\ Its shocking that we never ratified the ERA back in the 70s. Women still dont earn the same as men for equal work.
While i agree with most of your post... this "fact" is simply bullshit.
It is a feminist slanted piece of propaganda that fails to analyze real earnings versus time worked. And totally disregards the true picture of actual spending power.
The fact is that income is a function of investment and return.
Personnel managers are faced with the statistics concerning employment that clearly show that women are not often as good a risk for a position as men, and therefore are worth less in absolute dollars.
The reason for this is that women are split... for every woman who really is a career focused go getter with long term ambitions, there is a woman who will claim to be so, but will, in fact, significantly interrupt her working career to have babies, or ultimately quit to become a stay at home mom, or, ultimately, turn down advancement her career has prepared her for because they make demands that she feels will impair her family life.
And employers have no way of telling the career focused women from those who start out career focused, but who will become more family focused over the next few years.
So the women who really are career focused are undermined in their labor value by women who decide to put other considerations first.
But this is a real effect that accountants can quantify and is why women earn less on average. Its not how qualified you are NOW.... its about your long term prospects for a company that is investing in building your proficiency and experience, only to find you taking maternity, leave, and 25% of the time, never even coming back.
Whereas men, who do not really have the stay at home option ( women do not find it attractive... ) generally keep at a career until they die, or retire.
Beyond this, there is other real inequity in costs both genders incur. Women STILL get out of tickets more often than men, pay for diners out and entertainment less often than men, and derive the benefit of survival inheritance more often than men.
In particular... women in relationships with men in the US generally control the majority of the spending ( why advertising is aimed at women )
They may earn .73 cents to a man's dollar... but they pretty much have the checkbook to the whole $1.73.
Women control much of the actual spending activity in the US.
In short, despite the gains in more equal treatment, the culture still cuts very largely to the benefit of women.
ANd women who do pursue the big masculine style career, are beginning to suffer the "benefits" than men have for so long enjoyed as all their own... stress related illness and shorter lifespans.
As to emasculation.... the culture has become SO feminized and everything male become SO derided, that it is very difficult to even find a positive representation of masculinity in the culture...
On TV the women are all take charge and competent, and the men are all hopeless doofi, or criminals and autocrats suffering from personality disorders.
The proliferation of political correctness... which is a feminist agenda of 'talking nice', the imposition of unworkable and shifting "harassment" politics and 'sensitivity' ( suggestive talk from an executive women tend to see as 'banter' and the same talk from some flunkie is seen as harassment ) has created a climate in which male perspectives are discounted...
However... when it comes to relationship, women STILL prefer a masculine man, who provides, even tho there is no acceptable arena for them to demonstrate those qualities.
Women, however, have become, in general, very difficult... with a lot of demands on men, no real acceptance of their ideas... men, in their own homes, often are given the impression that they can not say anything and be right, can not do anything correctly, and can not be trusted nor counted on for anything.
And all this leaves men not knowing what is expected of them... and with the feeling that their perspectives and experience is not valued, and worthless.
It is a normal reaction, when trying to change the status quo, to demonize the powers that be... but the feminist movement went way too far, and has persisted in presenting themselves, not as equals, but as fundementally better than men in every regard.
And when you raise boys with this undercurrent of low expectation, and assumption of their being doofus fuckarounds...
well... what you end up with is that, if they are going to be convicted, no matter what they do... they might as well be guilty.
My friend's wife from Germany summed it up best when, having lived in the US for 8 years, she observed that... "American men treat their women like gold, and American women treat their men like shit".
Its sad... but most relationships that I know that are in trouble, are in trouble because the woman can not muster any respect for her own man.
( only a few are because the guy is a stellar fuckup- which again, is a function of a society that can no longer state clearly what a man is expected to be)
On the plus side... I have been meeting more young women, lately, that seem to have a post feminist sense that women are just as likely to be the problem as men are... who actually can admit when they are wrong, and that a man can sometimes be right...
So, maybe, in ten or fifteen years, these young women will raise a crop of daughters and sons who have a truly more balanced view of gender.
neither the "all men are cheaters and idiots" perspective of the 80s and 90s
Nor the 'All women are idiots and ornaments" perspective of the 50s and 60s.
But I can say, that raising boys to become decent men in the last 30 years was a supreme challenge.