Don't feminists realize...?

Question

that feminism was one of the main factors in the need for a two income family unit? I keep hearing that women don't CHOOSE to not be there for their kids, they HAVE to work. This is true. What do you think caused this? Maybe the fact that there are now double the available workers that there would otherwise be? Now companies have many more workers available and can give them each a much lower real wage. Within a couple of years, two incomes is no longer a choice. Not all things about every movement, even if the movement has positive elements, are good. This is one of the negative side effects of feminism. Women who would prefer to stay home with their kids have every right to blame feminism.

Answer 1

Your proposition that feminism has led to less choice for women is uninformed and illogical, and I think plenty of other people have already pointed out its flaws.

There may be ways in which feminism has harmed women, and to explore those you should think about the goals of white middle class feminists and the goals of working class women and women of colour.  You might like to look up 'womanist' and  'mujerista' and come at your anti-feminist argument that way.

Answer 2

You have to go back a little farther.  What you don't seem to realize is, like, history.  Read some about how the Industrial Revolution and capitalists tweaked the economy to provide them with huge numbers of cheap-cheap labor.  They waged enormous propaganda campaigns to lure men off their farms and self-sufficiency to move to urban areas and work in factories and such for slave wages.  Until 1900, 95% of men lived in rural agricultural economies in essentially self-sufficiency.  Today, 95% live in urban areas and are totally dependent on their employers and paychecks for survival.  Captialists in their propaganda convinced men to become wage slaves.  They also opened the flood gates for immigrants, and they did pour in to work for slave wages.  And, the big Industrialists fought HARD and quite successfully at changing laws and tweaking the economy to force women en masse into the work force as the cheapest labor of all.  Industrialists / Capitalists created the economic need for two-paycheck families. The big industrialists even backed the earliest ERA attempt in order to be able to force women to work 14-18 days "equally" with men. The women's movement rose partly to oppose those capitalistic tweakings of the economy.  

By WWII, Churchill (Google the name if it's unfamiliar . . .lol) stated that if working women were to strike for just one week in just one developed nation, the entire world economy would collapse.  That's why to this day I strongly believe working women need to do exactly that, STRIKE and then they would discover how much clout working women really have.  

Radical Feminism: (wiki)

"Radical feminism considers the capitalist hierarchy, which it describes as sexist, as the defining feature of women’s oppression. Radical feminists believe that women can free themselves only when they have done away with what they consider an inherently oppressive and dominating system. Radical feminists feel that there is a male-based authority and power structure and that it is responsible for oppression and inequality, and that as long as the system and its values are in place, society will not be able to be reformed in any significant way. Some radical feminists see no alternatives other than the total uprooting and reconstruction of society in order to achieve their goals."

Answer 3

Feminists in the U.S. are more concerned about fundamentalist Christians taking away their right to abort babies than they are the outrageous "honor killing" of Islamic women by their own fathers.

This crime is the direct result of political correctness and a failure to confront the ugly realities of Islam. We've let people  who believe it is justified kill their daughters if they've sullied the honor of their family and nobody is even facing the problem.

Answer 4

Yes, I took Economics 101.

But feminism didn't make women go out and get jobs.  They were out getting jobs already and feminism helped them get equal pay.

Don't believe everything you hear some fat bigot say on the radio.  It isn't true.

Before women started working couples only had one car.  Did the need for the second car cause the need for the second income, or did the income generated by the second income help pay for the second car?

That is your homework assignment for tonight.  Figure that out, and then come tell me what happened in the world before you were born.

Answer 5

Rio Madeira: What the blazes is "post hoc ergo propter hoc"?

Answer 6

Don't mess with the Supermodels.........Rosie, Judy Chicago.

They put so much pressure on the rest of the women to obtain a similar physique.

Total babes......Jusk ask anyone at Wiminfest

Answer 7

That may be one factor, but there are many other factors involved here.  I do wish it was still easier for me to choose to stay home with my kids.  I have been putting off having children because I don't know if my husband and I can afford it yet.

Answer 8

It's nice to stay home and all that but the reality is that most women will have to work at one time or another in their lives. What happens if their husbands lose their jobs or become too ill to work? What happens if they get divorced? What happens if they don't have enough money for retirement? It's a very big risk to live on only one income, especially in this day and age of outsourcing and no job security.

Answer 9

Your logic makes no sense.

What are you saying? Working women ruined it for women who wanted to stay home by.. what? You do realize the minimum wage has risen since the 1950s right? And that more money in circulation means higher inflation? And that outsourcing has been attributed to more job loss then women's lib?

Answer 10

We have yet to determine which came first: the lower wages (chicken) or the working woman (egg). I think you've just employed the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Let's not rule out such factors as:

-outsourcing

-automation

-downsizing

-inflation

-changes to the tax system

-disastrous economic policies in general (thanks, Mr. Reagan)

CELTISH: Questions like yours resulted in a marvelous creation known as "Wikipedia."

Answer 11

"Think of the children". A concept used over and over again by feminists to grant them rights over men, but forgotten when it restricts their power.

Answer 12

So women should stay home so there would be more jobs? What about the companies that outsource everything?

People lose jobs due to companies not investing or spending wisely, and the little guys (the ones DOING the work) are the ones that suffer.

How many CEO's do YOU know that don't get bonuses? Do you really think this has to do with feminism?

Dude - get a clue!

I guess logic and reason have no place in this section, huh?

Answer 13

Even if everything you say is true, it still doesn't justify pigeonholing women into only one path in life and denying them of any other options besides being a housewife or an old maid.  The vast majority of women who want to work shouldn't be forced to stay home just because a minority of women might want to be SAHMs.  If a woman wants to be a SAHM so badly, she can marry a rich man.  The rest of us should have a right to work and have careers if we want.

If we go by your line of thinking, blacks should also be ashamed of themselves for fighting against slavery, because products were cheaper for everybody back when we had all that free labor.  d**n those black people for putting their individual rights over social good!  

And that brings me to my point--it is never justifiable to take away individual rights for the good of society.  

Pre-feminism, women hardly had the right to be professional and have careers at all.  Now, women still have the RIGHT to be professional, OR to be SAHMs, even if they don't necessarily have the money to be SAHMs.

ETA:  

Those negative effects are not important.  I'm sorry, but NOTHING, no amount of social good, justifies depriving an entire group of people of their individual rights.  See my example with slavery above.  What do you expect, anyway?  You think women everywhere would say, "Oh, we're sorry, you can have our equality back"??  Of course not.  The thing is, society was never justified in having the benefits of keeping women oppressed in the first place.  Society was, quite simply, WRONG and unjust, and thus it is asinine to talk of any benefits derived from the unjust practice of denying women their rights.

Answer 14

No, feminism has increased everyone's standard of living by keeping the economy going when it would have slumped after the economic boom brought about by the second world war.

Those people that can't afford to live on one salary have ALWAYS existed. Poor women have ALWAYS had to work. Long before feminism came along and made sure they were paid an equitable wage.

Answer 15

Sure they do, but they can also thank feminism for the ability to get out of the relationship and get a job if dear old hubby decides to put her through the sliding glass door.

Answer 16

women have the right to work or stay at home and they don't need to ask feminists for that right.

Answer 17

Your grasp of economics is not very tight.

Jana, feminists gave women that right to choose to stay home or work.

Answer 18

Well, guys could stay home with their kids, instead.

Why does it have to be women that do that, unless they want to?

We don't live in caves anymore, and people can have free choice.

However, in Australia, where I live, there is a VERY low rate of unemployment, wages are the highest they have ever been in EVERY sector (in 'real' terms), and most people live wealthier and longer lives than ever before in the history of the world.

We also have excellent universal health care and a generous welfare system available to all, including cost of living indexed pensions.

Sales of plasma tvs are higher here than anywhere else in the world, which seems to indicate that despite paying higher taxes (by US standards) we actually have very high levels of disposable incomes.

You might want to look into your government's economic management before you point fingers at 'feminists'.

Cheers :-)