Okay, just kidding. Obviously. But some (I'm looking at you, Raph) seem to believe this is indeed the battle cry of some imaginary Feminist Jihad against all that was Good and Perfect "Back In The Day". You know, the age of Beaver Cleaverism before the darkness of feminism descended upon the earth and women suddenly tore off their aprons and became lesbians, witches and pagans. Or worse yet, entered the work force and became financially independent. Life has apparently taken a major shit since women gained a little self-determination... and the fact that I'm even writing about this today shows that we've got a ways to go.In a somewhat bizarre and byzantine hypothesis based on the idea that Feminism is destroying the Family(!?), Raphael posits that there's a correlation between the rise of feminism and the "fall of the family" -- if indeed the family has fallen, which in itself seems like kind of an absurd notion since I see families all around me. As anyone familiar with statistics knows, correlation is not causation, but you wouldn't know it by Raphael's post, which seems to blame every ill visited upon society since the latter 20th century on Teh Feminism. But before I start my evisceration, I need to know if I'm (hopefully) misunderstanding the idea of RA's post.
As far as I can see, it runs something like this:
1. Rosie the Riveter gets the Women In The Workforce ball rolling during WWII. Ball gains momentum until...*
1(i). ... BOOM! Feminism arrives in a big way in the 60s
2. Women begin entering the workforce in record numbers
3. Women enjoy financial independence (well, duh!), and start choosing careers over their Rightful Place in The Home
4. Correspondingly, women choose to have smaller families to accommodate their careers (thank you, Ortho-Novum, and thank you, Dr. Morgentaler)
5. The dual-income marriage, while not allowing the time for a lot of kids, allows for the buying of mucho consumer toys, which at some point becomes addictive(?)
6. An increasingly consumption-oriented society forces the cost of living to rise
(At this point, there's a decade or two of the vicious revolving circle of work, buy, work, buy, work, buy etc., which causes the cost of living to spiral astronomically.)
7. The economy eventually demands that both partners in a marriage be earners just to accomplish what could have been done on one salary in the 50's.
8. This seals the fate of the family, which has shrunk from the 3- or 4-child situations of the 50s to 2.5 or less (or 1.8 or 2.2 or whatever the fuck).
9. The state deals with a diminishing population by allowing Immigration to rise to "Holy Shit! We're Being Overrun!" levels. Now, not only the family, but Our Way Of Life As We Know It is threatened...
SHRIEEEEEEEEEK!!!
10. The collapse of civilization, and all because those bitches wouldn't stay in the kitchen. Have I got that about right, Raph? (I sure hope not.)
*Thanks to Scotian in the comments for pointing this out to me.
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