Counterproposal: Don't dress like a slut...

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Everything I have read about hunter-gatherer societies suggests that men were the hunters and women and children were the gatherers...and that women's position was more equal there than it was in subsequent agricultural communities. The research suggests that their status seems to have varied depending on the relative importance of foraging in the diet, or conversely the status of men was dependent on the relative importance of the hunting they tended to do.

There is also a school of thought that says that women have greater dexterity than men (which I have seen used to explain why women pick up typing faster than men do).

Also, that you prefer masculine philosophers does not mean that female philosophers (whether disconnected from physicality or not) are inferior. They would be inferior if it could be shown that their philosophical systems were internally inconsistent or illogical, but that they might not be popularly accepted means nothing.

If "practically every culture on Earth" believed that 2+2=5, that would not make it true, it would just mean that practically every culture on Earth was wrong. If "practically every culture on Earth" believed that snow cones are delicious, that it would not make it true, it would just be indicative of a particular set of subjective believes that are, by their very nature, neither true nor untrue.

I tend to but questions of equality and inferiority in the latter category...but that in and of itself is based on a personal preference that cannot itself be validated on an absolute level.

I do tend to agree with the proposition (with which I believe you may also agree) "rights" do not inherently exist—that they are social constructs only and not logical or otherwise absolute imperatives that have some separate, concrete existence apart from what the society says they are. To me the question of whether man and woman-kind should have a "right" is therefore not answerable by some appeal to logic or natural law.

To me the question of what rights "should be" then, turns on the question "Given the milieu in which we live, what set of socially agreed upon 'rights' is most likely to maximize my personal happiness." Now, the answer to that question on a superficial level may look to be "Pandaemoni can do whatever he wants, and all others must do as he says." That would certainly go a long way to maximizing my happiness and would therefore be acceptable to me. The problem with that answer is that obviously no one else would happily accept that system of rights. Instead, I must accept the constraint that I am trying to maximize my happiness within a system where everyone else is trying to do the same, and that the most likely outcome is one where I accept that everyone who has a voice in setting of these norms has roughly equivalent power to my own. (It is, in effect, a hunt for a certain Nash equilibrium, where each player achieves the greatest payoffs for himself in light of the payoffs that all the other players are getting.)

The problem, from your perspective, is that the relentless march of democracy seems to have given women (and minorities for that matter) a voice in this process of norm-setting. It seems very natural to me that in a democratic system, that this would be inevitable. Even if it is rare, once every great while men will share small bits of power with women, and in democratic systems, once the right to vote is shared, people have a way of hanging on to whatever power they happen to be granted, and it's very hard to dislodge it. Once women obtain the right to vote, then, the dream of social equality becomes extremely difficult to dislodge or block.

I would concede that I would likely be happier is women were relegated to the status of second-class citizens,just as I believe I would be happier if all humanity were subordinate to me and my whims. Given that I am already constrained to the point where I must allot "rights" to the likes of "non-me" males everywhere, it does not seem to me that giving the same prerogatives to women everywhere costs me much in marginal terms. In fact, it gives me and the woman in my life options, like having a two-income household, since women can now hold lucrative jobs. (My position on that might be different is I felt that the increased job competition from women was hurting me, but I don't feel that way, personally).

A certain part of me is amused by your theory though. It would be a government of the starting line-up of the NFL, by the starting line-up of the NFL and for the starting line-up of the NFL (not to mention philosophy texts by the starting line-up of the NFL), since they would tend to be the strongest and most agile people out there. It seems clear to me that the only reason we have laws restricting things like "assault" is that people realized that physical domination is not a sound basis on which to build a society and that, collectively, they were stronger than the small coalitions of the physically powerful who might otherwise oppose such laws. Once laws taking power out of the hands of the physically gifted are passed, though, they redound to the benefit of the 90-pound science nerd and the 90 pound runway model alike.

 

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1. So a short, slight man should have less rights than a tall, heavyset man?

2. Perhaps you'd like to explain to me how these thing are caused by women's rights? How exactly does women's liberation lead to drug abuse, alcoholism etc?

3. Yeah, right. So that single woman I know who runs her own business isn't really independent, she just likes to think she is.

4. Bollocks. See Oli's post.

I live in one of those and I'm fucking glad. My father caused me and my mother nothing but anxiety and hell.

 

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Why hasn't this thread been locked, and the OP warned? It's clearly aimed at belittling and baiting particular members.

Tiassa, ban and lock!

 

How childish.

 

Oh?

If I had written a thread titled "One for the likes of S.A.M: Don't act like an infidel..." and then ranted on about some retarded analogy involving Muslims beheading infidels, I wonder what the fate of that thread would have been?

 

Holy shit, someone changed the topic as soon as I posted! Talk about McDonald's moderation

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Mod Hat - Dart board

Mod Hat — Dart board

It's not an everyday thing, but people have called one another out in a topic title before. Hell, I'm pretty sure I've done it a few times.

Neither is the complaint without merit.

 

I was not belittling anyone, I was trying to make a point in response to something someone had posted.

 

people should be left to dress how they want to dress, women in my opinion do dress slutty cause they like the attention, regardless of what they say

 

Francois was, he used the phrase 'asking for it'.

How people dress is not an excuse however, and the OP is deluded.

 

Damn, you are flawed goods. I object to your use of the word 'slut' and the denigration of women due to how they dress.

 

I might have used that, or a similar phrase, but that doesn't justify rape.

I was using it as a colloquialism.

 

If someone thinks a women is dressed 'slutty' they can get angry or concerned. They can have an emotional response and walk on by. To somehow make the jump to thinking they get to have sex with her, as if she has made some sort of enforcible contract with them is evil. And third parties who think she was asking for rape are joining in on that evil. On a given outing a woman may not have been cautious enough, but this has little to do with justifying rape. Just as having expensive jewelery or a nice car is not justification for a mugging or a carjacking. "You have to be more careful, honey," said with love - and probably much later after expressing love and sympathy and anger about what the rapist did - can be part of a moral, loving response to a rape victim. Anyone who does not care about the victim should shut the hell up with their strange notions of causation and responsibility for violent actions.

I suppose the people in the twin towers were all asking for it.

 

Your use of the phrase uncovers your Misogyny.

That's a weak excuse.

 

If I said that a person who walks up to a dangerous looking thug at night and starts pushing him around is asking to get murdered, does that "uncover my Misanthropy"? No, all it means is that the person is fucking stupid. You're incredibly simple minded if you think the fact that I sometimes think women make stupid decisions makes me a misogynist.

It's not an excuse at all; it's an explanation.

 

Dressing up sexy is analagous to pushing a dangerous looking thug. No.
If a woman intentionally rubs her ass on the front of his jeans, that might be analogous to your silly example, and I think we could make a case that she is asking to be groped back. But even then. Not raped.

You can see that cant you_

And it is misogynistic to say that a women is asking for it if she dresses up in a way you think is slutty. She is not asking to be raped, period. She may be asking for men to be attracted to her, or, often, that other women think she is attractive. She may be. But asking for me to be attracted to her is not asking to be raped. And she will make this clear immediately by the terror in her eyes, or when she says get away or when she struggles and screams, etc.

If you look me in the eyes can I assume it was meant as a challenge and beat the shit out of you. I mean we are passing each other on a city street. Are you asking for me to beat the shit out of you. Oh, yeah right, you thought you recognized me. Nah, you were fucking challenging me.

Hey, you got a problem, dont come to the city. Here you are asking for it.

You can certainly say that in some situations women are not being careful enough because there are asshole men out there. If you cant see the difference between saying she wasnt careful enough and shes asking for it, you probably are very confused about women and what motivates them.

 

And just how does this analogy compare to a woman dressed however she pleases, minding her own business, being raped by some guy? It only compares because in your warped mind both are inviting the situation, but then that is just in _your_ warped mind. In my mind the situations differ wildly, in that a woman, however dressed, does not invite anything.

No, you seek to excuse the darker sides of your character and transfer the blame onto women. You use derogatory terms such as slut;

First, you assume there is a type of woman who it's OK to call a slut. Here, I disagree, and this shows your misogyny in the first, that you judge some women to be sluts by their behaviour. Women are free to behave how they please without prigs like you judging them.

Second, you assume that the way someone dresses means it's OK to draw conclusions about their character, and label them, or compare them to 'sluts', this again shows your misogyny.

Third, you assume that because you throw these labels around, and call women sluts that they are 'asking for it'. That again shows your misogyny.

No, it's a little peak into your fetid mind. I wouldn't hire you as a babysitter, put it that way.

 

I don't think it's his understanding of the motivations of women that's the key here, but I think it's francois' motivations that are. I think he's bordering on a psychotic personality. Transferring blame is a classic symptom.

 

I think a big factor in this is that some men think that the shift from reaction to action is inevitable. She did something that was sexy to me therefore I am allowed to act in response. They know damn well that the woman is quite likely not asking for sex, certainly not right now on the street, and even if she is hoping for sex she has not decided it is with them she wants to have it. Even if that is her stated goal for the evening, to have sex and attract a man, this does not mean they are that man.

But they see stimulation without a contract built into it as a kind of crime. Not once do they consider going into the scared, sad, lonely, hopeless parts of themselves that this brings up. Not once do they consider moving into the conversation that would include the full range of their emotions in relation to women. Not on the street with that women, but with women they know and can talk to. (ha, ha)

The only emotion that is acceptable is anger, and the primary reaction is to act.

That they have painted their own experience of themselves into a corner and allow themselves to express only a small portion of who they are is a tragedy they defend with great vigor.

This ends up as you say as transferring blame. It seems inevitable what they have done or what other men do. It is simply part of the furniture of the world. However if they are ever the victim of a violent crime suddenly the perpretrator is a clear asshole who could have and should have done something else.