Men and Women... Equals in Society and the Workplace?

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Might be that we are implicated because we have opressed pretty much everything we have managed to get our hands on. Probably not most of us individiually but the structures that have been in place for a long time and which were created my white men. I don't feel any guilt or even under attack though. It is possible to point out and try to tear down structures without going after individuals. Oh and Taza you have had special treatment your entire life because of your race and gender. I mean, your oppurtunities in life have been quite a lot better than those of a woman born the same day you were in a village somewhere in deepest Africa no?

Our forefathers created this world and it is up to us to creat our own which will hopefully be better. It is really hard to break down the barriers of sexism, they are so ingrained in us that most of us are completely incapable of seeing them. I find myself often reacting in a quite sexist manner. I have a really hard time finding powerful women sympathetic of the maybe 20 female politicians I am familiar with there is but one that I would gladly vote for. Being aware of the differences and inequalities that exist is the first step and probably the biggest and we are only starting. It probably took many generations to put them into place and it will probably take at least one or two to get rid of them if we want to which is in some doubt.

 

I think it is a fairly safe statement to say (and the other fathers here I'm sure will back me up) that fathers are significantly more involved with the house and raising the children then our fathers were. My dad is constantly amazed at how much I do, as he admits he didn't do and wasn't expected to do anywhere near as much.

Now, if what you are saying is correct, then maybe women should get paid less as the mantra is always equal pay for equal work. If men spend more time and attention on their employer as opposed to domestic situations doesn't it make sense that they would make more. The person working 48 hours a week should make more than the person working 40, shouldn't they? I can't think of an employer that is going to pay an employee for the extra "domestic work" that they do.

Why should employers have to change the "playground" to accomodate people who aren't willing to follow the rules of the sport? Should short people be allowed to shoot at a 7' basketball hoop as opposed to a 10' one?

Show me two people of equal ability working equal hours and I will bet that their pay will be similar, but never exact.

Yes, you are correct I consider that incredibly offensive and I am ashamed for you. If you are trying to compare people who voluntary work for a wage they are offered with people who were turned into slaves, starved, and ultimately gassed to death then you need to do some serious soul searching. It is either that or you are just really bad at analogies. I make no judgement.

In a multicultural society you must pay for the sins of your ancestors for without the crimes they committed you wouldn't have the advantages you have today. It doesn't matter if your ancestors were not even here, you are somehow responsible. Sorry about that.

 

The answer is no.

I do not have a better life than a woman in Africa - and I'd probably be no longer alive if I lived in Africa, which is about location more than about me being male or white for that matter. I might have a better life than a woman in Africa being born with my problems, though.

Admittedly, I do have an innate racial advantage stemming from being white given that contributes to the location.

And the structures were in place before I was born, and I cannot contribute to upkeeping them or tearing them down in any meaningful way.

But no, I've received NO special positive treatment because of my gender. The opposite, in many, many, many cases.

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The interesting part is that my ancestors didn't do those crimes either, at least not recently enough to still have an effect, nor do I have any advantages over women. Everything I have an opportunity for, a native child of an immigrant or a woman also has the opportunity for. And the rights for.

 

I know that the above was tongue in cheek, but what's really scary is that a sizable proportion of the U.S population believes it (witness joacqin, for example). I suppose that is what you get when you promote sexism in the form of education (ergo. a Womens Study Major).

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Taza:

Yes, let's list a few, hmm?

- Being assumed to be more intrinsically violent than the opposite gender.

- Being assumed to be more criminally inclined than the opposite gender.

- Not having veto power over a woman killing your unborn child.

- Being expected to allow someone of the opposite gender to hit you with impunity.

- Being expected to serve in the front lines of violent wars.

- Being expected to bring the money home.

- Being milked for child support in a gender specific fashion.

- Being denied custody of your kids due to your gender.

- You are assumed the 'bad guy' in any dispute involving a male vs. female. Because after all, men are violent predators by nature, whereas women are innocent victims of the patriarch.

- Getting branded as an 'oppressor' simply because you belong to a very diverse and wide-ranging group, of whom some members did naughty things in the past.

 

Umm...that would be fine, except, Joac doesn't live in the US.

Did you fall asleep while watching "Leave it to Beaver" and suddenly wake-up in the 21st Century?

We have to because our wives work so much. For instance, my wife works about 50-55 hours a week. And she is salaried, not hourly or commisioned. Do you think that her employer cares that she has 3 kids? That would be, "NO."

I find it amusing that the very same guys who are so PRO FAMILY on the abortion threads, are suddenly so anti-family. All you guys who have been griping about abortion and how much you "supposedly" care for "unborn children" have lost all your credibility. You start all this crap about how a woman is supposed have your kids (because you say they should) and then you slam them in the workplace because they are care-givers for YOUR children. Give me a break. Do you actually bother to think any of this through?

 

Fact. Men are on average more violent.

Good example.

Not siding with you here.

I always hit back and haven't heard anything about it actually.

Mandatory military service to both men and women in here. Though, men are trained for the front line where women are drafted for support where necessary.

Not the case.

Doesn't apply to me, but a valid point.

No experience.

This is a gigantic point. Gigantic.

And exactly what I took offense to.

 

Whether men are on average more violent is debatable. I'd argue that violence perpetrated by women is minimized and under-reported due to the sexist nature of our society. What's even more debatable is whether men are *intrinsically* more violent.

And finally, assuming that an individual male is more violent than a women is a negative, sexist assumption. Even if men were, on average, were more violent than women, does not mean that an individual man is more violent than a particular woman. Or if you want it in D&D terms: Drow tend to be more depraved than humans, but that doesn't mean an individual drow (such as Drizzt) is more depraved than all humans (such as Edwin).

Unfortunately, a lot of people have difficulty grasping this simple concept, even in today's world of liberalisation and supposed egalitarianism. Apparently it's bad to stereotype women, but good to stereotype men.

And it comes back to bite them. Whenever a domestic dispute occurs, both laymen and law enforcers will use the above sexist stereotype to extrapolate that the man is most likely to blame. After all, men are more violent and aggressive than women!

"Waa waa waa, pregnancy is uncomfortable, so I should be able to kill your child!" Only a poor innocent woman could get away with that rationale. A man would be told to buck up, stiff his upper lip and take it like a man.

Then either you're living in a more enlightened society where women have equal rights to be punched in the face, or you've been incredibly lucky. Because my generation was raised to 'never hit a woman', and if you were slapped or being administered a beat down by a woman, to 'take it like a man'. And if you do have the nerve to hit back, the general populance will assume that you are the aggressor because you're the big bad patriarch.

Ding ding ding! Even where their is compulsory draft for *both* genders, the men get the more physically demanding and risky roles. Equal work for equal pay, huh?

Yes, the case. There are still sexist social pressures in play which expect men to bring home the cash, and wine and dine the woman. If a woman loses her job, it's unfortunate. If a man is laid off, it's a constant source of shame and humiliation. Attacks against men by their wives has also been observed to increase when they lose their jobs.

Yep. How often do you hear about deadbeat moms who won't pay child support? Very little. Well, they *do* exist. They aren't as numerical, but evidence suggests that they are proportionally equal to (if not greater than) deadbeat dads.

I've noticed that feminists love to whine whine whine about the plight of women under the big bad patriarch. But when you point out examples of men getting shafted by sexist enforcement of child custody and domestic dispute laws, they look at their wristwatch and go "Oh, is that the time? I've gotta get going!" Or even worse, they feel that it's simply poetic justice, an oppressor finally paying for the sins of his ancestors, getting a taste of his own medicine.

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Wait. Are you implying that social forces don't pressure men to shoulder the burden of breadwinner? Sure, those social forces are not as strong as they were 50 years ago. But trying to deny their existence is ridiculous.

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Nakia:

Except for all those female monarchs, women in court, women outright dominating weak male rulers and politicians (or underage male rulers), and women who used more subtle means to influence men in power.

 

I'm really not going to get involved in this thread all that much but there is all this talk about women's euro being 80 cents in Finland in an equal job. My main problem with this case is that most contracts today made with the unions and are collective in nature, and there certainly are no gender inequalities in collective contracts it's basically equal pay for equal jobs without exceptions. Considering that 80% of the workforce are members of unions the 20 cent difference becomes somewhat strange.

 

Statistics can be twisted and re-interpreted to support almost any conclusion. For example, take the observation that blacks are more likely to be incarcerated for drug use. A KKK member might use those statistics to support their claim that blacks are more criminally inclined than non-blacks. On the other hand, a liberal would conclude from those same statistics that the drug laws are inherently racist against blacks.

 

It doesn't sound very "enlightened" to me. Assault by anyone here is a crime. No one has "the right" to punch anyone in the face, regardless of gender. Have you ever spent anytime in a divorce court, CD? Anyone who has, knows that women are just as violent as men under the stress of divorce. And women ARE often sentenced or fined for assualt. It's hard to prove sometimes because people lie so much in a divorce case. However, there are a lot of people who are ignorant of the law (even women) who will admit that they punched their spouse. That of course gets them a restraining order, a fine or a sentence, if they have a prior record. Sorry to be a bit pointed, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for criminal behavior, even in a divorce situation.

 

Fascinating, these posts have so many thoughts going through my mind i am having a hard time knowing where to start.

The title of this topic is " Men and Women... Equals in Society and the Workplace?" so I am going to post some comments that will probably befog the issue even more.

1) I have stated that things have improved over the last 50 years. However the moment we sit back and say "We have achieved 75% of our goals so we can relax and just forget about the other 25%" we will find that in a short while we have lost ground and have only 70% and then 65% and so on." History is important and when we ignore it we pay.

2) The links given that I think were intended to show how much women have achieved in the past 50 years also go on (if followed up) to state that discrimination still exists.

3) Determination of all sorts exists and reverse discrimination exists. It should not be but it is and it will take a long time and struggle to bring things into proper balance.

4) Women have had to fight for equality. No one handed it to them on a silver platter. FIGHT is my governing word here. We didn't politely ask for the vote and had it given us. We fought for it. My grandmother fought for it. We didn't just politely ask to be allowed to become doctors, lawyers, and other jobs dominated by and even reserved for men. We fought for it.

5) I have stated that I do not agree 100% with some of the direction that Feminist movement took but that does not change the fact that without organizations such as NOW women would not have advanced as much as they have.

6) Nothing I have said here is directed at any individual on this board or elsewhere. I have made general statements well aware that there are always exceptions. Anyone taking personal offense at anything I have said that is because I pushed a button I get my buttons pushed but am also aware of the fact that statement pushing that button was not directed personally at me.

7) Take a look at some of the links provided here. Reference has been made to the fact that women who are aggressive, assertive, try to negotiate for a better wage are viewed by both men and women in a negative fashion.

8) Generally speaking men and women or not equal. We certainly are not the same biologically, Generally speaking out brains don't even function the same way.

9) Without families, without propagation the human species would die out. Someone has to take care of the children. This is a big problem of the current times and various solutions are being tried. This is a complicated issue and brings up more arguments and debates. Yes, I believe that the care giver should be compensated in some manner. I believe that the job of being a care giver should be recognized and respect. Not just some verbal semantics that actually hide the fact that a care giving career is actually thought of as somehow lesser or demeaning even.

10)

These people were exceptions and not the norm. My grandmother was a successful journalist but that certainly doesn't prove that equality existed in the early 1900;s. As to women being manipulative, of course we are, we had to be or else just be basically slaves with no rights even to life.

 

See, that’s just it, Snook. I’m not making that comparison at all. You’ve essentially made an assertion that, if you don’t stand up for yourself, then you have no right to claim discrimination. The unfortunate extension of that is the sort of ridiculously preposterous statement that I made. I would think that you, of all people, would understand how absurd your position is. Discrimination isn’t caused by not asserting yourself – it instead is a set of attitudes that results in the necessity to assert yourself.

 

Splunge:

What if the very nature of the workplace discriminates against those who do not assert themselves? An individual who is not willing to negotiate a higher wage with their employer is going to be at a disadvantage when compared to someone who does.

If women are less likely to bargain, demand and negotiate, then of course they will tend to be paid less than men. That's hardly sexist, though.

 

count, you might be a bit late to the discussion, so let me fill in the gaps for you.

My comments thus far in this thread are based on this statement by Death Rabbit:

In other words, the woman starts out with a lower offer than the man, even though the only difference between the two is gender. Assuming the offer made to the man is fair, then the woman is put in the postion of having to negotiate just to be treated fairly, whereas the man is already being treated fairly and thus doesn't have to negotiate. Which takes me back to the last sentence of my previous post -- discrimination isn’t caused by not asserting yourself - it instead is a set of attitudes that results in the necessity to assert yourself.

 

If a woman is assertive, demanding and tries to negotiate then she is perceived as a termagant with brass ovaries..

 

That's right. If it's a guy, he's "savvy;" if it's woman, she's a "royal beech."

 

What I think Duckula is trying to say in his awkward twisted way is that sexism goes both ways. Of course it does, if you aim for gender equality it means just that. If we expect the men to yield the workplace we should expect women to yield the home (something that they can be way more vocal about than even the most chauvinistic man).

Edit: If a man is caring, soft and unassertive he is a ***** and if it is a woman she is lovely. It cuts both ways.

 

Chauvinistic men get mo' money in the work, since they tend to pick a nice little lady as a housewife. When the housechores are taken care of, they can concentrate on their work more than women in general, or the men who support equal division of labour in home.

Even for a feminist woman it is exceedingly rare that she would choose to have a manservant as a spouse..the other way around it is and has been very very common.

 

Nakia:

I find this interesting, as I have when I've heard it before. Let's talk details, here. First off, who exactly do you think should pay (I assume you're talking pay, here)? I mean, if a wife gets payed to raise the kids, the money has to come from somewhere. I see two possibilities. First is the husband, who, arguably, already does that (and even some legal circles are beginning to recognize that, I think). If that's what you're proposing, the only change is the legal recognition of home-maker in divorce proceedings. The only other entity I can see paying the mother to raise her children is the Government, which would pay her with tax money, which means mothers would now be payed not just by their husbands, but by every working man and woman in the nation. More than that, though, is the question of exactly what justification you see for pay. Yes, raising children is a full-time job, but so is living, and we don't pay people for that. There are certain actions and responsabilities that society has deemed a part of the natural process and not something to be specifically rewarded. The parents are expected to provide for their children in both labor (cooking, cleaning, etc.) and materials (food, clothes, shelter, etc.). Typically, the former is done by the mother while the latter is done by the father. That's changing now, as more people are becoming single parents and more couples are trying to re-distribute the labor. Here's the question, though. Logically, if the woman gets payed or otherwise rewarded for her efforts to raise her children, shouldn't the man get the same? Does that mean that the traditional man should be payed for, umm, being payed? Or for every time he goes out to buy new clothes, shop for groceries, or pays the mortgage on time?

 

NOG - Judging by your comments, it does not appear as if you have children. If you do, then you should be able to speak from a more practical standpoint, such as a typical situation where both parents work. Or are you married? There seems to be a lot missing from your comments.

The former "was" done by the mother is what I think you are saying, judging by your comments that it's "changing." It changed a long time ago. A lot of households are now two-income, a situation where both parents work. The typical situation is now childcare, not done by either parent. But for a lot of parents that's not very desirable because it means that someone else is raising your children. By far the best solution is to have a nanny come into the household during the day.

Believe me, it's a much better solution than childcare. It is expensive, but so is traditional childcare. But good ones, who are willing to work for reasonable pay, are hard to find. Unfortunately, ours passed away recently, (God bless her) and we have already let her replacement go, because she was too unreliable and not very good with the kids. So now were are in-between nannies and our situation is fluid and a bit chaotic.

So my advice, if you don't already have children, plan very carefully, and expect the unexpected. Everything is in the details of how well you plan and how organized you are. Otherwise, you run the risk of failing as a parent.

I wanted to add that it's not the cooking, laundry and cleaning - that stuff is a snap. The hard part is managing the school stuff. I have two kids in school, which means that my wife, or I, spend 1 hour each school night doing homework with EACH of them. And they must be prepared with everything for school the next day. Also, you have to get them up every morning, get them dressed, make sure they have everything and put them on the bus. You have to do all that before you can get yourself ready and go to work. It's a lot.