I stopped reading after the first page. All very amusing.

@ the OP, assuming you haven't been banned yet, you'd love it here.

Swiss women should be at home looking after the children, preparing meals and generally being a good hausfrau.

As for the whole breast cancer thing, what can I say - I think both men and women like healthy breasts - on the whole. Most men don't know what a prostate is (I would argue that wives probably know more about it and health repercussions than their husbands) and ultimately if we (men) lived long enough we'd all die of prostate cancer anyway.

HTH

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Never let right or wrong get in the way of a good opinion

This thread the way I see it:

Here is the OP:




Here are the people responding to the OP's first post:



And here's me reading this thread:



Better luck next time, ISTJ. I hope this won't be the last we'll see of you around here.

Wrong? What are you talking about? Language is a great example of our society in the past and today. It's not about when the language and words were 'brought in' but the fact that they are still used!
How have attitudes changed Bonbon?

Anecdotal evidence of somebody's grandma pulling it off (or my mom who made it big time in politics and science, for that matter, and being a homemaker and artist, heh), or somebody's one genious manual laborer who was a chick, does not make it any easier for gazilions of ladies here. It explains nada whatever is in reality happening in thousands on homes and people's minds when they are hiring.

Stereotypes suck, for women and for men. Not sure if that is the message that OP was trying to say, but voila.

The best we can do is stay away from them. Be it assigning assumptions of easier life to either gender.

When you think about it though, the easiest one can do, without waiting for society to change, is not to let stereotypes get him/her down. Ignore. Be yourself. Where is my manly bass...

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"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

I do have to be the one to Godwin troll this thread- what if the OP had come out and said, "Gee, I know the Holocaust was bad and all but I think the Jews have it a little too good right now with all the special treatment they get, I think it is time to restore the balance" or "oh man, ever since Affirmative Action, Black people have had it a little TOO good in the US" or "ever since the ADA those people got them special sidewalks and now they are just taking the piss wanting elevators and special computers and stuff"...that is how offended I was -as a woman- when I saw the OP's first post, and responded in turn with what I think is the depths of the bigotry and ignorance he displayed.

I'm disappointed and slightly disgusted that what was an obvious troll was taken as an "honest question" or a "talking point" by so many people who are otherwise decent and intelligent human beings. Replace "women" with "black" or "Jew" or "disabled" and tell me honestly how we need to discuss it like adults as if he said something plausible or even debatable.

Disgusted you may be, but:

AFAIK they don't get special treatment. Am I wrong?

Positive discrimination is still discrimination.

There is a strong argument that we pander too much to those with disabilities given the (poor) economic ROI.

Some might feel offended that you as a woman "who has it so good nowadays" equates her needs to (in your words) "black" or "Jew" or "disabled".

Everything is debatable. You can use a variety of legitimate ethical arguments to justify pro and counter arguments to the points I raised above.

Stiffle the debate and look where it gets you...

...back to Godwin.

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Never let right or wrong get in the way of a good opinion

You are exactly right in that there is a for and against to everything and we can debate this ad nauseam. But there are a couple of other things going on.

My point in bringing up blacks/jews/disabled is that the same POV as the OP in regards to these groups in society would be universally acknowledged as unpopular, which isn't the case for "women". So I wasn't grouping in women to say "oh poor us", I was grouping us in to show that when replaced with any other group, feedback on an internet forum would be vastly different.

As far as the comment about Jews, sadly many people take the point of view that Jews are advantaged in society and that is simply not the case. I'm surprised you have never seen that.

I continue to question the OPs motives, I don't think it was an innocent question. Surely most internet savvy people would think something so tendentious as one of their first posts in a new forum is a bad idea, unless they were trolling. The playground for honest internet debate is best when everyone knows who the players are (look up any books or articles written about teh interwebs and forums); there is a difference between so-called stifling a debate with established users (and I use that term loosely to mean anyone who has been around a few days, as I am a newbie here myself), and shutting down a n00b troll who is trolling.

While it is fair enough (again, as you said, all positions are debatable) that other minority groups could take offense to my saying that women should be included, I think it borders on intellectually criminal to say that women have more of an advantage in society than men and I am prepared to defend that position. When women are in our board rooms and running our countries and men are plowing the fields like serfs and making my breakfast, I'm ready to change my mind. All you have to do is look at the birth control debate going on in the US right now to see how men even control women's BODIES.

On a personal level, having been married to a Muslim man, I feel like I can never win in gender politics. Either I'm too outspoken, or I'm the poor girl married to that horrible desert man in a turban. So maybe that is why I took the OP's comments a little too personally.

Interestingly enough, it's majorly men plowing the fields with a good representation of women running the country in CH--so I guess things are ok?
Personally I would like to see more equality in say fire fighting, logging, construction, farming, mining and the such--the hazardous occupations

Women don't choose these occupations like men don't choose esthetics or midwife.

Men don't choose aesthetics ?
Don't see why a man can't be a midwife - I love kids - in fact I'd love to do that job.

I didn't say they can't, I say they don't choose it. Go ahead become a midwife, nothing is stopping you.

Nope, esthetic. Look in the dictionary.

I think this is a good point to show the gender in-equality, historically men haven't chosen these jobs, they've taken these jobs because they have the responsibility to their family and wife to suppport. The entire fact that women have the choice to raise a family or take on an employment of their choice is quite the indicator of gender equality.

On terms of pay gap, there are many women who have high end 'board' jobs (as referred to earlier) who are getting paid the same or more then men, because they have chosen to work hard, competed in the ladder game and succeeded. A choice made by them and they reap the benefits.

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"You have reached the end of you free trial membership at BenjaminFranklinQuotes.com" -Benjamin Franklin

Wait, I know many women who have to work and do jobs only because they get money from it. A woman rarely choose to become cleaning lady or cashier as a profession out of passion but because of needs for the money.

of course not all, but they have just as much an option to take a hazardous occupation:

From the one I mentioned above >97 % male if you compare to least hazardous jobs of Secretary or Receptionist >97% female.

I'm sure if you offered the males in hazardous jobs a safe secretary or receptionist job, they would take it in a second. In most of the cases they have to do these jobs and risk their lives daily for their family.

just because you're offended doesn't make it a troll. Even offensive questions deserve to be asked.

They would? In this same thread we were told that women can do anything and if it's our own fault if we choose not to. So if those men really want to be receptionists, why aren't they applying?

This is equality, you are correct.

But because we live in a society without gender equality this isn't the case.

It was mentioned above that females experience negative guidance when it comes to education and choosing a career in say the tech or maths direction. However there is a much larger percentage of women in these fields than in hazardous fields.

The majority of workers in these fields are there because of societal norms of expecting them to take on a good paying job to support a family.
I'm sure very few (if any) males are encouraged in school to follow through for employment as a receptionist, secretary, nurse or even homemaker (historically women dominated fields). I definitely never encountered it, however it was claimed that females are not encouraged to study maths and sciences. I never personally experiences this, actually found the high end maths and sciences were dominated by females in school--even my engineering class was 50 % women....I don't think you could find the same for any nursing discipline.

but again, this is where the true society-based gender inequality exists, yet isn't mentioned much, because it's just accepted as it is.

__________________
"You have reached the end of you free trial membership at BenjaminFranklinQuotes.com" -Benjamin Franklin

Firstly neither "esthetic" nor "esthetics" are occupations and here's a dictionary for you to be pedantic with :

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/esthetics

aesthetics, esthetics
a branch of philosophy dealing with beauty and the beautiful. — aesthete, aesthetic, n., adj. — aesthetical, adj.

In other news, in order to prove that us poor, silly girls can park cars much better than the clichée suggests, there will be a competition held at Sihlcity where you have to parallel park quickly and precisely, best in show gets to drive the Mercedes SLK you have to park with for the competition for six months.