been working for 10-12yrs max???
There is nothing wrong with women staying at home. I come from a family full of stay at home mothers and respectable head of household fathers. But it should be a choice, and taking women out of the workforce is a dangerous thing.
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There is nothing wrong with the term “Working Mom” and it does not imply that stay at home moms are useless, easy or resource seekers,as most MRAs would have you believe. It just means some women have JOBS into addition to being mothers.
Ann Romney anyone? (who is great by the way) It was a huge deal when people started saying she never had a job. So many people ran to her defense saying how hard stay at home mothers work. But it’s true, she didn’t have an actual job, or place of employment. There is nothing wrong with saying that stay at home moms don’t have jobs, or that working mothers are exactly that-mothers with jobs.
It doesn’t mean that SAHM’s are “worthless” or Working Mothers are “corporate slaves.”
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Emma, it was a system that worked quite well for centuries and can work well again. But first, no one has said anything about “taking women out of the workforce.” No one is ever going to tell women “No, you can’t work if you have children.”
But there is nothing at all dangerous about encouraging women to be stay-at-home-moms for their kids or to not have kids if they’re single; indeed, it would be one start to repairing the fractured foundations of Western society.
As for the idea that if the majority of women stayed home to raise their children that women in the workforce would not be respected is sheer nonsense. Women, even feminists, are beginning to realize that the idea that women can “have it all” in terms of family and a dazzling “career” is a lie. Mothers who choose to work instead of focusing on raising their children, unless forced to by circumstances, will inevitably sacrifice something: either their children’s well-being, advancement in their “career,” or both. The rise of single motherhood is just a symptom of the advancing social cancer.
And we really should start to reexamine the idea that it’s an economically sound decision to rack up thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt to obtain a degree that has little prospect of being worth it’s cost in terms of extra earnings. The level of student loan debt in the United States is staggering: $1.1 trillion. And the degree in sociology or (shudder) women’s studies is going to have you paying that back over decades, money that could have gone to a house, car, or a family.
If you want a fabulous career, that’s great, go for it. But if you want a family, then that should be the priority. Having the majority of women trying to do both, or having kids without a marriage, is proving to be a disaster.
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I agree, Jeremy. I made the decision to stay home with my son who had just turned two. We crunched the numbers and found it was actually more expensive for me to work than it was for me to stay home. I got snide comments from some of the people we knew; that I was “wasting” myself and my intelligence (albeit one person was a sour-grapes ex-boyfriend! 😉 ) Our son is now part of the minority of kids whose natural parents are still together.
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Women no longer deserve supportive husbands that take care of them.
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You don’t think the term “Mother” implies work? If you do, how do you reconcile the redundant term? The term itself, by its very nature, is poorly constructed as english goes. Or depending on your viewpoint it was masterfully constructed if the idea was to denigrate stay at home motherhood as less than “working”.
Yes it does. Before the term “working mom” or “working mother” was invented, there were lots of women who were industrious in the home and brought in extra income with home businesses. They were not called “working moms” they were called “Mothers”. Suddenly when the career-oriented-but-single-mother came about, we had a new term, “working mother”, despite the fact that many women were not financially idle as SAHM’s to begin with. So why even have this term if the purpose *is not* to imply that regular mothers are somehow less?
Would you honestly attempt to deny that there has been no social push to elevate the career-oriented-but-single-mother above the stay at home mother for 30 years by continually harping on the heroism of such ladies while ignoring the efforts of the SAHM?
Oh, apparently you are going to attempt to deny it, with a single example from the right. With also no thought to how the exception proves the rule. Ann’s example which was thoroughly poo-pooed by the left, or are we forgetting this? How do you reconcile the term “working mom” with Ann Romney? Clearly she works hard, and she stays at home, so how do you justify the term “working” in front of mother when both are essentially saying the same thing?
Men who hold jobs while suffering outrageous indignities in corporate structures to maintain job security for their family are indeed corporate slaves. They accept this slavery because the reward has historically been healthy children and a loving wife. Women who put themselves in this position are the same thing, corporate slaves.
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Jeremy, I don’t and will never attempt to deny any social push to elevate working mothers or mothers with additional jobs at a specific place of employment above stay at home mothers. I never said that. But I would never call mothers or fathers with jobs that generate separate income “corporate slaves” either, or put them down.
And I would never demean or belittle any woman who chooses to stay at home with her children or one who chooses to raise children and have a career.
And you cannot deny that women are the ones doing most of the bashing. SAHMs bash working women, working women bash SAHMs. Women in female dominated fields bash women in male dominated fields. Women in male dominated fields say women in pink collar fields do that because they can’t do anything else.
My problem is with the consistent bashing of ALL choices that women make. Doesn’t matter what you do as a woman, someone is always gonna talk some shit.
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Judgy,
you say that the study indicates that under-30s are more likely to grasp the idea that more workers depress wages, but looking at the bar graphs, it says that 30% of over-30s say “the increasing number of women working outside the home has made it [b]harder[/b] for families to earn enough to live comfortably.” 18% of under-30s responded that way. So fewer of the under-30s respondents grasp the point about depressed wages, it seems.
Since this is my first comment, I’ll add that I’ve enjoyed your blog ever since I found it a few months ago. Keep it up!
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“People would not respect women in college or the workforce if the majority of women gave up past a certain age to be caretakers. Companies would not employ women into serious positions because they would assume it was all “temporary” until she got “settled” at home. Even if women started working AFTER their children were grown, who would you hire, a 40 year old man who has been working his entire life or a 50 year old woman who technically has only been working for 10-12yrs max???”
Children do change your life.
The same could be said of having children in the first place. Who would you hire, the 30 year old mother of three who comes in tired every day, can’t work extra shifts and hours because of daycare, can’t take home a lot of extra work, has to leave on a dime if the kids are sick (or miss days for that) or the 35 year old guy who can work 24/7 and doesn’t have to worry about kids at home?
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I disagree. I think the terminology and implication of “working mom” was 100% crafted by 2nd wave feminists to make being a mother who’s job was caring for her family a 2nd rate choice. You often see them portrayed as under educated women with no other choices who are under the thumb and oppressed by their husbands.
What’s interesting over the last 5-10 years is that there is some push back to that.
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AND….by bashing mothers with jobs, people become no different than the feminists who enjoy tearing down women who stay at home with their children.
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I would like you to consider the current economic situation in Spain, and by extension, the ability of these men to really support her child.
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Complain, complain, complain. That needs to be the motto of all Feminists, because that’s all they do.
I agree with whoever said it’s time for men to look forward to living 5-7 years longer & renting our Sugar Babies when we’re old.
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You know, I was thinking about this yesterday doing my yard. The entire street had lawnmowrs and trimmers and stuff running, and on any given Thursday, when it’s 100 degrees in the shade here in TX, you know who’s going to be running all those mowers and trimmers?
Husbands and single moms. And the latter will only be doing it b/c they don’t have a man to lean on for it. Funny, that. I’m all good for “pay your money, pick your choice,” but when I see a street with married women doing half the yardwork, then maybe I’ll care about who’s doing more laundry and dishes inside where there’s air-conditioning after their long hours of…sitting at a desk where there’s air-conditioning.
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Here is a painful truth, a very painful red-pill truth.
Your mileage WILL vary. Your biology (which you cannot change) affects how effective you will be in the choices you make.
I am 6-foot 2-inches tall. If I had tried hard enough, I might have been able to get into the NBA. I would have been a white undersized point guard. I could not ever hope to become an NBA center at my size. It’s not reasonable.
Reasonable people, watching me from the stands trying to be an NBA center would laugh at me, and rightfully so. I would look ridiculous trying to stop the likes of Tim Duncan, Dwight Howard, and Andrew Bynum. In fact it’s very likely that if I were ever given the task of defending the likes of those men, they would take pity on me and only dunk on my head if I were wearing a helmet, but they would still score over 100pts a night on me.
When men bash many of the career +kids +house +pets +social life +etc… choices modern women make, they are no different from sports fans laughing at me for trying to be something that my biology had stacked against me. Their human reaction of laughter might seem insensitive, but it’s purely natural, and wholly human.
Again, your mileage WILL vary. Nature WILL stack the deck against you. Your best life choices WILL BE in harmony with your biology, not counter to them.
This does not mean that women cannot work in industry. It does mean that you should expect no mercy when entering worlds that men are best suited for. Just as I should expect no mercy when checking into an NBA game, women should not expect special privileges (long maternity leaves, guaranteed jobs after) and then complain about slower advancement in their career and lower pay.
The feminist movement lied to women, they removed themselves from the reality of their own biology and natures stacked deck and presumed that they could have it all.
They were/are wrong.
It is, perhaps, cruel to bash women who make these choices attempting to have it all. I will acknowledge that. But so what? I’m not the one who made natures stacked deck. Should I not find humor and frustration when people attempt to pretend they’re suited for something they’re not?
To further bring this back to your original point. Why were the strengths of women abandoned in favor of a taste of the masculine, all while demanding that no one else appreciate the absurdity?
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Not to mention that Ann Romney just happened to have a husband with an obscene income. Perhaps not the best example…
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So pretty much any which way, we’re totally screwed?
Either stay home with your family or not have children at all?
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The term “working mother” to denote a mother who had a job outside the home was indeed the invention of the 2nd wave feminists. The key to understanding this is that those feminists did not consider a SAHM as “working” because she did not receive a paycheck for it.
They’ve backed off this tack a little bit, but only by changing the terminology they use. You will frequently hear feminists, especially of the radical variety, when they talk about the so-called “work-life balance” and the “sharing” of household chores with their partners. Look for the phrase “unpaid” work when referring to these household duties. The idea being that if work isn’t paying work, it’s akin to slavery (volunteer work at the local woman’s shelter notwithstanding).
Of course, they ignore the fact that a SAHM is paid, but not with a weekly pay-stub. They have all their expenses covered by their husband’s money and frequently get to spend it on things that don’t directly help the family as a whole, but only themselves. They also frequently have effective control of the household accounts. Yet such women are deemed to be helplessly oppressed and slaves to their husbands…
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That’s just kind of sad, Spaniard. Especially when you consider the way you’ve described men being treated by women in other comments…
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Yeah. Pretty much.
What’s so bad about staying home with your children?
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VR sex & sex robots in this decade.
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Reblogged this on Transmillennium and commented:
Economic lessons from JB.
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Reblogged this on murderbymedia.
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You can also take the man’s role, be the breadwinner and let him take care of the kids. Exactly the same options as the man has, really.
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“You can also take the man’s role, be the breadwinner and let him take care of the kids.”
Sure, if he wants a guaranteed divorce because his wife loses all respect for him.
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I don’t know LostSailor, I guess I understand where you’re coming from but I dont think it’s so cutthroat. Not in today’s world. Families are different today and you can’t say that one way is best over the other.
A lot of men can’t afford to make ends meet by themselves. They need a second income, you can’t deny that. Some women are successful at being mothers and having careers (maybe just not “dazzling” careers). Some families are better off with the mom staying at home. Some families, because the husband has his own business he spends more time with the children and the wife can work. One way isn’t right over the other.
I guess I just want to do whatever is best for my family and my situation. Whatever that is going to be. But I don’t want to have one way drilled into my head (the stay at home mom way) and then fall in love with a man who needs a second income in addition to his own to make ends meet. Sometimes that happens…
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I’m looking forward to the day when women live 3-5 year shorter lives then men due to health issues related to working stress and all the side effects that go with it.
That’ll NEVER happen. It’s a given that even if men become an “endangered species” in the workplace (a ridiculous assumption, but I’ll make here for illustration’s sake), anything in the workplace that even remotely smacks of undue stress or danger to a woman will forced upon a man (i.e., just as it always was, is, and always ever shall be). Of course since “equal pay for equal work” (and vice versa) will become the dominant slogan of Amerikan labor, the woman will be paid as much as the man, or more, even though she won’t be required to do any “heavy lifting” (literally or figuratively). IOW, it’ll be a “win-win” for feminism.
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The majority of MY intended male demographic are not looking for women to support.
“YOUR” intended “male demographic?”
I don’t EVEN want to know…
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For that matter, Affirmative Action means “white men need not apply.”
When you consider the “jobs” that most AA quotas are set aside for, no self-respecting white man with any marketable skills would generally apply for them anyway.
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Who ever said life was fair?
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On an unrelated note, I noted on Jezzie’s main page, an article about a new reality show on the WE channel, called Pregnant and Dating. “Hi, I’m Keisha. Let’s get a coffee and see if there’s enough chemistry for you to be the one to raise another man’s spawn!” Yeah, that’s going to be ratings gold.
NEVER underestimate the taste of the American public (think: hitting rock bottom and tunneling). I’ll bet that show will be a ratings sweeper.
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“Working Mom” should be renamed “Corporate Slave Mom”
And I can tell you from very direct, very personal experience within the corporate culture in which I work for that ALL of the working mothers I know and work with would ABSOLUTELY AGREE WITH THAT LABEL. My project team leader, who is a very close personal friend (I sometimes call her my “little work sister” or my “work wife”) is married and has two young children under the age of 8. The stress of our team’s work, the travel involved (I’m on the road an average of a week out of each month; her travel schedule is at least double that), the politics she puts up with (she’s roped into meetings with our bosses at least two days a week, meetings that sometimes last until eight or nine in the evening), and harassing phone calls she takes from clients even on her weekends at home has her at wit’s end. It’s also causing friction between her and her husband (who makes twice what she does and she’s paid VERY, VERY well), is causing emotional problems in her children (her son has juvenile Type 1 diabetes and requires special medical care), and is destroying her family’s QoL. Oh, and guess who gets to do the all the technical “heavy lifting” on the team because she can’t/won’t do it?
This woman has told me on multiple occasions that her biggest regret, one that her husband shares with her, is that they decided to fall into the “upper-middle-class-you-can-have-it-all-American-dream” trap. She would give anything to walk away from her job and be a stay-at-home mom to her two kids. Had she and the husband not gotten themselves hopelessly in debt with a McMansion (the mortgage for which is of course now underwater), two McLuxuryCars (that of course aren’t even close to being paid off), McGraduate Degrees for both her and the husband (which, fortunately, are in marketable fields for both of them, but not necessary for either one’s success) and all the other McLifestyle choices, she could be doing just that. But she can’t. She’s trapped. And she’s miserable.
The other working moms all feel pretty much the same as my team lead, although they’re not in quite as dire straits. I know that they would ALL trade places with the wives of the men who are home raising kids. It hasn’t taken any of them long to find out that “corporate cultural hell” is just as unpleasant for female slaves as it is for seasoned male slaves.
By the way, I’ve told my team lead on several occasions that one of these days in the future I’m just going to walk out the door and let her “have it all” (a serious intention of mine, BTW; this corporate shit is for the birds). She’s told me, in all seriousness, that she’ll probably have a nervous breakdown if I do that, unless I can find someone to replace myself who will carry the load for her that I now do.
So, once again, why are men knocking themselves out?
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I believe you Jeremy when you say that your best life choices will be in harmony with your biology. I don’t dispute that, it makes sense. In regard to your last paragraph “Why were the strengths of women abandoned in favor of a taste of the masculine” ….
That’s a great question and honestly the reason I ended up on all these different anti-feminists sites. When did it become such a bad thing to be a woman? Why is being a woman looked down on?
You can blame it on feminists or whoever all you want, but the bottom line is SOCIETY-everyone, both men and women respect and glorify masculine things more than anything feminine and its always been that way.
Soldier/Protector? Innovator? Business Owner/Provider? Politician/Decision Maker? All positions 99% filled by men, 100% by men depending on how far back you go. These are the things we respect, and look up to. They are all masculine. Masculinity has built our entire world.
Some women want that respect and glory and the only means to attaining it is by being “masculine.”
Another harsh truth: A working mother OR stay at home mother will never be respected as much as the men they are married to.
I would love to see the time where we start celebrating femininity again. But I think something extreme has to happen before we get there.
Looking forward to your comments, but its Friday and I have to go. I’ll catch up next week!
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I meant age wise
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Complain, complain, complain. That needs to be the motto of all Feminists, because that’s all they do.
Can someone translate that into Latin?
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You want men to be breadwinners? Simple. End Social Security. Your future now depends on your ability to raise your kids right. People who ignore the kids to make payments on the McMansion will now starve in their old age.
You can thank me later!
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I remember the term “super-mom” being thrown around; ‘Look at how awesome she is – juggling kids AND her career’. Hmmm, if you have to ‘juggle’…can you really do either properly? I always thought it was disrespectful to those mothers (who were devoted to their families) for implying that they were somehow less than ‘super’.
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I didn’t say it was optimal for the man. Just saying no one can have it all, and it’s nobody’s fault.
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Societies don’t always trend towards what some may say is best or desirable. One can see from the Arab Spring the replacement of dictators with theocrats appears to be doing no good for these societies.
The trend away from the traditional family is unstoppable. All the marriage stats point to the end of marriage within the next 30 years. So the issue isn’t really how we save it but rather what can we replace it with. Young women don’t want to be SAHMs and I don’t blame them. They want control over their lives that SAHMs don’t have.
So the question becomes what do we do with the children? Do we have corporations pay for day care or do we have a massive government program? Will taxes be able to cover the cost?
We aren’t going to solve these problems by pretending we can keep them from happening. Trying to save marriage isn’t going to work when there are so many men like me who couldn’t be less interested in the institution. I’ve walked away from it and no one can stop me. So I can understand the drive young women must have to avoid marriage.
So the real question is “what do we do now?”
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“Even if women started working AFTER their children were grown, who would you hire, a 40 year old man who has been working his entire life or a 50 year old woman who technically has only been working for 10-12yrs max?”
The person best for the job.
And don’t forget that if you’re not taken on the idea of raising the kids you spit out of your vagina, you can always marry a bet and force him to do the childcare.
Though if that’s your plan, I’d suggest not having kids.
Oh, by the way, men have never had the option of “stay at home post-child OR work post-child” and there is absolutely no reason that choice should be available for ANYONE. You get to be your kids’ primary career OR have a spiffing lifelong career.
Pick the one that sounds more fulfilling and good luck to ya.
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*beta
But “bet” probably works too 😛
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Japan is working on that.
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You missed a very important point. All men are born of women. Every soldier, politician, innovator was once a helpless infant who drank milk from his mother’s breast.
Women have always had the utmost respect in Western society. The soldier fights a war to protect his wife and family. A politician makes decisions (supposedly) with the best interests of his nation’s women and children in mind. The innovator gave women contraception, the ability to control her own fertility.
Look at the Middle East where men have 4 wives, look at Africa where men abandon their children, look at Asia where they abort female fetuses.
The Western man worships his woman, always has.
Feminism claims being a second rate man is better than being a first rate woman. This is why feminism is so toxic to society.
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blow everything up and hope to recover some semblance of sanity in the aftermath?
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And pretty much no one thinks being a single mother is a good idea.
This means that there’s still some sanity left in this world.
Only a delusional idiot/ideologue will believe their mantra— strong and independent
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ABSOLUTELY ! . One of the biggest myths of our times is that anyone leave alone women can have it all !
Sacrifices and compromises are a part of life for everyone without exception,but getting modern princesses to understand that is a very tough ask !
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Queror ergo sum.
(I complain, therefore I am)
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Henus-peckus ergo sum…
Cuntastico ergo sum…
Bitchessimo ergo sum…
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Hubby will complain because he carries all the weight. And he will think wife is parasite.
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The economic situation is a disaster, but that is another issue.
The problem is that Spanish men are very henpecked.
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It is all about demographics, Sailor:
7 men for every 3 women in Spain = men will deal with anything just to have a woman.
7 women for every 3 men in Ukraine = a single mom in Ukraine has ZERO possibilities of finding a man. That is why there are so many Ukranian single moms in all that “mail order bride” agencies to know Western European or American men.
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One wife is a headache. 4 wives is overwhelming. Think about 4 mother in laws, etc.
Even the king of Morocco has only one wife.
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You hit it!
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The rational answer is not having children at all.
All the problems start with the children. Dinkies have not this issues at all.
But, the next problem is that most women want everything. And they want to be moms, as well. They want to be sluts from 18 to 35, having college degree, being hard workers, going to gym, smoking, drinking, marrying a nice guy, having children, still working, divorcing, taking alimony and child support and half of the goods of hubby, dating again, sleeping around again, marrying another beta, more children…
Life of women is so compulsive. Men we have to defend ourselves from this crazy compulsion.
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Only abt 5% of muslim have more than one wife and any wife is to be supported financially 100%. Even her own money is not considered part of the household kitty…
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JB, do you know where I can find an analysis of how the influx of women into the workplace has depressed male wages owing to there being no concomitant increase in consumption…? I thought I stumbled upon it in the comments section of of one of your posts, but have since been unable to find it…ring a bell?
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If you google “bread before roses” you will get a ton of historical documents charting the declining family wage in America, beginning around the 1930’s.
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When we start referring to men with families and jobs as “working fathers” I’ll agree.
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Paying strangers to raise your kids for you is anti-parasitism?
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Oh gosh, shut it emma.
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Women in the workforce has caused a “tragedy of the commons”? What collectively owned resource is being over-utilized here?
Yes, our resources are finite, but the economy is big and stretchy and it makes room for those who can provide some service or meet some demand. Historically, it has absorbed massive waves of immigration, while standards of living continued to rise and everybody got richer. So the idea that working women are the reason that a single man can no longer support a family of six all by his lonesome just doesn’t ring true for me..
I haven’t done the math, but it’s possible that a man today could support a family of six – at a 1960 standard of living. Rather than feed more mouths, we’ve generally decided to feed fewer mouths tastier stuff.
I won’t disagree with you that there are huge advantages to a woman staying home with her children while her husband supports them. And yes, it does look like women’s kickassery at bread-winning and bacon-bringing has been overstated.
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Apparently it’s bad for his health as well:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/conditions/04/24/heart.role.reversal/
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That is parasitism too.
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Amazing the problems people create for themselves, isn’t it? No mention of the kids, but imagine their life with a mom who spends 90 percent of her energy and efforts elsewhere. Hope they have a really brilliant nanny, rather than the typical stream of revolving door nannies. My guess is, she’s taking advantage and milking all the afterschool programs she can, and they’re latchkey kids a lot of the time.
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I’ve always done our yardwork. Sometimes wearing a baby in a backpack. Military wives are tough. 😉
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I do the yardwork because my husband is legally blind.
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Well, if women actually stayed home with the kids, it would be fine, but today SAHMs just have to drag their untrained brats everywhere with them because they just want sit at starbucks or Target all day and totally ignore the kids. It’s obnoxious and nothing to be praised.
I’m not going to applaud SAHMs when they subject everyone in society to their drooling spawn, because they aren’t staying “AT HOME” and are instead running all over town in their over sized suvs, blogging on their iphones while ignoring junior who is spilling milk all over someone’s paperwork but MOMMY is TOO BUSY mommy blogging with her SAHM friends to care. Bullshit.
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Go fuck yourself-feminist Hater. If you disagree, prove your shit. I don’t want everyone to agree with me. I learn from seeing another person’s perspective even if its far different from mine.
I’m all new to the anti feminists arena. And I’ve learned a lot just from this comments thread, so fuck off.
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The comment/post I was referring to did a good breakdown of how the influx of female labour,unlike immigrant labour, doesn’t add to consumption, and therefore DOES depress wages in general…on the other hand the emergence of the dual income household has contributed to an increase in the cost of living, e.g. bidding up the cost of housing…so,yes, women entering the workforce in droves has made it harder for men to support a family on one salary…
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I read that the same way.
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Awww dang, now you made me so sad! Little dimdims! Kissy better?
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isn’t there a 50 year old study done by APA basically proving you wrong, jb? http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2010/10/working-mothers.aspx
the children with working mothers were less stressed due to the additional resources. it doesn’t create a cut throat, it seems actually to help children. quelle surprise.
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Low income mothers.
In other words, single mothers.
Better off in daycare? Not a surprise.
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One thing I do know. Women generally work harder and longer now than ever.In the last 30 to 40 years our lifestyle has taken a turn for the worse.Then there is the guilt with spreading ourselves too thinly.The whole situation sucks big time.We are not better off .Its just bullshit.
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