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From: friedman@h-sc1.UUCP (dawn friedman)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: A *real* problem
Message-ID: <453@h-sc1.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Jul-85 13:09:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: h-sc1.453
Posted: Mon Jul 22 13:09:30 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Jul-85 20:33:14 EDT
References: <11626@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Distribution: net
Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
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> Here's an issue that affects every single person, every working mother,
> every member of a two-person houshold where both work (no matter what
> sex they are or what the nature/status of their relationship), yet I do
> not hear complaints about it, do not see protests about it, and I
> haven't even seen gripes about it on the net (so here's one! :-):
> 
> Stores and any other retail businesses that have hours like 9-5 on
> weekdays and either limited or no Saturday or Sunday hours.
> 
> The vast majority of people who work have jobs that fall in the area of
> 9 AM - 5 PM weekdays; even if they have flexitime or different hours, the
> 
> These operations insult women -- they are stating, by their hours of
> operation, that they expect that evey household has a non-working member
> that can come to them during the hours that they are open, and that
> person has traditionally been the "housewife". 
> 
> Will Martin
  
Very interesting.  Sometime today my semi-official POSSLQ will be    
wandering around Central Square searching for a heavy extension cord.
I don't work official 9-to-5 hours; but I usually go to work directly
from home, and I like to end my research-day in time to cook dinner
by 7 or 8, after which I collapse.  He works something like 8-to-5
(but he can't cook beyond macaroni; he washes up.)  It would be
a real pleasure to have the 12-to-8 pm hours suggested, and far
more useful to a lot of people I know than it is to us, too.
  
But no one chooses hours of operation to make a statement.  People,
for one thing, like to work 9-to-5.  Our social structure is geared
to workdays that end before dinner and weekends of leisure.  If 
you were an employee of one of these postulated 12-to-8 establishments,
wouldn't you be a bit annoyed to find yourself three hours out of
phase with the rest of society?  You'd be late for prime time TV,
you'd have to decline weekday dinner invitations from 9-to-5 friends...
What about the two-job families including a 12-to-8-er?  Unless
both partners were in the same time zone, each evening would be
pretty unfamilial.  And I don't like the implications of creating
a class of shop-keepers and their employees who live differently
from the rest of us...
  
It seems to me that the thing to do is to add some Saturday and 
Sunday hours, preferably by hiring part-timers or by circulating
shifts around, so that no one has to have a permanently mangled 
weekend, either.  Sunday hours are necessary unless you want to
leave Orthodox Jewish two-career families outside the shop door.
 
In summary, there are many inconvenient things in the world, and
many structures as yet unadapted to changing circumstance.  But 
many of them are not acts of malice. 

                                                dsf