pjclinch wrote:Trail Beater wrote:Still,you must live in a very dodgy area if you are subject to sexist abuse on a regular basis
Get reading and the extent of "everyday sexism" starts to show.
Reading what? The everyday sexism website, where not being asked to lift chairs is "sexist"? If that is sexist, then anything can be sexist, it just needs a woman "experiencing it" or a "highly attuned" onlooker to say so. The problem with this is where does sexism begin and chivalry end?
The woman on the everyday sexism website would like to lift chairs, therefore men do the lifting on her behalf (seeing it as a chivalry), are in fact "sexist" and bad. The same woman, one imagines, would not like to physically defend herself from a man in a fight, here she is lucky because this isn't "sexist", but still "chivalrous". It is completely unequal treatment, but seeing as very few women are offended by not having to defend themselves physically from men, it is "not sexist". That is how arbitrary the definition of sexism is. If a woman or a highly attuned onlooker
feels it is sexism, then it is. Sexism can even occur against women without them knowing it, feeling bad about it or receiving any negative effects from it, because a "highly attuned" onlooker has filled her in on the fact that "sexism is everywhere, and she has just been a victim". That is why, as you assert, sexism is everywhere, as it rests entirely on the whims of the recipients (or a third party's) feelings and not any objective standard.
pjclinch wrote:It's quite an eye opener, and not in a good way (and that's just reading about it, doubtless not as bad as experiencing it). Dodgy areas for sexism extend over the whole country appears to be the actuality.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but if you are of the mindset that sexism is entirely subjective, then I suppose sexism can never be cured and will always be lurking round every corner.
The best we can do is fight structural sexism. There is no place in society, the workplace or anywhere a business interacts with an individual that a woman can be treated less than a man purely because she is a woman, without grounds for some kind of legal complaint. You cannot stop people thinking sexist things (if we can ever get an objective definition), even if you punish free speech. We do already punish free speech in this country, but still sexist views exist, inside the heads of people.
You can no more defeat sexism (or racism, for that matter) than you can defeat dragons, but we can say, with some objectivity, that the UK is one of the least sexist countries in the world; has no institutional sexism, that couldn't be countered in a court of law and that men here treat women far more fairly than around 95% of the globe.
Hence why I assert that women are now the recipients of special treatment, like grants purely for women, because ALL structural sexism against women is illegal, therefore structural sexism in favour of women can start in earnest, as is happening. This, of course, is sexism against men. Mainly against young men, whose reward for being the most considerate generation when it comes to women, is that they must defer their success and opportunities because they are male and if you are male, you can be discriminated against. It is
positive discrimination though, so this is not a problem. I'm sure this falls into the chivalrous, not sexist bracket.
pjclinch wrote:Various folk have pointed out things where women aren't on the bad end of the deal as some sort of evidence this isn't so.
Well, of course it is evidence, what else could it be? You made the assertion somewhere much further up thread that women were second class citizens. Again, without a shred of evidence to back it up, but your assertions stand alone or other peoples evidence isn't worth anything, it seems.
pjclinch wrote:People who are quite reasonably saying they don't think they're misogynists should note that being a misogynist and not realising how pervasive sexism is aren't the same thing. I am pretty much certain I don't understand the full extent of either sexism or racism in 2016 Britain, not because I don't care or I'm a closet KKK loon, but because I'm a middle-class skilled professional white male. That doesn't make me bad, but it makes me fortunate on many levels when it comes to how I'm treated.
Pete.
About the worst thing you could be, as a young person in Britain today, is a white, working class male. Minimal university participation (less than their female class bracket peers), no special treatment with respect to sex, no special grants, no organisations/charities who care about you (no feminist or ethnic movement to support you). But white men in past had it easy, so what young white men, especially working class ones face today is no matter. It is not like they are individuals and should be treated as such.
I suppose that is the main thrust of this entire thread, individualism vs collectivism. Individual responsibility and rights vs collective guilt by association.