From: bgt@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (barbara.tongue)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.korean
Subject: American Women and Careers (was: Re: My Thought on)
Summary: my oh my
Date: 10 Jan 93 15:06:52 GMT
Organization: AT&T

greetings peoples,

this is the first time i've posted to this group; i'm a somewhat regular
on and off in soc.culture.china, soc.culture.asian-american, and 
rec.pets.birds.  background - i'm a caucasian woman in a serious 
relationship with a chinese man, work as a software designer/developer/
educator/etc., and have the hobbies of stained glass, computer hacking,
and training my yellow-collared macaw angus not to eat the <ESC> key
on my computer keyboard (wreaks havoc with vi...).

that out of the way, being an american woman, i feel i can say the 
following:

In article <C0Lx9w.3Fr@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> timothy lee <tlee@silver.ucs.indiana.edu> writes:

->Hey, Kevin, what pisses me off is you Westerners' jump-into-quick-conclusions
->when you Westerners see different ideas, concepts or customs (even food) of 
->non-Western cultures.  

i simply love generalities.....it just paves the way to:

->For example, when you see the practice of polygamy 
->or concubines, you guys quickly jump into a conclusion that non-Westerners 
->are barbarians as if you guys see some abominable things.  Of course, I don't 
->support polygamy (I am an ardent monogamist.) nor concubine practices.  But in
->reality, do you know that Americans now have a pattern that sociologists call 
->"serial monogamy": an individual is married to one person at a time, 
->but over a lifetime will have several consecutive marriage partners.  
->In actuality, it's nothing but polygamy or even worse than that.  

first of all, polygmany involves more than one person at a time.  since
you stated the word "consecutive", by definition you just contradicted
yourself.

but i digress.  there is nothing wrong with polygamy for *some* people.
if it works for them, just fine!  how can you call anything "even
worse?"  aren't you now putting your own judgements on actions which
have nothing to do with you?  polygamy might not work for me, just
like chastity wouldn't, but i can only judge myself.  if other folks
make such concepts work *for themselves*, more power to them.

->My contention is that Westerners'
->judgment on non-Western cultures such as wife beating or male-dominated
->society has blind spots, for they try to judge non-Western culture with
->their own measure.

as you just did with matters of private sexual preference?

->understood: Extremely speaking, in my opinion, if domestic violence resolves
->marital problems, it's well better than divorces.  

so if the wife just beats her husband to resolve their marital problems,
it's just peachy keen?  after all, she just bruises his body, and heck,
that can heal!  it has nothing to do with her love for him.

->That was my point.  

ok.

->For example, Koreans never let their wives work.  

in my humble american opinion, nobody should "let" their partners
*do anything* in *any* culture; neither owns the other.  now, if it's
their mutual agreed-upon choice, that's quite another thing.

->Then you might 
->immediately talk about career and conclude that what
->pitiful Korean women are.  You are quick to say that they just become 
->homemakers,

to me, raising children is just as important a career, and far more demanding,
than anything in the job market.  women who *choose* to stay at home and
raise their children should be commended as much as those who make it
in the businesses.

->Do you think how
->many percentage of American women really enjoy their careers?  
->Very few. Only very few have glamorous careers such as TV reporters 
->or engineers or actresses.  Most women work tedious and menial jobs 
-with meager wage as their careers.  

This is too much even for my own funny bone.  quite simply, you have
got to be kidding!!  (IMHO, of course).  i *love* what i do; i
find it challenging, exciting, and also a great topic to discuss
with my SO.  we speak the same language, computer hacking, so to 
speak, and often share ideas on how to improve our respective
products.

btw, how can you compare TV reports and engineers in the same breath?
they are starkly different.

->I believe
->that every of them wish that she may have a husband who can support 
->her so that she may get out of her struggle of survival. 

little boy, i am just as capable of supporting my SO as he is of
supporting me.  let's not generalize.

->You see, many women have a fancy about career because they only see career
->women in TV 

i watch the discovery channel, nova, scientific american, star trek - tng
and cnn.  tell me about said career women.

->You cannot simply measure Korean culture by
->American culture.  When you do that, you may not see real part of stories 
->behind scenes.

that is true, and holds for all cultures.  very good point.

-- 
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%   The Speaking Tongue, AT&T   %%  C Code.  C Code Run.  Run, Code, RUN! %%
%%       bgt@hogpf.att.com       %%           PLEASE!!!!                   %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Newsgroups: soc.culture.korean