From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: traditional roles (was Re: reverence for women)
Date: 8 Apr 92 18:14:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: remarque.MUFFY.92Apr8110709
	<MUFFY.92Apr1110929@remarque.berkeley.edu>
	<rqga3INN59r@agate.berkeley.edu>
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <rqga3INN59r@agate.berkeley.edu> uunet!cmcl2!panix.com!jk@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Jim Kalb) writes:

>Whatever the circumstances, most people get by after a fashion and some
>people get by quite well.  If the goal is to determine the
>circumstances in which people generally live best, though, it's worth
>mentioning that of the men I've known the married men have usually
>lived in less sordid surroundings than the bachelors.

Interesting how you say you want "people" to live best and then give an
example of how "men" live better when traditional roles are enforced.

Suppose that changing the roles to something new causes women to live
50% better, but men to live 10% worse.  Would you want to change?

By the way, I don't believe that men would actually live worse if the
traditional roles were changed.  For example, your example is *caused*
by the traditional roles.  If people didn't expect men to have someone
to clean up after them, they'd teach their male children to clean up
after themselves.  My mother did this, and my brother turns out to be a
much cleaner person than I am (with the same training).  His house is
always quite neat, and when we lived together, I didn't have to pay a
maid service because he kept the place quite clean.  He's a better cook
than I am, too, although I think that's because he enjoys food more
(which is pretty hard! *grin*).  My SO, on the other hand, was not
taught to cook or clean, as is "traditional."  He is quite unhappy about
not being able to cook (I'm teaching him, though), although we'd both
prefer not to clean.  These stereotypes are hurting both men and women.

Indeed, why do we need separate stereotypes for men and women?  How
about a stereotype for "single people" (cook and clean for themselves),
"parents" (take care of children), etc?  Why do the functions have to be
hardwired to either men or women?  What about a gay couple with
children?

I don't know if you defenders of traditional roles have noticed it, but
we're not living in the society those roles were formed for anymore.  I
don't know of many couples, especially with children, who can afford for
only one parent to work.  They seem to manage for a few years while the
children are young, then both go to work.  So, how long are you going to
hang on to roles that were formed for a different society?  How is it
going to make people "live better" when they can't afford to support
themselves and their children?  And what happens to the "traditional"
family whose husband/father is killed, or just decides to leave one day?


If you honestly want "PEOPLE to live better," try to look at it from the
point of view that EVERYONE is "people," not just men.

Muffy
--

Muffy Barkocy                             muffy@mica.berkeley.edu
~Little round planet/in a big universe/sometimes it looks blessed/
 sometimes it looks cursed/Depends on what you look at, obviously/
 But even more it depends on the way that you see~ - Bruce Cockburn


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