The national media, which is mainly comprised of people who were lucky enough to have been born into the middle class, keeps bragging about how the constantly rising number of women in the workplace shows how much freedom they are getting and how great the economy is. OH, BALDERDASH!!! Most of those women are working because they HAVE to. It used to be that the "man of the house" could make enough at his MANUFACTURING JOB to support the whole family and the wife would rather stay home with the kids than work in a factory as well. Then came the DOWNSIZING ERA that has been going on since late 1973. The fathers got downsized and had to take LOW PAYING SERVICE JOBS that paid one-third as much as their previous factory jobs. So now the wife and kids HAD to work to make up some of the missing two-thirds. Note that the worse downsizing gets the more women are forced into the workplace.

REMEMBER GLORIA STEINEM? remember how she said she felt so cheated as she couldnt "work" like her male relatives her age? What sort of "work" was she talking about? Was she whining about not being allowed to go work in a factory like my female cousins had to do? Of course not. She was like MARIE ANTOINETTE. She wanted an air-conditioned office "job" where she could sit in clean fancy clothes behind a desk and order around people whose parents were poorere than hers. Anyone who ever grew up in a poor neighborhood knows that there were plenty of women who worked. REALLY worked. In miserable jobs because they had to. Now the whole country is getting like that. As one girl I knew who worked in a sewing factory doing piecework that paid less than the minimum wage: "Before feminism I had to put up with rich mens'spoiled sons pushing me araound. Thanks to feminism I have to put up with their spoiled daughters, too"

LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND: When I was going to college in the 1960s (I worked my way through and dropped out every other year) I recall hearing these upper-middle class "co-eds" (That term was still barely around) say that they were going to live TWICE as well as their monied parents. Why? Well, because in their parents homes only the father had a college degree and worked but now BOTH husband and wife will have degrees and work, thus bringing in twice as much money. Sounds good, huh? Except for the Law of Supply and Demand. By doubling the workforce each individual job is worth half as much! And that is exactly what happened. If you look at such houses nowadays both people are working and yet the household is running at the same economic level as their parents household. Their income may be much higher but when you look at the real inflation rate they are each making much less.

....................... under construction june 2000