Twitter Moment

[Valka D'Ur]

I oftenly hear stories that you could even get an office job with just a high school diploma, unlike today where you see the minimum job requirement is a four year college degree plus a minumum of a year or two experience (EVEN FOR AN ENTRY LEVEL POSITION!!).

Another personal anecdote.

My parents married in the fall of 1960, the day before my mother's 17th birthday. So she was still 16 when she married (no, it was not a shotgun wedding as some of her gossiping "aunties" whispered around the family); I wasn't born for another 3 years and I have no siblings).

My mother never finished high school. She had a Grade 10 education and quit school as soon as she was legally able to (age 16).

There are reasons, of course, some of which I started to figure out but were confirmed by my aunt after my mother died. My mother was trying to escape an abusive situation at home, so an early marriage ASAP made sense to her. My dad was 25 at the time, and they moved onto the acreage where my grandparents were already living.

My grandmother expected my mother to be a "proper housewife" but my mother wanted to have a job. Good luck with anything decent, being 2 years underage and no high school diploma.

So she took a bookkeeping course through a local secretarial school. That got her in the door to bookkeeping jobs at a car dealership, a motel (started out doing laundry and cleaning there but they promoted her when they found out she could do bookkeeping), and a hotel doing front desk work and bookkeeping. Then she got fired for "not being bubbly enough" and her job was given to a 20-year-younger woman with a fraction of the experience. My mother took them to court and won.

She didn't go back there, though. The last job she had before the cancer took over was as a clerk at a convenience store that also had gas pumps.

My mother and grandparents clashed on a number of things. My grandmother expected that after the divorce that my mother would return to live with her parents and use her maiden name. My mother refused on both counts.

So while my mother did have a variety of low-paid jobs for awhile (clerking in a clothing store was in there somewhere and she tried selling AmWay), that one secretarial course was enough to let her have jobs where she could learn as she went along, and either get promoted or get a higher level of responsibility when she changed jobs.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

If it doesn't exist, why does it crop up in Wikipedia and google searches?

Lots of stuff crops up in Wikipedia and on Google that doesn't exist. UFOs for one

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Lots of stuff crops up in Wikipedia and on Google that doesn't exist. UFOs for one

Well, UFOs do exist, just not the abducting sort

 

[choxorn]

If it doesn't exist, why does it crop up in Wikipedia and google searches?

I don't mean that it doesn't exist in the sense that there isn't anyone using the term, it's that, generally speaking, what they're using it for is either describing something that doesn't exist (or at least doesn't exist in any significant sense), or the things they're describing are just "third wave feminism but it's on the internet now"

Also it's one of those things where it often gets nebulously used to describe whatever the speaker doesn't like, which prevents it from having any sort of coherent or useful definition, which is... kinda how you're using right now, just as a general "feminism stuff I don't like" descriptor.

 

[Narz]

users expressed a desire for a girlfriend/wife that won't chirp and nag at them with feminist and woke social justice talking points.

These guys are too online. Most people are not like that irl. Iirc the % young women who identify as feminists have been on the decline for years.

As in politics the divisive extremes get attention online but IRL almost no one is comparing privilege or calling someone a bro disparagingly.

As has been from the dawn of history women still want to get into relationships, it's easy to get discouraged on dating apps but becoming obsessed with woman won't help, the grass is always greener on the other side ("I want a wife and kids", "oh shoot I got a wife and kids I wish I was free")

Also it's one of those things where it often gets nebulously used to describe whatever the speaker doesn't like, which prevents it from having any sort of coherent or useful definition, which is... kinda how you're using right now, just as a general "feminism stuff I don't like" descriptor.

That's the same w "the manosphere" or any political label. People like to be able to dismissive large swaths of people that make them uncomfortable w a quick label.

 

[Arakhor]

Moderator Action: Policing people's spelling is a cheap shot. If it's clear and understandable, let it pass.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Putting aside the arbitrary constraints on women and minorities at the time, the analysis of the golden age of America fails to put into context properly the material conditions: a square foot of house in 1950 is, after adjusting for inflation, not that much different from today and you’re getting a better house (who had A/C in the fifties?) A loaf of bread is cheaper. Cars are cheaper, safer, more reliable. Standards of living have gone up, not down, when you look at the whole picture and not isolate it to nostalgia for times you weren’t even around in.

Yes, this is correct from my knowledge. You can simply look at life expectency, for most if not like all countries it have improved significantly between 1950 and 2023.

On incomes, the US with its high inequality tends to have high incomes at the top percentiles but lower incomes at the lower percentiles. Put crudely, the top 10% of Americans live like they're the Swiss top 10% but the bottom 10% like they are Slovenian.

That's the result of a very steep income gradient among developed countries, the incomes rise or fall faster across the percentiles.

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It is pretty flawed given it don't take account for thing like social costs and how many hours people work, both would make USA look even worse than it do and Switzerland being that high also don't make any sense given its productivity per hour using OCED numbers is about the same as countries like Denmark or Sweden. The only thing I say it get right is the inequality. Here is productivity adjusted for purchasing power per hour https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm

Like if Sweden had USA system of taxes, pension and workhours bottom 10% salary would be at something like $50k, median about $70-80k, average $90k and top 10% like $125k adjusted for purchasing power.

Here you can get an idea just how unequal USA actually is https://www.bls.gov/ecec/factsheets/compensation-percentile-estimates.htm