Food for thought on Feminism and Gender Equality?

[Kay Faulkner]

There is such a pressure in today's society to work. For everyone to work. And yet, women keep complaining that they are not offered the same level of compensation for the jobs that they are able to get, or that they aren't taken seriously when applying for higher paying jobs that men usually hold.

I am a stay at home mom, and a wife of 2 years. I want to spend every moment of my life taking care of my family, making sure that my husband is stress-free, that our home is taken care of, and that my children are brought up knowing that family comes first. I would like to keep my life this way, but I feel the pressure to work, because even with a degree, my husband is not able to make enough money to keep our family afloat. He works 40+ hours a week and yet we are below the poverty level, unable to buy a house, unable to buy a vehicle. We don't own cell phones because our rent is nearly 80% of what he makes in a month.

I sometimes feel like it is because of the women who want gender equality in the workplace, that are causing these hard times. I was looking at the government standards for affordable living expenses and they are all based on households where 2 adults are working full time jobs (40+ hours per week). What happened to the era where a household could be effectively and comfortably run on a single working adult, working a 9-5 job?

I feel like the people who fight for gender equality in the workplace are all these feminist who want to be able to support themselves, by themselves, meaning, without a husband or significant other. These women do not generally have children. It feels like women being selfish to me.

As a mother and wife who wants to be able to take care of my house and family, I feel that feminist and people fighting for gender equality in the workplace and ruining a way of life and increasing financial stress in the home. Kids are being left to stay at home alone for extended periods because both parents are having to work. People are eating fast food more often because there is no one to cook a home-cooked meal. Clutter and messes are a common thing found in houses because people are not there to clean up. People wear dirty laundry because of no time to do the laundry. There is emotional and mental illnesses that are being brought on by people being forced to work extreme hours without a comfortable home to come back to.

Men, wouldn't you love to be able to come home after a day at work, sit back in a comfy chair that is yours alone, be handed a beer (or beverage of your choice) by the person who stayed at your house, cooked, cleaned and took care of all the errands? Be told 30 minutes later that a full on meal was prepared (one that in today's society would seem like a holiday special meal).

Of course telling women they cannot work anymore is not going to solve everything immediately or by itself. Women outnumber men in the workforce these days. And there are more men unemployed than women.

If women didn't work, the cost of living would decrease because the national average for income levels would decrease. According to the government, comfortable housing is supposed to cost 30% of your gross income. As is, rent and mortgages generally cost around 60-70% of the combined gross income of 2 working adults in a household.

NOW, I wanted to add one more thing, I am not saying that all women should just give up working, what I am really saying that is that, if the cost of living and prices of items were based on households where only a single person worked full time (or 2 people worked part-time), I believe the lifestyles in America would be better. There would be less stressed out people, less "depression", less children that feel neglected. People would be able to pay off student loans and get out of debt in a reasonable manner, making going to college a realistic life plan again. Local business owners would be able to invest more money into their businesses and other local businesses and take the market back from the large retail and manufacturers.

Where has the American Dream gone?

A Monday-Friday 9a.m.-5p.m. job, Sundays for church. Friday night board game nights at the dinner table. A matine movie day on Saturday mornings. Dinner parties for holidays where the women gossip and the men watch foodball in a "mancave". Children who enjoy playing outside and coming in to handmade lunch and dinner, not microwaveable "hotpockets". A house with a yard and a fence, not a cramped apartment with no view.
And a dog that everyone adores.