But for whether society can get with it on the general equality scale--yes, I think that can happen. I don't see it happening right now, but I think it will eventually happen. I just get the feeling that is the direction our society is heading in right now. Yes, there are the minor (and occasionally major) issues now, but when you go back three hundred years issues of today seem less drastic.

Society seems cyclical (ooh, I got out of the spelling bee in sixth grade on that word and haven't forgotten it since, sorry about the side-tracking) and when you look even further back, say a mere three thousand years, there was a pretty equal world. In order to survive humanity had to put roughly equal workloads, duties, and consequently down time, that is, fun, on people. I can see that coming back soon.

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I am not who I appear to be.

The biggest thing I see about inequality that can be fixed is stereotyping. The handiest one that comes to mind right now is female nurses. But it's going to take a lot of effort to overcome, because it's so deeply rooted in culture.

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-- Sapphire Cat

Condense soup, not books!

I think that there are plenty of cases when both men and women get painted into corners and stereotyped. I don't think there is a problem with a woman being President of the United States, and I am fairly certain that I will see at least one female president during my lifetime.

The concept of sexy women being dumb as a rock is yet another stereotype that is basically meaningless. Nobody I know prefers dumb women, and there are a great many intelligent female role models out there for girls to grow up watching these days.

And as for the Anna Kournikova example, there are many cases of men being treated in the same manner. Kournikova has never won a major tennis tournament but it still one of the game's top 15 players. She has also graced the covers of dozens of magazines becuase some people evidently find her attractive. The same holds true for Derek Jeter who is a baseball player for the New York Yankees. He is not one of the game's foremost players, has never won a batting title or stolen many bases or been in the running for a home run title either. He is a fairly good player, but what makes him most appealing for the millions of dollars he makes annually as part of a series of endorsement contracts, is the fact that he is very handsome. Same holds true for Chipper Jones of baseball's Atlanta Braves. He has never been one of the game's best players, but still makes millions annually by way of his good looks. So let's be sure to remember that it isn't just women who are paid more for their appearances than anything else...men are subjected to the same treatment.

I like to think we're on the same path, these days. My college has a constituency that is overwhelmingly female, and it is not unusual for me to be one of four or five men in a classroom of 70-80; and one of about 20 men in a class of 300. More women are graduating from college now than men, and women are now enrolling in Master's and Doctoral programs with at a pace that far exceeds the amount of male enrollments. UCLA's Anderson School of Management predicts that by 2008 women will outnumber men in all graduate programs, including the Engineering fields that were almost completely male-dominated only five or six years ago.

Watch for this to also help to close the wage gap between men and women. It is still narrowing every year, and as more women begin to round out the fields of upper-level management and CEO/CFO positions in businesses, the Anderson School predicts that this gap will narrow itself out of existence.

Obviously, those things are still a ways off, but I tend to see things as getting better all the time. The best thing we can do, not as men and women, but as people; is to just be vigilant about spotting stereotypes and acting against them. Little things like that can help us all out, and will help to smooth things out a bit in the long run.

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"Verdugo, Engine 14; you can cancel all units responding to this structure fire...this is just a dishwasher gone bad."

I think equality is definitely not the same thing as "sameness." In some situations, I don't want to be treated the same as a man; I'm just not physically up to it. But in others, the same standards can and should apply. In other words, my biceps may not equal his, but I've got just as many brain cells. So when it comes to carrying boxes, I'll happily admit to being less able. That doesn't make me inferior, it's just a fact. When it comes to hunting down internet resources or managing a library (my chosen profession), however, I figure I stand a fair chance to being equal to any man and superior to some.

I also think that, at least in the U.S., sexual equality is finally an issue. Several male friends have told me that not only are they not bothered by women with sexual experience, they prefer them. (Then again, I'm well past my teens and so are the males I interviewed, so these guys might have some difficulty finding women of equal age without any sexual experience.) Also, like Dan, these men prefer intelligent women. They don't want eye-candy, they want wmen who can be partners and friends as well as lovers.

The fact of the matter is that we're all on the short end of the stick when it comes to discrimination. The mere fact that discrimination based upon gender happens at all is sickening enough, why try to compare who has it worse? All the energy that is expended on doing that could just as easily be expended doing something about it. Why not take that route instead?

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"Verdugo, Engine 14; you can cancel all units responding to this structure fire...this is just a dishwasher gone bad."

I'm reasonably certain you would find the Violence Against Women Act to be part of the de jure discrimination you despise, since the name implies that it contains laws specifically geared towards one gender which does not offer any protection for the other. In fact though, the entire VAWA contains numerous enhancements in penalties such as assault, rape, and domestic violence; all crimes which can occur against both men and women. The enhancements are not gender-specific, and I have actually used VAWA provisions in several arrests I made for domestic violence cases where the man of the house was the victim. In one case, this included finding a suitable shelter for the man to live in while he made arrangements to move. The shelter we ended up housing him in was created in 1999 with funds that sprang forth from the VAWA, and there was another man with his two children already at that shelter who were in the process of leaving an abusive home as well. It works both ways.

And as for men being the only victims of de jure discrimination, I would look towards your friendly neighborhood Affirmative Action program for evidence that other groups are discriminated against quite legally too. While I am all in favor of programs that bring some sort of equality to groups who have been "underprivileged", I believe using race as a tool to hand out opportunities and deny some to others is a misguided approach. Not all whites are affluent, not all blacks are poor. Yet laws exist in all 50 states (although some have taken steps to curtail some of them in recent years after California passed the still-unimplemented Proposition 209 in 1998) and on the Federal level as well that deny scholarships, aid, college entrances, and employment to members of certain ethnic or racial groups; and dole them out to members of other racial or ethnic groups instead. These programs are seen by some to be the last of the Jim Crow-style "Race Laws", and they effect women as well as men.

Its very easy for all of us, women and men, minority or majority, to become so focused and aware of the slights we perceive against us, that we fail to recognize or realize that there are injustices occurring everywhere against everyone at some point. Discrimination of any sort is not limited to either gender, and there is certainly more than enough ignorance and stereotyping to go around. Life holds more promise when we each take a look outside of the troubles we see within our particular group, and look to see where other people are struggling or what other groups are suffering from. Maybe by giving that a shot, John, it would help you realize that you are not alone at all.

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"Verdugo, Engine 14; you can cancel all units responding to this structure fire...this is just a dishwasher gone bad."

I admire your willingness, Dan, to enforce the domestic violence in a fair and gender nuetral way, however, I think you are in a disitinct minority. The police act within a societal framework that sees domestic violence to be something that is almost always done by men to women, and thus when they go to the scene the do so with that framework in mind. Is that de jure or de facto discrimination, or something sort of in the middle, somewhat akin to people who are arrested for "Driving while Black". Deplorable, but it does happen.

In the relm of de facto discrimination there is plenty of fault to go around on both sides, although the stuff that goes against women is far more widely pointed out and discussed.

For example, hollywood is often critisized for being anti woman, ie not enough good roles for women. But its almost always men who are killed in the movies, and when they die it is with out any tenderness or feeling, just bang their dead, move on to the next scene. And these are movies we have no problem showing at prime viewing hours for kids. A movie where a woman is at serious risk of being killed, will usually get an R rating, and it will probably go for the whole movie with the one woman in danger (and about a dozen men getting killed along the way) before she is eventually saved.
In sit com land, men are almost universally viewed as dolts while the women are shown to be competent.

There are plenty of others here who point out discrimination against women. i seem to be the only one who presents the other side of the coin. For example Igray started off this thread by pointing out FGM. that is indeed deplorable, but it happens in remote tribal cultures (I know I am being a little US centric here, but its not something that happens in the US, or Europe, or Japan, or Austrailia etc). On the other hand MGM is the most common surgical proceedure in the US, and is done without anthestisia, and with out the consent of the one it is done to. In many of the cultures that practice FGM, they also practice MGM at around puberty (ie the Maasi of Kenya and Tanzinia)

However, sans the language, as John described, men certainly can suffer depression and anxiety related to the changes and pressures a family or a new baby creates.

But I think when you see litigation which surrounds postpartum depression specifically, it needs to be understood that while that may seem like an inequity, it isn't simply because that condtion is specific to women, in the same way that we would not make an allowance legally for a woman with erectile dysfunction or prostate cancer because she cannot have those conditions, even though if her partner had these things, she may have her own anxieties surrounding those issues.

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Heather Corinna
Editor and Founder, Scarleteen

My epitaph should read: "She worked herself into this ground."
-- Kay Bailey Hutchinson

As for the mistreatment of women I firmly that we only truly have the rights and freedoms we are willing to fight and die for. Rights are not a set of indulgences on the part of the government or society. Rights define the point at which society ends and the individual begins. Where that point is depends on where you want it to be and how hard you fight to get it there. No one should be abused or treated as a lesser being because of their sex. But the plain and brutal truth is that unless someone fights for fair treatment they aren't going to get it. When they do fight for fair treatment they may be ridiculed, arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and even murdered. Or if enough people join them in the fight they may in fact win. That is the price of freedom. Pay up or shut up.

Groups like the ACLU and NRA work to protect the first and second amendments. Perhaps a dedicated group working to promote and protect the rights of fathers as parents would be the way to go. I'm sure that groups like this already exist although I wouldn't know what their names would be. Other than that perhaps a little civil disobedience would be in order. If you're paying child support but aren't being allowed to spend time with your child or children, perhaps refusing to pay would be the way to go to draw attention to your cause. I don't mean just stop paying and wait for the gestapo to come beat down your door, I mean shout it out loud and clear to all concerned that unless and until you are allowed time with your child that all of your child support payments would be going into an account set aside for them. That you are willing to pay child support, but that being a father means more than sending a check every month. Obviously you should have a lawyer. Send all this in writing to any shyster she might have on the payroll as well as to the court. The fact that you are the one paying child support gives you a certain ammount of leverage I would think. Your ex wants your money, perhaps to help support your child and perhaps not. Either way the fact that you are ultimately the one who controls whether she gets it or not means that you should be able to set a few reasonable conditions and ensure that they are met. You may end up in trouble with the courts in the short run, but then the question becomes what price are you willing to pay?

Of course I'm just a wet behind the ears little punk who thinks he's smarter than eveyrone else. Feel free to ignore me.

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We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

- Albert Einstein

How did this guy get mixed up with a woman who would pull something like that in the first place?

I just wanted to mention that because low IQ numbers have been thrown around as an insult in this thread and a couple of others on the boards as of late.

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Louise Lalonde
-Scarleteen Sexpert & Volunteer du Jour

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Doe:
I am not aware of any woman who has gone to jail for posting a false charge of the husband sexually abusing the kids.

---

You know John, that is something that I noticed out here as well...that although there have been cases where women were charged with perjury for pressing false charges of abuse, it seems to be a fairly small percentage of the cases where false charges are deemed to have been filed. Two years ago in Pasadena, California; a woman who did not want her two children to have any visitation with their birth father filed molestation charges against the man, who was later found "factually innocent." This meant that she could be tried for perjury, and the District Attorney actually went for it. The woman received a 90-day jail sentence, probation, and lost custody of her children.

But I also know of several cases in my own jurisdiction (one which I actually worked on, others I only heard about secondhand) where one party filed false charges on the other and was not tried for perjury once the charges were found to be unsubstantiated.

I do not have enough evidence to back a claim that women are less likely to be tried for perjury than men are, but I definitely see a trend where people are lying under oath as part of some revenge scheme and are not always being called on it. That trend disturbs me, because while it is certain that lies are told in court, not punishing those who are caught lying sets a rather foul precedent. I wonder if perhaps some District Attornies simply believe it is better to allow serious charges like those of molestation to go forward even when there is not clear-cut evidence, simply to avoid looking like they are "soft on crime." That wouldn't surprise me one bit, if it were the case.

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"Task Force 46, Light Force 34, Engine and Rescue 66, Battalion 3, Division 2; respond into the Greater Alarm Structure Fire at San Pedro and Jefferson. Reported to be a fire at the First Alert fire extinguisher factory..."

By the way, if the dad had been found guilty, what would the likely jail time have been. Dollars to dougnuts it would have been a lot more than 90 days. Did this woman have to register for the rest of her life with the authorities on a list that is open to the public. A list that could indanger her very life? Even in the rare case that a woman gets prosecuted for it, the punishment is a joke by comparision.

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Doe:
[B]By the way, if the dad had been found guilty, what would the likely jail time have been. Dollars to dougnuts it would have been a lot more than 90 days. Did this woman have to register for the rest of her life with the authorities on a list that is open to the public. A list that could indanger her very life? Even in the rare case that a woman gets prosecuted for it, the punishment is a joke by comparision.
B]

---

Agreed...but that is apples and oranges. Child molestation and perjury are two different crimes with two different ramifications. While both show lapses in integrity, I would argue that one has far more serious and long-lasting repurcussions than another. No matter how you slice it.

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"Task Force 46, Light Force 34, Engine and Rescue 66, Battalion 3, Division 2; respond into the Greater Alarm Structure Fire at San Pedro and Jefferson. Reported to be a fire at the First Alert fire extinguisher factory..."

I doubt there is a reasonable study on this matter so I'll just quote some wise words posted above.

quote:

---

The fact of the matter is that we're all on the short end of the stick when it comes to discrimination. The mere fact that discrimination based upon gender happens at all is sickening enough, why try to compare who has it worse? All the energy that is expended on doing that could just as easily be expended doing something about it.
Why not take that route instead?

---

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Louise Lalonde
-Scarleteen Sexpert & Volunteer du Jour

Now does 90 days in jail seem like adiquate punishment for some one who deliberatly and premeditadilly put someone through this. (and that is for one of the very rare cases that get prosecuted at all)

My point was that we can never know which is worse or if one injustice can be worse than another. It is all a matter of opinion. Arguing about it only leads to bitterness. At least that is my perception.

Here is a quote that brought me some peace of mind.

quote:

---

Do not search for the truth;
Only cease to cherish opinions.
If there is even a trace
Of this and that,
Of right and wrong,
The mind will be lost
In confusion.
Although all dualities
Come from the One
Do not remain in the dualistic state.

- Seng-Tsan (d.606)

---

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Louise Lalonde
-Scarleteen Sexpert & Volunteer du Jour

John, I think that you're mostly worried (and rightly so) about the cases where the perjurer is not caught. But in this case, where she was, it seems kind of vindictive to fret about what *might* have happened if she hadn't been caught, and punish her based on that.

(For instance, I have NEVER seen any onformation perttaining to sexual abuse victims across the board that shows the more attention paid, the more they suffer. I have seen some THEORIES akin to that regarding consensual child/adult interchages, but none on actual abuse and molestation)

If I can help to sum up the less heated of the arguments here, what I am hearing is that many feel we have equal amounts of justices and injustices between male and female genders.

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Heather Corinna
Editor and Founder, Scarleteen

As someone who has worked in sexuality and early childhood education for over a decade, I can assure you that there has yet to be even one reputable study in my endeavors which I have found working in these fields that showed that a majority of children generally were LESS affected by sexual abuse or adult/child sexual interchages due to how the incident was treated alone (or that how any incident is treated with alarm or dismay unilaterally lessens or decreases effect), and I would be very surprised to even hear of one this early in the game that a researcher truly felt was accurate and reliable with most findings, since only in relatively recent times have we even had the cultural awareness about sexual abuse for children to disclose it when it occurs. As well, I have a hard time imagining how you would isolate that single aspect of the abuse and its effects to even make that sort of determination.

So please (everyone), just watch how you deliver "facts" when you state them as such, even if another author somewhere states them that way. And if you're going to deliver them, for the purposes of conversation that can flow and not come off as lecturing, or attacks or just plain dogma, saying "I find that such and such, " or "In what I have read I saw that so and so," or "Mr. Jack Smith says that..." Really, it makes a big difference, especially when it comes to keeping the boards a place for conversation in which people want to participate rather than flee in the opposite direction.

Thanks.

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Heather Corinna
Editor and Founder, Scarleteen

My epitaph should read: "She worked herself into this ground."
-- Kay Bailey Hutchinson

Factors which are relavent to that variablity may include:
1) Age of the minor
2) Degree of consent by the minor
3) gender of the minor
4) the nature of the sexual acts involved
5) how other adults react to the relationship after it is discovered
6) If the relationship with the adult is seen as "sex only" or contains a deeper emotional component.
7) the relative age discrepency between the mior and the adult.
8) is the relationship family (ie incest) or non family.

Of course, men are physically suited to do certain things better than women, and football is a good example, given that women have to deal with breast protection (though men need groin protection- not so large an area though) and generally don't have as much upper body strength. In support of your arguement, there are ways in which women are stronger than men- for instance, I don't think many men could handle childbirth or period pains.

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Heather Corinna
Editor and Founder, Scarleteen

My epitaph should read: "She worked herself into this ground."
-- Kay Bailey Hutchinson

"I just wanted to mention that generalizing that intelligence and IQ scores are some how related to ethical behaviour is just plain unkind. I have worked with plenty of people who would fall below the three digits and are very kind and generous people.

I just wanted to mention that because low IQ numbers have been thrown around as an insult in this thread and a couple of others on the boards as of late."

I did not mean to imply that there was a correlation between intelligence and manners, or intelligence and ethics. My point was that the real threat of losing one's children should be sufficient motivation to get someone to play nice. Unless of course she is only using the children as a weapon and cares little about them otherwise. Anyone who would file false charges like that might actually not care about her children. If that is the case then the situation is even simpler, make sure she fears you. Fear is a more powerful emotion than love. Love is inconstant, fear tends to be very steady. Clearly any woman who would file such charges does not see you as a friend and will likely never see you as one. Working to gain her favor is a waste of time when it is much easier and more effective to work to make her afraid of you. Now by that I don't mean fear of physical harm, I mean fear of legal action or the loss of her reputation. When it comes right down to it she has much more to lose than you do. You've already lost your children and you're having to pay money out every month. How much more can you lose? Hire a private investigator to dig up any and all dirt on her you can. Then let her know about SOME of the things you've found. Let her know that you'll use the information against her if she continues to pursue her present course you. If she doesn't listen drop the hammer on her. Once or twice should be enough to convince her you mean business. Make sure she understands that if she does X then Y will happen. If she doesn't do X then Y will not happen.

This not playing nice, this is playing dirty. Playing nice is for baseball games and for situations where the other party has always played nice. Playing dirty is for situations where the other party has not played nice. Obviously if a man's ex-wife is behaving ethically there is no reason do anything harsh to her at all. In that situation it is better to pursue friendship than fear.