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I am a woman and I can essentially agree with this, at least in theory, assuming that you consider the possibility of changing the standard to one that is reaso
by Mz 9y ago
I am a woman and I can essentially agree with this, at least in theory, assuming that you consider the possibility of changing the standard to one that is reasonable if it comes to light that the standard unfairly favors one demographic over others for reasons unrelated to actual job performance (by which I really mean "needs of the job").
Current job metrics have a tendency to assume that a privileged man with a stay-at-home wife is doing the job. The assumption is that she will take care of things like grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc and he will only take time off in a dire emergency, not for any kind of routine maintenance of his health or life.
Women fall behind in part because we typically lack our own wife taking care of the women's work for us. But job standards don't change to accommodate the fact that the work force is no longer dominated by married men with full time wives taking care of the home fires. This causes everyone to suffer, not just women with jobs, but it tends to disproportionately hurt women. There is enormous precedent and social pressure such that women tend to still do the lion's share of the housework, etc, even if they also work full time.
So "treat everyone the same" can work, but only if we start reassessing job expectations that are rooted in an assumption that "Well, you have a wife at home taking care of certain things, so you don't need time and energy for those things."
- jeandejean 9y agoWhat about single men? They don't have a slave wife at home but still can manage to perform well. I think your comment in biased on what you assume on men, as if they were privileged idle dreamers. But guess what they're not, and they don't make a fuss for everything they're doing.
- Mz 9y agoThis is not just me making assumptions based on my life. I have read quite a bit about this and had classes in, for example, Women's History. When I had a corporate job, I successfully got my teen/young adult sons to take over the women's work so I could give more to my job. I felt it benefited all of us more than them getting crappy entry level jobs that didn't serve their goals in any way. They agreed with my conclusion. Also, your comment seems awfully close to an ad hominem. It is dismissive of me personally and does not really bring substantial argument to bear.
- partycoder 9y agoThere are aspects of motherhood that are very demanding and risky for women and in this regard I agree that there is still a lot of room for improvement and work to do to ensure women are protected. However, not all men take the a passive role when it comes to parenthood and contributing in house tasks. In my family, we split effort and expenses evenly, but unfortunately this is not the case for everyone. I think employers and society at a large should be supportive of women when it comes to motherhood, but other than that, it becomes very culture specific.
- Mz 9y agoYeah, the whole motherhood thing sort of throws sand in the gears for trying to sort this out. But that isn't really what I am talking about.