Time, as a company, must be in dire straights. I look at the reactionary and purposeful angst of their headlines lately -- Time is becoming more like the National Enquirer every day. Did you see the one with the Teachers? Soon Time will be publishing articles titled "Emma Watson has Big Foot in her Cellar".
Yes, I understand that Cathy Young, a contributing editor at Reason magazine, came up with the title for this ... what is this? An Essay? or just an Editorial? It is basically bias, and often irrelevant opinion. Is that what an Editorial is these days? It use to be that the editors chose higher roads than the writers and reporters, but that doesn't seem to be the case any longer. Perhaps it is just the way things are at the Libertarian magazine known as Reason.
Finding out that Reason is a Libertarian production, didn't come as much of a shock. If there is one thing that Libertarians both declare affinity to, and show amazing lack of, it is Reason. I offer as citation the Koch brothers declaring that raising the minimum wage will result in Nazism. Yes, Nazism, because that is how seriously out of touch with reality most Libertarians are.
But let's set my personal lack of tolerance aside and look at Ms. Young's Reason-ing.
"Too bad they are belied by the campaign itself, which is called “HeForShe” and asks men to pledge to “take action against all forms of violence and discrimination faced by women and girls” but says nothing about problems affecting men and boys." -- Young
Now, see, this is why Libertarians get such a bad rap. They state something like this, as if no one has access to the speech -- the speech where Emma spends nearly a third of her time addressing exactly this area and bases her ideas on research in that area. She cites -- because of the problems affecting men and boys, there is a disproportional amount of suicides which her research tells her is directly related to issues of the inequality the male population faces everyday of their lives, which no one has really addressed in a meaningful way (which is true) and she proclaims that HeForShe is dedicated to seeing that this changes. So, we haven't even gotten into the article yet and the first proclamation is "Liar Liar Pants on Fire".
The next paragraph, again, the same thing. Now Ms. Young contradicts herself, saying that yes, Emma is addressing it, but Feminism doesn't. Which again, Emma talks about that very thing, and that this flaw that has woven itself into Feminism is based on Hate, rather than equality, and again, she declares that this must be addressed, and that HeForShe intends to be the platform for that issue.
Now, this next bit is so far out of whack that I have to quote it here, so we can take a look at it solidly.
"Take one of the men’s issues Watson mentioned in her speech: seeing her divorced father’s role as a parent “valued less by society” than her mother’s. It is true that in the 1970s and 1980s, feminist challenges to discriminatory, sex-specific laws helped end formal preferences for mothers in child custody matters. But as fathers began to fight against more covert anti-male biases in the court system, most feminists sided with mothers." -- Young
Emma is dead on with that -- at least the US society that I live in, does not view the parental role of father as noteworthy in value. Jobs, employees, positions of all types, and social levels, are crassly dismissive of a man who says he has to be home at a certain time because of his daughter. Or that he has parental duties. The assumption is apparently that a real man would have hired someone to take care of that for him. I say this because the clear message I received when raising my son, was that I couldn't possibly be suggesting that my child is more important than year-end inventory. That would be madness, right? I mean, you are a man, correct?
So, yes, Emma nailed that. Ms. Young -- dismisses this entire area -- probably due to exactly the social blindness just described -- and goes for the legal angle of custody. Except, this is a area that was developed over time due to precedent of previous cases, as most legal tendencies are. Most of those judges in the 70s, and 80s were men. Being men, and falling into the same social blindness, they probably didn't really believe that the father seriously want to have the children. He was just making it hard on his ex-wife, and trying to limit the child support.
"...feminist challenges to discriminatory, sex-specific laws" is completely wrong. This was not a feminist act, this was an ACLU action fighting against discrimination as they are apt to do when the actual laws are bias. I defy Ms. Young to show a single Feminist action (legal action, not just some columnist declaring herself a feminist and spewing angst) in this legal area. The Father's Rights Movement was often said to have more women in it than men.
"But as fathers began to fight against more covert anti-male biases in the court system, most feminists sided with mothers." -- I would love to see citations for this comment as well. Again, the ACLU was actively fighting against the bias of the law, and the precedents of the courts. Men who really wanted to remain with their children, did welcome that help and in many cases that help rendered results. I can't recall, or find, any reference to any Feminist group fighting the legal changes with actual actions against the removal of this legal bias.
But, the legal bias has nothing to do with what Emma is talking about, or the focus of sexual equality on the social level. Emma is addressing the population of the world, not a few men and women in black robes behind a bench. When the population of the world gets the message, the legal system will take care of itself. So, Ms Young's comments here are both naive and irrelevant.
It is useless to follow the article any further. Ms. Young has built up a charge of steam at this point and now sails into the currents of her own disinformation. One feels that someone of her position is reaching this far afield because she's trying to justify the inflammatory title of the article.
Equal rights is fairly basic idea. In April 2012, Governor Scott Walker repealed Wisconsin's Equal Pay Enforcement Act. The Equal Pay Enforcement Act was passed in 2009 in response to the large gap between the wages of men and women in Wisconsin. Among other provisions, it allowed workplace discrimination victims redress in the less costly and more accessible state court system, rather than in federal court.
Now, that was a good move for the Act to take. Most people who are in the middle working class, don't have a great deal of spare change laying around. Not the kind of change it takes to get a lawyer for Federal Court cases. In other words, this wasn't a useless law. The means it provided were accessible to a much greater population than many of the other laws which said the words, but didn't provide the means.
Defending the repeal, Walker stated that the Act had essentially been nothing but a boon for trial lawyers, incentivizing them to sue job creators, including female business owners, and that the law was being used to clog up the legal system in his state.
So, what Walker is saying here, is that because there were so many cases of women not being paid at the same level for the same work, and because this Act provided means to a huge number of people being victimized on the basis of having a vagina, Walker could not allow this to continue -- too many businesses were suffering -- Those businesses being the ones perpetrating this inequality.
Republican State Senator Glenn Grothman said of the repeal, "You could argue that money is more important for men. I think a guy in their first job, maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday, may be a little more money-conscious."
The Act itself wasn't the issue either way. You may have got caught up in that red herring and it is forgivable. But the Act is just an Act. People -- not just men or women -- people deserve fair pay.
Walker, is a pig, but protecting business owners is a real responsibility. He could have taken another step, and offered another solution ... in fact he could still do this ... but simply ignoring the fact that -- because of a new Act a large magnitude of businesses in his state were about to be shut down because of serious penalties from these lawsuits, all at the same time, isn't a responsible thing to do as a Governor. Standing back and letting it happen (justified or not) does no one any good. Unemployment skyrockets, the state falls into a depression. No one is happy. Men or women. So -- not the issue either. Again, a red herring. (Hey, I don't like him, he's a pig, and I would love to stick this on him, but for clarity and understanding, he isn't our guy).
And then... our State Senator weighs in and shows us what real prejudice looks like, and clears the air for what Feminism truly objects to. Grothman's idiocy is exactly what Emma is addressing in her speech. Both men and women are brutalized by Grothman's statement and position. Money is more important to men. How blatantly sexist can you be?
This is a Senator of our country. A law maker. And he believes -- strongly enough to say on National TV -- that because you have a cock, you find money of major importance. Not job satisfaction, not benefits, not security, or time off with the family. Money is more important than everything else if you have a cock. So important in fact that knowing your fellow workers are being penalized from getting the same amount, of that thing you find brutally important, you don't care. Your cock-sense is so needful of money that it overrules any sense of fairness, and blinds you completely to any injury to others as a result of the removal of this Act. Where money is concerned, man is a Neanderthal.
And this Senator is a man! How obtuse can a you be?
This is the real issue that Emma is talking about with HeForShe. Yes, I went the other way, you weren't expecting that, and so you have sexist tendencies as well. We all do. We were raised with them in the United States. They are inbred. They taint everything. So what?
Clarity of purpose is what will change the world. I could have wrote that from the woman's point of view, about the female injury. I can also write the injury to the male's side, as I just did -- which is Emma's point. Sexism injures both.
When you are sexist, it harms everyone.
The point of view I used isn't fictional. It is from my personal experience. I used to be a systems administrator. At one time I was working side-by-side with a woman, who did exactly the same job I did, and may even have been a bit more skilled than I was. She did have a better degree, that is a true fact. About three months into the job, I came across her salary while fixing a computer from accounting. She was making $20k less than I was. Twenty-Thousand, less. It worried on me like the mythical Furries. I do have a sense of fairness. I do have a sense of injury. I knew that it was flat out wrong for her to be paid so much less than I was. Twenty-thousand less put her down at the point of barely making it -- whereas I was doing alright.
I had my son with me. I needed the money. But, what does that matter? She had two kids. I couldn't bring myself to say anything though. I simply couldn't. My lack of voice was taken by two of the men in accounting to mean I was crass to her situation, in much the same way as the Senator did with his statement. "She's just a woman. Money isn't as important to her." This did not make me feel better about the situation. In fact, it made me a cohort, a villain.
I quit thirty days later.
I never said why, or explained my actions. I couldn't voice them, because I could see the level of blatant "not getting it" in my boss's eyes. This was not the only event of sexism I ran into during my 35 years in the work force, but it was the most glaring.
You can easily avoid the red herrings, by following Emma's standard. If it hurts both men and women, by attacking one of them, that is the mentality we are looking to address and change. If we can change that mentality, if we can educate and get rid of true sexism, all the rest of this stuff will take care of itself.
Ms. Young? Not even a red herring really. She is only guilty of composing a inciting article which is designed through the tried and true marketing concepts of attacking a celebrity who is popular in the media at the moment. She's an opportunist. Which is just above street beggar in my eyes, but nothing more. She is, however, why we need to keep our purpose and clarity as pure as possible. Articles like hers muddle the waters with their demagoguery. They pounce and portray red herrings as the real issue, making education a much more difficult task. It takes ten times more energy to clear away bullshit than it does to propagate it. So our clarity and purpose needs to keep sharp.
If a sexist statement harms both men and women, it is a true danger to us, and truly sexist. Those are who we need to address. That is the mentality we need to stop.
#HeForShe #Equality #LikeAGirl #Feminism #Realism
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