Does it not strike you as perverse that in many ‘advanced democracies’ there has never been a woman in high office, for example in the White House? If women truly were treated on merit alone, there are plenty of them who would have been elected. Study upon study shows that people have a negative bias against women when it.comes to leadership positions: this is why blind C.V.s are a way around barriers to entry, for example, where unconscious biases are at play.
I think, on merit, that a lot of women could be presidents, CEOs, high court judges, Defence Chiefs, etc. but they have centuries of attitudes to leadership stacked against them.
The fact is that there are a lot of women who are able to lead but are not treated seriously just because they do not have a male voice or because they wear a skirt. It is ridicilulous that we bypass potential leaders who could give enormous contribution to the political, financial, and judicial life of many countries just because they are women.
If we fail to see that, we are blindly believing that meritocracy exists: it is also why men from less privileged backgrounds rarely get to lead countries or be part of the ruling/financial elites. Poor men and women have less access to the connections that later in life will enable them to rise through the social ranks. Women have that hurdle too, except that even privileged women are often pushed aside based on their sex, thus facing a double barrier.
This is a problem because women are half of the population thus by excluding them from places of power you are basically saying that half of the population will never be able to, for example, make laws that could directly affect them, as is the case for those concerning abortion. How can we change structures so that women are trusted enough to get TRUE recognition of their worth when seeking to attain places of power?
Some females are really talented who can tackle the forex market quite easily. We are living in the age where there is no difference between male and female. Females can be a part of team in order to do all indoor tasks quite easily. They can make a good strategy for you!
This thread reminds me of why the high street chain “Mother Care” is now classed as sexist; why “Doctor Who” who should be a male actor by defintion (publications) is now played by a women; why it was questioned that “James Bond” was always a male actor, why “Santa Claus” is a guy and not a girl… and finally, why Kleenex who make large tissues had to change their branding from ‘Man Size’ because it was offensive to women???
What’s next? Are snow men now raciest??
Please, I wish society would grow up and stop being so hung up - I’m sick of these arguments.
@BaconSandwich This is what the public sees and is sold: that the fight for equal opportunities has turned into virtue-signalling and pure semantics.
What this does is to distract some public opinion from what women and other groups are doing around the world: The Girl Effect programme is one global initiative which really makes crystal clear how much the (not-so) simple factor of allowing girls to access education can fundamentally change their chances of not becoming victims of child pregnancy, infant marriage, prostitution and servitude.
If we think that some Western women ‘have it all’ we only have to cast our sights elsewhere to see that women and girls all over the world suffer appallingly in terms of control over their bodies.
However, in many so-called ‘advanced democracies’ in the West, femicides abound (Italy has and continues to have a shocking record), maternity rights in work are not a universally accepted right, and reproductive choices such as abortion are often still denied.
So we have to wonder if it is the way we trivialise feminism that is the problem rather that what is at its core… Just like trade unions used to matter a lot more in the days of heavy industry and now their membership numbers have plummeted and public perception about them is just the superficial focus on disruption to public services (rather than the real issues of working terms and conditions).
That’s interesting - what differs in “Italy” from the uk which would account for a divergence here ? (I assume by “femicide” you mean blokes killing their (ex) spouses before committing suicide themselves )
Femicide is the tip of the iceberg: the lead-up is the stalking, with all its consequences. There has been legislation introduced against stalking in Italy as in the US and UK, but as you can imagine it is hard to police/enforce court orders restricting someone’s movements or actions in connection with a victim. Femicides are a clear-cut data point that is better accounted for in statistics and is more easily sentenced in court. Not all killers of their spouses/partners (current or former) commit suicide, but even if they did the damage would already have been done.
I do not think from the point of domestic abuse or stalking that the UK or Italy are much different in having a real and continuing problem with this issue; femicides may be lower in the UK, perhaps, I am not sure, but Italy has a problem with women. On the surface, some countries seem open and not frightened of liberal attitudes, but behind closed doors there are still a lot of bad things happening to women and children and the elderly, often because they are physically or economically unable to disentangle themselves from a dominating person in the household, usually a man - sad to say.
I think we already know that 12 men every single day commit suicide in the uk. If someone is seriously about to commit suicide there is a certain indisputable logic in taking the person who drove you to that state with you.
I’m not condoning that line of action for one moment.
However when there are competing calls for empathy from both sides of the discussion and one of the parties is denied an effective voice, whether that be by a legal system which could easily be seen as biased, a housing system which appears very unfair, child rearing and access systems, or maintenance provisions which can seem punitive, one can readily see how it can happen.
Increased punitive and restrictive legislation, regulation and rules to further increase that imbalance can only make the situation worse surely ?
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