Question for conservatives re: role of women

[lehighguy]

It's a legitamate question. There aren't any serious jobs where I can work a flexible eight hour day and split the work with spouse.

[OtisTheMarsupial]

[ QUOTE ]
What job are you working at that is 7 hours a day? All serious jobs today are at least 12 hour days. And lucky if you get weekends. Mines even longer.

[/ QUOTE ]

Funny you should ask.
Here's a list of jobs that you can work 7 or fewer hours a day:
online poker player
writer
supervisor (so long as it's top level)
any job in France or much of western Europe
ebayer
IT
college professor

Besides, if you lobby your employer for flex time, you can rearrange your schedule to work 4 ten hour shifts or 5 part time days or scatter vacation time into work days...
(I knew an electrical engineering couple who shared one job and took turns watching the kids).

Yeah, so, it's not going to work for all jobs, but it's only a couple of years when kiddos are little and you're a smart guy who should be able to be flexible.

Or hell, just save up enough so neither of you needs to work during the baby days. Be creative.

[OtisTheMarsupial]

Also, why do you assume having both partners in the workforce is actually good for the economy?
Isn't it exactly the opposite argument that is used to bar immigrants from entering and working in the US - that a surplus of workers isn't good for the economy.
Uh... we're seeing the effects from Katrina, are we not?

So, in summary, you've set up a false conflict, false in two ways:
- the two options are not exclusive
- one or both of the premises are not true

[lehighguy]

Well I considered online poker, but I think my family would like some reliable income that isn't subject to the ending of a fad.

I also don't plan on moving to France, and I'm not into IT at all.

My current job is in the financial industry. I work 12-16 hour days. I'll be working them for the percievable future, I don't know many people on Wall Street that work less.

I want a job that pays min six figures, and at least 150-200k would be nice. I want to send my kids to a nice private school, live in a nice nieghborhood, make sure they have enough money for every advantage. You don't get that without working your ass off. The kind of jobs that don't have flex time because you work every second.

Maybe once I'm 40 I can retire, but the kids will be 8 or 10 years old by then. Which is the age I want them to be before we let them handle themselves during the day.

[FishHooks]

If its a perfect free market and wages are set at the equilibrium there is almost no such thing as unemployment in theory.

[OtisTheMarsupial]

[ QUOTE ]
The kind of jobs that don't have flex time because you work every second.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, then, you really shouldn't be looking for a wife or wanting kids. You simply don't have time to devote to them right now.

[lehighguy]

Someone's gotta put food on the table. Whenever I'm not at work, especially the weekends, I want to spend with my kids. Especially coaching sports teams like my dad did. He worked alot, but the few hours a day I spent with him were great.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
I dont know anywhere that says in the conservative platforum that women should stay at home and not work.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's common knowledge that conservatives, in general, bemoan the "breakdown in values" that began in the 1960s, an era that brought to the US, as they see it, sexual anarchy, a retreat of patriotism, liberal economics, and a general demolition of traditonal values.

One of those values is, of course, the sanctity of marriage. And a "two-father" marriage is absolutely contradictory to the religious/conservative notion of marriage -- whether the second father is another male or a female that is usurping the father's role by ...working.

This is precisely where the ongoing demonisation of "the single mother" started. From the violent opposition of conservatives to any kind of female emancipation, including a woman's right to earn her living on her own. The American Male is horrified when faced with the suddenly uppity, Male-Devouring Woman With Brains -- check with Norman Mailer for details.

It is absurd to deny that conservatives everywhere, including the United States, see the woman's place not much farther than where a prominent politician* of the 1930s had placed her : Strictly Church, Kitchen, Children.

[ QUOTE ]
<font color="purple"> "Take hold of kettle, broom and pan,
Then you’ll surely get a man!
Shop and office leave alone,
Your true life work lies at home." </font>


[/ QUOTE ]

__________

* A somewhat tragicomic fact was that the Nazis did not consider it a social problem at all for a woman to have children out of wedlock. That's because it was official policy to encourage women to have as many (Aryan) babies as possible, and screw the formalities. Lebensraum and eugenics were more important than bourgeois morals.

[Darryl_P]

Interesting read, thanks. I guess my original question has legitimacy, then, even in the US of A.

It's a big dilemma conservative dudes...c'mon, tell me, what are we gonna do here?

[ QUOTE ]
Shop and office leave alone,


[/ QUOTE ]

I guess I'm not as ultra-conservative as I thought. I let my wife shop sometimes, albeit only infrequently and with a strict budget. Sometimes even with her mother! [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[mackthefork]

My job is 7 1/2 hours a day 5 days a week, I aint ever going to get paid a fortune for it, but my time is worth more than money, living to work is a waste.

Mack