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To me it sounded like you thought it was a problem that women are in the work force and that feminism is to blame for this problem.

well like I said to vasalisa it's more about cause and effect than blame. I would say women entering the workforce has caused our economic troubles today. It's certainly not the only factor, but it's huge nonetheless and often ignored. Some think that we don't need to discuss it because we "figured it out" but really we've just pushed the problems elsewhere and we'll keep doing that until there is nowhere left to push them. So how far did the dollar drop in value today?

I suppose you could try and go back before feminism to see what prompted it (completely different topic) but I don't see how one can argue feminism didn't throw a wrench into our economy, one that we've never seriously dealt with.

Why can't women have both children and careers? Men have been doing it since the dawn of time (or at least the dawn of careers).

I think I covered this in a different post with you but men have been working crappy jobs since the dawn of time in order to support a family and be the head of a house hold. THAT is where fulfillment came, not from the work. All of a sudden, women enter the workforce and we get this strange idea that making a living is supposed to be "fun" and "fulfilling" for everyone. IMO it's a bad idea that puts unrealistic expectations on people, which can only leave most disappointed in the end. Unless we somehow subsidize all those fulfilling careers in an unsustainable system. Which has been our solution thus far, but it can't go on forever.

What I think I don't understand is your reasoning that only women have to pick and choose. Why not say either a man can have children or a career, not both. Maybe you do believe that. I can't tell.

men can pick just the same, or he can make six figures plus while the wife stays home (or vice versa which is probably so rare an occurrence we probably shouldn't even consider it). A couple x-factors though, are that men have no reproductive choice where women can often have a baby at will. Also, I rarely hear men complain about the pressure to "do both", even though they face the same challenges. I think most either acknowledge that it's impossible and move on to something else, or they go along with what their wife/girlfriend wants (very lame and irresponsible of them, IMO).

The issue of maternity/paternity leave is something I really am not sure of my opinion on. It's in our best interest as a country and as a world to have children raised as well as possible. It benefits everyone. I can see why someone who doesn't want kids wouldn't want to pay for it, but I pay school taxes even though I don't have children and I don't mind because I'd rather have an educated populace than an uneducated one.

I don't think the school issue is a good comparison, but that's cause I think our school system is a disaster.

as to saying raising the children well "benefit's everyone" well hmm, let's think about that. If people are going to be irresponsible and have kids they can't afford (and poor people have lots more kids), why is it society's responsibility to pick up the tab? Oh, so we don't have roving gangs of delinquent youth running around (too late). So basically since we can't control the breeders, they have us hostage. So I guess we should continue to reward them with our tax dollars so we don't have their spawn threatening us on the street. Sounds like a great deal to me!

I guess each of us is looking at it from our own side, but I feel a real disdain for women in a lot of these post and also a feeling that they've "gotten out of their place." It may not be what you are trying to say, but it comes off that way.

Just be thankful the men here are smart enough (and not yet too economically depressed) to externalize this stuff verbally and recognize that individual women may not be to blame. Others may subconsciously know what's going on, but not consciously understand, and might inadvertently take their problems out on you. Of course judging from your posts you may have already run into this (maybe not though).