In article ,
 "Heidi Graw"  wrote:

> > wrote in message
> >news:1106675713.123336.302630{at}c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> (snip)
>
> >>Heidi asks:
> >> Where are you going to get all the men needed to do all the work?
> >
> > Hello Heidi,
> >
> > We could get them, in time, out of the prisons that working class men
> > have been dumped into and forgotten
>
> http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040206.html
> "According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College
> London, the U.S. currently has the largest documented prison population in
> the world, both in absolute and proportional terms. We've got roughly 2.03
> million people behind bars, or 701 per 100,000 population."
>
> http://www.drugwarfacts.org/women.htm
> "At yearend 2002 there were 97,491 women and 1,343,164 men in State or
> Federal prisons."
>
> So...if you were to release *all* male prisoners, you'd only get about 1.3
> million extra men for the defunct women's labour pool of 65 million.

Granted, I should have specified that I wasn't proposing replacing
ALL women with ex-convicts (that might make the
work environments more rough than even _I_ can handle :-)

> >while society poo-pooed over
> > the interests and needs of upper-middle class career women.
> >
> > Also, as I said, a lot of this work would be redundant as consumerism
> > fell off.
>
> Consumerism would drop off only because there aren't enough people around to
> manufacture, produce, pick, distribute and sell stuff.  The whole economy
> would collapse!

Before we continue, I should put the debate into perspective.

There are two scenarios to consider: The often proposed
thought experiment I've chosen to undertake whereby ALL women
leave the workplace and become full-time housewives FOR LIFE.
As you and I both know, so-called Patriarchal western society
going back for eons rarely had equality for women but didn't
exclude women from the workplace either.  This probably even
applies to most other cultures as well.

What I think would be more realistic to consider and food-for-thought
would be the consequence of all professional and highly educated
women leaving the workplace and whether men, in the immediate
or reasonable short term, could fill those employment slots
AS COMPARED to the continual grind and friction of the politics
to keep women's equal employment opportunities in place.

Ok, all that said, I'm up to the challenge because if I can
make a reasonably decent case for the more drastic scenario,
the other one slides into place rather easily.

Back to your point:

Some services would be more essential than others.  For example,
if the pizza delivery guys all went on strike, would that mean
the end of the pizza PRODUCTION business?  Or would it mean
a reduction somewhat in business but continue on at close
to full capacity as customers picked up their pies on their
own until the workers could be replaced?  Or maybe people
could just learn to live without pizza and maybe eat
somewhere else that's open.

I often think about how most of the workers in society, while
doing valuable and appreciated work, are often paid quite
highly for work that's useful but non-essential while
essential workers, such as farmers and road maintenance crews,
are paid little.

So even without looking at this topic in detail, I can honestly
say that you're being melodramatic.  Comfortable life would go on
but the question is how differently.  More in a bit:

> > I was educated as to the dynamics of the service workforce by a
> > manager of an oil tanker.  He needs, to run the ship, about 40
> > engineers,
> > sailors, etc.  But then, he asked me, who feeds these guys?  OK, so
> > now they need 3 cooks.  OK then, he asked again, what about the doctor?
> > With so many men, they'll need security.  I forget, of course, all
> > the jobs that needed to be done for employee support but it was quite
> > a bit.
>
> Yes, you're basically saying that for one man to do one job, he needs an
> army of women to help him out.  ;-)

There aren't a lot of women on these ships.

I don't think it's due to discrimination (the wives often come
along) and there are women, but for some reason the work
isn't popular with women.

Saavy travelers know that it's possible to book a small cabin
or even do work and enjoy a nice sea voyage on the cheap.

> >Mark wrote:
> > Note that I'm merely engaging in an intellectual discussion
>
> ...and you're not very good at it, Mark.  Sorry old boy... ;-)

I think, how shall I put it, I'll _survive_ that little jab. :-)

> >>Heidi wrote:
> >> Granted, some jobs may not be needed if all women were to stay at
> > >home. However, even if social services (including health) were
> > >dismantled,
> > >you would only lose 453,000 jobs...that's a pittance!
>
> >Mark wrote:
> > U.S.A. or Canada?
>
> For the USA.  Imagine that...so few people involved in paid social and
> health services across your nation.  Do you realize the US population relies
> heavily on *volunteer* labour to augment those social services?  66% of the
> US population is engaged in some sort of "volunteer" work
according to the
> Enc. Brit Yrkbk 2004.

You shoot down your own statistic when you put the word "volunteer"
in quotes implying that these workers are paid somehow or the
statistic is suspect in other ways.

> > That's at the top Federal level but these programs then have
> > state and local divisions.
>
> No...those 453,000 jobs are *nationwide*.  The next time you see someone
> doing social service work you might ask them if they are volunteers or not.
> You're getting a heck of a lot of social work done for *free.*

Indeed.  Thanks for pointing out another source of labor for
the paid labor pool to help replace all those women workers. :-)

>Heidi wrote:"
> >> Where the heck are you
> >> going to get the other 64.5 million *men?*
>
> > Mark wrote:
> > As I said, a fraction of those 64.5 million women need daycare and
> > that's FAR more than 500K.  That's another chunk.  Then there's the
> > fast food jobs that won't be manned because the women are cooking
> > at home.  Then there's the jobs in the transportation industry that
> > would lost because the women wouldn't be driving as much.
> >
> > You get the idea.
>
> Ok...let's say, for argument's sake,  if women stayed home, 30 million
> full-time *real* work positions become available.  You've got a potential
> labour pool of 1.3 million men in prison.  You may be able to skim 200,000
> jobs from social service and health.  As for the unemployed men:
>
> http://www.thinkandask.com/news/jobs.html
> "The "official" unemployment rate in the United States
is 5.5 percent (July
> 2004), a contradiction to the actual number of unemployed men and women in
> the United States which stands at 16,265,736."
>
> So, let's, for the sake of argument, claim that 8 million men are
> unemployed.  This gives you a possible number of 9.5 million extra bodies to
> fill up the 30 million jobs (down from 65 million).

You fail to see my point:

WHAT jobs?

You haven't shown that all of these jobs are really all that important
(and this is why recessions can often be so devestating, it thins
out the labor market of services people can do without but
then rehires them later when things improve.)

Will people live without pizza delivery?  Heck, I've thought
of another set of jobs I'd love to see you google:
All the retail positions for fru-fru stores that cater to
middle class women.  Can women live without shopping malls
and (gasp!) shop at wal mart for a while?  The mind boggles!

As I said, a lot of these jobs were created by a consumerist culture.
I hate to sound like a luddite, but think about how much better
people's lives would be if they didn't spend it on so much
SHIT.  I remember a friend of mine saying half seriously they
blew money just to keep the economy going.

> Even at an estimated reduced rate of consumption, manufacturing,
> distribution and selling, you would still be missing 20 million people to do
> the remaining work.

Impressive number.  Unfortunately, you haven't quantified
WHAT "remaining work" you're talking about.

> (snip)
>
> >> The US would collapse if women were to remain at home.  I realize you
> >>don't care, but millions of other people *do.*
>
> >Mark wrote:
> > Oh pulease.  If done gradually (not over 30 years, but even so much
> > as 5 years) people might barely notice. But I'll go out on a limb and
> > say that all the factors I present above show that while initially
> > traumatic, it
> > would be VERY survivable.
>
> ....ya just like survivability exists in third world nations!
>
> Oh well, Mark...The USA is not my country.  If you really would prefer women
> remain at home, why not join the Taliban?  Move to the outskirts of Kabul...
> ;-)

So would closing down Nordstroms, losing some pizza delivery businesses,
etc. really make the US similar to a third world country?

Speaking of primitive existances: Since feminism caught on in the
states, the cities of the US have become office wastelands as middle
class double-income families fled to the suburbs and single mother
households provided plenty of footage for "COPS".

You can compare right wing men to the Taliban, but a majority of
people including educated leftists prefer to live in such
neighborhoods where it's safe to walk the streets (ok, drive
the streets :-)

When I was in Eastern Europe, I was fascinated how the labor and
service market was so much more diverse in the states.  This
is because they lacked a lot of labor saving devices and provided
services people in the states wouldn't think twice about doing
without.  So your argument about the US becoming a third world
country is especially amusing to me.

> (snip)
>
> >Mark wrote:
> > Heidi, I'm willing to acknowledge I throw a lot out there and some
> > of it is not exactly supported by scientific documentation, but
> > I know how the REAL lives of people are being affected by all of this.
>
> I know, Mark.  But one thing you really need to be careful about (and I
> would suggest it to *all* advocacy groups), your perception tends to become
> coloured when one focuses too much on a particular issue or cause.

Pot, meet kettle. :-)

If I'm wrong on this issue and everything turns out peachy, I'm
quite happy, honestly, to be proven wrong.

>  It is
> hard to keep things in perspective and within the larger context.

Yeah, throw out a few very general, and very poorly based numbers
(number of "social workers") and conclude you know precisely
how the labor market of the US works (something economists
spend hours debating on TV)

> Don't make the same mistake that some "violence support"
groups get trapped
> into:  thinking *all* men are abusive.  Or, "AA"...*everyone* is a
> drunk....or, LDA...*everyone* is learning disabled, or,
"F4J"...*all* men
> are screwed!   I've been there, done that...and instead of allowing myself
> to get too carried away with a cause of my own interest...I just hafta step
> back every once in awhile and reassess the situation.

Yet, women's equality has relied all upon representing ANY problem
a woman has as requiring federal intervention.

Without such tactics, nobody would have taken it very seriously
since men, on a daily basis, see that women (ok, 99% of women)
can't handle similar responsibilities men accept daily.

When you talked about 1% of breadwinning wives as pioneers, I laughed
because I went out on dates with successful career women and
only SUGGESTED such women pay their own way on a date and the
women practically had a heart attack (Ok, I suspect that was
due to the American food :-)

Seriously, men are well aware that women's equality is an artificial
construct and tolerate it only due to social conditioning that
women are entitled to such as a civil right and NOT because
it's for the economic best interest.

Women's equality, Heidi, is similar to giving money to
Tsunami victims.  It's social charity.  I challenge you
to show otherwise.

> How bad is it *really*...how does it fit with the rest of the population?
> Yes, for the *individual* experiencing difficulty it can be traumatic...and
> on an individual level, people can get that help.  But, to what extent does
> that *individual's* problem fit in with the rest of the population?
>
> I liken it to a view finder:  zoom in and zoom out.  Get the details, look
> at the larger picture.  And without being dismissive, ask "How
bad is it?"
> Are we making a mountain out of a mole hill?  The media tends to exaggerate,
> too.  An awful lot of people also *overstate* assorted situations.

You mean the claim that society will collapse if a certain half
of the population (which works more part-time than the other
half) leaves jobs that are mostly optional and non-critical service
industries and stops spending money on luxuries?

Yeah, I seem to have been talking to such a person recently.

I try to not take politics too seriously.  It's fun to see if
our personal beliefs and guesses about the world around us
are being validated or not.  Sometimes, I'm shocked to see
I might be wrong and the next day I'm validated again.
How easily I can see things to the contrary is a measurement of
my intellectual honesty.

> Oh well...another lengthy post!  ;-)  It's been a delightful discussion,
> Mark!
>
> Thanks!
>
> Heidi

You're welcome.  Same here.

Mark Sobolewski


--- UseNet To RIME Gateway {at} 1/27/05 9:50:26 AM ---