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Feminism has held back working class men
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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According to the Universities Minister, allowing women to work and go to university has made life harder for working class men, as well as being partly to blame for the divide between the most wealthy and the poor.
Thoughts?
According to the Universities Minister, allowing women to work and go to university has made life harder for working class men, as well as being partly to blame for the divide between the most wealthy and the poor.
Thoughts?
0
Comments
With those cunts it was always either going to be those pesky wimmin or those pesky Poles.
Life was much better when you stayed in the kitchen making me pie.
It just seems to show a basic lack of economic understanding, and is the same bullshit you hear about immigrants. More women are working, which means families have more disposable income, which means more jobs are created. Women don't "take the jobs" of men, they create a situation in which more jobs are created as the national wealth increases. All those shoe shops won't staff themselves. As for widening the gap, tell it to Scandinavia or The Netherlands, where I believe women tend to work. Working class men's jobs have been taken by other countries or have disappeared as a result of technology making their jobs obsolete. And university places absolutely rocketed under the last government, so I hardly think he can seriously claim that there are fewer opportunities for men in that respect.
Of all of the things that could possibly affect job opportunities for men, feminism is literally the last thing I would consider.
Intelligent successful men marry intelligent successful women, meaning that that household has two successful, intelligent, and presumably wealthy individuals. Men who are less so marry women who are less so, and presumably they will be poorer. The gaps, on a household basis, become more magnified because there are two breadwinners, not one.
However far more pertinent is the way that the rich have been allowed to remove their income and assets from taxation, with that burden passed on to the poorest people instead. And it isn't just income tax, the 'stealth' taxes like VAT and fuel duty impact on the poor far more than on the rich because they spend proportionally more on the essentials that attract these taxes. As we move away from income tax to taxes on goods and services, the poor will end up footing more and more of the bill because they can't avoid it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/03/barbara-ellen-david-willetts?INTCMP=SRCH
I don't see why feminism should be blamed for male underachievement. No one is stopping these men from applying for university or aiming for a good job.
You can blame the person with power for removing your power. Women do not have the socio-economic power of men.
But it indicates that a flippant remark such as "People apportion blame onto others to mistakenly detract from their own failures. " aren't always applicable and it's easy to hide behind that sort of remark rather than confront it head-on.
I'm not saying women aren't held back by men - it's pretty clear that this happens. However re: your comment about the FTSE250...how many women want to be head of companies on it?
Before the lazy-thinking activists shoot me down for being 'mysoginistic' or whatever this week's favourite cause is, I'm not saying the low representation is due to women not choosing that field as their vocation.
But to assume it's purely because of the City-based glass ceiling is lazy-thinking and bloody-minded.
I assume you missed the part where I said I don't perceive that to be the case?
Obviously that's not going to be classed as adequate enough research to change anyone's mind but from my own experience I think there is more to it than being so black-and-white.
Just because I'm not offering an alternative doesn't mean there isn't one. The point I tried to make is it is very easy to say "it's all mens' fault" and leave it at that.
It simply isn't black and white that any reason is the sole cause of the effect we are seeing.
We also have an issue about some men (and women) still seeing "Motherhood" as a reason not to promote or advance an employees career and that is something which we *can* change.
Excellent! I knew you'd get there in the end
Lol ok I can agree to that if you try your hardest to cultivate a sense of humour
Indeed.
Besides, it's distracting her from cooking dinner
I'm more offended by your constant use of American spellings seeing as this is a UK website but yes as you say, together we've dragged this off topic too much now.
Maybe, but some countries are clearly much better than others at allowing women to continue working in important positions and raise a family at the same time if they want to. This capacity has arguably decreased in recent decades, with extended families able to easily take care of children becoming less common. I believe that certain countries are also much more willing to have people in important positions only working part-time, and obviously certain countries have a shorter working week generally, which is more favourable to parents.
A completely equal society would probably still have a pay gap between the genders, because a statistically significant proportion of women are going to have priorities outside of work more than men. However, the important question then becomes whether there is a difference in pay for equivalent jobs, which I believe there is. And even then, this isn't the end of the story. A study of Harvard (I think) graduates showed that male graduates were offered more money for the same positions as female graduates. You look at that and think it's obvious sexism, until you find out that massively more male graduates were willing to ask for more money in the recruitment process. I also heard of another statistic from America the other day that suggested that single, childless, middle-aged women earned more than the equivalent male workers.
I'm probably biased as I have a collegue in my work group with kids who is being a complete nightmare. She has this attitude that because she has kids and none of the other team members do that we should all fit our schedules around her. I mean people without kids have lives too.
Rant over.
The culture of presenteeism in this country counts very much against people who have commitments outside of work, or who take time off to have children or through ill-health. There is no reason why most people working ridiculous working weeks need to do that- the bank deal will still be there on Monday morning, folks- but the culture is that you work those hours so anyone who doesn't work those hours is seen as "lazy". This isn't an issue for women alone, either, with many fathers being pressurised into working instead of seeing their children grow up. There's no reason why fathers can't also adjust their working hours to suit childcare and take time off when children are poorly, except that they will be seen as weak and lazy and will lose out on promotions.
JanePerson, how is it "unfair" to structure career paths so that taking time out does not sink any hope of promotion? The best jobs should be undertaken by the most able person, not the person who has the best attendance record. Taking time out doesn't just affect parents either- lose six months of work because your car crashed and you'll also find yourself out of contention for any career progression.