Tom Martin please note. (Not that he will.)
When the U.S. Census Bureau released the latest poverty statistics this week, the news was predictably bleak—or at least the news that people were given. But there was a little something the major media omitted from their coverage.
That minor detail? Half the population.
The larger half.
And when it comes to the latest economic data on women, the news is even worse than most people seem to realize. But you couldn’t learn that by reading The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, neither of which even mentioned women in their front-page stories about the rise in the poverty rate, which has soared to its highest level since 1993.
Yes but what about the menz?
Broken Link?
I think she means here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/14/u-s-women-hit-hardest-by-poverty-says-census-report.html
Whoops, sorry. The link inside the story: http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2011/09/13/u-s-poverty-rate-jumps-to-1-in-6.html
Perhaps these women are overfunding that conspiracy to oppress poor little defenceless men
No, you don’t understand
If the media reported this, they would have to say something bad about women, like they’re poor, underpaid and without health insurance. And the media only say nice things about women, so that’s part of the feminist conspiracy, somehow
Over here in the UK, there has been a lot of coverage of how the unemployment statistics are worse for women them for men.
(I haven’t been keeping up with poverty-line statistics, which may mean they are generally not reported here and should be, or that I missed it in the onslaught of info I run into every day.)
It’s rather unfortunate that the banner ad I see today at B&W is a big flashy colored ad for a dating agency. Presumably USA-ians aren’t seeing it, as it features a British flag.
Also unfortunate that the ads in the brave new world of B&W being a Freethought blog are much bigger than the headline of the blog, and in fact *look* like a blog header. So today, the whole B&W site looks like a dating site. Not good!
Huh. I have Adblock on Firefox, so I (blissfully) don’t see any of the ads.
Well, of course.
The poverty rate for women will decline when they stop trying to earn livings for themselves and their children. If they simply remembered, and understood, that they can and will be provided for if they find a help meet to look after them, their worries would be over.
So they’ve brought their problems on themselves.
The employment situation in Britain is more complex, as this consideration of ONS data on male and female unemployment rates indicates:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mary-dejevsky/mary-dejevsky-lets-not-fight-this-gender-war-2041718.html
Among other things, women in Britain were far less likely to be dismissed than men in the wake of the GFC, in part because men are more expensive, but also because the old gender perception has switched: women are now seen as more reliable employees than men.
In minority immigrant communities, the effect is even more stark, with women often the only members of a given family employed.
some data
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm:
Oops, sorry about broken link.
Hmm…I have a Christian dating service ad on my screen. “Date Christian Girls” The girl in the ad looks a little slutty, in a 1960s, white-lipstick kind of way, though. What a head-scratcher, LOL!
Yeah what about the men?
I did a few google searches for percentages of men in influential positions in American society…
House of Representatives: 82.5%
Senate: 83.0%
Supreme Court: 66.6%
Fortune 1000 CEOs: 96.7%
Fortune 1000 company board seats (2009): 89%
Fortune 500 CEOs: 97.2%
Fortune 500 company board seats (2010): 84.3%
College Presidents (2006): 77.0%
Full Professors (2006): 76%
I wasn’t able to find numbers on bishops and NGO chairmen/presidents, but it’s not like that would change the general picture. Men are still doing a lot better than women. The US could still objectively be described as a patriarchal society.
(Of course I googled the percentages of women and subtracted those from 100%.)
Useful, Rasmus.
I think you’ve just found me my undergraduate research project.