Book recommendation: Invisible Women - a very well sourced book on bias (specifically gender bias)

[Technut1990]

A couple of years ago, walked into Costco and there was a couple standing looking at the 80" TVs. I walked up to look at them to, turned to the guy and said " Size does matter". Is wife looked at me is disgust and walked away.

Now that’s just out of line Animal, she was disgusted either because she had to face the fact she had made an inadequate choice OR she looked at you and thought there’s no way.

 

[LibertyTurns]

Now that’s just out of line Animal, she was disgusted either because she had to face the fact she had made an inadequate choice OR she looked at you and thought there’s no way.

@Animal02 bad, but my guess is said woman got the short end of the stick!

 

[Animal02]

Now that’s just out of line Animal, she was disgusted either because she had to face the fact she had made an inadequate choice OR she looked at you and thought there’s no way.

Well, know what they say about guys that have big feet

 

[Jim Prather]

Well, know what they say about guys that have big feet

They wear big shoes.

 

[Animal02]

They wear big shoes.

Yep.

 

[yrp]

Some responses here are just insensitive and I won't bother with a response.

Some don't even consider that single moms exist. It's fine that the system isn't in favour of women in the workplace cause it's the man's job to earn and the woman's to child rear? Really?

 

[yrp]

When you say women prefer to be caregivers, then you're ignoring the vast percentage of women that want to continue working but cannot due to employer policies (created assuming that someone else is taking care of the kids). Not enough parental leave, not enough support to new parents, not allowing remote work/flexible hours. These policies make it unfair and harder for caregivers (the vast majority of whom are women) to remain in the workforce. And we haven't even begun to consider the fact that it is mostly women that also perform the unpaid work of elder care.

Then when you conform to the gender norms and say that you prefer for the woman to stay home and do all the unpaid labour while the man brings in the cash, the women don't have financial independance. Let's take the bad but all too real case of an abusive relationship. A financially independant person can just leave the relationship. A woman who has to take care of kids and can't get a job cannot leave that relationship because she has literally no other option (and part time jobs pay way less than the same role in a full time capacity, not to mention they are increasingly disappearing and don't provide things like healthcare).

You can use anecdotes but they don't counter the fact that a majority of women don't "choose" to be in this unfair position.

Honestly, you guys should give the book a shot (again, only read a single chapter if you want) BECAUSE you disagree with it. There's enough data and studies cited there that I'm sure will open your eyes to a wider problem that you haven't had to think about before. It really hurts to see that some people on here don't have the empathy to even consider that this COULD be a societal issue and give the book a try to see if it's solid in its arguments. When such a large amount of people are facing the same problem, I don't think it's all their fault or choice.

 

[yrp]

Saying someone "chooses" to put themselves in a worse position than they could be is one of the laziest arguments I've seen.

Society is so complex and so many factors could lead to someone having to make a choice and you throw that all out the window and say that yeah, women just have a fundamentally different brain and they prefer it that way.

There's literally study upon study done by people much smarter than you or me into why there's such a gender gap in fields and they've come up with great reasons as to why, but it's easier for me not to confront this problem that's affecting people near and dear to me because it's not affecting me. I can rid myself of any responsibility of it by throwing away (or refusing to acknowledge) these well though out arguments, statistics, and studies and say that these people have just chosen this path. What an easy and convenient cop out.

Let me know when you're willing to see these arguments to the contrary, I'm more than happy to link you to some.

 

[yrp]

But you know what, I'm happy to practice what I preach. Please link me to studies that show women are biologically predisposed not to study engineering, or whatever it is. I'll give it a read.

 

[LibertyTurns]

But you know what, I'm happy to practice what I preach. Please link me to studies that show women are biologically predisposed not to study engineering, or whatever it is. I'll give it a read.

I’m in the not waste my time on it category because unfortunately the Liberals have ruined this issue for women by arguing about stuff that’s clearly a woman’s choice not some evil conspiracy to keep them subjugated.

Women choose to have children. If they don’t understand the consequences of that I really don’t know what to say. I bore 100% of the responsibility for an elderly family member requiring significant time for caregiving, not my wife. I still put in 12+ hr days.

People want their lives to be packaged perfectly and think government should do that. It’s not government’s role to guarantee me an outcome.

 

[MWBATL]

But you know what, I'm happy to practice what I preach. Please link me to studies that show women are biologically predisposed not to study engineering, or whatever it is. I'll give it a read.

One of my problems with books and discussions such as this one is that it ignores something quite basic....women are not some monolithic group who all think alike, feel alike, act alike, etc. There are huge numbers of women who are extremely satisfied and content with playing the role of caregiver and stay-at-home support person. ANYONE who purports to argue that the world is monolithic loses me pretty quickly.

Second, it is often a topic that comes across as quite "preachy". Maybe I am still smarting from going to listen to Erica Jong give a speech to a one-sided audience of liberals, and sitting through her bashing of conservatives, men, and anything she disagreed with in general....but it turned me off immensely to feminism. Maybe it was having an ex-wife who decided she was a feminist, which in her world meant she never had to work because the world owed it to her. And by golly, she hardly ever worked a day in her life and got away with it too!

There are some women who have been sold a bill of goods that you can have everything. NO ONE in life can have everything. Men pay a price for the decisions we make, and women do as well. Life is fill of trade-offs. My Father's favorite saying was the Life is a Choice of AVAILABLE alternatives. You can decide you want to be the Queen of England, and complain bitterly that somehow the patriarchy is preventing this from happening, but that doesn't make it so.

My ex-wife (before she entered her radical feminist phase) eagerly made the deal for me to be the wage earner and her to be the stay-at-home. No one coerced her into it, she was the one who proposed that arrangement, wanted it and urged me to embrace it. I learned later it was because she had some deep seated fears about the competitiveness of the working world, and feminism gave her the perfect cover for those fears.

But, perhaps most importantly, discussions like these often revolve around the argument that women's work is unpaid at home, as both Mothers and care-givers. And in financial terms, it is. But in life terms, it is not unpaid. The bond that is formed between two partners, one who works and one who stays home, is a deep bond. I know couples where the male is the stay-at-home......and that works as well. To view all of life in simple dollars and cents terms is wrong and terribly incomplete.

My bottom line about men and women, about the patriarchy and feminism, is really that there is so much complexity involved, and so much variety in male-female relations that it becomes almost impossible to generalize. Books that purport to bash one side or the other are all too often just not worth the effort because they usually have some other agenda hidden underneath.

All I can aspire to is a world where men and women are free to choose the lives they want, given the realities of life. But, one must always recognize the realities of life.

 

[MWBATL]

I will admit one other thing that tickles me.....perhaps the worst cultures on the planet in their treatment of women is the muslim culture. Yet liberals (yes, here I must admit I am looking at you, @yrp) are quick to defend muslims in one thread, and then denounce traditional western culture as anti-women in another even though the muslim cultures are by far worse abusers of women's equal rights..

I respect you @yrp, so please don't take this the wrong way, and I know your answer will be that it is more complicated than that simple comparison makes it sound....but it does seem that you (as the reasonable liberal who is willing to engage in an exchange of ideas) may have a bit of a blind spot in this way....

 

[yrp]

I bore 100% of the responsibility for an elderly family member requiring significant time for caregiving, not my wife. I still put in 12+ hr days.

Good job! But that doesn't negate the statistic that it's overwhelmingly women who do this.

There are huge numbers of women who are extremely satisfied and content with playing the role of caregiver and stay-at-home support person.

Not according to the statistics and studies quoted by this book. Please send me the study you're referring to that made these findings.

 

[yrp]

Second, it is often a topic that comes across as quite "preachy". Maybe I am still smarting from going to listen to Erica Jong give a speech to a one-sided audience of liberals, and sitting through her bashing of conservatives, men, and anything she disagreed with in general....but it turned me off immensely to feminism. Maybe it was having an ex-wife who decided she was a feminist, which in her world meant she never had to work because the world owed it to her. And by golly, she hardly ever worked a day in her life and got away with it too!

This book is pretty much about making it more fair and allowing women to stay in the workforce. That's the opposite of this.

 

[yrp]

But, perhaps most importantly, discussions like these often revolve around the argument that women's work is unpaid at home, as both Mothers and care-givers. And in financial terms, it is. But in life terms, it is not unpaid. The bond that is formed between two partners, one who works and one who stays home, is a deep bond. I know couples where the male is the stay-at-home......and that works as well. To view all of life in simple dollars and cents terms is wrong and terribly incomplete.

My bottom line about men and women, about the patriarchy and feminism, is really that there is so much complexity involved, and so much variety in male-female relations that it becomes almost impossible to generalize. Books that purport to bash one side or the other are all too often just not worth the effort because they usually have some other agenda hidden underneath.

All I can aspire to is a world where men and women are free to choose the lives they want, given the realities of life. But, one must always recognize the realities of life.

See my previous point about the importance of financial independance. Also you're generalizing that people who follow that traditional divide are better bonded than ones who aren't. I would disagree.

I'm glad you understand that it's a very complex world, but I don't think the point of the book is to "bash" anyone or any group, but rather to point out that the way things have always been done are unfair towards majorly women (of course, unfair in some cases to men as well), so why not use this data that we've collected to fix it. Just because this is a reality of life, doesn't mean we can't change it. At some point prohibition was a reality of life, but that changed right?

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I'm going to overly simplify...which I guess means we should just ignore this post. But anyway, here goes.

The Bible says husbands and wives should submit to each other. That means they're a team. I want my wife to do what she wants to do, and vice versa. Don't be selfish and say "Well I'm working if we have kids, so you need to stay home." Men and women are just different. They are good at different things and they think and want different things. A woman can just as easily be an aerospace engineer (we of all people know that) as a man can be a stay at home Dad. So if all this is true, then the fact more women stay at home than the men do has to mean that's what those families have decided is best for them. If this is not true and the woman is not happy and doing this because her husband forced these decisions and its kind of a mess, well that's not society's fault or the government's fault or God's fault or the weather's fault - that's the fault of the relationship between the husband and the wife. Its really just as simple as that (although its not). If more moms stay at home than dads, it simply means that based on what each of those families value and want, that's what they decided is best for them.

 

[yrp]

I will admit one other thing that tickles me.....perhaps the worst cultures on the planet in their treatment of women is the muslim culture. Yet liberals (yes, here I must admit I am looking at you, @yrp) are quick to defend muslims in one thread, and then denounce traditional western culture as anti-women in another even though the muslim cultures are by far worse abusers of women's equal rights..

I respect you @yrp, so please don't take this the wrong way, and I know your answer will be that it is more complicated than that simple comparison makes it sound....but it does seem that you (as the reasonable liberal who is willing to engage in an exchange of ideas) may have a bit of a blind spot in this way....

No I completely agree that some parts of the world have a much further way to go in terms of equality and unfortunately some of the Muslim countries are the worst offenders.

As you may know, I'm not American but I "preach" this same stuff to my family and others back home as well. I defend Muslim immigrants in America and europe because I feel like they're demonized and scapegoated for many problems when they're just trying to escape violence and repressive societies. You would probably do the same if you were in their place.

But the book also doesn't only speak about America or western society. There's many points about other parts of the world as well (India especially)

 

[Technut1990]

When you say women prefer to be caregivers, then you're ignoring the vast percentage of women that want to continue working but cannot due to employer policies (created assuming that someone else is taking care of the kids). Not enough parental leave, not enough support to new parents, not allowing remote work/flexible hours. These policies make it unfair and harder for caregivers (the vast majority of whom are women) to remain in the workforce. And we haven't even begun to consider the fact that it is mostly women that also perform the unpaid work of elder care.

Then when you conform to the gender norms and say that you prefer for the woman to stay home and do all the unpaid labour while the man brings in the cash, the women don't have financial independance. Let's take the bad but all too real case of an abusive relationship. A financially independant person can just leave the relationship. A woman who has to take care of kids and can't get a job cannot leave that relationship because she has literally no other option (and part time jobs pay way less than the same role in a full time capacity, not to mention they are increasingly disappearing and don't provide things like healthcare).

You can use anecdotes but they don't counter the fact that a majority of women don't "choose" to be in this unfair position.

Honestly, you guys should give the book a shot (again, only read a single chapter if you want) BECAUSE you disagree with it. There's enough data and studies cited there that I'm sure will open your eyes to a wider problem that you haven't had to think about before. It really hurts to see that some people on here don't have the empathy to even consider that this COULD be a societal issue and give the book a try to see if it's solid in its arguments. When such a large amount of people are facing the same problem, I don't think it's all their fault or choice.

What is the answer ? regardless of which gender raises the kids they will be subjected to the exact same forces. Employers want people to come to work, they don't invest their money into a company so it can place family ahead of profit. Ask any women which they would pick, the job or the child. Its a knife that cuts both ways. If a woman wants to be the bread winner then she will be accused by some of picking money and career over her kids (like men already are). If she picks the kids. liberals will say the forces of misogyny are at work.

I personally don't know one woman who believes what the liberal thesis is. Yrp I have a feeling you aren't married, if you are I am certain you have ran into things that your wife thinks you should do or be responsible for .

As for the single mother, yet again an area of exposure for me, my mom worked 40-50 hr weeks and to do so meant I stayed with friends, family and daycare. Liberals want the companies to adjust to individuals rather than individuals adjust to the requirements of a job.

 

[Animal02]

When you say women prefer to be caregivers, then you're ignoring the vast percentage of women that want to continue working but cannot due to employer policies (created assuming that someone else is taking care of the kids). Not enough parental leave, not enough support to new parents, not allowing remote work/flexible hours. These policies make it unfair and harder for caregivers (the vast majority of whom are women) to remain in the workforce. And we haven't even begun to consider the fact that it is mostly women that also perform the unpaid work of elder care.

Then when you conform to the gender norms and say that you prefer for the woman to stay home and do all the unpaid labour while the man brings in the cash, the women don't have financial independance. Let's take the bad but all too real case of an abusive relationship. A financially independant person can just leave the relationship. A woman who has to take care of kids and can't get a job cannot leave that relationship because she has literally no other option (and part time jobs pay way less than the same role in a full time capacity, not to mention they are increasingly disappearing and don't provide things like healthcare).

You can use anecdotes but they don't counter the fact that a majority of women don't "choose" to be in this unfair position.

Honestly, you guys should give the book a shot (again, only read a single chapter if you want) BECAUSE you disagree with it. There's enough data and studies cited there that I'm sure will open your eyes to a wider problem that you haven't had to think about before. It really hurts to see that some people on here don't have the empathy to even consider that this COULD be a societal issue and give the book a try to see if it's solid in its arguments. When such a large amount of people are facing the same problem, I don't think it's all their fault or choice.

Why should an employer be responsible for a person's private choices. No one is demanding they have children. Employment is a simple economic exchange. One has a need for skills and labor, the other has the skills and labor to provide. You wish to force others to pay for services not provided to meet some emotional need of yourself.

 

[Animal02]

When you say women prefer to be caregivers, then you're ignoring the vast percentage of women that want to continue working but cannot due to employer policies (created assuming that someone else is taking care of the kids). Not enough parental leave, not enough support to new parents, not allowing remote work/flexible hours. These policies make it unfair and harder for caregivers (the vast majority of whom are women) to remain in the workforce. And we haven't even begun to consider the fact that it is mostly women that also perform the unpaid work of elder care.

Then when you conform to the gender norms and say that you prefer for the woman to stay home and do all the unpaid labour while the man brings in the cash, the women don't have financial independance. Let's take the bad but all too real case of an abusive relationship. A financially independant person can just leave the relationship. A woman who has to take care of kids and can't get a job cannot leave that relationship because she has literally no other option (and part time jobs pay way less than the same role in a full time capacity, not to mention they are increasingly disappearing and don't provide things like healthcare).

You can use anecdotes but they don't counter the fact that a majority of women don't "choose" to be in this unfair position.

Honestly, you guys should give the book a shot (again, only read a single chapter if you want) BECAUSE you disagree with it. There's enough data and studies cited there that I'm sure will open your eyes to a wider problem that you haven't had to think about before. It really hurts to see that some people on here don't have the empathy to even consider that this COULD be a societal issue and give the book a try to see if it's solid in its arguments. When such a large amount of people are facing the same problem, I don't think it's all their fault or choice.

So now it is someone else's responsibility to provide for someone that makes poor choices wrt who these reproduce with. Free hint.....life isn't fair and you need to be responsible for the choices you make. But I guess that is to "insensitive" for you. You simply wish to impose you emotional values on others.