In regards to the article from Scientific American, there's another article from the same on a related topic about how people stereotyping themselves affects performance.

For instance, white golfers who believe they're being compared to black golfers see material improvements in golfing ability if they think golf is about strategy, and material loss of ability if they believe it to be a primarily athletic activity. At the same time, female Americans of asian descent do much better at math if they think of themselves as asian than if they think of themselves as female.

That Betsy Reed article about Hillary and Obama is fantastic!

The woman in the original Esquire cover was Virna Lisi, not Marilyn Monroe.

Your link to Blog Against Disablism leads to the call for submissions. Here is the list of entries.

Alice Walker "wishing" HRC felt "self-assured enough" to use her own last name instead of Clinton makes me want to puke, absolutely puke.

hey... i know this is probably the least important part of the post, but with the jessica simpson esquire thing... the original photo was of virna lisi, not marilyn monroe

woops i didnt notice someone already said that

Good catches, all. I've updated the post.

Wow. Australia must suck. This is the conclusion I came to, after reading hairyonlegs blog. I always thought America was the most conservative of the western world until I read that. I cant believe a teacher would devote class time to address 'male oppression!' What a friggin joke!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120951025037054311.html?mod=yhoofront

Anybody catch the article on SAHM's on Yahoo's homepage?

I dont get it, why would these women even feel the need to leave their careers? I never read articles like this about men. Personally I'm opposed. I think kids should be raised 50/50, and that this trend will negatively affect women in the career market.

I know someone who really needs to read that subliminal stereotyping article...

Also I love the day-in-the-life piece. High school feminists are kick-ass.

GopherII, I think that a lot of them discover while on maternity leave that, well, they like being able to devote the time to parenting. Since they can afford to stay home, they do. As for negatively affecting women in the workplace, well, yes, it does. There is still an assumption that women are going to spend less time at work because of child-rearing, whether in terms of shorter hours or time off for maternity leave and the possible years off to stay at home with the kids. It's unfortunate, but it leaves us with a tough task - these women are making perfectly valid choices - so how do we change work culture to be friendlier to families? I work for an engineering firm, and most of the engineers and project managers are married and working 50+ hour weeks. And it goes up to 80 hours or more during some project phases. No accommodation is made for their family life; it's assumed that their wives will pick up the slack. So, how do we change this culture?

It really is difficult to spread feminism and gender equality while in high school. My attempts to start a feminist club were shot down and any article for the newspaper I write containing the word 'vagina' gets cut. It's such a constricting environment.

And, ahem, where does the photo of Cindy Crawford shaving kd lang fit into the genderkitsch equation?

I'm talking about this one:

http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/4193/kdccej0.jpg

BlueCat: ...so how do we change work culture to be friendlier to families?

Friendliness to families is usually done at the expense of the single, so I don't think we should. Even if the letter of the rule was equal, not everybody can take their vacations at the same time, so you end up with "people with families" (a phrase which is taken to mean "parents" because everyone else is an orphaned single-child with no committed relationships or social life) getting priority assignment on holiday slots, and other more subtle means of discrimination. (ie, "She has kids to put through college so she needs the overtime more than you do.")

If you want to make employers friendly to employees in general to the point that someone could raise a family, well, that's all well and good, but I don't recognize raising children as fundamentally more important than any other private pursuit, as far as an employer should be concerned.

I am so utterly horrified by that "woman who cried rape" article. It's just one of those disheartening, I-hate-the-world moments.

I'm actually really intrigued at the outcome of the woman who cried rape case. The woman in this case seemed to be aware of the fact that her husband owned a gun and was aware of possible violent reactions. I would liken it to crying "Fire!" in a movie house, and several people getting crushed to death in the scramble out.

I've always been very critical of women who falsely accuse rape. They are enabilers to the men who do violate women. They make those true victims less likely to step forward because of the doubt that those falsehoods have placed in society and in the justice system. They contribute to the overall uncertainty of rape accusations when it often comes down to a she said, he said situation.

As I've only just encountered this case this weekend, I've still not worked out quite how I feel about punishing those women who lead to the death of their lovers through false accusations. However, I would love to see a heftier punishment for those who falseley cry rape to try to deter future occurances of such, and this just might be a way.

Of course, whether she truely cried rape in an effort to avoid being caught or whether she was trying to defend herself from a (obviously) violent husband is not knowable. But the jury finds her guilty, and that sets the facts for any future cases. It will be very interesting to see how this precident plays out in future procutions.

Thanks for link to Scientific American article, very interesting.

From what I've read, it seems pretty clear that the woman cried rape to save her ass. The thing that annoys me even more is that the husband is not even being tried for anything! It's like she's somehow supposed to be responsible for her husband's behavior as well! Probably, if she didn't say what she did, her lover would still be killed, along with her.

But, yeah, I really hate those who falsely cry rape for messing up real victims' chances for justice and wrecking an innocent guy's reputation (in a lot of cases, acquited defendents of various crimes still are not trusted by neighbors).

"The woman in this case seemed to be aware of the fact that her husband owned a gun and was aware of possible violent reactions."
Uh, what? The husband drew his gun and "ordered" her out of the truck. Did you consider for a moment, the likelihood that she was scared for her life and that's why she lied?

The situation is not at all similar to crying 'fire' in a movie house. Are you saying the husband who shot a fleeing man is like someone who is trying to escape fire and accidentally tramples on someone else?? It's not like he felt he or his wife were in danger, the guy (the lover) was trying to gt away when he was shot. And as far as I can tell he wasn't charged at all.

"Of course, whether she truely cried rape in an effort to avoid being caught or whether she was trying to defend herself from a (obviously) violent husband is not knowable." Really? Someone with a gun orders you out of a car and it's not knowable whether or not you were scared for your life or not?

sojourner:

Did you consider for a moment, the likelihood that she was scared for her life and that's why she lied?
Yes I did, as I stated so in my earlier post. In fact you go on to mention that very quote.

Perhaps I was not as clear on my fire analogy, as I thought most people would get to which law I was alluding. I was implying that the person was yelling "fire!" in a crowded room where there was no actual fire. This is a very illegal act as it causes people to panic and often get hurt. I was drawing the parallels between the woman in this case and the person who yells fire when there is none. Both are very aware of what they are saying is not true, and they both know that what they are saying will most probably cause harm or death. I was not equating the husband to a person fleeing any real fire.

As to my doubts on whether or not she was using the lie of rape for self defense: the article is not clear if he ordered her out of the car and was pointing the gun at the man in the car (as a protective gesture) or if he was threatening her with it. Nor do we get a sense of whether or not she was actually afraid that he would shoot her. I'm going with the finding of the jury in this case--that she was convicted as there was no evidence to support self defense. In other words: she cried rape to avoid being caught committing adultery.

niina I really want to see the image you're talking about, but the link isn't working for me. Do you have another one?

Did anyone see the recent interview, I think it was on Fox & Friends (I saw it lambasted on The Soup) in which a white man claimed he was going to adopt a child from South Africa and name him "Dunk" because he'd probably be tall and good at basketball (read: Black). Then someone said "Oh, I thought you meant like 'badunkadunk'" (meaning having a large ass) and the jackass actually said "oh, well that would work if I adopt a girl instead." I can't for the life of me find the clip or any references to it online, but it was horrifying.

As per the WVWV post, I was also intrigued to find that in their Board and Bios section, several members worked for or near Bill Clinton. Surprise, surprise. And I try so hard to find reasons to love The Hill.

RE: the "Cried rape" story -

This is unbelievable. I think false accusations are pretty horrible, but to convict the wife and not even charge the husband is ridiculous. Even if they could prove that she intended for the husband to kill the other man (which would seem to be nearly impossible), that would make her an accomplice (at most) to the husband’s crime. He shot the guy as he fled! How is that not a chargeable offense?

She claims she yelled rape because her husband had a gun and she was afraid he would kill her if he thought it was an affair. Doesn’t this sound reasonable (so long as the accusation was taken back as soon as she was out of immediate danger)? I might see being able to charge her with some form of endangerment, but I just can’t understand how she was convicted for murder and he wasn’t even charged.

I haven't read the article on crying rape, but regarding wanting to punish women for falsely accusing people of rape, I'm really wary of that. I remember a discussion with a guy who said if we had a law to punish such women, it would benefit real rape victims because their credibility would be increased, but I don't buy that. I think it would just make real rape victims report even less frequently, as they are already afraid of not being believed, and I expect it would end up punishing women who just didn't have enough proof. I'm sure it would be supposedly very difficult to punish those who just lack proof, but we know how little we can rely on judges to be fair to alleged rape victims. False accusations are horrible, but I don't think they're the reason why alleged rape victims aren't believed in the first place. A lot of people say they contribute to this disbelief, and yeah, I'm sure yelling "Duke Lacrosse Team!" makes the argument a little easier to make, but I think the idea that women are lying about rape originates in other sexist ideas and rape myths.

Friendliness to families is usually done at the expense of the single, so I don't think we should.

Ah, so we just should continue to suck up a system where either no one raises the kids adequately, or one of the two parents raising the kids has to curtail where they can work and what hours they can put in and generally have a career that sucks because they have to be responsible for the kids, (or both do), just so we can avoid putting a burden on people without kids. Who, you know, don't have kids, and therefore they are already lacking a massive burden that people with kids have. Unless they are caring for dying parents, or otherwise caring for dependent human beings, they simply do not have as many responsibilities outside work.

Besides, this statement is bullshit. A culture of work that doesn't allow *anyone* to work an 80-hour work week and actually hires as many people as it needs is just as good for the childfree as it is for parents. When I didn't have kids, I enjoyed getting home on time from my job; now I *have* to, but rather than create a zero-sum game where *someone* has to stay late and it can't be the parent so it has to be the person without kids, how about saying no one stays late?

As for vacations, why the fuck do you want to go away in August if you can get away without doing so? When I had no kids I took my vacations in the months that the parents without kids *couldn't*, and greatly enjoyed the lack of overcrowding at my favored vacation spots. But hey, I have a way to fix this too -- lengthen the school year so there is no summer vacation, and give the kids ample time off that they may take at *any* time if their parents give the schools notice, so there won't be any prime vacation time and parents and nonparents can be in the same priority queue.

Man, the fucking selfishness of some of the childfree. "I consider the decision to have completely dependent human beings who need constant attention from you *exactly* as valuable as my desire to go parasailing." "We can't do anything to make life easier for parents in the workforce, because then employers would push back on the rest of us! God forbid we imagine making employers stop pushing *anyone* -- it's too important to punish parents for having kids!" I fully support anyone's desire to not have kids -- they are a HUGE burden. Don't want 'em, don't have 'em. I am 100% behind your choice. And I don't think you should be penalized for it by being forced to work more unpaid overtime, although, you do realize, if you're female and have no kids you make about 96 cents to a male dollar and if you're female and do have kids you make about 56, and the average of the two is where that 77 cent figure comes from, so it's not like the mothers who are ducking out of work early aren't suffering for it. (The fathers, the data is unclear.) But the air of selfish entitlement coming from posts where childfree people say "The fact that you have a human being who is totally dependent on you is exactly as important as the fact that me and my boyfriend wanted to go out dancing tonight" is just obscene.

I was in the work force for ten years without kids, and eight years so far with them. When I had no kids, I enjoyed being able to travel on my jobs, I liked being able to prove myself and work long hours, I took pride in the length of the commute I could tolerate, and I spent all my money on goodies I wanted. Now, I can't work late if I want to, I use up all my PTO on my kids being sick and never get a vacation, I can't afford to take a job more than half an hour from home in case of emergencies, I can't travel, and all my money goes to stuff my kids want or need. I chose this, I agreed to it, but don't dare pretend that your life is *harder* than mine because sometimes a parent leaves the office early and you have to work overtime, or you don't get the vacation days you really wanted.

Odds are, the mother in the cube across from you hasn't had a vacation in ten years -- even when her family goes away for a week in August, *she* gets no time to relax or enjoy herself because she's spending all her vacation time corralling kids. So you're having a lot more fun on your October vacation than she's having on her August one.

Fanily friendliness would be good for all workers. Not so good for the obscene salaries of CEOs, because they'd have to hire more people to cover the needs of parents to have time with their kids and the needs of non-parents to have time for their own lives. But if you recognize that the enemy is not the mom in the other cube, but the bald white guy in the corner office with the panoramic view, maybe you might actually accomplish some positive change in the workplace. This mommy wars bullshit that puts working mothers against stay at home mothers and childfree or childless women against both has got to go, or women and workers in general will continue to have working lives that suck.

I agree with nearly everything you say, Alara, except this idea that being childfree means that our lives outside of work are always so simple. First, it's classist; part of the reason I don't have kids is because 1) I can't afford them, and 2) I don't have the time for them because I'm constantly working. There's also the factor (which you mentioned but also diminished) of having other relatives who need your time and attention. So while I completely agree that that previous comment was ridiculous and there is little comparison between missing a night out with your boyfriend or missing doing things that you need to do for your children, I also think it's ridiculous to use so many inaccurate stereotypes to try to debunk it.

Oh, and I was going to say that reading that article on Hillary was like reading my own thoughts (but better articulated). I'm glad someone finally said it.

I've always been very critical of women who falsely accuse rape. They are enabilers to the men who do violate women. They make those true victims less likely to step forward because of the doubt that those falsehoods have placed in society and in the justice system. They contribute to the overall uncertainty of rape accusations when it often comes down to a she said, he said situation.

I call bullshit on troubling comments like these, especially since they're coming from fellow feminists. Why must the burden of repairing, or painstakingly adhering to the mores of, a fucked system fall upon women? So the woman in question lied. That's awful, but not as awful as her husband killing somebody. Not as awful as, you know, thousands of other women being raped. Why should her lie make her immediately responsible for our culture's failure to listen -- or, worse, our culture's skepticism -- when any number of other women accuse their rapists of raping them? Why blame the few women who lied rather than the culture that says it's okay to doubt the sexual assaults of women as a whole in the first place? Why, when a woman fucks up in the slightest, does it become the grand excuse for everybody else's suspicions that women fuck up? This woman being a woman who said something about rape does not mean that she speaks or should be expected to speak at all for women who survive, or don't survive, rape. Holding women to this standard of not fucking up or else only excuses the awful custom of doubting rape accusers.

And really: enabilers [sic] to the men who do violate women? Seriously? Somehow, the lie this woman told in a moment of fear of her gun-wielding spouse makes her an accomplice in raping another women? Like I said, I call bullshit. If you want to point fingers at enablers, point them at apists themselves.

And really: enabilers [sic] to the men who do violate women? Seriously? Somehow, the lie this woman told in a moment of fear of her gun-wielding spouse makes her an accomplice in raping another women? Like I said, I call bullshit. If you want to point fingers at enablers, point them at apists themselves.

Sociological Mom, it was Spencer of The Hills, a show on MTV. I saw that same Soup ep- I was completely horrified.

Alara, I understand your point of view, but I think you may be projecting onto Alice. She actually makes some good points, and comes out in favour of employers being nicer to employees in general.

A childless person not wanting to pick up the slack for those with children is perfectly reasonable, especially when they've had it happen over and over again.

It actually isn't that hard to make worklife fairer-we've done it in the government where I work. Maternity leave is guaranteed for a year, and you come back to the same position-they have to hold it open for you. We have unions, and while mostly I hate them, they do come in handy if your job tries to screw you over. You get your vacation on a first-come, first-served basis.

AlaraJRogers – I am glad to know that you think your time is more valuable than the time of us single folk just because you chose to have kids.

Talk about entitlement.

Ahem,
At my last job, I was the only parent on staff and STILL had to work Mother's Day because everyone else has already scheduled the day off. "Already scheduled" being the operative term. So bullshit on the "getting priority assignment on holiday slots." Also, I think the main point of AJR's post was that "But if you recognize that the enemy is not the mom in the other cube, but the bald white guy in the corner office with the panoramic view, maybe you might actually accomplish some positive change in the workplace." Because it's true. The person who decides who gets screwed isn't any of us- the mommy or the non-mommy, its the absurd power dynamic of corporate culture, or, the "bald white guy."

Alara: Besides, this statement is bullshit. A culture of work that doesn't allow *anyone* to work an 80-hour work week and actually hires as many people as it needs is just as good for the childfree as it is for parents.

I don't think you're paying attention to the conversation at hand. I specifically said that such an arrangement would be fine by me:

Alice: If you want to make employers friendly to employees in general to the point that someone could raise a family, well, that's all well and good...

I'm just not in favor of singling out workers based on any criteria beyond performance. That is the opposite of the meritocracy an ideal company or agency would exhibit.

At any rate, people with major non-work pursuits will always fall behind those who focus on their careers, even if limit the workweek to 40 hours. If one of your co-workers is career obsessed or simply holds a genuine interest in what it is they do for a living, they might go home at about the same time you do, and then continue working on a company project at home, read books about the nuances of their profession during their leisure time, and day-dream about better ways to minimize expenses.

Why shouldn't such an individual have a better career than someone who, all else being equal, decides to leave work at work and spend the rest of their time on their family, or anything else?

"they can afford to stay home, they do"

This is my perspective. I think a parent is a better parent when they work because they have power outside of being a parent. Its a good example to demonstrate to the kids, especially for a mother to demonstrate for her daughter. It also comes in handy when divorce happens, and gives woman power in her society. I also believe that parenting should be split 50/50. One parent majoritively taking on the care is NOT 50/50. I also wonder why a woman would want to spend the majority of the time raising the kid. What if the father wouldve loved to do that to, however, he has to bring bread to the family table. I see it as reinforcing old gender roles that are so well-pushed in society that it will eventually have a detrimental effect upon the kids - especially the girl because it aligns itself with media and socially pushed myths about the genders. Instead of breaking them, the kids personal home life reflects it. I also dont understand why she would feel the need to quit her high-powered occupation? Is that not the effects of indoctrination by society torwards girls who grow up and become women?If a man stays home its not as bad because its societally innovative and somewhat rebellious against the old established ways of 'men bring home the bacon, women cook it.' It also establishes the image of 'the nurturer' for men, in this society which tends to believe men shouldnt be, or that particular identity is relegated to that of the female because she is 'passive.' It opens up new dimensions for character emulation by future generations of boys rather than establishing everything along the Old Gender Binary which is based on gender stereotypes and denigrating lies.

"Did anyone see the recent interview, I think it was on Fox & Friends (I saw it lambasted on The Soup) in which a white man claimed he was going to adopt a child from South Africa and name him "Dunk" because he'd probably be tall and good at basketball (read: Black). "

I saw it and was completely appalled! That was on the "Tyra Banks Show" and I saw the re-cap on E!.

"I agree with nearly everything you say, Alara, except this idea that being childfree means that our lives outside of work are always so simple."

For that matter, what about being child*less*?

Is it "family friendly" to make employees without children cover for employees with children so much that they don't have enough time left over to get sex partners (which isn't always quick and easy!), or make appointments for IVF, or adopt...?

"So while I completely agree that that previous comment was ridiculous and there is little comparison between missing a night out with your boyfriend or missing doing things that you need to do for your children"

Especially when that boils down to a comparison between doing things that you need to do to have children in the first place and doing things that you need to do for your children.

"...I don't think you're paying attention to the conversation at hand. I specifically said that such an arrangement would be fine by me:

"'Alice: If you want to make employers friendly to employees in general to the point that someone could raise a family, well, that's all well and good...'..."

I agree with both of you on that! :)

" if you're female and have no kids you make about 96 cents to a male dollar and if you're female and do have kids you make about 56, and the average of the two is where that 77 cent figure comes from,"

This would explain a lot concerning the "77 cent" figure, i.e., married women with children are probably not, on average, working outside the home the same hours as their male or unmarried female counterparts (hence the childless vs. married parent conflicts we too often see), even if their hourly wages are the same, but is it true? That's a poor way of getting a mean, unless the number of unmarried childless women and married women with children are exactly the same. For example, where do single mothers and childless married women come into the equation?

This is unbelievable. I think false accusations are pretty horrible, but to convict the wife and not even charge the husband is ridiculous. Even if they could prove that she intended for the husband to kill the other man (which would seem to be nearly impossible), that would make her an accomplice (at most) to the husband’s crime. He shot the guy as he fled! How is that not a chargeable offense?

Because it's Texas. The state didn't outlaw the "Sumbitch Had It Comin' To Him" defense until 1974 (the redneck version of "honor" killings), where people who catch spouses screwing around were allowed to shoot on sight. I live in Fort Worth and we ahd a case several years ago where a guy came home from work, caught his wife screwing another man, emptied his shotgun into both of them, and got probation.

By the way, we still have laws that allow people who are being violently attacked to kill their attacker(s), even if they try to flee. We also have laws that allow homeowners to kill any intruder after sundown and before sunrise -and kill anyone trying to remove vehicles or animals from your yard after sunset.

She claims she yelled rape because her husband had a gun and she was afraid he would kill her if he thought it was an affair. Doesn’t this sound reasonable (so long as the accusation was taken back as soon as she was out of immediate danger)? I might see being able to charge her with some form of endangerment, but I just can’t understand how she was convicted for murder and he wasn’t even charged.

Posted by: noname

Assuming her husband's story is true (big IF, I know), he comes home and finds the Mrs with another man and his wife screams "RAPE!". What exactly is the husband supposed to do?

Secondly, whether she was scared or not, she did something despicable that was the direct cause of another person's death. I hope she goes to jail for it.

she did something despicable that was the direct cause of another person's death. I hope she goes to jail for it.

Since when is having an affair illegal?

I'm not talking about the affair, I'm talking about yelling "RAPE!", knowing full well that her husband (like any spouse worth a damn) would use force against the "attacker". What did she think her husband would do? offer to go bowling with the guy?

Assuming her husband's story is true (big IF, I know), he comes home and finds the Mrs with another man and his wife screams "RAPE!". What exactly is the husband supposed to do?

I suppose call her a liar and go about his merry way judging by the comments here.

"By the way, we still have laws that allow people who are being violently attacked to kill their attacker(s), even if they try to flee. We also have laws that allow homeowners to kill any intruder after sundown and before sunrise -and kill anyone trying to remove vehicles or animals from your yard after sunset."

Just curious, even if that someone is a vehicle owner's repo agent trying to repossess a vehicle the homeowner doesn't own and isn't paying the lease for anymore?

Meanwhile, did anyone else see this article - and its illustration?

"Type of body fat 'boosts health'," 7 May 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7386405.stm

My first reaction was "I wish my butt was as smooth as hers," my second was "this reminds me of some stereotypes of black women," and my third was "the article says subcutaneous fat is good for you - could the message be less 'she's little more than a big butt' than 'all of you should be more like her'?"

Just curious, even if that someone is a vehicle owner's repo agent trying to repossess a vehicle the homeowner doesn't own and isn't paying the lease for anymore?

Posted by: Mina

Yep. The bank might technically own the vehicle, but the person making payments is considered to be in legal possession of it, even if he or she is delinquent. So if someone tried to remove it from the property between sundown and sunrise, the property owner can kill them. Same goes for trying to remove animals at night.

There was a case in San Antonio several years ago (it was covered on 20/20) when a repo man tried to take off with a truck at night and the owner blasted him. No charges were filed because no laws were broken. The lesson: Don't try to take vehicles or animals from private property at night. Not in Texas,anyway.

Responses to a bunch of people:

A childless person not wanting to pick up the slack for those with children is perfectly reasonable, especially when they've had it happen over and over again.

Absolutely, and I agree that this is totally unfair.

I also think it is totally unfair to expect people to pick up the slack for a person who is sick and must work reduced hours, but on the other hand, firing the sick person also seems totally unfair. Basically, employers are fond of playing this zero-sum game in which the fact that one person *cannot* work as hard as another, for whatever reason, translates into the other person *must* work harder than the first. Mandatory overtime is evil. Blaming the parent, or the sick person, for the fact that the employer is forcing mandatory overtime on you is blaming a fellow victim.

Alice said:

I don't think you're paying attention to the conversation at hand. I specifically said that such an arrangement would be fine by me...

I apologize if I miscontrued your point, Alice, but you did start out by stating you didn't think corporations should be friendly to families. "Friendly to families" and "unfriendly to childless people" can only be construed as part of the same binary if it's a zero-sum game where the employer makes the rules. In fact, currently, the employer is friendly to no one except the male workaholic with a wife who has married him for his money, because the worker they want has *no* life outside his job obligations, which means he needs to have all of his life needs cared for (including his kids if he has any) by another person, who can't be with him for love because he has no time to spend with her so it must be her money. (Corporations would probably be okay with a woman who is married to a man who does all her home life stuff for her in exchange for nothing but a cut of her paycheck, but the structures of patriarchy ensure that that almost never happens.)

Given how horrifically unfriendly employers are to families, and how often I've heard from the childfree about all the great benefits parents get vis-a-vis employment and how it's totally unfair for the childfree or childless, I tend to get tetchy on this subject. Corporate America sucks for everyone, but it sucks hardest for the people who've gotta take care of kids while being corporate drones. "I think corporations should not be friendly to families" sounds like "I am perfectly okay with the arrangement that penalizes anyone who has to take care of kids, which ipso facto means women, because I belong to the anti-mother strain of feminism." If that's not what you were trying to say, I apologize.

I am glad to know that you think your time is more valuable than the time of us single folk just because you chose to have kids.

My time is spoken for by extra jobs in which people could die, be seriously injured, or end up suffering severe emotional harm if I don't do them. And these extra jobs have nothing to do with choosing to *have* kids -- because, in fact, I do this job for two kids I didn't choose to have. Someone else did, and now she lives in California and I do her job because she bailed on it.

If you have another job in which someone could die, be injured or suffer grievous emotional harm if you don't do it, such as caring for an elderly relative or a brother with a disability or a close friend with diabetes, then your extra job is just as important as mine. If you have an extra job because you need to work to put food on the table because you aren't getting paid as much as me or you don't have a partner helping out, your extra job is as important as mine. If you don't have an extra job or it's a hobby, like my extra job of writing, then no, I'm sorry, my time is more important than yours. My *free* time and your *free* time are equally important, but I'm not getting as much free time as you. I HAVE ANOTHER JOB. And I can't legally quit it. And people could get seriously hurt if I don't do it. If you're a paramedic after work I will shut the hell up, but if you live like I did when I didn't have kids -- you hang out with friends, you do your chores, you buy your groceries, you watch some TV or read a book, you get to do something fun on occasion -- that doesn't beat out having to watch young children.

But, all that being said, I am *still* opposed to employers making you work overtime to cover for me. I put in my 40 hours, I use up my PTO on my kids' sick days, and if there is "slack", it could only be that the workload is higher than 40 hours a week. And that's wrong. If the workload per employee is more than 40 hours a week, THE EMPLOYER IS AT FAULT, not the people who demand to work only their 40 hours and then go home.

*If* the employer has to fuck someone over and demand they work mandatory overtime, it needs to be the person who doesn't have kids depending on them. But, why does the employer have to fuck *anyone* over? I don't want to fight for the employer's right to fuck you over so I can go home and get my kids out of daycare on time; I want to fight for *all* of our rights not to get fucked over! Yes, I have better reasons to push back against employer fuckery than you, but that doesn't make it *right* what they do to you, and that doesn't mean I approve of it.

Why shouldn't such an individual have a better career than someone who, all else being equal, decides to leave work at work and spend the rest of their time on their family, or anything else?

If the choice is between a better career or a better home life, and it's a free and informed choice and not constrained by gender or stereotyping, then sure. it's a great idea, I'm all for it.

But women are penalized for being mothers even *if* they are workaholics who will take this stuff home and live and breathe it. Even *if* they have a partner who is happy to pick up the slack. Because the fact that most of the people who give up or cut back on their job are women with kids penalizes *all* women with kids and to some extent penalizes all women.

Look, I was out of the office for two weeks recovering from surgery. I was working from home. I worked my *ass* off. We had a big deadline and I busted ass to meet it, despite the fact that I was bedridden and taking Percoset. I have the kind of job that can be done working from home, and I got it done. Two weeks later after I was back at work my kid got diarrhea and I was out, working from home the same as I'd done during my surgery recovery, for three days. And I got chewed out when I got in because "work from home is not our policy".

My boss had been sending me emails telling me to stop working so hard and cut back because she was only allowed to authorize 40 hours for me, while I was recovering from surgery. They *knew* I bust my buns when I work from home. But working from home because I had a sick kid was not allowed, whereas working from home because I was recovering from elective surgery was just fine.

Tell me there is no "we will penalize you just for being a mother" embedded in that. Tell me that's all about the merit of the work, and how hard we work, and not about judging the need to care for children to be unimportant in the workplace. If a guy who works 60 hours when I work 40 gets a raise and I don't, that's fair. But if I work from home to recover from elective surgery, bust my ass, and get told "stop working so hard", and then when I want to work from home because my kid is sick I'm told "that's not our policy"... how is that anything other than discrimination against mothers for being mothers?

AlaraJRogers –

1. Being sick and having kids are different in that one chooses to have kids, but one does not choose to be sick.

2. Caring for your kids is not a job, it is a responsibility. Caring for your kids is how you commit to spend much of your free time when you choose to have kids.

3. Your free time is no more valuable than anyone else’s, no matter what your massive sense of entitlement tells you.

"2. Caring for your kids is not a job, it is a responsibility."

More accurately, it's a job that whoever told you to raise kids hired you to do. If it was your choice instead of someone else's, then you've hired yourself for the job.

It reminds me of the last time I got called for jury duty. The law (this was in Massachusetts) said that a juror's employer owes the juror paid leave for the first 3 days - and that if a juror is self-employed, then she or he owes the payment for the time off to herself or himself.

Caring for your kids is not a job, it is a responsibility. Caring for your kids is how you commit to spend much of your free time when you choose to have kids.

It's not "free time" if it's not free.

You want to call it "time not spent at this specific job", okay. But it is not "free time." And as I've stated, it's also not free time if you spend it:

- Caring for any other dependent human being
- Doing any other job for money
- Volunteering at a job that saves human lives, such as being a volunteer firefighter or paramedic

If you spend it on doing something that neither makes money nor cares for dependent humans nor saves human lives, then no one will die, get hurt or suffer financial hardship if you don't do it. Thus, it's free.

Your free time is no more valuable than anyone else’s, no matter what your massive sense of entitlement tells you.

Your free time is massively larger than mine, because I have responsibilities I can't get out of, unless you are spending *your* time where you are not at work doing something to benefit other humans as well.

And regardless of what I feel entitled to, I actually feel that *you* are entitled to put down your work after 40 hours and go home, too. It just really, really pisses me off when people who are mad at *me* because when an employer says "Who can stay late?" and I say "Not me, gotta pick up my kids" and the employer says "Okay, you then" and you sit like a deer in the headlights and don't *say* "But i had dinner plans and you only pay me for 40 anyway", imply that *I* am the problem because *I* am entitled to my free time... as if I actually got any free time. all my free time is spent at work, honestly. And talk about having kids as a "lifestyle choice" as if I can get out of having to pick up my kids at day care as easily as you can cancel your dinner reservation.

The point is, it actually doesn't matter whether I have more right to the free time that actually isn't free for me at all than you do... the point is, *all* of us are entitled to our free time, and goddammit, if I have to take the blame because you will not speak up and say "no", then you will goddamn take the blame for the fact that you get paid more than me. Whine whine whine, men and childfree women, but your Social Security checks will be about two-thirds bigger than a mother's would be. If you want the free time, speak up and say "No, I'm going home;" if you want the money, do the work, because the parent *can't* even if she *wants* to, as her time CANNOT BE REALLOCATED TO WORK and therefore IS NOT FREE; and either way, shut up about how companies being friendly to families is such a huge problem.

"Companies are too friendly to families" is exactly like MRAs saying "We live in a matriarchy! The feminists have taken over!" It is ridiculous, untrue, unfair, and no one would ever *say* it unless they felt massively entitled. You are not entitled to a job where none of your coworkers are a primary caretaker of children and therefore nobody else has something that happens *every day* so they *cannot stay late*. You aren't entitled to a job where they let you work just 40, either, but you *damn* well won't get one of those by sitting on your ass whining about mothers who leave exactly on time sticking you with extra work instead of actually *telling* your employer "No, I am not working late for you every night."

And if the *exact same time* off is treated differently by employers depending on whether or not it is because the employee is undergoing elective surgery (good) or being the primary caretaker of a sick child (bad), then THERE IS DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MOTHERS. Not people who take time off, MOTHERS. (Possibly fathers as well. I have no evidence that men are allowed to work from home to be with sick children either.)

AlaraJRogers – Picking up your kids is a part of the lifestyle choice you made when you decided to have kids. Not picking up kids is part of the lifestyle choice I made when I decided not to have kids. Because of my choice, I am able to spend my free time doing things I enjoy. Go figure.

Please note, at no point in this thread did I whine about mothers or forty hour work weeks. In fact, all I did to start this was to point out your egomaniacal opinion that your time is more important than other people’s time.

I think what Alara said is reasonable. I don't normally read responses that long, but I wanted to see where she went wrong. And she didn't really. She's advocating that a 40 hour work week actually be a 40 hour work week, and that employers acknowledge that their employees shouldn't have to give up all of their productive time in order to do their jobs well. Makes sense to me.

I didn't see the egomania. It seems like an unwarranted personal attack, actually.

sgzax - I am not arguing against a 40 hour work week. I am arguing against AlaraJRogers' asserton that her time is more important than the time of an entire class of people.