American women are not told that they must do anything but being a housewife. They are actively encouraged to pursue careers that at one time women were basically forbidden to pursue. Most of those careers are compatible with motherhood as much as they are compatible with fatherhood.
Especially black American women who have to look forward to being a bitch, a mother, and a low wage worker. Liberation for the win. This rhetoric is about reducing people to workers and saying that because people can't serve a corporation they are not being themselves because the desire that corporations create for women to be something in the public sphere competes with similar jobs which they held in the private sphere.
Liberation is freedom from work to do whatever you choose. Liberation has not held up to this ideal as it's a lie. The whole point of women's lib was to increase the work force so that the capitalists can have more people in the economy and the government can tax those people and get richer and so on.
You have a particularly twisted idea of what women's lib was about, and also what 'liberation' means. Women in the workplace surged after WWII not because the capitalists went "awesome!", but because it became increasingly apparent that it was not true that women couldn't do 'work'.
Besides, women's liberation in the West stretches at least as far back as the suffragette movements, which is hardly something pushed by capitalists.
- Women had to take over many of the jobs and responsibilities of the men that went off to fight during the American Civil War. Unfortuently, it does not get recognized as having the same impact as WW2 did on women and freedom to choose one's own path in life, but it was the "catalyst" while WW2 was more of the "coup de grâce" in holding onto the outdated ideas.
- The Temperance Movement in America. Although there's much to dislike about the Temperance Movement, it was initially started by women that were fed up with alcohol tearing apart their families. Women realized that when they organized and stood up for what they believed in, that others would listen and rally behind them with many counties and states putting restrictions on alcohol long before the 18th Amendment. Many of the women, including Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony would go onto start the Women's Suffrage Movement in the United States.
Of course, we are talking about distributions of traits and there are outliers in both sexes[2], and everyone ought to be judged individually on their own characteristics. But we need to recognize that the average woman and the average man are substantially different, and we should expect their behavior to diverge.
[1] http://bsb-lab.org/site/wp-content/uploads/DelGiudice_etal_2...
Second, the perfect equality hypothesis does not describe my beliefs. I guess it my describe some non-scientifically-minded liberals' beliefs, maybe even most, but that does not matter very much. What I believe is that perfectly equal opportunity ought to be available to both sexes, and that women should control their own reproductive choices. I believe that we should work to minimize any effects that would tend to accentuate the differences between the sexes. And I believe this independent of the magnitude of those differences. Fundamentally, it does not matter to me if a paper did demonstrate differences, even in a perfectly equal society. It would still be optimal under my value function to no further accentuate them.
But, to wrap it up, I think it's really far fetched to suggest that conservative social policy towards women is the way it is because it's good for women. I mean, just look at what and who women vote for. (Then again, perhaps this is a bad argument because poor people vote for conservatives all the time.)
Isn't the use of "optimal" here a contradiction, if in fact, we don't nurture certain innate differentiating factors in people to their full potential? For example, lets say we find evidence that developing perfect pitch is indeed something you have to be born with, and that you have a son/daughter born with it. Would you not want a bit more musical exposure for them than usual? Not 'pushing' them necessarily, but certainly emphasizing the difference enough to maybe intrigue them about the possibility of developing their full potential in that area?
We already know that people are born with certain 'limitations' (for the lack of a better word) in terms of IQ, so the idea of dealing with biological differences is nothing new in the realm of cognitive science, and sex/gender is but one of many variables that could affect personality/cognitive performance in an array of areas. So really, it would almost seem like denying this probability is the more conservative viewpoint, no?
Either way, this whole area is much too complicated to be simplifying it in such terms, and neuroscience is still much too young to help guide us thoroughly, but dismissing it outright seems like a mistake to me. After all, culture[1] is an emergent property of our individual personalities coming together, which are themselves emergent properties of our brains/genetics...
[1] As an interesting side-note, there have apparently been some attempts at converging neurology with anthropology recently, so hopefully this will help more research come along about any links between biological and cultural differences: https://brainsciencepodcast.squarespace.com/bsp/2013/neuroan...
No, because I specified that it was under a given value function (mine). You seem to be assuming that I'm optimizing economic production or something like that, which is where differentiating factors tend to come in. That is of course not what I think is most important.
Simple counter example: let's say there were some means of doubling half the population's output, assuming we only had to keep them miserable by telling them they are worth less for the duration of their childhood. I would not make that trade. Whether there are differentiating factors doesn't factor into the question for me.
> Either way, this whole area is much too complicated to be simplifying it in such terms
That will never fail to be the case in almost any complex subject you want to talk about, but it doesn't mean you can't say useful things. For example, "I value that women be as free to choose their way as I, and not be systematically diverted to choices that are convenient to males via their representation in the media, via social policies, etc. I value this more highly than whatever minor benefits I believe are likely to stem out of the socially regressive way of doing things."
Ok, but what's the benefit of defending a position on the basis of it being a personal belief? The greater context here is on how certain viewpoints shape society, so naturally I assumed that to be your point of reference. Opinions are all well and good, but when discussing effects on a population larger than oneself, it's generally more practical to deal with issues empirically, which means acknowledging additional context and not regressing to arbitrary value functions. What is the ideal value function here? If you have a notion of one, it'd be easier to understand your point of view if you were to explain that clearly first before giving us the end result of your logical conclusions. Then the discussion could turn into a rational productive one about whether or not that value function is actually a logical one.
> let's say there were some means of doubling half the population's output, assuming we only had to keep them miserable by telling them they are worth less for the duration of their childhood. I would not make that trade.
I wouldn't either, but I don't find this to be a realistic example. Adjusting for IQ for example, would ideally increase people's confidence, motivation, and happiness, because they would experience the same ratio of difficulty:reward throughout their lives as everyone else, not the highly unjust and disproportionate one (with way too much difficulty over reward) that they face now. The example I gave of perfect pitch is also a realistic situation, and I see no reason for not exposing your child to more areas he/she might be good at. If you have a value function that differs on these outcomes, please extrapolate on that, because I feel it would clear things up a bit.
> That will never fail to be the case in almost any complex subject you want to talk about
True, but I was talking with specific regards to the development of neurology when I stated that. Sorry, should've probably been more clear on that.
> "I value that women be as free to choose their way as I, and not be systematically diverted to choices that are convenient to males via their representation in the media, via social policies, etc. I value this more highly than whatever minor benefits I believe are likely to stem out of the socially regressive way of doing things."
See, I value this too, and I value it equally when you substitute "women" with "men" as well[1]. I just don't believe that what you're labeling as "socially regressive" is in fact, socially regressive; there is a fine distinction between oppression and well-informed difference optimization. Unfortunately, this has been given a bad reputation historically (e.g. 'separate but equal' nonsense), but the real problem seems to be a greater misunderstanding of what "equality" as a concept should even look like, because generally, differences are much too nuanced to totally nullify or account for, to really provide a truly equal environment.
[1] An important designation to make when dealing with human equality. Here's an interesting 'case study' that exemplafies this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eqYEVYZgdo
Also there is no need to 'breed above replacement rates'. For thousands of years humans in Europe were living in much smaller numbers. There is no need to add more millions to the 500+ million people we already have here. To get to more sustainable levels of population, we'll some downsizing can be necessary.
We need to see that the religious fundamentalistic views will die out over the next decades, with its proponents. At least in Europe.
My guess would be that they don't actually believe their own ad copy.
Nobody blinks an eye when some women doesn't have kids and choose career. On the other hand being a "house husband" that doesn't work and "only" deal with house and kids is still considered weird and people think you are "not 100% man".
See the whole "real men" stereotype. There's no "real women" stereotype. We have one sex that have a choice, and one that doesn't. It's even visible in fashion. Women wear what they want. Men doesn't wear dresses.
BTW at least part of the differences in salaries is direct consequence of that. People expect men to keep working no matter the family situation, because "man should work". With women there's significant probability that they'll eventually choose kids, and salary reflects that belief.
Feminists try to deal with the salary gap by regulation - I don't think it will work. You need to change society so men have same choice women have. It will be even harder.
[1] Nor do I necessarily agree, either, but I don't want to get sidetracked.
Because it doesn't work. Women prefer uncaring[1], unpredictable[2] guys over dutiful housemates[3][4].
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22517110
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/opinion/sunday/i-heart-unp...
[3] http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/asa-shw012413...
[4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/9572187/Cou...
Because different sexes perform different roles in different species? Even watched a nature documentary?
There's your problem.
Equality means removing old sexist views about the role of men and women in society. "Women to act like men" or "men to act like women" is a farce.
Humans should be free to define their role for themselves.
Also, I don't know why you're worried about the amount of humans on the planet. It's already overpopulated.
How can there be the kind of equality that you are referring to when there is no equivalence?
There are always going to be some women who could have done better than the man that got the job that they both interviewed for. Same for men who were beat out by a women, but the idea that some preconceived notion that a man is going to be a better fighter pilot than a women is going to go away is pure fantasy. When something is true 99+% of the time, people are going to lean toward probability. It is human nature.
I guarantee that if anyone in this topic (man or women) was playing a game of deadly roulette and had to choose odds with who was more qualified and would do a better job in a field of men and women with certain careers, everyone here would be a "sexist".
So don't call out someone with There's your problem. If you consider it a problem then it is YOUR problem too. Maybe not on the same level, but you yourself are affected by it on some level (like it or not). You are a human - therefore have human nature.
The implication here seems to be that politics is a major independent predictor of fertility rates, i.e. liberal views on gender depress fertility rates, independently of, say, socioeconomic status. Is that true? If we look across countries, the lowest birth rates aren't in places particularly famed for the dominance of their feminist movements: South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan.
It should be noted that regardless of one's political beliefs, our modern culture can broadly be considered "liberal" and it is an extreme conservative indeed that doesn't guzzle down liberal books, movies, and television. Thus, while conservatism increases your fertility at the margin, white Americans of all political persuasions are having fewer kids than they used to[3].
[1] http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/whos-having-the-babi...
[2a] http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/whos-having-the-babi...
[2b] http://jaymans.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/conserv-by-iq-kid...
[3] http://jaymans.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/lib-cons-cohorte....
Quote: After Mongol rule had been ended by the Ming Dynasty in 1368, [there was] a violent Chinese backlash against West and Central Asians. In order to contain the violence, the Ming administration instituted a policy where all West and Central Asian males were required to intermarry with native Chinese females, hence assimilating them into the local population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation#China
Please also note that in most other culture, the way to fix ethnic violence is in the "remove them away" to "kill them all" range. In the above example, the solution found was "merge them through our girls", which actually worked not that bad (Hui people still exist, and are relatively well integrated).
Ironically, Darwin's work and ideas will be banned as a result.
Only if they follow a certain line. Those lines are defined by the nature of society, and being from a country that has a middle-class which resonates between being mildly conservative to ultra-conservative, these lines can be anything, but in the end they are nothing more than a tool to control women. For mildly conservatives, they are happy if their daughter goes to a medical school, but then the same girls are put into marriages even before they complete their medical school. For the ultra-conservatives, women are supposed to be hidden behind those hideous burqas and must be married off as soon as it can be. Again under the pretense of Honor.
The only thing common between them is of course mothers and wives are honored. If only they do not challenge the status-quo, do not ask for their rights, are an honor to a family.
This is not honor. This is a vile way to justify objectification of half of the population.
Modern technologies mean a smaller group of people can have vastly superior industry and military.
Human cloning and artificial general intelligence have the potential to far outproduce any traditional society.
Please read: http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm
It doesn't really work like that. India has over 1 billion people, and I'm sure "traditional" lower caste women there "breed above replacement rates" as you put it.
On the other side you might have an upper middle class, white, historically mainline Protestant couple living in the US. Both have a sibling, both have advanced degrees, both have parents who went to college. Their families have slowly been acquiring wealth for generations. The couple will have two "replacement rate" kids.
On the other hand, the lower caste Indian woman has more than one child die in infancy. The family does not always have enough food to eat every day.
Yet in your mind, the Indian family is a winner because of "Darwin", because the western liberals have a "suicidal ideology". But who would doubt the upper middle class American son would not want to trade places with the Indian kid, and there's a much more significant chance that the Indian kid would trade places with the white kid.
You seem to see some "contempt" and a "misogynist" tone in the parent which I do not. You're advocating a way of life and morality and such that belongs to history, and to rural farmers in that history. The US is losing its industrial jobs never mind its agricultural jobs. Traditional life in the US is Michael Moore's "Roger & Me" vision of 1950s blue collar unionized industrial workers driving their cars back to the suburbs. A way of life going away with Detroit's bankruptcy. Your vision of women only raising kids, and more than two as you say, is not traditional, it's almost ancient tradition. It's like, Pennsylvania farmers circa late 17th century. The Amish and Mennonites in Pennyslvania live like you're talking. But most of America considers it rather antiquated.
Fertility rate for white female with college degree (liberal dream) is 1.6 in US. What it means? It means that it takes only 10 generations (180-250 years) to go from 150 million species to 15 million (10x reduction). That means that current model of liberal society just does not work from evolutional perspective. Being educated white female is a negative trait from evolutionary perspective.
I am saying this as somebody who has highly educated girlfriend and who is very unlikely to have more than two kids (one reason being that it takes 200k to send one kid to college).
Just look at Siege of Baghdad by mongolian hordes or depopulation and fall of Roman Empire.
[1] http://jaymans.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/tfr-us-by-lib-con...
[2] http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/whos-having-the-babi...
It is only as our planning horizon has shrunk from a thousand years to six months that we begin to look on motherhood as a form of slavery. Females are told that they must do anything but a traditional female role to have value in society. We cajole women to act like men. In a way, liberalism is ironically misogynist.
It is little surprise then that Western liberals no longer breed above replacement rates. Denigrating motherhood is not the way for a people to last the aeons of time. I believe the future of the West is profoundly more conservative than the present, because Darwin. Liberalism is a suicidal ideology.