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From: oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicious Oyster)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.social
Subject: Re: "pleasant" work vs. "dangerous" work
Message-ID: <1257@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Jul-85 11:57:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1257
Posted: Tue Jul  2 11:57:34 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Jul-85 04:27:17 EDT
References: <826@oddjob.UUCP>
Reply-To: oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicious oyster)
Organization: UWisconsin-Madison Academic Comp Center
Lines: 64
Xref: watmath net.women:6244 net.social:786

In article <826@oddjob.UUCP> cs1@oddjob.UUCP (Cheryl Stewart) writes:
>>> 
>>If by "good education" you mean a degree in English, or Art, or Urban
>>Planning, then I'm not surprised.  Men who get those degrees usually
>>end of getting inferior jobs after college as well because those degrees
>>are produced in numbers far in excess of the jobs that require those
>>degrees.  Unfortunately, women have tended to concentrate in studies that
>>do not lead to high-paying jobs.
>
>
>Oh, don't give me that crap.  Men who get "those" degrees become bank presidents
>stock-brokers, lawyers, Madison Avenue advertizing tycoons, insurance magnates,
>architects, clergymen, and sometimes even computer programmers and engineers.
>Women who get "those" degrees are told that they don't have any useful skills--
>except typing of course.  And women who do make sure to acquire higher-level
>skills (programming, engineering, chemistry, physics) tend to be exploited
>for those skills and those skills only--under the assumption that they're not
>really planning of making a career out of it, that they'll be going to seed
>soon anyway.  Being exploited for those skills and those skills only means-- 
>you got it--writing subroutines instead of planning software, doing linear heat-
>flow problems instead of nonlinear reaction-diffusion equations, working in an 
>chemical lab as a technician instead of being encouraged to go to graduate 
>school, working as an exploration geophysicist for an oil company rather than
>being the theoretical physicist who formulates a consistent unified field 
>theory.  There is nothing LESS satisfying than doing less than what you are 
>capable of--which is why so many women are unhappy with their "pleasant" work.
>
   I have some friends who are married; the male has a B.A. in English, the
woman an M.S. in Bacteriology.  The male has been working his way up in the
world of banking from bottom-of-the-heap teller for over three years now, and
has gotten to the lofty position of Head Teller.   The female has just gotten
her first "real" (not limited-term) job.  He is taking shit from people both
above and below his "station", and barely earning a 5-figure salary.  She
is making AT LEAST double his salary, and only taking shit from specimen
containers (:-).  I certainly believe that she will still have a better-paying,
more enjoyable job ten years hence.  I do, however, acknowledge that this
is not how things happen everywhere, and in every situation.

>But if he still wants a job after his children are grown--that's fine with
>me.  As long as he's fulfilled his duty as a husband and a father by staying
>home with the children while they're young...and as long as it's a safe,
>pleasant job that won't upset him or make him cry.  I really think that 
>his wife should LET him work, if that's what he really wants to do....
>and even if he wants to go back to school, I think his wife should let him
>do that, too.  But of course, if he finds that the big girls out there
>in the real world play too rough for him, well, maybe it's better that
>he occupy his time by joining the garden club, or do volunteer work --
>something that would gratify his social needs perhaps even better than a 
>job would.
>
   Bitter invective isn't any more effective coming from females than it is
coming from males.  Your point was well made without resorting to "male 
tactics" (to use a net.women concept).  I disagree with his "women take
lower paying jobs because they enjoy non-monetary benefits" argument, but
I find it hard to be sympathetic to somebody who feels a need to alienate
half the population just to make a point (<- this applies to a lot of
stuff here, from both men and women). 

-- 
 - joel "vo" plutchak
{allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!oyster

"Take what I say in a different way and it's easy to say that this is
all confusion."