“Oh, Tommy—you’re such a pig!”
On the flip side of the hit post about Emily Heist Moss’s open letter to her harassers, we have the B-side (I know this metaphor marks me as a fogy ): my objections to a New York Times essay by Lynn Messna, who declares that she doesn’t want her son to be gentleman, because gentlemen are sexist.
“Start to complain about your preschooler adopting gentlemanly behavior and you quickly discover how out of step you are with the rest of the world. Almost everyone I mention it to thinks it’s lovely and sweet. What’s the harm in teaching little boys to respect little girls?..But I don’t think it’s an overreaction to resent the fact that your son is being given an extra set of rules to follow simply because he’s a boy. His behavior, already constrained by a series of societal norms, now has additional restrictions. Worse than that, he’s actively being taught to treat girls differently, something I thought we all agreed to stop doing, like, three decades ago. That the concept of selective privilege has been introduced in preschool of all places — the inner sanctum of fair play, the high temple of taking turns — is mind-boggling to me…Yet as much as this double standard offends me as a mom, it’s nothing compared with how much it infuriates me as a feminist. Forty years after the tender, sweet, young thing in “Free to Be You and Me” gets eaten by a pack of hungry tigers after asserting that ladies should go first, we are still insisting on empty courtesies that instill in women a sense of entitlement for meaningless things. Many women see gallantry as one of the benefits of their sex; I see it as one of its consolations…Letting girls use the bathroom first isn’t a show of respect. It is, rather, the first brick in the super high pedestal that allows men to exalt women out of sight. A true show of respect is paying us equally for the same work, not 77 cents on the dollar, which is the current average.* That’s the world I want my son to live in and I seriously doubt it will ever happen as long as women believe men should hold the door open for them.”
Equality in opportunity and respect should not require, suggest, or support invidious sexual discrimination.
Certainly it can. In my sexual harassment seminars, I often relate my experience with a boss who treated and addressed a senior female staff member in an otherwise male group like she was an idiot, a bimbo or a dog. “Sharon!,” he’d purr, standing as she entered the room. “How nice that you could make it! You just brighten up the room, I must say! ” He wasn’t being a gentleman, though. He was being a condescending jerk, diminishing her among her peers. Being taught to observe some symbolic gestures of respect toward girls and later women, however, is simply not the anathema that reflex feminists like Messna take them to be. Boys who are taught not to bully or physically harm girls will be less likely to become spousal abusers, and also are half-way to learning that they shouldn’t bully or physically harm anyone, male or female. Why give up the half of the socialization battle that is easy just because it makes Messna more comfortable to know that her son feels just as comfortable punching out a little girl as he would a little boy?
Nor is there anything sinister or retrograde about treating girls and women differently, and with enhanced respect, as long as it does not undermine their credibility or opportunities to reach their full potential. Women are different; the genders are different. Acknowledging those differences embraces fairness and honesty. If Messna isn’t a hypocrite, than I presume she will support having the exact same physical requirements for male and female soldiers, sailors, police and firefighters. Of course, if she does, the number of women in those professions will drop sharply. I presume also that she would support the elimination of male and female divisions in such sports as basketball, golf, tennis, weightlifting, swimming and the hammer throw, which will pretty much eliminate female competitors from the elite levels in those sports completely. After all, treating girls differently was something “we all agreed to stop doing, like, three decades ago,” right Linda?
There are very good reasons to treat women differently, now as before. There just isn’t a single good reason to treat them as less then men, or as second class citizens, or as institutionalized sex toys. Like most ethical norms, treating women as more valuable than men and thus to be honored and protected has its roots in basic facts of life and civilization: we can repopulate with only a single man or two, but if there’s a shortage of women, the human race is sunk. “Women and children first” may be chivalrous, but it also is common sense, not that Messna will have any of that. It is not difficult or contradictory to have a male raised to treat women better than his vulgar, hairy, testosterone-addled kind and still have that male believe that female peers are equal to him in every way. (I was raised that way; having a younger sister who could do anything I could do and better also helped). As an added advantage, men so raised are unlikely to engage in the conduct that Moss has had to endure, which itself is a significant handicap to women in the workplace and in life.
Messner should applaud her son being taught to treat girls with respect, kindness and civility. Then she can concentrate on teaching him to treat everyone else that way too.
* ARRRGH!!! As I have mentioned here more than once, this is NOT “the current average,“ ( it was inaccurate 30 years ago, when it was first made up) nor is it a fair or accurate statistic, nor does it reflect the value of women in the workplace. It is a serviceable lie in the hands of dishonest feminists like Messner, whose use of it immediately flags them as untrustworthy and without credibility.
________________________________
Source: New York Times
Graphic: NBC
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
Interesting and timely that you are bringing up the topic, since just today it was reported that the Department of Defense is opening up all positions to women, including those in the Special Operations fields. I am curious to see what the standards will be for these combat positions. Will they use the same physical requirements currently on the books? Will they require women to meet the same exact physical requirements as men in order to enter the infantry or other close combat jobs? I doubt it. As a military officer with a background in the combat arms (Cavalry/Armor), I generally have no problem with women in those positions if they can meet the same physical standards as men. In fact, in my travels, I’ve dealt with a small number of women who I would rather have next to me in a firefight than some men who were in those roles. However, we do need to have a more stringent standard when it comes to certain jobs. This is not punitive or meant to circumvent the new rule and keep most women out of the “boys club”. Rather, it is to ensure that every Soldier in a position with the job description “close with and destroy the enemy in close combat” will be able to perform their duties and not risk the safety of their squad mates. What many people don’t know is that even standard line combat units have additional requirements such as higher physical fitness scores, 25 mi road marches, etc in order to be in those units. As you mentioned earlier, Jack, the low numbers of women participating in these roles will show just how different the genders are in some very fundamental areas… not better, just different.
And though no one will believe me—wait a minute, I’m an ethicist! They better believe me!—I had no knowledge of Panetta’s edict until after this was written and posted.
Damn…You’re impressive Jack. Writing a reply while simultaneously showing upon O’Reilly… is there a clone out there?
Yes, I know they tape it. But still funny, nonetheless
“Will they require women to meet the same exact physical requirements as men in order to enter the infantry or other close combat jobs? I doubt it”
The standards will change as the occupations that have been opened up over the last year the failure rate, when they do finally get a female applicant, has been very high. Someone will eventually tweak it to raise the female graduate rate to prove success.
I don’t know. I know the Marine Corp didnt hesitate to wash out the first female inductees to the Infantry Officers Course for failure to meet physical standards – there was a lot of talk when they were allowed to enter but when they didnt meet the minimum no one really seemed to care.
It’ssad that one radical feminist actually saw the logical terminus of her philosophy and, rather than temper her fervor, lowered the bayonet.
I have no idea what sexist means anymore, except from the negative connotation in which it is typically used. This may be intellectual laziness on my part but when I hear something or someone called sexist I tend to tune out. I just don’t take the charge seriously anymore. Case and point teaching boys to hold the door open for women is sexist. I do feel bad for the women who are treated badly and are ignored because feminists are continually crying wolf.
So the sexist card is now elevated to the worn out status of the race card.
It is all under the heading of demonizing something you have to live with tht reminds you your world-view may not be accurate.
I am with you in your confusion and blasé attitude.
Excellent points Jack, a great article!
Its easy, teach your children to a gentleman to everyone regardless of their gender.
Part of being a gentleman is being prepared and willing to clean the clock of the brute who is behaving the bully and not stepping down with aggression.
Are you prepared to tell your son it is cool to lay out little Emily if she gets into bully mode towards your son? Or will you still stand by the old gentleman rules, that it is WRONG to hit girls and just walk away when little Emily decides to be a miniature shrew?
The principle of equal treatment knows no exceptions.
All principles have exceptions, without exception. Even the one I just stated.
Why not lay out “little” Emily? The bully is normally the big kid. If we think boys should stand up to bullies, why not female bullies?
Oh, I agree. But when the little cop who was grabbed by a larger woman interfering with his arrest of her pal punched her in the face on YouTube, everyone screamed…including supposed feminists.
Not everyone screamed, and of those screaming, not all of them were over the gender. Even taking your general meaning as true (alot of people, including “feminists” screamed that an overpowered man shouldn’t hit a woman), that’s just an appeal to popularity.
It’s not an “appeal” to anything. I’m saying that the culture has not, as the writer says, “agreed” that men and women should be treated the same, and that I question whether she really agrees in all cases.
Okay. I assumed your comment was relevant to my comment. We were talking about exceptions to rules, and I was looking for an exception to the rule that tex laid out.
If your comment was a non sequitur attack on messna, then I refuse to engage it here
What rule did I establish? Last I checked I asked questions
tex,
The first statement seemed like a clear rule to me. The follow up questions seemed, to me, to be designed to back that up. I should have used more exact language.
Premise*
That first statement is. Not one I established though.
tex,
Okay. Instead of “established”, I could have said something like “suggested as necessary to be consistent in a hypothetical where Bill’s statement is stipulated to.” I was shortcutting as (1) that was a whole lot of unnecessary detail for the point, and (2) this subthread was only 9 sentences over 5 comments, and Jack could easily reread it.
No, hardly unnecessary. It was background information prior to the questions that opened the discussion on consistency. Sometimes your attempts at dissection a obviously juvenile attempts at confrontation for confrontation’s sake.
And if you re-read the context, Jack appears to have been referring to exceptions to a principle explicitly stated by Michael Ejercito, who had given his answer to my questions. Not to the rule you implied from my opening sentence.
Attempts at dissection *are
Dan autocorrect and dang clicking the wrong reply link.
I’ll try to get WordPress to install and automatic reject wrong reply link alarm along with a commenter edit function….
Do you want me to correct “Dan’ or wait for the third (fourth?) “Dang”? Come to think of it, I knew a kid named Dan Autocorrect ins high school…not his real name, of course. He was really “Daniel.”
Sorry Jack,
My responses from the iPhone drive a lot of these errors. I know it must spam your alerts to bedeviling levels.
Tex,
*sigh*. The background information was not necessary. Whether you believe the statement or not, it’s treated as true going forward.
That’s followed by a general accusation without evidence.
The third piece is actually relevant, and I agree. There was split context, but my original point (that the comment was a non sequitur) remains valid.
Mmkay, buddy. Start another spiral and entrench yourself when a simple “my bad” suffices. You’re a piece of work.
Attempts at dissection *are
Dang autocorrect.
Precisely the challenge.
As one of the best radio show hosts around, who receives far less attention that he deserves, Mark Davis asserted (and this is a summation, not a quote):
You want NO barriers? You wanted no barriers so badly that now women will likely join combat MOS’s, that is taking the no barrier philosophy to an extreme, then you had better own that philosophy 100% down to EVERY situation.
I don’t see the problem here.
Good, I haven’t identified a problem.
Pointing out that one must be stringently consistent now
The suppressed proposition is that a certain subset of the hyper-feminists have, in the past proven themselves to support a double standard.
Excellent. I hate double standard feminism like I hate all other double standard isms
Boys who are taught not to bully or physically harm girls will be less likely to become spousal abusers, and also are half-way to learning that they shouldn’t bully or physically harm anyone, male or female. Why give up the half of the socialization battle that is easy just because it makes Messna more comfortable to know that her son feels just as comfortable punching out a little girl as he would a little boy?
Are you serious? Why not teach respect in general? How does claiming that girls need more respect than boys lead to respecting everyone equally?
Nor is there anything sinister or retrograde about treating girls and women differently, and with enhanced respect, as long as it does not undermine their credibility or opportunities to reach their full potential.
Sure, but you begged the question. This is like “separate but equal”. That’s fine, so long as the “equal” part is applied. When you suggest that girls can’t handle what boys can handle, you’ve already failed. (And you did suggest that: you thought it was a good idea to protect girls from fights before protecting boys from fights… even though girls and boys are essentially identical in height, weight, coordination, and muscle mass at the age in question.)
Like most ethical norms, treating women as more valuable than men and thus to be honored and protected has its roots in basic facts of life and civilization: we can repopulate with only a single man or two, but if there’s a shortage of women, the human race is sunk.
Just because something was true, doesn’t mean it’s true now.
“Women and children first” may be chivalrous, but it also is common sense […]
Why? In today’s society, why should women go before men? I can make a valid argument for children and caretakers first, but not women in general.
It is not difficult or contradictory to have a male raised to treat women better than his vulgar, hairy, testosterone-addled kind and still have that male believe that female peers are equal to him in every way.
Your evidence is that you think you treat people equally. How that says anything about the difficulty of doing this in general I don’t know.
Are you serious? Why not teach respect in general? How does claiming that girls need more respect than boys lead to respecting everyone equally?
Who said they “need” more respect? I said according them extra respect was a good starting point, and it is.
Sure, but you begged the question. This is like “separate but equal”. That’s fine, so long as the “equal” part is applied. When you suggest that girls can’t handle what boys can handle, you’ve already failed. (And you did suggest that: you thought it was a good idea to protect girls from fights before protecting boys from fights… even though girls and boys are essentially identical in height, weight, coordination, and muscle mass at the age in question.)
It’s a good idea because girls are (generally) still less aggressive than boys, and don’t respond the same way to conflict.
Just because something was true, doesn’t mean it’s true now.
What makes you think it’s not true now? Indeed, I read women’s magazine articles about how men aren’t necessary biologically at all.
“Women and children first” may be chivalrous, but it also is common sense […] Why? In today’s society, why should women go before men? I can make a valid argument for children and caretakers first, but not women in general.
If someone has to be rescued first, they are still the most logical choice.
It is not difficult or contradictory to have a male raised to treat women better than his vulgar, hairy, testosterone-addled kind and still have that male believe that female peers are equal to him in every way. Your evidence is that you think you treat people equally. How that says anything about the difficulty of doing this in general I don’t know.
I’m hardly the only example. And I don’t “think” I treat every equally, I do. Which is one reason I train people in it, both professionally and informally.
Who said they “need” more respect? I said according them extra respect was a good starting point, and it is.
You said that according girls respect before according the respect to boys was a stepping stone to giving respect to all. That’s what I found ridiculous.
When I said: “How does claiming that girls need more respect than boys lead to respecting everyone equally?”, I did not mean that you directly claimed there that girls need more respect than boys. I was pointing out that that’s the lessen learned from treating boys to respect girls instead of treating everybody to respect everybody directly.
It’s a good idea because girls are (generally) still less aggressive than boys, and don’t respond the same way to conflict.
For 5 year olds? Bullshit. Even if true, it’s a stupid argument. It’s along the lines of “Women are (generally) stupider than men, therefore we shouldn’t hire women.” Even if the premise was true, the conclusion would be false.
What makes you think it’s not true now? Indeed, I read women’s magazine articles about how men aren’t necessary biologically at all.
The technicality of it is still true. The application of it was true but isn’t now. Civilization started the change. We don’t have to worry about the caretakers of children being attacked by predators. Advancements in self defense technology has further changed the balance. Beyond that, women are no longer necessarily the main caretakers.
If someone has to be rescued first, they are still the most logical choice.
Why, why, why, why? I asked for you to support your statement. Instead, you reasserted your statement without any backing.
I’m hardly the only example. And I don’t “think” I treat every equally, I do. Which is one reason I train people in it, both professionally and informally.
Again the existence of some people who treat the sexes equally does not say anything about the difficulty of getting people to treat the sexes equally after treating women as weaker than men. You may as well be arguing that since a random inner city kid passed the AP English exam, it’s easy to teach inner cities kids AP English.
The comment “you think you treat people equally” was meant to point out that inherent biases are inherent. Do you need me to point you to the study where both male and female employers claimed to treat all applicants equally, but graded blind applicants with female names worse than those with male names? You treat them as you treat them, and you believe it’s equal. We can’t say more than that. I try to treat men and women equally. I try to treat people of all races and facial hairs equally, too, but I don’t know that I actually do. Everyone thinks their special when it comes to their own behavior.
Maybe this will help you a bit as to your own behavior. You think that girls and boys (generally) don’t respond the same way to conflict. Moreover, you think this suggests that boys should treat girls differently than they treat other boys. Despite your protestations to the contrary, this clearly shows don’t think the genders should be treated equally. To you, your unequal treatment is equal. That doesn’t make it so.
Who said they “need” more respect? I said according them extra respect was a good starting point, and it is.
You said that according girls respect before according the respect to boys was a stepping stone to giving respect to all. That’s what I found ridiculous.
I don’t think its ridiculous at all. It’s part, though not all, of teaching manners and an ethical world view.
It’s a good idea because girls are (generally) still less aggressive than boys, and don’t respond the same way to conflict. For 5 year olds? Bullshit. Even if true, it’s a stupid argument. It’s along the lines of “Women are (generally) stupider than men, therefore we shouldn’t hire women.” Even if the premise was true, the conclusion would be false.
Your analogy doesn’t follow, and it’s not bullshit, it’s true. Gender differences begin manifesting themselves earlier than that. Physical differences, no. Attitudinal differences like I mentioned, and emotional and psychological differences? Those who deny this do so for political reasons. It’s obvious watching any playground for 10 minutes—and there’s been one next to my house for 32 years.
The technicality of it is still true. The application of it was true but isn’t now. Civilization started the change. We don’t have to worry about the caretakers of children being attacked by predators. Advancements in self defense technology has further changed the balance. Beyond that, women are no longer necessarily the main caretakers.
Yes, that’s right up there with the anti-gun argument Morgan made to Shapiro, that no US government is this enlightened age would ever turn totalitarian over the populace. Of course it could happen.There are good science fiction books and stories about such scenarios. Why not be prudent, just in case? Again, just because it puts militant feminists teeth on edge isn’t a good reason to be reckless when our survival is the price of a miscalculation.
“If someone has to be rescued first, they are still the most logical choice.”Why, why, why, why? I asked for you to support your statement. Instead, you reasserted your statement without any backing.
Because the obvious answer is “why, why, why not,” other than to make feminists happy in principle. Children I assume you agree with. Women because they are biologically engineered to continue the race, the creed, the nation, the group, the tribe, the species–and its true, men are no longer essential—in fact, their arguably obsolete. You want to be choosing lots on the Titanic? Going alphabetically? Not only a waste of time, but also a stupid. There’s a good reason to put the ladies first, and men, because they are physically better suited for survival situations, are the right ones to put in peril while the women are sent to safety first.
I’m hardly the only example. And I don’t “think” I treat every equally, I do. Which is one reason I train people in it, both professionally and informally.
Again the existence of some people who treat the sexes equally does not say anything about the difficulty of getting people to treat the sexes equally after treating women as weaker than men. You may as well be arguing that since a random inner city kid passed the AP English exam, it’s easy to teach inner cities kids AP English.
The comment “you think you treat people equally” was meant to point out that inherent biases are inherent. Do you need me to point you to the study where both male and female employers claimed to treat all applicants equally, but graded blind applicants with female names worse than those with male names? You treat them as you treat them, and you believe it’s equal. We can’t say more than that. I try to treat men and women equally. I try to treat people of all races and facial hairs equally, too, but I don’t know that I actually do. Everyone thinks they are special when it comes to their own behavior.
Yes, but in my case, which I realize is unusual, I am compelled to make constant bias checks along the way, as in my story about the male and female peer in my employ where the male had a higher salary because he negotiated better. Also because the bias against women is starkly in my face every time I talk to my sister, who is local, and who has had to work 5 times harder and be 5 times more stressed and abused to use her talents and abilities, which are, as I have said, almost identical to mine, to reach a similar point in life and achievement.And yes, I’d put her in the lifeboat first too…but in her case, because she’s earned a break.
Maybe this will help you a bit as to your own behavior. You think that girls and boys (generally) don’t respond the same way to conflict. Moreover, you think this suggests that boys should treat girls differently than they treat other boys. Despite your protestations to the contrary, this clearly shows don’t think the genders should be treated equally. To you, your unequal treatment is equal. That doesn’t make it so.
Wrong, and here’s why: the post was about why the woman’s objections to her son being taught gentlemanliness were wrongheaded and hypocritical. I would have never written a piece taking issue with someone who taught their kids to be uniformly kind and deferential to all, though the Ayn Rand crowd would argue THAT’S insane. That position is ethical, and good luck with it. I’m just not sure that the old fashioned way doesn’t work better in the long run. Saying that there are benefits of treating women with deference doesn’t mean we should, or have to. If we have enough babies, and women can genuinely meet physical requirements that aren’t made too low just to accommodate them, I think putting them into front line combat is fair, as is drafting them, and no extra tears when Suzi Lovely comes back in a box, or with half her pelvis gone, either.
I don’t think its ridiculous at all. It’s part, though not all, of teaching manners and an ethical world view.
I’ll get to rest of your comment later, but this is still just beyond stupid. Treating half the population appropriately is not a stepping stone to treating the entire population appropriately. Instead, it creates an unnecessary difference in half the population. How is looking at HALF the population a stepping stone to looking at the entire population? Would you agree that it’s appropriate to teach that black kids shouldn’t be hit before teaching that kids in general shouldn’t be hit? Would you consider the first piece a stepping stone to the latter idea?
You might think that it’s more important to treat women with respect than it is to treat all people with respect, but that doesn’t say that the first is a stepping stone to the latter. Even if your premise that it is good to treat women differently than men was true, it still requires learning the concept of respect for all before applying it greater to a specific group.
Your analogy doesn’t follow, and it’s not bullshit, it’s true. Gender differences begin manifesting themselves earlier than that. Physical differences, no. Attitudinal differences like I mentioned, and emotional and psychological differences? Those who deny this do so for political reasons. It’s obvious watching any playground for 10 minutes—and there’s been one next to my house for 32 years.
As noted, even if I grant your differences, my analogy works. It’s a clear parallel: an overlapping continuum of possibilities with averages at different points. Instead of just claiming my analogy is wrong, you should probably state what’s wrong about it.
Yes, that’s right up there with the anti-gun argument Morgan made to Shapiro, that no US government is this enlightened age would ever turn totalitarian over the populace. Of course it could happen.There are good science fiction books and stories about such scenarios. Why not be prudent, just in case? Again, just because it puts militant feminists teeth on edge isn’t a good reason to be reckless when our survival is the price of a miscalculation.
This is a Poe, right? Its like Pascal’s Wager with a side of “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!”. This incredibly unlikely thing would be devastating, so we need to behavior completely differently now, just in case… and it involves our children!!!
It was pure fear mongering. Do you know what’s different between Morgan’s argument and mine? You could debunk Morgan. You didn’t even try to debunk me. Morgan wasn’t wrong because he saw a possibility as impossible, he was wrong because the situation was very likely.
Because the obvious answer is “why, why, why not,” other than to make feminists happy in principle. Children I assume you agree with. Women because they are biologically engineered to continue the race, the creed, the nation, the group, the tribe, the species–and its true, men are no longer essential—in fact, their arguably obsolete. You want to be choosing lots on the Titanic? Going alphabetically? Not only a waste of time, but also a stupid. There’s a good reason to put the ladies first, and men, because they are physically better suited for survival situations, are the right ones to put in peril while the women are sent to safety first.
1) If you think there is a difference, you need to support it. Your first sentence is not a valid argument.
2) Women are not biologically engineered to do anything.
3) Fixing your term, women are no more evolved to continue the race than men are. Suggesting otherwise is an affront to biology. (You know how you bang people ignorant of law for making statements about law? Well…)
4) If it’s a biological imperative, why save menopausal women generally?
5) You suggest that because there aren’t simple, fair rules, we should keep a random rule, but this misses the point completely. Why do we expect to save 50% of the people and not everyone? Why is this rule better than “first come, first serve,” or just “Be ethical”? Yes, this allows for cheating that will cause resources to not be used properly, but it requires unethical conduct to get there. The “women first” mantra has likely improper resource alignment built in.
6) You make the completely sexist and false remark that womenfolk can’t survive while the big strong men can. There is a continuum with considerable overlap when it comes to survival in emergency situations. You might as well say that if a local sports team had to cut some of it’s players, it should cut all the women (or white guys) first, as men (or black guys) are physically better suited for sports.
Biases:
Even people aware of their biases are horrible about correcting for them. We’ll see that further below:
Biases part 2:
You didn’t respond to my comment at all. After your “wrong,” you didn’t deny any of the premises and you didn’t deny my logic. Instead you tried a sidechannel support for your evenhandedness:
Wrong, and here’s why: the post was about why the woman’s objections to her son being taught gentlemanliness were wrongheaded and hypocritical. I would have never written a piece taking issue with someone who taught their kids to be uniformly kind and deferential to all.
All sidechannel. Also, silly. If someone does X instead of doing Y, that’s fine, but if they support X over Y, that’s wrong?
That is incoherent (and inconsistent with your previous expounded beliefs about religious legislators), but that appears to be your position in those two sentences.
Saying that there are benefits of treating women with deference doesn’t mean we should, or have to.
If you don’t think we should treat women differently than men, then what was the point of this post? You attacked the woman for suggesting that we shouldn’t do that, ergo, it’s right to think that you think we should.
“You want to be choosing lots on the Titanic? Going alphabetically?”
Let me be the first to go on record saying that I do NOT support going alphabetically.
–Dwayne
Best laugh of the day, and I didn’t see it coming.
When I was 11, I opened the door for a 16 year old lass with an armload of books who was walking with some friends. She stopped before the open door, handed her books off to a friend, looked at me, then punched me in the shoulder with the words “What? Think I can’t open a door by myself? Little creep.”
Much to my current dismay, it was many, many years before I even thought of trying it again. Thankfully, I found a Lady who appreciated my feeble attempts at gallantry as the sign of respect and admiration I intended as.
see swpl …does this apply?
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/05/28/101-being-offended/
Not sure, but I like the article. Thanks.
With pregnancy, is sexism unavoidable?
I don’t think so. Do you suggest that it is?
I am suggesting it might be, after pondering how pregnancy might affect the duty performance of a combat soldier. (I am being semi-sarcastic when I say “might affect.”) It seems impossible to avoid a real Catch 22, when making ethical decisions and taking ethical actions in cases of pregnant soldiers, whether they’re assigned to “naval,” ground, air or space combat.
To be fair, and to allow that I am even more sexist (whatever that term means) than I realize or would be immediately willing to concede, I suppose I should be pondering also how testosterone levels might affect the duty performance of male soldiers. I don’t know.
The reason she opposes this special treatment and privileges for girls is because it breeds a sense of entitlement. Nothing can undermine, honor, decency, integrity, or ethics than a sense of entitlement brought about by privileges granted on the bases of immutable characteristics that are solely the result of accident of birth.
We have seen what this sense of entitlement did. We have seen some women wanting to keep government out of their bedrooms while at the same time asking government to make others subsidize what happens in their bedrooms. We have seen the acts of Wanetta Gibson and Cassandra Ann Kennedy.
Note that Messna does not ask that her son stop opening doors for girls, but to open them for boys as well. She wants not for her son to start using crude language in the presence of girls, but to stop using it in the presence of boys.
She wants her son to treat everyone with decency and respect.
Advocating special privileges undermines that.