It’s looking at accomplished women dropping out of demanding careers to raise kids as sexism. Could it be that someone may prefer to raise a family to grinding 70 hours a week at the office once they don’t need to worry about money? I certainly would! But if the only thing you count is personal status[2] then it would seem to you that these women are being cheated out of something by the evil patriarchy.
This is a remarkably shallow way of looking at the issue. The fact that some 95%+ of people who drop out of the workforce to raise children are women should put paid to the idea that the patriarchy has nothing to do with it. Sure, work can be stressful—but men feel stress too, and somehow men don’t make this same destructive “choice” to drop out of the workforce in favor of total dependence on their spouses.
95%+ of people who drop out of the workforce to raise children are women
Citation needed.
Other than that, you are supporting my general argument by writing from within the very framework that I lay out here. Why is the choice to leave work “destructive”? Why is it OK for a man to depend on a woman for the biological necessities of having a family, but not OK for either partner do depend on the other for the financial necessities?
Accomplished women who drop out to raise families usually don’t surrender the spending of money to their husbands (I agree that demanding that they do so is patriarchal and bad). They only surrender the making of the money. The ability to spend money is what lets people build good lives and families, but making money is what contributes to their status*. Post-divorce, it’s usually much easier for a woman (particularly an accomplished one) to make money again than it is for a man to have children again.
*At least, their status among some people. I personally care about LW karma more than income :)
This is a remarkably shallow way of looking at the issue. The fact that some 95%+ of people who drop out of the workforce to raise children are women should put paid to the idea that the patriarchy has nothing to do with it. Sure, work can be stressful—but men feel stress too, and somehow men don’t make this same destructive “choice” to drop out of the workforce in favor of total dependence on their spouses.
Citation needed.
Other than that, you are supporting my general argument by writing from within the very framework that I lay out here. Why is the choice to leave work “destructive”? Why is it OK for a man to depend on a woman for the biological necessities of having a family, but not OK for either partner do depend on the other for the financial necessities?
Accomplished women who drop out to raise families usually don’t surrender the spending of money to their husbands (I agree that demanding that they do so is patriarchal and bad). They only surrender the making of the money. The ability to spend money is what lets people build good lives and families, but making money is what contributes to their status*. Post-divorce, it’s usually much easier for a woman (particularly an accomplished one) to make money again than it is for a man to have children again.
*At least, their status among some people. I personally care about LW karma more than income :)