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Post by jeffolie on Mar 2, 2009 10:40:51 GMT -6
American lifestyles and families are suffering mightly in these times. I remember when women started to work in numbers inorder to afford a mortgage and cope with rapid inflation in the 1870s. ============================================================== According to The New York Times over the past year, as companies from Citibank to GM announced massive layoffs, a full 82 percent of the people getting pink slips have been men. Any day now, women are expected to become the majority of the American workforce. www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/03/02/tf.unemployed.boyfriend/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
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Post by graybeard on Mar 2, 2009 11:03:25 GMT -6
It started with the Pill. In 1968, I asked about my wife's income helping to qualify for a mortgage, and was told by the banker they won't count the wife's income, "Because she might get pregnant."
Four years later, the house next door was bought by a lesbian couple. I don't know how they financed it, however.
GB
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Post by jeffolie on Mar 2, 2009 11:11:15 GMT -6
By the 1980s there were seminars promoting that women could have it all, family and career. It did not work out that way as about a third of college graduating career women decided not to have children. In the union negotiations where I worked there were so many childless career women in my classification that there was resistence to offering family medical coverage.
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Post by agito on Mar 2, 2009 13:47:43 GMT -6
anedotally- i can tell you that when i graduated from college- all of my female classmates were quick to find jobs, while the men had to struggle. Conversely- the men usually found better paying jobs. And it kind of make sense that when you have to make cuts, you cut the people that you are paying more to do what is in essence the same amount of work.
Still the discussion over "equality" of pay between the sexes is definitely going to hit some rough patches because there are some aspects of involvement in the workforce that are easier for women. (it's not "right"- but they make it easier for women).
that 82% seems high though.
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Post by kramer on Mar 2, 2009 15:47:05 GMT -6
American lifestyles and families are suffering mightly in these times. I remember when women started to work in numbers inorder to afford a mortgage and cope with rapid inflation in the 1870s. ============================================================== According to The New York Times over the past year, as companies from Citibank to GM announced massive layoffs, a full 82 percent of the people getting pink slips have been men. Any day now, women are expected to become the majority of the American workforce. www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/03/02/tf.unemployed.boyfriend/index.html?iref=mpstoryviewYeah but maybe this is due to there being more men in the workforce? I would like to see the statistics on this, how many men and women there are and how many of each were affected by reductions.
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Post by whoswho on Mar 4, 2009 8:04:58 GMT -6
Men have a much better network than women do to get re-employed, I think.
Where I live (and worked), they have (forgive me) a good old boys network that deliberately excluded me from getting re-employed with them. It is a big advantage to stay employed at the same place that you've invested most of your life. It's a huge disadvantage to have to start over at a place where you know no one, and no one knows you.
I think some women are natural born career women, but it is not the majority of women. When the women's movement created a situation where ALL women were routed into the workforce, I think it had a devastating effect on our society. I could talk on that at length, but I'll stop at that.
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Post by xtra on Mar 4, 2009 10:37:20 GMT -6
American lifestyles and families are suffering mightly in these times. I remember when women started to work in numbers inorder to afford a mortgage and cope with rapid inflation in the 1870s. ============================================================== According to The New York Times over the past year, as companies from Citibank to GM announced massive layoffs, a full 82 percent of the people getting pink slips have been men. Any day now, women are expected to become the majority of the American workforce. www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/03/02/tf.unemployed.boyfriend/index.html?iref=mpstoryviewat 9:00
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Post by whoswho on Mar 4, 2009 11:31:28 GMT -6
Xtra, yes, I could believe it.
I would like to throttle the fiend from hell who dreamed up Women's Lib. I don't think we're more liberated at all. I think we and our children are more hopelessly enslaved than ever.
Look at the young people now. They're ridiculously fat for their ages. They have no manners whatsover. They've been robbed-- and I don't have time to give you the full list.
When they finally do make it through college with a master's degree, they don't have the sense God gave a goose.
I feel sorry for them, I don't think they will ever have as good a life as what we had. Some things money can't buy.
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Post by judes on Mar 5, 2009 22:24:35 GMT -6
I'm wondering if it has something to do with the industries being most effected. Being a female in a male dominated profession, engineering, I can see more males have been laid off. But I also know there are way more males in this business. Also, I would suspect males are predominate in the banking, financial, and construction industries. But that will probably change as retail and health care start to feel the fall out more. Just my unresearched two cents. : )
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Post by nomad943 on Mar 7, 2009 11:59:11 GMT -6
Curious. As a female in the "male dominated" engineering field dont you feel immune to any downsizing? Isnt that the case in any field that in good times agressivly recruit based primarily upon gender/race, that in sour times these same companies will be reluctant to sacrifice these "gains"? Is it not also just as much of a possibility that the same levels of incompetance that are now widely heralded as leading to the sharp decline in the overall fate of capitalism, can be laid at the feet of these very "gains". Diverse but inept. Whoo-hoo. In a way its kind of easy to enjoy the show.
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Post by lookingforwork on Mar 7, 2009 13:23:29 GMT -6
for me it is as simple as realizing all the fingers pointing back at myself when i get caught pointing a finger. I cannot imagine there is any other conclusion for anyone wether I am woman of man. Now, consensus of such a conclusion is perhaps a dream in itself. No matter though, i know there is enough diverse eneptness to go around. As unappealing and painful the realization may be, personal responsibility is what it is. Gaining or declining value is adjusted by the consumer and / or mostly through force of will by those certain of anothers need. Still, imanthatiam have to reconcile within myself any shortcomings. wow... wording of spiritual develoment and finance sure have some of the same verbage! Guess i should just keepitsimple stupid!
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Post by judes on Mar 7, 2009 18:17:39 GMT -6
Curious. As a female in the "male dominated" engineering field dont you feel immune to any downsizing? ... Oh God no. I have the same odds of being let go as my male counterparts. My company has been essentially laying off workers in the same proportions of existing workers. For example if there are 100 workers in my group and about 90% of them are male (probably a good estimate) and 10% female. If the next round of layoffs involves 10% of the workforce, then 9 of the laid off workers would be male and 1 female. But since there are only 10 females to begin with I have the same 1 in 10 chances of getting laid off as my male counterparts do. However all the people left at my site now know our days are numbered anyway, the plant was supposed to close already. Things have gotten delayed with all the bailouts waiting to see what happens. Where I do see the advantage however, has been in the upper levels of the company. A highly disproportionate amount of the layoffs have come from the lower level ranks of the work force. The upper levels have a built in protection around them. What's left of my work group is so top heavy it is sickening. We have about 4-5 upper managers for every one worker bee, it is an inverted pyramid corporate structure on the verge of toppling. I am thinking this also may have something to do with the recent figures released showing average real wages rising. If a greater number of lower paid workers are losing work disproportionately to the higher income upper management types it would shift the average up for the remaining work force.
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Post by nomad943 on Mar 7, 2009 18:31:41 GMT -6
judes; If it is any consolation, my wife tells me virtualy the same story about her company. They have actualy been on somewhat of a hiring binge when it comes to vice presidents , the type that inheret such titles of nobility as "vice president of continued excellence" and such nonsense ... Meanwhile nothing much gets done because the workforce entrusted to do actual things is so emaciated. My guess is that the elite are closing ranks and taking care of themselves by creating high paying non functions in which they can ride out the turmoil in style.
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Post by judes on Mar 8, 2009 9:30:13 GMT -6
.. My guess is that the elite are closing ranks and taking care of themselves by creating high paying non functions in which they can ride out the turmoil in style. Your guess is spot on!
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Post by whoswho on Mar 13, 2009 8:32:40 GMT -6
Curious. As a female in the "male dominated" engineering field dont you feel immune to any downsizing? Isnt that the case in any field that in good times agressivly recruit based primarily upon gender/race, that in sour times these same companies will be reluctant to sacrifice these "gains"? . Before I was downsized, one of the engineers claimed that I was a "protected species". Turns out that that was the farthest thing from the truth. In fact, I think if you're not exactly conforming to their lines of thinking, downsizing is a golden opportunity to route you out, without being accused of gender bias. When I got my federal job, my boss told me that being a female helped me get hired, but in a RIF, it would not help me keep my job.
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