Monday, March 8, 2010
Research Blog #9: Questions
So far I feel like my paper is going pretty well. I'm not really having any trouble finding sources, although I haven't looked for my primary source yet. My research proposal basically summed up all of my main ideas I want to talk about in my paper except for maybe like you said with the book "Educated in Romance" and how it is a gendered thing that women are more pressured into doing poorly in college because of their attractiveness to men and along with some other factors. I also think I'm still a little confused as to what you mean by "identifying key terms" too.
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Is it that women are "pressured into doing poorly in college" or that women purposely make choices based on the expectation of playing a secondary-earner role in future relationships? This is what the authors mean by "Pathways to Marginal Careers." Even though women now outnumber men in colleges throughout the country and actually have more success in most areas with grades, they still pursue secondary careers with lower earning power. I do not think that the authors suggest that women are pressured to do that, but I may be wrong (I have not read it in a while). Instead, women are making conscious choices based on an idea about their future happiness, where the man they marry will be the main breadwinner and they will have times where they take off from work to raise children.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it may well be that men are not ready to take up that role as breadwinner -- or they may not be able to do so in the new economy, according to Don Peck's "How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America" (The Atlantic, March 2010). In fact, many couples may come to rely on the earning power of women -- especially if those women are better able to succeed in school in ways that the job market can reward....
Of course, you might not much care for that story-line....
Alternately, you might consider Peck's discussion of the ways that male graduates, having trouble finding work, have adopted a "funemployment" "dude" attitude, taking advantage of their free time to enjoy themselves or meet personal goals. Of course, these men are also putting off getting married or taking on family obligations -- or they may be abandoning family obligations, leaving women to fend for themselves. But that might be the best route to happiness in the new jobless economy -- at least for men.
The question then becomes: what's a woman to do in the new economy?
You should read a recent article in the New Yorker reviewing a recent book on Happiness and discussing happiness studies generally.
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