Well to a certain degree I guess. They’re never going to be as equal as numbers can. What is even meant by men and women being “equal”? Equality of opportunity?
Why do you ask?
It’s been my experience that people who value equality don’t care about the nitty gritty of what it means, because it’s a value. An ideal. And if you hold equality as an ideal, that means it’s always something to work towards. Inqualities are triaged, but they’re all something that we should overcome in the name of fairness and egalitarianism.
Someone always brings up “equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome” when they want to disrupt and derail people who value equality by getting them to wrestle in the mud about how much equality is too much. And, to be frank, it feels like you’re trying to throw the “equality of outcome” wrench into the gears here, and I don’t believe that is ever done in good faith.
What’s the problem with equality of outcome? What does it even mean? Where does the objection come from?
Simply put, it comes from resentment. It comes from the idea that “I worked hard, so I deserve a better quality of life than someone I choose to believe worked less hard!” And that’s just a long way of saying “I believe I am more deserving than someone else”.
But why? Often this comes from people who already have a certain level of comfort in life believing that they hold more right to that comfort, safety, and happiness than someone else. Too often in this sphere, it comes from people who liked tech and did well in technical subjects in school believing that that entitles them to a higher quality of life than someone who wasn’t interested in or had no special aptitude for those subjects. But shouldn’t one of the freedoms that comes from equality being the freedom to find joy in what you want? Why should I be rewarded more lucrative Ly than you for enjoying something different?
And if I don’t enjoy it, should it really make sense for me to suffer at something I don’t enjoy for the sake of wealth? Maybe the equality of outcome is really the equal ability to experience joy, and comfort, and security no matter what we enjoy and how we invest our time? If the world has the resources to allow it, then why should one person be punished for chasing their joy while another is rewarded?
The answer usually boils down to “I made better decisions, so I should be rewarded!” which is just another way of saying “people who make mistakes should be punished!”
And that seems like bullshit. What kind of world is that? Where people aren’t safe to make mistakes (and this is ignoring the idea that someone’s passion can be considered a mistake)? Where they’re punished for trying something different? Or for not jumping on a trend? Where safety and comfort are used as crudgles to force people to do things that make them miserable?
Because that’s really what “what do you mean by equality?” is really saying.
To be quite frank this comment reads like an Ayn Rand villain monologue, the kind that Ayn Rand was rightfully laughed at for writing
you do have a point in the sense that if we live in a utopia, I think there is good reason to think that it shouldn’t matter what choices people make, they all get the same ‘reward’/financial outcome/etc.
You said:
If the world has the resources to allow it, then why should one person be punished for chasing their joy while another is rewarded?
Yes okay, but what if there are limited resources? Or a world that needs improvement? Isn’t it then better to incentivize people to work hard to make our world of limited resources a world of abundance? If yes, then it means to give those a higher reward at the expense of those who made “other choices”.
Are we now living in a world of limited resources / that needs improvement? If yes, then it would probably be justified to take from those who made “other choices”
Who decides what deserves more wealth and respect? People don’t make rational decisions in this regard. Most of the time the people with more power will simply decide that their area of expertise deserves the most resources and respect.
What is event meant by man and women being “equal”?
That we’re all human beings who deserve to not have our gender determine what we can and cannot do? I think that’s pretty obvious. In practice, of course, we’re not there yet. Misogyny is rampant and insidious. But the goal in my mind is for gender to just legitimately not matter at all, outside of, like, romantic and sexual relationships.
so if you need help lifting something heavy, do you ask a man or a woman? If you only see a group of strangers.
after you shit yourself, do you ask a man or a woman to wipe your ass? If you only see a group of strangers.
Someone who looks stronger than me (not hard) and isn’t busy/has their hands full.
I’d ask whoever looks strongest if I had to pick one, or the group in general for volunteers if I were in the real world. I’ve met some women who could shoulder press me if they wanted to. If you were looking for someone to help you move a couch, I could try, but you’d be better off asking those women.
Equity: equality of available options.
Plus a whole huge swathe of problematic gender expectations to squash to boot.
No, it’s not about squashing the identities themselves, it’s about squashing the gendered expectations. Women shouldn’t be expected to know how to do laundry, cook, or avoid dirty jobs. Men shouldn’t be expected to be tough and “walk off” injury and trauma, etc.
Sure, only some are “different”, but remember: It’s not about dissing or removing the identities themselves, (outside of the highly problematic ones like the very machismo man) it’s about not setting them as expectations for everyone.
Women shouldn’t be expected to know how to do laundry, cook, or avoid dirty jobs. Men shouldn’t be expected to be tough and “walk off” injury and trauma, etc.
I know I’m walking a fine line, but still, in general, women have certain interests/traits and thus have their own skills/tendencies: care for children, avoid dirty jobs, etc. And men are tougher thus can more easily “walk off” injury and trauma. So when you see a man and a woman in an accident, both relatively little wounded, would it be morally bad to say to the man “you can probably walk it off”, and to the woman “do you need more help with that?” ? Because there is just a higher probability of this being the case. This shouldn’t obviously taken for granted, but if you don’t know them, and the injuries are right in the middle where you kind of expect them to be okay, but are just on the verge of asking/stating anyway, you would say these things and thus distinguish between them based on gender. Is that so bad?
What good does it bring to expect that people behave according to gendered biases? We all know it brings a lot of misery. I think people should think really hard if they prefer to believe in stereotypes about gender because it benefits them somehow more if this status quo is kept.
Where are you getting “men are tougher than women” from? Do you have a source for men being able to walk off injury and handle trauma better? I’m not being a dick, generally asking because I’ve never heard that claim before.
Men have more muscle mass than women so they are stronger, particularly in the upper body - and their skin is thicker (literally, not metaphorically). But boys are also more fragile than girls; they are more likely to die before birth, more like to be born prematurely and more likely to die in childhood. In adulthood, women have a stronger immune system than men and they recover better from brain injuries. Boys and men are more vulnerable to environmental contaminants and disease in general.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-men-the-weaker-sex/
No, it’s not about squashing the identities themselves, it’s about squashing the gendered expectations.
This is basically the same. If you remove the gendered expectations you remove the identity. Gender is the expectations.
That’s what makes it so resilient, not willing to renounce deeply held identity, people keep enforcing the expectations.
I understand you’re saying this because of the status quo, but it is egregiously foolish to state the status quo as a simple fact. It makes it appear as if you fully support the status quo.
Not just in direct discussions like this, but even bystanders get it. It’s why the news picks their words very carefully, usually to slant the truth to their corporate agenda.
Laundry and cooking are basic life skills and most people regardless of gender should know how to do those tasks. No one should be expected to be doing those tasks because of their gender.
I agree. That’s why conservatives who are ree-ing about “the queers” not knowing these basic skills not only belies how pathetic they are, but goes to show it is distinctly not about them being better than anyone. They just want legal slaves again, whether they’ll admit it or not. That’s what a trad wife effectively is. A house slave, since they lost real slaves further back.
My parents have been together since they were 14 and follow “traditional” gender roles when it comes to housekeeping skills including cooking and laundry (although they treat each other as equals and certainly raised my brother to be fully independent). My mum has terminal cancer and she’s started to teach my dad the things he’ll need to be able to do for himself soon. It’s equal parts heartbreaking and hilarious watching the sheer panic in my dad’s eyes as my mum is explaining pretty basic cooking skills. Everyone should know how to cook, clean and do the laundry no matter their gender.
but obviously there is a bigger difference between men and women, than between men and women themselves. Quite sure that’s the relevant bit…
2 kidneys, a liver, a heart, a brain.
Looks exactly the same to me. What are these “big differences” you’ve invented?
there is a bigger difference between men and women, than between men and women themselves.
This is completely unquantifiable and therefore unprovable
Time and time again studies that specifically research differences in women and men find that in-group differences are bigger than between-group differences. There are really very few traits were it is different.
Still people blow these differences out of proportion because some people have a huge interest in keeping the illusion that these two groups of people are different.
treat them equally? But you probably don’t want to give menstrual items to a man
Treating someone equally is to give them equal value and respect as you’d give anyone else, it’s to not devalue them based on gender, race, etc. It’s the same as it’s been since Dr. King talked about the content of someone’s character instead of the color of their skin.
this comes up in math too. there are many situations where we don’t need mathematical objects to be platonic copies to treat them “equally” so we work with equivalence relations instead.
And in the first place, aren’t we all different?
Nobody is just man or woman and nothing else. We all have a huge number of traits that all together make us individuals. From the physical like size, hair and so on to the mental, what we enjoy, what interests us and so on.
King Charles, the Rock and me are men. Solely on gender we are the same. But people would be quick to point out all the differences.