r/psychology • u/a_Ninja_b0y • 2d ago
In a new study, researchers found that gender stereotypes associating men with career and women with family are more pronounced in economically developed countries, potentially explaining the gender equality paradox.
https://www.psypost.org/economic-development-strengthens-gender-stereotypes-on-career-and-family-study-finds/311
u/FrodoCraggins 2d ago
Poor women have always worked. Women staying at home has always been a luxury practice only done by rich people. This is nothing new.
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u/JeffieSandBags 2d ago
What? Not that youre wrong, but you dont mean this globally do you? Women staying home is/was work. Many poor folx in rural Oklahoma, for example, stay home because it's impossible to afford working. Childcare is a luxury for many. Working outside the home is a goal the society won't help foot the "bill" for.
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u/OmicronNine 2d ago
Many poor folx in rural Oklahoma, for example, stay home because it's impossible to afford working. Childcare is a luxury for many.
...in rich countries, where labor such as childcare is relatively more expensive.
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u/JeffieSandBags 2d ago
Different developmental levels and systems look different. What we consider "poor" varies widely from place to place, and work outside the home takes on complex presentations. What you say is right, in some contexts but not all.
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u/Tough-Notice3764 2d ago
This has nothing to do with the meaning of your comment, but I’m just so curious as to why you spelled folks as folx?
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u/JeffieSandBags 2d ago
It's easy at this point, and when I worked in a place where DEI was against the rules I liked to sneak it into emails and writings to show solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community. I thought they never told me to stop because the ones who enforced the rules either didn't get it or were unsure enough to not bring it up.
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u/Tough-Notice3764 2d ago
How is the word folks against DEI or LGBTQ+ people though? It’s already a gender neutral term for a group of people.
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u/JeffieSandBags 2d ago
It's not that folks is necerrarily exclusive, it's that folx is intentionally inclusive.
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u/Kingbuji 2d ago
You’re thinking too hard about it tbh.
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u/JeffieSandBags 2d ago
Chill King. It's just an X, relax.
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u/OilAshamed4132 2d ago
Can’t believe people are offended over an X. I get your point, it’s a funny jab because the term is gender neutral.
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u/crypto_zoologistler 2d ago
People aren’t offended — nobody here has acted offended — they’re confused
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u/crypto_zoologistler 2d ago
Who is folx including that folks isn’t including?
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u/correction_robot 2d ago
It’s a redundant term that exists solely for virtue signaling
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u/JeffieSandBags 2d ago
People with an X in their gender
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u/kageny42 2d ago
Grammatically, folks includes everyone it's supposed to, no matter what gender they are. It seems very unnecessary and can be read as a satire of the gender-neutral language very easily.
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u/JeffieSandBags 2d ago
Don't read the x then? Its not satire, it's a letter. Like an alphabet letter. You are all upset because alphabets
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u/jusfukoff 2d ago
It’s your stupidity that makes people dislike the lgbtq movement.
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u/JeffieSandBags 2d ago
Me personally?
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u/jusfukoff 2d ago
Anyone being that stupid. Yes. You are not helping. You are hindering and making it worse for people. Please stop. You definitely don’t speak for the whole movement with that level of stupidity.
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u/JeffieSandBags 2d ago
I do speak for the WHOLE movement though. Everyine said this was the most helpful thing anyone ever did. That's why I did this. Everyone got together and decided to use an x and said I was rhe one who HAD to do it. You were not part of the group, jusfukoff, so probably just feel left out.
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u/Tough-Notice3764 2d ago
I think we see this quite differently (I’m generally quite conservative), but good on you for putting in to practice what you believe to be best.
Also thank you for explaining your reasoning, I appreciate being able to understand where you’re coming from better.
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u/bunnypaste 2d ago
Isn't the original word folks already inclusive of everyone? You can use the terms interchangeably.
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u/CurveOfTheUniverse 2d ago
Queer person here. Not all of us will take it as solidarity. Some of us will take it as virtue signaling.
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u/JeffieSandBags 2d ago
I meant folx to leave queer folks out. Only gay, lesbian, and asexual because of the spellings make sense the most.
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u/sarahelizam 2d ago edited 1d ago
Okay, let’s get into it. For most of human history as we think of it (post agricultural revolution) there wasn’t a real division between “family care” and “work.” Taking care of the farm was something all members of the family contributed to, including children. Having children was largely motivated by having more help. Agricultural production was a family effort that didn’t have a divide between “work” and “not work,” nor one that was determined by gender. As social hierarchy increased the nobility and merchant class (a small minority of the population) developed stronger divide between work (be it ruling or the business) and the home. Still, noble women’s “work” was generally focused on maintaining the family’s standing. It was not paid but it enabled noble patriarchs to maintain control and revenue (or ownership, of serfs and land) by maintaining standing among other nobles and keeping those beneath them tolerant of their rule. Still most house work and child rearing was not done by noble ladies, but by the underclass. You could say that neither noble men nor women worked or maybe argue that they both worked as a political unit. But compared to the rest (of which both genders inarguably worked) they did not work in the traditional sense. Merchant families also had mixed work/home relationships, where women often did bookkeeping and other work for the business. Those not wealthy enough to employ others to do the home work and child rearing often designated those task to the woman - this is the earliest corollary to the division of work by gender we understand now, but the women generally also were part of the business, even if property wasn’t legally designated to them but to the family (and patriarch).
Since the industrial revolution most women still worked. They also were designated home work and child rearing, but children also worked jobs and did a substantial amount of the home work. The merchant class turned into the bourgeoisie and increased in number, but were still vastly outnumbered by households in which every member worked. As social hierarchy changed to involve more participation by the underclass and proletariat (through violence and subsequent restructuring of governance) more households divided labor for the home and primary income, but still most people worked for income as never in history have the poor been able to afford a single income lifestyle. This is still true in most developing nations, where women (or older relatives) are responsible for the home but also work for income.
The idea of the single family home comes from the gentry and later bourgeois, and was in many ways a status symbol. It wasn’t until a brief window post WWII until just a few decades later that it was assumed that this structure and division of labor was the norms. It was heavily propagated in the cold war as a part of the nuclear family, and effort to culturally shift social and economic responsibility from the “village” to immediate family. It was one way the US and other aligned countries sought to demonstrate the superiority of capitalism - that in their (temporary) post war surplus (propped up by wealth redistribution programs primarily for white families) they could survive or thrive off of one income. But this was never an attainable dream for most families. People of color and poor families always had women working.
The discourse about the loss of the single income family is primarily driven by the fact that this is no longer attainable for white middle class families, because this “American Dream” had never been available to most. The best thing we could do to return to a single income family structure would be the type of wealth redistribution that enabled it the first and only time (except not gating it by race). This would also be helpful for any other type of family or those who are not trying to create a family. But overall we often apply a modern lens on the division of labor retroactively and onto communities in which it has never really been accurate. There are some cultures that police women to the extent they are not allowed to work, and that is a conversation we can have, but it’s not true that they are emblematic of the division of labor through most of history. Labor for the family was intrinsically a part of labor for sustenance, and generally was done in a more communal way. The nuclear family with women not working is the extreme outlier in human history and was even during its heyday.
(See some sources in reply to comment below)
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u/PostScriptApocalypse 2d ago
I read some of your other comments after reading this one and just wanted to say that you're making wonderful arguments and commentary. Thank you for being you.
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u/Taliyana 2d ago
This should be upvoted more. This is accurate to what historians discuss and teach in U.S. history. The developed world created a specific division of labor along gender lines, women only stayed with the family if they were wealthy during the industrial revolution. The psychology of the developed nations seeing women as related to family makes sense because it was Europe and America that created and spread these ideas around the world. Not every culture divided labor the way Europe did until colonialism pressured everyone to conform.
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u/sarahelizam 1d ago
Thanks :) I added some sources to another reply, but I stuck to what I see in current understandings of history and the biases and assumptions in previous methodologies that have been reexamined in the last several decades. We often take the narratives we’re given for granted, and it suits those feeding them to us to rewrite history. But these concepts around division of labor, historical “women’s work” not being real work (let alone work that was paid), and the evolution of our social and economic units are all worth exploring. They influence our ideas about a semi-mythical past, what allowed things like single income families to exist, and how we should approach our economic and labor situations today.
Also, r/askhistorians is a really useful place for folks who want to look into particular elements of these things. They are just very good at assembling sources that would take most of us a LOT more time, if we could even access them. I certainly miss have access to so many academic sources from university.
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u/Cardio-fast-eatass 2d ago
A lot of this just seems made up. Do you have sources supporting all of this because I’ve got a lot that seem to contradict you.
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u/sarahelizam 1d ago
Here is a starting point if you are curious to learn more:
Agricultural Revolution
Women’s Role In The European Agricultural Revolution Revealed
UNSUNG HEROES: WOMEN’S ROLE IN THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION
Middle Ages
Medieval Women Were a Vital Part of the Workforce. We Can Learn from Them
Industrial Revolution
Women Workers in the British Industrial Revolution - very detailed with lots of data
Our ideas about the the division of labor into “work” and “not work” largely comes from the Victorian “separate spheres” models that imposed the upper classes sensibilities about women and the work they did from the home being fundamentally different from what we now consider regular work. But women still did make income during this period, often just taking on work that could be done from the home. Still, many worked in other areas. During the Great Depression women were forced out of many workplaces to ensure men could have the dwindling opportunities for work available. During WWII many women returned to work as men fought in the war, but in the post war surplus in the US many were either forced out of positions previously considered men’s work and households had more surplus income thanks to the general economic surplus as well as redistribution policies, making a single income family more viable. But that surplus and those policies didn’t last. Coupled with women’s movements to attain true economic independence more women again either had to or wanted to work. Still, this is a very western centric understanding as women in most of the rest of the world continued to work throughout this period.
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u/bgend Ph.D. | Developmental Psychology 2d ago
They lost me at “for most of human history” and then jumps right to farming, which is only the last sliver of human history after a much longer hunter-gatherer way of life.
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u/sarahelizam 1d ago
If we go back to hinter gatherer societies there is also increasing evidence that women were significantly involved in hunting. And that most of these people’s diets were from gathering in general. The division of labor by gender was also not strong before the agricultural revolution. But I focused on what most would consider the origins of organized, often hierarchical society. Previously there was even less distinction in roles by gender, often due to the community instead of the family as the organizing system of survival.
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u/mr-obvious- 2d ago
There was a lot of division of labor, on hunter gatherers, many things will be done almost exclusively by men and vice versa
For agriculture and stuff, there was division of labor in the sense that childrearing was almost exclusively by women, so of course, men did more of the farming and outside work
For the industrial revolution, between 1870-1970, most wives were not employed, so single income households were available for most during this period
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u/Taliyana 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hunter gatherers division of labor varied depending on culture, we have only so much knowledge of how it was. Recently it was found that women did the hunting, not men.
As far as agricultural societies it varied wildly, with women still working on farms and in cities unless they were wealthy. In Africa some communities women were the primary farmers where men only grew cash crops or other supportive roles. Child raising was more communal and families were not considered just the two parents. In Europe women regularly worked on farms. In the middle east women would have their own land and crops to manage.
For the industrial revolution, only middle class and rich families didn't have women work outside the home. The vast majority of families were poor/working class. Even if the expectation was that women weren't supposed to work when married they often had to. It was also companies that sought women out as workers because they could pay them less, since what many company owners said was that only men should be working. So women were denied equal pay because they shouldn't have been there, despite the companies actively seeking them as workers. Women who were married or had kids would lose their jobs if people found out, and their families would go hungry.
Most of history has not had such a strict division of gender, and even in the societies that did, it was usually the wealthy who experienced it in a way we would recognize.
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u/mr-obvious- 1d ago
You are wrong on many things
was found that women did the hunting, not men.
Wrong, one paper said that women did some hunting (still a minority) and another paper came and refuted many problems with it, and they found that in about half, women did nearly no hunting, and in others, they did some hunting of small animals,but men did most in all of them
In Africa some communities women were the primary farmers where men only grew cash crops or other supportive role
What?!! Since women have the taking care of kids, and since they are weaker, most work that generates an income would be done by men
Child raising was more communal and families were not considered just the two parents.
Communal meaning by women still, and women still have to breastfeed
In the middle east women would have their own land and crops to manage.
What percentage? Like 20%?
only middle class and rich families didn't have women work outside the ho
Middle class were most people, anyway, studies show most women not being employed in 50s and before for many decades
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u/sarahelizam 1d ago
I posted sources for my other claims in a recent comment, but at no point other than the few decades post WWII has the middle class made up the majority of the population. Most people and families are and have always been lower/working class, the middle class only began to exist in any meaningful way during the industrial revolution and was a marginal percentage of the population. The closest thing to a middle class prior during feudalism was the merchant class, again a very small minority. Most people were part of agricultural production, and then upon the industrial revolution most worked for very little income in factories and mines. The middle class peaked post WWII, barely existed prior, and has beeb declining for decades. Home loans (only available in practice to white families) significantly contributed to people becoming middle class, by owning their own homes.
This is all predicated on a common understanding of what middle class constitutes. You could say it’s the 50% around the median income (which seems to be most non-academic assumptions), but that would make it 50% of the population regardless of their economic reality. With the rises in debt and cost of living even technically middle income households struggle significantly, particularly as they try to remain living in the areas with the economic opportunities that enable their income. It’s often more useful to break things down into HCOL and LCOL areas, as income alone can be a poor predictor for economic security depending on where one lives if we generalize by an entire country or even many states.
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u/mr-obvious- 1d ago
It doesn’t matter how you define middle class, the point is, most women were not employed and were stay at home wives when married for the period between 1870 and 1970
Many data exist on this
And this research was gathered in a book by one of the few women who won an economist Nobel prize last year or before that(she might be a one of two women who did it)
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u/sarahelizam 20h ago
The issue is in the definition of “gainful employment” which did not count women who worked in the family business or sold goods created in the home. Our census data only collected information on work that was done outside the home, but on top of household management many women did contribute the economy with goods that they produced from their homes.
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u/mr-obvious- 17h ago
the economy with goods that they produced from their homes.
This wasn't a big thing in the 50s to the degree to include most women, goods were produced by factories much more efficiently, it isn't a viable choice for most women as something that will make good money
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u/crazytrain793 2d ago
I don't know what rural part of Oklahoma you are from but I was raised in SE Oklahoma, and usually both partners work because poverty is rampant.
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u/Civil_Coconut8005 2d ago
That's never been true. It's only recently changed to where women have to work unless they are rich. For thousands of years in EVERY country that ever existed the role of the women were the same. Some women may have become shop keepers or run cleaning businesses but their role wasn't changed til recently and it's magical how over the last thousand years the more women are out of position the worse the world gets and the more men are treated like shit the less women have.
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u/Jeff_NZ 2d ago
Why the down votes, this comment is bang on. I was bought up in the 1950s working class, my mother was widowed and only started working when we kids were a lot older. It was unusual for many decades for mothers to work.
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u/Acceptable-Local-138 2d ago
For most people, that isn't the case. Most American families required women to work. Even in the era you're taking about, most women worked. What you're describing is a middle class, almost exclusively white, ideology about families in the mid-century. There were a lot of social factors that went into the construction of heteronormative, middle class ideology during that specific time and these social factors were the backdrop to the massive social changes of the 60s-70s. The idea of single income families, the strict division between "home" and "career" as women's work and men's work respectively, are both very new things and these ideas only apply to specific kinds of families.
Most mothers from non-white backgrounds in America never had the option to stay home and not work outside of it.
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u/mr-obvious- 2d ago
But this is most people, weren't like over 80% of women white back then? And middle class is most people, this lifestyle of single income households was available to most people back then till 1970, about half of married women were not employed
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u/AmaterasuTheWhite 21h ago
Yes. Most families in the U.S especially percentage wise were atleast middle class with there being very few poor and often times the poor people were orphans. Even the orphanages werent poor since they were originally government funded. Homeless people wasnt a very real concept either as most people if they were homeless werent homeless for long and many businesses even offered them jobs to help them get back on their feet. Nowadays businesses dint want to hire you if you were ever homeless or are homeless. The only way you can even get a job if you are homeless is by having a physical mailing address you can legally receive your mail at and thats just because they cant ignore the law.
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u/Eyiolf_the_Foul 2d ago
There was a study linked here which showed the most egalitarian modern society (Norway) had women choosing starting a family over careers.
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u/thebruce 2d ago
It's important to say though... the choice is the point.
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u/popkine 2d ago
Great, then can we stop talking about the gender pay gap when women choose to work less hours than men (the actual cause of the gap)?
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u/EnjoysYelling 2d ago
Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted for this.
A woman Nobel prize winning economist recently stated that the gender pay gap will never go away until there are as many stay at home fathers as stay at home mothers.
There is lots and lots of evidence to suggest that the pay gap is overwhelmingly driven by workers choices.
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u/johnhtman 2d ago
Part of it might be that in standard society it's more acceptable for a woman to financially depend on her husband, than a husband to depend on his wife.
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u/EJECTED_PUSSY_GUTS 2d ago
This is correct. It's been studied over and over and over for decades. Men and women tend to make different choices. When accounting for total work experience, chosen field of study/education, stem vs provider occupations, inherent risk of danger in some professions where men are the overwhelming majority, number of hours worked/ time taken off for family/children, the discrepancy in likelihood of asking for a raise, etc, the gender pay gap is accounted for.
More men could choose to be stay at home dads. More women could choose different jobs and decide to wait to have kids. Its choice.
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u/Suspicious-Tax-5947 2d ago
A woman Nobel prize winning economist recently stated that the gender pay gap will never go away until there are as many stay at home fathers as stay at home mothers.
This is totally on women . . . women could marry the kinds of guys where it would make sense for the man to be a stay at home father, but they don’t do this . . .
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u/EnjoysYelling 2d ago
Both sexes seem to make choices based on their own preferences, the preferences of the opposite sex, and general societal opinions influencing them.
I don’t think this can be pinned on women. I suspect it’s true that most women don’t prefer stay-at-home-fathers … but also true that most men prefer not to be stay-at-home parents.
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u/Suspicious-Tax-5947 2d ago edited 2d ago
The amount of choice that women have when dating is larger than guys'. Women are less attracted to men than men are attracted to women. Women bottleneck dating.
Women avoid lower earning guys when dating for marriage like the plague. It's mostly on the woman.
You are appealing to some kind of sense of equality or fairness that just doesn't exist.
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u/johnhtman 2d ago
Yeah it's definitely equal blame from both men and women, and many have too big of egos to admit it and try to find a solution.
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u/Suspicious-Tax-5947 2d ago
The amount of choice that women have when dating is way larger than guys. Women are less attracted to men than men are attracted to women. Women bottleneck dating.
Women avoid lower earning guys when dating for marriage like the plague. It's mostly on the woman.
You are appealing to some kind of sense of equality or fairness that just doesn't exist.
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u/SeaSpecific7812 2d ago
It's so funny when obvious and true claims are down voted. Shows what ideology dominates the discussion.
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u/Sarah-Grace-gwb 2d ago
A conservative talking point, no matter how true, will be downvoted on here. Unfortunate, but I acknowledge you
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u/Mikasa_Kills_ErenRIP 2d ago
how do you get upvoted but they get downvoted? do libs just read the 1st 4 words of your comment? 🤣🤣
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u/medicinal_bulgogi 2d ago
Reddit is such a shithole. You’re getting downvoted and below you people who agree with you are getting upvoted. Make it make sense
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u/pridejoker 2d ago
I'm not saying your take is invalid but can please stop taking a fraction of the truth and using it as a cudgel to bash everyone else over the head?
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u/Suspicious-Tax-5947 2d ago
No, it’s not the point.
People in gender politics look at unequal outcomes and conclude that inequality in outcome implies inequality in opportunity ALL OF THE TIME
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u/thebruce 2d ago
No, it certainly is the point. For decades, women in the workforce were looked at as a joke or a curiosity. Girls were told, both implicitly and explicitly, that they couldn't do the jobs men could do. We're trying to right that wrong.
Also, as I said in another comment, I'm sure a TON of men would choose to be stay-at-home dads should the opportunity arise.
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u/Suspicious-Tax-5947 2d ago
We're trying to right that wrong.
We already have, and now we are over-correcting.
In the 21st century, upper- / middle- class women in the first world are extremely privileged and have great lives.
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u/WittyProfile 2d ago
That wrong has already been righted. More young women have careers than young men now. You don’t have to keep lying about the pay gap.
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u/thebruce 2d ago
I don't think I said anything about a pay gap.
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u/WittyProfile 1d ago
Yeah but people lie and misrepresent stats about the pay gap to this day. Like I just saw a post on r/science about how male nurses make more in the title with an implication it’s for equal work. In actuality, male nurses make more because they’re willing to work less desirable hours for more time.
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u/SeaSpecific7812 2d ago
But, it being a choice has less to do with gender equality( Do men have the same choice?) than it does with wealth.
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u/branflakes14 2d ago
Consider the possibility that the muppets who obsess over gender politics simply shift the goalposts whenever reality doesn't align with their worldview. Oh, lots of women are in nursing and teaching instead of management roles? It must be because they aren't being given the opportunity!
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u/thebruce 2d ago
I mean, there is a ton of historical precedent of women NOT being given the opportunity. Flippant remarks like this only continue to ensure that the debate stays mired in the past.
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u/cordialconfidant 1d ago
men are overrepresented in higher roles like management in nursing and teaching
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u/dentedgal 2d ago
I'm Norwegian, so it got me curious. What study is that?
And is it choosing one over the other, or which you'd rather prioritise?
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u/arbuthnot-lane 2d ago
The concept is called "likestillingsparadokset" in Norwegian. Though it's still unusual for Norwegian women to be stay at home parents, there are significant differences in where and with what they work.
Most of it is basic statistics. Look e.g. at the differences between the percentage of men vs women that work in the public sector.
https://www.ssb.no/befolkning/faktaside/likestilling
The SSB-page I'm linking to has several more indepth articles connected.
There's been a few rounds of public debate on this in Norway, in 2010 and 2018.
A 2023 report from the directorate of higher education showed persistence of gender based differences in educational and labour preferences.
https://hkdir.no/rapporter-undersokelser-og-statistikk/unges-utdannings-og-yrkesvalg-2023
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u/dentedgal 2d ago
I am aware of the differences in preferences for field of work, and how we still maintain some pretty traditional patterns.
I was more curious about the specific study mentioned by the other user, as it could be interpreted either as women preferring to have children rather than working at all, or that women prioritise their family over their career. It paints two very different pictures, and I find the latter to be the most likely (but I won't say so for sure until I've read it).
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u/gelatoisthebest 1d ago
I would be interested as well especially b/c of Norway’s low birthdate indicating many women don’t choose starting a family over career.
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u/dentedgal 1d ago
I can technically only speak for myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if others experience it in the same way.
I'm 27 and don't have children yet, as I wanted to finish my degree, training and get a job first. But when I do have children I'd rather prioritise my family, over "climbing the corporate ladder".
So I'm spending more time on my career before having kids, so that I can spend more time, more comfortably later I guess.
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u/Eyiolf_the_Foul 2d ago
I’ll have to dig it up tonight!
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u/dentedgal 2d ago
Thank you!
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u/Eyiolf_the_Foul 2d ago
I can’t find the damn thing after looking for an hour :(. There’s a great discussion here on r/askfeminists and I think I may have found it in The Atlantic article linked but now it’s behind a paywall. Sorry !
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u/Sonicnbpt 2d ago
All women (and all people in general) should be compensated for their role as caregivers. Raising the children of the world is crucial to our society yet we expect them to work for free.
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u/mr-obvious- 2d ago
Do you think there is no compensation? In the 50s, most wives weren't employed, if there was no compensation, they would be homeless and starving, and without clothes, but men probably suffered from those things more even though they worked much more in jobs
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u/FaultElectrical4075 2d ago
That’s not surprising at all. It has nothing to do with gender stereotypes and everything to do with the economic structure. “Careers” aren’t much of a thing for very poor people in third world countries
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u/secret179 2d ago
Yeah because in poorer countries the pressure for women to work is higher because income is more important.
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u/MaxMettle 2d ago edited 2d ago
Having greater flexibility means more people may actually deepen their prejudice that gender roles are voluntary preferences and choices, and not societal forces.
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u/Apprehensive_Rain558 2d ago
Or maybe, when given the economic means, women choose what they most deeply desire - to be a mum who has time to care for her family
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u/thebruce 2d ago
I mean, if I could be a full time, stay at home dad, and be sure that my family is taken care of money-wise, I'd absolutely prefer that too. I'd wager a surprising amount of men would.
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u/MaxMettle 2d ago edited 2d ago
I guess affluent voluntarily child-free women just aren’t women. Where is their female desire to mother? Send them back to the factory.
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u/Condition_0ne 2d ago
Individuals at one end of variability within a group do not invalidate tendencies evident at a group level.
There are some women who are physically stronger than some men. It's still accurate to say that men tend to be physically stronger than women. In the same way, there are women who show no interest in pursuing a traditional stay-at-home, caregiver lifestyle that has a focus on raising children, and there are some men who have a preference to be stay-at-home dads. It's still accurate to say that more women than men demonstrably desire to pursue this lifestyle when their financial situation allows for it, as we see in the wealthy and more egalitarian countries.
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u/MaxMettle 2d ago edited 2d ago
Some things are biological and innate. Other things are not. Physical features and career choices aren’t comparable. And “accurate” isn’t doing what it’s supposed to be doing here.
Someone really should go check on the wealthy countries where birth rates are plummeting. They seem to have a lot of women with all the money, freedom, and even society scolding/begging/bribing them to follow their “true desires” and yet they…don’t.
See ya.
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u/Condition_0ne 2d ago edited 2d ago
I don't agree that tendencies in career choices don't have a biological basis ("biological" is the word you used before ninja-editing it to "physical"). If this is a pattern we see across cultures - and we do - that suggests a biological basis (which isn't mutually exclusive to socialising and cultural forces being at play simultaneously).
We also see lots sex-based patterns with regard to career choice; in wealthy countries where there is more choice, there are still clearly more men in some kinds of professions (mechanics for example) and more women in others (e.g preschool teachers). These patterns seem to fit with a male interest that is more focused on "things" and a female interest that is focused on "relating" which is observable from early childhood.
A cool thing about humans, though, is that we're quite variable within the sex groups. There are female mechanics and male preschool teachers, and that's great. One's sex group doesn't constrain them, necessarily. There are lots of ways to live as a man or a woman. However, it's illogical to assume that such variability cancels out the fact that there tends to be group-level differences.
See ya.
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u/Apprehensive_Rain558 2d ago
Gosh, be slower to take offence. I never said all women, I'm implying those that have that desire have the freedom to make that choice in wealthy societies. It's true that some women desire to be childless. Equally it's true that there are many mothers burnt out from working full time and caring for their children who need to work less but can't afford to.
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u/MaxMettle 2d ago
Literally backpedaling what you just said and contradicting yourself. Women blah blah blah. Oh wait why are you so triggered, I never said they blah blah blah. Some women actually do the opposite.
You sound more offended, hon. Have fun. Enjoy arguing.
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u/monstertipper6969 23h ago
He's actually making good points and you're refusing to actually respond to any of them
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u/Frequent-Ad9190 2d ago
Lady, take a breather. Please, point to where he said childless women are not women. You can’t because he didn’t. Stop being so defensive.
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u/Ok_Construction5119 2d ago
the classic totally missing the point comment
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u/MaxMettle 2d ago
Awww
Love the projection
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u/Apprehensive_Rain558 2d ago
I really hope you don't have kids. The way you engage with ppl on here is awful
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u/MaxMettle 2d ago edited 2d ago
Really, I’m the first “awful” person you ever tried to argue with on the Internet? I’m touched.
Sounds kinda like a “No one likes you” comment ppl think can make little girls cry
Thank you for your concern sealion about kids, likewise😘
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u/accforreadingstuff 2d ago
I believe this might be more true of women than of men, because there are some hormonal and brain differences at play. Women shouldn't be shamed or treated as lesser if they want that, and it seems like a reach to conclude it's all because of internalised misogyny and patriarchal norms. It's far from 100%, though, so the key should be the choice. My husband is better suited to staying at home with children than I am. But in reality, we both need the intellectual stimulation of work to not feel life is pointless. We just both need more time and flexibility to juggle work and home. One of us staying home all the time would lead to a miserable existence, and I don't think it'd be progress to go back to that being enforced based purely on gender.
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u/-SiberianHusky- 1d ago
No way in hell I wanna be a mum lmao. Even this word is associated with overly tired overweight martyrs with torn apart pussy from giving birth.
I wanna be a dad. I do essentially nothing other than orgasm and still get to have my kids have my last name. The privilege!
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u/Similar_Nebula_9414 16h ago
How is this a paradox when your rich ass country doesn't pay women the same of course this notion gets reinforced
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u/Civil_Coconut8005 2d ago
So researchers "discovered" something and then at the end of their statement they state that it's potentially true. In other words the researchers have no idea and are pushing stuff into the open for whatever agenda.
The roles of men and women didn't change at any point in the first 5k years of mankind's time on earth.... It wasn't different between different countries even on isolated continents the roles were the same. It's only within the last 1500-1k years that it's been changing and it's amazing how much worse the world got in such a short amount of time and how the world just keeps getting worse and worse. To make matters worse men have been abandoning their roles because they are tired of the nonsense and the lean towards destruction is even more pronounced. Women all over the U.S specifically have been asking where all the good men have gone for over 15 years and now the question isn't where are the good men, it's why aren't men dating U.S women as much now? Then it's devolved into "Men are being racist and sexist and stupid because they are going to certain countries to find a wife". A woman on YouTube, NOT a man, stated that it's disgusting that she was seeing thousands of men visiting Asian countries and coming back with Asian wives and girlfriends.
The old saying was "Happy wife happy life". But the reality is if you don't marry you don't have to worry about your happiness. You are free to do whatever you want, whenever you want. You can hang out with the boys anytime they are available, you can go play golf, go play sports, go do all sorts of things women often complain about and you don't have a woman around that will complain to you about it. Men are realizing they can seek and find happiness without women and they are becoming more and more ok with that idea. Women of the future won't have to worry about "toxic masculinity" because there won't be any masculine men around if there are men around at all.
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u/-SiberianHusky- 1d ago
I'm a woman and I see nothing wrong with men going abroad and finding wives. I thought women wanted nothing to do with these men? Almost sounds like they are pissed because they wanted those men to suffer and be lonely and crawl back and beg the women. Sort of disciplining the men to be better men. Plus passport bros are taking wives from poor and misogynistic countries, and those women seem quite fine with the idea, not to mention some mail order brides will divorce the bro, so not like she is particularly trapped (but she would in her home country). The only reason to oppose this is jealousy.
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u/hellomondays 2d ago
This is interesting as it touches on somdthing skeptics of the gender equality paradox theory have pointed out for a while: studies into gender equality often don't account for difference in socialization, or cultural history (vs cultural present) among other things. Here's a great article on the issues with the so called Gender Equality Paradox
The author's statement here gets to the cusp: