Women don't want to be breadwinners, or do domestic labor.

Women don't seem to want to be providers, they still think men should do that. Despite the idea that feminism, ostensibly aimed to strip away the rigid ossified gender roles that were holding back progress.

Plenty of women complain about doing domestic work even if men are the providers, they still think men should be sharing in those duties. While I agree, a man shouldn’t do absolutely nothing or worse hinder his wife’s efforts if she’s a stay at home mom, there shouldn’t be an expectation of equal contribution of he’s the breadwinner.

On the flip side of that, if a woman is the provider I think the man should do domestic labor and some things that wouldn’t traditionally fall in women’s wheelhouse. Like being handy, remodeling, repairing homes and vehicles.

It seems like many women today just want to be completely free of any social responsibility. They want for society to expect nothing of them but to simply exist.

That may sound appealing under a certain egalitarian philosophy. However, societies simply do not flourish or last when people come disconnected from social standards and institutions.

Long ago, an early sociologist, Emile Durkheim, coined the term anomie. It referred to a state of normlessness, where the norms of society are either non existent or vague enough that people feel disconnected from them. He found that anomie was correlated with massive social or economic changes and that it contributed to higher suicide rates, among other negative impacts.

I feel like we’re racing towards a state of anomie. Where people and communities are atomized and people are feeling increasingly disconnected from society.

The breakdown of gender roles seems to have been actually a breakdown of social responsibility for women. Men are still expected to live up to many of the old gender roles, as well as take on traditionally female responsibilities. Whereas women aren’t expected to do either.

Some people argue that the family is a bad institution in itself, it’s inherently patriarchal, tyrannical, capricious, and cruel.

I find these notions to be absurd. Ever observable fact seems to indicate that intact traditional families produce far and away better results than anything else, including so called “non traditional families”

Kids who grow up in intact traditional families have far better social outcomes world wide. They are more likely to be productive members of society and people that innovate and generate progress. They are far less likely to end up in prisons or dying from drug overdoses or suicide.

The family is the cornerstone of American life and of successful societies worldwide. The breakdown of gender roles seems to have lead to the breakdown of the family.

The statistics all bear this out, birth rates are lower than ever among non foreign born Americans. People are choosing to have fewer kids and later in life if they do have them.

One might argue that’s great! Fewer people! The problem is we need new people to work and pay taxes to support social institutions that care for the elderly and keep society running. An influx of foreigners will not fix this for many reasons. That’s another conversation.

On top of that, US suicide rates have increased steadily since the 1970’s but in some decades by massive margins. Between 1999 and 2018 the suicide rate in the United States increased by 35%.

In the early 1970s, about 10-12% of all births in the U.S. were to unmarried women. By 2020, that figure had risen to around 40%

The number of single mothers has also increased. In 1970, around 11% of families with children were headed by single mothers. By 2020, this number had risen to about 23%.

Boys raised in single mother households are 2 to 3 times more likely to end up in prison. Children raised in single mother households are 2 times more likely to commit suicide.

Before you blame this on men leaving their children behind, remember that most men care for their kids. It’s a minority of scofflaw men who won’t. Some women find these men sexy and exciting and prefer them over more boring and reliable men.

So what is the role of women in society? We know men are to be providers, and domestic laborers, what do women do?