From: slarsen@haydn.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen)
Subject: Re: Affirmative Action (Re: The Politics Of Appeasement)
Organization: OUC, University of Notre Dame
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 13:51:22 GMT

In article <BvoEn9.sD@cs.psu.edu> beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver) writes:
>In article <1992Oct5.214335.25648@news.nd.edu> slarsen@monet.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen) writes:
>>
>>Maybe it is because white men, as a group, do not have a strong 
>>desire to move into fields which have been traditionally dominated 
>>by women and/or minorities?
>
>I'm not so sure.  Are (white) male nurses on the rise, for example? 
>White male secretaries?  Stats, anyone?  I'm just as curious.

No stats, but my sister who is a nurse frequently mentions the 
increasing numbers of male nurses.  I'm a secretary, and I've 
never run into a male secretary. 
>
>Here is a radical bit of food for thought.  Many people think that 
>childraising and homemaking are important but unrecognized and 
>undervalued jobs.  Some feminists suggest that these jobs should 
>be paid or at least given some monetary value (cf. Canadian divorce laws).  
>
>So, let's treat childraising and homemaking as serious jobs.  
>
>If women have a "lock" on these jobs (a 90% rate of awarding child 
>custody to women reflects this) and on the "educational slots" that 
>permit them to stay at home if they choose, then should we implement 
>affirmative action for men? 
>
>That is, should we create a presumption in favor of any man who 
>requests custody?  Should we arrange federal funding to enable 
>men to stay at home with their children (I am not talking about 
>parental leave, which is brief and is currently a greater opportunity 
>cost to men than to women) -- ie. a kind of "scholarship" to learn 
>childraising and homemaking and break the female "lock" on family jobs?

Well, I'm not especially fond of AA, in its current implementation, but 
I have no particular arguments against an AA approach to child 
custody.  I come to agree with you, though, from a different set of 
considerations.  It strikes me that until we reach a time in which men 
are equal partners in raising children, the workplace is never going to 
acknowledge the needs of parents, male or female.  One way to change this  
is with greater numbers of men retaining primary custody of their children. 
Another option is to recognize the monetary value of child raising and 
homemaking.  On top of these market changes, we have to educate all 
people that presumptions based on gender are false, whether the presumption
is that mothers are natural caretakers or fathers natural breadwinners.

As for federal funding, if we are going to do that then make some funding 
available to help intact families stay intact.  It really is ludicrous 
that thousands of dollars per child are available when a child is in 
foster care, but that money is not made available to families struggling 
with the pressures of poverty and trying to raise a family in today's 
urban, economic environment.

>After all, economic factors are a strong motivation for driving
>men out of the home and into the workplace.  How many families
>have the opportunity to try the "social experiment" of a working
>mother and a homemaking father?

Remember, those same economic factors are now driving women out 
of the home, too.  It is terrible that the market was instrumental 
in creating a schism between fathers and their children, now the 
market is demanding the labor of mothers.  How much more sacrifice 
are we going to require of our kids for the sake of economics?

Sue Larsen
slarsen@berlin.helios.nd.edu
Newsgroups: soc.women,soc.men