Did women cause the recession?

[chiggerbit]

http://www.businessinsider.com/did-wome ... ion-2009-8

John Carney|Aug. 16, 2009, 10:18 AM|46
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Tags: Economy, Wall Street, Management, The Way We Live Now, Financial Crisis, Financial Services

This recession has been particularly hard on men. At one point last winter, four men were laid off for every woman. Largely this is due to the fact that so many men work in vulnerable sectors like manufacturing and construction that have been devastated the the recession. Women tend to work in safer sectors like health care.

If the reverse were true, we'd probably be reading a lot about how women were being victimized and forced into the least safe jobs. Some bright women's study professor would talk about how society was "privileging" male jobs and denigrating women's work. But you won't hear that kind of case from men because, well, it''s distinctly unmanly to whine about being dominated by women in society.

Chris Caldwell has a great essay in Time Magazine on what he calls our "Pink Recovery."

"Although clichés about the "vulnerability" of women in the economy have been disproved by hard BLS data, we want to believe them. When women lose jobs, the victims are women," he writes. "When men lose jobs, the victims are, um, women, because they have to make up for that lost male income."

There are plenty of people--we've actually met and worked with some of them--who think there's a kind of cosmic justice operating here. Men dominated the investment banks and financial fortresses that led us into this mess, so they deserve to suffer more during the recession.

But is that true? Sure there weren't many women among the malefactors in the financial meltdown. But when it came to the mortgage and consumer spending boom, the innocence of women is not so obvious.

As Steve Sailer points out, at the very least, men and women worked together to build our empire of debt. And for a great many couples, women were probably the drivers in really piling on household debt.

Okay, but, consider that at the base of the financial crash were people, typically couples, taking out home mortgages that they couldn't afford, mostly to either buy homes (generally sold to them by female real estate agents) they couldn't afford or to do home improvements they couldn't afford.

In the typical couple who has defaulted, which sex -- husband or wife -- on average do you think was more ardent for the granite countertop upgrade? Was it husbands or wives who tended to insist most on buying the larger house with the exercise room and enough space for relatives to stay over and the extra big dining room for hosting dinner parties?

It would really be fascinating to see which sex was responsible for spending the cash-out mortgage money and the HELOC drawdowns.

[Stephen Morgan]

This recession has been particularly hard on men. At one point last winter, four men were laid off for every woman. Largely this is due to the fact that so many men work in vulnerable sectors like manufacturing and construction that have been devastated the the recession. Women tend to work in safer sectors like health care.

If the reverse were true, we'd probably be reading a lot about how women were being victimized and forced into the least safe jobs. Some bright women's study professor would talk about how society was "privileging" male jobs and denigrating women's work. But you won't hear that kind of case from men because, well, it''s distinctly unmanly to whine about being dominated by women in society.

The very first email I got … was from a women’s group saying ‘We don’t want this stimulus package to just create jobs for burly men. -- Christina Romer, council of economic advisers

Yes, women tend to work in offices. Personnel departments are almost entirely female, they decide who gets sacked. Personnel is a very safe place to work.

[justdrew]

Oh good, I was hoping someone would post this story...

It is dead wrong, sexist garbage. It pushes the utterly false claim that the problems were caused by people taking out mortgages they couldn't afford and generally inuring too much debt. That's not the case. Anyone pushing that view is a disingenuous liar. As if mortgages lenders were just forced to give liar loans out to anyone who asked for money. No the cause of this was MEN making fraudulent loans they knew they could sell to other stupid liar MEN to be made into CDOs.

[OP ED]

Oh good, I was hoping someone would post this story...

It is dead wrong, sexist garbage. It pushes the utterly false claim that the problems were caused by people taking out mortgages they couldn't afford and generally inuring too much debt. That's not the case. Anyone pushing that view is a disingenuous liar. As if mortgages lenders were just forced to give liar loans out to anyone who asked for money. No the cause of this was MEN making fraudulent loans they knew they could sell to other stupid liar MEN to be made into CDOs.

its a great thread title though.

[how did i know stephen would already be here?]

[StarmanSkye]

Damn right --sexist garbage, it wasn't homeowners, men OR women, who conned banks into granting liars loans. It was a carefully created debt bubble made possible by bank deregulation that encouraged banks to make flakey loans because they made their money in fees and in rebundling and selling these loans in mixed-lot packages graded AAA by corrupt investment services who were working for the selling banks. The whole system was crooked, selling everything from credit-card debt to car loans, student loans, small business loans as well as both residential and commercial mortgages. This is a variation on the IMF loans made to 3rd world corrupt national leaders which were designed to fail. Everybody took a kickback except the public who were stuck with the tab, who got NOTHING from the loan at all. 'Free market' capitalism at its most fundamental basics: Privatized profits & socialized costs.

[OP ED]

whine about being dominated by women

why whine about something that normally costs money?

[Canadian_watcher]

The reason that someone might email our little Stephen Morgan with their concern that stimulus spending is usually the domain of 'big burly men' is because those concerns are founded.

Typically recessionary, job-stimulating spending is directed to infrastructure rebuilding, which, let's face it, is the domain of men. Not even necessarily 'big burly' men.. I might add, since most of the "stop-slow' sign carriers I've observed are of the tiny male persuasion.

If women are able to hold on to their jobs during recessions it is precisely because women - by and large - occupy the absolutely necessary home-minding type jobs that do not EVER disappear: daycare workers, human resource workers, teachers, social-workers, nurses, secretaries, etc etc. These are job ghettos, which for the entire duration of humanity have been undervalued.

So.. from a purely economic perspective, you don't get rid of the people who you NEED during a recession (the home caretakers) OR the people whose cost to you is minimal vs. the value they bring to you (those whose work is deemed 'naturally fitting to their biology and therefore needn't be highly remunerated)

Stephen Morgan, eat your misogynistic heart out. I'll beat you at this, every time. Me's a grad of the women's studies. (not to mention I've lived it, sucka)[/u]

[compared2what?]

To which I'd like to say, and not for the first time, that women stay in low to middle-management office jobs for longer than men do less because they're taking over the world and more because the employers who are running it are aware that you can pay them less, that they're less likely to ask for promotions or raises than men, that they're less likely to quit if they don't get them, and that they're also less likely to take a job that entails either uprooting or moving away from their spouses and children, if any.

So can we please retire that scenario as one of the proofs that women as excessively predatory and ambitious?

Thanks.

[Perelandra]

Yes, not excessively, just differently predatory.

[compared2what?]

Yes, not excessively, just differently predatory.

Word.

Doctrine of comparable worth coming straight outta RI, so you better make way.

[OP ED]

Yes, not excessively, just differently predatory.

praise glykon!

(let the unbelievers tremble)

[blanc]

divide and distract
how about 'did (choose an ethnic group here) cause the recession?'

[wintler2]

divide and distract
how about 'did (choose an ethnic group here) cause the recession?'

You said it. Anything but class, the obvious classifier for economic violence.

[Penguin]

What a piece of crap article Made me laugh heartily though.
Only in America does gender equality mean -

"Although clichés about the "vulnerability" of women in the economy have been disproved by hard BLS data, we want to believe them. When women lose jobs, the victims are women," he writes. "When men lose jobs, the victims are, um, women, because they have to make up for that lost male income."

[chiggerbit]

And for a great many couples, women were probably the drivers in really piling on household debt.

Maybe it's due to a huge regional difference, but from my perspective here in the rural midwest, while women more often tend to be the drivers behind the decision to purchase a house, men seem to feel they are entitled to be adequately rewarded for going along on the house purchase by buying boy-toys that amount to nearly as much as the cost of the house. Heck, they nearly always have to build a pole barn just to house their toys--huge trucks that cost in excess of $40,00, big powerful 4-wheelers, guns, shop tools, big John Deere riding lawn mowers, few of them costing less than $5,000, trailers to haul the toys. Oh, and don't forget the huge tv's and the big satellite packages that run close to a hundred a month.

Sheesh, what a crock!