from Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Transformative Opinions and Dissents

“Absent firm constitutional foundation for equal treatment of men and women by the law, women seeking to be judged on their individual merits will continue to encounter law-sanctioned obstacles.”  p18

“At the very least the Court should reverse the presumption of rationality when sex -based discrimination is implicated and, rather than requiring the party attacking a statute to show that the classification is irrational, should require the statue’s proponent to prove it rational.”  p18

“[T]he distance to equal opportunity for women—in the face of the pervasive social, cultural, and legal roots of sex-based discrimination—remains considerable.” p20

“Sex, like race and lineage, is an immutable trait, a status into which the class members are locked by the accident of birth. … [T]he characteristic frequently bears no relation to ability to perform or contribute to society.  The result is that the whole class is relegated to an inferior legal status without regard to the capabilities or characteristics of its individual members.”  p28 quoting The California Supreme Court

“He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.”

“He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.”

“He has endeavoured, in every way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.”  p28 quoting a declaration of women’s rights drafted at the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls (1848)

“The nineteenth amendment gave women the vote in 1920, after almost three-quarters of a century of struggle.” p30  Note that: it took 75 years for women to be allowed to vote.

“By accepting a ‘woman’s place’ and relieving her husband of the burdens of child and home care, she forgoes the opportunity to acquire earnings and property of her own.” p31

“Most states permit girls to marry without parental consent at an earlier age than boys.  The differential, generally three years, reflects two presumptions: (1) the married state is the only proper goal of womanhood; (2) men need more time to prepare for bigger, better, and more useful pursuits.” p32

“While a very young woman is considered dangerous for her sexuality, in adult life she is considered far less passionate than the adult man.” p33  (Funny, that.)

“… which provide ‘dependency’ allowances automatically for the spouse of male members of the uniformed services, whether or not the spouse is in fact dependent on the member for any of her support, but which provide such allowances for the spouse of female members of the uniformed services only upon a showing that the spouse is in face dependent on the member for more than one-half of his support” p54

“…. additional housing allowance that would have been granted automatically to males with spouses” p55

“… assumes that the male is the dominant partner in marriage …” p56

“Although the method of communication between the Creator and the jurist is never disclosed …” p65 (referring to “The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother.  This is the law of the Creator.”

“… these laws, however ‘protective’ in origin, were ‘protecting’ [women] from better-paying jobs and opportunities for promotion” p66

“In 1972, two legal scholars—both of them male—examined the record of the judiciary in sex discrimination cases.  They concluded that the performance of American judges in this area ‘can be succinctly described as ranging from poor to abominable.  With some notable exceptions … [judges] have failed to bring to sex discrimination cases those virtues of detachment, reflection and critical analysis which have served them so well with respect to other sensitive social issues …'” p68

“…the preciousness of the bond between parent and child [means] that a proceeding to terminate parental rights [can] not be treated like other civil actions.  A proceeding to declare a parent unfit [is] barely distinguishable from criminal condemnation in view of the magnitude and permanence of the loss at stake” p125

“The Roe decision might have been less of a storm center had it both homed in more precisely on the women’s equality dimension of the issue …” p149

“The woman [U.S. Air Force Captain Susan Struck] wanted both to keep her baby and to remain in the service.  Ginsburg argued that since men in the Air Force were not barred from having children, the policy requiring a woman to choose between motherhood and service violated equal protection.” p150

“Challenges to undo restriction on abortion procedures … do not seek to vindicate some vague or generalized notion of privacy.  Rather, they home in on a woman’s autonomy to decide for herself her life course and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.” p153

“[The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act] cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court—with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s live.”  p167-8

“It is only when the disparity becomes apparent and sizable, for example, through future raises calculated as a percentage of current salaries, that an employee … is likely to comprehend … and, therefore, to complain.” p176

“… the disparity arises not because the female employee is flatly denied a raise, but because male counterparts are given larger raises.” p179

“One [woman] was paid less than the men she supervised.” p183

 

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Men, take note

The lack of contraception, and abortion when contraception fails, forces women to refrain from sexual intercourse, for few of us—mostly the naïve—would risk pregnancy, childbirth, and fifteen years of servitude for what is bound to be not even a few minutes’ pleasure.

So, men, take note: withholding contraception, and abortion, ensures that any sexual intercourse in which you engage is very likely to be rape.

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Why aren’t we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping?

Nice thread starting here:

https://clovenhooves.org/showthread.php?tid=505

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No Sex, No Dating, No Babies, No Marriage

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/11/16/4b-movement-america-political-protest-00189314

Good article, great movement, but does anyone else see the disjunct with the second picture?

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This should be required reading for …

This should be required reading for all girls when they become able to reproduce and for all young women who think they want kids (probably because of tv and their friends who are similarly deluded about what will happen).

https://www.reddit.com/r/regretfulparents

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“Your body, my choice.” WTF?!

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/11/business/your-body-my-choice-movement-election/index.html

 

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Sam Harris on Trump – WELL worth the read

https://www.thefp.com/p/sam-harris-vote-kamala-harris

 

 

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Weizenbaum on AI

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/25/joseph-weizenbaum-inventor-eliza-chatbot-turned-against-artificial-intelligence-ai

“The book has two major arguments. First: ‘There is a difference between man and machine.’ Second: ‘There are certain tasks which computers ought not be made to do, independent of whether computers can be made to do them.'”

See, this is a no-brainer for me.  I wouldn’t even THINK of writing an article, let alone a book, making these arguments.

“‘This had especially destructive policy consequences. Powerful figures in government and business could outsource decisions to computer systems as a way to perpetuate certain practices while absolving themselves of responsibility. Just as the bomber pilot “is not responsible for burned children because he never sees their village’, Weizenbaum wrote, software afforded generals and executives a comparable degree of psychological distance from the suffering they caused.”

Yes.

“Letting computers make more decisions also shrank the range of possible decisions that could be made. Bound by an algorithmic logic, software lacked the flexibility and the freedom of human judgment.”

Which is why customer service is how it is;  read Rob Grant’s Incompetence; his chapter about staying at a hotel for the night and the one about renting a car are absolutely delightful and horrifying at the same time.  As is his imagined new DSM entry, NSS (Non-specific Stupidity).

 

 

 

 

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Jaded, Ela Lee

Highly recommended!  (esp for men!)

 

A few impressive bits:

 

“I’m minded to pursue the current approach, given the sensitivities in this area, and reassess once we have greater visibility over how the strategy has been received,” Will spoke, baritone and authoritative.

“Urrrr,” Genevieve’s voice grumbled, … “is your Grand Plan of Action that you will carry on as usual and see what happens?”

Adele and I stifled snorts as Will stammered his way through her dressing down.

p162

 

“You know, it’s so messed up he calls us girls,” she fumed … I trained for seven fucking years to be here.”  [They’re both lawyers at a huge firm.]

“Ah! … But Sheryl Sandberg told us to LEAN IN!  So, I guess we must be the problem?”

p163

 

“You’re a young woman in the corporate world: some of these men see the fact of your existence as an offering.”  p199

 

“So much of what is perceived to be ‘intelligence’ was Kit talking in a deep, male voice, being white and educated, and packaging up abhorrent views in grandiloquent, pretentious language.  Men like Kit had been groomed from birth to speak the vernacular of success.”

p316

 

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“We’re getting sick of noise pollution”

“With every AI project abandoned, every bitcoin not mined, every pickup truck not sold, every jet fighter not flown, people somewhere will get relief. With every bicycle that replaces a motorcycle, every garden hose that supplants a power-washer, every rake that displaces a leaf blower, our world will both warm a little more slowly and become a little less noisy.”

“In recent decades, American pickup trucks and SUVs have grown steadily larger and heavier, with towering front ends and armoring that create a road-ruling mystique. Increasingly, to further satisfy consumer demand for big, intimidating vehicles, automakers equip many of them with high-decibel engines, turbochargers, and thunderous exhaust systems. Drivers all too regularly dial the volume up several more notches with muffler modifications that are often illegal. The automakers’ economic motivation for offering big, loud vehicles is clear ($$$), but why exactly do their customers want them? The deafening din emanating from those trucks has distinct political undertones, but there may also be something deeper going on.

“A 2023 study published in the journal Current Issues in Personality Psychology sheds some light on this. The researcher interviewed 529 people, split almost equally between the sexes, about their attitudes toward noisy vehicles. Then, using questionnaires, she evaluated the subjects for four “dark” personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism. It turned out (surprise!) that men liked loud vehicles significantly more than women did. Across both sexes, those who expressed greater fondness for such vehicles also tended to score higher for two dark personality traits: psychopathy and sadism. The researcher drily observed that the results made perfect sense:

“Psychopathy reflects an up-close cruelty, whereas sadism includes viewing the harm to others from a distance… Modifying a muffler to make a car louder is disturbing to pedestrians, other drivers, and animals at a distance, meeting the sadism component, as well as startling when [the victim is] up close at intersections, meeting the psychopathy component.”

 

But read the whole thing: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/were-getting-sick-of-noise-pollution.html

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