Well I thought that if I was a callous, vile, arrogant asshole, it would bring you to tears and you'd fawn all over me and sing my praises when I felt like taking time out from my giant life to be so gentle and sweet.

Or do you have a double standard?

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You know what is surprising to me is that if you really had a heart after women and wanting to educate them and help them get free from a life dominated by patriarchy....you would come along side and help to do that. Not blast away. Not be abrasive and offensive. You would delve a little deeper and try to understand possibly where someone is coming from. Maybe that is too much to expect from a feminist like yourself. Maybe you are too busy in real life to do much for the common good of women. I don't know....I'm just surmising from your post here to me. But your nastiness is so unpleasant and shocking. No matter where I stand we are fellow human beings and women to boot. To act as anything less makes you no better than the men you so dislike.

Annette

I have seen strong, intelligent women stop everything and come to their families aid....just as I have seen stong, intelligent men stop everything and come to their families aid. I have witnessed the polar opposite too of both son's and daughters. Everyone has good and bad in them....some rise to the occassion when needed and some don't.

I am sorry if my example about the son's I have witnessed was offensive or triggering to anyone on this list. I certainly did not mean it to be and it was posted with the most innocent of intentions as I explained earlier.

To be clear I have witnessed as many, if not more, women take care of their parents and it has blessed me just as much as seeing the men do it. The comments in earlier posts about caregiving being almost always taken on by women, being under paid, how men do not suffer these indignities, is what provoked me to tell what *I* have seen.

It is what has transpired in my life. To keep this message board a safe place for *all* women, IMO, women need to be able to post and know that they won't be attacked. We are all intelligent, passionate women here. Can't we discuss? Can't we explain our position without name calling or being insulting? We can educate each other if we can be open to one another, allowing room for differences.

Annette

I know, Annette. Generalities can be picked apart every time. When we say, "Women are the primary caregivers of children" we are bound to hear of all the men who are stay at home dads, or who have primary or sole custody or who take on their fair share of childcare, including diapering, bathing, nursing vomity sick children etc.

However, the point of it, at least MY point was that by and large men do NOT choose to work in those fields. How many men are CNA's? Some, yes. Most? No. How many men are daycare teachers? Preschool? How many men go into it as a profession? No, it's a "pink collar job" and regardless of whether or not is is truly valuable work it is undervalued by patriarchy by virtue of the fact that it is and has been historically "women's work."

Not all men are assholes but all men benefit from patriarchy. If a man stoops to do shitwork and not get paid for it, unlike my plumber friend who gets paid quite well, they will, by and large, get ten times lauded for it than their female counterparts. They get the medal of honor for their unique sacrificial acts while women are generally regarded as...well...women...so that's what we do. We take care of the infirm, the weak, the needy. Men are expected to cut out, to dip, to run. When they don't, they are praised. Women, on the other hand, get ten times more disparaged when they do cut out, go to Greece, say they can't deal with it. "What's WRONG with her?"

See, it's not really a matter of how many men actually do provide care for their aged parents -- my husband's uncle provided such care to his wife until her death, so I know it does happen -- it's the underlying presumptions about whose job it really is to do so. So when the men do it, it's seen as a sacrifice. When women do it, it's just another day's work. Maybe to you, because yoy know intimately what is involved in the day to day care of the infirm, you applaud both sexes equally for their efforts, but we're not just talking about you here. We're talking about the way our society views the work and how it consistently devalues a job simply because women have traditionally done it.

And yeah, Lucky has a distinctive way with words. I've been around Lucky long enough to distinguish when she's just trying to thwap someone on the forehead and when she's really out for blood. You got thwapped, trust me. She ain't no perfect feminist, as if there was such a thing. But you couldn't have known that about Lucky, so I understand you felt stung.

And I've got so many inconsistancies in my own life, I certainly have no high horse to sit on.

Sophia

Annette

I think all women should join together in being just that adamant.

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So maybe we can talk about WHY we don't feel so good when we hear comments such as Annette's about equal praise. Why do we get so pissed off? Because I know I do, and I'm not pissed off AT Annette, but at the way we think, even under oppression, that we have to "be fair." WTF? Fair? WHY?

And I'll give you, I had a lot of personality conflicts with the guy already (he was grossly homophobic: once called across the classroom asking me loudy, and without context, to explain to the kids in his circle what a dyke was. As I stood there incredulous, only a minute later did he leer at me and put his finger on a topography map). But what really drove me bonkers was listening to him go on, day in and day out, about how exceptional he was for being a rare male elementary teacher, how many challenges he had, how much it sucked for him to be the only guy in training seminars and meetings, how much the pay stunk, blah blah blah.

As if EVERY aspect of what was difficult for him was somehow not as difficult for me, in the same situatons or alternate ones, and with an utter dismissal of the facts that:
- I would in no way be culturally permitted to bitch about the stuff even half as much, and
- all my EXTRA challenges -- being poor, being single and autonomous AND working in the shite environment he made for me which wouldn't have been half as crappy without his entitlement, martyr complex and homophobia -- made the job even harder for me and every other women who worked there.

I think why a defense of men working the same jobs women do, doing the same duties, rubs such raw wounds is that (and I believe you said similar already, Sophia) men are not in any way hindered by having these jobs, doing these duties. In fact, they're usually doubly rewarded and praised for them. They get thanks for them when women do not, mainly because (I think) they're seen as somehow stooping to a "feminine" level, which is de facto lower on the rung; emasculating themselves to do women's work.

And maybe, if they really were giving up any sort of bonafide privledge to do them, then sure, it might be worthy of some praise, but they're really not, and to boot, even those that do STILL aren't giving up enough to have as little as we do.