SAH IS HARMFUL!!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-12-2002
SAH IS HARMFUL!!!
2888
Thu, 07-08-2004 - 11:32am

Or at least this woman thinks so.

Okmrsmommy-36, CPmom to DD-16 and DS-14

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Tue, 07-20-2004 - 8:39pm
No, you need to consider your dd's, your sisters, your female cousins....
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 07-20-2004 - 8:48pm

No she needs to consider what is best for her family right now.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Tue, 07-20-2004 - 10:47pm
No matter how you try to dress it up, you're going the girlie route.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-19-2004
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 1:27am
I am considering my dd. Her father & I feel it is important to have a sahm in the early years and a mom who will be there when there is no school.

I don't have any sisters & I'm not worried about female cousins any more than I am concerned about any other women positions out there in the world, including yours.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-19-2004
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 1:28am
Gee Thanks, but really, I'm not concerned about women staying in the work force! LOL

Paige

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-19-2004
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 1:28am
I'm glad you can see the logic!

Paige

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2002
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 2:04am
So let's see now....professional women as a group have been no more likely statistically to leave work for unemployment (which includes SAH) than professional men *for the last 20 years*. And yet the stereotype just won't die. People believe in it so much that individual women, according to you, still should avoid anything that might so much as give the perception of feeding into the stereotype, regardless of what their family needs might be. In other words, in spite of the fact that the stereotype is based on a complete fiction (professional women are more likely to walk out on their careers), women should stay in the workforce regardless of the personal cost to their families. But men, of course, are entirely free to do as they choose because there are no negative stereotypes for them to worry about feeding into.

Since women doing their part to lay to rest the stereotype hasn't shifted it much in the last 20 years, I'm guessing the only way things can change is if men started SAH for a few years in much larger numbers. You are absolutely correct that the perception has to come about that either gender may end up at home, the problem is women have done a lot towards trying to correct that perception and men have done much less so far. I don't see it likely to happen with men any time soon, do you? It's "nice" if a man decides to cut back on his hours or SAH, but there is no duty placed on him to do so for the good of society in general the way that you have placed the duty on women to stick it out at all costs in order to prove something false that hasn't actually been true for 20 years.

I asked you once what should happen if societal "need" to have a woman stay in their job came into direct conflict with her family's need to have her at home for whatever reason. And no, I am not talking necessarily about the vague "because my child needs me" need. There are plenty of compelling reasons for deciding to SAH (though, ime at least, many of those reasons only held true for a few years and most people were back at work after that). Care to comment?

Laura


Edited 7/21/2004 3:39 am ET ET by laura_w2

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2002
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 2:15am
Nobody was imagining such a specific stereotype as to fit your own personal situation. The broader stereotype you are feeding into is that women can't cut it in a male dominated field like engineering. You haven't been an engineer for your entire working life, right? I'm guessing 10-15 years from your past posts (just I guess, I could be wrong). You've been in engineering for a not particularly long time and you are leaving now to go into a female dominated profession, sorry but quite a number of people will interpret that as "not being able to cut it", regardless of your reasons. And that means yet another woman who thought she could take on the men and failed. That is how it will be seen...by quite a lot of men.

That is the nature of stereotypes and the perception of someone behaving in a stereotypical fashion: it doesn't matter what the reality is, people's perceptions of someone's actions are filtered through the lens of their own prejudices regardless of whether those prejudices have any justification in fact or not.

Laura

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2002
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 2:27am
"Unlike the female engineer who quit when she popped out a kid after putting on a front that she was dedicated, I've made no pretenses. If she had given our manager the same 5 years notice I've given, he probably would have given me the job in the first place and not bothered with her. Unlike her, I will not take a career path I'm not willing to finish. I'll leave it for someone who really wants it. "

Do you really know exactly what was going on the mind of that particular female engineer? From what I gathered from your other posts, this guy sounded like a complete a$$. Perhaps she was highly dedicated to her career and found out that she was going to be mommy-tracked her manager whether she liked it or not and gave up as not worth the effort *at that company*. For all you know, she might be working at another company. Perhaps her husband traveled so much in his job that she needed some more flexibility than the manager was prepared to allow. You certainly have no clue as to whether she really wanted that career or not or whether she would even have been in a position of giving the manager 5 years notice (does anyone really know about children 5 years in advance?). Unless you have a lot of very personal information about this woman's life, you really have no clue how dedicated she was/is or how willing she will be to finish out her career in engineering or what the main motivating factors for her leaving were.

And the point again is that you are NOT staying the course in engineering. You've only been in it for some years, you will have been in it for quite a number of fewer years than your male cowokers since you got such a late start. You are judging a cowoker for "stereotypical" behaviour regardless of her reasons behind the behaviour....you will be judged that way as well.

Laura

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 6:18am
The stereotype you are fueling is that a woman can't hack it in a man's world and will ultimately go running back to womens' work.

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