| First off, I didn’t discount your points, I’ve simply already accounted for them in a format other than the one you requested. I argue from a standpoint of general principles (equal pay for equal work, the nature of stereotypes, ect.) rather than specific examples for reasons of efficacy and effectiveness. Even when I use examples, their purpose is to support a general principle that I’m endorsing rather than to have them stand alone. In terms of time constraints, it’s far more efficient to develop a general principle that applies to almost all circumstances rather than deal with each one individually. Even if you know that you’re going to have to come up with exceptions in certain cases, you’re still better off developing a general principle/rule and then deciding when to deviate from it rather than begin from the specific applications and work towards the general rule. In terms of dealing with individual instances rather than a general principle, you also have the problem where your actions in similar circumstances can actually contradict one another in terms of the general principle that they endorse or further.
And not all of your biased points are accurate—the courts, for instance. It’s too myopic to say that there is a general bias towards either men or women; one must consider specific types of laws and cases. In some instances, the bias is in women’s favour, in others, it’s in men’s favour. You weaken your own argument when you don’t account for this. As has already been mentioned, rape convictions are appalling in comparison to rape charges. In court, it’s still considered evidence when the woman was wearing something revealing. How exactly is wearing a short skirt tantamount to an invitation for rape? I don’t care if she’s stoned out of her mind and walking around a frat house naked—there is never an excuse for one to rape. That goes for both genders and all instances when force is involved, or when one is unable to consent (due to alcohol, drugs, ect.) I’m not going to address issues of statutory rape in detail here—some are highly problematic (the thirty year old grooming a thirteen year old for sex), while others are far more ambiguous (the eighteen year-old having sex with his long-time and sixteen year-old girlfriend, for instance). For the moment, I’m just going to say that in instances of statutory rape you need to pay a lot more attention to the details surrounding it as well as the act itself.
Fathers can take sole custody of their children when the mother relinquishes her parental rights. (The same holds true for women.)
There is a stereotype that men should pay for dinner—that doesn’t mean that they have to adhere to it, or that every woman expects them to. I’ve already said that there are damaging stereotypes that apply to both genders that should be changed. I, however, have already picked my battle. It is unrealistic to expect every person to combat every injustice or problem in society. Picture society as an individual that has just been in a massive car wreck and has multiple injuries—a fractured forearm, a punctured lung, a fractured skull and bleeding in the brain, ect. This individual isn’t fixed by a team that consists solely of one kind of doctor—rather, the team that will save this person’s life is comprised of specialists that are primarily in charge of taking care of individual organs, systems, or wounds. Just as a multiple forms of doctors (eye doctors, cardiologists, ect.) are necessary to keep people healthy, society needs more than one form of social movement directed at solving one particular problem in order to progress and thrive. Despite the fact that problems seldom occur in isolation, you need people who specialize in different areas. The time has passed when individuals could become experts in all necessary fields—humanity simply possess too much knowledge and too much technology for this to be feasible.
The extra bathroom breaks for women are pregnant is tough, because you’re right, women have chosen to be pregnant. Concessions that they are granted are due less to their gender and more to the fact that they’re pregnant. Men can’t get pregnant but, if they could, they would also need extra bathroom breaks. If you want extra bathroom breaks for yourself, take it up with deity, if you subscribe to any religion. This is when the ardent feminists are going to disown me (again), but the best that I can compare it to is a disability. The growing foetus places a great deal of pressure on the bladder—she’s just going to have to go more often. Yes, it is by choice, and pregnancy itself is not a disability. Going off of the comparison, however, companies don’t discriminate in applying their disability benefits as to whether the person him/herself was complicit in the development of the disability. Smokers still get insurance, people who drive still get disability payments when they get into an accident. The culpability or agency of the relevant agent is not a generally a determining factor in the company’s policy. People get allowances for health reasons, or are able to take work off all the time for health reasons. Why should pregnancy be any different?
Personal experience is always subjective and cannot become fact without being properly tested and verified. I don’t care how strongly you—or anyone else, and I include myself in this measure—believe it to be, just because you’ve lived it doesn’t make it fact. (Here I’m talking about statements such as “Women make bad managers because of x,” “Black people are lazy because of y,” ect. If you’ve been tortured, or even walked down the street, it is fact that the incident happened because you actually did it or it was actually done to you.) In saying that all women react to their menstrual cycles in the same way, you’re essentially—ie. saying that this set of behaviours is constitutive of some overall character or ethos that is an inherent part of being a woman. That is false. I’m not denying that there are inherent differences between men and women—the muscle fibres, for one, or the fact that women can bear children and men cannot. I am simply denying that social constructs can be considered in this innate category. Some women do get snappy during their periods, or just before, while others do not. It is biological fact that most women, unless pregnant, somehow incapacitated (anorexics, for instance, who drop below a certain body weight), too young, too old, or on some sort of hormonal birth control will bleed once a month when their uteruses shed the blood lining that had been prepared for a nonexistent or non-viable fetus. It is not, however, biological fact that women will respond to the hormonal fluctuations that this causes in any particular way.
In regards of whether of not I have expanded my argument in the way that I either ask or force others to, there isn’t much more that I could actually expand unless you want me to adhere to the position that women are never discriminated against or disadvantaged by their gender (both of which have been disproven by numerous studies). That list that I provided above was incredibly balanced, particularly given some of what you can compare it to. Yes, I have chosen to focus on women's rather than men's rights. You may fault me on that premise, although given the importance of having a multiplicy of movements and efforts to improve conditions in society I would find such a charge to be erronous and misguided. I basically asserted that men and women should be treated equally and that stereotypes that limit both genders are wrong. How on earth am I supposed to expand on that?
|
CHAT
unfortunately) had to escort him out. Men create far more big issues than women hands down for me.