I'm not sure that follows, at all. - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 12/01/2011 02:07:51 AM
Finances are definitely calling the tune though; I've long thought it ironic that the same people who insist a womans place is in the home and decry feminazis abandoning motherhood for careers are also the same people who've done such a good job of destroying the single breadwinner family. If you want June to have dinner on the table when Ward gets home and David Brooks wants Wally and the Beav to stop wasting their time foolishly attending college, give Wards union job back and stop giving his boss tax breaks for moving the plant to China. The rise of women in the workforce has a lot less to do with countercultures and feminazis than with the failure of economic policies that have made the single income homes they idealize impossible for a generation.
I'm not sure the study really "proves" anything more than that. Asking women if they'd prefer their husband to make more money than them is disingenuous, because WHATEVER they earn the familys income will be higher if their husband makes more. Ask men if they'd prefer their WIVES to make more money than them and most of them will probably say yes for the same reason. Would most women prefer to stay home with their families rather than having to go to work for someone else to support them? Sure, and, once again, most men probably would, too. Most people would probably love to live in a world where all their familys needs were met and they could stay home caring for them and engaged in whatever activity they chose, but this isn't a utopia, and, ultimately, maybe it shouldn't be, because that scenario would produce indolence perhaps to the point of stagnation.
Arguing against equal pay and opportunities for women based on such "scientific" findings is not only absurd and dishonest, it's actively cruel when accompanied by the conclusion that most women work from necessity rather than choice. They work against their will because it's necessary to support their familys, so you oppose increasing their pay and employment opportunities? How does increasing the very burden that forces them to do what they don't want to improve their lives?
I'm not sure the study really "proves" anything more than that. Asking women if they'd prefer their husband to make more money than them is disingenuous, because WHATEVER they earn the familys income will be higher if their husband makes more. Ask men if they'd prefer their WIVES to make more money than them and most of them will probably say yes for the same reason. Would most women prefer to stay home with their families rather than having to go to work for someone else to support them? Sure, and, once again, most men probably would, too. Most people would probably love to live in a world where all their familys needs were met and they could stay home caring for them and engaged in whatever activity they chose, but this isn't a utopia, and, ultimately, maybe it shouldn't be, because that scenario would produce indolence perhaps to the point of stagnation.
Arguing against equal pay and opportunities for women based on such "scientific" findings is not only absurd and dishonest, it's actively cruel when accompanied by the conclusion that most women work from necessity rather than choice. They work against their will because it's necessary to support their familys, so you oppose increasing their pay and employment opportunities? How does increasing the very burden that forces them to do what they don't want to improve their lives?