Feminism

[dps]

Saying that women, in general, are more interested in and better at caregiving in general than men says absolutely nothing about whether men should or should not be caregivers in particular. And it sure as hell isn't saying anything about gay adoption.

But if women are naturally better at caregiving, in general, then aren't you conceding the criticism of gay adoption that it's not right to place a child in a family without a man and a woman.  There's a lack of feminine care there which makes - on average, in general terms - a gay couple less able to offer the same level of care as an average, general straight couple.

If you say that women are better caregivers in general, how does that not impinge upon particulars? After all, if the average man is worse at caregiving than the average woman, what business does a particular man have being a caregiver unless he is confident that his parenting skills are better than average?  And similarly, why should a society countenance men who chose to be caregivers? After all, on average they'll be inferior caregivers.

You 2 and Meri are acting as if you have no understanding of what the term "average" means.  The average poster here may be 34 years old, but that doesn't impinge in any way on what age any particular poster here is--there might not even be any individual here who is exactly that age.

And to address this point made by Sheilbh

To use your terms it seems like you're saying gays shouldn't be allowed to adopt in general, but perhaps should in particular

my understanding of the adoption process is that anyone seeking to adopt is looked at very carefully by CPS (or the equivalent), so I guess people in general aren't allowed to adopt, only particular people.

[Valmy]

Not to get totally off the subject, but I think Adele IS hot! She's bigger than a size 2, though, and so it's supposed to be this huge thing that she's gotten famous despite that.

Man I totally agree.  But if I think they are hot that usually means society thinks they are a whale.  I love Christina Hendricks as well and the response I tend to get is 'ewwwww fatty fat fat'.

[Cecil]

Not to get totally off the subject, but I think Adele IS hot! She's bigger than a size 2, though, and so it's supposed to be this huge thing that she's gotten famous despite that.

Man I totally agree.  But if I think they are hot that usually means society thinks they are a whale.  I love Christina Hendricks as well and the response I tend to get is 'ewwwww fatty fat fat'.

Christina Hendricks IS hot while Adele well not so much. Not even comparable IMo and I´ve yet to meet anyone who thinks that comparison has merit.

[garbon]

If you say that women are better caregivers in general, how does that not impinge upon particulars? After all, if the average man is worse at caregiving than the average woman, what business does a particular man have being a caregiver unless he is confident that his parenting skills are better than average?  And similarly, why should a society countenance men who chose to be caregivers? After all, on average they'll be inferior caregivers.

You 2 and Meri are acting as if you have no understanding of what the term "average" means.  The average poster here may be 34 years old, but that doesn't impinge in any way on what age any particular poster here is--there might not even be any individual here who is exactly that age.

First - mean, median and mode.

Second - Age isn't really comparable (given that you can't change your age but you can decide whether or not to become a caregiver) but let's go with it anyway. If the average age of the board is 34, it could be the case that we have a lot of posters somewhere in the 30s and up. If that's true, such will play a role in whether younger posters want to sign up and participate. Content geared to an older crowd will have less appeal to the typical younger individual. (And similarly if you tell everyone that on average a women is better at caregiving - fewer men are going to show up as caregivers.)

Third - You can't really have it both ways. You can't have it that the average difference between men and women at caregiving is significant enough that "it will never be as natural and understood" when men choose to be caregivers over career -- but not significant enough to look askance at particular men who choose to be caregivers. If it is the latter, than one should be indifferent when a man leaves his job to care for his children.

[garbon]

In this case, you are claiming that men and women are equally capable of being primary caregivers, despite the fact that throughout human history it is always the woman who is the primary caregiver in general. Why is that? What force could create such an error that would actively work against social survival?

Always, in general?

Anyway, who is talking about social survival? As far as I can tell, you're the only one discussing that angle.  Sheilbh and I aren't even saying that there society should make it so that there are more men who opt for child-rearing over their careers but simply that we should look on with indifference when a man chooses to do so.

[merithyn]

You 2 and Meri are acting as if you have no understanding of what the term "average" means. 

WTF? I haven't been involved in this discussion for pages! How the hell did I get dragged into that comment?

For what it's worth, I think Berkut makes some compelling arguments, but like Sheilbh said, we know that societal norms have been awful in a lot of ways throughout history. There were reasons for it, as Berk says, but that doesn't mean that we can't fix it now. Which is, from my understanding, the whole mission at hand. And we'll know that it's fixed when people can do as they wish, regardless of gender, without being subjected to comments and judgments.

Basically, when - ON AVERAGE - no one gives a shit who's doing what based on gender. Things are just getting done.

[DGuller]

Woah, you guys are discussing mean, median, and mode?  How did I miss out on that conversation?

[Razgovory]

Probably out stalking derspeiss or something.

[11B4V]

You 2 and Meri are acting as if you have no understanding of what the term "average" means. 

WTF? I haven't been involved in this discussion for pages! How the hell did I get dragged into that comment?

It's Languish.

[dps]

If you say that women are better caregivers in general, how does that not impinge upon particulars? After all, if the average man is worse at caregiving than the average woman, what business does a particular man have being a caregiver unless he is confident that his parenting skills are better than average?  And similarly, why should a society countenance men who chose to be caregivers? After all, on average they'll be inferior caregivers.

You 2 and Meri are acting as if you have no understanding of what the term "average" means.  The average poster here may be 34 years old, but that doesn't impinge in any way on what age any particular poster here is--there might not even be any individual here who is exactly that age.

First - mean, median and mode.

Second - Age isn't really comparable (given that you can't change your age but you can decide whether or not to become a caregiver) but let's go with it anyway. If the average age of the board is 34, it could be the case that we have a lot of posters somewhere in the 30s and up. If that's true, such will play a role in whether younger posters want to sign up and participate. Content geared to an older crowd will have less appeal to the typical younger individual. (And similarly if you tell everyone that on average a women is better at caregiving - fewer men are going to show up as caregivers.)

I guess maybe I don't see it that way because I just don't really care all that much what people in general think of me.  I remember that when I first started working in retail, the first store I was at I was helping the sales clerks put women's clothing on the racks, and they told me that I was the first male assistant manager who had ever been willing to help them put out women's lingere--other male assistant managers had helped with women's jeans or tops or dresses, but not with lingere.  My attitude was that it all was just cloth, so wtf?  If anybody thought better of me for helping, or worse of me for helping, I didn't give a shit--I was just doing my job.

Third - You can't really have it both ways. You can't have it that the average difference between men and women at caregiving is significant enough that "it will never be as natural and understood" when men choose to be caregivers over career -- but not significant enough to look askance at particular men who choose to be caregivers. If it is the latter, than one should be indifferent when a man leaves his job to care for his children.

Well, that's kind of a strawman, because I've never asked to have it both ways--I never said that "it will never be as natural and understood".  For one thing I don't really give a fuck if it's understood.

Again, an example from my own personal experience--in my family, my mother took the primary child-raising role (and that's a good thing, because however good or bad she was at it, and "average" aside, my stepfather was absolutely terrible with kids), but my stepfather did most of the cooking.  My stepfather may have been a poor parent (and an all-around horrible person, but that's another issue) but he was a great cook--much better than my mom.  Now, I'm not going to say that women are better cooks than men on average--I don't think there's any real difference there, certainly not any innate difference--but at the same time, it was unusual for a man to do the bulk of the cooking (especially at that time, the late 60s to late 70s) but none of us cared what other people thought about it.

[Richard Hakluyt]

You 2 and Meri are acting as if you have no understanding of what the term "average" means. 

WTF? I haven't been involved in this discussion for pages! How the hell did I get dragged into that comment?

For what it's worth, I think Berkut makes some compelling arguments, but like Sheilbh said, we know that societal norms have been awful in a lot of ways throughout history. There were reasons for it, as Berk says, but that doesn't mean that we can't fix it now. Which is, from my understanding, the whole mission at hand. And we'll know that it's fixed when people can do as they wish, regardless of gender, without being subjected to comments and judgments.

Basically, when - ON AVERAGE - no one gives a shit who's doing what based on gender. Things are just getting done.

There were very good reasons for it, infant mortality, maternal mortality, high death rates beyond infancy. It is not that our ancestors were politically incorrect morons, for most of history the prime job of a woman was to bear children, any society that ignored that would perish.

However, that came to an end relatively recently and now we can afford to move away from gender stereotyping. I'm actually amazed that people can still make a fuss about it nowadays, there are no real reasons to discriminate between men and women in a modern economy.

[garbon]

I guess maybe I don't see it that way because I just don't really care all that much what people in general think of me.  I remember that when I first started working in retail, the first store I was at I was helping the sales clerks put women's clothing on the racks, and they told me that I was the first male assistant manager who had ever been willing to help them put out women's lingere--other male assistant managers had helped with women's jeans or tops or dresses, but not with lingere.  My attitude was that it all was just cloth, so wtf?  If anybody thought better of me for helping, or worse of me for helping, I didn't give a shit--I was just doing my job.

I guess that's nice to hear that your actions in this matter are not affected by societal pressures. Not sure the relevance though.

Well, that's kind of a strawman, because I've never asked to have it both ways--I never said that "it will never be as natural and understood".  For one thing I don't really give a fuck if it's understood.

Not a strawman though. It's what Berkut said immediately after being questioned on why Sheilbh's ideal result from feminism is boring. I think it is directly connected then to B's statements in this thread.

Now if you are saying you don't agree with that piece and only the bit about the average ability - what difference does a purported average that at best has inconclusive evidence make if you don't think it should inform our opinion's on male and female caregivers? Why hold a position that can't be proven and you don't think should play a role in policy or attitudes?

Again, an example from my own personal experience--in my family, my mother took the primary child-raising role (and that's a good thing, because however good or bad she was at it, and "average" aside, my stepfather was absolutely terrible with kids), but my stepfather did most of the cooking.  My stepfather may have been a poor parent (and an all-around horrible person, but that's another issue) but he was a great cook--much better than my mom.  Now, I'm not going to say that women are better cooks than men on average--I don't think there's any real difference there, certainly not any innate difference--but at the same time, it was unusual for a man to do the bulk of the cooking (especially at that time, the late 60s to late 70s) but none of us cared what other people thought about it.

Again that's nice but I'm not sure what anecdotes about how you and your family don't care about what other people think add to the discussion.  Only think I can think is that you're suggesting that attitudes towards male caregiving don't actually impact whether or not males become caregivers - and I don't think you are doing that, so I'm not sure what the anecdotes are for.

[dps]

Why hold a position that can't be proven and you don't think should play a role in policy or attitudes?

I guess it boils down to this--I'm too honest to pretend that I don't believe that, on average, women are better caregivers than men.  I can't prove it, and I'll acknowledge that I may be wrong, but I think that I'm correct, and I'm not going to lie about what I believe.

And, I'll try one more time to illustrate why, even if I'm correct, it doesn't really matter with regards to the choices made by any individual parents.  Suppose that, on average, afternoon temperatures here in mid-March are 65 degrees.  Well, if on March 15, I decide to walk down to the supermarket after lunch, knowing that the average temperature that I can expect is 65 degrees doesn't really do me any good when it comes to deciding whether I should wear a jacket or not--I need to know the actual temperature.  I don't need to know the exact temperature, but I need to know roughly what it actually is on that specific afternoon, not what it is on average on that date.  It could easily be unseasonably warm and up in the 80s, or unusually cold for the date and down near (or even below) freezing.

Yes, there are differences (which is why this is only an analogy), the most important one of which is while I can find out the actual temperature, it's a lot more difficult to find out which of 2 people are the better caregiver, unless one is obviously terrible at it or something.

[garbon]

But that's not true. General temperature trends can be useful. It's why people have the habit of putting away their summer clothes in fall and likewise putting their winter clothes away in spring.

Similarly, attitudes that women are typically better at raising children are self reinforcing in that they encourage gender role behavior which in turn bolsters those same attitudes.

[merithyn]

There were very good reasons for it, infant mortality, maternal mortality, high death rates beyond infancy. It is not that our ancestors were politically incorrect morons, for most of history the prime job of a woman was to bear children, any society that ignored that would perish.

However, that came to an end relatively recently and now we can afford to move away from gender stereotyping. I'm actually amazed that people can still make a fuss about it nowadays, there are no real reasons to discriminate between men and women in a modern economy.

I agree on all counts.