On females

[Rhyfelwyr]

You are aware that one of the early driving forces for women on the workplace were male unemployment? As in the male unemployment came first, causing men to marry later, -> women marries later and their middle class dad can't support them for that long.

Unemployemnt compared to the workforce is quite a bit more complex than a simple ratio.

All of which is of course obvious. The problem is that solutions to short-term problems (eg the need for women to work in factories during WWI) have been applied to wider society on a much longer term basis when it simply wasn't ready for it. Particular economic 'blips' aside, we had an economy based on one-income households. If two people from certain households get jobs, then that is going to result in households where nobody works.

As Philipvs said, it's a class issue, and that's why I always think it strange that self-identifying socialists should rejoice in the situation.

Of course, we then get a situation where the disgruntled working-class men are dubbed sexist for pointing out this issue, in much the same way they are dubbed racist for pointing out the impact of immigration on jobs. I will grant that often they are sexist and racist, but that is really just a knee-jerk way of expressing real grievances.

For all the talk about racism and sexism keeping the masses down, in a rather roundabout way, we've got to the stage where anti-racism, anti-sexism and the like are actually used by mainstream, middle-class society to demonize the underclass and justify their wealth by their moral superiority.

As I said - some merit - but the counter point is that if women didn't work or go to university, our universities would not be the same size as they are now, and not all men would have a degree.

I rarely hear positive things about universities and social mobility these days, so I question this as a counter-argument.