Obama's job plan "has to include women"

**Incognito** · 12th-December-2008

Jobs plan has to include women

By LINDA R. HIRSHMAN
GUEST COLUMNIST

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama has announced a plan to stimulate the economy by creating 2.5 million jobs over the next two years. He intends to use the opportunity to make good on two campaign promises -- to invest in road and bridge maintenance and school repair and to create jobs that reduce energy use and emissions that lead to global warming.

Obama compared his infrastructure plan to the Eisenhower-era construction of the Interstate system of highways. It brings back the Eisenhower era in a less appealing way as well: There are almost no women on this road to recovery.

Back before the feminist revolution brought women into the workplace in unprecedented numbers, that would have been more understandable. But today, women constitute about 46 percent of the labor force. And as the current downturn has worsened, their traditionally lower unemployment rate actually has risen just as fast as men's. A just economic stimulus plan must include jobs in such fields as social work and teaching, where large numbers of women work.

The bulk of the stimulus program will provide jobs for men, because building projects generate jobs in construction, where women make up only 9 percent of the work force.

It turns out that green jobs are almost entirely male as well, especially in the alternative-energy area. A broad study by the United States Conference of Mayors found that half the projected new jobs in any green area are in engineering, a field that is only 12 percent female, or in the heavily male professions of law and consulting; the rest are in such traditional male areas as manufacturing, agriculture and forestry. And like companies that build roads, alternative-energy firms also employ construction workers and engineers.

Fortunately, jobs for women can be created by concentrating on professions that build the most important infrastructure -- human capital. In 2007, women were 83 percent of social workers, 94 percent of child care workers, 74 percent of education, training and library workers (including 98 percent of preschool and kindergarten teachers and 92 percent of teachers' assistants).

Libraries are closing or cutting back everywhere, while demand for their services, including their Internet connections, has risen. Philadelphia's proposal last month to close 11 branches brought people into the street to protest.

Many of the jobs women do already are included in Obama's campaign promises. Women are teachers, and the campaign promised to provide support for families with children up to the age of 5, increase Head Start financing and quadruple the money spent on Early Head Start to include a quarter-million infants and toddlers. Special education, including arts education, is heavily female as well. Obama promised to increase financing for arts education and for the National Endowment for the Arts, which supports many school programs.

During the campaign, Obama also promised that the first part of his plan to combat urban poverty would be to replicate a nonprofit organization in New York called the Harlem Children's Zone in 20 cities across the country. The group, which works to improve the quality of life for children and families in the Harlem neighborhood, employs several hundred people in full- and part-time jobs. By making good on this promise, Obama could create thousands of jobs for women in social work, teaching and child care.

Unlike the proposal to rebuild roads and bridges, the Harlem Children's Zone program is urban, and thus really green. If cities become more inviting, more people will live in them -- and that means they will drive less, using less fuel. The average New Yorker's greenhouse gas footprint is only about 29 percent as large as that of the average American; the city is one of the greenest places in America.

Maybe it would be a better world if more women became engineers and construction workers, but programs encouraging women to pursue engineering have existed for decades without having much success. At the moment, teachers and child care workers still need to support themselves. Many are their families' sole support.

A public works program can provide needed economic stimulus and revive America's concern for public property. The current proposal is simply too narrow. Women represent almost half the work force -- not exactly a marginal special interest group. By adding a program for jobs in libraries, schools and children's programs, the new administration can create jobs for them, too.

Linda R. Hirshman is the author of "Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World." Copyright 2008 The New York Times.

**Incognito** · 12th-December-2008

From the sounds of it, it's men who are disproportionately affected right now by the economy...it's jobs that men traditionally take that are lacking. Yet, the author of the above article is worried about women's employment, which, by her own admission, isn't really something that needs to be worried about so much: Obama plans to create in increase in social service jobs, by the addition of social programs and extensions of social programs already in existence. These are areas that women completely dominate, according to the statistics she gave. So what's the author's beef? I'm not sure I get it.

**Male-Rights-Network** · 12th-December-2008

Back before the feminist revolution brought women into the workplace in unprecedented numbers, that would have been more understandable. But today, women constitute about 46 percent of the labor force. And as the current downturn has worsened, their traditionally lower unemployment rate actually has risen just as fast as men's.

Hahahaha... These femjournos in the Jew-owned New York Times are really stretching it these days.

Women have been practically immune to the financial crisis and jobs cull of the last two years or so. This is the situation in the US:

1,069,000 fewer men are working than a year ago. 12,000 more women are working.

We all know femjournos in the Jew-owned anti-male media love to lie, but Mz. Hirshman is really pushing it.

**Incognito** · 12th-December-2008

Quote from Male-Rights-Network

Hahahaha... These femjournos in the Jew-owned New York Times are really stretching it these days.

Women have been practically immune to the financial crisis and jobs cull of the last two years or so. This is the situation in the US:

1,069,000 fewer men are working than a year ago. 12,000 more women are working.

We all know femjournos in the Jew-owned anti-male media love to lie, but Mz. Hirshman is really pushing it.

I know...this is nuts!!

**Percy** · 12th-December-2008

I posted an article only a few days ago showing that men had been retrenched from 1.1 MILLION jobs in the past 12 months while women's employment had RISEN by 12000. So mush for women being just as hard done by.

Maybe it would be a better world if more women became engineers and construction workers, but programs encouraging women to pursue engineering have existed for decades without having much success

That's because it is hard work - or as women call it 'Men's work', whereas:-

women were 83 percent of social workers, 94 percent of child care workers, 74 percent of education, training and library workers (including 98 percent of preschool and kindergarten teachers and 92 percent of teachers' assistants).

The list didn't mention prostitute, (sorry, 'Sex Worker') 99.5%

What a sorry state of cushy jobs, indoors, not producing a damned thing - and EXCLUDING men with hysterical cries of 'paedophile'.

**paul parmenter** · 12th-December-2008

In a recession, you have to concentrate on the primary industries that generate wealth and hold civilised society together, not the tertiary industries that spend/waste that precious wealth. If there is no sudden rise in the numbers of children, then you don't need a sudden rise in the numbers of new teachers. Ditto all the other superfluous jobs that ride on the surface of a buoyant economy but should be the first to go when times get hard. The economy is sinking, and this fluffhead wants to create more librarians? Get real, woman.

And it just so happens that the primary industries are overwhelmingly sustained by the work of men, not women; while the tertiary industries are awash with females. All due to THEIR choices.

This stupid femi journo is still living in the false world that has just collapsed under the weight of its own inefficiency - the world in which we had the luxury of creating huge numbers of non-jobs occupied by huge numbers of non-wealth creators, for no better reason than they bought cheap votes for politicians; and all paid for by the productive workforce. Now the latter has dwindled to the point where they can no longer sustain the army of parasites that arose in the good times. But this uneducated hack thinks we can just put ourselves straight back into the past, without learning any lessons from its failure. High time some reality hit home and the non-jobs were swilled away down the toilet - and where better to start than in shedding totally unproductive and pointless people like feminist journalists?

**Stan** · 12th-December-2008

I'm not very impressed with the social workers I've met.

They never help anything.

Many examples of outright bias come to mind, all favoring the female POV.

I hope that more of that does not happen to more people.

**Aug9th-LiveOrDie** · 13th-December-2008

Quote from TERA

From the sounds of it, it's men who are disproportionately affected right now by the economy...it's jobs that men traditionally take that are lacking. Yet, the author of the above article is worried about women's employment, which, by her own admission, isn't really something that needs to be worried about so much: Obama plans to create in increase in social service jobs, by the addition of social programs and extensions of social programs already in existence. These are areas that women completely dominate, according to the statistics she gave. So what's the author's beef? I'm not sure I get it.

men are economically disproportionatly effected by outsourcing and illegal immigration

**Stan** · 13th-December-2008

Crime goes up directly with the increase in noDAD homes with kids.

Crime goes up little with decrease in home income.

It's the Dad that makes the larger difference.

Instead...Obama wants to further empower and enable women while further disenfranchising and dismissing men.

This will lead to a need for and justification for more social programs.

As long as people don't broadly understand the role and benefit of the Dad in a family, this will succeed.

So the Dad will be big government instead.

What will men be? Convenient, mobile sperm banks?

**Stan** · 13th-December-2008

Quote from Billy

And walking wallets.

So we are to be mobile sperm banks and walking wallets?

It's so nice to have a purpose in life!

**Stan** · 13th-December-2008

Obama has a mini-scandal on his hands at the moment. This has to do with the attempted sale of his Senate seat by the Governor of Illinois.

It turns out that his side had contact with the Governor's side.

But look at how you have to parse words to get an idea of what will REALLY be released about the matter:

http://volokh.com/posts/1229144175.shtml

**musicman.2** · 11th-February-2009

Quote from Percy

I posted an article only a few days ago showing that men had been retrenched from 1.1 MILLION jobs in the past 12 months while women's employment had RISEN by 12000. So mush for women being just as hard done by.

That's because it is hard work - or as women call it 'Men's work', whereas:-

The list didn't mention prostitute, (sorry, 'Sex Worker') 99.5%

What a sorry state of cushy jobs, indoors, not producing a damned thing - and EXCLUDING men with hysterical cries of 'paedophile'.

Add the long vacations they get and more sick days they take. Women's jobs have always been cushy.

Men should no longer support women imo. No more providing for women.

**RebelliousVanilla** · 22nd-March-2009

Anything that is targeted at a gender, it's bad for the other. Just create productive jobs... Oh wait, most of the shit he is doing isn't productive.

**julie** · 22nd-March-2009

Quote from RebelliousVanilla

Anything that is targeted at a gender, it's bad for the other. Just create productive jobs... Oh wait, most of the shit he is doing isn't productive.

I have a lesbian friend you would get along with in a minute. You sound just like her in many areas.

I did think this from a man's point of view. But then I wondered a little more and thought about what this statement was saying to women. (I am not into one gender being above the other)

To say targeting the female jobs is unproductive, you are saying that only men's jobs ARE productive. (Do we live in a man's world on this?)

This also can be twisted to the idea that women's work is not important or is less important than men's.

Was society geared to consider men only as productive in society? Did that make men think women were less than them in the system?

Maybe baking cakes for men is kinda productive because it helps the men be more productive. A lot of women bake cakes for men who work hard.

......... Changing subject here ........

As soon as we (NZ) went right wing this year after 9 years of left wing, the right wing borrowed money from the banks and decided to create jobs by building roads etcetera, creating men's jobs and gave business benefits for the high status businesses that are run by men.

Great we all thought. Let the men have a turn.

But then out came the cry, "Do you think we should give some of the women's jobs attention? Should our school teachers and our nurses also get some help? What about our waitresses and our cleaners and so forth?"

The men who consider men's jobs productive did not consider women's jobs at all. I guess women don't have a material thing to show for their social type work in the community. They go into the trades now as lawyers, Psychologists and other positions that serve the community rather that make products. But why should someone doing a service that will make people better to make material things be less worthy?

Just some thoughts.

PS: I know family court lawyers are not important to some.