This Evoke gets at the economic and demographic roots of feminism. And the
next step, which is gender parity, is still undefined because it’s only become
the next step very recently.
Merely three hundred years ago,
prosperity depended upon family size. In an agricultural society all
hands are needed for sustenance and wealth. And without any social
network, you relied on your children to take care of you as you aged. So
as children brought prosperity and retirement income, the major
responsibility of women was to have and raise children. Women married in
their early teens and died in their forties – if not during childbirth.
In
the early industrial age, these habits were hard to change. Families
moved into cities and children went to work in factories at age six –
the horror! – to collect pay for the family. Industry became more
complex and thankfully children were no longer valuable workers.
Over time the economic value of
children has declined. Children now require schooling to be economically
useful. Now they consume significant family income and a college
education is the minimum for social and economic success in advanced
countries.
Today, the wh*** pattern is changed. Rather than
spending most of their lives pregnant or caring for children. Women
today with 2 children will spend only 10% of their lives pregnant and
caring for young children. Women are much less economically dependent
upon men, more educated, live longer and start having children later.
The family unit is no longer economically critical as it once was.
Politically,
“traditionalism” is at the core of evangelical nut jobs and all major
religious groups who are clutching to the outmoded. In a generation or
two they will ultimately lose to the overwhelming pattern of behavior
that is driven by demographics and economics. The passing of the Baby
Boomers is certain and prior to it, their retirement. So as they go, so
too will go a glut of traditional patterns. The next wave of feminism, gender parity, will naturally occur and doesn’t need to be worked for. It
simply will happen.
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