Women exercise conscious choice when not aiming for the top jobs and are happier for it

[BonsoirAnna]

Here

If you think it's rubbish Spam, that's your entitlement.

Where do you get the idea that we have stopped evolving? Has the world stopped turning too?

I would really recommend you read Susan Pinker's book. It contains all the up-to-date studies about the power of so-called prescribed gender roles. You will find a more than decent sample in it.

I haven't said that we have stopped evolving.

I always find it odd when posters "misread" other people's posts like that.

Shreiking Harpy...ah but women ARE competitive...have you not heard the "my child was writing sonnets at age 6 months" shit that goes on at some of the school gates???? That test was just about what men thought of as important competition (i.e cash and looking good in front of evryone).

Men do seem more motivated by personal reward...but is this good? And does it mean they are better or nicer? And how is it relevant to child rearing?

My (male) friend calls male comptetiveness "willy waving" and says it is in built, and a bloody nuisance.

And yes, in a society where one sex has arranged social and work structures to favour someone who will turn up all the time and sod everyone else, then this will favour male working habits.
I was once "tipped for the top" of my work, then I realised what a shit corporate culture it was, all Blackberrys and staying late and all that rubbish and I just couldn't be arsed. I think the number of mums who start their own business after children shows that women like to run things, but not in the current male dominated corporate cultures we have today. Of which banks are the worst, followed by any sales department...and my brother is one of those who avoided going home till the kids were in bed as he "just couldn't stand that stuff" and someone's got to put the kids to bed, and most men know that, if they sit around doing bugger all, the woman will do it...

Note small boys who let their mums tie their shoelaces even though they are capable of doing it themselves.

"But this is surely rubbish. Many species have males doing stacks of rearing of young. And anyway, we have evolved past a point where "nature" bears much relation to how we live."

You might not realise it but what you are asserting here is that we have stopped interacting with our environment (nature) and so have risen above evolution, i.e. stopped evolving. Sorry to be a pedant, but it is my area.

MT that is cleasrly not what I said. "I might not realise what I am asserting" FFS.

I said that we have evolved past a point where nature bears much relation to how we live. With technology, modern farming methods and medicine, this is simply true.

How that can be an assertion that we have stopped evolving is beyond me.

Anyway I must take my toddler out now before I beat her to death with a blunt instrument.

Sorry what I mean is, I am really enjoying my nurturing role and want to go and interact with my toddler. It is so much more satisfying than when i was working earning lots of money, in a highly satisfying and professional role. I am pleased that the decision to have my career curtailed was taken for me by an employer who refused to consider flexible working. It really was for the best, given that as a female I must by my very nature lack the ambition and drive to succeed.

Spam, you obvioulsy don't know what your asserting. I know, it can be frustrating.

If we had "evolved past a point where nature bears much relation to how we live" we would not be emotional creatures. We would no longer be inflamed by jealousy, lust, love, or fear. You seem to think that because you think something is a fact, it is a fact. There's a bit of a higher barr for actual facts. Now, I'm not trying to be patronising just being clear, but you did start this, so if you feel patronised, maybe just look before you leap in and cry opinions as facts next time.

and you said "Show me a decent sample of people where gender roles were not prescribed from birth and people had genuinely free and flexible choice in their careers, and then I will accept your argument. But not before. "

Again, I'd recommend you read the book.

That's nice. It is kind of you to suggest that finding children a handful is a sign that my personality is an aberration from the normal female type. I think you might find an awfully large number of women on here who share that aberration. And what is wrong with enjoying being successful in the workplace? Is "you like earning money" really the worst insult you can think of?

Which comes back to the crux of the problem - our society is constructed in such a way that being the gender that bears the young is a huge disadvantage from the point of view of achieving outside "traditional" female roles. If you do like working you are often scuppered as soon as you have children.

In my ideal world people would be treated as people, and would be able to make choices about how to live their lives according to their personal priorities. Rather than being forced into a corner as a result of their capacity to reproduce.

Yes women can make choices but a lot of the time what is on offer is not very satisfactory. Many men feel the same way about their lot. It's a pretty shoddy state of affairs.

I also fail to recognise this world that is being put forward as the way things are, with ambitious competitive alpha male types rushing around being breadwinners, while emotional non-competitive women are happy to stay at home. I know some people who follow that pattern, yes, but they are in the minority by some distance.

er - you talking to me?

'finding children a handful is a sign that my personality is an aberration from the normal female type.' eh?

That's not an aberration. Its the norm! lol

No that part was from harpy.

okay lol

you would also have to say that there are whole societies that are an aberration

Scandinavia, where both parents tend to work and both sexes share childcare is a huge aberration

but hey! of course the British way has got to be the natural way

you could look at important parts of the animal world and conclude that it is also the natural world for females to live in harems dominated by one big bull who regularly fights other bulls for possession and eventually gets ousted by younger talent any takers for that one?

one thing that is actually pretty rare in the natural world is monogamy

so maybe we should ditch monogamy and just be natural about it?

both sexes don't share childcare Cory. Men have more opportunity to, and do so more becasue of it. But women still do the majority of it.

what are you on about 'natural' way? or are you talking to spam agaoin?

Monogamy isn't rare in the 'natural' world at all. Humans are serially monogamous naturally

Oh you just stirred the geek in me

It's very interesting actually as you can determine the 'natural' mating habits of a species but the size of the male testes.

Chimps for instance have huge balls and the females are what we would call promiscuous. Gorrillas are polygnous, the male has a handful of mates to protect from other males but the females mate only with him in return. Gorillas have tiny balls.

Humans balls are medium sized.

It is a bit more complicated in technical terms though

By harpy:

"I'm truly sorry that you feel interacting with your child is such an arduous, exasperating task. If "money' is what really motivates you and your previous employer refused to compromise then find another job. Its quite simple really."

If you can't see what an unpleasant, and frankly bitchy post that is harpy, then you really do live up to your name.

And on that note I'm off on holiday with my toddler and my 11wo, who would I'm sure be super-pleased if I fucked off back to work taking my breasts with me.

It is a choice. I just sent a guy on a 3 month assignment in Germany 2 weeks after his wife gave birth to their first baby.

I felt for his wife but this is what this guy signed up to. He wanted the assignment and couldn't wait. He is happy to see the kid at weekends. I was discussing it with a female friend and she said her husband wants to be the 'SAHD' and she will be the one to do that. Fair enough I say.

I do the same and travel a lot. The hours are long. But I absolutely love my job and have so much fun doing it. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Life is what it is. You make choices. I work with men all day and see the flirting, cheating, drinking and eating in expensive restaurants and sometimes wonder what on earth it must be like for their wives and whether they are happy? Some of them life completely different lives and only come together at weekends.

These guys are happy to leave the child-rearing to the wife and I can only assume that some women are ok with that.

Do you think women really want to be flirting, cheating, drinking and eating in expensive restaurants instead of being with their kids? Do we think they would be happier?

If women didn't want to do the childrearing they wouldn't do it. But they do anyway.

I'd rather have the kids anyday.

The hand that rocks the cradle...

only trouble is woman are the ones with wombs vaginas and breast.
so biologically women start off for the first year or two at least with the baby....

Why is that the 'trouble'?

You know men die on average before women, both of natural causes and a huge amount die reletive to women when young because they are so reckless. Even in the womb, females are stronger and more likley to survive. They are more likely to have autism spectrum disorders, more likely to suffer psychosis.

We are so busy concentrating on the negatives of female and looking at the positves of being male, that we totally forget our own good fortune.