Why Women Still Can’t Have It All - By Anne-Marie Slaughter, The Atlantic
Why Women Still Can’t Have It All
By Anne-Marie Slaughter, The Atlantic
30 December 12
Eighteen months into my job as the first woman director of policy planning at the State Department, a foreign-policy dream job that traces its origins back to George Kennan, I found myself in New York, at the United Nations' annual assemblage of every foreign minister and head of state in the world. On a Wednesday evening, President and Mrs. Obama hosted a glamorous reception at the American Museum of Natural History. I sipped champagne, greeted foreign dignitaries, and mingled. But I could not stop thinking about my 14-year-old son, who had started eighth grade three weeks earlier and was already resuming what had become his pattern of skipping homework, disrupting classes, failing math, and tuning out any adult who tried to reach him. Over the summer, we had barely spoken to each other -- or, more accurately, he had barely spoken to me. And the previous spring I had received several urgent phone calls -- invariably on the day of an important meeting -- that required me to take the first train from Washington, D.C., where I worked, back to Princeton, New Jersey, where he lived. My husband, who has always done everything possible to support my career, took care of him and his 12-year-old brother during the week; outside of those midweek emergencies, I came home only on weekends.
As the evening wore on, I ran into a colleague who held a senior position in the White House. She has two sons exactly my sons' ages, but she had chosen to move them from California to D.C. when she got her job, which meant her husband commuted back to California regularly. I told her how difficult I was finding it to be away from my son when he clearly needed me. Then I said, "When this is over, I'm going to write an op-ed titled ‘Women Can't Have It All.'"
She was horrified. "You can't write that," she said. "You, of all people." What she meant was that such a statement, coming from a high-profile career woman -- a role model -- would be a terrible signal to younger generations of women. By the end of the evening, she had talked me out of it, but for the remainder of my stint in Washington, I was increasingly aware that the feminist beliefs on which I had built my entire career were shifting under my feet. I had always assumed that if I could get a foreign-policy job in the State Department or the White House while my party was in power, I would stay the course as long as I had the opportunity to do work I loved. But in January 2011, when my two-year public-service leave from Princeton University was up, I hurried home as fast as I could.
A rude epiphany hit me soon after I got there. When people asked why I had left government, I explained that I'd come home not only because of Princeton's rules (after two years of leave, you lose your tenure), but also because of my desire to be with my family and my conclusion that juggling high-level government work with the needs of two teenage boys was not possible. I have not exactly left the ranks of full-time career women: I teach a full course load; write regular print and online columns on foreign policy; give 40 to 50 speeches a year; appear regularly on TV and radio; and am working on a new academic book. But I routinely got reactions from other women my age or older that ranged from disappointed ("It's such a pity that you had to leave Washington"
to condescending ("I wouldn't generalize from your experience. I've never had to compromise, and my kids turned out great" .
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SheilaT
(23,156 posts)In a way, it doesn't matter exactly who does it. Mom, Dad, teachers, a boarding school, the group of kids he or she hangs out with.
But there's a profound conflict between the desires of adulthood (job, serious career, finishing the graduate degree) and the needs of childhood (nurturing, understanding, supporting)
In the bad old days this wasn't as much of a problem, since women were systematically excluded from the work force, so they stayed home and took care of the children. In upper class families, those tasks were farmed out.
But the reality is, that women are at least as smart and capable as those of the male gender. So if we grant women full equality, what's going to happen to the kids? Who will actually raise them?
Parents who really care about their kids (a significant percent of all parents) recognize this dilemma. In the past, the upper classes simply avoided this problem by having nurses, governesses, tutors, and boarding schools. In today's world, those things aren't quite as readily available, although nannies and daycare minders are reasonably affordable to the upper classes.
There's a genuine discord between the needs of the children and the needs of the adults. There's no good solution, and parents (read mothers) who choose to stay at home for more than twenty minutes after giving birth are punished in the workforce, otherwise known as the real world. Our culture is very much based on the world of work, with the assumption that Real Workers have no obligations outside the job. It's clear at all levels, not just in the managerial class. The corollary to this is that everyone with a job is made to feel guilty if the job is not the number one priority in your life.
The reality is, the next generation is of huge importance, even for those who (for whatever reason) don't reproduce, because if there's not a next generation, we'll all die an awful death.
I'm not entirely sure what the answer is, other than the world of work must eventually adjust, and recognize that children are a necessary part of life. Things need to be structured to accommodate various choices: children, no children, kids early, kids later, sick parents, and so on. Unfortunately, the world we're currently in, the world of the corporation does not acknowledge any of this.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)Not only did she want a full time state department job, she already had a full time college professorship with tenure, was writing a book, did 40 to 50 speeches a year and did regular TV and radio appearances. It seems to me she is well over extended right there. To add a needy teenage boy to the mix seems something is going to give.
What is suffering is her child. She has NO TIME left in her over extended, over achieving, type A lifestyle for a child. Yes, women can have careers and raise children but they can't have 2 careers, write a book, go on the speaker's circuit and be a regular Radio and TV star all the while raising children. Something has to give, there is not enough time in a day for all that. Children require a lot of your time and attention. You have to set aside some time for them. Not go about your life as if they didn't need your care and attention. You have to give them, whether your a man or a woman, as much time as you would spend on a second career or in writing a book.
My definition of it "all" is a career and children. I had a career of 20 years in the military and I have 2 of the most loving and normal children anyone could ever raise. I put off writing that book and getting my masters. Yes, you can have a career and children but you can't expect to be an overachiever, go on the speaker's circuit, have a second and third career and raise your own children to be normal and productive. She should let the Nanny raise him or turn the job over to the father.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)"Children require a lot of your time and attention. You have to set aside some time for them. Not go about your life as if they didn't need your care and attention."
You've expressed it very succinctly.
I must have expressed myself poorly in my first post.
Daemonaquila
(1,712 posts)Let's try this on for size: Can ANYONE of ANY GENDER with a highly demanding, high-responsibility professional career take on a second, nearly full-time job with highly variable hours, and expect to successfully maintain his/her career that way or at least 18 years? Oh, hell no!
Why does anyone think this is viable? Why would any employer in any such field say "Sure, feel free to make that second commitment, and take off all the time you want, whenever you need, to make it work?" If it sounds ridiculous, it should - women (or men) who choose the mommy or daddy track have to face that reality. But what passes for feminism these days supports the delusional idea that somehow it should be possible to make exactly this choice without consequence to profession or sanity.
Having kids is a choice, and it has consequences. Want a high-stakes career where you get to do cool stuff that's highly time sensitive and requires REAL dedication to get the job done, not just a paycheck-to-paycheck low-ambition life? Don't have kids. Or at least understand that you'd better find a partner who can and will dedicate most or all their time to that second job. Or, make enough money and be willing to pay someone else to do the job of raising the kids.
OF COURSE women (or men) can't "have it all." It's a stupid lie told by people in denial. The sooner feminism abandons this goal, and stops teaching that women should have bizarre expectations of themselves and society - and stops SHAMING them when they reject the nonsense - the sooner women can get comfortable making the decision as to whether reproduction is either going to be truly desirable or even a possible part of their life plans.
BainsBane
(53,035 posts)to pretend otherwise is false.
If your primary social value is that corporate profits should be supreme above all other interests, then you are correct that women cannot have it all, if they are concerned about the emotional well being of their children. But there is nothing immutable in the fact that American workers now generate twice the productive capacity they did twenty years ago without any increase in wages. It is possible for workplaces to balance family concerns with economic productivity, and some chose to do so.
I find your comments about women whining highly offensive, as I do your attempt to create an equivalency between men and women in the workplace, where that is quite obviously far from the case. If you contend it is, I challenge you to provide demographic evidence to support that point. I am sorry that you find feminism, and hence human equality, to be such an objectionable concept. I could not disagree more strongly than there is something acceptable about social inequality and that corporate profits mean more than social justice.
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MissMillie
(38,560 posts)My dad worked 70 hours a week until I went to 1st grade (I'm the youngest child). At that point, my mom could afford to go to work. Neither one of them had a "career" ever in their lives. They had "jobs" and they worked very hard.
My four older brothers and sisters ( 13, 12, 6 and 5 years older than I) all tell me that they feel like they missed out on having Dad home for dinner at night, or having Dad come to a school/sporting event, or having Dad help w/ homework, or w/ an auto repair. By the time I was in first grade, my oldest brother was in the Navy and out of the house.
We live in a culture where we're all supposed to try to have it all, and certainly it's easier for those w/o children to get ahead in the workforce.
I'm not sure capitalism would foster any other kind of scenario.
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)Don't envy men.
Certain men have it easy.
Most men have always had it hard.
You underlined a point I made in post #4 in this thread.
I used the example of the Jackson family to highlight how gender roles shaped how mothers & fathers interact with their children.
Most fathers spent time AWAY from their kids trudging it out in the workforce.
They may miss time with their kids but they carry on without complaint to bring in the money so the family can pay the household bills.
If that life is what some people consider 'having it all', ask the fathers who missed all those crucial moments with their kids trying to make ends meet.
You have to pick your spots.
What do you want the most & what are you willing to give up to get what you want?
There's always a tradeoff.
Superwoman is a fantasy just like Superman is.
Unlike men, women have a very limited amount of time to decide whether to have children or not.
Men can reproduce to their end of their lives.
Women can only do it up until menopause which can strike anywhere from the 30s to the 60s.
So if they choose motherhood do they give up career or if they choose career do they give up motherhood?
Or do they work career earlier to serve motherhood later? Meaning gather money from career to drop out of the workforce later to become a full-time mother.
The way secondary education is set up requiring you to go to school for 4 years/6 years/8 years than possibly more years of graduate school...
...that works TOTALLY against women's chances for motherhood.
To do all that, then get hired, then spend lots of time climbing the ranks in an organization...
...it works TOTALLY against women's reproductive success.
The Field, the Workforce was designed around the Male biological system.
He can make babies all of his life. He has nothing but time on his hands.
He can spend that time climbing the ranks, gathering his resources, & then provide for his family.
If women are willing to play this game, they should know what they're in for.
Plan for what you REALLY want out of life & have no regrets for your choice.
Condoleezza Rice rose up the ranks in the political field to become National Security Adviser then Secretary of State.
But...she has no children. That's the choice she made.
Career over motherhood.
No one can have it all.
John Lucas
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)or fraction of one percent who are in elite fields that are glorified by our society but are truly shit jobs (medicine, law, and the like).
This article is offensive on so many levels, but I have heard this b.s. for forty years.
Unfortunately, many feminists like Caroline Bird denigrated women for having traditional female careers like teaching and nursing and encouraged women to go into "men's fields" because they paid more. And yes, I have read ALL of the important feminist works of that era and KNOW that some of the prominent writers denigrated traditional women's jobs, which was a mistake. They should have been clamoring for better working conditions for women in all occupations instead of glorifying so-called male fields.
Well, guess what? Men's salaries started going south, their jobs started going overseas, and entire fields ended up being glutted. It wasn't such a great deal after all. Companies soon got clever and started paying men less so that they could get two salaries for the price of one.
It wasn't the women's movement's fault they didn't anticipate neoliberal economics.
What makes these conceited women think they are better than the average woman? The average woman works a hell of a lot harder than some Ivy League-educated spoiled brat.
BainsBane
(53,035 posts)not gender. Your point is an entirely separate one from the one Slaughter advanced.
Men both poor and wealthy alike benefited, and continue to benefit, from unpaid labor by women. They have been able to ascend to whatever work position that can because they had a servant at home. That has been as true for a coal miner as a Wall Street exec.
The issue of gender and labor is all the more relevant for poor and middle-class women, who work hard all day and come home and perform a second full-time job at home.
It's unfortunate that you consider education so offensive. Such an attitude is a guarantee of perpetual impoverishment. Education is the best path out of poverty. I come from a generation in which under-education was not seen as a virtue. The federal government and state provided grants and loans so that poor girls, like me, could have access to a good education. I took advantage of those options, and as a result I didn't become a teenage mother with few economic options in life.
Directing your anger at educated women only perpetuates the goals of a corporate capitalist economy that squeezes double the productivity from workers as twenty years ago, while wages have not increased. It's like blaming unions for negotiating higher wages and supporting union busting. The overall effect is to worsen work conditions for women and men across all classes. Many European nations have state-funded childcare and labor laws that account for family needs, which in turn enable women to compete more successfully in the labor economy.
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)Men were supposed to give their wives money to run the household in the past.
Do you think housewives should have gotten wages per hour like in the workforce? Salaries?
Women traded independence for security when they became housewives.
Men traded independence for financial support when they became workaday husbands.
Now were there men who didn't live up to their part of the bargain? Yeah.
And there were also women who didn't live up their part of the bargain.
But the fact that women were usually bound to the household was why alimony was put together in case of divorce.
A woman had less options because they were busy with the kids at home so men had to pay.
Today women are not necessarily bound to the household & can get their money independently if they choose.
Today women have to make that choice between career & household.
Some pick career. Some pick household.
There were flaws in the old system which is why it had to change.
But this whole article addresses the flaws in the NEW system.
And being a teenaged mother doesn't mean you have to be uneducated.
Who says that education is the domain of the colleges & universities?
College is increasingly a pipe dream for a growing amount of people.
You finish up & there's no jobs that your degrees can catch.
Lots of college graduates these days working the same types of service jobs they would have worked without going—only with a big college debt over their head to boot.
You can be an educated person by reading varied writings & talking to others in forums like these.
And of course there's always hands-on knowledge to teach you.
It's old supply & demand.
These greedy employers are looking for every opportunity to get work done for cheaper.
High paying jobs today can be outsourced tomorrow if these greedy folks can find folks to do it for cheaper.
Technological advances can kill jobs.
This economic system we have is not sustainable in its current form.
Eventually the need for intensive work to gain income will need to change to a new model.
This will NATURALLY reshape the interactions of men & women further.
Maybe one day Men won't have to necessarily be in the Field either.
John Lucas
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)Gender roles were shaped by our inherent sexual differences in both the physical & mental.
Pregnancy in women flavored much of how their roles were shaped in societies around the world.
The details differ & different cultures gave different opportunities/restrictions to their women.
But that biological fact always came into play.
Women lose mobility as the months of pregnancy carry on & their pregnant bellies are vulnerable, so they didn't make for the best folks to adventure into the field.
Men don't carry the baby & only drop seed in an extremely short amount of time in comparison to the 9 months of a woman's pregnancy.
This made them better for adventuring into the field to provide resources for the pregnant women at the homestead.
When a woman is NOT pregnant she can be good as a man is in the field.
So in some societies some women were warriors & hunters just like the guys.
But they couldn't be deep in pregnancy to be effective.
Since birth control was a non-factor, women tended to be pregnant as a rule so societies put them into the roles of homesteader & field support.
Once the babies were born someone had to raise them.
Networks of women tended to be more in charge of raising the children than men.
That includes the mother herself, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, nieces, female cousins, female friends.
Boys may have helped out but since they were groomed to be the next generation of adventuring hunters in the field this role wouldn't be stuck to them like it would to the women of the society.
Outside of the primary role of homesteader, women could do support work in the field. They could assist the primary field workers, men, but would not bring in lion's share of the bounty.
The larger the society the more opportunities for different women to spread out their roles. Some went into the field full-time like the men, some concentrated on field support over homesteading, & some concentrated on homesteading over the field.
But this reality made women the primary parent in every culture. Mothers & their assisting female relatives did the day-to-day heavy lifting of raising the children by default despite the exceptions of women in the field adventuring & women doing support work in the field.
Men did the day-to-day resource gathering & were the secondary parent if they were there at all.
Some men helped their women raise the babies, other men stayed only in the field.
The Field Was Made For The Men.
All the hierarchical rank & file stuff seen in workforces comes from men organizing for the field hunt.
The Homestead Was Made For The Women.
This is why women were usually in charge of organizing the resources & finances.
In some cultures women decide who inherits the property since they are the rulers of the homestead.
Back to biology though.
There is a spectrum of Masculinity & Femininity in each man & woman.
Think of a 3-dimensional Yin-Yang symbol. A sphere not just a circle.
Some men were better suited to the homestead.
Some women were better suited to the field.
And then take into consideration the reality of the Intersexed—which includes Gays, Bisexuals, & Transsexuals—you have male bodies with female minds & female bodies with male minds in differing degrees & intensities.
All based on which hormone was delivered to a fetus in the womb, what intensity of that hormone to the fetus & what time of development the fetus received the hormone.
Generically gay men have male bodies but the brain of a female. A female mind operating through the testosterone-powered body of a man.
Generically gay women have female bodies but the brain of a male. A male mind operating through the estrogen-powered body of a woman.
This is why homosexual men are not QUITE like heterosexual women & why homosexual women are not QUITE like heterosexual men.
Gays are fine with their opposite body/mind combination but Transsexuals are not.
Transsexuals want their body to match their minds but once you are born Male in Body or Female in Body that is what you will always be.
Modern science allows them to fit the social image of their intended identity through surgery but they can only be Socially Male or Socially Female.
In reality a transsexual man is a woman with a double masectomy, vaginectomy, & male hormone injections to grow facial hair & make the clitoris more resemble a penis.
And a transsexual woman is really a man with a partial penectomy, orchidectomy, & female hormone injections to reduce facial hair & grow breasts.
Bisexuals I believe got a milder dose of the 'opposite' hormone in the womb than gays or transsexuals or that the hormone washed over different parts of the brain.
The chaos of hormones determines body size & everything else much less brain development.
So some straight men had slender more feminine bodies than their more rugged bulkier male counterparts.
And some straight women had broader more masculine bodies than their more demure daintier female counterparts.
Add in all of those Gays, Bis, & Trans folks & you got yourself all sorts of confusion on the tradition of established societal gender roles!
If all things stayed in their little boxes The Field would remain the Man's Domain & the Homestead would remain the Woman's Domain.
But it's hard to contain flowing liquidy things.
It was inevitable that these established gender roles would be challenged & not merely due to the oppressiveness of the roles.
Here we are today trying to sort all of this out & Anne-Marie Slaughter finds out the limits of an ideology.
Women have to make a choice in this society.
If they want to be full-fledged full-powered career women (adventurers in the rank & file field), then motherhood (homesteading) will take a backseat to career.
They will be the secondary parents with either the father, grandmother, aunt, daughter, or day care worker taking over the day-to-day duties of primary parenting/homesteading (many times even teachers take up parts of that role).
Meanwhile, they will be able to climb those ranks in the workplace now that most of their energy is there.
If they want to be full-fledged fully-involved stay-at-home moms (homesteading), then career (adventuring in the rank & file field) will take a backseat to motherhood.
They will be the primary parents with either the father, grandmother, aunt, daughter in secondary parent or homestead assistant roles.
However, they won't be able to go much further than a support job (field support) because most of their energy is at the household.
It's real.
You can't be both high-powered executive & top-line mother in the household at the same time.
Even WITH a good network of support.
One of those shoes is going to drop. Something will take a backseat.
Take the Jackson Family for instance.
Joe Jackson, the father, did the workforce thing. Was the breadwinner. Brought home the bacon. The adventurer in the field on the hunt bringing resources.
He worked grueling 16 hour days at the heat-suffocating steel mill in Gary, Indiana.
What time did he have to be into the little personal nuances & emotional issues with each of his 9 kids?
He came dog tired I bet most of the time but he sacrificed personal time with his kids getting that paycheck to make sure they could remain living in that little house on 2300 Jackson Street.
Any spare time he had he used it playing gigs with his local band The Falcons to try to bring home a little more scratch.
Being the more distant secondary parent, he took on the persona of Fearful Disciplinarian to scare his kids into behaving if they got out of control.
The Jackson siblings didn't seem him as often as they did their mother so a 'Wait Until Your Father Gets Home' style of warning loomed overhead making them dread his eventual arrival.
The distance allowed him to play that scary parenting role much better.
Katherine Jackson, the mother, stayed at the household. Was the housewife. Did the shopping. Cooked the dinner. The homesteader having babies & raising them.
She was there when they said their first words. She was there when they took their first steps.
She got in-depth knowledge on all of her 9 children's personal quirks, nuances, & emotional states (that's how she knew Michael had innate rhythm at the age of 1 as he danced to the rhythm of a washing machine).
There was a time when she did some work at a department store but that was just support work not enough to pay the monthly bills.
Inbetween the daily household duties, she spent personal time singing Country & Western songs to her children.
Being the closer primary parent, she took on the persona of Soothing Nurturer to comfort her kids when they were distressed.
The Jackson siblings saw her all the time compared to their father so they were closer to her.
That constant presence allowed her to play that warm parenting role much better.
When Marlon (the next brother older over Michael) couldn't execute those dance steps in the living room, fearful Joe wanted to cut him from the Jackson Five but comforting Katherine protested because she feared it would split the family.
Joe took on a coaching teaching role in trying to get his boys to stardom while Katherine did her best to strengthen/maintain the familial bonds between her kids in the process.
More Distant Parent vs. Closer Parent.
Joe was preparing them for a Field. Katherine propped up the Homestead.
To this day, those roles remain.
Joe worried over Michael's management/financial/career prospects.
Katherine worried over Michael's physical & emotional health.
Joe's more about the Business. Katherine's more about the Personal.
The Male vs. The Female.
The result is Joe still being at some distance from his children in comparison to Katherine.
This is even reflected at Michael's 2009 Memorial.
Rev. Al Sharpton addresses the parents: "I want to say to Mrs. Jackson and Joe Jackson"
That's the sacrifice he made to keep his kids off of those dangerous Gary, Indiana streets.
In the context of his location & the times he lived in that role was what he had to play.
But there was a price to be paid for playing that role.
He couldn't be as effective a steel mill worker paying the bills & later showbiz manager being soft like Katherine.
Those were tough streets & showbiz was a tough business so his kids had to be prepared.
The result is the biggest musical dynasty in history helmed by the world's greatest entertainer of all-time.
But even the world's greatest entertainer couldn't have it all.
'Normality' & a lost childhood was what he gave up to gain that status.
NOBODY can have it all.
NOBODY.
John Lucas
BainsBane
(53,035 posts)it is not biology; it is society.
Men have had it all for centuries. Evidently you believe that their biological right. You imagine there is something inherently biological about domestic and public spheres, when that distinction has existed for less than two hundreds years. I'd suggest you pay a bit more attention to history than pop music.
Yet even your pop music example doesn't even hold up. The children were the bread winners in that family. Is their something inherently biological about that? Janet Jackson earns far more than you ever will (here I'm guessing, based on the odds, that your income might be nearer that of an average American worker rather than a pop superstar). Does that mean she is biologically superior or otherwise biologically disposed to be more successful in the marketplace?
There are have been societies were women were the hunters. There is nothing inherently biologically male about hunting. Even Wikipedia provides some information on this topic:
"A vast amount of ethnographic and archaeological evidence demonstrates that the sexual division of labor in which men hunt and women gather wild fruits and vegetables is an uncommon phenomenon among hunter-gatherers worldwide. Although most of the gathering is usually done by women, a society in which men completely abstained from gathering easily available plants has yet to be found. Generally women hunt the majority of the small game while men hunt the majority of the large and dangerous game, but there are quite a few documented exceptions to this general pattern. A study done on the Aeta people of the Philippines states: "About 85% of Philippine Aeta women hunt, and they hunt the same quarry as men. Aeta women hunt in groups and with dogs, and have a 31% success rate as opposed to 17% for men. Their rates are even better when they combine forces with men: mixed hunting groups have a full 41% success rate among the Aeta." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer
You have essentialized your own assumptions about what you mistakenly see as an inherent difference between men and women as it relates to economic participation. You are simply wrong, and a vast array of historical and anthropological evidence makes that clear.
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)First of all which men had it all?
It certainly weren't those slave men in Egypt who built the pyramids.
It certainly weren't those European serfs toiling for their lords.
It certainly wasn't the American blue collar laborers working in factories that filled their lungs with soot.
My post was long & I'm not surprised certain points I made in there were overlooked.
I MENTIONED societies where women were warriors & hunters.
I ALSO mentioned societies where women controlled the inheritance of the property.
There's a place in China right now where men are sort of the outsiders while women control property.
In China, Mosuo Women Rule
But there's a REASON why most societies today & yesterday followed a certain pattern.
They always used men in warfare because frankly it takes less guys to repopulate a society than women.
The excess guys were sent off to die in some stupid war for some power-hungry ruler.
The fact that you can pick off isolated examples of women in warfare shows how comparatively rare it is.
Men are the norm in being sent off into the field & the reason stems from the basic biological difference in reproduction.
Being killed for some thoughtless war doesn't seem like having it all to me.
The sinking ship saying is 'Women & Children First' for a reason. Men are basically seen as expendable.
Different societies regulated this dichotomy in different ways.
Some societies allowed for more flexibility in women's roles, others were more restrictive.
Same thing with how some societies see Gays/Bis/Trans as an abomination while others call them Two-Spirit & sometimes even deify them in exalted roles.
Oh & never doubt me on the Jacksons story. I know that story inside & out (one of the biggest Jackson experts around).
You know WHO set Janet on her course to superstardom???
Joe Jackson, her father.
He pushed her into showbusiness. All she wanted to do was ride horses as a little girl.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Jackson
That's what the Control album was all about.
He pushed her into acting & singing but she wasn't really wanting to do it.
But because of him acting in his managerial role (derived from his parental distance as a disciplinarian figure) she rode the path HE set for her to gain her wealth & superstardom.
Now she can ride all the horses she wants to in her spare time.
Ah, but notice something.
She has no children.
She chose career over motherhood.
Her sister Rebbie (Centipede!) was a great singer & talent.
But she chose motherhood over career.
She chose to raise her family.
So she was not able to reach the superstardom heights her baby sister reached.
Oh but hold on. It was no different for the brothers.
Michael was able to reach the heights that he did BECAUSE he delayed having children.
It was only AFTER he did all there was to be done that he started having children.
He wanted to be a CLOSE father unlike his father was to him.
He wanted to be the primary parent & with his accumulated wealth he didn't have to grind for the money & could raise his kids comfortably.
Notice that he slowed down a WHOLE lot after he started having his children.
He could create albums at the HOMESTEAD in his home studio.
He could take his kids out with him when he went to outside studios.
When he put out the Invincible album in 2001, he didn't want to tour.
He didn't want to put out that whole giant shebang he always does when it comes to promoting an album.
If he tours, he's not gonna be able to focus fully on his children like he wants to.
It's like a truck driver always on the road never at home. Like an exec always in the office but never at the house.
And hence Invincible sold less than his other albums (still great amounts nevertheless).
His brothers couldn't keep up with him professionally because they chose to raise their families.
They did sessions here & there. Maybe put out an album on their own time.
But they didn't do that necessary grind to make that big impact like Michael did.
They COULD have but they chose to concentrate on family first.
They had accumulated money too so they could take a break from the grind.
They wanted to be more hands-on fathers than their father was with them as he slaved away in that steel mill.
If they chose career over family, they would be bigger names but they would be strangers to their kids (Ask Quincy Jones, Michael's producer).
Can't have it all.
You take offense as if I'm saying that women are not capable of doing things that men can do.
I'm not saying that at all.
BUT BECAUSE of that essential biological difference, women have to make a choice.
Career over Family OR Family over Career.
You can have a job & raise your kids but one of those departments will be lesser than the other.
Either your job will be lower-powered & lesser-paying or you will have other people doing the day-to-day duties of raising your children.
There are some families that figure out how to make their Homestead their Field.
Working from home.
There are some families that take their Homestead TO the Field.
That shop or store where the whole family works.
But unless you work it out that way, you really can't do both with the same quality.
With women going to the workforce, there must be men going to the household.
Stay-At-Home Dads.
But society hasn't adjusted to this shift.
When men stay out of the workforce too long, they're screwed!
It's because it's expected that men will be in the Field.
This is how so many societies were formed millenia after millenia.
And the reason these societies formed this way is because of that biological difference between men & women.
Check out the twin self-written accounts of a couple with a female breadwinner & a stay-at-home dad.
See how both of them struggle with the shift.
Can a marriage where the woman earns more than the man ever work?
Actually, dear, it's hell being a kept man
Our society is large enough to allow for more egalitarian choices but if an Extinction Level Event ever came about it's back to basics.
A few men to impregnate all the women to reproduce as many new people as possible.
My 11 People Left On Earth example.
10 men & 1 woman. About every 9 months, at least 1 child borne from that woman.
Add more for twins, triplets, quadruplets, & so on.
10 women & 1 man. About every 9 months, at least 10 children borne from those women.
Add more for twins, triplets, quadruplets, & so on.
Check out this number pattern.
10 men & 1 woman: 11 ~ 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
10 women & 1 man: 11 ~ 21, 31, 41, 51, 61, 71, 81, 91
This is why gender roles started to form.
Can they be exaggerated? Yes. Can they be modified? Yes.
But can they be totally escaped? NEVER.
How many male day care workers do you know?
How many female construction workers do you see?
Are there male day care workers? Yes.
Are there female construction workers? Yes.
Are they common? No.
More female day care workers than male day care workers? HELL YES! By a longshot!
More male construction workers than female construction workers? HELL YES! By a longshot!
Biology Is Destiny.
That doesn't mean that women are inept or men are superior.
But everything that we are is pretty much determined in that time in Mama's Womb.
Some of it is even determined before Daddy's Sperm met Mama's Egg.
We have multiple ways of choosing which track we will travel on that Destiny railroad.
But our paths ARE already mapped out.
We can ride the Destiny train to doom or to delight & we pretty much don't know how we'll get there.
Men don't carry babies. Women don't shoot semen.
It is what it is.
We are complementary but we are NOT the same.
John Lucas
P.S.: Michelle Obama put her career on the backburner to raise her kids as Barack Obama climbed those political ranks in the political FIELD.
Barack was not home all the time & had more distance as a parent than Michelle did.
Michelle cut her career path as Barack ascended to the top rank in the political FIELD as President of the United States of America.
ismnotwasm
(41,988 posts)This is typical evo-psych but dude, the JACKSON'S as an example?
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)Yeah the Jacksons.
Janet had a great career but has no kids.
Rebbie had a great family life but little career.
Yes I even used the male Jacksons to make the point even further.
Michael had established a great career when he didn't have kids. He had kids after he was well-established & had little more to achieve in the business.
His brothers couldn't keep up with him professionally because they chose to be more hands-on fathers not distant fathers.
I also used Michelle & Barack Obama as examples to underline the point I was making.
In one of my posts I used Condoleezza Rice as an example.
I mentioned Quincy Jones in parentheses alluding to the fact that he made big moves in his career but was M.I.A. for most of his daughters' lives.
Don't worry about my examples. Worry if my reasoning pans out.
And my reasoning DOES pan out.
The author of the article we're talking about in this thread ran into a roadblock when it came to her ideology.
The work world was built around a male biological role historically.
Women can have trouble in this world once they have kids.
They can't be fully involved in both areas equally.
One always takes a backseat to the other.
So either they make concessions in household focus or they make concessions in workplace focus.
Unless you make your household your workplace or make your workplace your household, you're not gonna be able to perfectly balance those two areas.
I can use the example of my parents/grandparents, your parents/grandparents, anybody's parents/grandparents to make my point over & over again.
Evo-psych? No. REALITY.
We can modify gender roles & create more flexibility but gender roles came from biological dichotomies.
Just about everything we are was determined before we were born into the world.
John Lucas
alarimer
(16,245 posts)The problem with "having it all" is the WOMEN are forced to do 90% of all household work even if they are married or partnered with a man and even if they work full-time. Same-sex couples might be more equal, but I don't know about that.
Add this to the work culture where you are screwed if you take a day off even if you are sick. And they expectation that you are to be available at all hours of the day.
The problem is not biology; the problem is enforced bullshit gender roles and a sick culture that prizes "work" above all else. If you take a vacation, you can say goodbye to the promotion to the corner office.
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)What I said was NOT sexist it is reality.
Work culture was designed like that because males generally had nothing but time on their hands when it came to the reproduction.
They don't carry the child & all the turmoil that comes with carrying a child.
So most cultures put the men in the Field to bring the goods back to the tribe.
While female warriors existed the general rule is that warriors were usually male.
Men were more expendable since it takes less men to repopulate than women.
In our current system, this is taken to an extreme with work culture punishing those who take time off even if sick, like you mentioned.
It REQUIRES you to put family life in the background.
But all of this comes out of the historical role of men HAVING to be away from the household.
Men were usually the secondary parents & women were the primary parents.
Gender roles can be exaggerated, yes they can.
Gender roles can be modified, yes they can.
But Gender Roles CAME from Biological Roles & thus cannot be merely cast aside.
They're not artificial & put upon.
Women can go into work culture just like men & have great success just like men.
But often that means they will have to sacrifice their family life to some degree to do it.
SOMEBODY has to be at home with the child.
If your mother is helping you "babysit" while you're at the office, then SHE is essentially raising your child.
Day care workers help women raise their children. And even teachers do a little bit of the raising themselves.
Sometimes it's the older daughter or aunt or older son or uncle.
It's SOMEBODY dealing with the day-to-day ins-and-outs of raising kids.
I used my example of the Jackson Family to illustrate this not only for women but men also.
Janet got lots of professional success but has no children.
Her oldest sister Rebbie had a little bit of professional success but gave up a high-powered performing career to raise her children.
Michael got lots of professional success BECAUSE he didn't have kids at first.
His brothers couldn't keep up with him professionally because they chose instead to raise their kids as hands-on fathers.
Obama's family. Barack was busy climbing ranks in politics while Michelle (with her mother) did the heavy lifting raising Malia & Sasha.
Barack was away from his family a lot, remember? Michelle & her mama were the primaries in Malia & Sasha's life.
Same as it was for Michelle. Her mama raised her up primarily while her daddy was away from home a lot working those shifts.
This bullshit about women being forced to do 90% of household work is nonsense.
Are you not adults? Why won't the man do it? You can't hire anybody to help out?
Tired of the martyr crap. You work in an office all day, you don't have time to keep your house so spic & span, simple as that.
Either you let the house go a little bit, either you & your man help clean up, or you hire someone to clean for you.
It's biology whether you like it or not.
If women have kids, they have to decide which department they're going to devote their energy to.
The career at the workplace or motherhood at the household.
One will ALWAYS take precedent over the other.
You try to do both then one will be more partial than the other.
To concentrate on climbing the ranks at the workforce, you have to get babysitters (familial or hired) to help raise your kids.
To concentrate on raising your kids at the household, you have to get a lower-powered less time-intrusive career or job.
Workarounds to this include making your household your workplace by having a business right out of your home or making your workplace your household by having a store where the whole family works.
We are complementary but we are NOT the same.
The biological differences matter & influence how societies form.
We can modify the roles to bring more flexibility, sure.
But gender roles were derived from REAL biological roles. No escape.
Want to hear another biological reality which shapes the actions of genders?
Women have a much more limited amount of time to reproduce than men.
Women have to deal with menopause which can strike anywhere from their 30s to their 60s.
Men can reproduce all of their lives & can put off having kids much easier than women can.
Actor Tony Randall didn't make his kids until he was 77! (Tony was born in 1920)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Randall
There's a 96 year old man who made a baby!! His FIRST!!
Ramjeet Raghav, 96-Year-Old Dad, Claims He Is World's Oldest New Father (PHOTO, VIDEO)
This affects strategies in the mating game. Why men usually dither on relationship commitments & women usually try to enforce them.
It's why you tend to see older man/younger woman pairings vs. older woman/younger man pairings.
Hugh Hefner just got married AGAIN! With his 86 going on 87 year old ass!
His new wife Crystal Harris is 26 going on 27. A whole 60 years younger!!
How many times do you see 86 year old women dating much less marrying 26 year old men?
The workforce as we know it was built around the male biological role. That's a fact.
Women will succeed here just fine if they don't have kids or have other people helping them with their kids if they have them.
But if they want to be more hands-on with their kids, the workforce will have to be either left behind or reduced in importance.
Can't really raise your kids by satellite.
John Lucas
alarimer
(16,245 posts)This is the single stupidest piece of crap I have ever heard. We are not powerless to change things. What do you think feminism was all about in the first place? It's about equality of opportunity. We are not prisoners of our reproductive systems, not by a long shot, not should we be.
The point being here I think is that our work culture has to change and it has to change for everyone. It is toxic for us all. How many people do you know who are afraid to take vacations because it looks bad to do so? So many people do not even have sick leave and when they get sick, they get fired. That is all part of the sick culture we live in.
My point is that everything the writer complains about is CULTURAL, not biological. He bosses expectations are ridiculous, as they are in most professions.
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)Last edited Sat Jan 5, 2013, 03:33 PM - Edit history (1)
I touched on the fact that Feminism was inevitable BECAUSE of the reality that Biology Is Destiny.
I mentioned how everything didn't fit inside neat little boxes.
I talked about flowing liquidy things. The fluidity of life.
I talked about some women being more suited to the Field with some men being more suited to the Homestead.
I talked about the Tomboy girls who were NOT lesbians & the Effeminate boys who were NOT gay.
I talked about the Intersexed which includes Bisexuals, Homosexuals, & Transsexuals.
I mentioned how tomboy girls, effeminate boys, bisexuals/homosexuals/transsexuals rendered the default system ineffective & incomplete.
And that's why the default system changed. It was always DESTINED to change because it had flaws that didn't benefit all members of society.
All because of that fluidity of life.
When you say it's only CULTURAL not BIOLOGICAL, you are missing the fact that cultures came OUT OF biological cues.
This is why gender roles, gender CULTURAL roles can be modified and/or exaggerated.
Each physical environment & local human gene pool flavor the origins of a culture.
And then cultures become traditions to be passed down through the new generations.
That fixed biological nature can take a variety of cultural expressions.
But those cultural expressions are rooted to that biological nature.
Work culture HAS changed (40 hour work week/overtime/weekends vs. 18 hour workdays/penny wages/7 days a week work) & will change further based on the fluidity within biological realities.
But I was telling you WHY work culture formed the way it did to begin with.
Why it was so built around lots of invested time & rank/file hierarchies.
It was designed around the MALE biological role since men drop seed quickly & can go about their business.
And when women enter that field it doesn't pose a problem UNTIL they take on their FEMALE biological role which is the carrying, birthing, & rearing of the babies.
That's what the author is finding out.
No culture on Earth has ever gotten to high-level technological advancement without that heavy investment of male labor.
All the time invested & sacrifice of home life needed to build these giant structures & machines.
A kid really can't be fit on a schedule. When that kid needs you, that kid needs you.
Imagine being a high-level female executive in an important meeting making a deal with a client or a rival company.
You have to have your energies totally invested in that meeting to be successful in that deal.
Imagine while crucial conversation is going on during this deal that you get a cell phone call that your 14 year old has run amok at home.
Do you talk to your kid on the phone to tell him/her to behave right in the middle of the meeting?
Do you stop everything & go home to deal with the kid directly?
Do you ignore the call & continue on with the meeting until it is over which may be hours from now?
What if you have 5 kids? With one 14 year old running amok, one 12 year old who didn't get picked up from soccer practice, one 8 year old who set the stove on fire trying to cook food, one 5 year old who got lost wandering around outside in the front yard, one 3 year old crying in distress at what's happening with the other 4 kids.
The high-level female executive either has SOMEBODY ELSE tending to those emergencies as the defacto mother or that female can't be that high-level female executive.
No business at that level will tolerate interruptions at important meetings like that.
They expect you to have your home life not interfere with your work life in meetings like that.
They want you to be invested into what's going on at the company at the expense of everything else.
It's like going on a date & your date taking phone call after phone call in the middle of the date.
Most people would take that as disrespect & rudeness. Businesses are the same.
Why do businesses want you to be so heavily involved to such a myopic level?
It's because of the MALE biological role. And we know that MALES are known for being singularly focused individuals as a whole.
It was a culture built around men. Women can participate & as long as they don't have to worry about children it will be easy.
Add kids to the mix & all bets are off.
I say it again & I will say it again & again. BIOLOGY IS DESTINY.
The way a short man views the world will be fundamentally different than the way a tall man views the world.
The way a fat woman views the world will be fundamentally different than the way a skinny woman views the world.
The way a physically strong person views the world will be fundamentally different than the way physically weak person views the world.
Our biological differences flavor our world views & our subsequent actions in that world.
Destiny is NOT singular, however.
We all by the nature of the sperm & egg that made us & the time in the womb that shaped us have a predetermined set of pathways laid out for us.
We DO have the option of choosing which track of these predetermined railways to travel on.
Think of it as Fated Choices.
The tracks are fated but which way we travel on them we have some choice.
We just don't know how extensive the tracks are or when to switch the tracks.
Our being & our actions are mostly internally influenced. There's a small amount of external influences with physical environment & interaction with other beings.
And even here I believe the externals only set off internal triggers.
No we are not powerless to change things. BUT we also cannot change EVERY THING.
If the genetics of a boy renders him fat, not agile, slow in running speed, short in height, no matter HOW MUCH training & time he puts into being a NBA-level basketball star, he's not going to BE an NBA basketball star.
He may have a basketball MIND & understands the strategies of the plays. He could become an NBA COACH but not the guys on the court simply because it's not in his biological fate.
NBA star Muggsy Bogues was 5' 3". That's short by regular standards much less for an NBA star.
BUT he had such tremendous speed & agility & shot precision that his extreme difference in height ironically became an advantage towards the usual tall lumbering stars who couldn't easily reach him from way up high.
He had OTHER crucial skills necessary for a NBA-level basketball star making his height irrelevant so he became an NBA basketball star.
It was within his biological fate.
Humans have a biological fate that gives us extreme capability to manipulate the elements.
When external physical environments become lacking, we use this inborn biological pre-programming to create technologies that help us get more from those lacking environments.
This is the whole entire reason civilization EXISTS.
We had no need to create machines or try to understand the world & the universe around us when we had everything we needed.
When the ancient drought & famine happened we had to use our inborn nature to 'correct' this drought & famine.
Civilization is all about returning us to Paradise, to Utopia.
Our struggles come from the flaws in this worldwide experiment.
Because of this inborn biological fate, we are DESTINED to one day destroy work & work culture altogether.
Technology destroys jobs. It can be no other way.
Civilization is all about making us fat happy lazy people.
I mentioned the future possible reality that ONE DAY Men won't have to go into the Field either.
Every machine we create, every technology we build, every social system we improve on, we are DESTINED to end the division between the FIELD & the HOMESTEAD.
That cultural system of the Field & the Homestead was created in reaction to an environment drying up around us.
And we took a look at our biological differences to decide who would be best to operate within each sector.
Different cultures assigned their peoples in different ways but it always centered around biological differences.
Cultures amplified preferences for certain types of people to better be able to survive & those they felt (correctly or incorrectly) were antagonistic to this survival, they demonized.
Yes, even prejudice & hatred to other people was DESTINED.
Yes Fate is real. But we have a choice of our Fates.
We're not prisoners? Yes we are. To many things including our reproductive systems (don't reproduce, the species dies out).
We are also prisoners to the Planet Earth & we need what Planet Earth provides to live. We can't live outside it.
That's our Fate. But we have some choice of HOW to live in our prison called Earth.
We can change SOME Things. But we cannot change EVERY Thing.
Biology Is Destiny. Biology Determines Our Fates.
John Lucas
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)"Transsexuals want their body to match their minds but once you are born Male in Body or Female in Body that is what you will always be. "
Read some medical texts on transgender issues before spouting off such utter shite.
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)That's the difference between a gay & a trans.
Inside a trans feels he/she is the opposite sex to what their body comes as.
And they seek out gender reassignment surgery to deal with the conflict.
They have already done research on gays finding out something so obvious when you think about it.
Homosexual men's brains acted like heterosexual women's brains.
Homosexual women's brains acted like heterosexual men's brains.
A Gay Man's Brain Looks a Lot Like a Straight Woman's Brain
It PROVED that gays are BORN gay for one thing.
And it PROVED that Male & Female are REAL differences not just interchangeable arbitrary social constructs.
When I saw this, the whole thing about homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals made absolute sense.
They are simply another version of The Intersexed.
We've heard of Intersexed bodies with hermaphrodites but how could we miss Intersexed brains?
It's a continuum. Which is why Chastity Bono was at first a Lesbian woman & later decided to be a Trans man.
This proves it can shift & change also in some people.
But that whole thing about 'The Pregnant Man' is bull.
Men can't get pregnant. Only women can.
It's a woman who became a Trans man yet leaving her reproductive organs intact.
We recognize this Transsexual SOCIALLY as a man but biologically she's still a woman.
You are born as you are & nothing can change that.
They can give you the appearance of a man or a woman but you are always biologically what you're born as.
If your hair is brown, you can dye it blonde all you want. But you are always a brown-haired person even if we recognize you as blonde.
If you're born Black (African), all the surgery & makeup in the world won't deny your heritage.
Halle Berry recognizes herself as simply Black but in reality she's Black AND White.
There were some Blacks who passed for White being part White themselves but their Blackness is real biologically.
They still carry the genes of their African ancestors.
This argument can also be used towards those who think you can exorcise the gayness out of somebody.
You can try to make them straight all you want but they will always be gay.
Difference between a gay & a trans is that gays are fine with their opposite mind/body combination & transes are not.
Transsexuals want the outside to match what they feel on the inside.
They want their bodies to match their minds.
They have been essentially telling us that for years, haven't they? So why am I wrong in what I said?
John Lucas
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)No one wakes up and decides to be another gender. Gender is also determined by the brain chemistry--if your brain doesn't match your body, then medical science has determined that your gender should be brought into physical congruence with your mental state.
Yes, Thomas Beattie was a pregnant *man*. It doesn't matter if he kept his ovaries and womb, he is not female. Gender essentialism is bs. You should read something about this instead of just spouting off discredited evo psych theories.
Transgender people are born as they are, transgender. The part where you are wrong is saying that one just is female or male depending on your sexual organs, and that our fate and behavior is predetermined always by the binary division you have laid down. Some people born with male organs are female and some people born with female organs are male. Gender brain biology is also biology.
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)When I said a transsexual woman is a man with gender reassignment surgery & a transsexual man is a woman with gender reassignment surgery I'm talking about the PHYSICAL BODY.
But I just talked about the brains being opposite.
I said that homosexuals & transsexuals are similar due to that brain being different than the body EXCEPT that gays are comfortable being male body/female brain or female body/male brain but transsexuals are NOT.
Gender essentialism IS real.
Masculine & Feminine are REAL. Yes they are.
But sometimes body doesn't match mind & this is what we see in the homosexuals, bisexuals, & transsexuals.
They are ALL different versions of the Intersexed.
The brain is female in a male body or the brain is male in a female body.
Brains operate as if it was one of the opposite sex.
There are ONLY 2 sexes: Male & Female.
In the intersexed it's just a matter of Male-In-Female or Female-In-Male & in what degree.
Thomas Beattie was a pregnant man SOCIALLY yes. But BIOLOGICALLY if you have ovaries you are FEMALE.
We can call Thomas a pregnant man but biologically 'he' is what 'he' is—a FEMALE.
Thomas' BRAIN was a male brain so that's why as a transsexual the former 'she' had surgery so that his outside could match the inside.
So that Beattie's body matched Beattie's mind.
There's a man who calls himself The Lizardman.
He had surgery to make himself look like a true lizard man.
Bisected his tongue & everything. Filed his teeth into spearpoints. He really looks the part.
But biologically he's just a regular human being.
You can't discount the body in order to promote the mind.
Yeah transgenders are born transgender. We don't have a disagreement there.
I never said that. And I never implied that.
But what is 'transgender' really saying?
It's just saying mind is opposite of body.
But that's the same thing that's going on in the homosexuals.
They have mind opposite body TOO.
Difference is like I said over & over is that gays are not conflicted with mind opposite body & trans folks ARE.
They're very similar except for that one key difference.
But even if you have a different mind your body is still your body & it operates as the physical gender determines.
Before transsexual men had the surgery, they STILL got periods & they still had menstrual cramps & they still had the comparatively wider hips of a female & they still had higher pitched female voices.
And if they never had the surgery they could STILL go through menopause.
Female in every way except the brain.
We will call Chaz Bono a Man even if he was born to be a Woman.
But we have to put the qualifier TRANS Man so that we know what KIND of man Chaz is.
We can't expect women to marry him & expect him to deliver sperm to make babies.
TRANS men can't do that. So he will never be EXACTLY like a regular man.
But out of care for a transsexual's inner struggle we will treat Chaz SOCIALLY as a man.
Sexuality is a continuum in mind AND body.
But the Masculine pole & the Feminine pole ARE REAL.
We will never get a real handle on this stuff until we accept that MALE & FEMALE are not merely arbitrary social constructs.
It may be confusing when looking at the Intersexed but even THERE you see the Male & the Female.
Generically even in gay couples, there's always one who seems to be more of the Male & one who seems to be more of the Female.
Always a more Mannish one & a more Femmish one. Even if slight.
Male & Female are Biologically REAL.
John Lucas
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)What part of that are you not getting? Your brain and mind are biological functions. You can go on and on about sperm, ova, etc. it doesn't matter, gender is also a product of your brain. Gender dysphoria is caused when the brain doesn't match up with the chemicals that trigger your outward sex. It is your brain that determines your gender. It has nothing to do with all that lizard man crap.
I'm done talking to you about this, your views are very poorly sourced. Read Lynn Conway or Andrea James.
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)If there's a little thing sticking out, you're a boy.
If there's no little thing sticking out, you're a girl.
That's what the doctors do to determine your sex. Old as time.
The brain can be out of sync all it wants but you're gonna function as your BODY is formed.
It is only the Transsexuals who find it disturbing that their body doesn't match their minds.
The gays recognize themselves as what their body shows them.
Even a butch lesbian will see herself as female & will challenge you if you call her a guy.
Their brains are JUST as opposite their body as the Transsexuals are but they see themselves as women being attracted to women.
(really it's a masculine component attracted to some feminine component in the partner every time)
You can buy into all that pregnant man jazz all you want.
Pregnant men don't exist in any other realm but socially & trying to diminish the reality of Male & Female makes you poorly sourced.
If Lynn Conway & Andrea James are saying similar things as you, I would say the same to them.
XX Chromosomes = Female
XY Chromosomes = Male
End of story.
The hormones in gestation cause the changes in the brain that result in Homosexuals, Bisexuals, & Transsexuals.
The body formed BEFORE the mind.
When sperm met egg.
Body came first THEN mind.
If there's a Y chromosome involved, that's a future man in the making. It's that simple.
No Y chromosome? Well there's your future woman.
I'm all for recognizing the humanity of homosexuals & transsexuals & everybody inbetween.
That's no problem to me.
But I'm NOT going for this foolishness trying to dismiss the reality of the sexes.
All homosexuals, bisexuals, & transsexuals are just different variations of Intersexed people.
For some reason a lot of people have a hard time accepting that Male & Female are not just socially assigned gender roles.
That male & female are interchangeable somehow. That those designations are fake somehow.
Rude awakenings await those who fall for that okeydoke.
I mean really. A person with ovaries is a man???
Roosters don't lay eggs, baby.
John Lucas
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)johnlucas
(1,250 posts)There are not 6 sexes or 4 sexes or 8 sexes or any of that.
There are only 2 SEXES.
Male & Female.
THAT'S IT.
Male = XY Chromosome
Female = XX Chromosome
Any Y chromosome involved makes it male.
No Y chromosome involved makes it female.
Even in strange cases like XXY chromosomes or XXX chromosomes, the single Y in that XXY makes it male & nothing but X's in that XXX makes it female.
Let's define the terms right here & now.
Heterosexual man (straight man) = Male body with Male brain signature
Heterosexual woman (straight woman) = Female body with Female brain signature
Bisexual man (bi man) = Male body with partial Female brain signature/partial Male brain signature
Bisexual woman (bi woman) = Female body with partial Male brain signature/partial Female brain signature
Homosexual man (gay man) = Male body with Female brain signature—no conflict with body opposite to brain
Homosexual woman (gay woman AKA lesbian) = Female body with Male brain signature—no conflict with body opposite to brain
Transsexual man (trans man) = Female body with Male brain signature—conflict with body opposite to brain
Transsexual woman (trans woman) = Male body with Female brain signature—conflict with body opposite to brain
Bisexuals have a mild effect, Homosexuals have medium effect, Transsexuals have severe effect.
It's all a continuum.
Brains don't develop until the 5th week of the 1st trimester. 5 weeks after conception.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/prenatal-care/PR00112
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_development
The basic structure of the body was already encoded within the egg.
Sperm is the spark that allows that code to develop into the basic cells that become the embryo.
The embryo is the primordial BODY.
BODY BEFORE BRAIN.
Out of love, care, & concern for the inner turmoil & dilemma transsexuals face with body/brain conflict, we devised surgeries & treatments to allow the COSMETIC appearance of what they feel they are inside.
But it is only COSMETIC. EXTERNAL. OUTSIDE. ARTIFICIAL.
Women REALLY cannot become men & men REALLY cannot become women.
They can't transform testicles to ovaries & they can't transform ovaries to testicles.
They can only create COSMETIC vulvas/vaginas & COSMETIC penises & testicles.
We know they are born this way & we understand this reality of the Intersexed people.
But Male & Female are TRUE biological differences.
And body overrules brain in this matter because while you THINK like the opposite sex you FUNCTION as the sex your are.
Gay men may be effeminate but they can STILL deliver sperm as only MEN can do.
Gay women may be butch but they can STILL birth babies as only WOMEN can do.
Trans men may have had the hormonal treatments to appear as true men but if their female organs are intact they can STILL birth babies as only WOMEN can do.
Trans women may have had the hormonal treatments to appear as true women but if their male organs are intact they can STILL deliver sperm as only MEN can do.
Trans men are really WOMEN.
Trans women are really MEN.
But they suffer in their physical forms so we give them relief through 'gender reassignment surgery'.
But in truth that phrase is a misnomer.
NO ONE can reassign genders/sexes through surgery or hormonal treatments.
It's merely a cosmetic procedure for the appearance.
If that's too harsh for you, take it up with The Creator.
There are only TWO sexes regardless of the various ways they intertwine.
Once again, no one can have it all.
John Lucas
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)Why SHOULD women "have it all" when few men have "it all" themselves?
Who cares about what a group of elite women, many of whom were trust fund brats in the first place, have to say about how hard they have it?
They should walk in my shoes and the shoes of millions of other women who have been shitcanned from professions or laid off from just regular, honest-to-goodness jobs rather than glamorous "careers and risk being destitute in our old age? The elitist women never had to really struggle like the vast majority of us, and they expect US to feel sorry for them when they don't have enough time to spend with their families, etc.
I am supposed to take pity on the "horrible" lives of these one- or two-percenters. Well, eff them and the horses they ride in on.
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)Many Black females had different struggles than those of middle/upper class White women & the result was Womanism.
Younger women today see certain flaws in Feminism & began rejecting aspects of Feminism in accordance.
All movement have their blind spots like that & all leaders of a movement don't see eye to eye on where to take the movement.
Feminists who hate porn, Feminists who like porn.
Feminists who reject mainstream beauty standards, Feminists who accept mainstream beauty standards.
Feminists who push for women in careers, Feminists who see housewife as a valid choice.
Everything fragments because like I learned from an episode of Garfield & Friends you can't ever get 2 people to agree on the same toppings on a pizza.
Poorer women with kids today face the reality of a 1-income or 2-income household (if they have a partner) that can barely make ends meet.
They don't have a lot of money for day care or babysitters & may not have adequate family support around.
This is where the latchkey kid phenomenon came from.
They don't have the luxury to just up & leave the job & they probably don't have much leverage to get more home-friendly hours.
That work/home balance is a pipe dream & they have to hope their kids make out alright with the lack of supervision.
They're probably exhausted when they ARE at home with the kids making them not much of use as a parent.
They're just trying to stay alive not reach a bunch of lofty positions to "have it all".
They're trying to "have enough"!
Things change for ALL working women who have children but it's easier to navigate those changes with a little extra money around.
John Lucas