ECON: Working women almost certainly caused the credit crunch

reply to post by Rockpuck


Is there any way to make a hand flipping someone off on here? Cause that is what I would like to do to this topic.

[edit on 3-3-2009 by space cadet]

[edit on 3-3-2009 by space cadet]

www.ascentofhumanity.com...

Other studies worldwide, as well as common sense, suggest that the !Kung were not exceptional. In more lush areas life was probably even easier. Moreover, much of the "work" spent on these twenty hours of subsistence activities was by no means strenuous or burdensome. Most of the men's subsistence hours were spent hunting, something we do for recreation today, while gathering work was occasion for banter and frequent breaks.

Primitive small-scale agriculturalists enjoyed a similar unhurried pace of life. Consider Helena Norberg-Hodge's description of pre-modern Ladakh, a region in the Indian portion of the Tibetan Plateau. Despite a growing season only four months long, Ladakh enjoyed regular food surpluses, long and frequent festivals and celebrations, and ample leisure time (especially in winter when there was little field work to do). This, despite the harsh climate and the (proportionately) enormous population of non-working Buddhist monks in that country's numerous monasteries! More powerfully than any statistic, Norberg-Hodge's video documentary Ancient Futures conveys a sense of the leisurely pace of life there: villagers chat or sing as they work, taking plenty of long breaks even at the busiest time of the year. As the narrator says, "work and leisure are one."

[edit on 3-3-2009 by pai mei]

reply to post by gimme_some_truth

I am disgusted by your ignorant thread.

Ignorance? .. I clearly have not expressed any level of ignorance.. I have not presented MY opinions without basis either..

And you didn't read the article apparently, because the article nor my self ever said women should be laid off, and their jobs given to men. In fact, had you read, it clearly states that this is not the intent..

reply to post by space cadet

Is there any way to make a hand flipping someone off on here? Cause that is what I would like to do to this topi

Thank you space cadet for your intelligent contribution to the discussion.

[edit on 3/3/2009 by Rockpuck]

I am married and have 5 kids. For years we both worked and the house was a little chaotic. About 2 years ago we decided to make a run at starting our own business. Bad for us, we started a business at a bad time and due to the economy we had to shut down our kiosk in the local mall last July. My wife still kept her job while I ran the business. We are both believe in raising our kids right and since I am great with kids and she has a decent paying job we decided to have me stay at home and take care of the kids.

That was 8 months ago, as of today my family and house have never been in better condition. All of our kids seem so much happier and the house is always clean. Yeah it can be hard work and kids can be stressfull sometimes (especialy teenagers) but I love it and my wife loves it. We have become a little more frugal like cutting out our TV service and maybe not going out as much, but we are not living a bad life at all.

Sure I do get funny looks from people when they find out what I do or people make comments like "How can you let your wife work for the family", but you know what? Who cares? My wife likes it, I like it, my family is happy and it works for us. I would rather be unemployed but spending time with my kids than to be working two jobs, live in a million dollar home, and barely see my kids.

How does modern society solve the 2 ideas of :
Each must work
, and:
There is no real need for what people produce ?

How did we get to this ? Work used to be something done when necessary. Or when forced : see slaves, see the medieval peasants of Europe working for their lord who owned the land.
This is like some bad SF prophecy : "In the future people will compete for work which nobody really needs". You think your work is needed for real ? Why then 90% of what is bought is in the garbage in 6 months ? Very few people do something useful. The rest are forced to mimic that they are "useful".

Now we work not because we or others really need our work. But that is the system in which we live. Credit - allowed the system to go on, and people bought everything even if they did not need it.
www.orionmagazine.org...

Today “work and more work” is the accepted way of doing things. If anything, improvements to the labor-saving machinery since the 1920s have intensified the trend. Machines can save labor, but only if they go idle when we possess enough of what they can produce. In other words, the machinery offers us an opportunity to work less, an opportunity that as a society we have chosen not to take. Instead, we have allowed the owners of those machines to define their purpose: not reduction of labor, but “higher productivity”—and with it the imperative to consume virtually everything that the machinery can possibly produce.

We should "take it easy". The real problem is that there is no "We" judging and solving these kinds of things. So they will not be solved. It does not matter that "we are together". Locusts are "together" too.

And we don't even need to be this way ! competing for "work", not because we want to help others or something , just to survive ! We are worse than the first human societies, the hunter gatherers. When one of them hunted something he shared it with the others, knowing they will do the same when they will hunt something. That allowed them to survive, and some still survive today. They were not "each man for himself".


[edit on 3-3-2009 by pai mei]

I would be more than happy to give up my job so I can stay at home eating bon-bons all day.

Just find me a man these days who is not addicted to drugs, porn or alcohol, who is as responsible as I am with money, who has a credit score as high as I do, and who will willingly go to work 4 days a week at the hospital to pay the mortgage, plus keep up my part-time business on the side, and also continue my independent research and books that I am currently writing, and I will be happy to give it all up to stay home to "save society."

I just can't find a man these days that can do all that a woman can.

But of course, it's our fault. We've become too competent. Too polished. Too dominant. Too intimidating. Oh, yes.... it must be our fault. Everything is our fault. It couldn't possibly be that once women started working outside the home, men said something akin to: "Cool; now I can lay back, rest, and play video games all day. Honey, fetch me another beer!"

Find me a guy these days who is WILLING to do half as much as a woman does on a daily basis, with even a quarter of the emotional maturity, and I'll quit work, marry him, and stay home and have kids.

Because honestly, I haven't found one yet worth marrying, and I don't think they exist anymore these days.




[edit on 3-3-2009 by nikiano]

[edit on 3-3-2009 by nikiano]

Originally posted by Rockpuck
But the drive to destroy the Feminine and replace it with this gray shaded neutrality has not been beneficial at all to Humanity. Women wanted to work, and now they can.. in fact.. they are now expected to work 40+ hours a week PLUS cook the food, shop, clean, teach, drive kids to practice, be an emotional provider, etc, etc, etc. Women are NOT better off, they are worse off, and so are our children. Honestly, is it any wonder we have gender confused kids, detached manic depressive kids, violence never before seen, and so on. I believe it all comes back to the Family, and how it was slaughtered for the sake of "Progress".

You apparently haven't kept up with history books.

It was only the wealthy women who could stay home before the 1950's. The rest of the women had to get out and work. My grandmother worked in a pottery factory, as did her sister. My husband's grandmother was a health care assistant. My dad's mother worked in a munitions plant and before that worked in a department store... all before the rise of feminism. And so on and so forth back to ancient Greece and ancient Rome, when we see women running businesses and involved in trade. Fathers and mothers and grandparents (all living in the same 3 room house) all were responsible for chores and for raising kids. Many of them lived on farms and also had unmarried uncles and aunts in the same family household.

The only ones who got to sit at home and coo over babies were the wealthy.

And yes, I remember Life Before Feminism... when people made jokes about women coming to work with black eyes because their husbands beat them. I remember being slapped around by my husband because I played guitar better than he did (I have a talent for guitar.) I remember when we couldn't own bank accounts.

But, we can try your solution. Let's put all the women out of work and make them stay home (including the older ones and the infertile ones.) The ones who aren't married... gosh. I guess they just starve. The ones who have kids but no husbands, well, they starve too and live out of their cars - (just as they did in the 1950's). To fill all those jobs, we can invite immigrant men over so that men can hold all the jobs that the women have had to vacate so they can go back to the family.

That will leave their women at home, uneducated and destitute. American women, freed of a mandate to educate themselves and become involved in complex issues (like science) can be encouraged to think only about diets and makeup and how to get a guy and the proper soccer lessons to have. You can look forward to long evenings talking about the kids' clothes, what to have for dinner, the price of food at the supermarket, what the ladies at the beauty salon said, and whether or not Rush Limbaugh's hair looks to fake.

...and (as happened historically) the women who rebel will become prostitutes. Those prostitutes who are well educated will simply hold salons and soirees where men who want intellectual companionship can come and drink and spend money on gambling and sexual favors that their uneducated wives (who shouldn't open any sex instruction manuals because that was another new thing put out by us Evil Feminists) aren't capable of handling.

So money will flow, prostitution will flourish, mistresses will once again be back in fashion (to the point that you can (as was done historically) take them out places where you would never take a Proper Woman), and best of all men won't be put out of work by women. All our problems will be solved!

(except what to do with old people, but the older women who survive won't be able to work so unless kids and others take care of them, they'll go starve or beg. Maybe you could bring back the practice of suttee -- where widows commit suicide because they are not allowed to work and nobody will support them.)

All our problems are solved by eliminating those things brought about by feminism!!! Huzzah!!!!

There is some truth in this article, however women aren't to blame.

Politicians and economists, who pushed this plan ahead without putting a leash on the feds and bankers, are.

If my boss tells me to do something and it ends up ruining the company, is it my fault?

Originally posted by nikiano
I would be more than happy to give up my job so I can stay at home eating bon-bons all day.

Just find me a man these days who is not addicted to drugs, porn or alcohol, who is as responsible as I am with money, who has a credit score as high as I do, and who will willingly go to work 4 days a week at the hospital to pay the mortgage, plus keep up my part-time business on the side, and also continue my independent research and books that I am currently writing, and I will be happy to give it all up to stay home to "save society."

I just can't find a man these days that can do all that a woman can.

But of course, it's our fault. We've become too competent. Too polished. Too dominant. Too intimidating. Oh, yes.... it must be our fault. Everything is our fault. It couldn't possibly be that once women started working outside the home, men said something akin to: "Cool; now I can lay back, rest, and play video games all day. Honey, fetch me another beer!"

Find me a guy these days who is WILLING to do half as much as a woman does on a daily basis, with even a quarter of the emotional maturity, and I'll quit work, marry him, and stay home and have kids.

Because honestly, I haven't found one yet worth marrying, and I don't think they exist anymore these days.

Unfortunately, this is true, and what is scarry is a couple of days ago, my very intuitive girlfriend had a dream she was raped in her own home and screamed herself awake when they were going after her daughter. I am saying this because I have been seeing some dangerous female bashing, today on ats and it is an alert to keep monitering this pulse These porn addicted drunks on drugs are seething inside... and very dangerous to all women. keep safe.

[edit on 3-3-2009 by HulaAnglers]

i've been saying this to people for the past 5 years and it pisses them off, but sorry ladies, it seems to be true.

They "sold" women a double edged sword of empowerment and then afterward they made them pay for it.

Just think about it.
It's simple math.

it created a domino affect that reached into every facet of our society.

[edit on 3/3/2009 by JPhish]

reply to post by nikiano


WOW how many times can you say "I" in a couple paragraphs? Might want to take a look in the mirror next time you're primping your polished self to explain why you'll probably never find a man you just described. I one of those responsible ones you talk about, and I even stay home with my kids and love every second of it, own two bars blah blah blah.

Only thing you're missing, is it takes someone who isn't selfish to do all the things you're looking for in a man, and the only way you won't find the drug abusers, alcholics etc. (which by the way are pretty selfish people) is if you start acting and being the person you want to find....unselfish

Did you even understand what the OP and the article said, or did you just read the Headline and assume we wanted to hear your man hating rant?

reply to post by Byrd


I wouldn't say "wealthy", but you're very right in saying that poor women often worked low earning jobs. So did children before reforms..

But the mainstream Middle Class family, it was primarily the Male working full time, and the Female in the house/working part time etc, but not the main "bread winner" so to speak.

The trend that it was expected, in America, for women to work not stay home accelerated in the 50's, and by the 80's the "equality" movement had women making a good portion of their husbands salary.. enough anyways to cause inflation of product and real estate.

I think your views are rather extreme, almost ranting.. I don't think you are understanding my point..

Originally posted by nikiano
I would be more than happy to give up my job so I can stay at home eating bon-bons all day.

Just find me a man these days who is not addicted to drugs, porn or alcohol, who is as responsible as I am with money, who has a credit score as high as I do, and who will willingly go to work 4 days a week at the hospital to pay the mortgage, plus keep up my part-time business on the side, and also continue my independent research and books that I am currently writing, and I will be happy to give it all up to stay home to "save society."

I just can't find a man these days that can do all that a woman can.

But of course, it's our fault. We've become too competent. Too polished. Too dominant. Too intimidating. Oh, yes.... it must be our fault. Everything is our fault. It couldn't possibly be that once women started working outside the home, men said something akin to: "Cool; now I can lay back, rest, and play video games all day. Honey, fetch me another beer!"

Find me a guy these days who is WILLING to do half as much as a woman does on a daily basis, with even a quarter of the emotional maturity, and I'll quit work, marry him, and stay home and have kids.

Because honestly, I haven't found one yet worth marrying, and I don't think they exist anymore these days.

A man.

reply to post by JohnnyR


She may have been harsher than necessary but do you acknowledge that men have become lazier since women began to work?

reply to post by TheOracle


How have men become lazier? Aside from the destruction of our "role"?

Originally posted by Rockpuck
reply to post by Whisper67

 

That was very well said! Of course as you say we cannot be stereotypical when classifying people based on gender. I don't know if having only females rule the world would be all that great... lol from some women I have seen from school to the work place.. their conspiring, confrontational and some times downright nastiness (to other women) rivals anything I have seen guys do lol... just say'n.

I have to agree on this also, through personal experience - I got it from both genders...But right now the truth is, alot of good people who deserve better are the victims of these manipulations, unfortunately your heading suggest that some men are really going to do anything to avoid cleaning up their act and will project all their animosity on the females.

[edit on 3-3-2009 by HulaAnglers]

Originally posted by Grumble
The economic boom of the eighties was largely the result of women choosing careers over the home in great numbers. Our society has been shaped by reality since.

The economic boom of the eighties: the result of vastly expanded and very inexpensive higher education in the seventies.

Also, they had the last of the classically-trained academics, who were people very different from the kind of lock-step professors that you have now.

Actually it was all engineered because of greed.

Before only men paid taxes and they wanted more, so they pushed women into work. More workers, more taxes, more credit and more debt.

It is not the people to blame but the greedy elite.

Hmm where to begin.

I disagree with the tone of the article, and the conflation of the issue of working mothers with economic demise.

I don't think this should be turned into a socialized issue. If women want to work, so be it. That's their choice and their right.

However on a personal level, I still think that a mother who is at work rather than looking after the children (out of choice, not necessity) is causing more harm than is commonly acknowledged. It strikes me as illogical that women pay for a stranger to look after their children, and instead focus on their careers.

Maybe I'm a chauvinist pig, maybe I've been watching Mad Men too much, or maybe its my socio-economic status or my cultural background... but I still believe that, if possible, the most productive role in society for women to play is that of the mother and nurturer.