12 ms·

The Man Trap

90 points by SirensOfTitan 9y ago

scarface74 9y ago
Why the focus on married women earning less than single women instead of focusing on household income? Even if the single woman earns more than a married woman. For the most part, a married couple should have more disposable income after living expenses than her single counterpart. Married couples have a greater per capita net worth than their single counterpart. In our case, because of choices we made together, my wife earns a little over 10K less than she did when she was single 5 years ago, but because I could depend on her to carry health insurance and she has more flexible schedule, that helps our family, I was able to switch jobs aggressively and I earn roughly $50,000 more than I did before we got married. We are both better off. https://www.forbes.com/2006/07/25/singles-marriage-money-cx_tvr_06singles_0725costs.html https://www.forbes.com/2006/07/25/singles-marriage-money-cx_... https://www.google.com/amp/www.today.com/amp/money/why-married-people-tend-be-wealthier-its-complicated-1C8364877 https://www.google.com/amp/www.today.com/amp/money/why-marri... Once they are married, the couples also are able to take advantage of economies of scale – anything from buying just one dishwasher to relying on one another’s health insurance. That allows them to build wealth more quickly than their peers who are single, divorced or living together romantically. For example, a married man may be able to work 12 hours a day to please his bosses and get promoted, because he and his wife can divide household duties so he can get ahead. That’s not as much of an option for a single parent.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  Your anecdote seems to confirm the dynamic described in TFA? You're making more money "aggressively", your wife is making less, etc.? You seem happy about it, but lots of men and women are not...
  - scarface74 9y ago
    And I've seen the situation play out differently. I just left a job that basically had a 100% work from home policy. It paid slightly less than average for our geographic area, but the men chose to sacrifice maximizing their income to work from home because their spouses had jobs that required them to work late or travel frequently. I would assume that most well functioning couples work together to optimize their career ambitions, lifestyle choices, and family relationships.
- watwut 9y ago
  I think that money are simple and crude measure of achievement and social approval. E.g. If part of your motivation is competitiveness or passion for your profession, she is losing after each child. My husbands higher salary won't make up for my missed promotion or less interesting project, it won't make me proud of my skills, basically. The article however was about men primary. Which I found interesting, because perspective of male who would prefer different tradeoff is rarely available.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    Isn't that a lifestyle choice that spouses make together - whether to have kids, devote more time to each other, pursue their careers, etc.?
    - watwut 9y ago
      Depends on the couple, I guess. Optimally yes. But oftentimes both partners have different assumptions about what is fair contribution and how much free time is fair, don't talk about it really and resentments later on ensures. Like both of them believing they do too much simultaneously. Other times one of them (can be also a women) takes advantage of the situation and the other one does not have much choice subsequently or figures it out only after a while maybe when it is too late. (If women hates her job, it is easier for her to claim that kids need mom longer/more to stay out of workforce longer which puts more pressure and stress on husband. If stereotypical geek claims that it is just not possible not to stay late, he can avoid some of boring housework. ) In other cases, the choice is made by tradition and peer/family pressure which prescribe proper roles (like in case of deeply conservative catholics I know - roles are strict and given by god end of discussion).
    - Mz 9y ago
      When you are married AND have kids, one thing that can happen is that the parent who is most concerned about the welfare of the kids has no choice but to simply buck up and do what is necessary for their sake. Quibbling with another grown adult about "fairness" and "equality" can be a great way to see the kids get shortchanged. So, once there are children involved, it is not unusual for the wife to just suck it up and do what the kids need at personal cost to her. It often makes little sense to try to hold hubby's feet to the fire and insist on him doing his fair share at home or whatever. This is not man-bashing. I am a woman and former homemaker. I do a lot of even-handed writing that tries to consider both sides of the picture. But this is a reality in many marriages. I do not self-identify as a "feminist" in part because, to me, "feminism" is about women wanting careers and to hell with any other considerations. This ongoing argument about equality of the sexes seems to mostly leave out the critical detail of the welfare of the children. Unless and until we start talking about what works for the family as a whole, including kids, and society as a whole, including families with legal minors, this entire argument about men vs. women and so-called equality will continue to be sick and twisted and will tend to continue to crap on any parent that actually cares deeply about the welfare of their kids, regardless of gender.
dnautics 9y ago
> Women who behave like their male colleagues may be disliked for being “pushy” or “bitchy”, but these penalties are offset by the fact that they are also likely to enjoy more power and greater financial rewards. When men adopt the jobs and behaviours associated with women, however, they typically experience a loss of status with fewer perks and more social sanctions, especially from other men. I think older (straight) men do not care about loss of status or social sanctions from other men. They care about loss of status from women. Especially when in long term relationships, there's the fear of an incorrect narrative where their partner often says that adopting feminine roles is appreciated, but subconsciously leads to less attraction. (with acknowledgement that the reverse is sometimes true for women's perceptions in the eyes of men) [edit: it's actually in the article too ~3/4 of the way down, I should have been more patient]
samirillian 9y ago
I think a big part of reckoning with these social pressures may be simply expressing them out loud. It seems to be a truism of therapy that "you should never be ashamed of your feelings," but the very real benefits that white men continue to reap on one level tend to preclude an emotionally honest reckoning on another level. A lot of the negative effects documented in this essay seem to purely relate to cognitive dissonance. For example, the essay said that men would be more willing to accept certain "child-friendly policies" if they believe that it would not decrease their socially-perceived masculinity. I can only believe that it would also help men to openly express these fears, to state out loud the dissonance in their self conception that (largely positive) social change has wrought.
socrates1998 9y ago
Yes, I agree. Men are often told they need to be everything: Successful yet don't work too much. Help with the kids, yet don't be feminine. Be strong, yet sensitive. Have hard employable skills, but also be an artist. Don't play video games, but be fun to be around. All of these are difficult to balance. The scary part is the a majority of divorces are ended by women. I don't know the answer, but as long as we acknowledge the fact that both modern men and modern women have a long list of conflicting demands on them, I think we can show everyone more compassion.
- lemonsqueeze 9y ago
  Men don't need compassion. They have the Patriarchy
- dionidium 9y ago
  "Don't play video games, but be fun to be around." I was nodding along until I got to this one. What in the world do video games have to do with being a fun person to be around?
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    I think the point here is about interacting with a computer vs interacting with the people in the room.
    - dionidium 9y ago
      Yes, except those two ideas are strikingly compatible :)
  - exergy 9y ago
    It's just an innocent figure of speech he used, I don't see the problem here.
  - olalonde 9y ago
    It was probably a poor example but I read it as "don't have fun but be fun".
Pxtl 9y ago
I'm always iffy about articles like this because so much of the ground has been utterly salted by online "men's rights" activists that are more motivated by misogyny and antifeminism than actually righting wrongs. It seems like a good read, but I would loved more data to crunch. The numerics of working long hours was a great example of how the mathematics of the situation make this stuff happen. Anyhow, my wife and I actually do the fully-equal thing - she makes a bit more than me (teaching in Ontario is paid well and I'm not working in one of the Big Tech Market cities) so we have get to split things 50/50. This actually presented a great opportunity: She wanted to go back to work early from her parental leave after the birth of our 3rd kid. So I did something new: I took the other half of the leave. 7 months off with my kids. If you have the opportunity, do this. It actually made more money for us, in terms of strict income. Both of our employers provided a several weeks of top-up parental leave in which the government unemployment-insurance benefit is supplemented up to your full weekly paycheck. So by both of us taking time off, we got to double-dip on this. And the experience with the kids was fantastic. I got to play boardgames with my son and teach him to ride his bike, and took my two daughters jogging in a double-stroller every other day. I practically lived in a ring-sling, even getting the stink-eye from greasy guys on a family trip to Manhattan. I got to properly get to know the parents of all my son's best friends and we're all still close. I was in the best shape of my life and had a great time, and my wife likes her job so she was happy to be at work. I'd considered doing it on our 2nd kid, but friends and family had talked me out of it because of worries about my career. I don't even work in the same place I did when my 2nd was born. I quit that job later on anyways, so I missed out on that time for nothing. To me, the biggest tragedy is the every-upwards climb of working hours for the household. There was a time when a family would live on a single 40 hour workweek. And what have we gained? I mean, for people who work retail, does the fact that they work on Sundays and every night to 10PM mean they actually sell more goods? Or does it just mean that retailers need to pay staff less per-hour because they're selling for more hours?
- emsy 9y ago
  >"men's rights" activists that are more motivated by misogyny and antifeminism than actually righting wrongs. What you think or told they are motivated by and their actual motivations are different things.
jondubois 9y ago
I think that in a couple, there is always some form of resentment towards the partner which does not work (is not pulling their weight) but I think that the level of resentment is many times higher if the non-working partner happens to be a man.
- killjoywashere 9y ago
  When I was in med school, married with two kids, every member of my wife's family told her to divorce me, not once, but on a regular basis. They all think I'm great now and wonder why we don't visit them much.
camperman 9y ago
> Because men – and especially white, professional men – occupy a uniquely privileged place in society, I don't know any white, professional men who got where they are because of privilege. It was all effort over many years together with sensible decision-making like finishing school, getting a job, not having kids out of wedlock, turning up to work on time, working hard, being honest and so on. > Feminists have long argued that men see little need to help out more at home because they already enjoy all the benefits of marriage and fatherhood without having to put in the extra work. What would feminists know about a non-feminist man's perspective on marriage and fatherhood? Non-feminist men also note that women aren't pushing for equality in physically demanding jobs on oil rigs, welding, construction and coal mining - because equality in the workplace is only for office jobs I guess. > Their status as men is at once so valuable and so precarious that it must be won over and over again. This is not a bad thing. The man guarding his village's perimeter from bandits can't fuck up or it costs people their lives. > “Many professional workplaces involve a constant negotiation among men to establish a pecking order,” says Joan Williams, a feminist legal scholar Yet another feminist quote. Why not ask some non-feminists for their opinions? This pecking order thing is entirely natural among men. Always has been, always will be.
- Retra 9y ago
  The privilege they are talking about is not some kind of explicit handout. It is a cultural background. It manifests as other people's exceptions, preconceptions, and even things like word choice and shared conceptual familiarities. For instance, if you've ever seriously considered starting a business, then you're probably privileged. Because for someone like me, it is simply not a consideration. I don't know anyone who cares about business, let alone owns one. Never had any friends who know anything about business. I have no business vocabulary, and I have desire to acquire one. My concept of self-worth is more anti-business than it is business-driven. So I'm never going to start a business. Does this mean I've not finished school? No. Didn't go to business school though. Does this mean I'm not hard-working? No. Don't work hard to make money though. Etc. Now if my father had been a businessman, or If I'd grown up in a place where people cared about business, I might know a thing or two about how to do it. That background of experience is the privilege they are talking about. I am privileged in that I understand machines, art, language, and education. Those privileges have directly and indirectly resulted in almost every success I've ever had. I am a white professional man. Now you know one. And you probably know many others, if you'd come at this discussion from a position of understanding rather than from a position of defiance. >What would feminists know about a non-feminist man's perspective on marriage and fatherhood? What would someone who doesn't even seem to understand the concept of cultural privilege have to add to a discussion about cultural privilege?
phd514 9y ago
>> Coltrane has found that after controlling for variables like age and education, married American men earn significantly more than their unmarried or divorced male peers, and their earnings go up with every child they have. Marriage seems to make men more productive at work because it allows them to outsource much of the housekeeping to their wives.<< I don't see how that last sentence makes any sense. Since when does one's earnings have anything to do with whether the housekeeping for one child or three children is "outsourced" to wives? I think it's far more likely that being a father to more children is correlated with being older and more experienced and therefore more highly compensated.
- icewater 9y ago
  "...after controlling for variables like age and education."
  - phd514 9y ago
    Hmm, fair point. It just doesn't make any sense then that more children correlate to higher income because the housekeeping responsibilities fall to the wife.
- notyourloops 9y ago
  There's no reason for them to assume it has anything to do with outsourcing housekeeping. Quite simply, an intact marriage and children are likely to provide men with the drive to produce for the sake of his family.
logicallee 9y ago
[EDIT - It turns out that even this very comment required editing if we apply the standard to it, that it itself suggests, see below. SUPER SUPER great example!] --- (This comment is serious, not satire or sarcastic or something.) I've flagged this article and everyone else should too. When the tech industry (programmers/startups/etc) reaches something like at least 60/40 - I'm not saying we need to wait for parity - then we can return to these questions. (There's nothing wrong with the subject, except for our industry's statistics - that's it.) Until then I strongly encourage everyone here (male and female, regardless of your opinions of the article - i.e. if the article is good, and solid, and you agree with it, and it's not offensive) to flag articles like this, even when they're 100.00% correct, and even in the case that as a man or a woman you don't disagree with the article at all, don't find it offensive, etc. Mods should bury them from the front page. I'm not saying this should be permanent, but let's work on this for a few years. On the other hand everyone should be on their very best behavior for stories from the other side (in other words everyone should look at their comments for a minute before submitting them, stay silent in many cases where they have an opinion, let women express their viewpoint without replying with men's viewpoints, and so forth), flag comments that can even be misconstrued as misogynistic, and so forth. I don't wanna work with a bunch of men for the rest of my life. Do you? [EDIT: I am on board with the reply that pointed out that the issue with what men want, but rather equal access for women - great example. :) I should have phrased this in such terms. Sorry.] Work for the world you want, today. It might seem like the suggestions I make in this comment (which is 100% serious, not satire or anything like that) are over-the-top, but have you seen the statistics in our industry? Let's do something about it. We don't need to discuss stories like this one, here. We can discuss these stories on HN in a few years. Until then there are plenty of places all over the Internet to discuss them.
- AnonNo15 9y ago
  You are suggesting to silence the opinions you don't like, don't you see the problem with this?
  - logicallee 9y ago
    Obviously no, I don't. And I don't suggest silencing them, I suggest making them discuss it elsewhere (not here on HN). Also I suggest that all of this can be discussed, just in a couple of years -- once our industry (programmers, startup entrpreneurs) reaches 60/40 or, hell, at least 70/30. ----- EDIT: in reply to the reply to this. same way as it happened in every other industry that got closer to parity. (example: medical industry, legal industry, MBA's, etc.)
monksy 9y ago
> misogyny and antifeminism What's wrong with anti-feminism? Also, misogyny is one of those catch-alls that's being abused to mean: "Does not complement women" as of late.
- throwaway18917 9y ago
  Found the MRA.
  - legostormtroopr 9y ago
    Not an argument. Feminism is an ideology and like any other has its good points and bad. You can believe in equality and not have to identify as a feminist.
    - throwaway18917 9y ago
      Oh of course. Wouldn't want to be associated with feminism. But hey, you can still be a feminist, just don't call it that, right? Becauase just like men's deodorant and shaving cream, we have to have our OWN version of feminism, free from all of those WOMEN. Wouldn't want to be associated with women or have to navigate a space that isn't ours. Nope. (Hint: this is sarcasm and feminism isn't primarily about men.)
      - spearmint 9y ago
        Please stop strawmanning, and try not to sound so bitter.
      - legostormtroopr 9y ago
        So if "feminism isn't primarily about men" then why would (and even how could) I be a part of it?
    - Mz 9y ago
      You can also believe in a better world than the one we currently have, not call yourself a feminist and also not believe "equality" is the standard we should be caring about. (In case it actually needs to be said again: I happen to be female.)
gozur88 9y ago
>Coltrane has found that after controlling for variables like age and education, married American men earn significantly more than their unmarried or divorced male peers, and their earnings go up with every child they have. Marriage seems to make men more productive at work because it allows them to outsource much of the housekeeping to their wives. That's an assumption. IMO it's more likely to be that men with families out-earn their single and divorced counterparts because they're motivated to do so. Particularly as compared to divorced men. There's no point in killing yourself at work if the ex is going to take half the money.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- micahbright 9y ago
  Luckily, in Texas, child support is capped and alimony is politically unpopular. So there is a motivation for divorced men to make more.
wcummings 9y ago
>Chase, a father in his late 40s who is a partner at an international law firm in Chicago. “When I see a woman who has children and I know she and her husband are working like crazy, that concerns me for the sake of the kids,” he says. “But when I see stay-at-home dads, I don’t think very highly of them. Call it sexist, call it whatever you want, but I think it’s kind of wimpy to do that. It’s checking out, not being in the game, not fighting for success. Those are the traits I value.” Wow, Chase sounds like a real turd, I feel bad for his kids.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

90 points by SirensOfTitan 9y ago

Why the focus on married women earning less than single women instead of focusing on household income? Even if the single woman earns more than a married woman. For the most part, a married couple should have more disposable income after living expenses than her single counterpart. Married couples have a greater per capita net worth than their single counterpart. In our case, because of choices we made together, my wife earns a little over 10K less than she did when she was single 5 years ago, but because I could depend on her to carry health insurance and she has more flexible schedule, that helps our family, I was able to switch jobs aggressively and I earn roughly $50,000 more than I did before we got married. We are both better off. https://www.forbes.com/2006/07/25/singles-marriage-money-cx_tvr_06singles_0725costs.html https://www.forbes.com/2006/07/25/singles-marriage-money-cx_... https://www.google.com/amp/www.today.com/amp/money/why-married-people-tend-be-wealthier-its-complicated-1C8364877 https://www.google.com/amp/www.today.com/amp/money/why-marri... Once they are married, the couples also are able to take advantage of economies of scale – anything from buying just one dishwasher to relying on one another’s health insurance. That allows them to build wealth more quickly than their peers who are single, divorced or living together romantically. For example, a married man may be able to work 12 hours a day to please his bosses and get promoted, because he and his wife can divide household duties so he can get ahead. That’s not as much of an option for a single parent.

jessaustin 9y ago
Your anecdote seems to confirm the dynamic described in TFA? You're making more money "aggressively", your wife is making less, etc.? You seem happy about it, but lots of men and women are not...
- scarface74 9y ago
  And I've seen the situation play out differently. I just left a job that basically had a 100% work from home policy. It paid slightly less than average for our geographic area, but the men chose to sacrifice maximizing their income to work from home because their spouses had jobs that required them to work late or travel frequently. I would assume that most well functioning couples work together to optimize their career ambitions, lifestyle choices, and family relationships.
watwut 9y ago
I think that money are simple and crude measure of achievement and social approval. E.g. If part of your motivation is competitiveness or passion for your profession, she is losing after each child. My husbands higher salary won't make up for my missed promotion or less interesting project, it won't make me proud of my skills, basically. The article however was about men primary. Which I found interesting, because perspective of male who would prefer different tradeoff is rarely available.
- scarface74 9y ago
  Isn't that a lifestyle choice that spouses make together - whether to have kids, devote more time to each other, pursue their careers, etc.?
  - watwut 9y ago
    Depends on the couple, I guess. Optimally yes. But oftentimes both partners have different assumptions about what is fair contribution and how much free time is fair, don't talk about it really and resentments later on ensures. Like both of them believing they do too much simultaneously. Other times one of them (can be also a women) takes advantage of the situation and the other one does not have much choice subsequently or figures it out only after a while maybe when it is too late. (If women hates her job, it is easier for her to claim that kids need mom longer/more to stay out of workforce longer which puts more pressure and stress on husband. If stereotypical geek claims that it is just not possible not to stay late, he can avoid some of boring housework. ) In other cases, the choice is made by tradition and peer/family pressure which prescribe proper roles (like in case of deeply conservative catholics I know - roles are strict and given by god end of discussion).
  - Mz 9y ago
    When you are married AND have kids, one thing that can happen is that the parent who is most concerned about the welfare of the kids has no choice but to simply buck up and do what is necessary for their sake. Quibbling with another grown adult about "fairness" and "equality" can be a great way to see the kids get shortchanged. So, once there are children involved, it is not unusual for the wife to just suck it up and do what the kids need at personal cost to her. It often makes little sense to try to hold hubby's feet to the fire and insist on him doing his fair share at home or whatever. This is not man-bashing. I am a woman and former homemaker. I do a lot of even-handed writing that tries to consider both sides of the picture. But this is a reality in many marriages. I do not self-identify as a "feminist" in part because, to me, "feminism" is about women wanting careers and to hell with any other considerations. This ongoing argument about equality of the sexes seems to mostly leave out the critical detail of the welfare of the children. Unless and until we start talking about what works for the family as a whole, including kids, and society as a whole, including families with legal minors, this entire argument about men vs. women and so-called equality will continue to be sick and twisted and will tend to continue to crap on any parent that actually cares deeply about the welfare of their kids, regardless of gender.

dnautics 9y ago

> Women who behave like their male colleagues may be disliked for being “pushy” or “bitchy”, but these penalties are offset by the fact that they are also likely to enjoy more power and greater financial rewards. When men adopt the jobs and behaviours associated with women, however, they typically experience a loss of status with fewer perks and more social sanctions, especially from other men. I think older (straight) men do not care about loss of status or social sanctions from other men. They care about loss of status from women. Especially when in long term relationships, there's the fear of an incorrect narrative where their partner often says that adopting feminine roles is appreciated, but subconsciously leads to less attraction. (with acknowledgement that the reverse is sometimes true for women's perceptions in the eyes of men) [edit: it's actually in the article too ~3/4 of the way down, I should have been more patient]

samirillian 9y ago

I think a big part of reckoning with these social pressures may be simply expressing them out loud. It seems to be a truism of therapy that "you should never be ashamed of your feelings," but the very real benefits that white men continue to reap on one level tend to preclude an emotionally honest reckoning on another level. A lot of the negative effects documented in this essay seem to purely relate to cognitive dissonance. For example, the essay said that men would be more willing to accept certain "child-friendly policies" if they believe that it would not decrease their socially-perceived masculinity. I can only believe that it would also help men to openly express these fears, to state out loud the dissonance in their self conception that (largely positive) social change has wrought.

socrates1998 9y ago

Yes, I agree. Men are often told they need to be everything: Successful yet don't work too much. Help with the kids, yet don't be feminine. Be strong, yet sensitive. Have hard employable skills, but also be an artist. Don't play video games, but be fun to be around. All of these are difficult to balance. The scary part is the a majority of divorces are ended by women. I don't know the answer, but as long as we acknowledge the fact that both modern men and modern women have a long list of conflicting demands on them, I think we can show everyone more compassion.

lemonsqueeze 9y ago
Men don't need compassion. They have the Patriarchy
dionidium 9y ago
"Don't play video games, but be fun to be around." I was nodding along until I got to this one. What in the world do video games have to do with being a fun person to be around?
- greglindahl 9y ago
  I think the point here is about interacting with a computer vs interacting with the people in the room.
  - dionidium 9y ago
    Yes, except those two ideas are strikingly compatible :)
- exergy 9y ago
  It's just an innocent figure of speech he used, I don't see the problem here.
- olalonde 9y ago
  It was probably a poor example but I read it as "don't have fun but be fun".

Pxtl 9y ago

I'm always iffy about articles like this because so much of the ground has been utterly salted by online "men's rights" activists that are more motivated by misogyny and antifeminism than actually righting wrongs. It seems like a good read, but I would loved more data to crunch. The numerics of working long hours was a great example of how the mathematics of the situation make this stuff happen. Anyhow, my wife and I actually do the fully-equal thing - she makes a bit more than me (teaching in Ontario is paid well and I'm not working in one of the Big Tech Market cities) so we have get to split things 50/50. This actually presented a great opportunity: She wanted to go back to work early from her parental leave after the birth of our 3rd kid. So I did something new: I took the other half of the leave. 7 months off with my kids. If you have the opportunity, do this. It actually made more money for us, in terms of strict income. Both of our employers provided a several weeks of top-up parental leave in which the government unemployment-insurance benefit is supplemented up to your full weekly paycheck. So by both of us taking time off, we got to double-dip on this. And the experience with the kids was fantastic. I got to play boardgames with my son and teach him to ride his bike, and took my two daughters jogging in a double-stroller every other day. I practically lived in a ring-sling, even getting the stink-eye from greasy guys on a family trip to Manhattan. I got to properly get to know the parents of all my son's best friends and we're all still close. I was in the best shape of my life and had a great time, and my wife likes her job so she was happy to be at work. I'd considered doing it on our 2nd kid, but friends and family had talked me out of it because of worries about my career. I don't even work in the same place I did when my 2nd was born. I quit that job later on anyways, so I missed out on that time for nothing. To me, the biggest tragedy is the every-upwards climb of working hours for the household. There was a time when a family would live on a single 40 hour workweek. And what have we gained? I mean, for people who work retail, does the fact that they work on Sundays and every night to 10PM mean they actually sell more goods? Or does it just mean that retailers need to pay staff less per-hour because they're selling for more hours?

emsy 9y ago
>"men's rights" activists that are more motivated by misogyny and antifeminism than actually righting wrongs. What you think or told they are motivated by and their actual motivations are different things.

jondubois 9y ago

I think that in a couple, there is always some form of resentment towards the partner which does not work (is not pulling their weight) but I think that the level of resentment is many times higher if the non-working partner happens to be a man.

killjoywashere 9y ago
When I was in med school, married with two kids, every member of my wife's family told her to divorce me, not once, but on a regular basis. They all think I'm great now and wonder why we don't visit them much.

camperman 9y ago

> Because men – and especially white, professional men – occupy a uniquely privileged place in society, I don't know any white, professional men who got where they are because of privilege. It was all effort over many years together with sensible decision-making like finishing school, getting a job, not having kids out of wedlock, turning up to work on time, working hard, being honest and so on. > Feminists have long argued that men see little need to help out more at home because they already enjoy all the benefits of marriage and fatherhood without having to put in the extra work. What would feminists know about a non-feminist man's perspective on marriage and fatherhood? Non-feminist men also note that women aren't pushing for equality in physically demanding jobs on oil rigs, welding, construction and coal mining - because equality in the workplace is only for office jobs I guess. > Their status as men is at once so valuable and so precarious that it must be won over and over again. This is not a bad thing. The man guarding his village's perimeter from bandits can't fuck up or it costs people their lives. > “Many professional workplaces involve a constant negotiation among men to establish a pecking order,” says Joan Williams, a feminist legal scholar Yet another feminist quote. Why not ask some non-feminists for their opinions? This pecking order thing is entirely natural among men. Always has been, always will be.

Retra 9y ago
The privilege they are talking about is not some kind of explicit handout. It is a cultural background. It manifests as other people's exceptions, preconceptions, and even things like word choice and shared conceptual familiarities. For instance, if you've ever seriously considered starting a business, then you're probably privileged. Because for someone like me, it is simply not a consideration. I don't know anyone who cares about business, let alone owns one. Never had any friends who know anything about business. I have no business vocabulary, and I have desire to acquire one. My concept of self-worth is more anti-business than it is business-driven. So I'm never going to start a business. Does this mean I've not finished school? No. Didn't go to business school though. Does this mean I'm not hard-working? No. Don't work hard to make money though. Etc. Now if my father had been a businessman, or If I'd grown up in a place where people cared about business, I might know a thing or two about how to do it. That background of experience is the privilege they are talking about. I am privileged in that I understand machines, art, language, and education. Those privileges have directly and indirectly resulted in almost every success I've ever had. I am a white professional man. Now you know one. And you probably know many others, if you'd come at this discussion from a position of understanding rather than from a position of defiance. >What would feminists know about a non-feminist man's perspective on marriage and fatherhood? What would someone who doesn't even seem to understand the concept of cultural privilege have to add to a discussion about cultural privilege?

phd514 9y ago

>> Coltrane has found that after controlling for variables like age and education, married American men earn significantly more than their unmarried or divorced male peers, and their earnings go up with every child they have. Marriage seems to make men more productive at work because it allows them to outsource much of the housekeeping to their wives.<< I don't see how that last sentence makes any sense. Since when does one's earnings have anything to do with whether the housekeeping for one child or three children is "outsourced" to wives? I think it's far more likely that being a father to more children is correlated with being older and more experienced and therefore more highly compensated.

icewater 9y ago
"...after controlling for variables like age and education."
- phd514 9y ago
  Hmm, fair point. It just doesn't make any sense then that more children correlate to higher income because the housekeeping responsibilities fall to the wife.
notyourloops 9y ago
There's no reason for them to assume it has anything to do with outsourcing housekeeping. Quite simply, an intact marriage and children are likely to provide men with the drive to produce for the sake of his family.

logicallee 9y ago

[EDIT - It turns out that even this very comment required editing if we apply the standard to it, that it itself suggests, see below. SUPER SUPER great example!] --- (This comment is serious, not satire or sarcastic or something.) I've flagged this article and everyone else should too. When the tech industry (programmers/startups/etc) reaches something like at least 60/40 - I'm not saying we need to wait for parity - then we can return to these questions. (There's nothing wrong with the subject, except for our industry's statistics - that's it.) Until then I strongly encourage everyone here (male and female, regardless of your opinions of the article - i.e. if the article is good, and solid, and you agree with it, and it's not offensive) to flag articles like this, even when they're 100.00% correct, and even in the case that as a man or a woman you don't disagree with the article at all, don't find it offensive, etc. Mods should bury them from the front page. I'm not saying this should be permanent, but let's work on this for a few years. On the other hand everyone should be on their very best behavior for stories from the other side (in other words everyone should look at their comments for a minute before submitting them, stay silent in many cases where they have an opinion, let women express their viewpoint without replying with men's viewpoints, and so forth), flag comments that can even be misconstrued as misogynistic, and so forth. I don't wanna work with a bunch of men for the rest of my life. Do you? [EDIT: I am on board with the reply that pointed out that the issue with what men want, but rather equal access for women - great example. :) I should have phrased this in such terms. Sorry.] Work for the world you want, today. It might seem like the suggestions I make in this comment (which is 100% serious, not satire or anything like that) are over-the-top, but have you seen the statistics in our industry? Let's do something about it. We don't need to discuss stories like this one, here. We can discuss these stories on HN in a few years. Until then there are plenty of places all over the Internet to discuss them.

AnonNo15 9y ago
You are suggesting to silence the opinions you don't like, don't you see the problem with this?
- logicallee 9y ago
  Obviously no, I don't. And I don't suggest silencing them, I suggest making them discuss it elsewhere (not here on HN). Also I suggest that all of this can be discussed, just in a couple of years -- once our industry (programmers, startup entrpreneurs) reaches 60/40 or, hell, at least 70/30. ----- EDIT: in reply to the reply to this. same way as it happened in every other industry that got closer to parity. (example: medical industry, legal industry, MBA's, etc.)

monksy 9y ago

> misogyny and antifeminism What's wrong with anti-feminism? Also, misogyny is one of those catch-alls that's being abused to mean: "Does not complement women" as of late.

throwaway18917 9y ago
Found the MRA.
- legostormtroopr 9y ago
  Not an argument. Feminism is an ideology and like any other has its good points and bad. You can believe in equality and not have to identify as a feminist.
  - throwaway18917 9y ago
    Oh of course. Wouldn't want to be associated with feminism. But hey, you can still be a feminist, just don't call it that, right? Becauase just like men's deodorant and shaving cream, we have to have our OWN version of feminism, free from all of those WOMEN. Wouldn't want to be associated with women or have to navigate a space that isn't ours. Nope. (Hint: this is sarcasm and feminism isn't primarily about men.)
    - spearmint 9y ago
      Please stop strawmanning, and try not to sound so bitter.
    - legostormtroopr 9y ago
      So if "feminism isn't primarily about men" then why would (and even how could) I be a part of it?
  - Mz 9y ago
    You can also believe in a better world than the one we currently have, not call yourself a feminist and also not believe "equality" is the standard we should be caring about. (In case it actually needs to be said again: I happen to be female.)

gozur88 9y ago

>Coltrane has found that after controlling for variables like age and education, married American men earn significantly more than their unmarried or divorced male peers, and their earnings go up with every child they have. Marriage seems to make men more productive at work because it allows them to outsource much of the housekeeping to their wives. That's an assumption. IMO it's more likely to be that men with families out-earn their single and divorced counterparts because they're motivated to do so. Particularly as compared to divorced men. There's no point in killing yourself at work if the ex is going to take half the money.

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micahbright 9y ago
Luckily, in Texas, child support is capped and alimony is politically unpopular. So there is a motivation for divorced men to make more.

wcummings 9y ago

>Chase, a father in his late 40s who is a partner at an international law firm in Chicago. “When I see a woman who has children and I know she and her husband are working like crazy, that concerns me for the sake of the kids,” he says. “But when I see stay-at-home dads, I don’t think very highly of them. Call it sexist, call it whatever you want, but I think it’s kind of wimpy to do that. It’s checking out, not being in the game, not fighting for success. Those are the traits I value.” Wow, Chase sounds like a real turd, I feel bad for his kids.

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