Will feminism really bring women happiness?

Started by Monfang, February 14, 2013, 03:44:25 AM

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Monfang

Quote from: Star Safyre on February 15, 2013, 03:36:32 PM
I can agree that being aware and considerate of past cultures has it merits.  Your initial post painted these "traditional" roles as a broad stroke to solve the problems in all the relationships between men and women.  Am I to take it that your opinion on the matter has changed since your original post?
I admit to making the mistake of doing it at 5 AM, but it seems I had rushed to my judgement. However, I want to attest to at least a few things:

1: Just because a woman choses to live her life according to the philosophy I presented, doesn't mean she should be labeled as repressed. It should never be wrong for a woman to want to be a housewife.

2: To have equality that is beneficial to all, we can't play the 'getting back at' game that some appear to want to. When the rules were changed, we should have moved to get it behind us and move towards a closer picture of unity. I worry if we aren't going overboard.

3: A woman should not be judged as 'liberated' or 'repressed' by her actions or dress. If a woman wants to wear a headscarf, then let her. If she wants to dress modestly then allow her to, if she wants to dress and show as much skin as the law permits as she wants, then allow her to do so without those labels. (The other labels we will have to speak about in another thread, I think.)

I could go on but that is all for now.

@Silverfyre:

You don't need to speak french to have french heritage. As you said, "A good dealof Canadians can trace their heritage back to France and other European countries." They don't have to be strongly religious to have them influence on you. Did you know in America, Christians make up about two thirds of the population, however the majority of the remainder still celebrate Christmas, Easter and Mardi Gras in some way shape or form. They may not follow the faith, but they still have it influence them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Canada

That's one of the sources I used to check if Christianity still has a major influence on the culture. And with 77% stating they are Christians in 2001, I believe it still is.

Quote from: Brittany on February 15, 2013, 03:47:58 PM
The factor that allows my co-worker to get paid more than me is that I am a "Guest and Support Co-ordinator" and he is a "Hotel and Support Co-ordinator".  Our roles are exactly the same, except my primary focus is on guests, and his primary focus is on staff.  His role is £500 more a month than mine.   Discussing it with management I am told that the reason for the discrepancy is to do with the differences in our roles, but having seen both of our jobs specifications, it is the exact same thing with a few words replaced here and there such as "guest" replaced with "hotelier".  If either of the jobs are more different, mine involves dealing with the direct general public rather than internal customers, so you would believe it was the one that is the more demanding.
If you believe that the company is using illegal means to get around paying their male and female employees the same on the grounds of approving of one sex above another (sexism) then you should have grounds for a lawsuit. At the very least, you could use this to start gathering evidence of other women who are suffering the same. Then you can leak it to the media and get something rolling.

Starlequin

Quote from: Brittany on February 15, 2013, 03:47:58 PM...Companies that had been paying women less for 150 years, found the loopholes as soon as the laws came into effect and still use them to this day.

Strictly out of curiosity, wouldn't this be more likely to indicate that companies are paying women less, solely because it's a way to increase their profit margins, rather than some sort of over-arching gender conspiracy?
You live for the fight when it's all that you've got.

Star Safyre

Quote from: Monfang on February 15, 2013, 03:57:03 PM
I admit to making the mistake of doing it at 5 AM, but it seems I had rushed to my judgement. However, I want to attest to at least a few things:

1: Just because a woman choses to live her life according to the philosophy I presented, doesn't mean she should be labeled as repressed. It should never be wrong for a woman to want to be a housewife.

2: To have equality that is beneficial to all, we can't play the 'getting back at' game that some appear to want to. When the rules were changed, we should have moved to get it behind us and move towards a closer picture of unity. I worry if we aren't going overboard.

3: A woman should not be judged as 'liberated' or 'repressed' by her actions or dress. If a woman wants to wear a headscarf, then let her. If she wants to dress modestly then allow her to, if she wants to dress and show as much skin as the law permits as she wants, then allow her to do so without those labels. (The other labels we will have to speak about in another thread, I think.)

I could go on but that is all for now.

Aside from my lack of fear of "going overboard" regarding striving for unity amongst the genders or that I believe the rules are not finished changing, I agree with these statements fully.
My heaven is to be with him always.
|/| O/O's / Plots / tumblr / A/A's |/|
And I am a writer, writer of fictions
I am the heart that you call home
And I've written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones

Branwen

Quote from: Monfang on February 15, 2013, 01:29:17 PM
I looked at the Judeo-Christian Philosophy because that's the only fully developed philosophy I could find that laid out the roles so distinctly, these are the duties of the man and these are the duties of the female, that didn't require women to wear full body clothing and stone them for the slightest transgression (And you think this is sexist.)

I study the Bible as I suppose a hobby, I learn so much about the older cultures involved and about this culture in peticular that did things so drastically different from the others that allowed them to outlast most other faiths. And you are sorta right about this giving me an 'automatic win'. While what I say can't be disproved, only disagreed with, I can't prove it ether, only agree with it. That's more or less the tricky thing about Philosophies.

Thank you for partially answering my question, Monfang.  I appreciate the time you took to do so.

However, I don't see where you addressed this.  Are you able to set that aside and discuss it in a purely secular manner?  It may be that you are able but not willing, or willing but not able, or anything in between.  May I again ask it to you?  You may, of course, refuse to answer it and that's certainly within your rights to do so.

Brittany

#129
Quote from: Kythia on February 15, 2013, 03:51:50 PM
We generally do a little better than that  ;D

But the issue here is that men's football is more popular than women's.  Success has nothing to do with it, footballers are paid by how much they bring in to their teams, not how succesful they are.  Think of footballers as entertainers, rather than anything else.  Men's football brings in more money, thus it pays its employees higher. 

I'm not convinced this is sexism.  This is just pure market forces.  I love football, have had a season ticket most of my life and am travelling to Brazil (hopefully) next year and Russia after that.  But I cant name a single female football player.

Worldwide it is a female sport though.  £40 is just insulting when there is figures like £250,000 a week being thrown around for the men.  The female players in Japan, the USA and Canada do not make millions, but it's more than £40 a day and being a country where we call it the national game, we should at least be on par with other countries.

QuoteIf you believe that the company is using illegal means to get around paying their male and female employees the same on the grounds of approving of one sex above another (sexism) then you should have grounds for a lawsuit. At the very least, you could use this to start gathering evidence of other women who are suffering the same. Then you can leak it to the media and get something rolling.

It comes back to what I was saying about sexism not being taken seriously.  If I was black, I would simply have to go to my boss, tell them what I thought and they would probably up my pay out of fear of going to the papers.   A sexism law suit isn't as damaging to a companies reputation as say a racism lawsuit would be, because in the main sexism isn't taken as seriously. 

What I have described is a well known long held tactic used by many firms.  It cannot be proven what they are doing is sexism.  They can reply to anything with "we feel the hotel co-ordinator role is more demanding than the guest co-ordinator role.  I would have to supply a huge amount of evidence to the contrary, pay for a lawyer, and risk getting ripped apart by their legal team.

It shouldn't be this way.  I should just be able to say there is a discrepancy, they should talk it over with me and either fully explain why I'm getting paid less, or amend it.  Instead they give me awkward looks and tell me I shouldn't have asked another employee what they got paid.  I'm not even saying it is sexism, maybe they just like him more.  But it shows how equal pay laws can easily be skewered with legal loopholes.

Quote
Strictly out of curiosity, wouldn't this be more likely to indicate that companies are paying women less, solely because it's a way to increase their profit margins, rather than some sort of over-arching gender conspiracy?

You could very well be right, but what does the motive matter?  Women should not be paid less, be it because they don't believe we are worth it or whether they can just increase their profits by doing so.  They could increase their profit margins by paying the male employees less also but they do not do it.  We are meant to be protected by laws to stop gender discrimination.  Whatever their motive, they are still discriminating if they are paying men higher than women.

Silverfyre

Culture is influenced by religion; that much is a given but using broad and sweeping generalization on the entire populace of a country is not a very good measure of your point.  Canada is more British than French, albeit French heritage is still a major factor:

http://www.indexmundi.com/canada/demographics_profile.html

But yes, fair enough.  Christianity is a major part of Canada's heritage but it is not all of it.  Discounting the rest of it and focusing purely on simply Christianity seems a bit shortsighted is all.



Kythia

Quote from: Brittany on February 15, 2013, 04:07:13 PM
Worldwide it is a female sport though.  £40 is just insulting when there is figures like £250,000 a week being thrown around for the men.  The female players in Japan, the USA and Canada do not make millions, but it's more than £40 a day and being a country where we call it the national game, we should at least be on par with other countries.

Not gonna continue with this discussion as I feel I've been getting at you, Brittany, personally a little more than I should have (well, obviously the amount I should have is zero, but you get what I mean).  I'm sorry for doing that, I shouldn't have.
242037

BlightRaptor

Quote from: Kythia on February 15, 2013, 03:51:50 PM
We generally do a little better than that  ;D

But the issue here is that men's football is more popular than women's.  Success has nothing to do with it, footballers are paid by how much they bring in to their teams, not how succesful they are.  Think of footballers as entertainers, rather than anything else.  Men's football brings in more money, thus it pays its employees higher. 

I'm not convinced this is sexism.  This is just pure market forces.  I love football, have had a season ticket most of my life and am travelling to Brazil (hopefully) next year and Russia after that.  But I cant name a single female football player.

Kynthia points out that a lot of problems are caused from a multitude of sources. I personally don't watch any sports, but the potential paycheck for an athlete is limited by two things: their perceived value and the team/club/stadium's revenue. For a player to get what I personally think is a ludicrous amount of money, there has to be a constant flow of money. I'm not sure what the ratings are for women's soccer these days. Last I heard Japan's team was dominating. No, it doesn't seem very fair that female players are doing the same kind of work, but this is the result of sports as a business. The real problem is that women's soccer isn't bringing in the same ratings as men's soccer. Why? I don't know, I'm not a sports guy.

Brittany

#133
If we are talking sports, lets talk Gymnastics.  Artistic gymnastics is my favorite sport and I have been a gymnast since I was 5.  Now back in the day women were banned from doing it of course, unless it was to entertain men.  But eventually we were allowed in.  Lets look at team USA.  Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman et al.   They showed up at London 2012, and they absolutely stormed the place.  Douglas won 2 gold medals, Raisman 2 gold's and a silver, Maroney a gold and a silver.  Team USA won the gold and millions of Americans tuned in to see it.

Now the men's USA team were a flop.  There is no getting around it.  They didn't perform well.  They took one individual bronze medal.  Plenty of hype but they failed at every event. 

So which team got the most funding?  The men.  Which team got the better standard wage?  The men.  Which team is getting the most funding next time?  The men.

Now the girls can and likely will earn more money than the men, because they are hot property this year.  Cereal boxes, sponsorship deals, public events, they can earn more money than the men because they are winners and they are popular.  But they had to fight for every penny they made more than the guys.

So why are the unpopular losers getting paid more, if not because they are male?  And why is there more money in the men's branch of a sport more actively participated in by females?

BlightRaptor

Quote from: Brittany on February 15, 2013, 04:22:09 PM
If we are talking sports, lets talk Gymnastics.  Artistic gymnastics is my favorite sport and I have been a gymnast since I was 5.  Now back in the day women were banned from doing it of course, unless it was to entertain men.  But eventually we were allowed in.  Lets look at team USA.  Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman et al.   They showed up at London 2012, and they absolutely stormed the place.  Douglas won 2 gold medals, Raisman 2 gold's and a silver, Maroney a gold and a silver.  Team USA won the gold and millions of Americans tuned in to see it.

Now the men's USA team were a flop.  There is no getting around it.  They didn't perform well.  They took one individual bronze medal.  Plenty of hype but they failed at every event. 

So which team got the most funding?  The men.  Which team got the better standard wage?  The men.  Which team is getting the most funding next time?  The men.

Now the girls can and likely will earn more money than the men, because they are hot property this year.  Cereal boxes, sponsorship deals, public events, they can earn more money than the men because they are winners and they are popular.  But they had to fight for every penny they made more than the guys.

So why are the unpopular losers getting paid more, if not because they are male?  And why is there more money in the men's branch of a sport more actively participated in by females?

Do you have a source, because my Google-fu is weak with finding payrolls? (I didn't even know anyone aside from my gay co-workers gave a crap about mens gymnastics.)

Monfang

Quote from: Branwen on February 15, 2013, 04:05:47 PM
Thank you for partially answering my question, Monfang.  I appreciate the time you took to do so.

However, I don't see where you addressed this.  Are you able to set that aside and discuss it in a purely secular manner?  It may be that you are able but not willing, or willing but not able, or anything in between.  May I again ask it to you?  You may, of course, refuse to answer it and that's certainly within your rights to do so.
A purely secular manner?

I don't think I can to be honest. I have been in the philosophy and studying it and many others for so long that it would be a hard shift to only take in resources that build from a pure secular source.

And I wonder what that source would be? It can not be from nature, because it has a unequal system for the sexes. So from where do we take inspiration for how we should live our lives?

If we take it from individuals, then we are already progressing into what I spoke to before, individuals choosing how to live their individual lives and their marriages as they see fit and free from judgement, but that can just as easily be influenced by non-secular sources as well.

Branwen

Quote from: Monfang on February 15, 2013, 04:29:28 PM
A purely secular manner?

I don't think I can to be honest. I have been in the philosophy and studying it and many others for so long that it would be a hard shift to only take in resources that build from a pure secular source.

And I wonder what that source would be? It can not be from nature, because it has a unequal system for the sexes. So from where do we take inspiration for how we should live our lives?

If we take it from individuals, then we are already progressing into what I spoke to before, individuals choosing how to live their individual lives and their marriages as they see fit and free from judgement, but that can just as easily be influenced by non-secular sources as well.

Thank you for the courtesy of a reply clearing that question of mine up, Monfang.

Brittany

Quote from: BlightRaptor on February 15, 2013, 04:28:17 PM
Do you have a source, because my Google-fu is weak with finding payrolls? (I didn't even know anyone aside from my gay co-workers gave a crap about mens gymnastics.)

Ahh my source was from news articles back when the olympics was on, but I'll find that and mail it to you.

This is the strange thing about it, in general it is viewed as a female sport.  Participation is higher (USA gymnastics has 67,626 female gymnasts and 12,120 male gymnasts registered) as are viewing figures.  But the money is in the men's branch of it.  As is the better facilities.  And not just in the USA, but in some of the Eastern countries too.

It's an interesting sport and I've read up on it tons over the years, there is a really strange dynamic with the male and female versions.   Gymnastics is basically the opposite of soccer.  The women draw in the crowds like the men soccer team, but the men still get paid equal or better.   They've always tried to push the men's version on people, going so far as to ban female participation, but it never took off like the women's version.  Men used to be able to compete in the olympics, and the women competed on the apparatus during the intervals, and more people were interested in that.  Yet to this day, people will argue that it's a "male" sport. 


Monfang

It is really a shame that people who perform better aren't being rewarded for something that isn't their complete choice.

I often don't give it much attention because usually the pay descreprencies are due to adjusting of the data, but this appears to be honestly true and shows that we still have a deep rooted problem with inequality in pay based on performance.

Silverfyre

Women generally get paid less than 82 percent the gross income of men.  (Source: http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/23/pf/college/women-men-pay-gap/index.html).  Most women with the same amount of education and experience earn less and for what reason?  Nothing but pure corporate bullshit, greed and sexism.  The pay inequality between the genders is disgusting.  I think we can all agree on that.


BlightRaptor

Quote from: Brittany on February 15, 2013, 04:45:17 PM
Ahh my source was from news articles back when the olympics was on, but I'll find that and mail it to you.

This is the strange thing about it, in general it is viewed as a female sport.  Participation is higher (USA gymnastics has 67,626 female gymnasts and 12,120 male gymnasts registered) as are viewing figures.  But the money is in the men's branch of it.  As is the better facilities.  And not just in the USA, but in some of the Eastern countries too.

It's an interesting sport and I've read up on it tons over the years, there is a really strange dynamic with the male and female versions.   Gymnastics is basically the opposite of soccer.  The women draw in the crowds like the men soccer team, but the men still get paid equal or better.   They've always tried to push the men's version on people, going so far as to ban female participation, but it never took off like the women's version.  Men used to be able to compete in the olympics, and the women competed on the apparatus during the intervals, and more people were interested in that.  Yet to this day, people will argue that it's a "male" sport.

It's an interesting notion. However I feel as thought the shift has conditioned more people to perceive gymnastics as a woman's sport. When I was younger my initial reaction to hearing of men doing gymnastics was something along the lines of "*snort* that's girl stuff!" However, a coach of mine used to do gymnastics, and he was a pretty butch fella, so that erased that notion. Still, it doesn't erase the perception that (at least here in the U.S.) gymnastics is a woman's sport, and by woman's sport I mean audiences are more intrigued by the female events.

If the pay is in fact unbalanced in gymnastics, then my initial reaction is that it is just bizarre. Typically I think of the women's gymnastics as the celebs of the U.S. Olympic teams, while the others are quickly forgotten. I can't even fathom a practical reason to throw money at the men's team unless someone was taking some kind of marketing gamble thinking "this is their year!"

Monfang

Quote from: Silverfyre on February 15, 2013, 04:55:17 PM
Women generally get paid less than 82 percent the gross income of men.  (Source: http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/23/pf/college/women-men-pay-gap/index.html).  Most women with the same amount of education and experience earn less and for what reason?  Nothing but pure corporate bullshit, greed and sexism.  The pay inequality between the genders is disgusting.  I think we can all agree on that.
I have a source that I already linked that says that generally speaking, when men and women have the same education, experience and same prospect to work till into their 40s, women earn 98% of what men earn and in several cases earn more.

We need to separate the cases of real sexism in light of better performance as we are seeing in these sports and differences steaming from women being driven to go into lower paying careers as apposed to men who go into higher paying careers.

Silverfyre

So we are to ignore the fact that women are still earning less, even using your source's information?  No, I think not.  The data is there and I do not see it being even if they have worked at the same career for decades alongside their male counterparts, who are earning far more money.  Do we want to talk about how much back pay these women should be getting?  It is not equal even by your own statistics and it is thus not right.  It is based on gender as multiple studies have found so saying that it is not part of "real sexism" but rather "better performance" issues is not only false but sexist in its own right.


Brittany

#143
Quote from: BlightRaptor on February 15, 2013, 05:00:14 PM
It's an interesting notion. However I feel as thought the shift has conditioned more people to perceive gymnastics as a woman's sport. When I was younger my initial reaction to hearing of men doing gymnastics was something along the lines of "*snort* that's girl stuff!" However, a coach of mine used to do gymnastics, and he was a pretty butch fella, so that erased that notion. Still, it doesn't erase the perception that (at least here in the U.S.) gymnastics is a woman's sport, and by woman's sport I mean audiences are more intrigued by the female events.

If the pay is in fact unbalanced in gymnastics, then my initial reaction is that it is just bizarre. Typically I think of the women's gymnastics as the celebs of the U.S. Olympic teams, while the others are quickly forgotten. I can't even fathom a practical reason to throw money at the men's team unless someone was taking some kind of marketing gamble thinking "this is their year!"

This is kinda why I brought it up.  When the subject was on soccer, it was kind of the opinion that the men's game draws in the crowd, draws in the attention and thus brings in the money.  And that was the reason for the pay discrepancy.  Yet with gymnastics, it appears that the larger female audiences and the larger female participation actually helps to subsidise the male version of the sport, both in keeping it's place at the olympics and in terms of actual hard funding.  So you ask yourself why can this work both ways?  If men's soccer is bringing in millions of pounds in the UK, why should the men get all the pay, why not use a portion of that money to publicise and fund the women's game?  I can see the argument that people just are never going to be as interested. 

Gymnastics seems to be the reverse.  Noone cares about men's gymnastics and yet they still get not just a decent salary, but a better salary than a woman and justify it by stating it is historically a men's sport (women invented it, men stole it and made it an olympic event for them only, long long story!)  You then add on the fact that the women's team dominate with lesser funding while the male team fail to live up to the hype, and it is even more confusing.  As I said though, it is women that tend to be the breakout stars and their sponsorship deals can earn them a great deal of money.  Nadia Comaneci is a multi millionaire as I'm sure Gabrielle Douglas (USA first african american all around champion) will go on to be.  But this is private independent deals that they make, rather than pure salary.

BlightRaptor

Quote from: Brittany on February 15, 2013, 05:17:09 PM
This is kinda why I brought it up.  When the subject was on soccer, it was kind of the opinion that the men's game draws in the crowd, draws in the attention and thus brings in the money.  And that was the reason for the pay discrepancy.  Yet with gymnastics, it appears that the larger female audiences and the larger female participation actually helps to subsidise the male version of the sport, both in keeping it's place at the olympics and in terms of actual hard funding.  So you ask yourself why can this work both ways?  If men's soccer is bringing in millions of pounds in the UK, why should the men get all the pay, why not use a portion of that money to publicise and fund the women's game?  I can see the argument that people just are never going to be as interested. 

Gymnastics seems to be the reverse.  Noone cares about men's gymnastics and yet they still get not just a decent salary, but a better salary than a woman.  As I said though, it is women that tend to be the breakout stars and their sponsorship deals can earn them a great deal of money.  Nadia Comaneci is a multi millionaire as I'm sure Gabrielle Douglas (USA first african american all around champion) will go on to be.  But this is private independent deals that they make, rather than pure salary.

For a moment, I'm going to play Devil's Advocate, mainly to present what I think is the hurdle for women's soccer as a more lucrative business. Let's say Mr. Big, the head honcho of a company is making bank on zig zag ribbons, because for whatever reason they're all the craze. Someone pitches the idea to Mr. Big that there are people who enjoy polka dot ribbons as well, but polka dot ribbons haven't really been distributed enough. Polka dots have promise, but for Mr. Big it's kind of a gamble as it will take time to promote polka dots and receive a return on them. Mr. Big is already secure with the success of zig zags, and isn't sure that he'd want to spend some of his zig zag resources on bolstering the polka dot line. Finally Mr. Big decides, "Nah. I'm good. I'm happier with the money I know I'll have rather than the money that I'm not sure I'll get back."

While sexist practices haven't been stamped out (such as with gymnastics and certain work places) there is one other hurdle for equality. Money. There's not enough of it to go around, and the people who have it, want to keep it. I also have to apologize a moment, because I have many socialist tendencies and I will have a bias towards anything "anti-money." However, I feel sexist acts in these areas are the side effect of greed. Not Capitalism, but greed...

As E's resident Amazon lover, I would appreciate a push for more women's sporting events outside of gymnastics. Women's Hockey? Now that I might get into...

Monfang

Quote from: BlightRaptor on February 15, 2013, 05:39:53 PM
For a moment, I'm going to play Devil's Advocate, mainly to present what I think is the hurdle for women's soccer as a more lucrative business. Let's say Mr. Big, the head honcho of a company is making bank on zig zag ribbons, because for whatever reason they're all the craze. Someone pitches the idea to Mr. Big that there are people who enjoy polka dot ribbons as well, but polka dot ribbons haven't really been distributed enough. Polka dots have promise, but for Mr. Big it's kind of a gamble as it will take time to promote polka dots and receive a return on them. Mr. Big is already secure with the success of zig zags, and isn't sure that he'd want to spend some of his zig zag resources on bolstering the polka dot line. Finally Mr. Big decides, "Nah. I'm good. I'm happier with the money I know I'll have rather than the money that I'm not sure I'll get back."

While sexist practices haven't been stamped out (such as with gymnastics and certain work places) there is one other hurdle for equality. Money. There's not enough of it to go around, and the people who have it, want to keep it. I also have to apologize a moment, because I have many socialist tendencies and I will have a bias towards anything "anti-money." However, I feel sexist acts in these areas are the side effect of greed. Not Capitalism, but greed...

As E's resident Amazon lover, I would appreciate a push for more women's sporting events outside of gymnastics. Women's Hockey? Now that I might get into...
Lotta logic and reason in this post.

Brittany

#146
I think you guys have hit on a really good point actually.  A lot of sexist practises and sexism in the workplace is most likely not intended to be sexist.  Companies were used to paying women less because they could by law, probably more than because they didn't appreciate their female employees.  Companies use legal loopholes to get around paying women the same, probably because by following the law and paying more, they are making less profit.  This doesn't make it right of course.  The female employee who is paid less because the company wants to save every penny they can is equally a victim to the female employee who is paid less because her boss believes she should be.

Anyway, this is going to be my last post in this thread.  I'd like to just leave a personal message.  Some of my comments earlier bordered slightly on the extreme and I would like to apologise if anyone has been offended by anything I said at any time.  I especially would like to apologise for the topic creator for dismissing the topic off hand.  This is no way to treat a new member, and I feel bad about my original posts and the derailment of the thread in places.  Silverfyre, we will never agree on this topic, but it was not my intention to upset you and again I apologise.

I am a long time member of the site, who never really felt I fitted in, so I flitted in and out without posting much.  I wanted to change this, so I started to post.  However being away for a while, I kinda forgot that this was a place with so many strong opinions and varied people of all sorts of sensitivities, beliefs and differences.  While I'm not sure, and hope I didn't go as far as to break any rules, I really should have re-familiarised myself with them and re-acclimatised to the site before posting on such a delicate issue.  Feminism is a matter that is very important to me.    However, I don't really feel I've represented my views properly, as I've been drawn into headstrong arguments rather than taking my time and giving the respect to people that they deserve.  While I feel feminism is one of the few things in this world that is solely about women, and am strongly against male participation, I have likely come over as more extreme than I am, and I certainly haven't debated in the manner in which I intended to.   While there will always be misunderstandings and disagreements, being tolerant and respectful is something I have always prided myself on, and I haven't been showing that. 

A lot of what I say is what I feel, but while I may strongly believe something, I need to at least respect the opposing view even if I disagree.  Unfortunately with quick posting comes quick thinking and I should have been more careful with my wording in a lot of areas.  It was never my intention to upset or offend, and I hope to be more constructive in future.  To those that were sending me messages complimenting my posts and ability to "speak up", your support is certainly appreciated, however I need to hold myself to a bit of a higher standard than I have been doing last night and this evening.

I apologize wholeheartedly for any offense, and hope we can all move on.  Enjoy the rest of the discussion x

Chris Brady

Quote from: Silverfyre on February 15, 2013, 04:55:17 PM
Women generally get paid less than 82 percent the gross income of men.  (Source: http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/23/pf/college/women-men-pay-gap/index.html).  Most women with the same amount of education and experience earn less and for what reason?  Nothing but pure corporate bullshit, greed and sexism.  The pay inequality between the genders is disgusting.  I think we can all agree on that.
I think it's less sexism, as more corporate BS in trying to keep it that way for sole profits.

Now, I will NOT argue that it started off as sexist, likely with some threatened man claiming that women are not as 'capable' as a man is in whatever job that started it.  But as time went on, and societal shifts being what they are, I think it's currently more greed based, and any real agenda against a gender.  The big companies just want to keep making money, and they will do anything as long as it won't get them caught and cost them money, to keep doing it.  And if it's the 'books' so to speak, then it's fair game.
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Kythia

Talking to my friend about this subject.  Now, I feel the need to stick up for him - he was being a dick and trying to wind me up, not actually agreeing with this view.

But he was saying that he worried that the wage gap would be resolved by men across the world having to take a pay cut - that is, male wages falling to female levels not female wages rising to male ones.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide
And so went on to extrapolate that females had single handedly caused the banking crisis and so forth.  He really is a dick, I don't know why I  like him.

Economics aside, how do people feel about that possibility?
242037

Chris Brady

Not with current cost of livin', it's killing some of us (me.)
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming