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Feminism gives women the right to choose their destiny in life. If they want grueling 8 hours in a cubicle over the "comfort" of being "taken care of" by a lovi

by mahmud 17y ago

Feminism gives women the right to choose their destiny in life. If they want grueling 8 hours in a cubicle over the "comfort" of being "taken care of" by a loving, all-providing Man, so be it. Men constantly choose to have their cake and eat it too. They have careers, but they also have families. Men's right to choose the life they want is never questioned, so why are the life choices of women under such scrutiny?

wensing 17y ago
"Men constantly choose to have their cake and eat it too. They have careers, but they also have families." There's not much special about have-ing a family. Almost anyone can create children and/or get married. The question for both men and women is: what are we missing by allowing ourselves to be taken out of the home and sent our separate ways? I (a man) ended up leaving my cube job fully convinced that a startup run from or very close to home is the next step towards my goal of a family business.
- mahmud 17y ago
  It's in the hands of the couple to choose which one of them needs to stay at home with the kids at any given day. (e.g. a female executive need not quit her high-paying job of if her novelist husband can stay at home during the day with the kids.) However, it's often the case that women end up sacrificing their dreams and quit their jobs to raise kids, when the division of household labor is in fact an artificial one, a remnant of cultures and societies past.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - wensing 17y ago
    It's a sad day when raising your kids equates to sacrificing your dreams. Sad day for the kids.
erlanger 17y ago
> Men constantly choose to have their cake and eat it too. The point of that expression is that it's impossible. Neither men nor women can stay home with their kids while working a full day at the office.
- ilyak 17y ago
  Sorry, but don't you have a concept of `kindergarden' in your USA?
ilyak 17y ago
In Russia, this problem was solved maybe in 1960s: A thick network of kindergardens will take care of children during workdays, while both parents work full-time. You can also hang your children on their babushka, if she lives somewhere near.
- abalashov 17y ago
  Yep, I went to one of these kindergartens. They were highly functional, rather pedagogically rigourous (compared to American daycare / kindergarten), and kept your children from about 8 AM until about 7 PM. You could start sending your children there at about 2 1/2 and it was provided free by the state. Very convenient and good for all. EDIT: Some of the most enjoyable moments of my entire life played out there. And I only went until I was 6 1/2 and we left for the US. Now I'm 23. So, the fact that I still remember them should tell the reader something; they were anything but drab in the way that Soviet institutions are sometimes imagined to be.
  - ilyak 17y ago
    You can send your children into Ясли before they reach 2 1/2 - just another part of the same kindergarden. I don't remember being there, tho, but I doubt I could remember anything at that age. I didn't really like kindergarden - I didn't like food and how you was supposed to sleep for a hour near noon. Toys were fine, tho.
    - abalashov 17y ago
      It has its ups and downs. But it was engaging enough, socially. This is one of the biggest cultural differences between Americans and Russians. In the Soviet Union, households in which women also worked arose a lot earlier (1920s), on the back of socialist reform specifically directed to the effect of women's equality. Obviously, certain things had to be done to make this logistically possible. Meanwhile, Americans, despite their willingness to send their children to school-as-daycare at later ages, are notoriously unwilling to "have the state raise" [their children] at a very young age, and make much of the importance of supervising them prior to school age, in principle, even if they have to resort to expensive and largely useless daycare sometimes. This approach doesn't prepare the children for the realities of their subsequent abandonment once they reach school age, whatever one thinks of it. In the USSR I remember it was common for 6 or 7 year old children to be latchkey kids, and they were generally deemed self-sufficient and functional, especially when backed by a community in which they certainly knew some neighbours and had somewhere to turn if they needed help. In contrast, the statutes of most US states deem it "child neglect" to leave your child unattended at home until 10 or 12, usually the latter.

by mahmud 17y ago

wensing 17y ago

"Men constantly choose to have their cake and eat it too. They have careers, but they also have families." There's not much special about have-ing a family. Almost anyone can create children and/or get married. The question for both men and women is: what are we missing by allowing ourselves to be taken out of the home and sent our separate ways? I (a man) ended up leaving my cube job fully convinced that a startup run from or very close to home is the next step towards my goal of a family business.

mahmud 17y ago
It's in the hands of the couple to choose which one of them needs to stay at home with the kids at any given day. (e.g. a female executive need not quit her high-paying job of if her novelist husband can stay at home during the day with the kids.) However, it's often the case that women end up sacrificing their dreams and quit their jobs to raise kids, when the division of household labor is in fact an artificial one, a remnant of cultures and societies past.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- wensing 17y ago
  It's a sad day when raising your kids equates to sacrificing your dreams. Sad day for the kids.

erlanger 17y ago

> Men constantly choose to have their cake and eat it too. The point of that expression is that it's impossible. Neither men nor women can stay home with their kids while working a full day at the office.

ilyak 17y ago
Sorry, but don't you have a concept of `kindergarden' in your USA?

ilyak 17y ago

In Russia, this problem was solved maybe in 1960s: A thick network of kindergardens will take care of children during workdays, while both parents work full-time. You can also hang your children on their babushka, if she lives somewhere near.

abalashov 17y ago
Yep, I went to one of these kindergartens. They were highly functional, rather pedagogically rigourous (compared to American daycare / kindergarten), and kept your children from about 8 AM until about 7 PM. You could start sending your children there at about 2 1/2 and it was provided free by the state. Very convenient and good for all. EDIT: Some of the most enjoyable moments of my entire life played out there. And I only went until I was 6 1/2 and we left for the US. Now I'm 23. So, the fact that I still remember them should tell the reader something; they were anything but drab in the way that Soviet institutions are sometimes imagined to be.
- ilyak 17y ago
  You can send your children into Ясли before they reach 2 1/2 - just another part of the same kindergarden. I don't remember being there, tho, but I doubt I could remember anything at that age. I didn't really like kindergarden - I didn't like food and how you was supposed to sleep for a hour near noon. Toys were fine, tho.
  - abalashov 17y ago
    It has its ups and downs. But it was engaging enough, socially. This is one of the biggest cultural differences between Americans and Russians. In the Soviet Union, households in which women also worked arose a lot earlier (1920s), on the back of socialist reform specifically directed to the effect of women's equality. Obviously, certain things had to be done to make this logistically possible. Meanwhile, Americans, despite their willingness to send their children to school-as-daycare at later ages, are notoriously unwilling to "have the state raise" [their children] at a very young age, and make much of the importance of supervising them prior to school age, in principle, even if they have to resort to expensive and largely useless daycare sometimes. This approach doesn't prepare the children for the realities of their subsequent abandonment once they reach school age, whatever one thinks of it. In the USSR I remember it was common for 6 or 7 year old children to be latchkey kids, and they were generally deemed self-sufficient and functional, especially when backed by a community in which they certainly knew some neighbours and had somewhere to turn if they needed help. In contrast, the statutes of most US states deem it "child neglect" to leave your child unattended at home until 10 or 12, usually the latter.