I still haven't taken (and don't have time, busy at work) the time to read the posts here, really, but just, again, skimming through, Biscuit Queen (and others), the agreement you have made to stay home and take care of people, animals and the house while your husband works carries with it an economic pricetag for you. You (not just you, Biscuit Queen, more, again, a rhetorical "you") have made life easy for your husband; because you've taken care of things at home, he's been able to forget about all of that boring, mundane, housekeeping work, do his job, advance professionally. If you split with him, he could continue on in his chosen career, but you would be penalized, because instead of establishing your own financial independence and professional security over the years, you've been making his life easier, making it possible for *him* to be financially independent and to have professional security. So even if you got half of what the two of you own, you would still pay the price for having been his caretaker for however long you have been doing that. You'd have to start from scratch; he's got it made. And women know this, they know that if they've agreed to stay home, bear kids, take care of kids and home, that they will be unlikely to have marketable job skills after a couple of years; so they often stay with men who mistreat them. And that works for men: men can treat their sah partners however they wish with a fair amount of assurance that their wives, having sacrificed their own lives for their families, can't make it on their own and know it. Even if you got half of what the two of you own together, unless you can support yourself training dogs, Biscuit Queen, you would have to start from scratch, often late in life, to build a new professional life for yourself. That's a daunting task for anybody. So women stay with men who mistreat and abuse them. It is not an equal arrangement; it is women providing services to men which far and away benefit those men more than they benefit the women who provide them. And that's the history of the world, you know; in the past, men owned women as chattel, that system continues on as a deal women cut, ultimately, to survive. They've given their lives for their families, that means they had to forego careers in most cases, they're stuck-- whether a man mistreats them or not.
Galt: If it were flipped around and women had the stress of earning on them in more cases, feminists would be complaining that women are out working while men are just sitting at home - with or without kids.
Most women work now, even when they do have kids. I thought it was interesting that of the three woman whistleblowers (who blew the whistle on Enron, the FBI, and hmm, can't recall the other one, they were honored as Times Women of the Year), two had stay-at-home male partners who cared for the couples' children. What feminists know is that society disciplines mothers who work outside the home far more than it disciplines fathers, and this is why there seems to be this trend towards women deciding to stay at home and forego careers and all of that. The obstacles and difficulties of working outside the home when you are a mother with children are horrendous; society holds women responsibe for the welfare of their children far more than it holds men responsible. Some feminists -- including me, for much of my adult working life -- have opted to be the breadwinner, with our male partners being the stay-at-home parent. While in some ways, this is, I think, positive, what is really needed is a revolution in the world of work which would compensate stay-at-home parents for the work they do whether they are male or female, and which would make it easier for parents, both men and women, to combine parenting and work.
But we don't have that now, and one reason we don't is that it is very difficult for women to earn enough money to support their families, regardless, and they are punished in various ways when they work and have kids, those dreaded working mothers who are the cause of all the world's woes, you know, tsk, tsk, so neglectful, so men work, which is what they want to do anyway, a man without a job is a man without an identity in western society, especially, and women, again, are caretakers of the family, because a woman who isn't a caretaker is a *woman* without an identity-- in all societies. Often women remain subservient for life, even if they are miserable-- because again, the deal they had to cut was, they'd give up their own life to make his easier and they'd buckle down and take full responsibility for the kids, knowing no matter what, they would be blamed for their kids' problems, if any, in ways men never are. Nobody should have to cut that kind of deal-- not men, not women; however, I think right now men ought to be cutting it for the most part, because it's women's turn to have lives, professions, and so on. We made it easier for you for millennia. It's men's turn to support us now in the world of work.
Someone spoke disparagingly of women who don't get their fannies out there and work, buy property and so on. Ummmm.... in much of the world, women are not allowed to work outside the home or to own property, girls in some cases can't go to school, either because laws forbid it, because they are in poverty, or because it's the girls and women who must care for their family members; men and boys do not do this work. In our culture many women *are* going for it, professionally, and they will be successful, in most cases, imo and ime, to the degree that they remain single, do not have children, and avoid romantic entanglements with men. These are the golden handcuffs which women exchange for their own lives.
As to women owning half the charities because they pass from the men to the women, please, give it a rest, if I can find time, I'll come back and respond specifically to that bit of absurdity with some links. As I have repeatedly said, and it is true, and nobody has refuted it because nobody can refute it, the heads of the world's governments, corporations, religions, richest families, have and control the power and the wealth in the world. These heads are *male* with a minuscule number of exceptions. Check it out. Well, you probably have, that's why you're talking about charities and men dying young and so on. Come on, Galt, you know better.
Heart