Oh boy. I stepped into the poop now, didn't I. I just wanted to broach a subject that I'm sure many of us men have struggled with in the recent decades after the 60's and the liberation of women. I'm a traditional guy living in a mostly balanced life with regards to gender roles. I work from home, my wife has her own business. She cooks, does the laundry and I help clean and to be honest, I'm the primary person when it comes to the children and that is mostly because I work from home. I don't think there's much to say about gender roles in a SHTF and I don't want to get too cerebral about it. Suffice it to say that a societal break-down to any marked extent would most likely return us to the traditional roles. I think women need to understand that, it's not about IF you can do something.. sure women CAN do everything a man can do. The quality at which either gender performs the roles of the traditional genders' task is really the question. Arguably, my mind is more focused on providing than nurturing. I have a tendency to not take any crap from my kids while my wife thinks I'm too hard on them. I honestly think, or hope, that the gender roles return to where they were. Quite frankly, I find I perform better in life when I go and do "guy stuff" with other guys. Heading out to the range.. hunting (though I haven't been in years), or just hanging out to discuss "guy topics". Simply put: In an SHTF, we really need to re-evaluate this gender role swapping that's taken place the past 40 hears or so. I'll kill it, you cook it. Millions of years of evolution made one gender physically stronger than the other (more hairy too) for a reason. 40 years of societal pressure isn't going to change that.
No argument intended here. I just wanted to point out that in a post SHTF situation IMO isolation is death. If one wants to survive in the long term, tribal bonding and small community mutual interest forming is going to be neccessary. How anyone interacts on a family unit is none of my business. Whatever works for them is fine by me. Due to my military service I have worked as a subordinate, peer, and senior to all genders, races, ethnic persuasions, and religious, and political groups. Leaders, stategic thinkers, and teachers will be needed! I don't give a rats azz about gender or any of the rest for the most part. Everyone who hopes to survive is going to have to have enough of an open mind to take advantage of available talent, and move forward.
Agreed. In my house traditional roles are important. Artificial gender roles are an artifact of "modern" society. Men excel at certain tasks as women excel at other tasks. The work should be divided by skill, ability, and aptitude. DISCLAIMER: I am not saying women are NOT capable of doing what a man does. Any more than a man can't do "womanly" things like cook, clean, sew etc. I am just saying certain tasks are easier for men and certain tasks are easier for women.
I think that if the SHTF situation is long-term, we had better have each necessary job being done by the person most skilled at it, and gender won't matter much. The first thing is to cross train each other to keep important skills from being lost as the elderly folks die, or in case of sickness or accident.
Points well made. Lets continue. I want to be clear that it's not a case of "one gender over another". Nor am I making a case for "isolationism". In fact, I'm trying to make a case for survival based on roles known to work historically. The men had certain duties and so did the women. Yes, even in history there was gender swap or two, but primarily the roles remained in-line.
Good points! I just wanted to expound on one area. The person who is most skilled at something should be willing and encouraged to cross train others. A selfish person who feels they are important and not expendable due to their expertise is a dangerously wasted asset. Anyone can die at any time. Identify your subject matter experts and make them teach others. This could be done on an apprentice level with able bodied experts, or as a full time teacher basis for larger groups for elderly experts. Or, an apprentice could be paired with an elderly expert on a parttime or after workday companion to assist them and be taught as well.
Cross training is good. I can't argue with that. But for some reason, even though my mother taught me how to sew and the schools tried too, I still can't sew for crap. I can mend things and patch things up.. but damned if I can make a pair of pants from some material..
in general I think you hit the nail on the head with the most able doing whatever job. However, in agrarian societies many times it's "all hands on deck" for whatever particular season it is.
How about "you kill it, I'll cook it" and "I kill it, you cook it" I'm not too fond of traditional gender roles (big surprise) since I feel the more adept we all are at handling every situation, the better a society functions. Granted, since it has been over 30 years since I expected a man to "take care" of things for me, I have learned to take care of myself and I think I am the better for it.
Actually I think you have this 100% wrong. Society functions much better do to specilization, at least when things are going well. In the situations we are talking about society will be in a huge retrograde, forcing us to become far more generalist than we have as a race for the past 100 years. However, as society rebuilds itself, the efficiency gained through specilization will come back as well.
Anytime someone says you have this 100% wrong, my ears perk up. What makes you think you are 100% right about everything? Now I will break out my instructors red pen. Is it due to your personal experiences and specialization? Post SHTF there will be capable tacticians and leaders who are female as well as male. Being physically stronger doesn't necessarily make you smarter, or the properly chosen leader. I think Samual Colt made that perfectly clear. You have every right to your opinion just as I do mine. The 100% thing just kind of set the tone for this reply.
whoa, where did I say I was 100 percent right about everything? I mean I'm good, but I only give myself about a 98% rating on most things. My wife would give me about a 30% though. (Insert smiley face here). There have been great minds going back to Plato who espoused the benefits of division of labor. And while there can be drawbacks, overall it has helped advance society. Can anyone really argue that using division of labor is what made henry ford and the assembly line world changers in the early 20th century? after that you kind of jump to another discussion, but i agree that leadership and critical thinking are equal opportunity employers, and that there will be a need to find those people quickly.
I fully agree that the person most skilled at a task should be the one who takes on that job. However, specialization also lends itself to the problem of many people being unable to take care of themselves. I have neither the temperment nor the inclination to sit around and wait for someone who "specializes" to show up and get something done. Just my perspective on self reliance but differences are what makes the world go around.
agreed totally with what you said. Like I mentioned earlier, in a SHTF situation we are taking society a huge step backwards. In other words specilization is great for society as a whole, but bad for individuals in many instances.
Specialization works if the tribe is big enough, and diversified enough in the talent department, to allow for that. With a small tribe, the more general the talents must be for group survival. Until the tribe is large enough to take advantage of specialty functions, the point is moot. (At least that's how I read what you are intending to say.) Like RH, it's been a while since I've had live in assistance, and I've managed to learn to heat food well enough to keep my backbone and belly button decently separated, but gourmet it ain't and never will be. (In reality, gourmet isn't necessary for survival, however nice it might be.) Whether talent is inherent in gender (real or imagined) is immaterial until the society is large enough to allow specialization. The tasks need done, and if there isn't a specialist around to do it, then the generalist will have to do it as well as can be done given the talent available. I betcha Gordon Ramsay can muck out a grease trap if he had to, but whether or not he can get the lid back on correctly is a another question; I bet he could figure it out at the cost of time to plan the menu. (There ain't no way he's getting under the hood on my pickup or on my loading bench, and that's a certainty.)
I think the "traditional" gender roles we have seen in society are more nurture than nature. I think women are as capable of being in typical male dominated fields like engineering and machinists as men are. I think men are as capable at taking care of children as women are. It's a matter of what they are raised to believe they are capable of.
I tend to think that Suffrage was the death of America. While some women do seem to be able to hold their own, I believe that giving the woman the right to vote and have a say-so in our government transformed the Democratic Party from a good thing to a socialist thing. I believe that women voters and the influence they have upon their men caused the entitlement system that presently bleeds all of us dry. I tend to support the idea, that with occassional exceptions, if today's women didn't have a vagina, there'd be a bounty on them. While the concept of bare-foot and pregnant has it's appeal, think what that would do to the shoe industry? Betty Crocker should still be a role model! There should be a pregnant Barbie dolls and little boys should be encouraged to play with sharp sticks. Homos should be put back in the closet where they belong. Daytime TV should be limited to news and cooking shows; soap opra has to be outlawed. Fishing shows are ok. I am bored and this is a volitile thread. Nobody will survive a SHTF that isn't prepared to do whatever the situation commands and while necessity isn't gender specific, some tasks need to be faced in reality. We have "niced" natural selection into a distant mirage. I believe that mankind will face a major reduction in size soon, from 5.5 billion to around 500 million; that means only one in a thousand left to rebuild. I am past breeding age and therefore, am destined to die but I will prepare and share what I have for next generations. I just don't believe there will be a place for entitlements, sexual diviants, Nancy Pelosi type women, or anyone else that isn't prepared to kill their lunch with their teeth.
"Can do", "Should do" and "Designed to do" are not the same thing. I can do splits (well I could when I was younger), but I wasn't designed to do them. The girls were and did them with only a portion of the effort it took me to get there. I believe we are all capable of overlapping in traditional gender roles, but SHOULD we, as a rule, try to overcome them just to make a point? I don't think so. Am I saying "bare foot and pregnant" ? NO. I am saying, if you want a career, I'm not going to let you out of your role as mother and wife. Go ahead, have your career.. but you have a role to fill and the office is just going to eat into that time. That being said.. I think our monetary system's failure has are large part to do with the need for women to work. Or to be PC, the need for both parents to work. So I come full circle... IN a SHTF where the monetary system might not be the same.. SHOULD we encourage the path we're on? or should be go with what we know works and has worked in the past for, in my opinion, the best results so far.
