[cefarix]

One of the problems in Western cultures is that being a CEO, a President, a rockstar, an astronaut, etc is more highly valued than say, being a mother. This is why many Western women feel that being a mother with young kids and staying at home is not fulfilling their lives - because the cultural messages tell them that being a stay-at-home mom is an unglamarous job.

You will find that not all cultures are like this - in many Asian cultures for example, being a mother is a very honorable and glamorous thing to do.

Women usually make up more than half of a society's population, something you agree with yourself. In that case, don't think it highly unlikely that societies in which women are miserable might not survive long? And yet the cultures in which you assume women are miserable have survived, endured, and even thrived, for millennia (I'm not talking about the 50s in America here).

Imagine the consequences if women were truly miserable in these societies: What would happen to the next generation? What would be the consequences of having a mother, grandmother, and aunts, who are utterly miserable? How would the next generation be raised in a setting like this? Every society has men and women, every family has men and women. It would tear families apart, husbands from wives, brothers from sisters. And it would tear societies apart. Any society who went down the path of making women miserable, or men miserable, has not survived because it cannot reproduce and pass on its culture successfully.

[mitcheme]

Why aren't we talking about the 1950's? If you're correct, that the problem is a lack of glamour, then the 50's should not have been a problem. Motherhood was the ultimate glamorous profession for a woman in those days. Sure, you can go to college, but there's no sense doing anything with it when you could get married. The ideal was a beautiful, spotless house in the suburbs, beautiful and well-behaved children, a great and successful husband. Dress up every day, makeup, hair, a pretty dress, pearls even. Fingers in every community organization: church, PTA, charities. You get to host parties, lots of parties. The way we talk about 50's homemaking today is a lot different from the way we talked about it then.

Which cultures in which women are homemakers only, have stayed without change to gender roles for millenia? When I think of cultures that have stayed mostly unchanged, I think of the ones where women are contributing significantly to survival. Hunter-gatherer societies where men hunt and women gather. In most HG societies plant foods make up a large portion of the food; women's work is essential. And a step beyond that, societies where men hunt and women tend gardens or farms. Or where men and women farm and ranch together. Yes, women also tend to take care of the children in these societies. But modern-day me still has to do dishes and laundry; that doesn't preclude me from doing other things.

[cefarix]

I was not talking about the 50s in America for two reasons: firstly because I was talking about cultures in general, and second because I was talking about long-term multi-generational survival and time periods. The 50s, a decade, is not long enough for a society to go extinct because its culture subjugated its women. I don't know everything about the 50s and probably less than you do. I was born in the late 80s and my family is from Pakistan, although I grew up mostly in Texas. However, from what I know about the 50s in America and the decades leading up to today, I can say that women were getting mixed signals. The culturally right thing to do was to be a stay-at-home mom, have a nice house in the suburbs, with well-behaved children, to cook and have everything spotless clean. And yet it was at the same time not a glamorous thing to do. Let me explain: even when people said it is glamorous to be a mom at home, people also said, it is really cool to be CEO, president, or an astronaut. And when they talked about CEOs, presidents, and astronauts, they were much more excited and much more sincere in their admiration and respect for them than when they would talk about stay-at-home moms.

[ezy]

This is profoundly naive.

Consider, for a moment, that a woman may not want to be a mother, or more realistically, that's not all she wants to be.

Many Asian cultures are notoriously sexist. And, no, I wouldn't say being a mother is glamorous in those cultures... being a mother is expected and a woman is honored, briefly, when she fulfills those expectations, but it's not glamorous. Society's expectation, even Western society, is precisely that motherhood is something to be valued by women. There's nothing to fix there. However, the broken part, and the part feminism addresses, is that is should not be the only thing valued in women.

You're naive. In the real world, plenty of misery lasts. Saying a culture cannot survive with misery is something you invented. It's not like we're removing limbs here -- a woman can live with decreased expectations and limitations without killing the culture that oppresses her. Often the coping techniques include (surprise!) investing all her energy into making her children accomplish by proxy (speaking of asian cultures, sound familiar?) what she could not.

[cefarix]

> Consider, for a moment, that a woman may not want to be a mother

Then she is not likely to get the same respect as a woman who does want to be a mother. Respect for women who want to be mothers, and not respecting women who do not want to be mothers, is something that naturally evolves in a culture that values its population. This is because women who have genes and/or memes that cause them to have more children will spread those genes and/or memes more widely than women who have fewer children because they had a genes and/or memes that caused them to not want to be a mother or not have so many children. This would be reflected in the culture in that women who want to be mothers would be respected more than women who did not want to be mothers. The same thing can be said for men being fathers.

> or more realistically, that's not all she wants to be

I never said anything about women being _only_ mothers. The best mothers to raise the next generation are those who, first of all of course have children, but then after that, have an education, are able to dream and aspire of other things, and pursue those opportunities.

> Many Asian cultures are notoriously sexist.

You say this as if being sexist is a bad thing. Men and women are different, and this is reflected in the fact that every culture has different social roles for men and women. There is nothing wrong with being sexist, it simply arises from the fact that men and women are biologically different. The problem happens when women are judged by what men are supposed to do, or when men are judged by what women are supposed to do.

> Saying a culture cannot survive with misery is something you invented.

No, it simply stands to reason. You cannot subjugate the females in society, generation after generation, and expect it to survive. The psychological effects would be passed down to the next generation, and the fabric of society which raises the next generation, would unravel. Just look at the effects on children who grow up in abusive households. Now extrapolate this to an entire society. The results would be catastrophic.

> Often the coping techniques include (surprise!) investing all her energy into making her children accomplish by proxy (speaking of asian cultures, sound familiar?) what she could not.

All parents, mothers and fathers, want their children to accomplish what they could not. This is not limited to mothers. Fathers will also use it as a "coping technique". Say a father wanted to go to the city and get an education so he could have a bigger house and more luxuries for his family, but was unable to do so in his life. Would he not encourage his children to pursue that? Of course. This has nothing to do with the issue at hand, namely the subjugation of women.

[ezy]

> You say this as if being sexist is a bad thing

If you know how to read English, yes, it's a bad thing. In the modern definition, the connotation of the word implies over-generalization. i.e. it's not rational behavior. No one interprets it otherwise unless you're trying to score points.

> The problem happens when women are judged by what men are supposed to do, or when men are judged by what women are supposed to do.

Somehow we know women are "supposed to" demote the rest of their aspirations and nurture a child all the way to adulthood because they breastfeed a child until it's 2, but a father can pursue his dreams because he need not be around after depositing a sperm donation.

> No, it simply stands to reason. You cannot subjugate the females in society, generation after generation, and expect it to survive.

Around we go... You'll have to define "reason" for me, because I usually think of it as taking into account existing evidence, including reading about women's experiences in such societies, before drawing such conclusions, but, to each his own. There is such a thing as a sustainable society that never reaches it's full potential...

> All parents, mothers and fathers, want their children to accomplish what they could not.

I worded this badly. Most parents want their children to be successful. This does not imply that the children should exist as proxies for them -- as complete representations of their self-worth. Again, I suppose it's sustainable culturally, although I'm not sure how it's supposed to be non-miserable. :-)

[cefarix]

> In the modern definition, the connotation of the word implies over-generalization. i.e. it's not rational behavior.

In order to keep the discussion clear, I went with the precise definition of the word rather than a colloquial one.

> Somehow we know women are "supposed to" demote the rest of their aspirations and nurture a child all the way to adulthood because they breastfeed a child until it's 2

By saying this, you are implying that raising kids is not a worthy aspiration for women. It is a most worthy aspiration not only for women, but also for men. No matter that I, as a man, may make breakthrough scientific discoveries, become a billionaire and donate it all to charities, or something else that makes a big impact; my biggest aspiration and the biggest legacy I leave to the world will still be my children.

> but a father can pursue his dreams because he need not be around after depositing a sperm donation.

A father plays just an important a role as the mother in raising kids. Since a woman's body is more involved in nurturing a child, the father provides for her and the children. And yes, this means a big sacrifice on the part of the father. But it is something that millions of fathers make willingly and lovingly, one that I will too. For example, I could say I don't want to have kids, a family, etc, and just put my whole life into business, make a lot of money, and spend the rest of my life traveling and vacationing. But if I want to have a family and raise kids, I can't do that. My family would need my money and my time.

> There is such a thing as a sustainable society that never reaches it's full potential...

You have a point there, and I don't have any hard evidence backing up my statement that a society cannot survive sustainably if its women are subjugated. But I'm not saying this blindly either - we do have solid evidence of the kind of detrimental effects a broken household can have on children, and I extrapolate this to a society and I just don't see it functioning sustainably if the whole society behaves like a broken household.

> Most parents want their children to be successful. This does not imply that the children should exist as proxies for them

I think most parents want their children to be successful and they also consider their children to be proxies for them. It's how we continue our culture, our societies, and the human race in general.