The Role of Modesty and Chastity in Female Life.

by Little Miss Attila on April 12, 2011

Roxeanne de Luca and I will be discussing the “modesty movement” among girls and women on May 21st. And, of course, those of you who get up in the mornings should always listen to Da TechGuy’s radio show, WCRN 830 in Western Massachusetts, on Saturday mornings at 10:00 a.m. Eastern (7:00 here in on the West Coast).

Roxeanne knows about correct female behavior from a practical standpoint; my knowledge, as a young person, was . . . well, a bit more theoretical. This should be a good show, so save the date.

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

Charlie Martin April 12, 2011 at 12:43 pm

What a bunch of spoilsports.

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alwaysfiredup April 12, 2011 at 5:48 pm

Would it be okay if we talked a bit about “Equal Pay Day” and women in the workplace?

I am being bombarded today by articles like this one by Carrie Lukas. She asserts there is no wage discrimination and offers several theories as to why there is a wage gap. I agree many of these theories might explain a good portion of the gap but I disagree they prove there is no discrimination. She cites a study indicating that there is a wage premium for single, urban women age 22-30. I think this is poor proof, since most people achieve the pinnacle of career success long after age 30. An entry level job just requires a bachelor’s degree and women statistically earn more of those; poof, disparity explained. It doesn’t explain why there are so many fewer women who made law partner or earned tenure or served as a corporate CEO or board member.

We’ve also long known professional women should not have kids if they really want to compete with professional men, which is (among other things) why we lack mothers but not fathers on SCOTUS. Being a father does not result in a sidetracked career the way being a mother often does. While some women really do want to stay home or work part-time, I think a lot of that is forced on the mom instead of being a truly voluntary choice. Somebody has to stay home when the kids are sick or leave work early to pick them up from school, and people just assume it will be mom who makes that sacrifice, not dad. In fact people will call her a bad mom if she fails to prioritize family over work, but a dad is just being a good provider when he works long hours. Comparing the earning ability of entry-level childless workers therefore seems to be a poor indicator of workplace disparity.

I also saw this article, which asserts that men earn more because they work in more dangerous/life-threatening jobs, and well we wouldn’t want our women to be in harm’s way, would we? (As if women’s lives are inherently more valuable than men’s?) He completely skips over the concept that yes, many women might like to work in those more dangerous jobs in order to earn more money but they aren’t seriously considered for gender-based reasons both obvious and subtle (If it’s not flat “she’s a woman!”, it’s that she’s too short, or can’t lift enough weight, or is insufficiently assertive, or might use too much FMLA time, etc).

I appreciate the silliness of having an “Equal Pay Day” but I can’t avoid the conclusion that there remains significant gender bias in the workplace and in our attitudes about women at work and at home.

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Roxeanne de Luca April 13, 2011 at 10:11 am

Well, being rather contrarian myself, my “correct female behaviour” often includes a lot more sarcasm than is appropriate for a young lady… and modesty does (IMHO) extend to words and actions, not just dress and what you do in bed.

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