Heidi Graw wrote:
> >"Mark Sobolewski" 
wrote in message
> >news:mark_sobolewski-191B26.19123721012005{at}news.central.cox.net...
> (snip)

Hello Heidi,

> Yes, so we have right-wing feminists squaring off with left-wing
feminists.
> Much depends also what one defines the left and right wings to be.
From
> what I'm seeing they seem to be jumping back and forth.  For example
if a
> right winger disagrees with another right winger they accuse him/her
of
> being left wing.  O.k...The labels don't seem to mean anything
anymore.

In order to keep the post consistent, I'll disagree with you on this.

I think that people play games with the labels, but that would imply
the labels do have meaning precisely because of how people want to be
perceived in relation to them.

There's a cute "Simpson's" analysis of political labels.  Going from
ultra liberal to ultra conservative:

Grandma Simpson
Lisa Simpson
Marge Simpson
Homer Simpson
Bart Simpson
Mr. Burns
Sideshow Bob

> Anyway, just going by what I've been observing:  the right wingers
tend to
> be those home, hearth and motherhood feminists.  The left wingers
those
> equal opportunities do as you will, but harm it none types. Both
demand
> some sort of tax-breaks and/or government support, ie. right wingers
want
> tax-breaks simply for being a family.  Left wingers wants government
support
> for those who find themselves in a bind financially.  Both sides
demand
> *men* support them financially.

Right wingers want tax breaks for their SAH spouses (to be the same
as the working spouse) and for school credits (If they don't
send their children to the public school, why should they pay for it?)

> >Mark wrote:
> > Men have a "choice" to be a househusband as well, but the
likelihood
> > of such women being available to support that choice is about
> > 770 times more or about a grand 1% or so.
>
> There's more to it that just that one thing.  Multiple barriers exist
to a
> man being able to choose househusbandry:
>
> 1. lack of women prepared to support such a man.
> 2. negative view from other men:  he must be a wuss..a lazy no good
for
> nothing...
> 3. men's view of themselves...he views himself as that provider.
>
> There are probably more barriers, but those are what come immediately
to my
> mind.

*yack yack*  Heidi!!!  Are you trying to make me spit up my McD's
coffee?

This reminds me of reasons people give for not going to the gym
regularly.
They usually have many but the bottom line is they don't like
exercise. :-)  By the same token, the real reason most women
don't have househusbands is they prefer breadwinners.  That's it.

> > Mark wrote:
> > The question is how many "feminists" want traditional men versus
> > the househusbands.
>
> Have any polls been done?

See above.  Most of these women would come up with wuss excuses such
as "all the doctors I date aren't interested in being a SAH father"
or "all the men who take me out to expensive restaurants can't
imagine giving up their 100K job!"  Get the point?

Note: I'm not just pulling these out of thin air.  I've actually
heard women saying such things as if they're fooling anyone.
Pulease.  And Donald Trump's combover is fooling everyone too. :-)

> I don't mean surveys of what *is* happening now,
> but rather about a future vision that would make it possible for men
to be
> equally accepted as househusbands as women are as housewives.

I appreciate your point, but it is possible to predict future trends
based upon what people who have the opportunity to appreciate them
now are doing.  Oh, I'm glad we're continuing this thread.  I wanted
to bring something else up:

Harping on the high percentage of retirees and homeschooling dads
didn't seem important at first because the number was so low anyway
(<1%) so why quibble?  But there was a reason in the back of my
mind that this distinction was important.  When we talk of
househusbands
and housewives, we apply two entirely different standards:
The housewives can be simply "house wives".  If they look after
the home and provide the man with sex and a romantic partner, they've
done their job.  In many cases, it's acceptable if a wealthy man
has the wife merely ordering around servants.

For the househusband, he's working for a living or not being supported
at all in the case of men who use their savings or retirement to
stay at home for a while.  Men who are homeschoolers are more
of a function of the trend towards homeschooling than a trend
indicative of women accepting househusbands.  See my point?

I'm not saying there aren't women who have similar expectations
and demands as men who have househusbands but they are probably
not much more common today than they were 30 years ago after
we roll the numbers.  That's a guess, of course, and I'm prepared
and challenged to be proven wrong.

This is important because we should ask whether women will EVER
really accept men in such a role as I've presented it.  All
factors, as the 8 ball would say, would appear to indicate no.

> >Which system made more "feminists" happy?
>
> There seem to be mixed results.

When we talk of women, that could probably be said of about
anything. :-)

Seriously though: I think the case can be made that women
are the queens of complaining and griping and I've observed
that the ones with the least to gripe about generally have the
most time and skills to make a big deal out of nothing.
(There was an American TV show called Queen for a Day that
parodied this phenominon.  The housewives who made the biggest
deal out of nothing won a washer and dryer or other home
appliance :-)

In that context, it's likely that women are worse off today
overall.  A majority of poor women, in the states at least,
are worse off.  This is a shocking statistic I got from work:
40% of 9 y/o children in the states perform below the minimum
standard of literacy and math.  Successful career women
often have a hard time marrying to begin with because men
can't meet up to their demands.  In the middle, there's
most women who wind up as taxpayer wage slaves who
bust their ass along with their husband (if they're lucky)
and have to do a lot of the traditional wifey stuff along
with it.

I think the feminists sold this bill of goods to heterosexual
women that they would have the "choice" to marry the
SAH dads but it would be some other "lucky" woman who
would do so while they could "sacrifice" and marry the
remaining rich guys.  :-)  Unfortunately, 99% of women
wanted to make the sacrifice to marry the traditional
breadwinner.

> I see those current 1% of househusbands akin to what Neil Armstrong
declared
> at the lunar landing:  "One small step for man, but a giant leap for
> mankind."  ;-)

That's a VERY interesting analogy for a number of reasons!!!

Let's start with the most relevent reason: Let's say vacation trips
to the moon were available but exceptionally expensive.  Would
you, personally, choose such a package in leau of a trip around
the world?  See my point?  When it sounds exotic lots of people
IMAGINE they might want to go for it but when it's down to earth
(pardon the pun) but requires considerable sacrifice it's similar
to them going to the gym every day.  They won't be interested.

Getting a househusband isn't the same as blowing billions of
T-bills to build a Saturn V rocket.  Most women today who
want one, can have one.  But they not only choose not to,
they find the idea repulsive whether they admit it or not.
Someday, I'll be able to afford all the broccoli I want to have
too.  But don't get your hopes up that I'll eat it. :-)

Anyway, I smiled at your analogy because I remembered the old
joke: "If we can send a man to the moon, why not all of them?"

> Over the past 30 years we saw progress from .02% to 1%.

You're playing the two-point statistical game again.  So what?
All we know about these two points is that there's been a 1%
growth in 30 years.  That's it.  Period.  In order to determine
if this figure is really a harbinger of some huge growth
spurt on the horizon, we'd have to look at the demographics
of these couples to see if women were gaining an appetite for such men.

We're not.

We're seeing retiree men who really aren't househusbands to begin with.
Or homeschoolers who are more related to educators than housekeepers.
I don't hear much about real househusbands but rather men who
aren't pulling in a W-2 for some special reason.

> These are all baby
> steps...and given time, perhaps for future generations of men, they
will
> indeed find househusbandry a viable and legit option that women will
view
> equally right for themselves as for men.

Perhaps.  But CERTAINLY, TODAY we see that successful women (the other
99%)
DEMAND successful men and are usually willing to bury their ovum in
the ground before seeing it raised by a househusband, period.
Even _if_ the guy does offer free high-quality homeschooling.

I'm an optimistic person (believe it or not) and even if I was willing
to try to see a way that all of this could be "jump started" in the
future, I would be challenged based upon all the other demographics
against it.

> Is it a pipe dream?  Maybe...

No.  PROBABLY.

> I realize there are a lot of naysayers, but if the discussions
continue and
> these few househusbands continue to make themselves known and heard,
women
> may change their perceptions about men and men will change their
perceptions
> about themselves.  One can only hope...

No.  "One" need not only hope, but rather take action or challenge
their social conditioning based upon what they see around them
and what's best for them.

I can understand Andre being a bit ticked off when he hears that
men should "hope" that things change in favor of men while
anything women want should be NOW and preferably with billions
of dollars of federal funds behind it.

You're choosing to balance the "hope" of %1 men and women maybe
jump-starting a househusband movement AGAINST the DESIRES,
DEMANDS, and EXPERIENCE of 99% of men and women.

I would hate to be on the 1% side of that tug-of-war.

In closing, I ask you (for your sake, as well as my general
curiosity) why you "hope" and are on that other 1%.  What
meaning is it in there for you?  What COSTS are you willing
to accept?  Should 99% of people be miserable for 1500 years?
Should millions of families wind up fatherless in the meantime
as an acceptable cost?  Why?  WHY is this so important to you?

I had to ask myself that question and then acknowledge, hey,
women want that free meal and breadwinner so I'll give it to
them already.  Then I started looking for what I could get
out of it.  That required me to chuck all this equality
stuff over the bridge into a river.  Even if there was a hope,
it didn't seem worth it to me.  Why is it worth it to you?
regards,
Mark Sobolewski



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