Should women be treated as equals

[Aquinas11]

given our rapid technological advancements. The demand didn’t stay the same, while the supply increased. Demand was rapidly increasing as well.

Actually technological advancement tends to decrease demand for workers. Just look at AI now. People losing jobs left & right.

But that’s all a moot point since even if demand did go up, you still have situation with double the workers at that higher demand than if one parent at home with kids and thus worker wage far lower than if one parent working & one at home

 

[Lea101]

? The workforce demand is still larger overall, compared to where it was decades and decades ago. Workforce is adapting by expanding/decreasing from time to time. While people may lose cashiering jobs due to machines, people are being hired to create/maintain and operate such technology.

Worth of labour also decreased as average skills increased, which is inevitable as we advance. Certain skills aren’t special anymore, it’s a basic requirement that even a minimum wage earner would need.

Either way, you still did not acknowledge the larger picture. You’re not more entitled to a job than I am. You can whinge about it, but mothers/women working is a morally neutral act.

Complementarity in the church is a lot bigger than what you choose to do from 9-5. She is not ‘acting like a man’ if some woman choose to go to college and open up her business later on.

 

[Bradskii]

Let’s give you a simple example. Maybe that will help understand it. 100 employees at company. 50 men and 50 women. The 50 women decide to go home and raise a family. Now the company needs to hire 50 more workers. Make sense? See? Not “taking on more” workers since wont have > 100 workers which is what you thought, they’re replacing workers.

So now we’ve gone from women joining the workforce, doubling it and therefore halving the wages of both men and women (a farcical proposal) to women leaving the workplace and having to be replaced. Thus maintaining the status quo.

I’m really not sure you are sure what you are arguing. You’re all over the place, Aquinas.

What is the point you are trying to make? That women joining the workforce is a bad thing? Or that all those unemployed men get to join it if only the ladies would go home and have babies.

 

[Bradskii]

But that’s all a moot point since even if demand did go up, you still have situation with double the workers at that higher demand than if one parent at home with kids and thus worker wage far lower than if one parent working & one at home

Well, I did my best. I tried to explain it but to no avail. If you want to believe that taking on more workers means that wages go down (by 50%!) then feel free. Although I see you’ve revised that to ‘far lower’. A much better idea from your point of view because you can vary that depending on the experise of those questioning it.

Still wrong though.

 

[PickyPicky]

Of course wages are subject to the laws of supply and demand, since a state of high unemployment will have a deleterious effect on wages, and a state of low unemployment a beneficial effect.

But there are of course other factors at work. If a company takes on more workers, it is because there is more work to be done, and if the company has been right in its judgment this will result in more profit, preserving the wage level or even increasing it.

Moreover if there is a social custom which militates against employing people from certain sectors — based perhaps on their sex or ethnicity — that will be a custom which reduces efficiency by reducing the pool from which skills and aptitudes can be drawn, and which therefore will have the tendency to act as a brake on profits and wages.

 

[Aquinas11]

The workforce demand is still larger overall, compared to where it was decades and decades ago

As I said, all irrelevant since supply and demand affect wage independently. Even with high demand, the fact you have double the workers still means less wage than w half the workers , whether it’s high or low demand.

I’ll prove with simple example: if demand for apples goes up (they become more popular), that would increase price of apples overall but wouldn’t affect that price of apples is lower when in season (more supply) than not in season. So when in low demand, apple price in season is $1/lb and not in season $1.50/lb and when in high demand $2/lb and not in season $2.50/lb

Or to use example with workers: for low demand, average hourly wage may be $7/hr when both genders work but $13/hr when one gender work and for high demand average hourly wage may be $12/hr when both genders work but $22/hr when one gender works. So demand doesn’t affect that wage is higher when supply of workers is lower.

mothers/women working is a morally neutral act.

Not to the child. I realize our culture treats children w contempt but they do care if they have a full time parent at home or not

 

[Lea101]

As I said, all irrelevant since supply and demand affect wage independently.

That’s not intellectually honest. You’re also assuming that a worker now is doing half the work, and that a company will increase the pay instead of importing workers in. You’re basically ignoring everything else but that one factor that barely supports your weird agenda.

Not to the child. I realize our culture treats children w contempt but they do care if they have a full time parent at home or not

Here is what JPII had to say:

Thank you, women who work! You are present and active in every area of life-social, economic, cultural, artistic and political. In this way you make an indispensable contribution to the growth of a culture which unites reason and feeling, to a model of life ever open to the sense of “mystery”, to the establishment of economic and political structures ever more worthy of humanity…

And what shall we say of the obstacles which in so many parts of the world still keep women from being fully integrated into social, political and economic life? We need only think of how the gift of motherhood is often penalized rather than rewarded, even though humanity owes its very survival to this gift. Certainly, much remains to be done to prevent discrimination against those who have chosen to be wives and mothers. As far as personal rights are concerned, there is an urgent need to achieve real equality in every area: equal pay for equal work, protection for working mothers, fairness in career advancements, equality of spouses with regard to family rights and the recognition of everything that is part of the rights and duties of citizens in a democratic State.

This is a matter of justice but also of necessity. Women will increasingly play a part in the solution of the serious problems of the future: leisure time, the quality of life, migration, social services, euthanasia, drugs, health care, the ecology, etc. In all these areas a greater presence of women in society will prove most valuable, for it will help to manifest the contradictions present when society is organized solely according to the criteria of efficiency and productivity, and it will force systems to be redesigned in a way which favours the pro- cesses of humanization which mark the “civilization of love”… Here I cannot fail to express my admiration for those women of good will who have devoted their lives to defending the dignity of womanhood by fighting for their basic social, economic and political rights, demonstrating courageous initiative at a time when this was considered extremely inappropriate, the sign of a lack of femininity, a manifestation of exhibitionism, and even a sin!

I would rather listen to a great saint who was critical about the modern times than someone online.

Working is a morally neutral act as long as families put each other first. I.e. quality of time vs quantity.

Research backs this up.

 

[Lea101]

Quotations are from JPII’s Letter to Women in the 90s.

As Catholics go on and on about how (Catholic) women are denying their femininity and are being prideful for demanding equality in the public and social spheres, I can’t help but to be reassured by JPII.

A holy man that spoke against contraception, abortion, female priests, the sexual revolution and the puritanical beliefs regarding sex. A holy man that still affirmed and supported the equality of women while supporting the dignity of motherhood as well.

 

[Sarcelle]

So what do you propose?
Ban women from working outside their homes?

 

[JMMJ]

Unfortunately, it seems a few posters here propose exactly that.

 

[Sarcelle]

Does the disenfranchisement of half of the human population really lead to more virtue?

If it did, the Afghanistan under the Taliban would be heaven on earth since the women are set free from the shackles of education and outside employment.

 

[o_mlly]

Are there negatives in a woman earning a degree?

In concrete circumstances, possibly and the same could be true for a man earning a degree.

Education is not a gender issue. All rational beings seek the truth, need to know the truth and, therefore, have a right to the truth. The opportunity costs to earning a degree based on one’s state in life are important circumstances to be considered. But sending Fido off to doggy college always has lots of negatives.

 

[Bradskii]

Or to use example with workers: for low demand, average hourly wage may be $7/hr when both genders work but $13/hr when one gender work and for high demand average hourly wage may be $12/hr when both genders work but $22/hr when one gender works. So demand doesn’t affect that wage is higher when supply of workers is lower.

Congratulations Aquinas! You are the winner of The Most Convoluted Argument Of The Week.

Apologies to everyone else who entered, especially @edwest211, who gave it his best shot. But Aquinas’ ‘lower the number of workers and that will um…increase the wage…or productivity, especially when the women join - sorry, leave the workforce and the productivity is…lower when the price of apples drops below $1.50 unless…supply outstrips something or other’. Aka: ‘Get back in the kitchen, Ladies’.

Anyway, well done.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

Are there negatives in a woman earning a degree?

In concrete circumstances, possibly and the same could be true for a man earning a degree.

Education is not a gender issue. All rational beings seek the truth, need to know the truth and, therefore, have a right to the truth. The opportunity costs to earning a degree based on one’s state in life are important circumstances to be considered. But sending Fido off to doggy college always has lots of negatives.

One’s state in life? Fair enough. At least it wasn’t ‘one’s status’.

 

[Glennon_P]

Should women be treated as equals?

Holy Mother Church seems to think so. I went to a wedding yesterday and heard the following during the Nuptial Blessing:

May her husband entrust his heart to her,
so that, acknowledging her as his equal
and his joint heir to the life of grace,
he may show her due honor
and cherish her always
with the love that Christ has for his Church.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

May her husband entrust his heart to her,
so that, acknowledging her as his equal
and his joint heir to the life of grace,
he may show her due honor
and cherish her always
with the love that Christ has for his Church.

Yes, that is one of the options.

Here is another beautiful option:

.,O God, who by Thine own mighty power, didst make all things out of nothing: who, having set in order the beginnings of the world, didst appoint Woman to be an inseparable helpmeet to Man, made like unto God, so that Thou didst give to woman’s body its beginnings in man’s flesh, thereby teaching that what it pleased Thee to form from one substance, might never be lawfully separated: O God, who, by so excellent a mystery hast consecrated the union of man and wife, as to foreshadow in this nuptial bond the union of Christ with His Church: O God, by whom Woman is joined to Man, and the partnership, ordained from the beginning, is endowed with such blessing that it alone was not withdrawn either by the punishment of original sin, nor by the sentence of the flood: graciously look upon this Thy handmaid, who, about to be joined in wedlock, seeks Thy defense and protection. May it be to her a yoke of love and peace: faithful and chaste, may she be wedded in Christ, and let her ever be the imitator of holy women: let her be dear to her husband, like Rachel: wise, like Rebecca: long-lived and faithful like Sara. Let not the author of deceit work any of his evil deeds in her. May she continue, clinging to the faith and to the commandments. Bound in one union, let her shun all unlawful contact. Let her protect her weakness by the strength of discipline; let her be grave in behavior, respected for modesty, well-instructed in heavenly doctrine. Let her be fruitful in offspring; be approved and innocent; and come to the repose of the blessed and the kingdom of heaven. May they both see their children’s children to the third and fourth generation, and may they reach the old age which they desire. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth…

 

[MagdalenaRita]

Education is not a gender issue. All rational beings seek the truth, need to know the truth and, therefore, have a right to the truth.

Everyone should be able to go to college but everyone should not be expected to go to college. There are many very smart and intelligent people who never went to college and many foolish people who spent many years in college.

 

[Sarcelle]

I agree with you here.

College is not for everyone.

 

[edwest211]

Children need both parents.

 

[edwest211]

This is exactly true. One of the smartest people I knew never went to college.