The World Beyond BetterMost > Women Today
Woman decides full-time mothering isn't for her
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Buffymon on March 09, 2011, 11:26:14 am --- The issue has been and still is that mostly women do this work which enables the man to work full time or more. The work they do work is necessary for every family to cope, but it is only the work that men do that is paid. That gives the woman an economical disadvantage.
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--- Quote from: milomorris on March 09, 2011, 11:49:35 am ---Yeah. This has been floating around for a while. But as I said, things that men do around the house fall into the same category. Men do things that women would otherwise have to pay someone else to do.
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I'd like to request that we note that "the work women do" and "the work men do" does not always fall into gender-typical categories. Men often care for kids and clean the house. Many women change their own oil and shovel the driveway. Ideally, both male and female partners are at least capable of performing most household labor.
louisev:
--- Quote from: crayonlicious on March 09, 2011, 12:44:23 pm ---I'd like to request that we note that "the work women do" and "the work men do" does not always fall into gender-typical categories. Men often care for kids and clean the house. Many women change their own oil and shovel the driveway. Ideally, both male and female partners are at least capable of performing most household labor.
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amen to that! the term 'women's work' isn't an economic reality anymore, it's simply a sexist cliche reinforcing a stereotype.
Monika:
--- Quote from: louisev on March 09, 2011, 12:59:28 pm ---amen to that! the term 'women's work' isn't an economic reality anymore, it's simply a sexist cliche reinforcing a stereotype.
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Not so sure about that. Yesterday I read a new report on this - it showed that women in the world still do a very very high percentage of what traditionally is called "women´s work". Gonna se if I can find it again.
milomorris:
--- Quote from: crayonlicious on March 09, 2011, 12:40:15 pm ---That's not "next," it's been happening for generations. We pay taxes, whether we have kids or not, to support schools and community programs that teach children to "play nicely together," among other things, and help them grow up to be knowledgeable, caring citizens.
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Supporting an infrastructure that provides children with an opportunity to grow up and become good citizens is not the same as paying the kids to do it. Those that we pay to provide that infrastructure have to meet certain standards. For example, most (if not all) states require public teachers to be certified. So if we want to pay stay-home parents to raise their children properly, they would have to meet some criteria defined by...the STATE. I don't think anyone wants to see that happen.
--- Quote from: crayonlicious on March 09, 2011, 12:40:15 pm ---Workers with a stay-at-home partner caring for their kids, at least officially, are not supposed to get paid more than workers who don't have kids, or don't have a stay-at-home partner.
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Even if there is no difference in compensation between the partnered and the un-partnered, some people are able to manage a family on a single income.
While you are right that there is no official difference in the compensation for employees based on the status of their families or partners, when it get's down to the nitty-gritty of negotiating packages, it certainly can come into play. For example, "I'd love to take this job, but I just can't pay for my ailing, elderly aunt's home nurse and my kids' college tuition with what you're offering."
--- Quote from: crayonlicious on March 09, 2011, 12:40:15 pm ---Paid work offers psychological and networking benefits, too. And yet we pay people to do it.
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It can be argued that the psychological and networking benefits are different when one is volunteering. Besides, for many people, the stresses created by work far outweigh the psychological benefits. Also, business networking events have been the butt of jokes for quite a while...and from my experience, deservedly so. In my experience, even "organic" networking in the professional world is much more restricted than it is in the non-profit arena. Businesspeople really aren't all that interested in networking with a peer unless there is business value (real or perceived) in doing so. Non-profit folks--especially volunteers--just like to share ideas, contacts, etc. whether it will make them a dollar or not.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Buffymon on March 09, 2011, 01:54:41 pm ---Not so sure about that. Yesterday I read a new report on this - it showed that women in the world still do a very very high percentage of what traditionally is called "women´s work". Gonna se if I can find it again.
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You needn't provide proof. Women unquestionably do a much higher percentage of domestic work. My only point was, let's not talk about it as though those divisions of labor are etched in stone, without exceptions. Statistics aren't useless, but they aren't everything.
The tipping point for me was when Milo said,
--- Quote from: milomorris on March 09, 2011, 11:49:35 am --- Men do things that women would otherwise have to pay someone else to do.
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and I went, "Wait, what?" I do hire people, who so far happen to have been men, to do plumbing and carpentry and car-repair stuff that I can't do myself, because I am kind of lame at it. But for the record, my ex-husband can't do that stuff either. In fact, when we were still married I did most of the minor repairs, snow shoveling, etc., while he did the dishwashing and laundry. And I certainly know women who don't "have to pay someone else" because they DO know how to do that stuff themselves.
Meanwhile, I also hire people, in the form of cooks in takeout restaurants (gender unknown), to do work for me that is traditionally "women's work."
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