Rights of men and boys. Sitä ja tätä

The law sides a lot with females irrespective of if they are right or wrong in developed democracies. Women want more freedoms and equality but enjoy perks of an skewed legal system. Men get the raw deal. Is this right?

I would like to see examples. Because of course, we have places where women almost dont have any rights. But our "west world" dont have this problem in my opinion. If we talk about positions in some brands, or political world, or salary, its... not because of rights, its because of nature and natural differencies between our sex's.

You are talking about situations, like... when its harder for father to get the child in the court, right?

Yes, the modern legislative system gives virtually all rights to woman in family court. Under sexual allegations, it is difficult for a man to disprove it, particularly if they have consensual intercourse and the woman claima she changes her mind but, in fact, did not. What protection or recourse does a man have? Poland is not developed, btw. It is Eastern Europen, not the same thing as advanced democracies, even though, they've hijacked each one.

If one looks at history it's women who've gotten the raw deal for most of history.

In most countries women are told that they need to avoid acting in certain ways to avoid being raped or molested. Even though it is mainly the men doing the raping and molesting.

Until women don't need to modify the way they behave to avoid being raped or molsted it doesn't seem unreasonable to me for men to be told that they need to get actual verifiable consent to avoid being accused of molesting or raping a woman.

If one looks at history it's women who've gotten the raw deal for most of history.

That's only a contemporary view on history. It's like saying Romans were monsters because they were into slavery without taking in consideration that, 1 : Slavery takes different forms and 2) Morals and ideologies were very differents.
Maybe some women were having issues with their condition in 500BC while most were fine, how would you know without looking at proper records, taking the whole context in consideration or asking people from this era directly (if ever it was a possibility)?

In most countries women are told that they need to avoid acting in certain ways to avoid being raped or molested. Even though it is mainly the men doing the raping and molesting.

In most countries, people are told not to do this or that to avoid some issues. For example, not walking into a dangerous street, especially at night, in order to avoid being assaulted; or, as a tourist, not showing too much that you are a tourist/have money to avoid robbers. In case of a woman, it might help not to wear some clothes to avoid sexual predators.

In social psychology, there is also some concepts about sending signals. eventually clothes could send a signal to men that make them think it's eventually ok, if not to rape or molest, to go to talk to a woman, the same way a woman smiling will get more pretenders than a womanwho don't.

Until women don't need to modify the way they behave to avoid being raped or molsted it doesn't seem unreasonable to me for men to be told that they need to get actual verifiable consent to avoid being accused of molesting or raping a woman.

It is not limited to the rape/sexual assault cases. Women generally are advantaged in divorces, in which they'll more likely get the kids even if they are less good parents or show less affection to the progeny for example.
The whole thing about work, like equal salary or having the "right" to get the same job also advantage women in some cases. Indeed, when you have to respect a ratio, you'll take the woman rather than the man, even if the man is more skilled or has more experience. The same way, the current tendency is to claim that women are underpaid and that is mainly due to sexism while, in France, the 25% difference that some people often state is a statistic aberracy and that, other things being equal, the gender pay gap is around 1-2% and is unexplained, which doesn't mean it's due to sexism.

Women still have a lot of issues in society, but I'm more worried about seeing x or y gender being used to lower everyone's rights. It's also very scary to see that we apply a ratio policy in a system like a government... Why would anyone choose a stupid duck because he has yellow feathers whereas a blue feathered ducks are smarter and more efficients?

Finally, and this is also a problem, things like ratio disadvantage the minority (here the woman), because people, women included, will stop thinking a woman has been hired because she is smart, talented and worked for it, we will collectively assume that she has been hired (consciously or not) because she as a vagina and a pair of boobs.

The law sides a lot with females irrespective of if they are right or wrong in developed democracies. Women want more freedoms and equality but enjoy perks of an skewed legal system. Men get the raw deal. Is this right?

It's all basic and banal — money. A woman is the best consumer. The chances of spending a fortune on clothes, jewelry, 
children, vacations, cosmetics are greater for them. The modern rulers of the world don't need a man. They need slaves 
of their desires, depending on shopping and uncontrolled consumption

The law sides a lot with females irrespective of if they are right or wrong in developed democracies. Women want more freedoms and equality but enjoy perks of an skewed legal system. Men get the raw deal. Is this right?

It's all basic and banal — money. A woman is the best consumer. The chances of spending a fortune on clothes, jewelry, 
children, vacations, cosmetics are greater for them. The modern rulers of the world don't need a man. They need slaves 
of their desires, depending on shopping and uncontrolled consumption

I'm not sure that this is true... Men and women tend to cosume differently, and in the West at least, I wouldn't be surprised if men were spending as much as women into useless stuff.

That's only a contemporary view on history. It's like saying Romans were monsters because they were into slavery without taking in consideration that, 1 : Slavery takes different forms and 2) Morals and ideologies were very differents.

Just because it was the norm doesn't make it any less abhorrent.

I would agree that the Romans themselves were just doing what was widespread at the time, so one can't fault them individually for their choices. However we can say that by today's standards theirs was a society with some abhorrent practices and norms.

Maybe some women were having issues with their condition in 500BC while most were fine, how would you know without looking at proper records, taking the whole context in consideration or asking people from this era directly (if ever it was a possibility)?

One needn't go back 2500 years to find societies that are horrible to women. All we need to do is look to the middle east to find plenty of countries and societies which are very oppressive to women. And it's easy to find plenty of women in those societies who agree that they are being horribly oppressed.

If we go back 100 years in the United states there are many places where a woman couldn't own property and places where a married woman would have to get permission from her husband or be required to have her husband as a co-signer if she wanted credit, a loan or other financial account.

In most countries, people are told not to do this or that to avoid some issues. For example, not walking into a dangerous street, especially at night, in order to avoid being assaulted; or, as a tourist, not showing too much that you are a tourist/have money to avoid robbers. In case of a woman, it might help not to wear some clothes to avoid sexual predators.

I don't see your dangerous areas and flashing cash examples as equivalent because they apply to everyone not just women.

In social psychology, there is also some concepts about sending signals. eventually clothes could send a signal to men that make them think it's eventually ok, if not to rape or molest, to go to talk to a woman, the same way a woman smiling will get more pretenders than a woman who don't.

There's a big difference between rape/molestation and talking to someone. Although talking to a woman in a sexually aggressive manner could never be seen as invited just from their appearance. You seem to be giving men who rape and molest woman a pass card because of social signals.

It doesn't matter what a woman is wearing, saying or doing. It is never acceptable to do something sexual to or with a woman without first getting her informed consent.

Until women don't need to modify the way they behave to avoid being raped or molsted it doesn't seem unreasonable to me for men to be told that they need to get actual verifiable consent to avoid being accused of molesting or raping a woman.

It is not limited to the rape/sexual assault cases. Women generally are advantaged in divorces, in which they'll more likely get the kids even if they are less good parents or show less affection to the progeny for example.

I was replying to the complaint about men being harmed by being falsely accused of sexual behavior.

I would agree that in divorce cases women have had an easier time retaining custody than men, but I'm fairly sure that wasn't something codified into law here in the United States. It might have been elsewhere. If it was I agree that men and women should have the same changes of gaining custody and they should be evaluated with the same criteria when custody decisions are made.

The whole thing about work, like equal salary or having the "right" to get the same job also advantage women in some cases. Indeed, when you have to respect a ratio, you'll take the woman rather than the man, even if the man is more skilled or has more experience. The same way, the current tendency is to claim that women are underpaid and that is mainly due to sexism while, in France, the 25% difference that some people often state is a statistic aberracy and that, other things being equal, the gender pay gap is around 1-2% and is unexplained, which doesn't mean it's due to sexism.

I also don't agree with quotas overall, but but for candidates with EQUAL qualifications I don't mind the position going to the person who represents a class that is underrepresented at the hiring organization.

I don't know about the history there in France but here in the United States for many years, especially in the 50's and 60's women had a very difficult time getting into positions traditionally filled by men. Once they were hired many of them faced extreme negative behavior to the men in their organizations and were often unfairly denied promotions and salary gains. Several women here in the United States had to go through the court system to have their grievances addressed and in most if not all they won their cases.

Women still have a lot of issues in society, but I'm more worried about seeing x or y gender being used to lower everyone's rights. It's also very scary to see that we apply a ratio policy in a system like a government... Why would anyone choose a stupid duck because he has yellow feathers whereas a blue feathered ducks are smarter and more efficients?

Finally, and this is also a problem, things like ratio disadvantage the minority (here the woman), because people, women included, will stop thinking a woman has been hired because she is smart, talented and worked for it, we will collectively assume that she has been hired (consciously or not) because she as a vagina and a pair of boobs.

How does it reduce anyone's rights to give all people equal access to opportunities? I don't think it's unreasonable to pick a man who is more qualified than a woman as long as the criteria can be measured and shown to favor the man over the woman in the selection decision. As long as one makes decisions on the basis of meeting criteria and only choosing a member of an underrepresented class when members are equal I don't see any problems. One can show why someone in an underrepresented class was chosen.

There are always going to be people who cry sour grapes over decisions which exclude them and they will almost always use the examples like you provided as the reason for the decision rather than facing up to the fact the person chosen was just as qualified or even more qualified than they are.

Just because it was the norm doesn't make it any less abhorrent.

I would agree that the Romans themselves were just doing what was widespread at the time, so one can't fault them individually for their choices. However we can say that by today's standards theirs was a society with some abhorrent practices and norms.

To contemporary view. Maybe your view on the topic will be disgusting to future generations. Judging another generation or another culture taking yourself as reference just doesn't work.
Today's standards (and mainly Western standards) aren't objectively good nor superior to past ones. Those are just differents and I would argue that, to some extent, women might have been happier in the past under "abhorrent practices and norms".

One needn't go back 2500 years to find societies that are horrible to women. All we need to do is look to the middle east to find plenty of countries and societies which are very oppressive to women. And it's easy to find plenty of women in those societies who agree that they are being horribly oppressed.

Different countries, different cultures. Maybe women are fine with it where they live. Maybe their dogmas chain them to their conditions and that is the reason why it doesn't change (supposedly for the best) there.
I personally don't care about what happen in such countries as long as people from there don't try to export their social norms into mine.

If we go back 100 years in the United states there are many places where a woman couldn't own property and places where a married woman would have to get permission from her husband or be required to have her husband as a co-signer if she wanted credit, a loan or other financial account.

Maybe they were happier this way.? Or fine with it at least? It changed, that's all that we know, but I would argue that the changes that occured during your generations have different effect on ours. If women struggled to own a property because they needed to ask their husbands in the past, people (both men and women) struggle to own anything nowaday, and eventually this could be partly linked with "emancipation".

I don't see your dangerous areas and flashing cash examples as equivalent because they apply to everyone not just women.

The fact that it wouldn't be equivalent because it supposedly applies to everyone is irrelevant here. The important point was that people have to restrict themselves under some context in order to avoid being victims of a very unpleasant person called an offender or a criminal.
If I told you that men's clothes are stricter than women's clothes in areas like work, because women can wear just about anything colourful, from suits to dresses, compared to men who have to wear a sober suit, you'd tell me that it doesn't lead to being sexually assaulted. So of course I'll pick another example I have.

There's a big difference between rape/molestation and talking to someone. Although talking to a woman in a sexually aggressive manner could never be seen as invited just from their appearance.

Yes there is, but could you exclude that some signals or traits may increase the chances of getting raped? Wearing some set of clothes, just like being in your twenties probably are privileged targets.

You seem to be giving men who rape and molest woman a pass card because of social signals.

Explaining isn't giving a pass card, and this isn't an argument.

It doesn't matter what a woman is wearing, saying or doing. It is never acceptable to do something sexual to or with a woman without first getting her informed consent.

It does. Having risky behaviour increase your chance of getting hurt. If wearing some clothes, saying some specific things, acting a certain way increase a risk, then you can't deny it, the same way someone walking near thugs showing off with expensives items and jewels is taking the risk to come back home naked. It doesn't mean that someone should be assaulted, it just mean that this someone increased its chance to trigger an unfavorable event. That's not even something to debate, it's just a matter of fact.

How does it reduce anyone's rights to give all people equal access to opportunities? I don't think it's unreasonable to pick a man who is more qualified than a woman as long as the criteria can be measured and shown to favor the man over the woman in the selection decision.

Leveling down everything is reducing everything. For instance, picking someone solely because of a gender, an ethnicity or an age is a drive to mediocrity.
Another one could simply be that organizing a kind of war between genders is very much "divide et impera" compatible and the multiplication of various fights that concern mostly some kind of people (let's call the the Epsylon) might be very much in favour of some other kind of people.

As long as one makes decisions on the basis of meeting criteria and only choosing a member of an underrepresented class when members are equal I don't see any problems. One can show why someone in an underrepresented class was chosen.

Yes, "as long as". The problem is that we now have things like "quotas". In other words, you have to get X% of population A in a given place. This thing is getting generalized over the time to fight "sexism" and "racism".

There are always going to be people who cry sour grapes over decisions which exclude them and they will almost always use the examples like you provided as the reason for the decision rather than facing up to the fact the person chosen was just as qualified or even more qualified than they are.

How could someone claim so if a company, a university or a government if forced, under the law, to take at least X% of this or that community? Forcing isn't a way to fight dicriminations. On the opposite, forcing people to accept things will just increase mistrust.

If one looks at history it's women who've gotten the raw deal for most of history.

In most countries women are told that they need to avoid acting in certain ways to avoid being raped or molested. Even though it is mainly the men doing the raping and molesting.

Until women don't need to modify the way they behave to avoid being raped or molsted it doesn't seem unreasonable to me for men to be told that they need to get actual verifiable consent to avoid being accused of molesting or raping a woman.

As a woman, I'm scared by what has been said in the messages above. I've researched these matters for some years and feel I have nothing to say to the comments above (the only person I think is being accurate is PolyGuySJ), even if the topic interests me. I've been in many of the situations that have been described, and the only person I can agree with is PolyGuy.
It's the 21st century, we better accept these inequalities exist, or there will be no fundamental improvement in the way we live.

Being scared doesn't change anything to either what I said or your problems. As far as I know, stating that women or men were unhappy in the past and are happier with x or y progress we have made is impossible without being able to calculate happiness of people from a given time in a given area. Doing the opposite is what we could call eurocentrism/(equivalent for the US/West?) and "contemporarycentrism", the same way judging another species with humans standards is called anthropocentrism.

You also said you've been doing your researches for some years, so what? Does it means you did your researches objectively and weren't driven by your biais? No. I can say the same thing about it, and still I have a very divergent point of view from you it seems, so it's not an argument at all.

Same, you talk about your personal situation, but is your personal situation relevant when talking about a general tendency? No.

It's 21st century, but if you want to fight against inequalities, you better prove them first, and argue about why equality is actually better than inequality, because this is also an axiom that is overused without actually proving how desirable it is.

To contemporary view. Maybe your view on the topic will be disgusting to future generations. Judging another generation or another culture taking yourself as reference just doesn't work.
Today's standards (and mainly Western standards) aren't objectively good nor superior to past ones. Those are just different and I would argue that, to some extent, women might have been happier in the past under "abhorrent practices and norms"

If I'm getting this right, you're saying that's pointless looking at what was like in the past, just because back then culture and society were different than nowadays'. I don't think this is true. it's wrong to think about history as a line made of independent blocks: everything is connected. everything that is happening now has a source in the past, and maybe that's how you explain the evident disparity in gender rights, and I'm not talking just for women but also for men. I agree with you when you say that in the matter of divorce the mother is the one who more easily gets the custody, and why so? you have to look back and I'm sure you'll find your answer. And if you say "maybe women were happier before" it's like saying nothing: in the first place because a whole gender can think the same way and never will, and in the second place because it doesn't give the answer to anything, and you can say that's false, because if women were happy in the past, nothing would've changed.

In most countries, people are told not to do this or that to avoid some issues. For example, not walking into a dangerous street, especially at night, in order to avoid being assaulted; or, as a tourist, not showing too much that you are a tourist/have money to avoid robbers. In case of a woman, it might help not to wear some clothes to avoid sexual predators.
In social psychology, there is also some concepts about sending signals. eventually clothes could send a signal to men that make them think it's eventually ok, if not to rape or molest, to go to talk to a woman, the same way a woman smiling will get more pretenders than a womanwho don't.

I'm sorry but, this just makes me laugh a little. how can you compare the case of a tourist to a case of rape? A woman is a woman till the end of her life, a person can't be a tourist every day of his/her life. Saying that the way you dress sends signals it's like you are insulting who is receiving the signal because you're saying that they are incapable to behave like civil human beings. It's like if your arms are shown and I like your arms I have to assault you because you're giving me the signal to do so. but anyway, your argument wants to cast the fault on the victim, and this is so pointless... the tons of rape cases are a social problem that you can't resolve saying "you have to dress like these so those animals won't attack you". The solution lies in analysing the point of view of the person who commits the offence.

If I'm getting this right, you're saying that's pointless looking at what was like in the past, just because back then culture and society were different than nowadays'. I don't think this is true. it's wrong to think about history as a line made of independent blocks: everything is connected. everything that is happening now has a source in the past, and maybe that's how you explain the evident disparity in gender rights, and I'm not talking just for women but also for men.

Not really. As you mentionned, every events in history is more likely connected and I agree with you on this point. What I was saying there is that judging customs from another era (or another culture) using your moral standards is pointless.
Like I said in another intervention (and despite the loss of nuances), you don't judge another species with human standards without taking the risk of anthropocentrism. For example, applying our moral saying that killing babies is really a bad things makes no sense when studying the behaviour of lions (of course, you could argue this isn't strictly morals or so, but it's essentially to make it more obvious, moral in chimpanzees populations would be more fussy to show right now).
On the same vein, it makes no sense to say that people from the past had abbhorrent practices things or that we made things truly going better while they were just different from us,not worse or better.

I agree with you when you say that in the matter of divorce the mother is the one who more easily gets the custody, and why so? you have to look back and I'm sure you'll find your answer.

Please, feel free to share the answer, and why is it still a thing.

And if you say "maybe women were happier before" it's like saying nothing: in the first place because a whole gender can think the same way and never will, and in the second place because it doesn't give the answer to anything, and you can say that's false, because if women were happy in the past, nothing would've changed.

It's the equivalent to say that women were unhappy with the situation. If it didn't change for a while, and that women were "oppressed" (admitting they were) for centuries, maybe they were fine with it the same way people were fine with some people we would call tyrants nowadays.
It's difficult to know wether people were happy or not, and that was the whole point here.

As for the reason why it changes, it could be not because someone is unhappy with the situation strictly speaking but because of propaganda for example. People's mind are easily manipulated and what they want could easily be driven. For instance, US citizens were non interventionnist in the past and got involved into world war after a propaganda campaign from their government. The same way, many products are "wanted" and "loved" by people not because people strictly like them but because of an add campaign, a trend, a specific movement that is propagandizing about it.
This seems to be the case in France with gender pay gap at the very moment, as statistics are widely mistreatens as I said earlier. In this case, it's totally normal for women to feel cheated on and being underpaid, since they will hear that they could stop working in November 14th at 4:43pm or so (yes, it is that accurate).

I'm sorry but, this just makes me laugh a little. how can you compare the case of a tourist to a case of rape?

I'm not comparing the fact of being raped and the fact of being robbed. I'm comparing the risk taking behaviour only that leads to a potential unfavourable outcome (of course a rape will have much more impact on a life than a robbery in general).

Saying that the way you dress sends signals it's like you are insulting who is receiving the signal because you're saying that they are incapable to behave like civil human beings. It's like if your arms are shown and I like your arms I have to assault you because you're giving me the signal to do so.

This is what I'm saying, indeed. Those people who can't (or don't) controle themselves are either from different cultures in which it is very allowed to assault a woman or they are just unable to behave properly in our societies. In both cases (and maybe they are more) they should be punished and be perceived as the savages they are according to our standards when they are living under our rules.

but anyway, your argument wants to cast the fault on the victim, and this is so pointless... the tons of rape cases are a social problem that you can't resolve saying "you have to dress like these so those animals won't attack you". The solution lies in analysing the point of view of the person who commits the offence.

Not at all. That's a common misandurstanding once you say the victim is taking a risk. As I said, it's not because a woman dress or act in a specific way the she should hold responsibility in being raped. No. The only point I am making - and there is absolutely nothing more- is that some behaviours increase a risk of getting an unfavourable outcome (just like walking in a bad street showing off with money is increasing your risk of getting robbed).

You're free to do anything you want with this. If you want to lower the risk by not wearing "slutty" clothes as some say, then it's your choice. If you can detect a specific population thinking that a set of clothes or a behaviour is a "call to rape", then you might eventually take actions against this populations (education if it's an option, repression, deportation..) based on that et caetera.

On my part, what I see is that women will be kind of forced to lower the risk by not wearing some clothes in the future because bad news are reported again and again, and/or because the risk of getting sexually assaulted is growing et caetera... I would personally find it pitiful if we had to get to this, and would find it ot be an evidence of the weakness of the West in general. Thus, I hope other solutions will be found in order for anyone to wear whatever shit they want without getting annoyed or, worse, assaulted.
I hope this will help to clarify my stance on the topic.

Not really. As you mentionned, every events in history is more likely connected and I agree with you on this point. What I was saying there is that judging customs from another era (or another culture) using your moral standards is pointless.
Like I said in another intervention (and despite the loss of nuances), you don't judge another species with human standards without taking the risk of anthropocentrism. For example, applying our moral saying that killing babies is really a bad things makes no sense when studying the behaviour of lions (of course, you could argue this isn't strictly morals or so, but it's essentially to make it more obvious, moral in chimpanzees populations would be more fussy to show right now).
On the same vein, it makes no sense to say that people from the past had abbhorrent practices things or that we made things truly going better while they were just different from us,not worse or better.

I mean, I don't think it's a bad thing judging what happened in the past based on what we have in our hands and the studies that we did. "Judging" maybe has a bad connotation, I think we can say also "analysing" and compare our current situation to the past (like how we are doing now). Being not on the same line with our ancients, doesn't mean to discriminate or cancel their values and behaviours, or saying they were worse or better than us. and we need also to take under consideration that a lot of things that people used to do in the past were based on certain beliefs that were thought to be indisputable, and we are taking ages to question them.

Please, feel free to share the answer, and why is it still a thing.

Ok, I would answer to myself thinking about the role of the woman in our societies, known to be the parent who had to take care of the house and of the children, and this can explain the special attachment that children can have with their mother, rather than the father, and guess what? This is a social construction due to the past. And what was originated from the past, has consequences in the present and fathers now are struggling with this kind of situations. And for both women and men, we are trying to get ourselves out of what previous society have built around gender roles: men are taught to be strong and bring money at home, whereas women are taught to stay at home for the children.

And I can expand this topic also for the gender pay gap issue, which in Italy I think it's also low, and some researchers tried to explain the phenomena, considering the general tendencies of women being more interested in humanist matters (such as Psychology Pedagogy etc.) and men tend to be more interested in economic and scientific subjects, so the pay gap lies in the fact that these different subjects lead to different-paid jobs.

This is what I'm saying, indeed. Those people who can't (or don't) control themselves are either from different cultures in which it is very allowed to assault a woman or they are just unable to behave properly in our societies. In both cases (and maybe they are more) they should be punished and be perceived as the savages they are according to our standards when they are living under our rules.

But I wouldn't see it like that. I think I'm understanding how you see our society and it's interesting because it's like you project yourself outside of it and be as objective as possible. but this vision might lead your common sense too far away. If our rules say that there are savage people, I think they're wrong and it is our task to understand why some people in our society (which is kinda developed) can think that they have the right to act in certain ways against other people's freedom.

Not at all. That's a common misandurstanding once you say the victim is taking a risk. As I said, it's not because a woman dress or act in a specific way the she should hold responsibility in being raped. No. The only point I am making - and there is absolutely nothing more- is that some behaviours increase a risk of getting an unfavourable outcome (just like walking in a bad street showing off with money is increasing your risk of getting robbed).
You're free to do anything you want with this. If you want to lower the risk by not wearing "slutty" clothes as some say, then it's your choice. If you can detect a specific population thinking that a set of clothes or a behaviour is a "call to rape", then you might eventually take actions against this populations (education if it's an option, repression, deportation..) based on that et caetera.

Nothing is impossible, but I don't think we could ever lead ourselves to a deportation of a population (talking from my western point of view). But again, let's focus on the examples that you make: a robber is committed by a person who might have social/economical problems and he/she can't see others solutions rather than stealing money and the fault of all this can be traced back to who is in charge of administration I guess; but the risk linked to slutty clothes has a different origin: is a distorted vision of the female figure who is being constantly sexualized in every context of her life, so it's difficult for her to demonstrate that she wants to wear slutty clothes just because she likes them. And yes, as you do, I hope that in future solutions can be found, both for people who have to steal from others and for rapists who need help to solve their problems.

To contemporary view. Maybe your view on the topic will be disgusting to future generations. Judging another generation or another culture taking yourself as reference just doesn't work.
Today's standards (and mainly Western standards) aren't objectively good nor superior to past ones. Those are just differents and I would argue that, to some extent, women might have been happier in the past under "abhorrent practices and norms".

I disagree completely and can say with a good deal of confidence that the today's standards are superior to past ones. The reason for this is that today's standards are based in information that was not known or available than earlier standards.
I consider it abhorrent for one human to own another human. I think that some standards are absolute even if they are in opposition to what was occuring in the past. We seem to disagree about that and I know we won't be changing each other's minds.
I also disagree that future generations will consider my views on the subject disgusting. If one looks at the arc of the human condition over time it's generally moved towards more freedom and liberty for individuals and more equality independant of gender, ethnicity and /or nationality. I would agree that from time to time progress is reversed but over the long run general direction has been consistent.

Different countries, different cultures. Maybe women are fine with it where they live. Maybe their dogmas chain them to their conditions and that is the reason why it doesn't change (supposedly for the best) there.
I personally don't care about what happen in such countries as long as people from there don't try to export their social norms into mine.

I would agree that some women are fine with the status quo but just because some are doesn't make it reasonable or right. I still think that restrictions on individual freedom and liberty based on gender, ethnicity and/or nationality.

I do care about what is happening in other countries because I care about the overall state of the world. Also if it's something that's acceptable in another place it makes it more likely that it could be adopted in my country.

If we go back 100 years in the United states there are many places where a woman couldn't own property and places where a married woman would have to get permission from her husband or be required to have her husband as a co-signer if she wanted credit, a loan or other financial account.

Maybe they were happier this way.? Or fine with it at least? It changed, that's all that we know, but I would argue that the changes that occured during your generations have different effect on ours. If women struggled to own a property because they needed to ask their husbands in the past, people (both men and women) struggle to own anything nowaday, and eventually this could be partly linked with "emancipation".

It would be very easy for you to find out. Pick up a book about the feminist movement in the 60's in the United States. You'll learn what sort of things women were experiencing and what they were fighting for. So for a reasonably large portion of the female population things were not fine and/or they weren't happy with things are they were because they fought hard to change things.

I don't see your dangerous areas and flashing cash examples as equivalent because they apply to everyone not just women.

The fact that it wouldn't be equivalent because it supposedly applies to everyone is irrelevant here. The important point was that people have to restrict themselves under some context in order to avoid being victims of a very unpleasant person called an offender or a criminal.
If I told you that men's clothes are stricter than women's clothes in areas like work, because women can wear just about anything colourful, from suits to dresses, compared to men who have to wear a sober suit, you'd tell me that it doesn't lead to being sexually assaulted. So of course I'll pick another example I have.

Let me try to put it a different way. Your examples were situational. A woman is always a woman and can never change that to not be raped. About the only people who can stop rape from happening are men by not raping women. I do agree that there are an extremely small number of women who rape other women or rape boys or men but the numbers are small enough to make it a non-issue for now. Once men stop raping girls and women we can start working on the women who rape others.

There's a big difference between rape/molestation and talking to someone. Although talking to a woman in a sexually aggressive manner could never be seen as invited just from their appearance.

Yes there is, but could you exclude that some signals or traits may increase the chances of getting raped? Wearing some set of clothes, just like being in your twenties probably are privileged targets.

Once again women should be able to wear whatever they want without being raped or molested. I don't care how men or others have justified their unreasonable actions the man should not have raped or molested the woman. Period.

It doesn't matter what a woman is wearing, saying or doing. It is never acceptable to do something sexual to or with a woman without first getting her informed consent.

It does. Having risky behaviour increase your chance of getting hurt. If wearing some clothes, saying some specific things, acting a certain way increase a risk, then you can't deny it, the same way someone walking near thugs showing off with expensives items and jewels is taking the risk to come back home naked. It doesn't mean that someone should be assaulted, it just mean that this someone increased its chance to trigger an unfavorable event. That's not even something to debate, it's just a matter of fact.

We disagree completely. Clothing, behavior and cirumstances are just excuses and justifications for rape and molestation. The only time there should be sexual activity is when both parties give their full and uncoerced consent.

How does it reduce anyone's rights to give all people equal access to opportunities? I don't think it's unreasonable to pick a man who is more qualified than a woman as long as the criteria can be measured and shown to favor the man over the woman in the selection decision.

Leveling down everything is reducing everything. For instance, picking someone solely because of a gender, an ethnicity or an age is a drive to mediocrity.
Another one could simply be that organizing a kind of war between genders is very much "divide et impera" compatible and the multiplication of various fights that concern mostly some kind of people (let's call the the Epsylon) might be very much in favour of some other kind of people.

How does choosing a particular person based on their being a member of an underrepresented class when they are equal to the member of the over represented class lead to mediocrity?

As long as one makes decisions on the basis of meeting criteria and only choosing a member of an underrepresented class when members are equal I don't see any problems. One can show why someone in an underrepresented class was chosen.

Yes, "as long as". The problem is that we now have things like "quotas". In other words, you have to get X% of population A in a given place. This thing is getting generalized over the time to fight "sexism" and "racism".

There are always going to be people who cry sour grapes over decisions which exclude them and they will almost always use the examples like you provided as the reason for the decision rather than facing up to the fact the person chosen was just as qualified or even more qualified than they are.

How could someone claim so if a company, a university or a government if forced, under the law, to take at least X% of this or that community? Forcing isn't a way to fight dicriminations. On the opposite, forcing people to accept things will just increase mistrust.

I already said that I'm generally against quotas so you don't need to beat that dead horse.

I mean, I don't think it's a bad thing judging what happened in the past based on what we have in our hands and the studies that we did. "Judging" maybe has a bad connotation, I think we can say also "analysing" and compare our current situation to the past (like how we are doing now). Being not on the same line with our ancients, doesn't mean to discriminate or cancel their values and behaviours, or saying they were worse or better than us. and we need also to take under consideration that a lot of things that people used to do in the past were based on certain beliefs that were thought to be indisputable, and we are taking ages to question them.

I agree with this, but saying that ancient had abhorrent practices and norms or that women got the raw deal is a judgement and not an analysis, let apart the generalization of plethora of cultures during very different eras.

Ok, I would answer to myself thinking about the role of the woman in our societies, known to be the parent who had to take care of the house and of the children, and this can explain the special attachment that children can have with their mother, rather than the father, and guess what? This is a social construction due to the past. And what was originated from the past, has consequences in the present and fathers now are struggling with this kind of situations. And for both women and men, we are trying to get ourselves out of what previous society have built around gender roles: men are taught to be strong and bring money at home, whereas women are taught to stay at home for the children.

If there were social constructs in the past, we could dig again and eventually find biological reasons too. Women for example carry the child for 9 months and have various biological mechanisms that makes them love their progeny, which is useful to feed it the same as the man has a more muscular body which was useful for hunting. If roles were biological in the past, they might still have an impact on todays choices and perceptions too?

As for men to be strong and women to be childcaring, I'd say that we live in a strange era in which men tend to be encouraged to show their feelings, cry and so on, yet aren't believed badly perceived when they do so and labeled as archaic if they want to be "strong" while women are encouraged to be strong and independent, to follow a career yet need quotas, will be said to stuff themselves if their clock hits, and will be diregarded if they want to be housewives (admitting it's economically possible in 2021).

And I can expand this topic also for the gender pay gap issue, which in Italy I think it's also low, and some researchers tried to explain the phenomena, considering the general tendencies of women being more interested in humanist matters (such as Psychology Pedagogy etc.) and men tend to be more interested in economic and scientific subjects, so the pay gap lies in the fact that these different subjects lead to different-paid jobs.

I've seen this too, and remember that in countries in which women had more opportunities to choose a field like sciences (typically Scandinavian countries), women tend to go more for job that are typically described as "feminine".
There were other factors though to explain the gender pay gap like women negotiating less for their salary, being less agressive in order to get a promotion, taking part-time jobs more, having more pauses in their career (I guess for obvious reason, and paternity leave is encouraged nowaday) et caetera.

But I wouldn't see it like that. I think I'm understanding how you see our society and it's interesting because it's like you project yourself outside of it and be as objective as possible. but this vision might lead your common sense too far away. If our rules say that there are savage people, I think they're wrong and it is our task to understand why some people in our society (which is kinda developed) can think that they have the right to act in certain ways against other people's freedom.

That's what I'm trying to do, with more or less success, yes. I agree that it's probably "our task" to understand, at least according to the ideas we have inherited in Europe, but the process is costly in time and energy and, what if a possible answer is not very well received in our societies? It seems to be the case with migration-related rapes and it leads, sometimes, to something like Rotherham or Telford. In that situation, "understanding" the problem doesn't help to solves as it enter in conflicts with other dogmas in our societies.

Nothing is impossible, but I don't think we could ever lead ourselves to a deportation of a population (talking from my western point of view). But again, let's focus on the examples that you make: a robber is committed by a person who might have social/economical problems and he/she can't see others solutions rather than stealing money and the fault of all this can be traced back to who is in charge of administration I guess; but the risk linked to slutty clothes has a different origin: is a distorted vision of the female figure who is being constantly sexualized in every context of her life, so it's difficult for her to demonstrate that she wants to wear slutty clothes just because she likes them. And yes, as you do, I hope that in future solutions can be found, both for people who have to steal from others and for rapists who need help to solve their problems.

Right, the causes are very differents and a robber could be someone who simply has socio-economical issues and is finding a way to deal with it. Yes,a woman might have issue proving that she's wearing some clothes just because she likes them, especially if they are associated to the oldest profession in the world. That being said, I don't really understand how is this answering me here. Do you mean that one of the problem, if not the main problem is oversexualization of women and that fixing it would hence lower the risk of getting assaulted associated with clothes considered as "slutty" by a society or a group of people?

Sorry if the whole post sems a bit meeh, I had to rewrite it almost entirely.

I agree with this, but saying that ancient had abhorrent practices and norms or that women got the raw deal is a judgement and not an analysis, let apart the generalization of plethora of cultures during very different eras.

you're right if we are taking an objective point of view, for example, if you are writing a textbook, you must look from the outside, but the reader will inevitably form his/her own thought. And I agree with you on the fact that simply state that something is bad/right/good/unjust etc. is really restrictive and everything needs to be motivated and plenty of factors need to be considered. Each one of us is limited and, as human beings, it's quite impossible adopting a super-objective vision of reality, turning off our own experiences. Anyway, we see it in quite different ways, what I'm saying is that we should both be objective and introspective. The former to not be misjudgemental (I may have invented this word but I'm sure you can get the concept) and the latter to analyse the differences between past and present.

If there were social constructs in the past, we could dig again and eventually find biological reasons too. Women for example carry the child for 9 months and have various biological mechanisms that makes them love their progeny, which is useful to feed it the same as the man has a more muscular body which was useful for hunting. If roles were biological in the past, they might still have an impact on todays choices and perceptions too?
As for men to be strong and women to be childcaring, I'd say that we live in a strange era in which men tend to be encouraged to show their feelings, cry and so on, yet aren't believed badly perceived when they do so.

Yes, of course there are biological reasons, that's the point zero of everything, but the problem that I see here is that we are not just pink and blue, and a woman might not want to be a mother and a man might not want to be the alpha. And I can't understand why it is so strange for you to see people encouraging a man to express their feelings or pushing a woman to pursue an independent career. That's ok have different roles, and there is nothing wrong if they match with the past ones (so woman as a housewife and man as the worker), but there are still people out there who struggle to understand why a woman doesn't have children at 35 or judging a boy because he listens to Britney Spears.

and labelled as archaic if they want to be "strong" while women are encouraged to be strong and independent, to follow a career yet need quotas, will be said to stuff themselves if their clock hits, and will be diregarded if they want to be housewives (admitting it's economically possible in 2021).

And here I agree with you, in fact, this is one of the problematic consequences that we can experience in a scenario when is exaggerated what a man or a woman does: as to say that a woman, who prefers to stay at home with the children, is not well seen because she's not respecting the primadonna image and the same for a man.

That's what I'm trying to do, with more or less success, yes. I agree that it's probably "our task" to understand, at least according to the ideas we have inherited in Europe, but the process is costly in time and energy and, what if a possible answer is not very well received in our societies? It seems to be the case with migration-related rapes and it leads, sometimes, to something like Rotherham or Telford.

I think it really doesn't matter if we need time and energy, it's our duty as components of a society that, without doubts, still needs reforms and changing that we could never reach if we don't understand the problems inside of it. With this I don't think that we could ever reach a point where all the problems are solved and all injustices will disappear (also because new problems will come, as well new injustices), but it's important going through a constant evolution.

I had to inform myself about those cases that you mentioned, because I have never heard of them before. What i understood is that feminists and authorities failed in making public comments / statements about the event because they were scared to be labeled as racists, right? I read that it was not 100% true that the rapists came form a specific community, but, anyway, what I see here is that some people seem to care more about their public image rather than follow their princips. If there is an actual correlation between the nationality of who committed the crime and the crime itself (which I don't think there is), it has to be explained in order to not be racist; but maybe this case is also correlated with a social discomfort, so someone has failed with the integration of the immigrants in the society (to mention an example). And in Italy this is one of the big problems that we have to face with, that immigrants are seen as a sort of parasite or someone who is class B.

In that situation, "understanding" the problem doesn't help to solves as it enter in conflicts with other dogmas in our societies.

I can see, mostly in the global West, that we are falling in the politically-correct trap, and this is a true risk with huge consequences. Think about what we were saying before about history: that's why i think it's necessary both an objective and introspective vision, (and i reapet myself, saying that your objective look is important to not "delete" what happened in the past) and this is valid also for art, books etc.

Do you mean that one of the problem, if not the main problem is oversexualization of women and that fixing it would hence lower the risk of getting assaulted associated with clothes considered as "slutty" by a society or a group of people?

Yes, that's what I mean. Now I will try to use my words. A rape is something wrong that happens in the wrong context, with the wrong manners. The point here is that every woman knows that she can run risks based on how she chooses to dress up, but renouncing to wear certain clothes to low the risk, doesn't help anyone: it restricts the range of decisions that a woman can take (so she has less freedom) and it just "hides" the problem but that problem is still there. So we need to start from the very first step of education of ethical and unethical behaviour (I guess you will argue with the term "Ethic").
If I have to be precise, rapes don't occured only when you wear certain types of clothes, so your safety is not guaranteed if you wear more sober clothes.

I disagree completely and can say with a good deal of confidence that the today's standards are superior to past ones. The reason for this is that today's standards are based in information that was not known or available than earlier standards.
I consider it abhorrent for one human to own another human. I think that some standards are absolute even if they are in opposition to what was occuring in the past. We seem to disagree about that and I know we won't be changing each other's minds.
I also disagree that future generations will consider my views on the subject disgusting. If one looks at the arc of the human condition over time it's generally moved towards more freedom and liberty for individuals and more equality independant of gender, ethnicity and /or nationality. I would agree that from time to time progress is reversed but over the long run general direction has been consistent.

That's only your beliefs though, a very subjective point of view and I could say with a good deal of confidence various things like Athenian democracy or French Monarchy were morally better, or to push it to the extremes, that I have a unicorn in my garden.

As for your views that wouldn't be abhorrent in the future, then you are denying that your standards could be as primitives to the next generation as the ancient standards are to you.

I would agree that some women are fine with the status quo but just because some are doesn't make it reasonable or right. I still think that restrictions on individual freedom and liberty based on gender, ethnicity and/or nationality.

I do care about what is happening in other countries because I care about the overall state of the world. Also if it's something that's acceptable in another place it makes it more likely that it could be adopted in my country.

Then just because you think something is right or not doesn't make it reasonable or unreasonable as well, especially when you brandish values as freedom and liberty as axioms, without justifying why they would be desirables.

Wanting to change others because they might be a threat to your beliefs is just a form of cultural imperialism though... Would you also impose your neighbour to remove his shoes in his own house because his practices could be exported to your house?

It would be very easy for you to find out. Pick up a book about the feminist movement in the 60's in the United States. You'll learn what sort of things women were experiencing and what they were fighting for. So for a reasonably large portion of the female population things were not fine and/or they weren't happy with things are they were because they fought hard to change things.

What I would read is that winners write the history, as usual. In France, feminist movements and strikes in 1968 started from men students (then a very small and privileged part of the population) wanting mix dormitories to lay down with women, and this is almost never mentionned. Same, it's rarely mentionned that feminist movements were pushed by industrials who just saw an opportunity to get more workforce pretending that women could do nothing at all, and could suddenly become advocate, doctor, actress.
The wave we're experiencing nowaday still plays this card (nobody promise women that they could become garbage collector and will more likely get into these works, like men, it's not good to sell an ideology in a society in which most of work are seen to be lower than others), which is nothing but a low ball. In addition, a small minority can be as noisy as a majority making the whole perception of a movement biaised. Feminism can look extremely bad because of femen, because they are very noisy, but being extremely noisy can also push a government to make move in favour of a movement without a population fully supporting it.
Thus, no, I would probably not find out easily if women were happier in the 70's than in the 50's, in the 18th or before.

Let me try to put it a different way. Your examples were situational. A woman is always a woman and can never change that to not be raped. About the only people who can stop rape from happening are men by not raping women. I do agree that there are an extremely small number of women who rape other women or rape boys or men but the numbers are small enough to make it a non-issue for now. Once men stop raping girls and women we can start working on the women who rape others.

My examples are situational but so is clothing and taking a risk. I wasn't talking about the fact of specifically being a woman because it would make no sense to point out something that can't be changed. In other words, if we say that men have 1/10 chances to get raped in their life and women have 5/10 chances to get rape, then wearing some set of clothes might increase the risk of getting raped from 5/10 to 6 or 7/10 for a woman. That's all I was saying (obviously, the units used are arbitrary).
However, when you say that women don't change, this is not entirely true... People get old and grannies are less victims of sexual assault than women in their twenties.

Once again women should be able to wear whatever they want without being raped or molested. I don't care how men or others have justified their unreasonable actions the man should not have raped or molested the woman. Period.

So? I never disagreed on this part, quite the contrary, but it doesn't answer my question. Could you deny that some behaviour, some traits might make of someone a privileged target?
If so, then in case the problem remains and is not fixed (and it's been at least 20 or 30 years that this problem is more and more in the public debate without any positive change from what I see), then an ultimate yet pitiful solution, as I mentionned to desiree if you want to lower the chances to get annoyed, is to refrain yourself from wearing some clothes or doing some things.

We disagree completely. Clothing, behavior and cirumstances are just excuses and justifications for rape and molestation. The only time there should be sexual activity is when both parties give their full and uncoerced consent.

They can be used as excuses, but a last time, if women showing them are more likely to get assaulted than others, then it's a variable on which they might be able to act as a last resort.
Concerning the consent, I'm afraid such thing would ideally require to write a paper to assert your consent or something, which would mean that the society would definitely takes the dystopic turn.

How does choosing a particular person based on their being a member of an underrepresented class when they are equal to the member of the over represented class lead to mediocrity?

I was talking about quotas here, but I guess that all other things being equals, then it would not lead to mediocrity but to inequality that is often praised. An "equal" and "fair" system would rather be to pick randomly the candidate instead, because taking someone because of they belong to x or y group is acknowledging that your citizens are differents and one deserves the post more than the other.

I already said that I'm generally against quotas so you don't need to beat that dead horse.

I was only pointing out that quotas are already a thing.

Yes, of course there are biological reasons, that's the point zero of everything, but the problem that I see here is that we are not just pink and blue, and a woman might not want to be a mother and a man might not want to be the alpha.

Of course, and biological or psychological mechanisms only describe a tendency in general, so indeed, it doesn't mean every men will be strong and be alpha (anyway, in most of species including humans, it never worked this way... and we have many different males associated to different mating strategies, which is very funny but I'm deviating).

And I can't understand why it is so strange for you to see people encouraging a man to express their feelings or pushing a woman to pursue an independent career. That's ok have different roles, and there is nothing wrong if they match with the past ones (so woman as a housewife and man as the worker), but there are still people out there who struggle to understand why a woman doesn't have children at 35 or judging a boy because he listens to Britney Spears.

What I find strange is the paradox resulting from this: You push/encourage men and women to act a certain way, but when they do, then you could still blame them, and if they don't do, then you could also blame them.
I'm not for pushing anyone, I prefer them to follow their natural desires and if it results in having jobs with a high percentage of men or women, even if it's governments or CEO, then I'm fine with it the same way I'm fine and glad to see a woman being a rally pilot or a bricklayer or a man being a house-husband or social caregiver if they're good at it. That means that I'm for leaving all this to natural process rather than making campaigns to promote one or another behaviour, especially when "freedom" is the goal.

I think it really doesn't matter if we need time and energy, it's our duty as components of a society that, without doubts, still needs reforms and changing that we could never reach if we don't understand the problems inside of it. With this I don't think that we could ever reach a point where all the problems are solved and all injustices will disappear (also because new problems will come, as well new injustices), but it's important going through a constant evolution.

Both are limited ressources for any of us. If you see on individual scale, then youd already see some people giving up on their dreams to allow their time and energy to something else (kids, work, duties in general). Society is kinda on the same path, and if we allow time and energy on this matter, then we won't be able to alow it elsewhere. My point here was mainly to say that if we start to take spend time and energy for understanding something without any results because the answer isn't pleasing, then it might not change many things.

I had to inform myself about those cases that you mentioned, because I have never heard of them before. What i understood is that feminists and authorities failed in making public comments / statements about the event because they were scared to be labeled as racists, right? I read that it was not 100% true that the rapists came form a specific community, but, anyway, what I see here is that some people seem to care more about their public image rather than follow their princips. If there is an actual correlation between the nationality of who committed the crime and the crime itself (which I don't think there is), it has to be explained in order to not be racist; but maybe this case is also correlated with a social discomfort, so someone has failed with the integration of the immigrants in the society (to mention an example). And in Italy this is one of the big problems that we have to face with, that immigrants are seen as a sort of parasite or someone who is class B.

Yes, the point was indeed that, in some cases, crimes are hidden for ideologic reasons. As for causality, you can think that a nationality can't be hold responsible for some behaviour and it's fine as long as it's not proven, but when there are already indicators that some people from specific places are raping girls (for example), then you can suspect there is something in the said community that leads them to accept more this kind of behaviour (without necessarily include all the people of the said community into a "rapist" box ).
In this specific case, then fail to assimilate or integrate the newcomers would indeed be something to think about (but if Italy is in the same case as France, then we're more into multiculturalism than "integrationism" or "assimilationnism" nowaday) for various reasons (like economical reason, because integration is expensive).
As for the views on migrants in Italy, there is no fire without smoke, so maybe there are reasons why Italians think so (and French too through the time), but it's another topic.

I can see, mostly in the global West, that we are falling in the politically-correct trap, and this is a true risk with huge consequences. Think about what we were saying before about history: that's why i think it's necessary both an objective and introspective vision, (and i reapet myself, saying that your objective look is important to not "delete" what happened in the past) and this is valid also for art, books etc.

Indeed, and again I agree on the fact that looking on history can be full of teachings. I won't deny that.

Yes, that's what I mean. Now I will try to use my words. A rape is something wrong that happens in the wrong context, with the wrong manners. The point here is that every woman knows that she can run risks based on how she chooses to dress up, but renouncing to wear certain clothes to low the risk, doesn't help anyone: it restricts the range of decisions that a woman can take (so she has less freedom) and it just "hides" the problem but that problem is still there.

Yes, that's why I think it would be pitiful and a proof of weakness from the West if women have to renounce to wear the clothes they want. It only hide the problem, but hiding the problem not only allow himt o stay, it kind of make us unable to fix it.

So we need to start from the very first step of education of ethical and unethical behaviour (I guess you will argue with the term "Ethic").

No issue with that, I only have issue when it's considered as universally true and obectively right. First step is education, but do you think education would entirely fix the problem and would work on everybody?

If I have to be precise, rapes don't occured only when you wear certain types of clothes, so your safety is not guaranteed if you wear more sober clothes.

Yes, I was only focusing on a specific case with this, especially if we consider that, apparently, rapes are mostly commited by people the victim knows. Thus, even though clothes would reduce the risk of getting """annoyed""", it would only be for specific cases...