/townhall/ - Townhall

Sure. People should be free to do what they want without feeling like they are the wrong gender for what they are doing.

In an ideal society, I think people would be supported for being who they are (or finding out who they are), without regard to gender or any other outside appearance.

I think that everyone prefers equality, but that people have different ideas about what equality is and how to get there.

>>12439
>Sure. People should be free to do what they want without feeling like they are the wrong gender for what they are doing.

I think that would follow.

>In an ideal society, I think people would be supported for being who they are (or finding out who they are), without regard to gender or any other outside appearance.

I'm always cautious about talking generally.  Some people prefer gender inequality.  I think my idea of gender egalitarianism, like all my ideas, involve the possibility of private spaces where these things are true.

>I think that everyone prefers equality, but that people have different ideas about what equality is and how to get there.

A competing belief is that men and women are inherently different and should have different freedoms, restrictions, and responsibilities -- that roles must be unequal.  See, for example, the controversy around a proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution of the US.

>>12441

>I'm always cautious about talking generally.  Some people prefer gender inequality.  I think my idea of gender egalitarianism, like all my ideas, involve the possibility of private spaces where these things are true.

I guess it could be said that on some level people prefer gender inequality.

>A competing belief is that men and women are inherently different and should have different freedoms, restrictions, and responsibilities -- that roles must be unequal.  See, for example, the controversy around a proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution of the US.

Interesting. I would like to believe that most people that anymore, and I think that maybe the controversy around the ERA amendment is about Section 2: "The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article" instead of just leaving it up to the Supreme Court when a violation of the amendment occurs.

(What kinds of laws do you think might be made?)

>>12442
Overreach was part of the controversy.  I feel like that part of the proposed bill is standard, in that making something unconstitutional does not automatically cause enforcement, but some of those who opposed believed in gender equality but thought there might be negative consequences of the particular amendment yes.

>What kinds of laws do you think might be made?

Well, social movements exist in the freedom people have after their compliance with the state is complete, and I think it's important to understand lay people must comply with law but are not able to understand it.  But where it is respectful, appropriate, and legal I'd like laws to not inhibit the freedom of people to have gender equality amoung those who consent to that kind of thing, to the extent a person like me can even understand such things.

It's a nice idea, but i don't think it works out in the long-term, due to women's dating preferences. I think both gender egalitarianism and feminism overall ar, unfortunately, a doomed concept, as women, given the choice, will form preferences for powerful men, whose attraction will give them even more power, leading over time to either slow death by depopulation (as we're already seeing in countries with large gender egalitarianism), or simply repeating cycles of egalitarianism leading to a small group of powerful men having control over those women, leading to uprisings of male disempowered masses, leading to restrictive female roles, which fade with time, and so the cycle repeats forever.

It's not a solvable problem. The problem is women's inner conflict between their sexual desire for men more rich and powerful and influential than them, and their platonic desire for equality with men. That conflict isn't going anywhere. It's an innate biological desire, and it's a paradox. It will be with us forever.

Given all that, let people be free. Their place on the cycle will determine their actions and they will act accordingly. There is no escape.

>>12444
This is good.  I might never have thought of it that way without a discussion.

So, maybe, heterosexual people who value a happy relationship, and accept their inherent nature, should not really be part of gender egalitarianism.  Or at least, those heterosexuals that see the ideal romance in the way you describe: men needing weak women, women needing powerful men.  This seems to be a big gender related difference you see in heterosexual people who want romance.

>>12444

Perhaps gender egalitarianism and feminism are concepts that are inherent in general equality, and such movements can be seen as a sort-of medicine for the world, which once taken and the lessons having been absorbed, cease to be useful.

But I think it's going to be a while (100s of years at least) before society as a whole reaches a point of general equality, where everyone feels free to be themselves and people who are not themseles are not the norm, and therefore easily helped by the many who know themselves. Until the world starts looking more like Equestria, I don't think we're close.

Different societal medicines have different levels of effectiveness and are best applied at diffferent times in response to different situations to have the most helpful effect.

Oh, found a good video breaking the basic problem down.

>>12447
I understand the idea.  I consider the dating needs of people to be an individual responsibility, but I gather for women seeking men to find a happy partnership they need to ensure their income is....half maybe...of the men in their social circle.  But if enough women ensure their income is relatively low, it will bring down the average.  Gender egalitarianism, then, might mean that men and women not seeking partnership with the opposite gender should have about the same income, all else being equal.  Homosexuals, perhaps, should be the measuring stick if heterosexuals are inclined toward inequality.

>>12454
Right. And that's all well and good assuming women can develop sufficient attraction to those men to make that work. I'm not sure that's the case in most circumstances. This is one of those things that kind of boils down to scale: individual vs. social model. Sure, that can work for some people, of course, but does it work for enough people that it can act as a stable model for human courtship and reproduction in the long-term without getting de-facto replaced by a different, more popular model? I'm not so sure.

>>12456
The model I think you're talking about is one where women opt to make less for the purpose of finding a man who makes more, thereby satisfying the requirement for a wage inequality.  I'm guessing you think this would not work because the woman knows she could theoretically make as much as that man.

>>12436
I am for equality of treatment, which does not result in equality of outcome it should be noted.
Whether this would apply to your subject here varies wildly depending on who you speak to.

Ultimately, people ought be free to do as they, personally, wish, so long as it isn't directly harming others.
But a consequence of people doing what they wish is that society will be inequal. A society with equal opportunity will inevitably give rise to inequal outcomes.
Some find those outcomes unacceptable. I do not.

>>12457
Correct. Even if a given woman chooses to make less money, which i don't think makes sense for her to do, and don't believe she'd choose to do for the sake of developing heterosexual attraction, i don't think it would even scratch that particular itch. She'd still know she could make more if she chose, and thus i still think she'd view the world in the same way.

>>12459
That creates something of a pickle.  If a rule is created that says women must be paid no more than half for the same work as men, knowing that rule is the source of men's higher income, wouldn't that similarly mute the sexual appeal?

There seems to be no good solution except perhaps to indoctrinate women as deserving members of a lower financial class.  I suppose we need to accommodate negative opinions of these kinds about every group of people and they exist, but I generally don't share these ideas, except where required to respect state power.

>>12460
>There seems to be no good solution except perhaps to indoctrinate women as deserving members of a lower financial class.

It's exactly that. This is largely what happens and what has happened throughout history and the world. Women have been financially, legally and socially restricted across the world and throughout history. It's inherently immoral, but it's also the system that works, that being, the one that's functional to encourage enough reproduction to ensure the survival of those cultures and those people. I mean, systems of oppression don't come from nowhere. They serve purposes. Black people were oppressed because southern farmers wanted lots of cheap labor to work the land.  Jews were oppressed because they made a good scapegoat to justify increased German state power. These systems of oppression are often portrayed as mindless hate or emotional outburst, but no system gets that far off the ground without someone at the top having cold, calculated goals. They're bad, obviously, but if you look close enough, they tend to have a goal in mind based in cold calculation.

As for solutions, i don't think you can really approach it from a "Change women" angle. I think that's flawed. Best approach is to mute or redirect male heterosexual desire, which i think is far more feasible. It makes more sense to divert the flow of a river than to try and will water into existence, after all. Internet porn, sexbots, more male/male pairing, or encouragement of non-sexual passions. stuff like that. On some level, that's already happening. I don't think it's deliberate or conscious, but i think on some level people recognize the problem and the need and end up finding solutions.

>>12461
>I mean, systems of oppression don't come from nowhere. They serve purposes.

Yes, this is true in the sense that some benefit from these systems and tend to try to preserve them.  The purpose is to benefit some group over another, usually.  The germ of difference that determines who is the benefiting group is probably arbitrary (although opinion vary), but once these systems get going they have economics and tradition behind them.

I guess in my life, I have heard many people complain about their romantic situation.  I feel like a degree of dissatisfaction is pretty normal for a wide range of reasons, and I'm not sure how much weight to place on dissatisfaction due to economic equality between partners.

>>12462
>Yes, this is true in the sense that some benefit from these systems and tend to try to preserve them.  The purpose is to benefit some group over another, usually.  The germ of difference that determines who is the benefiting group is probably arbitrary (although opinion vary), but once these systems get going they have economics and tradition behind them.

I don't think the purpose is always so nefarious. I think a lot of the time it's an attempt to preserve a structure that people see as working. There's a whole lot of social models out there that just result in death and despondence. To preserve what, to some degree, works, rather than charge blindly into what might be total destruction. It's not a view i really agree with, i think you can be amenable to lots of ideas without abandoning things that have historically worked, don't throw the baby out with the bath water and all that, but it's a logical enough position.

>I guess in my life, I have heard many people complain about their romantic situation.  I feel like a degree of dissatisfaction is pretty normal for a wide range of reasons, and I'm not sure how much weight to place on dissatisfaction due to economic equality between partners.

Well, it wouldn't really be a socially acceptable thing in most circles. I suppose it's becoming more acceptable to just be mad that your partner is poor, or a guess a "scrub", "immature" or "looser" is often code for that these days, and that's the game, really. Women speak in code when referring to poor men, so i think you'll find it's a lot more prevalent when you read between the lines.

>>12463
You offer an interesting observation on systems of inequality.  I don't know if I quite agree, but I do think systems of inequality are often perpetuated by people who see themselves as good and people who are generally seen as good.  The systems have rationale.  A lot of people would judge these systems, especially in their time as working, although "worked" objectively only means "existed."

Slavery worked by this definition.  It had a rational.  Free labor was not available for necessary economic activity.  Black people might not have been safe outside the protective custody of an owner, and if slave people were receiving protection, housing, and food, expecting a bit of labor in return wasn't so cruel.  Many good people were involved in maintaining slavery, or whatever other example we can come up with that is generally considered oppression.

>charge blindly into what might be total destruction
I'd say...nothing can be relied on to stay the same.  Continuing traditional habits in a world that changes around you is also charging blindly.

I'm not sure how to say this nicely, so I'll just flatly say it openly.

Discrimination and prejudice against women is so much of a smaller and weaker social issue in the U.S. compared to basically any other way that people are knocked down: race, religion, age, skin color, sexual orientation, accent, national origin, and so on. And there's also the fact that discrimination and prejudice against men is a parallel problem existing at the same time. This shouldn't be denied.

Thus, throughout much of America today it's flatly an advantage to be a woman. And in many cases it's a complex and mixed situation. This obviously doesn't make bigotry less harmful on an ethical level. And in practical terms, well, it's still devastating for ideals such as expanding economic liberty and relative prosperity.

What's happening is sort of like if a hospital decided that the number one priority is to help people who're having nosebleeds. And if new wings full of specially dedicated beds arose with expensive machinery for those who're experiencing them right now. This all comes at the direct cost of taking away time and resources to treating cancer, treating diabetes, treating heart attacks, and so on. Yet the orders have come in. Orders are orders.

I'm absolutely worried that what's going to happen as a result of modern feminism is that really powerful, wealthy, and connected people who happen to be women (and also some men of that type of status) will accumulate more for themselves at the expense of not just America in general but especially those at the bottom (particularly men).

Giving a $5 bill from a homeless black man sleeping on a park bench in New York City to Paris Hilton as she's coincidentally passing by and then screaming "I'm helping! I'm socially progressive! I'm so helping! Patrick, we've saved the city!"...

>>12468

Yep. It's the victim industrial complex at work. As soon as a problem gets an established organization to take care of it, you've effectively secured that problem to exist forever, as fixing the problem renders your organization, and your personal paycheck, at risk. That's why we see these things crop up, but never see them solve anything. Doesn't matter if you're a corporation, government committee, or local grassroots group. It's the problem of power, and some of the smartest people in history have tried many times with many different methods to solve it, but to no avail.

In this case, the grift is to overstate the plight of women, drum up money for "support", allocate most of it to "administration expenses" (aka you pocket it yourself) and then rake in the cash. This tends to work because people don't have the emotional energy to audit every segment of an organization they see as "doing good". It's why charities are so often used as tax evasion tools. It's the people who know how to weaponize bureaucracy using it for their own gain, and it's basically always been the parasite that sucks at the flesh of any organized society.

>>12468
Granted there are cases for triage, but healthcare as an industry generally handles a wide range of problems at the same time.  But I don't think that's really your argument.

I specifically avoided mentioning feminism, as I consider saying it's about gender egalitarianism would be a sweeping generalization.  I think your argument is that we have reached gender egalitarianism -- it's not a problem.  But you are also against the idea somehow.

>>12469
Hmm...you seem to be arguing against the practice or concept of organizations with goals.  I think it's a good point that organizations with closed-end goals should have a means to dissolve once the task is accomplished, to avoid lingering unproductively.

>>12472
Honestly, a bounty system might be more productive, or at least, it might be a reasonable way to encourage dissolve.

I'll be more flatly open.

If you're a straight white cisgender woman in America today who's not disabled and is also middle-class or upper-class, to be blunt, then you're more advantaged, blessed, and gifted by the society around you more than basically any other collection of human beings in world history other than literal royalty and nobility.

It's hard enough to accept this extreme superiority complex in the abstract, but in practice hearing the likes of Ivanka Trump, Paris Hilton, Kylie Jenner, and Taylor Swift being brought up like "OH! NO! THEY"RE SO OPPRESSED!" and "THEY SUFFER SO MUCH!"... it's all too much.

If you wanted a fairer society, then you'd be taking from (certain) women and giving it to (certain) men at the exact same time as (certain) women. Which is a fact. Even if you basically aren't allowed to say this.

>>12469
Agreed with every word. Absolutely. It's such a shame.

>>12475
I think you're talking about feminism.  This thread is not about feminism.