Prince Alexander Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Well, yeah. I mean if business owners were 100% about making money than it wouldn't have to have been necessary to make discrimination based on race illegal. Since stores wouldn't have refused service on the basis a person was black. But they did, despite the fact that that would lose them money. I'd argue it would lose them more money due to other racists not using the store anymore. Business owners are shrewd as fuck. And if they are not capitalizing on the pay gap feminist media craze in some specific cases it's because it would harm their business. Year 2000 onward businesses are making a shit ton of money by catering to feminism, because it's THE word that defines a generation. There is no money in stopping feminism. Education sexism, yes, I have seen/can see. But it's a matter of time before the gender split is more even and I have faith that brilliance will always be recognized. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerenthaClone Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Stop pretending that owning a business suddenly makes you immune to biases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrueMetis Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Business owners are shrewd as fuck. Not if the failure numbers that are usually given are accurate, and certainly not if we remember all the people on this forum who claimed to be business owners yet talked about all the stupid ass decisions they would make. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shryke Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Not if the failure numbers that are usually given are accurate, and certainly not if we remember all the people on this forum who claimed to be business owners yet talked about all the stupid ass decisions they would make. Indeed. Ask any accountant who's worked with small businesses. Business owners run the gamut from shrewd as fuck to stupider like a fox. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrueMetis Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Oh and let's not forget banks in general with there "fuck the long term let's just make money in the short term and who cares if it fuck the economy" approach. Real shrewd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
protar Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I'd argue it would lose them more money due to other racists not using the store anymore. Business owners are shrewd as fuck. And if they are not capitalizing on the pay gap feminist media craze in some specific cases it's because it would harm their business. Year 2000 onward businesses are making a shit ton of money by catering to feminism, because it's THE word that defines a generation. There is no money in stopping feminism. Education sexism, yes, I have seen/can see. But it's a matter of time before the gender split is more even and I have faith that brilliance will always be recognized. You're acting as though this is a matter of people consciously deciding to pay women less because they are women. While I'm sure some people still do that, the pay gap is a result of unconscious biases in how we perceive men and women, and their actions. A big one is assertiveness. If a man is assertive he is praised for his leadership skills and might get a bonus. If a woman is assertive they'll be seen as bitchy and bossy and probably won't. In these scenarios the boss probably isn't even considering that his perception of what is assertive and what is bossy is being coloured by gender. He just thinks he's giving the assertive worker a raise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB. Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 There is no money in stopping feminism. .Yes there is, there's money in stopping all human right movements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrackerNeil Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Well, yeah. I mean if business owners were 100% about making money than it wouldn't have to have been necessary to make discrimination based on race illegal. Since stores wouldn't have refused service on the basis a person was black. But they did, despite the fact that that would lose them money. People are not rational actors, and make decisions that go against their interests all the time. YES YES YES. When I tally up the things that influence human decision-making, I put rationality way, way down on the list. It's why libertarian philosophy, consistent as it may be, doesn't work well in real life. People are not spheroids of uniform density; they're imperfect creatures filled with fears, prejudices and emotional/mental issues. Expecting consistently rational behavior from them is just foolish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lyanna Stark Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Since we have a lot of guys in this thread now, I thought it might be useful to post something more on why feminism and feminist schools of thought can have relevance for the issues men face. For instance, a short (and in my opinion kinda unfinished) piece of how macho culture hurts men. Stereotypical gender roles and the celebration of a reactionary image of masculinity is not only hurtful to women, it is also very hurtful to the men stuck in this loop. Also, Jackson Katz on men's violence against women being a men's issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castel Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Well, yeah. I mean if business owners were 100% about making money than it wouldn't have to have been necessary to make discrimination based on race illegal. Since stores wouldn't have refused service on the basis a person was black. But they did, despite the fact that that would lose them money. People are not rational actors, and make decisions that go against their interests all the time. Assuming no white customers abandoned the store. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerenthaClone Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Assuming no white customers abandoned the store.sure, but why would they do that if they were rational? After all, the store owner is going to offer them the best price by virtue of hiring cheaper, better labor. Its simple math! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Summah Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 Since we have a lot of guys in this thread now, I thought it might be useful to post something more on why feminism and feminist schools of thought can have relevance for the issues men face. For instance, a short (and in my opinion kinda unfinished) piece of how macho culture hurts men. Stereotypical gender roles and the celebration of a reactionary image of masculinity is not only hurtful to women, it is also very hurtful to the men stuck in this loop. Also, Jackson Katz on men's violence against women being a men's issue. I've seen this with men in my own life. A male friend killed himself largely because his father wouldn't let him show emotion or mourn his mother's death, if he showed visible grief for example his father would be quite cruel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forever May Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 Sorry to just wonderfully derail whatever you're discussing here, but I couldn't be especially bothered with starting a new thread on it. I just had a query. What is the mainstream view of feminists on prostitution? I have heard a lot of opinions... really, I am just trying to gather more opinions to gain a better consensus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emberling Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 prostitution is probably one of the most contentious issues in feminism right now. that is to say, there is not a consensus or mainstream position. very broadly speaking and with the caveat that I don't really pay attention to the issue so I may have something grossly wrong: younger, queerer, and more cultural-based feminists tend to view sex workers as a marginalized group with agency that deserves respect - that agency being threatened by pimps, by traffickers, by paternalistic laws and law enforcement structures that jail them or force them into rehab programs - sometimes coercively faith-based. This group tends to support legalization, openness, turning it into just another profession and not shaming either prostitutes or clients. older, more mainstream, and more law and politics-focused feminists tend to view sex workers as an exploited class, essentially enslaved, that deserves to be rescued from the degradation of sex work and into polite and respectable society. This group often supports decriminalization of selling so that prostitutes are not given criminal records and can contact law enforcement for help, but wants to keep buying illegal because the goal is to stamp out prostitution, based on the idea that no self-respecting woman would choose that life so all sex workers must have been coerced. buying sex, then, though I never see it stated so baldly, is coercive and thus akin to rape. basically these are opposing ideas of what the archetypal sex worker is: one sees "that could be me", or at least pictures someone vaguely bohemian and getting by with a pretty decent life; the other imagines foreign-imported trafficking victims, a foreign experience deserving pity, people who have no choices, no freedom, no happiness. and those are both real, broadly - trafficking and voluntary sex work - and it can be dangerous to forget that either exists in pursuit of justice for the other. nevertheless you can probably tell which side i'm on :3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shryke Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 One can also think that both can true. And beyond that, it can be argued that, say, the vast incompatibility between demand and supply of prostitution means you can't really clean the industry up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forever May Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 nevertheless you can probably tell which side i'm on :3 Actually, I am having trouble guessing that! Thanks for the reply however. (Seriously, clarify, which side were you on there?) I'm trying to increase my understanding of feminists so that I don't hate them so much [EDIT: I don't hate feminists, read on, this just sounded wrong]. That sounds blunt but true. I mean, I consider myself a feminist, but often end up on the wrong side of the debate. But I am a feminist, because I'm just trying to figure stuff out for the benefit of female identity. I raise the question of prostitution because of the mess in Thailand. It might surprise you to learn (given this country's reputation), but prostitution is actually illegal in Thailand. The problem is, it could hardly be more widely available. So obviously, it is kept illegal to maximize exploitation and help people maintain their "good man" propaganda where they can deny all blame for the country's problems (id est, blame the problems on the "immoral" poor, not the fascist leadership). So prostitution here is kept illegal because, for the elite to who run these establishments, it is things like bribes are cheaper than taxes. Police can be turned away at the doors of brothels with a small wad of cash, but if prostitution was illegal and the police were allowed inside, then the taxes that brothel owners would have to pay would cut way into their profits. There's also the issue that by paying bribes then you can keep the money in the hands of the elite and out of the poor. But by paying taxes, the wealth would have to be redistributed to the poor and this is obviously bad for fascism. Okay. So we have a major fucking problem. Police are turned away with bribes at the doors of brothels, now we have no way of getting the law and protection for the needy into the brothels to stop the worst cases of abuse and exploitation. So some people favor legalization of prostitution, because if you made it legal then you would be able to regulate it. The regulation would help stop human trafficking, slavery, or conditions of bondage. Plus ensure minimum wage and safe/healthy work environment, worker union protection, so on. And the money raised from taxes could be thrown into alternate employment agencies to help prevent so many people turning to the trade to begin with. This is where it gets difficult with feminists. Some consider the illegalization of prostitution as a victory, even though it was done solely so women could be enslaved and exploited. They don't want to make it legal for idealist reasons. Which means liberals who only care about ending the worst cases of abuse (human trafficking, child sex workers, slavery, so on) do not have the feminist voice supporting them... in fact, it's the opponents of liberty who feminists seem to side with in Thailand. I'm not accusing anyone of anything here. Keep in mind, I am a feminist too. I am just explaining how damn bad things are. And complicated. And miserable. And impossible to fix. And messy. Frankly, I don't know what to do. Common sense tells me, make prostitution legal so it can be regulated. But that doesn't mean I want to see it legal forever. If you ask what I personally believe an ideal world should be, it is no prostitution. I just find it unpalatable. Although ideal worlds seem like fantasies, so I tend to drag my feet when it comes to idealism and focus instead on pragmatism. Anyway, if anyone wants to add anything about the aforementioned total fucking mess, please do. Just thought I'd bring it to light, because the ambiguity makes the scenario unique and important to consider. Prostitution is rarely made illegal for the sole purpose of increasing it's effectiveness, for example. Evil hath many cunning ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 I'm pro decriminalization of sex work, both halves, and in favour of deferring to the lived experience of women who choose to work in this field. I do not view trafficking as sex work anymore than field slavery is farm work, its a separate crime and a separate issue. This stance is not popular on this forum and I'm not interested in rehashing the debate right now however. I'm also emphatically against the moral position that there is inherently anything wrong with it, and that in an ideal world there shouldn't be any. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lyanna Stark Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 If you ask what I personally believe an ideal world should be, it is no prostitution. I just find it unpalatable. Although ideal worlds seem like fantasies, so I tend to drag my feet when it comes to idealism and focus instead on pragmatism. Hey, welcome to the thread Forever May. Interestingly, I fall strongly into emberling's second caterogry on prostituion, although for somewhat different reasons. However, I think in an ideal world prostitution would be a definite possibility. Although as I trend towards socialist feminism or at least am straddling the fence between socialist feminism and radical feminism, I tend to not be too keen on women's bodies as commodities. However, I generally support women's rights to do whatever the hell they want with their own bodies, even if that ends up being things I would never do. Generally, the problem I have with prostitution is not a moral one, but a structural one. I live on the "other end" of you, i.e. in a country where a lot of people visit Thailand as tourists, and where a percentage of those are there to buy sex, either from adults or from children. As it stands today, buying sex here is criminalised, while selling it is not. This has helped lower trafficking rates to Sweden, but the number remain high throughout western Europe. Generally the people trafficked here are from Eastern Europe and end up either as prostitutes or beggars in the streets. The economic crisis has not been kind to the poorer people of Europe. Prostitution is legalised in Germany and is regulated. However, looking at the trafficking numbers, Germany's numbers are way higher than Sweden, where prostitution is criminalised (buying, not selling). So the theory that decriminalising prostitution and legalising it will lower the trafficking rate is not a rational position as there is no supporting evidence that this works. Practical experience points to the opposite. Anyway, I can understand your frustration, because on this issue it feels whichever way you go, it ends up being the wrong way. You ban it, the illegal underground activity ends up hurting more women than it helps. You decriminalise it, and then trafficking increases because it's cheaper to buy an enslaved Moldovan woman than someone who makes a normal living as a sex worker. I'm pro decriminalization of sex work, both halves, and in favour of deferring to the lived experience of women who choose to work in this field. I do not view trafficking as sex work anymore than field slavery is farm work, its a separate crime and a separate issue. This stance is not popular on this forum and I'm not interested in rehashing the debate right now however. I'm also emphatically against the moral position that there is inherently anything wrong with it, and that in an ideal world there shouldn't be any. Even if I know we fall in different places on the spectrum, what our discussion really clarified to me is that the authorities are extremely two faced and hypocritical when dealing with people (often women) who make a living out of sex work. They are treated unfairly and with shocking prejudice. I also agree with you that trafficking and sex work are indeed as disimilar. Sex work in itself I don't view as a "criminal activity" either, as such (not immoral). However, to a too large subset of customers, a sex worker and a trafficking victim are interchangeable. They are a commodity to be purchased only. So in this regards it depends on which perspective you choose to adopt. I have no answers to this question either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xray the Enforcer Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 I'm pro decriminalization of sex work, both halves, and in favour of deferring to the lived experience of women who choose to work in this field. I do not view trafficking as sex work anymore than field slavery is farm work, its a separate crime and a separate issue. This stance is not popular on this forum and I'm not interested in rehashing the debate right now however. I'm also emphatically against the moral position that there is inherently anything wrong with it, and that in an ideal world there shouldn't be any. This is my feeling on the issue. But I, too, am not interested in having a discussion on this topic right now. Life is busy and forum discussions are right at the bottom on my priority list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seventh Pup Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 A friend linked me this clip. I laughed and thought I'd share. I love male feminists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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