I think what kombat was referring to, by saying 'But it is.' was that, in 2 parent homes, there still exist far more households where the father is the single breadwinner than the converse. From your data source, this is still true today (of married households with children under 18 years old, 30.5% father employed, not mother--4.8% mother employed, not father).

...

oh, my.

i fail to see where pf blogs are based on any assumption of where the income is coming from or who earns it. maybe it's just me.

one day we will be a two-earner household with children, and i will be the one who makes the bigger paycheck. this was made possible partly because my husband supported me, knowing that we would both benefit from my education in the future. we are both totally ok with that income arrangement. but i see a lot of couples who met in college or grad school, and so are in relatively equally matched fields with nearly equal education. in that case, it's almost certain that the women will make less money than the men in the same field. it's the way it still works, as sad as that is.

A few years is a blip in the general trend I was referring to. I don't normally look at macro-trends in years, but in decades. That's how much time I spend in database-land

I live in Massachusetts. I had to go by the moustache and beard in the photo. (And yes that is a joke. I'm proud to live in a state where any two consenting adults can legally commit to each other.)

In some cases I do think a feminine approach to PF is important, but only in regards to women who have the "someday my prince will come" syndrome. I know women whose financial plan is a man. I've skimmed some PF books that emphasize the importance of women taking an active role in financial planning, and including planning in case that man doesn't come along, doesn't have money of his own, or leaves along with the income stream.

RE: stay at home parents, my husband stayed at home for a year with our kids. Honestly I see why men love the situation. When I came home at night the house was clean, the laundry was folded, the kids were sitting with their hands folded, and dinner was on the table. Sweet!

LittleMissNoName, the phenomenon you describe is exactly what got me to start Feminist Finance--in my aggregator feed there were a tiresome number of posts that totally bought into messed up gender norms with regard to earning, spending, family decision making, etc. Sometimes it wasn't the posts themselves, but the commenters. Ugh, it got me so frustrated! I actually vented about it here. I never recall having had this problem with GRS, though, either from J.D. or in the comment threads I've perused, which I think speaks well of him and his burgeoning personal finance web empire

Anyway, I don't know whether Feminist Finance will be useful to you or not. I certainly hope so. I'm a new blogger, and welcome any suggestions you have for what you'd want to see in a feminist PF blog.

Ha, I live in Canada and have gay friends who are married, so I'm not sure why I said the mention of JD's wife clued me in. I guess because it is a US blog.

> Honestly I see why men love the situation. When I came home at night the house was clean,
> the laundry was folded, the kids were sitting with their hands folded, and dinner was on the table.

Wow, I'm at home with my kids all day. But I am not here to do all the housework. That gets split. I work in the evenings and on the weekends and during nap times, since I run my own company. I don't know anyone (mom or dad) who does all the housework and cooking before the other parent gets home. Most people I know have more balance. Kudos to your husband for finding a way!

I don't know of such a PF site, but would be interested in same.

I get annoyed by the stay at home mom stuff too (and it has come up a few times on GRS, not so much from JD but in the comments). I also think there are personal finance issues specific to women - we live longer, we birth children, we spend more on health care, we more often provide for children (single parent household), we earn less even for the same job (see recent Lilly Ledbetter supreme ct. decision), we earn less over our life time (due to equal pay issues and time out of work due to child birth), we more often care for aging parents, etc. And those issues don't seem to get a whole lotta coverage on the pf blogs.

Thanks for the kind words about gender- (and other-) neutrality. This is really something I strive for. I make an effort. I don't always succeed.

Women are also more often encouraged to pursue work they love and that helps people. Men are more often encouraged to do what will support a family.

My husband is an engineer who specializes in improving efficiency. This is both by training and because it is his lifelong passion. He makes a far better hausfrau than I do.

I read (and have read) a lot about the brain, psychology, personality types, etc. From what I've seen, it's more that men (in general) are more visual-spatially oriented, and that translates more into the higher maths (trig, calc, spaces, etc.), where I've actually read grade school girls tend to be better than boys in arithmetic, algebra, etc., because it is not as visual-spatial.


There's politics everywhere, but I don't know if that would be a major contributor.


That's mainly because of something else I was reading once about the brain. When we're younger, our elastic memory tends to be better than when we're older, but when we're older, our long term memories are much better than someone younger. So, what they've seen is that most mathematicians/scientists tend to do their best work around 30 or so, but the best writers and others who rely on databanks of memory, knowledge and wisdom tend to peak when they're older.

They've done tests where younger people do better on short memory nonsense lanuage tests, for example where the thinking needs to be quick and process new things, but older people tend to do better on tests that rely on drawing on past experience (partly because they have more of it ).

Here is what (some) personal finance blogs have told me.

Women always want huge diamond engagement rings.
Women are so high-maintenance, they look down on a guy who tries to be frugal and won't date him.
Women are gold-diggers.
Alimony is evil.
Child support is evil.
Women want to spend money on frivolous things.
Women need *permission* to spend money on frivolous things.

And that's when they're talking about money. Most blogs go off topic from time to time - and that's when I hear the stuff that really makes me want to spit nails.

Now, often this isn't stated outright. Often this is just subtext, and subtext that you won't necessarily catch when it's not aimed at you. But when it's aimed at me, yeah, I sure do catch it.

This thread is illustrating why there is a need for feminist PF bloggers.

Let's discuss some of the hurdles women have that are gender-specific.

1. Women are more likely to stay out of the work force to raise children. Even if they do not have children, employeers believe women of childbearing age, especially those that are married, are about to pop out a dozen babies and stay home on the company dime (though parental leave is rare in America).

2. Women are, by culture, viewed as having characteristics that make them bad employees. They did a study asking people of all cultures what made a good employee and what characteristics women have that are likely to have. Each culture had a different values they found important, ut all the cultures prefered traditionally masculine (according to that cultures) traits. Ergo, women have a harder time in the job market, and getting raises, and being mentored.

3. Women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence. Escaping a bad relationship is expensive, especially when children are involved. Yes, men can be victims of DV, and DV doesn't only apply to heterosexuals, but more women are going to suffer because of it than men.

4. Divorce negatively affects women more. A year after a divorce, men are statistically better off than during the marriage, while women are worse off. Often in relationships, the man is the one that controls the finances, leaving women completely screwed post-divorce.

5. Women are more likely to outlive their spouses.

6. Women do more housework across the board, regardless of working outside the home. What the hell, people.

7. Women have more things they have to do to look polished, which cost more.

I agree JD does not exhibit sexist behavior, but I have to say I have seen it on other blogs. I would see feminist PF blogs filling a need like Queercents- yes, most of the issues are the same, but when did you last see JD talk about the high cost of transitioning to a different gender, or all the ways the government screws over gay couples? There are just issues that are group-specific.

"To define it rudely but not inaptly, engineering is the art of doing that well with one dollar which any bungler can do with two after a fashion.” ~~ Arthur M. Wellington