Women's Work

In this picture from the sixties you see a couple of my aunts in the center. One was a school teacher and one was a secretary or admin in a bank trust department. I had a couple of other aunts who were teachers, another secretary and one who was a non-com in the Navy. My mother finished her education to become a teacher after I went to school. By the time I graduated from college a few more things were open to women. I got a job as a computer programmer. I worked that job for two and a a half years and was never promoted. Still I didn't have to take a job as a teacher (fact is I washed out of the requisite ed. courses to get a certificate) and while I visited the Navy recruiter, a job offer for this computer job came along before I had to resort to that and I got free training there. The year was 1970. I bet my Aunt Mary (looking at the camera on the right above) was still wearing gloves to work. We both worked downtown and we'd meet for lunch sometimes. I was required to wear a dress or suit with skirt to work.

So why am I telling you this? What are the lurking unintended consequences? Well, in the depression of 2008/2009 (and beyond?) a funny thing has happened as people were laid off. The majority of laid off employees are men and women's percentage in the work force was already increasing. They work in many more fields today but many are nurses, teachers, etc. A trend is occurring that could make the proportion of women in the work force greater than fifty percent. The NY Times wrote about this phenomena. Of course, since women are still paid less, generally, this is a way to slash payrolls I suppose.

More women than men in the work force! But, where a couple has only a working wife, will he do the dishes and shrub the shower?

History shows us that men won't take it easily, though. When they returned from WWII, they just booted the women out of factories and construction. This time maybe some will retrain as nurses and teachers.

Who's Next?

We have a half Kenyan/half white American president who promised equality. So, of course, all the slices and dices of our great patchwork country are ready for their close-ups. Latinos. Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered. Women, women, women. Atheists and other non-Christians. (Not to lump Jews, Hindus, Muslims, etc. with atheists but also not to leave anyone out.) And the disabled. Governor Patterson of New York is blind and black, but he only got the top job because the white straight guy had a sexual activity dust-up. Everyone is ready to have their day. Lots of people took heart in Obama, but he is not them. He is not native Hawaiian, nor Japenese-, Chinese- or Vietnamese-American. He is straight. He is male. (Having a house full of females including the mother-in-law doesn't get points.) His ansestors weren't slaves. (That I know of.) He is not descended from the Sioux or Commanche. He is not a native Alaskan.

Everyone wants a turn, wants to be heard and be as important as everyone else. Most especially the probable majority...women.

Need A Job? Need an Adventure?

The young man in the picture above is a dear family friend surrounded by a couple of my great nephews and a great niece. He's like an uncle to them. He and his brother have both gone to Iraq and back.

In 1970, I graduated from college. I had a bit of a struggle to get a job. It was a time of unbelievable inflation and there was a financial crisis. I finally got a job but not before I'd visited some military recruiters. I was determined to get a job and some training somewhere. I had no money to go to law school or graduate school or take a year off in Europe to find myself. Note that this was before the draft ended for the Viet Nam war and before women were placed in quite as much harm's way due to the restrictions on their service. Which is not to say none died. They did.

Today's New York Times notes that as jobs disappear the military recruiters are exceeding their goals. There are other women out there and many men, too, who are looking to the military to support themselves and gain skills. So the bad economy is creating a boon for recruiting. Maybe as an unintended consequence someone will die who would not have. Or maybe someone will gain valuable skills. If Obama stands down in Iraq and somehow solves the problem of Afghanistan and all the other spots around the world, though, we won't need as many soldiers and sailors and Marines. And then these men and women will be 'riffed' (reduction in force is a kind term for being laid off from the military). When the Viet Nam war ended, my brother-in-law's military career ended with it. He went on the a career in the "military industrial complex" but I'm not sure the timing was his choice. And we all remember (OK, probably no one reading this does) when the "boys came home" from WWII and all the women who had been admitted to factory jobs were sent home whether they had a way to support themselves or not.

Employment, war, the economy. A tangle of consequences and most, yes, unintended. People get a job, training. Other people make bombs, Humvees, missiles. They have jobs and paychecks and buy houses and flat screen TVs and give to charity. Some people die. Maybe a lot. Viet Nam? Over 50,000 Americans and probably millions of Vietnamese. Obama promised to step down war and save the economy. Sadly, wars help economies sometimes.

On Average Women Get Five More Years

In The Wall Street Journal on April 24th there was an article about how men's health just wasn't getting enough attention. Women noticed a few years ago that all the medical research and drug research was focused on men and got some money diverted to breast cancer and, whine, whine, men die earlier and now that women's health is getting attention, men's is getting less and besides men don't like to go to the doctor.

There was more whining about how women have special doctors (OB/GYN) and they bother to go see them. And, quel dommage, boys and men take more risks and it gets them killed.

Well, my in-laws are both sort of nihilists about going to the doctor, but he's got nine years on her to start with. Here they are at 87 and 96 after we took them for a Mother's Day brunch.

The capper of this article (apart from its use of Unintended Consequences as a sub-head--HA!) was that pundits are suggesting that doctors should check out blood pressure and cholesterol and glucose and stuff when the gents coming begging for Viagra. After all, a OB/GYN will take blood pressure and do blood tests when a lady comes in for a Pap smear. It's only fair! Besides with better control of their hearts and such, they might not need the Viagra.

So women get five more years on average. It seems fair somehow although after being paid less, on average, their whole lives they better hope some dead man left them some money.

My 90-year-old Dad was five years older than my mother. And he's been a widower for five years. Statistics and real life are two different things.