This says otherwise.
Certainly women are more likely to file for divorce, and it could be expected there would be a reasonable purpose to this.
Can you find a cite a bit less agenda-driven than “Menweb?”
I see the exact opposite–women win no matter which they choose. If they have kids and a career, then they are heroes for trying to have it all. If they leave work to raise kids, they are heroes for giving up their career (even if their “career” was a go-nowhere job they hated) to raise a family.
So it’s a good, fair idea to have a mother who has just given birth head back to work immediately if she does not have the cash saved up to take an unpaid leave?
Seriously, take a look at the charts. As CalMeacham says, the US stands out. Do you think that every single other country on that chart is wrong/being unfair?
I would prefer some academic studies using hard statistical analaysis as opposed to an Op-Ed piece from the WSJ with some random data points in order to draw a conclusion.
I don’t even think the disparity is kids - not in this case. And it isn’t at all surprising given the age of the population they are taking about.
Girls tend to outperform boys academically. More young women go to college. They grow up faster. Whether they are college educated or high school graduates, a 22 year old woman is (statistically speaking) more employable (more accomplished, more responsible) than a 22 year old man.
It takes them longer, but boys do (again, speaking in terms of populations) become men. Sometime in their mid-20s or so they catch up in terms of being responsible. But they bring along that assertive, risk taking, competitive behavior we reward in boys (the same behavior that delays their maturity) and tempered, that’s the sort of behavior that becomes admired. However, as many women have learned - that same behavior isn’t always admired in women - where it can be perceived as “bitchy” or “whiny” (assertive) or “flaky” (risk taking) or “not being a team player” (competitive).
So men hit their 30s at a point where what are often traditionally male attributes in personality are rewarded career wise. And women who emulate those attributes get labeled “ball breaker” and aren’t rewarded. Women with more traditionally female skills (like consensus building or communication) don’t make the leap because those skills are less valued as you move up an organization. So women start to slip in pay performance as men hit their stride.
Cite please. Never heard of this before.
I believe this is a genuine hardship that many men feel. What even sven expressed is a genuine hardship that women feel. Taken at face value, they both sound like they suck balls. To me it just underscores the fact that binary gender roles are damaging to everyone.
There was a spot some months ago on NPR in which the hardships of men needing to take time out for child care was discussed. They were basically told, in so many words, that they could feel free to take care of their sick kid but not expect any career advancement if they did so. Yet research indicates that when child-rearing is distributed equally, the health of the mother, father, and child all benefit (and also there is more sex.)
I believe our policies aren’t anti-woman so much as anti-family. If we really knew what was good for us, we’d stop arguing about who has it worse and unite in our demand for pro-family policies.
Wtf? Did you actually read this before you linked to it? The data they’re using is from 1977. Got anything a little more up to date than a study based on 34 year old data? Further, how about a study that actually uses data taken from a peer reviewed publication, and not from a book printed in 1985 with data of unknown quality and provenance (literally, the whole point of the paper you linked to was demonstrating that The Divorce Revolution erred when describing the standard of living for a divorced woman was 70% less than her married standard of living, using that books own data!)
Some have tried to stuff the same stupid system down our throat. Fortunately so far without success. The Swedish maternity/paternity leave policy is very wrong. It is no business of the state to try to form and shape the citizens into some predetermined mould. If a family decides that it is best for them that the mother or father takes the whole leave, then they should be free to decide what they find must suitable for them, without the state sticking its busy nose in what should not concern it. If on the other hand it is important for a woman to have a career she is free to look for a man who will be happy to care for the children while they are young. (and btw. the last I read, from Norway which has a similar system, is that an apparent sizeable proportion of the men take the leave, send the kids to the kindergarten and then go hunting)
Just to be perfectly clear about who has met their burden of production and burden of persuasion . . .
You object to the evidence even sven has furnished to back up her assertion, while you have offered no evidence for your (implied) claim that men and women fare equally after a divorce. You’d like us to agree with your not-at-all supported claim and are content to rely on undermining her evidence without going forward with any of your own? Is that an accurate description of how the evidentiary burdens have been met in this case?
even sven produced no evidence that backed up her assertion whatsoever. The figure of a 40% reduction in “quality of life” was never mentioned in the paper in question, the paper in question is using data that’s nearly 40 years old, and does not even purport to support even sven’s position. For all your sophistry and circumlocution, you’re surely educated enough to understand where the burden of proof resides in this debate.
Here is something else to consider when it comes to male vs female earnings:
Many, many more men are willing to pay for “it” than women, right?- I mean the ratio is damn sure 10-1, and it might be 50 or 100 to one.
Hell, even 1000-1 isn’t out of the question. I mean, who has ever heard of a female “John” aside from that movie where Dustin Hoffman
played Ratso Rizzo 50-plus years ago?
And many, many more men are hetero than homo- about 85-15, right?
And, payment for such “sevice” tends toward the stratospheric, as in much more than the US President makes calculated on an hourly basis,
even if the average “fee” is a lot less than what former Gov. Spitzer shellacked out, eh?
Therefore with all the hoin’ around goin’ around women gots no gound to holler 'bout pay.
:dubious: We shouldn’t worry about the supposed pay gap between men and women because of prostitution? Even if your estimate of how much they make wasn’t wildly off, “prostitute” is not exactly considered as desirable a job as “President” by either gender.
Let’s make that “The World’s Oldest Profession”, if you please!
And yes, countless more billions of dollars are being channeled from men to women than in any othjer direction.
The Prez makes $400k per year, equivalent to $200 per hour.
That is about 10% of what Spitzer’s ho was making, and so not a bad place to start in guessing industry average.
Maybe not, but that hasn’t put a dent in the number of job applications going back a few 1000 years before there was any such thing as a President.
I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation but…
Some women can become high-class call girls. Some men can become professional football players. This has nothing to do with the earning capacity of the vast majority of people.
In any case, economically speaking, the amount a woman could save during prime years of sex work (or course remembering that a significant chunk of women are not good candidates for sex work- go take a trip to the grocery store and count the ratio of women you would pay to have sex with vesus those you would not) would be making those earning at the cost of investing in a lifelong career- you are favoring short term earning potential over long term. In the end, I doubt it even evens out. Added to that, sex work is basically hazard pay- it exposes you to arrest (much like drug dealer face, which jacks up their prices) and also puts you in a very vulnerable position to become the victim of violence. We have a thread on this very board about a serial killer that targets prostitutes- which is actually pretty common. It’s a dangerous way to make money.
Look at every other society around you- from Saudi Arabia to modern Japan. Are women in power? Given their sexual wiles and whatever, are they winning? In almost every case, throughout history, the answer is no. Women, in general, everywhere, all the time, have gotten the short end of the stick. This hasn’t magically resolved itself in the last couple decades. Chances are that the pattern we see in modern America have developed from the pattern we’ve seen in America’s past, and in history.
I also agree it’s not useful to argue about “who has it worse.” Every gender role and expectation has an equal and opposite reaction on the other side, and all of us are constrained. But the whole “Oh poor men, not every woman will have sex with us at any given time, they must have ALL the power” thing really gets my goat.
In any case, my friends tell me that in the right company, men can also make a lucrative career as a prostitute. So it appears the tables really are even. Tell me, knowing that you could probably make a good amount of money having anal sex with men, why wouldn’t you take advantage of your obvious good fortune?!
Even if that’s so, there’s simply no reason to belive that it’s because of prostitution. Just the profits from divorce and the simple fact that women tend to outlive their husbands and inherit his property is going to outweigh a business which is mostly a matter of women being paid small amounts of money, most of which is taken away by a pimp.
Don’t be silly. First, “ho”? That’s ridiculous. Second, a woman from an international escort service isn’t going to be anywhere remotely near the median wage for prostitution. Third, Presidents get a wide variety of bribes* and perks, and are invariably personally wealthy before and after being President; their official wage means little.
Because when the alternative is death by starvation or by beatings, prostitution becomes a “viable” alternative.
- Let’s be honest; that’s exactly what campaign contributions actually are; officially sanctioned bribery.
I didn’t have a pointed question. I was asking a question because:
I’m wondering what the number of men v. women in high paying graduate careers. If I am 33 years old, I may be embarking on a post-MBA/MA/PhD career. If I’m male, I may be more likely to be in a scientific or higher paying field.
I also suspect that women are likely to go into fields with lower, uh, income glass ceilings. Less room for growth. For example: I’m a teacher. I’m not going to make any more than $70k/yr in my entire career if I’munusually lucky. I have friends who make over $70k/yr right now being software engineers. Obviously if I marry a software engineer, he’ll always make more, but what if I marry an MBA student? I may make more right now at $34k while he slumbers through graduate school, but his $50k/year post-grad job has wide room for growth over the next 40 years.