Women vs Capitalism - The biology argument

That's a good point, CustardDream. Some women are very ambitious and they shouldn't have to deal with discrimination or not being paid as well as a man etc and should be able to pursue their goals. However, quite a number of women don't see the point in pursuing a time consuming career if their partner is earning well and this is sufficient to cover the basics as well as the usual luxuries.

While I'm in the 'women should be self-sufficient' camp, I'm not particularly ambitious nor career driven. I work a fairly average job and earn reasonably well to enable me to lead a relatively comfortable lifestyle with or without a partner. That's all I need, really. I've never tried to move up the ranks. More money would be nice, but it also involves more responsibility and stress. I prefer to spend my time and money on my interests and hobbies.

I can see why women would choose that option if they don't mind this financial security coming from their partners rather than themselves. It's not something I could ever being myself to do, but I can see the pragmatism especially if you are wanting to have kids and raise a family.

I'm late to this thread. Really interesting discussion.

I read some research into the factors contributing to the gender pay gap. There are the usual things which contribute to higher wages, such as full-time rather than part-time working, education level, job tenure and age.

However 42% of the UK gender pay gap is not explained by these things. This is the part which is the result of discrimination, like the lower salaries offered to applicants with female names in AnyOldPrion's post.

Like most things where women are disadvantaged, lower wages for women is a mix of what women do (take time out to have babies and care for children) and poor treatment just because they are women.

My observation is that many of us don't see it as a 'my earnings' and 'his earnings' dynamic, but rather view themselves as a team, often with a joint bank account.

Yes, I think that's often true, whether there is one account or not.

The question we should be asking is why more women aren’t doing the above.

My observation is that many of us don't see it as a 'my earnings' and 'his earnings' dynamic, but rather view themselves as a team, often with a joint bank account.

Once you have a comfortable standard of living, what's the incentive to strive for more - possibly self-sufficiency in case your partner leaves you, but this doesn't seem a big worry for many.

Once you can pay for your kids' education, live in a nice property, afford regular holidays, nice car, modern luxuries/tech, etc, and have enough savings to weather any issues like redundancy....why would you want to strive to 'maximise your career' if you're happy working part time and your husband is content in his job?

Many in the thread I referenced seem to have an outlook like the above.

If you’re looking at employed women and asking why they aren’t successful capitalists then you fundamentally don’t understand capitalism. Capitalism rewards two kinds of people 1. Those who risk their capital or 2. People who take others out of their capital (usually by giving them something they want). No one is ever going to get rich (I mean properly rich) by not going on mat leave, that’s just not how it works. The question we should be asking is why more women aren’t doing the above.

I also think the human race is more likely to die through overpopulation than the reverse.

As I stated in another thread, I believe biology is a significant part.

One thing that isn't mentioned, however, is that the partners of these men who scoop up the top jobs also generally tend to benefit from it. There was a recent thread in AIBU ('It's a privilege to not have to work' was the title I think) and it was full of women mentioning how lucky they were that their high earning husband facilitated their lifestyle - some of whom claimed to spend most of their time 'focusing on their hobbies'.

There were a few dissenting voices in the above thread who mentioned that they wouldn't want to 'rely on a man' and who mentioned that it was risky not to maintain self sufficiency, but they were in the minority.

There are still very few male childminders, incidentally. Childcare at the bottom of the sector is overwhelmingly female. The picture changes once you get to the owners and entrepreneurs level.

Yes absolutely this. And I still think a lot if it is the result of gender stereotyping/ social conditioning, many young women aspire to work with children.

I've had to look objectively at my work and my dh's work. As a teacher I've always worked a lot at home, late into the eve and always weekends. It's part of the job.

When I became a mother I carried on doing this but Dh didn't really take up the reins so to speak, and would have a fun day out with our child or watch tv in the evening. I'd be simultaneously doing laundry and sorting dinner etc while working. (He's learnt a lot in the last few years!!!!!) Work load has increased vastly since my first and when my second came along I had to treat it as a day of work and book extra child care.

Dh has questioned the expense and also doesn't get that as a result we don't need to book loads of child care in the holidays like other families, (I do do a day a week for sanity and paper work) and I've started to have to point out that in a way I'm doing the childcare for free during the hols when we are not away.

This feels wrong but he assumes it's easy! But if I had a different job we would have to cover some holidays.

I'm sorry I'm still reading the full thread but to any the OP, from my perspective it's slightly akin to the nature/ nurture debate in that it's nature first, 'nurture' thereafter hand in hand with nature. So biology first, yes but then all the associated stereotypes nurturing thereafter.

So social, gender stereotypes either learnt and followed or imposed and assumed by others.

And I've had cause to ponder over a close friendship group of mine over the years. Two of us were in co Ed and two in single sex (all different schools) The latter two definitely have more over all confidence in life and attitude, mental health too, one being very highly driven in an engineering career. Of course, personality and home life have a lot to play but it is noticeable.

I personally work in a female dominated profession (primary teaching) and I've often noticed a big difference in how female slt (senior leadership team) operate compared to male slt. Around 50% of the very few men I've worked with go very quickly into slt. Men apparently over estimate their ability for jobs whereas women underestimate, and that will be social conditioning. Only one man in nearly 20 years has taken part time to help look after his children.

So this is a background or undercurrent behind all the workings of capitalism and social value that I feel structural change can only do so much for.

Societies where there's less advantage in earning a lot (Sweden or Denmark?) as it's all taxed seem to be able to address the balance better and value men who put family first and working women.

(Sorry ended up being much longer than I thought!)

I just wanted to say thanks for starting this thread. I'm expecting my first child and on the cusp of heading off on maternity leave, and I found it put words to a lot of things I'd been thinking as of late but couldn't quite articulate.

My understanding of economics is woeful, but since reading this thread I've downloaded - and am currently a third of the way through - Who Cooked Adam Smith's dinner. If anyone was interested in the book, but worried it would be difficult without a good understanding of economics, I'd urge you to go for it. I'm a complete newbie and I've found it so interesting and informative.

Oh yes, Frances Coppola is good to follow. As is Stephanie Kelton.

stephaniekelton.com/

mobile.twitter.com/StephanieKelton

Frances Coppola writes about economics in various media and has a good Twitter account.

twitter.com/Frances_Coppola

www.coppolacomment.com/

MIdgebabe I received Entrprenurial State for Christmas so haven't read it yet. A quick scan through the book and it looks very readable although some small bits seem a little technical, but that's understandable given the subject matter. There's a useful glossary of acronyms at the start. It's aimed at the general public I believe, although it helps if you have some interest in economics, politics, technology etc so some of the terms and phrases are not completely unfamiliar.

I don't want to detract too much from the thread topic, but I would highly encourage anyone, especially women, to read about economics and gain a basic understanding of the different schools of thought. It's presented as a homogenous field and that certain orthodoxies and assumptions must never be questioned, but that is only because there's one type that has dominated discourse for decades.

Ha-Joon Chang is a well known political economist and he has been trying to raise public awareness about economics for a while. There are about 11 YouTube videos at the moment aimed at the general public. I've gotten through about 3 so far and would recommend them. They are set up a bit weird (I don't get the classroom structure) and it's initially a bit hard to understand his accent but the subject material is fascinating, especially the one on globalisation.

The Nature of Economics -

Five reasons why economics is political -

What is wrong with globalisation? -

Some interesting book suggestions...do they require an understanding of economics?

“ In capitalism, women must make their unpaid work costly to society. They must be willing to NOT do the valuable work unless properly paid for it.”

Childminders do this - and they’re often vilified for doing it.
So many women think we should be doing it for free or for a pittance and they resent that we charge a fair amount for our work.
They’re looked down on for that work, too.

There are still very few male childminders, incidentally. Childcare at the bottom of the sector is overwhelmingly female. The picture changes once you get to the owners and entrepreneurs level.

Antibles

Yes, about the meaning of the language and the horrible idea of children being a "lifestyle choice". That is behind a lot of really terrible attitudes when you dig down. Children as possessions rather than as people. Having children as a hobby rather than a natural function of our bodies.

As far as this idea of trusting government with UBI my worry is quite the opposite, that it will put government and by extension citizens even more under the thumb of corporate capitalism.

ValancyRedfern (and others who support it), on the subject of UBI, do you trust the government to take that much of a direct role in your ability to live? It seems to me that it hands them a lot of power to penalise those who don't fall into line.

Antibles, NonnyMouse1337 for both 'work' and 'value' I would say they're less deliberate linguistic sleight of hand and more an expression of the limitations of language.

In the case of work, it's used as a stand in for actions which are compensated financially which we wouldn't otherwise do. For 'value', I believe it is a product of a focus on financial figures. In both cases, I believe that by focusing on absolute monetary reward to denote merit, the markets are given the power to determine merit when instead it could be down to individuals to decide on their own terms. In other words, I believe part of the issue is individuals valuing absolute monetary figures too highly.

I'm personally against the concept of using authorities to determine what the markets value because, historically, they do it rather badly. At most, I would say that carefully considered and feather-touch differential tax rates (for example, reducing taxes on wealth generation through manufacturing compared to investment) would be the way forwards because financial markets are sensitive to upset and the results can be catastrophic. This is especially significant in the era of globalism, where entire GDPs-worth of money can cross borders in days.

Finally, regarding children as a 'lifestyle choice', I realise this likely will be grotesquely unpopular on mumsnet but I believe the decision to have children is a lifestyle choice. However, because of the tremendous impact insufficient support could have on children, I'm not proposing that parents be left to fend for themselves on this basis.

I'm enjoying the discussions in this thread.

The idea that governments hinder innovation while the private sector is a 'natural' champion for innovation is challenged by Mariana Mazzucato in her book 'Entrprenurial State'.

marianamazzucato.com/entrepreneurial-state/

On the topic of how we assign 'value' to things and activities, she argues for a rethink. I haven't watched the video, but it sounds pretty interesting.

longnow.org/seminars/02019/jun/24/rethinking-value/

What happens when we confuse price with value? We end up undervaluing care. We pollute more. And the financial sector is allowed to brag about how productive it is—while often just moving around existing value, created by others. Most importantly we end up with a form of capitalism that rewards value extraction activities over value creation, increasing inequality in the process.

Economist Mariana Mazzucato: “I will argue that the way the word ‘value’ is used in modern economics has made it easier for value-extracting activities to masquerade as value-creating activities. And in the process rents (unearned income) gets confused with profits (earned income); inequality rises, and investment in the real economy falls.” Markets have always been shaped, Mazzucato notes. They can be reshaped now to better reflect and foster real value—creating a more sustainable and inclusive economy.

A professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL), where she founded and directs the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, Mariana Mazzucato is the author of The Value of Everything: making and taking in the global economy (2018) and of The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths (2013).

On a bit of a tangent, is there a bit of linguistic rohypnol going on with regard to the word "work"? I'm not quite sure how to put it but I feel it's been co-opted by organisations and narrowed in common parlance to mean leaving the domestic sphere and heading somewhere to get paid a wage or salary - a synonym for "paid employment". Which leaves other kinds of work such as raising children as somehow not Proper Work - just stuff you do at home or in your leisure time when you're not 'at work'. This fits with branding of children as a lifestyle choice (ghastly phrase) like a hobby which we don't associate with pay for effort expended.

I’ve got that Adam Smith book too - also bought for the title ! Not read it yet though - too busy making various others their dinner

I'm reading Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman right now. It's convinced me that UBI is the way forward.

I am also about to begin Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner? Which I think will be brilliant for considering the fascinating questions in this thread. I love it for the title alone.

Goosefoot, thank you for clarifying. Regarding your examples of what and what isn't 'ownable', I would class those examples as something more specific to governments than capitalism as a system. In terms of ownership of land and other resources, I would say that capitalism is more dictating how those can change hands rather than facilitating their ownership (though capitalism is contingent on their ownership, it is more often the rule than the exception that land and other resources are owned). I also disagree that profit is a necessity, rather, I would say that the ability to make a profit is necessary for capitalism to function. It seems like alternatives either hinder development by requiring individuals to continuously, physically assert claims over land/resources or discourage development in the first place. In terms of intellectual property, it seems necessary to ensure development when the complexity of modern advances is taken into account and the abuse of the patent system is more of an indictment of certain failings within the legal system than of the patent system at its core.

I don't believe capitalism is a perfect system, I believe it is the least-bad option in terms of minimising the control others have over me. In my opinion, historic systems either made slaves of the majority of the population (serfdom), necessitated an incredibly sparse population (nomadism, which also precludes development) or required unthinkable, continuous bloodshed (tribalism). I also believe that communism similarly enslaved the population in order to even passingly function for a time (I use the term to also describe hard socialism, since the later term has evolved to also encompass certain interactions between what I take to be capitalism and government).

Gronky

The point about slavery is that we have decided that people are not properly speaking something to be bought and sold on a market. Also, organs, ivory, heroin, and any number of other things. We decide that some services can be offered on the market, and not others. There have been different views over time of what should and should not be "ownable" and some kinds of ownership are far more natural than others. I can make a strong claim to own a shirt I made and am wearing. To say that you should pay me if you build a contraption based on one you saw that I made is less obvious, the ownership of an immaterial thing like an idea is questionable. Can I claim to "own" land I am not using because I paid someone else who did not create it either, when there are others suffering because they have none? Again, that can only be a negotiated question.
Capitalism also requires, by definition really, the existence of profit which has not always been a part of trade or private ownership per se.

Capitalism is generally only understood to exist in the modern era, it isn't applied to earlier types of private ownership. I don't think its actually very useful to talk about simple trade and ownership in a discussion of the merits or problems of capitalism, those things are not where it becomes problematic.

I don't think you can make a generalisation that "men" take free money all the time. Lots would, some wouldn't. nd the sme with women.

Neither of which tells us anything about whether UBI is a good idea from a big picture perspective.

Men do it all the time.

Can you give an example?