I Agree with Everything She Said, and yet, NNNYYYRRRRRAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!

The BBQ Pit
161

Okay, I hope to god there’s no spyware here, because I swore I wouldn’t answer before lunchtime and I hope nobody here catches on to the time I spent on this.

I believe women are not equal to men in this society. I believe they should be able to discuss this with men and women without immediately being branded as man-hating harpies and showered with scorn.

The idea of the simple questions is to find out just where it is exactly that opinions on this matter diverge.

Everyone agrees sexism exists. Everyone agrees it affects both men and women.

Then why can the matter not be discussed civilly? We can discuss breast cancer, child care, rape prevention, and other safe issues. But the basic inequality between the sexes remains a point of denial, contention and rage.

Why? Where does the dissention begin? Sexism exists? Yes. Both genders? Yes. And so on until the screaming starts. But where does the screaming start, and why?

I believe (and belief is not a fact) that women have latched onto safe issues like breast cancer, etc. as a short term solution to solve the various problems of women’s issues. But equality itself remains something that cannot be discussed, because of the screaming that inevitably follows when they mention, just mention mind you, that inequalities still exist. This is in spite of the fact that everyone agrees that sexism exists.

Do men want the sexism that affects them to change? I don’t know. That’s up to them. I’d be happy to discuss it. Without screaming.

Go back and read the sneering remarks if you doubt me about the attitude that arises from discussing the subject. The sneering remarks come from both men and women.

If this is incoherent, please tell me how. Post an example explaining why I’m not explaining this correctly. If you disagree with me, tell me why. But restrain yourself from sneering. Please just try.

It’s important to me.

God, now I’m crying. And I hope I don’t get fired for this.

162

The’s a career politician who’s the daughter of a career politician. Do you really think she speaks with any validity?

163

The sneering remarks were the result of your lack of ability to make yourself understood. We were begging for you to just make your point and bring coherence, and it still took you over 160 posts to get to your damn point.

I don’t know who you’re hanging with, but me and my friends, manage to discuss this issue with civility, quite regularly.

I would posit your discussions are rarely civil, as you aren’t exactly direct, to the point, or, largely coherent a lot.

164

OK, first of all, don’t risk your job over this thread. It’s just not worth it.

So the real question is, are women equal to men in this society? I assume that by this society you mean first world nations, especially the US. Well, equal in what ways? Legally? Yes. I can’t think of any laws that permit any sort of discrimination, with the possible exception of reproductive and custodial laws. Does workplace discrimination still take place? I’m sure it does, but these days it needs to be pretty covert. Few employers want to face lawsuits.

BUt what about in society in general? Are the sexes equal? No, and they probably never will be. But the general trend has been towards enlightenment. It’s the same story with ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, and non-traditionalists. We can probably never achieve true equalibrium, but as long as we hold that as an ideal and work towards it, we’re doing pretty well.

165

I hope you don’t either, and I would suggest that you perhaps need to take a couple of breaths and consider perhaps starting (when you’re safely into non-work hours) a thread in Great Debates to discuss inequality of the sexes in more general terms, as it appears that’s what you’re really interested in, rather than pitting a specific news item and hoping to meander into a generalized debate in such a roundabout way.

Just a thought. At any rate, stop crying. That isn’t fair.

166

I’d be happy to do so, myself, but the arguments have to be coherent, well-reasoned and free of loaded questions and begged premises.

The mistake you’ve made is that ridicule for you personally equals ridicule for feminists generally.

167

This is very sound advice, I for one, would like to see you take it.

168

This is why people are saying that you’re incoherent, really. It’s not, say, grammar or syntax. It’s that you make illogical jumps, put words in people’s mouths, then carry that to some bizarre extreme. It’s like asking “Where is Vienna?” and I go “Austria”, then you go “If Vienna is in Austria, then why can’t cats fly?”

You want specifics? OK then. Saying “I can’t tell where you’re wrong” is not the same thing as saying “You’re wrong”. If you answer 10 True/False questions on a test and the teacher lost the answer sheet, the teacher could go “I can’t tell which questions are wrong.” It wouldn’t make sense to answer “So I didn’t get 100%?”

Furthermore, I answered that “if a woman complains that something is unfair to her because of her gender”, I would not consider her wrong. Then I claimed that you were (perhaps…probably) wrong in your assessment of the state of sexism and feminism in America. There is no contradiction here. This is why someone posted “Why do you assume this is because you’re a woman?” Because you seem to think the responses are related.

You see? You’re connecting dots that shouldn’t be connected. And no one understands how you’re making these leaps. That’s why you’re being called incoherent.

The screaming doesn’t start in most cases. The dissention doesn’t begin. You’re making declarations that are untrue, and this is where you err.

This is your problem. You think that women and men are two unified teams. You think that if a woman gets slighted in some way that it hurts you. And you think that men can form an opinion about male sexism.

It doesn’t. And they can’t. Why? Because there’s no hive mind that we’re connected to via our genitalia. A farm girl from Nebraska and a fashion designer in New York have absolutely nothing in common but their sexes. Between them, there is no “women’s issue” other than pregnancy, breast cancer, and menstruation because they’re entirely different people in entirely different worlds.

So you know why feminism is only OK when it doesn’t focus on women? Because there isn’t anything that does focus on women…besides the biology of it. Rape focuses on rapists and rape victims, along with judges, lawyers, and cops. Salary compensation affects salaried employees and their companies, etc etc. Nowhere in these lists do you find “women” because there aren’t very many issues that affect women as a whole. This is why people get pissed off when you suggest that some issues do affect women.

169

I did ask for specifics, so thank you for posting this. Now just to be clear on your test analogy, I’m afraid I must ask you a question. It’s not a trick. I just want to learn to be clearer.

In this school test scenario you have given as an illustration, am I the teacher, or the student?
P.S. Does sexism exist?

170

PPS to Chessic Sense: I’m not being snotty when I asked you specifically in my last PS “Does sexism exist?” I don’t remember you answering that question when it was open, and with what you have posted about biology, I would really like to know what your answer would be.

171

Good lord. Stop posting from work.

Or stop whining about it how big a sacrifice you’re making in doing so.

Good lord.

172

There will be no more posts from work.

I wasn’t aware that I was whining. I’m sorry you got that impression.

173

Got fired, huh?

Just kidding.

174

You’re clearly the student.

“I can’t tell where you’re wrong” = “I can’t tell which questions you got wrong”
“So I’m automatically wrong?” = “So I didn’t get 100%”
Thought that was obvious.

And I’m not going to answer your question because it’s too broad. I’d have to write an essay in order to avoid you twisting my answer until it resembles nothing like what I intended it to mean. I’m not going to write an essay about it. The best answer you’ll get out of me is “Yes and no”.

But I have a question for you: Is english your native language?

175

It wasn’t as obvious as you might think. Usually it’s the teacher who hands out the questions, and we were talking about my questions. See how easy it is to be misunderstood?

The key here is that the questions weren’t about being right or wrong. They were a device by which a person might be able to think about their own responses to the discussion of gender issues. A self-evaluation.

I notice you answered “yes” to the two questions about wishing that women who complain about inequality would think about the difficulties and injustices that a man has to face in his life. So perhaps you might want to think about whether these difficulties and injustices are due to sexism against men?

I’m not twisting your answers. I’m just offering a suggestion.

My, you seem suspicious of me in answering my P.S. question. You needn’t be. The truth is I wish to congratulate you. You were the only one who said, even part-way, that sexism doesn’t exist. You, sir, have courage in your convictions.
That’s good.

Because that’s honest. You’re being honest with yourself, and honest with me. I appreciate that.

And yes, English is my native language. And yes, I really talk like this. A little less formally perhaps. But it’s close.

176

It’s bullshit like this that interferes with your desire to be taken seriously (assuming it exists). Chessic has a valid concern of the following pattern:

You: Asks simple question.
He: Gives short simple answer.
You: States various assumptions about his beliefs that are only remotely linked to original question, or represent some overexaggerated form of it.

You’ve done this several times already and he came to a valid conclusion - the only way to answer the question to avoid the assumptions is to write a lengthy detailed essay that pre-emptively rules out these assumptions - and it’s unclear that the effort is worthwhile, because evidence suggests you’re likely to ignore the pre-emptions and make the assumptions anyway. I see no indication he’s declining to make the effort because the question is difficult (it isn’t) nor is he being evasive.

177

You know, you keep saying I twist people’s words, yet you haven’t posted a single example. I would really like to know how my words have brought you to this conclusion.

The last time I asked you that, you just said, “The fact that I can read too.”
That doesn’t really help me explain anything.

Please, go ahead and post something of mine where I assumed something about their (or your) beliefs or took their answer to some ridiculous extreme. Perhaps I’ll learn something about the way I express things.

178

Here’s an example for you:

I looked at this and thought… what the fuck are you talking about? A simple statement about biology and suddenly I have to explain that I’m not a member of the Thought Police? I have to prove that I’ll allow someone to question a belief that I don’t actually hold, but which you rapid-fire assumed on my behalf?

179

Again, I’ll be happy to oblige:

And of course, a sane person wouldn’t have made that leap.

Which isn’t what (s)he said at all.

And who could forget this little gem? You repeated this strange conclusion several times.

180

Well, they’re not lesser than men, but it certainly doesn’t matter as much when one of them is raped, amirite? ::::nudge nudge:::::