That particular comment was in response to this
not the OP.
As for boys being taught they have the option to stay home, be supported by their girlfriends and/or raise the kids – I’d love to see that happen. I know quite a few guys being supported by their girlfriends or wives right now, and this will probably become more common as more women earn more than their guys (and as the guys come to terms with this).
There are PLENTY of men who have primary custody of their kids. In schools, there is an almost sickening amount of “you can do and be whatever you want, boys and girls!” Do you think it’s women who are “forcing” men to go out and earn the bacon while they stay home and eat bonbons? I don’t think so. Like I said, it takes both sides to create societal expectations. This is not imposed on men by women, and I think you’d be hard pressed to prove that it is. How many men wouldn’t stay home because they couldn’t face their fathers, brothers, and buddies? How many women would rather work than stay home and set back their careers/educations? Hard to say, and I’m not willing to place the burden of these choices all on one gender while making the other a victim.
Cite time.
The fact is, men still earn more than women. This is a study by the United States General Accounting Office in the form of a report to Congress. One important reason why men earn more is… surprisingly enough, hah… differences in work patterns. Women spend less time in the work force, have less experience, leave the labor force for longer periods of time, and are less likely to work full-time. They sacrifice career advancement for flexibility. I don’t know, but I bet it has a lot to do with who cares for the kids. However, even correcting for these differences, women still make 80% of what men make.
Interestingly enough, the GAO couldn’t fully explain the earning differences between men and women, but they came to the same conclusion about it that I did: “…it does not necessarily indicate a problem unless these decisions are not freely made.” This supports my thesis, that men are choosing to advance their careers and make more money, and women are choosing to forego career advancement in favor of family. No doubt the demands of biology play a role here, as do the demands of society.
Are you claiming that these decisions, on a societal level, are not freely made by both men and women? If so, why do you think so? Why do you think men are more the victim of biology and society here than women? You can use all the emotional and anecdotal arguments in the world, but that doesn’t change how things are.
I take that back. There aren’t a lot but they are on the rise, and I think the reason women get custody more often is directly related to the societal expectatation, ingrained in so many of us, that raising kids is women’s work. I would love it if my husband could take 6 months or a year off to raise a kid if we have one, but he says, “No way.” Can’t deal with babies, wouldn’t want to keep house, couldn’t handle giving up his job. CI think a lot of men are that way-- their whole life, they’re supposed to define themselves by their work. Women, their whole lives, supposed to define themselves by their families. Women are freeing themselves of this in part, but still, the fact is, they are the ones who have the biological role, no getting out of that. Childcare is ridiculously expensive, breastfeeding makes working full-time a PITA, so… whose career is the logical one to set back? At least now, if women take on that role, it’s got more of an element of choice how much of their careers they will lose in the bargain.
There are PLENTY of women CEOs, too.
I think the basic division of labor was decided a million years ago when we evolved into primates. What’s changed recently seems to be much more about women then men. I don’t consider men to be victims of anything. I hate that. But men’s roles don’t seem to be changing as quickly as women’s expectations. When 50% of CEOs are women I expect 50% of stay at home supported-by-the-spouse parents to be men. How soon do you think women are going to give up their strangle hold on that particular corner of the gender market?
Don’t get me wrong though. We’ve got women soldiers and astronauts and gay men getting married and adopting kids and all sorts of new, cool things.
Why do you insist on calling it a “stranglehold”? Women stay home because they earn less than men (so giving up their careers makes more financial sense), because they have a biological compulsion to breast feed, and because both women and men are conditioned to think that it’s right and correct for men to work and women to stay home. When women earn the exact same amount that men do, when there’s a way to breast feed and work full time after your paid maternity leave is up, and when society stops conditioning people to buy into these gender roles, THEN you will see 50% of women CEO’s and 50% men as stay at home parents. I doubt you will have either any time before that, is my cynical view of things.
I don’t insist on calling it stranglehold. It’s just that CEO isn’t something that men actually possess and won’t give up. Stay at home parenthood is something women possess and aren’t likely to give up.
Oh, I’m so tired of this. Bill Gates makes more than Oprah Winfrey. So what? Mrs. Gates is worth half of Bill. Oprah gets to keep it all. You and me? We make the same, for the same work.
Never really thought about it that way.
My husband has expressed great desire to be a stay at home Dad for at least a couple years while I work on my own career. It seems like there really is a tug-of-war going on with gender roles. I consider myself fortunate that we’re both in the very least aware of our situation and willing to work with one another to balance everything the best way for us. I don’t think everyone is that lucky, though.
Mrs M.'s biological compulsion lasted three weeks, tops, between our two sons put together. Doesn’t sound like a huge excuse to skip being the primary wage-earner to me.
By itself, no, but a lot of women want to do it for longer. There were other reasons on my list, I’m sure you saw them.
I just thought I’d pick up on that one. And I’ve bolded the key word in your reply. It’s not a question of “biological compulsion” so much as “biological factor which it is convenient to cite when it suits what we want to do anyway”. :dubious:
Look at it this way: If a family is poor, no one is going to think it reflects poorly on the wife.
Women breast feed for fun, eh? It’s not good for the mother, good for the baby, not to mention free, right? Overall, if you can do it, you should, and most people’s bodies want to. Working full-time makes it very difficult. A co-worker of mine is forever trying to find a private place to pump. I’m sure sometimes she wishes she could just stay home.
I’m not saying that I think it’s a male conspiracy, but it’s also definitely not that “women simply don’t want to compete for those jobs.” I’m more knowledgeable in the land of academia rather than CEOs, but in grad school, it’s 50/50 male and female. Clearly, the women in my department are interested in science and I’ve heard just as many women as men express interest in being a future professor. In post-docs and professorships, though, the ratio of females to males quickly goes down and the primary reason is not the competitiveness, it’s the lack of childcare options and the lack of the flexibility that is required to be a mom and a professional. The male professors in my department either have stay-at-home wives, or wives who are in a flexible line of work, such as school-teaching. Most female professors in my department have husbands that work in science, or in other competitive jobs, and I honestly don’t know how they do it aside from hiring nannies or daycare.
Exactly. For whatever reason, breastfeeding is not acceptable in professional situations. There used to be a time when women worked and breastfed at the same time and nobody thought anything of it (e.g. hunter-gatherer period, there may be more recent examples) but since that is not currently possible, that becomes an obstacle to working, which (imho) is ridiculous.
Um, no. Breast-feeding is well-documented as being better for children than formula. If possible, for this reason, I would like to breastfeed my children for the recommended 6 months. (Will this be possible in my career? Probably not.) If this reason did not exist, I would happily put my future children on formula.
Minor quibble - Breastfeeding IS GOOD for the mother - it appears to help against breast cancer.
Now, having a company that makes it possible to pump is another story of course. I will pat myself on the back for having put a mini-fridge in my office for my assistant when she was pumping. Every day she was allowed to kick me out of my office so that she could pump in a private place, and she stored the milk in my office as well. It pisses me off when other firms do not make the same level of accomodation.
I admit it was easy for me to consider, since my wife had gone through similar issues when she was pumping for our kids.
On the subject of women in business and success, I will hypothesize that a woman working with kids is still far more socially acceptable than a stay-at-home dad.
On the subject of women making as much money as men, there is an additional factor involved. Women do not ASK for more money.
http://www.pinkmagazine.com/exclusives/negotiatingToWin_0605_2.html
Merely drawing your attention to your phrase “sometimes women want to breast-feed for longer”, which I guess you’re now going to backpedal away from like this was a trick-cycling contest. But hell, make up stuff like “women breast-feed for fun” and pretend I said it if you find that easier to argue with. Be my guest.
Um, I know breast-feeding is well-documented as being better for children than formula. It’s still not the same as saying that “women have a biological compulsion to breast-feed”, which would get me tarred and feathered if I advanced it as an argument for why women should stay home for six months after giving birth, and which is no truer just because a woman said it.
Maybe the problem would solve itself if female professors were as willing to trade down as male professors are.
I realize this is the pit, but that is a crass and insulting statement. It implies that stay-at-home moms are a trade down. It is also a slam on male professors as well, which does not bear out with my ancedotal evidence (and an n of > 40 at that).
Female professors are no different from other female professionals who want children - they have to decide if they will take a break, or juggle, or sub-contract. I will even argue that in many departments female professors, given the more flexible work schedule, have an advantage over corporate America.
But women want to breastfeed for longer not because they want to but because it’s recommended by doctors for the health of their children. “Biological compulsion” might be overstating the issue, but saying “it’s a biological factor that’s convenient to cite” isn’t quite stating the issue correctly either. It is indeed a biological factor that is important to both the mother and the child.
Also, the day that a woman has to stay home just so that she can breastfeed is a sad day. Algher, that’s a good thing that you did for your assistant. Policies regarding lactation rooms are starting to become a trend in universities, too, although it’s still not a regular thing.
On the other topic, I do agree that there is a stigma about men staying at home with the children. Gender roles obviously still exist, and I think if anything they are tighter for men than for women. I suspect that men staying at home while the wife works will never be the norm.
Why do women breast feed? Do you think it should be a luxury? No, it’s a biological need and is good for the health of the woman and the baby. Doctors recommend you do it. But working full-time makes it hard, if not impossible. Thus, women who want to do what’s best and follow their biological impulses often feel like they have to take at least 6 months off work. Most workplaces do not accommodate this.
You can overcome biological compulsions. Some women do, some don’t. Shouldn’t have to compromise your career advancement for it, but the fact is, you have to. Is that more or less fair than men making more money than women? Or men feeling social pressure to work full-time? Things are tough all over.
I agree that they are tighter for men than for women, but I think things are changing. One of the ways I think they could change is that as men get over the idea that if they do X someone will think they are gay.
There seem to be a surprising number of behaviors that men avoid for fear someone will think them gay. One of the ones that made me laugh the hardest was in a conversation a ways back on another message board (or maybe usenet) where men left seats between themselves and their friends at movie theaters so that no one would think they were a couple (!)
At some point, doesn’t this sort of thinking have to go away?
Probably because the presence of crying babies tends to be distracting during meetings and makes it difficult for an office to function? Having been on a conference call with a work-at-home father whose kids were in the middle of a screaming fest more than once, I can tell you it certainly doesn’t make it easier to accomplish the actual work that we’re being paid to do.
If you mean that female professors were as willing to be the sole wage-earner for a situation in which the father stays at home to take care of the kids in the same fashion that male professors are, then ‘trade down’ was probably a poor way of phrasing it.
I do think that a large part of this issue is that there is an incredible double standard regarding stay-at-home parenthood. It is perfectly acceptable for a woman, but a man is often seen as a lazy bum mooching off his wife if the roles are reversed.
Another thing I have noticed is that it is perfectly acceptable for a man to marry a woman who has less education, but in reverse it is often seen as a bad thing. Even in my own family where my mother is more educated than my father, they would both see it as me choosing someone beneath me if I picked a guy who didn’t have at least a bachelor’s degree.
Welcome to adulthood, where if you get a choice it all it’s between shitty and shittier.