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High school commencement speaker tells females: stay at home, don’t be CEOs

DVSentinel said:
And once again we are back around to "what is wrong with suggesting women be stay at home moms?"

After all, our society is so, so much better during the era of women putting careers ahead of family than we were when women raised their children first and worked after. NOT.
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Why not encourage ALL kids to be the best they can be?

If they want to be a parent, then be the best parent.
If they want to be a doctor, then be the best doctor.
If they want to be an astronaut, then be the best astronaut.
If you want to be a mother, be the best mother you can be.
If you want to cure cancer, .....


But why single out females?
Unless you're an ignorant sexist jerk, why not encourage everybody, who's just getting out of high school, to strive to be the best at whatever choice they make?
 
ThePlayDrive said:
You're not addressing my actual point so I'll see if you can answer it honestly in question form.

Are the mother as caretaker and father as provider/protector stereotypical gender roles for women and men, respectively?


Don't put words in my mouth.
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As per the definition of stereotypical, which is generally understood to mean a given perception that is not always or even predominantly true, yes, I'll grant you that's the stereotypical view of the nuclear family - many of those stereotypes from the mid-50s on being fed by sitcom television all the way from Leave it to Beaver to more recent times - often, as a result of the feminest movement you had single mother families and working moms on television, and with Bill Cosby, you had an attempt at fighting the stereotype of the absent black father.

But again, for the last time, what the speaker was trying to do, in my view, was convince both young women and men to consider marriage and family to be worthy goals in life, even if society today doesn't value those roles as much as they once did or as much as they should. How this will work itself out in today's society will be tricky for many and may take many forms, such as stay at home dad's who work out of home while mom goes to the office or vice-versa. In some cases, it may take on the form of extended family, like grandparents, giving children care in the home while parents work.


To me he was making a call to young people to value marriage and family and not just sell their souls to the almighty dollar and material gain. It's a good message, in my view - others can differ - it's what makes life great.
 
Higgins86 said:
yes and you have yours...
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I have seen many very determined stay at home mothers in many areas of their lives and I'm not going to humor the idea they just did nothing but sit on their asses and take care of kids when many of them did not.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
The way guys like this fight against women working competitively, that's what they promote. Unfit and unmotivated people taking up a cause that isn't theirs.

But besides that, I said source of worth, not method of execution. Where do babies come from again?
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Really, you're out of your depth here since this is about women having children and we all know your slant on that subject.

Since you like to lecture men about not knowing what being pregnant is like and you're an expert on ridding your body of those parasite fetuses, maybe you don't have the knowledge to lecture us about knowing the value of being a stay at home mom, or even what being a mom would be like.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Yeah, my problem is that he didn't tell both the boys and girls in the audience that they could BOTH consider being stay at home parents or being the provider and protector. Had he done that, I wouldn't have a problem because I get the argument that family is important. But when you start encouraging young people to occupy stereotypical gender roles, you become a problem.
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You keep having a problem with something that isn't even a problem and had nothing to do with his point.

Anyway, mothers have traditionally stayed at home, but if we go even further back than that you would see that they were part providers and caretakers and spent a great deal of time more with their families than their male counterparts. His message was at best closer related to that role which came a great deal before this stay at home only role ever came to pass. Though he didn't say that either, now did he? Nope.

Really, I can't see how people can't understand what he said. It seem fairly obvious to me he just wanted people to put family first.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Really, you're out of your depth here since this is about women having children and we all know your slant on that subject.

Since you like to lecture men about not knowing what being pregnant is like and you're an expert on ridding your body of those parasite fetuses, maybe you don't have the knowledge to lecture us about knowing the value of being a stay at home mom, or even what being a mom would be like.
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I personally love when people only abort their children and then turn around and tell me all about what raising a child is like and exactly what is best for that child. Nothing is really as humorous as that.
 
Henrin said:
You keep having a problem with something that isn't even a problem and had nothing to do with his point.

Anyway, mothers have traditionally stayed at home, but if we go even further back than that you would see that they were part providers and caretakers and spent a great deal of time more with their families than their male counterparts. His message was at best closer related to that role which came a great deal before this stay at home only role ever came to pass. Though he didn't say that either, now did he? Nope.

Really, I can't see how people can't understand what he said. It seem fairly obvious to me he just wanted people to put family first.
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I laughed when I read the article on line concerning this thread. The idea that any of the females from this dump in Indiana are going to ever leave the aforementioned dump are zero and none, so why the speech ?......................
 
Bonzai said:
I laughed when I read the article on line concerning this thread. The idea that any of the females from this dump in Indiana are going to ever leave the aforementioned dump are zero and none, so why the speech ?......................
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Good evening Bonz - gotta throw a flag on that one - not everyone can live in La La Land far away from reality.
 
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CanadaJohn said:
Good evening Bonz - gotta throw a flad on that one - not everyone can live in La La Land far away from reality.
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This was a speech given by an ideologue to stroke their own ideological proclivities. Having grown up in a similar dump in New England, I think it would have been more appropriate to give a speech regarding the fact that spraying a shaken, warm soda up one's genital tract postcoitus is not an effective means of birth control, though it may be marginally effective against STDs..................
 
Dragonfly said:
Why not encourage ALL kids to be the best they can be?

If they want to be a parent, then be the best parent.
If they want to be a doctor, then be the best doctor.
If they want to be an astronaut, then be the best astronaut.
If you want to be a mother, be the best mother you can be.
If you want to cure cancer, .....


But why single out females?
Unless you're an ignorant sexist jerk, why not encourage everybody, who's just getting out of high school, to strive to be the best at whatever choice they make?
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Please google your local area for reading and comprehension classes. After completing them, return here, read the article and the thread, if you find something that has not already been addressed numerous times, then feel free to ask. Otherwise, "piss off" or no response at all will be the correct and most likely response for those, like you, who seem to be suffering from "did not ****ing read" syndrome.
 
CanadaJohn said:
But again, for the last time, what the speaker was trying to do, in my view, was convince both young women and men to consider marriage and family to be worthy goals in life, even if society today doesn't value those roles as much as they once did or as much as they should. How this will work itself out in today's society will be tricky for many and may take many forms, such as stay at home dad's who work out of home while mom goes to the office or vice-versa. In some cases, it may take on the form of extended family, like grandparents, giving children care in the home while parents work.
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See, I thought your first post was more on the ball. The problem, as you yourself had stated, was he didn't frame it evenly, even when he tried to reassure critics of his intentions. Normally when you (not you, ​CJ, the speaker in question) clarify your point that your critics have it wrong, you're more or less supposed to give a better follow-through.
 
Fiddytree said:
See, I thought your first post was more on the ball. The problem, as you yourself had stated, was he didn't frame it evenly, even when he tried to reassure critics of his intentions. Normally when you (not you, ​CJ, the speaker in question) clarify your point that your critics have it wrong, you're more or less supposed to give a better follow-through.
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And no one wants to tell me why it needs to be entirely equal. Everyone has all but avoided that question even if I have asked it many times now.
 
CanadaJohn said:
As per the definition of stereotypical, which is generally understood to mean a given perception that is not always or even predominantly true, yes, I'll grant you that's the stereotypical view of the nuclear family - many of those stereotypes from the mid-50s on being fed by sitcom television all the way from Leave it to Beaver to more recent times - often, as a result of the feminest movement you had single mother families and working moms on television, and with Bill Cosby, you had an attempt at fighting the stereotype of the absent black father.
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Thank you. The bold is the acknowledgement I was looking for.

But again, for the last time, what the speaker was trying to do, in my view, was convince both young women and men to consider marriage and family to be worthy goals in life, even if society today doesn't value those roles as much as they once did or as much as they should. How this will work itself out in today's society will be tricky for many and may take many forms, such as stay at home dad's who work out of home while mom goes to the office or vice-versa. In some cases, it may take on the form of extended family, like grandparents, giving children care in the home while parents work.

To me he was making a call to young people to value marriage and family and not just sell their souls to the almighty dollar and material gain. It's a good message, in my view - others can differ - it's what makes life great.
Click to expand...
You're right, he did make a call to value marriage and family rather than materialism. You are, however, ignoring the significance of how he chose to do that. He chose to do that - not by encouraging the students to value family in a variety ways - but instead by encouraging them to occupy traditional gender roles. Ultimately, you are focusing on his overall message while downplaying the way he chose to express it.

Oh and I agree that the overall message of valuing family and not just material gain is a positive one. That's not the issue. The issue, again, is how he went about promoting that message - by only speaking of valuing family in terms of stereotypical gender roles that limit both men and women.
 
Henrin said:
And no one wants to tell me why it needs to be entirely equal. Everyone has all but avoided that question even if I have asked it many times now.
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We're missing out on some great minds and great leaders if we relegate them to the private sphere. How much more utilitarian can you get than that, Henrin?
 
CanadaJohn said:
Really, you're out of your depth here since this is about women having children and we all know your slant on that subject.

Since you like to lecture men about not knowing what being pregnant is like and you're an expert on ridding your body of those parasite fetuses, maybe you don't have the knowledge to lecture us about knowing the value of being a stay at home mom, or even what being a mom would be like.
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Hilarious how you criticized me for how I spoke to you, but you speak this way to Smoke. Really nasty stuff, here, CJ.
 
Fiddytree said:
We're missing out on some great minds and great leaders if we relegate them to the private sphere. How much more utilitarian can you get than that, Henrin?
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Is that maximizing your potential for society, or simply allowing one to slack to get more out of the other?
 
So, it was politically incorrect...

ThePlayDrive said:
Thank you. The bold is the acknowledgement I was looking for.


You're right, he did make a call to value marriage and family rather than materialism. You are, however, ignoring the significance of how he chose to do that. He chose to do that - not by encouraging the students to value family in a variety ways - but instead by encouraging them to occupy traditional gender roles. Ultimately, you are focusing on his overall message while downplaying the way he chose to express it.

Oh and I agree that the overall message of valuing family and not just material gain is a positive one. That's not the issue. The issue, again, is how he went about promoting that message - by only speaking of valuing family in terms of stereotypical gender roles that limit both men and women.
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Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Board Express
 
CanadaJohn said:
Really, you're out of your depth here since this is about women having children and we all know your slant on that subject.

Since you like to lecture men about not knowing what being pregnant is like and you're an expert on ridding your body of those parasite fetuses, maybe you don't have the knowledge to lecture us about knowing the value of being a stay at home mom, or even what being a mom would be like.
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I would say that makes me imminently qualified. You don't go along life as a childfree woman without having everyone and their mother try to talk you down from it.

Being the introspective type, I have frequently given each of those arguments a lot of thought. My total lack of desire to take up the cause of parenthood gives me a lot of mental freedom to observe what people who parent when they didn't really want to are actually like.

Not only do they ruin their own lives, but they usually ruin the lives of their children as well.

I'm not lecturing anyone about the value of anything. I'm rejecting the notion that other people get to tell you what your source of value is.
 
Fiddytree said:
See, I thought your first post was more on the ball. The problem, as you yourself had stated, was he didn't frame it evenly, even when he tried to reassure critics of his intentions. Normally when you (not you, ​CJ, the speaker in question) clarify your point that your critics have it wrong, you're more or less supposed to give a better follow-through.
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My first post was directed more at the OP content which only had the references to young women and didn't have the full content of the commencement speech which another poster informed me addressed the need of young men to also forget about chasing the big job and wealth and be dedicated to your wife and children. That's why I expanded on it - but that may be a fault of the author of the article posted more so than the commencement speaker.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Thank you. The bold is the acknowledgement I was looking for.


You're right, he did make a call to value marriage and family rather than materialism. You are, however, ignoring the significance of how he chose to do that. He chose to do that - not by encouraging the students to value family in a variety ways - but instead by encouraging them to occupy traditional gender roles. Ultimately, you are focusing on his overall message while downplaying the way he chose to express it.

Oh and I agree that the overall message of valuing family and not just material gain is a positive one. That's not the issue. The issue, again, is how he went about promoting that message - by only speaking of valuing family in terms of stereotypical gender roles that limit both men and women.
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I don't think he did that, but certainly the author quoted in the OP took it that way and focused the piece only on the advice given the young women, but that's why it's an opinion piece and not reporting. And I appreciate your point of view - I just don't see it as "an issue" so much as the way each person may view the words from their own perspective.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Hilarious how you criticized me for how I spoke to you, but you speak this way to Smoke. Really nasty stuff, here, CJ.
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It's not nasty, it's exactly how she speaks to those who oppose her views on any abortion related issue. On abortion, no one who doesn't have a vagina is allowed to have an opinion.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
I would say that makes me imminently qualified. You don't go along life as a childfree woman without having everyone and their mother try to talk you down from it.

Being the introspective type, I have frequently given each of those arguments a lot of thought. My total lack of desire to take up the cause of parenthood gives me a lot of mental freedom to observe what people who parent when they didn't really want to are actually like.

Not only do they ruin their own lives, but they usually ruin the lives of their children as well.

I'm not lecturing anyone about the value of anything. I'm rejecting the notion that other people get to tell you what your source of value is.
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Seems to me you just pretty much dissed every woman who chooses to be a stay at home mom because they "not only ruined their own lives, they usually ruin the lives of their children as well". That's a pretty sad view of life and love and family.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Seems to me you just pretty much dissed every woman who chooses to be a stay at home mom because they "not only ruined their own lives, they usually ruin the lives of their children as well". That's a pretty sad view of life and love and family.
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Reading comprehension. You should try it. That's not what she said. :roll:
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Oh and I agree that the overall message of valuing family and not just material gain is a positive one. That's not the issue. The issue, again, is how he went about promoting that message - by only speaking of valuing family in terms of stereotypical gender roles that limit both men and women.
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For some of us, that set of roles IS the way we see family and traditional lifestyles being valued, TPD.
 
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