A woman's place is in the home

Research shows that the majority of people believe that a woman's place is in the home: looking after the children; attending to domestic duties and ensuring her husband's dinner is on the table when he comes in from work. [1]

Sadly, many women these days have chosen to abandon their feminine duties and pursue careers in industry and commerce instead - and it stands to reason that their families have suffered as a result of their neglect.

Meanwhile, there is mass unemployment with the resulting travesty of skilled men, who are willing to work, sitting idle at home.

This scandalous waste of talent could be ended if women were to resume their traditional role as housewives: proud to tend the nest while their husbands are out at work, drinking down the pub or being entertained at a gentlemen's club.

Obviously, there will always be plenty of jobs for single women to do: they can work as secretaries, barmaids or strippers for example.

However, society as a whole should encourage young women to consider settling down and starting a family to be a worthy and fulfilling vocation in itself and not to trouble themselves with any notions of starting a career.

Thank you.

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk...

I thank Pro for instigating this debate.

I will argue that a women's place is NOT solely in the home, but a variety of places.

I would like to start by pointing out that the resolution state's a woman's place, not a married woman, but any woman, whether divorced, widowed, or single.

1. Marriages end in divorce

Around 50% of marriages these days are ending in divorce (1). This is a huge problem because women who would take care of the kids while the husband was out working now suddenly found themselves in their late 30's and unable to get anything but an entry level job; all those years of not working and staying at home has certainly been a negative thing. If they obtained custody of the kids, they suddenly have a huge problem. Obtaining custody of the kids is very common for the woman in the marriage; 70% of all child custody cases end with the mom getting full custody of the kids (2). Then she is left with a serious problem, seeing as she followed your mantra her whole life and now has NO experience in the workplace. "A single mom is nine times more likely than a married woman to have an income that is less than half the official poverty line." (3) How will she raise these kids while being under the poverty line? More importantly, how would she do it by simply staying at home, which is what my opponent argues all females should do.

If the woman would have been working in a joint effort with the man, or even holding a smaller job than the man, then it wouldn't turn out so bad, and those kids wouldn't turn out so poor. My opponent argues that mass unemployment has hit even those who are skilled in certain areas....how does the reader believe this mother of two or three is going to get a job if even the people with more experience then her can't obtain one; this ruins families, which is why many women are starting to stray from the "stay at home" lifestyle. My opponent tries to state, right after his statement about unemployment, that there are plenty of jobs for single women; this isn't so, as I have proven. However, if they start out by getting a higher education (unable to be obtained through the resolution) or by simply working at a younger age through the years, this poverty would be extremely mitigated and these households better off; disagreeing with this statement can be classified simply as biased at this point.

Pro's Argument
My opponent's opening statistic should be completely ruled out for multiple reasons: it's a study solely in Britain for one, and my opponent already referenced U.S. concerns of unemployment, making this a United States centered debate, as we all already knew. Also, although at this point the stat is already useless to my opponent, the study states that the number of people believing that a women in full time employment would not harm a family went from 51% for men and 50% for women to 42% in men and 46% in women. In other words, not a drastic drop at all.

"... abandon their feminine duties...their families have suffered as a result..." This is completely opinionated and should be ruled off, for my opponent doesn't give any reason to state why/how these families are suffering, or any document that had a list of feminine duties.

My opponent ends his argument by saying that they shouldn't trouble themselves with any notions of starting a career. This will lead to exactly what I stated earlier; impoverished families with poor mom's trying to take care of the kids.

All in all, every angle the reader takes at this points to women needing to get out of the home and either get a higher education or a career or even a smaller job then the husband, as to prepare for the outcome of divorce, which strikes half of all families in the U.S.

Thank you

Sources
1. http://www.infoplease.com...
2. http://www.divorce-lawyer-source.com...
3.http://divorce.lovetoknow.com...

I would like to thanks PartamRuhem for accepting this debate and for posting such a comprehensive rebuttal.

To begin, my opponent raises the issue of divorce and I accept the depressing statistics he provided. However, as you will see from the graph below, divorce rates have rocketed upwards since the early 1970's when it first became common for women to embark upon careers.

http://www.bsos.umd.edu...

These figures demonstrate that a woman working outside the home has a detrimental effect on her family life which, all too often, results in divorce.

The impact of the breakdown of a marriage can be devastating to children who will have a higher probability of:

• being in poverty and poor housing;
• being poorer when they are adults;
• behavioural problems;
• performing less well in school;
• needing medical treatment;
• leaving school/home when young;
• becoming sexually active, pregnant, or a parent at an early age;
• depressive symptoms, high levels of smoking and drinking, and drug use during adolescence and adulthood.

http://www.jrf.org.uk...

My opponent makes the point that divorced women with work experience would be more capable of providing for her children post-divorce, but the reality is, the cost of professional childcare is so high that, for most single mothers, it makes full-time employment uneconomic and they are better off relying on welfare payments.

In any case, surely prevention is better than cure? Wouldn't it be better for all concerned if women concentrated their time and efforts on their homes and families and left their husbands to bring home the bacon?

My opponent pointed out that I failed to provide any evidence that children suffer as the result of their mothers going out to work, for which I apologise and refer you to a recent study conducted by researchers at Columbia University in New York who measured more than 50 skills in 3-year-old children and those whose mothers worked full-time more than 30 hours a week in the first nine months scored worst.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk...

He also notes that I failed to detail the feminine duties I referred to so, just to clarify, here is a list:

1 – Housework (cleaning, dusting and that sort of thing)
2 – Cooking
3 – Gardening / yard work
4 – Knitting and sewing
5 – Looking after children
6 – Washing and ironing
7 – Shopping for food

Note that the above list does NOT include:

1 – Lazing about watching TV
2 – Chatting to friends on the phone
3 – Messing about on the internet
4 – Meeting friends for lunch
5 – Reading soppy romantic novels
6 – Going to bingo halls to waste time and money
7 – Shopping for clothes, shoes and handbags

In conclusion, lasting and durable relationships providing stable platforms on which to raise families can only be achieved if society recognises that a woman's place is in the home.

Thank you.

This debate revolves around Pro trying to prove that at all times, all women should be at home, tending to "feminine duties" as my opponent put it. All the burden for Con (me) is to show that it would be better off for not all women to be at home at all times. Now, previously in my argument, I have already proven as to why I am right. My opponent, however, tries to refute this with his bias opinion and meager sources, which I will address presently.

My opponent tries arguing that since women brought the idea of working into practice in the 1970's, there is a correlation between the high divorce rates, which also come about in the 1970's. This is an educated guess, at best, seeing as he has no stat to link the two. I can just as easily turn around and say that since we went to war in vietnam, women starting divorcing their husband; my opponent gives no stat to back up his claim of women starting careers at this time.

Upon looking more closely at one of my opponents only sources, we can see that the "skyrocket" he refers to only consists of a small group of women; the stat goes from 15/1000 marriages ending in divorce in 1970 to around 22/1000 marriages ending in divorce in 1980. Not detrimental at all, and therefore not supporting my opponent's case.

Pro then lists the problem that divorce causes for children and families, which I agree with. However, this only strengthen's my case, seeing as their is no link between divorce and women pursuing careers.

Afterwards, he attacks my point that women not staying at home, who have more work experience, are more capable to handle the children after divorce by saying that it isn't feasible for a single mother to be able to afford childcare. This again comes without a statistic, and seeing as my opponent has been proven wrong before, we can all assume he is wrong again. Nonetheless, I will address this refutation.

My opponent rules out the possibility of outside sources coming in to assist the mother: Grandmother's, girlfriends, new boyfriends, pretty much any relatives in general. Even without any of these, hiring a nanny or taking their kids to daycare is still an alternative to staying at home; all the while, they are making MUCH more then they would be making on welfare. Just look at the numbers that follow. 79.5% of single mothers work, 50% of those being full time [1]. Only 27% of custodial single mothers are living in poverty [1], showing that the majority of these women are above the poverty line and doing just fine by not staying at home and actually working. We can assume the majority of those 27% in poverty make up the 20.5% of single mothers who don't work and stay at home.

My opponent's "source" and data in regards to children suffering as a result of mothers going out to work is skeptical at best. It is hard to even understand, and upon closer inspection, is a twist of the actual truth that the original article states. The article says, "The children of women who return to work shortly after giving birth are more likely to be slower developers..." meaning that it's not all children that are suffering, just one's who's mother's return to work shortly after giving birth, and I agree with my opponent that it's not right they do that; they should take a full month or longer off work to support that child, then return to work. Family and other close individuals to that mother can support her while she is off work.

| Conclusion |
This debate follows the criteria (for con) that not all women, all the time, should be at home. I have proven this through my statistics and by showing that my opponent has no case, because his sources are invalid and his thoughts extremely bias; he fails to actually back up his opinions with fact, or even logic. I, however, have shown that a woman staying at home has a negative impact on her and her kids. I would like to remind the reader once more that all my burden is is to prove that not ALL the time should ALL women stay at home, and I have done that without the slightest refutation from my opponent.

I would like to thank Pro for starting this debate, and I thank the readers/judges for reading this debate.

Thank you.

Sources
1. http://singleparents.about.com...