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Somewhat related news:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10890674
+ Show Spoiler +An 11-year-old boy fathered a child after sex with a school friend's 36-year-old mother.
Both the father and child are now understood to be in care after the principal at the boy's school raised the alarm.
The case has caused counsellors working in the area of child sexual abuse to highlight the lack of attention given to women as potential offenders.
It has prompted Justice Minister Judith Collins to step in saying she will seek more information on the law. "This case raises an important point. I will seek advice from officials on whether or not a law change is required."
And it has also highlighted disparity in the law of rape, which makes it impossible for a woman to be accused of the crime.
Present legislation stipulates the crime of rape applies only when men force sex. In contrast, women who force an unwilling partner to have sex face charges of sexual violation. Both carry a maximum sentence of 20 years but only men can be charged with rape.
The Weekend Herald has chosen not to name the South Auckland school to protect the privacy of the children - the baby and the father.
Child Youth and Family confirmed it was dealing with a case at the school and that it was before the courts. It refused to make further comment, as did police.
The principal said he was shocked when the child revealed the details.
The boy approached him in his office about two-thirds of the way through the 2012 school year and told the principal he had a disclosure to make.
"You won't be very happy with me," he recalled the boy saying. He said he had been having sex with his friend's mother "and it needs to stop".
The principal said the boy was "very aware" of the situation he was in and determined he wanted the contact to end.
The Weekend Herald was told that the contact between the boy and the woman began about April last year, when the boy was aged 11. The woman's son took a day off school and encouraged his friend to do likewise, spending the day at his home.
During the course of the day, the woman gave the boy beer to drink and then later took part in a sexual encounter with him.
The sexual contact continued for a number of months after the initial encounter, the Weekend Herald was told. The boy had turned 12 by the time the child was born. CYF took a baby into care about two months ago.
The principal confirmed the details. "We got CYF involved the minute we found out about it."
Emails exchanged with a Child Youth and Family social worker, since retired, confirm the agency was involved. The CYF worker said police would be investigating - but also said the woman denied the sexual contact.
Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse manager Ken Clearwater said if the case were proved, the woman should be held accountable for her actions. Making charges able to be brought dependent on the gender of the offender was wrong and the law should be changed. "It is a huge issue for us."
He said male victims of sex abuse carried out by women were equally as damaged as any other victim of rape.
"As a male you're supposed to enjoy it but we don't say that about young girls. Males are not seen as victims. The psychological damage is huge - and they carry extra shale because it's a woman and you're supposed to enjoy it."
Mr Clearwater said most abuse of the sort in this case was not reported. He said the way the boy disclosed to the principal underscored the way in which the abuse was perceived. By saying "you won't be very happy with me", Mr Clearwater said the boy appeared to believe he was the one who had acted wrongly.
Mr Clearwater said the psychological impact would expose the boy to added risk of alcohol and drug abuse, relationship problems, anger and other mental health issues.
The executive director of Rape Prevention Education, Dr Kim McGregor, said male survivors of sexual offending by women often felt the abuse they suffered was minimised by society. "Just because sexual violence has been perpetrated by a female doesn't make it any less violent."
Manukau-based family lawyer Jeremy Sutton said under the law the boy would not have rights to the child unless he was present at the birth. He said he would have to make a case for access. He also said there were exemptions from child support for victims of sexual offending.
Liggins Institute director Professor Wayne Cutfield, an expert in the development of children, said boys became fertile about halfway through puberty, which could begin as early as age nine. "The onset of puberty is a lot younger than people think."
Statistics New Zealand does not hold data on the ages of fatherhood, only of motherhood.
Well, first of all the child is born already, so abortion isn't an option for this particular case. But 'what if' it was, do you think it's morally correct or not to let the child be born? I just wanted to use this as an example of the 'grey area'. How do you determine which case falls into which category, because people are just weird, and they do weird things. If it becomes a long drawn out process to determine which cases can be legally aborted, then it would most likely be too late already.
As for my personal opinion, I am in favor of abortion if the parents (especially the mother) chose to do so. When a child is born to parents who aren't prepared to raise them, it's killing both the child and the person who has to raise the child. Living in poverty, and in shame to whatever caused the unprepared birth. You're not killing them literally, but you've destroyed both of their future already.
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On June 19 2013 06:15 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 05:14 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:19 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 04:09 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 03:57 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 03:39 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 03:15 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 03:07 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 03:02 ComaDose wrote:On June 19 2013 02:50 sunprince wrote:
[quote]
Meanwhile, men were dying in droves from hard labor and slaughtered on the battlefield, yet women (who were twice as likely to survive to pass on their genes, despite the high mortality rate of childbirth prior to modern medicine) were unilaterally oppressed by men! /sarcasm
In any case, the historical records we do have completely demolish the popular myths that domestic violence was historically accepted (plenty of evidence to show that wife beaters in Western culture were flogged, tarred/feathered, and hanged). War rape, on the other hand, actually existed, but that's actually better treatment than what victorious armies did to the men...
However, I'll take this line of discourse as an admission that you have no legitimate arguments to make, since you are resorting to the fallacy of original male sin. dude domestic violence is still a problem That doesn't mean domestic violence is socially or legally acceptable. Not to mention the fact that the majority of non-reciprocal (one-sided) domestic violence perpetrators are women, contrary to the lies that have been perpetuated on this topic. Incidence of violence: 75% low frequency. Injury percentage: 8.1%. I'd also like to point out that the authors of the paper offer a couple of potential explanations as to the discrepancy between men and women as perpetrators: "One possible explanation for this, assuming that men and women are equally likely to initiate physical violence,20 is that men, who are typically larger and stronger, are less likely to retaliate if struck first by their partner. Thus, some men may be following the norm that “men shouldn’t hit women” when struck first by their partner. A different explanation is that men are simply less willing to report hitting their partner than are women.2" I'd argue that both are true, to some extent. It's worth noting that the general reasoning for why female domestic abuse is such a huge issue is still represented by this study: 20% change of injury i.e. 1 in 5, while the rate for men is less than half that. While domestic violence against men definitely deserves more attention, men generally speaking aren't seriously injured by it and therefore tend to not fear for their lives. Also it's sorta disingenuous to cherry pick one study of a particular demographic (mean age of ~22 years old) when tonnes of research has been done demonstrating the opposite. I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's incredibly biased to characterize all research other than this one study as "lies." I mean, the BJS released this study, for example. Seems pretty legitimate. By "lies", I'm referring to the academically documented fact that certain groups have fought to suppress information on domestic violence. This perpetuates the popular misconception that domestic violence is a gendered male-on-female problem, when the reality is that it is that there is gender parity, and that it's often reciprocal. Here's several additional studies, including a scholarly review which examines 286 scholarly investigations which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, if not more aggressive, than men in domestic relationships: http://smu.edu/experts/study-documents/family-violence-study-may2006.pdfhttp://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2005.079020http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID41E2.pdfhttp://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V70 version N3.pdfhttp://www.nij.gov/journals/261/teen-dating-violence.htmhttp://lab.drdondutton.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/DUTTON-NICHOLLS-AND-SPIDEL-2005-FEMALE-PERPETRATORS-OF-INTIMATE-VIOLENCE.pdfhttp://www.fact.on.ca/Info/dom/heady99.htmhttp://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htmOn June 19 2013 03:15 Shiori wrote:
By the way, aside from ancient Rome (and even there I've only found clear sources for 50BC onward) I'm not seeing where domestic abuse was universally derided in the West. As a matter of fact, it wasn't criminalized in the UK or the US until the 1800's. My main argument is that there isn't evidence to show that domestic violence was socially accepted, and that this would, in fact, go against our understanding of historical Western society, which traditionally protected women and put them on a pedestal (chivalry, anyone?). On June 19 2013 03:15 Shiori wrote:
Lol, I just realize this thread is about abortion wtf. Why are we arguing about this again o.0 Because people are dragging in this false notion that women were or are oppressed. Ironically, I've also been arguing strongly in favor of abortion rights in this thread, yet the insinuation remains that I am against women simply because I have a politically incorrect understanding of history. It will take me some time to go through all those studies, but it does rather seem like we're just kinda posting contradictory research to each other. No idea how to draw a conclusion from that.  Just go through the literature review then, since that should sum up all of the research (including sources you've already read) pretty well. On June 19 2013 03:57 Shiori wrote:
Anyway, your assertion that women were held on a pedestal via chivalry is not exactly true. While it is plausible that women were viewed as a sort of (ideally) pure and noble creature, this does not appear to have been relevant when it mattered. Chivalry, properly understood, and free of the romanticizing that literature (both contemporary and modern) has attached to it, was basically a code that applied to knights, and, to some extent, nobility. It was not expressly directed at women, but rather to those who could not defend themselves (i.e. widows, children, the elderly, the sickly, etc.). By the same token, it's worth pointing out that there was undeniable vilifying of female sexuality during the middle ages, particularly from Christian inspiration (fetishization of virginity, moronic associations of purity and impurity that were more associated with female biology than male e.g. mensutration etc.). But more than this, the biggest indicator of female oppression has always been that, particularly during the middle ages and in the ancient world, women were legally pretty much property. This is so incredibly huge when it comes to oppression, because while it's true that women were granted limited autonomy depending on their culture (ranging from very good in ancient Rome to very bad in middle Christian Europe) they were also not actually considered people in a real sense. As I've previously argued, women have been historically treated like children. You'll notice that this explains all of the aspects you described: they are treated as unable to defend themselves like children, they are expected to be pure and their sexuality is vilified like children, and they were legally property like children. By your logic, children were not actually considered people in a real sense; in reality, they certainly were treated like people (and protected better than other types of people), even if their role was solely domestic and therefore legally nonexistent. On June 19 2013 03:57 Shiori wrote:
Let me just stress that: they were not being safeguarded, protected, or anything else by this judgment. They were objects to be traded via marriage in exchange for payment (i.e. a dowry or some political equivalent). That was pretty much all they were. While your points about mortality and such are valid, they aren't sufficient to account for the disparity between men and women when it comes to things like education. If the reason women were prevented from doing hard jobs was because they would get hurt or endangered, why were they also generally discouraged from pursuing education, like in theology or philosophy or even literacy? Why do we have influential characters like Thomas Aquinas saying things like "The woman is subject to man on account of the weakness of her nature . . . Man is the beginning of woman and her end, just as God is the beginning and end of every creature. Children ought to love their Father more than they love their mother." ? Male children were traded similarly. Boys didn't have much choice as to who they were to marry either, in theory. In practice, parents of both boys and girls generally tried to take into account their children's preferences when arranging marriages, if only because they didn't want their family alliances held together by terribly incompatible pairings. Women were generally discouraged from pursuing advanced education because it would be useless to them given their social roles, not because they were being oppressed. To the contrary, nobility did provide early education to their daughters (we know that Charlemagne's daughters, for example, were permitted to attend the school at his palace), something which would not have happened if the goal were oppression. Compare this to how black slaves were absolutely forbidden from having any sort of education, for a true example of oppression On June 19 2013 03:57 Shiori wrote:
It's pretty clear that there was more going on here than some sort of veneration for women. Women weren't just viewed as being fragile; they were viewed as being fundamentally incapable of doing important things, and were treated as useful (depending on the woman and her husband/family, anyway) but ultimately subjugated beings on a definitively lower level than that of men, both practically and ontologically. If that's not oppression, I don't know what is. Sure, women weren't working in the cotton fields with the slaves, but they had scarcely better ontological position, even if they were used as baby machines rather than hard laborers. They were indeed viewed as fundamentally incapable of doing important things. But acting upon this doesn't imply subjugation, any more than treating children as fundamentally incapable of doing some important things (such as driving, or consenting to sex, etc) is a form of subjugation. It's merely a means of protecting them, however misguided it might be. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/subjugationBringing someone under your control by making all their important decisions for them is literally the definition of subjugation. And it matters a lot that their attempts were misguided. I'm not trying to suggest that everyone in the ancient world was possessed by an evil malice and informed hatred of women; I'm arguing that they were oppressive and immoral in practice. Oppression is really nothing more than unjust subjugation. You need both parts. Children are subjugated to some extent, but it's not unjust because neuroscience and psychology have given us good reasons to believe that 5 year olds don't understand what life and death are and therefore shouldn't be allowed to run for political office. Conversely, a woman is, for all intents and purposes, just as capable as a man when it comes to decision making at an adult level. This is precisely why the treatment of women in the past was oppressive! Contemporary science tells us that children aren't capable of doing those things. Similarly, the prevailing wisdom which passed for "science" in the past told societies that women were not capable of doing those things, and accordingly both men and women accepted that treatment as normal, the way both parents and children (well, most children) accept their treatment as normal today. On June 19 2013 04:19 Shiori wrote:
Let me give you a parallel: when the US was debating abolishing slavery, proponents of slavery argued that slaves were actually better off in America (as slaves) than they were in Africa. Was this a good line of reasoning? Fuck no. Whether or not slavery was actually done in the best interests of slaves (and it pretty obviously wasn't) it was still a monstrously oppressive institution, and not just because of the physical aspects that you keep playing up. Like it or not, treating a fully capable adult human being as literal property is oppression because it is both subjugation and completely unjust. My whole argument is that it's up to the individuals to decide. Slavery was oppressive because the slaves did not consent to it. By contrast, my argument is that women consented to the societies that they were part of and helped to perpetuate. You need to do some more reading in the areas of law, politics, psychology, philosophy, etc.
I have an undergraduate degree's worth of reading on such topics, and continuing education on top of that. Try your fallacies elsewhere.
On June 19 2013 06:15 Stratos_speAr wrote:
You're dealing with a phenomenon called "adaptive preferences." Arab women are, quite literally, the perfect example of what you're talking about. Your logic would dictate that they are at fault for their situation and aren't oppressed. However, adaptive preferences explains this phenomenon, and there are countless pages on the topic that explain why it is incredibly insulting to blame the victim for being subject to adaptive preferences.
How condescending and misogynist of you, to tell Arab women what they really want and what they should want and ignoring what they actually say. Instead of acknowledging that their preferences make sense and are optimal for the crappy circumstances that plague Arab society, go ahead and insist that they don't really want to stay at home, and would rather go out in public no matter how dangerous it is. While you're at it, go ahead and insist that traditional women of all religions are actually oppressed even in first world nations where they freely choose it.
Your arrogance and condescension towards women is ridiculous.
On June 19 2013 06:15 Stratos_speAr wrote:
Oh, and by claiming that women could have just thrown off the shackles of their oppression at any point, you demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of cultural history, and it explains how you've come to this bizarre view that you have.
By assuming your conclusions instead of presenting evidence for your arguments, you demonstrate a complete lack of critical thinking and any ability to engage in rational discourse.
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On June 19 2013 05:27 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 05:14 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:19 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 04:09 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 03:57 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 03:39 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 03:15 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 03:07 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 03:02 ComaDose wrote:On June 19 2013 02:50 sunprince wrote:
[quote]
Meanwhile, men were dying in droves from hard labor and slaughtered on the battlefield, yet women (who were twice as likely to survive to pass on their genes, despite the high mortality rate of childbirth prior to modern medicine) were unilaterally oppressed by men! /sarcasm
In any case, the historical records we do have completely demolish the popular myths that domestic violence was historically accepted (plenty of evidence to show that wife beaters in Western culture were flogged, tarred/feathered, and hanged). War rape, on the other hand, actually existed, but that's actually better treatment than what victorious armies did to the men...
However, I'll take this line of discourse as an admission that you have no legitimate arguments to make, since you are resorting to the fallacy of original male sin. dude domestic violence is still a problem That doesn't mean domestic violence is socially or legally acceptable. Not to mention the fact that the majority of non-reciprocal (one-sided) domestic violence perpetrators are women, contrary to the lies that have been perpetuated on this topic. Incidence of violence: 75% low frequency. Injury percentage: 8.1%. I'd also like to point out that the authors of the paper offer a couple of potential explanations as to the discrepancy between men and women as perpetrators: "One possible explanation for this, assuming that men and women are equally likely to initiate physical violence,20 is that men, who are typically larger and stronger, are less likely to retaliate if struck first by their partner. Thus, some men may be following the norm that “men shouldn’t hit women” when struck first by their partner. A different explanation is that men are simply less willing to report hitting their partner than are women.2" I'd argue that both are true, to some extent. It's worth noting that the general reasoning for why female domestic abuse is such a huge issue is still represented by this study: 20% change of injury i.e. 1 in 5, while the rate for men is less than half that. While domestic violence against men definitely deserves more attention, men generally speaking aren't seriously injured by it and therefore tend to not fear for their lives. Also it's sorta disingenuous to cherry pick one study of a particular demographic (mean age of ~22 years old) when tonnes of research has been done demonstrating the opposite. I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's incredibly biased to characterize all research other than this one study as "lies." I mean, the BJS released this study, for example. Seems pretty legitimate. By "lies", I'm referring to the academically documented fact that certain groups have fought to suppress information on domestic violence. This perpetuates the popular misconception that domestic violence is a gendered male-on-female problem, when the reality is that it is that there is gender parity, and that it's often reciprocal. Here's several additional studies, including a scholarly review which examines 286 scholarly investigations which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, if not more aggressive, than men in domestic relationships: http://smu.edu/experts/study-documents/family-violence-study-may2006.pdfhttp://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2005.079020http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID41E2.pdfhttp://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V70 version N3.pdfhttp://www.nij.gov/journals/261/teen-dating-violence.htmhttp://lab.drdondutton.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/DUTTON-NICHOLLS-AND-SPIDEL-2005-FEMALE-PERPETRATORS-OF-INTIMATE-VIOLENCE.pdfhttp://www.fact.on.ca/Info/dom/heady99.htmhttp://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htmOn June 19 2013 03:15 Shiori wrote:
By the way, aside from ancient Rome (and even there I've only found clear sources for 50BC onward) I'm not seeing where domestic abuse was universally derided in the West. As a matter of fact, it wasn't criminalized in the UK or the US until the 1800's. My main argument is that there isn't evidence to show that domestic violence was socially accepted, and that this would, in fact, go against our understanding of historical Western society, which traditionally protected women and put them on a pedestal (chivalry, anyone?). On June 19 2013 03:15 Shiori wrote:
Lol, I just realize this thread is about abortion wtf. Why are we arguing about this again o.0 Because people are dragging in this false notion that women were or are oppressed. Ironically, I've also been arguing strongly in favor of abortion rights in this thread, yet the insinuation remains that I am against women simply because I have a politically incorrect understanding of history. It will take me some time to go through all those studies, but it does rather seem like we're just kinda posting contradictory research to each other. No idea how to draw a conclusion from that. Just go through the literature review then, since that should sum up all of the research (including sources you've already read) pretty well. On June 19 2013 03:57 Shiori wrote:
Anyway, your assertion that women were held on a pedestal via chivalry is not exactly true. While it is plausible that women were viewed as a sort of (ideally) pure and noble creature, this does not appear to have been relevant when it mattered. Chivalry, properly understood, and free of the romanticizing that literature (both contemporary and modern) has attached to it, was basically a code that applied to knights, and, to some extent, nobility. It was not expressly directed at women, but rather to those who could not defend themselves (i.e. widows, children, the elderly, the sickly, etc.). By the same token, it's worth pointing out that there was undeniable vilifying of female sexuality during the middle ages, particularly from Christian inspiration (fetishization of virginity, moronic associations of purity and impurity that were more associated with female biology than male e.g. mensutration etc.). But more than this, the biggest indicator of female oppression has always been that, particularly during the middle ages and in the ancient world, women were legally pretty much property. This is so incredibly huge when it comes to oppression, because while it's true that women were granted limited autonomy depending on their culture (ranging from very good in ancient Rome to very bad in middle Christian Europe) they were also not actually considered people in a real sense. As I've previously argued, women have been historically treated like children. You'll notice that this explains all of the aspects you described: they are treated as unable to defend themselves like children, they are expected to be pure and their sexuality is vilified like children, and they were legally property like children. By your logic, children were not actually considered people in a real sense; in reality, they certainly were treated like people (and protected better than other types of people), even if their role was solely domestic and therefore legally nonexistent. On June 19 2013 03:57 Shiori wrote:
Let me just stress that: they were not being safeguarded, protected, or anything else by this judgment. They were objects to be traded via marriage in exchange for payment (i.e. a dowry or some political equivalent). That was pretty much all they were. While your points about mortality and such are valid, they aren't sufficient to account for the disparity between men and women when it comes to things like education. If the reason women were prevented from doing hard jobs was because they would get hurt or endangered, why were they also generally discouraged from pursuing education, like in theology or philosophy or even literacy? Why do we have influential characters like Thomas Aquinas saying things like "The woman is subject to man on account of the weakness of her nature . . . Man is the beginning of woman and her end, just as God is the beginning and end of every creature. Children ought to love their Father more than they love their mother." ? Male children were traded similarly. Boys didn't have much choice as to who they were to marry either, in theory. In practice, parents of both boys and girls generally tried to take into account their children's preferences when arranging marriages, if only because they didn't want their family alliances held together by terribly incompatible pairings. Women were generally discouraged from pursuing advanced education because it would be useless to them given their social roles, not because they were being oppressed. To the contrary, nobility did provide early education to their daughters (we know that Charlemagne's daughters, for example, were permitted to attend the school at his palace), something which would not have happened if the goal were oppression. Compare this to how black slaves were absolutely forbidden from having any sort of education, for a true example of oppression On June 19 2013 03:57 Shiori wrote:
It's pretty clear that there was more going on here than some sort of veneration for women. Women weren't just viewed as being fragile; they were viewed as being fundamentally incapable of doing important things, and were treated as useful (depending on the woman and her husband/family, anyway) but ultimately subjugated beings on a definitively lower level than that of men, both practically and ontologically. If that's not oppression, I don't know what is. Sure, women weren't working in the cotton fields with the slaves, but they had scarcely better ontological position, even if they were used as baby machines rather than hard laborers. They were indeed viewed as fundamentally incapable of doing important things. But acting upon this doesn't imply subjugation, any more than treating children as fundamentally incapable of doing some important things (such as driving, or consenting to sex, etc) is a form of subjugation. It's merely a means of protecting them, however misguided it might be. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/subjugationBringing someone under your control by making all their important decisions for them is literally the definition of subjugation. And it matters a lot that their attempts were misguided. I'm not trying to suggest that everyone in the ancient world was possessed by an evil malice and informed hatred of women; I'm arguing that they were oppressive and immoral in practice. Oppression is really nothing more than unjust subjugation. You need both parts. Children are subjugated to some extent, but it's not unjust because neuroscience and psychology have given us good reasons to believe that 5 year olds don't understand what life and death are and therefore shouldn't be allowed to run for political office. Conversely, a woman is, for all intents and purposes, just as capable as a man when it comes to decision making at an adult level. This is precisely why the treatment of women in the past was oppressive! Contemporary science tells us that children aren't capable of doing those things. Similarly, the prevailing wisdom which passed for "science" in the past told societies that women were not capable of doing those things, and accordingly both men and women accepted that treatment as normal, the way both parents and children (well, most children) accept their treatment as normal today. On June 19 2013 04:19 Shiori wrote:
Let me give you a parallel: when the US was debating abolishing slavery, proponents of slavery argued that slaves were actually better off in America (as slaves) than they were in Africa. Was this a good line of reasoning? Fuck no. Whether or not slavery was actually done in the best interests of slaves (and it pretty obviously wasn't) it was still a monstrously oppressive institution, and not just because of the physical aspects that you keep playing up. Like it or not, treating a fully capable adult human being as literal property is oppression because it is both subjugation and completely unjust. My whole argument is that it's up to the individuals to decide. Slavery was oppressive because the slaves did not consent to it. By contrast, my argument is that women consented to the societies that they were part of and helped to perpetuate. So North Korea isn't oppressive? I mean that's literally what you're arguing, given that there hasn't been a massive revolt in NK.
North Korea hasn't been around very long. It took African-American slaves a few centuries too. Compare this with women, who had all of human history, and not only did nothing, but encouraged and perpetuated society.
Also, consider the vast disparity in objective metrics for quality of life between the leaders of the North Korean regime and the typical citizen. Now consider that the disparity is actually in reverse for women, and that you're essentially arguing that women are oppressed despite having a better quality of life by most or nearly all accounts.
On June 19 2013 05:27 Shiori wrote:
It's not just contemporary science that tells us children aren't capable of things...it's fucking obvious. Nobody in the history of forever has considered a toddler to be on par with a functioning adult in terms of decision making. Conversely, there has never been any obvious reason beyond institutionalized sexism to think that women are less capable of making choices than men.
The obvious reason would be that women choose not to. As someone aptly pointed out earlier in this thread, humans are lazy. The arrangement in which men have to risk life and limb to work for the family while the wife stays comfortably at home is actually beneficial and easier for women than the other way around.
On June 19 2013 05:27 Shiori wrote:
Prevailing wisdom here means shit that a bunch of male-dominated societies dreamed up based on anything from misogynistic philosophy to theology. I have no idea why you're treating it as if its supposed reasonableness means that it wasn't oppressive. I'm sure that someone who has been raised to believe that Kim Jong-Il is literally a god wouldn't have any problems with being his servant...but that doesn't mean it's not horribly oppressive. It's oppressive because Kim Jong-Il was not a god, and therefore, even if he actually believed he was, and even if everyone believed he was, his subjugation of his people was not justified because it was based on a premise that wasn't actually true.
Truth or lack thereof isn't what makes something oppressive or not. It's freedom, or the absence thereof. Women as a group chose to perpetuate their social roles, until they recently chose to change them once things like birth control, household appliances, and office jobs became available.
On June 19 2013 05:27 Shiori wrote:
You're conflating consent with informed consent, fundamentally, which is why your argument makes no sense. Unlike African-Americans, women were not seized from a society in which they had enjoyed greater freedoms and thrown into slavery. They were born into a specific, gender-based class, and they never knew anything else. That's why it took so agonizingly long for women to gain equal rights. It wasn't because the arguments weren't there (because the arguments basically boil down to women are people because they're cogent human beings with sophisticated experiences, which has been obvious since the beginning of our species) but because people weren't just told the opposite, but told the opposite in such a fashion that it wasn't even a point of view; it was just the way things are.
Aside from the first generation of slaves, most African-American slaves were born into slavery and never knew anything else. The same applies for most slaves throughout history. Yet all of those slaves, ranging from the Hebrews in Egypt to African-Americans, managed to figure it out. And you know why? Probably because their lives sucked. That goes a long way towards motivating you to do something about your circumstances.
By contrast, the gilded cage of women's lives was comfortable, at least relative to their male peers. And accordingly, they chose to enjoy them, instead of simply opening the door until very recently, when the outside became more hospitable. And when they did choose to open the door, they encountered virtually no resistance, especially compared with all of the other marginalized groups throughout history, which reinforces the notion that the cage wasn't locked in the first place.
On June 19 2013 05:27 Shiori wrote:
If we're actually living in the Matrix, we're being oppressed even if we don't know it, because we can't consent to something we're not even aware of. You have to actually know what the circumstances are and be free from restrictive systems to actually consent to a restrictive system (if such a thing is even really possible; I remain skeptical that consenting to slavery is not necessarily irrational, but whatever).
I don't buy the argument that women are too stupid to know if they're being oppressed. Every human inherently recognizes inequality, oppression, and a lack of freedom, and that is why every single marginalized group eventually revolted.
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^Really enjoying reading the above discussion, sorry I have nothing to contribute but since I've made a post I figured I'd just say thanks to those participating.
On June 19 2013 06:19 HereBeDragons wrote:Somewhat related news: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10890674+ Show Spoiler +An 11-year-old boy fathered a child after sex with a school friend's 36-year-old mother.
Both the father and child are now understood to be in care after the principal at the boy's school raised the alarm.
The case has caused counsellors working in the area of child sexual abuse to highlight the lack of attention given to women as potential offenders.
It has prompted Justice Minister Judith Collins to step in saying she will seek more information on the law. "This case raises an important point. I will seek advice from officials on whether or not a law change is required."
And it has also highlighted disparity in the law of rape, which makes it impossible for a woman to be accused of the crime.
Present legislation stipulates the crime of rape applies only when men force sex. In contrast, women who force an unwilling partner to have sex face charges of sexual violation. Both carry a maximum sentence of 20 years but only men can be charged with rape.
The Weekend Herald has chosen not to name the South Auckland school to protect the privacy of the children - the baby and the father.
Child Youth and Family confirmed it was dealing with a case at the school and that it was before the courts. It refused to make further comment, as did police.
The principal said he was shocked when the child revealed the details.
The boy approached him in his office about two-thirds of the way through the 2012 school year and told the principal he had a disclosure to make.
"You won't be very happy with me," he recalled the boy saying. He said he had been having sex with his friend's mother "and it needs to stop".
The principal said the boy was "very aware" of the situation he was in and determined he wanted the contact to end.
The Weekend Herald was told that the contact between the boy and the woman began about April last year, when the boy was aged 11. The woman's son took a day off school and encouraged his friend to do likewise, spending the day at his home.
During the course of the day, the woman gave the boy beer to drink and then later took part in a sexual encounter with him.
The sexual contact continued for a number of months after the initial encounter, the Weekend Herald was told. The boy had turned 12 by the time the child was born. CYF took a baby into care about two months ago.
The principal confirmed the details. "We got CYF involved the minute we found out about it."
Emails exchanged with a Child Youth and Family social worker, since retired, confirm the agency was involved. The CYF worker said police would be investigating - but also said the woman denied the sexual contact.
Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse manager Ken Clearwater said if the case were proved, the woman should be held accountable for her actions. Making charges able to be brought dependent on the gender of the offender was wrong and the law should be changed. "It is a huge issue for us."
He said male victims of sex abuse carried out by women were equally as damaged as any other victim of rape.
"As a male you're supposed to enjoy it but we don't say that about young girls. Males are not seen as victims. The psychological damage is huge - and they carry extra shale because it's a woman and you're supposed to enjoy it."
Mr Clearwater said most abuse of the sort in this case was not reported. He said the way the boy disclosed to the principal underscored the way in which the abuse was perceived. By saying "you won't be very happy with me", Mr Clearwater said the boy appeared to believe he was the one who had acted wrongly.
Mr Clearwater said the psychological impact would expose the boy to added risk of alcohol and drug abuse, relationship problems, anger and other mental health issues.
The executive director of Rape Prevention Education, Dr Kim McGregor, said male survivors of sexual offending by women often felt the abuse they suffered was minimised by society. "Just because sexual violence has been perpetrated by a female doesn't make it any less violent."
Manukau-based family lawyer Jeremy Sutton said under the law the boy would not have rights to the child unless he was present at the birth. He said he would have to make a case for access. He also said there were exemptions from child support for victims of sexual offending.
Liggins Institute director Professor Wayne Cutfield, an expert in the development of children, said boys became fertile about halfway through puberty, which could begin as early as age nine. "The onset of puberty is a lot younger than people think."
Statistics New Zealand does not hold data on the ages of fatherhood, only of motherhood. Well, first of all the child is born already, so abortion isn't an option for this particular case. But 'what if' it was, do you think it's morally correct or not to let the child be born? I just wanted to use this as an example of the 'grey area'. How do you determine which case falls into which category, because people are just weird, and they do weird things. If it becomes a long drawn out process to determine which cases can be legally aborted, then it would most likely be too late already. As for my personal opinion, I am in favor of abortion if the parents (especially the mother) chose to do so. When a child is born to parents who aren't prepared to raise them, it's killing both the child and the person who has to raise the child. Living in poverty, and in shame to whatever caused the unprepared birth. You're not killing them literally, but you've destroyed both of their future already.
That's an interesting story which raises issues of single parenthood and declaring you don't want to parent a child while abortion is still an option, which although important are definitely removed from the topic at hand.
There's definitely no grey area there though, abortion isn't warranted unless the mother wants to abort. If she wants to abort early in pregnancy that's her choice - for any reason. Morally speaking, allowing this child to be born is essentially just whether single parents have the right to children which again has already been decided.
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On June 19 2013 06:19 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 05:42 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:31 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:33 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:16 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:
[quote]
I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it.
Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. The reality is that they chose to forego these rights [citation needed] You left out the rest of my posts, which already explained the reasoning for this argument. Ultimately, I find it quite misogynistic of you and other posters here to insist on thinking of women as weak and helpless victims who spent millennia under an oppressive social system, rather than acknowledge that they may have perpetuated a system that benefited them. That's pretty much objectification to the fullest possible extent; instead of treating women as competent agents with the power to exercise their own choices, you reduce them to helpless objects. The rest of your post contained absolutely zero evidence to support the idea that women willingly chose to subject themselves to having less rights and liberties. Zero. Hence the "citation needed". Arguing that it "seems logic" from your point of view does not make it true. In fact, both history and the contemporary world are full of examples of the exact opposite. Your last paragraph is you essentially combining a strawman and a false premise. First, the strawman: arguing that women have historically not been the holders of the social power and authority that would have been needed to collectively change the very social structures that prevented them from being the equals of men in terms of rights and liberties (and obligations) certainly does not equate to objectifying them. Despite several examples of struggles of African Americans towards that end, slavery was not abolished in the United States until the Civil War - and it took half of the country fighting for that to achieve it. Does this mean we objectify African Americans? No, it means we recognize that, in their struggle for emancipation and recognition as perfectly equal human beings, alone they did not have sufficient power/authority to achieve the said change as early as they would have wanted (...from the start). The historical treatment of women does not even remotely approach the historical treatment of African-Americans. And yet, in spite of that, African-Americans achieved emancipation in a few centuries despite being a small minority of the population. Nobody tried to argue that the historical treatment of women was equal to the historical treatment of African Americans. The analogy was there to highlight that pointing out that a group does not hold the social/political power and authority to achieve structural change at a given point does not equate to demeaning/objectifying that group. The problem is that you've started your argument with the assumption that women were oppressed, instead of concluding this after providing evidence. In reality, virtually all of the objective metrics that we use to conclude that African Americans are oppressed and discriminated against such as the sentencing gap, the prosecution gap, the likelihood of violent crime victimization, the percentage of workplace deaths, the suicide rate, the homelessness percentage, the amount of federal aid given, etc. are all reversed when it comes to women, and have been historically as far as we have data. What objective metric do you have to conclude that women are or were oppressed in the first place, when all of the common measures used to determine quality of life show that women are and have been ahead?
No, the problem is that you're refusing to address the points I'm making, in this case going as far as completely changing the topic. The analogy was there to respond to your assertion that we were demeaning women. My reply to you was that "pointing out that a group does not hold the social/political power and authority to achieve structural change at a given point does not equate to demeaning/objectifying that group".
Regarding the completely unrelated point that you're now making here, my answer to you is that you are purely arguing semantics - a definition of "oppression" was already submitted to you and linked to the diagnostic you yourself made with regards to the historical place of women in society (a diagnostic which already overlooked most of the worse aspects of that situation, which went beyond simply being "treated as children" - in particular in certain non-European societies). Since this is not the argument I was responding to, however, and since I am not interested in discussing it further here, please stop derailing our exchange in that direction.
On June 19 2013 06:19 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 05:42 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:
Your argument rests on the assumption that women are so weak and helpless that they were unable to prevail in far easier conditions despite having millennia to do so and being slightly more than half of the population. I refuse to buy this misogynistic assumption. I pointed out why that was a strawman and I responded to it. Try answering my argument instead of repeating yours. On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:31 kwizach wrote:
Next, the false premise: you assume that agents necessarily can "exercise their own choices". This is false on two levels, with regards to resources and ideas. First, like we've seen, agents do not necessarily have the material, social or political resources to exercise their own choices. This doesn't mean that they're not "competent agents"; it simply means that agents are not omnipotent and are restrained in the choices that they can actually translate into action/change, in particular at the societal level. My argument is that you consider women non-agents because they weren't actually restrained in the choices they made, they were easily capable of subverting and overthrowing the social order but chose not to do so. You are again repeating your initial argument, which I debunked, instead of addressing my (lengthy) reply to you (you're in particular leaving out the second part of my argument in quoting me). Citation also still needed for your claim that women "chose" not to overthrow the social order. The fact that they didn't, when they could (given that they were in better circumstances than other groups that did) means that they chose not to.
Why are you even replying to me if all you're going to do is repeat your initial statement which I thoroughly debunked? Here, let me copy/paste the entire relevant section of my initial post:
Next, the false premise: you assume that agents necessarily can "exercise their own choices". This is false on two levels, with regards to resources and ideas. First, like we've seen, agents do not necessarily have the material, social or political resources to exercise their own choices. This doesn't mean that they're not "competent agents"; it simply means that agents are not omnipotent and are restrained in the choices that they can actually translate into action/change, in particular at the societal level.
Second, you are assuming that agents necessarily prevail over, and more precisely are completely independent of, structure. I dispute that assumption, and so do plenty of social science scholars. As a constructivist, I consider agent and structure to be co-constitutive, meaning that structure plays a role in shaping the decisions, and even identity, of agents, but that agents can also shape their own identity and in turn bring about structural change (to make it quick). More concretely and to come back to the issue at hand, you'll find plenty of examples of people who have internalized social norms that do not necessarily benefit them and do not attempt (or even think about attempting) to challenge them, precisely because that internalization "prevents them" from reaching the kind of costs/benefits calculation you speak of, or makes them discard such calculation as inappropriate. Of course, this certainly does not mean that personal reflections, external events, interactions with others, acquisition of new knowledge and plenty of other mechanisms cannot bring about a questioning and possibly a rejection of these norms, and you'll again find plenty of such examples throughout history. The point, however, is that you can't simply assert an agent is completely independent in the choices he considers, or even in the bringing about of a consideration of choice in the first place, as if this was necessarily true. If you're going to defend that position (namely that certain accepted social norms play no role in determining in part the position and decisions of certain agents, in this case women with regards to their place in society), you're again going to need to provide evidence.
To sum up, your idea of an agent free to exercise his "own choices" is flawed with regards to the debate at hand both in terms of the various types of resources (or lack thereof) at the disposition of the agent in question and in terms of your assertion of how agents necessarily have access to, and can exercise, choice on an ideational level.
Feel free to reply when you have actual counter-arguments to put forward.
On June 19 2013 06:19 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 05:42 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:31 kwizach wrote:For example, when you write that women's suffrage came about when "a majority of women wanted it" (emphasis mine), you're conveniently not mentioning that the women which already wanted to vote previously could not - i.e. they could not translate their choice of wanting to vote into actual votes.) Actually, I was referring to polls here. When the women's suffrage movement began, many of the people opposed to it were women. The biggest battle for women was convincing other women, while men stood by to accept whatever they decided. As soon as a majority of women supported women's suffrage, lawmakers quickly enacted it into law. Compare this with the violent resistance against black suffrage. Yes, I know you were referring to polls. That remark was there to point out that you are only speaking of choice at the aggregate level for women, instead of the choice granted to women as individuals. Gender roles, including rights and responsibilities, are determined at the aggregate level by societies. Exceptions exist, but for those people there are also exceptions to gender roles too.
Yes, and socially-accepted gender roles can prevent individuals from exercising their choices the way they would want to - for example by voting. Thank you for agreeing with me.
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On June 19 2013 06:54 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 06:19 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 05:42 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:31 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:33 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:16 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:
[quote]
Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort.
Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. The reality is that they chose to forego these rights [citation needed] You left out the rest of my posts, which already explained the reasoning for this argument. Ultimately, I find it quite misogynistic of you and other posters here to insist on thinking of women as weak and helpless victims who spent millennia under an oppressive social system, rather than acknowledge that they may have perpetuated a system that benefited them. That's pretty much objectification to the fullest possible extent; instead of treating women as competent agents with the power to exercise their own choices, you reduce them to helpless objects. The rest of your post contained absolutely zero evidence to support the idea that women willingly chose to subject themselves to having less rights and liberties. Zero. Hence the "citation needed". Arguing that it "seems logic" from your point of view does not make it true. In fact, both history and the contemporary world are full of examples of the exact opposite. Your last paragraph is you essentially combining a strawman and a false premise. First, the strawman: arguing that women have historically not been the holders of the social power and authority that would have been needed to collectively change the very social structures that prevented them from being the equals of men in terms of rights and liberties (and obligations) certainly does not equate to objectifying them. Despite several examples of struggles of African Americans towards that end, slavery was not abolished in the United States until the Civil War - and it took half of the country fighting for that to achieve it. Does this mean we objectify African Americans? No, it means we recognize that, in their struggle for emancipation and recognition as perfectly equal human beings, alone they did not have sufficient power/authority to achieve the said change as early as they would have wanted (...from the start). The historical treatment of women does not even remotely approach the historical treatment of African-Americans. And yet, in spite of that, African-Americans achieved emancipation in a few centuries despite being a small minority of the population. Nobody tried to argue that the historical treatment of women was equal to the historical treatment of African Americans. The analogy was there to highlight that pointing out that a group does not hold the social/political power and authority to achieve structural change at a given point does not equate to demeaning/objectifying that group. The problem is that you've started your argument with the assumption that women were oppressed, instead of concluding this after providing evidence. In reality, virtually all of the objective metrics that we use to conclude that African Americans are oppressed and discriminated against such as the sentencing gap, the prosecution gap, the likelihood of violent crime victimization, the percentage of workplace deaths, the suicide rate, the homelessness percentage, the amount of federal aid given, etc. are all reversed when it comes to women, and have been historically as far as we have data. What objective metric do you have to conclude that women are or were oppressed in the first place, when all of the common measures used to determine quality of life show that women are and have been ahead? No, the problem is that you're refusing to address the points I'm making, in this case going as far as completely changing the topic. The analogy was there to respond to your assertion that we were demeaning women. My reply to you was that "pointing out that a group does not hold the social/political power and authority to achieve structural change at a given point does not equate to demeaning/objectifying that group".
Except that your argument is that women never had the power to achieve structural change, when the reality is that they did. You're demeaning them by calling them incapable, when in fact they were capable, but chose not to.
On June 19 2013 06:54 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 06:19 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 05:42 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:
Your argument rests on the assumption that women are so weak and helpless that they were unable to prevail in far easier conditions despite having millennia to do so and being slightly more than half of the population. I refuse to buy this misogynistic assumption. I pointed out why that was a strawman and I responded to it. Try answering my argument instead of repeating yours. On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:31 kwizach wrote:
Next, the false premise: you assume that agents necessarily can "exercise their own choices". This is false on two levels, with regards to resources and ideas. First, like we've seen, agents do not necessarily have the material, social or political resources to exercise their own choices. This doesn't mean that they're not "competent agents"; it simply means that agents are not omnipotent and are restrained in the choices that they can actually translate into action/change, in particular at the societal level. My argument is that you consider women non-agents because they weren't actually restrained in the choices they made, they were easily capable of subverting and overthrowing the social order but chose not to do so. You are again repeating your initial argument, which I debunked, instead of addressing my (lengthy) reply to you (you're in particular leaving out the second part of my argument in quoting me). Citation also still needed for your claim that women "chose" not to overthrow the social order. The fact that they didn't, when they could (given that they were in better circumstances than other groups that did) means that they chose not to. Why are you even replying to me if all you're going to do is repeat your initial statement which I thoroughly debunked? Here, let me copy/paste the entire relevant section of my initial post: Show nested quote +Next, the false premise: you assume that agents necessarily can "exercise their own choices". This is false on two levels, with regards to resources and ideas. First, like we've seen, agents do not necessarily have the material, social or political resources to exercise their own choices. This doesn't mean that they're not "competent agents"; it simply means that agents are not omnipotent and are restrained in the choices that they can actually translate into action/change, in particular at the societal level.
Second, you are assuming that agents necessarily prevail over, and more precisely are completely independent of, structure. I dispute that assumption, and so do plenty of social science scholars. As a constructivist, I consider agent and structure to be co-constitutive, meaning that structure plays a role in shaping the decisions, and even identity, of agents, but that agents can also shape their own identity and in turn bring about structural change (to make it quick). More concretely and to come back to the issue at hand, you'll find plenty of examples of people who have internalized social norms that do not necessarily benefit them and do not attempt (or even think about attempting) to challenge them, precisely because that internalization "prevents them" from reaching the kind of costs/benefits calculation you speak of, or makes them discard such calculation as inappropriate. Of course, this certainly does not mean that personal reflections, external events, interactions with others, acquisition of new knowledge and plenty of other mechanisms cannot bring about a questioning and possibly a rejection of these norms, and you'll again find plenty of such examples throughout history. The point, however, is that you can't simply assert an agent is completely independent in the choices he considers, or even in the bringing about of a consideration of choice in the first place, as if this was necessarily true. If you're going to defend that position (namely that certain accepted social norms play no role in determining in part the position and decisions of certain agents, in this case women with regards to their place in society), you're again going to need to provide evidence.
To sum up, your idea of an agent free to exercise his "own choices" is flawed with regards to the debate at hand both in terms of the various types of resources (or lack thereof) at the disposition of the agent in question and in terms of your assertion of how agents necessarily have access to, and can exercise, choice on an ideational level. Feel free to reply when you have actual counter-arguments to put forward.
There is nothing to answer here, because you are once again arguing with the assumption that women were powerless in the first place. I disagree with that fundamental assumption, so there is no point in arguing further down the line of reasoning when it's broken near the beginning.
On June 19 2013 06:54 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 06:19 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 05:42 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:31 kwizach wrote:For example, when you write that women's suffrage came about when "a majority of women wanted it" (emphasis mine), you're conveniently not mentioning that the women which already wanted to vote previously could not - i.e. they could not translate their choice of wanting to vote into actual votes.) Actually, I was referring to polls here. When the women's suffrage movement began, many of the people opposed to it were women. The biggest battle for women was convincing other women, while men stood by to accept whatever they decided. As soon as a majority of women supported women's suffrage, lawmakers quickly enacted it into law. Compare this with the violent resistance against black suffrage. Yes, I know you were referring to polls. That remark was there to point out that you are only speaking of choice at the aggregate level for women, instead of the choice granted to women as individuals. Gender roles, including rights and responsibilities, are determined at the aggregate level by societies. Exceptions exist, but for those people there are also exceptions to gender roles too. Yes, and socially-accepted gender roles can prevent individuals from exercising their choices the way they would want to - for example by voting. Thank you for agreeing with me.
Except that this doesn't support your argument that women as a group were oppressed.
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On June 16 2013 02:13 Enki wrote:
If the woman want's to get it done, that should be that. Also, I hate the justification for aborting a child because it was a result of incest (consensual anyways, if that happens). There are plenty of children who are born everyday with disabilities that were known beforehand. Why don't we just kill all children who are going to be born with defects and keep the gene pool clean then? I really hate justifying abortion because of that.
I find it odd that no one commented on that, because only 10% of women give birth to the child after Down's syndrome is diagnosed.
I don't know am too lazy to look up other numbers but it figure it's the same with other genetical deceases. The double standard is quite obvious sometimes. most of the times it's just the easiest way for the parents.
Edited for less radical opinion. original here + Show Spoiler + abortion is all about the parents and nothing about the child. Otherwise we would let the child decide when it's mature enough.
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Do people really think it's "protecting life" and the baby would be grateful to be alive knowing he's undesired and a product of rape ? Or even have a severe desease diagnosed in time and left alive ? Do you think they will enjoy their lives and be happy ? 1 out of how many will be ?
All examples I can think of be it friends or relatives... Undesired kids have it worse.
And do the people who think that feel it's good for the mother to CONSTANTLY, ALL HER LIFE have a memento of how she was raped and gave birth from that ? It destroys people. The mother. The child. The rest of the family. You can only know when it happens to you. Leave mothers or raped women to decide that please. Don't do it in their fucking place for misplaced beliefs on matters you never even come close to. And I know what I'm talking about here.
Parents decide. "Embryo rights" mean : "hey guy, you didn't have a choice we decided you were gonna leave your shitty life. Enjoy hell. Happy now ?" Better decide for him when he's not yet alive.
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I think its legitimate to have an abortion if the mother was raped. She should be allowed to not have the child. However, incest is tricky I think. If both parents want the child then they shouldnt be forced (as sick as it may be) but hey.
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On June 19 2013 02:09 datcirclejerk wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2013 19:19 MiraMax wrote:On June 18 2013 13:11 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 12:10 Acrofales wrote:On June 18 2013 11:24 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 10:47 codonbyte wrote:On June 18 2013 09:45 CallMeLukas wrote:On June 18 2013 08:41 codonbyte wrote:
A fetus on the other hand is physically bound to the woman who is carrying it and therefore doesn't have the same rights as a child outside the womb. So a difference in environment is what grants rights? If not, then where do you draw the line between "abortion is ok" and "abortion is murder?" Following your argument, abortion should be ok right up until birth. Actually, by my argument abortion would not be legal right up until birth because there is a period of time before birth where the fetus would be able to survive outside the womb, and hence abortion would only be legal up until that point, not right up until birth. What's so great about surviving outside the womb? Doesn't it depend upon our own technology? If so, doesn't that suggest that your standard for human life changes as human technology changes, meaning it is a pointless and arbitrary definition for life? If we reach the technology capable of providing a single cell to full human maturity, are all of the hypocrites here going to suddenly accept the premise that life begins at conception, since that is when it can survive outside the womb? Obviously not... It's all complete bullshit, I'm sorry to say. You people have absolutely no reasoning behind your lines drawn in the sand, you just want a line drawn in the sand, period. Just be honest with yourselves and say that you support abortion because it is convenient, but cannot justify it from a moral perspective. It is perfectly fine to say "I reject morality if it is inconvenient," since that is what the majority of human beings do anyway. Morality is meaningless. As I stated before, it is all evolved emotions, and emotions are not absolutes. No. You are guilty of a reductio ad absurdum. While there are a number of different periods in which ethicists argue that abortion can be ethical, they depend largely on what makes a human being human. Being a zygote does not make it human (at least imho). When does a foetus stop being a clump of cells and start being a human? Ethicists are unclear. My own feeling is that it is somewhere between the first brain activity and birth. Brain activity is a precondition for consciousness, but is clearly not a sufficient precondition (plenty of animals with a brain are not considered conscious). Because we don't know, using "viability outside the uterus" is a fairly decent proxy (and also coincided decently with when higher brain function starts). Umm, reductio ad absurdum is a perfectly valid form of argument, so I have no idea where you get the idea that someone can be "guilty" of it. And no, "viability outside the uterus" is a horrible proxy for determining life, for the reasons I've already listed. The simple truth is that there is no truth, there is no objective, outside of human thinking definition for what makes a human. It is simply whatever we decide or define it to be. Normally people will define moral concepts around what they feel emotionally. Some people feel absolutely nothing for a "clump of cells," while others feel an empathetic connection to it because it has the potential of a grown human being. Neither side is objectively right or wrong, but either way it is absurd to randomly draw the line at surviving on it's own. This isn't about morality, it is about refuting arguments that are patently absurd. No offense, but you really seem to be he worst kind of relativist to me (relativist out of convenience). Take any chair and remove a single atom. Is it still a chair? Most people would probably say yes. Now successively take all matter away atom per atom at what point does the remaining atoms stop being a chair? If the fact that there might be no "objectively correct answer" to this question leads you to conclude that "there are no chairs" or that "there are no relevant differences between chairs and tables, then I am afraid you have nothing of substance to add to this or any kind of concrete discussion other than "it's all relative"! In the real world we understand that ontology is no simple binary matter (it is or it is not), but that doesn't mean the drawn conclusions are "arbitrary". Try to answer me this: at what exact point does a human being die? Is there even a correct answer? Now what do you conclude with regard to the relevance between being alive and dead? "There is none" or "It's merely up to human definition"? Every concept is up to human definition. Sorry if this fact bothers you, but it is the truth, and says nothing about me personally to state it. People have much difficulty understanding this, for some reason. 90% of philosophical or metaphysical problems can be shrugged away by understanding that concepts and words are things we humans made up, and they are whatever we choose them to be. Imagine someone making up a sound from their mouth and then dozens of people arguing with each other over the meaning of the sound, as though it can be deduced logically. So as to your question of when a chair stops becoming a chair, again, it would have to hinge on what we specifically define a chair to be. If this question is impossible to answer, it simply means our definition is vague and lacking, which is really true of most words or concepts. That can't be helped, we would go crazy trying to make perfect definitions, it can't be done. All that we can do is realize that we humans invented concepts such as "life," and therefore debating on when life becomes life is a futile exercise, since it isn't some objective criteria that can be determined empirically or a priori, it is whatever we decide it is, and the decision is necessarily arbitrary, or, if you will, dependent upon capricious human emotions. Look at your own statement. Show nested quote +When does a foetus stop being a clump of cells and start being a human? Ethicists are unclear. My own feeling is that Yes, it is just a feeling. And not everyone has the same feelings. The best we can hope for is at least to keep our feelings fairly consistent across time so that we aren't constantly confusing ourselves and each other with our own words. This is why defining life to mean "can it survive outside the womb" is a horrible line drawn in the sand, because it is a criteria which is constantly shifting with time. Definitions, especially one's as morally significant as "life," should not change with the wind.
Wow ... so you really are a hopeless case are you? No, the fact that humans need to devise the concepts they employ is not at all bothersome to me, nor is it any profound insight. The fact that you trot it out so triumphantly as if you are Nietzsche's second coming is quite telling of your expertise on the matter though (90 % of all problems in philosophy can be shrugged away like this!?!? No, Marty, it won't fly... lmfao). Humans define concepts. There are no "correct" definitions in any cosmically objective sense. Your problem is though, that this is still a very long way from concluding that it would be futile or arbitrary arguing about whether abortions should be allowed or are morally acceptable. I mean you need to at least start connecting the dots here.
You seem to distrust your own conclusion when you attest good arguments to Sunprince. All over a sudden it's not all relative anymore, eh?! As I said, you really are the worst kind of relativist. You take the stance when it suits you, but abandon ship when any better argument presents itself...
Edit: Oh and another thing. The quote you produced there is not from me, so you might want to check twice next time. Cheers!
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On June 19 2013 06:35 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 05:27 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 05:14 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:19 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 04:09 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 03:57 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 03:39 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 03:15 Shiori wrote:Incidence of violence: 75% low frequency. Injury percentage: 8.1%. I'd also like to point out that the authors of the paper offer a couple of potential explanations as to the discrepancy between men and women as perpetrators: "One possible explanation for this, assuming that men and women are equally likely to initiate physical violence,20 is that men, who are typically larger and stronger, are less likely to retaliate if struck first by their partner. Thus, some men may be following the norm that “men shouldn’t hit women” when struck first by their partner. A different explanation is that men are simply less willing to report hitting their partner than are women.2" I'd argue that both are true, to some extent. It's worth noting that the general reasoning for why female domestic abuse is such a huge issue is still represented by this study: 20% change of injury i.e. 1 in 5, while the rate for men is less than half that. While domestic violence against men definitely deserves more attention, men generally speaking aren't seriously injured by it and therefore tend to not fear for their lives. Also it's sorta disingenuous to cherry pick one study of a particular demographic (mean age of ~22 years old) when tonnes of research has been done demonstrating the opposite. I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's incredibly biased to characterize all research other than this one study as "lies." I mean, the BJS released this study, for example. Seems pretty legitimate. By "lies", I'm referring to the academically documented fact that certain groups have fought to suppress information on domestic violence. This perpetuates the popular misconception that domestic violence is a gendered male-on-female problem, when the reality is that it is that there is gender parity, and that it's often reciprocal. Here's several additional studies, including a scholarly review which examines 286 scholarly investigations which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, if not more aggressive, than men in domestic relationships: http://smu.edu/experts/study-documents/family-violence-study-may2006.pdfhttp://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2005.079020http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID41E2.pdfhttp://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V70 version N3.pdfhttp://www.nij.gov/journals/261/teen-dating-violence.htmhttp://lab.drdondutton.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/DUTTON-NICHOLLS-AND-SPIDEL-2005-FEMALE-PERPETRATORS-OF-INTIMATE-VIOLENCE.pdfhttp://www.fact.on.ca/Info/dom/heady99.htmhttp://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htmOn June 19 2013 03:15 Shiori wrote:
By the way, aside from ancient Rome (and even there I've only found clear sources for 50BC onward) I'm not seeing where domestic abuse was universally derided in the West. As a matter of fact, it wasn't criminalized in the UK or the US until the 1800's. My main argument is that there isn't evidence to show that domestic violence was socially accepted, and that this would, in fact, go against our understanding of historical Western society, which traditionally protected women and put them on a pedestal (chivalry, anyone?). On June 19 2013 03:15 Shiori wrote:
Lol, I just realize this thread is about abortion wtf. Why are we arguing about this again o.0 Because people are dragging in this false notion that women were or are oppressed. Ironically, I've also been arguing strongly in favor of abortion rights in this thread, yet the insinuation remains that I am against women simply because I have a politically incorrect understanding of history. It will take me some time to go through all those studies, but it does rather seem like we're just kinda posting contradictory research to each other. No idea how to draw a conclusion from that. Just go through the literature review then, since that should sum up all of the research (including sources you've already read) pretty well. On June 19 2013 03:57 Shiori wrote:
Anyway, your assertion that women were held on a pedestal via chivalry is not exactly true. While it is plausible that women were viewed as a sort of (ideally) pure and noble creature, this does not appear to have been relevant when it mattered. Chivalry, properly understood, and free of the romanticizing that literature (both contemporary and modern) has attached to it, was basically a code that applied to knights, and, to some extent, nobility. It was not expressly directed at women, but rather to those who could not defend themselves (i.e. widows, children, the elderly, the sickly, etc.). By the same token, it's worth pointing out that there was undeniable vilifying of female sexuality during the middle ages, particularly from Christian inspiration (fetishization of virginity, moronic associations of purity and impurity that were more associated with female biology than male e.g. mensutration etc.). But more than this, the biggest indicator of female oppression has always been that, particularly during the middle ages and in the ancient world, women were legally pretty much property. This is so incredibly huge when it comes to oppression, because while it's true that women were granted limited autonomy depending on their culture (ranging from very good in ancient Rome to very bad in middle Christian Europe) they were also not actually considered people in a real sense. As I've previously argued, women have been historically treated like children. You'll notice that this explains all of the aspects you described: they are treated as unable to defend themselves like children, they are expected to be pure and their sexuality is vilified like children, and they were legally property like children. By your logic, children were not actually considered people in a real sense; in reality, they certainly were treated like people (and protected better than other types of people), even if their role was solely domestic and therefore legally nonexistent. On June 19 2013 03:57 Shiori wrote:
Let me just stress that: they were not being safeguarded, protected, or anything else by this judgment. They were objects to be traded via marriage in exchange for payment (i.e. a dowry or some political equivalent). That was pretty much all they were. While your points about mortality and such are valid, they aren't sufficient to account for the disparity between men and women when it comes to things like education. If the reason women were prevented from doing hard jobs was because they would get hurt or endangered, why were they also generally discouraged from pursuing education, like in theology or philosophy or even literacy? Why do we have influential characters like Thomas Aquinas saying things like "The woman is subject to man on account of the weakness of her nature . . . Man is the beginning of woman and her end, just as God is the beginning and end of every creature. Children ought to love their Father more than they love their mother." ? Male children were traded similarly. Boys didn't have much choice as to who they were to marry either, in theory. In practice, parents of both boys and girls generally tried to take into account their children's preferences when arranging marriages, if only because they didn't want their family alliances held together by terribly incompatible pairings. Women were generally discouraged from pursuing advanced education because it would be useless to them given their social roles, not because they were being oppressed. To the contrary, nobility did provide early education to their daughters (we know that Charlemagne's daughters, for example, were permitted to attend the school at his palace), something which would not have happened if the goal were oppression. Compare this to how black slaves were absolutely forbidden from having any sort of education, for a true example of oppression On June 19 2013 03:57 Shiori wrote:
It's pretty clear that there was more going on here than some sort of veneration for women. Women weren't just viewed as being fragile; they were viewed as being fundamentally incapable of doing important things, and were treated as useful (depending on the woman and her husband/family, anyway) but ultimately subjugated beings on a definitively lower level than that of men, both practically and ontologically. If that's not oppression, I don't know what is. Sure, women weren't working in the cotton fields with the slaves, but they had scarcely better ontological position, even if they were used as baby machines rather than hard laborers. They were indeed viewed as fundamentally incapable of doing important things. But acting upon this doesn't imply subjugation, any more than treating children as fundamentally incapable of doing some important things (such as driving, or consenting to sex, etc) is a form of subjugation. It's merely a means of protecting them, however misguided it might be. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/subjugationBringing someone under your control by making all their important decisions for them is literally the definition of subjugation. And it matters a lot that their attempts were misguided. I'm not trying to suggest that everyone in the ancient world was possessed by an evil malice and informed hatred of women; I'm arguing that they were oppressive and immoral in practice. Oppression is really nothing more than unjust subjugation. You need both parts. Children are subjugated to some extent, but it's not unjust because neuroscience and psychology have given us good reasons to believe that 5 year olds don't understand what life and death are and therefore shouldn't be allowed to run for political office. Conversely, a woman is, for all intents and purposes, just as capable as a man when it comes to decision making at an adult level. This is precisely why the treatment of women in the past was oppressive! Contemporary science tells us that children aren't capable of doing those things. Similarly, the prevailing wisdom which passed for "science" in the past told societies that women were not capable of doing those things, and accordingly both men and women accepted that treatment as normal, the way both parents and children (well, most children) accept their treatment as normal today. On June 19 2013 04:19 Shiori wrote:
Let me give you a parallel: when the US was debating abolishing slavery, proponents of slavery argued that slaves were actually better off in America (as slaves) than they were in Africa. Was this a good line of reasoning? Fuck no. Whether or not slavery was actually done in the best interests of slaves (and it pretty obviously wasn't) it was still a monstrously oppressive institution, and not just because of the physical aspects that you keep playing up. Like it or not, treating a fully capable adult human being as literal property is oppression because it is both subjugation and completely unjust. My whole argument is that it's up to the individuals to decide. Slavery was oppressive because the slaves did not consent to it. By contrast, my argument is that women consented to the societies that they were part of and helped to perpetuate. So North Korea isn't oppressive? I mean that's literally what you're arguing, given that there hasn't been a massive revolt in NK. North Korea hasn't been around very long. It took African-American slaves a few centuries too. Compare this with women, who had all of human history, and not only did nothing, but encouraged and perpetuated society. Also, consider the vast disparity in objective metrics for quality of life between the leaders of the North Korean regime and the typical citizen. Now consider that the disparity is actually in reverse for women, and that you're essentially arguing that women are oppressed despite having a better quality of life by most or nearly all accounts.
That's not relevant. I'm asking whether NK is oppressive. If you can't answer that because NK hasn't been around for very long, then your definition of oppression (in addition to being grossly different from the dictionary definition) is useless as a measure of injustice because it apparently only functions in hindsight.
Furthermore, you make a category error in presuming that women, like the African Americans, or the Hebrews, or whatever, are some homogeneous group with continuity. They weren't. Greek women had different issues than Roman women who had different issues than British or Jewish or American or Muslim or French or Italian women at various stages of human civilization. It is absurd to suppose that women as a group consented to anything because women are not, and have never been, a homogeneous group anymore than the Egyptian slaves were continuous with the African-American ones.
Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 05:27 Shiori wrote:
It's not just contemporary science that tells us children aren't capable of things...it's fucking obvious. Nobody in the history of forever has considered a toddler to be on par with a functioning adult in terms of decision making. Conversely, there has never been any obvious reason beyond institutionalized sexism to think that women are less capable of making choices than men. The obvious reason would be that women choose not to. As someone aptly pointed out earlier in this thread, humans are lazy. The arrangement in which men have to risk life and limb to work for the family while the wife stays comfortably at home is actually beneficial and easier for women than the other way around.
That is far from an obvious reason, because it is based on an erroneous conception of history which characterizes women as pampered princesses with maids (who were also women, be tee dubs) attending their every whim. In reality, women were saddled with a lot of managerial responsibility but none of the reward when it came to households (except to some degree in ancient Rome, where women had more autonomy when it came to property than in other cultures). I have no idea why you think men were out doing all this terribly difficult stuff while the women just sat around "comfortably." Aside from the fact that this is frankly false when it comes to any low-class ancient family, where the entire family participated in labour (and none of it was comfortable) this doesn't even apply in cases of high class women and men. Do you really think that this is some Hollywood production where kings were out literally winning battles with their own sword while their wives gossiped at the castle? Kings had military power, to be sure, but they weren't very useful leaders if they risked "life and limb." They, along with all the other wealthy, powerful people, would be responsible for raising levies and organizing armies, not actually forming the main combat force themselves.
While it is no doubt true that men have always been the primary victims of war, it is egregiously wrong to suggest that this means women were automatically in a favourable arrangement on the grounds that they weren't conscripted into the army. For one thing, a widow didn't exactly fare too well, but more than that, this is such a narrow, catch-all qualifier that it isn't worth anything. Contrary to popular belief, not every man was constantly out on the campaign trail with some moronic, war-hungry lord. In addition, large societies which required military service (Rome, Egypt, etc.) for citizens paid them well, gave them honour, and didn't actually have a particularly high fatality rate, since they were mostly crushing poorly organized barbarians or bettering the infrastructure of the empire/kingdom/whatever.
Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 05:27 Shiori wrote:
Prevailing wisdom here means shit that a bunch of male-dominated societies dreamed up based on anything from misogynistic philosophy to theology. I have no idea why you're treating it as if its supposed reasonableness means that it wasn't oppressive. I'm sure that someone who has been raised to believe that Kim Jong-Il is literally a god wouldn't have any problems with being his servant...but that doesn't mean it's not horribly oppressive. It's oppressive because Kim Jong-Il was not a god, and therefore, even if he actually believed he was, and even if everyone believed he was, his subjugation of his people was not justified because it was based on a premise that wasn't actually true. Truth or lack thereof isn't what makes something oppressive or not. It's freedom, or the absence thereof. Women as a group chose to perpetuate their social roles, until they recently chose to change them once things like birth control, household appliances, and office jobs became available.
Actually, truth underlies all decisions because if you don't understand what you're doing, you can't be held responsible for your decisions. This is exactly the principle we use to limit the rights of children, ironically: they don't understand a lot of fundamental things about the world, so we don't allow them to make important decisions. When a child does something they don't understand, we don't throw them in prison because we hold them to be ignorant rather than culpable. Similarly, women were the victims of systematic objectification and brainwashing from literally the moment they were born. It isn't remotely unreasonable to claim their consent was irrelevant given that it was based on false premises.
Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 05:27 Shiori wrote:
You're conflating consent with informed consent, fundamentally, which is why your argument makes no sense. Unlike African-Americans, women were not seized from a society in which they had enjoyed greater freedoms and thrown into slavery. They were born into a specific, gender-based class, and they never knew anything else. That's why it took so agonizingly long for women to gain equal rights. It wasn't because the arguments weren't there (because the arguments basically boil down to women are people because they're cogent human beings with sophisticated experiences, which has been obvious since the beginning of our species) but because people weren't just told the opposite, but told the opposite in such a fashion that it wasn't even a point of view; it was just the way things are. Aside from the first generation of slaves, most African-American slaves were born into slavery and never knew anything else. The same applies for most slaves throughout history. Yet all of those slaves, ranging from the Hebrews in Egypt to African-Americans, managed to figure it out. And you know why? Probably because their lives sucked. That goes a long way towards motivating you to do something about your circumstances.
Your lack of historical knowledge is showing again. African-American emancipation has virtually nothing in common with Egyptian or Hebrew (?????) slavery, given that the latter two groups are very poorly researched and, in particular, the Hebrews being slaves isn't even reliably attested to outside of the book of Exodus...
But since you've decided to lump all women from all time periods together as a homogeneous group, why not apply the same thing to slavery? Why the fuck did it take the collective mass of slaves so long to rise up and finally abolish slavery, even in Europe? Why did virtually every ancient empire have slaves for hundreds if not thousands of years? Were the slaves simply consenting to it because it was better than being executed? Does that count as a real choice?
By contrast, the gilded cage of women's lives was comfortable, at least relative to their male peers. And accordingly, they chose to enjoy them, instead of simply opening the until very recently, when the outside became more hospitable. And when they did choose to open the door, they encountered virtually no resist, especially compared with all of the other marginalized groups throughout history, which reinforces the notion that the cage wasn't locked in the first place.
Citation fucking needed. Please show that women lived in a "gilded cage" that was in any way comfortable to their peers. And no, military conscription does not and will never establish that women's lives were necessarily better than men's.
Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 05:27 Shiori wrote:
If we're actually living in the Matrix, we're being oppressed even if we don't know it, because we can't consent to something we're not even aware of. You have to actually know what the circumstances are and be free from restrictive systems to actually consent to a restrictive system (if such a thing is even really possible; I remain skeptical that consenting to slavery is not necessarily irrational, but whatever). I don't buy the argument that women are too stupid to know if they're being oppressed. Every human inherently recognizes inequality, oppression, and a lack of freedom, and that is why every single marginalized group eventually revolted.
You don't buy the argument that people are too dumb to know oppression when they see it, especially if it's widespread and systemic and based on ontology? Um, open up a history book, please! No shit every marginalized group eventually revolted, because your criteria for being a marginalized group is that they revolted. Circular reasoning if I ever saw it.
Besides, women eventually did revolt, hence the thousand year history of feminism and numerous examples of women dissatisfied with what society had dictated they do.
I'd like to propose the following thought question: if your point of view is true, and women willingly surrendered numerous rights, privileges, and so on in the interest of...something, then you must agree that, had a referendum been held (independently in every society that existed before the 1800's) in which all women could vote on the question of granting them additional rights, the vast majority would have voted "no" to preserve the status quo. Supposing that men were not allowed to know who voted for what, or to talk to women about any of these matters in the interest of preventing coercion, do you actually think women would have voted "no"?
Because I don't. But even if they did, it still wouldn't really matter since women of the pre-modern era were limited by the social landscape into which they were born. Still, all you really need to do is ask modern women whether they'd rather be a male or female living a thousand years ago. I bet you they'd pick being a man. Or is their ability to consent suddenly invalid?
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I don't know why you're bothering to argue sunprince. His entire position is simple Motivated Skepticism. He doesn't want to be convinced, and he will continue to dodge to avoid being convinced of anything. And the fact that he keeps talking about women as a homogenous group reeks of privilege. Yes, there were Uncle Toms as well. It's not like misogynistic women don't exist and it's not like biological determinism wasn't fully endorsed by society.
And obviously not all marginalized groups revolt. That's ridiculous. Some of them just die. Some of them are entirely broken and subjugated until outside forces free them. People are not in control of their own destiny. This is Just-World Hypothesis.
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On June 19 2013 08:08 DoubleReed wrote:
I don't know why you're bothering to argue sunprince. His entire position is simple Motivated Skepticism. He doesn't want to be convinced, and he will continue to dodge to avoid being convinced of anything. And the fact that he keeps talking about women as a homogenous group reeks of privilege. Yes, there were Uncle Toms as well. It's not like misogynistic women don't exist and it's not like biological determinism wasn't fully endorsed by society.
And obviously not all marginalized groups revolt. That's ridiculous. Some of them just die. Some of them are entirely broken and subjugated until outside forces free them. People are not in control of their own destiny. This is Just-World Hypothesis.
When you click on a thread that at some point talks about women's rights--you're bound to have an argument with sunprince. That's just the nature of the beast.
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Just as a throw in for the little gender debate, as I think it gives some perspective and focus on attitudes in the past: Women had the right to vote long before working class males did in Britain [we are of course talking about our anglo culture anyway]. Upper class Women that is, who then lost their right to vote when the franchise was extended [I believe around the time of the corn laws but I cant recall it specifically], as a compromise to the conservative classes in Britain.
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Ahh this made me lol =)
+ Show Spoiler +On June 19 2013 08:33 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 08:08 DoubleReed wrote:
I don't know why you're bothering to argue sunprince. His entire position is simple Motivated Skepticism. He doesn't want to be convinced, and he will continue to dodge to avoid being convinced of anything. And the fact that he keeps talking about women as a homogenous group reeks of privilege. Yes, there were Uncle Toms as well. It's not like misogynistic women don't exist and it's not like biological determinism wasn't fully endorsed by society.
And obviously not all marginalized groups revolt. That's ridiculous. Some of them just die. Some of them are entirely broken and subjugated until outside forces free them. People are not in control of their own destiny. This is Just-World Hypothesis. When you click on a thread that at some point talks about women's rights--you're bound to have an argument with sunprince. That's just the nature of the beast.
On a more serious note....
On June 19 2013 07:20 Nouar wrote:
Do people really think it's "protecting life" and the baby would be grateful to be alive knowing he's undesired and a product of rape ? Or even have a severe desease diagnosed in time and left alive ? Do you think they will enjoy their lives and be happy ? 1 out of how many will be ?
All examples I can think of be it friends or relatives... Undesired kids have it worse.
And do the people who think that feel it's good for the mother to CONSTANTLY, ALL HER LIFE have a memento of how she was raped and gave birth from that ? It destroys people. The mother. The child. The rest of the family. You can only know when it happens to you. Leave mothers or raped women to decide that please. Don't do it in their fucking place for misplaced beliefs on matters you never even come close to. And I know what I'm talking about here.
Parents decide. "Embryo rights" mean : "hey guy, you didn't have a choice we decided you were gonna leave your shitty life. Enjoy hell. Happy now ?" Better decide for him when he's not yet alive.
1. If I found out today that I was a rape baby, I wouldn't want to end my life. I'm sure most people feel that way.
2. I'm guessing you don't have a severe disease, but I'm sure the majority of those who do find your post extremely misinformed and insulting.
3. You can give the child up for adoption it doesn't have to be a constant reminder all your life unless you choose to make it so.
4. I don't know what's happened to you in your life, but you've demonstrated that you don't actually know what you're talking about, even if you have personal experience of some or all of these issues you're clearly not an authority on these matters.
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On June 19 2013 07:05 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 06:54 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 06:19 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 05:42 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:31 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:33 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:16 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:[quote] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. The reality is that they chose to forego these rights [citation needed] You left out the rest of my posts, which already explained the reasoning for this argument. Ultimately, I find it quite misogynistic of you and other posters here to insist on thinking of women as weak and helpless victims who spent millennia under an oppressive social system, rather than acknowledge that they may have perpetuated a system that benefited them. That's pretty much objectification to the fullest possible extent; instead of treating women as competent agents with the power to exercise their own choices, you reduce them to helpless objects. The rest of your post contained absolutely zero evidence to support the idea that women willingly chose to subject themselves to having less rights and liberties. Zero. Hence the "citation needed". Arguing that it "seems logic" from your point of view does not make it true. In fact, both history and the contemporary world are full of examples of the exact opposite. Your last paragraph is you essentially combining a strawman and a false premise. First, the strawman: arguing that women have historically not been the holders of the social power and authority that would have been needed to collectively change the very social structures that prevented them from being the equals of men in terms of rights and liberties (and obligations) certainly does not equate to objectifying them. Despite several examples of struggles of African Americans towards that end, slavery was not abolished in the United States until the Civil War - and it took half of the country fighting for that to achieve it. Does this mean we objectify African Americans? No, it means we recognize that, in their struggle for emancipation and recognition as perfectly equal human beings, alone they did not have sufficient power/authority to achieve the said change as early as they would have wanted (...from the start). The historical treatment of women does not even remotely approach the historical treatment of African-Americans. And yet, in spite of that, African-Americans achieved emancipation in a few centuries despite being a small minority of the population. Nobody tried to argue that the historical treatment of women was equal to the historical treatment of African Americans. The analogy was there to highlight that pointing out that a group does not hold the social/political power and authority to achieve structural change at a given point does not equate to demeaning/objectifying that group. The problem is that you've started your argument with the assumption that women were oppressed, instead of concluding this after providing evidence. In reality, virtually all of the objective metrics that we use to conclude that African Americans are oppressed and discriminated against such as the sentencing gap, the prosecution gap, the likelihood of violent crime victimization, the percentage of workplace deaths, the suicide rate, the homelessness percentage, the amount of federal aid given, etc. are all reversed when it comes to women, and have been historically as far as we have data. What objective metric do you have to conclude that women are or were oppressed in the first place, when all of the common measures used to determine quality of life show that women are and have been ahead? No, the problem is that you're refusing to address the points I'm making, in this case going as far as completely changing the topic. The analogy was there to respond to your assertion that we were demeaning women. My reply to you was that "pointing out that a group does not hold the social/political power and authority to achieve structural change at a given point does not equate to demeaning/objectifying that group". Except that your argument is that women never had the power to achieve structural change, when the reality is that they did.
[Citation again needed]
On June 19 2013 07:05 sunprince wrote:
You're demeaning them by calling them incapable, when in fact they were capable, but chose not to.
No, I'm not demeaning them, because I just explained to you why remarking a group has limited power to achieve structural change, and is affected by social norms that make it harder to challenge its inferior place in society, is not the same as demeaning that group. Regarding "choice", see below (again).
On June 19 2013 07:05 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 06:54 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 06:19 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 05:42 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:
Your argument rests on the assumption that women are so weak and helpless that they were unable to prevail in far easier conditions despite having millennia to do so and being slightly more than half of the population. I refuse to buy this misogynistic assumption. I pointed out why that was a strawman and I responded to it. Try answering my argument instead of repeating yours. On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:31 kwizach wrote:
Next, the false premise: you assume that agents necessarily can "exercise their own choices". This is false on two levels, with regards to resources and ideas. First, like we've seen, agents do not necessarily have the material, social or political resources to exercise their own choices. This doesn't mean that they're not "competent agents"; it simply means that agents are not omnipotent and are restrained in the choices that they can actually translate into action/change, in particular at the societal level. My argument is that you consider women non-agents because they weren't actually restrained in the choices they made, they were easily capable of subverting and overthrowing the social order but chose not to do so. You are again repeating your initial argument, which I debunked, instead of addressing my (lengthy) reply to you (you're in particular leaving out the second part of my argument in quoting me). Citation also still needed for your claim that women "chose" not to overthrow the social order. The fact that they didn't, when they could (given that they were in better circumstances than other groups that did) means that they chose not to. Why are you even replying to me if all you're going to do is repeat your initial statement which I thoroughly debunked? Here, let me copy/paste the entire relevant section of my initial post: Next, the false premise: you assume that agents necessarily can "exercise their own choices". This is false on two levels, with regards to resources and ideas. First, like we've seen, agents do not necessarily have the material, social or political resources to exercise their own choices. This doesn't mean that they're not "competent agents"; it simply means that agents are not omnipotent and are restrained in the choices that they can actually translate into action/change, in particular at the societal level.
Second, you are assuming that agents necessarily prevail over, and more precisely are completely independent of, structure. I dispute that assumption, and so do plenty of social science scholars. As a constructivist, I consider agent and structure to be co-constitutive, meaning that structure plays a role in shaping the decisions, and even identity, of agents, but that agents can also shape their own identity and in turn bring about structural change (to make it quick). More concretely and to come back to the issue at hand, you'll find plenty of examples of people who have internalized social norms that do not necessarily benefit them and do not attempt (or even think about attempting) to challenge them, precisely because that internalization "prevents them" from reaching the kind of costs/benefits calculation you speak of, or makes them discard such calculation as inappropriate. Of course, this certainly does not mean that personal reflections, external events, interactions with others, acquisition of new knowledge and plenty of other mechanisms cannot bring about a questioning and possibly a rejection of these norms, and you'll again find plenty of such examples throughout history. The point, however, is that you can't simply assert an agent is completely independent in the choices he considers, or even in the bringing about of a consideration of choice in the first place, as if this was necessarily true. If you're going to defend that position (namely that certain accepted social norms play no role in determining in part the position and decisions of certain agents, in this case women with regards to their place in society), you're again going to need to provide evidence.
To sum up, your idea of an agent free to exercise his "own choices" is flawed with regards to the debate at hand both in terms of the various types of resources (or lack thereof) at the disposition of the agent in question and in terms of your assertion of how agents necessarily have access to, and can exercise, choice on an ideational level. Feel free to reply when you have actual counter-arguments to put forward. There is nothing to answer here, because you are once again arguing with the assumption that women were powerless in the first place. I disagree with that fundamental assumption, so there is no point in arguing further down the line of reasoning when it's broken near the beginning.
No, see, that's you reducing my argument to a caricature and calling it an "assumption" to avoid having to discuss the actual argument. It's also not even a matter of "arguing further down the line" since I directly replied to your assertion that they had a choice and chose willingly to have an inferior place in society. You, on the other hand, have been shutting your ears and repeating that they had a choice without ever providing any evidence (or even logic) to support that claim. Again, here is my response to you :
Next, the false premise: you assume that agents necessarily can "exercise their own choices". This is false on two levels, with regards to resources and ideas. First, like we've seen, agents do not necessarily have the material, social or political resources to exercise their own choices. This doesn't mean that they're not "competent agents"; it simply means that agents are not omnipotent and are restrained in the choices that they can actually translate into action/change, in particular at the societal level.
Second, you are assuming that agents necessarily prevail over, and more precisely are completely independent of, structure. I dispute that assumption, and so do plenty of social science scholars. As a constructivist, I consider agent and structure to be co-constitutive, meaning that structure plays a role in shaping the decisions, and even identity, of agents, but that agents can also shape their own identity and in turn bring about structural change (to make it quick). More concretely and to come back to the issue at hand, you'll find plenty of examples of people who have internalized social norms that do not necessarily benefit them and do not attempt (or even think about attempting) to challenge them, precisely because that internalization "prevents them" from reaching the kind of costs/benefits calculation you speak of, or makes them discard such calculation as inappropriate. Of course, this certainly does not mean that personal reflections, external events, interactions with others, acquisition of new knowledge and plenty of other mechanisms cannot bring about a questioning and possibly a rejection of these norms, and you'll again find plenty of such examples throughout history. The point, however, is that you can't simply assert an agent is completely independent in the choices he considers, or even in the bringing about of a consideration of choice in the first place, as if this was necessarily true. If you're going to defend that position (namely that certain accepted social norms play no role in determining in part the position and decisions of certain agents, in this case women with regards to their place in society), you're again going to need to provide evidence.
To sum up, your idea of an agent free to exercise his "own choices" is flawed with regards to the debate at hand both in terms of the various types of resources (or lack thereof) at the disposition of the agent in question and in terms of your assertion of how agents necessarily have access to, and can exercise, choice on an ideational level.
If you have no counter-argument, no need to reply. You've already stated your position several times.
On June 19 2013 07:05 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 06:54 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 06:19 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 05:42 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:31 kwizach wrote:For example, when you write that women's suffrage came about when "a majority of women wanted it" (emphasis mine), you're conveniently not mentioning that the women which already wanted to vote previously could not - i.e. they could not translate their choice of wanting to vote into actual votes.) Actually, I was referring to polls here. When the women's suffrage movement began, many of the people opposed to it were women. The biggest battle for women was convincing other women, while men stood by to accept whatever they decided. As soon as a majority of women supported women's suffrage, lawmakers quickly enacted it into law. Compare this with the violent resistance against black suffrage. Yes, I know you were referring to polls. That remark was there to point out that you are only speaking of choice at the aggregate level for women, instead of the choice granted to women as individuals. Gender roles, including rights and responsibilities, are determined at the aggregate level by societies. Exceptions exist, but for those people there are also exceptions to gender roles too. Yes, and socially-accepted gender roles can prevent individuals from exercising their choices the way they would want to - for example by voting. Thank you for agreeing with me. Except that this doesn't support your argument that women as a group were oppressed.
Except that I already told you that's not what I was discussing with you - I was discussing access to choice and possibility to act upon choice. You just agreed with me that individual women could not act upon their choices, thanks!
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On June 19 2013 05:57 Reason wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 05:46 E.L.V.I.S wrote:On June 16 2013 01:49 farvacola wrote:
I don't know what the big deal is with incestuous birth; congenial birth defects don't sound so bad.
User was temp banned for this post. temp banned for this post, this is an other thing that shows to me that you should not speak your mind on teamliquid... just stupid It was a misunderstanding and the ban was revoked. If you'd done any research on the matter you'd have found that out for yourself. Speaking your mind is welcome, though preferably if you are informed on the matter of which you speak.
aah ok my bad on this one, I'll research later sorry for that..
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On June 19 2013 08:57 Reason wrote:Ahh this made me lol =) + Show Spoiler +On June 19 2013 08:33 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 08:08 DoubleReed wrote:
I don't know why you're bothering to argue sunprince. His entire position is simple Motivated Skepticism. He doesn't want to be convinced, and he will continue to dodge to avoid being convinced of anything. And the fact that he keeps talking about women as a homogenous group reeks of privilege. Yes, there were Uncle Toms as well. It's not like misogynistic women don't exist and it's not like biological determinism wasn't fully endorsed by society.
And obviously not all marginalized groups revolt. That's ridiculous. Some of them just die. Some of them are entirely broken and subjugated until outside forces free them. People are not in control of their own destiny. This is Just-World Hypothesis. When you click on a thread that at some point talks about women's rights--you're bound to have an argument with sunprince. That's just the nature of the beast. On a more serious note.... Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 07:20 Nouar wrote:
Do people really think it's "protecting life" and the baby would be grateful to be alive knowing he's undesired and a product of rape ? Or even have a severe desease diagnosed in time and left alive ? Do you think they will enjoy their lives and be happy ? 1 out of how many will be ?
All examples I can think of be it friends or relatives... Undesired kids have it worse.
And do the people who think that feel it's good for the mother to CONSTANTLY, ALL HER LIFE have a memento of how she was raped and gave birth from that ? It destroys people. The mother. The child. The rest of the family. You can only know when it happens to you. Leave mothers or raped women to decide that please. Don't do it in their fucking place for misplaced beliefs on matters you never even come close to. And I know what I'm talking about here.
Parents decide. "Embryo rights" mean : "hey guy, you didn't have a choice we decided you were gonna leave your shitty life. Enjoy hell. Happy now ?" Better decide for him when he's not yet alive. 1. If I found out today that I was a rape baby, I wouldn't want to end my life. I'm sure most people feel that way. 2. I'm guessing you don't have a severe disease, but I'm sure the majority of those who do find your post extremely misinformed and insulting. 3. You can give the child up for adoption it doesn't have to be a constant reminder all your life unless you choose to make it so. 4. I don't know what's happened to you in your life, but you've demonstrated that you don't actually know what you're talking about, even if you have personal experience of some or all of these issues you're clearly not an authority on these matters.
The only thing I want is the women/families having the choice to do whatever they think fit in those cases. Not for people who never experienced anything like that to decide based on religious/conceptual beliefs.
1) A mother who was raped and had a child, will in most cases, not have an easy life and upbringing, and have mixed feelings about the child. Same for the family. When he will grow up, he will most probably feel it deep in his soul. Being an unwanted child is one of the hardest thing to learn. Just have your parents tell you you were an error but they had no choice but to keep you, and see how you do. Now imagine your only mother tell you she was raped and you're a rapist's baby.
No, YOU wouldn't want to end your life, but many would be destroyed to their core.
2) There are quite a lot of severe deseases in my entourage, friends and family. In most cases, the family got destroyed and one of the parents is trying his best (and destroying himself, his health, and his money, in the process) at raising that child alone. A child who has no future but to stay in a wheelchair or a hospital bed. Parents who can only watch their child grow up and in most cases die young, being sad. Would that life be worth it if you were in his place ? Would you be happy to see your family torn because of you ? I wouldn't.
(I'm talking about SERIOUS deseases, disabling ones.)
3) Yes, could be. Not a lot of children put up for adoption here.
I might not be an authority on those matters, I just want to let the people who have to deal with those, actually decide what they want to do. It's a *right* to abortion, not a compulsory abortion. Meaning they would have the choice. Forbidding it means no choice, only to abide by a few beliefs.
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On June 19 2013 18:51 Nouar wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 08:57 Reason wrote:Ahh this made me lol =) + Show Spoiler +On June 19 2013 08:33 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 08:08 DoubleReed wrote:
I don't know why you're bothering to argue sunprince. His entire position is simple Motivated Skepticism. He doesn't want to be convinced, and he will continue to dodge to avoid being convinced of anything. And the fact that he keeps talking about women as a homogenous group reeks of privilege. Yes, there were Uncle Toms as well. It's not like misogynistic women don't exist and it's not like biological determinism wasn't fully endorsed by society.
And obviously not all marginalized groups revolt. That's ridiculous. Some of them just die. Some of them are entirely broken and subjugated until outside forces free them. People are not in control of their own destiny. This is Just-World Hypothesis. When you click on a thread that at some point talks about women's rights--you're bound to have an argument with sunprince. That's just the nature of the beast. On a more serious note.... On June 19 2013 07:20 Nouar wrote:
Do people really think it's "protecting life" and the baby would be grateful to be alive knowing he's undesired and a product of rape ? Or even have a severe desease diagnosed in time and left alive ? Do you think they will enjoy their lives and be happy ? 1 out of how many will be ?
All examples I can think of be it friends or relatives... Undesired kids have it worse.
And do the people who think that feel it's good for the mother to CONSTANTLY, ALL HER LIFE have a memento of how she was raped and gave birth from that ? It destroys people. The mother. The child. The rest of the family. You can only know when it happens to you. Leave mothers or raped women to decide that please. Don't do it in their fucking place for misplaced beliefs on matters you never even come close to. And I know what I'm talking about here.
Parents decide. "Embryo rights" mean : "hey guy, you didn't have a choice we decided you were gonna leave your shitty life. Enjoy hell. Happy now ?" Better decide for him when he's not yet alive. 1. If I found out today that I was a rape baby, I wouldn't want to end my life. I'm sure most people feel that way. 2. I'm guessing you don't have a severe disease, but I'm sure the majority of those who do find your post extremely misinformed and insulting. 3. You can give the child up for adoption it doesn't have to be a constant reminder all your life unless you choose to make it so. 4. I don't know what's happened to you in your life, but you've demonstrated that you don't actually know what you're talking about, even if you have personal experience of some or all of these issues you're clearly not an authority on these matters. The only thing I want is the women/families having the choice to do whatever they think fit in those cases. Not for people who never experienced anything like that to decide based on religious/conceptual beliefs. 1) A mother who was raped and had a child, will in most cases, not have an easy life and upbringing, and have mixed feelings about the child. Same for the family. When he will grow up, he will most probably feel it deep in his soul. Being an unwanted child is one of the hardest thing to learn. Just have your parents tell you you were an error but they had no choice but to keep you, and see how you do. Now imagine your only mother tell you she was raped and you're a rapist's baby. No, YOU wouldn't want to end your life, but many would be destroyed to their core. 2) There are quite a lot of severe deseases in my entourage, friends and family. In most cases, the family got destroyed and one of the parents is trying his best (and destroying himself, his health, and his money, in the process) at raising that child alone. A child who has no future but to stay in a wheelchair or a hospital bed. Parents who can only watch their child grow up and in most cases die young, being sad. Would that life be worth it if you were in his place ? Would you be happy to see your family torn because of you ? I wouldn't. (I'm talking about SERIOUS deseases, disabling ones.) 3) Yes, could be. Not a lot of children put up for adoption here. I might not be an authority on those matters, I just want to let the people who have to deal with those, actually decide what they want to do. It's a *right* to abortion, not a compulsory abortion. Meaning they would have the choice. Forbidding it means no choice, only to abide by a few beliefs.
Okay, you've toned it down a bit and you're making a little more sense. I still disagree with almost every individual thing you're saying, but I completely agree with your statement at the end.
The fact still stands that people *do* have the right to abortion and nobody in their right mind is disagreeing with that. This is about terminating late in pregnancy, long after such a decision should have been made. I still maintain that circumstances are irrelevant, 4 months is long enough to make your decision. If you wait until after 4 months then change your mind, too bad, you waited too long. If you don't want the baby then give it up for adoption once you've given birth.
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United Kingdom36156 Posts
On June 19 2013 08:57 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 07:05 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 06:54 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 06:19 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 05:42 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:31 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:33 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:16 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:
[quote]
The reality is that they chose to forego these rights [citation needed] You left out the rest of my posts, which already explained the reasoning for this argument. Ultimately, I find it quite misogynistic of you and other posters here to insist on thinking of women as weak and helpless victims who spent millennia under an oppressive social system, rather than acknowledge that they may have perpetuated a system that benefited them. That's pretty much objectification to the fullest possible extent; instead of treating women as competent agents with the power to exercise their own choices, you reduce them to helpless objects. The rest of your post contained absolutely zero evidence to support the idea that women willingly chose to subject themselves to having less rights and liberties. Zero. Hence the "citation needed". Arguing that it "seems logic" from your point of view does not make it true. In fact, both history and the contemporary world are full of examples of the exact opposite. Your last paragraph is you essentially combining a strawman and a false premise. First, the strawman: arguing that women have historically not been the holders of the social power and authority that would have been needed to collectively change the very social structures that prevented them from being the equals of men in terms of rights and liberties (and obligations) certainly does not equate to objectifying them. Despite several examples of struggles of African Americans towards that end, slavery was not abolished in the United States until the Civil War - and it took half of the country fighting for that to achieve it. Does this mean we objectify African Americans? No, it means we recognize that, in their struggle for emancipation and recognition as perfectly equal human beings, alone they did not have sufficient power/authority to achieve the said change as early as they would have wanted (...from the start). The historical treatment of women does not even remotely approach the historical treatment of African-Americans. And yet, in spite of that, African-Americans achieved emancipation in a few centuries despite being a small minority of the population. Nobody tried to argue that the historical treatment of women was equal to the historical treatment of African Americans. The analogy was there to highlight that pointing out that a group does not hold the social/political power and authority to achieve structural change at a given point does not equate to demeaning/objectifying that group. The problem is that you've started your argument with the assumption that women were oppressed, instead of concluding this after providing evidence. In reality, virtually all of the objective metrics that we use to conclude that African Americans are oppressed and discriminated against such as the sentencing gap, the prosecution gap, the likelihood of violent crime victimization, the percentage of workplace deaths, the suicide rate, the homelessness percentage, the amount of federal aid given, etc. are all reversed when it comes to women, and have been historically as far as we have data. What objective metric do you have to conclude that women are or were oppressed in the first place, when all of the common measures used to determine quality of life show that women are and have been ahead? No, the problem is that you're refusing to address the points I'm making, in this case going as far as completely changing the topic. The analogy was there to respond to your assertion that we were demeaning women. My reply to you was that "pointing out that a group does not hold the social/political power and authority to achieve structural change at a given point does not equate to demeaning/objectifying that group". Except that your argument is that women never had the power to achieve structural change, when the reality is that they did. [Citation again needed] Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 07:05 sunprince wrote:
You're demeaning them by calling them incapable, when in fact they were capable, but chose not to. No, I'm not demeaning them, because I just explained to you why remarking a group has limited power to achieve structural change, and is affected by social norms that make it harder to challenge its inferior place in society, is not the same as demeaning that group. Regarding "choice", see below (again). Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 07:05 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 06:54 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 06:19 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 05:42 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:
Your argument rests on the assumption that women are so weak and helpless that they were unable to prevail in far easier conditions despite having millennia to do so and being slightly more than half of the population. I refuse to buy this misogynistic assumption. I pointed out why that was a strawman and I responded to it. Try answering my argument instead of repeating yours. On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:31 kwizach wrote:
Next, the false premise: you assume that agents necessarily can "exercise their own choices". This is false on two levels, with regards to resources and ideas. First, like we've seen, agents do not necessarily have the material, social or political resources to exercise their own choices. This doesn't mean that they're not "competent agents"; it simply means that agents are not omnipotent and are restrained in the choices that they can actually translate into action/change, in particular at the societal level. My argument is that you consider women non-agents because they weren't actually restrained in the choices they made, they were easily capable of subverting and overthrowing the social order but chose not to do so. You are again repeating your initial argument, which I debunked, instead of addressing my (lengthy) reply to you (you're in particular leaving out the second part of my argument in quoting me). Citation also still needed for your claim that women "chose" not to overthrow the social order. The fact that they didn't, when they could (given that they were in better circumstances than other groups that did) means that they chose not to. Why are you even replying to me if all you're going to do is repeat your initial statement which I thoroughly debunked? Here, let me copy/paste the entire relevant section of my initial post: Next, the false premise: you assume that agents necessarily can "exercise their own choices". This is false on two levels, with regards to resources and ideas. First, like we've seen, agents do not necessarily have the material, social or political resources to exercise their own choices. This doesn't mean that they're not "competent agents"; it simply means that agents are not omnipotent and are restrained in the choices that they can actually translate into action/change, in particular at the societal level.
Second, you are assuming that agents necessarily prevail over, and more precisely are completely independent of, structure. I dispute that assumption, and so do plenty of social science scholars. As a constructivist, I consider agent and structure to be co-constitutive, meaning that structure plays a role in shaping the decisions, and even identity, of agents, but that agents can also shape their own identity and in turn bring about structural change (to make it quick). More concretely and to come back to the issue at hand, you'll find plenty of examples of people who have internalized social norms that do not necessarily benefit them and do not attempt (or even think about attempting) to challenge them, precisely because that internalization "prevents them" from reaching the kind of costs/benefits calculation you speak of, or makes them discard such calculation as inappropriate. Of course, this certainly does not mean that personal reflections, external events, interactions with others, acquisition of new knowledge and plenty of other mechanisms cannot bring about a questioning and possibly a rejection of these norms, and you'll again find plenty of such examples throughout history. The point, however, is that you can't simply assert an agent is completely independent in the choices he considers, or even in the bringing about of a consideration of choice in the first place, as if this was necessarily true. If you're going to defend that position (namely that certain accepted social norms play no role in determining in part the position and decisions of certain agents, in this case women with regards to their place in society), you're again going to need to provide evidence.
To sum up, your idea of an agent free to exercise his "own choices" is flawed with regards to the debate at hand both in terms of the various types of resources (or lack thereof) at the disposition of the agent in question and in terms of your assertion of how agents necessarily have access to, and can exercise, choice on an ideational level. Feel free to reply when you have actual counter-arguments to put forward. There is nothing to answer here, because you are once again arguing with the assumption that women were powerless in the first place. I disagree with that fundamental assumption, so there is no point in arguing further down the line of reasoning when it's broken near the beginning. No, see, that's you reducing my argument to a caricature and calling it an "assumption" to avoid having to discuss the actual argument. It's also not even a matter of "arguing further down the line" since I directly replied to your assertion that they had a choice and chose willingly to have an inferior place in society. You, on the other hand, have been shutting your ears and repeating that they had a choice without ever providing any evidence (or even logic) to support that claim. Again, here is my response to you : Show nested quote +Next, the false premise: you assume that agents necessarily can "exercise their own choices". This is false on two levels, with regards to resources and ideas. First, like we've seen, agents do not necessarily have the material, social or political resources to exercise their own choices. This doesn't mean that they're not "competent agents"; it simply means that agents are not omnipotent and are restrained in the choices that they can actually translate into action/change, in particular at the societal level.
Second, you are assuming that agents necessarily prevail over, and more precisely are completely independent of, structure. I dispute that assumption, and so do plenty of social science scholars. As a constructivist, I consider agent and structure to be co-constitutive, meaning that structure plays a role in shaping the decisions, and even identity, of agents, but that agents can also shape their own identity and in turn bring about structural change (to make it quick). More concretely and to come back to the issue at hand, you'll find plenty of examples of people who have internalized social norms that do not necessarily benefit them and do not attempt (or even think about attempting) to challenge them, precisely because that internalization "prevents them" from reaching the kind of costs/benefits calculation you speak of, or makes them discard such calculation as inappropriate. Of course, this certainly does not mean that personal reflections, external events, interactions with others, acquisition of new knowledge and plenty of other mechanisms cannot bring about a questioning and possibly a rejection of these norms, and you'll again find plenty of such examples throughout history. The point, however, is that you can't simply assert an agent is completely independent in the choices he considers, or even in the bringing about of a consideration of choice in the first place, as if this was necessarily true. If you're going to defend that position (namely that certain accepted social norms play no role in determining in part the position and decisions of certain agents, in this case women with regards to their place in society), you're again going to need to provide evidence.
To sum up, your idea of an agent free to exercise his "own choices" is flawed with regards to the debate at hand both in terms of the various types of resources (or lack thereof) at the disposition of the agent in question and in terms of your assertion of how agents necessarily have access to, and can exercise, choice on an ideational level. If you have no counter-argument, no need to reply. You've already stated your position several times. Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 07:05 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 06:54 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 06:19 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 05:42 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 05:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 04:31 kwizach wrote:For example, when you write that women's suffrage came about when "a majority of women wanted it" (emphasis mine), you're conveniently not mentioning that the women which already wanted to vote previously could not - i.e. they could not translate their choice of wanting to vote into actual votes.) Actually, I was referring to polls here. When the women's suffrage movement began, many of the people opposed to it were women. The biggest battle for women was convincing other women, while men stood by to accept whatever they decided. As soon as a majority of women supported women's suffrage, lawmakers quickly enacted it into law. Compare this with the violent resistance against black suffrage. Yes, I know you were referring to polls. That remark was there to point out that you are only speaking of choice at the aggregate level for women, instead of the choice granted to women as individuals. Gender roles, including rights and responsibilities, are determined at the aggregate level by societies. Exceptions exist, but for those people there are also exceptions to gender roles too. Yes, and socially-accepted gender roles can prevent individuals from exercising their choices the way they would want to - for example by voting. Thank you for agreeing with me. Except that this doesn't support your argument that women as a group were oppressed. Except that I already told you that's not what I was discussing with you - I was discussing access to choice and possibility to act upon choice. You just agreed with me that individual women could not act upon their choices, thanks!
sunprince, you'd do well to actually directly address his points that he's bringing up, because kwizach is right, you keep skirting around them without directly addressing what he's actually written.
Otherwise this (interesting) conversation will keep going round in pointless circles.
Edit: for example, you tell kwizach "you're demeaning them by saying they're incapable" - this simply is nowhere near the thrust of his argument, yet you keep repeating it. It's not what he's saying.
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