Feminists? Any here?

[Tuckervill]

I work at a community college and we have lots of programs for "displaced homemakers" and every year they are full and have waiting lists. They are for programs in health care, business, child care, hospitality, and pretty much any program that offers job training and a career ladder to allow someone to get into the workforce and be able to support her family. The stories from these women are heartwrenching. Most never had any education after high school and little, if any, experience working before getting married and having children. Most are young--women who had children at 17 and 18 and 19 years old and are now 22 or 23 or 25 and divorced and unable to support themselves or their children. Many, many, many of them were in abusive relationships where suggesting that getting an education or a job would have been met with violence. Maybe they didn't pay attention, or were in denial, or were so abused that they couldn't think, or maybe they thought, just as most people thing, that the worst would never happen to them. Unimaginative? Sure. But it's a pretty common affliction (also seen in workers who are shocked when they lose their jobs and haven't updated their resumes in 15 years and in recent college grads who are convinced that they will be the one to beat the odds and find a great job in this economy).

The programs themselves are no different than the programs for the general population, but the "displaced homemaker" programs have more supports--scholarships, child care support, mentoring, interview skills, professional skills, etc.

Sarah

Those commercials were targeted towards, and portrayed, older women with older children.

Does your program actually use that term, "displaced homemaker"? I would find that creepy. Our local CC has programs for people who need those things, but they're not targeted at any particular segment or situation. They're available for whomever needs them.

Karen

[lph]

Another pet peeve: the focus on women's appearance, and our own touchiness about it.

My son got into a minor fight the other day at school, some girl pushed him, they bickered, and he had called her "Fatso". She was crushed. When asked about this at home he was a little sullen but surprised, because "mom, she's really slender". It was just a stray insult in a stupid argument.

So why is it that the worst, most insulting thing you can say to a girl, is that she's fat, or ugly? It's not a nice thing to say to a boy either, but there I think the equivalent worst insult would be "weak", or "cowardly". Girls get judged and judge themselves a lot from outer appearances, boys judge themselves more by skills and personality.

This is children, but I think this applies to adults as well. Honestly - would you be more insulted if someone called you fat, or if they called you a weakling? But when you think about it, wouldn't you rather BE strong and brave, instead of pretty and thin?

I think it's a shame that it's such a huge faux pas to ask a woman if she's expecting, and find out she wasn't pregnant at all. If she's put on that much weight, it can hardly be a surprise to her that it's visible to others. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could say to a friend "gee, you've got a little chunky, better lay off those chocolate chip cookies for a while" and laugh at it, and just let it go?

[sfa]

Those commercials were targeted towards, and portrayed, older women with older children.

Does your program actually use that term, "displaced homemaker"? I would find that creepy. Our local CC has programs for people who need those things, but they're not targeted at any particular segment or situation. They're available for whomever needs them.

Karen

Could be the demographics of your area that determined the target of the ads. I don't know if our program uses the term "displaced homemaker" externally or not--I know we DO use it internally, but the advertising materials I think just use the name of the actual program. And I'd be very surprised if your local community college was the only CC in America not targeting programs at particular population segments. Most funding that's available through federal, state and private grants is designed for particular populations, so we have programs for high school dropouts, veterans returning from abroad, women and minorities in engineering, low income residents, mid-life career changers, non-native English speakers, people with disabilities, etc. Of COURSE the services are available to whoever needs them, but the high-need populations are targeted with special programs and funding, and the programs are focused on the particular needs of that particular population, so the mid-life career changers probably won't need help on interviewing and professional skills but may need help on study skills, and the high school dropouts are going to need GED preparation along with study skills and academic mentoring and career counseling. And women who have been out of the workforce for many years or never in the workforce to begin with have particular issues and problems that, for example, veterans don't have (and the veterans have issues that NO other population has!). In theory each individual might be able to go seek out the services that only she or he needs, but it's a lot easier for the students to have someone on staff suggest and guide them through the process so they don't miss something important.

Sarah

[ilima]

So keeping one foot in the paid workforce, is like a insurance mechanism if something goes awry with the primary breadwinner. ie. s/he might get laid off, become accidentally disabled, etc.

Insurance policy. That, I think, is why I would never pull myself out of the workforce entirely for very long. Husbands die and that million dollar policy doesn't go far when you have a mortgage to pay off and young ones to put through college.

If other people (whether it's mom or dad) want to do it, that's fine. It's something I probably wouldn't do, though.

Even more frightening to me than becoming a SAHM (i.e., jumping in without a life jacket/insurance policy) would be to become (or be married to) a workaholic that only has fleeting interactions with the kids & spouse.

[ilima]

ok ok, leaving the day care issue out of it...(I shouldn't have thrown that into the mix, sorry) There's plenty to say about feminism without that.

I do think that modern contemporary feminism ( and much of our culture) teaches "me first" for women, at the sacrifice of families and partnerships. My experience as a tail end boomer, (1960) is that the mind set of feminism is that the value of an individual's WOMAN's needs, even when in a family, is greater than the value of the other members of the families needs. The ostracizing of women who choose be a primary care giver/SAHM is not imaginary; it's very real. Maybe less so than in the 80's when I had mine, but I got a LOT of crap for it.
Maybe I'm stuck on the 60's and 70's version of bra burning feminism and separatism because that's what I experienced. I shed the label for myself early on so maybe I haven't kept up with the new iterations.

I do accept that women's roles were limited by society for a long time, and that a lot of opportunities have been created in contemporary times. But I don't buy the 50/50 thing at all, and I don't buy devaluing of men especially by some women's studies programs (putting flame suit on)

Maybe I sound bitter; I don't know. My values have moved way center from the liberal, feminist, extreme left wing household I was raised in. I've experienced personally families destroyed by women leaving not horrible situations, just because they "needed" to do something new or different that didn't include the children they bore and the family they should have committed to. Never mind the abandoned children left behind. I have experienced first hand the hate and disdain for men that some women have for men in the name of feminism, sisterhood and women's rights and it makes me really sad.

Maybe I'm stuck on the 60's and 70's version of bra burning feminism and separatism because that's what I experienced. I shed the label for myself early on so maybe I haven't kept up with the new iterations.

As Zen said, every one of those things that 'bad' feminists do, men do as well. Dump their family because of a 'mid-life crisis,' put their needs before their wives or their kids. Not saying that's a victory by any means. Just challenging the idea that mom must be the primary care giver.

And one group that is ostracized even more than SAHMs? SAHDs!! That shouldn't be the case!