There has been a lot of dialogue lately about the challenges career women face when it comes to family formation.
As I predicted earlier, women are beginning to run into the limits of the feminist dream, and some of them (along with their white knight sympathizers) are wondering what to do about it. This comment embodies the general tone from those who are anxious to keep the dream alive:
Anyone who was serious about increasing the fertility of highly educated women would offer some policy proposals that would make child bearing and child rearing less overwhelmingly expensive for them. Only women at the highest income levels can have children without largely sacrificing all of their other goals. Universal preschool, longer school days and school years, and a more flexible and humane work culture (for everyone) would go a long way towards encouraging educated, middle-class women to have more kids.
And he’s not entirely off here—those things would make it easier for women to have more children, and I suspect they would also create at least a slight uptick in the fertility rate.
The problem is that we cannot afford them.
The Price
The United States has budget issues right now that make funding a more expansive public education curriculum problematic. Can the US government afford to oversee a further expansion of its education system (paying for longer school days, longer school years, universal pre-school, more staff to manage all of this, etc) and deal with the coming boomer crunch on top of its other burdens the US maintains?
I don’t know. I’m not going to bet on it.
The problem here is that we have competing forces at work. Women are becoming more ambitious and want to move further and further up the ladder, but are hoping that they can keep some vestiges of the “old days” around. Those vestiges include the ability to find and marry a reasonably attractive male at or above their socio-economic level and the ability to raise a sizable family (the typical American woman desires at least 2 children).
The problem is that their goals clash with these desires.
The Disappearance of Mr. Right
Female dominance in higher education has resulted in fewer men who meet their standards. Educated women prefer men at or above their educational and financial level. Though more women are settling than before (often unhappily), that preference remains quite strong and is likely a product of innate female hypergamy. Women, more often than not, want to date up.
When women increased their numbers in college and in the workplace, society did not create more jobs for them. Women simply took a larger share of what was available, which resulted in the displacement of men. This means fewer men with the means to satisfy these females’ requirements for a good husband/provider down the road, and more men who don’t come close to her socio-economic level and frankly couldn’t give a fuck about it.
Though a vocal minority of women say that they could care less about this (they either abstain from children or say they are happy to marry down/settle), the vast majority of still seem to want the ability to make this choice, and many of them no longer have it.
An increasingly large block of the female populace is finding itself unable to get what it wants romantically, despite having been told for most of their life that this would certainly come to them.
Working Compromises
The workplace conditions show us another clash. Women wanted the ability to excel in the traditionally male spheres of the working world, making equal salaries for the effort. This means doing equal work—there is no way around this. If we begin to make more allowances for women to take more time from work voluntarily, we’ll have to accept that the pay gap may never close. Female employees will be rendered less productive because of this, and thus could not be compensated at precisely the same level. Many feminists simply will not accept this.
If we try to compensate for this by forcing men to take time off concurrently via male parental leave, we risk further lowering productivity of the workforce as a whole, and endangering our ability to maintain the economic strength and the wealth we now take for granted, the same strength/wealth that funds many of the benefits feminists are demanding. When we artificially lower male productivity in order to compensate women and enforce gender equality, we pay for it. There’s no guarantee that we can afford that price.
The only viable solution would be for these women to accept an inability to succeed in the male professional sphere AND raise a family in a traditional sense without some massive compromise.
These women would perhaps call for increased work flexibility and parental leave, but would have to accept the persistence of a pay gap in return. These women would have to be willing to sacrifice their ambition for the sake of raising a family in the somewhat traditional ways they want to raise them, and accept that there is no way to avoid making that compromise.
As I said before, many of these privileged women (we are discussing an issue that deals almost exclusively with white, middle/upper class American women here) simply will not accept this. So long as that is the case, there is no real solution to their problems.
Read Next: Average Never Got Anyone Anywhere
You are underestimating the limits of male chivalry/slavery. Still a long way to go.
True indeed, Athlone. I’ve heard others suggest that women might consider switching the order, raising a family early when their fertility is not in decline, and pursuing their career later when the kids are a little older. I guess the issue with that is, they may not have the economic resources for it, especially if they are not attaching themselves to financially stable men.
But it could make their dating up easier, if they don’t require a six figure, doctorate holding professional, never married, with his own house, car and plenty of disposable income.
The way to pay for it is imposing a bachelor(ette) tax. Which they won’t do.
There are sophisticated ways to do it like a annual $5000 tax reduction (not a deduction but actually $5000 less in taxes a year for each child which still doesn’t come close to the costs, you pay no taxes it doesn’t pay you which is the current problem where it pays the poor to whelp their brood) while raising the tax rates fairly substantially.
The american tax and benefit system is set up so that people ride on the shoulders of other people’s children, which is a huge disincentive to have any. (I don’t need any children to support me in my old age, I have other people paying into Social Security, Medicare)The way to fix that is to tax the shit out of anyone over 25 that has not produced offspring.
Currently the only group that has an incentive to reproduce are those on the bottom
Yeah, I just don’t understand why any woman would want a career. This just highlights it. The women I know that balance family and a career are all pretty stressed out and unhappy. They feel like they are giving 100% of themselves in two different directions, and it isn’t maintainable. The solution is for the women to make a choice, not for everyone ELSE to change.
“So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights.
‘These oaks are just too greedy;
We will make them give us light.’
Now there’s no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.”
— Rush, “Trees” (1978)
Red Pill Woman… you are absolutely right!
Lori Gottlieb (whose other article about “settling” was hyperlinked here) wrote a great article about this : http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-having-it-all-and-there-never-will-be/258928/
For me I am young but I so glad I realize that no one can do it all and have it all…you get either the great guy and lasting marriage, the great kids who turn out well, or the career. PICK TWO. It’s even hard to succeed at two I could never imagine succeeding at three! There are a finite amount of people who can, the vast majority -99.9% – of women or men can’t.
Women like the one who made the initial quote of the article (Likely Ann Marie Slaughter in her article “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All”) are completely deluded. This type of thinking is screwing up society.
To be fair, I’ve seen a lot of couples where the dad stays at home and mum works, only among middle class pops though.
Society is going to be mad in twenty years.
Middle classes will have dads that stay at home, while poor and upper class will have alphas breeding like mad.
Lower classes are particularly doomed, these women will all have bad boy alpha dads and single mums for fathers
@Ras Al Ghul, I’ve heard this tripe before. When I retire, I’ll have payed into social security and medicare all my life. I’ve also payed for the “education” of everyone else’s children.
Chinese feminists have been grappling with the problem of low fertility/childlessness among educated women and have started to give the following advice: do not go to school/ start your career, until AFTER you have found your man.
Their rationale: the man you get at the conclusion of your schooling (age 24-32) is not going to be nearly as good as the man you can get prior to that (age 17-22).
It’s good advice.
Here in America, women get themselves in huge amounts of debt (that a court will dump on a man in a divorce), and take 4-10 years of extra schooling before even starting a career. Add some time establishing career and these career women are over thirty/nearing the wall before they even begin to date seriously. Not only are the men available to them worse than the men they could have had 10 years ago, BUT, the women have higher standards (the omen are making money now and don’t want a man who they have to support/ makes less than them. Plus, their new men has o compete in their heads against all of the men they previously saw while on the carosel when they were postponing dating seriously).
More access to daycare will make lives more comfortable, but it will do nothing t improve fertility.
“Chinese feminists have been grappling with the problem of low
fertility/childlessness among educated women and have started to give
the following advice: do not go to school/ start your career, until
AFTER you have found your man.”
This might help them find a higher quality husband earlier, however if they are still pursuing full time education and full time career AFTER they get engaged or married, that speaks nothing to motherhood. They may still forego the motherhood because not all their time is invested in full time education and full time career. And if they do choose to have a child (remember China’s 1 child policy), they still face the obstacle of full time career vs full time stay at child rearing.
Some European countries have introduced paternity as well as maternity leave and its working out great. Fathers want to be with their babies also. On work site Day Care is another great idea.
Corretion:
“They may still forego the motherhood because not all their time is invested in full time education and full time career.”
Should read:
“They may still forego the motherhood because NOW all their time is invested in full time education and full time career.”
It’s really ironic that you spelled “correction” wrong. And you don’t know how to use the edit button?
“Here in America, women get themselves in huge amounts of debt (that a court will dump on a man in a divorce)…”
Actually, you assume a woman’s debts when you MARRY her.
Yet another reason why women are so keen on marriage (but ONLY when they’re finished ‘riding the carousel’, of course)!
you know, this is such a small minority of women in the world that it really isn’t an issue. if you’re a man and not educating yourself and furthuring your career, you’ll just have to settle for less educated women.
as for working compromises, you’re offering a paranoid hypothetical argument. radical feminism is just a cog in the machine and it isn’t something that really matters as far as societal regression. it’s more of a symptom instead of the cause.
in fact, what a big waste of time it is to worry about such a fringe minority when you could focus your mind on things that you have control over. what a garbage article this is that isn’t relevant to self-improvement or being a better man or anything productive.
it basically just says, ‘women are conspiring against all men and will take your jobs and masculinity and only have sex with about 5% of them.’ how limiting is this kind of thinking? VERY.
Meh. Let them have their careers. I will be on a beach somewhere.
@a15d9aa5316d2e74884b9c821fb24e30:disqus
No you haven’t. You haven’t paid nearly enough and the deficits show that.
And the amount you will suck out of it if you’re retiring soon, will be considerably more than you put in.
Put simply, when people don’t have social nets, they save HALF of their earnings for when they are old.
Did you put in half? NO
Social Security and medicare are Ponzi schemes, if you don’t know what that is go look it up. Eliminate everything but social security and medicare, including the military, and the fed is still running a deficit.
That last was for @John, not my self.
Being hundreds of years old catches up to you at times.
Blasted newfangled technology
I profile gender photo-essay techniques in my just published “Sheryl Sandberg and the Emergent Self-Parody of Feminist Propaganda” at The Spearhead.
An observation nobody makes is that women should consider getting married young, pumping out some children and raising them in loving households, then joining the workforce after the kids are out of their teens.
Education and technology have changed. One can get a solid foundation when young and return to it later. Women should get educated early then build on this later, after they have had children. While raising children they can extend their skills and stay current through online education.
I am 56, and just in the last few years I have become expert at 3D modeling and visualization, and my company hilites this capability on our website. I picked it up on my own. No courses, certificates, or affirmations from anyone. I learned it and now am selling it. The key is salesmanship. Sure I had previous skills and experience, but nobody will offer me a “job” and Encorpera HR specifically erects walls to keep me out.
Women can do this just as easily.
But no. The only mantra allowed in the feminist discussion is : career, career, career, career. Men must change to make it possible for women to compete with them and have it all at the same time. And business culture, which evolved over decades, must change to enable women’s work/life balance. We are supposed to enable competition that does not help us or advance our earnings, and frankly, causes us to have to double up to make up the slack.
I fight men, but men provide me opportunity. Women do not, cannot, and will not.
Uncle Elmer, women ARE doing that. The majority of start ups, and new business owners in the US are women. Much of that is business from home. The internet has really changed the game. I know a small handful of women who are either completely supporting their families or who are the “main bread winners” in a 2 parent household, all from their at home internet businesses, whether it be selling their own creations or selling something else for someone else.
“And business culture, which evolved over decades, must change to enable women’s work/life balance.”
Business culture has already changed. Change is the nature of business, (as well as the nature of culture). You have to flow with the times, clientele and society.
Many businesses have half or more of their employees working from him now and only come into the “office” once or twice a week.
This, along with some other possiblities like on work site Day Care and paternity leave (see some European countries that do this), can empower parents to be closer to their infants, toddlers and young children during the work day.
This is something that has been welcomed by European men and seeing as how American office drones are always trying to make their work days shorter and weekends longer, it will be met with open arms by the majority of American men as well who would love to see their babies during coffee and lunch breaks.
And of course no office drone is going to turn down paternity leave. Americans simply don’t like their boring, soul sucking jobs that much to begin with.
I call BS on the “majority of start-ups and new business owners in the US are women”.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-20/women-who-run-tech-startups-are-catching-up
“Wadhwa pointed out gender and racial disparities in Silicon Valley, noting that women now earn more than 50 percent of all bachelor’s and master’s degrees and nearly half of all doctorate-level degrees. Yet they start only 3 percent of technology companies and are almost absent on management teams, outside of legal and marketing positions.”
That’s in Silicon Valley, tech start-up capital of the planet.
What a fucking coincidence, ACCA Malaysia just published a survey called, “Top 3 reasons women leave the workforce”. #2 is “Lack of work-life balance”. What does that even mean? Do men have the luxury of quitting a job for “lack of work-life balance”? https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/285241_520982277952382_2009372692_n.png
Jack Welch says it right – “Work/life balance is really work/life choice.”
Don’t want to work so much? No problem! Work less. But you will never reach the top that way.
All this crap about “work/life balance” is really code for “Women should work less yet still be paid as much and achieve the same positions as men.”
Isn’t it the same thing as when we were kids and the girls would try to play a boys’ game and when they lose they’d cry, “No fair! No fair!”?
Yeah, and then the girls would run to the teacher/principal, DEMANDING that the rules of the game be changed (often with outrageous advantages in their favor) — but the changed rules only applied to THEM; the boys still had to play by the old rules!
And then they would wonder why the boys would ultimately refuse to play any games with them, and go off on their own instead.
Interesting how some things NEVER change, huh?
My favorite character in Animal Farm is the donkey. “I’ve lived long enough…”
You know what feminism is? Feminism is a “girl’s only club” because they couldn’t get into the boy’s club. Show’s how freaking mature they are.
Well said.
How about we reverse the situation? A working man adopts a child and then says, “Hey, you should pay me to raise my child.” Is that fair?
It WOULD be ‘equal’. But women don’t care about or want REAL equality, especially for men; they want ‘faux equality’ for themselves, and ONLY for themselves.
If women were truly concerned about REAL equality, then they would have to register for Selective Service — just like us men have to.
Let’s face it, nobody wants real equality. We’re all selfish creatures. Betas who don’t see that are idiots.
Gay male couples adopt kids all the time now. Plus men are better at giving blow jobs to other men because they have the same equipment and know how to work it. Same with lesbian couples – best oral sex.
The future probably belongs not to straights, gays or bi-sexuals but to tri-sexuals — they’ll try anything.
Tri-sexual – learned a new word today.
The disconnect in women between their choices and outcomes is astounding. Two weeks ago, I watched as a lawyer for the state tell a room full of young lawyers that she used to cry every day after dropping her kids off and heading to her private firm job. Then she got a job with that state, had a flex schedule, shorter days, etc. Thus, she actually thought a woman could have it all. I sat there getting slowly angrier thinking, “Yeah, you can. If I subsidize it with my tax dollars.”
I know a girl *exactly* like that.
She got her law degree and worked in private practice for a bit. But it was hard, so she switched to a cushy flex job with a federal agency.
Most women will always vote for bigger gubmint.
Cash only businesses and other women after her job will make her life very interesting.
I hope she enjoys … working for somebody else 🙂
should have called her out on it…
>>> “Universal preschool, longer school days and school years, and a more
flexible and humane work culture (for everyone) would go a long way
towards encouraging educated, middle-class women to have more kids.”
Homemaker-powered preschool, non-latchkey moms, and a male-friendly work culture “would go a long way towards encouraging … middle-class women to have more kids.”
I’m not interested in subsidizing career women who want it all. I don’t even want to make child rearing easy for them. If they want a beta subsidy, they’ll have to do it the old fashioned way: marry a beta.
My vote is “NO!” to beta bucks by taxation.
>>> “Can the US government afford to oversee a further expansion of its
education system (paying for longer school days, longer school years,
universal pre-school, more staff to manage all of this, etc)… ?”
No! But even if Teh Anointed One could make money magically appear from heaven, I would be strongly opposed to government expansion in education. They screw up everything they touch; everything but killing brown people worldwide.
>>> “The problem is that their goals clash with these desires.”
The problem is their goals and desires clash with reality, and reality always wins.
>>> “These women would perhaps call for increased work flexibility and
parental leave, but would have to accept the persistence of a pay gap in
return.”
There is no pay gap. Unless getting paid different for different work is a pay gap.
A few quibbles otherwise a good article. Now waiting for the NAWALT hordes to flood the comments with denial.
“I’m not interested in subsidizing career women who want it all. I don’t
even want to make child rearing easy for them. If they want a beta
subsidy, they’ll have to do it the old fashioned way: marry a beta.”
“There is no pay gap. Unless getting paid different for different work is a pay gap.”
Yeah. What he said.
” …If they want a beta subsidy, they’ll have to do it the old fashioned way: marry a beta.”
They already do that — they marry a desperate beta, frivorce him after a few years (and a few kids), then get their subsidy from the politically correct Frivorce Court in the form of ‘cash and prizes’ paid by the now-impoverished beta.
And they then wonder why ‘there are no more Good Suckers…er…Good Men’, and why Men would GTOW instead.
“…reality always wins.”
True, but Reality has it’s own time schedule. The Soviet Union took approximately eighty years to collapse, at the cost of millions (possibly billions) of lives and trillions of rubles.
And now the same ‘true believer’ idiots in this country want to bring the broken promises of the ‘workers paradise’ fairy tale here, all under their favorite slogan, “It didn’t work before because it wasn’t done right!”.
actually its men who have not quite grasped reality.
when given the choice between financial independence & kids a lot of women chose financial independence – looking like it will be 50% of them!!
so future generations will be mostlyparented by the wealthy, traditional/religious or irresponsible types
thats the future, unless that basic choice changes somehow
“when given the choice between financial independence & kids a lot of
women chose financial independence – looking like it will be 50% of
them!!”
The ideal would be finanical independence coupled with family. But of course if one is given a choice between completely dependent on another for money OR not having kids, the wise choice is to not have kids. No one should be 100% dependent on someone else, its not healthy and you just can’t trust human nature that much.
This is one of the key dilemmas of our modern society: how to you square traditional values with societal changes? Is there any way for women to reconcile their “desire” for a career with their biological imperatives? Well, this experiment has been underway for 40 years or so, and I think it’s safe to say that the answer for women is: no, you can’t have it all. You can’t have the best of the old system, and the best of the new system. They are trying desperately to have it both ways, and to a large measure have succeeded in this quest, at the serious expense of men.
I hate to be pessimistic and negative (or do I?), but I see no sign of present trends changing. Change will only come when some movement makes it happen. It will not come from the top. Those who were supposed to act as the caretakers of a healthy society (leaders, religious institutions, educational systems, etc.) have failed us, and abandoned their duties.
Change will come only when things break down or there’s a crisis.
Feminists thought they could change all the rules and men would keep pedestalizing them. They didn’t count of the fact that men would adjust their behavior accordingly.
[This is kinda like how Democrats estimate how much money a new income tax will raise but don’t count on the fact that people will modify their behavior to avoid the tax.]
I predict that more and more men will refuse to get married or heavily involved with women over time. This will not be “MGTOW” but just how average rational men will respond the incentives of marriage 2.0 or utterly insane cohabitation laws that say a man must give half his property to a woman if they live together for 2 years (as in British Columbia now). There will be more pumping and dumping and kids out of wedlock. There will be men paying surrogate mothers to have children for them (already happening) so they can be fathers without legal/financial risk of involving a woman (fems will try to outlaw this pretty soon). Women will become increasingly unhappy. They will use voting power to try to force men to do what they want, but each time men will modify their behavior and the result will be worse for women.
[This is kinda like lefties who keep raising taxes. Business leaves the state, state revenues suffer, so they raise taxes again. It’s a death spiral.]
Eventually things will crash. The pendulum will swing the other way. We will “rediscover” eternal truths that our ancestors always knew. Either that, or we will be hollowed out and another culture will take us over. Either way, this is not sustainable.
It will take another 50 years or so. But it *will* happen.
One crisis that could change things is the advent of incurable/untreatable STDs and STIs.
‘Superbug’ gonorrhea is one such — it was initially reported in the middle of last year, and the MSM has run only a few stories about it since. It is completely unresponsive to all antibiotics but ONE (at last report), and has been found in both Eastern Europe and Japan.
great article! it actually is pretty relevant, especially if you’re dating women in their mid/late-twenties or older, who went to college. it is true, a lot of them do have very high expectations and feel even more entitled than their younger, cuter counterparts in the late-teens to early-twenty range. One thing worth noting is that while there is a huge number of girls going to college, a lot of them are ending up with fluff degrees that are not really worth anything. they get a bachelor’s degree in something like finger-painting and think it is equivalent to a bachelor’s degree in engineering. they expect to be able to find high paying jobs, and the minimum man they are entitled to would at least have a four year degree, maybe in business or engineering. and if he is more successful than she is, it’s the patriarchy’s fault, not hers for getting a useless degree.
Great article, this cost of people playing the opposite role from what they are optimized for is the issue. Hey, I know it’s hard on a working woman to be pregnant and still work at the same level of energy, maybe we can surgically implant a uterus in her husband! That will solve the problem of ‘inequality’.
Great post, Athlone. Lots of truisms here.
Hillary…………..
“If we try to compensate for this by forcing men to take time off concurrently via male parental leave”
You wouldn’t have to “force” them. Most office drones are doing everything they can to make their work days shorter, weekends longer and internet more available at work with no firewalls. You won’t see much if any resistance to men getting to spend more time with their kids than at the office. And some European countries give paternity as well as maternity leave. On site Day Care as well as on site schooling is another alternative. Parents can go hang with their kids during coffee and lunch breaks. Heck, these days there really is not need for a huge office buildings and everyone coming in 5 days a week anymore, more than half can just work from home at least 3 out of 5 days a week. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
It might even increase work productivity in the long run because a happier employee is a more efficient employee.
” And some European countries give paternity as well as maternity leave.”
And look at what’s happening financially in Europe! Remember Greece, where the populace was rioting because benefit cuts had to be made? Or France (which the wealthy are leaving), with it’s new Socialist president pushing his ‘tax the wealthy, because they’re not paying their fair share’ program (does that sound familiar?)! In a nutshell — the socialist governments (with their wonderful ‘everything for everybody’ social programs) are running out of money, for the simple economic fact that you can’t endlessly pay people for not working.
Awfully funny that the Left-leaning and ‘El Presidente Obama’-loving MSM in this country haven’t reported on the European financial situation in a long time.
Not for nothing was it said, “The problem with socialism is that it eventually runs out of other people’s money!”.
” And some European countries give paternity as well as maternity leave.”
“And look at what’s happening financially in Europe!
Remember Greece, where the populace was rioting because benefit cuts had to be made.
Or France (which the wealthy are leaving), with it’s new
Socialist president pushing his ‘tax the wealthy, because they’re not
paying their fair share’ program (does that sound familiar?)!”
Neither Greece nor France are included in the European countries with paternity leave that I was referencing.
Besides, who says on site Day Care has to be publicly subsidized?
Hmm, interesting.. http://www.forbes.com/2011/03/14/jobs-women-earn-more-money-than-men-forbes-woman-net-worth-salary_slide.html. Not to mention, porn actors get paid less than porn actresses.
On Jezebel yesterday there was an article called “Basically you need a degree for everything” and it detailed a law firm that required a degree for the receptionist position. The justification was two fold. One, the person that completes college is more serious, mature, competent, etc. And second, they used the “corporate culture” justification that the office was full of college graduates and those that didn’t complete college would feel strange.
The interesting thing was the comments from the women. The was a lot of reference to “they” like this “they” was some big committee, an almost “patriarchal” group that, by consensus and ruling, defined the nature of the economy. “Why can’t they develop jobs that allow people to actually use their degrees”. Or “Why can’t they provide educations that actually allow someone to get a job with their degree”.
The reality is nobody, neither male nor female entrepreneurs create businesses to develop jobs. The enterprises make products and provide services. The jobs are there to serve those ends. And the market decides all. And it is the result of billions of people making choices and taking actions.
And reality is that no enterprise is in the market with jobs, workers, families of workers, nor benefits as the driving reason for the economic activity. Those concerns may be the cost of attracting and retaining employees necessary for the mission, but are not the prime considerations. The prime consideration is profit.
The reality of wages is that the distribution is not a bell curve but rather a Pareto curve. If you actually plot out incomes with equal space on the graph between each income bracket and not have something like a compressed, logarithmic “Over 250,000”, what is graphed is that the bulk of incomes are skewed towards the bottom and shows a very long tail that rewards the top 10%, actually the top 1%, with a large portion of the total. The top 1% has gained almost all income growth in the last 10 years and the rest have lost ground. And much of the middle that had existed in prior economies has been eaten by software and only those jobs that require high thought and those that require physical activity that cannot be replicated by computer are those jobs that exist. And every year more and more of even those jobs are replaced by automation.
And most growth has occurred in new areas of the economy with new styles of work, new ideas of capitalization, of infrastructure, activity that has occurred in what is called “A spatial fix”, an expansion of the “space” that occurs because of the historical tendency to the over accumulation of capital in incumbent economic activity. The first impact is that the valuation of the incumbent enterprises is reduced as value flows into the expanded Spatial fix.
So as women seize control of the incumbent enterprises and institutions, to impose their stamp, their will, their demands, what they are finding is that economic power is flowing away, not because women have control and are inferior, but rather as an inherent aspect of the creative destruction that is part and parcel of free markets and capitalism.
If women choose to impose further demands on these incumbents, both public and private, they shall hasten the demise of those institutions.
And while growth and activity occur in other areas, that is little consolation to those that have lost livelihood at an irreversible period in their lives.
So the question germane to women, is not whether “we” can afford it, but actually whether “they” can afford to impose these considerations and costs to allow them lifestyle flexibility to work at their leisure, to have children, and most importantly, to do so and not have a husband.
After much time in the manosphere and in other gender pages, that is the conclusion I have reach that women do not wish husbands. A husband is a means to an end and not an end, in and of itself. If given the choice between acquiring those things that husbands do for women without having a husband and having a husband, they have shown over and over that they wholeheartedly choose the former over the later.
The first part of this comment details the limits to “credentialism” as a life tactic that women have devoted themselves, that degrees, in and of themselves, should convey value and be the necessary measure of employability, that the market should find spots for those women, and should find dollars to pay them, regardless of the economic reality of the contribution they make. Those companies that have the structure to be forced into making those actions are rapidly moving into the incumbency that is threatened and even placed into vulnerability due to those imposed costs.
For example, some are predicting “the end of retail” as more and more brick and mortar functions move online damaging the business model of older orders. At some point the “want to” of shopping in stores could be replaced by “have to” of making online purchases, depending on where you live and what you need to purchase. The current system is dependent on all players today, and as more and more revenue is ripped from the fringes, it begins to effect the core.
One model predicts oil prices of $200 a barrel in 2020 at that only requires a 10% increase per year for the next 7 years given the rule of exponentiation. It may become entirely economically inefficient to move products through distribution systems into stores so consumers may drive in their cars to purchase them. It will be significantly more efficient to move products from efficient and strategically located warehouses to UPS trucks with optimized routing algorithms.
And as oil prices rise, two things are occurring. More and more investment must flow into oil production to return the same or less production of oil. Gains in production these past two years have only been possible because of the increase in the price of oil providing money required for more complicated methods of drilling and production, at both, lesser quantities of oil produced per rig with higher cost per rig. So while investment in drilling can provide return on investment, there is less investment capital in other areas of an economy.
And second, rises in energy costs that are not compensated by reduced consumption or substitution reduce the discretionary income available for other spending, namely retail.
So if the slow collapse of retail in fringe suburbs or smaller cities happens then that converts retail from a highly female enterprise into one dominated by men, through computers, through warehousing, through software. And it effects not only retail, but dramatically changes the tax basis of cities, of roads, of commercial construction, and very makeup of cities, city governments, school districts and so on and so on.
There are many other examples. Cable TV is fighting for its existence. Phone companies are nothing compared to what they were even 10 years ago. Both have been occupied and dominated by women. Absenteeism is rampant in both sectors and policies that would have been considered cruel and insensitive if imposed by male managers now is imposed by female managers to curb these problems because these companies are being squeezed from both ends. The costs of its female employees and an ever constant erosion of revenue lost to new spatial fixes, new players in both the digital entertainment and communications spaces.
The world is entering what is called “The End of Growth” as the limits of the planet, of resources, even the limits of the Second Law of Thermodynamics are being reached.
What is occurring with women is that they are reaching a cliff. They have invaded and dominated incumbencies that have their positions eroded every day from spatial fixes. The cost of programs and benefits they have imposed on those institutions is hastening the loss of competitive position.
Yet, there is no turning back. And for most, marriage is not an option. Men, quality men, are rejecting it in droves and even if all the women tomorrow wished to return to a 50s style model, these women, the women of today, these fat, undesirable, difficult, “strong and independent” women, would find few takers among the men who would even be financially capable of providing that support.years.
But what those comments in that Jezebel article showed me is that there is key lack of comprehension about the reality of the world. Already my city has begun expanded school schedules even though every year there is constant crisis about the budget because those decisions are controlled at the ballot box and not by direct economics. And this occurring when online schools are emerging as significantly viable alternatives to public education, electronic books widely available and replacing actual books, excellent teachers providing video lectures on an international level of access. It is a pertinent a question to ask why even have a public school system in the old model when the newer models can provide a better education and a much reduced cost. And the only reason is day care to absorb the responsibility of watching children from women onto the state. And if you ask “why ‘from women’?”. And I answer “Children are the toys of women.”
One key aspect of these “spatial fixes” not only is this Pareto distribution of income skewed, it is skewed geographically. To assume a given region will equally receive income as others will not be the case. There will be wealthy corridors where aggregations of talent will reap the benefits and all others will struggle in comparison. So to assume that regions will be able to continue as afford to continue life as it today is foolish. Look at Spain. I saw a stat that 18% of household had no member that had been employed for the last 18 months. Under 25 employment is 55%. The cause is collapse of construction, and then finance, and therefore government jobs due to loss in revenue from taxes. It wasn’t so much this idea of entitlements choking the Spanish economy. What happened was that Spain was to be the Florida of Europe and built for it. Then Pareto happened and the flow of people from the north into Spain never materialized. The United States would have its own Spains if it were not for a federalized system, Florida, Nevada, Parts of California, Michigan, even Ohio.
I have said this time and time before. We have entered a new epoch of human organization. And women are making the flawed choice of assuming things will be as they have been.
And many of you make equally flawed choices by wishing to return to a model that is no longer possible nor is really in your best interests as men.
The manosphere and particularly this site has given you the tools and philosophies you need to survive and even thrive in the future. It is up to you to accept what has been given you.
^ This needs to be published as an article in itself. I studied some economics during pre-u and one question that has been constantly bugging me is, “How do we keep growing when resources are limited?” Everyone is talking about growth – growth in sales, growth in business, growth in population. How?
Because human beings are not rational actors.
I used to wonder this too. Certainly unlimited growth without end is unsustainable.
Then I realized that unlimited growth *is* in fact sustainable. Application of technology, improved organization and more accurate information increases productivity which increases wealth. Each unit of USA GDP takes something like 40% less energy than it did 40 years ago.
Human beings have grown their productive capacity for thousands of years. There’s no doubt in my mind this can continue for centuries to come at least.
That’s not to say that population growth is limitless. That is another issue entirely.
Do you think we should limit the number of children we can have to like, 2 for each couple?
WHAT ‘each couple’? Women have made it clear that they no longer want to be part of a ‘couple’ (unless it’s a ‘couple’ of lesbians) — and increasing numbers of us men are finally wising up to that fact, and Going Our Own Way.
Hehehe, you mean let’s not procreate at all? Now that’s more my style. I think we should just end the human race. But for those who disagree, how do you think the future is going to be like if women don’t couple with men? Would men’s only contribution to the continuity of our species be a visit to the sperm bank? Would heterosexual sex still exist?
“I studied some economics during pre-u and one question that has been
constantly bugging me is, “How do we keep growing when resources are
limited?” Everyone is talking about growth – growth in sales, growth in
business, growth in population. How?”
New population growth is balanced by the mortality rate which has always been and always will be 100%.
Growth in new business is balanced by the failure and closing of old business.
Natural resources can be recycled.
In this way, we can have balanced and sustainable growth.
Sounds more theoretical than applicable. No offense. I still belief war happens because of competition for resources.
War isn’t necessary. We currently have the technology to create a sustainable global system but we are not doing. War happens today because corporations want more and more fiat money. The entire system from top to bottom needs to be transformed. I wonder if that will ever happen?
Why would corporations want fiat money if it is worthless? It’ll be transformed when the whole system collapses. Then we will build a slightly better variation of this system.
Who said fiat money is “worthless”? Its obviously worth something or nobody would be rich off it.
Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money. This website – http://dailyreckoning.com/fiat-currency/. A lot of people say it’s worthless. What is your take on it? How much do you think it’s worth?
A VERY INSIGHTFUL VIDEO ABOUT BLACK RACISM! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f29MgwOggZE
“The world is entering what is called “The End of Growth” as the limits
of the planet, of resources, even the limits of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics are being reached.”
Turn your front lawn into a food garden/mini suburban farm and if you live in a condo or apartment then do vertical gardening inside. Food, shelter and little (swapt) clothing is all we really “need”. Love your self, your family, your friends, your mate(s). Meditate, write poetry, play music, relax and enjoy your own organic produce.
Everything is temporary.
The only constant is change.
Career women keep pushing this awful universal pre-school idea with gusto. No father I know wants to send their kid to government run schools any more than needed, especially when they are at the extremely impressionable age of 3-4. Dr. Gabor Mate has a fantastic book titled Hold On to Your Kids where he claims that the reason so many people are led astray is due to peers (other children) instead of well balanced adults becoming mentors. Around their peers 6-8 hrs daily vs a few hours with parents is no bueno. Truly the blind leading the blind.
So there is no state kindergarten in the US? Wow, and people call it “First World”.
Work is an option for women, a requirement for men.
In stark contrast to the frame of this article, why should I marry a woman who works all the time and provides nothing at home?
As a corollary, why should I marry a woman who stays at home and who could rape me in family court when we (inevitably) get divorced?
Hookup culture and government as babydaddy are both inevitable under the current social regime.
Come on.. i’M 16 AND DO I WANT LONGER SCHOOL YEARS? FUCK YOU FOR AGREEING WITH LONGER SCHOOL DAYS. YOU USED TO BE MY FAVORITE GUY ON THIS AND NOW YOU SPREAD THIS BULLSHIT. BRO OUR RELATIONSHIP IS OVER.
OOPS I FORGOT THAT SCHOOL IS SO DAMN EASY!
Dear Mr. Jason Lawrence/Athlone McGinnis,
I find it really disappointing that your time at Dartmouth has led you to such abysmal conclusions about men, women, and the state of gender relations in the US in general. I don’t really feel like posting a detailed reply to the arguments you set forth in this article, but I will leave you with this:
The next time you decide to create such an overwhelmingly un-PC online presence, it’s perhaps best to obscure your identity better. There are only so many:
-black
-Ivy-League
-varsity football players
-from the middle of New York
-graduating in the next year
-with Jamaican ancestry
Grad schools and recruiters don’t look kindly upon the gems of insight you share in this article. If that’s not enough evidence, a simple IP trace will be.
Peace.
Most families today depend on two incomes, very few men can sustain a housewife with children. If I as a woman don’t get an education that will secure me an interesting job, I will have to either fall in love with a rich man who will marry me, or I will have to suffer through life in a bad job. That’s a pretty bad gamble.
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Feminists need to write this 100 times on the blackboard.