I completely agree that raising the minimum wage would be a great way to get more people off of welfare. That’s probably why an increased minimum wage has garnered more bipartisan support amongst citizens than any other recent welfare proposal. However, Republican senators refused to vote for it, in spite of the turning tide in their constituents’ wishes(http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/04/30/senate-republicans-block-minimum-wage-increase-bill/). This is a classic case of the very far right dictating the party line, and even the moderate Republicans going along with it for the sake of party unity. That’s why, while I grew up thinking that “fiscal conservatism” sounded good in my head, in 2014 I’m very hesitant to vote for Republicans (yes, I have voted for some in the past) because they so often stray from the founding fathers’ ideals and their constituents’ wishes in order to appease the Tea Party.
Additionally, the last line of your second point makes it seem like people either get welfare OR have jobs, while in reality that’s far from the case. Even after you remove children, the elderly, and the disabled from the list, many people still work full-time and receive some type of welfare. “Dishonest people” definitely exist, and I’m not sure that a country with 300 million people will ever be able to care for the children of drug addicts or elderly veterans with dementia without some people slipping through the cracks and “cheating the system”. But it’s a trade-off I’m willing to make with my tax dollars, even if we never get our “broken system” to function perfectly. Regardless, the pros and cons of welfare are a lot more complicated than you make them out to be (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3677).
Oops, I forgot to include a link to some data to back up my claim. It’s from the Council on Contemporary Families, “a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best-practice findings about American families.” https://contemporaryfamilies.org/gender-pay-gap-race-ethnicity/
This comment makes some really good points! It’s clear that you’ve read up on the topic. I just wanted to add to what you’ve said by bringing race into the equation. It’s totally true that for the “average” woman, that 77% statistic is outdated. However, many Hispanic and African-American women, especially those doing low-skilled labor, make even less than 77% of what men do for the same work. The 77% statistic has stuck around over the decades because it’s roughly the average you get when you combine the large gender wage gap for Hispanic and African-American women with the existent but much smaller wage gap that white and Asian-American women face. It’s true that having children (and all the career and financial decisions that come along with that) are a large factor in the overall pay difference between men and women. However, for the fullest understanding of this complex and important issue, it’s helpful to break down groups by race, and compare women to the men within their racial group as well as the workforce as a whole.
Weird. This description matches very many of the Democrat women I know, but relatively few of the Republican women I know. I’m not trying to be combative or annoyingly partisan, but are you sure the Democratic party isn’t the one you’re looking for? I grew up in a mainly Republican town, with one parent in either party, so I understand that in a lot of towns party affiliation can be seen as much through the lens of hometown identity as it can through politics. But this piece reminds me of work being done by people like Valerie Young(@WomanInDC), who tend to support Democratic candidates more often than Republican ones. You may enjoy reading some of her writing.
I agree with you that women who want to be stay-at-home moms and who can afford to do so shouldn’t be judged for that choice. If I can make it work, I plan on staying at home while my kids are young, while maybe working part-time from home to keep my toes in the working world. However, as ivypearls1872 mentioned, your generalizations about the outcomes of children with working moms versus those with stay-at-home moms are mere anecdotal evidence, unsupported by research. Why, when taking the time to write an entire article on this topic, did you not think to Google the large amount of research on different styles of motherhood? Here’s an article about a study out of Columbia University that refutes your claims: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/7921052/Working-mothers-do-not-harm-their-children-study-finds.html
Additionally, this link gives you some solid facts about the state of stay-at-home motherhood in America today. Somewhat surprisingly, mothers who do not work are most likely to be poor, not affluent. They stay at home because the cost of childcare outweighs the income they would be able to generate in this economy, not because their household is rich enough to operate on only one income. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/08/7-key-findings-about-stay-at-home-moms/
Hold on. Where did your first paragraph come from? Where did you grow up? What ass-backwards people taught you “to be quiet, to be fragile, to be delicate”?? I grew up in a small, conservative, Midwestern town, but that still sounds so far away from what my sisters and I experienced. Yes, women are generally expected to be sweeter and more accommodating than men. I’m a feminist, and I totally recognize the patriarchal structures at play in everyday life. But your first paragraph is just so horribly sad. Were you exaggerating for effect? Because if not, I feel like you must have had an incredibly gender-warped childhood. I agree with most of your 21 points, but I think your maudlin, dystopian opening paragraph makes girls look so damaged and in need of rescuing that it ends up hindering your overall point.
Donating your hair is a great idea! However, as someone who’s donated 4 times and done a fair bit of reading on the topic, I urge anyone thinking of donating NOT to choose Locks of Love. They don’t “donate” wigs to sick kids like you might imagine; they actually sell them to families at nearly-market prices. The efficiency of their wig-making processes and finances have also been under scrutiny for quite some time. Instead, you should donate to Pantene Beautiful Lengths or Children With Hair Loss. Both are much more charitable and trustworthy than Locks of Love.
I completely agree that raising the minimum wage would be a great way to get more people off of welfare. That’s probably why an increased minimum wage has garnered more bipartisan support amongst citizens than any other recent welfare proposal. However, Republican senators refused to vote for it, in spite of the turning tide in their constituents’ wishes(http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/04/30/senate-republicans-block-minimum-wage-increase-bill/). This is a classic case of the very far right dictating the party line, and even the moderate Republicans going along with it for the sake of party unity. That’s why, while I grew up thinking that “fiscal conservatism” sounded good in my head, in 2014 I’m very hesitant to vote for Republicans (yes, I have voted for some in the past) because they so often stray from the founding fathers’ ideals and their constituents’ wishes in order to appease the Tea Party.
Additionally, the last line of your second point makes it seem like people either get welfare OR have jobs, while in reality that’s far from the case. Even after you remove children, the elderly, and the disabled from the list, many people still work full-time and receive some type of welfare. “Dishonest people” definitely exist, and I’m not sure that a country with 300 million people will ever be able to care for the children of drug addicts or elderly veterans with dementia without some people slipping through the cracks and “cheating the system”. But it’s a trade-off I’m willing to make with my tax dollars, even if we never get our “broken system” to function perfectly. Regardless, the pros and cons of welfare are a lot more complicated than you make them out to be (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3677).
Oops, I forgot to include a link to some data to back up my claim. It’s from the Council on Contemporary Families, “a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best-practice findings about American families.” https://contemporaryfamilies.org/gender-pay-gap-race-ethnicity/
This comment makes some really good points! It’s clear that you’ve read up on the topic. I just wanted to add to what you’ve said by bringing race into the equation. It’s totally true that for the “average” woman, that 77% statistic is outdated. However, many Hispanic and African-American women, especially those doing low-skilled labor, make even less than 77% of what men do for the same work. The 77% statistic has stuck around over the decades because it’s roughly the average you get when you combine the large gender wage gap for Hispanic and African-American women with the existent but much smaller wage gap that white and Asian-American women face. It’s true that having children (and all the career and financial decisions that come along with that) are a large factor in the overall pay difference between men and women. However, for the fullest understanding of this complex and important issue, it’s helpful to break down groups by race, and compare women to the men within their racial group as well as the workforce as a whole.
Weird. This description matches very many of the Democrat women I know, but relatively few of the Republican women I know. I’m not trying to be combative or annoyingly partisan, but are you sure the Democratic party isn’t the one you’re looking for? I grew up in a mainly Republican town, with one parent in either party, so I understand that in a lot of towns party affiliation can be seen as much through the lens of hometown identity as it can through politics. But this piece reminds me of work being done by people like Valerie Young(@WomanInDC), who tend to support Democratic candidates more often than Republican ones. You may enjoy reading some of her writing.
I agree with you that women who want to be stay-at-home moms and who can afford to do so shouldn’t be judged for that choice. If I can make it work, I plan on staying at home while my kids are young, while maybe working part-time from home to keep my toes in the working world. However, as ivypearls1872 mentioned, your generalizations about the outcomes of children with working moms versus those with stay-at-home moms are mere anecdotal evidence, unsupported by research. Why, when taking the time to write an entire article on this topic, did you not think to Google the large amount of research on different styles of motherhood? Here’s an article about a study out of Columbia University that refutes your claims: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/7921052/Working-mothers-do-not-harm-their-children-study-finds.html
Additionally, this link gives you some solid facts about the state of stay-at-home motherhood in America today. Somewhat surprisingly, mothers who do not work are most likely to be poor, not affluent. They stay at home because the cost of childcare outweighs the income they would be able to generate in this economy, not because their household is rich enough to operate on only one income.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/08/7-key-findings-about-stay-at-home-moms/
Hold on. Where did your first paragraph come from? Where did you grow up? What ass-backwards people taught you “to be quiet, to be fragile, to be delicate”?? I grew up in a small, conservative, Midwestern town, but that still sounds so far away from what my sisters and I experienced. Yes, women are generally expected to be sweeter and more accommodating than men. I’m a feminist, and I totally recognize the patriarchal structures at play in everyday life. But your first paragraph is just so horribly sad. Were you exaggerating for effect? Because if not, I feel like you must have had an incredibly gender-warped childhood. I agree with most of your 21 points, but I think your maudlin, dystopian opening paragraph makes girls look so damaged and in need of rescuing that it ends up hindering your overall point.
Donating your hair is a great idea! However, as someone who’s donated 4 times and done a fair bit of reading on the topic, I urge anyone thinking of donating NOT to choose Locks of Love. They don’t “donate” wigs to sick kids like you might imagine; they actually sell them to families at nearly-market prices. The efficiency of their wig-making processes and finances have also been under scrutiny for quite some time. Instead, you should donate to Pantene Beautiful Lengths or Children With Hair Loss. Both are much more charitable and trustworthy than Locks of Love.