Armenian women: should play a bigger role in our economy, politics and military.

[Siggie]

Re: Armenian women: should play a bigger role in our economy, politics and military.

If it's not a choice then it's a responsibility; however, recall what Gegev posted on the subject of being a mother and working at the same time.

I am going to jump in here because she quoted what I said. I said that if a woman can juggle both a career and a family such that neither one suffers, then she should not have to choose one or the other.

Further, since you brought up Gegev's post. I am inclined to point out, that Gegev did not cite a single source and he certainly presented all of these things as fact. Why didn't you ask him for sources? You don't feel he needs to be "taught the lesson of citing sources?"

Not everything he said is relevant to the work issue either... Let's take a look, shall we?

I’m a former teacher; below are my/teachers/doctors advises (I know about) to parents, I consider them natural ones:

#1) while a female is pregnant she shouldn’t work: to give a birth to a healthy baby.

I have never heard this before. Does this not require a source? Let's see something that shows that women who worked while pregnant gave birth to less healthy babies.

#2) mother feeds her baby with human milk to grow up healthy babies: is another natural thing. But emancipated men/women say it doesn’t matter (doctors claim the contrary) what kind of milk it is: they want to do something “civilized” instead.

I think there was some confusion about this years ago, but a number of years it has been supported that for optimal immune functioning, breast feeding is recommended.
But I don't see the relevance, because women can still breastfeed even if they work. You can pump and bottle. There's no problem here.

#3) taking care with her baby until s/he becomes 3 years old, to insure the baby’s psychological health, instead of hiring a baby-sitter: is natural.

This requires a source too. I recall from my psych classes that there is no evidence that children who go to daycare are worse off then those who don't. If anything daycare provides social interaction that helps prepare children for school.

#4) Every day allowing 2-3 hours time to communicate with three High School children: help to learn lessons, council them and to take care/handle their problems for 12 years.
. etc.

I don't see the problem here either. Of course interacting with our children is important and this goes for fathers as well as mothers. Working does not mean that a parent cannot find a few hours a day to interact with their child.

To become educated:
High School, Univercity & Graduate study takes from woman – 24 years

I have no idea what this even means.

Time to spend on children:
High School takes 12 years.
Points from #1-#3 for 3 children makes at least 12 years.
In total for 24+12=36 years, if a woman is really devoted to her children, can’t work with the same workload as a man does. Provided poor living contitions don't stipulate working.
[/B]
So in this respect it is not natural to demand equal working rights for women before she is 36-40 years old. For the rest of the years nobody objects women working.



Among former USSR Republics in past and now Armenia is in the first place by the percentage of population with University/Collage education. And the distribution among male and female is approximately equal. It means women rights in education are respected, in fact, in Armenia.

Therefore even when women don’t work Armenians, in Armenia, highly appreciate educated women: because it reflects very positively on their children education too.
Therefore we don’t need such advises, that we need educated women: for about 90 years our women/men are explaining this others.

Are you suggesting we send women to college and even to graduate school and then have then ask to sit at home and only use that education for the benefit of their children? Again, there's no reason why they cannot get a good education, have a career, and have a family.

We love the pretty-educated-modest-reserved գեղեցիկ-կիրթ-համեստ-զուսպ women: What the Armenian men, in Armenia, dislike most (laugh at their husband): is the married woman, who is concerned about showing up her sexiness to other men, to attract/invite/force their attention on her.

Irrelevant, not talking about sexiness.

[levon]

Re: Armenian women: should play a bigger role in our economy, politics and military.

Quit work because of the well-being of my loved ones, so it does come from 'mutual understanding'...

No. He will have a say in it. Decisions are made jointly based on your mutual benefits and interests.

That's understandable; however, you failed to mention whether he can quit his work for "the well being of your loved ones" and you continue working.

But why would he want to quit his work? The reason? In my opinion normal men love working and doing what they like to. Having a job, earning money gives them a sense of fulfillment, strength and accomplishment.

That's an unfair assumption.
It's one thing to work for fun, but the second one has to support more than himself the concept of failure becomes unthinkable and work becomes an obligation (or in other words, the father becomes a wage-slave for the family).

On a side note, by saying that "normal men love working" are you implying that the normal women don't love working? Does "Having a job, earning money give women fulfillment, strength and accomplishment?"

If both "men and women find having a job, earning money as sources of fulfillment, strength and accomplishment", then why only women would want to quit their job, and not men?

BTW
I agree with Siggie when she said the folllowing:

There's no reason why it needs to be a choice if women are able to make it work so that neither their career nor their performance as a parent suffer.

If it's not a choice then it's a responsibility; however, recall what Gegev posted on the subject of being a mother and working at the same time.

No, I believe the rights are naturally equal but the moment it starts seriously to affect my relationship, I'd rather sacrifice 'that right' to keep my relationship in a balance. As I said my primary goal to work is not only to earn money but to keep my brain active, contribute in a way and reach a certain psychological fulfillment. What's more women are just so different from each other... For a lot of women it's so hard to work, have babies, take care of them, cook and clean, spend time with their husbands, etc. Obviously women's physical, mental strength, agility and organizing abilities vary greatly from each other but if there are women who can do the task properly, then why deprive them?

As I said, since rights come with responsibilities. Rights cannot be naturally equal when one group can pick and choose which rights and responsibilities she wants and at what time.

Or maybe I reserve the right for him to tell me to quit my work based on solid arguments. And I'd rather do so, not to ruin the beautiful relationship.

If he has to right to tell you to quit your work, then you essentially neither have the right to work nor the right to quit work, in return for the privilege of being supported by him no matter what. If you give your husband those rights then you are indeed far from being a "modern woman"

I'm a proponent of beautiful traditional values. I may or may not be 'traditional' but I'm definitely not a 'modern' girl not much in terms of my appearance but my likes, dislikes, my values... I'm afraid to express my views on the issue and talk about my beliefs as it may pass off as 'self-promotion'. Again, the beauty of a relationship lies in the mutual understanding, love, respect, common values and the complementary nature of each partner in its own special way.

I can see how some of the points you make allude to traditional values; however, you need to careful when you ask for rights but decide to retain privilege.

OK, like what?

That would be a topic of another discussion.

Women of the same generation can sometimes be very different from each other. Sometimes I find things attractive about men that many women do not even notice or like it...

In that case you should have phrased your comment in a way so as not to imply a general statement about women. This would have been much better

Regarding the chores, as a woman I can tell you, it's so sexy when my man helps me do certain stuff every once in a while. It actually brings us closer together.

[Siggie]

Re: Armenian women: should play a bigger role in our economy, politics and military.

Just in your previous post you said that the IQ test doesn't mean much, so I guess it won't be bragging.

I didn't say that IQ tests don't mean much nor did I say that differences in IQ don't mean much. I said 3-5pt differences don't mean much. I was hinting at a larger difference than that. But, alas, that's neither here nor there. Each person should be evaluated on the cogency and soundness of their argument and not on their intelligence nor their credentials. As the late, great, Sagan said, "there are no authorities in science."

The things they assert are not sound..? That is I assume solely based on your skepticism, correct?

You misunderstood. It is not based on skepticism alone because I READ the quotes that were attributed to them in the news article you posted. I said I disagreed with what they said in the quotes in the article you posted from a mass media source. So, I did indeed read that one. What I have not read is the article which should be given more weight because it is not susceptible to the misrepresentations of the less scientifically literate news reporter.

And I thanked Fed for doing so, but I asked you to present evidence so you don't continue your habit of making statements and presenting them as facts, without providing the proper evidence.

The source of the information was an acquaintance of Fed's and I asked him if he would support what I said, as he has been following this person's reports of the conditions in Armenia encountered in the course of the work with these orphanages for longer than I have. I did not fail to cite a source when you asked, I merely asked him to do it (1) for the reason above that he is more knowledgeable on this particular source and (2) because you seem predisposed to twist my words and disagree with everything I say because you have already made up your mind about me.

This point and intelligence are the only things you asked me to cite a source for, so I resent your implication that I, a scientist, mind you, need to be taught to cite my sources. Notice (see below) the sources I cite are scientific and yours were media articles.

Notice that I have never explicitly or implicitly clung to the 5 point difference. You claimed that men and women have equal intelligence and I pointed you to a study that didn't quite agree with your statement. Make what you want out of it.

You pointed to a single study when there is a vast body of research on the subject of sex differences in cognitive abilities/intelligence. So, finding one study to support what you say doesn't say much because replication and consideration of all the evidence as a whole is necessary before drawing conclusions. Note: there are also some studies which find an advantage for women, but I am not going to go there for the same reason above.

Even the researchers that argue that there is a difference, acknowledge that MOST researchers say there is not a meaningful sex difference.
Now, let's review some things that are clear from the literature. What is being argued about is general or fluid intelligence, so they are not talking about subtests or specific cognitive abilities because it is clear that these exist (e.g. men outperform on spatial tasks, a difference that has been demonstrated to be hormonal and a result of testosterone as there are gains made even in men after they are given more testosterone; On the flip side, women excel at verbal communication and memory tasks).

So, on to some sources...

Halpern, D.F. (2001). Sex differences in cognitive abilities. (3rd Ed). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers.

- discusses: problems with testing "ability" compared to "achievement" and why we need to be cautious about the extrapolations we make (i.e. the conclusions we draw), the important distinction between statistical and practical significance, and the methodological debate which is tied to the debate over whether or not there is a statistical difference or not.

Colom, R. & Garcia-Lopez, O. (2002). Sex differences in fluid intelligence among high school graduates. Personality and Individual Differences, 32, 445-451.

- Found that when calculating fluid intelligence, there is no sex difference.

Halpern, D.F. & LaMay, M.L. (2000). The smarter sex: A critical review of sex differences in intelligence. Educational Psychology Review, 12, 229-246.

- A review article (meaning it's considering/summarizing/evaluating all the research up to this point) which concludes there are no meaningful differences.

Jensen, A.R. (1998). The g factor: The science of mental ability. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Also, concludes there no differences have been satisfactorily demonstrated

Let me pause to point out that what I am finding by reading the literature is that there is disagreement (methodological as I said above) about how general intelligence should be calculated. There is one way in which they can be calculated that has shown a difference, a very modest one (~3.8-5pts), and the majority of researchers argue that it is improper to calculate it this way. This is the way that Lynn calculates it, by the way (that's the professor the news article you linked quoted.)


Deary, I.J., Irwing, P., Der, G., and Bates, T.C. (2006). Brother-sister differences in the g factor in intelligence: Analysis of full opposite-sex siblings from the NLSY1979.Intelligence, 35,451-456.

- Even when calculated in the way that does show a statistically significant mean difference, the difference is tiny. It is 7% of the standard deviation. Further, there is significantly more variability in men's scores than in womens scores. This means predicting men's scores is more difficult and carries a larger estimation error. As an aside, note here that the second author, Irwing, is the co-author of the paper the news article you cited covered.

In summary, this is an issue that is far from settled and concluding that there is a difference in intelligence is not possible.

No profitable business can afford to say nay to qualified candidates. Armenian businesses and institutions don't have a problem with hiring women, so I'm not sure why you keep bringing this up.

Agreed, but that is not the only consideration. No optimally run business would do this. However the willingness of the business to hire qualified applicants is only one part of the problem. We must also encourage ALL qualified applicants to apply. So, the willingness of the business is irrelevant if women won't apply to some jobs (or men to different jobs for that matter) because of social stigma or social acceptance. Women may be hesitant to apply if society is going to label them as an irresponsible parent, bad wife, etc.

If you believe that men are equal to women then women cannot pick and choose the rights that men have and they want, as this would mean they can pick and choose which responsibilities they want and that would be privilege and not equality.

There is either absolute equality or no equality. It's an all or none deal.

I like your values towards family. But here is a thought. By giving yourself the ability to terminate your career "the moment my career affects my baby or my relationship" you are effectively giving yourself the ability to quit work anytime. Since you didn't mention that the move to quit your job will come from "mutual understanding" between you and your husband, nor whether your husband can stay home instead of you to take care of your baby, I am only going to assume that you are giving yourself the right to quit work any time and have the privilege of being supported by your husband whenever you so wish.

Since you give yourself the right to quit work anytime, it's only natural that your husband will have no say in it; therefore, he himself cannot have the right to quit work anytime, otherwise it would interfere with your right to do so. That is not equality, that is privilege. Which would be fine if you are not a proponent of equal rights. However, since you imply that you agree with Siggie's points, then it's a fair assumption that you, too are a proponent of equal rights.

If this assumption is true, then you correctly demonstrated the moral of the story I posted earlier, as you gained rights without the prior removal of privilege and the addition of responsibilities, and at any point reserve the right to pick and chose between responsibility and privilege.

The privilege I speak of is having a husband to support one whenever one wishes it to be so.

The responsibility I speak of is being a wage slave for the family and not having the luxury of quitting work whenever one wishes.

And the right I speak of, is the right not to consult one's husband before starting work, and as a result gaining the additional right of quitting whenever one wishes (May I say that that's a right that most responsible fathers can never have (except for the wealthy ones))

You are making assumptions about the family dynamic, or rather ignoring them, in the direction needed for you to disagree rather than asking for clarification.

I would think of the family as a unit rather than men and women individual. The family has needs. The members of the family can, amongst themselves, decide what is the best way for their family to meet these needs. For example, if they decide that it is not necessary or in their best interest to have two incomes, they may decide to keep the greater income (whether the man's or the woman's). Now the greater money is not the only consideration. They also need to consider who is better at maintaining the home, caring for the children, and preparing food. If the same person who earns the greater income is better at these things, they have to weigh one against the other and figure out what to do. Anyways, it's not necessary to get into these scenarios because it can go on and on...

The point I am trying to make is that we need to think of the family as ONE unit. With Lucin, when she said she would leave her job if it was negatively impacting her performance as a mother, you assumed that she would do so without consulting her husband. However, it never crossed her mind to have to explicitly state that this would be a family decision because it was an obvious given to her. Lucin jan, if I am wrong, please correct me; I don't mean to speak for you. Clearly, these decisions impact the family, so they are not individual decisions, but joint decisions.

You're the one that implied that Armenians don't make better parents than the Americans, and now you state that "On the whole it may be better." ......

I never said Armenia is without problems, but merely mentioned that there are elements of Western culture that I despise and elements of Armenian culture that I hold dear and don't want changed.

You said that my situation was an exception.

Again, congratulations, however, those same "crazy" western values have produced many many women (and as a result men) that are not fit to be parents of any kind. Exceptions to the rule don't make an argument.

Please cite your sources that demonstrates that Western culture produces more maladjusted children than well-adjusted ones.

And I think we haven't the need to rethink gender roles, because a man acting like a woman and a woman acting like a man are peculiarities that should stay out of Armenia.

Clarify this please. What do you mean by men acting like women and vice-versa and on what basis do you argue that it should not occur in Armenia? You are implying that there are negative consequences to this? What are they?
I didn't say that women should act like men. I don't even know what that means.

If you want to state points (not stated by others) then disagree with those for the general population of the readers of these forums, you're are welcome to start another thread, write things that others think/say in disagreement with you and then rebuke them. Otherwise, you can just state your point of view by saying "It's a good idea to have women participate in things that don't involve housework and child-rearing" rather than saying "I think people who want to limit women to the house are pig-heads" (or something similar)

I've been moderating without your help for years and I don't need it now. Please, do not tell me what is appropriate content for this thread. My post was on topic and therefore appropriate for the thread.

I only know what you have exposed, and I make my judgments based on that.

Perhaps, but my point was that it is unwise to make such broad judgments in light of very little information because the risk of being wrong is great. So, in essence, you are saying "I am doing A" and I am saying "Doing A is wrong."

I only judged you based what you posted. If I wrongly ascribed you (negative) qualities that are not yours, then I'm very happy to be told I'm wrong.

You say this, but when I tell you that you are wrong, you carry on just the same way and say that you are going based on "what [ I] exposed" which is the very thing I said it's erroneous to do. So, it sounds like you're saying that you are going to draw broad (often attributional) conclusions about the person regardless.

Well, words that one is much more likely to encounter on Verbal SAT than everyday speech would be fancy words. And to be honest, "Hostile and arrogant" just has that much more of a kick than "Belligerent and condescending", so in my opinion, it's hiding behind fancy words.

I don't know who you are speaking to, but this is what I encounter in everyday speech and it is how I normally speak. Have you considered that maybe we are exposed to different vocabulary? You can't conclude based on your own experience that I am being disingenuous. And you would first need to establish that I am communicating differently to even begin to speculate as to why.

Ok, I'm happy to hear your [sic] not a feminist.

I didn't say that either. People's criteria for "feminist" varies wildly and I just said that you should be careful not to assume that I subscribe to every belief you would associate with feminists. The label has come to be associated with such extreme views that most women hesitate to identify themselves as such because people assume they are part of that extreme.

[Pedro Xaramillo]

Re: Armenian women: should play a bigger role in our economy, politics and military.

Ok, Wikipedia is incorrect, my mistake. I'm guessing my anthropology teacher was also wrong when he called Tenochtitlan the capital of the Aztec Civilization.



I don't think you have a clear vision of what my sense of traditional means. Here are some quotes from the article

The father had responsibility to teach their children, especially their sons about warfare and train them for battle. The mother, on the other hand, "has children and suckles them

These aspects of a mother and the way she acted, and played a role in children's life should be paid attention to and duly noted. Not only was this role important for the children's care and raising, it was also important that the daughters see their mother and her actions while growing up so she, herself can emulate her and be a mother, constantly at work

This Mayan wife is giving her husband his gear for battle before he leaves to fight. In comparison, we know that Aztec women probably played a role such as this as well. In many of these societies these types of actions were common. Warfare and battle was necessary for the males, and for the women, another aspect of their lives. It may not have been easy for these woman by any means, despite what specific society we are considering but it was highly valued, and an important part of everyday Aztec lifestyle.

The wife of a man was quite often referred to as -cihuah, "one's woman," or she was sometimes referred to as -namic "one's
spouse,” (Lockhart 1992:74). -Cihuah can be viewed by some as derogatory but to others, it is just more evidence of male
dominance among the Aztecs, and women being a possession among the men.

These statements remind me so much of Armenian traditional values.

Are you listening? The Aztec Empire is the common name for the Mexican Empire, the Mexica stopped calling themselves Aztec as the demand of Huitzilopochtli, so our old conquerers could not find us, we changed the name to Mexica (could mean navel of the moon, but it refers to the moon reflecting in Tenochtitlan's lake), hence it was called by the Spaniards the Mexican Empire.

Here is the etymology :

Mexico = Empire of the Mexica, as explained above Mexica means people of the reflecting moon in the lake, alternatively you can people of the heavens, whatever sounds best in your opinion. You add -co for land of plently or kingdom, -tlan for land of. Would you like to debate Nahuatl with me now?

Tenochtitlan : Tenoch's land, Tenoch can mean either prickly pear cactus, or stone as the prefix of te- means stone, hence tepetl = mountain, so popocatepetl = smoking mountain.

Also I don't think you carefully read my source either, women COULD if they chose so work, work exactly the same jobs as men and study the same stuff too, there are millions of sources showing this.

Now what I am trying to explain to you is officially, I don't mean socially or religious, women had the right to work, to study and if so choosing stay in that situation without any form of judicial granite. Im not saying in the case of social or religious, yeah there we pretty much mirror Armenians, you won't see me denying that, I mean according to law and state policy.

While the documents have racist dribble and false rumours, maybe you should consult a couple of codices man

[Lucin]

Re: Armenian women: should play a bigger role in our economy, politics and military.

I like your values towards family. But here is a thought. By giving yourself the ability to terminate your career "the moment my career affects my baby or my relationship" you are effectively giving yourself the ability to quit work anytime. Since you didn't mention that the move to quit your job will come from "mutual understanding" between you and your husband, nor whether your husband can stay home instead of you to take care of your baby, I am only going to assume that you are giving yourself the right to quit work any time and have the privilege of being supported by your husband whenever you so wish.

Quit work because of the well-being of my loved ones, so it does come from 'mutual understanding'...

Since you give yourself the right to quit work anytime, it's only natural that your husband will have no say in it;

No. He will have a say in it. Decisions are made jointly based on your mutual benefits and interests.

therefore, he himself cannot have the right to quit work anytime, otherwise it would interfere with your right to do so.

But why would he want to quit his work? The reason? In my opinion normal men love working and doing what they like to. Having a job, earning money gives them a sense of fulfillment, strength and accomplishment.

That is not equality, that is privilege. Which would be fine if you are not a proponent of equal rights. However, since you imply that you agree with Siggie's points, then it's a fair assumption that you, too are a proponent of equal rights.

I agree with Siggie when she said the folllowing:

There's no reason why it needs to be a choice if women are able to make it work so that neither their career nor their performance as a parent suffer.

If this assumption is true, then you correctly demonstrated the moral of the story I posted earlier, as you gained rights without the prior removal of privilege and the addition of responsibilities, and at any point reserve the right to pick and chose between responsibility and privilege.

The privilege I speak of is having a husband to support one whenever one wishes it to be so.

The responsibility I speak of is being a wage slave for the family and not having the luxury of quitting work whenever one wishes.

And the right I speak of, is the right not to consult one's husband before starting work, and as a result gaining the additional right of quitting whenever one wishes (May I say that that's a right that most responsible fathers can never have (except for the wealthy ones))

Haykakan and Siggie, do you now realize that my story had a valid moral behind it, as it can happen to not just those whom you two made the woman of the story to be.

No, I believe the rights are naturally equal but the moment it starts seriously to affect my relationship, I'd rather sacrifice 'that right' to keep my relationship in a balance. As I said my primary goal to work is not only to earn money but to keep my brain active, contribute in a way and reach a certain psychological fulfillment. What's more women are just so different from each other... For a lot of women it's so hard to work, have babies, take care of them, cook and clean, spend time with their husbands, etc. Obviously women's physical, mental strength, agility and organizing abilities vary greatly from each other but if there are women who can do the task properly, then why deprive them?

From what you posted, it would seem that in your case that mutual understanding would be that you reserve the right to quit work anytime you want, and he will be responsible for providing for the family regardless of what his wishes are.

Or maybe I reserve the right for him to tell me to quit my work based on solid arguments. And I'd rather do so, not to ruin the beautiful relationship.

Now, if you are a proponent of traditional family values, then you will need to let your husband take the lead.

I'm a proponent of beautiful traditional values. I may or may not be 'traditional' but I'm definitely not a 'modern' girl not much in terms of my appearance but my likes, dislikes, my values... I'm afraid to express my views on the issue and talk about my beliefs as it may pass off as 'self-promotion'. Again, the beauty of a relationship lies in the mutual understanding, love, respect, common values and the complementary nature of each partner in its own special way.

And as a man I can tell you that the things that women find sexy in a man are completely different than the things that they say they find sexy.

OK, like what? Women of the same generation can sometimes be very different from each other. Sometimes I find things attractive about men that many women do not even notice or like it...

[levon]

Re: Armenian women: should play a bigger role in our economy, politics and military.

I would like to maintain a career (doing what I like), take care of babies (if I have any someday) and spend time with my man. You do not get a degree to put it on the shelf and let it be buried by dust… I get a degree to be able to work, to have a presence in the society, to do what I like doing and fulfill my inner (non-material) needs. The moment my career affects my baby or my relationship; I'll put it away, no matter how much I 'earn' or anything. My family would be my absolute priority...

I like your values towards family. But here is a thought. By giving yourself the ability to terminate your career "the moment my career affects my baby or my relationship" you are effectively giving yourself the ability to quit work anytime. Since you didn't mention that the move to quit your job will come from "mutual understanding" between you and your husband, nor whether your husband can stay home instead of you to take care of your baby, I am only going to assume that you are giving yourself the right to quit work any time and have the privilege of being supported by your husband whenever you so wish.

Since you give yourself the right to quit work anytime, it's only natural that your husband will have no say in it; therefore, he himself cannot have the right to quit work anytime, otherwise it would interfere with your right to do so. That is not equality, that is privilege. Which would be fine if you are not a proponent of equal rights. However, since you imply that you agree with Siggie's points, then it's a fair assumption that you, too are a proponent of equal rights.

If this assumption is true, then you correctly demonstrated the moral of the story I posted earlier, as you gained rights without the prior removal of privilege and the addition of responsibilities, and at any point reserve the right to pick and chose between responsibility and privilege.

The privilege I speak of is having a husband to support one whenever one wishes it to be so.

The responsibility I speak of is being a wage slave for the family and not having the luxury of quitting work whenever one wishes.

And the right I speak of, is the right not to consult one's husband before starting work, and as a result gaining the additional right of quitting whenever one wishes (May I say that that's a right that most responsible fathers can never have (except for the wealthy ones))

Haykakan and Siggie, do you now realize that my story had a valid moral behind it, as it can happen to not just those whom you two made the woman of the story to be.

And a relationship is based on mutual understanding, respect and love, it's not a matter of who's leading, who's following.

From what you posted, it would seem that in your case that mutual understanding would be that you reserve the right to quit work anytime you want, and he will be responsible for providing for the family regardless of what his wishes are.

Now, if you are a proponent of traditional family values, then you will need to let your husband take the lead.

Regarding the chores, as a woman I can tell you, it's so sexy when a man helps the woman do certain stuff every once in a while. It actually brings them closer together, in my opinion.

And as a man I can tell you that the things that women find sexy in a man are completely different than the things that they say they find sexy.

[levon]

Re: Armenian women: should play a bigger role in our economy, politics and military.

Wikipedia is incorrect there, we called ourselves Mexica after moving out of Aztlan, Aztec, Aztlan, see the connection, the land was founded by Tenoch and Huitzilopochtli, who named it Tenochtitlan.

Ok, Wikipedia is incorrect, my mistake. I'm guessing my anthropology teacher was also wrong when he called Tenochtitlan the capital of the Aztec Civilization.

The societies were not traditional in your sense if you read, women were free to work any type of job and study what they want. Carefully read before commenting, I don't like to repeat myself

I don't think you have a clear vision of what my sense of traditional means. Here are some quotes from the article

The father had responsibility to teach their children, especially their sons about warfare and train them for battle. The mother, on the other hand, "has children and suckles them

These aspects of a mother and the way she acted, and played a role in children's life should be paid attention to and duly noted. Not only was this role important for the children's care and raising, it was also important that the daughters see their mother and her actions while growing up so she, herself can emulate her and be a mother, constantly at work

This Mayan wife is giving her husband his gear for battle before he leaves to fight. In comparison, we know that Aztec women probably played a role such as this as well. In many of these societies these types of actions were common. Warfare and battle was necessary for the males, and for the women, another aspect of their lives. It may not have been easy for these woman by any means, despite what specific society we are considering but it was highly valued, and an important part of everyday Aztec lifestyle.

The wife of a man was quite often referred to as -cihuah, "one's woman," or she was sometimes referred to as -namic "one's
spouse,” (Lockhart 1992:74). -Cihuah can be viewed by some as derogatory but to others, it is just more evidence of male
dominance among the Aztecs, and women being a possession among the men.

These statements remind me so much of Armenian traditional values.

[levon]

Re: Armenian women: should play a bigger role in our economy, politics and military.

I'd tell you my IQ, but I don't want to brag. Seriously though, let's be civil. I told you I wasn't insulting you with that pigheaded comment (which actually isn't like calling someone a pig at all), so don't insult me.

Just in your previous post you said that the IQ test doesn't mean much, so I guess it won't be bragging.

It's not a strawman. If the things they assert in the quotes from the article are not sound, then it makes me wonder what the quality of their research is. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to wonder about. However, notice I said that A,B, and C make me skeptical and I would look at the article when it was published and I did not draw a conclusion about it.

The things they assert are not sound..? That is I assume solely based on your skepticism, correct?

You know you had your mind made up to disagree with me and have an attitude about it from the start. You had clashed with others in this thread, but I had not said boo to you and you jumped on me from the start. Why? You shouldn't jump to conclusions.

I could make an interesting comment, but I'll be civil and exercise restraint just this time.

I believe I was clear, but I will say it again. Equal opportunity! Women should have the opportunity to pursue careers and to do so in the field of their choosing. If they're qualified, they're qualified and their sex is irrelevant.

No profitable business can afford to say nay to qualified candidates. Armenian businesses and institutions don't have a problem with hiring women, so I'm not sure why you keep bringing this up.

You may cling to this 5 point difference (again assuming it isn't a spurious finding), but in reality a mere 5 point difference doesn't tell you anything useful about the average man or woman. You can't say with any meaningful confidence that any woman selected at random from the population is less intelligent than any man selected at random. There is just too much overlap in those distributions.

Notice that I have never explicitly or implicitly clung to the 5 point difference. You claimed that men and women have equal intelligence and I pointed you to a study that didn't quite agree with your statement. Make what you want out of it.

What responsibilities are those? Does that mean men will also have child rearing responsibilities or does that mean that women must have the same responsibilities that men have, but that men don't need to have the same responsibilities that women have? I'm not sure what you're suggesting.

I'll make it more clear then. Men are drafted into the army regardless of whether they want to or not. Women can volunteer, but are not drafted; therefore, men have the responsibility of protecting their country, but women have the choice of doing so. Thus, traditionally men have been granted certain rights that women didn't get. Women cannot expect the exact same rights as men until they have the exact same responsibility.

You implied that women have child rearing responsibilities. I think it's more of a choice, but I agree. These responsibilities give women certain advantages that men can never fully attain. For example, a woman always knows that the child is hers, but a man can never be sure (without a DNA test). I'm going to call these advantages reproductive rights.

As long as women, alone, have reproductive rights, things cannot be equal. So while your working hard to get women rights that men have, make sure to also work just as hard to grant men rights that women have.

It's absurd to suggest that I should preface everything I say with a comment about whether it's directed at your or not.

It's not absurd, I've been doing it with every post.

You are reading something into my posts that's not there because you made up your mind that you disagree with everything I say before even reading what I have to say. Way to be objective. What I am saying is regarding the original post and what I have said previously. Giving women opportunities in politics, government, and just any field basically, is good because they can contribute to these fields.

I haven't made up my mind to disagree with you. It just so happens that I disagree with points you bring up.

And yes, saying that they shouldn't be in military, government, etc is not the same as saying they shouldn't have a career, and while some may agree that women can have careers and a family, but think they should stay out of some fields, jobs, etc, I do not think that you would deny that there are also some people who think women should not work outside of the home. I do not need to be believe that someone who has posted in this thread has that belief. There are lots of people who read, but don't post and there are more still who happen upon these threads via search engines who are not even members. So, to suggest that I shouldn't say that unless I have evidence that someone here, whatever that encompasses, is absurd.

If you believe that men are equal to women then women cannot pick and choose the rights that men have and they want, as this would mean they can pick and choose which responsibilities they want and that would be privilege and not equality.

There is either absolute equality or no equality. It's an all or none deal.

If you want to state points (not stated by others) then disagree with those for the general population of the readers of these forums, you're are welcome to start another thread, write things that others think/say in disagreement with you and then rebuke them. Otherwise, you can just state your point of view by saying "It's a good idea to have women participate in things that don't involve housework and child-rearing" rather than saying "I think people who want to limit women to the house are pig-heads" (or something similar)

You didn't know the first thing about me, you should have held off on the judgments.

I only know what you have exposed, and I make my judgments based on that.

Looks it's not necessary to bring up crack heads and such. I am just saying that we cannot pretend that Armenia is without problems. We need to open our eyes. On the whole it may be better, sure, but there are some very shameful things going on still that need fixing. Better than western culture is not necessarily good enough. It doesn't mean that we can use drug addicts and the mentally ill as a comparison and conclude that everything's just rosy in Armenia. It's not.

You're the one that implied that Armenians don't make better parents than the Americans, and now you state that "On the whole it may be better." ......

I never said Armenia is without problems, but merely mentioned that there are elements of Western culture that I despise and elements of Armenian culture that I hold dear and don't want changed.

As for the evidence... I believe Fed has addressed that point.

And I thanked Fed for doing so, but I asked you to present evidence so you don't continue your habit of making statements and presenting them as facts, without providing the proper evidence.

That's not exactly what you said and I'm not sure how mom being at home more would make him a "man." If the children were school aged, the mom could have worked part-time or something, and the uncle could help out as well and she would still be around. Anyway, you said he didn't "allow" her to work which communicated something than (based on your clarification) what you intended, so this is really a moot point.

I'm sure you noticed that I was paraphrasing, but what you don't get is the difference between the culture that raised you and the culture that raised my friend.

I think I explained above what I meant. I mean that (1) we should rethink some of the gender roles, and that allowing women to depart from them does not mean that they will become depraved people who will not want to have and care for a family and (2) that we can benefit by giving women opportunities in traditionally male dominated fields.

And I think we haven't the need to rethink gender roles, because a man acting like a woman and a woman acting like a man are peculiarities that should stay out of Armenia.

Belligerent and condescending are not more fancy than hostile or arrogant, they're just shorter. The length of a word is not a gauge of its sophistication. Anyhow, I'm not hiding behind anything. I said what I meant, and despite what you may be inclined to believe, I don't sit here and rewrite things to pack in advanced vocabulary or consult a thesaurus. That's just how I speak and I don't think I have a particularly good vocabulary anyway.

Well, words that one is much more likely to encounter on Verbal SAT than everyday speech would be fancy words. And to be honest, "Hostile and arrogant" just has that much more of a kick than "Belligerent and condescending", so in my opinion, it's hiding behind fancy words.

I meant that if you take things personally when someone has a different opinion than yours you will react defensively as you did, and it will escalate things and turn into insult hurling.

I think I've been rather calm with almost all of my responses, and I only took it personally when Haykakan called me a racist.

You did this when you read my post, decided I was insulting you, and then implied that I have a big ego, that my post was vacuous and simply an attempt to brag about my accomplishments.

I merely commented on what I read, and what I thought about it. You didn't have to take it to mean anything degrading.

And let's not forget the part above where you turned my sarcasm into an opportunity to insult my intelligence.

I didn't insult your intelligence, I merely countered sarcasm with some more sarcasm.

My point was that if this is how you approach the situation when someone expresses an opinion incongruent with yours, you will be drawn to personal insults, which will inevitably lead to being suspended or eventually banned from the forum.

I reserve the right to post my opinions and arguments freely, and have been rather civil in doing so. If my actions get me banned because some people take them more personally than intended, then so be it.

So, before getting nasty with me and calling me "your highness" and the like

I'm guessing only you may use sarcasm in your speech.

, please take a breath and review the assumptions that lead you down that path because, I assure you, I possess none of those negative qualities or motives which you have ascribed to me.

I only judged you based what you posted. If I wrongly ascribed you (negative) qualities that are not yours, then I'm very happy to be told I'm wrong.

I hope we can start anew, be able to disagree, and still engage in a polite exchange.


No comment other than to say be careful not to assume I subscribe to an identical set of beliefs that you associate with "feminists" as we have only discussed a couple of things at most.

Ok, I'm happy to hear your not a feminist.

[levon]

Re: Armenian women: should play a bigger role in our economy, politics and military.

Are you for real? You describe me as a fornicator then say your happy i found balanace. You say you have been married for two years like its some accomplishment. Add another 10 years to that and a 5 yearold kid and i know a lot more about family then you or the rest of the sexist clowns here-and yes you definetly belong in that group. I have no problem saying all of this to your face.

Ok, I mistakenly made the assumption that when you approached women you didn't just think about having non-flirtations conversations with them, I'll just assume that you never had any thoughts of that nature when you approached them. My mistake, should have known better.

Call my marriage what you want. Only God can decide how long it will last, and I'll just continue his bidding.

You obviously know more about everything than anyone here, or you so assert.

If you have no problem saying all that to my face, then come and do so, before that please refrain from insults. And I btw, I only take insult when you call me a racist, sexist is fine.

[Siggie]

Re: Armenian women: should play a bigger role in our economy, politics and military.

Are you for real? You describe me as a fornicator then say your happy i found balanace. You say you have been married for two years like its some accomplishment. Add another 10 years to that and a 5 yearold kid and i know a lot more about family then you or the rest of the sexist clowns here-and yes you definetly belong in that group. I have no problem saying all of this to your face.

Dial it down a notch please? Disagree with him, tell him he doesn't know anything about marriage and family yet, but don't call him a clown. Thanks.