Tangent stuff from k-loc's thread (decide new title)



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PostPosted: Wed Oct 06, 2010 11:48 pm 
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There's way too much for me to respond to all of this individually, but the same themes seem to be reappearing, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. I also just started working at my new job, so I'm not avoiding you. I simply have less time.

First off, I must confess some amusement at the idea that I'm reacting to everything that people say primarily on an emotional level. The reason that it's amusing it because of how it plays into the popularly portrayed dicotomy between rationality and reason. In truth, the two are not opposed. A world driven solely be logic would be a terrible, soulless place to live. Passion is what has driven our greatest artists, entrepeners, ect. At the end of the day, a lust for fame and glory is not enough.

If you want to accuse me of having emotions, I'm guilty as charged (as are all of you).

If you want to accuse me of having an emotional response (amusement, annoyance, ect.) at some of what has been said, I'm also guilty as charged. But, once again, so are all of you. Ezo, you responded with annoyance. Others have responded with apathy, or based their entire argument upon personal experiences and/or beliefs that have arisen as a result of their emotional responses to them instead of logic. If you don't believe me, re-read the threads.

For some reason whenver the discussion reaches this level there's always a presumption that emotion is somehow wrong and lesser, that a strict adherence to pure rationality is called for. I would agree that emotions untempered by reason have been responible for some horrible things (genoicies, mass murders, ect.) But to portray emotion itself as a weakness is both myopic and misguided.


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 07, 2010 12:00 am 
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Jelly, you're going to have to post your source for that article.

The problem is that no one is actually listening to my argument. I'm not arguing that all companies are bad and discriminatory towards women. I've already agreed that some of the pay gap is because of women's tendeancies to take more time off--there is no point in contuing to try and convice me of the point. I also am fully aware that women, far more often than men, tend to enter fields that pay less--there is no point in continuing to try to convince me of the point.

You're all missing the big picture. It's about attitudes and lingering stereotypes in society. Women and men are both shaped and limited by the influence of society--that's inevitable, and something that will never go away. The process of growing up is largely the process of being indocrinated with other people's beliefs and expectations. I accept that. I have never argued that all society is evil. What I am arguing, however, is that the ways in which girls are raised severely limits their potential. The way that men are raised limits them as well, of course, but not to the same extent. When you're talking about women, you're talking about a historically oppressed group that has been told for years, among others things, that women are bad at science and math, that women are better with emotions than men, that all women should always be kind (the American Girls Scouts has a saying--"All girl scouts are friends." I didn't even believe that when I was primary school. Would Boy Scouts ever say something like that?), ect.

When I said that men were domineering, I was using a stereotype, as several of you have also done as well. I don't actually believe it, but that's what the stereotype is. If you object so strenuously to male stereotypes, why do you feel so free to indulge in them when they're not aimed at your gender?


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 07, 2010 2:14 am 
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There's way too much for me to respond to all of this individually, but the same themes seem to be reappearing, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. I also just started working at my new job, so I'm not avoiding you. I simply have less time.

First off, I must confess some amusement at the idea that I'm reacting to everything that people say primarily on an emotional level. The reason that it's amusing it because of how it plays into the popularly portrayed dicotomy between rationality and reason. In truth, the two are not opposed. A world driven solely be logic would be a terrible, soulless place to live. Passion is what has driven our greatest artists, entrepeners, ect. At the end of the day, a lust for fame and glory is not enough.

If you want to accuse me of having emotions, I'm guilty as charged (as are all of you).

If you want to accuse me of having an emotional response (amusement, annoyance, ect.) at some of what has been said, I'm also guilty as charged. But, once again, so are all of you. Ezo, you responded with annoyance. Others have responded with apathy, or based their entire argument upon personal experiences and/or beliefs that have arisen as a result of their emotional responses to them instead of logic. If you don't believe me, re-read the threads.

For some reason whenver the discussion reaches this level there's always a presumption that emotion is somehow wrong and lesser, that a strict adherence to pure rationality is called for. I would agree that emotions untempered by reason have been responible for some horrible things (genoicies, mass murders, ect.) But to portray emotion itself as a weakness is both myopic and misguided.
You're a better sophist than me :shock:

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 07, 2010 3:11 am 
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Passion also drove the crusades, Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, etc. do you defend those passionate people? Passion can do so much but when used improperly such as using bias can cause serious issues. Most murders involve tons of passion. Passion when used properly can do all sorts of good, however passion when used emotionally and uncontrolled can do terrible things. You must take the good with the bad. Precisely the problem with bias, if you are blindly passionate you will never accomplish what you want with out destroying things around you. This is an obvious problem. Correctly directed passion is great, but the good must come with the bad.

I don't disagree that a world driven by solely logic would be terrible but it is far better off than the emotional guy trying to hit a nail through a piece of metal. Or two cars driving on the left side of the road at each other. Maybe we should live under roofs with holes. Maybe we should emotionally throw rocks through windows when upset. Logic, is what drives society but emotion is what makes life enjoyable(agreed basically). Don't up play emotion and down play logic. Both sides are a necessity in this world the yin to the yang as they say. The world we live in needs logic but we as humans deserve the emotion to enjoy it.

Emotion is great my favorite thing in a human is their emotions, it will tell you tons about their character. Emotions must be controlled, in certain SPAM they are very unwelcome. At work in a professional environment emotions are not necessarily a good thing. Though they give value to our world they can obviously severely cripple it by limiting our logic. Emotions must be put in check by logic, women have a harder time doing this. They have to make more of a conscious effort, this is what I have witnessed I am sorry if you feel differently.

My point was that you were lumping us all together after you complained about what we did, I was merely pointing out your hypocrisy. You have a lot of gentlemen not douche bags on here telling their experience with females. Some of these men have a lot more experience with women than you do. And if you add all of our experience we have a lot more knowledge than you do. However your one perspective is correct.

None of us agree that people are raised properly but we didn't raise you or ourselves. How can you do anything about that? Most of the men on here are very pro female equality, the younger puas may dehumanize women so they don't fear them but the older confident ones don't at all. Those are the ones you are talking with. You are talking with the ones who argue that society is wrong. Probably better to go on to a forum where they don't appreciate the attributes of women so much they better themselves to fall in their good graces. It just seems you have all of us pegged wrong.

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 07, 2010 6:06 pm 
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If you want to accuse me of having emotions, I'm guilty as charged (as are all of you).
Oncce again, you insist on misinterpreting what I say... Even though you know exactly what I mean...

Anyways, I would like to sum up my response like this:

Whatever...

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 07, 2010 10:28 pm 
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Poeticlyskuac,

I'm not advocating that we all sit in a grass-covered field and sing "kumbaya." Reason and emotion must balance one another. In your post, you're falling back on the popular dicotomy between them. Whenever someone gives you a dicotomy in life, portraying two things as opposed and an either/or choice, the first thing that you should do is ask why. Seldom are these dicotomies actually real. For some reason, people seem to like their false either/or dicotomies. They proliferate in society with appalling ease.

I never argued that passion was an unquestionable good--but, by that same token, neither is logic. Both can lead to horrific consequences. You're incorrect to state that society advances and operates by its use of logic, however. Most things originated from desire--desire, of course, being an emotion. The desire to dominate, the desire to nurtue, the desire to create, the desire to destroy--seldom to never are these thing logical in their inception.

The idea of a pure logic unencumbered by emotion is actually a fallacy. Humans are inherently subjective creatures, and are quite good at formulating and clinging to beliefs because they like and/or are comfortable with them rather than because they are accurate. There is no person in the world that is wholly devoid of emotion, no person that can entirely step outside of themselves when making a decision--hence, there is no person on this earth that is capable of applying pure reason or rationality.

And yes, I lump you all together when everybody's doing their best impression of "AAHHHHHHHHH!!! SHE'S BEING EMOTIONAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STICK YOUR FINGERS IN YOUR EARS AND RUN FOR THE HILLS! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!" I think I know what the problem is. For this entire thread, people haven't been responding to my argument in its entirety. They've been focusing upon the workplace side of the equation while largely either dismissing or ignoring my comments about the effects of stereotypes and how girls are raised. You (generice you, by the way, not you you) can throw as many facts or statistics at me as you want, but until you actually respond to what I'm saying, none of those statistics are actually going to accomplish anything.


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 07, 2010 10:30 pm 
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Ezo,

You assume too much. Although I am not in the habit of making my opponent's arguments for them, nor am I in the habit of deliberately misinterpreting them in order to either be annoying or score a cheap point. I respond to them as I take them. I realize that the internet makes things like sarcasm and humour difficult to interpret sometimes. You've already blantantly misunderstood some of what I've said. I, however, am willing to let bygones be bygones--why can't you?

P.S. You actually used the term "annoying" in your initial response to my post (not the most recent one, the one before that). So how can I be misinterpreting you when I'm actually parroting what you said?


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 09, 2010 10:11 am 
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Ezo,

You assume too much. Although I am not in the habit of making my opponent's arguments for them, nor am I in the habit of deliberately misinterpreting them in order to either be annoying or score a cheap point. I respond to them as I take them. I realize that the internet makes things like sarcasm and humour difficult to interpret sometimes. You've already blantantly misunderstood some of what I've said. I, however, am willing to let bygones be bygones--why can't you?

P.S. You actually used the term "annoying" in your initial response to my post (not the most recent one, the one before that). So how can I be misinterpreting you when I'm actually parroting what you said?
No, you were completely right... It was annoying.

What you are misinterpreting is the following:

A. You think I think that it is annoying that you are emotional. I dont.
B. You think I am telling you that you are being emotional rather than logical. I dont.
C. Im not willing to let bygones be bygones. I am.
D. Im your opponent. Im not.

Things that you were right about:

A. I assumed too much. Yeah, I might have been wrong.
B. Let bygones be bygones. Yeah, lets do that.


As I see it, this thread has an interesting discussion, I have no negative feelings whatsoever, apart from thinking that that one post you made was annoying. ;) I believe that discussion is not about being right but about learning new stuff and getting intellectual stimulation.

So bygones are now bygones... Peace

Ezo

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 09, 2010 3:32 pm 
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Ezo,

When I use the term opponent, I'm not attaching any connotations about rightness/wrongness or hostility to it. Everyone to me in a debate is an opponent unless their argument is exactly the same as mine (quite rare, actually).


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 09, 2010 3:52 pm 
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Poeticlyskuac, since there seems to be some confusion about what I've actually said, let's have a brief recap.

I provided my own understanding of what rape constitutes, which--incidentally--even excluded most instances in which a woman could feel pressured into sex excepting the threat of physical violence. (If you wish to see my understanding in its entirey, reread the thread before it was split.)

I said that advantages afforded to either men or women on the basis of sex should be corrected. (As an aside, I even believe that men should, under certain circurcumstances and for a limited amount of time, be able to completely opt out of paying child support. I support this in order to equalize the playing field between men and women--ie. if a woman gets pregnant she has no obligations to give birth (she can have an abortion), while child support for the man who impregnanted her is often viewed as his obligation for having sex. If the woman has no obligation towards her pregnancy until the time when she gives birth, in my opinion the man should be able to opt out of paying child support for the same amount of time. And in order to ensure that women wouldn't 'forget' to tell him and thus have the window of opportunity pass, I believe that in each case both parties must provide documented evidence that said information was recieved and that the man should have as much time to decide as the law in the area dictates that a woman would be able to have an abotion.) That said, nature itself is neither equal nor justice--I do not believe that justice requires humanity to correct what nature has created. For instance, without medical intervention, more baby girls are born than baby boys. That is not an injustice. It is also not an injustice if I am prettier or uglier than someone else because of how we were born.

I believe that men and women should have equal rights and liberties.

I support the idea of equal pay for equal work. That said, I realize that women tend to take more time off and agree that their pay should reflect this. I also realize that women tend to cluster in less lucrative fields (social work, teaching, ect.) while men tend to aim for more lucrative fields and positions (computer scientist, engineer, ect.)

I believe that women should have to register for the draft. (not metioned earlier, but worth throwing in)

I have said that men and women may have different inclinations and abilities. For instance, I would agree that most men are probably more suited to perform construction work or be on the front lines than most women because their muscle fibers are denser. Thus, they bulk up more quickly and tend to be stronger. That said, I believe that women should be able to fill these postions as well assuming that they are able to perform them to the same standard.

I have argued that any lingering bias against women or paying them less for the same work should be corrected. I have also argued that equlity in this regard entails transforming attitudes and stereotypes in society. For instance, it isn't an injustice that women tend to cluster in lower-paying fields than men unless it is a stereotype perpetuated in society that compells or urges them to do this. Women are consistently told that they're supposed to be bad at science and math, so low and behold many of the are. (The effects of stereotype threat are well documented.) Women are told that they're supposed to be kind and nurturing, so low and behold many of them are. Don't even get me started on the whole is it better or worse for your children for the mother to work--no one ever mentions the father in this regard.

After considering what my positions actually are, my only question is this: How can you possibly think that I'm being unduly biased and/or unfair towards men?


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 1:19 am 
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"I believe that women should have to register for the draft. (not motioned earlier, but worth throwing in)

Exemption from the draft is a privilege enjoyed by women because masculinity is defined by women; great credence is given to a man's ability to protect a female. A war with a high female casualty rate of female combatants would be seen in a more morally reprehensible way among men because it represents a failure of this basic masculine obligation to protect the physically weaker sex and the bearer of offspring.

Is it for men to decide that women should not serve or bestow these privileges - No. Do the powers that be in government need to decide what is the best strategy militarily and propaganda wise to succeed in a battle - Yes...and it is deemed that a war with hundreds of 19 year old females coming home in body bags would be completely unacceptable and would have no public support, not to mention the loss of morale to men on the front lines. Clearly, whilst this does deprive some females of the ability to serve in the forces, it alleviates the vast majority of women of perhaps the worst job any human must undertake, to kill another human or place oneself in imminent danger.

Earlier you commented that the law should not rectify what occurs naturally as part of human nature (not verbatim, do correct if I’m wrong or misunderstand), but men's innate need to protect females is what drives this issue. This is a completely natural instinct and is observed in all mammals including humans.

What I see as a great irony is that feminism seeks equality by aspirationally decoupling femininity from male sexual desires..but surely true equality could only be brought about if masculinity was decoupled from what is desirable sexually to females also?

In light of the aforementioned decoupling paradigm what else would define femininity and masculinity? The newly elected leaders of the Ministry of Men and Ministry of Females? They could draw straws for the flavour of the month or better yet bureaucrats in Washington or London or even our old favourites the trusted intelligentsia of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton and Yale, maybe just a list of Nobel laureates if we're slumming it.

In this case women would have to accept that men have no obligation to protect them and should be prepared to sacrifice ALL the privileges that come with that. But this presents a paradox in that women's sexual instincts are to choose males who are tall and physically stronger than her, and similarly men are sexually attracted to women who show overt signs of fertility.

Ultimately in the natural order of things in mammals.. femininity is defined by what is sexually desirable to men and likewise masculinity is defined by what is sexually desirable to females. This has been the case since the beginning of humanity.


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 14, 2010 12:25 am 
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First off, I should clarify and bring two of my points together. First off, I do believe that women should be drafted, although we'll return to that later. I also argue that there should be one fitness standard for soliders--ie. I'n not againt women being on the front lines because they are women, but I hold that all soliders should have to meet the same minimum standard in order to be placed in combat situations. Men and women are not identical, and I find it likely that one of the effects of this policy would be to exclude women from certain positions in the military since women's muscle fibers mean that they do not tend to bulk up the way that men do. That said, I don't know what fitness standards are when the draft is implemented--it is possible that they remain the same, or they are lessened due to the country's need for soliders. Regardless, women should be still be drafted because they can serve useful purposes within the army even if some of the individuals themselves do not quality to be on the front line.

I find you belief that notions of masculinity are defined by women--they most certainly are not. The construction of both masculinity and feminity is s comples process within society, informed by a myraid of factors. The effects of stereotypes linger and tend to become engrained within the pysches of those that they supposedly describe--the ultimate self-serving prophecy, if you will. What does tend to be true, however, is that the dominant group or groups within society has a disproportinate effect upon determing what the contents of each stereotype are. Why were/are black people held to be lazy? Because white people believed that they were. Why are the elderly viewed as infirm and enfeebled? Because the younger generations believe that they are. (This example is somewhat problematic, given the disproportionate amount of polical influence that the elderly weild because they are the most consistent and cohesive voting block. Despite this, however, the elderly are still often largely marginalized and excluded from mainstream society. Just compare the portrayal of the elderly in our society to the way that they were viewed and portrayed by the Native Americans before the Europeans arrived, and you'll understand what I mean.) Why are the Asians typically considered to be so good at science and math? Because, in addition to the emphasis put on useful pursuits by Asian parents, white people believe that they are. Why are women considered to be inherently bad at science and math, in addition to being inherently nurturing? Because, in addition to the effects of stereotypes and culture, men decided that they were.

The standards of what consitutes masculinty and what constitues feminity also differ by culture--there are very few absolutes which have always been held to be true, and even these are constructed. Not all differences between men and women are so created, but a difference itself does not directly translate into either masculinity or feminity--it is how the physical difference comes to be construed, and what value it is artificially imbued with.

My suspicion is that you're correct, and that society would react much more strongly against war should large amounts of women in addition to men be coming home in body bags and coffins. But what does that say about us? That men's lives are somehow less valuable? Why on earth should one group--regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion, ect.--disproportionately be forced to shoulder the majority of the burden of sustaining society via warfare? Women are neither children nor imbeciles--we're talking about rational, capable, full-functioning adults here, fully capable of looking after themselves. There is no possible reason thojustify why others should be forced to die while they are largely forbidden to take part in war.

You say that men have an instinct to protect women. If it's instinct, it sure it easy to overide, given the rates of assaults, rapes, male perpetuated domestic violence, ect. If this instinct is so overriding and powerful, why do these things happen at all?

You cite the instinct of men to protect women, and yet completely leave out women's own instincts to protect their children. Once again, these instincts can be overriden, as is evidenced by female-perpetuated child abuse, or even the failure on the part of a mother to try and protect her child from the abuse of another. Instincts fail, bascially. But what is so much more powerful and sacred about the supposed male instinct to protect than the female instinct to protect her offspring? Assuming that either should be priveledged at all in this regard--something that I dispute, by the way--why should one be priveledged above the other?

Women can and do take care of themselves--it is paternalistic to assume that women either desire or welcome a man's protection. There is more to life than simply physical strength, and although most men tend to be stronger than most women, some women are stronger than most men. It's an outdated concept in any case--society is becoming increasingly more intellectual and less based upon physical strength. The notion of a woman needing a male provider has passed--women take care of themselves every day, and plenty don't need a man to do it.

It is also untrue that males in the animal kingdom always are the ones that fight and protect the females. The life of male lion is surpising desireable to all human males, given what I know of the male psyche. The male lion sleeps, eats, has sex, and fights other lions to maintain his breding status within his pride. Female lions are the ones that hunt and actually do the work.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 7:33 am 
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I think your biased because you mention that women need a consultant when the fact is men need a consultant as well. Why mention such a thing, a man is told how to direct his voice, hold his arms, his head, smile, etc. by a consultant. So because a women is a women it is different for her to get a consultant. What an asinine statement. How was that not biased.

Why is it cool for a women to come in and be mean to me because it is her time of the month? There is no excuse for her behavior. They get a check off for treating people bad because of their personal pain. Women can call me all the way across my work to lift 20 pounds, and she makes more than twice as much as me. I am tired of the bias in favor of you guys. You mention so much about girls not getting things. You mention a few of mens issues, however you left out some pretty huge ones in my opinion.

Why do I work with two women who use pregnancy as an excuse? I get treated like s**t because they are pregnant. Even worse I am a D-bag if I put them in check. That is unfair, why don't you mention that? Girls get so many free passes for treating men bad.

These are two huge reasons women are bad managers. They can't handle themselves when there is either issue. I shouldn't be able to tell one week to the next when she is dealing with her womanly problems. Your problem is you are biased. You have equality concepts, but if you fail to mention the equality issues not in favor of men than you are not for equality. Yeah the draft, same work out, equal pay, but you don't mention an everyday bias towards women. A man is expected to buy a women a drink or dinner or whatever.

What about when a women hits man? It is cool but when a man hits a women it is wrong? Why is that not mentioned? I have a friend who hit his wife(once she got a black eye), not cool. However I have hung out with them and she is the abusive one in the relationship. She hits him a lot. Why is that cool? Wouldn't surprise me if he was defending himself.

You mention pay but you don't mention life length, women live longer than men, that is unfair. I'd rather have more life than more pay no matter how you put it.

Come on now I am over this, you mentioned things that are in mens favor. Mention some things that a women gets in her favor that truly influence every day life.

When I lost my virginity I told the girl it was a bad idea and I didn't want to. She said we are going to. I didn't want to lose it to her. Simply put I said no. Would it be considered rape because my mind(me saying no) says something different than my stick? While she climbs on top? If I reported that as rape I wouldn't get any love would I? You never mention these things. You mention things that are ridiculous to me.

I am tired of getting treated bad because of pregnancy and that time of the month, these are huge to me because they happen with regularity. Why do I have to let a pregnant women go pee every 45 min to an hour when everyone else gets 2 hours? Why can't we cut her pay then? You seem to think you are not biased and you may even agree with what I have said, but you still have treated someone bad because it was that time of the month. Or if you had a baby you probably treated someone bad.

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PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 6:52 pm 
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You say that men have an instinct to protect women. If it's instinct, it sure it easy to overide, given the rates of assaults, rapes, male perpetuated domestic violence, ect. If this instinct is so overriding and powerful, why do these things happen at all?

You act as if the larger population of men are involved in rape, assault, male violence. This is simply not true yet you went off on all these expectations of a man doing these things. I specifically mentioned in a post I just wrote about a women raping me(at least I said no) and a women beating my friend. A women gets a bye in these cases though. She is allowed to do theses things. This is my point precisely about you being biased. This is the same idea that you were fighting against yet your biased still shows. This is the problem with feminism, you bring up points about the womens side not about the mens quite frequently.

This is my precise problem with feminism. Bias is never good and passionate bias is always terrible. You can't convince me otherwise. I can keep going on and on about how you need to open your eyes to both sides but I guarantee you will come back to the same points about how women get treated unfairly here and there. Women get all the rights in the court system, if a women goes against a guy it almost always leans in her favor. Your ideals of rape mirror mine. Say what you want about rape, if a guy says no simply because he has erection he doesn't get raped he had sex. The paths aren't both ways far more often than you care to realize.

Women don't get this, women don't get that. Well lets look a lot closer at what women get. A women has a baby and wants to give it up for adoptions the guy isn't even given the option to adopt. A man doesn't get the option to influence a women to have the kid, it is her choice because it is her body. While men get some favoritism you need to look at the whole picture because your bias is blinding to you. Women in general get excuses for bad behavior but men don't. Why don't mention this? I don't give a women excuses for bad behavior but society does.

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 12:53 am 
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Poeticlyskuac,

Although I will never assert that I am completely unbiased (in this instance defining bias as pre-concieved notions about a particular topic), the irony here is that you are far more biased than I. The reality of human nature is that we are to some extent all slightly biased--ie. predisposed to lean in a particular direction and care about particular topics. I, however, at least have asserted that both genders have certain priveleges and certain disadvantages. While I argue in favour of women's rights, I care about equality, not 'equality plus;' I thus argue that those balances which are currently tilted in women's favour should be equalized as well. You, on the other hand, seem so fixated on the idea that men are disadvantaged in society when it comes to their relations with women that you seem to be incapable of actually recognizing what is instead of what you believe there to be.

You've also lost me in your argument about consultants--to my knowledge, I never used the term in any of my earlier posts. Nor have I argued that women are entitled to free advice about what to wear/what to career to pursue/how to talk, ect. Please clarify your statement, or at least point me to where you believe I made the statements that you are responding to.

I also must confess some amusement at your insistence that my focus on women's rights is misplaced because there are other issues in the world--in your example, you cited that women tend to have a longer lifespan than men, and asked why I was directing my efforts towards correcting that imbalance instead. Without delving deeply into the topic of gender in comparison to lifespan, I read this article and found it to be quite helpful: http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 62,00.html. As is indicated in the article, the discrepancy is not entirely due to environmental or societal factors--some of it could simply be a result of nature. If you'll recall, earlier I stated that justice does not necessarily require us to compensate for natural variations. Just as it is not an injustice that without medical intervention more baby girls will be born than baby boys, it is not an injustice that women's bodies tend to predispose them to live longer than men because of their physiology.

The other thing that you have to account for is the variable of choice. During my parent's youth, lung cancer was largely considered to be a male disease. The reason? More men smoked than women, partially due to WWI and II. Was it an injustice that men were dying from this disease in far greater numbers than women? No, because it is not an injustice that they smoked while the women tended not to. Please recall that the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer had not yet been discovered at this time--cigarettes used to be considered good for the lungs and for certain conditions such as asthma.

The real reason that I find your assertion amusing, however, is because I have seen it before, although not in this form. For a while, I read a pro-life blog, and every so often the pro-lifers would rail against Christian churchs who they felt were not adequately supporting/contributing to the pro-life community. While I realize that it can be difficult for people who are deeply passionate about a particular topic--and particularly in the case of abortion and similar issues--to understand how other people could either disagree with them or chose to support something else, I find such assertions to be perilously misguided. Our world has a lot of problems--global poverty, the oppression of women and gays (particularly in places like Afghanistan and parts of Africa), global warming, the inequity of resource distribution, the destruction of the the Amazon, the oppression/marginlization of indigenous peoples, infantcide, ect. If we threw all of our resources at a particular problem, it's possible that we would be able to solve it. However, I would argue that the world would actually be worse off because, instead of society diversifying its efforts and improving a number of problems, focusing on one problem would, in comparison, benefit a far smaller number of people in a far more limited manner. The other reason that I find this to be a myopic view is because it treats problems as though they occur in isolation.

For instance, let's say that society decides to solve child poverty. We don't care about anything else, we just don't want children to grow up in poverty. The problem is that not all poverty looks or is created in the same way. Some children live in poverty because their family has recently suffered a crippling medical issue that has destroyed the family's savings, other children live in poverty because their parents are drug addicts. (There are far more reasons than this, I'm just listing two examples for the purposes of this discussion.) In order to effectively combat child poverty in those two families, your actions should look different in order to be most effective. In the case of cripplingly expensive medical care, the problem is a systemic one, most effectively dealt with by transforming the medical system itself. In the case of the drug-addicted parents, the problem may be the availablity of other options for the parents to pursue apart from becoming drug dealers, a lack of work ethic, the foibles of addiction, ect. In order to solve each of those problems you need to focus on the other problems that either contributed to or caused your target issue--anything else is, quite frankly, counterproductive.

In your insistence in throwing up random instances or daily examples that I failed to mention, you miss the intention of my argument. I'm arguing on the level of general principle, not each specific case. if you insist on me answering every little example that you can throw out (men getting asked to lift stuff, women getting additional bathroom breaks or whatnot when they're pregnant), we're going to be here for a very long time. (As an aside, I never said that men and women have identical abilities--it often makes sense for men to be asked to do the heavy lifting because, in general, they can lift more than women because of their muscle fibers. In my view, it is no different from asking a man to pregnant. No one--apart from the most ardent feminists, maybe--views it as an injustice that men can't get pregnant because men's bodies (unless they're transgender men) aren't capable of sustaining pregnancy. Men tend to be stronger than women--get over it.)

It would also really help your argument if you stop making unprovable assumptions. Because I'm female, you assume that I must have treated someone badly because it was my time of the month (I've never been pregnanct, btw). You have no facts upon which to base your assertion, and the fact that you consisently bring up my gender in relation to either my character or my argument reflects far more poorly upon you than me. It is also indicative of female stereotypes in society. Why did everyone start harping that I was being too emotional and biased? Because I'm female. Several male commentors on this post have demonstateably been far more biased than me, and I'm the one that everybody calls on it. I don't use personal examples in place of an argument. Personal experience is relevant, but a strong argument cannot be based entirely upon it.

And no, I do not act as though a large percentage of the male population in involved in rapes, assaults, ect. If you'll recall, I mentioned women abusing their children as well. Did that reference somehow imply that all women were either child-abusers themselves or implicit in the abuse of children?

There are stereotypes in favour of women in society, and I hold that those should be corrected. (Your example of rape and female-perpetuated abuse both fall into this category.) You're also wrong about a man's ability to adopt his child, btw. I'm not entirely certain about how parental rights play out in every case, but a father does have parental rights over his children, and is often able to adopt them if the mother choses to give them up. However, the man shouldn't have any influence of whether or not a pregnant women should be able to have an abortion. Say whatever you will, pregnancy carries the risk of serve health problems either immediately or later on down the line (this includes death, btw). It also permantly alters a woman's body--her hips and her breasts, specifically.
Should women be able to have a say over whether or not a man can have a vestecmy? Should she be able to compel him to have one against his will? Unless you're willing to say yes on the grounds that a man's ability to impregnant his partner warrants enough interest in his virility on her part to justify such a compulsion, I don't see how you can argue that a man's interest in having a child warrants a similar sort of compulsion. Women are not incubators, and men are not walking sacks of sperm whose distribution must be forcibly controlled.


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