Gotta love "feminism" when it represents equal rights. But yet when the very idea of alimony is "I'm a lesser woman because I married", puts to rest any idea about it being equal rights.
Say.. How many men get alimony?
Say.. How many men get alimony?
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18553560 and marked it off-topic.
That's not the idea of alimony.
The idea of alimony is closer to “I sacrificed my future income for my husband's by the division of domestic vs. external work in marriage”.
> Say.. How many men get alimony?
A small but growing number, largely because of slow erosion of persistent patriarchal gender roles which manifest in a number of ways.
(1) Men are still more likely to support their wives and have their career advancement and future income potential dominate in marriage than vice versa, making them less likely to be eligible for alimony,
(2) Men are less likely to seek alimony when they are eligible,
(3) Men are less likely to resist alimony demands in divorce,
(4) There's bias in judging where judges are more likely to view men as capable of independent self-support and less deserving of alimony in objectively similar conditions.
>> men .. have their career advancement and future income potential dominate in marriage
Is it really a gender role ? or, a genetic adaptation - with females being attracted to more successful men, because it helps give their children helpful resources ?
Yes, it is really a gender role.
> or, a genetic adaptation - with females being attracted to more successful men, because it helps give their children helpful resources ?
You are presenting a false dilemma; that it may be, in whole or in part, a product of genetic adaptation does not impact whether or not is a gender role.
The debate you seem to want to have is over whether gender roles are pure social constructs or not, which may be an interesting debate but isn't actually all that germane here. The gender role in question exists and contributes to the effect under discussion and is manifestly changing, though slower than some people might prefer.
I'd argue that's even worse, as it encourages economic classes to 'marry amongst oneselves; don't relate with lesser people's
And that very statement also packs in the idea the woman is some married domestic servant. And increasingly that is not true. My wife and I share the work. Equally. We both work. Right now I make more, but before this job, she made more. And now, on my extra salary, she's attending Harvard. Soon enough, she'll make more than I.
And the sooner these gender roles are busted thoroughly for both men and women, the better we all will do.
Well, no, if you are interested in minimizing alimony, it encourages working to maximize your partners income and income potential during marriage (in addition to working to avoid divorce.)
> And that very statement also packs in the idea the woman is some married domestic servant.
No, it implies that marriage often involves a division of responsibility and/or a trade-offs where one person's income earning potential is sacrificed for the others; subordination (master/servant) rather than co-equal status is irrelevant.
> And increasingly that is not true.
Yes, it's less true over time that wives are sacrificing more income potential in marriage in favor of their husbands, as the old traditional division of marital roles becomes less absolutely dominant.
And increasingly fewer women and more men get spousal support, which reflects that.
> My wife and I share the work. Equally. We both work. Right now I make more, but before this job, she made more. And now, on my extra salary, she's attending Harvard. Soon enough, she'll make more than I.
Good for you. I'm not sure what you think this has to do with anything, since we aren't discussing who should or shouldn't get spousal support in your hypothetical divorce.
As examples... holding the door open for women. The idea of "ladies first". The custom of men being required to message first on dating services. Men paying for dinner/etc.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't see women jumping to embrace this kind of equality.
I hold the door open for everyone. Male, female, and other. This is common courtesy.
> The idea of "ladies first".
I've never really encountered this.
> The custom of men being required to message first on dating services.
My wife messaged me first when we met on OkCupid.
> Men paying for dinner
Similarly, on our first date my wife offered to do half/half, but I insisted on paying largely because she was still a college student at that point, and I was not.
> I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't see women jumping to embrace this kind of equality.
Well, one of us is the more rare case. I'm not sure which one.
Last year I was in line trying to get into a college dance club, and a group of girls in front of me started screaming, one saying "I lost my phone! Someone stole my phone!" They turned and made face at me and started accusing me of theft. My friends were already in and I was alone in line, clearly minding my own business to anyone paying attention. But once they started screaming I had to defend myself by basically yelling at them that they were being stupid and to leave me alone. They started makinga big scene and people all around were getting interested. Just a bit later and the girl just pathetically says "oh I found it" and walks away with her phone, clearly unconcerned with the potential fallout against me.
There's a few. You see them, by the way they do head forward in male-dominated careers that don't have prestige. Think: manual labor, professional manual labor (framers, steamfitters, plumbers, electricians, etc), military combat, and more. And there are a few who speak of equality (not equity).
I think most feminists don't think men should pay for dinner each time on a date, and don't think "ladies first" is a rule we should keep.
I don't know what you mean by "I don't see women jumping to embrace this kind of equality". Do you mean you don't see women protesting trying to get these equalities? That is incredibly disingenuous to claim that women not fighting for these equalities means they think they should persist. They don't fight for those equalities because those aren't the ones they need to fight for. They need to fight for the ones that are holding them back. Those other ones can follow.
Bad examples aside, women get a "leg up" in a lot of ways, and men do too. If we want equally, we either need to be inclusive so that everyone gets the same leg up, or we need to compensate with different kinds of legs.