Thoughts on Feminists

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I need feminism because I broke my friend’s heart by courtship-zoning her when she just needed shelter from the storm, and then adding to that storm when she was understandably unsure and overwhelmed. I alone am responsible for the ensuing craziness and friendships lost. I need feminism because the so-called “men’s rights” movement seeks to trivialize experiences like hers and feed men’s entitled rage, whereas feminism seeks to dismantle the very patriarchy from which I internalized the toxic attitudes that made me an asshole in the first place.

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Feminism is one of the stupidest fucking things ever invented. The idea that men and women are equal is stupid and not the truth. The truth is that there are some things that men tend to be better at, and there are some things that women tend to be better at. It's not my fault that you were not born with a fucking dick, so you're just going to have to learn that people are going to judge you for not shaving your goddamn arm pits.

Thoughts?

Not shaving their armpits is not nearly as gross as not shaving their pussy, I don't lick their armpits

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Feminism is one of the stupidest fucking things ever invented. The idea that men and women are equal is stupid and not the truth. The truth is that there are some things that men tend to be better at, and there are some things that women tend to be better at. It's not my fault that you were not born with a fucking dick, so you're just going to have to learn that people are going to judge you for not shaving your goddamn arm pits.

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Complete straw man of feminism

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Complete straw man of feminism

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Obvious troll is obvious.

Obviously

Mr. Now, if you are truly this bored, there's a perfectly good hobby waiting for you in Blogs & Ops. I even named my main character spoony and everything.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Complete straw man of feminism

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How do you know it's not a strawwoman, huh?

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Originally Posted by jyms

Not shaving their armpits is not nearly as gross as not shaving their pussy, I don't lick their armpits

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You're missing out.

I'm all for equal rights but when you go on a tirade during a dinner party I get pretty annoyed really fucking quickly.

So i was curious and googled.

Found this Who Needs Feminism?

Where the person who wrote the quote spoon quoted is this guy

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_me...ur5o1_1280.jpg

And where the rest of the people are trying to use feminism to decide everything BUT what feminism is supposed to support.
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I believe women should have equal rights. I believe that women still have an unjust disadvantage in many avenues of life. I think this should make me a feminist. However I will not identify as one, because of the absurdities pushed forth by most of the people I run into that self identify as one.

And then there are the women who are complete hypocrites. They would never iron their boyfriend/husbands shirt, yet they expect doors to be held open for them. I'm not saying that a woman should do X, Y, or Z, but if they reject everything that was traditionally a woman's roll, they need to reject everything that was traditionally done as a courtesy to women-- or at the very least not expect it.

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Feminism is one of the stupidest fucking things ever invented. The idea that men and women are equal is stupid and not the truth.

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i dont think feminists claim that men and women are genetically identical and thus equally capable of lifting heavy things/running fast/being sensitive to emotions/bearing children etc etc?

i could definitely be wrong

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Originally Posted by boost

I believe women should have equal rights. I believe that women still have an unjust disadvantage in many avenues of life. I think this should make me a feminist. However I will not identify as one, because of the absurdities pushed forth by most of the people I run into that self identify as one.

And then there are the women who are complete hypocrites. They would never iron their boyfriend/husbands shirt, yet they expect doors to be held open for them. I'm not saying that a woman should do X, Y, or Z, but if they reject everything that was traditionally a woman's roll, they need to reject everything that was traditionally done as a courtesy to women-- or at the very least not expect it.

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nice post. i too am all for equal rights and opportunities. but many feminists/feminist ideas i've encountered seem to want not social equality between genders, but just more for females (and seemingly without limit, as in your example)

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Originally Posted by JKDS

So i was curious and googled.

Found this Who Needs Feminism?

Where the person who wrote the quote spoon quoted is this guy

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_me...ur5o1_1280.jpg

And where the rest of the people are trying to use feminism to decide everything BUT what feminism is supposed to support.
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yeah, see, browsing that site, I do agree with a lot of them. Middle East shit is fucked up. Abortion being illegal is fucked up. Societies pressures on women (and men) is fucked up. But then I see shit like this:

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I need feminism because buying a woman dinner does NOT mean you are entitled to sex.

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Yes, you are right, but you should probably not have guys paying for your dinner all the time. Maybe you should step the fuck up and offer to pay for dinner. Or offer to have it split. Seriously, girls who expect, or even let a guy pay for everything make me sick, because they are selfishly enjoying the benefits of a patriarchal society and not even acknowledging that they are keeping it alive by doing so. Fuck them.

Conversation with an entitled cunt feminist.

Feminism is a well-meaning concept which gets taken way too far by most people who espouse it. Most of the forms of discrimination in modern industrialized nations are either manufactured by the feminist movement or extremely exaggerated.

The Lily Ledbetter act is retarded because, all things being equal, a man should be paid somewhat more than a woman. With a female employee there is always a statistical threat that she will have to take maternity leave, and this has a real money cost to the employer. This statistical threat is much reduced to near non-existence for the equally qualified man, and there is a monetary value to that difference in risk. This is unfortunate for careerist women who have no intention of having children, as they are penalized anyway, but it is just reality. Young single males pay more for auto insurance because they are in a statistically risky demographic. This is unfortunate for young single males who are intelligent, mature, and safe drivers.

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Originally Posted by boost

Yes, you are right, but you should probably not have guys paying for your dinner all the time. Maybe you should step the fuck up and offer to pay for dinner. Or offer to have it split. Seriously, girls who expect, or even let a guy pay for everything make me sick, because they are selfishly enjoying the benefits of a patriarchal society and not even acknowledging that they are keeping it alive by doing so. Fuck them.

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I do not think things like this are a critique of feminism. Most people (including women) don't really know anything about feminism, and when women believe things like "pay for my dinner" while also believing "I deserve equal pay", they're not expressing a feminist view at all.

Most debate about feminism is a bunch of straw men. I only learned as much after I had several debates with a real feminist, yet I also still don't understand the issue well enough to give a fully informed opinion on what feminism really is. It seems to me, however, that the public debate on feminism has nothing to do with feminism whatsoever, and things that are about feminism (like the new gender neutral easy bake oven which will play its own tiny role in pigeon-holing the female gender to a lesser degree) are not even recognized.

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Originally Posted by Renton

The Lily Ledbetter act is retarded because, all things being equal, a man should be paid somewhat more than a woman. With a female employee there is always a statistical threat that she will have to take maternity leave, and this has a real money cost to the employer. This statistical threat is much reduced to near non-existence for the equally qualified man, and there is a monetary value to that difference in risk. This is unfortunate for careerist women who have no intention of having children, as they are penalized anyway, but it is just reality. Young single males pay more for auto insurance because they are in a statistically risky demographic. This is unfortunate for young single males who are intelligent, mature, and safe drivers.

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Your rationale is one, that when applied to other areas, has been deemed inappropriate. It is the kind that can (and has) been used to explain why black people shouldn't be treated equally. You are definitely statistically more likely to make less money if you have black employees than white ones; therefore, the logic is that it would only make sense that it is okay to discriminate against black people just like we discriminate against women

But even without that, the notion that women can be discriminated against due to maternity leave is textbook misogyny and is the type of reason for why feminism exists in the first place. Maternal roles are a necessary part of human life, and when we treat those roles as subservient to non-maternal roles, we are subordinating the gender that comes with it. This is wrong and bigoted

Besides, the solution to maternity leave is to include equal paternity leave. But even if that wasn't the solution, these popular justifications for discriminatory practices against women are really no different than ones against other subgroups we already consider wrong.


We live in a very misogynistic country and we don't even know it

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Your rationale is one, that when applied to other areas, has been deemed inappropriate. It is the kind that can (and has) been used to explain why black people shouldn't be treated equally. You are definitely statistically more likely to make less money if you have black employees than white ones; therefore, the logic is that it would only make sense that it is okay to discriminate against black people just like we discriminate against women

What? How did you make that leap? There aren't physically existent attributes to black people that cost employers more than whites. I don't think you can state that you are "definitely" likely to make less money with black employees.

But even without that, the notion that women can be discriminated against due to maternity leave is textbook misogyny and is the type of reason for why feminism exists in the first place. Maternal roles are a necessary part of human life, and when we treat those roles as subservient to non-maternal roles, we are subordinating the gender that comes with it. This is wrong and bigoted

No it isn't. Whenever you ignore an economic reality for moral reasons you've hurt the economy. Risk assessment is extremely important to running a business, and maternity leave risk needs to be reconciled, one way or the other. It's not about maternal roles being subservient to anything. It's just accounting for reality.

Besides, the solution to maternity leave is to include equal paternity leave.

If I'm not mistaken, that already exists in America. Are you suggesting that we should now force men with newborn children to take six months off work?

But even if that wasn't the solution, these popular justifications for discriminatory practices against women are really no different than ones against other subgroups we already consider wrong.

I think your example with blacks is completely wrong, do you have any other examples?

We live in a very misogynistic country and we don't even know it

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I'm all for equality, but we have to accept that there are biological differences between the sexes that cannot be ignored.

Like how women generally have smaller feet so they can stand closer to the sink.

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Originally Posted by renton

What? How did you make that leap? There aren't physically existent attributes to black people that cost employers more than whites. I don't think you can state that you are "definitely" likely to make less money with black employees.

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Sure I can. Just like how if there was any gathering of statistics on the matter, you could find that those with Asian employees make more money. The more myopic the criteria, the more statistics can back anything.

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No it isn't. Whenever you ignore an economic reality for moral reasons you've hurt the economy. Risk assessment is extremely important to running a business, and maternity leave risk needs to be reconciled, one way or the other. It's not about maternal roles being subservient to anything. It's just accounting for reality.

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But not accounting for the reality of social and gender roles? Economics isn't the end-all-be-all; there are a plethora of things we consider horrible that can be considered pretty great economically.

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If I'm not mistaken, that already exists in America. Are you suggesting that we should now force men with newborn children to take six months off work?

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Probably not, but that also means you can't have your cake and eat it too by dispersing a societal burden across the society. Babies need to be made and somebody needs to take leave; if men don't wanna play an equal part in that it then becomes an inequality. Men don't have to take paternity leave, but they can't have it both ways by then also punishing women for playing the necessary role, socially and economically.

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I think your example with blacks is completely wrong, do you have any other examples?

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Name it, and if it's discriminatory, it's an example. There is no difference when making females of lesser status and opportunity to males with making blacks of lesser status and opportunity to whites.

The point of feminism is to try to right the wrongs of one gender being unequal to the other gender. What this means is that sexes have to share in both the gains and the losses of those gender roles. It is wrong for the burden of childcare to be disproportionately placed on one gender. There are many gender issues, some that affect men. Some of them aren't really that important, but some of them are, and the maternity leave one is quite important when it comes to significantly broadening the equality and opportunities for people born of the female sex relative to what men already have

I think Renton put it well, and I agree with it. The think tank of society doesn't however, but wuf, in some areas (such as the assurance example) we can look at differences, but not in others, because there it is discrimination? It goes too far if you want to obfuscate simple facts and reality because they discriminate.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Economics isn't the end-all-be-all; there are a plethora of things we consider horrible that can be considered pretty great economically.

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Like what?

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Sure I can. Just like how if there was any gathering of statistics on the matter, you could find that those with Asian employees make more money. The more myopic the criteria, the more statistics can back anything.

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Oh that is the direction you were going. I don't see how the fact that Asians are higher than average productivity workers and blacks are lower than average, both due to large class and education differences, relates to discrimination in the work place. Of course an IT firm is going to hire more Asians than Blacks, more Asians than Blacks have degrees in IT. There is absolutely zero economic incentive to discriminate against a race for a job. To do so cedes a clear advantage to non-discriminatory competitors. And this is all completely unrelated to the logical reasons why a firm might pay a woman less than an equally qualified man.

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Probably not, but that also means you can't have your cake and eat it too by dispersing a societal burden across the society. Babies need to be made and somebody needs to take leave; if men don't wanna play an equal part in that it then becomes an inequality. Men don't have to take paternity leave, but they can't have it both ways by then also punishing women for playing the necessary role, socially and economically.

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Women taking maternity leave do so because they want to. They aren't being punished for playing the role. The only people punished are the women who choose not to have children. But that doesn't change the fact that they are in a risky demographic, just like the single young male driver example.

I don't understand the sentence about not being able to disperse the societal burden across society. Isn't that what you want? For employers to pay women the same as men in spite of physical differences, and thus disperse the burden across society in the form of higher prices of goods and services in the name of countering discrimination?

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It is wrong for the burden of childcare to be disproportionately placed on one gender.

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Yeah, that's why we've already passed laws forcing men to take the lion's share of said burden.

Enjoying this discussion.

On a side note, Renton, it's really annoying when you reply to quotes with the text in quote. When someone goes to requote you, it all vanishes, since it is part of the quote. Is it really that hard to close quotes and reopen them after your response to a specific section of an OP?

Yes, yes it is.

Renton, a IT firm has predominantly Asian employees. Another firm has predominantly black employees. All else is equal. Who are you giving your business to?

Can you really not see an incentive to discriminate?

Incidentally, as of this Friday an EU ruling means car insurance companies can no longer discriminate between male and female drivers, effectively ending the 'penis tax' in Europe at least.

Young men are expected to see an average 10% decrease in their premiums
Young women are expected to see an average 25% increase in their premiums

SCORE ONE FOR THE FEMINISTS

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Originally Posted by boost

Renton, a IT firm has predominantly Asian employees. Another firm has predominantly black employees. All else is equal. Who are you giving your business to?

Can you really not see an incentive to discriminate?

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I think this is too hypothetical to be relevant, but I'll give it a shot. I think your example will begin with significant discrimination which will even itself out over time. Asian IT firm will get more business, Black IT firm will lower its prices (and pay its black employees less), stealing customers from Asian IT firm. Asian IT firm will lower its costs and prices in return and eventually things will equalize.

Also, predominately black-run businesses that require IT services are likely to "discriminate" and hire the black-run IT firm. Probably there are larger proportion of black-run businesses as a percentage of the market share for IT service than the percentage of black-run IT firms as a percentage of all IT firms. Besides, Asian business already know how to set up their own IT and need not hire a service (zing).

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Originally Posted by Lucothefish

Incidentally, as of this Friday an EU ruling means car insurance companies can no longer discriminate between male and female drivers, effectively ending the 'penis tax' in Europe at least.

Young men are expected to see an average 10% decrease in their premiums
Young women are expected to see an average 25% increase in their premiums

SCORE ONE FOR THE FEMINISTS

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Yeah this is obviously absolutely ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Lucothefish

Incidentally, as of this Friday an EU ruling means car insurance companies can no longer discriminate between male and female drivers, effectively ending the 'penis tax' in Europe at least.

Young men are expected to see an average 10% decrease in their premiums
Young women are expected to see an average 25% increase in their premiums

SCORE ONE FOR THE FEMINISTS

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It's not just for car insurance,, but life insurance, income protection, etc.

Next step, communistic insurance, we all pay the same premium, or maybe even vary the premium depending on income, may as well call it national insurance I guess. Oh wait...

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Originally Posted by Renton

Whenever you ignore an economic reality for moral reasons you've hurt the economy. Risk assessment is extremely important to running a business, and maternity leave risk needs to be reconciled, one way or the other.

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I'm pretty sure with all of the anti-discrimination laws that exist for handicaps (both mental and physical), agism, etc. that we could find an insane amount of examples where the law forces employers to make employment decisions that would be non-optimal on an open market. Earlier in this post you distinguished between risks that are taken on because of a pure biologic observation vs other logistical disadvantages, but given the quoted sentence I have no idea how that's relevant to your point and only seems to serve to make the female discussion unique, when it isn't according to your central argument.

Anyway, all I can say is that I disagree that there's no moral imperative that's worth sacrificing the economy for. This isn't really something that can be argued with facts or numbers, and I dread saying something that's so rhetorical as the sentence I'm tempted to say to sum up my thoughts on it. But I suppose there's no other direction for this post to go in:

I think it's worth forcing employers to make ever-so-slightly sub-optimal decisions in order to give 50% of our population equal access to (uuugggggghhhh) the "American dream."

Okay, I'm gonna go take a bath now.

PS: There are variants of the modest proposal that lead to more optimal economic results that we don't allow for because it goes against moral imperative.

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I'm pretty sure with all of the anti-discrimination laws that exist for handicaps (both mental and physical), agism, etc. that we could find an insane amount of examples where the law forces employers to make employment decisions that would be non-optimal on an open market. Earlier in this post you distinguished between risks that are taken on because of a pure biologic observation vs other logistical disadvantages, but given the quoted sentence I have no idea how that's relevant to your point and only seems to serve to make the female discussion unique, when it isn't according to your central argument

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Most if not all of those anti-discrimination laws are outmoded in modern American society, and many serve to worsen the problems that they aim to mitigate.

Affirmative action, for example, increases unemployment among Blacks because firms are reluctant to hire uncertain black applicants whom they cannot easily fire. Instead they are more prone to speculate on white applicants, and hire the bare minimum of Blacks.

Tenure is in effect one of the anti-discrimination policies universities employ to combat the ageism you speak of, and it only serves to lower the quality and quantity of professors and increase the cost of education for everyone. And if you look at the American average income statistics for the elder age brackets, you'll see that the old are in no need of a subsidy.

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I think it's worth forcing employers to make ever-so-slightly sub-optimal decisions in order to give 50% of our population equal access to (uuugggggghhhh) the "American dream."

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It's not fair to use the "ever-so-slightly" treatment for the economic consequences but not the benefits to women. The income gap between equally qualified men and women in most fields is a very small percentage. In some fields women actually are higher. The jury isn't even in on whether this is a problem in America. It's one of those made up feminist issues that doesn't have concrete basis. So, to say that equalizing would pull women out of abject wage oppression is hyperbolic to say the least. On the other hand, any government wage control has a great risk of having a much more than "ever-so-slight" effect on prices, and is likely to be overkill because keeping tabs on the wages of 100+ million Americans is a costly and complex endeavor.

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Originally Posted by Renton

Tenure is in effect one of the anti-discrimination policies universities employ to combat the ageism you speak of, and it only serves to lower the quality and quantity of professors and increase the cost of education for everyone.

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Tenure is not designed to combat discrimination. It is a completely different discussion since it has completely different intentions that have to do with some of the core bases of academia (publications, reputation, etc). Agree with it or disagree with it, it has nothing to do with agism.

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Originally Posted by Renton

And if you look at the American average income statistics for the elder age brackets, you'll see that the old are in no need of a subsidy.

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I'm not arguing that they are in need of subsidy. The fact that they make more is the exact reason why the protection (supposedly) needs to exist.

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Originally Posted by Renton

It's not fair to use the "ever-so-slightly" treatment for the economic consequences but not the benefits to women. The income gap between equally qualified men and women in most fields is a very small percentage. In some fields women actually are higher. The jury isn't even in on whether this is a problem in America. It's one of those made up feminist issues that doesn't have concrete basis. So, to say that equalizing would pull women out of abject wage oppression is hyperbolic to say the least. On the other hand, any government wage control has a great risk of having a much more than "ever-so-slight" effect on prices, and is likely to be overkill because keeping tabs on the wages of 100+ million Americans is a costly and complex endeavor.

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It is at least possible (though I admit to not having the data to back it up, I'm just arguing it on a logical basis) for the "ever-so-slightly" to go one way and not the other. The ever-so-slightly sub-optimal effect on employment refers to the risk that is taken on by hiring someone who's more likely to take maternity leave; the other half of the equation addresses any and all factors that might go into unequal pay, which can go well beyond maternity leave.

I realize there isn't a ton of meat in this post, so you don't need to feel the need to reply if you don't think there's much to rebut.

EDIT [post-kiwi's remarks]: Like with kiwi, I'm moreso just arguing against the premise you setup in the post I quoted earlier, which is why I'm sidestepping arguments about the statistics behind if there actually is wage disparity, etc. I'm just really getting at the fact that I disagree with the premise that so long as you can prove that Lily Ledbetter is bad for the economy, then given your premise, the moral considerations don't matter.

A man has been in a terrible accident. He is rushed to the ER where the best surgeons are working diligently to save the man.

The head surgeon goes to speak with the family in the waiting room.
"I'm sorry, but it doesn't look good. The patient has suffered extreme head trauma and is in need of a brain replacement."
The family gasps collectively. The man's wife says, "A brain replacement?!? Is that possible?"
"I assure you that it is an effective treatment for this kind of trauma. It is an expensive procedure, but there are options."
"Options...?"
"Well, we can replace your husbands brain with a man's brain for $60,000, or we can use a woman's brain as the replacement for $30,000."
"Why on earth would a man's brain be more expensive?" asked the wife.
"Well, we have to offer a discount on women's brains... they've been used."


Bazinga.

I will respond on a more general basis to the overall discourse on "feminism" (not really applicable to Renton's argument):

So there's a Dallas Cowboys radio show I listen to now and then. They do this one thing where every time they get a call after a Cowboys loss about how Tony Romo is a bum, they throw their hands up in the air and are like, "Oooohhhh, you fans are so fickle. After last week it was all, 'Send this guy to Canton!' We told you that he'll be good some weeks and bad on others, but this fan base flip flops like no other!"

It's as if these radio show hosts are completely incapable of imagining that there may actually be TWO DIFFERENT people who call into the radio show. There are Romo supporters who tend to call in after a win, and there are Romo haters who tend to call in after a loss. These two idiots seem to somehow feel that these callers are the same people and on any given week, they go back and forth between thinking that Romo is a HoFer this week and thinking that this guy should go play in the AFL.

Anyway, you might be able to see where I'm going with this. Feminism is a poorly defined term, and demonstrating how stupid one rendering of it is does not dissolute other renderings, and talking about how the "feminism movement" is "contradictory" is often doing nothing more than what the Talkin' Cowboy hosts do.

I think probably the best way to define feminism that includes all brands of it is to say that it is nothing more than recognizing that there are inequalities based on sex (and gender), and seeing this as a problem (I could probably say, "Seeing it as a problem that our society should move to fix," but that's pretty loaded). By this definition, I would call myself a feminist because, if nothing else, I recognize that male fiction writers get their works included in major publications at a rate of 3:1, and I see this as a problem since women make up the majority of literary consumption and, as far as I can tell, women are just as good of fiction writers as men (though this is obviously impossible to prove). So in this example, I'm a feminist on that issue.

There are also massive branches of what is probably feminism that have a lot to do with gender identities, and this is hard to define. If you take issue with the fact that Uncle Joe is necessarily gonna give little Johnny a GI Joe for christmas and necessarily give little Janey an Easy Bake Oven, then are you a feminist? I mean, even though the tangible negative consequences of the girl being pigeon-holed are probably more severe in the long term, most people who take issue with this are saying that BOTH presents are pigeon-holing the children in a way that are potentially damaging to their identity development. So I don't know, I'm rambling at this point.

Again, none of this has to do with Renton's arguments, since he's addressing the question of, "Is there a problem in the first place?" This is much more addressing people who think that feminism is a stupid movement because they once met this hairy-armpitted woman who was shouting about how all men are st00pid.

Jumping in here before I run out, have more to say but the thread took longer to read through than I thought.

I thought it was fairly widely accepted that any differences between women's and men's pay came back to women tending to "undervalue" themselves in interviews/salary negotiations while men tend to "overvalue" themselves. Correct me if that's not the case.

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Whenever you ignore an economic reality for moral reasons you've hurt the economy.

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Taking this as the black and white truth for the sake of the argument, do you believe "the economy" is always more important than moral considerations? Just after clarification because when this point comes up again you've been giving examples of 'moral decisions' that don't turn out to have the perceived moral benefits, rather than saying "yes but there's less economic inefficiency" or whatever. No point in me arguing against a viewpoint if you don't hold it etc.

I'm getting pretty good at this.

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Originally Posted by kiwiMark

Taking this as the black and white truth for the sake of the argument, do you believe "the economy" is always more important than moral considerations? Just after clarification because when this point comes up again you've been giving examples of 'moral decisions' that don't turn out to have the perceived moral benefits, rather than saying "yes but there's less economic inefficiency" or whatever. No point in me arguing against a viewpoint if you don't hold it etc.

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Morals are not absolute. They belong to individuals, and my morality is different from Steve's, Ian's, or Becky's morality. Some people think it is immoral for people in Indonesia to work for 50 cents an hour making products to be sold to Americans at Wal-mart. The clever observer however understands that those people employed for 50 cents an hour might be sleeping on the sidewalk if it weren't for the burgeoning export economy of Indonesia that enables them to have that 50 cent per hour job.

The only morality that should be legislated are the basic stuff like no murdering or stealing from or enslaving people. When governments get into specifics like social justice for wage-oppressed demographics, I just don't think much good can come of it.

Do you believe it is possible to exploit a worker?

edit: oshit this is the feminism thread. kinda merged it with the unions thread in my head, my bad.

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Originally Posted by kiwiMark

Do you believe it is possible to exploit a worker?

edit: oshit this is the feminism thread. kinda merged it with the unions thread in my head, my bad.

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Aside from slavery and central planned economies, no. I don't think it is possible to exploit a worker in a free market economy other than slavery.

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Originally Posted by Renton

Morals are not absolute. They belong to individuals, and my morality is different from Steve's, Ian's, or Becky's morality. Some people think it is immoral for people in Indonesia to work for 50 cents an hour making products to be sold to Americans at Wal-mart. The clever observer however understands that those people employed for 50 cents an hour might be sleeping on the sidewalk if it weren't for the burgeoning export economy of Indonesia that enables them to have that 50 cent per hour job.

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This isn't a particularly good argument for moral relativism. This is pretty much the exact logical equivalent of saying that poker eV is subjective because if you post a hand in the BC than different people will have different opinions on how to play the hand. The fact that there are different moral compasses doesn't even come close to proving that morality is relative.

Anyway, morality is an insanely complicated discussion, so I will grant you that a democratic political system is going to be quite error-prone if it enforces overly-specific moralizing (as a basic example: we as a political society hold "murder is bad" as a generalizing principle even though most people will agree that there are at least some scenarios where killing someone else is okay; we just don't trust a government with enforcing these rare nuances of the situation).

I think it's highly debatable that this argument and human-rights-based labor arguments fall under this overly nuanced purview, but we'll see if I feel like arguing this point after thinking on it for a bit.

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Originally Posted by Renton

Aside from slavery and central planned economies, no. I don't think it is possible to exploit a worker in a free market economy other than slavery.

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What about indentured servitude? Not that I think that this is going to lead to proving that women should be paid the same as man--I'm just getting a clarification because I'm interested.

EDIT: Also, indentured servitude probably is an issue of the morality of debt much more than it is an issue of labor.

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Originally Posted by surviva316

What about indentured servitude? Not that I think that this is going to lead to proving that women should be paid the same as man--I'm just getting a clarification because I'm interested.

EDIT: Also, indentured servitude probably is an issue of the morality of debt much more than it is an issue of labor.

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Indentured servitude as it has been practiced in the past is basically just slavery. But it's a grey area. I think that investing in people in the form of buying shares of their future income (in exchange for providing education or training in a field) would go a long way in pulling the poorest countries out of poverty, but many would call that a form of indentured servitude.

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Originally Posted by Renton

Morals are not absolute. They belong to individuals, and my morality is different from Steve's, Ian's, or Becky's morality. Some people think it is immoral for people in Indonesia to work for 50 cents an hour making products to be sold to Americans at Wal-mart. The clever observer however understands that those people employed for 50 cents an hour might be sleeping on the sidewalk if it weren't for the burgeoning export economy of Indonesia that enables them to have that 50 cent per hour job.

The only morality that should be legislated are the basic stuff like no murdering or stealing from or enslaving people. When governments get into specifics like social justice for wage-oppressed demographics, I just don't think much good can come of it.

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You say that morality is relative, then you suggest the "basic stuff" should be legislated, implying that the "basic stuff" isn't relative, and that moral universalism does exist. Where the line for "basic stuff" is drawn is certainly going to vary from person to person, but if we accept that, then it certainly makes it hard to make statements like "the economy is more important than morals", because we have to tack on the caveat "unless those morals are the basic morals which still vary person to person".

Shaved armpits and pussies on women are great but based on the idea of equality just think of shaving your balls:)

FTR's been there done that, sorry bud. I think you'll find a lot of us do.

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Originally Posted by d0zer

...implying that the "basic stuff" isn't relative...

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This isn't true.

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

I'm getting pretty good at this.

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Yeah, I had this same thought. Good work.

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Originally Posted by d0zer

You say that morality is relative, then you suggest the "basic stuff" should be legislated, implying that the "basic stuff" isn't relative, and that moral universalism does exist. Where the line for "basic stuff" is drawn is certainly going to vary from person to person, but if we accept that, then it certainly makes it hard to make statements like "the economy is more important than morals", because we have to tack on the caveat "unless those morals are the basic morals which still vary person to person".

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The liberty-based rights and morals I feel should be grouped differently and are in fact quite basic. And they are all consistent with a well functioning economy. But yeah, morality is relative and it eventually gets down to what your opinion is of what is right. To me the most important things that laws should enforce are individual liberty and justice for those who threaten the liberty or survival of others.

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

This isn't true.

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Eat a dick, troll :x

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

This isn't true.

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It implies that, regardless of whether or not morality is relative, there are rules still worth following, which is actually a much more important point to use against Renton's post than any argument against moral relativism itself.

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Originally Posted by d0zer

Eat a dick, troll :x

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I showed your Facebook picture of little man clawing out your eyeball the day before yesterday. She thought it was hilarious.

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Originally Posted by surviva316

It implies that, regardless of whether or not morality is relative, there are rules still worth following, which is actually a much more important point to use against Renton's post than any argument against moral relativism itself.

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Being worth legislating does not imply being worth following.

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Being worth legislating does not imply being worth following.

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This both is true and does change my point on a practical level.

Anyway, the important thing is that by Renton's own admission, proving moral relativism isn't essential to proving that moral legislation should not happen. We could even (hypothetically) agree that a line in the sand should exist somewhere, but as I outlined in my other post, there's no reason to assume that this line precludes discussion on human-rights-based labor issues beyond slavery. All he established is that there's a line somewhere, and he personally believes that equity in the workplace among the sexes is beyond that line.

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Feminism is one of the stupidest fucking things ever invented. The idea that men and women are equal is stupid and not the truth. The truth is that there are some things that men tend to be better at, and there are some things that women tend to be better at. It's not my fault that you were not born with a fucking dick, so you're just going to have to learn that people are going to judge you for not shaving your goddamn arm pits.

Thoughts?

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There's a lot of doublespeak in that paragraph. Maybe doublespeak isn't the word, but I'm reminded of when homophobes coined the term heterophobes.

Whatever it is, they're bad at it.

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Originally Posted by surviva316

How do you know it's not a strawwoman, huh?

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Strawwomyn*

BTW, I just noticed the tags on this thread. Haha.

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Originally Posted by surviva316

BTW, I just noticed the tags on this thread. Haha.

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haha, I never noticed those things before, are they new? "Steroids" is awesome in it's simplicity.

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Originally Posted by Renton

Like what?

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Sweatshops, pre-union meat-packing, slavery. A more apropos point, however, is that our country persistently confuses business with economics. Doing so convinces everybody that economics is what's good for business, but history has shown that what's good for economics is often not good for business, but that still hasn't stopped most people from still thinking business = economics.

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Women taking maternity leave do so because they want to. They aren't being punished for playing the role. The only people punished are the women who choose not to have children. But that doesn't change the fact that they are in a risky demographic, just like the single young male driver example.

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This is a very important bit to focus on because we can examine what the discriminatory practices really mean.

First, women are being punished for playing the maternal role when that detracts from their capacity to engage in other roles. If you wanted to relegate the female sex into the kitchen and out of the workplace, one of the best ways to do it is create a larger gap between responsibility for childcare. This isn't just important due to the logic of it but merely the history, and this is one of the main reasons for the existence of feminism. How the female sex/gender is treated on issues like maternity have been demonstrably very negative for them and makes them less capable in important ways relative to men.

Second, the male car insurance thing is an issue, but it is not that relevant here. It's a very small deal and doesn't play much of any role with misandry. Which, when contrasted with the maternal issues, is nothing. The maternal issues have a history rife with oppressing women and that's why they're more important than the car insurance analogy.

Finally, you referred to women as being "in a risky demographic" based on a sex issue that is known to oppress that sex. This really is no different than other discriminatory ideas/practices that oppress other demographics. At this point, many men like to claim oppression based on things like the car insurance analogy, but the facts are that even though that is a discriminatory practice, its effects are not misandrous, thus it isn't a fully relevant comparison.

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Affirmative action, for example, increases unemployment among Blacks because firms are reluctant to hire uncertain black applicants whom they cannot easily fire. Instead they are more prone to speculate on white applicants, and hire the bare minimum of Blacks.

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This is a pretty specious argument. I'm not sure of the facts in every state, but for many, this doesn't even apply because blacks can be fired just as easily as whites. Furthermore, if you have more blacks than you "need", you can probably get away with firing some without any affirmative action problems. But most importantly, studies have shown that racism is far more effective at not hiring blacks than any abstract idea like you've made. I recall one where using a black hand to hold a phone you're selling on ebay drastically reduces the amount of people who bid on the phone.

Earlier I said that we live in a very misogynistic country yet don't know it. I'd like to list reasons for why that is

1. "What was she wearing? Did she lead him on? Was she out at night in a skirt?"

When a woman is raped in this country, most men use these rationalizations, yet in no way do they acknowledge how unbearably irrational they are. They're no different rationalizations than "it makes sense that an attractive woman holds some responsibility for being brutalized by a violent sociopath because men cannot be held fully responsible for engaging psychotic behavior when confronted with a tight ass." This is an extremely misogynistic mindset, yet every time it's brought up WRT rape, nobody seems to acknowledge such. Not only is it pathetic and disgusting that men can defend a criminal rapist monster just because "she wore something revealing," but the studies have shown that womens' behaviors and attire have nothing to do with rape frequency whatsoever. The justifications US men have on this issue are not that far removed from Saudi men who justify turning into monsters just because they saw an ankle

The fact that we have TV pundits who are not immediately fired after suggesting this god-awful argument shows that we live in a society that supports its misogyny. This really is the only example needed to show the deep misogyny in this country, but I'll go on.

2. Abortion is still an issue. In many ways this is inadvertent misogyny because it has been co-opted by religiosity, but the effects are still deeply anti-woman. If men could get pregnant, there would be an abortion clinic in every Walmart. The foundation of why abortion is still an issue is that our culture still believes women need to be told what to do.

3. Dick pill commercials are on during every football game, yet women have to fight for their equivalent sex rights during a 21st Century Presidential election. There is no way to describe why this is other than women being viewed as second-class citizens. This is textbook misogyny. Even when the GOP put together their panel discussing contraception, they wouldn't even let a woman's voice be heard. The good ol US of A is grasping onto that Old Boys Club mentality with fervor.

4. The word "slut" exists. Not only is this the dumbest word in the history of the English language--because we are supposed to LIKE women who like sex--but there exists no comparable derogatory male counterpart. When a guy likes sex he's a badass James Bond, when a girl likes sex she's a valueless crackwhore; when a guy is good at sports he's a pimp, when a woman is good at sports she's probably a dyke. Hell, even the use of the word "dyke" there as detrimental shows how deeply misogynistic we are. "Dyke" isn't really much different than "bear", except that the misogynistic United States doesn't care about lesbians. We only care about gay rights now because there are a lot of gay males. If it was up to lesbians to get gay rights, they'd be laughed out of the building; South Park was right when they chided, "nobody cares about lesbians."

This issue runs very deep because there are many ways in which our language merges femininity with derogatory ideas like weakness, while virtually never doing so with masculinity. Furthermore, masculine language tends to push the opposite, positive direction. It's bad to be a pussy but good to have balls, for example.

5. Women make up ~50% of the population yet <20% of national politicians while several Northern European countries are close to 50% representation. This issue isn't causative but representative of an underlying problem because women are not naturally less political than men. In fact, they're typically more political. Their under-representation in government shows that there exists cultural sensibilities that subvert them based on sex


There are more but these are all very expansive and deep-seated and will work for now

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Feminism is one of the stupidest fucking things ever invented. The idea that men and women are equal is stupid and not the truth. The truth is that there are some things that men tend to be better at, and there are some things that women tend to be better at.
Thoughts?

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what about the idea that men and women deserve equal rights?

nice op by the way, obviously not worth breaking it down

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

I'm getting pretty good at this.

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Obvious traps are obvious but people remain oblivious.

Remember when you pretended to be Chelle? That was awesome.

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...because we are supposed to LIKE women who like sex...

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Getting into a woman's vagina is a resource. If a woman has sex with a lot of men over a relatively small amount of time, then that lowers the scarcity of getting in her vagina, and this lowers her value in the sexual marketplace. If a man has sex with a lot of women over a relatively small amount of time, then that demonstrates that there is a high demand for his dick in vaginas, and this increases his value in the sexual marketplace.

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Originally Posted by BennyLaRue

Obvious traps are obvious but people remain oblivious.

Remember when you pretended to be Chelle? That was awesome.

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I'm not sure anyone's actually fallen for his traps all that hard. I suppose I did respond to two of his later points seriously, but they were actually legitimate points (regardless of whether the intent was to instigate).

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Originally Posted by surviva316

I'm not sure anyone's actually fallen for his traps all that hard. I suppose I did respond to two of his later points seriously, but they were actually legitimate points (regardless of whether the intent was to instigate).

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I like starting these threads, and I like pointing out bad logic to help push them along in a good direction.

And yeah... I wish I made up the Chelle thing.

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Getting into a woman's vagina is a resource. If a woman has sex with a lot of men over a relatively small amount of time, then that lowers the scarcity of getting in her vagina, and this lowers her value in the sexual marketplace. If a man has sex with a lot of women over a relatively small amount of time, then that demonstrates that there is a high demand for his dick in vaginas, and this increases his value in the sexual marketplace.

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http://www.randomblog.org/wp-content...ent-GIF-13.gif

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

And yeah... I wish I made up the Chelle thing.

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Imma take the Republican approach here and choose to believe what I made up in my head because it's awesomer.

In Tyler Durden fashion, at the end of my stream of thoughts it turns out that Chelle was never real, simply one of your multiple personalities.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Sweatshops, pre-union meat-packing, slavery.

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Sweatshops are a positive relative effect on the lives of sweatshop workers. In the absolute they are terrible, but they reflect the level of scarcity and desperation in the poorest countries and distribute that scarcity in the most favorable and equitable way. Sweatshop workers would be starving in the streets if it weren't for sweatshops.

Similar for pre-union meatpacking. In spite of the terrible conditions that industrial revolution era British factory workers endured, their standards of living compared quite favorably to those working in agriculture (the alternative).

I'm not prepared to debate the slavery issue. In my opinion a truly free market is not compatible with slavery. The places in the world that have/had slavery are/were far from free markets. I think in a society where wages are price-coordinated, business would much prefer to pay wages based on supply and demand than buy and enslave human beings.

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Originally Posted by Renton

Sweatshops are a positive relative effect on the lives of sweatshop workers. In the absolute they are terrible, but they reflect the level of scarcity and desperation in the poorest countries and distribute that scarcity in the most favorable and equitable way. Sweatshop workers would be starving in the streets if it weren't for sweatshops.

Similar for pre-union meatpacking. In spite of the terrible conditions that industrial revolution era British factory workers endured, their standards of living compared quite favorably to those working in agriculture (the alternative).

I'm not prepared to debate the slavery issue. In my opinion a truly free market is not compatible with slavery. The places in the world that have/had slavery are/were far from free markets. I think in a society where wages are price-coordinated, business would much prefer to pay wages based on supply and demand than buy and enslave human beings.

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Sweatshops and the like are simply a means of exploitation for profit; their predecessors are merely oppression for profit. The difference and why they arise is that the former is more profitable than the latter. The idea that sweatshops are a boon to the workers is nothing but mythology that could not exist if there was not an even more oppressed populace to pull from.

If you were curbstomped every morning you woke up, you too, if given the option, would choose to merely be punched daily instead of curbstomped. Rationalizing that this is a necessary socioeconomic benefit to you (other than simply not hurting you in the first place) is no different than the rationalizations for sweatshops and the like

How sensible is it that the notion that people benefit from slave labor (that's what sweatshop work is) comes from people who are so incredibly rich that they can do anything and own anything (including other people)?

Well put Mr wugy.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Sweatshops and the like are simply a means of exploitation for profit; their predecessors are merely oppression for profit. The difference and why they arise is that the former is more profitable than the latter. The idea that sweatshops are a boon to the workers is nothing but mythology that could not exist if there was not an even more oppressed populace to pull from.

If you were curbstomped every morning you woke up, you too, if given the option, would choose to merely be punched daily instead of curbstomped. Rationalizing that this is a necessary socioeconomic benefit to you (other than simply not hurting you in the first place) is no different than the rationalizations for sweatshops and the like

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Suffering, starvation, and scarcity is the default state of humanity. Globalization and free trade is elevating hundreds of millions of people out of this default state constantly and this can be clearly seen in countries like India. It just isn't happening at the pace that egalitarian-minded people like yourself want.

Yeah, corporations are exploiting sweatshop labor for profit, and so are their competitors. This mechanism is what is lowering the prices of goods (and thus increasing the standard of living) for everyone in the world, including the poorest people. This also causes the price of sweatshop labor to constantly be on the rise, again, just not as fast as you'd like. Today's sweatshop in Indonesia will be tomorrow's sweatshop in Burma, as Indonesia becomes elevated out of poverty by free markets. Sweatshop labor has been seen again and again to be consistent with a positive transitional period in emerging economies.

That "default state" is itself a product of oppression and exploitation.

Sweatshops have been a piece of transitions not because they have to be but because they can be. The fact that they are transitional instead of permanent shows that they never had to be sweatshops in the first place

Sweatshops are not "cheap labor" aligned with economic imperatives at all. They are highly sociopathic and abusive human rights violations. I'm not entirely sure why many in the US have romanticized them

What about prison labor? US prisoners don't have to work for 9 cents an hour so they can pay for their 20 cent a minute phone calls on the weekends, they choose to. Maybe if we let them continue to choose a less oppressed path for long enough they'll be able to make a little more money and grow that intra-prison economy...

It seems to me that the staring point for your analysis has a direct effect on your conclusion.

^^ Who are you referring to?