People, people, people!! Generations are not monolithic!!

[Sparkly]

("People, people, people" is what my teachers said when they were exasperated.)

We all have our individual lives, and circumstances both broadly worldwide and narrowly home-based affect them. (Wars and parent's personal issues; systemic discrimination and cruel siblings, whatever.)

Some experience is the same within a generation (the great depression, drafts, Vietnam), but a whole lot is different among individuals within any generation.

If any generation had been all ONE thing, the whole country would have become that ONE thing without any fuss or fight. And the one thing you can see, looking back, is enough fuss and fight to show there was never unanimity on anything.

So let's stop the broad-brushing, shall we?

[Captain Hilts]

1. True. Like women voters they are not monolithic, but they do lean...

Support for gay marriage, for example, has a generational pattern, while support for abortion rights does not.

Yet it was a jury of mostly older, white women that ruled against the obscenity charge on rap music.

[Sparkly]

4. Yes -- I'm not saying there's no such thing as demographic differences...

They can be really significant! But it's not enough to assume EVERY person of ANY demographic is automatically something-or-other, and especially not when it comes to generations!!

Just saying... after having seen boomers maligned for virtually every evil in the country!

Interesting about older white women. Don't know about that, but it's been a feminist saying that we become more radical with age.

[Captain Hilts]

6. I know a retired Marine Colonel who is a total socialist. He's 85. You never know.

Women realize they need government protection.

Men don't, in part because a whole generation had veterans benefits, so the govt. was going to look out for them if they had hard times, with medical and so forth.

Women do go liberal with age and men the opposite.

Here's hoping the same doesn't happen to your marriage, WifeToStinky!

[Sparkly]

9. Good points!

To say it dryly, women provide a "social service" in bearing and rearing children. That is what life is about at the core of our genes -- creating a new generation, right? It's the key to everything about survival, mating, success, as in modern business, fashion, bars, portfolios, etc... It all comes down to the same thing -- we are wired to produce and raise healthy children.

Yet women who do that work are the least "paid," "successful," and most dependent citizens... and children are seen as annoyances! Childcare is the last thing on any list of government (=social) concern, let alone support for parents caring for children in their homes. Not in this country.

Even Social Security is geared toward earning in "the workplace," so women are dependent on husbands' benefits, and when the husbands die, it can be brutal. Marriage as a great partnership isn't backed up with public policy. The division of labor isn't treated as 50/50.

Am I preaching to the choir here?

Anyway, no -- Stinky has grown more and more liberal. I was always so (liberal parents and sisters). The way he describes his younger years, we'd never have gotten along. Not to mention the fact that he could have been my babysitter... (Just have to throw that in there.)

;)

[TwilightZone]

2. Not just generations, but any group of people.

Teachers, cops, fire fighters, soldiers, politicians....

Liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans....

[LeftyMom]

3. That sounds like something an evil, capitalistic boomer would say.

:P

[BlooInBloo]

5. (shrug) Not every particle moves the same direction, but Newton and others...

were perfectly able to talk about the direction of the center of mass.

[Sparkly]

10. Well then, the center of the mass of boomers

was pretty damned progressive, overall.

So there.

:P

[BlooInBloo]

12. :) Ok. I didn't take issue with that...

Only took issue with the notion that such statements were "broad brush". They're not; they're very narrow brush - just talking about something different.

[Xipe Totec]

7. Every head is a universe

Spanish proverb.

[Duer 157099]

8. You might like to read the Strauss/Howe book called "Generations"

because it really describes why and how generations are defined. I used to think that it was too abtract a concept, but after reading the book and thinking about it, there really is something interesting to consider about the identities of various generations. And not only that, but the cyclical nature as well - they seem to go in definite cycles.

Obviously there are exceptions, but as overall trends, I think it is valid to ascribe certain characteristics to generations.

[Sparkly]

11. Thanks!

Sounds like a good read! :hi:

[Born_A_Truman]

13. Thank you.

My BP was shooting up and I had to stop reading a certain thread.

[stray cat]

14. But simplistic lumping of all people together is so much simpler than actual thought and nuance