(no subject)

[ailbhe]

"Most women now work and their new economic independence contributes to levels of family break-up which are higher in the UK than in any other Western European country."

Because trapping women through economic dependence is good for children. And fathers have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I saw that article and was looking for something to throw. Let's hire a panel of 11 greying bigots including two religious leaders to tell me I think I'm too human for the good of humanity, that wil brighten my day up. Grr.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

What I don't get is the disapproval of the pursuit of "personal success" (whatever that means), coming from a panel composed of people who are pretty damn personally successful. Most of the actual report recommendations seem sound (though oddly, the BBC states that one of the recommendations is to have "rules making it easier for parents to stay at home to rear their children", of which I can't seem to find mention on the Children's Society website), but the way it's phrased is revoltingly sexist.

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

Let's break up this quote into its constituent parts, shall we.

-- "Most women now work"

Most women have always worked. Women make up the vast majority of the economic agents on the planet, as a direct result of their higher likelihood of caring for children and other dependants, and therefore of necessity.

Going out to work is not a middle class luxury, nor a sign of individualism run riot.

-- "their new economic independence"

What sort of data is this statement based on, and what is the benchmark for "independence" being used here? That women earn less than men is a fact. That they are more likely to end up caring for children after divorce or separation is a fact. That their jobs are more highly concentrated in the serivces part of the economy more vulnerable to the current financial crisis is a fact. These facts do not add up to the above statement, unless by "new" independence the writers of the report are referring to the changes in the law that allowed women to own property in their own name - and that happened quite a while ago.

-- "contributes to levels of family break up"

Again, what data is this based on? Even if the report managed to demonstrate that higher levels of affluence directly and causally contribute to higher levels of parents separating, which is unlikely, as we've established in the previous point that level of affluence is entirely theoretical. This is a double fallacy in that it's conjecture based on incorrect data.

-- "higher in the UK than in any other Western European country"

So what? I bet it's higher than in Soudi Arabia too, but Soudi Arabia is not our cultural benchmark. The UK shares more culturally and economically with the US than with Europe, and levels of divorce here are in fact lower. Saying which, still, so what? There seems to be an assumption buried there that "family break up" is some sort of social ill in it own right, but the implication is left vague - a sure sign of underlying ideology rather than data.

In short, this is bullshit. Not that you didn't know that already.

[shreena.livejournal.com]

The Today programme this morning reported on this and their report had the immortal phrase "children are damaged by absent fathers and working mothers" - THOSE ARE NOT THE SAME THING!

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Another way to phrase the same thing: "With women having more financial independence, they are more able to escape abusive or otherwise negative situations."

Historically, this has been a very scary thing for those in power. In the United States, a hundred years ago, mill work and office work opened up to women (at vastly reduced wages with respect to men, but still, giving women a chance to make money on a larger scale than before). Then women got the vote, and became active forces in public and professional life.

Women having the ability to support themselves is a terribly scary thing to those whose worldview and lifestyle requires a trapped and oppressed workforce.

[rmc28]

And all "family breakup" is women abandoning loving fathers and stealing the kids.

[livi-short.livejournal.com]

The following quote had my blood boiling. "Children with separate, single or step parents are 50% more likely to fail at school, have low esteem, be unpopular with other children and have behavioural difficulties, anxiety or depression," it argues.

Having been a single mother and a working mother I've obviously raised two uneducated, insecure loaners who will not succeed in life.... anyone who knows Sue or Trish knows how true this statement is.

Poppycock! and Tosh! I say

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, I wonder at what age a girl stops being a valuable "child" to these people, and then becomes a "woman" to be repressed and commodified? No point giving good childhoods to 50% of children: they might grow up with too much self-esteem to accept the bullshit these report writers seem determined to heap on them.

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

So: not giving children time and attention is bad for the family? That I can agree with. But 'women going to work' is the cause? Not so happy. And has it possibly occurred to people to join the dots between this sort of article - which suggests that stay-at-home-parents and child carers are undervalued - and the Gov't's current White Paper on benefits, which wants to push single parents out to work as soon as possible - in fact threatens them with reduced benefits if they don't.

but apparently we are very good at raising chimps...

[(Anonymous)]

Guardian, 2 Feb 2009

"Chimps ahead of children with human mothering
Infant chimpanzee orphans given special human "mothering" are more advanced than the average child at nine months of age, according to a study by Professor Kim Bard of the University of Portsmouth. She looked at 46 chimpanzees at the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre in Atlanta in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s and found that youngsters given extra emotionally based care were more cognitively advanced than human infants. The study was a "stark warning" that just looking after physical needs was likely to result in a child who was maladjusted, she said."

[velcro-kitten.livejournal.com]

and that one was me