Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum attempted to explain why he criticized “radical feminism” for working women and why he said Islam was “stuck in the 7th century.”Erm, uh, okay. So lemme get this straight. Santorum considers it bad to be stuck in the 7th Century if you're a Muslim, but wants women in America to go back to the 1950s, where they were stay-at-home moms and homemakers. Ri-i-ight!
Just for the record, one of the reasons that women have gone into the workforce since the early 1970s has been that the salaries of people who were making $50,000 a year or less have remained essentially flat for the past several decades. Inflation hasn't been out of control since the early 1980s, but although inflation has been mild since then, there has been some. As a result, Americans of modest income have had their standards of living squeezed for quite some time. This is not the post-World War II period (Late 1940s to the early 1970s), where salaries steadily rose for people making modest incomes.
Yes, part of the reason for women entering the workforce has been feminism, but a large part has been a squeeze on wages and living standards, which means that for an ordinary family to maintain its living standards, the stay-at-home mom/homemaker had to go out and get a job.
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