HonyakuJoshua Wrote:

IceCream Wrote:Seriously, you want Germaine Greer to start talking about stuff she hasn't researched and basically will not be an expert on? Would you expect your average Japanese professor to be called on to speak about the Cree Indian culture too??

No, the media'll call up an expert on another subject when they want to discuss another subject, not just "someone famous" who has a cause. I hope, anyway.

I am just saying that I think *some* feminists, and Germaine Greer is a good example, focus too heavily on womens rights when there are horrific things going on such as the deaths of cockle pickers on Morecambe Bay. Just out of interest, without googling it had you heard of this case?

PS thanks for the blog comment!

Of course i've heard of it!!! It was all over the news when it happened!!!!

Well, i think that it's horrific that the news goes on about a few of cockle pickers who died when they could be telling about the horrors that are going on in the Congo, or Sudan.

^^that's sarcasm btw. I think all these things are important to learn about, and the media should devote due attention to all of them. And they should call up experts in all cases, not Germaine Greer

Chomsky is, as far as I am aware, still an MIT professor. He did comment on linguistics and politics at the same time.

I referred to Galloway as he campaigns on a number of issues some seemingly contradictory. He knows a lot more than many politicians.

I just think it is a shame that many, admittedly well meaning feminists focus on stereotypical feminist issues and ignore issues like women working as slaves in the Chinese community.

Edit: I asked if you had heard of it because many people haven't and these self-same people would be up in arms about much less important issues.

but there ARE a huge number of people involved in those issues too. Slavery (and not just slavery of women, men too) is the major priority for tons of other academics, pressure groups, people in government, police, etc.

Again, they may be slightly different groups than those working to fight traditional sexism against women, because the issues at hand are so different, and will require such different research methods. But both ARE definately being fought. Remember the raid on that gypsy farm recently where they were keeping slaves for like 20 years or so? (that's just outside my town lol. Pretty sick when i think that i've been living near a slave camp nearly my whole life).

IceCream Wrote:but there ARE a huge number of people involved in those issues too. Slavery (and not just slavery of women, men too) is the major priority for tons of other academics, pressure groups, people in government, police, etc.

Again, they may be slightly different groups than those working to fight traditional sexism against women, because the issues at hand are so different, and will require such different research methods. But both ARE definately being fought. Remember the raid on that gypsy farm recently where they were keeping slaves? (that's just outside my town lol. Pretty sick when i think that i've been living near a slave camp nearly my whole life).

I can think of people in the states reading this and not understanding... I personally think not enough resources are spent covering the hidden treatment of women in brothels etc and too much time is spent having a go at wallies like Jeremy Clarkson etc.

[Zgarbas]

...
So basically what you want is that people should ignore all precise problems. They shouldn't focus on any exact problems because that makes them miss the bigger picture in which everything is shit. However, the reason that you mind them not focusing on the bigger picture is that particular events are being ignored in favor of the particular events that said people choose to focus on.

Because surely a feminist speaker from 1970s America should focus on a country like China, where there are no human rights whatsoever but hey why don't they focus on that it's not like it's a different country in a different continent where Westerners can't do anything anyway. And to prove that there are many issues you switch from one thing to another, rendering a normal conversation impossible. now THAT'S public speaking skills.

And hey look these critically acclaimed for being multi-focused indivuduals could do it, and they're not feminists right? Ignoring the fact that Chomsky supports feminism(btw, personal quirk, I feel that saying a man supports feminism instead of "is a feminist" is a bit misleading. Ah, silly language).

It's kind of strange that you would expect feminists invited on TV to speak about the death of cockle pickers, however horrible that may be. It's not like they own the news channel and make up the schedule. They just get invited to speak, say 5 minutes, about issue X. Then they're off the air.

And concerning that other girl, well first you should stop confusing feminists and lesbians. They're not the same thing. And you say that you don't understand why she would be flustered? You said that gay rights don't matter when she's gay herself. That's like telling a black man that Black Rights are not important and being surprised when he's offended.

HonyakuJoshua Wrote:I can think of people in the states reading this and not understanding... I personally think not enough resources are spent covering the hidden treatment of women in brothels etc and too much time is spent having a go at wallies like Jeremy Clarkson etc.

Well, i've never thought Jeremy Clarkson was particularly interesting, and certainly not newsworthy. If they start taking up news time with some dumb thing he's said, or take up a documentary slot with some program about him, i'm going to agree with you.

But if he says something horrible, i do think it's perfectly justified for another entertainment program to call him up on it, and people to react to that. After all, it's the population who watch his shows, and also pay for him to entertain them, so the BBC shouldn't let him offend certain groups of people with our money. There's a proper time and place for most discussions, i think.

I don't know if it's just a coincidence but Clarkson is the one who made a joke about Cockle Pickers...

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/media/news/a...-joke.html

That made me chuckle (not the joke). The joke is actually quite mean.

oh the irony. ^_^

it's mean, but, i dunno, i don't think people should take him, or life too seriously either. Laughing at horrific things is one way of dealing with them, and i doubt even he really thinks that the actual underlying issues are funny or trivial. It's just a certain type of british dark humour, really.

ahahah who knows, maybe he has a secret agenda to keep these issues being brought back into people's minds.

Yeah, I doubt that he has any kind of agenda, he's just trying to be funny. But some jokes are better kept private. I'd be really angry if I were a surviving family member of one of the deceased.

^^ yeah, i didn't mean that seriously. I don't think he's that intelligent.

It's too late now, I know that you don't care about dead cockle pickers .

Eikyu Wrote:I don't know if it's just a coincidence but Clarkson is the one who made a joke about Cockle Pickers...

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/media/news/a...-joke.html

That made me chuckle (not the joke). The joke is actually quite mean.

I am actually disgusted that Clarkson made this joke and more disgusted that the poor people died. I am thinking of going on Twitter and having a go at him...

I think I haven't put points across well. I am all for woman's rights.

Zgarbas - the poor people died in the United Kingdom. They were working illegally in my own country.

I know Chomsky is a feminist, that is why I brought him up - He is concerned about the issue like I am, but like me again, is more concerned about American imperialism.

@OP
I came across this thread from the Guardian newspaper (UK) which suggests that you should be careful for what you wish for. I am sure that the Internet is full of similar stories.

EDIT: In the last post in the thread, linked to above, Taurus, playing the role of henpecked husband, details the things that he and his Japanese wife "argue" about is in equal measures disturbing / hilarious. Read it and weep

I am not so pessimistic as I have several friends happily married to Japanese women (and know several women married to Japanese men). The gap between the fantasy and the reality of a relationship can however be quite large.

Of course you could always watch the movie,Audition (オーディション). It is guaranteed to cure you of wanting to date Japanese girls (especially weird ones) forever

Seriously though, does anyone know of a movie featuring Japanese/Western dating, apart from, say Madame Butterfly?

I have heard that the Japanese Friends site is quite good for looking for well... Japanese friends. Language exchange, pen-pals that sort of thing. Of course how the friendship develops after that is up to the people in question. Haven't tried it myself but it might be worth a spin.

注意: I just had a look and this site features some seriously cute girls. Maybe you should watch Audition first.

Related to feminism and equality in general:
Why is it that certain issues require movements and legislation and so on to achieve equality but for other things inequality is considered completely reasonable? Why don't we have affirmative action for incompetent people? how about about ugly people? Better yet, why not apply this to dating too? choice of friends? You must have at least one friend from subculture X. I could go on.

You might argue that an employer should not be able to discriminate based on an 'irrelevant' issue, but why not let the market decide if a characteristic truly is irrelevant? As long as they are not artificially shielded from the consequences of their choice, if it truly is unreasonable then their business will suffer.

You're born a woman, but you choose to be incompetent. Pretty big difference.

nadiatims Wrote:As long as they are not artificially shielded from the consequences of their choice, if it truly is unreasonable then their business will suffer.

They are though. Go back to the 50s, and realistically there is a man with equal qualifications for each woman that could be hired. Hell, even if the man is slightly less competent, it's probably not going to make a great deal of difference to the company, and even less to the hiring manager who is salaried. This is even more true if everyone is doing it. You're not at a competitive disadvantage then.

They'll find intangibles to focus on too. The big one used to be (still is?) what do i, as an employer, do when she wants to have kids? This is something i don't have to worry about with a man, because he'll never need time off for that (and even if he should have it, we can pressure him into not having it). In a purely capitalist argument, the slightly less qualified man may be a better choice.

Without laws in place, women got the short end of the stick. Now, quotas etc are very ham-fisted and can lead to companies having to hire less qualified candidates. But how do you deal with entire industries full of hiring managers who will take the man every time and actually delude themselves into thinking it's always the right choice?

The only time women got a serious look at before all the gender equality laws was during WWII. The economy actually needed the manpower enough to temporarily overturn their prejudice and acknowledge that women could actually do the jobs too. Of course, when the troops came home...

Dammit, i said i wasn't going to post again.

re: eikyu

Well whether incompetence is a choice or not is open to debate. But choice or not differences exist. Unless you're of the opinion that society and/or the universe owes you something, I don't see the morality in trying to force people to employ/date/whatever you. The obvious example is forcing an employer to employ a woman even if they can reasonably determine that it would hurt their business (eg. paid maternity leave). If legislation is in place making it compulsory, then you'll just force up the cost of living and/or lose competitiveness to countries with more sensible laws. An employer may be short-sighted but it should be their decision. Or how about the notion that the top execs don't want to hire a woman because they're not interested in golf/football/trivial reason X linked to being a woman. Well then if she really is top exec material, she'll be snapped up by a company with better management. Or she could start her own business and make a point of not hiring men.

because profit isn't the be all and end all in the world...?

look, the whole reason we have business, and buy stuff, and have this whole system in the first place is to make our lives better and more conveniant. So if a business is doing something that most people agree makes life worse or unfair for a certain percentage of the population, why should we put up with it for the sake of their profits?

Business works for us, society, in the end, not the other way round. Or should, anyway.

You do know that women have been discriminated against regardless of their competence, don't you?

I'll throw this Atlantic Monthly article into the debate. It's an interesting read and suggests that the 21st century work environment may be better suited for women and that this will cause problems because women prefer to have kids with / marry men better qualified than themselves. In blunt terms there is no market for slacker males while many successful men are quite happy to marry a hood ornament. Maybe this will change but certainly their does seem to be a growing male underclass here in NZ if the mental health statistics are anything to go by.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arch...-men/8135/

The film Blue Valentine touched on this. A blue collar worker marries a nurse, she becomes bored with him; his desire to be a family man is interpreted as lack of ambition, and she starts contemplating an affair with a doctor at work.

On a personal note, I feel I have already lived this; my father was a sort of proto-beatnik / university drop-out who was supported all his life by my Mum. (Of course their lives are infinitely more nuanced / varied than that but you get the picture)

@Nadiatims
I always enjoy reading your posts but I'm with Icecream on this one. The market is a social invention and as such should be used for our benefit. As Amory Lovins is fond of saying, it makes a good servant, a bad master, and a terrible religion. Of course what exactly is a "benefit" is open to debate as this will vary depending on ideology. An unregulated market, because of its inherent values, contains the seeds of it's own destruction, It is actually corrosive of the commonwealth on which it depends, so the commonwealth must in turn be strengthened if the market is to flourish. Unregulated banking, for example, doesn't look like quite the brilliant idea it seemed several years ago.

Japan is an interesting example, it is hardly a free market utopia, yet it does many things better than the West. I am not an economist but I have often thought it would be fun to look at some specific instances where Japan functions better because of it's regulatied economy (There are other things Japan does very badly)

I enjoyed this book, One Market Under God It's a bit dated, published in 2000, but a fun argument against market populism.

EDIT: I also enjoyed the movie, Inside Job about the banking crisis. I imagine most people have seen that.

I realise profit isn't the be all end all. But if you let competing companies lower their costs by allowing them autonomy in their hiring decisions then production becomes more efficient, cost of living goes down, and quality of life goes up. If some group feels exploited it's up to that group to stop putting up with it (ie. they have to be be prepared to walk the walk not just talk the talk). Workers feel exploited, they can form unions and start bargaining or they can go learn higher demand skills, start their own business etc. Basically there is a risk/cost involved and you have to live with the consequences of your actions and deal with reality. When things start getting dictated by law though, and with states having the power they do, there is suddenly a third party placed between the supposed exploiter and the exploited, and the favoured group is able to externalise the costs involved in achieving their ends. There is cost associated with securing some any particular right. The original feminist movement I imagine was able to achieve something because women were individually or collectively able to pay those costs, they didn't have the law on their side. I'm only using woman because that's the obvious example, I could just as well be talking about any other group. I'm sure men's rights movements will achieve something in years to come and achieve a set of unfair laws too, but I have no desire to fight their fight for them. While human law is entirely a social construct, it has become so untouchable to most people, that it warps the mechanics of societal interaction and the inherent fairness of an inherently unfair world.

Unregulated banking fails because of the intervention of government. In a free market system, businesses fail all the time, and the banking ought to be the same. The problem is some *supposedly* weaker segments of society are able to use strength of numbers to live off the work of others (welfare, healthcare, cheap credit), by acts of coercion (democracy is just a majority stealing the rights of the minority) and then become dependant on it. A non-productive class evolves, essentially paid getting paid not to riot.

IceCream Wrote:because profit isn't the be all and end all in the world...?

look, the whole reason we have business, and buy stuff, and have this whole system in the first place is to make our lives better and more conveniant. So if a business is doing something that most people agree makes life worse or unfair for a certain percentage of the population, why should we put up with it for the sake of their profits?

Business works for us, society, in the end, not the other way round. Or should, anyway.

This sounds like the happy-go-lucky optimistic view on how the business sector works on the whole.

I however adhere to the more pessimistic view which is that the business sector, in particular corporations, have become detached from society. They still have to rely on the populace at large to buy their products, but the populace at large isn't aware of the turnings of the cogs of a corporation. When it comes to most large corporations, profits are the end all be all. The corporation answers to the shareholders who are more often than not driven mad by the desire for more profits each quarter so their stock prices rise and their dividends increase; never mind the fact that profit gains are probably not something infinite. Corporations are well known to use their massive amount of power (money) to affect change in legislation that no normal group of people could ever hope to do, in order to protect their interests, even if it means protecting a failing/change model of business (content industry). It is corporations and the executives that run them and the large scale investors that fund them, that have helped drive the increasing divide between Lower/Middle and Upper class citizens. Even now, when the populace as a whole is beginning to agree that the system has become grossly disproportionately favorable to one infinitesimal percent of the population; we are STILL struggling to get any change enacted in the system. Because of the power that money has within the system brought on by the madness of profit.

I will yield that small/medium businesses can still be affected by the whims of the populace in their respective areas, but the scale upon which a small business can cause destruction to the socioeconomic order is far less than what a corporation can.

but how much autonomy are you really willing to let companies have?

Business "morality" is always driven by profit. So are you fine with there being no holidays, 15 hour work days, no weekends? Because that would make more profit. There's always some line you have to draw between profits and personal life of employees. There's a certain quality of life that isn't bought with money, but just by having free time.

You say that people can form unions and bargain, but how do you know that constant strikes don't actually cause a bigger loss of profit than simply having the regulations in the first place? I don't have the numbers, but it seems plausible that they would. It was quite troublesome for many businesses, as well as quality of life of people even not working in the industries in Britain when the unions were that strong (coal strikes in winter and stuff). And business will almost always retain the upper hand in the argument, because they have more power. There's no guarantee for even minimum humane workplace conditions, especially where the people have poverty of freedom, or when there is a lot of unemployment.

Saying that people can always go and start their own business at least requires some regulation on equality of borrowing money. Banks owned by white owners under an apartheid regime don't freely lend to black people. etc. Capital isn't equal in society, and neither is power. Not everyone has the same opportunities and freedoms. The law just tries to even things out a little under unfair circumstances created by those pools of capital / power.

Unregulated banking is a pretty miserable situation for everyone. It's bad enough as it is... governments don't have any real power over them anymore. And just reading the newspaper should suggest ways in which the system would be a whole lot better with more regulation, not less. Take the Euro crisis, for example. If the governments had taxed business more rather than borrowing so much, there wouldn't be the ever escalating problem of higher interest on bonds leading to higher risk of default, leading to higher interest on bonds. They could have had the money from businesses for free, but they choose to pay for it instead. It makes no sense. (the better regulation this suggests is stopping big business from tax dodging, as well as taxing more http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpete...oiding-tax )

I realized my prior rant is probably tangential to the actual topic being discussed involving business. Ignore it as you wish.