Comments on: Working women hurt their families

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:33:03 +0000

It is deeply ironic, I agree, that producing education today seems to require so much more effort than it did a generation ago, despite our alleged proliferation of ‘technical support’… and the education produced still doesn’t seem to hit the spot…

By: virgil xenophon

virgil xenophon — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:26:59 +0000

Sorry Dave, half a fifth of “Rhum” will do that to a fellow—it’s 3: am here on the West coast in the US. I would add as a buttress to Magrista’s argument however, that large amounts of homework were almost unknown in grades 1-6 in my day as compared to today—and I went to a Univ. Lab school! Today’s volume of take-home work also puts increasing demands on many parent’s time, as they become increasingly involved in assisting with homework. Hence they all too often lack the flexibility to take on increasing workloads in their own working lives.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:05:38 +0000

@65, 66, 68 – yes, indeed, and once upon a time feminism was about getting people to think about how much better it could be if we rethought all those gender-role-enforcing attitudes held by both sexes. And, once upon a time, feminism held within its ranks the poossibility that one might argue, seriously, for structural socio-economic change to make such shifts of attitude easier. But not now, oh no, how old-fashioned that would be.

@76, 77 – it worked better without the visible descent towards hyperbole in the second post.

By: virgil xenophon

virgil xenophon — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:53:41 +0000

PS to my above post: In my day it also was not considered practically child abuse and a social crime by either we children or school administrators if the demands of time did not allow for the attendance by parents at each and every sporting event—such “lapses” today raising eyebrows and furrowing foreheads all around with parents guilt simply oozing from every pore if a single child’s event is missed and the child feeling compelled to search out the nearest psychological counseling to help them overcome feelings of “abandonment.” Hence, today’s parents practically relive their childhood through their own children, often spending almost as much time entangled/associated with their child’s pursuits as the child himself.

By: virgil xenophon

virgil xenophon — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:24:20 +0000

Boy, I fully agree with Magrista’s post. My childhood (I’m 64) was almost entirely devoid of such things—and I was the son of college professors and attended a Univ. Lab School on campus. No helicopter parents in my day—we were left pretty much on our own with the unstated expectations by our parents that we would progress apace. And of course security/crime concerns were almost non-existent, so we were left to play pretty much by ourselves and to transport ourselves from A to B via bike, public transport or walking as the case may be. Demands on parent’s time was consequently minimal. About the only events impinging on parent’s time being Christmas plays and parent-teacher conferences.

By: magistra

magistra — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 07:39:04 +0000

I think there are increasing numbers of British men who would be willing to slow-track in order to have more time with their family. But part of the problem is that expectations of work commitment have expanded. You can easily be on the slow-track now in many professional jobs if you just work your contracted hours, let alone asking for them to be cut. And there is also a reasonable worry that when the next round of redundancies come (and in many workplaces they can come even when the economy’s OK) that the slow-trackers will be targeted first.

I think another important factor in the UK is that the demands made by schools on parents are increasing. My child’s infant school is always wanting parents to go in for shared reading, attend special school events, prepare things to take in etc, much more than I remember when I was a child. This kind of ‘work’ is very fiddly to fit round a full-time job and is particularly likely to cause the kind of generalised low-level stress to the whole household on a regular basis that makes people wonder whether full-time employment by both parents is really a good idea.

By: Roy Belmont

Roy Belmont — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 05:36:22 +0000

I’ll follow this parrot of shapes and mock it
copying what copies me
for the like to stumble on the like
and I would not see it, nor it see me.

By: Roy Belmont

Roy Belmont — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 05:03:47 +0000

Economic rationality is like being a well-behaved bus passenger. While the bus crashes through the guard rail and becomes airborne.
Over what you may well ask.

By: virgil xenophon

virgil xenophon — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:55:06 +0000

But of course economic rationality often has nothing to do with it, as
Kieran Healy’s choice of titles infers in the latest topic posted here (Sociology Refutes Economics[Again])—the tides of the cultural mores of society all too often running overpoweringly against the logic of economics.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:06:42 +0000

“By your logic those spouses should be stay at home dads.”

Were they economically rational, yes, they would be.

By: Adam

Adam — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:52:18 +0000

@Brett Biltmore

About one in three women earn more than their spouse. By your logic those spouses should be stay at home dads.

I will take you Adam Smith just-so-stories seriously when you advocate that they stay home.

By: Regina

Regina — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:50:21 +0000

That only means that men should pay MORE attention to thier families. Even to become homestay daddy if it’s neccessary.

By: bicycle Hussein paladin

bicycle Hussein paladin — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:53:06 +0000

@65, I couldn’t agree more.
@66, I couldn’t agree more.

To me one of the big issues here (or, the big neglected issue) is the need to recognize women’s agency in the sex-gender system and that men also have things to complain about. That’s not saying that the system disadvantages men relative to women, but that our thinking about it should also be informed by empathy for men’s situation as well. I think people realize this in theory, but it seems to drop out of the main narratives and needs to be brought up anew in so many of these discussions, along with all the necessary qualifications and hedging to reassure that we’re not just trying to derail the debate with false equivalences and such.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 11:31:39 +0000

“Yet I don’t quite understand how getting male partners to do more domestic work could be such a major, intractable issue”

Has anybody here actually read Adam Smith’s parable of the pin factory? Equal income and domestic work by both partners is inefficient; Both the jobs and the household get done worse, compared to one partner specializing in one, and the other specializing in the other. From this economic perspective, you’d expect either stay at home moms and working dads, OR stay at home dads, and working moms, to prevail as a social model over equal shares of both tasks. With, as noted, the women being the ones capable of breast feeding.

As well, I think there’s a barely unspoken assumption here that men and women are psychologically identical beings in cosmetically different bodies, rather than members of a sexually dimorphic species. We may be “equal”, in the sense of moral agency, but we are scarcely the same, and it’s rather silly to assume a priori that, all else being equal, we’d end up in identical roles.

Couple even a little sexual dimorphism with the economic superiority of specialization, and you’re going to get men and women filling different roles.

By: Ingrid Robeyns

Ingrid Robeyns — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 05:21:50 +0000

Adam, I agree with the importance of dominant masculinity norms as you point out. But a similar story can be told about femininity norms – a woman who is agentic, strong, assertive, doesn’t invest in typical feminine looks, etc. etc. will also be disadvantaged both in the workplace and in the realm of relationships. I think both men and women who reinforce strong social femininity and masculinity norms are part of the cause of the gender injustices. But it is easier, in my view, to clarify the injustice-creating effects of institutional properties than of those masculinity/femininity gender norms. Most ‘ordinary’ people did not take courses or read books on gender identities and gender norms, and may not even realise the full extent of the working of these norms…