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"Why can't we hate men?"

Roboramma said:
That's not true. Men have a higher chance of dying, for instance, over any given period. And that will probably be at least as disruptive to their employer as an employee's absence due to pregnancy.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222499/
(Numbers for the US, but the pattern is similar globably)


Some of that gender disparity is due to men taking riskier jobs, and the women in those jobs will likely have the same risk of job-related death or injury, but that's not the only contributor to the increased risk.

The average man is still much less likely to die/unit time than the average woman is to become pregnant/unit time, but I just thought it worth pointing out that, contrary to what you said, the risks of injury, illness, and death aren't constant across gender.
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No maternity leave in the UK is more disruptive than someone dying. With maternity leave you may have to temporarily cover a position for a year, if a member of staff dies you can start recruiting before the body is removed from the place of work.
 
Fudbucker said:
I wasn't making an argument for quotas, just pointing out that Americans are OK with undemocratic methods of governing and always have been. A quota system might be undemocratic, but so what?
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d4m10n said:
Right now we have age limits on who can serve as President (35), Senator (30), and Representative (25). Are those age-based limitations similarly undemocratic?
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Jesus! This is getting rather desperate. You're shrugging your shoulders at "undemocratic" options because some other things are not democratic.

Instead of adding more bad things, why not think of something else to make it better?
 
angrysoba said:
Jesus! This is getting rather desperate. You're shrugging your shoulders at "undemocratic" options because some other things are not democratic.
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All to defend something that's not merely undemocratic but an open flagrant political assault on a category of people.
 
angrysoba said:
Jesus! This is getting rather desperate. You're shrugging your shoulders at "undemocratic" options because some other things are not democratic.

Instead of adding more bad things, why not think of something else to make it better?
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I'd implement term limits rather than a gender quota. In my opinion, at least part of the problem in the U.S. government is that the only person who is limited in the amount of time served is the President; I believe we'd be better off with more turnover. I figure Senators can serve two terms; that's twelve years, according to the current election cycle for Senators, and then we'd lengthen the terms for Representatives to four years and limit them to two terms as well. Supreme Court Justices should only serve a maximum of 15 years. We can still have election cycles every two years for those positions that require it and just cycle it through the states (starting with the ones who've had Senators or Representatives serving the longest periods, then moving to the mid-range ones, then the ones who've held positions the shortest). It has the benefit of limiting the length of time a lobbyist can get their hooks into someone, plus we're not overhauling the entire Legislative and Judicial branches every time a term limit is up, because there will be enough people who've held the position for a few years that there will still be stability in the government. I also think Supreme Court Justices could be chosen by election rather than appointment; right now the idea that one person, essentially, has control over who goes in the SC gives me hives (I know they have to be confirmed by the Senate and House, but in reality right now the President has the role of choosing the people in the SC and I don't think that's right). At the very least, the method of choosing a SC Justice should be overhauled.

That's a governmental change I could get behind. Gender quotas are not.
 
Darat said:
No maternity leave in the UK is more disruptive than someone dying. With maternity leave you may have to temporarily cover a position for a year, if a member of staff dies you can start recruiting before the body is removed from the place of work.
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The only possible way to solve this problem IMO would be to make maternity and paternity leaves equal and compulsory. Six months for the mother first and then six for the father next. For example. Because it is a problem, young women are currently in a disadvantage in the labour market, unless something like what I propose es enacted. In Spain I think some political parties are already proposing this law change.
 
Abooga said:
The only possible way to solve this problem IMO would be to make maternity and paternity leaves equal and compulsory. Six months for the mother first and then six for the father next. For example. Because it is a problem, young women are currently in a disadvantage in the labour market, unless something like what I propose es enacted. In Spain I think some political parties are already proposing this law change.
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That's an interesting idea.

How would the mandatory aspect be enforced?
 
Roboramma said:
That's an interesting idea.

How would the mandatory aspect be enforced?
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I suppose by making it compulsory for employers to give the same paid leave to mothers and fathers... I just checked and it seems it is quite possible that it will be put into practice in Spain soon.
 
Sabrina said:
I'd implement term limits rather than a gender quota. In my opinion, at least part of the problem in the U.S. government is that the only person who is limited in the amount of time served is the President; I believe we'd be better off with more turnover. I figure Senators can serve two terms; that's twelve years, according to the current election cycle for Senators, and then we'd lengthen the terms for Representatives to four years and limit them to two terms as well. Supreme Court Justices should only serve a maximum of 15 years. We can still have election cycles every two years for those positions that require it and just cycle it through the states (starting with the ones who've had Senators or Representatives serving the longest periods, then moving to the mid-range ones, then the ones who've held positions the shortest). It has the benefit of limiting the length of time a lobbyist can get their hooks into someone, plus we're not overhauling the entire Legislative and Judicial branches every time a term limit is up, because there will be enough people who've held the position for a few years that there will still be stability in the government. I also think Supreme Court Justices could be chosen by election rather than appointment; right now the idea that one person, essentially, has control over who goes in the SC gives me hives (I know they have to be confirmed by the Senate and House, but in reality right now the President has the role of choosing the people in the SC and I don't think that's right). At the very least, the method of choosing a SC Justice should be overhauled.

That's a governmental change I could get behind. Gender quotas are not.
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Extending the length of service for Representatives is a stellar idea. They could legislate rather than campaign the whole dang time.
 
Ziggurat said:
And for that matter, what is toxic femininity? Because surely it can exist too.
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I hate to argue from anecdote, but I've had quite a few female friends in my life and if there is one behavior most of them share that I would classify as "toxic", which I don't see in my male friends, it is character assassination through gossip.

I seriously can't think of many of my male friends who I could possibly describe as "two faced", but a lot of my female friends could be described that way. The weird thing is this behavior is almost exclusively toward other women, not men. If I am friends with 2 girls, and they are each others "friends", I can often expect to see them all happy and friendly with one another, only to have them verbally sticking a knife in the others back when that other is not around.

That isn't to say men don't come into conflict as much as women, it is just that in my experience that conflict is handled more directly. But once again, this is anecdotal. I am not aware of any research about whether this sort of phenomena is actually real across large populations.
 
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angrysoba said:
Jesus! This is getting rather desperate. You're shrugging your shoulders at "undemocratic" options because some other things are not democratic.
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I do not believe either age limits or sex quotas would cause the legislature to be significantly unrepresentative, though the former are arguably undemocratic in that they cause the Congress to have a population pyramid which looks rather different than the population at large. This is excusable in part because we do not trust children to look after their own long-term interests.

theprestige said:
Doesn't a gender quota in government deny the essential humanity of both genders?
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Non-citizens are essentially human, and they aren't even allowed to vote. This is a silly digression at best.

sadhatter said:
It could have 54 fewer men if the candidates were strong enough. Under your system that could never happen.
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Um, good? Replacing patriarchy with matriarchy is a terrible idea.
 
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d4m10n said:
Non-citizens are essentially human, and they aren't even allowed to vote. This is a silly digression at best.
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I think it's a central issue. And it's not a question of who's allowed to vote. It's a question of whether humans are capable of communicating ideas and experiences across ethnic, cultural, and gender divides.

That's the premise, right? That there are women's aspects of public policy that men cannot understand. Either women can't explain these things to other genders, or other genders cannot comprehend the explanations. That's why quotas are necessary. Women can't be represented by men, because women and men can't actually communicate experiences to each other by virtue of their common humanity.

Which is to say, quotas deny that women and men share humanity in common. One or the other or both are not actually human.
 
theprestige said:
Men, by virtue of the essential humanity they share with women, are capable of representing women in public policy debates.
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Men are most likely capable of empathizing with what it would be like to face an unwanted pregnancy, but I doubt that even 1% of them ever bother to put in the necessary mental effort.
 
d4m10n said:
Men are most likely capable of empathizing with what it would be like to face an unwanted pregnancy, but I doubt that even 1% of them ever bother to put in the necessary mental effort.
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Do you think there are any issues men face that women are systematically failing to empathize with?
 
d4m10n said:
Men are most likely capable of empathizing with what it would be like to face an unwanted pregnancy, but I doubt that even 1% of them ever bother to put in the necessary mental effort.
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Hell, there's probably a lot of women who don't bother to put in the necessary mental effort.

But again, the point is that quotas aren't needed, here. If you want a representative that cares about the issue of unwanted pregnancy, then advocate for that, and vote for the representative that best aligns with your advocacy, regardless of gender. Because either gender can empathize equally well.
 
d4m10n said:
Men are most likely capable of empathizing with what it would be like to face an unwanted pregnancy, but I doubt that even 1% of them ever bother to put in the necessary mental effort.
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I agree, hence my comment that WE men have a lot to atone for, if only 1% are bothering to empathize with women. I don't think the number is that low, but it probably is very low, given the deplorable state of affairs that were allowed to go on for so long.

Women are guilty of this too, which is why an all-male run government is just as dumb and unrepresentative as an all-female run government.
 
theprestige said:
All of them, probably.

The fad these days seems to be to vehemently reject any suggestion of understanding or supporting men's interests in policy debates.
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If neither gender is bothering to empathize with the other, it would be a bad idea to allow either gender to accrue too much power, wouldn't you say?
 
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