"Most women would prefer to be stay at home housewives. Women's lib did alot of damage to women!"

by purrpurr 70 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Heaven

  "Most women would prefer to be stay at home housewives."

  I'd go nuts!
  
• 

  OrphanCrow

  sowhatnow: Im going to throw out a thought as to why I think females have less advantages in many societies than men, [What is the real source of female inequality in the world?]...

  The source of female inequality in the world can be traced back to the notion that women are property. To be bought, traded and sold. Owned by men.

  The idea that women are property rather than entitled to own property is the root of all patriarchy.
• 

  Sabin

  DJS, is that happier if he's taller laying down or standing up?

  Vidiot, What is G.F.E ref? sorry, I'm blonde.
• 

  talesin

  TD

  Yes, and who benefits from the patriarchy ----->>> the ruling classes.

  That is the school of thought that leans more towards "feminism is humanism". I attended a lecture in 1995, I think (year of the woman, or some such UN PR thing), and Steinem welcomed all the men, and said "and if you do not like the term feminist, and prefer 'humanist', we celebrate your choice, and the fact that we hold the same ideals" [I am paraphrasing, but that was the gist]. For me, she and Naomi Wolfe set a tone for most of the women I knew. That is, strong and independent, but not harsh or man-hating. The message, and goal, is one of inclusiveness.
  
  I was thinking overnight, and I do remember that book At the time, I had TV, and I believe she was on the View. If memory serves me, this book demonstrates part of the backlash against the last-wave of feminism, and got a lot of press. I also thought of Erica Jong's Fear of Flying and the "zipless f*ck" ... hahaha! That's a great read, by the way.

  I will suggest a book, if you are interested. It's a fiction, by essayist and philosopher Marilyn French, called The Women's Room. It's one woman's experience of life as a new divorcee who returns to college. She is traditional in her thinking, and very down with life. She is the wife who supported hubbie through college, and got ditched for the new model. But that is just an intro to the character Her journey is a good read for the story, and also has deeper undertones. It changed my life. *shrugs* It does show how powerless a 30-something divorcee was in the mid-20th century.

  So, I'm rambling For a good POV of the feminist movement, obtain back issues of Ms. magazine or Mother Jones It doesn't get more real than that - and no phoney media shyte pushing individual agendas.

  It's all about social injustice, yes, focusing on women - but not exclusively. Ms. actually features articles by ... wait for it ... MEN! : )

  Oy, time to rest, later!

  t
• 

  talesin

  Sabin4 hours agoDJS, is that happier if he's taller laying down or standing up?

  
  

  t
• 

  OrphanCrow

  Talesin: Gloria Steinham and Naomi Wolfe...

  And we must not forget Germaine Greer and Susan Faludi.

  Up until I read Greer, I believed all the bullshit that women were men that lacked a penis. Then I discovered that men were just women without a vagina or uterus.

  Thank you, Germaine. :)
• 

  LisaRose

  I will suggest a book, if you are interested. It's a fiction, by essayist and philosopher Marilyn French, called The Women's Room. It's one woman's experience of life as a new divorcee who returns to college. She is traditional in her thinking, and very down with life. She is the wife who supported hubbie through college, and got ditched for the new model. But that is just an intro to the character Her journey is a good read for the story, and also has deeper undertones. It changed my life. *shrugs* It does show how powerless a 30-something divorcee was in the mid-20th century.

  I will have to read that. One of the things that helped me break free from the religion was the abysmal way women were treated. I was a typical subservient JW wife, and since my first husband was disfellowshipped I had zero status in the congregation. I was fine with that at first, I totally believed only men could be leaders, I never even wanted to work in the first place, I was forced into because my first husband couldn't keep a job.

  Then I started working for a company that had a lot of women, as women seem to gravitate towards auditing and finance. As I began to work my way up in the company and got more responsible positions, I saw competent women managers, senior managers and directors and it started to make me aware of how stupid it was to treat women as if they were incapable.

  I was promoted from admin to auditing then to a systems analyst and within two or three months was promoted two levels to a Senior Systems Analyst, even though I had not one college credit to my name. It was explained by my manager, a woman of course, that as my work was as good as anyone else's she could not justify paying me any less. I made the same as any man in an equivalent position, it was a good feeling and such a change. Then I would go to the meetings and become either stupid or invisible. I would go to the meeting for service and watch the young brother struggle with assigning car groups and it was hard not to think I could have done that job better, But I didn't have a penis, so it could never happen, no matter my skills or intelligence.

  I never looked down on women who chose not to work outside the home, but that doesn't mean it's the right choice for everyone. People are generally happiest if their knowledge and skills are utilized to the fullest, for some women that may be child care and running a home, but others are better as different things. I believe the Watchtower devalues women whether they work or not, but they seem more distrustful of working women, strong independent women are a threat. Women could do a lot of the jobs at the Kingdom Hall, there is nothing that makes men inherently better at any of an elders duties, so they are basically wasting the talents of half their members.
• 

  DJS

  @Sabin: "DJS, is that happier if he's taller laying down or standing up?"

  FUNNY! If you keep making wise-ass comments like this, I will be forced to consider you for membership into the exclusive Wise-Ass Club, of which I am the CEO and Alpha. You can replace And Don't Call Me Shirley - a former member I miss terribly who apparently lost a battle with the Forum Alpha (Simon).

  The study didn't say. Girls????

  However, on an empirical note, I can find no data suggesting taller men are better husbands, lovers or fathers. But based on a number of US studies, including a recent study by Harvard U and a poll of Fortune 500 companies about the height of their CEOs, men at least 6' tall make nearly $6k more per year on average than men who are 5'5" and the average height of male CEOs was 3 inches taller than the average male.

  This suggests what we would intuitively expect: women place a high value on security, typically represented by power (height, fame, etc.) and $$$. Taller men make more $$ on average, as they likely do in S. Korea. This even has a name: Tall Male Syndrome.

  Women will often select a male that will: earn more money, be a better protector, or otherwise stay close to the nest. In other words, anything that will give her that sense of security. Based on how we evolved and societal and cultural reinforcements, this makes sense. But what the S. Korean study suggests is that women will STAY with a man, when all other factors appear equal, who makes more money.
• 

  TD

  Yes, and who benefits from the patriarchy ----->>> the ruling classes.

  Tal,

  You know I think highly of you. (At least I hope you do) but you keep using that term even after I've questioned it. Maybe you're using it in a more conservative and restricted scope than it's used in gender studies (?)

  "Patriarchy" is a social system in which males hold primary power and no sane person denies that this has been the dominant pattern throughout human history and that it has been very unfair. "The patriarchy" (with the definite article) goes a step beyond that by postulating active design and direction by a power elite, which is an idea that is disputed in disciplines outside of gender studies.

  Here is a simple example: Humans don't tolerate inbreeding very well. We're probably the least tolerant of all mammals, which was a big, big problem when we existed as small tribal groups. Successful tribes evolved elaborate marriage rules and rituals to avoid inbreeding. Aboriginal tribes in Australia for example, were divided into moieties. Marriages had to take place across moiety lines and this was protected by the strongest possible taboos. It is extremely unlikely though that primitive people with no knowledge of genetics sat down and designed this elaborate tribal structure like an architect would design a building. Humans have tried every form of mating custom under the sun and those that stood the test of time were those that actually worked.

  Like I tried to point out back on page 5 of this thread, there are plenty of sociologists who believe that human societies were shaped by forces that favored efficiency over fairness in a process far more closely akin to natural selection than intelligent design. Men and women fell into roles that although horribly unfair, were brutally efficient.

  The implication in chalking up inequality to intelligent design is that gender relations have largely been adversarial throughout history. Not to pick on RubaDub, but this comment is fairly typical of that thinking:

  "With that "logic" I might have suggested that it would be better in developed countries that black people should regain slave status and be happier by calling their owners "Master.""

  The problem with comparing gender relations to plantation owners and slaves is that it's tough to put your finger at any particular point in history where women themselves have not been up to their elbows in the support and maintenance of the existing social order. Why for example, is the gender distribution among Jehovah's Witnesses 65% Female / 35% Male? (According to the Pew Research Center.) Nobody knows for sure. Why are there so many male UBM's like myself who have waged decades long battles to free our wives from this toxic cult? I don't know.

  I do know that it is pure, unadulterated reductionism to blame men for a system that is this heartily endorsed and supported by women. We're obviously dealing with a phenomenon that is almost entirely self-sustaining and the contribution of the "power elite" (i.e. The all male governing body) is arguably minimal. Frankly, those men aren't capable of piloting a toy boat in a bathtub as the saying goes.
  

  That is the school of thought that leans more towards "feminism is humanism". I attended a lecture in 1995, I think (year of the woman, or some such UN PR thing), and Steinem welcomed all the men, and said "and if you do not like the term feminist, and prefer 'humanist', we celebrate your choice, and the fact that we hold the same ideals" [I am paraphrasing, but that was the gist]. For me, she and Naomi Wolfe set a tone for most of the women I knew. That is, strong and independent, but not harsh or man-hating. The message, and goal, is one of inclusiveness.

  As the father of three daughters, regular supporter of Introduce A Girl To Engineering Day, etc. I responded to that overture, only to find out that there are few groups on earth with a more black and white view of orthodoxy vs. heresy. Ms. Steinem herself is heavily invested in the "men and women as adversaries" model of gender relations and I'll give you a good example of it:

  In 2007, Steinem wrote an article entitled In Defense of the 'Chick Flick.' The idea came to her as a result of sitting next to a young man on a plane who was unhappy with the in-flight movie and announced that he didn't like "chick flicks."

  Apparently under the delusion that only women have emotions and that movies are not also crafted to pluck at male heartstrings and that we call those type of movies, "guy-cry films" Ms. Steinem suggests "prick flick" as a distaff corollary to, "chick flick." She then launches into a diatribe against men which culminates in the suggestion that Boxing Helena would be a good candidate for this genre.

  It would take some serious reading comprehension problems not to see Ms. Steinem's intent here. Boxing Helena was a horrible, gruesome movie about a deranged surgeon who abducts a woman and keeps her captive by amputating her limbs. The assumption that this has an intrinsic appeal to men directly panders to the belief that generally, men are violent oppressors under the skin.

  In reality, Boxing Helena was written by women (story & screenplay) directed and co-produced by women and is loosely classified as romance. Frankly that baffles me, but then I don't understand how women can gobble up books like Fifty Shades Of Grey either.
  

  I was thinking overnight, and I do remember that book At the time, I had TV, and I believe she was on the View. If memory serves me, this book demonstrates part of the backlash against the last-wave of feminism, and got a lot of press.

  Yes. Dowd felt that feminism was fizzling and that a major component of the backlash is that men are threatened to the point of emasculation by smart, successful women. She didn't come right out and say that men are unnecessary, but the implication was pretty clear. The acerbic tone and cherry picking of data were both bad enough that the book, Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women was written in part, as a rebuttal to Dowd.
• 

  Sabin

  Actually DJS they look all the same laying down & when the lights are turned off.

  How do you explain men who like their women taller? some men do you know. Is it cause they are more secure in themselves. I said that to my husband once, he went up the wall. Didn't like the thought that I might be implying that he was insecure cause his wife was shorter than him. He said "those men look like monkey boys,"

  Aren't men funny.