Post-equality

[Guest Raids]

Solo - Is the (admirable) effort to recruit more women into firefighting, like, a hot button teabagger topic or something? That would be news to me. I did not realize it was even on the radar.

[Swordfish]

It supports that carrying victims is unneeded, so therefore so is the strength necessary to carry someone. So if the test to become a firefighter requires you to carry someone then it is asking for an unnecessary amount of strength.

All righty then.......

So we're back to 'You don't really know', then?

[sologdin]

did not realize it was even on the radar.

i'd be surprised if it is. i just like writing teabagger, is all. likely it stands in some metonymic or perhaps metaphorical relation to the true proponents of muscular firefighters.

[Guest Raids]

I was a teabagger for Halloween, incidentally. It was great. I got to say it a lot.

I will note that early on I did say that departments, left to themselves without the help of experts, do tend to set the bar too high, and also that your point about women being able to stand the oxygen-deprived conditions longer makes it perfectly clear that men are being used as the default here with any sort of advantage that women might have over men in firefighting being completely overlooked, or, really, not even thought of in the first place.

[slim da reaper]

What makes you believe that this was because you were a man, and not because you behaved like a shit?

In regards to Peterbound this crossed my mind too haha.

[slim da reaper]

Testosterone makes it easier for men to build muscle but that's it, it's not a requirement to be a man to build muscle.

There's truckloads of 5'8" - 5' 10" XX women, different societal expectations and we could have every firestation could be crewed by extremely strong cardio fit women. Many women do not build muscle mass because it's not the definition of what a woman should be, but to get to the level of an extremely competent firefighter and be feminine, no problem whatsoever.

My sister is 5' 8" she's nowhere near exceptionally tall, if she did strength training she could easily build good muscles and still be feminine, end of.

[Jaerv]

That means that you cannot see male privilige. Despite us showing time and time again that society isn't equal, you REFUSE to recognise this fact.

Refered to you cherry picking which links to use. Refer you back to my post where I posted a partial list of areas where women are at a clear disadvantage. You completely disregarded this and keep harping on and on about life expectancy, which has been explained and discussed at length but you ignored this as well.

So yes, you are making completely unfounded statements since you happily disregard any facts that don't fit your argument, and you use arguments (life expentancy) that can be explained by other factors.

TL;DR

1. You are wrong again by cherry picking facts and ignoring others

2. You cherry pick your reasons = unfounded statements since you ignore facts

No Lyanna, four years of the difference in life expectancy cannot be explained by biological factors, thus they are socially caused.

Concerning your list with disadvantages for women: The case of domestic violence is highly debatable, and I think you know that.

I also have posted other arguments which you have ignored. Probably not enough references for you taste? Okay, here are some arguments with more empirical evidence:

U.S. parents seeking adoption request girls far more often than boys, even where more boys than girls are waiting to be adopted.

http://www.in-gender.com/XYU/Gender-Preference/#Adoption

The majority of American parents currently attempting to use sex selection techniques are hoping to conceive a girl.

http://www.in-gender.com/XYU/Gender-Preference/#SexSelection

Male infants are much more frequently genitally mutilated in western countries than female infants, often with severe health complications.

http://www.noharmm.org/HGMstats.htm

In the US, there exists legal protection against genital mutilation – but only for girls, not boys.

http://www.mgmbill.org/usfgmlaw.htm

Male children are more often physically punished by their parents than female children.

Parents' differential socialization of boys and girls: A meta-analysis.

A meta-analysis of 172 studies attempted to resolve the conflict between previous narrative reviews on whether parents make systematic differences in their rearing of boys and girls. Most effect sizes were found to be nonsignificant and small. In North American studies, the only socialization area of 19 to display a significant effect for both parents is encouragement of sex-typed activities. In other Western countries, physical punishment is applied significantly more to boys. Fathers tend to differentiate more than mothers between boys and girls. Over all socialization areas, effect size is not related to sample size or year of publication. Effect size decreases with child's age and increases with higher quality. No grouping by any of these variables changes a nonsignificant effect to a significant effect. Because little differential socialization for social behavior or abilities can be found, other factors that may explain the genesis of documented sex differences are discussed.

Lytton, H., Romney, D. M. (1991) Psychological Bulletin, 109, 267-296.

Boys are disadvantaged in the education system, (at least in Germany, which is the second most populous country in the western world). Recent report published by the ministry of education

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:80g1QxQSg_wJ:www.bmbf.de/pub/Bildungsmisserfolg.pdf+Bildungs%28miss%29erfolgevon+Jungen+undBerufswahlverhalten+bei+Jungen/m%C3%A4nnlichenJugendlichen&hl=de&gl=de&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShjQwWIItaZeZWBzHKhbqMLlc4Dzr-G651U8AvER1nFVJfd-f6UipWEVfi_D386igsG2KNQqOuWA8Va8SbgxHwgQzOwkz0ee_rmQEWbosYIscUXppOp7rwGBPSNMH8F4lJ7rmek&sig=AHIEtbTQkIDjvX8vT-8Si_PaDAvkNvK7uw

Some citations from the text (my translation, enough German board members here to check them I think):

“The lower qualifying the type of school, the higher the proportion of boys, about one in ten boys finish school without any degree.”

”In all subjects boys get - when skills are comparable - lower grades.”

“Even with identical grades boys are less frequently recommended to the Gymnasium than girls.”

In some western countries young men are still involuntarily drafted for military service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_service

Men have less control over their procreation than women.

(No citation needed, I hope?)

Men do not know whether their children really are genetically related to them.

In Germany secret paternity tests have been illegalized recently.

http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_13827.asp

Men are victimized more often than women by all kinds of violent crimes except rape. Even if one includes rape, the overall victimization rate is still higher for men

http://social.jrank.org/pages/1254/Violent-Crime-Victims-Violent-Crimes-Most-Are-Men.html

The increasing public phobia concerning pedophiles negatively affects men in all occupations involving contact with children. Many teachers report that they live in constant fear of accusations of abuse.

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2010/10/study_male_teachers_live_in_fear.html

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/story?id=6070282&page=1

Unemployment rates for men a higher than unemployment rates for women.

http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/PW_MChartOmni.exe/save:economagic!blslfURGender

Men are more often homeless than women. Among the homeless, men are more likely to sleep on the streets than women.

http://www.bsos.umd.edu/socy/vanneman/socy498/gendertype.html

In the US, more than 90% of prison inmates are male.

http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/2526/Characteristics-Inmates-RACE-ETHNICITY-AGE-GENDER.html

Many of these prisoners have committed comparatively harmless things like drug or immigration offenses :

http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/2527/Characteristics-Inmates-TYPES-CRIMES.html

The death penalty in the USA almost exclusively (99%) affects men.

http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/dpusa.htm

State-based retirement schemes (at least in Germany) are biased in favor of women because both genders are forced to pay throughout their working life but when in retirement women get money for five more years than men due to their longer life expectancy.

(Could only find information in German, sorry:)

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetzliche_Rentenversicherung_%28Deutschland%29

Suicide rates are higher for men than for women.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

In Summary: There exist many advantages and disadvantages for both genders in present-day western societies. There is no clear pattern in favor of men. The term “male privilege” is inappropriate.

[Merentha]

Did...you just equate male circumcision and clitoridectomies?

edit: Yeah, you did. Um. I don't know what to tell you, but a clitoridectomy would be more accurately compared to a partial castration.

Broadly, all of your crime and homeless statistics are not necessarily a cause of men being disenfranchised or discriminated against. More men are in prison because more men commit crimes. Why, is quite possibly socially created (men are "supposed" to be more impulsive and aggressive, for instance) but it is not an example of men being systematically discriminated against, unlike the difference in wage, job availability, and other various social measures.

[Brienne the Beauty]

Male infants are much more frequently genitally mutilated in western countries than female infants, often with severe health complications.

http://www.noharmm.org/HGMstats.htm

In the US, there exists legal protection against genital mutilation – but only for girls, not boys.

http://www.mgmbill.org/usfgmlaw.htm

It does my nut in that people on the internet are continually comparing FGM as equal to male circumcision. Anyone with half a braincell can see they are very different operations, and drawing a false equivalence between them is utterly offensive. FGM is more similar to castration than circumcision. It's like saying "In Iran, gay people are executed, and in the UK they are stereotyped as girly. Clearly, both nations are equally homophobic, and should be condemned equally!" The issues about FGM and circumcision are utterly separate, and it is possible to criticise both without holding the ludicrous opinion that they are the same.

In some western countries young men are still involuntarily drafted for military service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_service

I'll give you that.

Men have less control over their procreation than women.

(No citation needed, I hope?)

Is this the old chestnut of "My ex wants to keep the baby, I don't want to pay support, so why do I have to?" Because that logically leads to either forced abortions or fatherless children growing up in poverty because their feckless dad doesn't want to pay for the consequences of his night of fun.

Or I guess you could be talking about the pill, but do you want to take the heightened risk of cancer to go with it? If so, you'll be pleased to know that the medical research establishment is continually trying to create a male pill. It's just a harder task than a female pill, so they have not yet succeeded - blame nature.

Men do not know whether their children really are genetically related to them.

In Germany secret paternity tests have been illegalized recently.

http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_13827.asp

Blame nature for that, and paternity tests has fixed it for most societies.

The German law applies equally to men and women. It bans women from getting paternity tests without the man's consent, too.

Men are victimized more often than women by all kinds of violent crimes except rape. Even if one includes rape, the overall victimization rate is still higher for men

http://social.jrank.org/pages/1254/Violent-Crime-Victims-Violent-Crimes-Most-Are-Men.html

That's because women, fearing rape, are generally very cautious about where they go at night and who they are alone with. If men acted the same, they'd be just as safe. A man will think nothing of walking home alone from a bar at 2am after drinking, and most women would rather walk through a snakepit than do that - so the man in that case is more likely to get mugged.

In the US, more than 90% of prison inmates are male.

http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/2526/Characteristics-Inmates-RACE-ETHNICITY-AGE-GENDER.html

Many of these prisoners have committed comparatively harmless things like drug or immigration offenses :

http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/2527/Characteristics-Inmates-TYPES-CRIMES.html

It's the same in every country. For some reason, women commit less crime. The only way to even out prison populations would be to sentence men more leniently or women more harshly.

The death penalty in the USA almost exclusively (99%) affects men.

http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/dpusa.htm

The death penalty is wrong for all sexes.

Suicide rates are higher for men than for women.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

This could be helped by changing social attitudes and persuading men that it's ok to ask for help, and ok to admit you can't cope.

In Summary: There exist many advantages and disadvantages for both genders in present-day western societies. There is no clear pattern in favor of men. The term “male privilege” is inappropriate.

Bollocks is it. You are continually comparing apples to oranges, drawing false equivalencies, and railing against nature.

An advantage given by nature to either sex is not worthy of mentioning in a discussion of "privilege" because "privilege" is not a synonym for advantages in general, but a term referring to the unspoken advantages a group has in society. This confusion often results in people saying things like "No one has ever given me a single thing for being a white male. Therefore I don't have any privilege, and the concept of privilege doesn't exist". Uh-uh.

Privilege is the absence of prejudice towards your group, not some special club membership. So a white guy walking into an expensive shop might not get the assistants fawning over him and offering discounts, but if a black woman did the same, she might get followed around by store detectives, or the assistants might snidely direct her to the cheaper ranges. The white guy's privilege is in avoiding all that, and since it's hard to see a negative, he falsely thinks he didn't get treated better at all.

[Guest Raids]

J, did you really believe there is no such thing as male privilege in Western society? Really?

Also, there's nothing partial about it.

[Lyanna Stark]

In Summary: There exist many advantages and disadvantages for both genders in present-day western societies. There is no clear pattern in favor of men. The term “male privilege” is inappropriate.

And Brienne answered you on all of those points. Given time, I will, too.

Plus I CANNOT BELIEVE that you bring up women's power over their own bodies as female privilege. Seriously dude, WTF? What should we be? Brood-mares?

No Lyanna, four years of the difference in life expectancy cannot be explained by biological factors, thus they are socially caused.

You can't read, can you? NOWHERE EVER EVER have I stated they are. TP explained this previously, go back and read his post. It explained EXACTLY why this is and it has nothing to do with female privilege at all.

Boys are disadvantaged in the education system, (at least in Germany, which is the second most populous country in the western world). Recent report published by the ministry of education

Yet men end up earning more. Care to comment?

Male infants are much more frequently genitally mutilated in western countries than female infants, often with severe health complications.

Wow, you REALLY haven't been following the debate lately, have you? :lol: Calling peterbound to tell you that it's not exactly the feminists who are the cause of this, nor is it women oppressing men.

In fact, a lot of men argue it's not even a disadvantage.

[Guest Raids]

I think several of us have answered all those points several times. It basically goes: I know it looks like women have some advantages, but those apparent advantages are actually the result of historical male advantages, whereas male advantage is also the result of historical male advantage. Therefore, if male advantage went away, so would most perceived female advantage. And that would be great.

Being upset about biological differences is like me being upset that the average man is stronger than the average women and using that as an example of male privilege, which would be stupid.

And yet, he has consistently failed to ever address this point. He asks for examples. We give them. He argues the details of the examples, or raises more examples, but never, ever addresses either of these essential points.

It's disingenuous and at least 50% likely motivated by implicit sexism. If he wants to prove me wrong, he can go take the Implicit Associations Test for gender from Harvard online and post his report card.

[Lyanna Stark]

I think several of us have answered all those points several times. It basically goes: I know it looks like women have some advantages, but those apparent advantages are actually the result of historical male advantages, whereas male advantage is also the result of historical male advantage. Therefore, if male advantage went away, so would most perceived female advantage. And that would be great.

Being upset about biological differences is like me being upset that the average man is stronger than the average women and using that as an example of male privilege, which would be stupid.

And yet, he has consistently failed to ever address this point. He asks for examples. We give them. He argues the details of the examples, or raises more examples, but never, ever addresses either of these essential points.

It's disingenuous and at least 50% likely motivated by implicit sexism. If he wants to prove me wrong, he can go take the Implicit Associations Test for gender from Harvard online and post his report card.

I completely agree Raidne. It's a totally pointless discussion.

Especially since he brought up women's rights to their own bodies as FEMALE PRIVILEGE. It still boggles my mind.

[sologdin]

I'll give you that.

don't concede the point so easily. the appropriate follow-up is: if men are drafted and women are not, what is available for those men once they are discharged from the military? e.g., in the US, prior to the time that women were allowed to fly in the military, it was nearly impossible for women to become airline pilots because the airlines reqired prior flight trainign by the military. i suspect that it is possible for other benefits to accrue to ex-soldiers because of their military training.

[Brienne the Beauty]

I'll give you that.

don't concede the point so easily. the appropriate follow-up is: if men are drafted and women are not, what is available for those men once they are discharged from the military? e.g., in the US, prior to the time that women were allowed to fly in the military, it was nearly impossible for women to become airline pilots because the airlines reqired prior flight trainign by the military. i suspect that it is possible for other benefits to accrue to ex-soldiers because of their military training.

Drafting is different than volunteer service. That pilot thing you are talking about sounds like 2 issues, none of them to do with the draft. Firstly that women could not fly planes for the air force (sexist), secondly that civilian pilot training was not possible (just stupid, not specifically sexist)

Male-only drafting is disturbing and sexist because it suggests that male life is cheaper than female, and because it assumes men are always better soldiers than female.

[sologdin]

male life is cheaper than female

right. one guy can fill 70 wombs in a week.

[TrueMetis]

It does my nut in that people on the internet are continually comparing FGM as equal to male circumcision. Anyone with half a braincell can see they are very different operations, and drawing a false equivalence between them is utterly offensive. FGM is more similar to castration than circumcision. It's like saying "In Iran, gay people are executed, and in the UK they are stereotyped as girly. Clearly, both nations are equally homophobic, and should be condemned equally!" The issues about FGM and circumcision are utterly separate, and it is possible to criticise both without holding the ludicrous opinion that they are the same.

Hate to agree with Jaerv even slightly on this but some forms of FGM are equivalent to MGM. You can't say FGM isn't equivalent because there are 12 forms of FGM, the least harmful of which doesn't even come close to the least harmful form of MGM. And arguably the worst form of MGM is even worse then the worst form of FGM. (The worst form of MGM involves cutting off all skin including the scrotum) Type 1 and 2 are the most common types of FGM type 1 and 2 A are arguably less harmful than Type 1 2 and 4 MGM. Type 1 B and 2 B and C are more harmful than any of these. Type 3 is the most harmful of either MGM or FGM, while type 4 FGM only involves an incision, a prick or something similar, it doesn't involve anything being removed. So is the least harmful of any GM period. (Except for cauterization which gets back up to the level of Type 2 and 4 MGM)

The most common form of MGM is roughly equivalent to the most common form of FGM. Separating them on the basis of sex is utterly sexists bullshit and it's time to stop doing it.

I've linked this video more than once and I'm going to link it again, though I don't know why people never seem to watch it.

ETA I'm going to be yelled at aren't I?

[Brienne the Beauty]

male life is cheaper than female

right. one guy can fill 70 wombs in a week.

What the heck? I don't know whether you are joking here.

[Brienne the Beauty]

I've linked this video more than once and I'm going to link it again, though I don't know why people never seem to watch it.

I'm not going there. I have a weak stomach. There's your answer.

Also, you are still wrong about FGM. I'm sure you could do a symbolic form of FGM that doesn't harm the girl or prevent sexual feeling, but I get the impression from what I've read that it's not common. Most cultures that do it intend for the woman to have no pleasure in sex. Whereas the millions of happy Jewish guys around the world suggest that circumcision is not the end of the world for guys. :leer:

[sologdin]

don't know whether you are joking

seriously?