TWIT~X Emma Watson - Paris, France - Feb 18th 2018 - LQ [Discussion after post 6, click at your own risk]

I like her dress, Emma looks pretty as usual

 

Your argument rests on a fundamental assumption that the only legit value in life is that found in the market. Only that which has a price tag has 'real' value. So, tell me how much did you pay for your last 1,200 breathes (about an hour)? And, when that last gasp is done, how many trillions could buy just one more?

'Don't hang on
Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and sky
It slips away
And all your money won't another minute buy' - Kansas, 'Dust in the Wind'

During her 'loss of work time' she's 'producing' another human being (which, I argue, is much more necessary to the continuation of society than another car or i-phone, or a fucking complex financial instrument).
Believe it or not there's a world outside of America where this fact is seriously taken into consideration. Amazingly there are places where a worker's position is held for part of the gestation period and beyond with other benefits (largely unimaginable in the U.S.), and those societies miraculously manage to survive and thrive.
A society can be ordered in which ever way the people choose. One of the biggest mistakes humans ever made, imho, was 'letting the market decide'. The market may or may not be a decent servant to society but it has proven to be a vicious and stupid master.

 

What part of 'No amount of opportunities in false 'equal means same' paradigm can 'fix' that - and in said paradigm any privilege to offset lack of opportunity IS rightfully considered discrimination.' you didn't read ^_^?

Your "opportunity mostly defines outcome" is based on assumption that both sides can use pursue said opportunity with same efficiency - and this is not so, not until we learn to produce viable next generations via some kind of 'uterine replicators'(c)L.Bujold.

Not to mention that posts above says that THAT group proclaimed 'fighting wage gap' - i.e. stays in same paradigm , just trying to fix it (and not in 'repair' way) for their flock.

 

Of course - as in 'angry people seeking simple solution while some groups spin them to their own - totally unrelated - interests'.

Read 'noticed' instead - i'm neither american nor even roman-group speaking, so of course there's artifacts of my native speech - and of pompous 'high style' no less. Though a bit of 'not seeing mountain behind hill' is included - hill is real, but climbing it just expends stamina needed for climbing mountain.

Not themselves, these just create 'white noise' and general sense of uneasyness where REAL dangers can grow masquerading as similar groups.

 

Well, one way to separate the 'wheat from the tare' (good from the bad) is to listen to what they're advocating. Are they about inclusion or exclusion? The Nazis, Daesh and groups like them are about exclusion: 'master race', or 'the only group who practice the true religion' etc.
But, to assume that activism or activists contain some inherent quality that makes it/them vulnerable to fascism is kind of silly.

 

'equal means same paradigm' ? I don't understand what your point is here. Equal and same are synonyms.
If what you mean is, for instance, that all the players on LeBron James' team should get the same pay as him, then, no, that's not what I'm advocating. LeBron is the marque player. People buy tickets to see him as the star player. But, that doesn't mean that the rest of his team are broke and applying for food stamps, either.
My point might be made clearer in this way. An opening for 10 entry level positions requiring rudimentary skills possessed by just about everyone, such as: can you read, do basic math, lift 50 lbs etc. 50 people show up to apply. They represent 5 different groups (A thru E), all qualified. In an equal opportunity paradigm, you would not expect to see all 10 slots filled by people from only one group, say group A. In fact you would be suspicious that something was rotten in Denmark. No, you would expect to see a diverse spread of people representing members of each group. That's what I mean by opportunity is reflected in outcome.

 

But therein lies the issue: are these groups really agitating for equality, or for a different kind of discrimination? I linked to this council's site a couple of comments back, and I'd thoroughly recommend taking a look at some of their documentation. For a group whose name is carefully designed to avoid gender bias, there's a visible lack of any stated intent to fight for equality in cases where males are routinely biased against, like custody hearings and domestic violence and sexual abuse incidents. Each of the latter still carry a powerful stigma that downplays the effects on male victims, despite them making up ~50% of victims. There's a persistent notion that men just aren't subject to this stuff, which could not be further from the truth.

For what it's worth, just about the only mention of males in their documentation is in relation to them abusing/discriminating against women. See for yourself:

Not a single word is mentioned about the fact that the evidence indicates that this is something that affects both sexes equally. Men are mentioned exclusively as causal factors. This group is focused exclusively on "engaging" males in order to protect the victims, who are implied to be exclusively female. It's tough to think of a clearer case of wilful discrimination.

You're certainly correct that there is still discrimination today, and that it can trace back (in the US) at least as far as colonialism, but the way to solve that isn't to swing in the opposite direction and discriminate in reverse, and as far as I can tell that appears to be what's going on here. We have a G7 council agitating for action that favours one gender over the other, up to and including downplaying extant recorded acts of discrimination against the unfavoured gender. You don't level the playing field by "Incentiviz[ing] the private sector to achieve pay equality for women and men in the company as a whole and at all levels of management by 2030" unless you first demonstrate that men and women are equally represented at all levels on merit alone. Without that latter point the quoted excerpt (found in the executive summary of the previous link) cannot ever be an equal outcome, as it is not meritocratic. If men and women have each earned their way into equivalent positions throughout a company then you could argue that it is reasonable for pay to be comparably equal. Demanding that the two genders are paid equally _without_ accounting for this meritocracy is exactly the problem you outlined yourself.

Just because the current US is rife with nepotism doesn't make is acceptable everywhere else. Far better to "agitate" for equality of opportunity alone, and let equality of outcome sort itself out when and if it becomes applicable.

For the record, though, I wasn't claiming that Jack Johnson had fights fixed in his favour. I was pointing out that that hypothetical scenario is equivalent to forcing companies to shove more women into their boardrooms purely because they're women and their company has a male-dominated executive roster. If they earn their way into contention for those positions - like Johnson did - then fine, they've earned the right to compete for those positions, but if it's merely a case of forcing a vagina into a comfortable chair then it's no different to pandering to Johnson by fixing fights in his favour to make up for him not being allowed to compete previously. Johnson didn't need that kind of help, and nor should he have received it. Women should be given the chance to show that they don't need that kind of help either. I have one such woman to thank for my recent PC upgrades, so it can certainly be done (although there's a nepotism case to be made there, for those who know the industry).

 

Have you considered taking this up with them, rather than talking about them? Just a thought.

 

Equal NOT means same. Apples and oranges

Your LeBron (need to google him btw , it's not Ronaldo famous in our reaches) example - you can find a lot of men of similar physical condition so it all will come to dedication, skill, charisma and less visible factors - but women of similar condition - while possible - is _statistical_ rarity (that's why in lot of sports men and women leagues are NOT leftovers of social prejudices). Even male with similar stats will be rarity among a lot of ethnical backgrounds (high height is harmful trait for lot of environments in Asia and Africa). Does this means that basketball team owners and trainers discriminate against people of Southern Asia, East European Jew or Far North descent?

But there's also catch i've mentioned before - same basic skills and abilities are NOT ENTIRE situation. For entry-level jobs it looks that way, but we're talking of advanced positions with higher rewards. And there time spent on procreation means less opportunities and experience, not to mention that some americans during discussion on european-style maternal leave laws were outright horrified that they'd be required to keep 'unproductive' worker 'o force' (and not just hire full replacement instead of temporary one), suggesting that then - purely from their economical standpoint - it'll make no sense for them (as small to medium busyness owners) to hire women (without other incentives at least - taxation is traditional one, but it's not 'one size fits all' solution too).

 

Which takes us back to my previous point. Who says that producing another human being is a negative? You appear to view a woman's ability to procreate as a mark against her. Even to the point of questioning whether she's employable. Thereby conceding the argument to those fighting discrimination. Can you imagine something more discriminatory than, 'Sorry Miss, but we can't hire/promote you because someday you may decide to have a baby. In fact why don't you go on home and find a husband and make a nice little home for your family? Have a good day - Next!'

As for Americans 'horrified' by European style maternity leave. I'm not one, and I doubt that I'm alone or in the minority. I argue that (1) human beings are more important than commodities [the whole point of business] and (2) much more significantly, human beings are NOT commodities. The business world will simply have to make do. That may sound shocking, because we've been indoctrinated from birth to view 'markets' as sacrosanct. Anyway, that's a much deeper argument for a much longer timeline.

Back to the one at hand. If you think it through, the argument you're making, i.e. woman have builtin 'defects' that make them less suitable for advancement or even hiring - don't look now but that's the discrimination that these groups are fighting.
I spent 20 years in uniform. I know first hand that woman can do the job, have babies and get promoted - all in a single career. Did they face obstacles from men who harbored your prejudices? Hell yeah, but with some help from laws and regulations that sanctioned [in the negative] such bigotry, they soldiered on (no pun intended). Now, maybe you - and some of your American cohorts - think they should have been court-martialed when the strip turned blue/pink, but thankfully the decision wasn't yours.
Any society that views gender, or skin color, or [fill in the blank] as a detriment, and that 'these people' should be treated as less than, or 'not quite qualified', is a society that is sick and needs to take a long look at itself - and change. Which is the whole point of, 'Agitate, agitate, agitate!' Peace to Frederick Douglass.

P.S. As for the whole LeBron and Ronaldo etc., I honestly don't know what you were getting at.

 

I'll give Trudeau a quick text if you have his number...

 

Easy.
But not Trudeau, Gender Equality Advisory Council at UN Women.Org

Headquarters
Street address:
220 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017
Tel: +1 646 781-4400
Fax: +1 646 781-4444
Website: www.unwomen.org

Feel free to lodge your complaints.

 

Okay, put it this way: do you think I'm some kind of sociological prodigy who happens to be the only person who has ever spotted the difference between equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome?

In fact, did you not notice that your cited contact details for this Gender Equality Advisory Council is rather gender-biased? Here's another page:

http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do

And here's a quote from the top of that page:

"UN Women focuses on priority areas that are fundamental to women’s equality"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Equality.

Close thread.

 

Then how do you explain the conspicuous lack of any mention of aspects of society in which men are routinely discriminated against? Or, worse still, the fact that not only does their mission statement gloss over an area in which men and women are equally affected, but place the blame for that entire aspect on men alone?

Still open...

 

That's an interesting filter at work in your mind. It sees the words 'gender equality' and reads them as gender biased(?!?!)
You see a sentence like: 'Increase male engagement to end gender-based violence and other forms of interpersonal violence.' and read it as a slight against men, rather than an invite to join the struggle. Hate groups don't usually send out invitations to their 'sworn enemies'.
But again, if you really have a beef with this council and their agenda then take it up with them. You have the contact info. You may even get a reply.

 

They range from minor to imaginary.

You're approaching the entire conversation from a place of fear, which is causing you to just cynically search for any holes to pick in it. Not constructive.

 

No, I see "gender equality" and expect a neutral position. What I find when I look a little closer is a whitewashing of something that negatively affects both genders equally in order to portray it exclusively as something that affects women. That is a gender-based bias. I don't translate anything creatively - I just note the discrepancy between what the headline says and what the little details below it say.

Think about it: if this group were presenting nuclear fallout from Fukushima as something that uniquely affected women would you think they were trying to con you? What if they did so in a document titled as, and released by, a group whose name indicates a gender-neutral stance on sociology?

For the record, despite accusing me of creatively "translating" their documents and accusing them of being a "hate group", I have never actually described them as such, nor have I ever even implied that any potential bias is malicious in nature. Biases are usually not that black and white - pun intended - and often arise purely out of ignorance rather than as any premeditated desire to attack an out-group. By the way, you re-quoted me, but did you actually check that link to see the context from which I lifted that excerpt? You should - it may be informative...

 

You're projecting.

Domestic abuse is neither "minor" nor "imaginary", and about half of all victims are male. This council explicitly mentions domestic abuse as a problem and explicitly mentions women as victims, but only mentions males in the context of the abusers/enablers. That's a bias, and there's no rational dispute of that fact. As I said to @jones1351 , it may not be an intentional/conscious bias, but it is a clearly-demonstrable bias.

Where you see cynicism I display only scepticism. I'm entirely open to being proven wrong about this. I wouldn't be reading other people's equally-lengthy comments in full if that weren't true (you might offer something of substance yourself next time, because ad hominem attacks are worthless).