:mrgreen:

 

I agree with 99% of this, fluffy, but your statement that we don't NEED feminism is somewhat belied by a few of the posts in this thread. We still have a ways to go.

 

Also feminists were making themselves known in the mid-1800's. There weren't a lot of the, but there were a few.

-S-

 

I made no such premise. I merely stated what I conjectured to be a macro effect based on basic principles of economics. There was no hint of the pejorative in my post, and I even conceded to stumbler afterwards the likelihood of another outside catalyst to the effect.

But now that you mention it, bare foot and in the kitchen doesn't sound half bad. Perhaps I can install guard rails lining a path from there to the bedroom

 

But you lent support to the notion expressed very clearly by someone else, that women's entry into the work force was self-defeating, as if they weren't every bit as entitled to go get a job as men. Would you have made the same economic argument after World War II, when men flooded back into the work place and displaced women who had been working? Did THAT drive down wages and cause households to need two wage-earners.

I just find the entire premise to be sexist in the extreme. If households need two wage-earners, it's because there's been a transition from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, and the jobs that remain simply don't pay well enough. And there are all SORTS of proximate causes for that transition.

 

Certainly...and as others have noted, they made great strides, including the right to vote. I'm getting the strong feeling that there are a few folks here who consider that to have been a mistake.

 

At the risk of offending, WWII really started the ball rolling with women joining the work force.

First, there was necessity, men were at war, then came the flood of post war housing, life enhancing appliances and a whole array of new toys and cars. With the extra income helping the average family bought more of the extras, fueling a manufacturing boon.

The upward spiral has rarely slowed after that. More income, more nicities, more jobs, more income and on infinitum. Now it is not for luxuries, it is out of necessity.

 

As one delves deeper in to the realm of atheism/free thought one runs in to a great many women who were nonbelievers and also feminists; It seems they go hand-in-hand. I can't remember her name, but in the writings of one woman who was fighting for women's rights in the 1800's she said that the preachers came out of the woodwork and scripture was screamed at her from all sides that women could not be equal to a man. How any woman could support such a partriarchal system, I've no idea. It really does make you think that you can't possibly be a Christian and have read the bible.

-S-

 

I said that a large group of people entering the work force drives wages down. I gave no mention of entitlement and even said I disagreed with the fucking pope on some particulars.

I would argue that men coming back from a war were already in the workplace but were affected by a mass reorganization after the war or something akin to mass lay offs. I realize there was a definite need for female production in the time they were away and am not belittling that, but I don't think the military should not be considered part of the actual work force. I am sure the absorption of them back into the general population did displace a lot of female workers, but I personally wasn't there to decide who deserved the job more.

Again, I have already given credit to other "proximate causes." Are you saying the doubling of the working population would have no effect on the economy? I don't quite understand why this is such a touchy topic for you. Why not just accept that there is a effect without the need for a guilty party?

 

I'm inclined to think at this point, that as far back as there have been women, there have been women striving for change, so in that sense Feminism has always been around. But an organized group of pro-active females, were first known as the Suffragette movement, rather than the Feminist movement, which is what I was driving at. I just didn't want people thinking that Feminism began in the 1960's. It's been around a lot longer than that, as we've both pointed out

 

Because, as I said, there was a clear implication that women, by entering the work force, were responsible for (a) a drop in wages, and (2) the need for households to have two wage-earners. I reject that. Isn't it possible that the doubling of the work force (which wasn't actually anywhere near a doubling, and took place over a period of decades) was more an effect than a cause?

 

I said we don't need feminism OR chauvinism Kimmy, truth be told. We need unity.

 

Does that mean the woman can be on top??

 

Presumably, it's also difficult to be a feminist and a Christian. The church has been doing it's best to subjugate women for it's entire history, starting with Mary Magdelene.

 

Don't tell me, Fluffy...tell THEM.

 

I heard a christian radio show the other day in which the preacher was blaming the increased numbers of female teachers for all the emasculated men in the country. They said you can hear it again online, if I can find it I will post it. It is most entertaining.

 

Well yes, but the suffragettes were going for the vote. There were organized efforts prior to that though. You really see it surge ahead in the 'Age of Reason' which is what some call the mid to late 1800's.

-S-

 

Wonderful...next week he'll be telling all his male listeners to man up and keep the little lady in her place, by force if necessary.

 

It's entirely predictable that in periods in history where reason and enlightenment are valued, the status of women improves. When fear, superstition, and religious dogma reign, we're, to put it bluntly, fucked.

 

http://straighttotheheart.com/

That was the site but it doesn't look like they have the episodes "Women of the Bible" up yet or they have been taken down. Basically he told the Genesis story of Rebbecca telling her son Issac (the distinctly feminine momma's boy) to trick his father into thinking that he was his older, more manly brother in order to steal his father's blessing. The parallel was drawn that female teachers today coddle the more girly boys and give them advantage and they are never taught how to be real men. You would have got a kick out of it.