Childcare is bloody expensive!

paye

Have you thought of quitting your job and start a school drop off and pick up service. You can probably look after 4 kids plus two of your own. On each child you could earn approx £15-£20 per child.

ViolaLass

fred246 wrote: »

My wife always wanted to be at home with the kids though and loved spending time with them talking about every subject under the sun. For me that was key.

Isn't it just?

Presumably the other wife didn't want to stay home, just like you and the other husband.

Tabbytabitha

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Correlation is not causality. Surely nursing is dominated by women because it was traditionally seen as an acceptable line of work for women, and was not open to men! One might wonder too how many nurses wanted to be doctors before that line of study was open to them.

Admin and secretarial work also used to be seen as 'female' jobs - the early lady typists were called 'typewriters' and it was felt that the work was better suited to women than to men!

You didn't see those recent programmes on the BBC "No more boys and girls"? From a very early age we treat boys and girls differently - put a toddler in a dress and carers will offer 'girl' toys; put a toddler in dungarees in primary colours and carers will offer 'boy' toys. But actually they're not developmentally different - apart from whether they can wee in your face when you change their nappy!

It was a very interesting watch.

Comms69 wrote: »

I’m sorry that was your experience, I would hope it is different now- it had been 30 years.

Comms69 wrote: »

Sure: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.PRM.TCHR.FE.ZS?start=1975

The graph is for primary education, which several of us have already said is female dominated.

Comms69

And I’m talking about early years parenthood.

But to spin this, so men are discriminated against in primary education? Or do they choose not to go into those careers?

Comms69

tooldle wrote: »

Ah, done it. I don’t think things have changed at alł over the past thirty years. I have worked in male dominated workplace for my whole career. I have seen women asked about their plans to have kids, and have known these matters to influence the outcomes of interviews. People are just cleverer at hiding things these days.
I could give you a long lists of the happenings that i have either witnessed or experienced.

And I would support you, I agree that’s wrong. If those kinds of things are happening I would stand right beside you in condemning it

Comms69

VJsmum wrote: »

Until the industrial revolution, men and women worked in or around the home, together. The introduction of work away from the home, necessarily meant that 'men's work' took them away from the home as the women (due to lack of contraception) were pretty well forced to stay at home with the kids. This is not true everywhere - cotton mills of Lancashire for example were staffed largely by women.

Women were not allowed to study medicine, law etc (the ancient professions) as men coerced to prevent them. Read up on Elizabeth garret Anderson, and what happened after she became registered as a doctor. Fascinating stuff. Nursing was seen as a gentile occupation and one suitable for women - and a route that allowed them to practice medical stuff without imposing on the brotherhood of being a doctor. Occupations / professions such as architecture and surveying, for example, similarly conspired to keep women out.

Women are supposedly the weaker sex, yet are expected to carry children and shopping, and nurses were expected to lift heavy patients. There are bigger, stronger women and smaller weaker men.

Not all women choose to have children, not all women who do choose are able and not all women who choose and are able want to be the primary caregiver and yet many (usually male) employers assume that all young women will have children and so they resist employing them...

Hegemony is still alive and well, I am afraid.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemonic_masculinity (And I know Wikipedia isn't exactly an academic source, but it's a good starting point.

I agree that if employers are choosing not to employ young women, for fear of them having children, we should all unite to boycott and take a stand that it is not acceptable.


That said, discussing working conditions 200 years ago is not useful. It is quite simply not the case of today.

Comms69

ViolaLass wrote: »

Yes, it's a bad thing. We want the best people for each job. To find them, we need to be able to consider 100% of the population.

Also, think about fairness. Why should a women have to push harder to get into computing than a man does? Why should a man have to push harder to become a nursery worker than a woman does? Why would you WANT to keep the status quo?

Well no, we don't need to consider 100% of the population, that would be totally counter productive. The vast majority of people are not suitable to every role.


I would argue we want the best people for the role, regardless of gender.


I don't want to keep the status quo, I don't care how many men or women work in a particular field. I want competition to exist so that the surgeon who's carrying out my operation is the best qualified and has earned their position through hard work and dedication.

Comms69

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I believe lumberjacking was quite well paid. :-)

Then why weren't more women going for it?

onlyroz

ViolaLass wrote: »

Your assertion that choice is not affected by societal pressure is rather naive. To take one example, computing is often presented in society as being a 'boy's' thing (nerds etc tend to be male). Women are sent the message that this isn't for them and if they really want to pursue it, they will know that they are going against the norm. Sure, they can choose to but there are easier choices to make, particularly if you aren't conscious of the pressure. The same for boys who might want to become nursery workers, for example.

Computing is an interesting example. Back in the early days it was female dominated because programming was considered to be a clerical job, despite being highly technical. And a lot of the women who worked with computers during WWII were never credited because of the secret nature of their work.


https://www.invisionapp.com/blog/history-of-women-computing/

onlyroz

Comms69 wrote: »

But to spin this, so men are discriminated against in primary education? Or do they choose not to go into those careers?

The few men who go into primary teaching usually find themselves with a headteachership after a few years. Funny that...