So I think the best approach is to not assume anything at all, but open the doors, educate, show all possibilities and let people decide, trusting them that seeing what opportunities they have, they will overcome family pressure if they want to.
I've repeatedly said that we shouldn't make assumptions. But if you think that people can easily overcome family and peer pressure if they want to enough, you are wrong. It's the same logic that says people can be whatever they want to be if they are ambitious enough, try hard enough, work hard enough. It is a fallacy.
Me making it through the education system as a deaf person, ending up in a good job and highly qualified, does not in any way at all mean that any other deaf kid can grow up and achieve the same, no matter how much they want to.
cases where men themselves push their partners to get or return to a job after giving birth, in order to have two salaries in the house.
If women were paid fairly and there was no gender pay gap then the choices would be far more equal for men and women. The fact that society no longer assumes that women must stay at home and look after the men and children, is not to blame for pressures on both parents to work. Giving women access to the labour market has not been done on equal terms to men, which has resulted in women disproportionately being underpaid for the work they do and for being more likely to end up in low security, low income jobs. That is why the pay gap needs to be reduced and for flexible working to become more widely available. If a household needs two salaries, that's a more general issue - house prices are too high, cost of living has gone up. It's really expensive being single, I wouldn't mind another income contributing to paying the bills and I have a good salary and no kids. Ad astra per aspera
I do believe people must believe they can do it. I just love this american slogan, it worked for me, as I went myself against the current practically my whole life, and I do think it is good for the spirit. OTOH I am also fully in favour of laws against unfair inequalities, absolutely. Many times people just can't make it by themselves (even if they should believe this, as it can be a fantastic force of propulsion, and of hope - does this remind you of anyone in particular, btw? :) ).
The other issue you quote me about, was not about gender gap. What I'm saying is that far from jobs opening to women as a civil right fallen from the sky, women were practically pushed into working, after WW2! Men are pushing them into it (sometimes even against some deep longing to spend half one's life at work), not from some special respect for gender equality, but from purely pecuniary reasons! And even sometimes, far from being due to high cost of life, it is from pure refusal of "excessive" involvement, and even responsibility. Just as is the case with the life expectancy numbers and work stress statistics, which show men are much more vulnerable today, rather than privileged from those superb opportunities of which women would be kept out. All this shows these issues are far more complicated than just a question of access and rights. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
This is not the subject here, but I wanted to say that I think gender polarization is much stronger in the south. But maybe my experience is subjective. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
The being pushed bit was the fact that women were working and thus in the public sphere/world of work, gender roles were shifting. But there was no comparable shift in gender roles in the home. Women were working more and still doing all the household chores and looking after the children as they did before, and men were still doing what men always did which didn't generally include housekeeping.
So assuming that this change of women in the labour market is irreversible (for reasons of economy and choice) the gender equality bit comes in in paying women fairly and encouraging fairer sharing of roles in the home.
ValentinD:
does this remind you of anyone in particular, btw?
Are you referring to me? I have guts and an iron will to push myself forward and I'm glad I can be a role model but as I've got older I have realised that I have been so very lucky to land in the right places at the right times. My life could so easily be very different through no fault of my own. Just thinking 'I can do it' and working towards that goal isn't enough. Trying to just take opportunities doesn't work, you need to be given them sometimes. You have to hope that somebody will give you an opportunity that you should just be able to take, like anyone else would, but you can't because of discrimination. Ad astra per aspera
It's not something one can regulate, but I hope it continues. You can't be me, I'm taken
