h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I hate to say it but I agree with him. Not enought to kill anybody since that whole concept is totally foul to me. But feminists do enrage me. And I'm a liberal guy. I believe in equality. Which is why they enrage me. They do "want to keep the advantages of women while seizing those of men". Which is why I always class myself as a masculinist. I feel that someone needs to uphold the right of men to be treated equally before the whole thing goes too far in favour of women.

...and by "the whole thing" I mean our social and legal system.

You are entitled to your opinion, Mullet, but I would like you to give me an example of the benefits women have that men do not? Where the law discriminates in their favour especially to such a degree that it unbalances the equality argument you would support.

While my initial reaction was to reach for the yikes button, I'll pause for a moment.


Now, I'll restate the initial position of this thread with only a slight change and see if anyone is still willing to hold such a position:

"I hate to say it but I agree with him. Not enought to kill anybody since that whole concept is totally foul to me. But zionists do enrage me. And I'm a liberal guy. I believe in equality. Which is why they enrage me. They do "want to keep the advantages of Jews while seizing those of Gentiles". Which is why I always class myself as a Gentilist. I feel that someone needs to uphold the right of Gentiles to be treated equally before the whole thing goes too far in favour of Jews."

Sorry if it seems extreme, Mullet, but it's just what you said but directed at a different part of society. It's a pretty foul statement, no matter who you say it about.

I'm a liberal guy, too, but if being "masculinist" means you're going to make statements like this, then I'm afraid masculinists do enrage me. I believe in equality, too. It'll be nice when it finally exists.

Let's see... advantages I have as a woman:
I am paid less to do the same job as my male counterparts all while having to put up with sexual innuendo and double entendres, not to mention having to talk to men who seem to think my eyes have migrated to my breasts. And I work in a field full of highly educated people who are supposed to 'know better'. Yep. Sounds like a whole lot of equality to me.

Men have held the advantage in western society for thousands of years. It's only in the last 75-100 years that some of the most basic equality issues (right to vote, right to own property, right to be treated as a human and not as chattel, right to divorce, right to attend at places of higher education to become something other than a teacher) have been addressed.

The vast majority of people in office and people in positions of power in corporations are *still* men. The worst part of it is that women these days have to choose: they can either be good moms or they can be good CEO's. Rarely will you find a woman who has had the flexibility in her work schedule to really apply herself to climbing the corporate ladder while maintaining a healthy family life. If she chooses corporate life, she's cold-hearted and greedy. If she chooses family life, she's soft and doesn't have the killer corporate instinct.

Now, tell me again how much equality women have.

Right on, Emee!

I really have a hard time comprehending that people don't see it.

In the UK I believe that women make up slightly more than 50% of the population. The Labour Party had a policy that they would impose women candidates in some Labour held and winnable marginal seats for the elections in 1997. In terms of redressing the balance it did a lot and there are now many more women in parliament than there ever has been. They are still heavily outnumbered by men and people took the Labour Party to court to have the practice done away with as discriminatory.

If we want to change things sometimes the actions that have to be taken are seen as radical.

Equal opps in employment is another example. Factories that had employed white workers for years - often not even advertising jobs but asking within the workforce if they had family members who were looking for jobs - were forced to openly advertise and take on workers from a variety of ethnic backgrounds if they were suitable candidates. There was fury at the thought of not being able to employ the people you wanted. Surely, the argument went, we should be free to employ whoever we want.

Once the equal opps practices bedded in they found that employing the person most suitable for the job was much better for the company than employing the handiest person. This meant, however, that the person in the factory whose son or daughter didn't get a job were angry with the new methods and aimed their anger at the "newcomers".

I think there is still a lot of anger about as a result of societal changes.

The thing is, "equal opportunity" isn't seen in many areas as quite enough and is being replaced by "affirmative action" -- wherein perfectly capable candidates for a job or university education are turned down simply because they are in the sexual/racial/religious majority. Some people suggest that university applicants intentionally misrepresent their race in order to foul up affirmative action; I recommend that the institutions stop asking. I've seen affirmative action in scholarships.. it's getting pretty ridiculous. If two people are applying for a job, the job should go to whoever's more qualified, regardless if one's a straight, white, Christian man and the other's an Arabic lesbian.

Two runners have a race. One starts 50 yards from the finish line, one 75 yards. They start at the same time. Runner one crosses the finish line with Runner two only ten yards behind him. Affirmative action says Runner two ran faster. The old way says Runner one won the race.

If we don't start from the same place, we don't have the same challenge getting to the finish line. Until everybody starts from a position of equality, equity requires adjustable finish lines. Otherwise, Runner two will always work harder, run faster, achieve more, and come in second.

A US report on wages just came out.
White women get 77 percent of what men on the whole make for the same work.
For women of color it's generally less, closer to 55-60 percent on average. That is not much progess in 40 years.

As someone with 5 daughters I have some thoughts on this....

I consider forcing constituancies to take female candidates - rather than the most able, was a deliberate ploy to develop a group of MPs loyal to the leadership, I think we've seen the quality of the figues it attracted. If women weren't inspired by what Margaret Thatcher achieved, then they only went into politics because they liked the holidays.

I think women can choose to be mothers or career women, I don't think the two roles are compatible, they both take too much time. There are a lot of women making a bad job of both roles. I personally think that motherhood is the most important job on the planet, and can't imagine why anyone would want to swap it for a role in industry.

I am not in favour of positive discrimination. All discrimination is discrimination. If its positive it undermines those who have fought to overcome prejudice and achieve - it is assumed their passage was 'eased' by those who will never remove their blinkers. I speak as a member of one of the most discriminated against groups in the country.

I am a white, hetrosexual, married, employed, male, parent.

Again the problem is one of generalisation. To say 'they want to reatain' is incorrect. Since they means every women. I think perhaps that the perceived advantages are the courtesy and politeness, the deference and the whole 'placing women on a pedastal as an example of perfection' that is assumed to have been the flip side of the lack of womens rights. And no doubt there are people who want equality of pay and rights with men whilst retaining the above. Personally I think it would be nice if the assumed 'positive' side was applied to every human being regardless of sex. But there.

Whilst it is true that women still have an unequal position in the world today across many societies, one should not make the mistake of thinking recent history can be extrapolated backwards through time. I'd be interested in comments from any medieval historians as much of what is thought to have been the norm in those days is pure invention by the victorians and edwardians. The right to divorce, for example, was available to women in tthose times. Indeed a women could cite halitosisand impotency as grounds for divorce. Women could, and did, own their own belongings and businesses. Indeed in many ways we are today still trying to claw back to the position in the middle ages. OK, the world view was different. But women kidnapping a lone attractive male to have her wiles with him was not unknown by any means. I think perhaps there is a case of viewing the strict religious teachings and laws of the time as the de facto standard, whereas they were in fact propoganda designed to diminish the role of women in society. And it worked very well indeed. I know also that in Celtic times that whilst women were left at home whilst the bloke went off to bash heads, this was for the very good reason that you could lose all but one of the men in the tribe and still continue. Whereas for every woman you lost the future of the tribe was impacted quite heavily. It wasn't because women were considered inferior but rather because a women can give birth her value to the society was far higher than that of the male who was essentially far more expendable. And of course if it came down to it, like the second Roman invasion of Britain, women went out to fight as well, and this was accepted.We still suffer from a view of the past that says everyone before us was savages, and this is not so.
Oh, and this isn't high society, this is society at large. Indeed in many ways it seems that those at the top suffered far more restrictions than those further down the ladder.
I think what is needed is to evaluate where we are now and the role of the individual in society, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

<>

Uh, yeah right, McKay.

Meanwhile, Mullet seems to have done a hit-and-run here.


az

** I am totally disgusted that anyone would agree with the motives of a mass murderer who gunned down innocent women.**

McKay I've been hearing that argument of yours for years and I've never been able to think of any insults that are severe enough to match my feelings about the short-sighted self-centred people who spout it and I still cant now.



It surprises me not one bit that it popped up on this thread. What has really surprised me though is that Anhaga is a man

one love

be fair, they did explicitly state they didn't agree with wthe actions that the person took as a result of those motives. I think it quite possible to agree with the viewpoint of an individual whilst disagreeing and condeming the actions they took to try and enforce their viewpoint on the world. The implementation can be separated from the concept. In this case I disagree with both but in their own right, not because one particular individual happened to link them together.

Oh, so Mullet agrees with the hatred of women, just not to the point where you actually murder them. Well, that is sooooooo reassuring. To what exact point does he think expressing misogyny IS acceptable? I don't think misogyny is acceptable period.

JEllen

Exactly, disgree with Mullet because of his/her beliefs, not because those beliefs are shared by another human being. It would be fairly reassuring I'd have thought if you lived next door to them. After all, *thinking* a particular section of society is not deserving of certain rights, whilst offensive, is in a somewhat different league to mass murder.

appols for inappropriate use of 'his/her'. Writing a generic doc whilst doing this and kinda went onto autopilot!
(and what a thread to do it in!)

What if the problem is divide and rule rather than create equality? What if being the biggest player on the block is exploitative and by definition is NOT about equal opportunity but about wielding power?

INstead of saying dictatorship by the few is wrong are we saying "Hey, it's not fair! It's my turn to be the dictator!"

I find it interesting that the motives of women are questioned when they want to go into politics. Why do most men want to go into politics? Why shouldn't a woman want politics as a career when men have been choosing it for scores of years.

Look at how the political system is worked and it becomes obvious that the unspoken expectation is that it will fit in with the needs of men. In some areas it fits in with the needs of rich men. The times of meetings, the venues, the layout of facilities. When "Blair's Babes" took their seats in parliament one of the more difficult seats to take was in the WC. The House of Commons had never had to cater for so many women MPs before. There had been no provision for equality. That's only the building. Think about the attitudes that go behind not even providing the most basic facilities.

Sorry for the long post but here's a questioin to ponder as it DOES leave me with some concern.

Should women have been brought out of the mines all those years ago? Was it a step in the right direction?