Racism wrong, Homophobia acceptable?

<i>can someone explain to me why we still allow women to be paid less for doing the same job as a man? </i>

I'm sorry, but women who work the same hours for the same amount of time as men will more than likely make the same as men. The wage disparity between men and women comes from women occupying "job ghettos" ie low-paying jobs with minimal room for advancement. Secondly, most women take off a significant portion of time off to bear and raise children whereas men generally do not. Of course those are only two factors, but they seem to be the more salient reasons for wage disparity between the sexes.

 

I wouldn't say that that is entirely true, though I can see your point...

But there was a time when money did not exist and the gender-driven division of labor was very specific: Even then, men's work was generally seen as more important, with the exception of birth itself. The only exclusion to this general rule would be in matriarchal societies which have always been rare.

 

But there was a time when money did not exist and the gender-driven division of labor was very specific: Even then, men's work was generally seen as more important, with the exception of birth itself.

Depends upon the culture. A whole realm of feminist anthropology has done a very good job of showing the importance of women's work in varying cultures that was often ignored by earlier anthropologists because they were more interested in "cultural" aspects like warfare, ritual, and leisure, of which are generally (on the surface) the relams of men. In fact, in some cases, it has been argued that while men control the "outer" realms of trade and bartering, it is the women who truely hold the economic power because they control the goods being produced for trade.

Secondly, labor division does not necessarily mean a devaluation of women's work. Female autonomy is a fairly strong feature of many hunter-gatherer cultures in which women contribute a significant portion of the groups food.

Now, I am not saying that women have not been devalued or have generally not had what we would argue a lower status, nor am I saying that gender politics do not influence labor division or the valuation of work. What I am saying is that in our society, of which the example was given by treecave, we place a high value money and goods purchased by money. Hence, the traditional housewife role is devalued because it does not bring money (the valued object) into the household.

The only exclusion to this general rule would be in matriarchal societies which have always been rare.

There has never been a true matriarchy, hence no matriarchal societies.

 

Maybe I'm wrong here, but weren't there some matriarchies in the Amazon? Is that simply myth?

 

I think that you are talking of the Amazons in Georgia(Caucasus).

They weren't matriarchial...

They had babies with men during a certain time and the boys went to those men and they kept the girls and raised them.

 

You mean the Greek myth Amazons?

I don't think mythic societies count

 

No, I would say that mythic societies certainly don't count. ;c)

Either way, we are somewhat diverted from our original topic.

 

Also, this may be off topic, but it's tangentially related - can someone explain to me why we still allow women to be paid less for doing the same job as a man?

I would also like to hear thoughts on this. I've been an Executive Assistant for years now. In LA, where men do this type of secretarial work too, the wages are high. Anywhere else - where men wouldn't be caught dead being someone's "assistant" - the wages are about half that. And the cost of living is 2/3 what it is in LA in the places I'm thinking of, so it's not even proportionate to that. If it's identified with women, it's not worth much.

Chibiangi, see above for why I disagree (in a way) with you, though I think you make a good point. Making money is defined as masculinity, so in a sense you and I are both correct, but it makes a big ugly circle.

Uh, the Navajo were matriarchal. Women ran things, and could divorce their husbands by leaving his shoes outside the door. He had no right to protest. There are other examples, that's all I can think of right now.

 

I'm relatively sure that most cultures that are matrilocal are also matriarchal, but I'll have to do some searching to get info on that.

As for women being paid less than men, it's staggaring to discover just how widespread and seemingly accepted this is. I'm truly surprised that women (and men, for that matter) haven't been in vehement protest of this.

 

Please define matriarchical to me then. Because the way I learned it was that in a matriarchy, women hold all of the power and make all of the decisions, ie men defer to women or "female rule" to put it simply. While there may be soceities where women have autonomy, control economic goods, etc. this does not consititute a matriarchy in its generally accepted sense. Now, if someone wants to reframe the meaning of matriarchy to encompass different aspects of sociality, by all means that is fine as well. But as it stands, matriarchy in its accepted form of the word does not exist.

The Navajo do not meet that criterion.

Also, matrilineal decent and matrilocality are NOT a measure matriarchy or even female autonomy. Some of the cultures with the most restrictions on women are matrilocal and/or matrilineal.

 

chibiangi, from what I can tell, you are absolutely correct - I've looked everywhere and I haven't seen any sign of a matriarchy outside of myths and legends.

 

You are correct CrwnPuppet ... "Matriarchy" is only found in myths and legends. However, even in most "Martrilineal" Decents, men still retain the "lion's share" of property and power, HOWEVER, they must first go through the woman in order to do 'whatever' with that said money, property, power.

Matrilineal descent groups only constitute about 15% of unilineal descent groups in modern-day societies. Those groups do include the Navajo, Cherokee, Iroquios (Native American groups) as well as the Truk and Trobrianders (Pacific), and the Bemba, Ashanti, and Yao (Africa).

Matrilineal societies work like this: if a man has property, he passes it on to his 'sisters' son ... not his own son as he would in a patrilineal society. The property of the wife stays with her side of the family and is passed onto her daughter(s).

Hope that helps with that discussion.

EDIT: "Unilinear" is where descent is traced through only ONE parent. The other would be "bilinear" (like in the U.S.) where descent is traced through both the ma and pa.

 

I just have to laugh at the Whimper reference

 

The following seems off-topic, but I'm leaving it because much of it applies to a situation most homosexuals find themselves in: being single, childless workers competing for salaries and favors with married, child-rearing employees.

I'm truly surprised that women (and men, for that matter) haven't been in vehement protest of this.

Well, everywhere I've worked, there are women who say, "Oh, I just do this to have my own money so my husband can't tell me what I can spend" - meaning, they basically live off Hubby like the traditional 50's prostitute-wife, but need extra cash for Nordstrom's. It's all I can do not to strangle them and let the last thing they hear be me saying, "Did you ever think about those of us without hubbies or any other form of support, who have to compete with your $10k/year bid to get a job just to pay the freakin' bills?"

Among employers, there is still this attitude of, "Well, he's got a family to support" despite full awareness that probably half the female employees in any firm are single moms, and a quarter of the rest have husband's whose income couldn't possibly support their family alone. This thinking mostly takes place unconsciously, but once in a while, I've witnessed bosses get a shocked look as they realize the implications of something they just said.

Interestingly, a consistency I've noticed is that bosses from NYC get it (and I've had a few out here in LA). Employees can tell them, "Look, I just can't make it on less than $XXk" - they may not be able to convince their company to give her that salary, but they don't act like she's just being difficult.

Perhaps most appalling is the fact that sometimes when I tell a temp employer that I'm not interested in the job on a permanent basis because it's not paying enough, the first question they ask is, "Oh, do you have kids?" Like a single person isn't contributing enough to society to demand wages we can save for retirement on. Like I couldn't possibly be helping to support family members who DIDN'T come out of my womb (which I do). Like I don't simply deserve the dignity of being paid well for being very good at what I do, having a better work ethic than many people, like us childless folk aren't more reliable than people with kids (people with kids needn't be punished, but why SHOULDN'T we be rewarded when we have better attendance, more flexible availability and better focus, i.e., less personal phone calls, etc.?) Also, when I refuse to work overtime, they think I must either have kids or assume I'm a big ol' slut out dating every night. one man interviewing me actually said something to this effect one time, and I had to tell him off mid-interview, it was so offensive. I can't remember my last date - my spare time is for family and creative pursuits, not husband chasing or partying.

Sorry, this just bugs me. It has caused me to completely give up on the idea of working for others. Clearly, that's just a trap to keep people not born to privelege "in their place".

The Navajo do not meet that criterion.

Ooooookay, I was taught they DO. I was taught they did have all the power in terms of making decisions for the whole tribe, in particular.

There is an anthropoligical belief that matriarchies HAVE existed, but do not leave the same traces of culture and war that patriarchal societies do. I'll try to find a source, but here's what I remember of the theory. They believe - based on the behavior of societies that existed recently ot still - that women do not have the tendencies to build monuments, build walls defining territories, record histories (like much of the Bible, for example), start religions that require a lot of trappings (altars and things to be dug up later) or scar the landscape with warfare the way patriarchies do, and they would have tended to be nomadic, leaving few artifacts. They believe anthropologists have been looking for the wrong signs to find matriarchal societies, and this is why we haven't found any. Another, more philosophical, part o

 

Treecave, I love you!

 

Look, I made an assessment based on current anthropological thinking and a clear definition. Since in my personal background of anthropolgy I have never heard of the Navajo as being described as a matriarchy, I would like know what aspects of Navajo culture constitutes a matriarchy.

Secondly, I specifically mentioned that if someone wishes to redefine matriarchy in other terms than it has been defined, they could probably make case that matriarchies exist and/or have existed. However, that does not negate the fact that under the accepted definition of matriarchy, no societies really fits under it.

As for the BS of the work place, it also pisses me off to no end that people with kids get to take time off willy nilly for "kid emergencies" while single people get stuck with the work. As if staying home with little Susy is somehow more legitimate than a single person taking some "me time". Sorry, but it is not. Both are CHOICES that people make, and frankly, having children is not any more noble than not having children. Single and childless couples people are taking up the brunt of the work and receiving no extra benefits. People get health care, maternity/paternity leave, days off, etc for their children, yet singles and childless couples get no such compensation. Plus, the religious nuts are trying their hardest to keep singles from getting benefits for domestic partners because they think it's part of some bizzare "homosexual agenda".
So in the end, us single people get screwed. Yipee.

 

What IS this "homosexual agenda", anyway? I've been living with another guy, deeply in love for 3 years and I never got a memo.

 

The Homosexual Agenda

6:00 AM Gym and Tanning Bed
8:00 AM Breakfast (oatmeal and egg whites)
9:00 AM Hair Appointment
10:00 AM Shopping
12:00 PM Brunch (Salmon Benedict, roasted potatoes, mimosa)
2:00 PM
(1) Assume complete control of the US Federal, State, and Local Governments, as well as all other national governments;
(2) Recruit all straight youngsters to our debauched lifestyle;
(3) Destroy all healthy heterosexual marriages;
(4) Replace all school counselors in grades K-12 with agents of Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels;
(5) Establish planetary chain of "homo-breeding gulags", where overmedicated imprisoned straight women are turned into artificially-impregnated baby factories to produce prepubescent love slaves for our devotedly pederastic gay leadership;
(6) Bulldoze all houses of worship; and,
(7) Secure total control of the Internet and all mass media for the exclusive use of child pornographers.
2:30 PM Get beauty rest to prevent facial wrinkles caused by the stress of world conquest.
3:30 PM Protein Shake
4:00 PM Tea Dance
6:00 PM Light Dinner (soup, salad, and skinless chicken breast, with a crisp Chardonnay)
8:00 PM Theatre
11:00 PM Bed du Jour

 

Wow, that's nice and stereotypical...

 

Uh, it's tongue-in-cheek. It mocks people who thinks there is an agenda.

 

I know that, but it stereotypes always get under my skin.

 

Most people who think there's an agenda suffer from the stereotype syndrome.

 

Very good point, Ender. I know where you're coming from and I'm most likely being hypersensitive here.

On a vaguely related note - do you (or anyone for that matter) find it funny that when gays/blacks/women, etc complain about stereotypes, many conservatives say something to the effect of "Another example of political correctness going out of control!" yet the second anyone says stereoptypical things about conservatives, they are the first to complain?

Get off it, rich white guys - we all have to deal with the way in which others have tainted the image of our particular group.

 

Yep, I've noticed that. They'll deny it of course.

 

Of course. That's half the fun of hypocrisy.