A Permanent Gender War?

A few days ago I heard from a dental nurse that her dentist had looked up the address of her patient before deciding how much to charge her. The patient lived in a good part of town, and so the bill for the removal of her wisdom tooth was bumped up - without her knowledge, of course.

That's not fair! - was my initial reaction.

But then, I suppose, the dentist would argue that she can charge whatever she likes, and, further, that by doing this sort of thing, she would not have to charge so much to her less well-heeled patients.

Hmm.

Well, that sounds a bit fairer.

I suppose.

But, on the other hand, surely she is just squeezing out of her patients as much money as she thinks that she can get away with?

 It depends on the 'spin'.

It all depends on how you look at it. It depends on the 'spin'. But what is the right thing to do?

If the dentist charges the same to everyone, then this is a bit unfair on the poorer patients. On the other hand, if she charges the wealthier more, then this would be a bit unfair on the wealthier patients.

But what is the right thing to do?

Charging wealthier people more for the same services seems to be morally acceptable. After all, this is how the income tax system works. The wealthier pay more taxes for the same governmental  goods and services that the poorer will pay less taxes to receive.

It sounds fair.

On the other hand, in most situations, regardless of their wealth, people purchase goods and services at the same price. For example, the supermarket and the electricity board do not determine how much to charge people for their goods and services based on their wealth.

So, in practice, both things seem to be generally acceptable. And, on the whole, it all seems to be more a question of balance. Provided that the wealthier are not charged too much more than poorer folk because of their financial position, they do not create too much of a fuss about it.

But for any given differential between the two, a fuss, at some level, is usually made.

For example, there are some considerable forces at work both to try to reduce the tax burdens on the wealthier as well as to increase them.

As a general rule, the right-wing wants the differentials in tax to be reduced, and the left-wing wants them to be increased. And the only point that I am trying to make in this article is that there is no real solution to the problem. There is no right and morally correct thing to do. It is all a question of balance.

 there will always be a tussle between the two camps.

And so there will always be a tussle between the two camps.

But 'tussle' is surely too tame a word for what is, in fact, much more like a war.

If you think about the huge amount of energy and resources that go into this problem, it is clearly no minor tussle; the form filling, the accountants, the lawyers, the politicians, the Revenue services, the tax investigations, the financial planning and pension schemes, the hiding of funds in tax havens, the fiddling of accounts, the huge, ongoing political fuss about the matter, and so on.

The enterprise concerned with this issue alone is positively enormous!

And it will probably remain so for a considerable length of time to come because there is no solution. There is no right and morally correct thing to do. There is nowhere to be found where to draw a line which will be acceptable to everyone.

It is all a question of balance, with some people leaning one way and with other people leaning the other way.

There is a permanent state of war!

There is a permanent state of war!

But the balance between the two sides can be very much affected by the motives that appear to be behind the policies being applied.

And this is of considerable significance.

For example, the dentist can be portrayed as a Robin Hood figure, helping the poor by taking some more from the rich. But, on the other hand, she can be seen as something of a Scrooge who is simply trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of each of her clients. 

The more that she can get away with, the more she charges.

And who could ever really know the truth behind her motives?

Now consider the following.

Should a woman who can carry one brick in her wheelbarrow be paid the same as a man who can carry two?

Should a woman who can carry one brick in her wheelbarrow be paid the same as a man who can carry two?

By and large, the women will answer Yes to this question, and the men will answer No. But, just as in the previous case concerning the dentist, there is no place where to draw the line that is acceptable to everyone.

For example, if the woman is to get paid the same as the man despite the fact that she does only half the work, then the men will see this as unfair. On the other hand, if the woman gets only half the pay because she does only half the work, then the women will argue that this is unfair because women cannot physically do the same job as the men.

And the important point to understand is that there is nowhere to draw the line that will be acceptable to both sides of the argument.

And so it is that the quest for women's 'equality' will never be achieved.

Just as in the case of the dentist charging differential amounts to different patients, there will always be arguments over where to draw the line.

And, just as in the wheelbarrow case, there will always be different ways of portraying the opponents.

"Women are just too selfish. They expect to get paid the same for carrying one brick as we men will get paid for carrying two."

"Men are just too selfish. They expect to get paid more than women even though women put in the same amount of effort."

A permanent gender war over pay!

A permanent gender war over pay!

And, of course, the one-brick versus two-brick argument is just a trite metaphor for all the arguments that might surround pay.

In the real world, the arguments over pay might be over the issue of, say, women in the military getting the same pay as the men despite the fact that they are very rarely asked to risk their lives. Or, perhaps, the argument might be over whether or not a woman who has chosen to take eight years away from her job in order to have children should get the same pay on returning to work as those men and women who have worked without such long term absence.

And, of course, the arguments concerning the two genders will not be confined solely to issues that arise over pay. These controversial issues will - and do already - extend to the family, the children, the home, the workplace, divorce, the justice system, the health services, and so on; in fact, they will extend to wherever there is an issue where one gender might seemingly be being treated differently, or preferentially, to the other.

And these issues can be made to be controversial wherever men and women function together in their lives - in other words ...

 ... just about everywhere!

the feminists have, indeed, managed to invade everybody's lives just about everywhere.

And in arguing for the line to be drawn so that it always heavily favours women, the feminists and their supporters have, indeed, managed to invade everybody's lives just about everywhere.

Thus, in much the same way that there are huge and pervasive industries that have to deal with the ins and outs of our taxes and our welfare system in order to 'draw the lines' when it comes to money, other huge and pervasive industries have been growing in order to help to 'draw the lines' in the battles of the genders - though, thus far, these industries have been highly prejudicial against men.

But, because there is no way that these lines can be drawn in a manner that will be acceptable to everyone, there will always now be a tussle between the two genders; with the tussle becoming much more evident - and much worse in nature - now that the men's movement is growing.

There is no solution even to the problem of how much a woman should be paid relative to a man when it comes to carrying bricks in their wheel barrows.

And there will also certainly be no solution when it comes to most other matters.

The arguments are therefore going to be endless, and the balance is going to swing this way and that way for ever more.

What a terrible thought!

Not just over pay, remember. But in just about every area of life.

Thus far, however, for the past 30 years, the feminists have been arguing the case for women almost unopposed. The case for men has been silenced through the weapons of intimidation and political correctness.

In fact, there has not been much of a tussle at all.

But this is now changing.

 the case for men, at last, is beginning to garner more and more support.

Even though it is still the case that huge resources are being put into bolstering the case for women, the case for men, at last, is beginning to garner more and more support.

And, in the not too distant future, billions upon billions of dollars worth of our energies and our resources are going to be bound up in dealing with these insoluble issues - the issues surrounding the differential treatments of the two genders, and where to draw the lines.

What a waste of our time.

But there are three big differences between the tussles over drawing the line between those who have more money and those who have less (the dentist scenario, taxes etc) and between those tussles relating to gender issues.

The first difference is that our personal relationships, which are probably the most important areas of our lives - far more important than money in the eyes of most - are being interfered with by outsiders.

The second difference is that the industries that are being spawned to deal with these gender issues are encroaching upon people to an extent that is rapidly becoming unacceptable, and it is causing relationships to break down.

the two genders are being divided into opposing sides to an extent that is probably unknown in history.

And the third difference is that the two genders are being divided into opposing sides to an extent that is probably unknown in history.

It is a nightmare scenario.

How Much Is A Woman's Life Worth?

Just for the sake of argument, assume that £1000 spent on prostate cancer research saves 1 year of life for a man, and that £5000 spent on breast cancer research does the same for a woman.

Should we spend the same amount on each cancer?

Well, if we spend £10,000 on each cancer, then 10 man-years will be saved but only 2 woman-years will be saved.

Is this fair?

Surely, women need more money.

Well, to solve this 'problem', we could spend 5 times as much on breast cancer as on prostate cancer, so that the number of lives saved is equal across the genders.

So, let us spend £10,000 on prostate cancer research (thus, saving 10 man years) and £50,000 on breast cancer research (thus, saving 10 woman years).

But would this be fair? - because now we are sacrificing 5 man years in order to gain just one woman year!

(That £50,000 on breast cancer only saved 10 woman years, but it could have been used instead to save 50 man years.)

Surely, that is also not 'fair'.

So, what is the 'correct' solution? The 'fair' solution? The 'equal' solution?

Well. There isn't one.

It does not exist.

But, of course, there is, indeed, a political solution; a practical solution. And here it is.

The money that you hand over to each cancer group is in some way proportional to that group's ability to affect the number of votes that you get. 

And this is why, for example, the amount of money being spent on women's health concerns by western governments is vastly more than the amount spent on men's health concerns.

Check out government spending in your own country.

If it is anything like that which prevails in the USA and the UK, then you will find that the amount of money spent on women's health issues is many times greater than the amount spent on men's health issues.

Quite simply, the women have generated far more political heat.

And, of course, this has got absolutely nothing to do with 'equality' or fairness.

.....

Obamacare

Obamacare - Only For Women There are at least 7 new agencies and departments devoted solely to women while there is not one office for men or male specific ailments.

The Equal Outcome Trick

Imagine, for example, that a certain Law School can accept 1,000 new students for a course, and that it accepts 500 females and 500 males.

This appears to be fair and non-discriminatory.

But what if 10,000 males and 2000 females had actually applied for the course? Well, if this was the case, then 5% of the males and 25% of the females had their applications accepted.

And so this is not 'equality'.

So, what seemed at first to be 'equality' turns out to be nothing of the sort.

And now, think of what happens next, as the successful candidates pursue their new legal careers over the years.

Well, only the best 5% of males got into the Law School, but, for females, those who were merely in the top 25% managed to get in.

As such, the 500 successful male applicants are clearly not 'equal' to their 500 female counterparts.

The males are definitely a very superior bunch.

And this is just one reason why they will fly a lot higher throughout their careers than the females who studied with them at the Law School.

we would still all end up being subjected to further rounds of hate-mongering by the feminists

And so, despite the fact that the Law School had bent over backwards to discriminate very heavily in favour of women, we would still all end up being subjected to further rounds of hate-mongering by the feminists because the far less able bunch of women who were accepted by the Law School would not succeed as well in their future careers as would the superior bunch of men.

(In general, and in practice, the only type of 'equality' that will satisfy feminists is one where men are continually discriminated against right throughout their entire careers.)

Now, imagine that the Law School changed its acceptance policy.

Henceforth, the number of male and female applicants to be accepted would be based on the relative proportions of male and female applications.

And so, for example, if twice as many males as females applied to the Law School, then twice as many males as females would be accepted by it - with only the best being selected from each group.

Would this be 'equitable'?

Well, again, the answer is, No.

It would still be the case that more males than females would fail in their applications, and it would also be the case that the sheer number of applications, rather than hard work and talent, would determine to a large extent who was accepted by the Law School.

the males could all be absolutely useless compared to the females

For example, in this particular scenario, the males could all be absolutely useless compared to the females; and yet the Law School's new policy would result in the acceptance of twice as many males as females.

Perhaps the best solution, and the most equitable solution, is for the Law School to be completely gender blind, and to accept students purely on the basis of their merit.

But, of course, you will never get the feminists agreeing to this.

And the reason for this is that the entire feminist industry thrives only by creating conflict between the genders.

A permanent gender war is what the feminists want. 

And 'equality' has got absolutely nothing to do with it; e.g. see Equality Between Men and Women Is Not Achievable.

Finally, I often see people proclaiming that feminists are concerned with 'equality' when it comes to the 'outcomes' of their policies. Instead of equal 'opportunity', they are, apparently, concerned with equal 'outcome'.

empty-headed nonsense

But this is just empty-headed nonsense.

As soon as you start biasing any process, for example, in order to gain equal numbers at the end of it - i.e. the alleged 'good outcome' - then you also have another 'outcome' - a 'bad outcome' -  which has arisen as a direct result of the bias in the process.

For example, in the case of the Law School, any bias that is designed to, say, ensure that equal numbers of men and women are selected for the School (the supposedly 'equal outcome') also results in another 'outcome' - an outcome relating to those candidates who were not selected for the School in order to achieve the supposedly equal outcome.

In simple terms; every time that you positively discriminate in favour of some group in order to get a supposedly 'equal outcome', then you MUST be discriminating against people in another group.

Also see this piece about 'equality', ...

Forever Going Round In Circles

... this piece about the vast amount spent on women's health compared to the amount spent of men's health, ...

Breast Cancer, Breast Cancer, Breast Cancer

... and this piece written by an American woman doctor, ...

Separate, Unequal