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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26292 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 29, 2024

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This whole thing is getting crazy enough that it is even leaking into NPR on my commute and I've heard several stories about it from major news outlets. They of course are spinning it as the eventual chickens coming home to roost from having men that do zero child rearing and housework and also having the women work outside the home too (which is what they wanted!). But regardless of how they got there, they have a solid point. No one is going to willingly sign up for a life of wage slavery + all domestic tasks, that is fucking crazy town. You or I wouldn't do that!!! It is no wonder women are mad and opting out. It is the only rational option.

No, being a housewife is the only rational option.

They of course are spinning it as the eventual chickens coming home to roost from having men that do zero child rearing and housework and also having the women work outside the home too (which is what they wanted!).

Yes, it's what they wanted, but without social dislocation and other unintended consequences (heh). That is, I'm sure what feminist women generally assumed back in 1970 or so was that men will be OK with picking up the slack when their wives and girlfriends start abandoning their restrictive gender norms i.e. men will be willing to make dinner, look after the kids, go on parental leave etc. and women will like it.

It is no wonder women are mad and opting out. It is the only rational option.

Yet few if any are pushing for a return to the majority of women being stay at home moms without careers.

Majority of people don't have careers, and never had. Being a grocery clerk, factory worker, some low paid service sector employee or lowest rung bureaucrat or manager or something else for 30 years isn't a career. It's a job.

And from the other side of the mirror- living around many people who think that the majority of women should be housewives without careers- almost all of them don't push for women to do all domestic tasks and think husbands should at least contribute even if for practical reasons most housework and childcare is going to be done by women.

Well no of course not. Women are people too and that sucks as a life.

and that sucks as a life.

Objection, arguing facts not in evidence. Plenty of women still live such a life an find it extremely rewarding and fulfilling.

Well then it sucks to be the kind of person that would enjoy life as a breeding machine + house servant. Maybe some people love it, but that is pretty close to being dosed with alcohol as a fetus so you'll enjoy being a Delta in a Huxley book.

  • -23

Running a household used to be a complex operation requiring the deployment of a lot of different technical and personal skills as well as management and long-term planning. If modern labor-saving machinery and industrial techniques have obsoleted this role and made people unhappier, perhaps that might have implications for the obsoleting of further social roles and jobs via technology.

Good point! It is going to be interesting as every single human role is done better by machines. We'll be 100% obsolete. I am fine with that as I am pretty good at living a life of indolence and base enjoyment, I've never defined myself by my work. This will not be the case for many and I'm sure a lot of people will be made very upset.

This is an interesting, arguably uncharitable take on motherhood. I think being a mom is the highest calling there is, right up there with being a dad. If one's perspective is that parenting is selfish or whatever, you know bringing a child into a life of pain, etc. at least that argument I understand. What I don't sympathize with is this idea that having kids and raising them (which yes includes cooking, washing, cleaning, folding, ironing, lather rinse repeat) is robotic mindless drudgery. I guess if your goal is sucking the marrow out of life for yourself that's probably true, but I never found that so appealing.

True enough, if only one person (the woman, and alone, without her own mother or anyone else) is doing everything in the home, that's a weird, unfair dynamic. I mean get up off the goddam couch and clean the tub, hey. That may be rather your point --not the idea of domesticity, but the inordinate burden on women to do it all and all alone.

I don't know to what degree tgis is true among modern Koreans. I'd offer anecdotes but those wouldn't shed much light I expect.

I think being a parent is cool too, but if you're expected to do all the house work, childcare and also work a job outside the home that is a terrible deal. That seems to be the expectation in Korea, so again, it is no surprise that a smart women won't sign up for that!

I think you agree that is a bad deal. If you look at the stats even here in the states women do a lot more of the childcare and housework even if they are working the same hours as men. That isn't to say I don't think men get a raw deal in a lot of ways regarding harder more physical jobs, forced military participation, etc...etc...but to claim that women were happy to be house slaves before someone learned them wrong is also disingenuous.

Is it the expectation In Korea? Certainly for hardcore traditionalists, though hardcore traditionalists wouldn't want the wife working at all. I am not convinced the current parenting age generation is so inclined, though it makes for a rich discussion to believe so.

My understanding is that yes it is. Based on the stories I've read and heard. If I'm wrong I would be happy to see evidence to the contrary.

Ah yes, people with different preferences that aren't aligned with your politics are all malfunctioning mutants. Of course.

So you want to be a breeding house servant? Is that the kind of life you would chose for yourself? If you think it is a good one why aren't you living it? If you would like to I would be happy to employ you for child rearing in exchange food and a place to sleep! If you could also work 40 hours a week to be able to pay for my house that would be great too!

This is all mixed in with the recent population decline panic, which is another silly thing as human labor is going to be 100% obsolete inside of the next 2 decades.

Also my Huxley joke is actually hilarious and I'm upset you didn't chuckle at it. The motte is honestly far to serious most of the time. Lighten up people!

  • -12

If you could also work 40 hours a week to be able to pay for my house that would be great too!

I would remind you that none of your interlocutors AFAICS are advocating that women work full-time jobs as well as do all the domestic work. They are suggesting that women be stay-at-home mums.

The motte is honestly far to serious most of the time. Lighten up people!

It's serious because jokes and sarcasm have a tendency to escalate into yelling matches. This is actually to some extent written into the rules.

Stay at home "mumming" as another commenter pointed out, is a totally different beast these days. Women had shit to do back in the day and worked 40 hour weeks darning socks and making clothes etc...etc...and often worked outside the home as well depending on the time period and available jobs. The 50's housewife is a crazy anomaly and was only really a thing for a small swath of the American public during a very specific time period.

Women wanting "liberation" is a modern phenomenon, so unless the 96% of women in 1895 that were opposed to suffrage along with their ancestors for thousands of years were Huxley's Deltas it feels like you're projecting modern culture and mores onto the past.

So you want to be a house servant? Is that what I am hearing here? We don't live in the past, we live in a world of birth control and equal rights. The revealed preference is a lot less barefoot in the kitchen pregnant style living. You don't have to take my word for it. Why do you think birth rates are dropping like a stone?

Is woman wanting "liberation" a modern phenomenon or did they always want more control over their lives? If you made the mistake of educating one I mean. Mary Wollstonecraft was 1792 and she wasn't the first.

  • -16

we live in a world of birth control and equal rights.

For now. The only nations to survive will be ones that give up on the failed experiment of granting women equal rights

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