More Women Employed Than Men

In the next year or so women's employment numbers should surpass men's for the first time in US history.

That's big news.

On KQED they have a program called "Perspectives". It showcases different essays from people in the Bay Area. Yesterday, they had a labor guy on called Dick Meister who commented on some new statistics to come out of the Recession. Here's an article he wrote and some quotes from it.

"The number of women workers has been growing steadily for decades, but the number has boomed during the recession. That's partly because the greatest job losses have been in male-dominated fields such as construction and manufacturing. Men have lost more than three million jobs in those areas alone since the recession began in late 2007. Three-quarters of all jobs lost - a total of 4.75 million - were held by men. Women lost three million fewer jobs."

This translates into the fact that women have or are about to become the dominate gender in the workforce. One sad part is that some of this is due to the fact that women make less, and so were hired in greater numbers during the recession. That still needs to change because the quality of your work doesn't really depend on having a vagina or a penis (unless you are talking about certain heavy lifting jobs like fireman- I mean watch Rescue Me for a couple of seasons if you really want to debate this subject, in which case an over abundance of testosterone is an asset). Here is how Dick Meister put it.

"The figures are downright spectacular. Local governments, for instance, have laid off 86,000 men during the recession, but they have hired 167,000 women. That's largely because women generally are paid less than men and are hired mainly for office jobs, which typically are better funded than other government positions."

I am encouraged and frightened by all of this, which I think anyone in the position of "majority" going to "minority" might feel. I am encouraged to see that minorities status groups are capable of gaining equality. I suppose surprised wouldn't be the right word, as I've been mentioning the higher graduation rates of women for a few years now, but I am excited to see what will happen. I am frightened by what they may decide to do with that majority. So often in history the oppressed become the oppressors, and I just hope that this time will history will not repeat itself. Personally, I don't see how women could possibly fuck things up as bad as their male counterparts. Not to mention that most (if not all) matriarchal societies that I have read about are much more peaceful and prosperous than many patriarchal societies. I figure we've had our chance, time to move over and see what the ladies can do.

So I for one welcome our new overlords, and hope they are kind to their new minions.

PS

Sorry for the recent drought. I've got a couple things on deck, but work has been busy, and these blogs get wearing. Photoblog is still going!