According to this Boing-Boing post
Researchers from the U. of Florida found that men who believe in what they call ‘traditional roles for women’ (a woman’s place is in the home, employing wives leads to more juvenile delinquency, etc.) earn more money than men who don’t. The same is not true for women.
notabene: I think by ‘employing wives’ the author does not mean ‘I’m a gonna go out there and hire me a wife’, they mean, ‘women who are married also having gainful employment’.
That’s right. Feminist ladies, you should be making more money then your traditional-minded counterparts, and if you’re not you are (still) not working hard enough. Dudes, drop that copy of the Feminine Mystique and start wearing Old Spice as if your life depended on it - or else you will be poor.
The ‘let’s pit the traditionalists against the feminists’ creeps me out. I am curious to know whether the notion that; “Women who held more traditional views about gender roles made an average of $1,500 less annually than the women with more egalitarian views” takes into account that the traditionalists (let’s call them) probably stay at home and work for free to support her family in greater numbers then the nons. So an analysis of pay equity between a traditional minded women, and her feminist counterpart is kind of moot.
It would be more interesting to assess the amount of waged labour each group is doing. I’ll bet that while non-traditional women spend more time doing waged labour, both groups probably work equally hard, just one group chose to do it (as far as this article is concerned) for free. Of course, the reality is that traditional men who wish to have a competent, and fulfilled home manager (also known as a wife) are going to have to subsidize their partners lives. Think of it like permanent under the table employment, except with kissing and babies.
The unspoken issue here is not progressive values vs success, it is housework, who’s doing it and who’s not. Probably, the more time a feminist man spends helping his spouse with the laundry is that much time he’s not kissing up to his boss. But, he’s a great husband and father, and his partner and kids love him, so too bad they can’t afford that new Lexus SUV.
If the real cost of unwaged labor isn’t factored in, then of course sexist pigs make more money and thus are more successful. So, what’s the point of this article again? That the world is messed up and 50% of the work people do is considered valueless simply because it doesn’t command a salary?
True that.
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one comment
This post fails. I really hate to use this phrase, but you are reading something into the research news that isn't there.
Research news isn't supposed to be read like editorials, which have implied or coded meanings. Research articles state everything explicitly. You can't draw any conclusions about the cause of what was observed in the above study without another conclusive study, and researchers know this, since they are educated in what counts and does not count as evidence of a specific hypothesis.
Obviously, it is probably not the case that reading about feminism makes men poorer, as there could be other explanations, like the ones you have listed. You are assuming that the researchers are complete idiots and would jump to ridiculous, unsupported conclusions. Science doesn't work like that.
What you think are insightful criticisms are obvious to the researchers, since those doing research learned what confounding variables are in Statistics 101. Modern research has very sophisticated methods of generating knowledge, but you are beginning with the assumption that research is primitive and moronic.
Why?
Posted by Restructure!
September 27, 2008, 5:08 PM
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