(no subject)

[ursula]

A link from greythistle on feminism, housework, and choices that aren't makes me wonder about the liberal arts & ambition-- there's no particular reason why an English or sociology degree should doom you to life as a secretary, but so many of my non-math friends seem to feel stuck between temping and grad school . . .

Comments

[nobu.livejournal.com]

poker!

[(Anonymous)]

Investment banking?

[ursula]

(That was me!)

[ultranurd.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. Especially in light of my own parents, both of whom had business degrees. When I was little, my mom considered completing her seminary education and becoming a missionary. My dad, then staying at home, encouraged her to stick to business. Now he's the schoolteacher (and did a fair amount of the child-rearing), and she's the executive.

[reasie.livejournal.com]

What a chilling article. There goes my revolution! We must act!

We must make more men like mine.

Seriously. If my father wasn't dedicated to the idea of his daughters becoming economic sucesses - he stressed so often to me the importance of making money that I cannot conceive of being a stay-at-home mom. To me that would be 'unemployed', hence, unacceptable.

And then there's Brian. I know for a fact the percentage of time I spend on housework has gone down since marriage, not up. Brian doesn't see it as automatically my job. He doesn't begrudge me my natural slovenliness. I mean, isn't that amazing? I asked him if he would quit his job or go part-time if we had a kid, and he said 'yes'. So I wouldn't have to. I like being the breadwinner.

But I think another important piece is the talk of unrealistic, idealistic goals. Women are told that they can always opt out. Think of that. Of course work is stressful, it's not fun, the idea of spending all your time with kids is tempting - retirement while young, almost. Fun and family fulfillment. Whereas most men, like me, would see such 'unemployment' as a lack of power and social presence, becoming secondary and dependant.

We should honor care-givers more. We should spend more on child care and education. We should laud educators and caregivers with prestige and higher saleries. Then more men would do it. Er... I mean...

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

I think that, as with lots of other things, it depends on why one chooses the liberal arts degree and what one expects pursuant to it.

For that matter, contrast my old acquaintance the math major who pulled decent grades from the same good research institution I attended as an undergrad, then worked a few years looking up numbers for actuaries because he couldn't think of something more interesting / ambitious he wanted to do. Dunno what he does now.

[ursula]

Yeah, it's less that I think math is special and more that my math acquaintance consists largely of other grad students, so the default stop-going-to-school option is teaching community college somewhere.

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

Eep. I wasn't poking at your choice of major in particular; he was just the first contraindication who came to mind.

But really, there's a ton of newly fledged lawyers who panic upon realizing (for the first time, oddly) that they can't necessarily find jobs to offset their $90k of debt--and so on.

[ursula]

Yeah, I TAed for a math Ph.D.-turned high-powered consultant-turned lecturer after very early retirement who said that he saved up firing lawyers as a special treat for bad days . . .

Just wandered through your comments. Your set seems angrier than my set, maybe because I expect alsoelsewhere to call me bourgeois, or maybe because my flist doesn't include as many parents. For me, questions of children are extremely hypothetical, so the issues are more housework (I tend to concur that tolerance for messiness is a feminist virtue, but my own mental tolerance appears to be more than my health can take, and we haven't quite sorted that one yet) and choice (in the sense that we want to think of ourselves as agents rather than victims, and haven't found a good way to talk about situations where both descriptions hold).

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

<nod> Much seems to depend on personal engagement--whether an individual feels they've already made some choices relevant to what Hirshman discusses or whether the individual is (simply?) reliant upon others' anecdotes. Relative age, or something, in terms of likelihood of having had to confront certain issues. Now I'm making up some sort of maturity paradigm that I don't like or particularly agree with, but in broad strokes I think the "depends whether" bit isn't wrong.

[dymaxion.livejournal.com]

Thanks for linking that -- it was an interesting read, and presented the playing field very nicely.

As for the major question, while I agree with you that in an ideal world, a liberal arts degree shouldn't put you in that position, in the real world, statistically speaking, of course it will. All of the professions (and I include the sciences here) have their own training courses, their majors. If you spend four years training for one of those, you have a huge advantage over anyone who doesn't. What's left over are the service jobs -- comparitively speaking, no specific and detailed body of knowledge, but an array of general skills and soft skills. There are some jobs which directly apply knowledge in the field, but they pay is commensurate to their relative capatalistic importance as fields.

I would love to see a world where I thought this would change, but it will never happen. I think a best case solution would be for schools to start requiring a stronger liberal arts core for all degrees, which would definitely help all their graduates, but also perhaps make what are, to be blunt, dead end majors less tempting. That plus aggressive pre-college advising that lets women know what the value and the consequences of their choices are might start to make a difference. I understand the complaints of not wanting to go into the higher paying fields because the work environment isn't as enjoyable, but as more women enter those fields, the environment will change, eventually -- no other mechanism will ever accomplish this.

[ursula]

I don't think it's fair to include the sciences and omit law, government, journalism, and the rest of academia from the professions, though admittedly what I'm wondering about are *not* the professions, but jobs like management and marketing and so forth which do depend on those soft skills, but provide a path where you end up equal to (or managing) the engineers. I also wonder who ought to do the advising: liberal arts schools seem to be slightly better than other universities at explaining to their graduates what one can do with a liberal arts degree besides temp or go to grad school, but it seems silly to expect professors to be experts at finding non-academic jobs, and college career centers seem very dependent on peer counselors, who presumably aren't expert either.

[flammifera.livejournal.com]

But jobs like management and marketing frequently also want more specialized degrees than 'classics', business for the former and...well, I'm not sure what sort of degrees marketing jobs tend to require, but I at least have the conception that it would take more specialized training than I have. Then again, maybe I should see if I can apply to the cool advertising firm a couple floors above my law firm...

[ursula]

You can't get into good business schools without business experience, and they do find applicants somewhere! You might want a bunch of internships or the like before applying to a particular sort of position, but that's what the research stage of the job app process is for :)

[aryky.livejournal.com]

I assume he's not typical, but the sales professional in my department, who does quite a good job too, not only has a BA in classics, but also has a PhD! I'm not actually sure what our marketing director majored in, though.

And the only bank president I know has a PhD in philosophy. So I guess there are at least some unconventional job paths out there.

Re: horrible!

[ursula]

But why is it worse to be a drone who grubs for money than to be a drone who grubs without money?

Re: horrible!

[ursula]

. . . à la Eva?

I am wondering if going along saying that one day one is going to do something non-droneful, be it art or saving the world, one day, when exactly what that thing ought to be is clear, and in the meantime one is going to get the first job that presents itself without really thinking about it (because thinking about jobs is boring and saving the world is interesting) is more dangerous than just admitting that you *aren't* going to save the world right now and getting a job that you *do* think about and *can* think about without intense boredom. Knowing how to find a real job is not really all that different from knowing how to be an artist without starving.

But then I see the problem in terms of inertia rather than despair.

Re: horrible!

[ursula]

The Dickinson novel.

Where doesn't art come in? Especially if you're not interested in money or saving the world?

Re: horrible!

[reasie.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of women /think/ that there is fullfillment and happiness in the home - but studies have been done that show childrearing does not increase feelings of fulfillment or happiness. (I swear. I was just reading one a couple weeks ago.) It is NO escape. It is a nightmare of reality as you face not just your own reduced earning potential and reduced regard by the populace in general, you must now concern yourself with the rapidly decreasing oportunities your offspring will face. And the work is HARD. It is mentally exhausting to raise children. And it is physically exhausting to keep a home. I have done this. As a paid caregiver, yes, but I have spent 40 hours a week watching children and it was the hardest job I have ever had. Ever. And I worked in a junk yard and I picked produce and I worked food service and a help desk and I rang a cash register on the day after Thanksgiving. All of these were like taking a nap compared to caring for children even part-time.

Yet our culture views this as 'not work' - it views homemaking as UNEMPLOYMENT. UNIMPORTANT.

That's the rub. I see a generation of women holding the 'mommy track' in their mind as a last-resort, a safe-out, or even a viable, equal alternative. It is none of these things. It is a gruelling drudgery with social isolation and depression as its wages.

We need to give more credit to our care-givers. We need a society that honors those that care for children and educate them. We definately don't have that. That's one thing. When keeping a home becomes a truly rewarding career, I guarentee we'll see more men doing it.

When I hear a male undergrad say "Gee... a career AND a family? I don't know how I'll work it" we will be approaching economic equality. That's what this is about - about valuing a woman's work as much as a man's. How is this in any way a bad idea? Should we not judge people by their ability rather than their gender, age, color, brand-name cola product choice, or what have you?

We are raising generations of women idealists, who are given no real explanation of the importance of making it in the world - I know many women my age who operate under the assumption that they will marry their fortunes. How insulting to men! I demand male equality! I demand we treat men with respect and allow these poor, unemancipated males to do our laundry and cook our dinners! And I say this only partially in jest. I believe women should be drafted, too. It would certainly make people think more carefully about allowing drafts.

But I digress. I thank my stars I had a father to raise me. I want the young men growing up now to know they have that option. I want the young women growing up now to know they have the option of becoming the next millionare, the next cure-discovering researcher, the next president.

But telling a little girl she has a choice, and telling her the real limitations those choices create, are different things.

Re: horrible!

[ursula]

I worry also that requiring one's children to provide one's primary intellectual stimulus is unfair (and means they are dragged to every major museum & movement classes, and can't play in the mud).

Re: horrible!

[cija.livejournal.com]

Is the boss at work so much better than the boss at home?

God, yes. Because he can't follow you home, and you don't see him on weekends, and you don't have to love him or even like him. If your boss lives with you, you never ever get to leave. Imagine living at work and never, ever getting to go home, because work is home: you have no home to go to.

Being a mother is worthy; being a housekeeper is worthy; I'd never argue that they're not occupations deserving of compensation. But in actual practice, the only person who will compensate a woman for doing those jobs is her husband, and, well - sleeping with the boss is frowned upon for good reason. If the employer-employee relationship is as nasty and deadening as you suggest, why would you want to make it the paradigm for your marriage?

[aelfgyfu.livejournal.com]

rock climbing, baby...