[reader5000]

In the sjw-religion, why is "homemaker" considered inferior to "computer programmer"? One of the oldest and most important human occupations versus hunched over at a desk slaving for a salary until being outsourced to a bot in 5 years? I've never understood the default sjw/"feminism" assumptions that anything feminine is "bad".

[angmarsbane]

It isn't so much bad or negative as it is risky. A homemaker, male or female, becomes financially reliant on his/her partner. A partner who can die, become too disabled/ill to work, or who can leave after the homemaker has missed his/her key career/skill building years.

Women are more likely to be pushed or encouraged to take this important supportive role to benefit others while putting themselves at risk.

[AstralStorm]

It goes both ways, the partner can become reliant on this kind of support. And only sometimes partly you can cover the difference with money and/or power - typically much more expensive than cooperation.

In fact I'd say the housekeeping skills are always more marketable, more basic and easier to master - you can live off them, but not without. This gives rise to competition which drives both social perception of value and actual financial value down.

Mutual dependency has been the way of life for ages - for good reason.

Edit: Thought police strikes again! Instead of downvoting, please provide a coherent argument why a given point is invalid or how.

[angmarsbane]

It is a lot easier to hire someone to take care of housekeeping duties or to do them yourself than it is to make up for 10+ years of little to zero non-homemaking skill development.

[AstralStorm]

Not as easy as you'd expect if you want someone actually competent and versatile.

You would be surprised how big a bag "homemaking" is, ranging from cooking, through teaching, down to clerical work, through basic finances and back up with handyman (yes yes) fixes. Any of those skills specialized in is marketable, though not respectable on its own.

Note how few of them are true knowledge and research work. All of them are in the areas where there have been major reductions in number of jobs due to automation and centralization.

[reader5000]

Yes because the entire value a husband receives from his wife is her housekeeping contributions.

[AstralStorm]

Because it pays less (therefore enforcing financial gender inequality for which there is no good reason) and has been stereotyped for longer. It is sort of backwards thinking.

The often unspoken assumption is that stereotypes are strictly bad and evil. Without stereotypes, all the social conduct just breaks down and explodes - people suddenly become unpredictable.

However, stereotypes (including SJW stereotype) can cause big frictions between groups. Even more so when they're actually inaccurate, invalid or misapplied.

Another thing is something called "stereotype threat" which reinforces certain behaviors while punishing other - a kind of self fulfilling prophecy at times. You think you would behave as if some label would be applied to you therefore you behave to fit in. The drive to fit in is human, social and often subconscious.

[hasenj]

How does it pay less? You get to have a place​ to live, eat, sleep, all for free, without having to stay away from your children for an extended part of the day.

[jakelazaroff]

To whom is the paycheck made out? In a relationship with a large pay disparity, there is a financial dependence and vast power difference between the involved parties.

If your partner started to abuse you, would you rather be the homemaker or the person whose name is on the paychecks?

[fineline]

For the individual spouse there may be some disadvantage (at least in terms of risk) to being the homemaker. But for the aggregate of family households it's not so clear. A previous HN comment speculated that much of the economic gain from increased female workforce participation - or more accurately double-income households - flows to capital, as it increases both labor supply and overall consumer demand, leading to downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on price of consumer goods (plus huge demand for child care). By contrast the value delivered by a stay-at-home spouse (of either gender) flows largely to the family. Not a very PC analysis for either the "left" or the "right". Wish I could find the original HN comment, or see further research.

[LyndsySimon]

I understand what you're saying and agree with you in general, but I think you're missing a large part of the picture. In general, women have far better options for ending a marriage than men - as of 2006, 3.6% of alimony recipients were men, for example.

> If your partner started to abuse you, would you rather be the homemaker or the person whose name is on the paychecks?

In that circumstance, I'd rather be a woman. While it's very difficult to find anything resembling an unbiased source, it seems apparent that it is substantially more difficult for a man to seek law enforcement intervention as a victim of domestic abuse.

[jakelazaroff]

> In general, women have far better options for ending a marriage than men - as of 2006, 3.6% of alimony recipients were men, for example.

Isn't that in large part because of the employment and income disparities between men and women, though? If women are employed less often and generally make less when they do, it makes sense that they're more often the recipient of alimony.

> In that circumstance, I'd rather be a woman. While it's very difficult to find anything resembling an unbiased source, it seems apparent that it is substantially more difficult for a man to seek law enforcement intervention as a victim of domestic abuse.

My comment was actually only regarding homemaking vs. computer programming, not how those occupations are gendered. The parent said "How does it pay less? You get to have a place​ to live, eat, sleep, all for free" — all I meant was that if there's e.g. domestic abuse, all else being equal, it's far better to be the partner who actually makes money than the partner who relies on the other's income.

[hasenj]

At work you are also a slave to your boss, in a sense. If your boss started to abuse you, wouldn't​ you rather be a home maker so that your partner deals with the day to day shittiness of having to be in a job?

The way to not be afraid of abuse it's to have a support network. For example, extended family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, etc. This applies to you whether you're an employee or a homemaker.

As a human you are always dependant on other people. Part of being a responsible adult is figuring out how to cooperate with people.

[jakelazaroff]

> The way to not be afraid of abuse it's to have a support network.

Your support network is significantly more flexible if you have access to money. You haven't (and I suspect can't) made any real argument that there's not a vast power imbalance in a relationship where one party makes the most or all of the money.

[reader5000]

If you think spending power is the only relevant form of power in a marriage you are incorrect.

[jakelazaroff]

It's not that anything feminine is "bad", it's that women are often pressured into doing "feminine" things because reasons.

There's no reason "homemaker" should be inferior to "computer programmer", but there's also no reason that homemaker should be "feminine". Men are equally capable of taking care of the house, and women are equally capable of programming computers.

[hasenj]

It's not about being capable.

Women get pregnant; men don't. Women have to nurse children (as in breast feed), men don't. When a woman it's pregnant or nursing, she needs support. That's the whole reason why there is such a thing as marriage. Because you can't raise children on your own.

[jakelazaroff]

> Women get pregnant; men don't. Women have to nurse children (as in breast feed), men don't. When a woman it's pregnant or nursing, she needs support.

Absolutely none of this is relevant to whether non-women or women "should" be homemakers. Women get pregnant but that doesn't mean they're in any way more suited to taking care of children than non-women.

> Because you can't raise children on your own.

Tell that to the literally millions of single parents who do a great job raising kids while millions of two parent households fail at it.

[hasenj]

I find it hard to take seriously someone who uses phrases like "non-woman" non-ironically.

> Tell that to the literally millions of single parents who do a great job raising kids while millions of two parent households fail at it.

As far as I know, single parent households are largely dysfunctional and fail at producing responsible adults.

[jakelazaroff]

> I find it hard to take seriously someone who uses phrases like "non-woman" non-ironically.

I find it hard to take seriously someone who thinks gender binary is a thing.

> As far as I know, single parent households are largely dysfunctional and fail at producing responsible adults.

Do more research then. That's absolutely false.

[loco5niner]

I was raised by a single mom. I can can tell you emphatically, a two parent household would have been better.

[loco5niner]

> non-women.

aka, men

[jakelazaroff]

There are many ways to be neither a woman nor a man.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_variance

[loco5niner]

There are also many ways to be born missing limbs, but that fact doesn't normalize it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_amputation

[kingbirdy]

No one ever became a billionaire by homemaking

[kgwgk]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_divor...

[AstralStorm]

On the other hand, most of those women were already rich and powerful. (including a more lucrative profession than housekeeping)

[Jill_the_Pill]

Martha Stewart got halfway there.

[AstralStorm]

Unfortunately she is not the best example as a lot of her money was made in the widely publicized inside trading case.

There are others though for sure.

[_rpd]

> a lot of her money was made in the widely publicized inside trading case

She avoided about $45,000 of losses by selling ImClone stock early. Martha Stewart's net worth is over $600 million.

The fact that it was such an inconsequential amount for her really made an impression on me at the time.

[AstralStorm]

Generally as a businesswoman and a brand more than a housekeeper obviously.

I agree I was mistaken though about the case.

Here's a more interesting example... http://millionairemommynextdoor.com/about-me/ Exceptional for a reason though. And it's not a pure one, life never is.

[AstralStorm]

Except companies that outsource such services and the whole service industry in hotels or such. Use less straw in your strawmen.

Of course this is often parasitic and I suspect you meant directly. Even then, thing called "gold digging" has a long long tradition. (Though being misattributed to women while it works on both sides just slightly differently. Often with more than a hint of slut-shaming etc.)

Edit: excellent. Call a thing like it is, get downvoted. People jump to conclusions, proving the point.

[anigbrowl]

In the sjw-religion, why is "homemaker" considered inferior to "computer programmer"?

It's not a religious position to observe the existence of economic and social disparities.