Get dates? Sure. Some men will bang anything, even a woman - if I can use that term in connection with something 100 pounds overweight - 100 pounds overweight. They admit it on men's boards. They have an extremely vulgar name they call these women.

And, they even tell them how beautiful they are. And, there are fat women who believe they are beautiful as a result.

The problem comes when they reach a stage where they might actually want a second date with one of these guys.

I have to agree with Amy on the 'stache issue. My pre-teen daughter has been ribbed in school by a boy who has noticed that she has hair on her upper lip. I noticed her upper lip but didn't think a girl this age would be affected by negativity surrounding the issue, but !HELLO! it happens.

She had tears in her eyes when she told me that this boy is making fun of her. We went shopping and found a product that effortlessly removes the hair, and she was so pleased with the results and that i responded quickly to this situation. I told her NOT to pay attention to bullies, however, i also told her NOT to announce to the boy that she has started removing her 'stache either, else it will bring further negative comments.

Just mow, and go about your regular business... for my daughter, her "regular business" happens to be elementary school.

Thank you, Amy, for telling it like it is. The insinuation by the LW that your "anti-feminist" advice is what this young lady needed was absurd.

Thanks for keeping you advice centered in the real world.

Assuming she is straight, my guess is the letter writer likes men who shower, trim their nails, get haircuts, etc.

So...tell me again how grooming is all about bullshit American standards of beauty.

Bluejean Baby, you're a cool mom. This reminded me of being 11 or 12 and returning home from school after being made fun of for not shaving my legs. I asked my mom if she could get me a razor, and I got a lecture about how I shouldn't have to shave my legs EVER and she stopped shaving her legs years ago, and she's just fine. She told me I was silly for worrying about it and that I shouldn't care.

Now, my mom is wonderful and raised me well. But she was pretty clueless about some things. Sometimes it's better just to get your 12-year-old a razor than let her be made fun of. Just sayin.'

...and sometimes it's better to just surrender to hair maintenance than whine that people SHOULD like you for who you are.

Now, if you're not looking to date, and that's just not important to you, I say let the hair grow wild and free. And that Australian TV show host? He's a JACKASS!

Amy Minor Mistake the mustache gate happened in New Zealand not Australia. I know I know the accents do sound similar but their is a vast difference to those from down under.

The entirety of the absurd uberfeminist school of "thought" has been boiled down and concentrated into one clear, concise phrase:

keeping women feministically correct

And there you have it, folks. That's the point exactly. These people tell you that you should absolutely not be a certain way. You should absolutely not put any work into making yourself attractive in any way. You should absolutely not do anything for the pleasure of a man. You should absolutely not adhere to the patriarchal society's standard of beauty.

You should adhere to theirs instead.

Because, you know, it's good to think about what you look like if you're doing it in the right way. That is, their way. I've said before on here that not a lot of things make me angrier that someone doing something specifically to prove she doesn't care. Because it's inherently contradictory.

I call bullshit on anyone who says she doesn't care what anyone thinks. She cares, she just wants them to think something specific about her. The woman who refuses to wax her upper lip doesn't care less about what people think than the woman who does wax. They just want people to think something different.

The "keeping women feministically correct" line is fantastic because it illustrates this point. The goal is not to liberate women from the confines of a male-dominated society (as is often claimed); The point is to keep women in the confines of that which is purportedly designed to free them.

Also, she was "extremely offended"? Really? A woman writes in to ask for advice in telling her friend that she has a mustache, Amy tells her some ways to go about it (and possible solutions for said hirsuteness), and this woman was offended? By Amy's answering the question asked? What would have been the correct way to answer? Any advice that told the friend to make the mustache into a positive, feminist thing would still entail telling the friend about the mustache, which was the original LW's worry in the first place. So, you know, not all that helpful with the original question, just an excuse for a rant against "American standards of beauty." Blech.

Sorry for the long post, but this crap annoys the hell out of me.

P.S. Anyone else think it's frickin' hilarious that she says Amy's advice was "anti-feminist" as if it's an insult? I got a good chuckle out of that one.

One of the reasons I miss my mother is that she loved me unconditionally, hairy legs and all. For my husband, I will shave my legs and underarms.

This is where people get confused. People love us for who we are. People want to fuck us for what we look like,

I have known smart women.

I have known feminists.

I have NEVER known someone whom was both. For some it was a childish phase, the kind of stupidity that one grows out of.

Some, its a way of life. If WE'RE lucky, they die childless, bitter, and alone, and ideally illterate so their ideas don't get perpetuated.

When we're NOT lucky, they marry a wuss and make him miserable, have daughters that they teach to be bitter victims, and sons that they teach to be wusses, and they write books to encourage other women to be the same way. (Ironically enough, either way she's bitter)

I think this feminists problem is that she doesn't understand what rights are.

Amy wasn't asked if the woman had a right to have a mustache. She was asked about being attractive to men.

The problem with this "feminists" version of freedom is it doesn't account for the men's right to not be attractive to a mustache. Just as this feminist has the right not to be attracted to a man who has nose hairs long enough to braid. Doesn't mean the guy doesn't have a right to nose hair, it means women have the right to not want it.

Crazy feminist.

Show me a picture of these women with mustaches who don't have trouble getting dates and then show me who their dating. Have to call B.S. on this LW.

She obviously never heard the expression, "Men don't make passes as women with 'staches!"

For my Facebook, I took the letter itself this time. I didn't feel I could find a suitably small excerpt from your column to give it justice.

Hope that's all right. If not, I'll fix it quickly.

This is where people get confused. People love us for who we are. People want to fuck us for what we look like.

Amen, MonicaP. A-frakkin-men. And the better we look, the more fuckable we are! o.O

I have known smart women.

I have known feminists.

I have NEVER known someone whom was both. For some it was a childish phase, the kind of stupidity that one grows out of.

Some, its a way of life. If WE'RE lucky, they die childless, bitter, and alone, and ideally illterate so their ideas don't get perpetuated.

When we're NOT lucky, they marry a wuss and make him miserable, have daughters that they teach to be bitter victims, and sons that they teach to be wusses, and they write books to encourage other women to be the same way. (Ironically enough, either way she's bitter)

Posted by: Robert at May 18, 2010 10:48 PM
------------------------------------------
Robert, Great comment and totally true. I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to that comment on my wall at home.

Suggesting women who want boyfriends go proudly unpruned is like telling men with moobs to rub glitter on their mancleavage and strut it in low-cut tops.

I don't think I'll be able to get that image out of my head for at least a week.

"I asked my mom if she could get me a razor, and I got a lecture about how I shouldn't have to shave my legs EVER and she stopped shaving her legs years ago, and she's just fine"

Ugh ... just the thought of running my hands down a woman's hairy legs makes me want to vomit.

"Then they'd appeal to the .00001 percent of the American male population who think nothing's sexier than leaning over to the girl they're dating and whispering, "I think I should tell you...there's a little piece of food caught in your mustache.""

Another mental image that made me nauseous.

"People love us for who we are. People want to fuck us for what we look like"

Well put.

What gets me is she says "American standards of beauty". Where is it attractive for a woman to have a mustache? This is not just some American standard; it's universal.

And I bet when it comes to choosing dates (assuming they do, in fact, have dates), these women have standards of attractiveness for the men too. Are they only dating hideously ugly men with back hair and boils on their faces? I'd guess not.

Does she advocate not showering too? I mean, that natural feminine bacteria is just a part of being a woman, right?

Also, I'd like to bring up another issue that some women neglect in grooming - nose hair. I have a friend who is quite cute, and on the dating scene, but she has thick nose hair that you can see extending from her nostrils. I'm sure this grosses some guys out. It grosses me out. Some things are just plain gross. It has nothing to do with feminism.

It's when the hairs get all matted in different directions as they're imprisoned by hose that really get me!

Seeing lovelysoul's post about nose hair, followed by AntoniaB's post about hair matted in different directions, left an image in my mind that it's way too early to deal with!

And yet, there it is. Nose hair matted in different directions. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Crud. I cleaned up my personal info and apparently forgot my name. Bummer.

I proudly consider myself a feminist, which means I'm in favor of seizing and using my power. I can think of few things more powerful than using one's personal appearance in a deliberate way. It's all fine and good to whine, "But people shouldn't judge us by the way we look!," the bottom line is that they do. Women who dress professionally get more respect on the job than women who wear slut gear, mom wear, or "I just wanna be comfortable" schlump. Women who look like they care about how men see them are seen -- oddly enough -- as more inviting to men. Funny thing about that.

This, by the way, is true of men, too. My husband is a local leader in our political party and township government, and I'm convinced at least some of the respect he garners comes from the fact that he bothers to pull on a sport coat over his non-holey, no-slogan tee shirt and change into something other than sneakers before he goes to a meeting.

No one has to take advantage of the power of visual presentation if they don't want to. But to ignore it is to ignore one of the most powerful things one can do to improve one's life. I do not see how that is in any way feminist, or smart, or revolutionary, or any positive thing.

I might add that the folks who say, "But people shouldn't judge me by the way I look!" are often the same people who say, "And anyway, I should be able to wear (X) to work, because (how I dress, my tattoos, my body piercings) is an expression of my personality!" If your appearance is an expression of your inner self, we have every reason to draw conclusions about you from it.

I take issue with "no smart feminists." Many who scorn the feminist label are very happy about feminist accomplishments. If you're glad marital rape is no longer legal in every state of the union, thank a feminist. If you're glad you have the right to buy birth control without your husband's written permission, thank a feminist. If you're pleased you have the right to take any course of education for which you have the talent, thank a feminist. None of these things were true within living memory.

And remember: It's the little ladies who hate sex.

I support a lot of what feminist support - but what concerns me is that feminists also want to put people in a box - just their box. They don't really want to promote people's right to choose their own path in life, the want to promote one path. To me, that's also stifling and not what equality and respect is about.

Bluejeanbaby, my mom started bleaching my stache for me at a young age, too. She also bought me a razor as soon as I asked for it. I had no boobs and a lazy eye...I guess she figured I had enough working against me.

I still don't see why this stache thing is a such a big issue. I think some femenists are just lazy. It's a lot easier to sit on your computer and eat bon bons while berating every woman who takes pride in her appearance than to actually take care of yourself and do some minor grooming. I don't always feel like waxing, but I do it because, in my opinion, women should not have dark, thick or long hair on their upper lip. I too find it funny that these women are promoting being women while essentially making themselves look like men.

And what is it with these women thinking they are better than us just because they are "all natural"? I have an Aunt that doesn't shave or wax anything. She is the most uppity, "holier than thou" person I have ever met. She looks at me like I'm some kind of whore at every family function because I wear a little make up and try to dress in clothes that are flattering to my body.

American standards of beauty? Lady, you need to leave the country once in awhile. Women around the world shave, wax, pluck, etc. It's not an American phenomenon.

You are quite welcome to take issue with it Dana. Indeed I would be quite shocked if a feminist did NOT take issue with the assertion that there are no smart feminists.

But the first sign of its stupidity is that it takes credit for things it didn't have much to do with, were unnecessary, or are just plain not good. Women have had access to the same educational opportunities as men have. The primary restrictions upon education were a combination of class and need. Farmers didn't need to go to college, so they didn't, much less the farmers wives, back in the days of our nation's founders.

It was the upper classes who went to school. And yes, they sent their daughters to school also. The difference lay in "expectation" of what would come out of said education. There were women who studied the sciences long before the feminist movement of which you speak, and who had careers in otherwise male dominated fields. Not a one of them needed a women's movement of any kind to get them there. I'm sure they faced actual scorn from some men over the course of their lives. But one of the things which makes feminism stupid is that it dwells on it. It chews over such contempt like a dog does stale vomit. Wallowing in it and making as public a spectacle of victimhood as possible. Did those viragos do that? No. Did they need lawsuits to accomplish things? No. They didn't dwell over every slight and wrong, and won their colleagues over in their respective fields.

All people are prone to preconceptions based upon their experiences, but men as a rule, don't give two shits about expectations if the job ends up getting done. Most of us can't afford to. And when behavior and result contradict expectation, the expectation does not often sustain itself. At the very least, the individual is reevaluated more highly. Feminism didn't accomplish that.

As to the question of marital rape, oy vey where to begin...the word "Complicated" is to small for this one. Bottom line is that this accomplishment...to use your words...just made things more complicated for everybody without actually accomplishing much of anything. A marriage is defined (yes some people break convention on this) by sexual intimacy and access between two people. You can make "marital rape" a crime, but try proving it.

Camille Paglia wrote, and I'm paraphrasing slightly, but its almost word for word, "A woman who goes to a man's apartment alone is consenting to sex." Now she's been taken to task over the years by a great many feminist idiots, for giving rapists a pass. But the problem Paglia was addressing is obvious to someone not steeped in ideals instead of realities.

When two people are alone, behind closed doors, it is almost always impossible to prove anything against either one. He said, she said, cases are not easy to prosecute, unless their is substantial evidence of violent physical conflict. So how much more difficult is it to prove "marital rape" where there is an even greater expectation of physical intimacy? Right, almost impossible. And as far as birth control access without a husbands written permission, well lets just think about that one right there for a moment. Women are not the only one with procreative desires, indeed while men in their twenties might be more interested in playing around and the like, most men do aspire to family lives in the course of time, and when they get married, that is generally one of their expectations. So basically the only thing that "accomplishment" provided, was the ability of a wife to lie to her husband. Well, thank you feminism.
--------------------------------------------

Feminism causes more problems for women than the most misogynistic man ever could. The latter might victimize a woman. That can be overcome, avoided, or resisted. Feminism victimizes its own, and puts women in real danger when it blinds them to the obvious.

Before you ask what I mean, I'll tell you.

When I was out in Iraq during the first year of the war, I was put, hell, I volunteered, on guard duty watching the local nationals. (Iraqi citizens) that we brought on to base to do contract work, I used the opportunity the learn some of the language, I love language, so enjoyed the chance to learn a new one. Well it was easy for me to get that job because I'm a behemoth. Iraqis as a rule, are not large people, so one armed behemoth is enough to ensure security in the immediate area over a small number of workers.

This routine went on for a number of weeks, and then lo and behold one day we got a transfer in, a young woman, 18, a hundred and 125 lbs soaking wet even with 8 lbs of uniform on...and steeped in feminist rhetoric.

What did she want to do? Follow orders, hellllll no. When she saw that it was the same small number of men put guarding the local national hirees, myself, and two or three other similarly built men, the first thing she wanted to do was do the same thing.

So she volunteered, and was turned down. No explanation was given except that "the duty roster was set."

One day I was outside smoking a cigar when she came out and lit up, smoking being the only vice allowed to us at the time (talk about frustrating) well as people do, we chatted for awhile and she expressed frustration that she wasn't being given the guard position. I was a little more naive back then, and when she described her struggle and asked why it was only men doing that particular job, I laughed.

She was kind of shocked, and I interjected:

"Look, its not "only men", its "only BIG men".
"I and the other few who go out and do this particular task have more than just genitals in common, we're also all big guys. Sure everyone here has a rifle, but doing that duty means also being prepared to undertake hand to hand combat, against one or perhaps two opponents. Each of us is built and prepared to do that. You are not, and the other guys who are not built or fit to handle that, are not given that task either."

She took issue with that of course. But it was fortunate for all concerned that she was ignored. Feminist teaching could very well have gotten that young woman killed, and put the rest of us at risk, by putting her into a position for which she was not even remotely prepared.

Really? No one's taking a crack at the acronym yet? Let me throw out the first suggestion with:

Mustache
Overgrowth
Retaining
Obnoxious
New
Idiot
Cabal

Come on now, this is before my second cup of coffee. Surely on of you can do better . . .

'Camille Paglia wrote, and I'm paraphrasing slightly, but its almost word for word, "A woman who goes to a man's apartment alone is consenting to sex."'

I like Camille Paglia.(To read, anyway. It's exhausting listening to her.)

That quote reminds me of the Tyson case, because I've always thought that if either he or Ms. Washington had used their heads for just one single minute, he wouldn't have gone to prison.

I still think he's a brute, regardless.

As for you, Robert, you had me at 'behemoth'!

And there has been a lot of interesting discussion recently in various venues about the fact that the term "feminist" is sort of disappearing. And that this might be a good thing.

I support equal pay for equal work, a woman's right to have a job and not have kids (even gasp! not marry) if she wishes. I support my friend who has an executive job and her husband who stays home and takes care of their kid. I'm glad that I was accepted to a prestigious grad school program despite having a vagina, and promoted to a top executive position despite the same anatomical peculiarity.

But . . . am I a feminist? Unfortunately, the crazy wing of feminism has pushed the term to a point where it's embarrassing or inaccurate to identify with them. And maybe that's okay. Maybe I'm not a feminist. Maybe I'm just a sensible person who believes the obvious (that women can be smart, have jobs, serve in the military, and lead nations). It may be a good thing when "feminist" goes the way of, say, "abolitionist," because the term isn't necessary anymore. Not because it's bad or wrong, but because reality has caught up, and it's no longer needed.

And, BTW, as a Jew of Eastern European extraction, I definitely have female relatives who need the wax. Luckily, they do it. And then go off to their jobs as lawyers, doctors, or (yes), mommies.

Robert,
Ida left gender completely out of it. I would have just told her she was "too small."

"A woman who goes to a man's apartment alone is consenting to sex."

Maybe she's consenting to the POSSIBILITY of sex? Maybe she's HOPING for some sex, and hoping the guy can at least maintain an erection.

How'd we get here from mustaches again? A woman with facial hair who goes to a man's apartment alone is consenting to what, now?

A woman who goes to a man's apartment alone is consenting to sex.

Sucks to be a traveling saleswoman.

I think the whole thing revolves arround the subtleties that just aren't allowed in political games... and feminism, is certainly a political thing. Humans are like that, we form groups and hierarchies, automatically.

So the subtle is that you can often do whatever you want, but you shouldn't. As mentioned upthread, no one is saying you can't have the 'stache, what they are saying is your odds of attraction go way down. Fair doesn't matter, because this is written in DNA. On the individual level it can be overcome, sure. But generally, you follow some guides. Women and men attract each other better by looking the opposite of what they are trying to attract. The 'stache is a male marker, seeing one on a woman, makes me less interested. Just like no hips makes me less interested.

I also know that some women don't like big bears like me. :shrug: I don't think that's unfair. They like what they like. I could bathe in nair, and that'd give me smooth skin, but I'd still be 2 feet across the shoulders, and a big chest. Some characteristics can't be changed. Just like Robert's 125# friend can't be 6' and 250 like me. I can easily pick her up and carry her if needed, but she probably can't lift me, she will need help for that. She can prolly handle an M-4, but a SAW not so much. She can do anything she wants, but the are things she shouldn't do, because she isn't suited, or it would impact the mission.

That is the subtlety, that I think we lose in the feminist vs... [something] conversation. Beyond the part where things that work for whole groups are not always the things that work for individuals... There is the idea that things are not always flip sides of the same coin. Men are wired to protect, and women are wired to nurture. This is a generalization, not applicable to every individual. But the truism seems to stand. The impulses are very similar, really. But there are differences between helping something grow, and keeping something from being destroyed.

In the dance between male and female, there are moments where the impulse to nurture or protect is a positive thing, and time where it goes sour. You protect somebody because you wish to protect, same with nuture, but it can turn sour when you protect or nutrue, because you feel the other person, can't do it themselves. This is subtle. If you assume that another can't do something, you can also take away their power to act. For themselves.

"I don't NEED your help."
"I know you don't, this is just something I want to do for you.'

Upon saying this to a self-described feminist once, she was speechless. I guess she had never thought of the difference between the two ideas. She was demanding that I not help.

So, what I see with the mustache thing, or Robert's guard thing, or whatever, is the demand that things BE a certain way. An expectation that the world conform to your command. It is handy to do that when you are trying to get the right to vote, for example. When demanding that I change my DNA so that I don't care what you look like? Not really. And do you really want that?

I am a feminist, I also remove body hair as needed, the two are not mutually exclusive. Feminism means that women and men are equals in so far as we are subject to the same laws and enjoy the same rights and privileges. Unfortunately the loudest, most obnoxious feminists are the ones we read about in the news so people now mistakenly equate feminism with butches and bitches.

Men and women are not biologically the same, I deserve equal pay for equal work but I do not deserve a job for which I am not qualified just because I am a women. If my house is on fire I don't want a firewoman climbing the ladder to save me unless she has the same physical qualifications as her male counterpart.

Being a feminist does not mean I want to look like a man, I love being a woman (and I sure as hell don't want to look like a man). I celebrate my feminity everyday, I wear dresses almost every day because they look beautiful, feminine and are the most comfortable article of clothing, I wear makeup and colour my hair because I want to look good. It feels wonderful to look fabulously feminine.

The LW clearly does not understand that in some respects women enjoy more freedoms than men. I can wear a dress and jewelry, colour my hair, wear makeup BECAUSE I WANT TO. Men cannot enjoy these things without being ridiculed, yet for thousands of years (and thousands of cultures) men primped and preened as much as any woman. Now men find themselves outcasts for wanting to look good and having fun with their appearance.

Oh, and Robert, there are tons of gorgeous, intelligent feminists. The reason you don't know any women who are both is because an intelligent woman would not want to have anything to do with a man with such a low opinion of women.

Ingrid

Offtopic, but I notice as I read the comments (for this and other columns) that usually when one of them cracks me up and makes me nod vehement agreement at the same time, it's by "MonicaP."

Thanks, lady!

Reading Ingrid's comments reminded me of a conversation I had with my husband recently on fashion, and how historically men were as crazed as women can be on the subject (Check out the opening of Dangerous Liasons, for one).

There has been a lot of variety in the world as to what is found beautiful or desirable, but I have not yet seen an example of a time when facial hair on women was considered to be a beauty or fashion asset. Anywhere. Ever. (And I'm not counting where a decorative beard has been tattooed on as a power statement. Or stoning skits from the Life of Brian.)

If such a time and place exists, somebody here probably knows about it. Please, show me.

Awww, youse guys...

I didn't say anything about feminists not being good looking Ingrid. I'm sure there are some pretty ones.
But I seriously doubt there are any intelligent ones. Take a look at what comes out of people passing themselves off as "Feminist scholars". Then consider that, worse than that, there are people who read those books.

But if you want to leave that aside, lets just ask what defines a feminist...

We often hear:

EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK, EQUAL OPPORTUNITY, VICTIMS RIGHTS, NO SEXUAL HARASSMENT

By that standard almost everybody is a feminist.

But these aren't and weren't feminist positions.

Equal pay+seniority retention while taking long periods of time off for maternity leave.
That is decidedly NOT equal work. I'm not saying parenthood is unimportant, but it isn't what a law firm, finance corporation, or fast food restaurant, is hiring workers to do.

But fighting to have it all on the company dime is just fine.

Under what other doctrine or system of beliefs are women "entitled" to company and consumer support for that?
---------

Fighting "Sexual Harassment". OK, lets be plain here, there are some people out there that are just ass holes. There are lines for what is decent behavior and what is not. And some people cross them.

But only under a feminist credo is a woman entitled to financial compensation for words or conduct she doesn't like, which otherwise does no physical harm to her.

"To say there is no God does me no harm. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." That is one of the fundamental arguments for a free state, that no harm comes to anyone. Yet somehow we are required to restrict speach, jokes, the path of our eyes from anything disliked by women...or pay a fee to compensate her for some percieved "harm" oh and fire the offending party. Oh, and of course the company itself is responsible for paying her for whatever hurt feelings she's suffered, which means of course, the consumers pay.

Under what other doctrine than feminism is this enshrined in law or advocated in the least?
---------

Equal opportunity

Is there anyone opposed to the best person qualified being given a job? What if that job is physically demanding? I doubt any sane person would argue that a woman shouldn't hold an office position. Whatever the field, however mentally demanding, it doesn't require any physical capability worth mentioning. But what about Military branches, Police Departments, Fire Departments? Now a sane person, I'm not going to say smart, this is just good sense, which has nothing to do with "smart", that if a person is able to physically perform the work, then let them at it.

I'm all for it, many hands make light work.

But do we get that from feminism? No.
Instead the military now has two seperate physical fitness test standards. One for men, one for women, see below:

http://www.usma.edu/dpe/testing/apft_scorecard%20(da%20form%20705).pdf

Note that while situps have a single standard, the standard for both the run and the pushups is radically lower for women than for men.

Instead we have two seperate standards for performance wherein women are given the chance to do half as well as men, but get the same opportunity for promotion, regardless of their military field or ability to physically perform the duties required of them. Who gets shafted here? No pun intended. And that of course, is not even counting the above circumstances, extensive time off for maternity, light duty and deployment avoidance.

What other than feminism thinks this is a good thing?
----------

Oh and by the way, who was outraged when a general prohibited getting pregnant during deployment? What other doctrine so abandons common sense that getting pregnant during a war deployment, is seen as a sacred right of women...who are then entitled to leave the war and hand off the work to someone else, all on the taxpayer dime.

I'll give you a hint about who was outraged. It wasn't men on deployment. It wasn't our families at home. It wasn't any conservative party. And it wasn't any woman out here that was actually doing her job.

It was feminism and its supporters that raised condemning voices and no other.
----------

Now, victim's rights. Lets talk about that. There are certain rights that victims have. They have a right to defend themselves, they have a right to see their complaint prosecuted to the extent of the law.

But feminists argue that the accuser must be protected from scrutiny, her name must not be known, and her own personal history must not be investigated or made issue. And why? Because she must be protected from shame? So now we enshrine law to protect feelings, even while the accused bears no such protection from being publicly maligned, and having his own reputation smashed and life destroyed?

What but feminism has demanded these things or fought to see them enshrined in law?
-----------

And that ladies Dana & Ingrid, why I say in all seriousness, that I know of and doubt the existance of a "smart feminist", no I will go even further, and argue even that to hold those positions, one cannot even be counted as being of a just nor honorable mind.

To hold those positions, one must hold the desires of the feminist as sacred, and the rights of all others as castoffs to be used or discarded at need.
-----------

And we have not even discussed the obvious injustice of divorce law or child custody.

So yes, I hold the term "feminism" in the utmost contempt, and I have seen no smart woman whom ever required anything of it.

I do not hold "women" in low regard Ingrid, I hold "feminists" in low regard. The two are very different.

And by the by, my younger sister is a two time Iraq veteran that served as an officer in the Marine Corps. She passed the physical fitness standards on the MALE scale.

I'd have sooner stood beside her in combat, she never needed feminism to get anything she wanted.

And my wife, who served in the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) holds feminism in the same contempt I do.

It is a philosophy of victimhood, weakness, and opportunistic oppression which robs women of both their sense, their safety, and actual opportunity, treats men as victimizers or targets, and costs society as a whole untold sums providing feminists with the perks they demand, out of the pockets of taxpayers, consumers, and private enterprise.

Well...suppose I went on a bit of a rant there.

Just goes to show, never type in short intervals, never know how long one will ramble on for.

If you want some real trash Miss Alkon, look up the report "Hostile Hallways" I don't recall the year it was produced, sometime back in the early 90s I belief.

That report stated that girls in school were the targets of constant ongoing harassment...amongst other things.

What the report did not detail was how its accusations were defined. Nor did it reveal on publication that the study's terms were redefined and the study reconducted when the desired results were not discovered during its first performance.

That of course, did not stop it from being presented as a reason to develop a sexual harassment policy in schools across the country.

edit: "believe". (Damn the typo devils to the hell from whence they came.)

I often wonder...what was life like for such women, Dworkin, Wolf, and the like, that they grew up to hold such mad beliefs? Did they grow up under evil and vile fathers...or no fathers at all? How else could one write things which hold the men in one's life, brothers, fathers, sons, in such base opinion?
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I had a devoted mother growing up, a good older sister and an annoying (growing up anyway *l*) younger sister as well. I may have a very small number of chauvanistic beliefs, but those few that I hold are ones that place burdens upon myself, not remove them.

And none of it would allow me in the slightest to despise or abuse the fairer sex, let alone make it into a career.

*LOL* Men were men and sheep were nervous...oh I'm going to tell that one to the wench!
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I wish I had some eye candy out here, military uniforms do not flatter the feminine frame in the least.

Although that "Winsome Warriors" publication some years back did a fine job of turning that around, if only within its pages. Some girls look good in anything I suppose. *L*
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I really feel like a lot of the back-and-forth here is semantics. if "feminist" means "annoying sex-hating mustache-sporting lunatic who is oppressed by asparagus," most of us are not feminists.

If "feminist" means "strong self-assured woman who believes in equal pay for equal work, isn't a fan of domestic violence, and doesn't consider herself a second class citizen," many of us are.

It's sad that the lunatic fringe has claimed the word.

Prickly, I'm sure Mike Tyson was using his head, just not the one up top. *L*

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vi, I'm sure you're right. Heh, but that is the problem, if she changes her mind, whether before, during, or the morning after, there is very little probability of being able to reasonably prove his guilt or verify his innocense. When two are alone, only they know what transpired.

And so given that our legal system is founded upon the principle that it is better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished...a reasonable doubt is built right in to the situation.

That is why escorts, chaperones, or curfews were used as a means to protect women. Things changed in the 60s, women were "liberated" sort of...there is no liberation to be had from the consequences of one's actions. And those consequences are not always good, or fair, or just.

I dislike blaming the victim, but increasingly rare is the victim that couldn't have been saved by a little common sense and an awareness of her own vulnerability.

'And remember: It's the little ladies who hate sex.'

So, Dana, you're not a lady?

Always that little dig at non-feminist women. Toe the line or else. We ALL have to fit in your little box, or be deemed somehow lacking. So full of yourselves.

Ha! Agreed!

Nonfeminists that shout "Vive le Difference!" from the rooftops, are more likely to be little hellcats in the sheets.

Its the feminists that have issues. And give issues too. What happens if she regrets it later?

"And as far as birth control access without a husbands written permission, well lets just think about that one right there for a moment. Women are not the only one with procreative desires, indeed while men in their twenties might be more interested in playing around and the like, most men do aspire to family lives in the course of time, and when they get married, that is generally one of their expectations."

Huh. I agree that a married couple should discuss and agree on family planning. However, no adult should need *permission* from another to receive any kind of medical care. I'd be hurt if my hypothetical husband were to get snipped without telling me after we got married. But I don't think men should be required to get the wife's permission to do so.

Loved the sheep line Amy. Reminds me one of my fathers line. Back in the days when Men were Men and the women were darn glad of it.

@Amy: "I would venture that it's easier to enjoy heterosexual sex if you don't have a lot of ideology running through your head about how it's a way men persecute women, blah, blah, blah."
____________

I wonder if this mindset is part of why a woman's attitude towards sex seems to take a 180 after the wedding. From kindergarten through university, they are marinated in feminist propaganda that tells them that: 1) sex outside of marriage is freedom, and 2) sex inside of marriage is slavery.

makes me wonder.

This is a bit off the original topic, but I wanted to add something to Ingrid's statement about wearing dresses. I love dresses. I have lots and wear them all the time. Like Ingrid said, they're feminine and flattering (unless you get one of those tent-shaped ones, I guess). They're also ridiculously easy. That's pretty much all I wear in the summer because it's one piece on top and I'm done, which is a blessing in the raging heat and humidity of middle Tennessee in July. I've taken to flying in my collection of matte jersey dresses. They're super comfortable (no waistband issues) and I look considerably cuter upon arrival than I would in my sweatpants.

So why is it that people make the comment that I've "dressed up" for whatever it is I'm doing when I wear a dress? Women, I should say, not people. I've had them comment on that at the grocery store and in line at the movie theater. It usually goes something like this: "I love your dress! It's so cute! Yeah, I just can't make the effort to get all dressed up just to go to the movies." Is this some sort of passive-aggressive thing against women who make an effort? I've seen it directed at other women, too, usually the ones who look very put-together in a casual setting. I wear dresses because they're flattering on me and are so easy and comfortable to wear, but others seem to think it's because I'm making some sort of anti-feminist statement, like I'm regressing back to the June Cleaver days of vacuuming in pumps and pearls. This doesn't happen all the time, mind you (most people I'm around aren't that rude, I guess), but it's memorable when it does happen.

Long post to say that I wonder if this is related to the bull the LW is spouting. What do you guys think?

Amy you saying that you wear Evening dresses reminds me of a weird sort of saying. it was from some Grandmother saying why keep the nice china all packed away or locked in the China cupboard ... USE them often. All that will happen is that some dishes will break and your grandchildren will be out 300 dollars when you die.

The same should be with clothes. You have a suit or a nice dress - wear it. All that is going to happen is it will wear out and you will not be stuck with some out of fashion clothes in ten years time. Thinking I should have worn that suit more or I spent hundreds on that fabulous dress and I only wore it to one wedding and twice to a dinner.

I did some reading on this and it wasn't until the 1910s, when sleeveless dresses became popular, that large numbers of women began to shave their underarms. The same thing happened with legs a little later on when swim suits started showing relatively more skin and hemlines rose.

So it's obvious that the ideal of womanly beauty and hair is a shifting one. (The same with tanned skin. Back in the day, it implied you worked out in a field all day and most women went for the alabaster look.) Who's to say that women can't collectively shift it right back?

I mean, Martha Washington never shaved her legs. If that was good enough for George, that's good enough for me. The rest of you Godless America-haters can go rut in a farmyard with your hairless peasants for all I care.

I still say that hairy legs worked better when you wore silk stoking, that covered them up, not 'nylons' ;-).

Yes, ideals of female beauty evolve. If we look at photos of 'great beauties' at the turn of the 20th century they were curvy and buxom with 'shapely legs'. Those women wouldn't make any magazine covers today.

It's fun to make fun of feminists. People can pretend we all have one ideology and approach to life, like all Democrats and Republicans and Tea Partiers believe exactly the same things. Oh, wait...

I'm a feminist. At least at this moment, I don't feel the need to defend my appreciation for men, sex and equality. Living life says it better.

I think feminists have largely achieved everything they set out to achieve in the United States, and I'm glad to live in this world and not the one that existed 50 years ago. I'm more interested in the fight women are facing in other countries, where raping virgins to cure AIDS still seems like a good idea.

"So it's obvious that the ideal of womanly beauty and hair is a shifting one."

It's 'necessarily' a shifting one based on whatever course of action requires the most money to be spent, e.g. razor blades vs. no razor blades, waxing vs no waxing, etc.; marketers will always try push the course of action that makes more money (and anything that costs more money also becomes associated with higher status), and having anyone in their natural state won't make anyone any money, hence the executive boards that create and dictate fashion trends from the top down will always push new 'norms' based on what they'll cost us. This is the same reason for the current steady and massive drive to artificially create and grow a male cosmetics industry --- little by little, they take things that real men would never have considered doing or spending money on just a decade or two ago, and aggressively "normalizing" these behaviours with propaganda campaigns (and 'feminizing' men in the process). (Hell, I even heard a piece on the radio the other day set up as a fake interview with some marketers pretending it's supposed to be trendy now for men to carry handbags - complete with a woman claiming she thinks it's so sexy for a man to carry a handbag - puh-lease.) Unfortunately most people will never cotton on to how artificially manufactured all these trends are, so we're stuck with them, and end up with all these lame men around - rather, girly boys or 'metros' - who follow every fashion cosmetic trend like little sheep with no minds of their own).

Anyway, that said, when the whole brazil-wax-'going-smooth' trend took off amongst women, I was skeptical at first ('just marketing' blah blah), but after the first girlfriend who liked to keep her vagina beautifully smooth and hairless, it didn't take long for me to start liking and preferring that. And maybe I has just been brainwashed to prefer women with ultra-smooth legs, but please, let's keep it that way! It really just feels good and sexy and feminine.

Meh - the more things change, the more they stay the same. Someone mentioned Dangerous Liaisons - the dandies led the male fashion with and XVIII century version of the metrosexual and French men have been carrying 'handbags' for ages.

It's all cycles baby.

Great comments Robert!!!!

Also, i have a comment on all those who say they are feminists but not "that kind of feminist", and then spout the old "equal pay for equal work" bullshit.

I say Equal WORK for Equal PAY! If you are going to make as much money as I am, shut up and do the exact same work as I am! That includes ALL the hours I work, all the overtime I put in, all of the days off I come in to work, all the work on weekends if needed, and all the dinners I missed while at work.

If you can do all that without all of the BS days off, the maternity leave where someone else does your work, and all the times you take off early for child related stuff, then YES, you deserve EXACTLY what I make!!!! No problems here!!!

...just saying...

Well Mike, glad you're prepared to step up to the paternity plate.

I say Equal WORK for Equal PAY! If you are going to make as much money as I am, shut up and do the exact same work as I am!

Has anyone here disagreed with you? I swear, sometimes I think the guys here argue with the voices in their head instead of things that were actually said here.

On another note: I do not work as many hours as one of my male co-workers. The reason? I am more efficient at my job. I don't need to be at work until 9 pm to do the same amount of work he does. I can get it all done in a regular workday, with time to spare for reading blogs.

Well MonicaP, I agree with you. Equal work for equal pay and equal pay for equal work.

That is a tag line that every rational person can agree with.

If that were feminism as it is or as it was, I'm sure we'd all be one big happy on the subject.

But the fact of the matter is MonicaP, that equal pay in exchange for equal work was never part of the prominent feminist movement.

There were women in law firms in the 70s, there were women in science and medicine in the 1890s, there were women in government dating back to Nefertiri and beyond.

Feminism's rallying cry in opposition to "discrimination" was constantly an attack on the society itself.

Now there were inequalities of course. A woman was not going to make as much money as a man at work. Which initially sounds very unfair.

But ask the underlying reason and the answer becomes clear.

The male worker was going to be supporting a family. While the woman was almost certainly ONLY supporting herself, and even that only until she settled down to start a family of her own.

In fact, one of the great promises of unions if you go way back to the Industrial Revolution, is that they promised their members a wage high enough so that their families would not have to work.

So a man working at an advertising firm in 1930 who was married made more than one who was single, and the one who was single made more than the woman who held either status.

Now say what you will about the primacy of the family, you might even wish to argue that such a thing shouldn't have been expected of women or men. But the justification for the pay ratios was based upon that principle, and it provided a much better quality of life. Are we really better off now, when both parents have to work and children are left alone or with day care providers? The woman might be "happier" though I have to wonder about that, but is she better off? Are her children better off? Is the household better off?

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Feminists make much out of the history of female education, and its general lack. But the truth is that they got just as much education as men...at their social class. The female farmer in the rural south was probably illiterate. But so almost certainly, was her husband. The advent of universal public education saw coed classes at all grade levels, and universal or nearly universal literacy as a result. An attack on higher education must point out that those institutions were not universally closed to women. Some were unavailable of course, but some are still closed to women now, and vice versa I might add. Women at the upper classes were certainly as well educated as the men they married, women at the lower classes no more ignorant than the men they wedded, and the same in between.
There was no garden of educational paradise denied women. Indeed to do so would have been stupid in the extreme. A man expected his wife to handle the affairs of his house, to include his business, while he was away.
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Much was made over the vote only being available to male land owners.

But few bother to ask why this was. The idea wasn't "one person, one vote" it was "One HOUSEHOLD, one vote". And as to the land, well the idea was fairly straightforward there too. The notion was that: Only those with a STAKE in the country, should have a say in its governance.

Given the present state of the nation, in which we see people with no stake in the nation at all, living off of welfare, government programs, and voting for public officials that demand ever more services from the public purse, while paying nothing into it themselves, the idea doesn't look half as repressive and insensible as I myself would have thought it only a few years ago. As to why the man, a man was expected to be the head of his household, and it was his labor outside that provided for that house, and it was his blood that would stain the ground to defend it.

Whether one considers that "fair", it is as it was, and each of the reasons for why things were the way they were, makes perfect sense with an understanding of the reasons behind it.
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Now considering the pushes of feminism from the get go...give me equal pay to him...but also time off to take care of my children, maternity leave that doesn't count against my vacation time or my seniority for promotion, and oh yes, don't act like you did when it was just men in the office, you have to act how I want you to act...

I'm paraphrasing a bit of course...but female liberation, from the get go, wasn't asking for anything reasonable, just, or fair. If it had been only "equal pay for equal work" I'd take no issue with it.

But from the get go it was a movement of entitlement that fought to force men to behave a certain way, force businesses to accomadate their chosen way of life at the expense of others, and avoid making sacrifices in order to make gains.
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To the women who work as hard as or even harder than their male counterparts, who can tell a ribald joke or hear one, and not faint dead away when a man glances your way, I salute you as equals in the workplace, as peers, and as companions and yes, even friends fun to sit down to lunch with. Frankly, you ladies did not NEED the women's movement for that, you didn't need feminism, you'd have gotten that on your own because you've got career drive. Maybe it is a little easier now, but easy is nothing to be proud of. Great accomplishment is done by wit, grit, and hard work.

As to the rest of them, the woman who takes off early or comes in late because of child care issues and then demands pay equal to my own. The woman who takes months off in maternity leave while we take up the slack. The one who files a lawsuit or makes a complaint because someone told a joke she didn't like. She is a curse on the workplace, for men and women both, she raises the cost on consumers, she puts more work onto her coworkers, and expects us to think her brave for it...she can bugger off. She needs feminism, she needs the entitlement, she needs the climate of investigation and special protection, she cannot survive or thrive in a workplace that makes uncompromising demands for career success...unless she is kept safe by quotas, lawsuits, and special regulations against discrimination.

And I can't respect a movement that fights for the second at the expense of the first.

As to the rest of them, the woman who takes off early or comes in late because of child care issues and then demands pay equal to my own. The woman who takes months off in maternity leave while we take up the slack. The one who files a lawsuit or makes a complaint because someone told a joke she didn't like.

I admit I didn't read all of your post. Unfortunately, I'm not THAT efficient. But the women you describe are not feminists. Maybe they're working the system, but that's not the same thing.

Allowing for maternity leave is a good thing. Women should not have to worry about losing their jobs to have children. On the flip side, they should not expect to have the same level of job advancement as someone who did not take those three months off. And taking leave, then quitting, is crap.

The male worker was going to be supporting a family. While the woman was almost certainly ONLY supporting herself, and even that only until she settled down to start a family of her own.

I don't care what people do with their money, whether they are supporting families or blowing it all on whores.

It's neither hair nor there!

Want a fur-face? Wear it.
Want a hair-free face? Do whatever it takes.

(I'm 67, and a motherplucker by choice. If I choose to grow a beard someday, then so be it!)

Well I don't blame you for not reading the entire thing MonicaP, I will freely confess, I have no gift for brevity, and a tendency to ramble a tad...(also note gift for understatement *l*)

But with that said, I'll be brief as I am able in my answer to you here on two thing you've suggested:

1. Allowing for maternity leave is a good thing. Women should not have to worry about losing their jobs to have children.

&

2. I don't care what people do with their money, whether they are supporting families or blowing it all on whores.

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1. Lets play a little game. Suppose I'm a small business owner, CEO of a company employing perhaps a dozen people.(you can choose the ratio of the sexes) At present I have a generous vacation policy (15 days paid vacation per year, 10 days sick leave, a 401k matching plan, and a company insurance policy) but no maternity benefits. You're a relatively new employee hired for a senior position, its a small company, so lets say $75k salary. Realizing we at Somethingcorporation have no maternity benefits, you schedule a meeting with me to outline the reasons why we should have one, what it should have, and how the company would benefit from its inclusion, as well as what risks you believe the company would face and how to compensate.

So Vice President MonicaP, convince me. I await your eloquent response.

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2. I don't care how people spend their money either. But then I'm also not mandating how privately owned entities determine pay scales. I'm sure I don't need to tell you which ideology is trying to do precisely that.

Actually AntoniaB, I was speaking hypothetically to argue a point, and unfortunately you fell right into it. I'm definately NOT the one who works all the hours as I am a single father with custody of my 10-year-old son. I take off early sometimes, and I come in late sometimes, and I leave to take my sick kid to the doctor, and go to every school play and function.

I don't think its fair if I make as much money as all the folks in my office that work their asses off every day while I'm taking care of personal matters. But, it is my CHOICE to do that. And I'm not whining about it, or child care, or how unfair the workplace is, or how I don't make as much money. It is a CHOICE to have children, and when you make that choice you must be accountable and be prepared to pay the price.

My life is all about my son, and I have made MY choice.

Unless they are liberals, or feminists, who believe that you should get everything without working for it, all of these people whining about equal pay should take a good hearty look at themselves.

And Monica, your comment about getting more done during the day is complete PC bulls--t. Hate to dissapoint you, but it is the very TOP performers who work all the overtime and stay late because their bosses can trust they will do the work properly. Because you can get all of your work done every day means you are going home while the person next in line for a promotion stays in the office. Its called being job focused because you want to move up...wanting more responsibility, more hours, more time in front of the bosses. The hard drivers are the ones who make all the money and get the promotions.

I agree with anathema: If "feminist" means "strong self-assured woman who believes in equal pay for equal work, isn't a fan of domestic violence, and doesn't consider herself a second class citizen," many of us are.

That is my definition of feminist. It is truly unfortunate that the meaning of feminism has been so warped and to call yourself a feminist means being classified as something other than the belief in equality.

I wish to apologize to Robert for my snide remark, it was uncalled for and I am sorry. People should feel free to express themselves on this site without personal attacks and I was wrong. Clearly, we have different interpretations of feminism. I am not a fan of Robert's version of feminism as I believe that version is harmful to women.

Now, I am Canadian and our laws are a bit different here than in the US. First of all, when a couple separates and they have children both parents automatically get joint custody, that means the child(ren) live with each parent half the time, which also means the parents have to live in the same neighbourhood. Also, the partner who makes the most money pays child support and spousal support to the other partner. For example, my sister pays her ex child support and spousal support because she makes more money. So in Canada, clearly, the woman is not favoured by the courts.

Another difference between Canada and the US is that when a couple have a baby both parents qualify for parental leave. So too in this situation both men and women receive equal benefits.

I even agree with Robert that it is wrong to publish the name of an accused before it has been proven in court because if he is innocent his reputation is still ruined. But, sometimes the police need to publish the identity of the accused in order to discover if there are more victims. Clearly the police need to publish a description of a rapist who is at large. Generally that kind of beast is not the type of person who has a reputation worth protecting anyway.

Ingrid

1) Assuming the maternity policy is not abused (i.e., the woman uses it up then quits to be a SAHM), it allows companies to retain and recruit talented employees. (If they're worthless employees, they shouldn't be working there, so I'm operating under the assumption that anyone who has a job there provides value to the company.)

Offering three months off without pay is fair. Any raises and job advancement opportunities would not view those three months as employed months, but the job would still be there upon her return.

My company has a family leave policy that is very generous. It applies to mothers and fathers (including adoptive parents) and, really, anyone having a family emergency. I almost used it when I was taking care of my mother and might use it now that I'm taking care of my father. I'm committed to this job in part because of the benefits package -- one that I might never use, but it is certainly attractive to have the option.

Maternity/Paternity leave is attractive to anyone who plans to have a family, which is to say, most people, and is effective for recruiting and retaining employees. Perhaps that's not so important now, when people can shut up and like the job they have, but it's important for keeping people who have other job prospects.

There's also the intangible effect of not having new parents who work for you thinking more about the fact that they left their 3-week-old with whoever they could find on short notice instead of on the job you hired them for. Three months is enough time to adjust to being a parent and find child care.

There are certainly risks. As I said, the parent (likely mother) could not return, meaning you held a job for three months for nothing. In many cases, a temp could be hired to replace that person, especially if parental leave is unpaid. Also, other employees are forced to pick up the slack. But a father in my department recently took paternity leave and did an excellent job of it, making our lives as easy as possible while he was away. It can be done.

The overarching/not anecdoctal point is that it shouldn't be assumed that women will be the ones taking time off for the kids. My point was how I loved the way you argued for paternity rights and that dads should have the kind of say in the workplace that moms do.

So old style just to talk about 'maternity leave' and mums leaving the office because of kids' needs. Shouldn't we get past that as Ingrid and Monica P point out?

Don't even get me started on face time.

I have to disagree with Robert about his theory that men were paid more because they supported a family, that was only true for the upper and upper-middle classes (in which case the women did not work outside the home). The poor women have always had to work and they always made less than men. Women who were single mothers had to support their families but made less than their male co-workers, or women who had to support their families because their husbands were too busy drinking and gambling away the rent.

What about the law? Women could not even file for divorce until the late sixties/early seventies. Not even when the husbands were beating the crap out of them. And if a divorce was granted, the women were left impoverished and the husband got everything. It was not even a crime to beat your wife.

Then there was the lovely scenerio of men having their wives institutionalized as insane just to get rid of them, the only thing wrong with most of those women was the man they were married to.

Let us not forget that if a girl or women was raped, SHE was ruined!

What about medical research? Only in the last TWO decades have pharmaceutical companies bothered to test new drugs and therapies on females. Prior to that women were literally dying from taking medication that was only ever tested on men. Men and women are biologically different but only men were considered when it came time to do medical research. Think about it, only relatively recently has the medical community come out with the realization that men and women suffer from different symptoms when having a stroke or heartattack. Also, the amount of money and facilities available to research was dominated by male diseases. Women's diseases were not worth the time and money to bother researching.

Education, well, university was available to very few women. It was almost impossible for a woman to be accepted into university and when she was the students and teachers did everything they could to prevent her from staying to acquire an education. Females who attempted medical school were not allowed practical experience, thereby ensuring they could not practice. It was considered unseemly for a woman to participate in an autopsy. Yes, some women did manage to become professionals but it was impossible for most women and nearly impossible for a woman to actually work in her field if she did manage to acquire an education. Also, go back further than the 1900s and universities did not allow women to enroll. Saying women had the same opportunities as men is like saying black people had the same opportunities as white people just because there were a couple of black doctors and lawyers a hundred years ago.

Now, back to hair, women have been removing facial hair for thousands of years in many cultures(including the west). Body hair has also been removed for thousands of years, it just depends on the region of the world and culture. Personally, I find hair on a woman's legs too masculine and let's face it, mustaches ONLY belong on men. ICK.

"This is the same reason for the current steady and massive drive to artificially create and grow a male cosmetics industry --- little by little, they take things that real men would never have considered doing or spending money on just a decade or two ago, and aggressively "normalizing" these behaviours with propaganda campaigns"

YES. Like body spray for men. I mean, really.

"all for a woman with a mustache making the same money as a man with a mustache."

Okay, Now you've done it - I simply CANNOT stop laughing!

What really bugs me in general about the people who say they defend a certain groups rights is the fact that in doing so they feel free to insult other people!
(eg) I'm in a Fb group that is pro gay marriage... the other day one jerk got in saying really indulting things about the gay community. But then some other members of the group started calling this jerk names related to mental deficiencies, shall we say.

I consider myself a humanist, so every person deserves and should have the same rights, be the colour, sex, orientation etc they may be.

That being said, sure women have the right to not wax/pluck whatever, but men also have the right to not go out with these women!

I'll admit running around after my 2 1/2 year old all day I sometimes lag behind in my grooming, but I also make the effort from time to time, and believe me my husband appreciates it!

I would say that feminism has gone a long way but a look at the demographics in California shows that more progress is needed. Many of the poorest people in California are working single mothers. Women make about 71 cents to the dollar that men with comparable jobs make. Part of it is that women do take more time off to for their children (I would argue out of necessity and residual expectations from 50 years ago) but part of it is just prejudice. Companies are run as if each employee has a wife at home to handle household and child care and this just isn't the case anymore. Teachers complain that few parents can make it for parent-teacher conferences anymore. A lot of times even two parent families can't handle things financially unless both parents are in the work force. I don't see how even two people can work full-time and raise kids and I worry about all of the single mothers in our state right now. Honestly, sometimes I think that in fighting for education and work, we have instead of making things better for ourselves, women just made things worse. I would currently love nothing more than to get married and focus on taking care of my husband and having children for the next few years. But I have just nearly finished a bachelors program and internship and now am going to work for a year and then go on to grad school. If I get married, even having children seems like a huge luxury that me and many of the women in my graduating class may never have. So this is the legacy that our mothers have left us. An expectation to excel in school and have brilliant careers without removing the expectations to keep our homes clean, do volunteer work, and children raised. I think that in the current status quo women suffer but so do men and so do children. Unless companies change and become more family friendly, I worry about what's going to happen.

No apology necessary Ingrid, its only natural to become impassioned in the heat of argument. I've heard far worse I assure you. ;) Indeed my compliments to you for having the class to recognize when you went a wee bit overboard. No worries though, it happens to the best of us.

I'd agree with you one hundred percent that feminism as I've described it is harmful to women, if anything I'd go further and say deeply harmful and throw a few explitives in there for emphasis. I won't even hazard a guess as to what feminism is or was like in Canada. I can only speak of how things have been and are in the United States.

And it is one of the great frustrations of my country, that feminism as I've described it, has been the norm for the entirety of my lifetime, and reading things published way back into the 60s, it was no different then than it was when I was growing up, and it has not improved in my adult years.

There are reasonable women who describe themselves as "feminist" because they truly BELIEVE it means "Equal for Equal". But even a cursory reading of feminist literature, feminist scholarship, feminist arguments, or feminist initiatives in law and in the public sphere, tells a very different story. Said women, who believe in an "equal for equal" trade for pay, benefits, etc. say that feminism has been coopted by loonies.

There was a famous book entitled "Who stole feminism?" on that very subject.

But unfortunately...see previous statement about its claims, its early aims, and its actions over the course of 50 years as a movement in the United States...and its slogan of equal pay for equal work becomes an obvious smokescreen for entitlement pursuits based upon sexuality.
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There may be times to publish the name of the accused. Lets be honest, sometimes the very word "accused" is a mere courtesy. When a victim is found battered, bloody, and screaming for mercy, with the perpetrator still caught in the act, the word "accused" is almost laughable if it weren't so infuriating. In such an instance, publishing a name or picture to seek out evidence of other probable crimes, might be justified. But this isn't often the case.

I REALLY hate citing fiction, but an excellent example of this was portrayed in an old episode of "Law & Order". A doctor is accused of abusing patients, his conviction is vacated by the judge because the jury violated its instructions. So he is rearrested on a similar charge...but this arrest is aired live, the unspoken intent is to get his past patients, the ones he had victimized, to identify themselves and go to the D.A. The result is a flood of information, witnesses, evidence, and testimony, and the bad guy goes away for life. So yes, there ARE times to remove the cloak of anonymity from the accused. But it should not be defacto cast aside, while the accuser themselves is concealed from all scrutiny.
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Canadian divorce law sounds much more fair than the U.S. counterpart of it. Up until very recently, if my wife wanted to divorce me while I was deployed, she would defacto win sole custody since she was the primary caregiver, even though I was only not around because of where Uncle Sam chose to send me. Many states have changed those rules now, but I don't know how many have not yet.

Some American companies do offer paternity leave in tandem with maternity leave, but significantly smaller sums in most cases, I believe the average is about 10 days, some might offer more, but it isn't mandatory anywhere as far as I am aware. The Army now offers some leave for new fathers, obviously we don't get as much as the person the kid comes out of...but there is some. I don't take issue with a company that believes it is in their best interest to offer a special dispensation of time off to mothers or fathers employed in the corporation. That is the company's prerogative. BUT, I do object to lawsuits over it as an entitlement, I definitely object to the assumption that repeated absenses would or should have no career impact. I'm all for motherhood, I had a great mother. I'm all for fatherhood, I had a great father. I'm not all for forcing another entity other than the parents pick up the tab. I'm big on free choice for private companies AND private citizens.
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Don't get me wrong, I don't believe abuses of public safety should be permitted, or that we should have little to no oversight to prevent corporations from misbehaving, lying, or otherwise abusing the public trust. However I also do not believe the corporations owe their employees anything more than a safe working environment and the salary which they pay according to whatever contract they've signed with the employees. Any benefits on top of that which they use to lure the best people into their offices, is up to them.

Its been fun Ingrid, I look forward to disagreeing with you again in the future. And for the record, when I speak in the future of "no such thing as a smart feminist" you can count yourself out of that categorization, its pretty clear we're not even on the same ideology when it comes to that. Pleasant days! :)
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Now on to MonicaP.

(I'll go with your assumption that hired employees provide a given value, I like to think I'd not be one to hire dead weight *s*)

3 Months off without pay, but with the promise that the job will be there on return sounds reasonable at first glance. After all it doesn't cost the company money in terms of salary. On most levels of employment, that would even work out very very well. And when I say levels of employment...well for example, sales persons, secretaries, line workers, programmers, there are a great many mid to lower level positions that can be filled below cost by hiring temp workers from an agency just as you suggest...this would actually cost LESS than the original employee and would resolve the issue of overburdening the remaining staff during the worker's time away. I like that.

The real cost here though, is in the upper levels. A senior VP for example, can't be replaced with a temp. And the level of knowledge that is required, means it isn't even easy to have the next person in line simply step up and take the role on...not least because that would abandon the duties that actually are theirs. The replacement of those skills is very difficult, and so an extensive period of leave, even one in which the company paid no money, still costs a great deal in terms of opportunity of labor. Before you suggest that persons on such high levels are dedicated to their careers enough that it is unlikely to occur...I must point out that it is more common than you might think. Women who reach the latter stages of their careers, who put off having family, are also reaching that "uh oh I'm in my 40s and have no kids yet" phase, just as they are also at the point in their careers when the company needs their skills the most. These are the ones that hurt the company the most when they take maternity leave. The secretary, the programmer, the mail clerk, the delivery girl, the middle manager, these skill levels are relatively easy to replace from within or from outside temporary agencies.

So while your plan is excellent for the average worker, working for them AND for the company's benefit, I'm afraid that the matter of maternity leave policy for a company would have to be drastically rethought for senior and key personnel with hard to replace skills.

I believe that, while you are on the right track here, the idea on proper implimentation for a mutually beneficial maternity leave policy has to be further thought out. I believe that setting a time delay after hiring might be enough to discourage most abuses...for example, every month of employment without using the benefit, equates to one week of guaranteed job availability when the benefit is requested, up to a limit of 3 or 4 months. So someone who works 3 months and then applies for it, would get little, but someone who works an entire year would get the entire benefit.

Having focused employees is a definitive plus...new parents worry, parents who worry a little less, will work better than ones who worry more, and if we do have a family benefit policy...you are right, I think we'd do a better job of retaining employees and reducing turnover. I think it will be important to differentiate benefits according to positions. Quite frankly the entry and junior level employees can be easily provided this benefit at low cost. But the cost rises with position. If you as the VP chose to make use of this benefit, how could I replace you for an entire financial quarter without causing havoc to our internal operations, and disrupting day to day business?

I think you're on the right track. But I think careful consideration must go into how to apply it to the most crucial people, that are also the most crucial to retain.

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Well DONE MonicaP, you made some EXCELLENT points, and had a damn fine idea on how to impliment it without costing a bundle out of the corporate purse. You've convinced "CEO Robert" to consider how to impliment a parental leave policy as part of the roster of corporate benefits. Now as it stands, I'm not convinced it can be applied equally at all levels of employment. But I am now convinced it can be implimented reasonably to those who would need it most, without disrupting the course of business. Were I an ACTUAL CEO, I'd be putting you in charge of developing a policy recommendation for every department and employment position in my little hypothetical corporation.

You'd probably not get everything you wanted out of me on the subject, probably not for every level anyway...but you'd have gotten me to start drawing one out from the bottom up.
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Well AntoniaB, nobody is suggesting that fathers NEVER take off, but in the United States, it is neither common, nor a frequently provided benefit. And single fathers are far more rare than single mothers. I dislike quoting religious texts in most debates, but to paraphrase a line a bit, "Take care of the beam, before taking care of the splinter."

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Back to Ingrid:

Now, as far as payment to support a family as a historical reason for a major pay difference. That isn't theory, that is verifiable written record historical fact. It was why the double employed parental pair was virtually nonexistant until the 20th century. Hell even in the 1950s it was a policy in more than one company that employees could not be married to one another. The belief being that the double employment was taking a job away from somebody else trying to support a family. I hope I don't come across as harsh in my tone on this one, but this isn't theory. You can pull up old union advertisements making the promise that families won't have to work because the working man will get paid a living wage to support his whole family. You can look at the pay differences between married men and single men for the same job. The whole idea of "Equal pay for equal work" as a slogan was based around overturning this pay practice. It wasn't that women were worthless in the eyes of employers, its just that men had families to support, while women as a rule did not. She was either single and working only for herself, or she was married and working just to have something to do until she had children. If you look at the statistics from any period prior to the latter half of the 20th century, single mothers were very, very rare. Some of them might have been "shotgun weddings" but the point is that the social system that provided security for man, wife, and offspring, was maintained within a family unit. (Though how well that worked would vary from family to family)

If single mothers had been common, or house husbands common, then I think things would have worked very differently in terms of payment standards. But the idea of someone being a single mother other than having been widowed, was unthinkable for generations. And women in general did not seek out long term careers, the few that did, as you will note as you dig into the subject, however skeptically they were greeted by their male counterparts, did carve out respected niches for themselves in science, education, politics, and law, and didn't require either a lawsuit or a social movement to make it happen.
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The poor woman might not have made much, but she wasn't expected to remain single either. Look at the statistics collected from the period for the age at which people married, and what percentage of them there were. The unmarried woman was almost unheard of. Which is particularly good, given how much of the work available for the last few thousand years up until modernization, was exceedingly dangerous. Look up industrial injuries, coal mine collapses, or railroad injuries. Men lost limbs, fingers, hands, eyesight, hearing, they died of smoke inhalation or disease brought on by the harsh industrial conditions. They died by thousands per year in mines hauling materials to the surface, or they took jobs on ships that left them in conditions that were worse than hell. And the complain that feminists have is that the members of their sex were not allowed to be maimed, mauled, mutilated, or poisoned, in times since past?
This is what counts as oppression?

My dear Ingrid, you should be thanking whatever gods or goddesses, whatever fates or fortunes or raw luck there is that did not curse you to a fate like that. When you condemn men for keeping women out of those brutal, back breaking, body mauling labors, you are condemning your grandfathers for laying their lives and bodies on the line to keep your grandmothers safe, clothed, and fed. That is not something that I believe should be lightly ignored.

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Insofar as divorce, speaking of that generically is very difficult, since states set their own laws from place to place. But what we can say in general is that yes, while in many places the woman was not allowed to file for divorce, there was a practical reason for this. Today either a woman or a man can live and work independently, we don't "need" one another the way we used to. And when I say "need" I mean NEED, as in the same way as food, shelter, clothing, and water. The woman alone was in danger of being prey to nefarious and predatory men. Organized police forces were not a 911 call away. And even a simple matter such as food preparation could take TWELVE HOURS out of a day. A man couldn't go out into the field and then come back and prepare food, a woman couldn't prepare food and then go out into the field. Male and female NEEDED one another, in a way the modern living person can barely imagine. And that is before we even get into the issue of child care. Divorce was ridiculously rare compared to today. While a man "could" in theory, divorce a woman, this was not a right at all in most of the U.S. until after the Revolutionary War.

And when it was permitted, it was NOT prohibited to women in most states. However, divorce HAD to be PROVED. A cause had to exist, these grounds most commonly include: cruelty, desertion, and adultery, other grounds include nonsupport, neglect, alcoholism, drug addiction, insanity, criminal conviction, and voluntary separation. And fault assertion could be contested. In 1933 New Mexico was the first to allow divorce based on "Incompatibility". That represented a major shift in the social perception of marriage itself. Traditionally prior to that the family was a unit meant to ensure mutual survival and prosperity, to produce children who would provide for the previous generation in its old age, and continue the family name. Happiness and compatibility was secondary. That this occurs in 1933 is no coincidence, it is then that we see the first major steps towards a lessening of mutual need between male and female for their prosperity and survival. And so the speed of a divorce proceeding acccelerated. -----------

I take a step further back in time to address your assertion that a man might divorce his wife and leave her with nothing, now while it is true he was likely in most cases to be awarded the specific property, you neglect, or are unaware, that this is also where the origin of Alimony arises. Alimony if you are not aware, is a form of spousal support provided to an ex, almost invariably to this day provided to an ex-wife. The origins of this payment date back into the far reaches of common law, long before it was ever written down into statute, a woman whom was divorced from her husband, by his action or her own, would be provided Alimony payments until the time she remarried. (This remained a standard condition to end repayment well into the 20th century, and I believe some states still use it)

So a woman rarely ever came away with nothing, as you assert. There is an exception to this. Much of the country was wild, no wires ran money back and forth, postal services took forever...the bottom line is that some men could and did flee from this obligation, disappear out west or some such. But this is different from the 21st century only in that it was easier to run then than it is now.

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As far as the criminal statutes regarding wife beating, I suspect your first thought is the old saw about the "rule of thumb". This is a myth perpetuated by a woman named Sheila Kuehl, the same feminist activist who made up out of whole cloth the story that domestic abuse reports jump 50% on Super Bowl Sunday. Alleging that this appears in Blackstone's 1768 codification of common law went a long way to perpetuate the feminist myth that women were under the constant threat of male violence. The fact is that the saying ACTUALLY refers to what people thought it did before that myth popped up. It refers to the ascertaining of a measurement or technique of estimation based upon experience rather than science. This could of course be confirmed by any fact checker worth his salt...but it sounds true so...

But no, wife beating is specifically prohibited in every state of the U.S. Pre & Post Revolutionary period. Recall that "Cruelty" was listed as grounds for divorce for a spouse, no sex is mentioned or required for validity.

See the actual blackstone quote below:

"The husband ... by the old law, might give his wife moderate correction. For, as he is to answer for her misbehaviour, the law thought it reasonable to intrust him with this power of restraining her, by domestic chastisement, in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children.... But this power of correction was confined within reasonable bounds and the husband was prohibited from using any violence to his wife.... But with us, in the politer reign of Charles the Second, this power of correction began to be doubted; and a wife may now have security of the peace against her husband.... Yet [among] the lower rank of people ... the courts of law will still permit a husband to restrain a wife of her liberty in case of any gross misbehaviour..."
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Insofar as institutionalization, this I might point out, could NOT have been common, as the existence of such institutions was uncommon at best. The first one did not even OPEN in the United States until 1773. Though commitment to an asylum for behavior considered "insane" was conducted towards women, it was ALSO put towards men. Recall that the idea of "patients rights" and ignoring doctors orders and diagnosis was not possible for either sex up into the latter part of the 20th century. The assertion that women were in some way uniquely oppressed here, is simply not so. It could certainly be probable that a man might commit his wife to an asylum as a premptory move towards divorce. But it is equally true that his lost temper at a provocation could provide him with a similar label, and see him confined against his will. the depredations of the institution of the asylum and the abuses towards individual liberty by the medical institution were not confined to women.

If you haven't seen a pattern here yet, its alright, I'll give it to you now. Women might have suffered some measure of oppression...but they suffered the same oppression that men of their same social class did.
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If a girl or women was raped, she was ruined.
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True enough, but for pretty obvious reasons if you think about it. For one thing proving rape was even harder then than it is now. SO...how could anyone be sure it was rape? Women were provided with escorts, curfews, and chaperones aplenty, so for her to suffer a rape she had to be away from them. If she was away from them, the first question would be, "Why?" And the unpleasant question is answered with...maybe she was willing?

This doubt lead to doubts about her potential chastity, her faithfulness to her future husband, and by extension the doubt that any children born to her would be his own and not someone elses.

Biblical texts made some attempt at resolving the problem, if it happened in the countryside she was believed in the event she leveled an accusation, if it happened inside a city, she was not believed. (The idea being that there would be help in the city if she called out, and none in the country)

But even today we haven't done a helluva lot better on the subject. That lays that to rest. (A woman obviously abused in the course of rape by the way, likely would have been believed, or even be believed simply because she was a woman, and her lying about it was considered unlikely.) There was an incident in the Civil War during Sherman's march to the sea that a southern woman accused a northern soldier of rape, and the General believed HER, rather than his own soldier, and he had the young man hanged. The southern woman in question confessed that she had lied back then, when laying on her deathbed many years later.

So how "ruined" a woman was, likely would depend more upon her preexisting reputation.
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And as far as medical research, well lets be perfectly frank here, medical research since its inception as anything we can call "research" instead of "quackery" was not focused upon EITHER gender for an extensive period of time. THe big concern wasn't birth control, it was Scarlet Fever, Rabies, Polio, Malaria, Typhoid, the black death (Bubonic Plague), Small Pox, and other killers of VAST swaths of humanity. The great danger that these posed was not alleviated in most cases until the latter half of the 20th century with the elimination of Polio and Influenza as large scale killers. Why would any sane medical researcher turn away from the Influenza Pandemic, to work solely on the medical issues of one sex?

Now lets look at what happened when those great broad killers were cut down to size...metaphorically speaking, shall we?

If they'd been testing drugs on women, we'd be hearing now from feminisim that women were used as labrats. Dangerous drugs were tested on men, because nobody at the time realized just how much of a difference it made. You said it yourself, only recently have we learned that there are differing symptoms for certain ailments. Nobody was doing any checking on the significance of physical differences and body chemistry between male and female before then. That does represent discrimination. But not the kind you assert, it was men being used as labrats. Quite a few of them prisoners. (Nothing to feel to sorry about, Leopold & Loeb deserve no pity) and they did volunteer. (Those two are considered to be the first "thrill killers" of the 19th century if you don't recognize the names) So you castigate an institution for not investigating differences that nobody new existed, and nobody was aware of them because males (particularly criminals) were considered more expendable labrats *cough* test subjects *cough cough*...and you suggest this is a sign of female oppression?

I beg your pardon but that is rather like feeling offended and getting angry at someone who bove in front of a bullet for you, because it passed through their body and hit you anyway.

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What "male diseases" do you refer to that were getting all this money? I'd need something more specific to agree or disagree, but I will say that, even assuming that this was the case 30 years ago, and I very much doubt it was, remember there is still no male birth control pill out, even almost 50 years after it was released for women, and I bet you can't name even ONE hospital with an entire wing devoted to testicular cancer or prostate trouble, ever...but can't find a single one today that LACKS an entire wing devoted to things like breast or ovarian cancer. And I'm sure I needn't point out that for many years before, pills were coming out for prenatal care and the like. Some unfortunately for the children to be, turned out to be a disaster (such as thalidomide, sorry, don't recall the spelling for it), but the point is that research on specifically female concerns has had a huge market for generations now. I'd like to see an example of something similar for men that is even remotely comparable to what women have today, or have had for the last 50 years?

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University was not just available to very few women, it was available to very few MEN too. The only ones who went to universities at all, going all the way back to the founding of the first institutions of higher learning in the colonies, were the upper classes. The wealthy, whose scions were expected to take on governmental, mercantile, medical, or military roles, things of that nature. The great number of American males did not go to university at all for hundreds of years. In fact, they didn't need to. The "Credentialism" that we see today, did not exist in the 17-19th centuries. The great push for a college education did not come until the creation of the Montgomery G.I. bill, which provided money and incentives for veterans to go to college. Before that, if you want to go by the numbers, then even in 1870 1/5 of the resident college and university students of the U.S. were women. By 1900, that number was 1 in 3.

Now because the GI Bill was applicable strictly to veterans, yes it was sudden mass male influx that skews the numbers, but these guys spent years getting shot at by German Nazis, Italian facists, or Japanese Imperials, not exactly something many feminists are screaming from the rooftops and demanding to do, so I say give these guys a pass on their sudden good luck. But what do you see after that? Within only a few years you start seeing a rise in female enrollment that leads to present levels.

As far as females not being allowed to practice medicine, the practice of medicine is a time intensive pursuit, not conducive to the rearing of a family. So no, you do not see a large percentage of female medical practicioners. About 5% of the medical profession between 1870 & 1890, was female. But women were not expected to have long enduring careers, and more significantly, they themselves expected to marry and have children. So why should any that did not really desire it, have pursued the subject? The ones that really wanted to, did. 5% of a small number is nothing to sneeze at. And it is no coincidence that the percentage of long term single women is roughly the same percentage. So now you see that women could and DID go to school. They could and DID pursue medical careers if they chose. I'm sure there are examples of discrimination to be found, skeptical male colleagues and the like, but if doubt or dislike are the worst obstacles that you can name, then women are already the least oppressed group in all of human history.

Comparing the women's movement to the plight of black Americans in history is also something I've heard and read before, and by all the above points, it is a patently false claim to a nonexistant triumph. Blacks seeking to learn were burned alive or hanged, with the event turned into a carnival atmosphere. Blacks could be beaten, sold, or murdered (at least in theory) at will. Women were provided special protections every step of the way, from a male escort in dangerous times, to the security of marriage in comfortable ones, the worst most women can claim is that a man or men might have laughed at them, doubted them, or refused to help them. That might not be very nice behavior, but it is a loooooong way to violent abuse, murder, or outright slavery of any kind.

The things you talk about sound absolutely awful...but when you put them in historical context, or perform a little fact checking, the reasoning becomes crystal clear and makes perfect sense. One might not wish to apply those things today, but the same circumstances that existed then do not exist now. What you are offering up as the horrors and triumphs of feminism is a combination of historical revisionism that does not take into account the actual context in which those concerns, laws, and other matters existed, and mixing it with a fair bit of out and out untruths.

I'm sure you are NOT deliberately distorting the truth, you are repeating what was told to you or what you've read in feminist texts or heard from feminist revisionist teachers. It is one of my big complaints about present day education is that nobody teaches the importance of fact checking any longer.

Now to show you what I mean, I'm going to provide a few source materials. I can't provide it all sadly, some of the material is from textbooks I read long ago and don't have handy, but you'll find the ones I have here to be quite adequate:

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/divorce
http://www.canlaw.com/rights/thumbrul.htm
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3468300228.html
http://www.countriesquest.com/north_america/usa/people/family_life/19th-century_families.htm
http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm
http://www.bibliobase.com/history/readerscomp/women/html/wh_034300_singlewomen.htm

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And as far as body hair goes...I agree with you.
(sorry about posting the citations at the end instead of interspersed within, forgot to copy them over)

Robert, this is supposed to be a discussion, not a term paper...

I didn't even read your last two posts...way to much irrelevant rhetoric...

I feel my apology for a long post was unwarranted now. Seriously, Robert, if you can't find a way to scale down your arguments, then you don't need to be making them in this type of forum. Lord knows I like the sound of my own typing, but I also inspect my posts and make cuts where I've talked too long about something that actually has little to do with either the original topic or whomever's post it is I'm responding to.

Concision is your friend in written arguments. You may very well be making relevant points, but I can assure you that if I have to scroll down that long to read them, you've lost my interest. A certain amount of back-and-forth is necessary on blogs like this. One person posting so much without someone else responding means you're not discussing, you're speechifying. Keep the salient details and excise the rest.

Bulk, Robert. You write fatly.

Brevity is not my gift. *l*

@ numbersix about wearing dresses, particularly in the Tennessee heat.

In the hot DC summer I often wear a sarong and tee or other little top. It's cool, cute and feminine. Mind you, I only wear at home, I don't my my boyfriend unwinding me from my sarong but don't want to risk a stranger doing that in public ;-).

It would be beyond absurd to pretend that you can start having children and simultaneously continue to put as much focus into your work as you used to before that. Companies don't owe anyone anything --- the only valid question is whether or not you will continue to contribute enough value to a company for it to remain financially beneficial for them to continue to employ you and fund e.g. some maternity leave and so on. It's just a bit of math; are you bringing in more than you cost the company. All else equal, if you're raising children, you are less productive - period - and your salary should be based on your contributing value to the company combined with the market value for your skills. I have my own business and I had to put so much effort into starting the business for the first 6 years it was impossible to even have a relationship let alone babies. Now I'm keen to start a family, and I am not so naive as to pretend this isn't defocussing me from my business ... even just seriously *thinking* about having children has reduced my productivity *already* ... now it's less questions like "how can outplay our competition to get this next deal" or "what feature can I add to our software tonight" that keep me up at night but more questions like "would this woman I'm dating make a good mother" and "how does female fertility work" and "where would be a good place to purchase property for raising kids" etc. Things like 24-hour-solid coding sessions will become impossible once babies actually arrive.

A human can only focus on so much, and starting a family is a large and complex undertaking; making believe that it's possible to do so with no impact on your work is about as realistic as claiming the sky is pink.

And oh yes, speaking as an employer (including of women), I take exception to anyone who suggests that I should automatically make special provisions (that cost me money) for female employees who might want to have babies, if there is nothing in it for me, simply because 'aw shame it's tough being a mom' or because women are somehow entitled to babies and deserve special treatment from the world to make way for them, or something ... the only question for me in answer to 'should I pay more to give her special treatment' is 'how important is this employee to the company' ... if a woman employee is important to the company, and/or would bring in a lot of income even with children, then sure, then you're in a position of bargaining power with your employer. If you're easily replaceable with someone less demanding, then 'goodbye and thanks for playing'. Call me cold, but it's my money, I earned it, and I guarantee you that if it was your money we were talking about spending you'd feel exactly the same.

Okay, back to the original thread... although I feel that the "American standards of beauty" statement was written by this moron LW in anger, there are actually cultural differences regarding female hair. Back in the 80's I lived in Germany for several years, and women there (old or young, thin or fat, beautiful or ugly) don't really care about shaving or waxing at all. Women would simply not shave their legs and armpits, much less wax facial hair. I always found that disgusting, but perhaps some German women who weren't raised to regularly shave may find Amy's comments odd or even insulting.

I've always been a very hairy woman, and due to hormonal imbalances in recent years (hypothyroidism), my facial hair, specially mustach AND beard grow at a horrendously fast rate! I can't afford the expensive laser or wax treatments, but I can surely buy a pack of disposable razors once a month or so. I so much prefer to raise eyebrows for shaving my facial hair like a man, than raising eyebrows for looking like a man!

Lourdesv - yes, I think it was that way in Germany, but I had a chat about this with a young German friend and she says she shaves etc but her mum is more 'old school' about that. I think it's become generational.

Have you tried threading? I love it and get my eyebrows and mustache threaded.

I'm not sure that we have the threading technique in Mexico yet, but I'll look for it, it seems to be more effective and less painful than all the other methods. Thanks for the tip!

Back in the 80's I lived in Germany for several years, and women there (old or young, thin or fat, beautiful or ugly) don't really care about shaving or waxing at all.

Really? I'm a German guy, and it seems I really didn't notice that back then. (Maybe I carefully walked around them in order to not step on their fur...) The only hairy incident that comes to my mind is a young woman with a visible mustache who operated a small popcorn stand at an annual festival some 20 years ago. (The Heinerfest in Darmstadt, if anyone is interested.) I saw nobody buy any popcorn from her. On the next day of the festival she had been replaced. The story might be politically incorrect, but happens to be true.

"'Camille Paglia wrote, and I'm paraphrasing slightly, but its almost word for word, "A woman who goes to a man's apartment alone is consenting to sex."'"

Really? So if I go alone to a man's apartment this gives him the right to physically restrain me and/or injure me to enforce this 'consent'?

Only about a third of the way through this cracker of a thread. Just read this by Amy:

The Scots, Aussies, and New Zealanders were also pretty sexy. We used to joke that they came from the place "where men were men and sheep were nervous."

First time in a long time that I've actually been taken by surprise enough to make me laugh out loud. Stolen for my Facebook, if you don't mind - and referenced!

@ Rainer / May 25 / 8:07 a.m. ...you have me on the edge of my seat ...please, do tell, did the replacement popcorn seller actually sell popcorn because she was 'stacheless?

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@ AntoniaB / May 24 / 1:43 p.m. ...what is "threading"??

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@ Lobster / May 24 / 5:49 a.m. ...men are not made to become pregnant and give birth, therefore, you know not of what you speak, so i do forgive you for your caveman logic re: pregnancy and maternity leave. Goodbye and thanks for playing. Wow, that says it all.

Since moving to civilization this past year, I've noticed that there are a much larger amount of women NOT abiding by the stereotypical "american standards of beauty," than I used to think as a little girl. women quit shaving their legs, quit plucking thier eyebrowns, getting rid of the stache, not yet the armpit hair, but it'll catch on. I HATE shaving my legs, and yeah people go, 'the gross, i could never do that' but no ones ever ignored my because of it. the point is, yeah people care about lip hair, a uni brow, and hairy legs, but if you can deal with their words then after awhile, youre freed from the burden of pain and wasting time plucking hairs thatll grow back soon anyways! :D timbap_ajs

This is getting a bit more subjective, however this is a great blog.keep up the good work.

You are a complete IDIOT!! I have read the bill and the onlly people who will benefit are the losers..like welfare moms who won`t work,the illegals, oh and the gov. will even pay for someone to speak to them in their lang. so they will understand, and the elderly who are the ones who have paid into to it all these years what do they get?? well for sure they have to meet with someone from the gov. to make sure the understand end of life options!! at least every 5yrs.