(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!

[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.

[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.

[aelfgyfu.livejournal.com]

rock climbing, baby...