Our little friend over at the Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology blog has done us a favor today by summarizing the, er, evidence behind one of the manosphere’s dumbest tropes: the notion that working women don’t really work, because their jobs don’t count, or something. Here’s Mr. PMAFT:
For the most part women don’t work. They may have jobs or be stay at home mothers/wives, but in neither case are they doing real productive work for the most part. Various groups promote their own form of make work jobs for women.
Ok, Mr. Hard-working Superior Man, let’s see you provide some evidence for these assertions.
The type of make work jobs for women we typically see today are all government derived. This includes direct employment by various levels of government from local government to the federal government as 57% of government employees are women. (That percentage actually should be higher since the military and law enforcement which are necessary jobs are mostly men. The percentage of women in make work government jobs is really higher than 57%.)
FWIW, only about 8% of Americans work in government jobs, so even assuming that these jobs are useless make-work jobs, we’re only talking about a relatively small percentage of working women.
Most of these jobs by their very nature are unproductive make work jobs (which are also detrimental to the economy). It also includes quasi-governmental jobs in non-profit sectors and government mandated jobs in private industry, both of which only exist due to government action and thus are mostly unproductive make work jobs also. An example of these types of jobs are in education and health services whose employees are 76.8% women.
Um, what? How exactly do you figure that teachers and healthcare workers are doing useless work –unless you are somehow opposed to people knowing shit, and being able to read, and actually living more than a couple of decades without dying of the plague.
From this information, it is clear that women aren’t doing productive work, but instead are mostly involved in unnecessary do nothing jobs.
Dude, aside from a couple of unsourced numbers, you’ve given us precisely zero “information” so far, just opinions. The first number seems to be correct, and while doing a quick search I wasn’t able to find the source of your second number, it’s certainly the case that women make up about that percentage of workers in education and health care. But you’ve proven precisely nothing about the supposed “make work” quality of women’s jobs.
For the heck of it, let’s break down the figures a little further, just to elaborate on the kinds of work that Mr. PMAFT sees as “unproductive.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Women in the Labor Force databook for 2011 (available in pdf form here), women make up 73.8% of the “Education, training, and library occupations.” Yes, women make up an overwhelming majority (97%)of pre-school and kindergarten teachers – presumably in Mr. PMAFT’s world, these highly unmanly jobs are the most useless and make-worky of all. Women, of course, also make up substantial majorities of elementary, secondary, and special ed teachers. And they also make up nearly half (45%) of postsecondary teachers – college professors and the like. Somehow people emerge from our educational system, as flawed as it is, with the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate a complex world. If the women who dominate education are all useless bimbos doing fake make-work, how exactly is anyone getting educated at all?
There are any number of legitimate criticisms that can be made of our educational system. But “the real problem is that teachers are a bunch of lazy ladies who just pretend to work” isn’t one of them.
And what of health care workers? Yes, the percentage of nurses who are women (91%) is much higher than the percentage of doctors who are women (only 32%). I can only assume that Mr. PMAFT assumes that only the doctors themselves are doing the “real work” here, even though nurses are responsible for doing many of the essential medical tasks that keep hospitals and doctors’ offices working. Women also make up the overwhelming majority of occupational, physical, respiratory and speech therapists. All useless, I guess.
And yes, the vast majority of health care aides are also women – doing unglamorous but vital work. I’m certain that Mr. PMAFT looks down on these women – and presumably, on the men who also work these jobs – but again I am hard pressed to see how any of this is “unproductive make-work.”
Natually, Mr. PMAFT doesn’t bother to do the hard work of proving or even providing a shred of evidence that any of these jobs are somehow less vital to our society than, oh, developing sexbots for bitter woman-hating men.
It’s bizarre. I’m used to nonsense from MRAs. But the “women don’t do real work” trope is so patently false, and makes so little sense, it’s hard to believe that even dogmatic numbskulls like Mr. PMAFT can actually take it seriously.
Having utterly failed to make his case about working women, he moves on to attack “traditional conservatives” and stay-at home mothers:
Tradcons will say that they have an answer to this. They will say that women shouldn’t be out working like that and instead should be in the home raising large families. This is another form of a make work job for women. In the past it was necessary for women to have a lot of kids because most of them wouldn’t reach adulthood. If you wanted three children to reach adulthood, you would have to have six children or nine children to make sure that happened. That is no longer necessary since a person’s kids are now likely to all make it to adulthood. There is no reason to have a large family except as an unproductive make work job for women.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s … not … how that works.
The tradcons try to hide this fact from everyone (including themselves) with appeals to tradition, to God/Jesus, and/or nature. That is a fallacy because if you wanted to have large families in the way tradition, God/Jesus, and/or nature intended, only some of your kids should reach adulthood. If you have nine kids, for example, and nothing else kills six of them before adulthood, then you have execute six of your kids before they reach adulthood.
Apparently when not fantasizing about sexbots and other forms of Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology, Mr. PMAFT spends a lot of time thinking about children being murdered. Who knew?
Also, it’s worth pointing out that full-time motherhood simply isn’t an option for most mothers — the overwhelming majority of whom remain in the workplace.
It’s not surprising that groups from feminists to tradcons to people in between are trying to create unproductive make work jobs for women. It’s because whenever there is an actual productive job to be done, that job is almost always best filled by a man (government regulations notwithstanding). This is why you don’t see women doing real work like rebuilding after hurricane Sandy, repairing 1700 foot tall transmission towers, HVAC, or sulfur mining.
What exactly makes HVAC more essential than healthcare? Aren’t they both essential to modern society? Is HVAC “real work,” but nursing not, simply because it involves more heavy lifting?
There isn’t any productive job out there now that women are better at than men.
Well, if “making logical arguments that are well-supported by evidence” can be considered a job, Mr. PMAFT is not exactly doing men proud here.
That said, he and his fellow dudes of the manosphere are better than almost any woman I can think of at whining about nothing.
@princessbonbon: What kind of law do you practice?
I’m extremely protective of nurses. My mother, my aunt, my great-aunt, and both my grandmothers were all nurses. (Well, my mother and my aunt ARE nurses, as they are neither retired or dead). If it wasn’t for my disability, I would have followed in their footsteps. This gets me SO mad. My mother and aunt work in the community, and it because of people like them that people are able to comfortably die in their homes, rather than in hospital. (I know there are other factors that allow for people to die at home, not just the community nurses, but please don’t ruin my bragging. ;). I’m exceptionally proud of them)
It’s interesting that he picked on education and nursing as the occupations that prove that the paid work women do is worthless. The reason it’s interesting is that both of those involve stuff that sexism says women should automatically do for the people around them (taking care of kids, taking care of people who’re sick and the elderly). So it’s both these jobs have no value because women do them, and the fact that some women are being paid for services that they’re “supposed” to provide for free that irks him, I think.
Wait, nursing is make-work? Then why do we have to take so many argle-bargle anatomy & physiology classes?? Can’t I just pick up my government check *without* the BA in biology and the 2-year MSN???
(Of course, I am considering a focus on women’s health. Misandry!)
@Starla
I did the waitress stint in high school which was over a decade ago. I still tend to seriously overtip since I remember, not the customers, but how hard the job is.
@Canuck_with_Pluck
I work in a court-at this level we have seven types of law (evictions, criminal traffic, civil traffic, criminal, orders of protection, torts, and contracts.) There is a lot of human misery wandering though the courthouse doors and I am just glad I do not have to deal with family court. Thousands of hours of effort go into making these cases run as fast as humanly possible-for instance an eviction, without complications or appeal, can take about 20 to 30 minutes of case processing time with the hearing time literally taking 17 seconds from the time the judge announces to the time the judgment is signed.
I bet this moron would think something like this, but the requirements and the grades you need to get into a dermatology program are NO JOKE. It’s not all zit cream and cosmetics.
I guess all those students who told me at my last job that I was the only faculty member in our department they ever learned anything from (which was made up of one other woman and two men) were misandrists? Or something?
Also nurses are generally much better at practical things like giving shots or taking throat swabs. My allergist once insisted on giving me my shots and I was all, “Um, could the nurse do it instead? Because she gives hundreds of shots to people every week and you do this once in a blue moon and you’re REALLY BAD AT IT!”
I love the nurses who know how to give virtually painless shots. I could barely even feel my flu shot this year, and that lady was basically my hero for that entire week.
Even if we’re talking doctors or dentists rather than nurses, I’ve consistently found the women to be better than the men at recognizing that pain is a thing and trying to avoid causing any more of it than necessary.
Long time lurker. 2nd time poster. 🙂
You know this MRA knucklehead is right, I mean women in general have never really done any “real” work. You know like..working in the coal mines during the Industrial Revolution or building bombs and aircraft during WW2……oh wait….. >__<
Anyways..as far as nursing being "useless" my sister works as a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) and they do quite a lot of heavy lifting. Not only that they have to undergo formal education and training and this is just for being a Nursing Assistant. If anything, nursing has become more physically demanding.
That's all I have to add for now. 😀
With some exceptions, obviously – we used to have a rather elderly family doctor who looked just like Colonel Sanders, and he had very gentle hands.
(I’m glad that we moved before I became sexually active though, because just imagine being a teenager and having to talk to kindly old Colonel Sanders about all the sexual health stuff that you’re already a bit embarrassed about.)
@ patterrssonn LOL I’m pleased I didn’t have a mouthful of coffee when I read your comment.
Re injections and pain,if you’re getting one in the arm, pro tip I was given (from a female nurse!): keep your arm dangling down like normal and drop your shoulder. This advice was from the hospital nurse whose job it was to vaccinate all staff. IM is just going to be uncomfortable regardless because the muscle doesn’t have any space for that liquid that’s being injected. Some injections hurt more than others, magnesium sucks because apparently it makes the muscle contract as its being injected IM.
I never gave injections because *not nurse* but I did one mantoux and had to be trained in elbow venipuncture as part of our job was phlebotomy when our lab nurses were busy or it was out of hours. I still get really cross when I see the results of poor phlebotomy practice on my co-workers or acquaintances. I have a collapsed vein from a phlebotomy gone wrong; a vacutainer was used on a small surface vein of mine, too much pressure from the blood tube. This was picked up later in the ED (years later, for a different reason) when they tried to IV pain relief into that vein.
(Side note: they got seriously pissed when I told them I was refusing any more attempts at IV and they could just give me the meds orally. But seriously, who tries to IV into a small surface vein in the elbow? I donate blood for FSM’s sake, my elbow veins are *good* and there’s track marks from the donations they could use to line up. They told me I needed pain relief faster. I pointed out I had been sitting in the waiting room for 45 minutes, had an empty stomach, and an extra 5 minutes was going to be fine. I have noticed that ED staff tend to get a bit pissy when you demand on your patient rights.)
Sexist AND stupid. Wow. I just … Wow.
Mindbleach: http://www.savagechickens.com/2013/01/whats-on.html
Where can I find how to embed in comments? Is it that a href html tag?
Belated thanks for the welcome! Now I’m going to try quoting someone. I will probably mess it up.
This. I have get my blood drawn pretty often, and my veins just don’t seem to like it Sometimes it’s pretty painful, but I’ve also had times where the nurse was so good, I didn’t feel a thing. Those are the best times.
Ha! Victory is mine, quote box.
I’m in the education biz, and most of my department is female. Is my work meaningful because penis and theirs is all makework?
I don’t actually teach with my dick.
PMAFT, however, seems to think with his. And not doing a very good job of it.
If he was thinking with his dick you’d think there would be some women, somewhere, who he liked, since he seems to be straight. I never have been able to wrap my head around the whole “hate all of the people who you want to fuck” thing that MRAs have going on.
There are some images that just pop into your head and you go “why did I think that?!” after reading the description.
Thank you for that Freitag. 😛
Freitag’s reminding me of the Penis Mom (SFW).
Thinking with his dick would be an improvement for PFFFFT.
I love how he keeps getting more Fs in his name, Kittehs’.
Yep, that guy who works at the video porn store definitely does not have a make-work job. His job is of critical importance! While the women engineers my husband worked with at an auto manufacturer–pffft.
I must not laugh
laughter is the job-killer
laughter is the little mistake that brings total unemployment…
Well, my husband works at the railroad and I’m a philosopher. Make of that what you like.
Although philosophy is heavily male-dominated…