‘We don’t want this stimulus package to just create jobs for burly men.’
Here's Christina Hoff Sommers on the dogged and successful opposition of NOW and other feminist groups to Obama's "shovel-ready" stimulus plan that would have rehabilitated the nation's transportation and communications infrastructures while creating jobs (The Weekly Standard, 6/29/09). What was the problem? Why would anyone oppose a plan that did two things that unquestionably need doing? The plan emphasized men's jobs, that's why.
You may as well print out Sommers' article and keep it in your wallet. The next time someone tries to peddle the 'feminism is about gender equality' line to you, you'll have it handy.
By late last year, we knew that about 80% of job losses in the economy's precipitous plunge were incurred by men. Housing starts were cratering and with them all the construction and construction-related jobs. Over 90% of those jobs are held by men. Meanwhile, jobs held mostly by women, like those in education and health care were pretty recession-proof. After all, schools and hospitals weren't closing their doors.
So it made sense for Obama's stimulus plan to heavily promote job creation in areas in which jobs had been lost. It made sense, that is, to everyone but NOW, the Feminist Majority, the Institute for Women's Policy Research and the National Women's Law Center, who screamed bloody murder.
And, to his everlasting discredit, President Obama caved in. The stimulus plan, in it's feminist incarnation, channels about 42% of its funds towards women's jobs and 58% towards men's. Given that only about 20% of jobs have been lost by women, that means women are getting over twice the benefit men are getting.
And the feminists are ecstatic. As Sommers reports, former NOW president Kim Gandy could scarcely contain her glee, describing the final package as a "happily-ever-after stimulus story" (did she think about that locution at all?).
But I wonder if everyday women share feminists' elation. By "everyday women," I mean those who depend, in whole or in part, on men to pay the rent and put food on the table. I mean the wives and daughters of carpenters, electricians, plumbers, roofers, drywallers, tilers, etc. who, because of their "sisters'" politically-effective misandry, now have to work longer hours and go without.
And that's just on the micro-level. Things don't look so good on the macro level either which should come as no surprise. The feminist stimulus plan promotes jobs in sectors in which there's been little-to-no job loss while under-stimulating jobs in sectors where there's been plenty. The result? Over 627,000 were added to the ranks of the newly unemployed last week as this article shows (The New York Times, 6/25/09). Misandry turns out to be bad economics too.
Even for the anti-male crowd, this has got to be a new low.
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