dag (02/10/83)
>From reading the entries in this newsgroup, I've found that the majority
of submitters seem to veiw a woman who chooses to stay at home and be
a full-time housewife to be under-privoleged. In the human race, the mother
being the primary raiser of children would appear to be as much biological
as it is cultural. Many woman don't want a career, or would prefer to
forgo a career until their children are raised. This manner of doing things
has worked for thousands of years, and I see no reason to attack a man just
because he worked at a job outside the home while his wife stayed at home and
raised the children. I am sure that he has a hand in raising the children.
I do not condemn the woman who has children and chooses to work, but I do
comdemn the active discouragement of the more traditional form that seems to
be common right now. It is important in the development of a child that
the parents take an active role in the raising of the child. Both parents.
Recent studies have shown that at very early stages of an infants development,
the mothers presence is needed for the infant to develop normally. This is
not cultural but biological/psychological. Both the child and the mother
react to this situation in a way that is not dictated by culture.
I'm going to get flamed for this, I know, but I'm sick of people being
closed-minded about the choices that a woman must make for herself.
The man who said that his wife and he decided that she should stay at
home is not oppressing his wife, no matter how much you say he is. This would
appear to have been her choice. I'm single, and if I get married, if my wife
and I decide to have children, we will decide what to do then. I won't
force her to work, nor will I force her to stay at home. I doubt that
I will have the choice, and from what I've seen, I think that for at least
the first year, if one of us stays at home, the infant requires a form
of mothering that men are not equipped for so the mother will stay.
This has been a ramble, and I'll stop it here. I fully expect letters
to the effect of:
"With attitudes like that, it's no wonder you're single..."
or "Spelling like you do shows a genetic disorder that makes you unfit
to father an ant let-alone a human child..."
or "You sexist &^&*%*$**(()&^%..."
I am not considered to have bad attitudes by most of the people who know
me, I am known for my open attitudes and my tolerence for other peoples
beliefs, but many of the people out on the net don't seem to be. If you
must flame me on this, do it via mail.
Daniel Glasser (Male)
...!decvax!sultan!dagsmb (02/12/83)
The real issue is not whether women (or men) stay home and take care of
the children; the issue is why a particular choice is made. That is,
raising children well is *extremely* important, and extremely difficult,
and a person who regards this task as having higher priority than, say,
working outside the house (don't tell me that "housewives" don't work;
they're merely not paid) is not to be scorned or denigrated.
The real issue behind the woman's movement is freedom of choice. Such a
decision should be made because of an individual person's (or couple's)
aptitudes, desires, and needs, and not on genotype. Even if there is
a biological preference for roles -- and I have yet to see any evidence
that's even mildly convincing of that -- it is certainly no more than a
statistical preference; individual variability is far greater than that.
(I should add one caveat when I speak of "aptitudes". Because many of
us -- most of us? -- were raised in a more traditional atmosphere, our
skills are often those "appropriate" for our sex: my wife sews quite
well, and I'm a pretty good electrician, for example. But we both cook,
and when I do any wiring, I show her what I'm doing and why.)
There was a showing of "Rosie the Riveter" today at BTL Murray Hill, a
film about the experiences of the women who were drafted into the work
force during World War II. At the beginning of the war, government
propaganda films were aimed at convincing women to join the work force
("the same hands that can cut out patterns can cut out steel plates for
ships") -- quite reasonable under the circumstances, of course, except
that the women were paid far less than men doing comparable work, even
allowing for experience. But when the war ended, women were told that
they *wanted* to go back to their kitchens, and that it was harmful to
their health, and to their husbands, and to their children, for them to
continue to work. Even the women who wanted to work (it can't be
denied, of course, that many of them wanted "normalcy" again) weren't
able to use their new skills; instead, they were shunted back into
"women's work". Nor was it simply a case of veteran's priorities; women
were the first group laid off to make room for returning solidiers, then
black men, and only then white men. (The film also paid a great deal of
attention to the racial issues at the time, incidentally.)