Over here in the UK, in the case of a male on female rape accusation the woman remains anonymous while the man is named.
Same here in America.
Absolutely. Whereas in the case of female on male rape accusation, the man remains anonymous while the woman is named. And in the case of male on male rape accusation, one man remains anonymous while the other is named, and when a woman accuses another woman of raping her, one woman remains anonymous while the other is named.
I wonder if you can see the pattern? Hint: it’s not the sex of the parties involved.
Yeah, a Harvard educated black man. :dubious:
Not to mention that first and second wave feminism wanted little to do with black women.
Yeah, with a three-syllable last name :dubious:
(or in other words, how does pointing out his school add to the conversation? I’m totally missing your point.)
This.
The point: Barack Obama is a bit of an anomaly.
So is anyone who becomes president. I mean, sure, W. was a white guy–a white guy from an incredibly wealthy dynasty :dubious:. I’m not sure how his anomalous status is relevant.
The relevance of Obama to this discussion, however, is pretty small, IMO. Sure, we live in a very different country race-wise than was around 50 years ago; no way could a Harvard-educated black man have become president back then. But if we’re looking at the effect of race on individuals instead of on some mythical ur-being comprising everyone of a shared skin-tone, it’s a lot more relevant to look at, y’know, individuals. In my community, there is a lot more poverty among the African-American population than among the white population, and it affects children pretty harshly. And that’s a real problem. But it doesn’t mean that a given white person has it better than a given black person.
Bringing it back around to feminism, it’s true that there’s a fair amount of sexism still in our society. Male traits are typically considered good, while female characteristics are considered bad (trust me, it takes some balls to say that, knowing what a pussy I’ll sound like). Hillary’s tears were endlessly analyzed. In the workforce, jobs that are traditionally held by women get paid a lot less than jobs that require similar education levels but that are held by men.* The military promotes generals based heavily on their combat experience, and women are not allowed to enter combat. Women are sexually assaulted far more often than men. These are problems that need to get fixed.
But so are some other problems. Men are expected to sign up for the draft, which sucks. Men are victimized by weapon violence more than women. Boys grow up in schools with few male academic role models, under curricula designed by people with no experience of being boys (this is a pet issue of mine, given my profession). Supposedly men have a hard time in custody fights. THese, too, are problems that need to get fixed.
Is one set of problems worse than the other? I neither care nor understand why I should. I care that they’re problems and that they should be fixed.
- I think this is true, but am open to being proven wrong; even now I’m thinking about the high pay available to nurses and doubting myself.
On average? Yes. They do.
And then women are stuck at home with babies with crappy support and the men die and the remaining women are still in bad positions thanks to, you know, male domination.
Men have always fought. Women have always suffered in male-dominated societies.
Don’t forget what happened after WWII. Men came home and women had to go back to being housewives.
Who uses weapons more? Women or men? 
And yet cirriculum and school policies generally favor boys over women. 
Everyone does. That’s the nature of it all. Hell, my mom had to work 3 jobs, sell anything of value, and go into steep debt to keep custody of us when my dad and his $$$$$$$$$$$ challenged her in court. I’m seriously surprised she won. He flung every possible stereotype at her. And then some.
Uh, do you not understand why I said “a given”? It’s precisely to distinguish between the average case and the case of “a given” person.
How inconsiderate of their men to die like that! Seriously, are you suggesting that the men who are killed in wars have it better off than the women who aren’t killed in wars? About 400,000 American men were killed during WWII. Are you suggesting we dismiss that problem because women left the workforce at the end of the war?
I’m confused why I’d give a shit if I were shot whether it was by a man or a woman. “Oh, a man shot me, and I also have testicles. Well, that’s okay, then!” Is it somehow not a problem if men are mainly victimized by other men? Is there some cosmic scorecard where this is a foul?
No they don’t.
Point:
Feminism is a need.
Comparing black people to white women is wtfness.
re: gender:
looking at available resources, classes, and who is called on more in class…:dubious:
You simply don’t know enough about the subject. Maleness and masculinity has been a major part of women’s studies for ages. For example, at UC Berkeley you find the department of Gender and Women’s Studies where you can find classes like “Gender and American Culture,” "Gender Sexuality and Music " (which, among other things, looks at androgyny in Glam Music and male sexuality in “cock rock,”) “Crisis of Patrilinearity and the Production of Narrative” (whatever that means,) and “Men of Color in Modern America.” Men’s Studies is a real thing, and comprehensive “Gender Studies” is becoming more predominant than Women’s Studies.
At Berkeley, several courses focus directly on men and masculinity. The vast majority of courses focus either on gender in general (which presumably engages with men, women, and their interactions) or the family (included all of the roles within it.) The courses that engage only with women tend to be most classes that focus on female writers or other famous females, anthropological course about women’s role in different cultures, public health classes about providing maternal medical care, and historical/theoretical courses on the feminist movement.
Of course it is. I don’t disagree.
Who’s making such a comparison? I was to some extent comparing race-based power imbalances to gender-based power imbalances, though, and if that elicits a wtf from you, I can give you a reading list.
Okay, so let’s have it. What available resources? What classes? What’s your evidence for this claim?
Here’s mine: I teach second grade. I watch student behavior. ON AVERAGE, boys tend to be a lot more squirrelly than girls. ON AVERAGE, they tend to want a lot more opportunities for movement. (Of course, a given girl may be more squirrelly than a given boy, and I could give you names of these exceptions if it didn’t violate privacy standards). But our curriculum allows for relatively little movement.
Our writing curriculum was, as another (female) teacher aptly put it, designed by middle-aged women for middle-aged women. It emphasizes personal narrative writing very heavily and de-emphasizes imaginative story writing, with virtually no room at all for straight-up fantasy storytelling. I have had many boys who chafe horribly under this stricture, but very few girls who have. When I cheat and introduce a unit with room for fantasy story-writing, many boys blossom as writers.
Read this article for some more information.
If you have some counter-evidence to offer, I’m all eyes.
Which occasionally leads to phrases like “she really has balls”, which sounds really odd to my ears and gives me the urge to comment “poor thing, that must have been embarrassing in high school gym.”.
And who decided that one of the weakest spots on a man would become symbolic of “masculine toughness”? At least a “pussy” really is a soft and vulnerable part of the anatomy. Someone didn’t think things through here…
It’s been my understanding that most of the pay disparity is because women tend to take off time from work for things like childbirth, while men typically don’t take off time even if their job offers paternity leave. I regard this both as a virtue of women (they are typically less willing to basically sacrifice everything else in their lives for a job), and as due to the sometimes justified fear of men that they are valued only for how much money they make.
I agree. Much of the problem as I see it is that we’ve degenerated from caring about civil rights and fairness in general, to a bunch of factions that care only about the members of that faction.
All this talk distracts attention away from a simple principle:
Two genders, one set of laws and rules.
How about replacing feminism with humanism? Ah yes, that’s all kinds of nuts! :rolleyes:
Sure. Gender inequality can breed gender inequality. And some of this is apples to oranges. Sometimes boys are at a disadvantage and sometimes women are. But things like technical writing and good speech skills and math are a must-have for everyone.
I’m a high school teacher.
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On average, when boys act out a little, they are just being boys. When girls get squirrely, they are being obnoxious. Do boys get in trouble more? Yes. Are girls held to a higher standard? Yes. I’ve seen teachers give equal amount of detention slips to boys and girls, with boys actually being a ‘greater’ disturbance in class. What’s that? Equal opportunity punishment?
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Class offerings: Far greater emphasis in math and science. That’s not a bad thing exactly, but classes that females gravitate towards are dying.
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Calling on boys in class: Boys are usually called on more, especially in male-dominated academia, such as science and math. Girls are also woefully under-trained and under-pushed in debate.
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Re: Writing: I don’t know. The kidlets get a pretty wide variety and I assign writing every day. The other teachers go with material that appeals to their background, like* La Vida Loca *or House on Mango St. Creative writing is usually pretty personal.
My HS class was pretty even (it was an Honors class) and I never thought about it. Yeah, we had to read the same damned classics as everyone else. But when I was in college, our male poets were allowed to get away with pure shit. That could’ve just been the shitty teacher. :o Or maybe I just think that prose is pure shit.
disclosure: not teaching this year.
Well, exactly: it’s so prevalent that to compliment a woman on her bravery, you suggest she must be like a man. Similarly, to insult a man about being overly sensitive, you mock him for having a vagina, suggesting his weakness is due to being a woman. It’s classic sexism.
I’m thinking specifically of jobs like administrative work and (especially) teaching–professions that were traditionally held by women and were accordingly paid less. As the workforce in these professions has begun to even out, the pay is still less than pay for similar jobs with similar educational requirements.
Are you sure? That doesn’t sound remotely practical. What happens if someone counter claims against their accuser? If I did rape someone, could I guarantee my anonymity by going to the police and getting my accusation in first?
They are treated as two separate cases.