The NationStates Feminism Thread IV: Fight Like A Girl!

[Luminesa]

California, California, California

Last week, California lawmakers voted to repeal a provision in state law that criminalizes “loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution” and would, if signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), prevent police from attempting to use loitering as evidence of a person’s intent to engage in sex work.
Senate Bill 357, introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), passed the State Assembly on a 41-26 vote, and the Senate by a vote of 26-9. Republicans and some moderate Democrats balked at the bill, claiming that eliminating penalties on sex workers would hamper law enforcement from cracking down on human trafficking or protecting victims from abuse, according to the Sacramento Bee.
But proponents of the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Equality California, and the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking say that the bill does not decriminalize soliciting or engaging in sex work. Rather, they say, it prevents police from racially profiling and mistreating people for simply “appearing” to be a sex worker — assumptions that have a negative impact on transgender women — particularly trans women of color — and Black and brown women, who are among the groups most likely to be targeted by police.

For example, Wiener told the Bee, under current law, police can use behavioral cues, such as whether a person is speaking with other pedestrians, wearing revealing clothing, wearing high heels, or even moving in a certain way as “evidence” to justify charging that person with attempting to engage in sex work.

“Arresting people because they ‘look like’ sex workers is discriminatory and wrong, and it endangers sex workers and trans people of color,” he said in a statement. “Anti-LGTBQ and racist loitering laws need to go. Sex workers, LGBTQ people, and people of color deserve to be safe on our streets.” According to ACLU California Action, one of the groups supporting the legislation, Black adults made up more than 56% of arrests for loitering with intent to engage in prostitution, while women comprised 67% of those arrested — and potentially more, as local law enforcement may have incorrectly identified transgender women as males once arrested.

Advocates supporting the bill noted that criminalizing loitering also potentially puts LGBTQ Black and Brown communities at risk of police violence, as transgender people who have engaged in street-based sex work are more than twice as likely to report physical assault by police officers and four times as likely to report sexual assault by police. Studies have also shown that black people are more than three times more likely to be shot by police than a white person.

Advocates have also countered that once a person is charged with a misdemeanor under the loitering statute, their criminal record can negatively impact their ability to gain or keep employment or be approved for housing, which in turn forces them into the underground economy — the exact opposite of what bill opponents purport to want.

“For too long, our communities have been harmed by tough-on-crime laws which are used to target and harass our community members, threatening our ability to exist safely in public spaces,” the DecrimSexWorkCA coalition wrote in a statement. “By passing SB 357, the Legislature recognizes the decades of harm that California’s loitering law has had on tens of thousands of people, especially Black and brown women, trans women of color and sex workers, giving us a path to clear our records.” Similar legislation, which repealed loitering provisions believed to exacerbate profiling, was signed into law in New York earlier this year.

Wiener is temporarily holding the approved legislation at the Senate desk, with plans to send the bill to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) sometime in January. Catie Stewart, a spokeswoman for Wiener’s office, said that holding off on the bill’s passage will allow advocates to better make the case about why repealing the loitering provision is both good public policy and a way to combat discrimination against vulnerable communities.

But the bill is not without its detractors.

Stephany Powell, a former sergeant with the Los Angeles Police Department and the director of law enforcement training and survivor services for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, claimed in an interview with the Sacramento Bee that the bill “severely cripples law enforcement’s ability to arrest and prosecute human traffickers and sex buyers.”

She also said it’s unfair to say prostitutes from marginalized backgrounds would choose to engage in sex work, arguing that lawmakers should help women find educational opportunities and more stable employment, rather than decriminalizing prostitution-related charges.

But supporters argue that criminal penalties for sex work — including loitering laws — only serve to intimidate victims from coming forward, lest they be arrested or thrown in prison.

“Arresting sex workers doesn’t make them safer, doesn’t make our communities safer, and doesn’t prevent sex work. In fact, when law enforcement arrests people who ‘look like’ they might be sex workers, simply because of how they look or dress, it makes it harder to find and help those who are being trafficked,” Wiener said in a statement. “Giving people criminal records for just standing around is wrong, and we need to reverse this law.”

I think both sides have a point in this law, obviously arresting sex-workers instead of the pimps is wrong. On the other hand, human trafficking is still an enormous issue in California-one that, much like the current loitering law, disproportionately targets minority individuals (African-American and Hispanic children and teens suffer from the highest rates of sex trafficking in the nation.) So clearly both sides need to be addressed. We need to tackle pimps either way, and not arrest the victims who are stuck in the middle.

[Esalia]

Now seriously, I did a lot of jokes in this thread at my beginning as a nation, but I want to make a serious point now.

So the thing is that feminism supports the liberation of women, theoretically, right?

My point is: Where is the liberation in working eight hours a day in an office?

Where is the liberation in having to balance your life between family and work?

Where is the liberation in being paid less than men?

Where is the liberation in having to get up early to go to work?

Where is the liberation in having to work with a boss that you hate?

Now, my point is that women should have full equal rights to men, and my question is, having that rights and being able to use them, isn't it more comfortable to be a housewife and to rear children?

Depends on the woman.

Which is sort of the whole point. No matter how much you deride modern life (which is a problem with modern life, not feminism) and talk up being a housewife, there's gonna be women who don't like being a housewife.

They should be free to live their own lives and not forced into being a housewife because a random stranger who doesn't know them decided that they knew better about what women want.

[Hakinda Herseyi Duymak istiyorum]

The sign that British women carried during a march in the 1930s read: "Are British women less valuable than Turkish women?" Now, anti-feminist political Islamists, who do not value women in the 21st century, are in power in Turkey. Turkish Woman Come to Yourself Know the Value of the Great Leader Musrtafa Kemal Atatürk ! If we want not to be Afghanistan and Iran, we must cling to feminism and social democracy.

[Ostroeuropa]

Now seriously, I did a lot of jokes in this thread at my beginning as a nation, but I want to make a serious point now.

So the thing is that feminism supports the liberation of women, theoretically, right?

My point is: Where is the liberation in working eight hours a day in an office?

Where is the liberation in having to balance your life between family and work?

Where is the liberation in being paid less than men?

Where is the liberation in having to get up early to go to work?

Where is the liberation in having to work with a boss that you hate?

Now, my point is that women should have full equal rights to men, and my question is, having that rights and being able to use them, isn't it more comfortable to be a housewife and to rear children?

Depends on the woman.

Which is sort of the whole point. No matter how much you deride modern life (which is a problem with modern life, not feminism) and talk up being a housewife, there's gonna be women who don't like being a housewife.

They should be free to live their own lives and not forced into being a housewife because a random stranger who doesn't know them decided that they knew better about what women want.

This ignores the thrust of their point.

The prohibition of women in the workplace afforded women as a group with a protection against exploitation of their labour in the workplace and protected them from alienation of labour. While some women might decide they prefer that, polling suggests this is a fringe minority of both men and women, both of whom respond with over 90% saying they would prefer more of a home life and less work.

You have essentially argued "We should be allowed to sell ourselves into slavery if we want to!" which is a cringe lib take that ignores that the overwhelming majority of people *don't* want to, and if you legalize that shit, then what you've actually done is force the poor and disenfranchised to become slaves against their will all because you're obsessively focused on the "Plight" of some upper class twat who wants to LARP as a cotton picker part-time and has the luxury to negotiate a "I'm a slave on tuesdays and wednesdays" contract due to their wealth and privilege *And their ability to negotiate a contract rather than have their destitution exploited and forcing them into a contract because the alternative is starvation*, when realistically you should be telling them to sit down, shut up, and prepping the guillotine for her and her husband.

What, precisely, is the benefit of this arrangement to the vulnerable rather than the privileged? You are arguing "But we must surely allow people to sell themselves as slaves because freedom and personal choice!" while ignoring the actual systemic results of these liberties you are arguing.

The liberty of the ruling class is fundamentally at odds with the interests of the working class. Every time, every where.

The prohibition of women from the workplace does not in fact force them to be broodmares. There have been and are spinsters. What it does is *protect women from a societal ill*.

We can see here how liberal feminism in its conception of the situation and its classically self-absorbed expression of the deranged viewpoint of upper class white women as fundamental reality has worsened the lives of most women all while lashing out at men and making their lives worse as well.

You have, in essence, argued "Well we need to let women decide, which is why we're adopting a system where millions of women get a situation they don't want and would rather not have, all so some people who like to LARP can delude themselves that they are productive members of society rather than parasites.".

Meanwhile, an MRA might look at this situation and go;

"Women are privileged by their exclusion from the system of exploitation that is capitalism. To achieve equality, we must abolish capitalism. We need men to have the same rights and protections as women, the privileged class, have. Namely, we must criminalize capitalists who hire males.".

Reframe your argument in terms of "Well it depends on the woman. Obviously we should legalize selling yourself into slavery." and try and articulate it in the way you have here and you'll see how ludicrous lib-feminist arguments are.

[Kowani]

That paid leave program has somehow managed to become even worse

The House proposal for paid family and medical leave, a signature piece of Democrats’ new social spending in what is called the Build Back Better Act, smuggles in a major giveaway to private insurers. It’s happening with the consent of key center-left advocates calling for the legislation. Even as the Senate develops its complementary plan, these groups are backing away from their long-standing push for a public paid leave policy.

The framework put forth earlier this month by House Ways and Means Committee chair Richard Neal (D-MA) breaks with a proposal that has long been championed by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). Both Neal’s paid leave plan and Gillibrand’s FAMILY Act would give up to three months of paid leave to care for a new child, or nurse a sick family member.

But while Gillibrand’s older plan would send paid leave benefits directly to workers through the Social Security Administration, Neal’s program, run through the Treasury Department, leaves in place employer-provided private insurance. Many employers who currently provide paid leave do so by taking out insurance to manage the benefit. They often outsource policy management to life insurers, who already dominate the disability insurance market. The Treasury, under Neal’s plan, would reimburse employers for paid leave benefits, ponying up 90 percent of the national average paid leave rate in refunds. For employers already providing paid leave, that coverage would now be subsidized. Employers would likely pass along the reimbursement to the private insurers, using money they had spent on paid leave for other priorities.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of employers, who currently do not provide paid leave, would be flush with cash to shop for private plans, creating a roaring new life insurance market with tens of millions of workers eligible to become enrollees. The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), a trade group that lobbied Neal to include private business, praised the final product in a statement to the Prospect, thanking Neal for “the opportunity to partner and for continued dialogue.”

Neal counts insurers like Blue Cross Blue Shield, Massachusetts Mutual, and Pacific Life among his top donors. He is also heavily backed by hospice and home health companies such as Amedisys and LHC Group, which has this year aggressively acquired hospice providers spun off by private equity.

Sun Life, a life insurance company that also backs Neal, donated to at least nine other members of the Ways and Means Committee during the 2019–2020 cycle. The company has been an enthusiastic supporter of Neal’s plan, appearing in a promotional video alongside Melinda French Gates, the billionaire ex-wife of the Microsoft founder, who met with the White House to argue for paid leave on behalf of her social-impact investment firm, Pivotal Ventures. Sun Life was also featured among a set of stakeholder endorsements Neal’s committee released about the paid leave plan. In an interview with the Prospect, Sun Life U.S. President Dan Fishbein argued that private insurance adds value to paid leave by helping people navigate their policies. Plus, he cautioned, beneficiaries might not know what to do if they are simply given cash. “The industry today is a well-developed industry, with thousands of people whose entire purpose is helping people get back to their optimal level of functioning and productivity. And the Social Security Administration isn’t going to do any of that. The way the FAMILY Act is written is, they would simply be issuing checks. You know, making benefits payments.”

Matt Bruenig, a policy analyst who has criticized Neal’s plan as convoluted and leaving out the most vulnerable, said that since paid leave is simply a wage replacement during a period of need, it’s particularly difficult for private insurers to make a convincing argument for why their higher costs correspond to real services.

“Unlike health insurance, where at least arguably, the health insurer could say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a really innovative way of doing health insurance, where we make sure people get their preventative care and save costs’—where they say they have a differentiated product and add some value—with paid leave, it’s just money. It’s just cash. The only way you can make extra money is cream-skimming, or not paying legitimate claims.”[...] FURTHER COMPLICATING NEAL’S PLAN, state paid leave programs, which exist in nine states and the District of Columbia, would be grandfathered in. All but Rhode Island and D.C. include options for paid leave benefits through private insurers.

Private insurers would be asked to match new federal requirements. But the insurance industry would take a cut of the profits, driving up overall costs, which are coming out of an artificially scarce and shrinking pool of taxes funding the reconciliation bill.

The Social Security–administered plan is expected to cost around $500 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while Neal’s plan including private insurers would be closer to $600 billion, Politico reported.

New federal benefits in the Neal plan would be available to people not covered by either an employer or a state plan. It’s hard to predict what share of spending would go to that residual federal benefit, and what share would flow to private insurers, but since employers will be free to launch new programs, it’s possible private plans will gobble up a large share of the market.

Workers needing to access the federal benefit would have to prove that they’re not covered by a state or employer plan, complicating the application process.

Either way, running state, federal, and private paid leave plans will be a snarl, especially during times of high labor market churn. It’s not clear, for example, whether under Neal’s plan workers would qualify for something like COBRA—benefits for the recently unemployed. And anyway, Neal’s proposal isn’t expected to go into effect until 2023, after the midterm elections.

If instead of delivering direct benefits, social policy in reconciliation is gummed up with means testing, private-sector carve-outs, and confusing requirements, Democrats won’t collect political capital for policies passed, and the programs may simply not work well. PROGRESSIVE ACTIVISTS, meanwhile, are declining to push back on insurers’ efforts to rake in new federal spending. Some advocates even argue in favor of private-sector involvement.

“We don’t want to say, if someone really likes their plan, that we’re going to take it away,” Dawn Huckelbridge, director of the advocacy group Paid Leave for All, said in an interview with the Prospect.

“It’s not like this is going to become just one big private program,” Huckelbridge explained. “They’re going to have to meet higher requirements to qualify for what is just a partial reimbursement.” (The reimbursement is around 90 percent of the average cost.)

Advocates are refraining from criticism while the Senate develops its plan, Huckelbridge said, and not “choosing fights” right now. Her comments echoed those of Vicki Shabo, a fellow at the think tank New America who previously led the campaign for paid leave at the National Partnership for Women & Families.

“We’re in the sausage-making stage of this legislation, so there may have been considerations at play incoming from other stakeholders in the private sector,” Shabo told the Prospect. She said the current version is an improvement on a draft plan Neal put out in April.

“If we were creating a system from scratch, we might try to insure everybody through a public program … However, I trust the judgment of the Ways and Means Committee and of politicians who need to square the fact that there are lots of different interests at play,” Shabo concluded. Advocates like Shabo also insist that the House’s paid leave policy is universal, reaching the most vulnerable workers. That’s despite the fact that Neal’s plan has no minimum benefit amount, meaning part-time workers with low earnings will see trivially small wage replacement.

“There’s no floor on the payment. So yes, it helps them out, at least nominally, in that they get 80 percent of the replacement rate, or whatever the number is. But 80 percent of $100 a week is not a lot of money, especially if you just had a kid,” said Daniel Sacks, an economist at Indiana University who studies insurance benefits.

In response to a request for comment, Gillibrand spokesperson Evan Lukaske told the Prospect that the senator will keep pushing for a universal plan administered through Social Security.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who has also been a leading sponsor of the FAMILY Act, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Neal also did not respond to the Prospect’s request for interview or comment.

[Suriyanakhon]

I think both sides have a point in this law, obviously arresting sex-workers instead of the pimps is wrong. On the other hand, human trafficking is still an enormous issue in California-one that, much like the current loitering law, disproportionately targets minority individuals (African-American and Hispanic children and teens suffer from the highest rates of sex trafficking in the nation.) So clearly both sides need to be addressed. We need to tackle pimps either way, and not arrest the victims who are stuck in the middle.

I mean, the issue here isn't even just arresting sex workers, it's arresting people who “look” like sex workers.

[Kowani]

Senate Armed Services Committee votes to make women register for the draft

The Fiscal Year 22 bill has now passed the House, including the language that would require women to register for the draft (316-113)

[Vassenor]

Senate Armed Services Committee votes to make women register for the draft

The Fiscal Year 22 bill has now passed the House, including the language that would require women to register for the draft (316-113)

Good.

[Galloism]

Senate Armed Services Committee votes to make women register for the draft

The Fiscal Year 22 bill has now passed the House, including the language that would require women to register for the draft (316-113)

Excellent news.

Equality on all things.

[Auzkhia]

Senate Armed Services Committee votes to make women register for the draft

The Senate Armed Services Committee has approved language in its annual defense policy bill that would require women to register for the draft.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) approved by the committee behind closed doors Wednesday “amends the Military Selective Service Act to require the registration of women for Selective Service,” according to a summary released Thursday.

Looks like us trans women were ahead of the curve

Ideally, we should just abolish the selective service, especially when people swear it's never gonna be used again.

[Vassenor]

The Fiscal Year 22 bill has now passed the House, including the language that would require women to register for the draft (316-113)

Excellent news.

Equality on all things.

Just like the feminists have been arguing for for years. Nice to see them getting a victory here.

[Saiwania]

Senate Armed Services Committee votes to make women register for the draft

The Fiscal Year 22 bill has now passed the House, including the language that would require women to register for the draft (316-113)

Its outrageous and absurd. Women's place isn't on the battlefield. The first thing a conquering or an occupying army traditionally does is take brides from, rape, or have sex with the local women. Even if it is a war crime. Any woman who's too far into pregnancy is immediately unfit for battle and the ability to become pregnant is a huge disadvantage in the realm of warfare.

[Page]

California, California, California

Last week, California lawmakers voted to repeal a provision in state law that criminalizes “loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution” and would, if signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), prevent police from attempting to use loitering as evidence of a person’s intent to engage in sex work.
Senate Bill 357, introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), passed the State Assembly on a 41-26 vote, and the Senate by a vote of 26-9. Republicans and some moderate Democrats balked at the bill, claiming that eliminating penalties on sex workers would hamper law enforcement from cracking down on human trafficking or protecting victims from abuse, according to the Sacramento Bee.
But proponents of the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Equality California, and the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking say that the bill does not decriminalize soliciting or engaging in sex work. Rather, they say, it prevents police from racially profiling and mistreating people for simply “appearing” to be a sex worker — assumptions that have a negative impact on transgender women — particularly trans women of color — and Black and brown women, who are among the groups most likely to be targeted by police.

For example, Wiener told the Bee, under current law, police can use behavioral cues, such as whether a person is speaking with other pedestrians, wearing revealing clothing, wearing high heels, or even moving in a certain way as “evidence” to justify charging that person with attempting to engage in sex work.

“Arresting people because they ‘look like’ sex workers is discriminatory and wrong, and it endangers sex workers and trans people of color,” he said in a statement. “Anti-LGTBQ and racist loitering laws need to go. Sex workers, LGBTQ people, and people of color deserve to be safe on our streets.” According to ACLU California Action, one of the groups supporting the legislation, Black adults made up more than 56% of arrests for loitering with intent to engage in prostitution, while women comprised 67% of those arrested — and potentially more, as local law enforcement may have incorrectly identified transgender women as males once arrested.

Advocates supporting the bill noted that criminalizing loitering also potentially puts LGBTQ Black and Brown communities at risk of police violence, as transgender people who have engaged in street-based sex work are more than twice as likely to report physical assault by police officers and four times as likely to report sexual assault by police. Studies have also shown that black people are more than three times more likely to be shot by police than a white person.

Advocates have also countered that once a person is charged with a misdemeanor under the loitering statute, their criminal record can negatively impact their ability to gain or keep employment or be approved for housing, which in turn forces them into the underground economy — the exact opposite of what bill opponents purport to want.

“For too long, our communities have been harmed by tough-on-crime laws which are used to target and harass our community members, threatening our ability to exist safely in public spaces,” the DecrimSexWorkCA coalition wrote in a statement. “By passing SB 357, the Legislature recognizes the decades of harm that California’s loitering law has had on tens of thousands of people, especially Black and brown women, trans women of color and sex workers, giving us a path to clear our records.” Similar legislation, which repealed loitering provisions believed to exacerbate profiling, was signed into law in New York earlier this year.

Wiener is temporarily holding the approved legislation at the Senate desk, with plans to send the bill to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) sometime in January. Catie Stewart, a spokeswoman for Wiener’s office, said that holding off on the bill’s passage will allow advocates to better make the case about why repealing the loitering provision is both good public policy and a way to combat discrimination against vulnerable communities.

But the bill is not without its detractors.

Stephany Powell, a former sergeant with the Los Angeles Police Department and the director of law enforcement training and survivor services for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, claimed in an interview with the Sacramento Bee that the bill “severely cripples law enforcement’s ability to arrest and prosecute human traffickers and sex buyers.”

She also said it’s unfair to say prostitutes from marginalized backgrounds would choose to engage in sex work, arguing that lawmakers should help women find educational opportunities and more stable employment, rather than decriminalizing prostitution-related charges.

But supporters argue that criminal penalties for sex work — including loitering laws — only serve to intimidate victims from coming forward, lest they be arrested or thrown in prison.

“Arresting sex workers doesn’t make them safer, doesn’t make our communities safer, and doesn’t prevent sex work. In fact, when law enforcement arrests people who ‘look like’ they might be sex workers, simply because of how they look or dress, it makes it harder to find and help those who are being trafficked,” Wiener said in a statement. “Giving people criminal records for just standing around is wrong, and we need to reverse this law.”

I think both sides have a point in this law, obviously arresting sex-workers instead of the pimps is wrong. On the other hand, human trafficking is still an enormous issue in California-one that, much like the current loitering law, disproportionately targets minority individuals (African-American and Hispanic children and teens suffer from the highest rates of sex trafficking in the nation.) So clearly both sides need to be addressed. We need to tackle pimps either way, and not arrest the victims who are stuck in the middle.

No human trafficking victim has ever benefited from being arrested, not in the Nordic countries where they're deported and thrown back into the same vicious cycle and definitely not in America where teenage rape victims are still often incarcerated.

[Vassenor]

The Fiscal Year 22 bill has now passed the House, including the language that would require women to register for the draft (316-113)

Its outrageous and absurd. Women's place isn't on the battlefield. The first thing a conquering or an occupying army traditionally does is take brides from, rape, or have sex with the local women. Even if it is a war crime. Any woman who's too far into pregnancy is immediately unfit for battle and the ability to become pregnant is a huge disadvantage in the realm of warfare.

You're a few years late with that bit of sexism. Women have been able to serve in combat zones since 1994, and to serve in combat arms since 2016.

Also there's nothing about serving in combat billets in that bill.

[Page]

The Fiscal Year 22 bill has now passed the House, including the language that would require women to register for the draft (316-113)

Good.

No, not good, slavery is not good and conscription is slavery. Making the draft un-sexist in this way is like making cops un-racist by having them gun down more white people.

[Vassenor]

Good.

No, not good, slavery is not good and conscription is slavery. Making the draft un-sexist in this way is like making cops un-racist by having them gun down more white people.

Show me where I said I was in favour of the draft in general, rather than just having it apply to everyone if we have to live with it?

[Kerwa]

No, not good, slavery is not good and conscription is slavery. Making the draft un-sexist in this way is like making cops un-racist by having them gun down more white people.

This makes it far more likely to be ended however. So it’s good from that point of view.

[Galloism]

Excellent news.

Equality on all things.

Just like the feminists have been arguing for for years. Nice to see them getting a victory here.

Indeed. This is one of those areas where feminists have largely been correct and have also largely agreed with people who care about men's rights as well.

Glad to see it going this way.

[Neutraligon]

Just like the feminists have been arguing for for years. Nice to see them getting a victory here.

Indeed. This is one of those areas where feminists have largely been correct and have also largely agreed with people who care about men's rights as well.

Glad to see it going this way.

Agreed. Would rather see the draft end, but since we can't have that (yet) at least this will remove one of the inequalities that still are on the books.

[The V I C]

Senate Armed Services Committee votes to make women register for the draft

The Fiscal Year 22 bill has now passed the House, including the language that would require women to register for the draft (316-113)

I wonder if we'll suddenly see several third wave feminists and social conservatives on the same side against this. After all, politics makes strange bedfellows.

[Saiwania]

You're a few years late with that bit of sexism. Women have been able to serve in combat zones since 1994, and to serve in combat arms since 2016.

If its true nonetheless, then there shouldn't be a time limit to how well it plays to audiences. If women have been in the US military for a while, then there surely exists plenty of data that can say whether or not women did better or worse than men in specific roles.

[Ors Might]

You're a few years late with that bit of sexism. Women have been able to serve in combat zones since 1994, and to serve in combat arms since 2016.

If its true nonetheless, then there shouldn't be a time limit to how well it plays to audiences. If women have been in the US military for a while, then there surely exists plenty of data that can say whether or not women did better or worse than men in specific roles.

I don’t think the military is going to send one of their soldiers out into an active war zone if they know they’re completely incompetent as a soldier. There’s still an entire period where they’re being trained and drilled mercilessly, like every other soldier who enlists.

[The United Colonies of Earth]

The Fiscal Year 22 bill has now passed the House, including the language that would require women to register for the draft (316-113)

Its outrageous and absurd. Women's place isn't on the battlefield. The first thing a conquering or an occupying army traditionally does is take brides from, rape, or have sex with the local women. Even if it is a war crime. Any woman who's too far into pregnancy is immediately unfit for battle and the ability to become pregnant is a huge disadvantage in the realm of warfare.

This post is now proof of my theory that fascism is just the ideology of the people who formed violent band societies before the rise of agriculture.

[Page]

Indeed. This is one of those areas where feminists have largely been correct and have also largely agreed with people who care about men's rights as well.

Glad to see it going this way.

Agreed. Would rather see the draft end, but since we can't have that (yet) at least this will remove one of the inequalities that still are on the books.

So with a problem like mass incarceration, assuming we desire to end the disparity by freeing millions of people of color who have been the victims of unjust conviction and sentencing, in the mean time, which of these two would be better: a million more white people in prison, or the status quo?

[Kowani]

Agreed. Would rather see the draft end, but since we can't have that (yet) at least this will remove one of the inequalities that still are on the books.

So with a problem like mass incarceration, assuming we desire to end the disparity by freeing millions of people of color who have been the victims of unjust conviction and sentencing, in the mean time, which of these two would be better: a million more white people in prison, or the status quo?

people do better at ignoring a problem when they aren't subject to it