Are Women Happier Post-Sexual Revolution?

inlet13 · March 2012

hedonist wrote:

And inlet, I may not agree with you on all fronts, but I think your perspective comes from a good place. This is an interesting topic, for sure.

(just didn't think it'd be so divisive!)

Thank you.

I didn't think it would be divisive either. In fact, I thought there's more here that we would all agree on, then would disagree. But, I guess I was wrong.

inlet13 · March 2012

Jeanwah wrote:

For your last paragraph, I still think that everyone has a choice. So what if society is pushing one direction? Who says we have to go with it? There are no rules except the ones we choose to follow. If we want true happiness, we have to make up our own rules and get off that status quo rules path.

I agree. But, it's easier said then done, unfortunately.

amethgr8 · March 2012

a subject that is very near and dear to alot of members hearts or memories. that's why there is so much emphasis in the responses.

I've read some that I agree with and some I strongly disagree, but alot of this is about perspective, experience and interpretation.

the role of any human being in this world should only be defined by that individual.

I think everyone benefited from the sexual revolution, it opened the door to the next level of interaction.

I think women are happier post sexual revolution.

amy

brianlux · March 2012

Jeanwah wrote:

show previous quotes

inlet13 wrote:

Dude, just because the paper is of high quality doesn't mean all of its writers are great all the time. You've read this thread, I'm not the only one to fine the quality of writing in this article poor. If you want to think it's great (because you agree with its content), fine. I'm making an objective comment about the article, that its quality could have been a lot better. I find it strange that for a quality paper like WSJ with its readers being mostly male, that this article about women and the sexual revolution being in there. It does seem to be out of place, just like Brian said. You have to wonder why they ran it. There is a lot of psychology behind what and why mediums run the stories they do. That's a fact.

For your last paragraph, I still think that everyone has a choice. So what if society is pushing one direction? Who says we have to go with it? There are no rules except the ones we choose to follow. If we want true happiness, we have to make up our own rules and get off that status quo rules path.

Yes Jeanwah- several of us have questioned the quality of this article and for good reason. And I sort of made a joke about this article coming from WSJ but it really does seem odd to me. What is their motivation- an article on women's movement coming from a male oriented conservative paper? I think this is very much worth asking and looking at. To me, it certainly does not come across as supportive of women.

Jeanwah · March 2012

inlet13 wrote:

My issue is that sometimes women want to stay home with their children, but it's more difficult nowadays (due to societal and financial pressures). I suppose you disagree with that. Good for you.

I understand where you're coming from (which throws your opinion of me attacking the article being based on the poster or source it came from).

It is more difficult, but if they truly want it (and I have myself and a few friends to prove this), they find ways to make it happen. Again, about choice, prior planning, prioritizing and living more simply. My story is one of job burn-out though and not from simply a desire to stay home. My situation was about balance and being able to be there for my daughter who has Down syndrome when she needs me to be. A 50 hr. per week job did not allow it.

Jeanwah · March 2012

brianlux wrote:

show previous quotes

Jeanwah wrote:

inlet13 wrote:

Dude, just because the paper is of high quality doesn't mean all of its writers are great all the time. You've read this thread, I'm not the only one to fine the quality of writing in this article poor. If you want to think it's great (because you agree with its content), fine. I'm making an objective comment about the article, that its quality could have been a lot better. I find it strange that for a quality paper like WSJ with its readers being mostly male, that this article about women and the sexual revolution being in there. It does seem to be out of place, just like Brian said. You have to wonder why they ran it. There is a lot of psychology behind what and why mediums run the stories they do. That's a fact.

For your last paragraph, I still think that everyone has a choice. So what if society is pushing one direction? Who says we have to go with it? There are no rules except the ones we choose to follow. If we want true happiness, we have to make up our own rules and get off that status quo rules path.

Yes Jeanwah- several of us have questioned the quality of this article and for good reason. And I sort of made a joke about this article coming from WSJ but it really does seem odd to me. What is their motivation- an article on women's movement coming from a male oriented conservative paper? I think this is very much worth asking and looking at. To me,it certainly does not come across as supportive of women.

Exactly.

RW81233 · March 2012

ok, let's just get to the point of inlets question first. the main question was are women happier post-sexual revolution (or the way the paper would even more patronizingly put it if they had their druthers "women's lib"). do women like that they can have a credit card without having a man to cosign for them? do women like that they have more equal opportunity to participate in sport, can get scholarship money, and practice on fields that are equal to male athletes? do women like that they now get paid 77 percent the salary men get for doing the same exact job vs. the 50 percent pre-sex revolution? overwhelmingly YES!

to top things off inlet you've argued quite a paradox here. you state that women are to blame for driving down real wages even though we've handed out far more logical conclusions for far more significant reasons wages have fallen. you've also argued that you don't like unions even though they would raise real wages. yet wouldn't strong unions and socialized health care policies potentially help combat the problems you are pointing out. for instance, women having to choose between staying at home or making money. in some countries you get 2 years of paid leave after having a child so that you can do both, and the husband gets one. That seems to be the best of both worlds no? Of course this would mean slowing the gears of neoliberal capitalism just a bit so that we could care for our kids, but it seems to have created a nice quality of life for everyone. This argument reminds me of that old George Carlin bit:

Have you noticed that most people who are against abortion you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place? Conservatives are physically unattractive and morally inconsistent. They're obsessed with fetuses from conception to nine months, but after that they have no interest in you. None. No day care, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothin'. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.
Once you leave the womb, conservatives don't care about you until you reach military age. Then you're just what they're looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers.

pjhawks · March 2012

it's a bullshit article and bullshit question. happiness can't be quantified. it's is a personal emotion based on a multitude of factors including varying almost hour-by-hour, day-to-day and year-to-year. it's not a clearly defined statistic that is available for comparison.

that being said no one can argue that women and girls today have many more opportunities and freedoms than they did in the past and that that is a good thing for women and girls.

Blockhead · March 2012

RW81233 wrote:

ok, let's just get to the point of inlets question first. the main question was are women happier post-sexual revolution (or the way the paper would even more patronizingly put it if they had their druthers "women's lib"). do women like that they can have a credit card without having a man to cosign for them? do women like that they have more equal opportunity to participate in sport, can get scholarship money, and practice on fields that are equal to male athletes? do women like that they now get paid 77 percent the salary men get for doing the same exact job vs. the 50 percent pre-sex revolution? overwhelmingly YES!

to top things off inlet you've argued quite a paradox here. you state that women are to blame for driving down real wages even though we've handed out far more logical conclusions for far more significant reasons wages have fallen. you've also argued that you don't like unions even though they would raise real wages. yet wouldn't strong unions and socialized health care policies potentially help combat the problems you are pointing out. for instance, women having to choose between staying at home or making money. in some countries you get 2 years of paid leave after having a child so that you can do both, and the husband gets one. That seems to be the best of both worlds no? Of course this would mean slowing the gears of neoliberal capitalism just a bit so that we could care for our kids, but it seems to have created a nice quality of life for everyone. This argument reminds me of that old George Carlin bit:

Have you noticed that most people who are against abortion you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place? Conservatives are physically unattractive and morally inconsistent. They're obsessed with fetuses from conception to nine months, but after that they have no interest in you. None. No day care, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothin'. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.
Once you leave the womb, conservatives don't care about you until you reach military age. Then you're just what they're looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers.

:roll: Not this again... The rest of your post seems like a incoherent rant...

RW81233 · March 2012

I was pointing out that women make more now than they did in the past even though it still isn't equal, what's annoying about that? And does incoherent mean that it's something you don't want to understand? I didn't think what I put out was either ranty or incoherent.

PJ_Soul · March 2012

inlet13 wrote:

show previous quotes

hedonist wrote:

(just didn't think it'd be so divisive!)

Thank you.

I didn't think it would be divisive either. In fact, I thought there's more here that we would all agree on, then would disagree. But, I guess I was wrong.

I find it. Interesting that you find it surprising that this topic is divisive. Of course it's divisive... I find it surprising that so many men don't understand why women are so defensive towards men when it comes to issues like this. Women are members of a group of people who have been consistently abused, humiliated, degraded, and dismissed since the beginning of time, basically. I don't get how men can't grasp that concept. Of COURSE it's divisive when men start chiming in about whether or not women's new found levels of freedom and equality are 'good for them'. Are you kidding? It's practically like white men discussing whether or not the end of of slavery was good for the blacks. Those men could be the most anti-racist, slave-hating people in the world... but that ddoes't make the fact that they're even discussing it any less irritating to black people... as though it's even a question! And there is always the underlying fact that their history as the down-trodden and abused, be it personal history or cultural, is a direct result of the acts of the same types of people discussing the issue. Sorry guys... it's a knee jerk reaction (a totally justifiable one) for women to get their guard up when men start pontificating on this issue

inlet13 · March 2012

Blockhead wrote:

show previous quotes

RW81233 wrote:

ok, let's just get to the point of inlets question first. the main question was are women happier post-sexual revolution (or the way the paper would even more patronizingly put it if they had their druthers "women's lib"). do women like that they can have a credit card without having a man to cosign for them? do women like that they have more equal opportunity to participate in sport, can get scholarship money, and practice on fields that are equal to male athletes? do women like that they now get paid 77 percent the salary men get for doing the same exact job vs. the 50 percent pre-sex revolution? overwhelmingly YES!

to top things off inlet you've argued quite a paradox here. you state that women are to blame for driving down real wages even though we've handed out far more logical conclusions for far more significant reasons wages have fallen. you've also argued that you don't like unions even though they would raise real wages. yet wouldn't strong unions and socialized health care policies potentially help combat the problems you are pointing out. for instance, women having to choose between staying at home or making money. in some countries you get 2 years of paid leave after having a child so that you can do both, and the husband gets one. That seems to be the best of both worlds no? Of course this would mean slowing the gears of neoliberal capitalism just a bit so that we could care for our kids, but it seems to have created a nice quality of life for everyone. This argument reminds me of that old George Carlin bit:

Have you noticed that most people who are against abortion you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place? Conservatives are physically unattractive and morally inconsistent. They're obsessed with fetuses from conception to nine months, but after that they have no interest in you. None. No day care, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothin'. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.
Once you leave the womb, conservatives don't care about you until you reach military age. Then you're just what they're looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers.

:roll: Not this again... The rest of your post seems like a incoherent rant...

Completely agree.

polaris_x · March 2012

RW81233 wrote:

ok, let's just get to the point of inlets question first. the main question was are women happier post-sexual revolution (or the way the paper would even more patronizingly put it if they had their druthers "women's lib"). do women like that they can have a credit card without having a man to cosign for them? do women like that they have more equal opportunity to participate in sport, can get scholarship money, and practice on fields that are equal to male athletes? do women like that they now get paid 77 percent the salary men get for doing the same exact job vs. the 50 percent pre-sex revolution? overwhelmingly YES!

to top things off inlet you've argued quite a paradox here. you state that women are to blame for driving down real wages even though we've handed out far more logical conclusions for far more significant reasons wages have fallen. you've also argued that you don't like unions even though they would raise real wages. yet wouldn't strong unions and socialized health care policies potentially help combat the problems you are pointing out. for instance, women having to choose between staying at home or making money. in some countries you get 2 years of paid leave after having a child so that you can do both, and the husband gets one. That seems to be the best of both worlds no? Of course this would mean slowing the gears of neoliberal capitalism just a bit so that we could care for our kids, but it seems to have created a nice quality of life for everyone. This argument reminds me of that old George Carlin bit:

Have you noticed that most people who are against abortion you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place? Conservatives are physically unattractive and morally inconsistent. They're obsessed with fetuses from conception to nine months, but after that they have no interest in you. None. No day care, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothin'. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.
Once you leave the womb, conservatives don't care about you until you reach military age. Then you're just what they're looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers.

i would say there is a lot of truth to what you say but you won't get a lick of a response to any of the points because it is way too harsh for opposing views to swallow ... i'm usually the one who goes that way ...

Blockhead · March 2012

RW81233 wrote:

I was pointing out that women make more now than they did in the past even though it still isn't equal, what's annoying about that? And does incoherent mean that it's something you don't want to understand? I didn't think what I put out was either ranty or incoherent.

Because it is EQUAL...
Women do make the exact same as men, as long as they have the same exact job title and hours.
If this were not the case then I am pretty sure all business would hire JUST women in every position to save money, right?

RW81233 · March 2012

it's just kind of annoying that the OP whines for 20 posts* (edit) about not getting an answer to the article's thesis after most posters have all but decimated the article as lazy journalism at best. Especially when I actually take the time to explain why we really think the author missed the boat on this one, and have respondents pull a tiny bit out of my response, misrepresent it (I was actually using that number to demonstrate progress of some sort not be critical), and then completely disregard the fact that I gave the OP what he was asking for. Whatevs lazy articles lead to lazy debate I suppose.

RW81233 · March 2012

Blockhead wrote:

show previous quotes

RW81233 wrote:

I was pointing out that women make more now than they did in the past even though it still isn't equal, what's annoying about that? And does incoherent mean that it's something you don't want to understand? I didn't think what I put out was either ranty or incoherent.

Because it is EQUAL...
Women do make the exact same as men, as long as they have the same exact job title and hours.
If this were not the case then I am pretty sure all business would hire JUST women in every position to save money, right?

you would think that would be the case but it isn't...and it isn't equal even in academia women chairs at my school make less than male chairs, women profs make less than male profs, and so on. you know how i know this is true state universities have to publish this stuff - go ahead check it out.

PJ_Soul · March 2012

Blockhead wrote:

show previous quotes

RW81233 wrote:

I was pointing out that women make more now than they did in the past even though it still isn't equal, what's annoying about that? And does incoherent mean that it's something you don't want to understand? I didn't think what I put out was either ranty or incoherent.

Because it is EQUAL...
Women do make the exact same as men, as long as they have the same exact job title and hours.
If this were not the case then I am pretty sure all business would hire JUST women in every position to save money, right?

That's not true at all. If you really believe that, then you don't fully understand the issue.

Blockhead · March 2012

RW81233 wrote:

it's just kind of annoying that the OP whines for 20 pages about not getting an answer to the article's thesis after most posters have all but decimated the article as lazy journalism at best. Especially when I actually take the time to explain why we really think the author missed the boat on this one, and have respondents pull a tiny bit out of my response, misrepresent it (I was actually using that number to demonstrate progress of some sort not be critical), and then completely disregard the fact that I gave the OP what he was asking for. Whatevs lazy articles lead to lazy debate I suppose.

You critize the article because of laziness and yet you post something just as lazy to perpetuate the lie that men make more then women working the same exact job.
Your right it is a lazy debate when people respond emotionally instead of rationally...
This what I posted on page 4 to which no one answered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_determinism

feminists and it seems most people here, in my opinion seem to have a double-standard with regards to biological determinism.

This double-standard is of course not limited to femals/feminists. But, from one perspective, it is said(known) that homosexuality is biologically determined and not a choice, and the role of biologically is greatly highlighted.

From another perspective, when the biological differences, with psychological and behavioral implications, between men and women are highlighted via scientific research, they (feminists) deny that there are preferred roles for men and women, in order to blur the notion of genders. So basically, your saying that biology cannot be used to speak about gender roles.

So why is it that the biological implications seem to be highlighted in one case and neglected in another case?

inlet13 · March 2012

RW81233 wrote:

it's just kind of annoying that the OP whines for 20 posts* (edit) about not getting an answer to the article's thesis after most posters have all but decimated the article as lazy journalism at best. Especially when I actually take the time to explain why we really think the author missed the boat on this one, and have respondents pull a tiny bit out of my response, misrepresent it (I was actually using that number to demonstrate progress of some sort not be critical), and then completely disregard the fact that I gave the OP what he was asking for. Whatevs lazy articles lead to lazy debate I suppose.

I'm not a conservative, but you used a quote from someone who called conservatives "ugly". Post like that are just weak and don't warrant a response.

Further, now you claim I'm whining for 20 posts. Really? I've been civil throughout, despite a couple posters (like yourself) trying to derail the thread into name-calling. Re-read the thread. Then re-read your own posts. Who's being lazy in this debate? And why does it need to be a debate at all? Why can't it be a discussion?

There's no winners or losers in this scenario. We can't change the past, and I don't think anyone is arguing for that anyhow.

Blockhead · March 2012

PJ_Soul wrote:

show previous quotes

Blockhead wrote:

RW81233 wrote:

I was pointing out that women make more now than they did in the past even though it still isn't equal, what's annoying about that? And does incoherent mean that it's something you don't want to understand? I didn't think what I put out was either ranty or incoherent.

Because it is EQUAL...
Women do make the exact same as men, as long as they have the same exact job title and hours.
If this were not the case then I am pretty sure all business would hire JUST women in every position to save money, right?

That's not true at all. If you really believe that, then you don't fully understand the issue.

Yes it is... you are welcome to provide any evidence showing that a woman and a man applying for the SAME job with the SAME hours would equal a different pay...

Are Women Happier Post-Sexual Revolution?

Comments

Welcome!

Quick Links

Categories