(shakes head) Oh boy... where to start? okay, let me just link to the story here:
http://thinkprogress.org/...
And then highlight some of the stuff from there:
“Unlike women,” Venker writes, “a man’s identity is inextricably linked to his paycheck.”
VENKER: My advice is, as the years go on and you find that you want, if you do, to get married and settle down, to understand time is going to be your greatest enemy. Not your husband, not men, not the government, not your employers. It’s time, there’s just not enough time in the day to do everything. So if you learn to embrace that side of yourself that isn’t about work — in other words, the nurturing side, the motherhood, all of that — it’s okay to let your husband bring home that full-time income so you can have more of a balanced life. And we should really be thanking men for this, not saying they’re in our way or not doing enough.
Venker has previously argued that, as women become major breadwinners and stop acting like “traditional women,” they are becoming increasingly more annoying and less marriageable to men.
Okay... let me just say this first, okay? I totally respect that she has a far more traditional viewpoint of gender roles. There's nothing wrong with believing in that sort of thing, even if I disagree with her. HOWEVER... I believe that she's wrong on so many levels when it comes to women in the workplace.
Unlike what she believes, it's not that easy for women to go back to the way things were. In fact, it's downright impossible in today's world. Let me highlight why.
First off, there's the economy. It's becoming increasingly hostile to families of all kinds. It's espeically very hostile to the nuclear family unit. A man no longer can even support his family by himself... not unless he elects to take on two separate jobs which makes it impossible for him to be home or even be there for his own kids.
In fact, statistics show that more women are electing to help ease some of her husband's burdens by taking on jobs herself, and also to help make ends meet.
As the news article pointed out, the reason why women are feeling taxed and burnt out by that, it’s only because they are still largely responsible for all the housework that goes into keeping a family in addition to being one of the breadwinners in the family.
The economy creates the structural inequities that make it so hard to balance family and work. Employers also don’t adequately meet the needs of balancing family with work life, and often puts pressure on working parents both female and male, to be at work for a large majority of time. Parents often get fired if they choose to put their family over work first.
The United States lacks guaranteed paid parental leave, making it one of the least accommodating countries in the developed world for new parents. On top of that, a lack of guaranteed paid sick leave in most of the country means a lot of parents (and particularly mothers) are forced to make the choice between earning their wages and taking care of their kids.
So in short, it's now impossible to be a "Traditional Woman" unless you marry well into a rich family.
In such a situation, you have to look at the situation realistically. You have to choose between family survival and tradition, you cannot have both at once.
Besides, Venker doesn't seem to realize that she's actually being highly sexist towards both men and women.
She implies that a man's only purpose is to be the work mule for the entire family. She even said above that a man's identity is tied directly to his paycheck! So... a man is inferior to other men out there if he's not rich, huh? (sounds like a very typical gold-digger mentality).
Never mind that there is always more to a man than just his money. He is more than just a set of hanging genitals, he is more than the type of car he drives. A man is only defined by his behavior, his attitude. And most importantly, by whenever he's a good person or not.
Likewise, a woman shouldn't be defined only by her own genitals and the number of children she can pop out. Like with men, a "real woman" should only be defined by what kind of person she is... whenever she is a good person or not.
I've heard a lot about how a patriarchal viewpoint hurts men just as much as women do. I've heard plenty of anecdotes about how that can hurt men. but I have to say this is the first direct evidence, that I've ever seen, that anybody with a patriarchal viewpoint could be equally sexist towards both men and women. Even when they think they're being positive and simply upholding "tradition".
(shakes head) A real man is only defined by his paycheck.... really? I'm guessing that she grew up believing that a woman should only marry doctors, or any other guy with a high-paying job. The rest of the male population doesn't exist at all, because they're not "Real Men".
I suspect that it's women like Venker, that causes some guys to have such a negative impression of women in general.
Your thoughts on this?