Oppression of women

[Coggeh]

Having an argument with my friend he's saying women aren't oppressed in Ireland anymore because under the law women have full equal status as men , blah blah .

Any takers?

Edit : if anyone could address the other stupid claim that , how come women can make jokes about men to men but not the other way around ?

[casper]

...social double standards.

[Dóchas]

i havent read all of it but this seems ok

http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Media_and_public_information/Press_releases/lang--en/WCMS_008091/index.htm

[peaccenicked]

Hmm,
http://struggle.ws/wsm/rbr/rbr7/abortion.html

[Module]

Well, Ireland is ranked 8th in the world in gender equality, which is pretty good.
But where women are unequal is shown here (http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/ggg08_ireland.pdf).
So just link that to him. That will be enough (unless he's a moron).

Edit: and as for you question, why can women make jokes about men and not the other way around.. they shouldn't, but like with 'anti-white' racism, for example, men are not in a position of social and economic inferiority and jokes made towards them are not supported by wider social discrimination and do not support/justify economic oppression already faced by them.
But gender roles are something which effect both men and women, and sexism towards both genders, like racism, only causes division where there should be none, and a division that can be promoted by both sides.

[Holden Caulfield]

Abortion Issues should be a talking point im not well read enought to raise

[BobKKKindle$]

Even if women were somehow legally equal to men, which would require abortion to be freely available at all stages of pregnancy, women would still not be equal in real terms, because looking at the situation of an oppressed group within society solely from a legal perspective obscures the ways in which social and economic inequalities can impact the position of women and limit their ability to enjoy genuine equality. In particular, the continued dominance of gender roles and the expectations that accompany these roles means that large numbers of women, especially those who are unable to afford domestic care because of their socioeconomic status, are still compelled to perform tasks within the confines of the home, such as bringing up young children, preparing meals for the other members of the family unit, and so on, and these domestic obligations systematically limit the ability of women to obtain financial independence and participate in society on an equal basis with men. For example, the need to carry out these tasks means that women often find that the only kind of employment which allows them to manage the dual obligations of fulfilling domestic responsibility and making a contribution to the income of the family unit is part time work, which generally offers low pay and inadequate opportunities for promotion.

As always, look beyond the surface, the bourgeois facade of legal equality, and you find inequalities of wealth and power.

[ls]

Abortion Issues should be a talking point im not well read enought to raise

This is true, abortion in Ireland takes a massively Catholic point of view.

http://www.safeandlegalinireland.ie/sl_law.html


1861: Abortion is made a criminal offence in Ireland

1983: Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution is amended to protect ‘the right to life of the unborn’

1992 (February): Justice Costello grants High Court injunction preventing a 14 year old, pregnant as a result of rape, from travelling to the UK for an abortion.
..


Then this happened.



Costello J. granted an injunction in the High Court preventing a pregnant 14 year old rape victim from leaving Ireland to have an abortion in England. Amid public outcry, the Supreme Court overturned his decision two weeks later to allow her to go, ruling that

‘if it is established…that there is a real and substantial risk to the life, as distinct from the health, of the mother, which can only be avoided by the termination of her pregnancy, such termination is permissible.’

Here, the Court held that there was a real and substantial risk of suicide if the pregnancy continued; thus the termination was permissible even in Ireland.

However, where no such risk existed, both information and possibly travel could be prevented in the interest of safeguarding the right to life of the ‘unborn’. The Government then entered a Declaration to the Protocol, saying that they would not use it to restrict travel orinformation.

..

1992(Nov) THE TRAVEL AND INFORMATION REFERENDA

..

Travel
‘Subsection 3 of this section (Article 40.3.3) shall not limit freedom to travel between the State and another state’

Information
‘Subsection 3 of this section shall not limit freedom to obtain or make available, in the State, subject to conditions as may be laid down by law, information relating to services lawfully available in another state.’

Abortion
‘It shall be unlawful to terminate the life of an unborn unless such termination is necessary to save the life, as distinct from the health, of the mother where there is an illness or disorder of the mother giving rise to a real and substantial risk to her life, not being a risk of self-destruction’


It remains so that abortion is essentially in Ireland, illegal.

This is verified on the Irish government website's green paper on abortion: http://www.google.com/custom?q=cache:rKr8qEfV22YJ:www.taoiseach.gov.ie/attached_files/Pdf%2520files/GreenPaperOnAbortion.pdf+abortion.


The current situation therefore is that, constitutionally, termination of pregnancy is not legal in this country unless it meets the conditions laid down by the Supreme Court in the X case; information on abortion services abroad can be provided within the terms of the Regulation of Information (Services outside the State for Termination of Pregnancies) Act, 1995; and, in general, women can travel abroad for an abortion.

[TC]

Women in Ireland haven't achieved legal equally with men.

-Men are permitted under law to have sex with the opposite gender without state sanction;

-If women in Ireland have sex with the opposite gender the state enforced consequences range from torture, genital mutilation, scaring, public notice that they committed the offense, often loss of freedom of movement, and more rarely death. Of course, as with any defacto crime, many get away with it, but the more often they do it, the more likely the above described state imposed consequences are to occur.

So as you can see Ireland retains policies towards women that would be viewed as truly medieval if they were applied to men!

[Kassad]

Ridiculous. We have civil rights laws in the United States stating that black men are equal to white men, but are they always treated that way? Of course not. Even having a black president does not eliminate racism. The United States of America was founded on the fraud of 'all men are created equal.' Hell, the man who wrote that went home and likely whipped, berated and fucked his slaves. How's that for massive contradiction and hypocrisy? Those who are not prejudiced, but still ignorant, are just as bad as those who are prejudiced, in my opinion. Ignorance to the massive levels of inequality, prejudice and lack of affirmative action are consistent and people who fail to see that are incredibly naive.

[iraqnevercalledmenigger]

The main thing I would point out in response to the point on legal equality is to assume that there was legal equality between men and women and then show how legal discrimination and oppression (de jure) is put a support of still existing (de facto) discrimination and oppression of women in any society.

I would add that "legal equality" is not some kind of abstract concept, it has a class nature, in Ireland it is bourgeois legality, which means that it is not set in stone and can be used against women, or taken back in times of crisis. Nonetheless whatever gains for women (such as non-discrimination provisions in the work place) are contained in those laws must be seen as a result (directly or indirectly, someone with more knowledge on Ireland can fill in) of the class struggle and the fight for women's liberation.

Going through the motions to show how Marxists view women's oppression in society and the role of the family and domesticity roles in the "double exploitation" (in the home and on the job) of women would definitely be helpful.

[Rascolnikova]

You really don't need to bring abortion into it to have a strong case.

Consider: Men and women who are "equal under the law" get the same amount of maternity leave, but if that amount is inadequate, who suffers more? This applies to basically every part of parenting--not because it has to, but because effectively, women do massively more parenting than men. It also reaches backwards into the abortion debate; if women and men are forbidden abortions--equally under the law--who suffers?

Edit: And the reason we can make jokes about men but not the other way around is that we make 25% less and are almost 100% more likely to be raped for walking down the street. They can fucking deal.

[Herman]

Even if it were true that there was gender equality in law, it does not mean that women aren't oppressed.

Legal equality does not automatically lead to emancipation. The European Union boasts of putting forward laws and regulations which stop "oppression" or "inequality", but no matter how many laws there are, they will not fundamentally challenge the social and cultural patriarchy of society. Take Spain as an example. Two or three years ago they passed the "law of gender equality", which increased the number of judges and changed the penal code to make punishment for house wive murderers harsher. Yet house wives continue to be killed by their husbands.

[benhur]

-If women in Ireland have sex with the opposite gender the state enforced consequences range from torture, genital mutilation, scaring, public notice that they committed the offense, often loss of freedom of movement, and more rarely death. Of course, as with any defacto crime, many get away with it, but the more often they do it, the more likely the above described state imposed consequences are to occur.


Are you serious? This sounds more like taliban. Can you provide evidence?

[More Fire for the People]

Have him read The Second Sex. Despite 'civic' equality in many western European countries, women still have a subordinate and inherit unequal position in western European social relations. For instance, Irish women still earn less than their male counterparts in the workforce (http://www.esri.ie/publications/search_for_a_publication/search_results/view/index.xml?id=1474). And in addition to pay inequality, women are often to engage in service labor in the household unpaid. A baby-sitter would earn approximately €207.60 for the same 24-hour job a mother performs. Finally, there's the glaring, festering biggest form of oppression: the denial of a woman's right to choose to terminate her pregnancy.

[Rascolnikova]

A major point on the "jokes" question is the underlying ideological message. Often jokes made about women affirm oppression while jokes made about men attempt to resist it, even if they do so crudely and ineffectively.

Personally I don't believe that there are any topics, including gender and gender violence, that should be off limits for humor--the qualifying criteria should be the ideological content--what the jokes say about what's normal and what ought to be normal--not the subject matter.

I'm actually a big fan of jokes like the following:


why couldn't Hellen Keller Drive?
Because she was a woman.

(to a friend canning vegetables from her garden, or any person engaging in an environmentally concious act. . ) "well, at least you're raping the earth slightly less. . . but then, she was asking for it, dressed like that."The irony these jokes depend on for their humor is the absolute absurdity of repressive gender myths. . . in the context that those myths aren't or shouldn't be reflected in reality. I think we need a lot more humor like this.

What we don't need are more like this:

1. Elementary Map Reading

2. Crying and Law Enforcement

3. Advanced Math Seminar: Programming Your VCR

4. You CAN Go Shopping for Less than 4 Hours

5. Gaining Five Pounds vs. The End of the World: A Study in Contrast

6. The Seven-Outfit Week

7. PMS: It's YOUR Problem, Not Mine "It's Happened Monthly Since Puberty....... Deal With it"

8. Driving I: Getting Past Automatic Transmissions

9. Driving II: The Meaning of Blinking Orange Lights

10. Driving III: Approximating a Constant Speed

11. Driving IV: Makeup and Driving: It's As Simple As Oil and Water

12. Football: Not a Game: A Sacrament

13. Telephone Translations: formerly titled "'Me Too' Equals I Love You"

14. How to Earn Your Own Money

15. Gift-giving Fundamentals: formerly titled "Fabric Bad, Electronics Good"

16. Putting the Seat Down By Yourself: Potential Energy is on Your Side

17. Beyond "Clean and Dirty": The Nuances of Wearable Laundry

18. Yes, You Can Fill Up At A Self Serve Station

19. Joys of the Remote Control: Reaping the Benefits of 50+Channels

20. What Goes Around Comes Around: Why His Credit Card is Not a Toy

21. His Best Friend Can Be Yours Too

22. His Poker Games: Deal Yourself Out

23. Commitment Schmittment (formerly titled "Wedlock Schmedlock"

24. To Honor and Obey: Remembering the Small Print Above "I Do"

25. Why Your Mother Is Unwelcome In The House

26. Your Mate: Selfish Bastard, or Victimized Sensitive Man?
You'll notice that this list also derives it's humor from the absurdity of traditional gender roles, but from the perspective that they are a normative and probably unchangeable part of the world. It also takes the tone that these constant and unchanging gender difficulties are really a minor annoyance--aren't women stupid and cute, and shouldn't they stop complaining?

The kind of humor that puts a glossy coating on gender stereotypes picks up a lot of legitimization from items like the list above--which is actually very funny and resonates a lot with many people's reality. This becomes quite dangerous when we bring the subject matter in to the realm of gender violence--like these:


What's the first thing a woman does when she gets back from the battered women's clinic?
The god damned dishes if she knows what's good for her.


At the 2002 World Women's conference, the first speaker from Canada, stood up "At last years conference we spoke about being more assertive with our husbands. Well, after the conference I went home and told my husband I would no longer cook for him, and that he would have to do it himself. Afer the first day I saw nothing. After the second day I saw nothing. But after the third day I saw that he had cooked a wonderful roast lamb".

The crowd stood up, applauded and cheered.

The second speaker, from France, stood up
"After last years conference I went straight home and told my husband that I would no longer do his laundry and that he would have to do it himself. After the first day I saw nothing. After the second day I saw nothing. But after the third day I saw that not only had he done his own, but my washing as well".

Once again the audience rose to their feet, applauded and cheered.

The third speaker, from Scotland stood up "After last year's conference ah went home and tolt ma man that I widnae doo his cookin, cleanin or shoppin, and he wid hiftae doo it himsell. After the first day I saw nothin, after the second day I saw nothin, but after the third day, I could see a wee bit oota ma left eye" So what's wrong with these jokes? Certainly in some contexts they could be alright--for example, I'm such a. . . er. . . ardent feminist, that if I told them in just about any social context it would be very clear what was intended. These jokes could come off rather in the tone (dry, bitter, and violent sarcasm) of my standard response to anyone who announces that we are, or ought to be, "post-feminist:" "God yes, we can vote and own property, I don't know what we keep whinging on about."

The problem is with domestic violence jokes is that they're implicitly much more heavy handed. Unless contextualized to highlight the absolute wrongness involved, there's only one way for domestic violence jokes to be funny--and that is a profound denial of female subjectivity and humanity. Nobody thinks it's funny when they can't see for three days because someone bigger than them beat them up, so the only humor here is the ultimate absurdity of a society in which such things are acceptable--or at least, that's the only humor here if you relate to the joke's protagonist at all.



Now, if the person you're talking to is incapable of following a nuanced argument, the best response, if you can get away with it--and I'm being quite serious here--is "quit being stupid, and if you can't manage to quit being stupid, at least quit acting stupid till you figure it out." This works best if you're a social leader, or perceived as extremely smart--but even if they laugh you off, remember that everyone has normative influence. For "normal" to mean that there are a few weirdos in every crowd who won't put up with sexist jokes, and everyone else seems to hate them, that's still much better than "normal" being that no one seems to mind at all.




Also-

biggest form of oppressionNonsense. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1270852&postcount=1)

[Killfacer]

Want to hear a joke?

Women's rights

More seriously however is the fact that bobkindles/kassas (neither of which i tend to agree with on anything) are spot on. They may be equal under the law (which i doubt they are fully anyway) but that's only half of the matter.

[gorillafuck]

Sexism goes much farther than equal rights according to the law (even though women still are not equal under the law)


Women in Ireland haven't achieved legal equally with men.

-Men are permitted under law to have sex with the opposite gender without state sanction;

-If women in Ireland have sex with the opposite gender the state enforced consequences range from torture, genital mutilation, scaring, public notice that they committed the offense, often loss of freedom of movement, and more rarely death. Of course, as with any defacto crime, many get away with it, but the more often they do it, the more likely the above described state imposed consequences are to occur.

So as you can see Ireland retains policies towards women that would be viewed as truly medieval if they were applied to men!
Is that a joke? I'm having serious trouble believing that....

[Coggeh]

Sexism goes much farther than equal rights according to the law (even though women still are not equal under the law)


Is that a joke? I'm having serious trouble believing that....
ya me too .....and I live in Ireland:blink:

[Pogue]

How would we get rid of perceived societal gender norms?

[More Fire for the People]

By making non-compliance as normal as the norm.

[Pogue]

By making non-compliance as normal as the norm.

So you mean rejection of 'gender norms' on a personal level?

[Cumannach]

In a capitalist country the majority of men and women suffer oppression. The majority of people are wage slaves. So if men and women are equal in a capitalist society it's that they're equally oppressed, neither one more than the other, taking everything in to account. I don't believe women in Ireland or most European countries are hugely more oppressed than men, I'm happy to say. True there are still differences but I think they mostly balance each other out. That doesn't mean that in any aspect whatsoever things are as they should be. Rape crisis centers will never be properly funded in a capitalist country (women bear most though not all of the consequences of this) nor will there ever be a properly funded suicide prevention program (men bear the brunt of this) nor will screening, prevention and treatment of breast cancer(women) or prostate cancer(men) ever be able to reach their full potential or effectiveness, and so on.

I think the fact that women are under-represented in bourgeois parliamentary politics is of little interest to anyone really concerned with oppression.

One thing I will say about abortion. Although I'm in favour of reproductive rights, men and women in Ireland are unfortunately equal in this respect, neither having control over their reproduction, though women are able to cross over the pond and enable their right there. Men are disenfranchised of that right on both sides of the pond.

[Pogue]

I think theres still sexual oppresion for both genders by stupid norms, i.e. expectation of tough, reserved cool 'stud' males or 'slaggish' cute, quiet, caring females or whatever. And obviously the shit of women as homemakers, mothers, etc, you know, not having a job, not being able to assert themselves. But I think its a personal thing and its going, its gone for alot of people. Altohugh obviously theres still shit like the pay gap, which I've heard is still pretty strong (i wouldnt know i'm on the fucking minimum wage anyway).

[More Fire for the People]

So you mean rejection of 'gender norms' on a personal level?
Well if that's what you want to do but it's also more complex than that. Gender norms are a social relationship and you've gotta change that social dynamic if you wanna make the world safe for everyone regardless of their gender identity (or lack thereof). That requires struggle and political organization.