Wednesday 6 April 2016

Impossible Thing #7

Impossible Thing To Believe Before Breakfast #7:
Because it involves taking jobs away from men and giving them to women, affirmative action makes for a fairer and more just society. 


DAVE SIM:

Hi Erick!
I'm afraid on this one, I got lured into framing it in Feminist Theocracy terms -- "Affirmative Action" -- which is never going to work since all their terminology is tailored to impede rather than convey meaning.  So let me reframe it this way:

Men work OUTSIDE the home.  Women work INSIDE the home. (so "outside the home" jobs "belong" to men: you can change that perception and reality and we have changed that perception and reality but I think all that did was to put women at a remove from what they are GENUINELY most interested in: family and home.)

When you have Men OUTSIDE and Women INSIDE as the societal standard, the genders don't interfere with each other.  They have their own jurisdictional areas best aligned with their genuine interests and aptitudes.

See, instead of talking about "fair and equitable" -- which I don't think applies except to hardcore feminists who think only in terms "numerical parity" -- I think it's more important -- because we're talking about women, that is, emotion-based beings -- to talk about happiness.

What we had prior to 1970 made MORE women GENERALLY happier.  Marriage as a near-universal condition, maternity as the norm, home and home-making as the pivot point around which everything else revolved. "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world."

Women worked outside the home, sure, but usually only UNHAPPY women, aged tomboys, Old Maids, whatever you want to call them.  Misery does, indeed, love company.  If you've sacrificed your chance at an enduring family and home core to your life -- particularly if you've reached or are approaching your "best before" date for courtship, engagement, marriage and childbirth -- as so many have -- it's going to become a critical thing for you to persuade young women who still have a chance to follow your course instead.

It just doesn't seem possible to me that "home and family" are portrayed interests and were for thousands of years and what women are ACTUALLY interested in and always have been interested in is in being men.  That's certainly what our society LOOKS like with 86% of women out in the workforce.

But, personally, I'm convinced that THAT'S the portrayal.

And as long as MOST women opt for portrayal over reality, we're going to live in a portrayal world instead of a reality world.

  

6 comments:

lylemcd said...

I think Dave is using a word incorrectly.

Clearly many women are no longer INTERESTED in working within the home. If they weren't INTERESTED in working outside the home, they wouldn't do it. Clearly they are interested.

The bigger issue is whether men and women are better SUITED To certain roles. Based on evolutionary pressures, they are. Women ARE more suited for certain things (that men are NOT suited for) and vice versa. What women are best suited for men are least suited for and what men are best suited for women are least suited for. If you put them side by side, they are complimentary.

This is what feminism misses since it thinks this is all social programming. But the same dynamics hold across most species in terms of both a distinct gender based difference in role and relative suitedness.

Recent research even shows that relationships BASED around traditional gender roles are more successful and this makes the point about the above.

Of course, Dave might be interested to know that scientific research based on a variety of factors suggests that feminists are essentially masculinized women. They want to be like males since their brains and biology are closer to males. But they think this should and does apply to all women (going so far as to criticize any woman as brainwashed who DOES want to be a homemaker).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4158978/

Front Psychol. 2014; 5: 1011.
Published online 2014 Sep 9. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01011
PMCID: PMC4158978
Feminist activist women are masculinized in terms of digit-ratio and social dominance: a possible explanation for the feminist paradox
Guy Madison,1,* Ulrika Aasa,2 John Wallert,1 and Michael A. Woodley1,3
Author information ► Article notes ► Copyright and License information ►

Erick said...

1935.
That was the year in the United States that saw peak farm. 6 million farms. The overwhelming majority then as is being family farms. But today there are only 2.2 million farms in the United States. The majority of cropland is controlled by corporations, although the majority of farms themselves are still family owned.
Why this trip down agriculture lane? Because of Dave's impossible things and 1935. In 1935, 36 % of all U.S. population lived and worked on family farms.
Dave, who I guarantee has never worked on a family farm, seems to think that it was only the menfolk who went outside and did the work, while the womenfolk sat warm and comfy in their houses. I may be paraphrasing for effect. But the simple truth is that farming is back breaking work. Family farms even moreso. Men and Women and even the children all had to work the farm outside. Outside work. Not inside work. Backbreaking work. Women did that and still maintained the traditional gender duty. Double work actually. If you do not believe that, then you must be getting your info about how farms worked solely from hollywood. The farmers eventually moved into the cities so that today only 3% of the population lives and works on family farms. But that hard work and industry by the women and their children (boys and girls) did not just fade. Those women did not just become satisfied staying inside. Neither did their children who grew up working hard. That work ethic was passed down from generation to generation. It was passed down to both boys and girls. It is not at all surprising that the 'traditional gender roles' changed once the farmers invaded the cities. What is ironic is that it was the soft living 'traditional gender role' city folk who were changed by the hard working farmers. That ethic which first flowered on the farms out of necessity, then spread across the country again out of necessity during WWII, continues today. Yes, there are things that each gender can do that is better suited for that gender. But the argument that 'tradition gender roles' are usurped by women working outside of the home simply ignores the reality of thousands of years of family agriculture. It also ignores the fact that human beings are greater that ill informed biological assumptions make us out to be

Erick said...

forgive typos, i did not proofread before hitting send

al roney said...

Is it a coincidence that when Feminism took hold (say late 60's-early 70's) inflation really started to kick in?

I think when you dilute the work force with more bodies (male or female) wages decrease, dollars lose value and career opportunities decline.

Not to mention the almost mandatory requirement of a college degree (so you can start your career in debt!) just to "get foot in door" these days. Costs of higher education have skyrocketed while the REAL value of that education has plummeted.

In New York we're also bumping up minimum wage to an unprecedented 15-bucks an hour. What once were "transitional" jobs, are now expected to be CAREERS. We've also extended Family Leave for good measure too. Nobody has a clue how that's really going to impact the economy, not to mention the rest of us working stiffs.

While I'm not saying Feminism (and the influx of women into the workforce since the 70's) is solely responsible for increasing wage gaps, inflation, dilution of a college degrees "worth" and a host of other work-economic related issues, it's foolish not consider the ramifications of such a societal sea change.

No shortage of fools though.



Anonymous said...

No matter how often it is repeated, the ludicrous and insulting assessment of women as "emotion-based beings" should never go unchallenged. It is hooey of the highest order - an insult offered as factual support of a theory.

Do a little research in problem gambling. The biopsychosocial effects of gambling addiction show up in men and women in roughly the same way, and emotions are essentially what drives the addictive behavior. In older age groups, women are more frequently gambling addicts than men, while in younger age groups, men outnumber women. All of them? Emotional!

Gender is not a litmus test for the motivating power of motions, and insinuations to the contrary are ridiculous.

"Emotion-based beings" is simply another way of saying "women are incapable of making decisions as well as I can, simply because they are women." It's unnecessary, and it is utter crapola.

--Bill Kremer

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Hey, I found an article that supports Dave's viewpoints: http://politicops.com/louie-gohmert-opposes-bill-for-women-scientists-a-womans-job-is-to-be-at-home.

-- Damian