Found at Backyard Conservative:
This makes simple what I was trying to say a while back on this blog: We make different, less profitable decisions, for rational reasons. We get something for the money we forgo. Those of us who prefer the money and are consistent in that choice, get the money. Those who want a balanced life get more balance, less money. That is equal. Men don’t get a balanced life plus big bucks. Just like us, they’re lucky to get either one. But more fo them choose the money because they are more likely to make early decisions and stick with them, and in youth, men want material success, most of the time. So they make their decisions sooner, opt for the money more often and stick with that decision more consistently, losing a lot in the process but getting the money.
Girls are not “excluded” or “discouraged” from math and science, either. Governmental and nongovernmental efforts have been going on for decades to try to drag girls into math and science and most girls ares till not interested. Now, I am. I’m a statistics collector who has been known to read the periodic table of the elements for fun. But I’m unusual — and even I didn’t feel like going into engineering. It was too competitive and obsessive with too few meaningful, day-to-day results. I went into a caring profession because I found it worthwhile.
What the people who claim we’re “discriminated against” seem to demand is an economy that pauses while we do the nurturing creative stuff, letting no one get ahead of us, then stars rolling again when we get back to it. That would reconcile the “women just the same as men” ideal with the “more personal, less consumerist society” ideal. I can’t think of anything else that could.
The problem is that that would hurt us. You see, women are not a separate tribe. Our budgets involve money earned by all household members. A slower, less productivity-driven economy would make our households poorer. It would make everyone poorer.
So, instead of seeing ourselves as “victims” of our own economic reasoning, and instead of seeing men as “shallow” for choosing money over time with the kids etc., let’s see the differences as a challenge to cooperate for mutual benefit. I like the concept of mommy-track careers, where Mom can have an important job in a field that inspires her, but also have time to rear her children and see her relatives and Dad can be a breadwinner but put a couple of days a week into helping the kids with their homework and getting the yard, car and roof taken care of — even some laundry and dishes if there’s time. Everyone does some of everything, but everyone has clear primary responsibilities — the kids learn responsible habits — the family is close — the bills are paid — the best of all worlds. It’s much better than looking behind the couch for invisible oppressors.
My mother always said the most important job in the world was raising the next generation. That’s why she believed in higher education for women because she also said, “When you educate your son, you’ve educated a man, but when you educate a woman, you educate an entire family.
She was wise.
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