Firstly let’s get a definition out of the way. The word “equality” gets bandied around a lot, indiscriminately, and with little thought. In our society there are two main sorts of equality that enter political debate and it is very important to distinguish between them.
Equality of opportunity. This is only moral and right. Our society should seek this to the absolute maximum. It is in all of our interests that the right people get the right training to fill the right  jobs. So we should all be seeking and welcoming this. A good example of someone who took maximum advantage of equality of opportunity is Margaret Thatcher.
Equality of outcome. This is where people receive positive discrimination so that less capable people get advancement on the basis of a totally unrelated factor, such as their race, parentage or gender. This is utterly disgusting, both for the more able people who lose out and for society as a whole ending up with less capable people doing jobs. A good example of equality of outcome giving a horribly bad result is Labour all women parliamentary shortlists.
Only the world’s biggest fool would not recognise that there are major differences between men and women. Men tend to be far bigger and far stronger. Only women can get pregnant and bear children. These differences are a result of evolution. This process of natural selection favored characteristics that gave a competitive advantage. So men and women became completely different, physically and mentally, optimised to carry out their own respective and different tasks in a hunter gatherer society.
Men have far better hand/eye co-ordination and spatial awareness for hunting and usually have a black/white attitude to truth because any ambiguity could be fatal. Men have hormones that drive behavior patterns necessary to physically defend the family.
Women usually have far better manual dexterity and memory. As a result of  living among many other women all the time in the hut/cave they evolved to see the truth as shades of grey. This gave them far better social skills.
In our modern society many of these characteristics continue, though, as we are evolving faster than ever before, this will gradually change. What is for sure is that there are some jobs that women are better at and some that men are better at. Some say that man, in inventing and creating machines, has produced a society where most jobs favor the characteristics of women! Certainly in social skill jobs such as the law and teaching the women seem to be taking over. On the other hand men have the huge advantage of the maths gender gap, so tend to be better at anything scientific or technical. But these characteristics are not cast in stone, there are women who are brilliant mathematicians (Marie Curie) and men with superb social skills (Tony Blair).
What this means is that, in a fair society, for any school place, any degree course, any job, any promotion the best person should be chosen, regardless of gender, race, age or any other extraneous factor. If this results in 100% females on a course or 100% males doing a job there should be no problem. As long as the best candidates are winning. If we do this then it is better for all the individual people involved and better for our society.
Which brings us to the problem of equal pay. Of course if two people are doing the same job to the same standards and with equal productivity it is only fair that they are paid the same. But this rarely happens. One gender will often be more productive in a job the the other. This is where women are often at a huge disadvantage from being the sex that carries children, from their monthly cycle and from being physically weaker. Legislation to force equal pay for the genders when there is unequal output is just outrageously stupid.
And so to Feminism. This movement was founded to address gross injustices that existed in society and it largely achieved this a long time ago. So now it has become the natural home for intellectually impoverished politically correct marxists who hate men. Often now they are referred to as Feminazis. People who jump on any slight perceived example of “social conditioning” whilst totally ignoring the world wide shame of female genital mutilation. Feminism has become a nasty thing that does nothing for women. No wonder we have a huge “I don’t need Feminism because…” meme running in the world right now.
Fortunately there is a movement which far better addresses social injustice than Feminism does and that is Humanism. This has a far more coherent intellectual basis and seeks a fairer society for all. And it isn’t full of politically correct marxist misandrists.
Some great feminism memes HERE. (Click highlighted text to see).
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Wiki: Humanism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism, empiricism) over established doctrine or faith (fideism).
Margaret Thatcher:Â “I hate feminism. It is poison.”
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Utter misguided rubbish it’s 2015 you fool
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Lydia Dodd, you are not doing very well on the pyramid of intellect:
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Ken’s daughter really made me laugh. Oops, I fell off the end of the pyramid!
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You take it as a given in the whole of this piece that men and women are substantially different in terms of ability, mentality and physicality. This is almost 100% untrue. I don’t want to linkspam, again, it’s rude, but you should read ‘Delusions of Gender’ for a really powerful examination of just how wrong popular culture gets it.
Gender is mostly socially constructed, and its trivially easy to see this is the case. For example, one can observe that women do worse on mathematics tests following a questionnaire about gender, then with no questionnaire.
The issue with your reasoning, and if I may be frank with much of your reasoning, is common to many on the right. You are totally unwilling to examine the process behind a set of outcomes. You see that there are gender roles, but have no obvious understanding of how they arise. You see inequalities of outcome, and assume that as long as there is no government coercion, that they must be just. That’s absurdly reductionist, and it applies quite generally to conservative thinking. The intellectual advantage that socialists like me enjoy is being able to look at structure and process, because we are interested in questions of social justice, and understand the state as just another actor in social processes that can be unfair, fair, coercive or free depending on many things.
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You sir, are a fool. This article is based upon nothing close to resembling scientific fact. It’s up there with the ramblings of a YouTube tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist. It’s merely your idiotic conjecture that resembles the racist fathers opinions in ‘American History X’ when approaching the subject of affirmative action. There are many expletives I would use but instead I will address the point you mention in refererwnce to equality; the issue Bruce, is many ‘able’ and qualified people do miss out on a job role because of their age, race and gender and instead, less able white men are given the jobs. You only have to look at all the statistics – a mathematical fact – to see this is action. You can use your superior man-power to locate these stats via google. The thing about Thatcher, see, is she was a racist, working-class hating abombiable human being, up there with the worst of them. As for Tony Blair, well he was just a cunt.
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David K,
You aren’t doing well on the pyramid of intellect:
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You do realise each time you post that picture as a reply you’re placing yourself at the very bottom of that pyramid, right? :/
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Jennifer,
No, you just don’t get it. The pyramid applies to REPLIES.
So if someone posts something silly, then I can be equally silly back.
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And that’s why you shouldn’t post replies without putting your brain in first, Bruce.
Just a quick thought for you: I’ve been reading your blog for roughly 15 minutes. Apart from the fact that about 99% of the stuff you post is simply wrong and can be scientifically disproven, I actually couldn’t find even ONE person agreeing with ANY of your posts.
So basically there are two options: either 6.8 billion people on this planet are brainless fucktards and you’re the only sensible person around… or you’re the brainless fucktard. I’m not sure how to break it to you since you don’t seem to be especially fond of maths, statistics, politics, philosophy, or, in fact, using your brain in any other way, but I would bet money that – given there are basically only these two options – you are the idiot without arguments who keeps refuting his own point over and over again.
And if you’d like a little hint on how to proceed from this point: shut down your blog, get a hobby you are intellectually capable of (like sleeping) and stop making an even bigger idiot of yourself. In German there’s a word for people like you: Witzfigur (literally a joke figurine) meaning people who make other people laugh at them with basically everything they say or do because they’re just that retarded. Bonus points for not even noticing that everyone’s making fun of them (like you).
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Bruce
I note that you haven’t replied to simplysellside’ s we’ll argued debunking of your theories?
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It’s not his fault. Simplysellside used words that are much too complicated for him to understand (like “reasoning”). How is he supposed to reply to a comment he doesn’t even understand? And a good thing too, because otherwise he would have to add a new bottom layer to his handy pyramid: “proves that I am a highly unintelligent bigot with questionable morals and intellect and absolutely zero skill of arguing a point” – which would again involve using words he doesn’t even know, like “intellect”.
So you see, it is entirely the fault of that stupid commentor and not at all because witless Bruce would’ve have been exposed as an even bigger idiot by trying to reply to that comment. Now that would be a fitting name for this page: “Witless Bruce – a chauvinist, homophobic, extremist right wing idiot looks at things”. 🙂
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Argh this is such nonsense. What does the picture even mean? “I do not blame men for an action i’m responsible for”? That’s not feminism! How do you assume “unequal output” at work because of periods ffs!? You say social injustices have been “largely addressed”, which admits there are some remaining, and then criticise people for attempting to put these remnants right! Everyone do yourself a favour and read this instead, to restore your faith in humanity: http://sociology.about.com/od/Current-Events-in-Sociological-Context/fl/Full-Transcript-of-Emma-Watsons-Speech-on-Gender-Equality-at-the-UN.htm
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The primary argument is not about being paid for your ability but simply just being paid less due to gender. You’re completely failing to miss that this is a reality.
And with respect to genders doing better at one job vs another. That’s just not true and generalizations like this are useless. Please find a job that you feel you could to better than a woman and I’ll find you a woman thats done a better job.
I think its important to bring everyone’s opinion to the table. But as a straight (I assume), white male who grew up (again, assuming) in a straight, white, male dominant society (I too fit this profile), you really don’t have any right to tell minority groups “how it is”.
I also don’t really understand why you bring up humanism. Feminism is, to a degree, encapsulated within it.
Good job though, it seems like all most of your posts on this topic are written in response to extremists and unfounded in reality. Yes, some injustices were solved some time ago such as the right to vote. That does not mean gross injustices still don’t exist.
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wow i feel bad for you, oh my. i dont want to waste my time typing out a long essay about how dumb this whole things is, so ill just say you sir, use memes to prove your point, while feminists use real life experiences for theirs.
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I would actually say the exact opposite is true, feminists focus on this ideology that men are responsible for all their problems, while ignoring real world facts. They claim that a male controlled society is paying them less because they hate women, but ignore the FACT that women seek lower paying jobs, are less likely to work overtime, less likely to ask for a raise. They completely ignore the FACT that women are graduating college in much greater numbers than men and, as a result, from graduation to about 30 actually earn MORE than their male counterparts, when they tend to start seeking a more balanced home and work life, or take time off of work to have children.
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… while you are completely ignoring the FACT (look, I can use Capslock too. Great, right?!?!?!?!!!!!111) that, if a man and a woman of the same age with exactly the same qualifications and experiences apply for the same job, in roughly 90% of the cases the man will get it – and simply because he is male.
You also ignore the FACT that, even if the woman is slightly better qualified, the man is still more likely to get the job.
You also ignore the FACT that, if a man and a woman (same age, education, qualification, blah blah) work in the same job for the same company, the man will – averagely – earn 10% to 20% more than the woman.
And finally you ignore the FACT that, if the woman has been working in the job much longer than the man, is better qualified AND does more overtime, the man will still be paid 5% to 10% more on average.
So much for equality, Mr. “No-one will notice I’m talking bullshit if I use Capslock a lot”…
On your first “fact”: Women are paid less than men in EVERY job – even in predominantly female jobs like nurse. So what you said might be true, but has got absolutely nothing to do with the question at hand. Women are also paid less even if they do more overtime than their male colleagues and ask for raises regularly. So again, while I don’t say you’re wrong, it’s got absolutely nothing to do with the point you are trying to establish. As a matter of fact, it rather contributes to my point instead.
On your second “fact”: so you actually just admitted that women are paid less not because they are women, but because they do exactly what you want them to do: look after your children, clean your home and cook your meals. And as a little thank you they get paid even less and are treated worse than before (sometimes even being refused to re-enter their previous jobs, which is actually illegal). I’m not sure I’ve ever seen someone (apart from witless Bruce here) disprove their own argument as effectively as you. So congratulations for that. Other than that and for a good laugh your comment isn’t very useful though, I’m afraid.
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Sakkiko,
See where you are on the pyramid of intellect: