JugSouthgate previously wrote: "There was and is no reason to keep anyone out of any job simply because of gender, race, ethnicity or religion if they could do the job. That sort of discrimination should have ended decades before it did."

imnobody replies: "Yes, this is why the discrimination about men being stay-at-home dads has to end right now. I can see all the policies government has to implement for men to have the same opportunities that women to be stay-at-home dads. I can see lots of agencies in the government, policies, laws issued to fight this discrimination, the same way it has been done with women in the workplace."

Interesting concept!

imnobody: "Was there any law who prevented women to work outside home if they wanted back in the 50's? I think it was mostly that women prefered to be housewives but I could be wrong."

I don't think there were many laws prohibiting women from working outside the home. But neither were there laws prohibiting discrimination.

For example, employers of all kinds could simply refuse to hire women for any job, regardless of qualifications. This included government jobs and government contractors and suppliers, all of which were paid with tax dollars.

Schools could refuse or limit the number of women admitted to study various subjects. This extended to things such as some school buildings not having women's rest rooms.

All sorts of discriminatory policies were allowed to exist, often without question. Some employers would fire (in a nice way...) a woman employee who got married; others would wait until the first baby was on the way before showing a woman to the door. Some would not hire women for any job where they would, or even might, supervise men.

Some employers went the opposite way and employed lots of women - and paid them less, for the same work. Often there would be all sorts of completely irrelevant job requirements designed to keep women out of certain jobs.

One of the biggest steps forward for equality came during World War 2. With so many men in the military, US factories found themselves short of workers. So they hired and trained women to do jobs that were traditionally done by men, such as welders on ships, aircraft assembly, machinists, electronics assembly, heavy-equipment operator and much more. The software for the world's first high-speed, general-purpose, electronic digital computer, ENIAC, was written, debugged and applied by a group of women.

But when the war ended, almost all of those women were let go. Their employment was "for the duration" only. But what they did, besides helping to win the war, was to demonstrate that a lot of jobs weren't gender-specific.

imnobody: "The disappeareance of labor-intensive jobs played a role in the current situation, but, in my opinion, the increase in the number of workers (feminism, immigrants) was a MAJOR cause."

I don't think it's reasonable to blame any single cause - nor to rule any out.

JugSouthgate: "The bigger question is: where do we go from here? How do we reconstruct America so everybody has a better chance?"

imnobody: "It is very difficult now. Everybody's working full-time is entrenched in the fabric of society. It is like asking "How do you achieve a society without computers?".

I don't think it's that hard. All it takes is imagination. There was a time, not so long ago, when most folks could not imagine a society with more than a few computers!

imnobody: "The only way I see is to downplay the level of consumption. People should try to spend less and work less."

Maybe. The problem is that a lot of what people work for isn't 'consumption' as much as 'necessities'. This is another big change.

It used to be, here in the USA, that the necessities of life (food, clothing, housing, education, medical care, transportation) were inexpensive, but luxuries (TVs, air travel, restaurant dining, etc.) were very expensive. Affording a decent house wasn't difficult but a TV was a major purchase and a color TV was only for rich people.

Now that's turned upside-down. Everybody can have a TV and a lot of other stuff, but a house to put it in is another issue. Things like a college education have gone up in price much faster than wages *and* have become much more necessary just to get and hold a job.

imnobody:"The protestant work ethic is part of your DNA."

What is this 'protestant work ethic' of which you speak? What is the alternative?