Why wouldn’t I? Antisemitism has been established in Europe for centuries. It’s manifestations include hating Jews, consigning them to a lower place in society, and sometimes killing them.
Misogyny has been practiced in a number of societies for centuries. It’s manifestations include hating women, consigning them to a lower place in society, and sometimes killing them.
Both are “established cultural practices.” Both suck. Both need to be on their way out. I hope it is true that women in China gain a higher place in society as the economy develops- it seems to be going that way, and I do know plenty of people who value their daughters as much as their sons. But change does not plod on inexorably towards a better life. For example, “kitchen accident” bride burning in India is a modern problem that has developed since dowries began rising in the 1950s. Kabul in the 1970s was home to lots of university women walking around in their fashionable bell bottom jeans. Things can go backwards, too. We can’t just sit back and let time take care of it all.
cite that this happened any more frequently than than how your rank peon, serf, slave, foreigner, or otherwise non-gentry denizen of a given European polity was treated?
maybe if you put “America is triumphing over slavery” in your list of false equivalencies your bias and agenda may not have sparkled like a fourth of July firework?
Wait, what? I think maybe I don’t understand what you are arguing about. What is my agenda here? Anti-Europe? Are you trying to argue that Europe (and for that case, America) doesn’t have a history of Antisemitism? I don’t get it. My only agenda is that I want girls to live lives of opportunity and respect.
Slavery is pretty done with, in that there are no pockets of slavery left. But we could say American is triumphing over racism and homophobia, among other things.
If I need a cite, here is the Wikipedia page on antisemitism. Seems pretty real to me. I’m not really sure if that is what you are disputing, but whatever.
Is this really an issue in the U.S.? We recently had a baby, and the earliest they could determine his sex was at around 20 weeks. There are very, very few abortions that late in this country.
My grudge is with you lumping in totally inapposite and incomparable practices and attempting to assign some equivalent moral blame and shame that the continents have to get over. You just should have said “humanity is triumphing over tribalism and nativism” - it would’ve had as much contributory weight to your point (namely, none)
Let’s ignore the fact that female circumcision isn’t even a pan-African practice. Do you really think that generalized anti-semitism in Europe’s* past is of the quality that would support a comparison to female circumcision, systematic abortion of girls (using your characterization), or (now i’m adding it in for you) systematic, legalized segregation in this country’s extremely recent past?
And do you think that Europe’s history of antisemitism merits the gerund form of the verb, as if it’s an ongoing, systematized practice today like… female circumcision or heavy cultural bias towards male kids?
I was just calling out an absolutely shit analogy. I suspect you did it as some form of white guilt, so that you didn’t come across as being a cultural absolutist or something, harping on Blacks and Yellows without touching on Whites. But it was still a bad, bad analogy.
*to avoid Godwin’s law.
False. The perception that a human fetus is an “unborn child” is mere scientific fact. It’s not a puppy, a kitten, or an [insert your favorite animal, here], therefore it’s an “unborn human child”. That the “unborn child” might have a “soul” is a religious belief, and therefore does not get codified into law. Whether or not the “unborn child” has some right to not be aborted at any given stage in it’s development, that supercedes the mother’s right to abort it, is a political belief (which may or may not have been developed by reasoning from religious beliefs), and we most assuredly do codify political beliefs into law all the time. That’s where law comes from.
I make no statement (and generally refuse to make one) on my political beliefs on the subject of abortion, but I can’t let a logical error like that stand, without comment.
Okay, I guess. Those are the examples that came to my head when I thought of “bad stuff that is slowly getting better.” And yeah, I would like to avoid looking like I’m just harshing on China.
Heck, I’m an atheist who has no problem calling a fetus an unborn child if someone wants to insist. Nobody should expect that label to move me a millimeter from my pro-choice stance, though.
This has already been covered in this thread. Gender is detectable via ultrasound from about 16 weeks but there are other tests that can be given earlier that can determine gender, including amniocentesis.