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> New research confirms that women are not, as a rule, freezing their eggs for career reasons, but instead because they don’t have a partner. I have a feeling

> New research confirms that women are not, as a rule, freezing their eggs for career reasons, but instead because they don’t have a partner. I have a feeling it's more linked than we want to admit. As men we've taken advances in productivity and technology and thrown it in the trash by working longer and harder. More free time is filled up increasingly by more work. Finding a partner and staying together takes a lot of time. Now women are being pulled into the same trap/punishment as men, and finally we can include them in our own destruction. Even in ancient times when invaders razed a city they would kill any fighting-age men but often spare women. In Silicon Valley nobody is spared.

hydrogen18 9y ago
I don't know if you have read it, but this is basically the hypothesis of Germaine Greer. Her conclusion is that equality for women (and thus feminism) does not mean lives for women that are equivalent to that of men.
tomjen3 9y ago
As can be seen from the following graph, the average person in the US is working a lot fewer hours than they have previously: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AVHWPEUSA065NRUG https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AVHWPEUSA065NRUG So not only is free time not taken up by more work, more work is taken up by free time (this also does not include benefits from eg. washing machines). This also agrees with my own experience, my granddad used to get saturday of at noon (ie. it was half a work day), now I get saturday of entirely.
chongli 9y ago
When women entered the workforce, became successful, and married working men they set the real estate market on fire. The "American dream" 2 kids, 2 cars, and a white picket fence went from single income, blue-collar affordable to dual income, white-collar struggling to make the down payment. It's not all the fault of feminists, though. Automation, immigration, and the rise of China have all played a big part.
- fastball 9y ago
  I was with you until you suddenly got racist for no reason. Why does economics immediately become a zero-sum game when immigrants are involved? What does China have to do with America's changing culture?
  - fullshark 9y ago
    My guess is that OP was referring to real estate being unaffordable due to China's upper classes making investments in US/Canadian real estate.
  - DonbunEf7 9y ago
    Assuming you're complaining about the phrase "the rise of China," it's not racism, but economics and the wealth of nations. China's economy has boomed in several distinct dimensions over the past three decades. They are part of BRICS, the five nations in G20 who like to talk to each other about how fast their burgeoning markets are growing. And, due to the way trade works, China's rise has changed how folks in the USA value and purchase goods. I'm sorry if this feels racist to you, but I can't fix you.
  - jorvi 9y ago
    Dude.. [1] People have become waaaay to adept at pulling the victimhood card as soon as something either doesn't fit their narrative or disadvantages them. It needs to stop. [1]http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1564426/original.jpg http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1564426/original.jpg
    - fastball 9y ago
      A. I was talking about the "immigration" bullet point, and when modern Americans talk about immigration, they don't mean "white Europeans coming to America", like they did back in the day with Irish and whoever. I have not seen an anti-immigration argument in decades that didn't have racist undertones. B. Not really sure what China's middle class has to do with America's middle class, but OK. C. I think the modern leftist victim complex is a load of hogwash and I don't think immigrants are always a good thing.
Bartweiss 9y ago
> More free time is filled up increasingly by more work. Finding a partner and staying together takes a lot of time. This was my thought through the whole article. There's some value to the basic observation here - that this isn't purely a career decision - but everything after that feels like a false dichotomy. It's not just "having a kid means spending less time at the office, so I'll miss a promotion". It's "having a kid, and everything leading up to having a kid, is an enormous time sink that I can't sustain with the job I've already committed to". That's a standard explanation for the demographic issues of, say, Japan, but it somehow disappears when we're talking about professionals in the US - even though it's far more obvious than implying that career and dating are somehow opposing explanations.
jansho 9y ago
> Now women are being pulled into the same trap/punishment as men, and finally we can include them in our own destruction. Isn't it a fabulous irony. The dream of technology is that it'll free up more time for us to enjoy life, yet we find ourselves more slave to our hamster wheels in an ever more expensive, demanding world, where our only comfort is living the commercially constructed "now". Women with families are doubly punished. Today they are expected to be both breadwinner and home-builder. While this is welcoming, the reality is that this is a superpower and can be a burden, especially if society doesn't adapt to it (e.g. work flexibility) and men and women continue to not share responsibilities at home. Sometimes I think that in our intellectual battle for gender rights and justice, we forget another party, the one most innocent yet may bear the most brunt - our children. Who, coincidentally, will also be the next generation.

hydrogen18 9y ago

I don't know if you have read it, but this is basically the hypothesis of Germaine Greer. Her conclusion is that equality for women (and thus feminism) does not mean lives for women that are equivalent to that of men.

tomjen3 9y ago

As can be seen from the following graph, the average person in the US is working a lot fewer hours than they have previously: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AVHWPEUSA065NRUG https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AVHWPEUSA065NRUG So not only is free time not taken up by more work, more work is taken up by free time (this also does not include benefits from eg. washing machines). This also agrees with my own experience, my granddad used to get saturday of at noon (ie. it was half a work day), now I get saturday of entirely.

chongli 9y ago

When women entered the workforce, became successful, and married working men they set the real estate market on fire. The "American dream" 2 kids, 2 cars, and a white picket fence went from single income, blue-collar affordable to dual income, white-collar struggling to make the down payment. It's not all the fault of feminists, though. Automation, immigration, and the rise of China have all played a big part.

fastball 9y ago
I was with you until you suddenly got racist for no reason. Why does economics immediately become a zero-sum game when immigrants are involved? What does China have to do with America's changing culture?
- fullshark 9y ago
  My guess is that OP was referring to real estate being unaffordable due to China's upper classes making investments in US/Canadian real estate.
- DonbunEf7 9y ago
  Assuming you're complaining about the phrase "the rise of China," it's not racism, but economics and the wealth of nations. China's economy has boomed in several distinct dimensions over the past three decades. They are part of BRICS, the five nations in G20 who like to talk to each other about how fast their burgeoning markets are growing. And, due to the way trade works, China's rise has changed how folks in the USA value and purchase goods. I'm sorry if this feels racist to you, but I can't fix you.
- jorvi 9y ago
  Dude.. [1] People have become waaaay to adept at pulling the victimhood card as soon as something either doesn't fit their narrative or disadvantages them. It needs to stop. [1]http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1564426/original.jpg http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1564426/original.jpg
  - fastball 9y ago
    A. I was talking about the "immigration" bullet point, and when modern Americans talk about immigration, they don't mean "white Europeans coming to America", like they did back in the day with Irish and whoever. I have not seen an anti-immigration argument in decades that didn't have racist undertones. B. Not really sure what China's middle class has to do with America's middle class, but OK. C. I think the modern leftist victim complex is a load of hogwash and I don't think immigrants are always a good thing.

Bartweiss 9y ago

> More free time is filled up increasingly by more work. Finding a partner and staying together takes a lot of time. This was my thought through the whole article. There's some value to the basic observation here - that this isn't purely a career decision - but everything after that feels like a false dichotomy. It's not just "having a kid means spending less time at the office, so I'll miss a promotion". It's "having a kid, and everything leading up to having a kid, is an enormous time sink that I can't sustain with the job I've already committed to". That's a standard explanation for the demographic issues of, say, Japan, but it somehow disappears when we're talking about professionals in the US - even though it's far more obvious than implying that career and dating are somehow opposing explanations.

jansho 9y ago

> Now women are being pulled into the same trap/punishment as men, and finally we can include them in our own destruction. Isn't it a fabulous irony. The dream of technology is that it'll free up more time for us to enjoy life, yet we find ourselves more slave to our hamster wheels in an ever more expensive, demanding world, where our only comfort is living the commercially constructed "now". Women with families are doubly punished. Today they are expected to be both breadwinner and home-builder. While this is welcoming, the reality is that this is a superpower and can be a burden, especially if society doesn't adapt to it (e.g. work flexibility) and men and women continue to not share responsibilities at home. Sometimes I think that in our intellectual battle for gender rights and justice, we forget another party, the one most innocent yet may bear the most brunt - our children. Who, coincidentally, will also be the next generation.