More Successful Women in Society

[CutieRaena]

This topic has been on my mind a lot lately. Even in my school books, it has been proven, that there are more women going to college than men. What I can conclude is that women are basically starting to focus on their careers and making a lot of the bread, men are falling behind.
I am a student, and I also have a boyfriend. I take care of the household and bills all by myself. Was just wondering if any other girls are in the same situation?
Does anyone think that the gender roles of men and women may change? or that they have already?

 

[Nordling]

I think gender roles are evolving. I don't believe that the current gender-based roles will switch, but that instead, the whole concept of tying roles to gender will weaken and genders will be much more equal in both careers and respect.

Wishful thinking maybe but this does seem to be the trend, at least in the Western World.

 

[Shaun__]

I would gladly stay home, do all the house work, and play with the kids all day. I hope the gender roles do swap working sucks.

 

[Nordling]

I would gladly stay home, do all the house work, and play with the kids all day. I hope the gender roles do swap working sucks.

Ha! And that's why it won't happen...women think it sucks too.

 

[Sevrin]

I would gladly stay home, do all the house work, and play with the kids all day. I hope the gender roles do swap working sucks.

You obviously don't understand what you are asking for.

 

[Shaun__]

I would gladly stay home, do all the house work, and play with the kids all day. I hope the gender roles do swap working sucks.

You obviously don't understand what you are asking for.

I already do all the house work and then work up to 16 hours a day at my regular job sometimes. The imaginary kids in question would have up to half of my genes so they might turn out okay. Besides after four years they would be in pre-k then regular school every year after that. I think I would be making a good swap.

 

[Jupiter551]

I would gladly stay home, do all the house work, and play with the kidsworld of warcraft all day (once the kids hit school age - 5). I hope the gender roles do swap working sucks.

Fixed your quote to more accurately reflect things
Herein lies the paradox! After spending decades ensuring their role in society is rightfully equalised and valued in society, women find it very difficult to approach the topic of the housewife.

On the one hand, saying only women should be housewives would be horribly sexist, but allowing men to become househusbands risks exposing the fact we've all known for some time - despite their protestations, being a housewife is not equivalent to a full time job.

If it were, Days of Our Lives, Valium, and Oprah would not be the decades-running successes that they are.

 

[bodisha]

I think it's obvious gender roles are changing... I mean for 30-40 years women have been growing up hearing they don't need a man to survive and they need to be independent... The question I have is does everyone think the loss of men as leaders in a household is strictly a result of female empowerment? I mean the topic has come up between me and my friends many times over the last few years and we have identified several factors of why we think it's happening... And where we see things going... But before I share my opinion I wanted to get everyone else's opinion

 

[Alcon]

I think a lot of it depends on social class. "Poor" men and blue collar men are struggling the most. The higher you go up in income, the more it resembles the traditional roles where men are still more powerful.

 

[Erragal]

I think a lot of it depends on social class. "Poor" men and blue collar men are struggling the most. The higher you go up in income, the more it resembles the traditional roles where men are still more powerful.

Alcon I agree with you 100% I have known many women that have full time jobs and they wish they could stay home and raise the kids. They just can't survive off of one income and with how jobs are (even before the rescission) showing up for work and being told you have been laid off. How does a single income family survive that. I wish the partners had a choice of o they both work or does one stay home and take care of the kids.

Also I do agree the gender roles are starting to fade away. My niece is in high school and the way the guys and girls mix, it surprises me sometimes. When I was young I had friends that where women, and that's all they would be friends. My dad couldn't understand that. With my niece it's a lot more mixed and the girls are doing more things that where normally guys only and same for guy is also true. One thing I do see that I like is that fact that women are able to talk about sex opening and are openly being sexual. In history this is a way most major groups have controlled women. In the Victorian era of England a common saying was lie back and think of England came from women where not allowed to enjoy sex it was just a way to make babies. I am pretty sure all the women on here would disagree with that.

 

[Jupiter551]

Actually I know a lot of couples that both work fulltime and often the women feel like when they get home they STILL have to do all the household stuff heh : /

 

[Rose]

Hmm, those of you who said being a housewife is NOT a full time job are misinformed. But I won't debate your opinion on this I'll just trust that you've 1) never done it completely full time before, 2) haven't tried adding kids to that mix or 3) just don't care.
On topic, if gender roles really are getting reversed then I'm glad. I think it will be good for our society to see stereotypical gender roles questioned and changed some. My roommate is technically a full time house"person" while I'm the main breadwinner. He does work, just not out of the home or as much as I do. When I was the full time house"person" it was definitely a full time job and the house was immaculate during that time. Roomie is quickly learning that cleaning up after himself, myself and the dog can be quite time consuming and cut into the time he'd rather spend playing minecraft. I much prefer working outside of the home over staying home all day, every day. It's very empowering to see more women taking charge and flexing their independence, be it with careers or education.

Oh and men still need to take out the trash

 

[Jupiter551]

But how can cleaning up after oneself and their partner and possible dog be a full-time job?! You don't spend 8 hours a day cleaning an apartment!

 

[Rose]

But how can cleaning up after oneself and their partner and possible dog be a full-time job?! You don't spend 8 hours a day cleaning an apartment!

You spend 3 doing the laundry, dishes, vaccuuming, sanitizing and linens. Then you spend 2 hours going through any decluttering that needs doing, organizing neglected piles, sorting through mail and other busy work. There's 5 hours already gone. If you're as meticulous cleaning and sorting as I am then there's a lot more to this list and it eats up more time in your day. Add pets or children and you've easily eaten up your whole day. My mother made a career out of being a housewife and even after we were in school she never spent more than an hour sitting and having "me" time. The stereotype of the housewife who sits around eating bon bons all day is very outdated and inaccurate unless you're just lazy.

 

[Jupiter551]

But how can cleaning up after oneself and their partner and possible dog be a full-time job?! You don't spend 8 hours a day cleaning an apartment!

You spend 3 doing the laundry, dishes, vaccuuming, sanitizing and linens. Then you spend 2 hours going through any decluttering that needs doing, organizing neglected piles, sorting through mail and other busy work. There's 5 hours already gone. If you're as meticulous cleaning and sorting as I am then there's a lot more to this list and it eats up more time in your day. Add pets or children and you've easily eaten up your whole day. My mother made a career out of being a housewife and even after we were in school she never spent more than an hour sitting and having "me" time. The stereotype of the housewife who sits around eating bon bons all day is very outdated and inaccurate unless you're just lazy.

I'm having trouble imagining your room-mate sanitizing and changing the linens daily and organizing neglected piles (where did they come from, did you not sort yesterday, who's creating these piles??!)

 

[Zoomer]

But how can cleaning up after oneself and their partner and possible dog be a full-time job?! You don't spend 8 hours a day cleaning an apartment!

You spend 3 doing the laundry, dishes, vaccuuming, sanitizing and linens. Then you spend 2 hours going through any decluttering that needs doing, organizing neglected piles, sorting through mail and other busy work. There's 5 hours already gone. If you're as meticulous cleaning and sorting as I am then there's a lot more to this list and it eats up more time in your day. Add pets or children and you've easily eaten up your whole day. My mother made a career out of being a housewife and even after we were in school she never spent more than an hour sitting and having "me" time. The stereotype of the housewife who sits around eating bon bons all day is very outdated and inaccurate unless you're just lazy.

It takes you 5 hours per day, without kids or pets? House work - you're doing it wrong :? Horrifically inefficient and wasteful.
However, it is very easy to make things fill time, which is what I can only imagine you must be doing.

 

[Lydia_Deetz]

But how can cleaning up after oneself and their partner and possible dog be a full-time job?! You don't spend 8 hours a day cleaning an apartment!

This is one topic I will get feisty about...so be warned

I have 2 kids and a husband who works fulltime outside the home. Keeping the house clean with 4 people in it occupies at least 30-40 hours a week.

I also, help with homework, drive the rugrats to all their shit, wake up at 2am when they have barfed all over the carpet, the list goes on.

The difference between working outside the home and being the one who stays home is being on call 24 hours a day. I ask you have you ever had the stomach flu, while 11 weeks pregnant and had a toddler that is barfing alongside you? Well then think before you speak.

Just as an aside, I also go to college full time studying forensics and business. I have two dogs, and 8 chickens my hands are full!

PS if I hear one more dude say staying home with kids, cleaning, taking care of hubby etc is not a full time job, just know they will never find your body

 

[SoTxBob]

PS if I hear one more dude say staying home with kids, cleaning, taking care of hubby etc is not a full time job, just know they will never find your body

LOL.. challenge accepted... :evil: :lol:

It's not a full time job.. I did it completely by myself after my divorce. 2 preschool kids, ran my own business, maintained the animals, cooked, cleaned, did the homework. Laundry is done once a week, grocery shopping the same. blablabla......
Granted, I'm not OCD about 'sanitizing' every minute I had free or uncluttering between sanitizings. Thats a bit of overkill. no, strike that.. Thats pure OCD behavior and unnecessary. [I'm an ANTI antigerm hand sanitizer house. It's now coming out that sterile daily life like that creates immunity problems in life]
Point being is that you can make yourself as busy as you feel the need and fill as many hours as you want.
NOW, also allow me to say.... IF a woman was/is indeed a traditional 'housewife' [circa 30-40 years ago] they should have been given much more credit for the job title and running the household.

 

[Lydia_Deetz]

PS if I hear one more dude say staying home with kids, cleaning, taking care of hubby etc is not a full time job, just know they will never find your body

LOL.. challenge accepted... :evil: :lol:

It's not a full time job.. I did it completely by myself after my divorce. 2 preschool kids, ran my own business, maintained the animals, cooked, cleaned, did the homework. Laundry is done once a week, grocery shopping the same. blablabla......
Granted, I'm not OCD about 'sanitizing' every minute I had free or uncluttering between sanitizings. Thats a bit of overkill. no, strike that.. Thats pure OCD behavior and unnecessary. [I'm an ANTI antigerm hand sanitizer house. It's now coming out that sterile daily life like that creates immunity problems in life]
Point being is that you can make yourself as busy as you feel the need and fill as many hours as you want.
NOW, also allow me to say.... IF a woman was/is indeed a traditional 'housewife' [circa 30-40 years ago] they should have been given much more credit for the job title and running the household.

"IF a woman was/is indeed a traditional 'housewife' [circa 30-40 years ago] they should have been given much more credit for the job title and running the household."

Please elaborate on why this is your opinion, I am not sure I follow this process of thought.

 

[CutieRaena]

But how can cleaning up after oneself and their partner and possible dog be a full-time job?! You don't spend 8 hours a day cleaning an apartment!

You spend 3 doing the laundry, dishes, vaccuuming, sanitizing and linens. Then you spend 2 hours going through any decluttering that needs doing, organizing neglected piles, sorting through mail and other busy work. There's 5 hours already gone. If you're as meticulous cleaning and sorting as I am then there's a lot more to this list and it eats up more time in your day. Add pets or children and you've easily eaten up your whole day. My mother made a career out of being a housewife and even after we were in school she never spent more than an hour sitting and having "me" time. The stereotype of the housewife who sits around eating bon bons all day is very outdated and inaccurate unless you're just lazy.

WHAT ARE YOU ON LMAO :-D
I would only be like that if I were on Adderall !!

 

[JickyJuly]

Women are becoming more successful because so many Men have been coddled and spoiled by their Mommies. I'm fine with reversing gender roles. I'm the main income in my household in fact. BUT all these entitled dudes who think that because their Mothers believe they're Kings it must be true make me wanna vomit on their shoes.

 

[Rose]

I'm going to just step out of this conversation now before it gets heated. I fully agree with Lydia and Jicky on this one. Any man or woman who has never been a full time house"person" has no right to say it's not a full time job. You can spend 8 hours a day cleaning and there will always be something else that needs cleaning, always. This will be my last post on this topic. Oh and to those who said I'm cleaning wrong, you obviously have not seen my house or my work ethic, but that's ok you don't know better.

 

[Jupiter551]

Women are becoming more successful because so many Men have been coddled and spoiled by their Mommies. I'm fine with reversing gender roles. I'm the main income in my household in fact. BUT all these entitled dudes who think that because their Mothers believe they're Kings it must be true make me wanna vomit on their shoes.

I take your point about self-entitled men, but I think women are becoming more successful because they're given a wider range of opportunities to prove that they're capable. Especially in roles where brains are more important than size or strength - women have no more or less capability than men, and over the last century those roles have become a lot more prevalent than they had been. In the past it made sense for the bigger, stronger member of the household to go out and hunt I guess. Size makes no difference which one "hunts" if they're an accountant hunting numbers.

One thing I do think has been reaching a boiling point for a couple decades now and will either need to be sorted out or will sort itself out is that as women become more successful and independant and influential in business, science, medicine, industry, etc - is the male gender role of being the breadwinner, the provider. Roles have changed, but on a deeper level this is still connected with percieved masculinity, by both women and men.

Many women want a successful, providing male, regardless of their own successes - and I can't say I personally disagree with them, I'm a "victim" of this ideology too. It will need to change though, because it's not feasible to say on the one hand "women are just as capable and should be reaching the highest pinnacles of career success" and on the other that "a man who can't reach such success is a failure".

It's a whole complex skein of crap, but in the simplest terms, there was less competition in our grandfather's day because women generally didn't work after marriage.

 

[JickyJuly]

I think it takes a lot of trust and faith to let someone else be your provider and/or protector. I'm just not that trusting of anyone. Whether I have or have not needs to be on my shoulders for me to feel safe. Many Women probably feel the same. *pops Klonopin to get through the day anxiety free*

 

[JoleneBrody]

I have a thing for strong, dirty men in steel toe boots... just sayin'.

 

[LadyLuna]

I actually kinda just posted about this stuff in my blog...

For the Post

1- Being the house-person means that you're in charge of making sure the house is tidy 24/7 /365 . You cook. You do the dishes (I challenge ANYONE to say that it's not important to sanitize the kitchen- salmonella is not a laughing matter. Same with the bathroom, for much the same reasons.) Dusting and vacuuming at least once a week, more if you have pets. And if you have pets, you'd better be sanitizing any bathroom messes they make, no matter where they occur. But more than that- you make sure that there is a homely feel to the place.

Also, cooking takes both time and practice. Anything you bake is gonna be watched for hours. Anything you cook needs to be watched carefully the whole time to be sure it doesn't burn. And you gotta make sure it's cooked thoroughly, without being overcooked, and without getting too dry. At first, the house-person might need to cook 2 or 3 meals, to make sure one of them actually comes out right.

The house-person is usually in charge of errands. This might also mean spending time cutting coupons. It definitely means spending some time getting to know the stores in the area to find out where the best deals are, and when.

2- Those of us who aren't rich find it really fucking hard to live on one income. If minimum wage is $7.50 , and you work 40 hours a week, you're making $1200 a month (based on four-week months). Of course, somewhere in there, you get an extra $1200, but that's usually taken up with clothes, food, oil change for the car, a little treat every now and then... The list goes on.

Assuming most places go by the 1/4 of your paycheck rent thing, you can only get a place that costs $300 a month. But then you've got the car payment, and utilities, and gas in teh car, and laundry... And there's no way you're gonna be able to find a better place on your paycheck, so the next year when they raise the rent, you have no choice but to stay. And again, and again.

3- Some of us would really rather be the house-person. But in today's society, it's practically impossible unless the other is making at least twice minimum wage ($15 an hour). Also, as was stated, you gotta put a lot of trust in someone to let them hold all the keys. And too many people have associated the "Man of the House" with abusive ideas. (not saying anyone here has done so, just that the number of the people who have is enough to give any person who would wish to just be a housewife pause)

Do I think gender roles are reversing? I actually hope they are disappearing. Attaching roles to gender in today's society is practically useless. About the only difference between a man and a woman is biological, and psychological differences, well, many of those are actually trained in. It is important to recognize exactly how different men and women are, while at the same time, recognizing how they aren't. And realizing that two men (Or two women) can be as different as a cougar from a cheetah is vastly more important.

 

[inkydoo]

Once I hit my mid-teens, it was really just me and my mom for much of the time (my brother had gone of to college and my dad's job kept him out of town a lot for several years). During this period, before I left for college, I started doing more (traditionally female) "domestic" chores around the house. In particular, cleaning the house (to make extra money) and cooking (probably because my Mom and her sisters and mother were all really good cooks, and I wanted to learn all their recipes). As far as cleaning the house went, my Mom made sure I wasn't half-assing it, and had pretty serious standards about what was worth paying me for.

As an adult this has meant two things in my marriage. First, I know how much work and time it takes to maintain a household, and how it's essentially a job that never ends. And while I'm not sure it's always a 40 hour per week job, sometimes it's clearly more than that (depending on how many spouses, kids and pets there are, not to mention how much each of those people contribute to or exacerbate the work required). It also rarely comes with weekends off, sick days, holidays or retirement. And, even though I work 40 hours and my wife takes care of the house, I don't consider it "women's work" and I try to help out with it when and where I can (if she cooks, I try to clean dishes, for instance). To me, this is just the way we happen to have divided our labor, and I recognize the value she brings to our partnership, sometimes more than she does, I think (not to sound overly business-like about it, but this is how I view that aspect of our relationship). On the other hand, I have some pretty serious standards of what clean looks like, more than she does much of the time, which has led to frustration on a few occasions.

In summary, if you don't think it's pretty close to a full time job (especially considering it's pretty much 7 days a week) then I'm not sure you're really thinking about all the things involved. It's not just cleaning up an apartment or house. It's cooking, shopping for the things you cook, and cutting coupons for the things you buy. It's paying attention to what you cook, learning new recipes, figuring out what to cook each day that everyone will eat and making sure it's healthy, stocking a kitchen and pantry so there are snacks and drinks. It's laundry, and shopping for clothes for the family, and noticing when someone needs new clothes and patching what can't be replaced. It's making sure people get to and from school, work, appointments and events. That kids and/or pets get dressed, bathed and looking after so many other aspects of their health and well-being. It's calling the repair person to look at broken appliances and making sure you don't get taken, lied to, or overcharged for the service. It's checking the bills for correctness and then paying them. And it's all the smaller things I'm not thinking of right now.

It's like running a hotel, a restaurant, a personal shopping service, all while being a personal groomer, life coach, counseler, etc. 24/7/365. Frankly, I'm getting tired just thinking about it.

 

[Keithy]

I have spent time as the primary home maker, which at times has included kids and animals. It's not a full time job. I cooked, cleaned, did the shopping, made sure all the bills were collected and paid, etc. Of course if you let the kids run around crazy it would be harder. If you didn't train the animals too. I'm pretty OCD about a clean kitchen, especially while I'm cooking. Teaching kids to clean up after themselves and not having a ton of worthless crap around the house is pretty important. Also knowing how to manage time helps.

 

[Neudiin]

The correct response from a man to this thread is: "Yes dear, what you do is a full time job and its tough. Go relax in a nice hot bath with a glass of wine" :angel5:

 

[Shaun__]

The correct response from a man to this thread is: "Yes dear, what you do is a full time job and its tough. Go relax in a nice hot bath with a glass of wine" :angel5:

If I had a wife that could earn more money than me then my answer would be you go girl.

I spent my early 20s getting paid to clean, and I was cleaning an area way larger than a house. It is not that hard to do. You just need to know what needs to be done and work out a way to do it with out pissing off everybody around you. I used to love the looks on peoples faces as I mopped up there dirty foot prints off my nice clean floor as I followed them around.

I admit my cooking sucks but I think that is a matter of practice more than anything else. I would learn it in time with hard work and study.

I am not saying it is not a job. I am saying it is a better job than mine.