So, let's talk about feminism, shall we?

First of all, I'm a guy and a heterosexual. Even so, I'd like to say that I'm a feminist or coming close and having strangely opinionated views if I'm not.

As it probably came clear in the 'Chivalry is not dead' -thread, I think that women have more worth than men. The reason is simple, women are essential for giving birth and raising new generations, men are not so. It was summed up pretty neatly by jaded empath: A group of ten men and one woman will generate one offspring every nine months until the first of those offspring is both female, and menstruating.
A group of ten women and one man will generate ten offspring every nine months.But that's not all. I'm saying that not a single good thing our culture has produced by men could be accredited for the fact that they were men. Women could have made all the exact same inventions, would women be valued more through their intellect. And there's no reason it couldn't be so. Men could nurture their offspring just as well as women could. There even has been several cases of men lactating to feed babies. Men have mammary glands, but of course to a lesser extent than women. But even that's beside the point.

The point is that most people sytematically think less of a woman than a man, less of a girl than a man; of her capabilities, both pshysical and intellectual, and that there's no good reason for it. I dare you to give me one. And since both women and men are equal, but women are needed to give birth and men have the qualities to make them more expendable, women should be valued more than men as a rule of thumb and not the other way around, as it has been for who knows how long.

I'm hoping that this discussion would find itself dealing with chivalry and gender-roles as well, but if I would've started to rant about them, then this post would've been too long. But now, get to it, discuss.

The point is that most people sytematically think less of a woman than a man, less of a girl than a man; of her capabilities, both pshysical and intellectual, and that there's no good reason for it. I dare you to give me one. Only because you dared me - and because you mentioned 'physical' - I can easily think of a reason: I would back any male club rugby to beat the world champion woman's rugby team.

The point is that most people sytematically think less of a woman than a manNot again. Again the age-old trick of "I'm woman! I'm a victim! Give me more rights!" -repeated. It's getting old, especially since the trend of gender-quotas is taking place in certain countries (here, in Scandinavia). How does this sound: half of the leaders of the private company must be females. Not because the applicants are any better or more suited to the task, but simply because they have a vagina instead of a penis.

Reproductive capability does not matter when evaluating your value as a human being. Both genders are the same and, likewise, should have the same rights and responsibilities. We could begin from arranging mandatory military-service for all women too. They have slacked off long enough. Then we could cheer them up by demanging the same, paid vacation from work they usually get automatically after giving birth.

@Wordplay: Here, men have the same right to take parental leave - which is UNpaid - that women do. And I'd like to point out that, AFAIK, women never demanded to be exempted form military service, this was something that men decided was right.

As it probably came clear in the 'Chivalry is not dead' -thread, I think that women have more worth than men. The reason is simple, women are essential for giving birth and raising new generations, men are not so. Personally, I think this is not the best reason for establishing "worth" when it comes to gender. (For example, that theory may lead to the idea that women have a primary "use" as childbearers, or that it's okay to maintain a "stock" of women.) Or going on, does this mean a sterile woman has less intrinsic worth than a fertile one? Ought we give more rights/privileges to fertile women?

Let's not get started at how you can be taken to court for 'undressing a woman with your eyes' if you admire her beauty and you happen to share the same workspace *sigh*.

Wordplay has hit a few nasty nails on the head: gender quotas, military service and pregnancy leave. I'd dare say there's a gender imbalance in society yet the party being discriminated against isn't the usual suspect. AFAIK, women never demanded to be exempted form military service, this was something that men decided was right.Strange that women are so adamant about being granted the same rights as men yet not the same responsibilites... And women in my country are granted pregnancy leave and are paid for it yet men are not. The interesting thing is the number of cases that an employer will not hire a pregnant woman often get referred to as gender based discrimination and the employer is forced to hire the pregnant woman and then she gets paid leave anyway. Seems a mite unfair.

And women in my country are granted pregnancy leave and are paid for it yet men are not.Umm... I'm sure when science developes enough that men can get pregnant, then they would be given the same rights here.

I mean if a woman is pregnant she can get paid leave however if a man's partner or wife falls pregnant he can't recieve leave to take care of the child and be paid for it still.

I'm woman! I'm a victim! Give me more rights!I kind of get what you mean, but the funny thing is that I'm not a woman. Rallymama's right, and you're right too. If there's a mandatory military service written in the law saying that all citizens should partake, then why are women excluded? Because they're not citizens? They don't even have the same proceedings as those men with birth defects. Thery're less citizens than invalid men? That's worst kind of sexual discrimination and it's written in the law, by men I might add.

Pregnancy leave is something that's been bothering me as well. As a man, I wouldn't be expected to nurture my children if I'd ever choose to have any. Another case of sexual discrimination, assuming that women are mainly childbearers, first and foremost. This kind of thinking wastes perfectly good, valuable human resources. Another type of arrangement should be made.

does this mean a sterile woman has less intrinsic worth than a fertile oneNo, since it's not only giving birth that gives women more worth. Now we get to culture and behaviour. Let it be biologically hereditary or based on learned traits, human female culture is better for survival than male. In most of the harvester-gatherer societies about 80-90% of food is gathered by harvesting. Guess who does the harvesting and brings the food to the table? Guess what the men do most of the time while women are harvesting?

In all fairness, it still isn't the guy with the embryo developing in his womb (or equivalent body part)...

I agree though. There should be no classification as Man and Woman. There is just "Person" or "Home sapiens" if you are being pedantic. ANYTHING else, such as deciding whether one gets a job or not, or certain privileges or not, should be based on an objective assessment of the person in question.

If a woman is applying for a post of an executive, evaluate her skills fairly, and then give her the job or not. If a man is applying, and he happens to have better qualifications and better skills give it to him. If you give the job to the woman, JUST because there are laws which tell you to do so, even though the woman did her MBA through correspondence and the guy went to Harvard...eh, thats bull.

Of course, such evaluations would need to be objective, so have a group of people decide, with a mixed gender composition.

I'm all for equality of gender and all that, but in the NAME of equality of genders, giving women rights without responsibilities that go with them is completely unfair IMO.

I kind of get what you mean, but the funny thing is that I'm not a woman. Rallymama's right, and you're right too. If there's a mandatory military service written in the law saying that all citizens should partake, then why are women excluded? Because they're not citizens? They don't even have the same proceedings as those men with birth defects. Thery're less citizens than invalid men? That's worst kind of sexual discrimination and it's written in the law, by men I might add. The law actually says that all male citizen are to partake in military service. The point of this is mainly not to discriminate women it's to point out that you can't have 100% population on the front line when the war begins. In the winter war women were at the home front and produced supplies, clothing and even weaponry for the men who fought on the front. Now this may seem discriminate but then, being an officer and drinking cognac in Helsinki is a slight better than being on the front as costlajaeger with the life expectancy of about fifteen seconds. Point being that in war you need to classify people somehow and I find very few other easier factors than gender to make an approximate 50/50 divide of the people. In war everything needs to be done efficently and practically, you can't and you won't stop and thinking if that hurt someone's feelings or not.

EDIT: Naturally it would be great to have a greater reserve and it would not hurt women to do their military service (and they can do it as voulenteers). The economical expenses of giving military education to both genders would be quite great and with the current budget we can barely deal with the male ones so without a greater restructuring of the military service it's very hard to make military service mandatory for women.


How does this sound: half of the leaders of the private company must be females. Not because the applicants are any better or more suited to the task, but simply because they have a vagina instead of a penis. This is indeed very stupid. I found it quite appropriate how they questioned the social and healthcare minister Haatainen about why men don't have quotas to universities were women are the vast majority. Naturally Haatainen said that in order to get the most fitting students for each specific line you must rate them by skill not gender. Guess it's all different with corporations then. :rolleyes:

I think that women have more worth than men. The reason is simple, women are essential for giving birth and raising new generations, men are not so.I do not think that this is a valid reason for believing that one group of people has more worth than another. I really fail to see your reasoning here - sure, women do that ... so what? It's not like we're in desperate need of more children and thus every woman must be cherished for her child-bearing abilities. It's a non-issue that women can do this - elevating them up over men because of it seems rather strange to me.

We do not need ten children by ten women and one man every nine months - so why make a big deal of this?

Personally, I think that those of you who complain about women being overly advantaged are missing a vital point. There’s a difference between being granted the same rights and having the same esteem and standing in society. The first is necessary for the latter, but it is not sufficient.

Now, if we look at the rights of individuals, we’ll find that, yes, women have the same rights as men. Then we look at the social situation today and we’ll find that, strangely, although women share the rights of men, they are in no way treated as equals when it comes to getting paid the same amount of money for the same kind of work, getting access to the same highly esteemed and paid positions, and paying the same amount of money for their insurances – just to name a few.

Check out the statistics of your country and have a confused look at the percentage of women in leading positions in economy or politics or – and here we’re all expected to share a good laugh – the percentage of women holding leadership positions in the churches of the world.

Please remember that the basic premise is that women have the same mental capacities as men – intellectually, socially, concerning wisdom, what have you.

Understandably, those of you living in the naïve “equal rights generate equal opportunities” world stand back in awe and bewilderment in face of this seemingly contradictory situation. But we, the clever feminists, simply know that we’ll have to help matters along a bit if we wish to achieve the perfect world.

So, in order to establish a homogenous society, where women have the same chances (note: chances ≠ rights) as men, we have to be unfair to the men. Such is the nature of the weird world we live in! Impede the chances of some to further the chances of others to generate overall equality! Wow, what a concept!

This has not to necessarily affect men alone. We need to prod women every now and then as well. As of today, the percentage of women deciding to study social sciences, education science, or arts is overwhelming, but the number of women going for natural sciences or mathematics is somewhat lacking. How many CEOs do you know who have a degree in education? See? C’mon girls, I know that you can do better! ;)

@Morgoroth: Yup, it does actually say 'every finnish man', my bad.

How does this sound: half of the leaders of the private company must be females. Not because the applicants are any better or more suited to the task, but simply because they have a vagina instead of a penis.Sounds like :bs: to me. As if by now you wouldn't already have as much women that are equally capable than the men in the leading positions. As if they wouldn't choose the applicants by their skills even with the quotas, in fact they're not choosing applicants by their skills as it is, otherwise there would be more women leaders. What you're failing to see is the discrimination preventing more women from getting to leading positions. The gender quotas take the discrimination into account.

@Morgoroth: Why aren't there gender quotas for men in the university? How do you think that the university's top positions are shared? Equally? By the applicants' skills? Think again.

If offices have been filled by the applicants skills, it would mean that for some reason women have gotten a lot smarter within a hundred years than they were before. Do you honestly think that this has happened? Or that during a time period of a hundred years, while there has been equal public education, the women in the beginning of the century just happened to be stupider than the men of the same generation, or women of today?

@Aikanaro: It's not the only reason. There are cultural reasons as well, but that's one of the fundamental reasons.
We do not need ten children by ten women and one man every nine monthsSo we don't need this now. So it's ok to discriminate women because they can bear children? If we have everything in abundance, it's allright if it's not shared as equally as possible? Probably not what you mean...

The thing is that the discrimination of the female has been argumented with biological factors over and over again, and almost every time they've got it wrong. Biological facts come down to survival. If something is based biologically, it's talking about survival and from that viewpoint, men are more than expendable. One thing that makes human males more expendable is that males succumb more easily to infectious diseases.

Or how about this: Longevity is valuable in present-day culture. Women live longer and are more vital when they're older than men. To me that would make them more valuable as assets to the society. This should be taken into account when hiring top-position officials, especially when they're older. The ability not to keel over and die while sitting in the office should be a valuable asset. But because of sexual discrimination, women won't get to be high-up officials as easily as men.

@Darkthrone: :banana: Yay! But I'd like to add that we don't have to be unfair to us men. Men should try harder than ever before now that some positions are no longer available in principle to us only because we're men. The male sex has been laying back and letting the slaves do all the work. Same kind of sharing of chores as in a pack of lions. Females do the hunting, males take more than their share by physical force. Despicable.

[ September 25, 2006, 13:39: Message edited by: Iku-Turso ]

If offices have been filled by the applicants skills, it would mean that for some reason women have gotten a lot smarter within a hundred years than they were before. Do you honestly think that this has happened? Or that during a time period of a hundred years, while there has been equal public education, the women in the beginning of the century just happened to be stupider than the men of the same generation, or women of today? No, what I'm stating is that it's idiotic requiring gender quotas for anything. Women are interested in different fields than men. As Darkthrone said women seem to prefer social science over economics, which is why they are less likely to get to the position of a CEO. Now I'm not going to claim that there is no discrimination in the corporate world because there probably is plenty but I really don't think that legislating quotas is the appropriate way of dealing with the situation.

Or how about this: Longevity is valuable in present-day culture. Women live longer and are more vital when they're older than men. To me that would make them more valuable as assets to the society. This should be taken into account when hiring top-position officials, especially when they're older. Well the trouble is that the ability to learn also becomes less easy the more you age, on both genders. Which means that before the longevity actually has any difference the company is allready pretty much trying to get rid of you because of your inability to cope with new procedures and technology.

Personally, I don't like quotas, or affirmative action hires if you prefer that term. To me, it seems like such a contradictory concept. Think about what quotas and affirmative action is basically saying: In order to ensure people are not hired/accepted simply based on their gender and/or race, we are going to institute a policy that requires a certain number of people to be hired/accepted based on their gender and/or race. :confused: I know that things have been unfairly tilted in favor of the white males for a long, long time, and that something should be done to level the playing field, but it's just that I can't bring myself to believe the current policy is the best means to that end. I think people are becoming more and more accepting of women in the workplace, and I can only hope that in the years to come, the need for such quota systems will become obsolete.

The point is that most people sytematically think less of a woman than a man, less of a girl than a man; of her capabilities, both pshysical and intellectual, and that there's no good reason for it. I'm with HB on this one. While I agree that intellectually women are the equal of men, physically there are TONS of differences you can find. Generally speaking, anything requiring a large amount of strength is going to be performed better by men owing to their greater muscle mass. However, the same muscle mass that makes men stronger at the same time reduces their flexibility and dexterity. Women tend to excel in physical activities that require the same, like gymnastics and figure skating.

And I don't think there is anything inherently sexist about pointing out physical differences between the sexes. Here's two example that just immediately spring to mind: I can bench press 250 pounds when I work out. My wife can barely lift the 45 pound bar. But that doesn't make me any better than her. OTOH, when I lean forward without bending my knees, I can just barely touch my toes with my fingertips. When my wife attempts the same, she can put her palms on the ground. Similarly, that doesn't make her better than me. All this tells me is two things seem self-evident. 1.) Intellectually, there appears to be no difference in the abilities of men or women. I know lots of smart and dumb men, and lots of smart and dumb women. There appears to be no shortage in any of those categories. 2.) When it comes to physical differences, the separation could not be more clear. Men tend to do better in activities requiring strength, while women tend to do better in activities requiring flexibility and/or nimbleness.

[ September 25, 2006, 20:12: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

@ Darkthrone

Lucky that I still have my sense of humour intact. Otherwise I might had taken that seriously. :shake:

What you're failing to see is the discrimination preventing more women from getting to leading positions. The gender quotas take the discrimination into account.I don't believe that women are discriminated and I do not believe women get paid much worse either. Why? It's not as simple as comparing the salary of person A, who happens to be a female, to person B's salary, who happens to be a dick. If there is any difference, it is because the person is not as capable or has not defended his rights well enough. Gender has nothing to do with it.

Women tend to excel in physically activities that require the same, like gymnastics and figure skating. That's what people believe in general, but there are exceptions and if the world demanded women to be stronger than men, they would become just that either by natural selection or the social pressure. And vice versa. But that is irrevelant, since humanity's survival has not depended on physical fitness for many milleniums.

One thing I can easily agree on, though; screw quotas and remove all gender-specific references from laws. In my eyes, all people are made of the same block no matter what you have between your legs. Applying to BOTH rights and responsibilities. I'm just sick full of women demanding more and more rights at the expense of the opposite gender. Take another example from my own university: the University of Vaasa has begun a special program to attract more women to the technological study-programs. This costs money. Money spend for the favour of females at the expense of males. So where are the programs that should attract more males to careers like healthcare, governance, and elementary teaching, which are almost solely controller by females? :nolike:

I don't believe that women are discriminated and I do not believe women get paid much worse either. Why? It's not as simple as comparing the salary of person A, who happens to be a female, to person B's salary, who happens to be a dick. If there is any difference, it is because the person is not as capable or has not defended his rights well enough. Gender has nothing to do with it.So you are saying that women in the same line of work just happen to be less competent than the men as a rule? That women are less competent than men in general?

Gender has everything to do with how you're taught to stand up for yourself ever since you were a kid. Dress a girl in blue and a boy in pink when they're babies and you should notice something funny, and that's babies we're talking about! Most people treat babies completely different according to external arbitrary appearances, such as clothing. It's ridiculous. This indoctrination to a certain gender is going on almost from day one until you die and it has no relevant basis, especially not in the modern day society.

So where are the programs that should attract more males to careers like healthcare, governance, and elementary teaching, which are almost solely controller by females?Exactly, since physical strength is required in that line of work more than in major parts of industrial work. In social and healthcare sectors you can't replace a human with a machine, and having the strength to lift the elderly people all day long is something men would be really good at.

This is yet another case of biased thinking that takes place from the early childhood. Why haven't more men gone to work as nurses? Guys, why wouldn't you go to work as a nurse? I don't know about you, but for me there is that very little uneasy feeling of that making me less of a man, and I haven't even been indoctrinated as much to the male culture as most of you.

Guys, why wouldn't you go to work as a nurse? I don't know about you, but for me there is that very little uneasy feeling of that making me less of a man I think there's a lot of truth to this. I never even considered going to work as a nurse, even with a scientific background and some definite interest in the healthcare profession. I do not doubt that at least part of the reason is that the profession is dominated by women. There's also a huge difference in education, especially the early years. By the time you get to high school, the number of women teachers are still greater than the number of men teachers, but it is starting to even out. I do not doubt that is because by the time you are in high school you are taking courses such as advanced mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics - fields dominated by men. Elementary school is almost entirely a female profession. My wife teaches in an elementary school. She says that there are about 50 teachers in the school, and only two of them are men.

Money spend for the favour of females at the expense of males. How so? I'll bet that it's for the best of you nerds to have some more women around, eh?

Anyway, I'm serious about what I said. I'm big on quotas. And c'mon: a program to make technological studies attractive for girls can hardly be labelled "women never stop demanding more and more rights".

At the time young people reach university it is already to late. Girls get dolls and boys get chemical laboratory kits on their birthdays. While just that little tad oversimplifying this picture explains a lot more about the "preferences" of girls and boys than any evolution referenced pseudo philosophy.

If it's a consolation to you: men hardly establish quotas because they're such good fellas. Or because women would otherwise neglect their marital duties. It is a damn necessity! We need to make jobs more attractive for women, we can't afford to waste half of our populations wits on nappies and needleworks. And we don't need trillions of social engineers either. And since boys are taught to queue up for CEOship anyway, we need a little extra motivation for girls.

Hence we tell them: come here ladies, it is so god damn easy, just learn something useful and a good job is almost guaranteed!

Again: I'm in favour of these things.

we can't afford to waste half of our populations wits on nappies and needleworksI find this one of the strongest arguments against the gender bias. :thumb:

One of the things considering education and feminism is that women themselves are sometimes the worst cases maintaining the gender bias. Quite a few of those worst cases are working in those fields that have a reputation of being feminine professions.

The reality is that in most cases a girl can work twice as much at school and have better numbers than the boys, but they get less attention and encouragement from the teachers than the boys. How do you think that this affects on how both of the sexes fare at school and later on in life? Boys get it easier since teachers are more lenient towards them and girls get the impression early on that no matter how much they work, they won't get the appreciation they'd deserve.

It's losing a lot of intellectual resources, that's what it is and by that this society is shooting itself in the leg. Why cripple yourself if you can avoid it?

Ok, first off:
Girls get dolls and boys get chemical laboratory kits on their birthdays. This is the biggest crock I've heard in a long time. You want a perfect example? I (male) got LEGOs (building toys) as a kid and my (female) cousin got all the barbie toys. We're both engineers now, me Aerospace and her Environmental (offshoot of chemical). No one's a clothing designer, no one's a stay-at-home mom, or ever plans to be.

Another example: My girlfriend never got Barbies for her birthday, she was bought one Barbie toy and she tore that poor thing to shreds in an hour, she hated it, and I mean HATED. From then on she got LEGOs. Now she's working on her Masters in Counseling (out of psychology). She still loves to shop, especially for clothes.

Let's face it, there are some things that are obvious factors that aren't factors at all (birthday toys).

Let's also face the fact that men and women are not the same! Women work better in groups than men. Women are better at integrating different aspects of a problem. Men are better at working alone and on their own. Men are better at focusing on a single aspect of a problem. Women are more likely to describe something with features whereas men are more likely to use examples. When women are asked to work double shifts, their efficiency hardly changes, but you ask one to work 10 days in a row, single shift, and it drops dramatically, even before the standard 5 days in a row are up (it's the fact they KNOW they'll be working for the next X days more). Men, on the other hand, have the reverse. Men working a double shift drop their efficiency dramatically, sometimes even before the first shift is over, whereas they do just fine working 10, 12, or 14 days in a row single shift.

There's the fact that women build fat more easily than men, and men build muscle more easily. There's the fact that men are more prone to colorblindess and baldness, that our emotions work differently, that we communicate facts and ideas differently. Now this doesn't apply to everyone evenly. The range of varience within a group is bigger than the difference between averages, so there is certainly overlap. In some areas this overlap is big, in others it is small, but there is still a distinct difference between the averages. The simple fact READILY DEMONSTRASTED BY HUNDREDS OF PSYCHOLOGY AND BIOLOGY PAPERS is that the vast majority of men are better at certain tasks than women and worse at other certain tasks. It has been the task of psychologists, biologists, and neurologists for the past several decades to try and figure out how much they are different, what tasks and features they're different in, and whether this is natural or socialized.

In fact, even our basic biological make-up is different (our organ organization and such, not the atoms making our DNA). High blood pressure in men is a major risk factor for a heart attack, but has no significant connection to aneurysms at all. In women, it is the reverse. High blood pressure is a major risk factor for aneurysms and not for heart attacks. This is why so many more men die from heart attacks and so many fewer from aneurysms.

Before you start valuing or comparing two groups like this, or even saying they shouldn't be valued differently or compared, you should do your research and find out the truth.

P.S. This isn't a rant at all of you, I figure most of you have never even heard much of this. This is a rant at society in general, especially those that make the decissions and are constantly told this but decide to ignore it because they want to be PC instead of educating the public.

Huh? NOG (No Other Gods), your lack of subtlety is rivaled by your arrogance alone:

I figure most of you have never even heard much of this. It's good of you to be around to tell us a thing or two then.

How comes you quoted the dolls/laboratory kit bit but left out the pointer to oversimplification? Certainly helps you furthering your cause, eh? Unfortunately, your anecdotical evidence does not further your cause - trying to base an argument on "I know someone who does it differently so you must be wrong" is not helping credibility along very much. Presenting one of the HUNDREDS OF PSYCHOLOGY AND BIOLOGY PAPERS to READILY DEMONSTRASTE how they apply to the case of quotas would have been more convincing, but somehow you chose to merely SHOUT OUT LOUDLY - always a good thing in an emotionally charged debate, right?

In any case you addressed the wrong problem. Whether or not men and women are equal on a fundamental level is not even the point. The point is: what are the aspects of womanhood that, when compared to manhood, prevent women from being able to earn the same amount of money and fill the same kind of positions that men do? Being a teamplayer is a bad thing for a company? Not being able to communicate (sometimes even bordering on autism) is considered to further your career?

And all those human resources guys all over the world - are they all reading your READILY DEMONSTRASTED facts from a HUNDREDS OF PSYCHOLOGY AND BIOLOGY PAPERS in order to apply the latest findings to the recruiting procedure and to find the one candidate that really, really fits the job profile? Wake up, man! They are hiring guys for the most basic reasons, nothing sophisticated about it. Guys are impressive, guys are bumptious, guys can't get pregnant.

Besides - why didn't you answer to the argument that high quality jobs for women are a necessity rather than a generous gift? So you could place your cocky remark about people wanting to be PC instead of educating the public?

I like your style big time.

@NOG (No Other Gods): You're right, women and men are different, but are any of those differences enough to justify the bias between the sexes we have in our societies? That's the thing. And could it be that some of those differences might make women as more valuable assets to a modern day society than they are because of the biased way their abilities are evalued? Could it be that a modern day society would need more co-operation skills for instance, no matter is it nature or nurture where those skills come from?

People should study the facts real good and make their value judgements based more on the facts than the over two thousand year old ongoing oppression. Whenever slavery has been the norm in the society and people have started to oppose it, even some of the slaves themselves have thought that these people are crazy opposing the norm. And the leaders? The slave-owners or those that trade with slaves? They'd do almost anything so that the situation wouldn't change.

women never demanded to be exempted form military service, this was something that men decided was right.im going to speak on this, because this is an area where i have experience,
first of all, the word exempt means that someone is excused, not forced not to serve. this would be relevent if there were a conscription and women were inot included.

i think you mean to say that women are prevented from persuing certin roles with the millitary, this is not because of some schovanistic "men are better then women" thing, this has reasoning behind it.

men are naturally physically more capable then women, this is not a "man thing" this is a real thing, men are more able to lug 150lbs of kit through 10 miles of desert.
there are other reasons from a psychological point of view but there is no need to go into that - unless you really want to.
all i will say on that side is that the US millitary carried out a training reigeme which involved 'simulated' rape, and there was an outcry about it.

The reality is that in most cases a girl can work twice as much at school and have better numbers than the boys, but they get less attention and encouragement from the teachers than the boys. How do you think that this affects on how both of the sexes fare at school and later on in life? Boys get it easier since teachers are more lenient towards them and girls get the impression early on that no matter how much they work, they won't get the appreciation they'd deserve.What makes you think that good grades equal to good career? And why would the women need more encouragement either? The point is, there should not be any 50/50 -share when there should be no genders in the first place. Who gets "encouragement" is irrevelant since they all are the same. Those who compete the best also get the best results, grades being just something teachers give to those they like (more or less). If they were given even more, the law would discriminate men.

This is exactly what I mean by "I'm woman! I'm a victim! Give me more rights!" Women see themselves as the victims when, in reality, they already have all the same, legal rights.

@ Shoshino

Rape is what women have to expect if they join the army and go to war. I wouldn't think twice if my enemy was a woman with a rifle, lost, and were on my mercy. I would bang her and either put a bullet into her head or take as a prisoner for more banging. It's war, after all, and you don't become a soldier just because you want to play fetch with all the pretty boys in the uniform.

Anyway, that should not be allowed to prevent women from joining the army any more than a potentially poor stamina. If the tests are the same for both genders, those who pass them are equally capable. If women don't want to crawl in mud 24/7, 12 months a year, then they should consider giving up after the mandatory service-period. (Note: it's mandatory in Finland. 6 months as a grunt or 12 months as a civil-servant.)

We need to make jobs more attractive for women, we can't afford to waste half of our populations wits on nappies and needleworks. And we don't need trillions of social engineers either. And since boys are taught to queue up for CEOship anyway, we need a little extra motivation for girls. The percentage of women of all unemployed in this country is 48%. Meaning that the majority of unemployed are men. Women have clearly no bigger trouble than men in finding work suiting themselves by their own without the requirement of any kind of special encouragement from the government.

i think you mean to say that women are prevented from persuing certin roles with the millitary, this is not because of some schovanistic "men are better then women" thing, this has reasoning behind it. I can't think of a single position in the military which a woman could not reach in my country, however considering that several officers are indeed schovanistic or feel that the army is only for men, pursuing higher ranks would no doubt be significantly harder.

The point is: what are the aspects of womanhood that, when compared to manhood, prevent women from being able to earn the same amount of money and fill the same kind of positions that men do? Being a teamplayer is a bad thing for a company? Not being able to communicate (sometimes even bordering on autism) is considered to further your career? Good question, and the fact that you don't know makes it obvious that it simply has to be discrimination? I don't really know how they in Finland get women to earn less since most salaries are negotiated through a collective contract between the employer and the unions, which certainly don't have any discriminative paragraphs in them. I would be curious to know how exactly it is even possible that women earn less but I've yet to hear a definate answer.

AFAIK, women never demanded to be exempted form military service, this was something that men decided was right. And yet they don't clamor to jump back in... one of the main reasons behind some women not wanting the ERA to pass is because then women will be eligible for the draft.

Make them legally equal and you have to give them equal responsibilities. I am all for equal legal rights and the demise of gender roles (not genders, because women are different), but if women want rights, they should be eligible for the freakin' draft when it occurs.

Men are limited by a need to nap.

Men are limited by a need to nap.CLEARLY you've never dated an Asian girl. :lol:

men are naturally physically more capable then women, this is not a "man thing" this is a real thing, men are more able to lug 150lbs of kit through 10 miles of desert.
That does not make them more or less "physically capable," but makes men better pack mules. Physically capable can also mean: getting sick less, living a healther life, or greater longevity.

Check out the statistics of your country and have a confused look at the percentage of women in leading positions in economy or politics In New Zealand, our prime minister is a woman, our last governer-general was a woman, and the CEO of our largest company is a woman. At my work, my boss is a woman. Do you hear me complaining that men don't get enough top jobs? No. Let's just get on with life.

I guess I'm not very PC, but when I am with a group of people, and amongst that group there is a woman whom dominates the conversation and is constantly trying to "win" the "social game"...I find her annoying. I find guys like that annoying as well but only if it is done without humor...but with woman, almost always annoying.

I don't know, maybe women should just try being funnier...

@ Death Rabbit

Actually, I did date an Asian girl and she was a napper as well. I imagine all that extra effort needed to eat without adequate utensils needs to be replenished somehow...

In New Zealand, our prime minister is a woman, our last governer-general was a woman, and the CEO of our largest company is a woman. At my work, my boss is a woman. Do you hear me complaining that men don't get enough top jobs? No. Let's just get on with life.Also the Speaker of Parliament is a women. And I believe the head judge person. So all the top roles were taken up. But iirc, if you look at the national stats, women still are in the minority in these high paid jobs - even taking into account these few noteworthy exceptions.

What makes you think that good grades equal to good career?I'm not thinking good grades equal good career. Funny though, education has been considered as the thing that made Finland one of the most competitive countries in the world. Now what you're saying is that education doesn't relate to real life?

And why would the women need more encouragement either?Why should men get more encouragement? Since it's been studied that boys are encouraged more and that teachers are more lenient towards them. It's not random so it has to have basis on something. You're implying that women have poorer qualities when it comes to social situations with teachers and work? Or are you saying that women have less intellect than men? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Women have clearly no bigger trouble than men in finding work suiting themselves by their own without the requirement of any kind of special encouragement from the government.That's right. Then why should men need any special pampering by the government? If women are more capable, then let them have the school positions. In fact if they're more capable, then that's what we want as a labour force. Capable people who don't live up to their potential. Most women don't live up to their full potential because that's not what's expected of a woman.

I don't really know how they in Finland get women to earn less since most salaries are negotiated through a collective contract between the employer and the unionsIt happens through raises. The bosses are men, a man gets more easily to be buddy-buddy with the boss since they're both men and lo and behold: the worker gets a raise! Consider the possibilities of a woman sucking up to a boss. Now what does that sentence make you think about?

@ wodrplay

first off, women are allowed to serve in the forces, in the infantry and many other aspects, they are prevented from certain roles, such as the SAS and royal marines

there is alot more to it then rape and stamina. think about it, all the things that happen to a womans body, that men dont have to worry about.
they are also far easier to torture and gain information from.

@ HB

Women comprise 51 percent of New Zealand's population. While women and men have equal status under the law, women have yet to achieve full equality with men in terms of economic and social status, freedom from discrimination and access to decision-making processes.


New Zealand Now - Women (Census 96) (1998) - Reference Reports from http://www.stats.govt.nz/quick-facts/people/human-rights-race-women-youth-issues.htm

And while you're browsing, have a look at these figures here as well: http://www.stats.govt.nz/quick-facts/people/incomes.htm

@ Morgoroth:

The same can be said for the Netherlands: http://www.cbs.nl/en-GB/menu/cijfers/cijfers-per-thema/default.htm

Interestingly, 75% of the male population is classified as being financially independent, instead of only 45% of the female polulation.

Just do a bit of researching the stats your own government provides before pulling something like "only 48% of the unemployed are women" out of the hat - a figure I couldn't find in the stats, by the way.

Talking discrimination is a bad idea, because we all know that we personally aren't discriminating anyone anywhere, right, dudes? Maybe it's the women's laziness that causes the above imbalance? Or the fact that women have less elbows? Well, okay, they've got two, like most of us, but you know what I mean. Who cares what's causing this imbalance as long as we agree that we want to level it.

Of course, children will always have an impact, but I think it is the responsibility of the society as a whole to minimize these impacts. Right now, women are shouldering the bigger part and are bearing the negative consequences - whereas the positive consequences are available for society as a whole. To me, this really seams not to be fair.

So, as long as "women have yet to achieve full equality with men in terms of economic and social status, freedom from discrimination and access to decision-making processes" I'll say we apply those damn quotas. If you come up with a better idea, well, feel free to distribute it to the decision makers. But in the mean time I suggest that you don't bash the quotas for the sole reason that "discrimination is not happening in my country, we're all equal under law".

[Edit] Included Morgoroth explicitly as the addressee of the last web-link.

[ September 26, 2006, 12:15: Message edited by: Darkthrone ]

Just do a bit of researching the stats your own government provides before pulling something like "only 48% of the unemployed are women" out of the hat - a figure I couldn't find in the stats, by the way. Sorry? When did I say that?

You didn't, of course. I referred to the statement of Morgoroth and didn't make it clear that I changed the addressee. My bad.

Doesn't impact my totalitarian views, though. ;)

first off, women are allowed to serve in the forces, in the infantry and many other aspects, they are prevented from certain roles, such as the SAS and royal marinesSo it's proven: females are treated like equals. They do not deserve any more rights. They deserve more responsibilities. Women should have to serve as conscripts exactly like men. ;)

they are also far easier to torture and gain information from.There is no way to know that without testing. If there are any women who want to go through a "simulated" rape with me, PM me. Hell, I might allow you to be the rapist if you ask nicely enough. Just no leather-games. :D

Now what you're saying is that education doesn't relate to real life?Don't mix up the two: education is NOT the same thing as good grades. Education: you have finished your schools. Good grades: numbers in papers.

It happens through raises. The bosses are men, a man gets more easily to be buddy-buddy with the boss:bs: Only if it is done systematically throughout the line and all men are treated like "buddy-buddies." What are the chances of that in any company with more than 10 employees?

@Darkthrone
http://www.mol.fi/mol/fi/06_tyoministerio/08_tyollisyyskatsaukset/2005_katsaukset/2005-22-11.jsp

I took the statistics from there and I'd hope that the Finnish ministery of work (which is led by a Female minister anyway) would be an unbiased enough of a source. What it also shows is that the unemployment of women is decreasing while the unemployment of men is increasing. It's in Finnish however so I don't really expect you to understand much of it, but if you doubt my word you can allways have Iku-Turso, Arabwel, Wordplay or someone else of our other Finnish residents to transelate it.

EDIT: The statistic is a year old, I could not find newer with a quick search but I doubt the situation has changed all that much during a year.

So, as long as "women have yet to achieve full equality with men in terms of economic and social status, freedom from discrimination and access to decision-making processes" I'll say we apply those damn quotas. If you come up with a better idea, well, feel free to distribute it to the decision makers. But in the mean time I suggest that you don't bash the quotas for the sole reason that "discrimination is not happening in my country, we're all equal under law". I'm not saying that discrimination is not happening I'm just disagreeing that quotas are the right way to handle the situation. I'm quite confident that the situation will balance itself in time, women have allready now a lot more seats in the parliament and we even have a woman as president. Equality has gone a lot forward in the last twenty years and allthough some anti-discriminative laws have probably helped the issue, I don't think gender quotas are the way to go. Employers should be allowed to hire whom they like and it's just wrong to force them to choose someone they don't like or is simply less skilled in order to meet up to a gender quota.

:doh: Morgoroth, I always confuse you with Morgoth, who's from Holland. That's why I scanned the website given in my link for your figures, rather than the Finnish site. Nevermind.

@Iku-Turso: Congrats on buying into the misandrist agenda (I don't think it should be called "the feminist agenda" anymore).

However, the situation here is that men are discriminated against. Equal rights flew out of the window some time ago, apparently.

I'd bet the pay differences are largely because of the fact that women are more social. Therefore they're less likely to capitalize on the weaknesses of others. Sociopaths do the best in today's society.

And I find the whole point amusing. "Men have unprovable unseen privileges, therefore legally discriminating against men is perfectly acceptable."

Of course, I'm speaking from my point of view, which includes only Finland. Here women have better rights than men. YMMV.

Only if it is done systematically throughout the line and all men are treated like "buddy-buddies." What are the chances of that in any company with more than 10 employees?What are the chances of women having sytematically lower wages from the same jobs if the capabilities of the sexes are equal considering a particular line of work? Answer me that, if you please.

Education: you have finished your schoolsMy my, no wonder we have so many educated people here in Finland. It would seem that the requirements are so low. Grades have absolutely nothing to do with education, you can't trust teachers to give grades based on the amount of knowledge and understanding you've acquired, you get to universities because of your grades that have no basis on reality and when you finish your university you get a degree with what you do nothing, since it's got grades. It's all so clear now. And I was under the impression that finnish educational system, which is based on grades, has had a lot of positive attention from other countries...

@Taza: I'm not buying anything. Nobody has sold me any misandrist or feminist ideologies. I've grown into them. The thing that's always bothered me is that ever since I was a kid, men were supposed to be something everyone else looked up to. That's how people acted, young and old, girls, boys and women. And for the dead of me I've never understood why. I've never met a man who would deserve this appreciation everyone seem to give to us only because we're men. And it's not that there'd be these exceptional individuals that would deserve kudos. All men have gotten the same appreciation up until recently. Now people are beginning to see that people should be judged because of their skills and not because of their sex or gender. Men are falling behind since many of them haven't realized yet that in order to achieve something with their lives they'd have to work like never before. There's no free meals anymore.

The current day unemployment numbers confirm what I suspect. The finnish male culture has too many negative qualities for men to adjust to the changes in society we're going through. Only the fact that most of the criminals and most of the failed people of the society are men should tell you that something is very wrong in either the male culture, or in the biological determinants. I'm betting the culture.

Women's ratio of commited crimes in Finland is on the rise. The culture of the female has been changing rapidly during a couple of decades.

[ September 26, 2006, 18:17: Message edited by: Iku-Turso ]

Ha!

So women having worse wages is because women are discriminated, but men having unemployment problems is because there's "something wrong with the male culture"?

A bit of a double standard there?

And congrats on your use of "failed people". There's "failed people". And most of them males too.

I can't really say what I think about you here. The forum rules, you see.

EDIT: And on the educational system, I'd say on average how much the teacher likes you makes up 1/3 of your grade. Possibly more. It has nothing to do with how much you know. Even the teachers don't bother to pretend it does. The job of the finnish school system is to make the people productive members of the society - not to teach them anything not required for that.

And I was under the impression that finnish educational system, which is based on grades, has had a lot of positive attention from other countries... The most positive attention come from the way we teach math, the vast majority of other countries have a system based on grades too you know. The signifigance of grades become lesser and lesser the higher you reach in education while passing the actual education becomes harder and more requiring.

@Taza: What can you do. The structure of the society's changing. If you can't keep up with that, you have no-one else to blame but yourself.

Yes it's male culture that doesn't appreciate good grades when you're a kid. It's male culture that says that you don't have to change just because everyone says so. It's male culture to go boasting with abilities you don't have. It's male culture to give in to alcohol. It's male culture to enjoy fast cars, fast living and taking unnecessary risks.

It's male culture and it's discrimination. It's the same discrimintaion we've had towards women from the beginning of the western civilization. Now us men start to be on the receiving end of this discrimination we've practiced towards women and which we're practicing towards ourselves. The only limitation we men have not to live up to our potential is the indoctrination we've had ever since we've been kids. This applies both to women and men.

We have these silly arbitrary rules that we try to live up to and if we fail we might even take our lives. 'What kind of a man are you?' - 'No good girl acts that way.' It's taking away our freedom to express ourselves, and it's not that we'd start to bring destruction to the streets if we don't act the way that's expected from our gender.

Having said that, it's ironic that I'd probably have to emphasize that I'm still a heterosexual male, with no sexual perversions. Not a cross-dresser or anything funny. But as this has become a heated discussion I know you'd might want to start to go into that kind of ad hominem -arguments. No offence to the sexual minorities or anything.

@Morgoroth: And now it seems women are increasingly taking over the universities, while the educational system hasn't changed that dramatically, or has it? How would you explain this?

I can refuse to change, and I personally have no options. Nor do many others. And some can barely keep up. See the teens drinking, for example.

The one to blame? People like you. People who think that the society should be changing this way.

It's all a rush these days. Too fast. Too soon. Women are taking over, because "teamplay" is overemphasised. And all sorts of values foreign to the finnish mindset are infused into the society, on rapidfire. Like lives today.

Your view of the "finnish male culture" appears twisted. Heck, your whole view of finnish culture looks twisted.

A bad experience perhaps? Or just the deep feelings of inadeaquacy rising from the fact that you can never live up to the ideal of a real man?

What kind of a man are you?

EDIT: The point above isn't to be taken seriously - it's been constructed that way to make use of the line.

[ September 26, 2006, 19:12: Message edited by: Taza ]

I'm Joe Average, until I'm not.

There might be some feelings of inadequacy if I'd even knew what is the ideal of a real man that every man seems unable to live up to. You could make a list of those values for all of us, just to make some things clearer and I trust your expertise on the subject more than mine.

That the change in the society is 'all rush too fast too soon' comes from very masculine values such as competitiveness. Ironic, in so many ways.

women have had voting rights for 100 years here nowAnd hopefully for thousands of years to come! Hundred years is such a short period of time. Changing some ideas seem to take generations more than there can be in a hundred years. My grandmother is 94 years old, bless her, and women's rights is still a new thing to her and she's not demented.

edit: @Taza: Point taken. Good point.

Of course nobody is able to live up to the ideal. I'd say it doesn't really exist anyway. There's some common features "everyone" agrees exist (justness, strength, self-control), but no real common "ideal". Just a concept of one.

And take a random guess at how long people have had voting rights like now here?
(Clarification: My comment about that got swallowed up in my edit by accident.)

We had a short period without any real discrimination (that I could notice), but now unfortunately people are pushing the pendulum to the other end, discrimination of men and political correctness. The "male culture" there once was has now mostly disappeared. Same thing with the "female culture". There's "finnish culture".

So the point is this - misandry is not going to improve equal rights. It's not the feminist agenda, for feminism is striving towards equal rights. When you promote the discrimination of men, it's the misandrist agenda.

And the change in society... that is something to be fought with all we have. While I might be quite antisocial, even I cannot accept the way the society is changing towards performance. Not human interaction, not equal rights, not some higher ideal, not even universal wellbeing. Just performance. For performance's sake.

What are the chances of women having sytematically lower wages from the same jobs if the capabilities of the sexes are equal considering a particular line of work? Answer me that, if you please.It is yet to be proven in a reliable, full-fledged test. Until that, I wouldn't place much credibility on those opinions (too often spread by feminists).

It would seem that the requirements are so low. Grades have absolutely nothing to do with educationSorry to say, but you are again in your own devices. What I said was "Don't mix up the two: education is NOT the same thing as good grades." I didn't say that they were a different thing either, since a person can pass school with poor grades and still have a very succesful career. You should know that.

'What kind of a man are you?' - 'No good girl acts that way.' It's taking away our freedom to express ourselvesSilent disapproval is the same as imprisoning you to a moral cage? Man acting a bit girlishly will go to the headsman's block? Tomboys are chained and thrown to dungeons? Really, aren't you exaggerating a bit too much again?

And the change in society... that is something to be fought with all we have.I think I used to think this way at some point, it's quite possible, but that didn't last very long and now I can't wrap my mind over it. But some aspects of these changes should be fought against, and those aspects are most commonly attributed to masculine values.

since a person can pass school with poor grades and still have a very succesful careerHow many of them? What's the ratio? One out of ten? I'd say around two to five out of one hundred.

My misandristic tendencies come as a reaction to those people showing great pride for their gender and turning out to be nothing but two-faced, split tongued chauvinistic pigs with no honor and no respect for the lives of other beings. I've made this notion time and time again, every time when I meet those who think that their gender is something important to them. For both women and men. Their set of these ideas concerning gender is more important to them than the wellbeing of another person.

There is no gender, no sexes. Sexuality shouldn't be so important that it comes before almost anything, that people would even maime and kill because of someones sexuality doesn't fit to their mindscape. It's the oppression of the sexes, it concerns all of us.

Silent disapproval is the same as imprisoning you to a moral cage?I've recommended this one before, but I'll do so again. You would do well to read Prisons We Choose to Live Inside by Doris Lessing, it's a brief reading and even the name is very telling. Or just take a peek at what she's saying of these things. And if you're calling Doris Lessing a feminist or a misandrist you really haven't understood anything.

[ September 26, 2006, 20:03: Message edited by: Iku-Turso ]

I think people are drawing too many potentially misleading conclusions from these statistics. My personal experience is that I cannot think of a single female I have ever encountered who has had less opportunities than a male. All the females I know who have wanted to get good careers, get paid well, are doing so. In my company, there are as many women managers as men. Many of them have had children, taken time off, and come back.

I don't see that there is an issue either way. The only issue is certain people on both sides making an issue by complaining. The people who are just getting on with their lives are getting by fine without moaning about things.

The point is that most people sytematically think less of a woman than a man, less of a girl than a man; of her capabilities, both pshysical and intellectual, and that there's no good reason for it. I dare you to give me one. And since both women and men are equal, but women are needed to give birth and men have the qualities to make them more expendable, women should be valued more than men as a rule of thumb and not the other way around, as it has been for who knows how long.I'm sorry, Iku-Turso, but you're running into compensational overrating of women. Ironically, that's not really so far away from the psychological background behind some of the more idolatrous forms of overdrawn chivalry in the late middle ages (i.e. worshipping women). Your argument is biological, evolutional, practical. Theirs was moral. But it comes down to the same thing, anyway. That is, who is better. I say none is.

@Harbs:

Only because you dared me - and because you mentioned 'physical' - I can easily think of a reason: I would back any male club rugby to beat the world champion woman's rugby team.Hehe. Don't know about rugby, at all, but it seems to me that some of those really big female athletes in the combat sports could easily pwn some of the rookier males.

@Wirhe:

Not again. Again the age-old trick of "I'm woman! I'm a victim! Give me more rights!" -repeated. It's getting old, especially since the trend of gender-quotas is taking place in certain countries (here, in Scandinavia). How does this sound: half of the leaders of the private company must be females. Not because the applicants are any better or more suited to the task, but simply because they have a vagina instead of a penis.That sounds like someone has a vagina instead of brain rather than instead of a penis. Or a penis instead of brain, whatever. Those affirmative quotas are as demeaning to women as preventive ones (i.e. no more than...) would be. It's blatantly undemocratic and betrays a primitive understanding of maths on the part of the inventor of that system.

Reproductive capability does not matter when evaluating your value as a human being. Both genders are the same and, likewise, should have the same rights and responsibilities.Yes and no. I would say the same requirements for a volunteer-based service, i.e. no trimming down the requirements just so female soldiers could make it (this doesn't mean retaining useless requirements for their own sake, though, just reasonable ones). On the other hand, it would be quite wrong to demand the same results from girls in weight lifting for a P.E. class at school.

@Abomination:

The interesting thing is the number of cases that an employer will not hire a pregnant woman often get referred to as gender based discrimination and the employer is forced to hire the pregnant woman and then she gets paid leave anyway. Seems a mite unfair.It does. Leaving women alone, without child leave, or especially firing them for becoming pregnant, is unfair. However, forcing people to employ pregnant women to work for a couple of months before a huge child leave is quite unfair also. The burden of the support should lie with the society and task money, not private employers.

@Iku-Turso:

Thery're less citizens than invalid men? That's worst kind of sexual discrimination and it's written in the law, by men I might add.I can think of a very good reason why I don't want my daughter or wife or sister or any female I could possibly know to be in the military. (Hint: captivity)

Another case of sexual discrimination, assuming that women are mainly childbearers, first and foremost. This kind of thinking wastes perfectly good, valuable human resources. Another type of arrangement should be made.For the initial idea, you sound somewhat right. But when you take it a bit further, it sounds like you're saying nature should be rearranged. Women are the primary child bearers and upbringers of the human race. In individual situations, this may change, but it stands a fact that women are more suited. Being more suited for child bearing and rearing than men are is a part of their identity.

@Faraaz:

ANYTHING else, such as deciding whether one gets a job or not, or certain privileges or not, should be based on an objective assessment of the person in question.Objective from whose point of view?

If a woman is applying for a post of an executive, evaluate her skills fairly, and then give her the job or not. If a man is applying, and he happens to have better qualifications and better skills give it to him. If you give the job to the woman, JUST because there are laws which tell you to do so, even though the woman did her MBA through correspondence and the guy went to Harvard...eh, thats bull.Yeah. Same with Scandinavian quota thing.

Of course, such evaluations would need to be objective, so have a group of people decide, with a mixed gender composition.Hint: In avoiding to have gender decide employment, you are running into commissioning a certain mixed, male-female group of people... making gender actually decide. That's because while the primary job won't be decided basing on gender, the selectioners will get their job because of it (e.g. if you hire ten of them and you already have five females, a male one won't get the job), if you go for a 50/50 proportion. You may or may not insist on a certain established percentage, but even the more flexible mixed arrangements will still bear the taint of sort of wiping the gender-based selection under the carpet with that gender-based selection of selectioners.

@Morgoth:

Point being that in war you need to classify people somehow and I find very few other easier factors than gender to make an approximate 50/50 divide of the people. In war everything needs to be done efficently and practically, you can't and you won't stop and thinking if that hurt someone's feelings or not.Agreed. Basically, hurt feelings are no reason to grant people the right to legal fiction, i.e. make the law pretend things are different from how they physically are.

@Darkthrone:

Personally, I think that those of you who complain about women being overly advantaged are missing a vital point. There’s a difference between being granted the same rights and having the same esteem and standing in society. The first is necessary for the latter, but it is not sufficient.That way you could say child leave for men is necessary for respect...

The whole "same rights" thing is overrated. Proportional, yeah. Same? Same rights in different circumstances are not quite the same thing. Same in the same situation, now that sounds good.

Check out the statistics of your country and have a confused look at the percentage of women in leading positions in economy or politics or – and here we’re all expected to share a good laugh – the percentage of women holding leadership positions in the churches of the world.What if most men are more suited to leadership positions than most men? Which is not necessarily untrue (unless you don't mind a little presumption) perhaps...

This has not to necessarily affect men alone. We need to prod women every now and then as well. As of today, the percentage of women deciding to study social sciences, education science, or arts is overwhelming, but the number of women going for natural sciences or mathematics is somewhat lacking. How many CEOs do you know who have a degree in education? See? C’mon girls, I know that you can do better!Abstaining from better or worse, there is some point in that, yes. It's not like a CEO wouldn't actually benefit from educational skills.

As an example, I don't know about CEO, but we all know I would make a great king. Now, I have some teaching skills. It seems to be somewhat obvious that they would make me a better leader, no? ;)

@Iku-Turso:

As if they wouldn't choose the applicants by their skills even with the quotas, in fact they're not choosing applicants by their skills as it is, otherwise there would be more women leaders.There's more to leadership than skills. In fact, there's more to leadership than leadership skills even. Why is it that men actually end up in leadership positions more often? Does it necessarily have to be oppression, discrimination, plot involving around half the globe?

Yay! But I'd like to add that we don't have to be unfair to us men. Men should try harder than ever before now that some positions are no longer available in principle to us only because we're men. The male sex has been laying back and letting the slaves do all the work. Same kind of sharing of chores as in a pack of lions. Females do the hunting, males take more than their share by physical force. Despicable.I'm sorry, but the stylistics obstruct the point a bit. If we peel away all the agitating emotional adornments, doesn't it essentially say that men should now try harder in order to compensate?

@Morgoroth:

No, what I'm stating is that it's idiotic requiring gender quotas for anything. Women are interested in different fields than men. As Darkthrone said women seem to prefer social science over economics, which is why they are less likely to get to the position of a CEO. Now I'm not going to claim that there is no discrimination in the corporate world because there probably is plenty but I really don't think that legislating quotas is the appropriate way of dealing with the situation.I'd like to add that quotas are a very short way to degrade women in male eyes, reducing many capable female specialists, managers or leaders to a, "She got that job only because she's a woman," state in (at least) male perspective.

@Aldeth:

And I don't think there is anything inherently sexist about pointing out physical differences between the sexes.I would go further and make it any differences which actually exist. Otherwise, we run into something along the lines of, "If the truth is too sexist, adjust it a bit."

1.) Intellectually, there appears to be no difference in the abilities of men or women.Not to imply anyone is smarter overall, there's some stuff that works out better with males and some that works out better with females. One example would be women being more suited to multitasking than men are.

@Iku-Turso:

Gender has everything to do with how you're taught to stand up for yourself ever since you were a kid. Dress a girl in blue and a boy in pink when they're babies and you should notice something funny, and that's babies we're talking about! Most people treat babies completely different according to external arbitrary appearances, such as clothing. It's ridiculous. This indoctrination to a certain gender is going on almost from day one until you die and it has no relevant basis, especially not in the modern day society.My flat chest is a product of my indoctrination, too? ;)

@Abomination:

And we don't need trillions of social engineers either. And since boys are taught to queue up for CEOship anyway, we need a little extra motivation for girls.

Hence we tell them: come here ladies, it is so god damn easy, just learn something useful and a good job is almost guaranteed!

Again: I'm in favour of these things.Indeed, they don't seem so absurd to me. So long as there are no freebie exam points or anything to that effect, sometimes it may be a good idea to focus the incentive attractor where it's needed instead of spreading it out too much. ;)

@Iku-Turso again:

The reality is that in most cases a girl can work twice as much at school and have better numbers than the boys, but they get less attention and encouragement from the teachers than the boys.I've heard the reverse said about our schools here.

More to follow when I've had some sleep.

women being more suited to multitasking than men are.That's the biggest generalisation ever. In my experience, it is completely untrue. Try having a conversation with my wife when she is watching TV.

Ironically, that's not really so far away from the psychological background behind some of the more idolatrous forms of overdrawn chivalry in the late middle agesYou've got it. Very good. :D

doesn't it essentially say that men should now try harder in order to compensate?You're right, that's exactly what I'm saying.

I'd say that most of our complex behavioral traits come down to indoctrination built on the backbone of hereditary factors. I'm a product of certain type of indoctrination and that's why I see the contradictions in the mainstream masculine culture and how it affects negatively to the social fitness of the individual males in the present day society.

I might want to put it this way: When a pine tree falls, it will not bend or break, but it rips the soil with its roots when they are torn from the ground by the weight of the tree. Of course in nature this is not a bad thing, but in the society those that won't learn to bend with the wind will cause destruction when they fall.

@Chevalier: Maybe it's the history of chivalry you've got there that gives your schoolteachers idolatrous views :shake:

@Chev @Abomination:


quote:
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And we don't need trillions of social engineers either. And since boys are taught to queue up for CEOship anyway, we need a little extra motivation for girls.

Hence we tell them: come here ladies, it is so god damn easy, just learn something useful and a good job is almost guaranteed!

Again: I'm in favour of these things.
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Indeed, they don't seem so absurd to me. So long as there are no freebie exam points or anything to that effect, sometimes it may be a good idea to focus the incentive attractor where it's needed instead of spreading it out too much. I said that? :confused:

I understand that women are different from men in quite a few ways including but not limited to physicality, thought processes and emotional attachments however these differences are based on averages, there are some women who are stronger than some men, some men who can multi-task better than women (yes, HB, studies actually show that women are better at multi-tasking than men are) or whatever. The point is that establishing gender specific government policy should only be when the actual 'event' the policy is trying to promote/mitigate/remove can only occur to that particular gender... say breast cancer for women or infertility in men for example (the way a man is infertile is completely different to the way a woman is infertile).

As for women being underpaid in the workplace compared to men who hold the same positions... I dare say it's more coincidence than a result of sexist attitudes - at least in my country. I would dare say that women are regarded as more respectable in the corporate world and I'd rightly be at a disadvantage trying to deal with a woman as opposed to my usual clients, being 40+ year old men.

Simply put, just because men are statistically better off with salaries in the workplace doesn't mean that a sexist attitude is the cause. Like mentioned before when women out-perform men it's the man's fault yet when men out-perform women it's the man's fault for creating a sexist system on which women are judged... and that implies that men simply can't win no matter what they do.

@Wirhe:

The point is, there should not be any 50/50 -share when there should be no genders in the first place.At the risk of getting things out of their context, I would say some recognition of natural differences is always good, as pretending we're all the same is a bit against nature, you know, something which is not as true as we take it. Kind of compensational fiction, which sucks.

@Chandos:

That does not make them more or less "physically capable," but makes men better pack mules. Physically capable can also mean: getting sick less, living a healther life, or greater longevity.Hmm... Much of that is training or lack thereof, lack being default for females. Can't really assess the "raw" state credibly, but I tend to think men are generally more powerful when it comes to raw physical force. Not like you can't put to advantage women's slighter frames and lower gravity centres and all, making them able to knock down big hulks.

@Harbs:

In New Zealand, our prime minister is a woman, our last governer-general was a woman, and the CEO of our largest company is a woman. At my work, my boss is a woman. Do you hear me complaining that men don't get enough top jobs? No. Let's just get on with life.Yeah, what you say. It strikes me that when one starts going on about discrimination of this and that minority, himself or whatever, it's often just a little bit too little air in the room. So to say. Or rather just the need to get on with life, yeah.

@Rotku:

Also the Speaker of Parliament is a women. And I believe the head judge person. So all the top roles were taken up. But iirc, if you look at the national stats, women still are in the minority in these high paid jobs - even taking into account these few noteworthy exceptions.Aren't guys a bit more of the competitor type than women? Competing for advancement and all? Women can be quite confrontational and all, but that's mostly social. I somehow tend to see men as more ready to climb the ladder and compete with others.

@Iku-Turso:

If women are more capable, then let them have the school positions. In fact if they're more capable, then that's what we want as a labour force. Capable people who don't live up to their potential. Most women don't live up to their full potential because that's not what's expected of a woman.Yeah, that's possible. Aren't men more of the ambitious competitor type, anyway? Just more into the climbing the ladder stuff?

It happens through raises. The bosses are men, a man gets more easily to be buddy-buddy with the boss since they're both men and lo and behold: the worker gets a raise! Consider the possibilities of a woman sucking up to a boss. Now what does that sentence make you think about?Err... actually... there are some sucking possibilities in the male boss female worker scenario too...

@Shoshino:

there is alot more to it then rape and stamina. think about it, all the things that happen to a womans body, that men dont have to worry about.Yes, another thing, indeed. In fact, we men so much don't have to worry about it that I actually didn't think about mentioning it as a factor. Now, imagine PMS in a military campaign.

@Wirhe:

There is no way to know that without testing. If there are any women who want to go through a "simulated" rape with me, PM me. Hell, I might allow you to be the rapist if you ask nicely enough. Just no leather-games.Actually, I think they do that in some captivity trainings. Still, while it's not like male captives can't be gay-raped, rape is probably going to be the default method of interrogation. And not only interrogation. I just don't want any women in the military as grunts. It would also put their fellow soldiers and fellow captives in a vulnerable position, with males being dangerously protective of females, and with females being a liability. Imagine they start raping all women from your unit and have you watch until you tell them what they want to know. A bit harder to take than watching your friends being beaten up, as if that weren't already hard enough...

Don't mix up the two: education is NOT the same thing as good grades. Education: you have finished your schools. Good grades: numbers in papers.My university has a history of females getting one grade higher by default with some male examiners. It was like that in the previous generation as well and is now.

@Taza:

And I find the whole point amusing. "Men have unprovable unseen privileges, therefore legally discriminating against men is perfectly acceptable."What you say. That's quite ridiculous, you know, like trying to correct nature. More like dealing with frustrations by trying to correct nature.

So women having worse wages is because women are discriminated, but men having unemployment problems is because there's "something wrong with the male culture"?Yeah, same way one could say men are being discriminated against, while women have not enough adaptability to the rat race circumstances of making a career in the modern world.

And congrats on your use of "failed people". There's "failed people". And most of them males too.Grades are good sometimes, such as when you have to meet some criteria to gain entrance to university. Preferably comparable grades. It's better to have some people not make it than to have everyone go in but most drop out. In Poland, grades are a good indicator of future educational prospects, i.e. what level of schooling you should pursue, what subjects etc. Alas, also, all too often at university, which prof hates you. What's bad about grades is lack of comparability in practice, whereas in theory, they are expected to be comparable.

@Iku-Turso:

It's male culture that says that you don't have to change just because everyone says so.That might be true. However, the, "you don't have to change just because everyone says so," kind of thing I tend to associate with the Rights for X overblown campaigns and activists. Accept all deviation as normal. Give all self-proclaimed minorities rights. Etc etc.

Yes it's male culture that doesn't appreciate good grades when you're a kid.Between kids, I guess. In families not really. But I still hate the way some people in my family expect me to be able to fix the lights or furniture (which I actually can do, anyway) just because I'm a guy. So what, am I a natural "golden hand"? I'm a friggin' law student, I speak languages, I can make computers obey, I know my stuff in some other fields. So why the heck do I have to fix stuff like a semi-pro yet and deal with disappointment because I'm not quite a sportstar (or fan, for that matter) in addition to that?

We have these silly arbitrary rules that we try to live up to and if we fail we might even take our lives. 'What kind of a man are you?' - 'No good girl acts that way.' It's taking away our freedom to express ourselves, and it's not that we'd start to bring destruction to the streets if we don't act the way that's expected from our gender.Psst... maybe let's not attach so much weight to expressing ourselves. I mean, we may want to express, but do other people want to listen or watch? And they also count! In fact, we form a network, a social one. Each of us has a place and there's a place for everyone -- or at least should be. Let's explore our interests, build on our talents, even overcome our weaknesses. Help people the way we can. Make a living the way we know. But what's with all the expressing? I think it's a commercial hype created by all sorts of producers of trendy goods, from clothes to soft drinks. Express yourself by wearing a mohawk, express yourself by stuffing the coffers of this or that clothes company by wearing the last model of honestly crappy design of jeans, or by drinking Sprite. Not everything is a statement and I believe we should be more preoccupied with actually living our lives than with making statements. We are not being original in that. In fact, we are not being ourselves in it, either. Just stuffing the wallets of those who conveniently aim to provide our means of expression. ;)

[Self-promotion]Here (http://www.towerofivory.net/writing.php?disp=whsi4#text)[/Self-promotion] ;)

@Taza:

It's all a rush these days. Too fast. Too soon. Women are taking over, because "teamplay" is overemphasised. And all sorts of values foreign to the finnish mindset are infused into the society, on rapidfire. Like lives today.Achievement culture maybe? In all sorts of jobs, they require you to be "achievement oriented" and behave as if you're drugged up on hype with all your enthusiasm. Like you're a friggin' patriot for this bank or that clothes shop. You live to serve, you serve well, you get more food, whatever. Too much achievement, too little actual work, I say, nowadays. People should have more comfort and more safety in their jobs or even their business, especially not be exposed so much to dishonest, ruleless competition. Then they would actually do their jobs... live their jobs. Live roles rather than jobs. Postman, bus driver, butcher, train conductor, cop, salesman, used to be roles. Not a measured and packed amount of workforce commodity you can trade.

In the old times, you would get your money for your job. Nowadays, you're expected to increase your work efficiency by means of spilling more of your guts for the company more readily at a lower and lower cost. Oh, and it's "time theft" when you go to toilet without stamping your magnetic card carefully.

With that kind of attitude, I suppose we can only expect crappy results. That's because people are turned into slaves and slaves are not efficient. You can't force people to record every second they spend in the toilet for every cent you would otherwise pay them, and at the same time expect them to be selflessly dedicated to your company. But this is something that modern managers will not understand.

Sometimes I just want to blow up all those plentiful Schools of Marketing, Business Administration and whatnot.

As for teamplay, yeah. They just seem to love training people into unison barking packs of wolves. And yes, they actually do that on integration trips. Give me a rest from all the ****ing hype. Can't people just cooperate and just work and go on with their lives? Without all the marketing/management/whatever crappy hype?

@Iku-Turso:

There might be some feelings of inadequacy if I'd even knew what is the ideal of a real man that every man seems unable to live up to.That's the point of an ideal, anyway.

That the change in the society is 'all rush too fast too soon' comes from very masculine values such as competitiveness. Ironic, in so many ways.What's ironic is that all those "male values" gain more and more ground the more we advance in all the compensational, affirmative and whatever other politicial actions centred around the rights concept. I just see more and more people with diplomas and jobs but without any manners or culture taken out of home. People who have university diplomas and big salaries but don't even wash hands after using the toilet.

women have had voting rights for 100 years here nowFirst thing we did in Poland after regaining independence in November 1918. Voting rights for women, worker rights and protections, all that. Now some undereducated eurocrats are teaching us "equality", coming from countries where women might have some fancy legal rights (like being able to vote for a last couple of decades or something) but still can't achieve much because they fall victim of a mentality block at some point. Hurrah for eurovalues and eurolefties and euro... err... do they wash hands in the gents, I wonder? :rolleyes: :p

@Taza:

So the point is this - misandry is not going to improve equal rights. It's not the feminist agenda, for feminism is striving towards equal rights. When you promote the discrimination of men, it's the misandrist agenda.Much of feminism is self-contradictory, anyway, in making women emulate men. What does emulation suggest else than that what's being emulated is better than what's emulating? Something feminists can't grasp. They should really get a life and get some logic. Somewhere. Some time. Hopefully.

Not human interaction, not equal rights, not some higher ideal, not even universal wellbeing. Just performance. For performance's sake.Yeah...

@Iku-Turso:

How many of them? What's the ratio? One out of ten? I'd say around two to five out of one hundred.One of my profs is the prorector (vice rector) of another university in the same town and has some other functions also and, as a student, he had been getting Cs all the time. ;)

There is no gender, no sexes. Sexuality shouldn't be so important that it comes before almost anything, that people would even maime and kill because of someones sexuality doesn't fit to their mindscape. It's the oppression of the sexes, it concerns all of us.Naah, it's just the hypersexualisation of the society that gives us problems. ;) Sex is nowhere near as important as people make it look, let alone advertisements, films and all other crap.

End of follow up from pages 2 and 3. ;) Now replying to things posted after my first post:

@Harbs:

That's the biggest generalisation ever. In my experience, it is completely untrue. Try having a conversation with my wife when she is watching TV.Oh well, just watch me do sports or drive or fix stuff. ;) Seriously, however, it's just some kind of research I've come across. Women proved better in multitasking, while men were better at focusing on stuff. ;)

@Iku-Turso:

@Chevalier: Maybe it's the history of chivalry you've got there that gives your schoolteachers idolatrous viewsHehe, actually, in Poland, we've always been kind to women and we still surprise most of Europe (that is those who actually notice stuff, as opposed to some stonedeaf undereducated eurocrats) in that regard. However, we've never had as much of the, "worship the ground you walk on, oh goddess, blaaaah," kind of chivalry as the West has had. Not ever. God was creator, woman was creation, at every point. No turning the cat upside down.

@Abomination:

I said that?Did I get the wrong name with a quote or something? I was quite tired at night and had to interrupt writing and go to bed at some point.

The point is that establishing gender specific government policy should only be when the actual 'event' the policy is trying to promote/mitigate/remove can only occur to that particular gender... say breast cancer for women or infertility in men for example (the way a man is infertile is completely different to the way a woman is infertile).Hehe, now I agree with you so much, yeah. Some small differences had better be left outside legislation instead of just cramming the world with laws and more laws and stupider and stupider ones. Just so long as no one is exposed to impossible expectations or too much unnecessary hardship. ;)

Simply put, just because men are statistically better off with salaries in the workplace doesn't mean that a sexist attitude is the cause. Like mentioned before when women out-perform men it's the man's fault yet when men out-perform women it's the man's fault for creating a sexist system on which women are judged... and that implies that men simply can't win no matter what they do.Yes.

That sounds like someone has a vagina instead of brain rather than instead of a penis. Or a penis instead of brain, whatever. Those affirmative quotas are as demeaning to women as preventive ones (i.e. no more than...) would be. It's blatantly undemocratic and betrays a primitive understanding of maths on the part of the inventor of that system.Chevalier... buddy... If you can't compete, just don't say anything. You do not need to resort to insults. And what does "It's blatantly undemocratic and betrays a primitive understanding of maths on the part of the inventor of that system" mean anyway? :lol:

Honestly, start formatting those messages of yours to a bit shorter form. You spew spit to so many directions that it is hard to keep track of what you are after.

Hey, buddy, that insult wasn't directed at you! :p Just that quotas are moronic and come from a ****ty superificial view of maths. :shake: In fact, I was actually agreeing with you. :p :shake:

Honestly, start formatting those messages of yours to a bit shorter form. You spew spit to so many directions that it is hard to keep track of what you are after./me pokes Wirhe with an Ugly Stick of Spite +3 :p

Maybe you need more of this: :coffee: ? To start getting things right? :shake:

You just need to write less to get the message through more clearly. The previous kind of behemots aren't pretty to read. I'm sorry if I understood you wrong, but it was a bit too high-flying text, no? :hmm:

Those affirmative quotas are as demeaning to women as preventive ones (i.e. no more than...) would be. It's blatantly undemocratic and betrays a primitive understanding of maths on the part of the inventor of that system. But is it even possible to have an affirmative quota without also haveing a preventive one? Does having one not necessitate having the other? For example, if we say that at least X% of the workforce must be of a certain sex, does that not mean that no more than 100-X% of the workforce can be of the other sex?

My biggest problem with the quota system is you are trying to solve a sexist policy by instituting a sexist policy. In order to prevent people from hiring individuals on the basis of their sex, we will institute a policy that requires you to hire individuals on the basis of their sex. Does this not seem strange - or at the very least counterintuitive to some?

Let's take that train of thought a bit further. My stance is that the quota system is absurd. In order to comply with the rules of the quota system, you must commit an absurd act (hiring someone solely on the basis of sex). If meeting a rule requires committing an absurd act, then surely the rule itself must be absurd.

I feel like I wanna throw something in here. A different perspective.

It seems like everyone in this thread so far has a strong opinion one way or another about the gender equality issue. I'm not one of those people.

Sure I believe a man can do anything a woman can (and vice versa) and that equal work should absolutely merit equal pay. But this isn't really an issue that's affected me personally. I'm in a profession (graphic design/advertising/web design) where there really is NO glass ceiling whatsoever. There is an even 50/50 split of men and women in my profession, and in many cases women are the ones who run and operate the most powerful design studios in the country (and the world). Maybe it's because there are so many liberals in my profession, who knows. With few exceptions (such as the needs of a specific project), gender seemingly plays no role at all in my profession.

So from my point of view - this is a non-issue, and I really don't care. Furthermore, I've known enough strong and successful females that I guess I don't recall ever hearing an "I'm being kept behind because of my gender" sob story to identify with personally.

Of course, I'm sure such discrimination does exist (especially in the areas of finance, real estate and law). I acknowledge that. But because it doesn't effect me personally, I can't seem to care much about it. Especially when you consider how far the women's lib movement has come in the last 50 years. Hell, even in the last 20.

Just thought I'd throw that in. I'm not saying I'm right or wrong, it's just my viewpoint. :wave:

EDIT: has anyone else noticed that this entire thread - with the exception of one lonely post from Rally at the beginning - consists entirely of MALES? Irony's good on crackers... ;)

@DR: Yeah I started to wonder about that when Rallymama didn't take part in the conversation after that one comment.

Then I noticed that the most heated arguments seemed to come from finnish people. That's something to think about, maybe considering what the discussions about and since it's a finnish man starting this topic.

@Chevalier: Well, yeah, I got the point about expressing myself and I was wondering how it would be taken when I wrote it down. I should've said that in some other way, since that's usually how for instance sexual minorities try to get their point through with little success. But there are people who, and places in this world where they frown upon and shun any deviation from the norm.

However, we've never had as much of the, "worship the ground you walk on, oh goddess, blaaaah," kind of chivalry as the West has had.Well neither have we. My worshipping women isn't based on any formal tradition. It's not that women would be that much more special than anything else, it's just that men are that much less than they should or could be that makes women better than men.

Silent disapproval is putting you into one of the worst prisons there is. To know that no matter what you do, you will never get the same priviledges as other people because of arbitrary discrimination is that kind of prison. Now you'd have to try pretty hard trying to convince me that this discrimination doesn't exist, when it comes from the same source as the discrimination I've had in my life. It's the will of the sadistic mind and of those with more physical strength imposed on the people that are most easily oppressed. It cannot be easily rationalized and it's even harder to justify. In fact even trying would be monstrous. It's the will to power without the nobility. It's the hunger for power over others without realizing that power without self-control is yet another slave-mentality trying to feed this hunger by pettiness towards other people.

It has nothing to do with fighting back. In most extreme cases that would mean that women who are raped can blame it all on themselves for not fighting back. That civilians tortured and killed in war can blame themselves for not fighting back or for being in the zone of war. It's saying that might makes right, and even if that would seem to be the case, it's not the way the world should be.

I find the idea of gender quotas favoring women interesting, but I think Rallymama had a point in the 'Chivalry is not dead' thread that can be applied to them. Evening the odds makes your acquired strength and the gained victories less meaningful. It might imply that you'd need a handicap, that your skills aren't as good a the other guys.

So from my point of view - this is a non-issue, and I really don't care. Furthermore, I've known enough strong and successful females that I guess I don't recall ever hearing an "I'm being kept behind because of my gender" sob story to identify with personally. That was exactly the point I was trying to make.

I'm pretty much along the same lines as Darkthrone and Iku-Turso. I just can't be bothered to spew out novels about it.
Rape is what women have to expect if they join the army and go to war. I wouldn't think twice if my enemy was a woman with a rifle, lost, and were on my mercy. I would bang her and either put a bullet into her head or take as a prisoner for more banging. It's war, after all, and you don't become a soldier just because you want to play fetch with all the pretty boys in the uniform.Serious now? Hmm, I vaguely recall this same guy in some other thread comparing taking a woman out on a date and seeing a prostitute purely in financial terms, so I shoudn't be surprised.

Chev:
You're shooting yourself in the leg writing those gigantic posts without even organizing all the points directed at one person in one section of the post. Your points are going to be lost when people can't be bothered to read the whole thing.

Serious now? Hmm, I vaguely recall this same guy in some other thread comparing taking a woman out on a date and seeing a prostitute purely in financial terms, so I shoudn't be surprised.I remember that thread too. That guy was just saying he preferred one-time-payments, against sex, over long-time loans and headaches. He's a smart guy; you should listen him.

You said this:

This is exactly what I mean by "I'm woman! I'm a victim! Give me more rights!" Women see themselves as the victims when, in reality, they already have all the same, legal rights.
Then you said this:

Rape is what women have to expect if they join the army and go to war. I wouldn't think twice if my enemy was a woman with a rifle, lost, and were on my mercy. I would bang her and either put a bullet into her head or take as a prisoner for more banging. It's war, after all, and you don't become a soldier just because you want to play fetch with all the pretty boys in the uniform If it was a man you had taken prisoner would you "bang" him? Or take him for more "banging?"
Obviously you would victimize a woman sexually, but not the man (of course, I'm only guessing here). Women are victims of men who can't see that they are not just sexual objects. And you proved that by that last comment.

BTW, some people actually become soldiers to defend their country, its people and its values - not to become sadistic rapists.

No, Chandos, I wouldn't bang a man, since I'm not gay. I would simply shoot him to the head like he tried to do to me a moment ago. People die in war, you know, and it's about making sure it's not me or my team who dies. Women simply have the option of giving something instead of dying on the spot.

Would sparing an enemy because she could offer pleasure make me a sadistic rapist? Would you prefer me to overlook her option and just bury her right away to prove that she is not merely a sexual object? Would she appreciate it? No, no, and no.

*I'd* appreciate not getting raped.

It's just a factor that women who join the military will have to deal with. If they're captured they'll most probably be raped, especially considering the type of enemies organised militaries face today - rebel groups with no country that is responsiable for their actions.

I didn't realise Finland was that bad.

@Aldeth:

But is it even possible to have an affirmative quota without also haveing a preventive one? Does having one not necessitate having the other? For example, if we say that at least X% of the workforce must be of a certain sex, does that not mean that no more than 100-X% of the workforce can be of the other sex?Yes, that's true, although the vibe is different (i.e. focus on promoting one side or limiting the other). However, what I meant to point out was that giving women handicaps is even more demeaning than institutionalised oppression. It suggests women won't be elected or chosen in a contest or whatever without that handicap. I think this is more or less what Rally said.

My biggest problem with the quota system is you are trying to solve a sexist policy by instituting a sexist policy. In order to prevent people from hiring individuals on the basis of their sex, we will institute a policy that requires you to hire individuals on the basis of their sex. Does this not seem strange - or at the very least counterintuitive to some?Yes, it's complete mess.

@Iku-Turso:

I should've said that in some other way, since that's usually how for instance sexual minorities try to get their point through with little success. But there are people who, and places in this world where they frown upon and shun any deviation from the norm.Flaunting stuff is not the same as merely being different. Besides, I really am sick of all the "express yourself" thing as you must undoubtedly already know at this point, anyway. ;)

It has nothing to do with fighting back. In most extreme cases that would mean that women who are raped can blame it all on themselves for not fighting back.That's horrific, yes. However, there are people who submit to compulsion just because the compeller is more aggressive, while resistance would normally be successful. There are also people who take strong suggestion or even demand (with no intention of enforcement) as already compulsion. It takes a sheep to sleep with someone just because he's nagging (or in the hope he will stop nagging) but even that happens. The lawyer in me needs to point out that not all instances of people feeling like (or really being, if you prefer) rape victims correspond with the crime of rape on the part of the other person.

That civilians tortured and killed in war can blame themselves for not fighting back or for being in the zone of war.Again. However, remember that in some instances, one person with a couple of bullets in one gun can terrorise a large crowd of people.

It's saying that might makes right, and even if that would seem to be the case, it's not the way the world should be.Power doesn't give right. Not defending yourself doesn't make you guilty per se. It would be cruel to say that some people have themselves to blame. However, many people yield too easily.

Evening the odds makes your acquired strength and the gained victories less meaningful.Such a victory is a defeat in fact.

@Susipaisti:

Chev:
You're shooting yourself in the leg writing those gigantic posts without even organizing all the points directed at one person in one section of the post. Your points are going to be lost when people can't be bothered to read the whole thing.I prefer to go chronologically, point by point, as the discussion develops. We're discussing points, not really conducting a number of parallel discussions. Otherwise it looks like a mediaeval battle, just a chaotic frenzy of duels. You can still just go by captions if you're not interested in what's said to other people. No one forces you to read paragraphs that don't interest you.

@Chandos:

Obviously you would victimize a woman sexually, but not the man (of course, I'm only guessing here). Women are victims of men who can't see that they are not just sexual objects. And you proved that by that last comment.And in what way should men react to that? Should we guys in civilised countries make up for other guys by sending our women to fight them as grunts and get captured and raped? By allowing women to serve as grunts you are not combatting the mentality that makes the enemy rape them upon capture. Of course, I won't cry if you have rapists shot upon capture.

@Wirhe:

Would sparing an enemy because she could offer pleasure make me a sadistic rapist? Would you prefer me to overlook her option and just bury her right away to prove that she is not merely a sexual object? Would she appreciate it? No, no, and no.Easy! Assumptions, assumptions. Some women prefer to be shot rather than raped.

@Abomination:

It's just a factor that women who join the military will have to deal with. If they're captured they'll most probably be raped, especially considering the type of enemies organised militaries face today - rebel groups with no country that is responsiable for their actions....Such as the American soldiers, prison guards and private contractors raping teenagers in prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq? Atually, some of the sexual oppressors have even been females oppressing males.

Besides, you forget the effect it has on male fellow soldiers. Would you rather have them just beat up your male fellows or rape a female captive on your eyes to make you betray secrets?

Easy! Assumptions, assumptions. Some women prefer to be shot rather than raped.I'll remember to ask about it in the future, while holding a barrel of a gun against her skull: "Now, my lady... Which one is it going to be: pants down or skull open?"

Not a difficult choise, really. Women can cope with it really well too, after shedding a few tears and then continuing like normal. It's actually men who are more outraged than anyone else, or so certain documentaries have said.

However, remember that in some instances, one person with a couple of bullets in one gun can terrorise a large crowd of people.That's how it is. No one wants to be a hero, since being one and the subject of a funeral is not a very comforting thought. Thus you could say that might *does* make it right, when the person who would dare to claim the opposite would be a dead person. ;)

...Such as the American soldiers, prison guards and private contractors raping teenagers in prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq? Atually, some of the sexual oppressors have even been females oppressing males.Heh, my thoughts exactly. Heard that the women got it going because the islamistic men viewed sex as a sin, so naturally the women wanted to torment them with it. Of course, the yanks were like :shake: while the other side was :mad: