oh ok i wasn't shore no worry's

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Why the patriarchy is bad for men: (warning, there is strong language, but the article is definitely a must read for all the fellas here)

Masculinity Is Killing Men: The Roots of Men and Trauma

A good read indeed, thanks for sharing.

And yeah, the very concept of masculinity is toxic. The problem is that, even in later stages of life when you are able to recognize how dumb the whole thing is, you'll get in trouble if you don't conform to this horrible gender norm. Why do people think 'gay' is often such an effective swear word? Because its linked with feminine behavior in the minds of most people, and it has essentially a way to say that someone isn't a 'real man'.

You can't step back from your microscope can you? You grant your government the right to dictate how a religion shall be practiced. English hegemony. All shall follow or else. What an incredibly oppressive state you seek. Totally repugnant. In actuality no different than what ISIL seeks.

So you would let ISIS come to America, behead other people, and say that such practices are protected because the state has no business in telling other people how to practice their religion. Riiiiight.

The State has every right and even an obligation to step in and tell how religion should or shouldn't be practiced when said practice conflicts with public policy. A religion can't molest children as part of some religious ritual (though in most countries mutilation of boys is just fine). You can't kill people as part of some religious ritual. You can't destroy property as a ritual. You can't call upon your followers to attack and kill followers of a different religion. And now the UK says a religion can't allow schools to ban women from driving. That is by the way, not the state dictating how a religion should be practiced as you claimed, but the state setting limits to how a religion should be practiced. As long as they stay within these limits a religion is free to do whatever it wants.

Now you might say that this seems a lot more innocent than murder or child molestation. But lets look at what it does here. First of all, no religion and no school has the legal right to actually ban women from driving. Driving is a freedom, a privilege that is granted to anyone who has a drivers license and the only entity that may revoke such a license is the state. And the retention of that privilege is in no way dependent on any kind of religious affiliation or gender. Now technically the school wants to enforce their ban by banning the entry of children who were brought by their mother. Given that they are a public school and that children enrolled in such a school have certain rights and the school has an obligation to educate them, banning entry of children is again illegal. That isn't telling people how to practice their faith, that is simply upholding the existing laws.

Why do people think 'gay' is often such an effective swear word? Because its linked with feminine behavior in the minds of most people, and it has essentially a way to say that someone isn't a 'real man'.

It isn't particularly effective any more, at least not round here, just comes across as childish.

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

Why do people think 'gay' is often such an effective swear word? Because its linked with feminine behavior in the minds of most people, and it has essentially a way to say that someone isn't a 'real man'.

It isn't particularly effective any more, at least not round here, just comes across as childish.

Indeed so. Culture and attitudes move on.

Just recently, we've had the positive vote in Eire (Southern Ireland) to accept same-sex marriage (despite the medieval attitudes of the church there). We've had only a minor upset from a very few about a lesbian kiss shown on the Dr Who TV series. And that all contrasts starkly with the near rekindling of the American civil war by USA southern states when an interracial kiss was to be broadcast on the old Star Trek series...


Times greatly and quickly move on, hopefully for the better for everyone, including women.

All in our only one world,
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

And that all contrasts starkly with the near rekindling of the American civil war by USA southern states when an interracial kiss was to be broadcast on the old Star Trek series...

I heard a great story about that. A couple of tv executives were present when that scene was being filmed. There had been a few takes of Jim kissing Uhura, and they insisted on one take where he merely hugs her. (Guess which was likely to end up in the final cut.)
Shatner, who as it happens was facing away from where the executives were stood, looked straight at the camera during the hug and crossed his eyes, thus rendering the shot unusable and forcing them to include the kiss.
Crafty devil!

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

Today, I finally lost all faith in the Justice System of this country & in light of what happened, will forever more take feminism with a pinch of salt. Feeling totally saddened & dejected at the moment as I've only just returned from the Crown Court.

I'm having a cuppa & trying to regain composure & will post my views when done so.

Please note that my posts will be extensive & that I am aware of the professionals that will be mentioned have a job to do.

What annoyed me, the victim & her family as well as many others was the manner in which that job was carried out.

Today, I finally lost all faith in the Justice System of this country & in light of what happened, will forever more take feminism with a pinch of salt. Feeling totally saddened & dejected at the moment as I've only just returned from the Crown Court.

I'm having a cuppa & trying to regain composure & will post my views when done so.

Please note that my posts will be extensive & that I am aware of the professionals that will be mentioned have a job to do.

What annoyed me, the victim & her family as well as many others was the manner in which that job was carried out.

I look forward to hearing about how this terrible thing is all the fault of feminism.

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Reality Internet Personality

So you support beheadings by ISIL then?

No .

I'm agreeing with you .

In England there is no law that i know of that says a woman should not be allowed to drive so you are correct a Rabbi that makes up there own rules outside of what the whole country has agreed to is wrong

In the case of Isil they do have the right to agree to any laws they wish and still call it freedom , however there may be very bad consequences for having the wrong rules if those rules are at odds with the rest of the world .

My reply was to Gary who seems to think religious freedom trumps all other freedoms.

I see you still are looking through a microscope. Your first error is assuming driving is a right. It is a privilege, but not important as it isn't England that is preventing driving. Actually no one is preventing driving, but your microscope can't see that far outside the box.

As to rights, there is the right of free association. Perhaps you should become familiar with it. There are also rights of private property. Religion fits in here as well, in making rules for its practice.

Now what is being said is if you arrive by car driven by a woman, you may not enter. Do you have an issue with, if you are male and arrive at a temple without wearing a yarmulka, you aren't permitted entry. Of course maybe you are like France and will ban the headscarf.

So no one is preventing driving, no ticket or arrest. What is being applied are the rights of a private property owner to pick and choose who he allows on his property, car park?, and the right of free association in not forcing anyone to associate with someone they do not choose to and Religion in devising a rule that says women do not drive children to school.

Now which "right" is more valuable or trumps the others? You can't decide this looking through your microscope. Open your mind.

The correct thing is to stop public funding if they have such an objectionable rule. This encourages them to make the choice you want, but allows them the freedom to make the choice.

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Today, I finally lost all faith in the Justice System of this country & in light of what happened, will forever more take feminism with a pinch of salt. Feeling totally saddened & dejected at the moment as I've only just returned from the Crown Court.

I'm having a cuppa & trying to regain composure & will post my views when done so.

Please note that my posts will be extensive & that I am aware of the professionals that will be mentioned have a job to do.

What annoyed me, the victim & her family as well as many others was the manner in which that job was carried out.

I look forward to hearing about how this terrible thing is all the fault of feminism.

A new thread deserving of more focused discussion?

Noted the lack of the Union Jack... Note that lawyers make their money from the cost and payment for argument (disputing unto quagmire ad nauseam...) ... And all clients be damned...

Justice and ideals and fair play may well be an aside. Then also, there are no winners in court...


Best of luck for all,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I see you still are looking through a microscope. Your first error is assuming driving is a right. It is a privilege, but not important as it isn't England that is preventing driving. Actually no one is preventing driving, but your microscope can't see that far outside the box.

As to rights, there is the right of free association. Perhaps you should become familiar with it. There are also rights of private property. Religion fits in here as well, in making rules for its practice.

Now what is being said is if you arrive by car driven by a woman, you may not enter. Do you have an issue with, if you are male and arrive at a temple without wearing a yarmulka, you aren't permitted entry. Of course maybe you are like France and will ban the headscarf.

So no one is preventing driving, no ticket or arrest. What is being applied are the rights of a private property owner to pick and choose who he allows on his property, car park?, and the right of free association in not forcing anyone to associate with someone they do not choose to and Religion in devising a rule that says women do not drive children to school.

Now which "right" is more valuable or trumps the others? You can't decide this looking through your microscope. Open your mind.

The correct thing is to stop public funding if they have such an objectionable rule. This encourages them to make the choice you want, but allows them the freedom to make the choice.

You are right, I am looking at it through a microscope. The microscope of actual experience being a woman and having to juggle life/work with the school run. To you its trivial, to me it was often a gruelling and painful part of my day. I suspect you've never been threatened with losing your job because you were late or your childcare let you down, or there is simply no way of warping time so you can drop the kids off and make it to work. I lived 8 minutes walk from my work for 3 years, yet it would take me 30-45 minutes to get there with the drop offs and that was in a car. Without a car it would have been impossible and I would not have been able to work.

So to you, trivial, but to anyone else with any understanding, it really isn't.

It might be trivial to you as a man who clearly has never had children, but you do seem unable to step outside that bubble and see what it means to the actual women involved. Even though I am telling you, you for some reason are dismissing my perspective. I suggest you ask yourself why before you start accusing other people of looking at the world through a microscope.

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Reality Internet Personality

Anita Sarkeesian Is Fighting to Make the Web Less Awful for Women – And Getting Death Threats in the Process
A very interesting read.

When I first heard of her a few years ago it really helped me to put my experience here on seti in perspective and realise that the harassment and threats I received were part of a wider problem with the way outspoken women are treated on the internet. I have been a fan of her work ever since and her videos are excellent if you ever get a chance to watch them.

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Reality Internet Personality

You are right, I am looking at it through a microscope.

Yes, the one that assumes the child must be enrolled in that particular religious school. The one that assumes the father will abuse the mother, or abduct the child, if the child has to go to a different school. The one that assumes the school is too far for the American Experience of walking 5 miles to school, uphill both ways through snow. Then there is another American Experience of forced busing being sent to a school ten miles away to meet a racial quota. Yes, likely because this is a religious school and not a public one, some of the children live a fair distance away, but sending the child to that particular school is a choice, and not all choices are without consequence.

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You are right, I am looking at it through a microscope.

Yes, the one that assumes the child must be enrolled in that particular religious school. The one that assumes the father will abuse the mother, or abduct the child, if the child has to go to a different school. The one that assumes the school is too far for the American Experience of walking 5 miles to school, uphill both ways through snow. Then there is another American Experience of forced busing being sent to a school ten miles away to meet a racial quota. Yes, likely because this is a religious school and not a public one, some of the children live a fair distance away, but sending the child to that particular school is a choice, and not all choices are without consequence.

It has become very clear to me that you have no idea what you are talking about. or even what I am talking about.

I am not assuming anything. I am only aware that once you take away choice, it makes people vulnerable to abuse. I am not saying that anyone will behave in one way or another, I am saying that if they do, you have put people in a situation where they can do very little about it.

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Reality Internet Personality

You are right, I am looking at it through a microscope.

Yes, the one that assumes the child must be enrolled in that particular religious school. The one that assumes the father will abuse the mother, or abduct the child, if the child has to go to a different school. The one that assumes the school is too far for the American Experience of walking 5 miles to school, uphill both ways through snow. Then there is another American Experience of forced busing being sent to a school ten miles away to meet a racial quota. Yes, likely because this is a religious school and not a public one, some of the children live a fair distance away, but sending the child to that particular school is a choice, and not all choices are without consequence.

It has become very clear to me that you have no idea what you are talking about. or even what I am talking about.

I am not assuming anything. I am only aware that once you take away choice, it makes people vulnerable to abuse. I am not saying that anyone will behave in one way or another, I am saying that if they do, you have put people in a situation where they can do very little about it.

Choice was not taken away, only your perception, perhaps colored by your life experience, that choice was taken away.

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Anita Sarkeesian Is Fighting to Make the Web Less Awful for Women – And Getting Death Threats in the Process
A very interesting read.

When I first heard of her a few years ago it really helped me to put my experience here on seti in perspective and realise that the harassment and threats I received were part of a wider problem with the way outspoken women are treated on the internet. I have been a fan of her work ever since and her videos are excellent if you ever get a chance to watch them.

She is a bit of a polarizing person. I'm not sure about her though. I mean I recognize how valuable it is to have someone like her call out all the sexist nonsense that is happening, particular in the games industry, and she makes some very good points. But at an academic level she can be a bit shoddy. Some of her claims aren't really supported by evidence or the evidence is ripped out of its wider context, and she gives no space to any counter arguments. Now of course, shes an advocate, so it makes sense to some degree that she ignores counter arguments, but at the same time I think the thing you are advocating for would be better served if you can also handle the counter arguments and prove that they are wrong or not relevant to the discussion.

Finally, I don't think it helps that the underlying theory of her work is...well, pretty much nonsense. Pop culture doesn't influence the way people think, the way people think influences what pop culture shows. Games don't cause violence, that is a scientifically proven fact at this point. So why should they cause sexism? Well, they don't. Games depict sexism and sexist attitudes because the people that make them are sexists.

That all said, I do like watching her videos. They are interesting, regardless of whether I agree with everything she says.

Anita Sarkeesian Is Fighting to Make the Web Less Awful for Women – And Getting Death Threats in the Process
A very interesting read.

When I first heard of her a few years ago it really helped me to put my experience here on seti in perspective and realise that the harassment and threats I received were part of a wider problem with the way outspoken women are treated on the internet. I have been a fan of her work ever since and her videos are excellent if you ever get a chance to watch them.

She is a bit of a polarizing person. I'm not sure about her though. I mean I recognize how valuable it is to have someone like her call out all the sexist nonsense that is happening, particular in the games industry, and she makes some very good points. But at an academic level she can be a bit shoddy. Some of her claims aren't really supported by evidence or the evidence is ripped out of its wider context, and she gives no space to any counter arguments. Now of course, shes an advocate, so it makes sense to some degree that she ignores counter arguments, but at the same time I think the thing you are advocating for would be better served if you can also handle the counter arguments and prove that they are wrong or not relevant to the discussion.

Finally, I don't think it helps that the underlying theory of her work is...well, pretty much nonsense. Pop culture doesn't influence the way people think, the way people think influences what pop culture shows. Games don't cause violence, that is a scientifically proven fact at this point. So why should they cause sexism? Well, they don't. Games depict sexism and sexist attitudes because the people that make them are sexists.

That all said, I do like watching her videos. They are interesting, regardless of whether I agree with everything she says.

Pop culture is just one area that does enforce patriarchal ideas. Video games do promote the idea that women are objects, but so do many other things, they are just part of the problem. Her ideas can be applied in many other places, such as movies, TV, news media. She writes about gaming because that is where her interest lies and there really is a problem with sexism in gaming. From a recent conversation with my niece who is studying a computing degree at the moment, the problem is really bad. So much so that it is causing her problems and I am concerned for her safety. She told me that at a recent coding competition she took part in some really vile things were said to her by other competitors.

You might not agree with Anita Sarkeesian's research and any issues with it need to be discussed in an academic framework, but the fact that the response has been death and rape threats over it suggests there really is a big problem...and its not a problem merely associated with gaming. It happens in a lot of online spaces.

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Reality Internet Personality

Pop culture is just one area that does enforce patriarchal ideas

Nonsense.
http://www.eurovision.tv/tag/expand/Gay
Stockholm, Sweden - The first ever winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, Lys Assia, and the latest winner, Emmelie de Forest will perform at Scandinavia's largest gay pride event, organisers have announced.
http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?id=lys_assia_and_emmelie_to_perform_at_stockholm_pride
http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?id=stockholm_pride_becomes_eurovision_extravaganza

Women only worth a pack of cigarettes at auction
http://rt.com/news/266029-isis-girls-slaves-sold/

Teenage girls kidnapped by ISIS in Iraq and Syria are being sold in slave markets “for as little as a pack of cigarettes,” according to the UN envoy on sexual violence.

The findings come after Zainab Bangura's April visit to Iraq and Syria, during which she spoke to women and girls who had fled captivity in areas controlled by Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL).

Virgins however:

to several hundred or thousand dollars.

What is old is new again:

“They kidnap and abduct women when they take areas so they have – I don’t want to call it a fresh supply – but they have new girls,” she said, as quoted by AFP.

Bangura relayed the traumatic situations experienced by several teenage girls, many of whom were part of the Yazidi minority targeted by the fighters.

“Some were taken, locked up in a room – over 100 of them in a small house – stripped naked and washed,” she said.

They were then made to stand in front of a group of men who decided “what you are worth.”

She added that ISIS is aiming “to build a society that reflects the 13th century,” calling the abuse “medieval.”

Yes some choose this:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/24/europe/turkey-uk-missing-girls/

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Today, I finally lost all faith in the Justice System of this country & in light of what happened, will forever more take feminism with a pinch of salt. Feeling totally saddened & dejected at the moment as I've only just returned from the Crown Court.

I'm having a cuppa & trying to regain composure & will post my views when done so.

Please note that my posts will be extensive & that I am aware of the professionals that will be mentioned have a job to do.

What annoyed me, the victim & her family as well as many others was the manner in which that job was carried out.

I look forward to hearing about how this terrible thing is all the fault of feminism.

What? Where have I blamed feminism? I think you need to get off that "feminist high horse". You should have waited until you saw the relevant posts before making unwarranted assumptions. It's been a hectic day & I need to collate all my notes into a recognisable summary.