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The women's revolution is the last revolution that the world will ever need. Male/Female equality is essential to human happiness.
When men and women acknowledge and experience their equality, there will be happiness, health, peace and all other good things throughout the parts or totality of the world that does this. Then all females and males can relax and simply enjoy life as we were obviously meant to do. The current inequality experienced in nearly all societies today is the basis of the turmoil and suffering of humankind.
Rhona Pavis 50+
Thomas Jones 100+
I am not sure why you would assume that when some have said they do not agree.
While I do disagree with folks like Tony, I do not agree in any "revolution" based on a dichotomy (males/females; theists/atheists; capitalists/communists; etcetera.)
Thomas Anderson
Gisela McKay 30+
Which is not to say that we don't need an economic one.
Or, frankly, that valuing women wouldn't in and of itself be an economic revolution.
Thomas Anderson
Rhona Pavis 50+
Rhona Pavis 50+
Rhona Pavis 50+
Thomas Anderson
I am however, very ticked off that now both people in a relationship have to work 40 hours per week, in order to make ends meet. (I am more ticked off about the whole African brass rings around the neck, or the women's Chinese foot phenomenon.)
Rhona Pavis 50+
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Martin Hassel 500+
The reason stereotypes have become stereotypes, are because they have a center of truth to them.
Equality is essential to a healthy society. Equality of choice, of freedom, of remuneration for equal work, of social status etc. But we should not strive towards a society of equality with regards to male/female ratios in specific occupations. We should not define how the end result should look. We should simply make sure the conditions are right, fair and equal, and let the result become as it will.
Yin and Yang would look rubbish if they were both grey.
It's possible to celebrate our differences and have equality at the same time.
Gisela McKay 30+
What you DON'T do is say that "this sector is strictly for men" (or women) and bar people who have the right ability/capacity and the wrong genitalia from entering it.
Joanne Donovan 30+
Gisela McKay 30+
Joanne Donovan 30+
The reason stereotypes have become stereotypes, are because they have a center of truth to them.'
So long as a society values both sexes equally, rewards them equivalently, and treats them fairly in the judicial system. I do not see a problem with this. We can get into the reasons why, but what would be the point? I am happy to accept some of it is because of the genetic differences between men and women, if that is what you are suggesting. I think we all agree, men and women are different. That is a beautiful thing, if you ask me.
I think you might be on thin ice with this though 'The reason stereotypes have become stereotypes, are because they have a center of truth to them.' I can think of dozens of stereotypes, which are simply part of the power groups mythology in order to justify keeping the underclass in its place. A few decades ago, women were referred to as 'the weaker sex', people have told me that Aboriginals are not human because they have a smaller brains, that indigenous people are drunks and can't be trusted and that the Irish are stupid. With stereotypes one has to ask the question, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did that group exhibit some characteristic which contributed to the story, or did that characteristic (if even true) arise out of the circumstances around oppression?
Rhona Pavis 50+
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Gisela McKay 30+
Second, I can't imagine why you would correlate being in the "beta" classification (either emotionally or physically) with not being susceptible to societal influence.
If there was indeed a correlation between testosterone and height, we wouldn't see many short bald men.
But I am curious as to what you define as the societal benefits of this need to classify occupations and tasks as "masculine" and "feminine" once you have effective birth control in play. It makes sense having women stay close to the village when they are the primary caregivers, but I'm not so sure it holds in an age when women can opt never to bear children.
Seth Powell 10+
They are just like men.
OR
Women are unique.
They are different than men.
OR
Everyone is unique.
They are different than everyone else.
However, due to the relatively similar neuro-chemicals present in members of the same gender, men are more like men, and women are more like women.
There are exceptions, but for the most part (physically and mentally) Gisela is more similar than I am to Rhona.
This is not an attempt to denigrate either one of you - if it makes you feel better, I am more similar to Tony than either of you.
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@ Rhona,
Your insistence that Tony perform his typical job while recieving someone else's salary is an attack on capitalism. Is this a feminist thread or an anti-capitalist one? Just so you know - capitalism is the only economic model which gives women the opportunity you desire for them.
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@ Gisela,
There very well may be a women capable and willing to perform the dives Tony mentions. The question is - should I construct a business model based on actualities or possibilities? Am I to construct an ideology on actualities or possibilities?
I acknowledge that some men also could not do the job. That is why he probably does not hire them. He wants a skill set. In his experience, he has found those who have the skill set are men. He hires them. He excels. What is your objection - on either philosophical or business grounds? You do not strike me as someone who values affirmative action over excellence. What is the objection (to his practice, not his remarks)?
SEP
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Seth Powell 10+
Why do you object to the word 'feminist'? I was using it in the strict definition of 'in favor of women's rights'.
I do not think women are oppressed.
Thus I feel Rhona's insistence on their 'revolution' to be nonsense, and Bishop Tutu's words to be irrelevant.
I do apologize for having a limited understanding of the conversational dynamic due to deleted messages, but stand by my conclusions based on what I have read.
SEP
Seth Powell 10+
Of course I want to qualify that statement, if it is forced to stand alone from the context of the conversation.
I do not think the creation of the archetype female, it's uniqueness and difference from that of the archetype male, and the social structure deriving therefrom is a form of 'oppression.'
The horrors of child neglect is a gender neutral issue. As the father of a young girl, I can assure you my attitudes do not cause me to abuse her or leave her uneducated. Quite the opposite.
The idea is not that males are superior to females. It is that they are different. Atleast in my case. That some backwoods Islamic tribe has political power in Saudi Arabia and that the Chinese people have no problem aborting their daughters because they would prefer a son, is not an indictment against my philosophy, it is an indictment against theirs. And I assure you that, just as males and females are different, so too are the respective worldviews held by third-world dictators, second world communists, and myself.
I do not apply the word feminist to you, or atleast I did not. The title of the thread mentions the "Woman's Revolution." If you support a "Woman's Revolution," you are a feminist. That you are a humanist, might be the reason you are a feminist, but you are a feminist nonetheless.
SEP
Joanne Donovan 30+
I would not assume that you would do harm to your child, why would I assume that, just because you are a man? Not at all. Terrible gender oppression exists in the world, we agree on that. It does not mean that it is ONLY men who oppress people because of their gender or that ALL females in the world suffer discrimination. It certainly does not mean, that just because you are a man, that you will oppress the women around you, or would stand by whilst someone else did so. Just as all oppression is a societal issue, so is gender oppression, and this is the core of Rhona's question. She has framed it in an exteme way, in order to excite debate I imagine. It seems to be working!
If you agree that negative stereotyping, is one tool that aids repression, then the people along this thread were right to stand up and say no to it.
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Gisela McKay 30+
None of us have that tag beside our names.
Gisela McKay 30+
I run a technology-based company, with a male business partner who is a designer. We worked together before at a different company, and often experienced that moment when we arrived at a client site and they would assume he was heading for IT and I was heading to marketing.
I don't assume that all men can program.
I somehow doubt that all men can dive.
You hire people on an individual basis.
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Joanne Donovan 30+
Tony's posts were rightly removed because they were full of the worst negative bigotry I have heard in a while. How would you reply to such comments? She used a tactic to highlight the absurdity of them.
Perhaps it might be more fruitful if you join the discussion in its current form, so we can leave the ugliness behind us.
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Gisela McKay 30+
There is a distinction there that is not merely semantic.
So yes, there may be more men or women in a particular field. It doesn't make the field inherently masculine or feminine (and as you can probably guess, I am not going to be a nurse anytime soon).
"Some men are better suited to [x]," is not the same as: "Men are better at [x]."
Case in point, some men may be well-suited to logic, but damned few of them seem to have turned up in this thread. I, on the other hand, was a "survivor" in a modal logic course that went from 85 students to 7 after the first test, and I am female. (Though I may have been the only female to finish that course - I don't recall the specifics; I was the only female in a great many of the classes I took. And often the only black person.)
Gisela McKay 30+
Why is it that the people who are most likely to call others crybabies seem to whine the loudest when it comes back to bite them on the ass?
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Gisela McKay 30+
You cannot distinguish between 'some' and 'all', and *I* am the one with the diminished brain?
There is a massive difference between "men are taller than women" and "the average man is taller than the average woman" - namely the first is false and the latter true.
Men are not giraffes. While a sufficient quantity of giraffes are of a height that one the height of a cow is considered anomalous, the same cannot be said of men. The range of heights common to men largely overlaps the range of heights common to women. There are many men who stand 5'4" and many 5'10" women. Neither of those two states is rare enough to be considered "anomalous".
I don't know how much more basic wording can be used to explain the difference.
If you still do not understand then it seems you don't meet your own definition of male.
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Thomas Jones 100+
http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p60-238.pdf
Rhona Pavis 50+
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male%E2%80%93female_income_disparity_in_the_United_States
http://www.usustatesman.com/utah-s-wage-gap-between-men-and-women-largest-in-nation-1.2553872
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/issues/women/menwomenpay.htm
Rhona Pavis 50+
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Rhona Pavis 50+
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Rhona Pavis 50+
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Thomas Jones 100+
You'll have to take that up with the US Census.
QUOTE: "Your thoughts?"
My thoughts are: "We see the world we want to see."
Rhona Pavis 50+
Rhona Pavis 50+
Rhona Pavis 50+
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Rhona Pavis 50+
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Rhona Pavis 50+
This statement that you made is incorrect. Furthermore, it is insulting to women. It demonstrates your irrational prejudice against women.
Mihai Popeti
"Women" aren't anything. Statistically they might be (though I hear lots of talk and see less studies) "somehow", but that doesn't mean anything on the personal level.
I agree that jobs should be given based on an aptitude test. And I would even go so far in saying that "affirmative action" sometimes does wrong. Boo-hoo on that, man. We have wasted the aptitudes of our women for at least 4 or 5 millenia now because we have judged them by our criteria and built a society where their aptitudes talents and geniouses for that matter didn't come to serve us all. Because we were too short-sighted. I'm not talking of the 2.5 % andvantage a man may have sometimes over a woman, I'm talking about a farm that has two cows and you're only milking one because sometimes you observed her giving 2.5% better milk. Rational my ass.
I see this as a rebelling phase. Rebelling most of the times means that you do a small stupid thing in order to avoid doing the big stupid thing that was going on, only to (if you're not neurotic) stop doing the small stupid thing after you realised the big stupid thing has indeed been stopped. It's in the history of individuals and societies over and over. And it's got a name: dialectics: the circle goes round - thesis - antithesis - synthesis. Remaining in the thesis is stagnation. Which for living organisms and societies means death.
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Gisela McKay 30+
"But the modern western woman is not as clever as our ancestors and cannot understand their logic, especially after a few years in a university."
The modern Western woman lives in a vastly different universe than the ancients (who actually tended to worship the feminine, so I think you mean much more recent than ancient). Much that was labour-intensive can now be done with the push of a button and the size advantage of being male is gone.
Birth control plays a large factor as well - it was not logical to invest the energy in training someone who would then take that knowledge and stay home taking care of children. The exceptions, of course, were women who were supposed to remain virgins (e,g, the untouched priestesses).
And how is a politician flattering a woman somehow worse than flattering the egos of men with the lies they already tell? "No new taxes!" "My what a beautiful baby!" And oh yeah, that Margaret Thatcher was such a puppet. Especially when you compare her to the strength and wisdom of George W. Bush.
Wow, you are just full of insights.
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Gisela McKay 30+
I am in the 99.9th percentile. I'm about 60 IQ points off average (depending on the measure used). So your paltry 3 IQ point advantage bestowed upon you isn't really helping you in this argument.
In fact, I am starting to suspect you are what balances out my IQ in determining "average".
Joanne Donovan 30+
'Kanazawa calls himself “The Scientific Fundamentalist,” and claims to take “a Hard Look at the Truths of Human Nature.” His other articles include things like “Are All Women Essentially Prostitutes,” “Beautiful People Really ARE More Intelligent,” “What I Have Learned from Barry Goldwater,” and this statement on Eva Longoria and Tony Parker’s divorce:
'Yes, I called it, nearly two years ago. I knew their marriage was very short-lived long before they themselves did. Once again, such is the power of the evolutionary psychological imagination. We know everything, not because we are special, but because we are evolutionary psychologists.
I’m a Mac, and I predict events before they happen.'
Are you a Mac too Tony? Sheesh. How depraved is this thing going to get.
Thomas Jones 100+
I suspect you are just playing a little game to see what kind of a reaction you can get. Surely you do not believe this nonsense?
If you do, we are going to vote you out of the "real man" club (if you were ever in it to begin with.)
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Joanne Donovan 30+
You will not apologise, so as far as I am concerned, I do not wish to engage with you further, on this or any other thread.
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Gisela McKay 30+
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Rhona Pavis 50+
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Rhona Pavis 50+
Mihai Popeti
"Everyone is a genious, but if you would judge the average man in his ability to perform high-agility gimnastics, to connect emotionally to himself and to other people, in his supporting and nurturing skills and his theory of mind - he might end up looking down upon women because he isn't man (or woman for that matter) enough to admit there is alway a side of the story in wich he is the cripple, the looser, the "subhuman" ".
We're still talking about the same average man in a race car who is proud that he can drive faster then any Plane before takeoff, just inocently forgetting his insignificant incapability to fly.
People are people, this is not a gender issue. It is about every human being having strengths and weaknesses which society should learn to appreciate and enforce for the good of the appreciated person and for the good of us as his neighbours. We need a society that can transform ability into values, into movement. Generally.
If we formulate it like this it doesn't put up men against women. This isn't about vendetta for the stupidity of millenia of patriarchy. Who would insure that an equal society on the male-female axis wouldn't surpress more efficiently with a more stable group a part of the population with other talents? We need the energy of the feminism, and the rage that it evokes in patriarchal types, and we need to put it to good use for us all. So be glad about every Tony and every Rhona, Gisela and Joanne. Use that energy for transformation and keep this dialogue for whatever good it brings. Thanks.
Joanne Donovan 30+
Mihai Popeti
It might in the end be the difference between a long-term solution and a patch destined to avoid a long term solution. Allthough I may be wrong and it might be a rationalisation to avoid a small solution where the big one is to hard to do.
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Gisela McKay 30+
Do you understand that even within one sex there is a range of ability and capacity that overlaps the range of the other sex?
Can you not even conceive that there may be a woman who is indeed suited to working in that environment? (Though that is no guarantee that she would have the interest.)
What men like you fail to realize is that the secondary outcome of defining jobs as male and female is that it denigrates men who are either not interested in or not able to perform those tasks labelled "masculine".
What if all people took away from this discussion was that you aren't "a real man" because you can't reason logically?
Rhona Pavis 50+
Mihai Popeti
I a few months ago I found a quote atributed to Einstein: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
What I was doing and what you seem to do is judge an entire population based on criteria originally defined by one half of the population. By the monkeys who are now denigrating the fishes. So maybe we men should ask a different question: how come that a lot of you women, even if not the majority, are better then the majority of us men on items in which by biology or cultural boosting we should be best? How would we men score on a "test" made on the strengths of women?
As a thought experiment, I imagine a world in 500 years when the lot of our technological problems will be solved and our societies will turn to art. And one of my grandgrandgrandchildren will come to have a splendid scientifical mind but no art inclination whatsoever. And maybe society will allow him to be a part-time kindergardener or a houseman and practice what he does best as a hobby. Because society doesn't realise how important it is.
Michael Sandel made the point beautifully in one of the ethic lectures on youtube (starting with Rawls I guess) : What makes one more deserving for being born with the exact qualities that society demands at a certain time that would be regarded as unimportant 100 years before or after. Why be proud about the random winning of the genetic and cultural lottery?
So yeah I think that the gender revolution is a very important one, to answer the starting question. I just don't think that it is a specific female revolution. There are other people in society who have at least the same amount of stake.
Gisela McKay 30+
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Rhona Pavis 50+
Joanne Donovan 30+
I have already violated one of my own personal principles continuing to egage with you, because I hope you will look at your comments, begin to see them for what they are and at least recognise and apologise for some of them.
You and Mihai do not say the same thing, not at all. Unlike Mihai's remark, your comments are full of negative value judgements and the nastiest negative stereotypes. The conclusions you draw is that nothing needs to change, that things are as they should be. (bigots usually come up with a 'natural order ' I find) This attitude reflects gross bias and flies in the face of all the U.N. data on world equality, wherein women still do shockingly badly.
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Gisela McKay 30+
Hermaphrodite or not, you have posited a particularly masculine premise. It appears you are unable to conceive of it from a meta-perspective, which, for all your male "superiority" only supports my statement that what may be valid at the macro is utterly inapplicable at the micro.
In this particular is definitely NOT contained the universal.
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Mihai Popeti
I hope you are confortable with overexagerating as a means to make a point:
So as far as you don't go to say it would be fair to have a race swimming between men and dolphins, a wrestling competition men vs. Grizzly and a cheetah competing in a 300 m running - it would only be fair to have the biologically best compete in an AREA where they are the best.
So I think the feminist perspective has a point here, though they just narrow it down to the gender aspect of competing. Competing between people with different talents and strengths is absurd when it comes down to narrow aspects where one is bound to loose the competition. And we live in a society that enforces male values, partly lucky me (because who really wants half of his species unlucky? or unfulfilled partners?). In fact society biases so much that half of the gender people out there would be eager to sacrifice womanhood and the things women are really much better then men (on the average, like men on average are better in strength tasks), just for the sake of a misunderstood equalty.
While equalty should mean: my best in A is as good as your best in B though I am way better than you in A and you are way better than me in B . And we shape a world where we put A and B to good use for each other.
No matter what your favourite cake is, it would be hell to be allowed only to feed on it as a sole source of nourishment for the rest of your life.
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Joanne Donovan 30+
NONE of your high moral values count, none of them count at all, until you can see this, and are willing to change it.
Mihai Popeti
If you say that equal is the ideal where difference is a fact you can be sure that his psyche will interpret this as: you want to make us all the same. To be more precise: you want to erase me as a unique being.
I also think tony is biased. But I think he is biased by a general thing: "I want that my strengths and/or the strengths of the group I'm identifying with to compose the criteria for judging general worth". This brings a double psychological comfort: it makes me one of the best (because noone can beat me at a quizz I designed) and it assures that the same doesn't happen to me, that I am not judged and valued by other people's subjctive and arbitrary criteria.
The problem with that bias is more subtle an more severe than the patriarchal/male chauvinist one: We all have it. We. All. Me, Tony, every female manager who looks down on a housewife, everyone who feels better about themselves about being "right" where others "just don't get it", so I guess: sometimes you too.
To the point of the topic: the women's revolution done in that spirit will free us from this prison just to get us in the next larger prison. Which would be fine for sure, but leaves me wanting.
Joanne Donovan 30+
I disagree with this; 'To the point of the topic: the women's revolution done in that spirit will free us from this prison just to get us in the next larger prison.' I think perhaps you are assuming that 'equality' means reversing the current situation, except placing women in the dominant role. This is not my vision of equality.
If one looks at societies where the power structures are not one sided toward one sex, but are shared, where ownership and control of resources are also shared or communal, we see some interesting characteristics. People are not in conflict with each other. Crime, especially crimes against women and children are virtually non existent. People seem happier too. We could use Nepal and Ladakh, (traditional society) and some Pacific Island nations too, as evidence of this.
Equality between the sexes or otherwise, means to remove destructive power monopolies from one group, not to simply turn them over to another. When social systems are designed to benefit people more equally, everyone is happier and more fulfilled. I believe that is Rhona's point. Can't see anything wrong with that idea, can you?
Rhona Pavis 50+
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Joanne Donovan 30+
1.Referring to affirmative action as 'special treatment meted out to backward classes, Negroes, and Aborigines.' and assuming those groups ARE backward, is racist.
2. The assumption is the person performing these duties, would do them to an inferior standard. 'No patient would like to go to a doctor who is in that position because 33% of all government posts are reserved for backward classes. Nobody would like to travel in a plane flown by a pilot who became a pilot because of reservation.'
3. Assuming it is because 'special rights' have had a negative impact on Aboriginal people and not colonialism as you point out has been the case in India; 'The standard of living of Aborigines in Australia, in spite of their being given special rights and concessions for decades is steadily deteriorating.
4. This is a grossly offensive racist generalisation; '...have made them into a group of lazy people living on dole in special settlements, and their dole money is mainly spent on liquor.
I notice you did not ask me to do the same think for all the hideous discrimanatory remarks you made against women. I am still waiting for you to apologise.
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Joanne Donovan 30+
Rhona Pavis 50+
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Joanne Donovan 30+
I myself do not follow the cultural paradigms my parents and peergroup taught me as a child. I have travelled through the world and witnessed people all over the world until I understood the following; people are people wherever you go. Nothing is as it seems on the surface, so don't judge anyone. If you think another person is less clever than you, or less beautiful or capable, it is probably you who are foolish, inept in some way, and ugly not them. The only universal truth among poeple is suffering, the suffering one person delivers to another, the suffering human's cause toward animals and the planet. Bigotry, is a type of violence, it causes suffering.
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Joanne Donovan 30+
That you, on one hand, mourn the atrocities committed against the people of India and on the other hand, consider other races 'inferior' and another genders 'inferior' only goes to demonstrate that you are a hypocrite as well as a bigot.
Rhona Pavis 50+
Allan Macdougall 50+
It really is NOT a question of who is superior and who isn't. It is about difference, and within those differences lie beauty, mystery and unique intellect. These should be celebrated, not opposed. Women think differently to men - not better or worse - just differently.
The kind of macho society we are currently nearing the end of, has been shown to be unsustainable because of its dog-eat-dog competitiveness. Many men will not want to hear this, but I am convinced that it will be the non-competitive, empathic style of leadership that will get us out of this god-forsaken mess the world is in at the present time.
This is where women will excel.
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Gisela McKay 30+
If you were a computer you could deal with difference without automatically assigning rank.
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Gisela McKay 30+
The contributions you value are not necessarily those women value. Perhaps keeping things running smoothly should be more important than you think. Your inability to understand this very basic concept suggests more and more that you share little in common with these "superior" males.
Anyone want to ask why I didn't actually correct his misconception about testosterone as the sole sex hormone in play?
Joanne Donovan 30+
I have encountered plenty of bigots through life, I was just not expecting to run into one on TED. Do you understand how vicious and hurtful your comments are, and how your attitudes affect others? How would you feel if you heard the equivalent negative and bigoted stereotypes spouted about Indian people? Would you think about all the little indian boys and girls who might suffer discrimination in the workplace, have their livelihoods and self esteem affected because of such horrible prejucdice? I would be just as concerned about that and I am not at all interested in your gender, only your hostile bigotry. If you were a woman spouting the same comments, I would react in exactly the same way, because prejudice translates to human suffering.
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Joanne Donovan 30+
If TED allows people such as yourself a platform, I am not sure I wish to participate further.
By the way, I do not believe you have ever hired a female diver.
Rhona Pavis 50+
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Rhona Pavis 50+
Rhona Pavis 50+
Rhona Pavis 50+
Rhona Pavis 50+
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Frans Kellner 100+
They are different as you say, they use other strategies and approach matters differently.
Both ways are equally valuable for different purposes and can complement each other when both evaluate shared issues together.
If you feel attacked by a woman you have to think again and see where you went wrong because your focus wasn’t probably the same as hers. Maybe then you notice that she was talking from the heart as you were talking from the mind. Both, heart and mind need each other to be right.
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Rhona Pavis 50+
Joanne Donovan 30+
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Gisela McKay 30+
Gisela McKay 30+
It is equally my response to Dick.
That there have been special men throughout history, does not make you special simply because you have a penis. Much like white supremacists don't get to ride the coattails of high-achieving whites in the past, nor do people get to ascribe the qualities of their lone important ancestor to themselves. It doesn't stop them from trying, but it doesn't make it real.
There are women who are smarter, faster, taller, more agile, and generally better than you.
Deal with it.
Gisela McKay 30+
First of all, up until recently (chemicals are apparently starting to change this), men are more numerous at birth and then die off in greater numbers at earlier ages. You're more likely to die in accidents and to be murdered - as well as being the cause of the accident and the murderer. You could choose to look at that as being "superior" I suppose.
Second, everyone has testosterone - male and female. It boils down to ratios. You aren't going to find too many women devoid of that particular hormone. Women who train hard naturally shift their hormonal balance; menstruation stops or is delayed. As a former gymnast I can tell you that women who want to be womanly tend to stop training to allow for the "feminine" hormones to kick in. If they stop training, obviously they are going to lose their competitive edge.
As for maleness being superior in general, it really depends on the arena. Men with high testosterone levels are not particularly noted for consensus-building or networking. It is only because you have self-selected the arenae in which to define "superiority" that maleness wins.
In fact, I would argue that it is precisely maleness that even makes the argument an issue - my own personal theory is it comes from that point in a boy's life when he discovers that he is different from mom in some way, and in that difference he needs to assign "better or worse". This infantile world-view persists and certain jobs are defined by males as being "manly" and the second women enter that workforce it is diminished.
But we have seen that when men are away (as in times of war), all the tasks that are currently being done continue to be done. It's because women just view "work as what has to be done" and thus are willing to pick up the slack from what men are "too manly" to do.
And still the bottom line is even if there are awesome, superior men, it doesn't mean YOU PERSONALLY are by virtue of having a penis.
Gisela McKay 30+
Men have more numerous "achievements" because you are defining "achievements" as "things men have accomplished". You are refusing to see that others CHOOSE to accomplish other things.
It's like saying dogs are better than cats because they dig deeper holes. Winning is an artifact of the criterion selected.
Perhaps it is you who is incapable of understanding the argument made. But feel free to wander around in your bubble of self-satisfaction.
Gisela McKay 30+
To carry the anthropomorphic analogy further, several cats might band together to hold a competition to make a big hole and drop a few dogs in it (i.e. compete on the male turf just to prove they can) but the most of the cats still don't care.
The need to order non-hierarchical things hierarchically is an artifact of the male mind/experience. You feel free to run out and take the showy positions, we'll just make sure things run smoothly. Our self-worth isn't as invested in the showy.
Gisela McKay 30+
Any attempt to ascribe roles and rights based on sex is therefore invalid.
For instance, it's pretty clear that my IQ is higher than yours (don't worry, it's me, not you), Given a level playing field, you might make the assumption that you would have the advantage based on your sex, but you wouldn't. You might have an advantage based on past experience or some other set of serendipitous factors, or you might not.
This range of overlap renders the APPLICABILITY of the observation that there are specific features in which the high points are male-heavy next to null. It may work at the universal level, but not at the particular.
It also suggests that the smart men would be the ones who don't raise the hackles of women by declaring that only certain things are worth doing. It would (a) not bring the women who are more than capable of competing over to your specific turf, and (b) not de-motivate women from doing what they do best, picking up your slack and filling the gaps that "penis brain" seems to find "unworthy".
Gisela McKay 30+
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Rhona Pavis 50+
Frans Kellner 100+
Gender inequality? In my world there are people that feel themselves better or lower than others. It can be men or women, it can be because of color or background or ethnicity, it can be just self imagined.
If I look at other parts of the world and especially at women I see all variations. I see women that are strong and powerful, I see them neglected, despised, exploited, in charge. Some cultural, or better traditional rules place women roles below that of men but often make exceptions for women outside marriage. I see women in top positions that are doing lousy and others doing fantastic jobs just as I see it with men.
In another discussion on the same issue things went out of hand as I referred to woman that thought that to be equal to men they had to copy men and in particular the view they have about men. I think women are equal but different as men are different. If they try to bridge the differences they’re not different anymore and thus have become men in appearance. That has nothing to do with being equal or not.
I do however see that the different qualities of women and men are complementary and it would be a good thing as they were represented both in equal numbers on positions of importance like politics, directory boards and other places where decisions have a social impact.
I think women are people like men and both you find in all sorts of character and where they are deprived from expressing themselves they need to be empowered. This can make the world a better place.
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Frans Kellner 100+
No matter what your opinion may be on hens, I'm sure she's the most desirable creature for any rooster.
To stay in animal language, I just saw a beautiful story on snow falcons. The male was feeding the young till exhaustion. The snow hare grew to large for him to lift in the air so, all stressed he gave up all together. As the situation became critical for the chicks the female took air.
She grabbed a hare and couldn't lift it either then for a short distance. Then she ripped the body to pieces and brought to the young one piece at the time.
Alleviated by this the male started to cooperate again and everything went well afterall.
What it tells is that everyone has a blind spot and males more often at one place as females have it on another place.
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Joanne Donovan 30+
Bigotry, racial or gender predjucdice is not an argument. Instead it reflects an inability to think outside the square, a low level of moral integrity, an ignorance of the world and its inhabitants, and a lack of empathy for others.
Rhona Pavis 50+
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Gisela McKay 30+
There may indeed be a difference between Usain Bolt's record and Florence Griffith-Joyner's, but what percentage of men can run 100m at 10.49 seconds? There are lots of people who are more intelligent than I am (imagining that I were at the dead bottom of the 99.9th percentile, which I'm not, that would still leave 7,000,000 globally, a substantial number) . Does that mean I am destined to be a secretary?
Your logic is faulty.
You, like most bigots, want to ascribe to yourself the qualities of those with abilities well above your own, strictly by virtue of having an attribute in common with them.
Einstein may have had a penis, and you have may a penis, but that's pretty much as far as the comparison goes.
Joanne Donovan 30+
You do not understand that you are bigoted either because you have been taught to think this way and have not (so far) developed the moral courage and/or the intellect to challenge it, or perhaps because of a deep seated psychological issue possibly related to erectile disfunction or some other inferiority complex. Bigotry is born out of fear Tony, did you realise that?
Thomas Jones 100+
Rhona Pavis 50+
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Rhona Pavis 50+
Joanne Donovan 30+
Why then, does it matter what another woman, just like your mother to someone else, chooses? Should she not have the right to choose? Equality is about people having the freedom to choose, without incurring the judgement and negative responses of others.