[AgentR]

I still see a lot of yall locked into there being two sets of gender roles; let me try to use some arbitrary numbers to illustrate the third notion. Take a set of 200 people, 98 men, 102 women.

Old 1800's preindustrial stereotypical:
40 men working hourly/daily paid town labor
54 men working commercial+subsistence farming
4 bums, unemployed, etc
10 women working hourly/daily paid labor (merchant, teacher, domestic, etc)
87 women working at home raising kids and making sure no one starves.
3 women working commercial farming
2 bums, shiftless, wandering nuts, etc.

Modern stereotypical:
75 men working for pay
10 men looking for paying work
8 men given up on finding work - bums
5 men working at home raising kids etc.
50 women working for pay
10 women looking for paying work
40 working at home, raising kids
2 bums

MY ASSERTED POST OIL
15 men working for pay or successfully self employed for pay
35 men looking for paying work, with occasional day labor
40 men working at home raising plants to eat
5 men working at home raising kids
3 bums, thieves, not quite dead yet
10 women working for pay or successfully self employed for pay
35 women looking for paying work, with occasional day labor
50 women working at home raising kids
5 women working at home raising plants to eat
2 bums, thieves, not quite dead yet

My point is that things will of course not stay the same; but they will also NOT revert to some comfortable mom-dad of 1800 lifestyle either. The same thing people disregard today, is what you are disregarding about the past. They had unbelievably vast natural resources right at their fingertips. Between depleted soil, no good coal, too little water, and unobtainable energy; the future will be radically different. Who ever has a skill that can be successfully marketed in the area, will make some (tiny amount of) cash. Most people, men, and women, do not have such a skill, though we all like to assume that we are the exception and that our skills are marketable.

If you are one of the lucky ones with a family member that does happen to have a marketable skill in your area; and you choose not to avail yourselves of that income because the skilled person is female; then I'd like to introduce you to the lifestyle of living on the riverbank with neither tent nor horse. You should learn about it, because thats where you'll be shortly.

Now, if your family thrives on some patriarchal jibber-jabber, *and* the male adult in the family has a skill marketable in the area, then great, more power to ya; but it'd be wise not to kid yourself, neither your XY components, nor balding head are responsible for your fortune. Your ability, to perform an appendectomy in primitive conditions without killing the patient, maintain/construct small biodiesel plants. or whatever, is likely more decisive on that issue.

[evilgenius]

Great post, AgentR. That reminds me of something I was reading the other day, can't remember exactly where, about population trends in Bangladesh. It seems that the advent of women being able to control the number of children they are having has effected the rate of population growth. It has brought it down enough that the people on the site claimed the population of Bangladesh will level off in the coming decades as a result. I refer to this because I think it reinforces your point about unforeseen results shaping up the way of the future as opposed to the mere continuation of current popularly observed trends.

[Tyler_JC]

Excellent post AgentR.

I definitely agree that in the future, anyone with a useful skill will be working or looking for work, regardless of gender.

The men who are unable to find work and unwilling to let their wives work will quickly find themselves changing their Facebook status from "In A Relationship" to "Single".

In the Depression, as several others have pointed out before, women sometimes became the sole breadwinner. Their husbands weren't happy about it, but the vast majority would rather have one source of income than no sources of income.

[Ferretlover]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('odegaard', 'W')OW it seems that some people here have been screwed up in the head real good by their feminist Lesbian college professors.

[odegaard]

...

[turner]

For me the issue is not so much about who will be doing what job or performing what role, it's more about the idea being presented here that suddenly women will be unable to voice an opinion or effect any decision making. Do you really believe that women will be content with going back to arranging flowers in the church, baking cookies for the fair and being completely beholden to the man? Why is it so unreasonable for women to be on, say the local community council, just because they are producing food at home rather than building houses? What makes the builder smarter than the housewife?

I was in Thailand last week and drove past countless properties with a range of money making and food producing activities going on. Each one had a workshop/garage downstairs, a little shop out front, some food gardens out back and I suspect an extended family all inputting whatever skills in whatever jobs were available (whether paid or not). That's how I see society moving and those families that don't work together to maximise skills and opportunities will be worse off.

[Thralen]

Let's see here, hypothetical situation: It is post peak and I need to hire someone to do something, there are two individuals that have the appropriate skills. One is a man with a serious attitude problem including racism and male chauvinistic tendencies, the other is a woman without said drawbacks. Guess what? I'm going to hire the woman because I don't want the additional trouble brought on by the man's attitude.

What do others think, you are in this position, which one would you hire? While on the subject, same thing with race, I'd still hire the person without the attitude problem. Note: part of the phrase 'attitude problem' is 'problem'. Post peak there will be enough problems already without knowingly adding to them. Just my $0.02 worth... or my two carrots worth in a barter society...

Thralen

[Ferretlover]

Off topic posts have been split from this thread.