Are Women Unhappy without traditional gender roles?

rainisthelife · 2018-09-06T20:14:41+00:00

I’m married with two children under the age of 10. I’m unhappy that I’m expected to be everything to everyone: I have a career. I’m a night shift nurse. But even though I work full time, I’m still expected to be the main caregiver. There are some things I wish my husband would step up more on: helping the kids with their homework, scheduling dentist appointments, making sure they’ve brushed their teeth before bed. This all still ends up falling almost entirely on me and it’s overwhelming. I do choose to work night shift, though, because it allows me to be home on the days my younger child is not in preschool, and it allows me to put and get them both off of the school bus. In addition, I’m around to go on field trips, get them from the school nurse if they’re sick, and volunteer in the classroom. But keep in mind I do work full time nights so sometimes I pull 36 hours without sleep to do these things.

With that being said, I don’t have to work. My husband makes 80k a year and we live in Indiana. We’re fine on just his income. I choose to work. It’s nice to not live paycheck to paycheck, I do like my job, and being dependent on someone else for your money sucks. I have been exclusively a stay at home mom and even though he tried to not have this attitude, the attitude of “it’s my money” did come out with him. I got my first job at the age of 13. Not having my own money, that I earned, fucking sucked emotionally. I felt like a loser.

With that being said, it’s interesting to see how the work/life balance of mothers in the midwestern US., mostly white and middle to upper class, have changed since I was in high school about 14 years ago. My part time job then and through most of college was working in a drop in child care in a community center/gym, and teaching preschool gymnastics. After that I became a mom shortly after college.

From the late 90s to about 2012, all the upper middle class moms were stay at home moms. I would teach mommy and me gymnastics classes and our classes were full of late 20s to mid 30s cute and fit moms in their flared out black yoga pants and their brand new SUVs. Gen X moms. Nowadays being exclusively a stay at home mom is looked upon as being very blue collar. The fat, dumpy moms in 10 years+ old minivans with rust on the bottom whose husband makes 40k a year working as a delivery manager for Fed Ex. The playground are filled with them and grandparents babysitting, which there have always been grandparents around, but they were maybe 1/8 caregivers 15 years ago. Now they seem to be almost 50%. Most upper middle class Millennial moms work at least part time. I can’t necessarily attest to everyone’s happiness, but the fat and dumpy stay at moms are far bigger mom bullies than the Lexus driving skinny bitches 10 years ago, and the part time working moms in Lululemon these days. The dumpy moms have no hobbies and nothing going on besides being a mom, so they have no chill on anything mom parenting related.

damaskrose · 2018-09-06T19:56:38+00:00

I think people just want to be able to do what they want without being disrespected because of it. Some women still want to be SAHM's and they're unhappy when other people call them housecats golddiggers or even parasites. It's never feminists I see using those words, though. There's also subtle forms of disrespect like treating your SAHM friend/family member like an errand girl because she "doesn't work".

Thing is no matter what you do there's always going to be SOMEONE out there who disrespects you for it. I've been criticized and questioned for every single lifestyle choice I've made, from my career to my diet to my hair color. That's the norm for ALL women, not just traditional ones. So you might as well just do what you want.

Willow-girl · 2018-09-06T20:31:31+00:00

The biggest problem I see is that women really can't have it all, but they keep trying. They feel guilty if they're not killin' it on all fronts. They really don't want to outsource some of their work, but hey, there are only so many hours in a day, you know? Men hire lawn care services and drop their cars off for an oil change without batting an eye, but it's a little harder for women to hire childcare providers and accept the necessity of a stranger cleaning intimate parts of her home. The alternative is to be perpetually stressed and probably resentful of your spouse. Pick your poison!

sagginapples · 2018-09-06T20:53:23+00:00

I am a woman who has spent most of her life in normal gender roles: stay at home mom and wife, persuing perfection in cooking, raising the kids and making my entire life about my family. It was very lonely and I was unhappy for most of it. I decided to go to college and get a job. I am much happier now.

My sister in law is a stay at home mom. She loves it and is very happy.

My mother in law held a job the entire time her children were growing up, and she always wanted to be a stay at home mom/wife.

So, it really depends on the woman.

It would be interesting to hear from some stay at home dads/husbands who find the lifestyle enjoyable.

Atlas_B_Shruggin · 2018-09-06T19:39:41+00:00

SOME women were unhappy WITH traditional gender roles, now SOME women are unhappy withotu them. victory for either side takes a peice of happiness fromt he other side. you cant arrange a culture so that everones interests and happiness are served

The video says it started during WW2 when Oligarchs needed cheap labor to replace the men that went to war.

good tip off that youre watching mentally ill garbage

[deleted] · 2018-09-06T20:23:00+00:00

The video says it started during WW2 when Oligarchs needed cheap labor to replace the men that went to war. With women now in men's traditional jobs, they do not have the time to raise children as they had in the past.

Oh my God nobody knows ANYTHING anymore.

During World War II, a minority of women went into industry, because they wanted to contribute to the war effort. Many of them had husbands stationed overseas, and they perceived this as a way they could continue to support their husbands; these women cast their labor as a supporting role for the men who were doing the fighting. "Oligarchs" had nothing to do with it.

Most women who had stayed home before the war continued to stay home during the war. During my dissertation research, I read several Young & Rubicam surveys that had been conducted at six-month intervals during the war, and they asked women who did not work or go to school or serve in the military why they chose not to do those things. The most common answer was "What I am doing now is more important than doing any of those things." Even single childless women who lived with their parents gave this answer.

After the war, the vast majority of women quit industry. There is a trope that they were boo-hooing all the way home from the factories, but this is not so; they knew very well that they were joining for the duration, and they did not want to continue working in a factory after the war was over. They wanted to go home and raise children. Of course, not all of them had that option; the 1950s saw more SAHMs than any other decade of the 20th century, but even then, a substantial minority of women worked. Working-class women, for example, have always worked.

flamingoinghome · 2018-09-07T08:20:26+00:00

OMG does nobody study history anymore?

Working class women have always worked. Always. That's part of why first-wave feminism was so closely involved with the labor movement. Middle class women have usually worked--and before labor-saving technology, and convenience foods/ready made clothes, "staying at home" was often the work of several servants, not one spoiled lady. In WW2 some women temporarily became welders or whatever as a form of patriotic service--it wasn't about "oligarchs". Some even did things like farm labor--that's what the Land Army in Britain was about.

If SAHMs were so contented, they would not have been chomping at the bit to get out of that life. The 50s had a lot of them, partially because postwar prosperity made it possible, but also because they were explicitly idealized as part of a deliberately cultivated "the war is over and everything is great!" image. There were still a sizable number of (working class) women who worked.

filamilano · 2018-09-06T19:30:57+00:00

Stay at home moms are the most depressed group of women

EDIT: Also this study shows how happy women are while spending time with their children (it's similar to the level of happiness experienced while doing house chores)

GridReXX · 2018-09-06T19:51:46+00:00

I don’t think women loved being SAHMs.

In my network, the SAHMs were depressed and alcoholics and on some sort of drugs.

One seemed pretty well balanced and genuinely happy.

The rest didn’t.

I think the key is balance whether you’re working , SAHM, or both.

In the world we live in where there’s so much opportunity to explore and achieve, it’s going be to rare to find someone who’s okay staying in the home most of the time.

That’s my experience.

KikiYuyu · 2018-09-06T19:53:06+00:00

I'd be unhappy if anything was forced on me. I would like to be a stay at home mom ideally but that's my choice.

[deleted] · 2018-09-06T19:51:14+00:00

Some women are. Some women aren't. I, personally, would be one of those rebellious women who would be terrible as a SAHM, but I know multiple women who'd prefer to stay home and be with their children. The great thing about right now is you get to choose what kind of life you lead, the shitty thing is a lot of women believe you can do it all and get their asses kicked when it ain't true.

YetAnotherCommenter · 2018-09-07T02:21:31+00:00

Their unhappiness comes from what Feminism tells them they should do versus what they biologically want to do. The video says it started during WW2 when Oligarchs needed cheap labor to replace the men that went to war. With women now in men's traditional jobs, they do not have the time to raise children as they had in the past. Are modern career driven women truly unhappy with what society and Feminism has lead them to believe is the life they should be leading?

This is completely outdated. Its also somewhat class-blind.

Poor women have always worked. The stay-at-home-mother thing was typically middle-to-upper-class and the proliferation of breadwinner-dad homemaker-mother cliche-nuclear-families was really a product of rising mass prosperity in the post-WW2 era; before that, the "traditional" family was the extended family rather than the nuclear family.

So that's the first problem with the video. It presumes that working women is a new thing.

The second problem with the video is that it has a very simplistic and outdated view of what feminism wants for women. In short, it presumes that feminism stopped with Betty Friedan and still declares that all women should go to college and then become white-collar career-women in order to achieve self-actualization.

The problem with this is that feminists eventually realized that not all women can get fulfilling white-collar jobs, not all women are smart enough to get a useful college degree, and many women still want to have children and a family.

So the feminist ideal changed from the badass career woman who don't need no man, and became the Woman Who Can Have It All.

Which is also a very impractical idea because it is hard as fuck to achieve all of those things before one's biological clock runs out, and only a small slice of relatively elite, well-off and very high-IQ women can do it.

At the same time, feminism has been deeply influenced by Carol Gilligan's "Cultural Feminism" which essentially says that we should respect femininity more. Unlike the "ladies, man up!" viewpoint of Freidan and co., Cultural Feminism says that demanding women act like men is misogynist because it is based in a social devaluation of femininity.

Obviously, women discovered that most women aren't going to have the kind of 'glamorous middle-to-upper-class careerwoman' lifestyle that was glorified by shows like Sex And The City.

So why have women lost happiness? I don't think its because they seriously are biologically wired to prefer to rear children. Rather, I think its because in some ways, they have been deceived like "Nice Guys" have been deceived. They were sold a fantasy of "liberation through education and careerism" which turned out to be less than liberating (the Friedan vision), and then were told they can "have it all" which basically requires they be smart and rich and an octopus all at the same time.

Being a man is hard. Doing double duty is hard, especially within a time limit.

Its interesting that the assumption is that men are perfectly happy and content with their roles. Are they? Maybe they've just been conditioned into not complaining much. Maybe researchers don't care about male happiness. Perhaps both of those are true.

Perhaps if we did a test of men's preferences, a lot of men would honestly prefer to spend more time with their families and less time at work than they currently do.

DXBrigade · 2018-09-06T20:00:14+00:00

I think it's just a case of "grass is greener syndrome" (GIGS). Some career women might envy the stay-out-home moms , just like the married woman might envy the single one. But overall career women are just happy to be the way they are.

rainisthelife · 2018-09-06T21:19:28+00:00

There’s no way I would ever be happy as a SAHM. That would drive me insane. The few SAHMs I’ve heard about (granted, I really only know a few) have a tendency to overcompensate the boredom by taking up crazy hobbies, shopping lavishly, cheating and/or taking up online emotional affairs.

The ideal for me, and this is what I plan to do: My husband and I would both work, take turns cooking once in a while and then get someone to clean our house and do laundry and help take care of the kids. So that when we’re home, we can have time for each other and time to go out together and have fun.

wtknight · 2018-09-06T19:52:52+00:00

I think that women are happy with having a choice between roles. I do not think that women are happy, whether they admit it or not, with being expected by anyone to fulfill multiple roles, especially as many men are still reticent to take on homemaking and child rearing roles. Many of these expectations to take on multiple roles come from feminism itself, which responds by attacking men with concepts such as emotional labor and mental load.

Uncommon_Sense_12345 · 2018-09-06T19:30:11+00:00

There was an Opt Out movement years ago where working women quit their careers to go more traditional. Turns out the shit blew up in their faces and they regretted it.

yasee · 2018-09-06T19:34:47+00:00

The most compelling narrative I've heard is that women are often stressed/unhappy due to dual pressure from traditional gender norms (e.g. be a super wife/homemaker/mother) and more contemporary drives (make money have a career be independent). It's not that women are unhappy doing the latter, it's that those who get married and have families while still maintaining a career often find themselves torn between both roles in a way that isn't as common among men

Mr_Smoogs · 2018-09-06T19:43:28+00:00

Women are unhappy with role overload. Despite the progress we've made, women still haven't disposed of the traditional female gender role of feminine beauty. They likely never will, but the point is that new roles have only increasingly piled on top of old ones.

Women no longer have to compete against other women for the resources of men. Abolishing the SAHM traditional female role has not stopped women from competing against each other for the most resourceful men though. In fact, feminine competition between women has only skyrocketed IMO. So we never really gotten rid of the role completely, we just piled more roles on top of the old ones, now including education and career.

goatismycopilot · 2018-09-06T20:30:58+00:00

A family friend who grew up in Britain and was a young woman during WW II got persuaded into being a train conductor when she was 18 or 19 said it was the best time of her life.

i_have_a_semicolon · 2018-09-06T20:47:25+00:00

This may be my everloving solipsism talking, but I personally think that what's the best path for some women isn't the same for others, and that both extreme redpill and feminism try to tell women what to do in a way that's detrimental. Redpill shames us for making our own path in life, feminism shames us for choosing to follow someone else

JezebeltheQueen5656 · 2018-09-07T20:24:21+00:00

ofc, right-wingers and anti-feminist trolls will make videos like that.

in truth, most women like their freedom and independence. the alleged unhappiness comes from the fact life's generally shitty. nothing to do with males.

also, more women are learning facts about pregnancy and make plans accordingly, meaning more women are rejecting mothehood. and nothing wrong with that.

males will push this propaganda because they want women crawling back to the cage they barely escaped from (thanks feminists!).

[deleted] · 2018-09-07T00:50:52+00:00

I think people people tend to put too much power onto "biology" as a oversimplified explanation for things. People tend to just arbitrarily refer to biology or the "natural order" as a reason why things should be a certain way without really having any biological, scientifically backed studies or data to truly back things up. It's almost a boogeyman. The thing is, we have to make a lot of assumptions. First he says the men and women are happiest together in a family. What data backs that up? What's the standard deviation there? Then he assumes that, along with gender roles, is biological. Except that we actually have no idea what the family structure of early humans was even like, and chances are we've significantly evolved since that point over time. Then there's the assumption that women are less happy than they were historically in rigid roles. Which is probably pretty difficult to prove unless you can gather data from the 1800s. Then there's the assumption that this decrease in happiness is specifically because of challenging the biology of gender roles, but we don't consider how things like conditioning, social factors, economic factors, etc, would contribute to this. Seriously, social conditioning alone is so powerful in affecting thinking and behaviour; plenty of animals other than humans have been conditioned to perform completely unnatural behaviours and completely forgo breeding and don't indicate signs of depression because of those things. Biology is great and all, but it is not a cause for anything in it's own right. It's a field of study, that's all. At the very least give me some actual hormonal pathways that are directly being interrupted or altered by engaging in non traditional gender roles directly leading to depression that also manages to account for all other possible differentials then I may be a bit less sceptical.

[deleted] · 2018-09-07T05:01:41+00:00

No women love today's society. They live in an all you can fuck buffet with attractive men, make their own money and get the validation they always wanted. There's not much room for validation in a traditional society, hence why women are exuberant about today's world.

It's men who want trad gender roles if anyone. Too bad though.

DXBrigade · 2018-09-06T21:12:26+00:00

not all women want to be a SAHM or want kids. i think the most important thing is to know what you want and figure that out, plan it, and follow through with the plan. especially if you know you want kids and you're nearing your 30s, there's no time to waste. i think the only women who are miserable are the ones who say what's mainstream and socially promoted (career, stronk womyn, etc) and deep down want otherwise.

i think a lot of women do fail to understand that their careers, diplomas, and their status don't give men boner. yet they foolishly chase after those things thinking that'll impress men, especially the men they all aim for, which is the upper tier guys, the top 10%. im not for putting women back in the kitchen, i think everyone deserves a chance to choose what works for themselves, but i do believe that many women need a good sit down to sort out what they ultimately want in life and get that shit figured out. it's something that as guys, we dont have to deliberately plan things out with that much details but it's important for women because of their window of fertility.

trail22 · 2018-09-06T23:45:15+00:00

The biggest denier to this fact is that pretty much everyone is much unhappier now. Not just women. Everyoen works more and makes less.

analt223 · 2018-09-06T19:41:23+00:00

Women want gender roles in their personal life, but to want that and not expect that in the economic world is absurd.

There is a reason why:

male power fantasies = men have power and shes hot and maybe powerful
female power fantasies = she has power but he has even more power (mr big in feminist anthem sex and the city comes to mind immediately)

both revolve around male power, thus men dont benefit from feminism. Women want to be in the workforce (i think), but also want a man in it as well. So yes, they still want some level of traditionalism

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Willow-girl · 2018-09-06T21:13:58+00:00

Stress comes from trying to do everything at once: working, being a mom, being a homemaker. Some women have the delusion that they have to do it all.

You just can't. When your kids are younger then preschool or kindergarten age it can be financially and emotionally beneficial to stay home.

If you are a woman who works, you'll have to find a more effeminate man who will help you in the homemaking responsibilities.

blackedoutfast · 2018-09-07T21:05:03+00:00

women are unhappy because they are women.

Preachism · 2018-09-08T00:41:15+00:00

Nah.

rassiamelo · 2018-09-09T04:56:26+00:00

Feminism is necessary because men do not have women's best interests at heart the majority of the time. That said, I believe traditionalism is valuable.

GridReXX · 2018-09-06T20:01:23+00:00

Women are unhappy when

--they take on traditional wife/woman roles and are then told to take on the traditional burdens and responsibilities associated with them.

--they take on traditional male roles and are then expected to take on the traditional burdens and responsibilities associated with them.

Women love traditional gender roles for themselves, so long as they don't have to carry the burdens or be accountable or responsible.

Women hate it when men are traditional males EXCEPT when it comes to

--provision/protection

--paying for dates

Women want to be like traditional males, without having to protect, provide or pay.

TopOccasion29 · 2018-09-06T20:35:57+00:00

Some prefer traditional gender roles, some don't mind it while some do not. Most want a masculine and dominant man...that is where their happiness/unhappiness stems from depending on the type of man they are with.

Title	Are Women Unhappy without traditional gender roles?
Author	Mansolo84
Upvotes	16
Comments	312
Date	September 6, 2018 7:18 PM UTC (7 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/9dm06b/are_women_unhappy_without_traditional_gender_roles/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/are-women-unhappy-without-traditional-gender-roles.260903 https://theredarchive.com/post/260903

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