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>Single-worker households should be the standard... Yes, this is ideal for children. >...just, without the gender imbalance. But why take this detour? Why do

>Single-worker households should be the standard... Yes, this is ideal for children. >...just, without the gender imbalance. But why take this detour? Why does there need to be a balance? How does enforcing a gender balance help children?

igetspam 3y ago
What detour? This feels like a straight line to reasonable discourse. What does forcing one sex to be the DRI for childrearing improve for kids? Specifically, what does it improve for girls?
- VoodooJuJu 3y ago
  With a hands-off approach, you would naturally see more women be the stay-at-home caregiver. If a balance is desired, that's when you would have to force things. I'm more curious about the motivation behind wanting to force a gender balance.
  - igetspam 3y ago
    What evidence do you have to support your assertion that women would naturally give up their independence to stay at home?
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    With a hands-off approach, you would naturally see males constantly fight each other to lead the pack and mate with multiple women, with women having little choice in the matter. Assuming you want a more peaceful existence, and for women to have a choice in the matter, society needs to get hands-on to force a gender balance.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      And anyway, what hands are we talking about? Human nature is whatever humans do I guess, and that includes things like inventing feminism and equality.
  - tzs 3y ago
    > I'm more curious about the motivation behind wanting to force a gender balance. I don't think anyone suggested forcing a gender balance. In the past in the US single-worker households were the standard. The expectation was that except for a few jobs, for example school teacher or nurse, women only worked until they got married. There was no law that said women doing other kinds of jobs had to leave the workforce when they got married, but many employers strongly favored hiring men. Similar when they wanted to promote someone they would favor men. They didn't particularly have anything against women per say, but felt that a man with a stay at home wife needed the work more than a married woman with a working husband. When someone wrote: >> Single-worker households should be the standard, just, without the gender imbalance I think they had in mind how the single-worker household norm used to work, and by "without the gender imbalance" meant dropping the assumption that in single-worker male/female households the worker should be the man.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      That is mostly what I meant, just dropping the assumption that there ought to be an imbalance. I also very much think there would not tend to be an imbalance in a modern advanced economy; we’ll tend to be equal, and that most gender imbalances are just transient effects from history. This is just a prediction, though, I have no data to back it up. I don’t think there can be data on this, we do not have a statistically robust number of globalized information economies, we have just the one.
- sgerenser 3y ago
  Nobody is forcing anyone, it’s just the natural choice for the lower earning parent to step away from their job. If women to a high degree only marry higher earning spouses, then this is frequently going to be the woman.
  - igetspam 3y ago
    That's not the natural choice. The natural choice is to find the bottom of the barrel outside care and have a second income because we've made it financially impossible to do anything else.
    - sgerenser 3y ago
      Sorry, it's true that the common choice is often for both parents to work. I meant the natural choice given that a couple has decided for one of the two parents to stay at home while their children are too young for school.
      - igetspam 3y ago
        So then the assumption you're making is that women are the lower earners? Why is that? (Or why is that true?)
        sgerenser 3y ago
        Because in a given couple, women typically match with men that earn more than them. Whether that is the “fault” of the woman or man is for anyone to decide.
bee_rider 3y ago
I think even my generation, and I’m not that young, has the expectation that at least an approximate balance would be expected as an outcome, absent any enforcement. I have no particular desire to return to old fashion gender roles, and lots of people who want single income households might, so I want to be very explicit about the fact that I don’t care to defend that position. Which I think is a losing position.
- drivebyhooting 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    Is this some sort of incomprehensible-to-outsiders meme?
    - drivebyhooting 3y ago
      I will endeavor to give you a hint without spoiling the epiphany: You have two possible allocations of “utilons”. One strictly dominates the other but exhibits an imbalance. The other does not. Now choose.
      - bee_rider 3y ago
        I pick the one with .8’s because this is an obviously meaningless and constructed problem.
        drivebyhooting 3y ago
        Your failure to draw meaning from the simplified problem disappoints. If you can’t grapple with this toy model I’m afraid you won’t make inroads in any real scenario.
        bee_rider 3y ago

igetspam 3y ago

What detour? This feels like a straight line to reasonable discourse. What does forcing one sex to be the DRI for childrearing improve for kids? Specifically, what does it improve for girls?

VoodooJuJu 3y ago
With a hands-off approach, you would naturally see more women be the stay-at-home caregiver. If a balance is desired, that's when you would have to force things. I'm more curious about the motivation behind wanting to force a gender balance.
- igetspam 3y ago
  What evidence do you have to support your assertion that women would naturally give up their independence to stay at home?
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  With a hands-off approach, you would naturally see males constantly fight each other to lead the pack and mate with multiple women, with women having little choice in the matter. Assuming you want a more peaceful existence, and for women to have a choice in the matter, society needs to get hands-on to force a gender balance.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    And anyway, what hands are we talking about? Human nature is whatever humans do I guess, and that includes things like inventing feminism and equality.
- tzs 3y ago
  > I'm more curious about the motivation behind wanting to force a gender balance. I don't think anyone suggested forcing a gender balance. In the past in the US single-worker households were the standard. The expectation was that except for a few jobs, for example school teacher or nurse, women only worked until they got married. There was no law that said women doing other kinds of jobs had to leave the workforce when they got married, but many employers strongly favored hiring men. Similar when they wanted to promote someone they would favor men. They didn't particularly have anything against women per say, but felt that a man with a stay at home wife needed the work more than a married woman with a working husband. When someone wrote: >> Single-worker households should be the standard, just, without the gender imbalance I think they had in mind how the single-worker household norm used to work, and by "without the gender imbalance" meant dropping the assumption that in single-worker male/female households the worker should be the man.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    That is mostly what I meant, just dropping the assumption that there ought to be an imbalance. I also very much think there would not tend to be an imbalance in a modern advanced economy; we’ll tend to be equal, and that most gender imbalances are just transient effects from history. This is just a prediction, though, I have no data to back it up. I don’t think there can be data on this, we do not have a statistically robust number of globalized information economies, we have just the one.
sgerenser 3y ago
Nobody is forcing anyone, it’s just the natural choice for the lower earning parent to step away from their job. If women to a high degree only marry higher earning spouses, then this is frequently going to be the woman.
- igetspam 3y ago
  That's not the natural choice. The natural choice is to find the bottom of the barrel outside care and have a second income because we've made it financially impossible to do anything else.
  - sgerenser 3y ago
    Sorry, it's true that the common choice is often for both parents to work. I meant the natural choice given that a couple has decided for one of the two parents to stay at home while their children are too young for school.
    - igetspam 3y ago
      So then the assumption you're making is that women are the lower earners? Why is that? (Or why is that true?)
      - sgerenser 3y ago
        Because in a given couple, women typically match with men that earn more than them. Whether that is the “fault” of the woman or man is for anyone to decide.

bee_rider 3y ago

I think even my generation, and I’m not that young, has the expectation that at least an approximate balance would be expected as an outcome, absent any enforcement. I have no particular desire to return to old fashion gender roles, and lots of people who want single income households might, so I want to be very explicit about the fact that I don’t care to defend that position. Which I think is a losing position.

drivebyhooting 3y ago
[flagged]
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Is this some sort of incomprehensible-to-outsiders meme?
  - drivebyhooting 3y ago
    I will endeavor to give you a hint without spoiling the epiphany: You have two possible allocations of “utilons”. One strictly dominates the other but exhibits an imbalance. The other does not. Now choose.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      I pick the one with .8’s because this is an obviously meaningless and constructed problem.
      - drivebyhooting 3y ago
        Your failure to draw meaning from the simplified problem disappoints. If you can’t grapple with this toy model I’m afraid you won’t make inroads in any real scenario.
        bee_rider 3y ago