Comments on: Trading Places (A Roundtable)

By: Brandy

Brandy — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 22:54:15 +0000

Melissa writes in response to Julie:
“I have no doubt that you stand out in any ward as being ?bookish? and ?feminist? because you?re smart and articulate. But, this isn?t at all what I mean. Take your experience of being labeled as ?feminist bookish, weird, geeky,? and multiply it exponentially. I?m considered all those things because of my education too but I?m oh so much worse because I?m not married, don?t have children and don?t seem to be actively mourning this situation. In an earlier email you said that one of the things you love best is going out to dinner with your girlfriends from the ward. The very fact that you have girlfriends (plural!!) in your ward indicates clearly that you just do not know what I?m talking about. I would guess (although I?d be happy to be wrong) that those LDS girlfriends of yours are all married with children. Am I right? I hope I?m wrong, but I wouldn?t be surprised if I were right.

re: melissa #64

Melissa says:

“Thanks, Nate! I do feel like one of the luckiest people on the planet. I?m always trying to figure out why I?ve been given so much because it?s so patently obvious that I don?t deserve it.

Not really related to you comment, but it?s bizarre to me that it feels like some women would be more comfortable with my single, childless status if I were in a less privileged position and a little more unhappy about my situation. I?ve never been able to figure this out. If they really think motherhood is the pinnacle and they?ve reached it, why would they begrudge the happiness I have in my career? Why would they *want* me to be single, childless AND unhappy in my professional life? I just don?t get it.”

By: LisaB

LisaB — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 06:19:43 +0000

I just had to thank you all for some of the best entertainment I’ve had in some time. I like you all even better than I already did (even you, Jesse). But especially Nate and Kaimi. Sorry, Julie, but I’m in the other trench on the biology question. But I think you already knew that from our birth discussions. Okay, WAAAAAAAAAY past my bedtime.

By: JKS

JKS — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 03:19:58 +0000

Melissa,
I am not sure what your field is, but if you had jumped into it with no preparation, you might not have enjoyed it. Part of “loving” what you do is feeling like you know what you are doing and you are good at it. Meeting the challenges, progressing and accomplishing.
As mothers leave the workforce and “sacrifice” their career, I realize that many find SAHMhood less enjoyable than their career. But I sometimes wonder how much of a chance they gave themselves.
My satisfaction as a SAHM has a lot to do with how much work, effort, creativity, enthusiasm I put into it. EVery SAHM has a different set of talents, and a different set of children to deal with. I’ve discovered that just like my career before children, I like success, and years of practice, goal setting, research, and problem solving make me better at my job, more satisfied with my job and ready for new challenges.
I think that assuming that the first month of a new career, like being a SAHM, is everything the career has to offer is naive.
I have, on occasion, felt mildly insulted by those who think that they just aren’t cut out for being a SAHM. Like its an inborn thing. Like I haven’t worked hard to be a good SAHM. Like I haven’t consciously made wise choices as a SAHM to make it work for me, to progress, to succeed. None of this just fell out of the sky.
Being a mother is a difficult job, whether FT or PT. I am not proud of myself just because I”m a SAHM, I’m proud of myself because I put forth the effort to be the best mother I know how to be. And I know that I’m only getting better.

Andrea,
I am smart & educated and I always wanted to be a stay at home mom. I did have the opportunity to love my job before having children. I was really good at it and over the 4 years I was promoted and learned so much I am glad I had that experience. Even those of us with jobs we love can still happily choose to be a SAHM.

Julie-
I find my children to be about 75% gender stereotypical. They don’t have ALL boy traits and NO girl traits (or vice-versa) but they seem to have more than 50%. My son, for instance, isn’t wild (no broken bones) or aggressive (never, ever hits/bites/throws) at all, but he loves space and dinasours and volcanos and, yes, guns, even though all he had was an older sister and no older boys taught him how to play with fake guns.

By: Frank McIntyre

Frank McIntyre — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 20:13:33 +0000

That sounds right.

By: Julie in Austin

Julie in Austin — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 16:16:29 +0000

Frank,

I wasn’t drawing eternal principles from two small boys. My questioner asked if I had girls, presumably thinking that someone with all boys might not appreciate the gender differences. I was suggested that my experience with all boys just reaffirmed the belief *that I held before having children*.

By: GeorgeD

GeorgeD — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 14:25:55 +0000

I am sorry Rosalynde. You see I am not an intellectual nor am I a scholar. All I have at my disposal are my observations and some common sense. I just don’t know anything about the Middle Ages (of course no one else does either but because 0.00000005% of Middle Ages history and experience of been transmitted to us and are written up in fancy books by scholars with pre-existing points of view there is therefore a comprehensive understanding of women in the Middle Ages. Anyone who understands this trumps anyone who doesn’t.

My abject and humble apologies.

By: Rosalynde

Rosalynde — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 14:15:10 +0000

GeorgeD, my friend, I’ve actually come to look forward to your comments, to see how comically you can render what started out as a pretty reasonable claim. I actually agree with you—I think there probably are, across entire populations, some sex differences in cognition and psychology—but you’re making nonsense of your own position. If you’re going to use history as the index to innate sex difference, you have to know something about history—and so far I’ve seen no evidence that you have made any study of the ways in which gender and sex have been understood across time.

Take, for example, your claim that closed-mindedness is an essential characteristic of women. If this were innate, by your line of historical reasoning, then women throughout history would always have been understood as closed-minded. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, women were understood to be weak-minded and overly prone to evil persuasion, cognitively unable to formulate and maintain consistent opinions. This is in part why it was seen as dangerous to teach women to read, for example, or to allow them exposure to influences outside the household. History, then, does not support your position—and unfortunately you’ve provided no other supporting argument. (By the way, if you’re interested of making a study of sex and gender in the Renaissance, I’d be happy to provide you with an extensive bibliography; you’ll find material there to support your position, and material to rebut it.)

By: Frank McIntyre

Frank McIntyre — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 13:17:07 +0000

Julie,

And thus we see that one is always tempted to overgeneralize from one’s own children…

I have two kids, one of each gender. They exhibit all sorts of interesting behaviors. But statistically they are way too small a sample to get anywhere when the population of children has so much individual variation.

Your model seems to be that biology should be rigider than environment. I say this by your example where, if a boy goes against the stereotype, the stereotype must be environmental. I think most of us reject that kind of role for biology. Individual people vary enormously, whatever their gender, but that does not mean that biology doesn’t affect group averages or variances.

By: GeorgeD

GeorgeD — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 12:56:19 +0000

Gavin, You don’t have to prove anything. There are too many obvious differences between men and women in all cultures, races, times and places that are constant for someone who believes in the innateness of gender behaviors to have to worry about proving a point. The feminist movement has been on this gender neutrality kick for 30 or 40 years now but they have never been able to make even the tiniest case for it. The only way they can get any headway is to resort to political correctness and stifle the debate.

Men and women are different. Vive la difference!

By: Gavin McGraw

Gavin McGraw — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 02:47:58 +0000

Rosalynde,
I’m glad no one (yet) was too shocked by my example. I fully accept its limitations and that there are probably better ones. I chose it because it was the first thing that came to mind which could not as easily be refuted as, say, preference of Jane Austin novels or the preoccupation with shoes; also because it would keep the thread light.

Julie’s two boys do not prove me wrong any more than the fact that some cultures don’t care for breasts as much proves you right. This is not likely to resolved on thread, as the prevailing sources of opinion are more visceral than empirical. It’s also very hard to even construct truly scientific experiments about this, partially because no one wants to run the risk of warping a child.