2004-03-08 06:23:54 PM Akuinnen

I wonder how many women were killed when the Americans firebombed Dresden slaughtering innocents?

I'll bite. How many? Who cares? That's how war was fought then (bomb cities to dust).

"Recently, girls' schools have been set ablaze and women have set themselves on fire in acts of desperation."

Now that's protest! None of that namby-pamby bra-burnin' in Afghanistan..no...they definitely do not fark around.

Can you imagine the dedication one would need to set yourself on FIRE to protest something? Makes me want to beat up some hippies from Berkely for half assin' it. People protested like mad over the Iraq war, but not one of them pansies had the guts to set themselves on fire.

/self-hating war protester

Rephrasing part of post to clarify: "What if we bring ALL of the women from Afghanistan to the US? Then will the men learn?"

I forget, which one was it that oppressed women in Afghanistan: the Taliban or Karzai (the guy we, the U.S., put in there)?

Score another foreign policy victory for the "good guys"?

I Wonder how many me thought that when we attained universal sufferage at the begining of last century.

I Wonder how many Swiss men thought that in 1970 when they finally gave women the right to vote.

I wonder what other Islamo-Arabi-Persian countries who deny women basic rights are thinking, I mean Afghanistan was one of the region's strongholds for female-as-property philosophy.

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

NavyBlues: Until I turned 18, I paid sales taxes, but wasn't allowed to vote. INJUSTICE!

Troll.

Sturgeon637: nothing wrong with bigamy and polygamy in my opinion, but it's fairly likely that there isn't a large segment of society in favour of them. And bigamy and polygamy aren't allowed for anyone, as opposed to marriage being allowed for one type of 2-person committed romantic relationship (heterosexuals) rather than another type of 2-person committed relationship (homosexuals). It's kind of a different situation.

If anyone wants to be seriously depressed, pick up last month's Marie Claire and read the article about self-immolation. It's the newest rage in Afghanistan! Some of the photos were award-winning, but really gory. Apparently, that's how a lot of women are "subtly rebelling." I couldn't imagine living in fear like that.

2004-03-08 06:26:00 PM Sturgeon637

Bigamy used to be against the status quo too.
Polygamy used to be against the status quo too.

Actually, bigamy and polygamy used to be the status quo.

Plus, I still haven't seen a good argument for why bigamy and polygamy are so evil between consenting adults... I mean, one can be in the same exact living situation without being officially multimarried...

Man, people are missing the obvious. If a guy thinks his wife, sister, whatever, wants to rebel against him, he just tells her to vote for the other guy.

If he thinks she thinks that's what he's doing, he tells her to vote for the guy he thinks she wants to vote for.

Problem solved.

Ohhh.. sure.. people bring up Gay Marriage but I can't bring up Dresden?
I thought that's how it went here on Metafilter. Someone posts something about Afghanistan and then we all bash the US. With unrelated topics.

2004-03-08 06:29:18 PM bobbette

In all honesty, I'm confused why you say it's a different situation. My understanding was that gays wanted the right to marry because it's only fair since they are consenting adults in love.

Why would that be different from a couple who wants to marry their neighbor?

DarkAvised: I honestly wish I could say the times are changing, anywhere in the world. Women still are paid less than men, are victims of male-inflicted violence in astonishing numbers (often domestic abuse), and have way less political representation. And that's just in North America. Things still on the whole kind of suck for women. Hopefully that will change with my generation (the children of the original bra-burning "feminazi" women.) But there's a rather depressing outlook right now, especially in the Third World.

Ceejay The polygamy/bigamy thing and why it is evil?
Hmm, have you ever heard of more than one HUSBAND? Or is it generally more than one wife-property?

Akuinnen --
"I wonder how many women were killed when the Americans firebombed Dresden slaughtering innocents?"


If you're a descendent, we came up one woman short on the total tally. That answer your question?

Bobbette Sure, things are not perfect. Violence against people is awful in any situation and especially domestic. Way less political representation can be addressed more easily than other stuff. There are simply more women voters than men. Vote. And it is not only women who are underrepresented in certain areas -- most colleges have upwards of 52% women enrolled.

2004-03-08 06:34:11 PM DarkAvised
Ceejay The polygamy/bigamy thing and why it is evil?
Hmm, have you ever heard of more than one HUSBAND? Or is it generally more than one wife-property?

Yes, actually, I've heard of matriarchs with many husbands. Generally happens in Eastern cultures, but occasionally in Western culture as well.

You've still failed to address the "they're consenting adults who can live in that situation without state sanctioning" point, too.

Actually, DarkAdvised, there are women who have more than one husband in a number of societies in the world. Right now I'm mainly picturing one in Nepal.

But on the whole (addressing Ceejay, I think) where polygamy exists it contributes to the negative condition of women. So it is considered "bad".

Also, I think the Christians might consider it adultery... not sure, though.

Well, in a secular nation like ours, the Christians have the right not to have a polygamous marriage. Simple solution, eh?

Agreed on the Nepale/other matriachies, but to inflate that to the level of defeating my arguement commits an informal fallacy or two. In most cases it is many wives.

And it is not only women who are underrepresented in certain areas -- most colleges have upwards of 52% women enrolled.

It's going to be kind of funny to watch this play out, at least for someone with my sense of the absurd.

The norm, among men who went to college, used to be that a guy went to college and married a woman who probably didn't go to college.

Now, the situation is reversed and most women won't marry a guy they percieve to be their educational inferior, because she knows at some point she's probably going to drop out of the workforce.

So, you'll have all these educated women and no men for them to marry. Plus, since the men won't be married, they'll have less of a stake in society and will be far more sociopathic than the more recent generations. This will cause the breakdown of civil society, rendering traditional political institutions more and more useless just at the point at which women are gaining power in them.

How's that for ironic? It might not happen that way, but I remember reading an article in The Economist about 6 years ago that said this was already well on the way to becoming reality in England, and I don't know of anything that's really changed since.

why is bombing Dreden relevant to voting politics in Afghanistan ? just clear it up for me here.

I wouldn't want to be too quick to label someone a troll after all.

2004-03-08 06:37:34 PM
DarkAvised

First of all, the fact that there are more women voters doesn't matter when dominant political parties encourage women not to run - for instance, in the Labour party in Britain - or don't have any policies on women at all. Women are still not taken seriously in politics, for the most part, as you'll observe in Canada right now with the campaign of Belinda Stronach, who is running for the leadership of the Conservative Party and may win (she's a bit of a lightweight, though - for other reasons.) Her news coverage for the first month of her campaign was pretty much uniformly "Belinda is so fashionable and pretty! Look at how nice her clothes are! She has great shoes! And she isn't talking about policy!" - which was untrue, although she is a presentable woman. Then the coverage moved on to "How will Belinda's child adapt to her candidacy since she's a single mom" and later to "Oh yeah, some politics stuff Belinda the Bimbo said today." There's an underlying tone of "a pretty woman competing for a major role in a major political party! How novel!" in most of the news stories I've read about her since about January. Which is ridiculous. Looking at the American side of things, how many people took Carol Mosely Braun seriously when she ran for the Democratic nomination?

Women don't vote on a "empowering women" ticket, secondly - women vote pretty much the same way men vote, on policy issues and party affiliation lines. The only way women can be more involved in politics is if they work within the parties to make themselves more involved - and political parties still tend to work in old-boy's-networks kind of ways.

Colleges do tend to have more women enrolled, but this simply doesn't show itself in the career arena, where men still earn more than women and where the so-called "glass ceiling" still exists. Examining the corporate boards of major corporations is a case in point here. Way fewer women. Although it's better in America than Canada in this particular example.

I'm utterly astounded by the number of people checking in here to pop off some anti-American jab. "Way to go, USA," "imposing western culture" and such. Is your chic Uncle-Sam-bashing SOOOO deeply ingrained in you that you have to automatically twitch-out a hate-the-U.S. remark or you might accidentally see how retarded Islamic-ruled culture is?

If bigamy and polygamy could be legalized in a gender-blind fashion I could go with that. I don't think it would be wise to have laws about polygamy that placed the women in different legal positions than the men.

and beastility has difficulties concerning the issue of consent. what legal protections and rights can you grant a creature we cannot effectively communicate with ?

Methinks that religion may not be the problem, rather old religious books...

I think in Paul's Letters, he puts gambling, drunkeness and homosexualism on the same level.

Would have to read the Economist article to comment. Right now, I'm just thowing out partially formed arguements to stimulate friendly discussion.

fark_tard
Now, the situation is reversed and most women won't marry a guy they percieve to be their educational inferior, because she knows at some point she's probably going to drop out of the workforce.

Hahahahaha. What?
Women who are educated tend to not be interested in men who aren't educated because they have higher standards, not because they have future plans for stay-at-home-mom-hood. They want combined high incomes.

If bigamy and polygamy could be legalized in a gender-blind fashion I could go with that. I don't think it would be wise to have laws about polygamy that placed the women in different legal positions than the men.

I can just imagine a guy coming home to his polygamous household.

Man: "Honey, I'm home"

Woman: "Oh god, oh god, yes, yes"

Man: "Wow, you're really glad to see me. Oh, wait, you're just getting the shiat farked out of you by your other husband. I'll go put on dinner while you guys finish."

Beastiality has consent problems? How so? Do animals EVER get/give consent? Or does Rover just effectively rape Fluffy when he wants to? And if Rover can rape Fluffy, why should he have more rights than you?

Squidgilum

Islam isn't the problem here, it's the fundamentalists and the moronic way people are interpreting Islam. Actually Mohammed was pretty clear in his wishes that men and women should be loving and fair to each other in marriage, and so on and so forth. The Koran doesn't say anything about shoving your woman into a burqa and not allowing her proper medical care and beating her or throwing acid on her if she complains about it, to the point where women have to set fire to themselves to protest the treatment.

It's all about how you interpret the religious teachings.

As for the political thing -- women in Texas are being recruited by the GOP to run for office.

I'll stipulate that things are not great here, Canada, or elswhere. But I won't give up hope, I won't stop fighting. As an ethicist, I tend to look at the sustained critical analysis of how SHOULD we live and work towards that goal. In short, I agree, things are not too good. But (and this is why I focussed on college stats) if women have an empowered education, then women can better work towards changing what is wrong. Women ARE being educated in an empowering manner and can change things for the better. But women cannot do it alone.

Most of those strongly opposed to polygamy are actually opposed to the particularly misogynist aspects of polygamy. The division of assets on marriage dissolution and the rights wrt the state are problematic.

A thoughtful discourse on legalizing polygamy might be quite fruitfull.


I know this isn't quite what the anti-gay marriage folks want to hear when they continually trot out polygmay....

I guess I blame Islam because SOMETHING'S wrong in the Arab world, and it sure would be nice if it was Islam and not Arabs.

Women who are educated tend to not be interested in men who aren't educated because they have higher standards, not because they have future plans for stay-at-home-mom-hood. They want combined high incomes.

Something like 80% of women have at least one year where they don't work, voluntarily. I think close to 50% take up to three consecutive years off.

It's not that they want to be stay-at-home moms for their childrens' entire childhood, but they want the option to stay at home for extended periods of time if they choose. Yes, when the educational levels are equal, that is easier.

Squid
Do animals give consent? Well, yes. or rather they DO NOT WITHOLD consent. If fluffy doesn't want Rover, he has some problems. I'm not going into it now, but try reading Peter Singers arguments on the subject. Pretty interesting -- and quite flawed in some respects, but I'll let you figure out how.

I've seen the destructive aspects of polygamy first-hand. It certainly SOUNDS intellectual to say, "let's have a constructive discourse on it." But the fact is: NO ONE is going to be psychologically snappy if he or she has to sit on the couch while the spouse is boffing the other spouse on the other side of the wall. Polygamy has always been, and will always be about belittling and marginalizing others.

Will be interesting to see how all of the america bashing people's attitudes do a 180 when China starts to flex its muscle and attempts to expand in the next decade (expand meaning taking back taiwan, then south korea then .......). The Chinese government has pretty much laid it out on the table that they are building up and modernizing their military (hence the rampant spying).

A thoughtful discourse on legalizing polygamy might be quite fruitfull.

Taking strictly the practical aspect, polygamy is a bad idea for all the beta males in a population. All the alphas will end up with all the mates and the betas will be forced into sterility. This is clearly unstable under modern conditions.

Meez:

You couldn't be righter. (Correcter?) China's gonna be a big angry BEAST! And not only that, they're gonna be a big, angry beast that's ALL BALLS! Their female birthrate has been next to nill for over a decade, thanks to the modern ability to see that you're gonna have a girl, and the ancient notion that having a girl is a terrible, terrible thing.

From the article:
Recently, girls' schools have been set ablaze and women have set themselves on fire in acts of desperation.

I like how no one even bats an eyelash anymore over self-immolation.

"Hey, so I heard some guys were gonna go set themselves on fire over by the gym to protest women's rights violations."
"...farking hippies."

It'd be interesting to hear some of your stories, Squidgilum. But I think dbaggins is right, we can have a "constructive discourse" on that issue.

At least theoretically, it seems possible that a "compound family" could be a mutually beneficial relationship. One was portrayed last season on Six Feet Under, where the four wives had to I'd agree that such a family unit would be very uncommon in the real world, and I certainly don't know anyone who lives like that.

But faced with a sympathetic portrayal of such a family unit, I had to ask myself, "Why do I object to polygamy?" At the end of the day, I decided that the reasons why are that 1) the women are typically forced into the polygamous relationship, often in exchange for money, and 2) the men at the heads of these relationships are typcially abusive of the women. Those are things which I would object to even if the relationships they happened in were monogamous.

Just because polygamy not something the majority of us would choose does not mean that some people would not choose it. Maybe those people don't come from entirely healthy backgrounds. Maybe they don't see any better alternatives. But those aren't reasons to preclude the choice, as long as it is free, voluntary, and not abusive.

I'd agree that polygamous "compound families" are often coercive and abusive. But I would submit that this is not necessarily always the case, nor are those things the inevitable byproduct of polygamy.

But Karzai is okay, as he is going to let them finally build that pipeline which will solve all the problems in that part of the world.

I tried a few ways of saying this without sounding preachy, but it's easier to be blunt.

Anyone who can grow up with a mother or a sister and not respect their judgment is an asshat, period. I'd trust either one in my family to make the right voting decision than I would 99% of the rest of the planet, and any religion that would systematically try to remove their equal rights -- to vote and otherwise -- is a religion that is evil.

Y'know, where I come from, a "Karzai" is a toilet.

If the shoe fits, wear it.

D_O_D