Posted on 02/12/2019 7:02:44 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In his State of the Union address, President Trump announced, "All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before." It was one of the few times he received a standing ovation from both Democrats and Republicans.
I would not have stood and cheered.
Either the president or whoever wrote that line honestly thought it was something worth celebrating, or the president simply wanted to say something that would sound wonderful to both Democrats and Republicans, as well as to Americans who do not otherwise support him.
Whatever the reason, both the fact that there are more women in the workforce than ever before and the fact that Trump thought mentioning it would bring credit to his administration constitute a victory for the feminist left. Getting women to leave home for the workplace has been one of the central goals of modern feminism.
Feminists deny this, claiming they don't prefer women work outside the home; they only want women to have the choice to do so. But if that were true, why did congressional Democrats -- the women in white, feminists all -- jump up and cheer?
The answer is obvious: Feminists consider women who eschew a career to take care of their home, their children and their husband to be less than women who place career first.
But even if one prefers that women work outside of the home, "All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before" is simply not true. As feminists often note, many women work outside of the home not because they want to but because they have no choice: They have to support themselves, their household and/or their children.
Why should we be proud of that?
What if every woman in America were in the workforce? Would we be proud of that? By the "more of women than ever" logic, we should be.
On the other hand, if the president had said, "All Americans can be proud of the fact that more women than ever now have the choice to work inside or outside the home," that would be true. That is something I, too, would have cheered.
But the members of Congress did not stand and cheer because more women have the choice to work outside the home. They cheered because more women than ever before are working outside the home.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2017, nearly 75 million women were in the American civil workforce. But it is inconceivable that 75 million women want to be in the workforce. So, again, why all the cheering?
We know why Democrats did: They want women to eschew homemaking and time with children in favor of work outside the house.
But why did Republicans stand up and cheer?
One reason bears testimony to the thesis of a recent column I wrote: The greatest fear in America is fear of the left. The last thing Republican members of Congress wanted was to be photographed sitting quietly after the president of the United States announced, "All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before"-- especially while every Democrat was standing and cheering. The left-wing media, meaning virtually all mainstream media, would have depicted every such Republican "sexist" and "misogynist."
A second reason bears testimony to another fact of contemporary life: Republicans have been far more influenced by leftism than Democrats have been by conservatism. While many of the Republicans who cheered did so out of fear of the left and/or to support their party's beleaguered president, many sincerely believe the record number of women in the workplace is something worth celebrating.
But believe it or not, there are still many women and men who do not agree. We all acknowledge that with enough money and/or familial support, a woman can raise fine children and maintain a happy home and a loving marriage. Nevertheless, we also know that doing all three is difficult enough when a woman devotes full time to those three goals. But when a woman works outside the home, devoting full time to home and family is impossible.
So, yes, more women than ever are in the workplace. But before we stand and cheer, it is worth asking:
Are women happier today?
Are families doing better today?
Are marriages happier with wives at home or in the workplace?
Do young people grow up happier and better-adjusted with mothers at home or with mothers in the workplace?
Is society's emphasis on work and career inhibiting more young women from marrying and having children?
Is society better off or worse off when a record number of women leave home to enter the workplace?
Only when those questions are answered will we know whether to cheer.
In my family, grandmas would often provide free childcare in case the mother had to work. My dad’s mom had to work, and her mother lived with them and raised the kids.
Excellent point.
We now know that the post WW2 period and the twenty five years that followed were an aberration—prosperity based on one income and strong family values by women.
The combination of gigantic multinational corporations (who loved cheap labor) and the “progressives” social policy that dominated the mass media, education, non-profits were a toxic mix.
If you haven’t heard of the Quiverfull movement, it is an international organization of conservative Christian couples.
The movement sees children as a blessing from God and it encourages procreation, abstaining from all forms of birth control (including natural family planning) and sterilization.
They emphasize:
Homeschooling
Strong moral leadership from parents
A rejection of anti-Christian culture in movies, music, books and electronics
Modest clothing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull
Importantly, as with Orthodox Jews in Israel, their numbers are increasing far more than are those of the secular people they live near, whose numbers are in decline.
The reason I mention them is that small towns of such conservatives can work wonders in rebuilding America. And in that there are many existing towns that have been abandoned, and would sell for low prices, wealthy conservatives should take to subsidizing such towns to get them up and started.
So when issues like “women in the workplace”, and all the related problems come up, think of Quiverfull and organizations like them, and how by changing their priorities, they are taking an active hand in changing the future to a better one.
While I understand the sentiment for wives staying home, I also understand that wives no longer darn socks or iron ever article of washed clothing.
Too much time at home alone is boring
To contrast him saying that black unemployment is at historic lows. They didn’t stand up and cheer for that, neither did the Black Caucus.
He forgot to add “with more children in day care or arriving from school to an empty home.”
I’d be happier if the Women-In-White were somewhat normal instead of America-hating, cajones-busting, baby-killing leftist harpies.
Bingo.
The keyword is TAXES. That is the central reason why women HAVE to work.
We know one thing with certainty. The democrat women are not the Vestal virgins they were emulating
I always worked. because I had to. We weren’t extravagant but just couldn’t make it on one income.....and eat.
It sure did expose the hypocrisy of the left.
Considering Trump is the master strategist, I don’t doubt he did it on purpose.
It was also the end of cheap oil with the rise of OPEC.
Old, energy inefficient US manufacturing plants couldn't compete with new plants. Look at what happened to US steel during the 'energy crisis'.
A major change in recent decades has been the escalating cost of housing .
In many parts of the country, families can’t afford a typical house , can’t get a mortgage, based on just one middle class income.
In many areas, the dad would have to have an executive job of some sort, to be able to afford a house and get a mortgage based on his income alone.
The cost of housing in many areas of the country, has increased far beyond the rate of inflation and income growth innrecent decades. This has undoubtedly caused many young families to look at their finances, and conclude that mom should work so they can afford a house.
I actually prefer them married to men, barefoot, pregnant...and in the kitchen....but thats just me.
For most women, it is not a matter of choice but of necessity. In many cases, you need two incomes to keep afloat. And single parent families are becoming the norm, especially among blacks and Hispanics. The overall out of wedlock birthrate for the country is 40%—whites are 29 percent; Hispanics, 53 percent; and blacks, 71 percent.
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