Stimulus bill targets men, sez the Weekly Standard:
A “man-cession.” That’s what some economists are starting to call it. Of the 5.7 million jobs Americans lost between December 2007 and May 2009, nearly 80 percent had been held by men. Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan, characterizes the recession as a “downturn” for women but a “catastrophe” for men.
Men are bearing the brunt of the current economic crisis because they predominate in manufacturing and construction, the hardest-hit sectors, which have lost more than 3 million jobs since December 2007. Women, by contrast, are a majority in recession-resistant fields such as education and health care, which gained 588,000 jobs during the same period. Rescuing hundreds of thousands of unemployed crane operators, welders, production line managers, and machine setters was never going to be easy. But the concerted opposition of several powerful women’s groups has made it all but impossible. Consider what just happened with the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Oldest wingnut talking point: The stimulus is just pork designed to reward ACORN and left-wing causes.
Older wingnut talking point: The stimulus bill is not creating or saving any jobs.
Old wingnut talking point: Stimulus bill creating jobs after the recovery already started and should be cancelled.
New wingnut talking point: Stimulus bill hidden sexist attack on America’s testicles by ball-busting abortion-having lesbian feminists.
C Nelson Reilly
You’re supposed to call it “porkulus”
Comrade Stuck
Shorter wingnut to wymen – Take them shoes off, git back in the kitchen, and bake that bun.
Comrade Stuck
sh oes sho es shooes.
ricky
Crane operators and welders can enjoy the spare time to practice their parenting skills.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
…And then the unemployed Dittoheads became straight male escorts to try to pay the bills, but when the wealthy overemployed lesbian abortionist women turned them down for being so hideous, that only provided more fuel for their seething angst.
ricky
@ Comrade Stuck…
In the words of Kinky Friedman “get your biscuits in the oven and your buns into bed.”
Which, if you follow his career, was apparently not snark.
anonevent
But if we can just make health care more market oriented and less dependent on government handouts, then everyone will be affected by recessions equally. That’s the ticket.
Ash Can
What the holy living fuckety-fuck is this person talking about? One of the main intended benefits of the stimulus was to fund state-level infrastructure repair and construction projects. There’s one that I know of within walking distance of my house. A stretch of crapped-up road is finally getting fixed, and there’s a honking big sign on the side stating that the project is being funded by the Recovery Act. If the work on that project is being done by women only, either they’re masters of disguise or they’re on hormone therapy that’s gone spectacularly, dreadfully wrong.
AnotherBruce
It’s nice to know that the Weekly Standard is concerned about manufacturing jobs, that’s why they’ve supported unions over the years and fought so hard against “free” trade agreements that caused wholesale exportation of manufacturing jobs. If only we had listened to them then, we wouldn’t be in this economic crisis.
Except that, on the planet earth, they supported the exportation of jobs and oppose unions. Other than that, they’re very concerned.
Napoleon
Wow, I have yet to read anything about “concerted opposition of several powerful women’s groups” trying to keep men from being rehired, before your Weekly Standard blurb, and in fact the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 actually targets for the stimulus more jobs that could reasonably be expected to be men (not intentionally because they are jobs held by men).
Sounds like the WS just made it all up.
PeakVT
I Can’t Keep Up
It’s hard to when the other side funds hundreds of professional poo-flingers.
Doctor Science
I think that on days when John says he’s “going Galt”, every politics post must include at least one picture or vid of Lily and/or Tunch.
Don’t you agree, folks?
Comrade Stuck
It’s all part of their plan to remain a permanently minority, but pure party. This week looks like it’s “piss off women week”. Last week was “piss Hispanics week” etc….etc…. and every week is “piss off the poor and world week”
fastandsloppy
Dear Republicans, I hate to have to point this out, but bullshit has a very stark point of diminishing returns. Let me demonstrate with a business example…
Think of it this way: if someone calls takes off work because their mother died, you don’t think much about it (aside from normal human feeling of sympathy, I would hope). If a person takes off three times in a month because their mother, sister and aunt all died, you start to get suspicious that you are being played for a fool. If you have an employee who has a family member die each and every week, sometimes at the rate of two a week, you don’t trust a damn thing that person says, even in respect to details having nothing to do with the status of their various family members.
And that’s you, dear Republicans, your bullshit stories are starting to sound like an employee who’s mother just died for the third time this year. Seriously, you guys are getting embarrassing. Just be quiet for awhile and think this stuff through.
SpotWeld
I dare anyone to name two.
Betsy
They neglected to mention that one of the reasons for this is that women tend to *already* be in low-wage, no-benefit, part-time jobs, and are vastly more likely to be living in poverty. Lucky bitches.
inthewoods
You forgot a couple of steps in the Old Wingnut memes:
– The porkulus money is being wasted and used on fraudulent projects. And then,
– The porkulus money isn’t getting out there quick enough!
MattR
@Betsy: To add to what you said, I am sure the folks at the Weekly Standard have never expressed the view that women should focus on being teachers and nurses (and other feminine jobs that require empathy).
edit: the blockquote was from the Weekly Standard and not Betsy
John S.
So let me get this straight…
The same people that said that the only jobs women should have were in teaching and nursing are NOW mad because the careers in teaching and nursing haven’t been hit as hard by the recession?
Can these fucking conservatives EVER keep their arguments straight?
Betsy
@John S.:
Yes.
Crockpot
I was totally confused by your message. I was expecting something completely different, but then, at first I thought the title was “I can’t keep IT up”.
Riggsveda
Geez, I better tell my daughter, who hasn’t had health insurance in 5 years and is on her second extension of unemployment, to stop hogging all the good jobs.
jake 4 that 1
Ancient Wingnut Talking Point: Dey took ur jobs!!
This is conservo-loony Rule Numero Uno for serious economic downturns. Certain jobs are beneath the Caucasian male and fit only for minorities and women until there are no other jobs available. At that point the people who have those jobs should step aside and starve quietly.
The entire world is an entitlement program, but only for the right people.
Betsy
Great info about women and poverty:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/10/women_poverty.html
The Disenfranchised Voter
Well speaking as a man myself, I was laid off about a month ago and the stimulus bill is giving my ass an extra 50 bucks each check so I aint complaining.
As someone with no dependents an extra 50 bucks is pretty sweet.
truculentandunreliable
Let’s not forget that the men who are laid off from construction and factory jobs are often partnered with women who work in health care and child care. So, does it not make sense to make sure that if the man in the family can’t get a job, at least the woman can keep her job and maybe even get health insurance and higher pay so that she can support her family during the recession? CNAs make about $10 an hour, and childcare workers make about $7 an hour. How are they supposed to support a family on those wages?
Furthermore, are health care and education less important than manufacturing? Women are already being paid less for the pink-collar equivalent of manufacturing/construction jobs; are they supposed to just stand by while their jobs are YET AGAIN deemed less important even though they work as hard as their male counterparts in order to support their families.
truculentandunreliable
Also, this may be a good time for men to go back to school and learn some of those dreaded girly skills, especially if their partners are able to support their families. I mean, I believe in the Green New Deal as much as anyone else, but it’s not going to support the entire working class, and God knows that manufacturing isn’t going to experience a revival in this country any time soon.
In short–why do conservatives act like this shit is a zero-sum game?
drillfork
@AnotherBruce: Thanks for giving life to my disjointed thoughts on this subject…
Notorious P.A.T.
Surf on over to the feminist websites like Pandagon, and you’ll hear all about how awful it is that so much stimulus money is going to male-oriented jobs like construction. You will also here that women are just as able to be cement cutters or pipefitters as men, and anyone who says otherwise is a woman-hating neanderthal.
TenguPhule
Because they’re supposed to get all the sums and leave zero for everyone else. That’s how the world is supposed to work.
Niket
“New wingnut talking point: Stimulus bill hidden sexist attack on America’s testicles by ball-busting abortion-having lesbian feminazis.”
Statement corrected!
Napoleon
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Even if that is true that they are saying that on websites like Pandagon (which I don’t doubt, I saw some BS along those lines somewhere) 1) that is not the same as a women’s group coming out against it and 2) the blurb from the WS piece suggest they have been successful in derailing the efforts to aim stimulus money at those areas of the economy.
By the way, those women on that website can go out and apply for those jobs if that is what they want.
asiangrrlMN
Cool. Where can I sign up?
Jerry
Citation needed. I read Pandagon every day and I don’t remember seeing anything of the sort on there.
Mayken
@Betsy: OMG! That is the funniest thing – in that ouch! sorta way – I have read today.
Mayken
And, once again, isn’t it amazing how quickly the wingnuts latch onto sexism when it fits their needs? OMG! The stupid, it burns!