Feminism Discussion

Most economic troubles we face in the United States can be traced back to the rise of feminism in the late 1800s.

Discuss.

Yes....and no.

Feminism, imo, was a reaction against an overly patriarchal society. But the pendulum swung too far.

So, I suppose I'd say that most economic troubles we face today can be traced back to when we were too male dominated in society.

The reaction against that injustice over-corrected the situation to the point where women weren't just different but equal to men, but to the point where they stopped being mothers and wives and began to act like men. (bread winner, full time job, etc.)

This led to a general breakdown of the traditional family structure, among other things.

Also, an economy that depends of 2 wage earners per family is much less efficient than the old one, in which a single wage earner could support the family. The demand for "jobs" was partly a result of a demand for women's jobs......

and so on.

I flatly reject that there was anything wrong with a patriarchal society, as so many have called it.

Think supply and demand in the labor market and the effects it has on cost of living. It doesn't take an economist to see that women entering the workforce, when it wasn't needed, has taken a terrible toll on the over all cost of living.

All the jobs done by a homemaker couldn't be taxed.

swiftfoxmark2 wrote:I flatly reject that there was anything wrong with a patriarchal society, as so many have called it.

Think supply and demand in the labor market and the effects it has on cost of living. It doesn't take an economist to see that women entering the workforce, when it wasn't needed, has taken a terrible toll on the over all cost of living.

I don't think anything is wrong with a patriarchal society either....but that's not exactly what we had. We were out of balance. Women not voting? Women not being able to own property? That's not a patriarchal society....it's a very out of balance society. And so, the pendulum swung and the very out-of-balance feminist movement was born in response.

imaginethat wrote:All the jobs done by a homemaker couldn't be taxed.

Very true! Once government theft comes into the picture the entire market gets skewed.

Where in the constitution does it specifically deny women the right to vote?

As for not owning property, I don't remember any case where it was illegal for women to own property. Although, I admit that I am a bit rusty on that point. Still, from what I did know, most jobs that men did also had a small share of women who did them going back to the colonial days.

swiftfoxmark2 wrote:Where in the constitution does it specifically deny women the right to vote?

As for not owning property, I don't remember any case where it was illegal for women to own property. Although, I admit that I am a bit rusty on that point. Still, from what I did know, most jobs that men did also had a small share of women who did them going back to the colonial days.

Time to do some studying! Women did not have the right to vote for much of our early history!

The reason the feminist movement had any teeth at all is because of the reprehensible way women were treated. But, like I said above, the feminist movement itself became reprehensible.

Women were not denied the right to vote in the constitution. In fact, it never explicitly singled out any group of people by stating they couldn't vote.

The right to vote was denied by the individual states. In effect, the 19th amendment was an affront to Federalism, much like the 17th and 18th was.

And in what reprehensible ways were they treated precisely? We've been fed this line that women were somehow Gorean sex slaves yet I get the impression that many of them were quite happy with their lives since it was a minority of women who raised a ruckus.

Being denied the right to vote is qualifies as bad treatment in my book.
Also, back then, when women married land owners, they themselves were not considered land owners.

The general thought in the culture was that women were less intelligent and were best kept at home occupied with bearing children, washing, cooking and keeping their men happy.

While there's nothing wrong with that, don't you think it should be done out of fee choice?

I could go on and on, but lets just say that women had a rough time back then. The backlash to that was the feminist movement, and now women AND men have a rough time.