Women's Lib, Rights, Kids, Etc.

Remove all ads!

@Darkthrone - You still haven't stated plainly your point, only that you wish to leave Women's Lib out of the discussion.

Based on this:

and this:

I assume you mean that the inequity and discrimination present in society today is that women do in fact earn significantly less than men. I have not passed over this point at all. In fact, that is the main reason I stated that the Women's Liberation Movement did not accomplish what it was supposed to do.

However, you requested that I leave the Women's Liberation Movement out of it, so I will not discuss that further. That women make less than men is troubling, and I think it is more like a "What came first the chicken or the egg?" type question.

Here's the circular reasoning. Women tend to earn less than men, and therefore are more likely to stay home with the children. However, by staying home with their children, they delay advancing their own careers, which thereby reduces their salary. I don't have an answer to this. One begets the other. Do women stay home because they earn less? Or is it by staying home they cause themselves to earn less? I don't know. However, since we can never change the biological functions of the women giving birth, I don't see any change in this trend any time soon.

Darkthrone, if I understood your point, it is well taken, but I fail to see what your resolution is to all of this. We can't just say pay everyone the same, because clearly, if a women delays her career advancement by several years to raise children, then naturally a similarly aged man will have more experience in the field than her, will get promoted quicker, and receive higher salaries. In fact, the arguement could be made that companies may be reluctant to promote women to prominent positions if they feel like the woman would leave work to raise children. All these are valid points, but I see no resolution.

 

Neither do I see one, at least not one easily achievable. Nor was it my intention to provide one in the first place.

But I'm glad we've reached a point where the whole of the current dilemma of working parents and women's chance of getting a career and a child at the same time is addressed in a less tense way.

I'm not saviour material, I'm afraid. I just felt that a change in perspective was due as this thread had developed a subliminal trend - unintentionally, I'll grant you that - that at least ArtEChoke and I found offensive.

I think we should return to your original problem now, if there still is some demand, that is. If I had a feeling that someone else would be interested in discussing if and where the women's lib failed and moreover if and how most men today are still not different from their 60s predecessors, I'd open a separate thread.

But then again, it's no use trying to start a revolution from a cosy place like this.

Wait... it has to start somewhere, hasn't it...

 

I've already said my peace on this, so starting a separate thread may be productive.

 

Just to respond to Aldeth's reservations about daycare:

Studies have shown that children enrolled in daycare before the age of 5-- when they are first enrolled in public schools-- seem to adapt better socially then those not enrolled beforehand. I'm not able to provide other benefits (I sold my psychology book at the end of the semester) but I'm pretty sure that there are other things, such as linguistic benefits, that make it to a child's advantage to have enrolled in daycare. A child living with a stay at home parent is not going to be able to reap the social benefits of spending formative years in the presence of others in their age group, and they may miss out on some social skills.

 

Well, there may be some merit in those findings but the fact remains is that plenty of kids go to daycare and plenty of kids don't and most of them turn out OK no matter where they went. If you took 100 20 year-olds you probably wouldn't be able to tell who went to daycare and who didn't. So it probably doesn't really matter too much. Just do whatever works out best for your situation.