Xequecal wrote:
Damn, you figured me out. It was all a nefarious plot to make everyone feel bad by posting nothing but hopeless negativity.
I didn't say that. I said that every time you post, it's some "let's call people out on stuff they're ignoring" followed by "Xeq's intuitive feelings about the problem, regardless of facts" followed by "this problem is just the way it is! nothing can be done!" You just don't seem to have any real fighting spirit about anything - actually fighting or otherwise. Have you ever played a sport?
But seriously, this is not an opinion I just pulled from my ***. Here's an article/blog post you might remember, because it was popular/controversial enough to see mainstream media attention:
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http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-schrodinger%E2%80%99s-rapist-or-a-guy%E2%80%99s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-being-maced/While there's a lot of offensive stuff in this article, here's the paragraph I found most relevant:
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Well, no. But do you think about it all the time? Is preventing violent assault or murder part of your daily routine, rather than merely something you do when you venture into war zones? Because, for women, it is. When I go on a date, I always leave the man’s full name and contact information written next to my computer monitor. This is so the cops can find my body if I go missing. My best friend will call or e-mail me the next morning, and I must answer that call or e-mail before noon-ish, or she begins to worry. If she doesn’t hear from me by three or so, she’ll call the police. My activities after dark are curtailed. Unless I am in a densely-occupied, well-lit space, I won’t go out alone. Even then, I prefer to have a friend or two, or my dogs, with me. Do you follow rules like these?
This is not some outlier, ultrafeminist fantasy. This is pretty much the norm. It's the norm despite the fact that statistically, men are many times more likely to be the victim of violence than women are. Yet for some reason, women are still compelled to act and think this way while men generally aren't. Why do you think that is?
Actually, that pretty much is feminist fantasy, "ultra" or otherwise. Women who behave in that fashion are extremely paranoid. Some of that advice, like letting someone know where you'll be, is a good idea, but it's a good idea for any social situation. Men shouldn't go out after dark in unlit places in populated areas either - crimes other than just rape can happen to you.
Second, the "every man is a potential rapist" idea is not only wrong and stupid, it is actively harming the prevention of rape and increasing the vulnerability of women by giving them a false impression of the threat. It's well know that stranger-danger rape is the least common form and acquaintance rape the most, but that seems to go right out the window when some idiot woman wants to make "rules" that men have to follow before talking to women because dialing back the paranoia a bit is just too hard, and women would rather concentrate on guns, mace, and self-defense classes than accept the fact that MOST rapes happen in a situation where it's his word against hers, and that if she wants to not get raped she shouldn't put herself in situations where her consent is a matter of debate - because "innocent until proven guilty" is a more foundational legal concept than "no means no!"
The vast majority of rapes are committed by repeat offenders. These sorts of men specialize in putting women in situations where they are compromised - somewhat impaired, susceptible to suggestion, away from witnesses, and most importantly, already consenting to lesser sexual activity. They try to keep force to a minimum because force leaves physical evidence. Physical evidence is the enemy to these people because if they do get reported, they want it to be his word against hers - because in a fair legal system, they get off under that, because they know there's another guy down the road that's in the same situation, but the girl is saying "yes" and will claim rape the next day when some girl that saw her go home with a guy is calling her a slut behind her back. The serial rapist, ideally, wants the woman to not even be sure it was rape, or if she confronts him, swears up and down it was a bad moment of judgement, he'll never do it again, why ruin his life, etc. so that she feels guilt about reporting it - and it often works.
Writing down your phone number next to your computer is not much of a help when they guy that forced you to have sex is admitting you had sex, but claims it was consensual. The advice that woman is giving is more likely to get a girl arrested for assault than it is to protect her from rape. Worse, she's making the women that read it more vulnerable by perpetuating the myth of "any man could be a rapist! watch out!" and pretending women have some unique public vulnerability, despite the fact that men are more likely to be violent crime victims, and oh by the way, shouldn't get into compromising positions
either because they might get accused of rape, or for that matter, raped themselves - the latter being something everyone falls over themselves to call an impossibility.
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Also, I'm not against gun ownership and I'm not for gun control, I just have issues when people decide they can shoot people for even minor property crimes when noone's life is at risk or even potentially at risk.
Most people here don't think that, and you have very strange ideas of a "minor property crime".
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As for your counterexamples, I did say 99%. Annie Duke and Danica Patrick are pretty much the 1% in those respective fields. I mean, you yourself constantly criticize the notion of the "wage gap." Why is it that men make so much more than women even in nonphysical jobs? Are the feminists right, and this wage gap is due to nothing but misogyny. I'm pretty sure your yourself have posted that men in general simply outperform women.
They are int he 1% of competitors, they aren't evidence that women represent 1% of competitors. Here's a
List of female NASCAR drivers - and note that there have been females in NASCAR since 1949, back when women supposedly "weren't allowed" to do this stuff. The fact is that far fewer women
want to do this stuff.
Second, you used this as a segue into "women can't compete with men for jobs" which is just utter bullshit. Women can, when they want to. Women are just less likely to want to.
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I hate to break it to you, but these things are actually relevant factors when you consider how well women are at competing with men for the same jobs. This study is trying to see if a wage gap due to discrimination exists if you compare a man and a woman with equal experience, productivity, education, job skills, etc. It doesn't say anything about how men and women compete for jobs overall. The 23-cent gap is perfectly relevant there.
Yes it is - if that question were meaningful. Like I psoted earlier, "equal pay for equal work" a fair demand, and one that study reveals has been achieved - is important, and a basic element of fairness. "How women compete for jobs overall" may be academically important as a sociological issue, but it doesn't speak to a generalized problem for women, nor to sexism or discrimination or misogyny in society.
Much of that gap exists because women work less hours than men and pick different jobs - and studiously AVOID high-paying but dangerous and uncomfortable jobs like oil workers, coal miners, trash collectors, merchant marine crewmembers, etc. The physical jobs women DO pursue tend to be less uncomfortable than those jobs, or involve higher public prestige and recognition, or more accommodation of family life, such as police, firefighting, and the military.
Like I said before, the "equal pay for equal work" concept has morphed into this issue, which really just amounts to "women in general should make as much as men in general regardless of choices" and it's fueld by an underlying feminist mentality that those choices and all other sexual dimorphism are "constructs" of the "Patriarchy" - despite the total lack of scientific credibility for this idea.