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Forums - Politics Discussion - 5 Legal Rights Women Have That Men Don’t (primarily USA focused)

Article: http://thoughtcatalog.com/janet-bloomfield/2014/08/5-legal-rights-women-have-that-men-dont/

5 rights in summary:

1 - Right to genital integrity. This one is about circumcision. It's accepted to circumsize a male, but monstrous to circumcise a female. Author goes on to explain that s/he's aware of the differences in outcomes of the surgeries, but claims that that argument is like justifying coercisively chopping off a toe, because it's not as bad as cutting off the whole foot.

2 - Right to vote. Women in the USA have the right to vote, however, in order for men to vote, they must agree to sign up to the draft. Women can vote for politicians who conscript the men, without facing any direct threats themselves.

3/4 - The right to choose parenthood. Women can choose to abort or give child up for adoption, and essentially give up all legal responsibility. Men do not have this option, and in some jurisdictions cannot even give up legal responsibility even if they're not the biological father (depending on whether the man is deemed a 'father figure' by the children). On the otherside of the coin, women are always the default primary caregiver, and thus able to stop the father from seeing the child at their discretion (while also maintaining the obligation to provide financial support), if a man has enough money he can sometimes get this reversed in court, but the woman is the default.

5 - Right to be raped (as in, have it be called 'rape'). Under legal definitions of rape, rape is only forced penetration. This covers a small percentage of male rape cases, but does not include "forced to penetrate". Citing numbers from 2010, 2.17 million women in the USA reported rape, while 2.16 million men reported to be "forced to penetrate".

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For me, my personal beef is with issues 3/4. While I do not believe abortion should be outlawed, I do believe that men and women should be on equal footings when it comes down to legal rights over a child. My family is undergoing an ordeal where a relative's ex is now pregnant with his baby. She's refusing to let him be a part of the child's life, but at the same time is going to utilize the power of the state to provide financial support (this is in the UK, so it's not just a USA problem).

My take on other issues:

1 - I was personally circumsized, although for medical issues, rather than cultural / religious. It hasn't been a big deal really, although was a concern to me pre-losing-virginity, as I was concerned it might freak women out (it's not as common in the UK as in the USA). Honestly, I had no choice from a medical standpoint, so "waiting" until I could make a decision for myself is not an option. That's really as far as my opinion goes on that. Medical concerns, go for it. I don't know enough about the Jewish faith / traditions as to make a comment on that, and the same is true with these tribes or-what-have-you that do it to women.

2 - Meh. Voting is an act of aggression, so it's not too much of a leap to go from voting to war. I don't care if it goes either way (drafting women, or ending draft for men), as I'll never vote anyways.

5 - While I do think there's an issue with the current attitude's to rape, this isn't the problem. This is just semantics. Same with when people claim "eye rape" or some bullshit. "Rape" is just a word, it's the action that matters.



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I just don't see why you consider voting an act of aggression.



 

tsogud said:

I just don't see why you consider voting an act of aggression.


I don't want this to be the main point of the thread, so I'm not going to debate this point here. But I'm a libertarian who believes in the Non-Aggression-Principle, iirc the Wikipedia article on the NAP is pretty good.



SamuelRSmith said:

2 - Right to vote. Women in the USA have the right to vote, however, in order for men to vote, they must agree to sign up to the draft. Women can vote for politicians who conscript the men, without facing any direct threats themselves.

That's why whenever a woman tells me male politicians shouldn't even be able to vote on abortion I always tell her that female politicians shouldn't be able to vote about war.



SamuelRSmith said:
tsogud said:

I just don't see why you consider voting an act of aggression.


I don't want this to be the main point of the thread, so I'm not going to debate this point here. But I'm a libertarian who believes in the Non-Aggression-Principle, iirc the Wikipedia article on the NAP is pretty good.

I wasn't looking for a debate, I just honestly have never heard of someone call voting an act of aggression, it's definitely an interesting way of looking at it.



 

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badgenome said:

That's why whenever a woman tells me male politicians shouldn't even be able to vote on abortion I always tell her that female politicians shouldn't be able to vote about war.


That's why whenever a woman (or man) tries to talk to me about politics, I always tell them I'm more interested in talking about Kim Kardashian, or some shit. Politics becomes so aggressive in real life that you make more friends feigning ignorance. Even if you and somebody agree on 99.99% of issues, that 0.01% will become the focus, and in most cases there'll be a lot of angst (especially when booze are involved).



SamuelRSmith said:

That's why whenever a woman (or man) tries to talk to me about politics, I always tell them I'm more interested in talking about Kim Kardashian, or some shit. Politics becomes so aggressive in real life that you make more friends feigning ignorance. Even if you and somebody agree on 99.99% of issues, that 0.01% will become the focus, and in most cases there'll be a lot of angst (especially when booze are involved).

I dunno, that's not really my experience. I mean, if you are a Republican arguing with Democrat friends or vice versa and it's all just a big YES! / NO! / YES! / NO! fest, then I can see how that's not going anywhere and will only result in hardened feelings. But unless someone is a diehard activist type (and those people don't have any friends to begin with) I've found that most people can be shamed into shutting up about their stupider opinions when they're confronted with something that isn't just a Facebook caricature of "the other side's" arguments.



1, 3,4 and 5 are thé same hère, but nobody talks about it, thé fact is we tend to laugh when some one talk about equality for m'en, because in thé common thought, there is ni such thing for men, only women are victims of inequality, but by fighting against it during years while m'en did nothing for them, at thé end, men and women are equal in thé inequality, some could think otherwise because they know more about what they hear every day, but thats not because no one dare to talk about something that it doesnt exist

Everything around thé sexual assault and rape should be changed, but its not a big matter though since m'en rapes are not common

But m'y biggest concern is 3 and 4, thats just so unfair, thé society tells to thé man " sorry, now you have no choice, you chose to not wear a condom " like if thé m'en were thé only responsibles for choosing to wear a condom or not, this choice is made by both.

There are also other little inequalities not in law but its a story for an other day



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badgenome said:

I dunno, that's not really my experience. I mean, if you are a Republican arguing with Democrat friends or vice versa and it's all just a big YES! / NO! / YES! / NO! fest, then I can see how that's not going anywhere and will only result in hardened feelings. But unless someone is a diehard activist type (and those people don't have any friends to begin with) I've found that most people can be shamed into shutting up about their stupider opinions when they're confronted with something that isn't just a Facebook caricature of "the other side's" arguments.


Unfortunately, a large number of my friends have degrees in "politics" or "international relations". They have a degree, so their stupider opinions are automatically superior.



SamuelRSmith said:

Article: http://thoughtcatalog.com/janet-bloomfield/2014/08/5-legal-rights-women-have-that-men-dont/

5 rights in summary:

1 - Right to genital integrity. This one is about circumcision. It's accepted to circumsize a male, but monstrous to circumcise a female. Author goes on to explain that s/he's aware of the differences in outcomes of the surgeries, but claims that that argument is like justifying coercisively chopping off a toe, because it's not as bad as cutting off the whole foot.

2 - Right to vote. Women in the USA have the right to vote, however, in order for men to vote, they must agree to sign up to the draft. Women can vote for politicians who conscript the men, without facing any direct threats themselves.

3/4 - The right to choose parenthood. Women can choose to abort or give child up for adoption, and essentially give up all legal responsibility. Men do not have this option, and in some jurisdictions cannot even give up legal responsibility even if they're not the biological father (depending on whether the man is deemed a 'father figure' by the children). On the otherside of the coin, women are always the default primary caregiver, and thus able to stop the father from seeing the child at their discretion (while also maintaining the obligation to provide financial support), if a man has enough money he can sometimes get this reversed in court, but the woman is the default.

5 - Right to be raped (as in, have it be called 'rape'). Under legal definitions of rape, rape is only forced penetration. This covers a small percentage of male rape cases, but does not include "forced to penetrate". Citing numbers from 2010, 2.17 million women in the USA reported rape, while 2.16 million men reported to be "forced to penetrate".

-------

For me, my personal beef is with issues 3/4. While I do not believe abortion should be outlawed, I do believe that men and women should be on equal footings when it comes down to legal rights over a child. My family is undergoing an ordeal where a relative's ex is now pregnant with his baby. She's refusing to let him be a part of the child's life, but at the same time is going to utilize the power of the state to provide financial support (this is in the UK, so it's not just a USA problem).

My take on other issues:

1 - I was personally circumsized, although for medical issues, rather than cultural / religious. It hasn't been a big deal really, although was a concern to me pre-losing-virginity, as I was concerned it might freak women out (it's not as common in the UK as in the USA). Honestly, I had no choice from a medical standpoint, so "waiting" until I could make a decision for myself is not an option. That's really as far as my opinion goes on that. Medical concerns, go for it. I don't know enough about the Jewish faith / traditions as to make a comment on that, and the same is true with these tribes or-what-have-you that do it to women.

2 - Meh. Voting is an act of aggression, so it's not too much of a leap to go from voting to war. I don't care if it goes either way (drafting women, or ending draft for men), as I'll never vote anyways.

5 - While I do think there's an issue with the current attitude's to rape, this isn't the problem. This is just semantics. Same with when people claim "eye rape" or some bullshit. "Rape" is just a word, it's the action that matters.

While I agree for the most part, a small child has no faith or ability to understand the implications of having their genitals mutilated at their age. I also suspect that you were not circumsized for medical reasons and your parents lied to you.



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