Reply to comment

Actually, the exodus of women into the work force started in the early 70's. It was mostly young, single women and women who had children to support but no husbands. During that era the divorce rate was over 60%. A lot of these men had drug alcohol problems due to the Vienam era. I am sure that you knew kids when you were growing up who didn't have fathers. You said in your one post that your family was poor and you're 42? I'm sure you remember Reganomics? Well, divorced (and abandoned) women had no choice but to work because of how terrible Welfare was (is). The choice was either go on Welfare so that you could stay at home and care for your children, but not be able to feed them well on the amount of foodstamps you'd get, or be able to afford to clothe them in very much besides 2nd hand clothes, and even then, it would be very, very minimal... Most women who had to children on their own had no choice but to work...and I'm sorry to say, many times, there was no support from the fathers. Honestly, I knew many kids when I was growing up who never got so much as a birthday card or any help with back to school clothes from their fathers after their parents divorced.

I think that it was the media mainly drumming it into young women's heads to go to school and be self-sufficent, as well as a lot of older , Babyboomer women who had direct experience with some very irresponsible males. Those older Babyboomer women were in the vast majority. You see, the women today who are in their late 30's to mid 40's (Gen X) were VICTIMS of what went on in the early 70's during their childhoods. I realize now that males growing up during that time were also victims because they must have experienced a lot of negativity from older women and women in general due to the rancor that had been created by the glut of absent fathers. That's were I think that whole "all men are no good" thing started. Our generation paid for it and is still paying for it. I just didn't realize how much until recently.