Feminism gives women the right to choose their destiny in life. If they want grueling 8 hours in a cubicle over the "comfort" of being "taken care of" by a loving, all-providing Man, so be it.
Men constantly choose to have their cake and eat it too. They have careers, but they also have families. Men's right to choose the life they want is never questioned, so why are the life choices of women under such scrutiny?
"Men constantly choose to have their cake and eat it too. They have careers, but they also have families."
There's not much special about have-ing a family. Almost anyone can create children and/or get married. The question for both men and women is: what are we missing by allowing ourselves to be taken out of the home and sent our separate ways?
I (a man) ended up leaving my cube job fully convinced that a startup run from or very close to home is the next step towards my goal of a family business.
It's in the hands of the couple to choose which one of them needs to stay at home with the kids at any given day. (e.g. a female executive need not quit her high-paying job of if her novelist husband can stay at home during the day with the kids.)
However, it's often the case that women end up sacrificing their dreams and quit their jobs to raise kids, when the division of household labor is in fact an artificial one, a remnant of cultures and societies past.
In Russia, this problem was solved maybe in 1960s: A thick network of kindergardens will take care of children during workdays, while both parents work full-time.
You can also hang your children on their babushka, if she lives somewhere near.
Yep, I went to one of these kindergartens. They were highly functional, rather pedagogically rigourous (compared to American daycare / kindergarten), and kept your children from about 8 AM until about 7 PM. You could start sending your children there at about 2 1/2 and it was provided free by the state. Very convenient and good for all.
EDIT: Some of the most enjoyable moments of my entire life played out there. And I only went until I was 6 1/2 and we left for the US. Now I'm 23. So, the fact that I still remember them should tell the reader something; they were anything but drab in the way that Soviet institutions are sometimes imagined to be.
You can send your children into Ясли before they reach 2 1/2 - just another part of the same kindergarden. I don't remember being there, tho, but I doubt I could remember anything at that age.
I didn't really like kindergarden - I didn't like food and how you was supposed to sleep for a hour near noon. Toys were fine, tho.
It has its ups and downs. But it was engaging enough, socially.
This is one of the biggest cultural differences between Americans and Russians. In the Soviet Union, households in which women also worked arose a lot earlier (1920s), on the back of socialist reform specifically directed to the effect of women's equality. Obviously, certain things had to be done to make this logistically possible.
Meanwhile, Americans, despite their willingness to send their children to school-as-daycare at later ages, are notoriously unwilling to "have the state raise" [their children] at a very young age, and make much of the importance of supervising them prior to school age, in principle, even if they have to resort to expensive and largely useless daycare sometimes.
This approach doesn't prepare the children for the realities of their subsequent abandonment once they reach school age, whatever one thinks of it. In the USSR I remember it was common for 6 or 7 year old children to be latchkey kids, and they were generally deemed self-sufficient and functional, especially when backed by a community in which they certainly knew some neighbours and had somewhere to turn if they needed help. In contrast, the statutes of most US states deem it "child neglect" to leave your child unattended at home until 10 or 12, usually the latter.
I consider the "child neglest" laws to be a major consideration against having children, ever.
Unfortunately, they seem to spawn here and there like a plague.
I had a single mother and she loathed the feminist revolution. She said it was because of the feminists going back to work and creating dual income families that it was financially more difficult on single parents.
Before the feminist revolution, most families survived just fine on a single income, that of the father.
Well, that's just a single anecdote isn't it? I am a fucking Arab and I can tell you this; our economies are paralyzed because Arab nations are operating at half speed since women are pretty much outside the work force (or if they're working, they're underpaid, under utilized, or most bloody likely, worked to exhaustion but uncredited.)
The fact that here we have a group of men discussing the "problems" of feminism doesn't mean feminism is bad. It just means you guys don't like it; which is fine, you're not supposed to like an ideology that's out to make your social model of a benevolent-patriarch-at-the-helm obsolete. I come from a place where men's judgment and leadership has consistently failed.
Was it presented as data? I didn't realize that. Also, I didn't see any real data on your theory of Arab nations being at half speed because of the lack of women in the work force.
The fact that here we have a group of men discussing the "problems" of feminism doesn't mean feminism is bad.
Did anyone make that conclusion here, even implicitly?
You're not supposed to like an ideology that's out to make your social model of a benevolent-patriarch-at-the-helm obsolete.
Who are you talking to? Who here has put forward an ideology like that?
You obviously have very strong feelings on this subject. Let's keep it real and civil.
Allow me first to apologize to pj, he bore the brunt of my harsh out pour against a problem that I have to face on a daily basis. And in the same breath, allow me to express my disinterest in discussing feminism as a movement any further, without the presence of a good representation of its sole subjects, i.e. women. Without a sizeable representation of women in this forum there could never be a good dialogue about feminism ("good" here being highly subjective.)
I say this because I remember the days of the Bush administration, when an inbreeding of ideas and a biased "discussion" amongst a gang of highly like minded outsiders delivered the final verdict on the future of "us" Muslims, their de facto colonial subjects. I read columns from across the American political "divide" everyday, each supporting the last in mutual self-congratulating orgy, each explaining our "problem" and proposing very similar "solutions" to impose upon us; sometimes threatening, other times sympathetic, but always patronizing and paternalistic in its tone.
I never was a feminist, not still (I couldn't be even if I wanted to!) but at least now I understand not to "think" for the Other. Women's demand for self-empowerment is an issue squarely in their hands. They could argue amongst themselves all they want, but I as a man have learned better not to offer any unsolicited "feedback", having never experienced their condition.
Now let me answer you sofal.
Also, I didn't see any real data on your theory of Arab nations being at half speed because of the lack of women in the work force
I said above that I was addressing a "problem that I have to face everyday". The problems of the Arab world are numerous, but one thing we can both be certain of: the total absence of the female voice from every kind of leadership. Even with the lack of sufficient research and data, I can look across the landscape, or at least my Thunderbird contact list of several hundred executives, and I can't help but wonder if things would have been better with just one woman in their midst.
Also, asking for data about the Arab world is akin to sophistry, seeing how half of the nations there are U.S.-sanctioned tyrannies, and the other half are closed despotic regimes that would never allow for unfavorable research to see the light of day (you could do it once, but that's the end of your presence there.) Western "press" is safe to ignore the BIG offenders and abusers of human rights, and it can only wiggle its little "democratic" tail against a few, hand-selected and Western-approved "bad guys".
I've never crunched the numbers myself or seen any formal studies, but the perception that the second income in dual-income families usually goes right into costs that would have been avoided had someone stayed at home is pretty widespread. I don't mean to be rude by asking, but did your mother have the kind of help that married couples can take for granted (say, from extended family), or did she have to do it all herself?
"When I was in junior high school in Japan, I read an essay in a textbook by a Japanese woman who was critical of American feminism. To her, the American feminists cheapened the value of the traditionally female roles by implicitly assuming that traditionally male roles were nobler human endeavors. Instead of focusing on the value of traditionally female roles, they all focused on their rights to take on traditionally male roles. In that effort, they reinforced the notion that traditionally male roles were superior."
My grandmother helped watching me sometimes. Financially she did it all herself.
I had a step dad two times, neither of them worked much though. Contrary to the idea that two parents are better than one, I thought life was better when it was just mom and me. My grandmother was around a while. She watched over me during the summers sometimes and lived with us a while, but she wasn't reliable, so mom paid for baby sitting a couple years. The rest of the time I was latch key.
She also finished her degree while I was growing up. She'd take me to the college library with her. I was always frustrated by the lack of books for kids my age, but somehow I endured.
From the time I was 5, she had a good job with the government, so life was pretty stable. Except for the name calling, I only felt the effects of not having more money once. We were on the way back from her university and we stopped at a convenience store and I asked for a sandwich. She said we couldn't afford it. They were a special sandwich I really loved and not being able to afford it, I thought they must have cost $20 or something. Years later, when I was in high school I stopped and got one of those sandwiches for $2 and it hit me all of a sudden that we didn't have a lot of money.
Except for that, I always felt like I had all I wanted. Looking back, had we had more money, I probably would have had a computer growing up. Maybe I'd be better at programming, or maybe I'd have gotten bored with it. Who knows. I lived pretty rural, so our house was more than big enough. I worked during the summers as quickly as I could, so I had my spending money.
I think it actually helped me to be honest. Not having a lot as a kid and finding happiness anyway has helped me live frugally as an adult as well. I find cheap ways to run my startup as well.
I think today, most families have dual incomes and both parents are away most of the day. Mom was at home with me as much as parents are at home now, maybe even more. I never really felt like anything was missing.
