[Info-vax] HP stopping VMS paper documentation ?

[Kenneth Fairfield]

On Thursday, December 22, 2011 9:53:15 AM UTC-8, Bob Koehler wrote:
> In article <qembs8-... at news.sture.ch>, Paul Sture 
>  writes:
> 
> > Another change is the number 
> > of women in the workforce.  When I was young, the only married women on 
> > our road who worked were a couple of teachers and one nurse. 
> 
>    Prior to WW II, women in the workforce in the US were:
>       teachers
>       nurses
>       imigrants working in sweat shops
>    and none of them paid well.
> 
>    When the all changed during WW II the idea was:  help out for now,
>    and you can go back to home life when the war is over.
> 
>    Women found they didn't want to go back home.  But the pay issue is
>    still being worked.

I think if you look at the history, you'll find that in the '50s, they *did* go back home.  In fact, if you look at pre-war movies, I think you'll find many cases of women in the workforce (roles played by Katherine Hepburn come to mind).  But there was an about face in this country wrt to women post WWII vividly reflected in TV and the movies throughout the '50s and '60s.  Women were quite constrained to the role of "homemaker" *post* WWII.

While the women's movement(s) of the '70s and after brought workplace inequality into public view, it was really economics that have led to the increase of women in the workforce.  When was the last time you heard of being able to raise a family of four on a single earner's income, with a middle class job?  Wages have stagnated since over the past 30 years (as wage inequality has increased past that present in the early 20th century, the "Gilded Age").  

I'm not arguing about whether women want to be in the home or working: I consider myself a feminist and made sure my daughter had all the tools she needed to pursue whatever career she wanted (she's now a professor at the London School of Economics).  

[BTW, I grew up in the '50s and '60s, and witnessed the birth of the women's movement: a huge part of it was a reaction to the strict gender stereotypes promulgated during the post-war period.  By contrast, my grandmother was the breadwinner in my mother's family, and owned and ran a small coffee shop from the late '30s until she passed away in the mid'60s.]

I am arguing your suggestion that, having worked (in factories, etc.) during WWII, "women found they didn't want to go back home."
I don't believe that's the correct explanation, not at all.

   -Ken