Women's Status- Even Though There Have Been Improvements, Still Some

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   gmwilliamsposted 11 years ago

   Things Are The Same
   
   To all feminists and neofeminists out there, the status of women have improved gradually over 4 decades since the advent of feminism in the late 1960s.    Feminists such as Betty Friedan, THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE, and Gloria Steinem made women that there were roles outside that of the traditional role of housewives and mothers.   There were other feminist authors such as Kate Millett, SEXUAL POLITICS, Germaine Greer, THE FEMALE EUNUCH, and Caroline Bird, BORN FEMALE, whose phenomenal books made us aware of the inequality of the work world between men and women.
   
   Even though women have advanced far, there are still inroads that women have to overcome in order to achieve full equality.     There is still the glass ceiling at work and the attempt to encroach on women's reproductive freedoms such as access to abortion and birth control.    Yes, we have come far but yet to go even further.   Let's discuss this.

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      Brenda Durhamposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Things are not the same.
      Women have all the rights we need.
      It is actually men these days whose rights are either being ignored or encroached upon.
      For instance (to use your preferred subjects of abortion and birth control), men should be included in those issues.   What?   Do you think women get pregnant by themselves?   Are they the only gender involved in sexual relations?  Nope.
      I'm almost as tired of hearing women complain about their "rights" as I am about homosexuals whine about their special "rights".
      Is the world becoming one big political activist?   Seems like it.   So stagnant!   Time to let women be women and men be men like we were all meant to be.

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         neseritaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I'm a bit confused. What are the special rights that you say gays are asking for. I know that there has been must work done toward the right to marry, the right to be protected from violent crime, and the right to insurance benefits for their partners. But those are all rights that straight people have enjoyed for some time. What are the special rights that gays are asking for?

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            whoisitposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            "the right to be protected from violent crime"
            
            When were homosexuals not protected from violent crime under the laws?

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   Brenda Durhamposted 11 years ago

   P.S.
   There have ALWAYS been roles for women outside of the traditional wife and mother.
   Betty Freidan and all those activists simply wanted to claim to be breaking new ground.   Guess they didn't appreciate being women, preferred to plow into society's norms instead of following their advice to others and actually (gulp...) grabbing a plow and gettin' their hands dirty.
   
   I'm not a feminist.  But I am a female.  I am woman, hear me roar!!!  haha

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      Abbasangelposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I think victims rights have a long way to come... and do you get equal pay to your male counter part?

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         Brenda Durhamposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I'm not employed now.  But I was for 20 years of my life.
         Did I get equal pay?
         As far as I know, yes, I got "equal pay"--------among the people who were doing the same job as me,  taking into account my hire-in date, wage laws, etc.
         There were people (men and women, but yes mostly men) who got paid more than me,  but then, they were doing either a more skilled job or a physically harder job or else had more experience than me.    I didn't have a problem with that,  just as anyone who hired in after me got less pay to start with and later based on their work ethic etc.     And even if I had been discriminated against, I would've handled that on an individual basis,  not used it as a platform to whine about how all women are being discriminated against, because all women were NOT and are NOT being discriminated against!
         It's good that women have the right to vote, etc.
         But political activism has gone way too far in America.
         Women in general are not "victims" as you seem to hint at.     Matter of fact,  women are being "victimized" more by the women's lib movement than they are by men these days.
         
         For instance, MEN have been the gender which had to go to war when needed,  even subject to the Draft when it was in force.
         Women should never have to be in the military.    If an individual woman wants to, then if she's physically/mentally/emotionally capable of doing the required job, then let her go into the military.   But I'm personally getting tired of the movement that wants to drag ALL women along with it when it's being led by simply a whining few who want to make a name for themselves and whine discrimination.    The women's lib movement wants to speak for all women, when in fact all women don't want a liberal activist group speaking for them;  I think most women want to be recognized as women,  not as anti-men activists,  because we are women and they are men,  and indeed there is a difference whether liberals want to remember that or not.
         
         Like I referred to the Draft,   there are simply some things that men (in general) are much better suited for than women are, period.
         Just as there are some things that women in general are much better suited for.
         In long-term employment of manual labor,  women's bodies aren't as strong as men's in general.   And in the work force, women are naturally more inclined toward care-taking and "womanly" things.   Yes, I said "womanly" things, and am proud to say so.    Men should be men and women should be women.    It's not that women can't be just as good at business, etc., because we can!  And it's not that men can't be caretakers, etc., either, because they can!    I'm just saying that, in general, men are more apt to be stronger workers and better leaders,  especially when there are children involved in a family;  women are just naturally more apt to be the mothering type because they ARE women after all,  ya know, they have a womb and etc.  whereas a man does not.    Strange that I feel compelled to point out that obvious fact.
         
         Woman and men ARE equal, just in different ways.    Sometimes there are exceptions to each case,  but that doesn't mean the norm should be done away with.

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            Abbasangelposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I didn't hint only women are victims... Men are too and don't get assistance as easily if they are in a family violence situation as the victim. However because people hold views that women are lesser or fairer sex they constantly get asked questions like why didn't you stop her. As if they could, and then if they did with the climate in the courts about family violence he would be prosecuted. However sex crimes are very difficult to even a) get before a court b) get a sentence close to the maximum c) not have victim blaming (this goes across the board for men and women)
            
            There is a lot which still needs addressing, however you are right we do have much better now.
            
            With being given the right to vote, if that is all the "equality" you want good for you.

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         JaxsonRaineposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         All of the unequal pay statistics fail to address some or all of the following: education, experience, work performance, job duties, position, wage negotiation(if one person works hard and negotiates a bigger raise based off his performance, does the employer have to give everyone else the same raise? I say no.), and other factors.

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            Quilligrapherposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Hi Jaxson. Unequal pay studies all seem to approach the same conclusions.
            
            It seems disingenuous to criticize the findings of “all of the unequal pay statistics” unless you have personally examined the research methodology used by every study. Men are not proven to be better negotiators therefore “wage negotiation” is not likely to be a significant factor causing the obvious disparity in salaries between men and women. While there are a few studies that claim the salary gap has been overstated, I have yet to find one that concluded it did not exist.
            
            This study seems to have considered most of the areas you claim are neglected. Have a look at the 2007 study conducted by the American Association of University Women. It “accounted for college major, occupation, industry, sector, hours worked, workplace flexibility, experience, educational attainment, enrollment status, grade-point average, institution selectivity, age, race/ethnicity, region, marital status and number of children.” It “found a 12 percent difference in the earnings of male and female college graduates 10 years after graduation. A comprehensive report by the Government Accountability Office found a similar wage gap.” {1}
            
            It is difficult to dismiss all of the research done through the years based upon your hasty generalizations. Psychology Today discusses a study that found “women were paid on average $4,600 less than men in their first post-MBA job.” {2}
            
            In addition, the Harvard Business Review, a rather credible source, reported on the results from Catalyst, a respected research firm, in this way, “Even after adjusting for years of work experience, industry, and region, Catalyst found that men started their careers at higher levels than women. {3}
            
            There are many sound studies, Jaxson, showing a salary gap exists. Finding some flaws in methodology is reasonable but there is no data to suggest they all reached a false conclusion.   
            
            {1} http://www.politico.com/news/stories/06 … Page2.html
            {2} http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the … ty-persist
            {3} http://hbr.org/2010/03/women-in-managem … gress/ar/1

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   paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

   A philosophical question...
   
   If a man states an opinion, and there is no woman to hear it, is he still wrong?

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      neseritaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Only if his lips move :-)

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         paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         

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   JaxsonRaineposted 11 years ago

   I'll be honest Quill, it's not a topic that I'm interested enough in to keep up with. Last time I was discussing it, every study people were referencing to and that I saw were all highly flawed, citing 20-40% pay discrepancy based on gender.
   
   A quick look shows newer studies that are much better, controlling for factors, and showing 2-10% discrepancies, but they at least correctly label them as 'unidentified'.
   
   I do think that men tend to be better wage negotiators, for part of the same reason that men tend to be more in high-position management. It's about personality types... and it's not sexist to say that men and women, on average, are different. They just are. More men have been playing the bureaucratic game for longer than more women... they're more used to negotiating for their raise, selling themselves, etc.
   
   Again, before anyone gets upset about me being sexist, I'm not saying ALL men are better wage negotiators than ALL women. I do think it exists.
   
   But hey, what do I know? My wife just negotiated her wage for her new job up 10% higher than the advertised listing.
   
   Thanks for the links.

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5. 75

   jenniferrpoveyposted 11 years ago

   Oh, I have to weigh in on this and probably make all sides dislike me .
   
   First of all, yes, men and women are different. On average, men are larger. Men also have more fast twitch muscles in their makeup. Women have more slow twitch muscles. Women are better at multi-tasking, men tend to have better instinctive grasp of spacial relations, especially in a tight spot.
   
   It all makes sense if you look at how our ancestors used to live.
   
   Humans developed biological and behavioral sexual dimorphism a long time ago. Some of the basics of it are visible in chimpanzee behavior.
   
   Sexual dimorphism is a survival tactic developed by a number of species. For example, in some birds of prey, the female is twice the size of the male. This allows a pair to share a territory without competing with one another. Humans evolved sexual dimorphism to better exploit their environment. The current evidence indicates that Homo neanderthalensis - Neanderthal man - did not have sexual dimorphism, and where are the Neanderthals now? Oh, right, they're a few genetic markers drifting through a population that absorbed them. They could not compete with us.
   
   Humans split the gender roles fairly simply. Hunting was the province of males. Gathering plant-based foods and some setting of traps was that of females. This made sense because hunting when pregnant risked the child as well as the mother. Furthermore, males are more expendable than females. A man can have two, or three, or four wives without reducing the number of children produced - it's not ideal for humans, who tend to be happier in monogamous pair bonds - but it's a usable survival tactic (note that there are some human cultures that have women take more than one husband, which appears to be a tactic for keeping the population low in areas where survival is particularly tough).
   
   Men, thus, evolved fast twitch muscles for sprinting and throwing weapons, larger size for dragging animals home, and pack hunting tactics that we still see today in poorly socialized young males (we generally call them "gangs").
   
   Women, on the other hand, have more slow twitch muscles to allow us to do repetitive tasks without tiring. We multitask because a man can focus on the prey, a woman, in the wild, had to keep her eyes open for predators even while gathering food. Women have better color vision than men in order to better identify plants and mushrooms.
   
   Both sexes complemented one another without competing with each other, although it's likely that individuals, even then, broke the gender roles - women who preferred to hunt with the men are an ancient human legend. Who made tools varied, although in most cases men made hunting weapons and women made their own tools. Weaving, when it was invented, became (oddly) a male pursuit in some cultures, a female one in others.
   
   Then, of course, humans realized life would be easier if they could control their food sources. A woman dropped seeds near the village or camp and saw food plants sprout...and realized that if she deliberately planted seeds she wouldn't have to go as far to get food. Men worked out how to corral animals - in some African societies, women still grow crops and men still herd cattle...and women own all the land and have most of the real power.
   
   We worked out how to store food. We built cities. But the dimorphism is still there, and pretending it isn't does a disservice to both men and women.
   
   So. Right. We're different. That does not mean we don't need equal rights. Let's take the military, as it's been brought up. I'm in favor of either extending selective service to both sexes or accepting that the chances of a draft, with the way technology is now, are so slim that we don't need it any more.
   
   Brenda Durham feels women should not be forced into the military. I feel that *nobody* should be forced into the military, but that if we're going to keep that outdated system...then it has to be applied fairly.
   
   Military. Men have always been soldiers because war is an extension of hunting, and the same adaptations that make most men better hunters than most women also make most men better fighters. And I'll be blunt and say that men are definitely better as GIs and that will stay true until we start routinely putting infantry in power armor, which is probably 30-40 years in the future. However, women are extremely valuable on ships (smaller, can fit into narrower spaces, smaller hands and often better fine control) AND women have much higher G-tolerance, on average, than men, making us better pilots.
   
   Equality does not preclude assessing aptitude and accepting that some people are better at some things than others, including sex-based differences.
   
   However, yes, men and women doing the same job should have the same pay. Men who want to take time out from their careers to stay home with the children should be respected for their choice as much as women are (I have a friend who did this...his wife was making far more money, so he stayed home with their daughter. Because it just made more sense). Womanly tasks and work such as teaching and nursing should be better respected and better paid...there's still a tendency in our society to pay "female" jobs worse even when they're being done by men.
   
   On the other hand, I do see discrimination against men all over the place. My first experience with discrimination against a male was when I was in college and a heterosexual male victim of domestic violence reached out to me for help. I tried to find somebody to help him.
   
   Nobody would. "We only help women." was mingled with "He should man up and fix it himself."
   
   Male victims find it much harder to get help than female victims (and our culture makes it harder for men to admit to it).
   
   It's also become the thing that female-only spaces are protected and male-only spaces disrupted and destroyed.
   
   In other words, you're all right, to some degree.

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