Women working nowadays not by choice

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amother

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 2:02 pm

I'm sure this has probably been discussed buy my daughter asked my husband (she's 7) why do women work if it's the curse that men get, women got the curse of the pain of having babies so why do they also work.

what would you answer?

amother

PlumPink

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 2:04 pm

What a smart kid. Very Happy

I would probably say because adults have to do things they don't like to do. And some women do want to work.

amother

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 2:07 pm

I was quiet waiting to hear what my husband would say. I'm a SAHM and he feels very strongly that it's his responsibility to support us. He tried to explain to her that some people choose to work and that's different then being forced to work. He compared it to kids being sent to their room while she'll often choose to hang out in her room because she likes hanging out there.

The thing is that there are plenty of women who work not because they want to but because they have to. I'm pretty sure my daughter called my husband out on that but not sure if she did and if she did don't remember what he said.

but yeah that's why I specifically specified "not by choice" Wink

and yes she is "K"H a very bright little child. She wants to be a scientist when she grows up Wink

#BestBubby

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 2:08 pm

Because this generation has a double curse.

(and yes, because of the high standard of livings, luxuries - some of are doing it to ourselves)

amother

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 2:10 pm

but men don't have the curse of hard pregnancies, I'm pretty sure my dd also questioned the fact that men can't "choose" to get pregnant so how come it only works one way. again I was just in the room. plan to ask my dh and/or daughter exactly about the conversation but for not just curious people's thoughts.

keym

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 2:16 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Take 2 men. 1 man's wife has easy pregnancies and easy recovery.
The 2nd mans wife has horrible HG I'm which she's essentially hospitalized the entire pregnancy and then horrible recoveries.
The 2nd man has to absorb a lot more of the "pain of childbirth" because his wife is limited in her capabilities.

I see it similar. A woman who works because her husband can't cover everything is just helping the spouse more.

This doesn't touch kollel which is a different conversation.

amother

Topaz

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 2:23 pm

1) Because it's a different world from what it used to be.
2) Because many women actually want to go to work.
3) Because there's the relatively new phenomenon called "kollel", which basically forces women to work in order for their families to live.

#BestBubby

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 2:24 pm

Some might say that "work" is not as bad a curse as it used to be.

Most people work sitting down in comfortable heated/A/C offices.

In the past "work" meant "hard physical labor".
Both Men and Women were saved from this curse.

my_sunshine

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 2:28 pm

Work today is not at all as hard as it was 1000 years ago, not for men and not for women. Work no longer means plowing the field and digging and all the other back breaking work of years ago.... I think that makes a difference.

Historically women joined the workforce at around the time of the Industrial Revolution.

amother

Lightgray

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 2:34 pm

Maybe because today men can technically choose to be a mom or dad, and claim to have periods and birth babies and turn into women, and men couples raising babies, so we women were cursed with the men’s curse too😉

Never thought of it this way...

sky

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 2:35 pm

My great grandmother worked 1000% harder then I do
Washing clothing and drawing baths with no running water or heat or hot water. .
Firing up the fire in the morning with firewood. For cooking and heat.
Warming up the beds at night.
Baking bread from scratch daily.
Kasher and cleaning chickens from the farm.
Sewing all the family clothing.
Preparing dowry trunks for her many daughters.
Traveling many hours in harsh conditions to buy basic supplies.
Planting and tending a vegetable garden for their food.

Compared to her I’m a women of leisure.
I mean I work at a desk in a comfortable chair with heat and AC. Get paid a salary.
I don’t feel especially cursed.

Aurora

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 3:27 pm

Women have always done work. It just might not have been paid work out of the house. And a lot of women worked as maids, laundresses, seamstresses, kept chickens, etc, etc.

And while labor is really painful, we do have epidurals and things like that.

This also reminded me of a really cool science fact. Humans have hugely different menstrual cycles than other mammals - we're almost the only ones who have periods, and have the weirdest kind of embryonic implantation. What if the curse of Chava isn't just about labor? What if it's about how humans have a different kind of reproductive system than other mammals? (Makes excited science Torah noises - I hope I'm not the only one who thinks this is SO COOL)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/q.....057a3
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29530426/
https://eusci.org.uk/2020/04/0.....iods/

Maybe the curse was a fundamental change - that women then had different anatomy (comparatively) and that men, and humans had a culture that had work, and made cooked food and bread? Through most of history, men tended to be the heavier earners (always exceptions, but it was usually men doing heavy labor)

amother

Poppy

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 3:39 pm

many women are forced to work and not bec of luxuries ...but for basics why?

bec for some reason, hashem decided that my dh wont be successful such that his salary alone doesnt cover basics, and, yes, to me working is a curse, id rather do the "work" of only being a mom/household chores than going to my job to earn $.

isnt it up to hashem(talking about the women who have no choice)? and, why did hashem decide I must work to supplement our income? nobpody knows.

youve got one smart 7 yr old asking these questions bliayinhara!

causemommysaid

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 3:56 pm

Today is such a different world than when the curses were given.

Women labor in safe hospitals with medication and the best care. There are meds for nausea, iv for hg, comfortable beds, food, and air conditioning to ease the discomfort of pregnancy and childbirth.

There is also a much lower mortality rate for mom and baby than there used to be. Women used to not know if they would survive childbirth.

In addition, most men aren't laboring in a field with the sun beating down. Neither will their family starve to death if the crops don't grow right. They are usually sitting in an office sending emails and grumbling at their coworkers.

Both of our curses have lessened to some extent.

In addition, while many women work, many men take on childcare responsibility. They have to pitch in when their wife isn't well etc.

In the olden days they couldn't stay home and help in a crisis. They either worked the field or the family starved.

imorethanamother

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 4:54 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

So I think this has been badly misunderstood. Women were not cursed to work in THE FIELD. Not "not work", period. Working the land is an extremely labor intensive job, something that most women, being either pregnant or having just given birth, were not equipped to do.

However, Shlomo Hamelech clearly outlined in his Eishes Chayil that women working was not a foreign concept. She managed the money, she invested in ships, she sewed clothing and curtains.

Right now, some of the hardest menial labor in the world is almost exclusively managed by men. Oil rigs, mining, smelting, non-machine agriculture, etc.

I don't look at women working as a negative thing or something that I'm forced into. I'm proud to work, I'm proud of my education, my job gives me lots of satisfaction that I would not otherwise have. I love my children, but being a SAHM would have sent me to the looney bin from boredom.

If your daughter wants to be a scientist, encourage it! We need more women in STEM!

Amarante

Fri, Jan 28 2022, 5:14 pm

my_sunshine wrote:

Women actually worked incredibly hard prior to the Industrial Revolution. Up to that time almost no one went out to work because there weren’t factories but woman labored mightily and the household wouldn’t have survived without the labor of women. It might not have been tilling the fields but all of the household chores were physically demanding. Also women assisted men who had small businesses and some women ran businesses of some kind even earlier than the 20th century.

It was with the rise of industrialization that the cult of true womanhood started with this fiction that women were delicate creatures who stayed at home while men worked. To some extent that was true but really on for for the upper and prosperous middle class who could afford cheap household help. Poor woman worked at textile mills and wives of farmers were still critical to run the farm.

ETA - I was quite interested in the history of women and "housework" and read some books on the subject of how "woman's work" and the role of housework in the home changed historically. The most hated household chore was laundry prior to the advent of home washing machines and dryers after WW II. Laundry was the first household chore that was sent out to be done and even relatively poor (I.e. working class women) would have someone else do it or send it out to be done by the earliest commercial laundries which employed the poorest of the poor wretched women who couldn't find better jobs.

Last edited by Amarante on Sun, Jan 30 2022, 11:05 am; edited 1 time in total

mom!

Sat, Jan 29 2022, 7:08 pm

keym wrote:

So well written! This post really resonated with me!

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