What is Stephanie Pappas trying to say, in this bit about new research on an old topic - women and work? Too much left unspoken, not enough information on the study itself or on her own views, to make this anything but political manipulation on behalf of women's quest to have the pill paid for.
The longitudinal study undertaken by Martha Bailey and associates started in 1968 and continued throughout the 1990s, its participants having being born within a few years of the year I was (1946). Prior to the 60s, when no such pill was available, they suggest, women had to choose between either a career or marriage. Without the pill, they are suggesting, the risk of pregnancy was too great for women with partners to risk having a career.
But as time went on, the researchers claim, "With oral contraceptives, women no longer had to choose between investing in their careers and investing in a mate." As the pill became available in their area, more women would choose college and career as well as marriage.
I'm not sure about the logic behind these ideas, or how they relate to the experience of that cohort of women and this one today. When I read it, it seems to me that women researchers of today are interpreting the experience of twenty-year-olds in the 1960s according to their own model, instead of looking at it through the lens of society at the time. I'm not sure that many women back then looked at the world in terms of *choice,* a favourite word and key theme among liberal feminists and women in general today, but surely, not back then. Furthermore, the whole idea of the battle for 'the pill,' was one of women's right to use it, not as it has now become, the fight for the right to have someone else pay for it. "The pill’s availability likely altered norms and expectations about marriage and childbearing," Bailey has said. And work. And sex. There is a great deal that has been left unsaid, in the brief write-up here, and likely in the research itself, related to women's newfound personal freedom related to sexuality, both within and outside of marriage.
As discussed in the Comments section of this brief piece of news, there was something else going on at more or less the same time that the pill was being introduced into society (possibly through the efforts of radical feminists). Women in general were being encouraged to take their place alongside men in the workplace, in the quest for 'equality, as expounded by liberal feminists'. The influence of this latter ideology and women's movement was not mentioned in the article about women's wages and the pill, but it was a widespread effort by women, begun in the years after women in droves were sent back to the kitchen, so to speak, by men after they returned from the war in the early 40s. During the war, women had discovered how well they could do the work men did, in factories, farm fields, and many other areas that had traditionally been 'men's work,' and how much they enjoyed it, and enjoyed the independence and money. But after the war ended, they were no longer needed.
A second major factor of this subject of contraception and work is its connection to the debate about insurance coverage of contraception, for working women and college students, mainly (as I have seen in the news) and lastly, among women living in poverty. Many comments ensued from this awareness, on Comments online. I found it odd that some readers would suggest that if the insurance wouldn't pay for the pill for contraceptive purposes, that the working woman would stubbornly continue to have unprotected sex and risk pregnancy rather than pay for it out of her wages. This issue is not only a mattter of concern to women who are employed, and should be addressed as a concern for all women. Otherwise, some women will lose out, through inability to pay, and will be at risk.
The third major item in this piece is the news that, of the one-third increase in wages among women, two-thirds came from greater workplace experience, and more importantly for what I am to say next, one-third of the increase was a result of "women gaining more education and from choosing more lucrative, traditionally male, fields." In response to that, I can say that there is so much left out, so much more to discuss than how well women are doing at work. If women are taking the places that had traditionally been reserved for men, then what do you suppose all the men are doing, who are perfectly capable of doing the job?
If you haven't heard of the Occupy movement, then I suggest you open up your mind to what's going on in society. And if you are ready to seek solutions to the inquality brought about by feminism, then read my blog (see relevant entries below). Not only do we need to turn towards a society where there is more acceptance of one another's abilities, but within relationships also. Rather than the middle class, educated female joining forces with the middle class male she considers as being in her class (based on money and access to resources), forming what we now have a glut of - the dual-career, dual-income family - we need a variety of approaches to making up the workforce and the families within society. The problem is, it's the influential dual career couples who hold the power to make change, and who can at times seem to be the most reluctant to change.
Birth-Control Pill Helped Boost Women's Wages, New Study Shows
By Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience Huffington Post
Mar 29, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/birth-control-pill-womens-wages-pay_n_1388064.html?ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=033012&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief
The Economic Impact of the Pill
By Annie Lowrey
NY Times
March 6, 2012
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/the-economic-impact-of-the-pill/
Feminism's legacy: contributing towards social inequality
By Sue McPherson
Sue's Views on the News
5 February, 2012
http://suemcpherson.blogspot.com/2012/02/feminisms-legacy-contributing-towards.html
Men at work: what does the future hold?
By Sue McPherson
Sue's Views on the News
March 18, 2012
http://suemcpherson.blogspot.ca/2012/03/men-at-work-what-does-future-hold.html
The Occupy Movement: UWO's Klatt and Hammond, and other perspectives
By Sue McPherson
Sue's Views on the News
Dec 10, 2011
http://suemcpherson.blogspot.com/2011/12/occupy-movement-uwos-klatt-and-hammond.html
What Justin Bieber and Gold Diggers Can Teach Us About Feminism
By Sue McPherson
Sue's Views on the News
Nov 19, 2011
http://suemcpherson.blogspot.com/2011/11/what-justin-bieber-and-feminism-can.html
Showing posts with label contraception. Show all posts
Showing posts with label contraception. Show all posts
2 April 2012
7 July 2009
Refusing to Multiply: motherhood or career
The comment below was my response to the article by Leonard Stern, editorial pages editor, Ottawa Citizen, July 3, 20, 2009. He was questioning how to get Canada's citizens to choose parenthood. He says, "The brutal truth is this: The only sure-fire way to ensure women have lots of children is to deny them sexual equality. (Needless to say, this is an approach I’d oppose.)"
My online comment, July 6, 2009:
You mean other than surrogate motherhood? If it's not for money - for profit - what would be the motivation for today's generation of women? I hope that doesn't sound too cynical. But why would women want to give up the respect, the financial gain, the independence, and legitimate additions to their resume rather than provide the service of childbearing within marriage? Bearing and raising children as part of marriage is not enough in today's world to enable women to have their caring, problem-solving, planning, analytical, social, and community involvement skills recognized. Take a look at my website: http://samcpherson.homestead.com/StoryofMyLife.html . So, either start paying what it's worth [for women to give birth], or give mothers the respect they deserve.
Added May 2, 2012
Lately there has been controversy about birth control, and who is responsible for paying for it – the women using it, or their employers and colleges, through their medical insurance plans. Some see the obstinance of some colleges and insurance companies a strategy to get women back into the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.
But is it simply that working women are expected to be responsible for paying for their own oral contraceptive, seeing as they have the money to do so; and college girls, well, it isn’t a necessity for them, is it? Yes, of course, the girls and women can come up with all sorts of reasons why it shouldn’t be their responsibility, for instance, they argue that sometimes, the pill is used for non-reproductive purposes, which they then expand into a general reason why all girls having sex and not wanting to get pregnant should have it paid for too.
But is the difficult of having contraception covered a ploy to have more women pregnant, doing their duty, so to speak, to reproduce another generation. That’s what the article “Refusing to multiply’ is suggesting, that women are reluctant to give up their power and their freedom at work to have children. Yet no one is stopping women from obtaining the pill for purposes of contraception. It isn’t a 50s style argument. It’s just that the women are expected to pay for it themselves out of their pay.
This seems as much to do with sex itself as the issue of contraception. Sandra Fluke received an apology (see Rush Limbaugh apologizes, Mar 3, 2012) after being called a slut, but the fact that this idea was expressed at all is an indication of how the use of contraception can be viewed - not in terms of preventing pregnancy but in terms of having sex not for the purpose of procreation.
A rather odd article in Macleans, ‘You can’t mandate marriage,’ discusses the idea of promoting marriage, but concludes that ‘love’ cannot be mandated, a rather old-fashioned idea by today’s standards, whereby women still appear to want the best mate possible to ensure their own success, if not a good provider for their family.
In ‘Why was I shamed over contraception?’ not all the issues come through, though I suspect that young women, who today often have a great deal of belief in their rights, might feel they don’t need to hear the negative side of taking the morning-after pill, not even the first time they use it.
Finally, to end where I started, I would say that the problem of women not wanting to become mothers, or not even wanting to be married, can’t be resolved if these ways of life aren’t attractive to them, and aren’t rewarding, either financially or for their own self-fulfillment. The state – and society - can try to make it so that women need marriage, and need to have children, but haven’t we already tried that?
If the decision-makers of the families or the workplace – or of feminism or men’s rights groups - lean towards becoming dictators in order to get their own way, not recognizing that not all women are the same, then discord will continue. Until these groups recognize that getting one’s rights usually means that someone else’s are being trampled on, women will continue to demand theirs and make all other women submit to their decision-making, at the expense of society and the future of society.
Birth-Control Pill Helped Boost Women's Wages, New Study Shows
By Stephanie Pappas
Huffington Post
Mar 29, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/birth-control-pill-womens-wages-pay_n_1388064.html?ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=033012&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief
Refusing to multiply
By Leonard Stern
Ottawa Citizen
July 3, 2009
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Refusing+multiply/1757284/story.html link not available
http://www2.canada.com/ottawacitizen/columnists/story.html?id=8c508397-f187-4d02-b053-b12bcbfa9cb0
Rush Limbaugh apologizes to law student over contraception
Philip Elliott Associated Press
Star online
Mar 3, 2012
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1140614--rush-limbaugh-apologizes-to-law-student-over-contraception-comments
You can’t mandate marriage, even if it’s good for society
By the editors
Macleans magazine
Oct 11, 2011
http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/10/11/you-can%e2%80%99t-mandate-marriage-even-if-it%e2%80%99s-good-for-society/#more-218787
Why was I shamed over contraception?
By Lisa Priest
Globe and Mail
Mar 18, 2012
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/ask-a-health-expert/the-patient-navigator/why-was-i-shamed-over-contraception/article2371794/
Links updated May 3, 2012
My online comment, July 6, 2009:
You mean other than surrogate motherhood? If it's not for money - for profit - what would be the motivation for today's generation of women? I hope that doesn't sound too cynical. But why would women want to give up the respect, the financial gain, the independence, and legitimate additions to their resume rather than provide the service of childbearing within marriage? Bearing and raising children as part of marriage is not enough in today's world to enable women to have their caring, problem-solving, planning, analytical, social, and community involvement skills recognized. Take a look at my website: http://samcpherson.homestead.com/StoryofMyLife.html . So, either start paying what it's worth [for women to give birth], or give mothers the respect they deserve.
Added May 2, 2012
Lately there has been controversy about birth control, and who is responsible for paying for it – the women using it, or their employers and colleges, through their medical insurance plans. Some see the obstinance of some colleges and insurance companies a strategy to get women back into the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.
But is it simply that working women are expected to be responsible for paying for their own oral contraceptive, seeing as they have the money to do so; and college girls, well, it isn’t a necessity for them, is it? Yes, of course, the girls and women can come up with all sorts of reasons why it shouldn’t be their responsibility, for instance, they argue that sometimes, the pill is used for non-reproductive purposes, which they then expand into a general reason why all girls having sex and not wanting to get pregnant should have it paid for too.
But is the difficult of having contraception covered a ploy to have more women pregnant, doing their duty, so to speak, to reproduce another generation. That’s what the article “Refusing to multiply’ is suggesting, that women are reluctant to give up their power and their freedom at work to have children. Yet no one is stopping women from obtaining the pill for purposes of contraception. It isn’t a 50s style argument. It’s just that the women are expected to pay for it themselves out of their pay.
This seems as much to do with sex itself as the issue of contraception. Sandra Fluke received an apology (see Rush Limbaugh apologizes, Mar 3, 2012) after being called a slut, but the fact that this idea was expressed at all is an indication of how the use of contraception can be viewed - not in terms of preventing pregnancy but in terms of having sex not for the purpose of procreation.
A rather odd article in Macleans, ‘You can’t mandate marriage,’ discusses the idea of promoting marriage, but concludes that ‘love’ cannot be mandated, a rather old-fashioned idea by today’s standards, whereby women still appear to want the best mate possible to ensure their own success, if not a good provider for their family.
In ‘Why was I shamed over contraception?’ not all the issues come through, though I suspect that young women, who today often have a great deal of belief in their rights, might feel they don’t need to hear the negative side of taking the morning-after pill, not even the first time they use it.
Finally, to end where I started, I would say that the problem of women not wanting to become mothers, or not even wanting to be married, can’t be resolved if these ways of life aren’t attractive to them, and aren’t rewarding, either financially or for their own self-fulfillment. The state – and society - can try to make it so that women need marriage, and need to have children, but haven’t we already tried that?
If the decision-makers of the families or the workplace – or of feminism or men’s rights groups - lean towards becoming dictators in order to get their own way, not recognizing that not all women are the same, then discord will continue. Until these groups recognize that getting one’s rights usually means that someone else’s are being trampled on, women will continue to demand theirs and make all other women submit to their decision-making, at the expense of society and the future of society.
Birth-Control Pill Helped Boost Women's Wages, New Study Shows
By Stephanie Pappas
Huffington Post
Mar 29, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/birth-control-pill-womens-wages-pay_n_1388064.html?ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=033012&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief
Refusing to multiply
By Leonard Stern
Ottawa Citizen
July 3, 2009
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Refusing+multiply/1757284/story.html link not available
http://www2.canada.com/ottawacitizen/columnists/story.html?id=8c508397-f187-4d02-b053-b12bcbfa9cb0
Rush Limbaugh apologizes to law student over contraception
Philip Elliott Associated Press
Star online
Mar 3, 2012
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1140614--rush-limbaugh-apologizes-to-law-student-over-contraception-comments
You can’t mandate marriage, even if it’s good for society
By the editors
Macleans magazine
Oct 11, 2011
http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/10/11/you-can%e2%80%99t-mandate-marriage-even-if-it%e2%80%99s-good-for-society/#more-218787
Why was I shamed over contraception?
By Lisa Priest
Globe and Mail
Mar 18, 2012
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/ask-a-health-expert/the-patient-navigator/why-was-i-shamed-over-contraception/article2371794/
Links updated May 3, 2012
22 January 2007
Teenagers vs older women: contraception, pregnancy and abortion
Re: Teenage pregnancy myth dismissed
BBC News Monday, 22 January 2007
Is it this newspaper article or the study itself, of this complex subject, that seems so dismissive of the way things are for women today, whether young or older. Surely this is only part of the problem, that teenage girls are becoming pregnant. What about the ones with unwanted pregnancies, or wanted ones, who decide not to terminate but go on to have the baby. And then, of course, did these researchers look at marital status. I'm not suggesting that all women need to have a husband in order to start a family (in today's world it is a choice that well-established women are free to make), but there may well be a difference in how an unwanted pregnancy develops, between single girls and married ones, as well as differences in ways of working through the problem. It's not all a question of getting "carried away in the moment," as Toni Belfield, of the sexual health charity FPA was reported as saying. I recall a book by Carol Gilligan, with the title In a Different Voice (1982) in which she discusses a study of college girls who become pregnant and are facing the dilemma of whether or not to have an abortion. The book may be a bit outdated for today's world. But making the problem of teen pregnancy into a clearcut issue, whereby wanted babies are carried full term while unwanted ones are aborted, seems dismissive of the process of decision-making that pregnant women must be having to go through, not to mention consideration of their socioeconomic circumstances.
Teenage pregnancy myth dismissed
BBC News
Jan 22, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6279601.stm
Link checked Apr 18, 2012
BBC News Monday, 22 January 2007
Is it this newspaper article or the study itself, of this complex subject, that seems so dismissive of the way things are for women today, whether young or older. Surely this is only part of the problem, that teenage girls are becoming pregnant. What about the ones with unwanted pregnancies, or wanted ones, who decide not to terminate but go on to have the baby. And then, of course, did these researchers look at marital status. I'm not suggesting that all women need to have a husband in order to start a family (in today's world it is a choice that well-established women are free to make), but there may well be a difference in how an unwanted pregnancy develops, between single girls and married ones, as well as differences in ways of working through the problem. It's not all a question of getting "carried away in the moment," as Toni Belfield, of the sexual health charity FPA was reported as saying. I recall a book by Carol Gilligan, with the title In a Different Voice (1982) in which she discusses a study of college girls who become pregnant and are facing the dilemma of whether or not to have an abortion. The book may be a bit outdated for today's world. But making the problem of teen pregnancy into a clearcut issue, whereby wanted babies are carried full term while unwanted ones are aborted, seems dismissive of the process of decision-making that pregnant women must be having to go through, not to mention consideration of their socioeconomic circumstances.
Teenage pregnancy myth dismissed
BBC News
Jan 22, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6279601.stm
Link checked Apr 18, 2012
11 November 2006
And the aim of this campaign is . . . surely not promiscuity
Re: Condom call for young 'on pull'. BBC News. 11 Nov 2006.
While I agree that advocating the use of condoms is a wise measure, especially to prevent stds, the way this is being gone about in this BBC article is questionable. There are new sexual freedoms in society today that just weren't there 30 years ago. Although this article claims not to be advocating promiscuity, it also says,
"The aim of this campaign is to make carrying and using a condom among this age group as familiar as carrying a mobile phone, lipstick or putting on a seat-belt."
So there is a dual message here, not just about STIs and condoms, but about sex itself.
If that isn't encouraging promiscuity, then what is? Practically all young people carry a mobile phone, and I would imagine most young women wear lipstick when they go clubbing. Surely, encouraging all young men and women of that age group to always carry condoms, just as they always carry their phone, could be seen as encouraging them to be promiscuous. The message is that they carry condoms EVERYWHERE, as they woud a mobile phone, and not just when they are out clubbing The wording creates an association between lipstick and sex, and between cellphones and sex, familiar objects in our world, not just when people go clubbing, but ALL THE TIME.
The following statement is from the article: "This is not about encouraging promiscuity, but saying to those who are already sexually active: sex without a condom is seriously risky, so always use one." But that does not reflect what is actually being told to young people in the rest of the article.
The aim of this article would actually seem to be to get young people to carry condoms as they would some of the most familar and well-used items they have (regardless of whether they expect or would choose to be sexually active, and regardless of whether they are going clubbing or going to work). Carry your condoms as you would your mobile phone, is the message it is giving out.
So how about this line instead:
*"The aim of this campaign is to make carrying and using a condom for some men and women in this age group as familiar as eating cereal for breakfast. "*
Using this analogy might help lessen the idea that all women and men are as eager and willing to engage in sex as they are to talk on their cellphone, and might help in lessening pregnancies that come about from some kinds of sexual encounters.
Condom call for young 'on pull' BBC News 11 Nov 06
Young adults are to be urged to carry condoms when they are out "on the pull", as part of a government sexual health campaign.
It will focus on 18 to 24-year-olds. Just 20% of people in this age group say they carry condoms on a night out. continues at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6132822.stm
Link updated April 18, 2012
While I agree that advocating the use of condoms is a wise measure, especially to prevent stds, the way this is being gone about in this BBC article is questionable. There are new sexual freedoms in society today that just weren't there 30 years ago. Although this article claims not to be advocating promiscuity, it also says,
"The aim of this campaign is to make carrying and using a condom among this age group as familiar as carrying a mobile phone, lipstick or putting on a seat-belt."
So there is a dual message here, not just about STIs and condoms, but about sex itself.
If that isn't encouraging promiscuity, then what is? Practically all young people carry a mobile phone, and I would imagine most young women wear lipstick when they go clubbing. Surely, encouraging all young men and women of that age group to always carry condoms, just as they always carry their phone, could be seen as encouraging them to be promiscuous. The message is that they carry condoms EVERYWHERE, as they woud a mobile phone, and not just when they are out clubbing The wording creates an association between lipstick and sex, and between cellphones and sex, familiar objects in our world, not just when people go clubbing, but ALL THE TIME.
The following statement is from the article: "This is not about encouraging promiscuity, but saying to those who are already sexually active: sex without a condom is seriously risky, so always use one." But that does not reflect what is actually being told to young people in the rest of the article.
The aim of this article would actually seem to be to get young people to carry condoms as they would some of the most familar and well-used items they have (regardless of whether they expect or would choose to be sexually active, and regardless of whether they are going clubbing or going to work). Carry your condoms as you would your mobile phone, is the message it is giving out.
So how about this line instead:
*"The aim of this campaign is to make carrying and using a condom for some men and women in this age group as familiar as eating cereal for breakfast. "*
Using this analogy might help lessen the idea that all women and men are as eager and willing to engage in sex as they are to talk on their cellphone, and might help in lessening pregnancies that come about from some kinds of sexual encounters.
Condom call for young 'on pull' BBC News 11 Nov 06
Young adults are to be urged to carry condoms when they are out "on the pull", as part of a government sexual health campaign.
It will focus on 18 to 24-year-olds. Just 20% of people in this age group say they carry condoms on a night out. continues at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6132822.stm
Link updated April 18, 2012
13 April 2006
Working Girls: sister thesis sells us short
In 'Sister' Thesis Sells Us Short (TO Star, Apr 8, 2006), Jennifer Wells comments on Professor Alison Wolf's article Working Girls (Prospect, Apr issue, 2006.) Briefly mentioning the first point Professor Wolf makes in her article, Jennifer Wells reiterates the generally-known fact that women never were viewed as a homogenous group under feminism, turning to the unspoken notion of the goal of equality between the sexes, one must assume, to uphold her point. But, as Wolf claims, at one time women did have a more-or-less shared experience of life-as second-class citizens-and in that sense would have shared a sisterhood. In today's world, however, the lived experience of an increasing number of women is very different than the second-class experience, and different from the way most women once lived.
The emphasis in Wells's response is on female altruism, which Wolf sees as currently in decline. Many women of earlier eras really did see their lives in the service of others as vocations, as the natural order of things or because of their religious values. Any notion that they were second-class citizens may not have even entered their minds. Feminists have often complained that men were androcentric in their views of women's lives; in the same way, women of today might well have difficulty understanding the lives of women who came before, or of women unlike themselves. But this is the way it was, for many women, and for some, still is.
Working women's concerns in today's world often ends at the immediate family, as Wells herself has noticed, others outside of that small sphere being out of their realm of responsibility and altruism as working women - independent, with families. On this issue I think Wolf is for the most part right; female altruism has changed. In a society that claims to value individualism, and in which religious values are in decline, what seems to matter most is no longer one's neighbours or even one's country, or doing the right thing, but putting the family first.
Wells has yet to come to see how the idea of work has affected our lives, as women, in recent decades. Work - especially paid work - is a major source of a person's identity. It always was, for men, and feminism has made it so for women, in fact, has practically made it a requirement for women. Wells is critical of Wolf, seeing work not as self-actualisation but as "busyness," a slight on the very real power that having a career has on a person's ability to speak and be heard, to be granted recognition, and have one's views validated. Self-actualisation, in a way, is being able to put into practice what one believes is best. For many women, work is simply "busyness," but it may be that they are not working in the field that suits them best.
Wells raises one final point, though not on Wolf's third point, a concern with women's growing disincentives to bear children. Wells tells us that women talk about wanting to give back in some way, when they are older. But after years of proving themselves on the job, is volunteering really what the majority of working women of today will want to do in their later years? Even on that front there is competition. And ageism is another factor. Sometimes when individuals appear to have withdrawn it is in part due to being pushed.
For women who have chosen to pursue a career, and who find recognition and a certain sense of fulfilment through doing so, there may be benefits for themselves and their families, whether chosen or blood-related. But I'm not sure that society on the whole will benefit. It may be that some women have chosen work and family, and will stand to benefit, but at what cost to society, never mind the sisterhood? Women, and men, whose life experience falls outside of the ideal of having it all, may be left with less, or even nothing. In the long term, if there are greater benefits for some women and men, more than likely there will be greater losses for others.
`Sister' thesis sells us short
By Jennifer Wells
Toronto Star
Apr 8, 2006
http://samcpherson.homestead.com/files/Miscellaneous/2006_Apr_SisterThesisSellsUsShort.doc
Working girls
By Alison Wolf
Prospect magazine
April, 2006 — Issue 121 (now listed as Apr 23, 2006)
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7398
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2006/04/rise-of-professional-women-decline-female-altriusm/
Added Apr 18, 2012
Blame the neoliberals – a reply to Alison Wolf
By Rosemary Crompton
Prospect magazine
May 20, 2006 — Issue 122
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2006/05/blametheneoliberals/
Response to Wells on Wolf (short version of blog entry)
By Sue McPherson
Submitted to TO Star
Apr 13, 2006
http://samcpherson.homestead.com/files/Miscellaneous/2006_Apr_ShortResponseToWellsOnWolf.doc
Sisterhood reborn - a reply to Alison Wolf
By Pat Thane
Prospect magazine
May 20, 2006 — Issue 122
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2006/05/sisterhoodreborn/
Links updated Apr 18, 2012
The emphasis in Wells's response is on female altruism, which Wolf sees as currently in decline. Many women of earlier eras really did see their lives in the service of others as vocations, as the natural order of things or because of their religious values. Any notion that they were second-class citizens may not have even entered their minds. Feminists have often complained that men were androcentric in their views of women's lives; in the same way, women of today might well have difficulty understanding the lives of women who came before, or of women unlike themselves. But this is the way it was, for many women, and for some, still is.
Working women's concerns in today's world often ends at the immediate family, as Wells herself has noticed, others outside of that small sphere being out of their realm of responsibility and altruism as working women - independent, with families. On this issue I think Wolf is for the most part right; female altruism has changed. In a society that claims to value individualism, and in which religious values are in decline, what seems to matter most is no longer one's neighbours or even one's country, or doing the right thing, but putting the family first.
Wells has yet to come to see how the idea of work has affected our lives, as women, in recent decades. Work - especially paid work - is a major source of a person's identity. It always was, for men, and feminism has made it so for women, in fact, has practically made it a requirement for women. Wells is critical of Wolf, seeing work not as self-actualisation but as "busyness," a slight on the very real power that having a career has on a person's ability to speak and be heard, to be granted recognition, and have one's views validated. Self-actualisation, in a way, is being able to put into practice what one believes is best. For many women, work is simply "busyness," but it may be that they are not working in the field that suits them best.
Wells raises one final point, though not on Wolf's third point, a concern with women's growing disincentives to bear children. Wells tells us that women talk about wanting to give back in some way, when they are older. But after years of proving themselves on the job, is volunteering really what the majority of working women of today will want to do in their later years? Even on that front there is competition. And ageism is another factor. Sometimes when individuals appear to have withdrawn it is in part due to being pushed.
For women who have chosen to pursue a career, and who find recognition and a certain sense of fulfilment through doing so, there may be benefits for themselves and their families, whether chosen or blood-related. But I'm not sure that society on the whole will benefit. It may be that some women have chosen work and family, and will stand to benefit, but at what cost to society, never mind the sisterhood? Women, and men, whose life experience falls outside of the ideal of having it all, may be left with less, or even nothing. In the long term, if there are greater benefits for some women and men, more than likely there will be greater losses for others.
`Sister' thesis sells us short
By Jennifer Wells
Toronto Star
Apr 8, 2006
http://samcpherson.homestead.com/files/Miscellaneous/2006_Apr_SisterThesisSellsUsShort.doc
Working girls
By Alison Wolf
Prospect magazine
April, 2006 — Issue 121 (now listed as Apr 23, 2006)
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7398
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2006/04/rise-of-professional-women-decline-female-altriusm/
Added Apr 18, 2012
Blame the neoliberals – a reply to Alison Wolf
By Rosemary Crompton
Prospect magazine
May 20, 2006 — Issue 122
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2006/05/blametheneoliberals/
Response to Wells on Wolf (short version of blog entry)
By Sue McPherson
Submitted to TO Star
Apr 13, 2006
http://samcpherson.homestead.com/files/Miscellaneous/2006_Apr_ShortResponseToWellsOnWolf.doc
Sisterhood reborn - a reply to Alison Wolf
By Pat Thane
Prospect magazine
May 20, 2006 — Issue 122
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2006/05/sisterhoodreborn/
Links updated Apr 18, 2012
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