Rosie the Riveter, Part 2 and the Irish Times
February 28, 2009
by Amy Siskind
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No, you can’t make this stuff up.
You’ll all recall what occurred after WW2. Those wonderful women who were the work horses that kept the US economy going were sent back to familiar ground: the home. After all, the men were coming back from the war and they wanted their jobs back.
This week, The Irish Times featured an article titled Working women almost certainly caused the credit crunch.
Now, I’ll have to admit it. When I first opened the link to story I had the same reaction that I had when I first saw the recent Ms. Magazine cover — I thought the story was a hoax. But alas, no, just like the Ms. cover this article was really published. Here’s an excerpt:
THE ANSWER to all our problems is staring us in the face. It may even be quite literally staring at you, right now, across the breakfast table.
So put the paper down, stare back and ask yourself a selfless question.
Does the woman in your life really need a job?
And there’s more — this idiot provided us with a solution too:
Whether working women actually caused the credit crunch is now a moot point. The point is that removing women from the workforce would mitigate its effects.
Consider the issue of unemployment. There were 221,301 men on the live register last month and just under one million women in work.
Surely at least half these women have a partner who is earning? Surely at least half would be happier at home?
Can you believe this stuff?
Men have made a disaster of this planet.
Here’s a solution: Let’s round up the men and cage them, and let women run the show and straighten this world out.
Well, I guess those men will no longer be able to spend their money on all their “boy toys.” Anybody have stats on how much each partner contributed to food, shelter, clothing, educating the children?
Oh man, this Irish woman is seeing red!!! I just re-read the first chapter of the Feminine Mystique, wherein Friedan reminded me that in 1960 experts were counseling the culture to remove women from universities, so they wouldn’t be so depressed their useless educated status in the home. Will it never stop, FFS?
solution,
Ah, that’s too extreme, but surely at least half of the men in government would be happier at home.
Wow, that is incredible. I want to call that guy many names. But I guess in a free society one must tolerate such nonsense once in a while. Too bad the paper is amplifying his voice by publishing it. I hope Irish feminists speak up and don’t let this kind of thinking go unanswered and unblocked from entering people’s consciousness.
Yay! Obama answered the call. Sebelius was named for HHS Secretary.
Wow I just read her bio on WP. She’s an amazing woman. Congratulations to American women and TNA feminists.
On one hand, Sebelius has some credits in that field. Otoh, we can’t expect from her much sisterly support for women presidential candidates.
I’ve mixed feelings about Sebelius.
That said, I’m also not sure about this article anymore. The guy who wrote it is apparently a well know satirist and used to run the Irish equivalent of “The Onion.” It looks like it might be humor we don’t get, probably because we’re not aware of what it’s parodying.
Well, it may be parody, Anna Belle. I’d be relieved to learn that it is.
On the other hand, I read the same argument on a forum about two years ago. Some guy was making a case that the economy would be in better shape if women left their jobs and stayed home and let men be the breadwinners.
He was blaming women for the economic troubles we’re having now.
If it eases your mind any, Sheryl, I unparodied it: http://annabellep.wordpress.co.....-a-parody/
It’s a satire.
With something this badly done we need that disclaimer above the article. You know, like ‘advertisement’.
‘Satire.’
How else would we know?
“(…) defining feature of satire is its strong vein of irony or sarcasm, but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre. (…) censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, (…).
Yawn.
The really funny thing about this whole discussion is…. we are surviving on a “lipstick economy.” By that I mean, jobs typically filled by women are more plentiful than those filled by men.
It would interest me a great deal to know if men actually want to be nurses, teachers, childcare workers and waitresses.
Perhaps we should point out that… if men were willing to do what is needed in the society….. they would actually have jobs?? As far as I know we are still dealing with a shortage of gerontological nurses for instance. And nurse aids are as much or more in demand as they are.
It is a satire. The government agency cited does not exist, and there are a few other hints that I expect were designed to give it away. (The author is a self-described “unionist liberal,” if memory serves me correctly, but maybe that was in jest as well).
Like any good satire (read Swift lately?) it is funny and challenging only if you have to read it and think back, “is that for real?” and figure out how to debunk it. Oh, and then you realise that it was all in fun.
Personally, my hat is off to the chap for making me read the entire thing, believe it real and then go looking for the Gender Mainstreaming Unit, or whatever it is called. And then find out about the author on Wikipedia.
And since then I have been entering msgs like this on the male rant sites that think someone finally got views like their own into the mainstream press (explicitly and baldly, that is, as opposed to the usual but effective way). I was disappointed to see a site such as your fall for it, or worse, have people think that satire and other comedy should be so labeled. Wouldn’t that just take the fun out of writing it? Why would anyone bother?
For instance, I don’t see eye to eye or even toe to eye with PJ ORourke, but I especially enjoy reading him somewhere where I don’t notice his name first and halfway through am scratching my head to figure out whether the writer can actually mean what s/he is saying. At that moment, when I am forced to stop and do a reality and opinion check against what I am reading, is when the writer is making me think in a way that a simple argument could never do … while also amusing me in the process.
Another for instance: to this day I do not know whether a multipage review in The Atlantic several years ago about the maker of some “art” flicks was a satire or earnest. And while much of what the “reviewer” was writing about struck me as oddball if not vile, I had to see two of the films simply to see what the fuss was about. (I decided that the piece had to be satire, because only in that way could my opinion fit the article, but I expect I will never know for sure.)
r, maybe it’s a cultural thang, and maybe the Irish routinely put satire in the Opinion and Analysis section of their papers, but here in the States, as my husband said last night, we put Dave Barry in humor, not the editorial section. Mr. Peacock and I both agreed that it should have been properly labeled or placed in an appropriate section of the paper to indicate the level of seriousness. Poor planning on the part of the paper or the writer; my guess is both.
Because if your satire is so subtle it could be mistaken for truth, you’re doing it wrong!
r,
I like the kind of satire you’re describing, and have a good one to recommend to you. Unfortunately, if I recommend it, that would take the fun out. Hint: it was at hillaryis44.org and we had some discussion about how far through it each of us got before
1. suspecting it might be satire, and
2. being sure it was
Dear Goddess I have to most vociferously challenge you on it being funny. It’s so bloody wet.
And yes, it does seem to be a U.K. thing to just blow it out there in a news, analysis or even research publication. Every April the British Medical Journal does it. Also, very badly.
Now for really well crafted satire, I recommend this.
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/163/12/1557
Satire or not, it’s not funny. The fact that it isn’t labeled CLEARLY as a satire (if, indeed, it is a satire) is damaging and disrespectful to women. Many may believe the story is true, especially with the international availability of news nowadays.
ACTION PLAN:
Compose a letter / email and send it to the following:
1. Here is the email for Letters to the Editor for the Irish Times: lettersed@irishtimes.com Guidelines for writing a Letter to the Editor are here: http://www.irishtimes.com/about/p_letters.htm
2. Email for Irish Times online Editors:
a. Patrick Logue, Online News Editor: plogue@irishtimes.com
b. Conor Pope, Deputry Online News Editor: cpope@irishtimes.com
c. Deirdre Veldon, Deputy Editor, Online: dveldon@irish-times.ie
4. Email for Irish Times Opinion section editor: opinion@irishtimes.com
Need some ammunition to write about?
It should be mandated / legislated / required that a certain percentage of WOMEN SHOULD HOLD POSITIONS at the very top levels of every corporation and institution in this country. It is time now for parity / equal rights / affirmative action for women in the US. And it’s clearly dangerous for us all when the men run our financial and other institutions and women have little or no voice or power!
Why? Here’s some of the rationale
• The men blew it big time.
• The women warned and tried to have a voice to prevent this huge economic crisis but were ignored and devalued.
• The men discriminated against, and, in some cases, fired the very women who may have saved the country had they been listened to.
• The men have driven this country, and the world, into an economic crisis of monumental proportions. The resulting human suffering is enormous.
In addition to the facts and figures regarding the percentages of men in each corporation / institution that failed or is doing poorly, our strongest arguments may be the scientific ones. It’s harder to argue with data. Studies show the following:
• In France, Michel Ferrary, a professor at the business school Ceram, recently conducted a study that concluded that French companies with the greatest percentage of women in management have performed the best during the crisis.
• John Coates, a researcher at Cambridge University, who once ran a trading desk on Wall Street, recently conducted a novel survey that analyzed saliva from 17 male traders in London’s financial district. Coates concluded that traders made the highest profits when they had the highest levels of testosterone in their spit. The downside, he said, was that ELEVATED TESTOSTERONE ALSO LED TO RISKIER BEHAVIOR, a formula for disaster as well as profit. “If you had more women on the trading floors, you would probably eliminate some of this instability,” Coates said.
Catalyst found that stronger-than-average results prevail at Fortune 500 Companies where at least three women serve on the board of directors. http://www.catalyst.org/public.....-on-boards
A particularly a propos paragraph from the above link.
“We especially worry about baby Roo. It is not his impulsivity or hyperactivity that concerns us, as we feel that those are probably age appropriate. We worry about the environment in which he is developing. Roo is growing up in a single-parent household, which puts him at high risk for Poorer Outcome. We predict we will someday see a delinquent, jaded, adolescent Roo hanging out late at night at the top of the forest, the ground littered with broken bottles of extract of malt and the butts of smoked thistles. We think that this will be Roo’s reality, in part because of a second issue. Roo’s closest friend is Tigger, who is not a good Role Model. Peer influences strongly affect outcome.”
Okay, that is beautiful, Sis. Obviously absurd is the point of satire. But I admit to now having a burning desire to re-write the Hundred Acre Woods tales with modern psychiatric interventions in the narrative!
LMAO@ Poorer Outcome.
But I guess in a free society one must tolerate such nonsense once in a while.
Uh, no. In a free society we don’t ban such articles by law, and we don’t drag the authors out to be tarred and feathered. But “tolerance” doesn’t mean not responding, vociferously if needed, to blatant and/or intolerant nonsense.
Even if this piece is satire, pushing back is still a valid response. You can certainly bet other Americans will read it, take it at face value, and cite it as serious support for their positions. If the author’s intent was to spark discussion, then what TNA has done is oblige.
Back to the original ‘satire’. Forgive me I did get carried away with my opinion.
You’re absolutely right Sister of Ye. Take them down.
stray said, “It would interest me a great deal to know if men actually want to be nurses, teachers, childcare workers and waitresses.”
Stray, you really shouldn’t slip satire into a serious thread like this.
I think a good argument could be made that discrimination against women caused the economic downturn; paying women less. Men have gotten away with being intolerable when convention and law prevented women from obtaining divorce, but now women are the ones who are raising families. Women are the ones who need jobs. Men spend money on themselves, their single apartment, and whores. Even when they are married, men’s investment remains selfish, individual, and excessive. Capitalism requires poverty, but that poverty does not have to be levied onto women and children, as it is, by men.
Men continue to pay women less. When a woman has a job, what does it mean for the economy, then that she is being paid less than what workers previously made in that position when they were men? Economic downturn. Instability in the market.
Forbes.Women
While the article is satire, its proximity to the truth makes some people laugh uproariously and others come close to tears because they recognize the proximity to reality. For those of you who are not laughing read
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2.....women.html
While it is tempting to say ‘one step forward, two steps back’, I think the real issue is if we don’t break the destructive cycle of spending so much effort to keep women out of influential, decision making jobs it is going to be very difficult to dig out of the large hole we are in at the present time. Clearly the current leadership could use a new perspective, new ideas, and additional intelligence; not allowed to be comfortable which at times appears to be their priority.
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