Page 1 of 1 pages
This is great! Thanks Susan J. Douglas & In These Times - I can’t wait to read the book!
Posted by Lyn X on Feb 24, 2010 at 1:31 PM
As a father of three daughters, I thought this article hit a lot of my concerns right on the head. The only thing I might have wanted emphasized more is the trend I see in media towards presenting favorable views of teenagers having babies. (Or “balanced” views, which by presenting “pros” to offset the obvious cons, effectively help promote unwise behavior.) This and the slavish acceptance in most popular media of the idea that “Abstinence Only” is at least a justifiable moral choice when it comes to birth control, if not the most moral choice. Since my youngest is not quite 15, and is obsessed with these shows, this particular point has really excercised me. I recently argued in my own blog (http://persistentwondering.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-teenage-daughter-and-her-peers.html) that “Abstinence Only” should be viewed as an IMMORAL policy, and not a morally acceptable option, at all.
Posted by David Knuttunen on Feb 26, 2010 at 6:47 AM
What you consider conspiracy is just human nature. The basic function of all life forms is to survive and reproduce, it is not to achieve some status that you deem respectable.
Men want to reproduce with women that are healthy and fertile, which they base on physical appearance. Women are seeking good providers, as well as, good health in a mate. If men thought they could attract more women by hitting themselves in the head with a hammer they would.
You’re opinion that a doctor or a CEO is better than a construction worker or a nurse, is cultural bias. It is based on consumerist notions that you need to earn as much money as possible to buy things which will fulfill you, instead of finding what makes you the most happy.
As someone who has worked with many women and have had many women supervisors, I have never seen any sign of anyone doubting that the women were in any way deficient. I have noticed that women will take years off from their careers to raise babies, though.
Posted by Mortimor Valentine on Feb 28, 2010 at 2:56 PM
This comment is for Mortimor Valentine. First of all, I don’t think any feminist would argue that there is anything wrong with wanting a healthy mate. Everyone should want a healthy mate. I have often run into this argument when discussing mens’ preoccupation with the exceptionally slender body type in women. This is the problem with your argument; men don’t want someone who is healthy. I’m sure many of them do, but there are also a number of them who don’t. I think that men have been conditioned to believe they need to be able to control a woman. And I think men choose women(not in all cases) by how easily they can maintain control of a relationship with a particular woman. And it has nothing to do with body type. There is no evidence that one particular body type is healthier or more fertile than another. It is true that obesity is unhealthy. But there is no connection between obesity and infertility. There have been psychological studies that have proven that men find full figured women more attractive than skinny women. The skinny standard, as I like to call it, is a reaction to the women’s movement. It’s a way for men to enforce control over women by keeping them worried about whether or not someone will want to reproduce with them. Because they know that relationships are important to women and that women have a limited window in which to reproduce. Women have long been defined by their ability to be successful in personal relationships. So it’s no difficult task for men to just take advantage of this insecurity in women. Furthermore, what you seem to miss regarding the issue of women in the workplace is that women don’t choose the professions they choose because they just love being nurses and teachers and sales clerks. They choose these professions because they are bullied into them. Also, whoever holds the top positions in the top companies, drives the companies, which in turn drives the economy, resulting in a turn in the zeitgeist. Wanting women to climb to the top professionally is about giving women a voice. I think plenty of women would choose to be mechanics and engineers and CEOs if they didn’t feel like it was such a boys club and they could do their jobs without being expected to have sex with their superiors and/or take on masculine traits in order to ward off sexual advances by their superiors. As for the issue of women taking time off to raise babies, they should. And so should men.
Posted by April H. on Mar 5, 2010 at 11:44 AM
April H.
I agree with much of what you say. Sexism still exists in America. But women weren’t taught to value their relationships above all else; they simply do. I don’t know if this is because society inculcates this or not. There is a difference between a woman feeling “incomplete” without a man in her life and simply valuing relationships in general as the most important thing in life. Men and women just seem to have different attitudes regarding relationships.
I agree the proverbial “glass ceiling” needs to be removed. I believe it is happening gradually. In 1980, women earned about 59% of what men earned ( as a college student I remember women wearing buttons that read “59 cents” in protest) but that ratio has risen to about 80% with 90% for women with college educations. There are many more women CEOs and professionals than there were thirty years ago. The gender gap has been bridged far more thorougly than the racial gap in relative income growth and occupational advancement.
Many women ignore pressure to quit the workforce and stay home and have babies and no one can blame them. In today’s world, female participation in the workforce is absolutely essential to most household incomes..
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 15, 2010 at 9:14 AM
I have watched and listened to the points you have made in regards to the worlds ways in the issue of sexism . I agree with most everything you have talked about that I have heard as far as factual and true in terms to what goes on with woman and the issues in relation to self degredation as well as what is inflicted by the opposite sex too . I am not sure if you are a believer in Christ but if you are , let me suggest some thoughts here .....although your thoughts are a passion toward being equal , let me reassure you that we all are even if the world doesnt want it to be that way - we are in God’s eyes . We live in a world where slavery existed and still exists , where sexism occurs , where pride in all areas of life seep through the cracks in our own hearts as we stand against the worlds ways which is good , however - if it is in your passion to fight for something then you may want to reconsider that if your home is here in the world where your life is sooo very temporary , or you can have great satisfaction in knowing that Christ isnt the world , isnt men here and isnt the females either . Where we are told to take up our cross and follow Him , we stand and fight to make our world fair ......consider this - what if God did that every day ? Anyone who doesnt feel like it is worth carrying the weight of te world , instead of teaching your daughter how to not be like this author describes as not to be , how about going a lot deeper , meaningful and more eternal and teaching our children to fear the Lord and that is the beginning of all understanding as He has compassion on us and guides us not only in ways as a woman or man should act but also to surround ourselves with men and woman that do act the way the Lord would want us to act . Remember this ....it is not our duty to stand in the way of a sinner as the world chooses , it is in our duty to be set apart from that so that us and our children are not even subjected to it . I believe this kind of teaching breeds a wordly unsettling when if we just pray , read and get rid of the world in our hearts , then we wont even be in the fight with the world because we realize that the battle truly lies in spiritual influences ...not in people’s flesh or ways . The world is lost - we dont have to be and I think that makes much more sense than fighting a lost cause in relationship to our own intelligence . Lets worship God and not even have to be in this muck . Peace , love and FREEDOM in Christ to all !!!!!
Posted by Sean McCrory on Mar 28, 2010 at 5:12 PM
One other thought also after I read another persons post ( April H ) . April , can I say on most of your points you may be right . How do you feel even after typing it though - a sense of self accomplishment that you stood against the ways of this world ? It is a good tool to be able to do that but instead of fighting for a stance in this world job wise by selection , the greatest satisfaction a person could ever experience would be to guard our tongues and have a wonderful joy given to us that we as people dont have to feel threatened by this worlds push to immorality ( since we know that each day that push will always be there until the end when He comes ) but that we can joy in the fact that not only do we take a stance against a certain issue like this , but that we can say Lord take this world from me , I dont need it anymore - I want you . try it , I promise you that it wont breed bitterness like these topics do so often . Everything is a seed - only God’s word that is a seed brings forth life - all else is death including worldly stance .
Posted by Sean McCrory on Mar 28, 2010 at 5:29 PM
It’s easy for someone who already has full rights in this world to dismiss another group’s push for those same rights with an “oh well, you’re equal in God’s eyes”—Maybe some of us want to live *before* we die, whether or not we live after. Because you can’t guarantee, Sean, that your religion is true. You can’t guarantee we will live after death. You can’t guarantee it’s worth the wait. So who are you to tell us it’s OK since God loves us anyway? That’s easy for you to say. You’re already on top.
They said the same thing to the African slaves. Good thing they didn’t listen, huh? They might still be slaves now, over a century later.
cabdriver: Yes, women ARE taught to value relationships above all else. That’s been one of the tools used to keep us down in a culture which doesn’t even value life (here I mean life in general, I’m pro-choice and am not making a statement about abortion), much less relationships or anything else positive. The solution is to teach men to value relationships also, not to teach women to be heartless.
Re: the teen pregnancy thing… I’m tired of seeing people obsess about this. I don’t care what the media says, I don’t care what Christians say. I have exactly two concerns about teen pregnancy. Number one, if we would stop trying to keep folks who are effectively full-grown adults out of the labor pool just because they haven’t hit the magical age of 18 yet, teens would be better equipped to support any children they might have, and we wouldn’t have to wring our hands about this. Number two, we need to put a stop to pregnant teens being used as brood mares for the adoption industry. Aside from that, I don’t care how old you are when you have your first baby. My mother was a teen mother. She was nineteen when she had me. But she was also seventeen when she married my dad. (Her birthday’s in December, by the way—you do the math with regards to her high school graduation age and such.) Big deal.
And overall, I appreciated this article. But let me just say that it isn’t just the anti-feminists who expect unrealistic things of women. I’m a feminist, will be til the day I die but can we please stop buying in to the consumerist industrial culture (CIC)? Please? I want a world in which I can support myself AND raise my kids. That is not compatible with the CIC, period. And I perceive the mainstream feminist movement (yes, there is one) as pushing women in the direction of having the same privileges as men who benefit from the CIC. I don’t want us buying into the CIC in the first place. This whole division of home from work and career from family is a product of the Industrial Age. Before then, people could put food on the table and still raise their kids. The only way I’m gonna be able to make enough to support me and my daughter if something happens to her dad is if I pay a daycare worker or a school. I did not have my child so someone else could raise her.
I want equal rights, I am ENTITLED to equal rights—But I don’t want a world in which families are broken up and kids are raised by strangers and the ecosystem is destroyed because everyone wants fancy cars and iPods and vacations to Bermuda. God, people, get some standards.
And yet when someone presents an ecofeminist argument, they are put down by mainstream feminism for their “essentialism.” That’s stupid, destructive, and pointless.
Posted by Dana Seilhan on Apr 4, 2010 at 11:23 AM
If your argument is going to rely so heavily on statistics, it would be prudent to at least cite some of your sources. It’s almost not worth reading the article given how malleable unattributed numbers can be.
Posted by theskunk on May 11, 2010 at 4:15 PM
Susan Douglas’s article contained very few statistics but their accuracy seems to be confirmed by other sources which use government figures from the US Bureau of the Census. Here is a ready source you can easily consult. It is an article by Gwendolyn Mink in the Winter 2010 edition of New Politics.
http://newpolitics.mayfirst.org/fromthearchives?nid=164
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on May 11, 2010 at 5:20 PM
to “theskunk”;
Clearly you did not read the article or were having some trouble doing so. The article is an excerpt from a book, which you should buy and look up the references you insist upon.
Posted by wforward on May 16, 2010 at 1:39 PM
Wforward, I should buy a book to verify the statistics in an article that could have just cited its sources like any college freshman is required to… Spend my money to help someone else strengthen their argument. Absurd.
Posted by theskunk on May 16, 2010 at 3:32 PM
SKUNK - This is an online journal, not a college course. You dislike what is being said, so you nitpick inappropriately. If you can’t be bothered to look for the sources of the author’s statistics, cite some that counter it. Otherwise you are coming across as a whinger.
Also, cabdriverinchicago was kind enough to provide you with sources, but you would apparently rather moan and obfuscate than engage with the argument.
Posted by wforward on May 18, 2010 at 6:30 AM
wforward,
Why does the burden to substantiate the author’s sources lie with the reader? If I were to say that 10% of single women make 50% more than married women, you would want to know my source, right? In fact, I would expect you to ask so I’d include it with my original statement.
If you just want something to get angry about then I’m done talking to you.
cabdriverinchicago,
Thanks for that article. I’m reading it now.
Posted by theskunk on May 18, 2010 at 9:07 AM
This article is almost my exact mind-set for feminism. However, a few things that I think different of.
I didn’t really expect to see something like this out here, though! This is great! It’s so true!
Posted by Melina on May 18, 2010 at 9:34 PM
I really enjoyed this article, and have forwarded its URL to my wife, and several other people. That said, I have a different angle from which I would like to approach this topic: class vs gender.
Yes, there is a great deal of marketing and mass media pressure for women to work out, wear expensive designer high heel shoes, and drape Coach purses from their shoulders.
There is something else going on in American society that needs to be considered, though: 40 years ago the movies, television, and literature held up the well-educated and/or wealthy elite as the standard of who to emulate. Success was defined by dressing well, speaking proper English, clear annunciation, and good grooming habits. Now, our cultural “heroes’ wear pants that are 3 sizes too big, that are hanging halfway down their rear-ends, while they “sing” about slapping their ho and re-loading their 9. (This is not meant in any way as an attack against African American men; just look at M&M et al).
How many people under 30 do you know who DON’T have a tattoo and/or body piercings???
In previous decades, only enlisted sailors or fisherman had tattoos, which were rough affairs.
In case you think this is written by an 80 year old retired minister with trembling hands: no: I am a 43 year old atheist. I just have good taste.
It took forever before I met a woman who I wanted to marry, and have kids with.
Currently, I am employed at a university, and part of my job is to field phone calls from the campus police, who call me to discuss drunken 18 year olds who have fallen down, drunk, and injured themselves. These kids flip through the cable TV channels, and see ads for “Girls Gone Wild” DVDs in which other drunk girls who just escaped high school (and their parents) flash their upper bodies at men.
Culture in the U.S. has been in an ever-accelerating downward rush towards the lowest common denominator for a long time, and this is now what we sell to other countries.
Posted by Thomas Geza Miko on Jun 14, 2010 at 3:50 PM
nice artical
Posted by johnsmith182 on Jun 16, 2010 at 12:10 AM
Thomas Geza Miko,
40 years ago it was 1970 and all the old farts back then were screaming about the “KIDS THESE DAYS!!!” too, and the generation before that, and the generation before that, etc.
Back then success wasn’t defined as all those white-normative cultural phenomena you listed, it was defined as having lots of money, which is the same definition we use today. The only difference between then and now is that some non-white-normatives have figured out how to get rich, even though the vast majority of rich people are still white-normative. And considering how high the odds are stacked against non-white-normatives getting rich, I’d say the ones that do are pretty heroic.
Also are you saying tattoos and piercings are somehow immoral? If so, haha
Posted by PMuriello on Jun 17, 2010 at 6:42 PM
PMuriello,
Normative is an adjective not a noun. Just so you know.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 18, 2010 at 10:20 AM
Sigh…i knew it was too good to be true. It’s never too late to follow the trend. It’s this and then later. Just like everyone is crazy over unlock iPhone 4G for now. later it will be something else
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Reader Comments
This is great! Thanks Susan J. Douglas & In These Times - I can’t wait to read the book!
As a father of three daughters, I thought this article hit a lot of my concerns right on the head. The only thing I might have wanted emphasized more is the trend I see in media towards presenting favorable views of teenagers having babies. (Or “balanced” views, which by presenting “pros” to offset the obvious cons, effectively help promote unwise behavior.) This and the slavish acceptance in most popular media of the idea that “Abstinence Only” is at least a justifiable moral choice when it comes to birth control, if not the most moral choice. Since my youngest is not quite 15, and is obsessed with these shows, this particular point has really excercised me. I recently argued in my own blog (http://persistentwondering.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-teenage-daughter-and-her-peers.html) that “Abstinence Only” should be viewed as an IMMORAL policy, and not a morally acceptable option, at all.
What you consider conspiracy is just human nature. The basic function of all life forms is to survive and reproduce, it is not to achieve some status that you deem respectable.
Men want to reproduce with women that are healthy and fertile, which they base on physical appearance. Women are seeking good providers, as well as, good health in a mate. If men thought they could attract more women by hitting themselves in the head with a hammer they would.
You’re opinion that a doctor or a CEO is better than a construction worker or a nurse, is cultural bias. It is based on consumerist notions that you need to earn as much money as possible to buy things which will fulfill you, instead of finding what makes you the most happy.
As someone who has worked with many women and have had many women supervisors, I have never seen any sign of anyone doubting that the women were in any way deficient. I have noticed that women will take years off from their careers to raise babies, though.
This comment is for Mortimor Valentine. First of all, I don’t think any feminist would argue that there is anything wrong with wanting a healthy mate. Everyone should want a healthy mate. I have often run into this argument when discussing mens’ preoccupation with the exceptionally slender body type in women. This is the problem with your argument; men don’t want someone who is healthy. I’m sure many of them do, but there are also a number of them who don’t. I think that men have been conditioned to believe they need to be able to control a woman. And I think men choose women(not in all cases) by how easily they can maintain control of a relationship with a particular woman. And it has nothing to do with body type. There is no evidence that one particular body type is healthier or more fertile than another. It is true that obesity is unhealthy. But there is no connection between obesity and infertility. There have been psychological studies that have proven that men find full figured women more attractive than skinny women. The skinny standard, as I like to call it, is a reaction to the women’s movement. It’s a way for men to enforce control over women by keeping them worried about whether or not someone will want to reproduce with them. Because they know that relationships are important to women and that women have a limited window in which to reproduce. Women have long been defined by their ability to be successful in personal relationships. So it’s no difficult task for men to just take advantage of this insecurity in women. Furthermore, what you seem to miss regarding the issue of women in the workplace is that women don’t choose the professions they choose because they just love being nurses and teachers and sales clerks. They choose these professions because they are bullied into them. Also, whoever holds the top positions in the top companies, drives the companies, which in turn drives the economy, resulting in a turn in the zeitgeist. Wanting women to climb to the top professionally is about giving women a voice. I think plenty of women would choose to be mechanics and engineers and CEOs if they didn’t feel like it was such a boys club and they could do their jobs without being expected to have sex with their superiors and/or take on masculine traits in order to ward off sexual advances by their superiors. As for the issue of women taking time off to raise babies, they should. And so should men.
April H.
I agree with much of what you say. Sexism still exists in America. But women weren’t taught to value their relationships above all else; they simply do. I don’t know if this is because society inculcates this or not. There is a difference between a woman feeling “incomplete” without a man in her life and simply valuing relationships in general as the most important thing in life. Men and women just seem to have different attitudes regarding relationships.
I agree the proverbial “glass ceiling” needs to be removed. I believe it is happening gradually. In 1980, women earned about 59% of what men earned ( as a college student I remember women wearing buttons that read “59 cents” in protest) but that ratio has risen to about 80% with 90% for women with college educations. There are many more women CEOs and professionals than there were thirty years ago. The gender gap has been bridged far more thorougly than the racial gap in relative income growth and occupational advancement.
Many women ignore pressure to quit the workforce and stay home and have babies and no one can blame them. In today’s world, female participation in the workforce is absolutely essential to most household incomes..
I have watched and listened to the points you have made in regards to the worlds ways in the issue of sexism . I agree with most everything you have talked about that I have heard as far as factual and true in terms to what goes on with woman and the issues in relation to self degredation as well as what is inflicted by the opposite sex too . I am not sure if you are a believer in Christ but if you are , let me suggest some thoughts here .....although your thoughts are a passion toward being equal , let me reassure you that we all are even if the world doesnt want it to be that way - we are in God’s eyes . We live in a world where slavery existed and still exists , where sexism occurs , where pride in all areas of life seep through the cracks in our own hearts as we stand against the worlds ways which is good , however - if it is in your passion to fight for something then you may want to reconsider that if your home is here in the world where your life is sooo very temporary , or you can have great satisfaction in knowing that Christ isnt the world , isnt men here and isnt the females either . Where we are told to take up our cross and follow Him , we stand and fight to make our world fair ......consider this - what if God did that every day ? Anyone who doesnt feel like it is worth carrying the weight of te world , instead of teaching your daughter how to not be like this author describes as not to be , how about going a lot deeper , meaningful and more eternal and teaching our children to fear the Lord and that is the beginning of all understanding as He has compassion on us and guides us not only in ways as a woman or man should act but also to surround ourselves with men and woman that do act the way the Lord would want us to act . Remember this ....it is not our duty to stand in the way of a sinner as the world chooses , it is in our duty to be set apart from that so that us and our children are not even subjected to it . I believe this kind of teaching breeds a wordly unsettling when if we just pray , read and get rid of the world in our hearts , then we wont even be in the fight with the world because we realize that the battle truly lies in spiritual influences ...not in people’s flesh or ways . The world is lost - we dont have to be and I think that makes much more sense than fighting a lost cause in relationship to our own intelligence . Lets worship God and not even have to be in this muck . Peace , love and FREEDOM in Christ to all !!!!!
One other thought also after I read another persons post ( April H ) . April , can I say on most of your points you may be right . How do you feel even after typing it though - a sense of self accomplishment that you stood against the ways of this world ? It is a good tool to be able to do that but instead of fighting for a stance in this world job wise by selection , the greatest satisfaction a person could ever experience would be to guard our tongues and have a wonderful joy given to us that we as people dont have to feel threatened by this worlds push to immorality ( since we know that each day that push will always be there until the end when He comes ) but that we can joy in the fact that not only do we take a stance against a certain issue like this , but that we can say Lord take this world from me , I dont need it anymore - I want you . try it , I promise you that it wont breed bitterness like these topics do so often . Everything is a seed - only God’s word that is a seed brings forth life - all else is death including worldly stance .
It’s easy for someone who already has full rights in this world to dismiss another group’s push for those same rights with an “oh well, you’re equal in God’s eyes”—Maybe some of us want to live *before* we die, whether or not we live after. Because you can’t guarantee, Sean, that your religion is true. You can’t guarantee we will live after death. You can’t guarantee it’s worth the wait. So who are you to tell us it’s OK since God loves us anyway? That’s easy for you to say. You’re already on top.
They said the same thing to the African slaves. Good thing they didn’t listen, huh? They might still be slaves now, over a century later.
cabdriver: Yes, women ARE taught to value relationships above all else. That’s been one of the tools used to keep us down in a culture which doesn’t even value life (here I mean life in general, I’m pro-choice and am not making a statement about abortion), much less relationships or anything else positive. The solution is to teach men to value relationships also, not to teach women to be heartless.
Re: the teen pregnancy thing… I’m tired of seeing people obsess about this. I don’t care what the media says, I don’t care what Christians say. I have exactly two concerns about teen pregnancy. Number one, if we would stop trying to keep folks who are effectively full-grown adults out of the labor pool just because they haven’t hit the magical age of 18 yet, teens would be better equipped to support any children they might have, and we wouldn’t have to wring our hands about this. Number two, we need to put a stop to pregnant teens being used as brood mares for the adoption industry. Aside from that, I don’t care how old you are when you have your first baby. My mother was a teen mother. She was nineteen when she had me. But she was also seventeen when she married my dad. (Her birthday’s in December, by the way—you do the math with regards to her high school graduation age and such.) Big deal.
And overall, I appreciated this article. But let me just say that it isn’t just the anti-feminists who expect unrealistic things of women. I’m a feminist, will be til the day I die but can we please stop buying in to the consumerist industrial culture (CIC)? Please? I want a world in which I can support myself AND raise my kids. That is not compatible with the CIC, period. And I perceive the mainstream feminist movement (yes, there is one) as pushing women in the direction of having the same privileges as men who benefit from the CIC. I don’t want us buying into the CIC in the first place. This whole division of home from work and career from family is a product of the Industrial Age. Before then, people could put food on the table and still raise their kids. The only way I’m gonna be able to make enough to support me and my daughter if something happens to her dad is if I pay a daycare worker or a school. I did not have my child so someone else could raise her.
I want equal rights, I am ENTITLED to equal rights—But I don’t want a world in which families are broken up and kids are raised by strangers and the ecosystem is destroyed because everyone wants fancy cars and iPods and vacations to Bermuda. God, people, get some standards.
And yet when someone presents an ecofeminist argument, they are put down by mainstream feminism for their “essentialism.” That’s stupid, destructive, and pointless.
Really very nice post and whatever said here are mostly true.
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If your argument is going to rely so heavily on statistics, it would be prudent to at least cite some of your sources. It’s almost not worth reading the article given how malleable unattributed numbers can be.
Susan Douglas’s article contained very few statistics but their accuracy seems to be confirmed by other sources which use government figures from the US Bureau of the Census. Here is a ready source you can easily consult. It is an article by Gwendolyn Mink in the Winter 2010 edition of New Politics.
http://newpolitics.mayfirst.org/fromthearchives?nid=164
to “theskunk”;
Clearly you did not read the article or were having some trouble doing so. The article is an excerpt from a book, which you should buy and look up the references you insist upon.
Wforward, I should buy a book to verify the statistics in an article that could have just cited its sources like any college freshman is required to… Spend my money to help someone else strengthen their argument. Absurd.
SKUNK - This is an online journal, not a college course. You dislike what is being said, so you nitpick inappropriately. If you can’t be bothered to look for the sources of the author’s statistics, cite some that counter it. Otherwise you are coming across as a whinger.
Also, cabdriverinchicago was kind enough to provide you with sources, but you would apparently rather moan and obfuscate than engage with the argument.
wforward,
Why does the burden to substantiate the author’s sources lie with the reader? If I were to say that 10% of single women make 50% more than married women, you would want to know my source, right? In fact, I would expect you to ask so I’d include it with my original statement.
If you just want something to get angry about then I’m done talking to you.
cabdriverinchicago,
Thanks for that article. I’m reading it now.
This article is almost my exact mind-set for feminism. However, a few things that I think different of.
I didn’t really expect to see something like this out here, though! This is great! It’s so true!
I really enjoyed this article, and have forwarded its URL to my wife, and several other people. That said, I have a different angle from which I would like to approach this topic: class vs gender.
Yes, there is a great deal of marketing and mass media pressure for women to work out, wear expensive designer high heel shoes, and drape Coach purses from their shoulders.
There is something else going on in American society that needs to be considered, though: 40 years ago the movies, television, and literature held up the well-educated and/or wealthy elite as the standard of who to emulate. Success was defined by dressing well, speaking proper English, clear annunciation, and good grooming habits. Now, our cultural “heroes’ wear pants that are 3 sizes too big, that are hanging halfway down their rear-ends, while they “sing” about slapping their ho and re-loading their 9. (This is not meant in any way as an attack against African American men; just look at M&M et al).
How many people under 30 do you know who DON’T have a tattoo and/or body piercings???
In previous decades, only enlisted sailors or fisherman had tattoos, which were rough affairs.
In case you think this is written by an 80 year old retired minister with trembling hands: no: I am a 43 year old atheist. I just have good taste.
It took forever before I met a woman who I wanted to marry, and have kids with.
Currently, I am employed at a university, and part of my job is to field phone calls from the campus police, who call me to discuss drunken 18 year olds who have fallen down, drunk, and injured themselves. These kids flip through the cable TV channels, and see ads for “Girls Gone Wild” DVDs in which other drunk girls who just escaped high school (and their parents) flash their upper bodies at men.
Culture in the U.S. has been in an ever-accelerating downward rush towards the lowest common denominator for a long time, and this is now what we sell to other countries.
nice artical
Thomas Geza Miko,
40 years ago it was 1970 and all the old farts back then were screaming about the “KIDS THESE DAYS!!!” too, and the generation before that, and the generation before that, etc.
Back then success wasn’t defined as all those white-normative cultural phenomena you listed, it was defined as having lots of money, which is the same definition we use today. The only difference between then and now is that some non-white-normatives have figured out how to get rich, even though the vast majority of rich people are still white-normative. And considering how high the odds are stacked against non-white-normatives getting rich, I’d say the ones that do are pretty heroic.
Also are you saying tattoos and piercings are somehow immoral? If so, haha
PMuriello,
Normative is an adjective not a noun. Just so you know.
Sigh…i knew it was too good to be true. It’s never too late to follow the trend. It’s this and then later. Just like everyone is crazy over unlock iPhone 4G for now. later it will be something else
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