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The great discovery: It's a human issue, not a woman's issue
by Joan Chittister on Oct. 27, 2009
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Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionEvery science student in the country knows that for every action we can expect an equal and opposite reaction. Which translated means that whatever we try to do, someone else will try to stop it. So here's the question: Given the kind of explanatory data that is coming out of "The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation" on the social condition and challenges facing women at this moment in history, what can we expect now?
Not since John F. Kennedy appointed Eleanor Roosevelt in 1961 to head his President's Commission on the Status of Women have we ever had a complete review of the circumstances defining the lives of women in the United States. Now we do. And who, besides women, would have believed what the current research shows.
There are several figures that underlie all the rest: Half the United States workforce at this point in time are women. Over 40 percent of those are the primary breadwinners of their families. Another 23 percent are co-breadwinners of the family, meaning that the family can't get along without their income.
For those who live on another planet, those figures point to two radical social changes that are now the fabric of this country. First, "the little woman" is not working anymore for pocket money. She's working to survive. And second, for the sake of the country as well as for its women, other social institutions are going to have to adjust to this new reality.
It isn't just that change is coming. It is that change is here. And now it's time for other things to change, as well.
For instance, as men moved off the farms and into the cities in the 1920s and '30s, industries adjusted. First, they discovered that labor unions were here to stay. Then, they began to provide things like parking lots and vacations and credit unions, and medical insurance and typing pools, and escalators and elevators and secretaries and telephones and coffee breaks. Whatever men needed to make the work possible, men got.
Now women, the sole bread winners of their families need day care services for their small children on site. Some businesses already provide them. Most do not. That's a woman's issue, they say repeatedly. It's not a corporate responsibility, they argue.
But neither do most of them now allow for flex time. Corporations apparently still assume that the basic and standard commonplace of breadwinners is a partner at home whose whole life is spent caring for the children and maintaining the house the breadwinner leaves behind in the morning. That's a family issue, they think.
Well, think again.
As a result of that kind of thinking, a good proportion of the money a woman earns goes for the childcare she is not able to provide herself. Or himself, as well, in those cases where a younger generation of men, too, the Shriver Report shows, also want to be part of the child raising. Men who have already changed to keep pace with the changes in women's lives also want to be a more present part of family life. They want to be more than the father who can do little else than come home for dinner -- late -- in order to work the two jobs it now requires for many in this country to be able to afford to keep a family.
In fact, day care is a social issue that links to other whole categories of social concerns: latchkey kids, the length of school days, the nature of school schedules, the need for schools and cities and municipalities to provide monitored before-school and after-school activities, the size of the US talent pool, corporate growth and development, US performance in the world market. The list goes on and on and on
It's hard not to break into a chorus of George Herbert's 17c proverb that they taught us in grade school, "For want of a nail the shoe is lost, for want of a shoe the horse is lost, for want of a horse the rider is lost." The fact is that these things are not women's issues or family issues. These things are national issues. For want of Day Care facilities in the richest country in the world, the industries that deny it will soon themselves suffer from the loss of the worker pool it needs to be competitive.
We should have listened to Herbert, perhaps.
In 1963, the date of the Roosevelt report, women were 31 percent of the work force. Since then, the Shriver Report tells us, women are now earning 60 percent of the college degrees and 50 percent of the Ph.Ds and professional degrees in this country. Obviously, it is more than likely that women will remain a determining factor in the American work force for decades to come.
The situation is clear.
From where I stand, it looks like what we do for women we are doing for the country. And what we don't do for women, will affect not only women but this country--its families, its children, its eventual growth or decline.
It's a serious question for us all. No amount of sexism aimed at suppressing or ignoring the implications of this report operating under the aegis of women's natural inferiority can justify it. Science has long ago put that argument to eternal rest--along with racism, the flat earth theory and the Man in the Moon.
Given the implications of this report for us as a people in this millennium moment of choice about our futures on many levels, I will look at other dimensions of The Shriver Report (awomansnation.org) in weeks to come. After all, if what we do or do not do with this data has something to do with all our lives, it's worth the time, isn't it?
Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister is a best-selling author and international lecturer on topics of justice, peace, human rights, women’s issues, and contemporary spirituality in the church and in society.
Day care, health care for
Day care, health care for children and for all women who birth and mother them, college educations for the young and retirement with health benefits for the old: we could have cadillac plans in all these areas for all US citizens but we have chosen to poor trillions of dollars into bombs and bombers instead, sowing death and destruction around the earth. God forgive us for calling ourselves "a Christian nation" while engaging in such bloodthirsty madness.
well said
well said
Amen. As a former US citizen
Amen. As a former US citizen now living abroad I my mind often boggles at the cost of defence and wonder at what could be achieved at home in the US if the money were spent there. May that day come!
While the U.S.A. sews death
While the U.S.A. sews death abroad and destruction about the earth, abortion as the number one killer of the innocent at home.
What an enormous
What an enormous oversimplification!
Sr. Joan has definitely hit
Sr. Joan has definitely hit the nail on the head, although in some heads it may not have hit hard enough as in the horse shoe! Thank you for putting so eloquently what many women I know, and a few men as well, are facing day to day, week to week, month to month and year to year.
so wonderfully and terribly
so wonderfully and terribly true!
Anyone listening????
About time this issue is
About time this issue is addressed. I entered university at age 43, after our 7 children were already in elementary and high school with two entering college. I earned a B.A., an M.A., and then my license in the State of California for Marriage & Family Therapists. My husband helped immensely with children and home so that I could complete my education, but it would have been impossible for me without his help. If large companies provided for child care, it would have freed us both for work. Now, after almost 30 years, women are still struggling with the multiple tasking of child care, home care, school and work. Men come home tired and want to sit in front of the TV while "someone" makes dinner. Wake up, men. You have to learn how to cook! take care of children, and all the tasks that women have traditionally done.
"Men come home tired and want
"Men come home tired and want to sit in front of the TV"
This isn't always true. A third to a half of men don't come home at all.
About time this issue is
About time this issue is addressed. I entered university at age 43, after our 7 children were already in elementary and high school with two entering college. I earned a B.A., an M.A., and then my license in the State of California for Marriage & Family Therapists. My husband helped immensely with children and home so that I could complete my education, but it would have been impossible for me without his help. If large companies provided for child care, it would have freed us both for work. Now, after almost 30 years, women are still struggling with the multiple tasking of child care, home care, school and work. Men come home tired and want to sit in front of the TV while "someone" makes dinner. Wake up, men. You have to learn how to cook! take care of children, and all the tasks that women have traditionally done.
Good to see someone in our
Good to see someone in our Church has her feet firmly planted upon the ground which carries us all rather than lost in liturgical obfuscations as if this were the goal and essence of our Faith in Jesus.
To realize the objectives labeled here, to understand that sixty per cent of our college degrees go women as well as half of all PhD.'s, to understand that seventy five percent of salaries are for women assuring the survival of the family, is a Marian Devotion, is a pro-life issue, is the essential of our Faith.
Saint James writes well that religion pure and simple is caring for widows and orphans in their distress. Let us not increase that distress, but alleviate it.
Open our empty Churches to child care centers, and keep the clergy away!
except for us professionals.
My brilliant and liberated students are all four years old, most of them women.
may they ever remain thus (liberated and brilliant, not four years old)
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)
I don't see how bashing the
I don't see how bashing the clergy is going to help women's issues.
Such willful denial was found
Such willful denial was found to be very empowering in the past.
Veritas, the clergy
Veritas, the clergy perpetuate and enforce (punitively) in many cases, patriarchical oppression and presumptions of male superiority and privilege.
If an individual Catholic cleric does not personally endorse the oppression of women he does tacitly by his membership in an exclusionary group and by his failure to speak and act on the Truth if he believes that an all-male clergy is immoral. It's the same as getting on a bus that does not allow Rosa Parks to sit in the front seat.
If you, Veritas, believe in the Truth of women's righteous anger and search for equality within the Church then you are called to make choices and to act from that center of Truth, i.e., Christ, regardless of the consequences, including the threat of having your faculties pulled by the Vatican or any other punitive measure it chooses to bestow. Be a martyr for the cause.
As Sr. Joan says, it's not a "woman's issue," it is a "HUMAN" issue. "For us, and for our salvation, he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit . . .he became HUMAN."
You know, your entire premise
You know, your entire premise is completely and utterly false. Your comparison to getting on a bus "that does not allow Rosa Parks to sit in the front seat" is ridiculous because it could not possibly be further from reality.
The basic premise that you, and others who are pushing the women's ordination agenda, operate from is that ordination is a basic right that should be held by all Catholics. It is not. Ordination is a gift, freely given by God, to those to whom He wishes to give it. Ordination is a gift that is given through and in the Church, since the Church is the Voice of Christ in the world. The Church administers the gift of ordination, just as it does the gift of baptism, Holy Communion, reconciliation, confirmation, matrimony, etc.
The ordination of women is not a right. No one has a right to ordination. A man who completes seminary training and who is just about to be ordained may not be ordained if his bishop feels he is not ready or if he feels that ordination is not appropriate for him. There is no recourse to that. The Church has been charged by Christ to administer His sacraments and she is the final arbiter of who is to be ordained.
There are real causes to be defended and real problems and concerns facing men and women throughout the world. There are real issues of injustice and you should be focusing on those instead of inventing one to get all upset about.
Having therefore Bernie and
Having therefore Bernie and Burke decide who can be bishop and thus by extension who may be priest is a real injustice which stinks to Heaven above, one upon which all Catholics of good will must focus.
But at least that job keeps Burke tied up at the office with biweekly mandatory meetings for a change instead of his sinecure Signatura appointment which had him luncheoning in Washington each week.
Bishops should be selected by the collegiality within the local diocese with all members consulted, in particular the least powerful, the least well-known, in particular the now voiceless women, who should also discern priestly vocation from among our own.
Then, only then, we might hope to have a One Universal and Roman Catholic Church once more, free of the constricting political litmus test imposed these past thirty years. Fortunately that is soon passing, as the Spirit fills our Church.
Finding "your entire premise is completely and utterly false" I remain
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)
Dear Frere Charles, on more
Dear Frere Charles, on more than one occasion you catigated me for not referring to various members of the Church's hierarchy by their "canonical titles". But, as usual, you do not apply what you require from others to yourself, given the fact that you address His Emminence, Bernard Cardinal Law, and His Grace, Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, as "Bernie and Burke".
I note, of course, that only a passing reference is made to my earlier comments, thus leading me to believe that you have no real response to them. Given the fact that my comments were simply a rephrasing of the teaching of Mother Church regarding ordination, I am not surprised.
The current manner in which bishops are chosen works very well in most cases. The last thirty years have seen some really abysmal choices, I will grant you (Archbishops Weakland, Hunthausen, Borders, Hallinan, Bernardin, Gregory, May, Mahoney; Bishops like Matthew Clark, Breidenbeck, Cosgrove...actually nearly every bishop selected by former Apostolic Delegate Jean Jadot), but since the days of Nuncios like Cardinal Cacciavillan, Archbishop Montalvo and now Archbishop Sambi, we are seeing much, MUCH better candidates to the episcopacy forwarded to Rome. I am sure that the candidates who are vetted by the Congregation of Bishops and submitted for final approval to the Holy Father, will be of exceptional quality, orthodoxy and, will be, first and foremost, men of faith and men of the Church.
I will agree with you on one thing, though. The litmus test is becoming less necessary since the Holy Spirit is filling the Church with men who actually believe what the Church teaches and are willing to stand up for that belief publicly. The days of the "Spirit of Vatican II" are quickly passing as the authentic teaching of Vatican II is being implemented in the Church. It's taken forty years, but, finally, we are close to the end of the silliness adn nonsense we have had to endure for so long.
The Spirit is moving, thanks be to God!
you identify here, without
you identify here, without their proper canonical title, without their respect, without the reverence and love which they well deserve, some of the finest clerics ever to serve in the USA.
Dear charles du desert,
Dear charles du desert, Strange that you should hold so many issues dear that are NOT endorsed by our Holy Mother Church!! Perhaps you should LISTEN TO OUR TEACHERS WHO WERE CALLED BY GOD OR LISTEN TO GOD! HE CALLS UPON US OFTEN IF ONLY WE WOULD LISTEN! GOD LOVE YOU AND INSTRUCT YOU IS MY PRAYER!
Clint, Why are YOU upset
Clint,
Why are YOU upset about what anyone else gets upset about?
Dear charles du desert,
Dear charles du desert, Perhaps someday all humans will understand that we do not have women problems and men problems, but we have human problems affecting both women and men! The fight between the sexes must end. Why do we have the divide when the problems are common to both. Whenever Jesus Christ spoke to the crowds women and men were present. Why do we go off today and speak to ourselves-women to women and men to men? Why do we separate in the workplace the salaries paid -more to men less to women for the same work? Why do we view justice as common to men and not men and women? We have much work to do in the world but how do we start in another country without first correcting the wrongs in the United States? There are plenty of laws which have been passed to help us get started. When do we start enforcing them?
what the heck, pray tell, bro
what the heck, pray tell, bro charles, are you doing in a daycare center???
pretty much the same thing
pretty much the same thing the feds trained me to do thirty years ago
the great circle of life . . .
Sounds to me, Frère Charles,
Sounds to me, Frère Charles, like you do work similar to the Reverend R.E., OSB. He also loved to work with little kids. During summers he was a camp counselor, where he organized their activities on the playing field and generally provided them moral and spiritual guidance. He, however, had to be restricted to quarters a few years back. It was (ahem!) necessary. Today he’s living in a monastic nursing home and very much in need of your prayers in these the final days of his life. Turn aside from your little ones long enough to send a kind thought or two his way. I know he would appreciate it.
Thank you very much, sir
Thank you very much, sir Galahad, and my prayers are with you as well.
Excellent commentary. Looking
Excellent commentary. Looking forward to your next article on The Shriver Report.
My concern with the movement
My concern with the movement of more women employed than men is what I've seen happen in other countries where men are under employed. If we look to the countries with most unrest and poverty, women are not only paid less and their work valued less, men are also devalued and vulnerable to revolutionary activities. This is a major economic and societal issue. Who does it benefit to keep lower paid employees? Corporations. Where is our righteous outrage, our sense of injustice as human beings for the plight of our sisters and brothers. When will we join together instead of gathering like herd animals into groups that focus on dividing us instead of uniting us in the common goal of making life better for everyone instead of a select few.
Sr. Joan: As always you are
Sr. Joan: As always you are right on. I'd love to have you address this issue at my Global Issues Forum series at Jefferson Educational Society.
Joan, Thank you so very much
Joan, Thank you so very much for putting this in such crystal clarity.
Sister Maureen Paul Turlish SNDdeN
New Castle, Delaware
YES, YES, AND YES
YES, YES, AND YES AGAIN...THANKS, JOAN.
I read an article on the
I read an article on the contemplative life blah blah blah and was about to unplug my computer. I have already given away my TV. Then I read your article and I feel better. Why, because I am a woman and this is such a good article. So, the radio goes next, but not the computer.
Some days the average woman would like a cave, no TV, cell phone, radio, oh you know all this. The first little whimper at the mouth of the cave and we would be out there to see who it was.
I do not hate men, I raised five and they are good, I think. I cared for two terrific husbands as the lay dying. So, a million women could top my story. Today was a hard day and it will pass and your article helped. God bless you and your understanding.
I read your comments and just
I read your comments and just wanted you to know that you caused me to reflect on how I, as a women am being present to the human persons around me. Peace to you.
thank you mary my only
thank you mary
my only connection electronically is also the computer, directly here to ncronline
thank you for your inspirational and edifying testimony
and your strength
Amen, Sister Joan, and very
Amen, Sister Joan, and very well said. Thanks, Bobbie
So true...and at present, the
So true...and at present, the economics of the child care industry are abominable. Often well educated caregivers are paid VERY low wages; this increases turnover which is detrimental to the children (and families.)
Also, the education of women is all upside down - as is the culture. I have long advocated that young women be taught home economics and child development in their younger years-(Jr. College?)and when their children are off to school they get the career education and fly.
This is primarily from my own experience of marrying young(liberal arts right after college) and not knowing what hit me when I had my children right away.
From where I stand this
From where I stand this report raises more questions than it answers about our role as women in this society and the place of the family in this society.
What is it about today's society that makes it necessary for so many women to
leave their primary role as mother and caretaker in the home and go to work?
This has not always been true of our society where in previous generations a woman took pride in her domestic and maternal instincts and remained at home to fulfill her life vocation as a wife and mother. Society recognized the family as the life-giving foundation of a healthy society and while not often monitarily rewarding the contribution women were making, her role and value was recognized especially in most Christian religions. Well,time and more importantly the feminist movement of the 60's and 70's changed all that and contributed significantly to the dimunition if not down-right denigration of the role of wife and mother and her importance to the survival of the family unit. Women were made to feel that their unique talents were being wasted at home and men were getting all the "power and glory" by leaving their well-tended homes every morning and going off to the real world where all the power and glory of the world awaited them.
This world, not the domestic scene the men left each morning, was the one that counted and was where the rewards for a satisfying and fulfilling life lay. For centuries women had been included out and kept at home barefoot and pregnant. In essence women became convinced by the feminist movement that they were really missing out on all that our world had
to offer..because men were too greedy and selfish and arrogant to allow women their rightful place beside them. When selfish ambition won out, the family and domestic life lost its worth and meaning as a vast majority of women who saw the grass as greener on the other side of the fence...and leaping over it fell into the abyss of all the problems facing the family and society today,as they fight to have it all. Have women really won anything by denying their former selves and lives? Has the increase in cost of living and changes in family life been worth the cost of "female liberation"? Are children brought into this world by parents too busy to
raise them and turned over to daycare truly better off, better loved and better nourished by professionally trained strangers? Or have we as a society been lured once again by what glitters but really only darkens the horizons of our future? Again, more questions but few answers. These reports
often are nothing more than an attempt to rationalize our foolish choices of the past and cover up the real issues at stake.
Your conclusions are
Your conclusions are unfortunate. The point is that in order for families to survive today, both husband and wife must work. Women do not work because they want power and prestige, they do not work because they want "liberation," they work because it is necessary to the very existence of their families.
I grew up in the '50's and '60's. They were not the halcyon years your statement makes them out to be. We were not wealthy. My parents married right out of high school after World War II. We had a modest home that they worked very hard to purchase after renting in several places. We had adequate clothing -- not the best or most fashionable -- and we had good meals. There was nothing extravagant about our lifestyle. From as far back as I can remember, my father worked two jobs, and when he didn't, my mother worked one job and he another. There was no such thing as "man's work" or "woman's work" in our family. If my dad was too extended, my mom mowed the lawn. If mom was tired from working overtime, my dad made the meals. My sister and I were in charge of keeping the house neat and clean. We never wanted for love, care, or the sense that we, too, were responsible for helping our family.
My sister and I both have Masters degrees. We both work full time, not because we want to make some kind of "liberated" statement, but because we know we must contribute to the survival of our family units.
Sr. Joan is right on target with her commentary on the study. As a national community of human beings, we need to find ways to be more cooperative and nurturing, more willing to reach out to help, and less inclined to ascribe petty motives to women.
"feminism is mixed up with a
"feminism is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands."
— G.K. Chesterton
Ah, there is truth in
Ah, there is truth in Chesterton. Yes, indeed. I was a full-time (not "stay-at-home") mom for my three sons after I graduated from a top university in this country. After they entered part-time nursery school and kindergarten I went back to get a graduate degree. My husband and I chose a limited income over greed and political correctness. Nuns are ignorant about the bond with our children. They do not experience the mixed emotions when turning over our children to minimally educated daycare staff working at LESS than minimum wage or home situations where there is no supervision of those who take care of the maximum allowable number of babies and toddlers. At least we no longer have nuns running daycare centers or orphanages. No rulers, physical punishment is against the law.
Infectious diseases not known for generations have surfaced in our very own country: encephelitis, pandemics, strep-throat, and drippy, yellow, runny noses.
Perfect quote
Perfect quote ...sheesh...."serving & helping" those are the choices. Shall we all get into our buggies and ride into the sunset w/Mr. Chesterton??? (spouting our claptrap???) ;o) Ah, it's comments like these that make it all worthwhile Sr. Joan!!! Many blessings on you.
This is these kinds of
This is these kinds of statements that can seem to make sense as long as you don't take a closer look at the situation. It is the kind of statement that comes from an unwillingness to examine the value of the issues being raised. For instance, it completely ignores women who are being abused and taken for granted by their husbands. It just lumps them into the same catagory of those women who have no desire to help their husbands. Nor does it does address those husbands who are unwilling to help their wives. Jesus was a wonderful listener and very close to those who felt that they were oppressed. I think he would have listed and I think that is what we should do instead of trying to be cleaver with a statement that shows such a lack of sensitivity.
It wasn't feminist theory
It wasn't feminist theory that made me go out and find a job in the male world of illusion. It was the mortgage company.
No comment has said it
No comment has said it better!
Exactly! ..... and the
Exactly! ..... and the electric bill, the gas bill, the grocery bill, the car payment...... etc., etc., etc.
The idealized world you
The idealized world you present where women stayed home and warmed the hearth and only had to take care of their home and children is just a myth or the story of the very rich. Throughout history women have worked to maintain their family. Working in the fields, doing domestic work for the Lords of the manor, working along side their husbands to farm and build a home in the wilderness. The world you describe only briefly existed in the 1950s after WWII and women were pushed out of the work place to make room for the returning soldiers. I think of my husband's grandmother who worked to support not only her child but her mother and alcoholic brother and his child. I think of his mother who always worked to help make the American dream possible for her family. For working class families the myth is not a reality. My own Mom went back to work when I was in high school to help pay the bills. Betty Friedan called for a second revolution that would include men and women; men need to be as involved as women in taking care of their families. Family leave for child birth should be extended to both sexes. Other countries offer family leave to women and men for the first two years of a child's life, recognizing the importance of this time period. Women are often penalized by their work place when they take time off for their families (illness, school activities, etc). When I was working I was fired for being pregnant and needing extra time in the morning to get over morning sickness. A man in my work place who had emphysema was given time to be late and to leave early every day to accommodate his illness. Not me; I was told it was in my best interest to just stay home. When I worked later and my daughter would get sick and need me to stay home I was penalized for being absent. We were given family sick leave time but if we used it we were penalized at raise time.
We have come along way in how women are treated in the work place but now I think in some ways it is worse as there is less sick leave and benefits available to both men and women. As unions have lost their power over the years we have gone backwards in benefits. Look at Walmart who is a big employer of women but a large number of their employees have to get Medicaid if they want health insurance. And that comes with a lot of stigma attached to it.
All workers are working harder and getting less and being treated as just an input in the workplace. I am glad to see someone (Maria Shriver) focusing on women but we need to think about all workers. We need fundamental change in our attitudes and we need to rethink our priorities. We will not go back to that idealized society (if it ever existed). In other countries, having government health care is a way of life and not just for poor people or the elderly and not stigmatized. Day care for children, generous family leave, and support for children in case of divorce that may last until the child is 24 to make sure they are prepared to enter the work force and not abandoned at 18 as they are in this country. Lets have a "family-centric" focus not man or woman focus.
An excellent post Anonymous.
An excellent post Anonymous. I had the same type of problems at work and will never forget how I would never be promoted or be entitled to a raise because I was penalized for staying home to take care of my child when he got sick in grade school, and penalized when I got sick and had to stay home. If you used the sick time, you were penalized. My child came first and as a mother the multinational corporation with billions in assets penalized me for being a good mother and penalized me for getting the flu or a virus.
Companies are very sly when they want you to work for them. They tell you they have all kinds of benefits and there is no need for a union because they offer so much. Not so much anymore as you say, and "We were given family sick leave time but if we used it we were penalized at raise time." Bill Clinton signed that family leave into law. Corporations hate that law, so they will penalize you for using it.
The feeling I get in the current economy with fewer jobs available is that if corporations could they would not give any benefits at all. But they would still give their top people millions in bonuses. Honestly, I don't know how they sleep at night. As for the middle managers that carry out their policies and apply the rules to subordinates, they usually get downsized to make way for a cheaper workforce.
Oh, Please! Try real hard to
Oh, Please!
Try real hard to take off the June Cleaver glasses and realize how difficult it was for many women back in the day when all they supposedly did was bake cookies and take care of the kids....
The reality for many women was less than the idyllic picture you paint. My mother was beaten by my alcoholic father who didn't know the meaning of marital fidelity [a charming Catholic professional man, by the way]. There were five of us to take care of. Women who divorced their husbands and tried to take care of five kids faced a life of prejudice and poverty as most courts heavily favored men [check statistics, don't rely on your own "impressions" of what things were like back then]. If she tried to find employment, even if she was also a professional, she could count on getting paid 65% of the same salary as a man with the same education and experience. So my mother made the only choice she could make. For the sake of the kids, she stayed in the marriage and endured my father's abuse.
It isn't a mistake to make sure that people are respected and fairly compensated for their work. It isn't a mistake to make sure that all people have access to an education. It isn't a mistake to have a playing field where a woman who is abused by the man who has taken a vow to protect her and cherish her can escape and have some sense that she can support her family.
How about the woman who never married and wanted a career? She could count on watching while men with less education, training and experience were promoted ahead of her and paid more than her. Or are you saying that the ONLY suitable profession for a woman was as wife and mother?
There are many negative outcomes to the way our social order has played out in recent time, but it is unfair to level the blame at a movement that attempted to right some of the wrongs based on gender.
Have women felt more
Have women felt more fulfilled and therefore become better wives/mothers because of this? Have women's rates of depression and domestic violence decreased because of this? Have children been supported by larger family units and have a broader exposure to life because of this? Have men had to get up off their duff and help out with emotional support of the family as well as financial support because of this? Do you not think that the feminist movement came about because of this, and not the other way around?
Get out of the dark ages and consider the humanity and life that God has given BOTH men and women. God did NOT say: "Because Eve, you were created second, you are less important", No, he said that the two shall become one, equal.....................Amen.
What amazes me is how the
What amazes me is how the fact that you like caring for hearth and home blinds you to what other women like, as though, if women want something other than their divinely determined role of wife and mother (as you seem to think, that is), then they must be diabolical. You and Cardinal Rode. He too thinks that women should be happy caring for the men in their lives and training the women in their lives to do the same. Get with it lady. It wasn't the feminist movement that motivated women to see their lives as more valuable than scullery maids. It was education. If you want women to stay on the farm and be happy about it, don't educate them. Men discovered that decades ago, and the church has known it for centuries. That is why it only educated men. In the church's view, women are only good for birthing babies, cleaning houses, and teaching men how much God loves them. That is what the Blessed Mother did and modern woman should do the same. The fact that the Blessed Mother lived in a male dominated society in their view is beside the point. She willingly accepted her role and did nothing about it. And if modern day women are not willing to follow her example and live as she did in a male dominated society, then they are anti-God, for crying out loud. My advice to you--grow up!! Women are worth more than that, and so is the Blessed Mother. Be what God intended you to be, and you can only do that by following the lead of the Holy Spirit, wherever she takes you, including a stay-at-home mom.
"She willingly accepted her
"She willingly accepted her role and did nothing about it."
I don't know that we can actually state this. She accepted being an unwed mother in a society whose laws called for her stoning. She apparently did not insist on providing a wife for her son, which was also a huge part of the prevailing patriarchal culture. We are to believe she had no other children and denied Joseph his marital rights for the entirety of their relationship--also very counter cultural.
In many respects, the Holy Family stands as a repudiation of the 'June Cleaver' notion of family. Or are we expected not to notice this?
Very interesting points that
Very interesting points that I over looked. Thanks for pointing them out. They provide a different and better perspective on the role of the Blessed Mother.
Very interesting points that
Very interesting points that I over looked. Thanks for pointing them out. They provide a different and better perspective on the role of the Blessed Mother.
Sometimes we have to have
Sometimes we have to have faith in God and not just ourselves to solve problems. When we thought we could never have children, we promised God we would never put them in daycare and I would be a full time Mom-with an MA in my field. We had money problems, marriage problems, etc., just like any one else, but we hung on to our faith and our promise. We managed through lay offs of my husband and a child in Special Ed. Both our children are adults, now. I never regretted being a full time mother. Our faith then led my husband to become a Permanent Deacon. We know we did the best for our children. It wasn't easy and I was looked down upon by the "Career women." Without faith and the determination to do the right thing, you have nothing. Socialism is NOT the answer. Personal responsibility and faith is.
You got lucky. God doesn't
You got lucky. God doesn't take care of everyone quite that well.
Dear dennis n, I am surprised
Dear dennis n, I am surprised at your comment "God doesn't take care of everyone quite that well". I have been around for 7+decades and God has done quite well by me and my family. He answers every prayer and not always to my liking however He is always there! It is our responsibility to right our lives when we do things that go against God's Will! It is not often easy but we must continue to try. You and your family will be in my prayers and you will soon see things get better. HE IS WITH US ALWAYS!
Amen! Thank you for this
Amen! Thank you for this testimony. I have always admired those families who make the conscious decision to sacrifice many of the financial gains that our society says is important in order to put their family first. Granted, not everyone is able to do so, and even more are unwillinf to do so, but to those who do, I cannot help but believe that God will bless abundantly!
Thank you for your testimony.
Thank you for your testimony. It is a touching and inspiring story. I fully respect your decision and am very pleased that, in spite of the bumps, things have worked out well for you.
Yet, I hope you wilol not do what some career women have so wrongly done to you. And that is to be judgemental about their decision. I would also asl that you be mindful that the unemployment checks that your husband received when he was laid off - the checks that helped to pay the mortage and keep your family afloat - was a socialist entitlement program. We are a capitalist society that has socialist programs within our capitalist structure. I doubt you would want to see some of these programs end. If you agree with unemployment benifits (as well as social security), than the answer is yes, in some ways (but only some) socialism is the answer.
particularly in the field of
particularly in the field of health care
Wow, I’m amazed at the vial
Wow, I’m amazed at the vial responses you’ve gotten from your posting. You’ve been called “blind”, and told to “take off the June Cleaver glasses”, ”Get out of the dark ages” and advised to “grow up!!”
Rude and sarcastic comments such as these are signs of angry people who don’t have much value to add to a discussion. It’s surprising to see this on a Christian forum.
I think is important to point
I think is important to point out that only privileged usually white women have memories of staying home and being happy homemakers. Our sisters of color have yet to obtain that memory. While white women asked for equality in the work place these other sisters cleaned their houses before going home to their own.
The history of women is more complicated than first world women of privilege.
However, rather than raising everyone up - including fathers, we have all been taken down by greedy genderless corporations --
A fine commentary on our
A fine commentary on our family's situation...Our son has a part time job in his field, library science, while mom's full time job (MBA) has the benefits. They are doing a great job of raising 2 year old twins and are fortunate to have 2 sets of loving grandparents closeby who are able to assist with childcare.
Thank you Joan ... I look
Thank you Joan ... I look forward to the next article. The child care question is so important and relatively easily fixed if women were really valued for their contribution. We need to keep this conversation going in the public arena until there are results.
I appreciate the thoughts and
I appreciate the thoughts and opinions shared in this article and the comments following. I'm learning through my own experience that it is often too easy to group people under one umbrella and offer one solution for all. In regards to the group "women," there are so many different reasons for women to be a major force in the workplace. From economic reasons to personal validation to greed, the spectrum is wide. Childcare would be immensely helpful for some, the opportunity for job-sharing for others, and acknowledgement/education of our devotion to materialism and the need to live a life of stewardship to God would benefit some. Others, who are more knowledgeable than me, could keep this list going on and on and.....
As a woman, my hope is that we keep our minds and hearts open to do God's will for those we serve. I pray that we will all work hard to bring out the best in those we encounter, in what ever situation they are in. By doing so, we will have truly loved.
I do think it is about time
I do think it is about time that these issues not be pawned off on women to try to cope with on their own and that the value of women be fully recognized in whatever arena they choose to participate in.
But I agree, at least in part, with a previous comment that we cannot fail to examine the reasons why so many women have gravitated to the workforce. If it is purely the woman's inclination to do so, fine, but I suspect that some, if not many, women feel pressured to take on yet another demanding responsibility in order to provide for their family. The options for single female head of household are limited to say the least.
I pray society will find a way to allow all women and men the means to make choices about caring for homes and families directly or by entering the workforce based on their preference and abilities rather than financial necessity, lack of feasible options or societal norms. Thank You Sister Chittester, again, for intelligent "entertainment".
Question at the root of
Question at the root of things: granted that who stays home ought to be based not upon sex, but upon the best interests of the family as a whole ... what is it about our economic system which in effect mandates that most families have two bread-winners? And have two bread-winners not in order to have luxuries, but in order to have necessities? And how can we address that foundational problem?
To Adele Young, You say that
To Adele Young,
You say that women's primary role is mother and caretaker....I assume you believe that because the mother births the child. Why in your opinion, does the father not have as a primary role-the caretaking of his child? Why, in your opinion, is this task not to be shared equally by both parents allowing couples to decide how they wish to live their family life and teaching children that men can take care of babies and toddlers also? Time to step into the 21st century.
Companies are under no
Companies are under no obligation to provide flex time or day care for employees. "Sister" is advocating Marxist socialist claptrap.
One Holy Catholic Apostolic
One Holy Catholic Apostolic and Republican Church. Check Catholic Social Teaching at the door... along with your brain.
AS has already been
AS has already been said..."step into the 21st Century." Daycare is a program designed to protect children who need protection. What is wrong with that? Marx did not comment on the rights of children. That is a post modern phenom and it is worthy of universal adoption. There are parts of the world today which continue to treat children as objects. At least the US has advanced to the point of safeguarding the rights of children to safety and protection ... and in some cases families under stress need assistance in this regard so that the family can exist/subsist with dignity. "Claptrap" is a label unfitting to this subject.
John claims "Marx did not
John claims "Marx did not comment on the rights of children" when actually he in fact wrote at great length and quite passionately (for an economist) against it. For instance, and from sevberal examples quickly discovered by googling Marx child labor, we read on Professor Glenn Perusek's web page entitled Child Labor in the World Economy over at
www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue36/Perusek36.htm
IF THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON of child labor appears today as a ubiquitous feature of economic life, it is hardly a recent development. Some of the most moving passages in Karl Marx's Capital concern the length of the working day and the conditions of child laborers. We get a real sense of the nature of industrial work, of the ceaseless conflict between rapacious factory owners and generally powerless laborers, in the work's concrete and descriptively empirical chapter on the working day. Marx, we might say, sublimates his outrage at the conditions of laborers to create the systematic and rigorous understanding of the laws of motion of capitalist development.
Marx marshals myriad sources, including the observations of men of the cloth and government inspectors, in describing the manufacturing employer's "werewolf-like hunger for surplus labor." The capitalist in basic manufacturing is endlessly enterprising in extending the length of the working day.7 Even slave-owning conquistadors were no more cruel.8 Marx relies heavily upon ordinary newspaper reports and official government investigatory documents. In the lace trade, in Nottingham, England,
children of nine or ten years are dragged from their squalid beds at two, three, or four o'clock in the morning and compelled to work for a bare subsistence until ten, eleven, or twelve at night, their limbs wearing away, their frames dwindling, their faces whitening, and their humanity absolutely sinking into a stone-like torpor, utterly horrible to contemplate...The system, as the Rev. Montagu Valpy describes it, is one of unmitigated slavery, socially, physically, morally and spiritually.9
Marx goes on to cite depositions given by children themselves, reported in documents of parliamentary inquiries. "William Wood, 9 years old, 'was 7 years 10 months old when he began to work.' He 'ran moulds' (carried ready-molded articles into the drying-room, afterwards bringing back the empty mould) from the very beginning. He came to work every day in the week at 6 a.m., and left off at about 9 p.m." Fifteen hours of work per day, six days a week, at the age of seven. Laborers in this industry, children and adults, suffered a high rate of pulmonary illnesses and short life expectancy. The hand manufacture of matches led to a form of tetanus peculiar to workers in the industry. "The manufacture of matches, on account of its unhealthiness and unpleasantness, has such a bad reputation that only the most miserable part of the working class, half- starved widows and so forth, deliver up their children to it, their 'ragged, half-starved, untaught children'." Some workers in this industry were as young as six. The working day extended from twelve to fifteen hours, including "night-labor, irregular meal-times and meals mostly taken in the workrooms themselves, pestilent with phosphorus."10
In The Making of the English Working Class, a classic of labor history, E. P. Thompson lends support to Marx's analysis. Thompson takes pains to distinguish the work of children in industrial settings from agricultural labor conducted under the supervision of parents. The apologists for child labor are indeed correct that it was not a new phenomenon associated only with industrialization. "The child was an intrinsic part of the agricultural and industrial economy before 1780, and remained so until rescued by the school." Climbing boys and ship's boys were subjected to very bad conditions. But most child laborers before the industrial revolution worked at "home or within the family economy." Fetching and carrying by very small children or work alongside parents in cotton spinning were common. "So deeply-rooted was child labor in the textile industries that these were often held up to the envy of laborers in other occupations where children could not find employment and add to the family earnings..."
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