The NationStates Feminism Thread IV: Fight Like A Girl!

[Suriyanakhon]

Illinois legislature considering legislation to allow pharmacists to provide birth control without a doctors’ prescription

Has there ever actually been a legitimate medical reason that one would need a doctor's prescription for birth control?

[Ostroeuropa]

Illinois legislature considering legislation to allow pharmacists to provide birth control without a doctors’ prescription

Has there ever actually been a legitimate medical reason that one would need a doctor's prescription for birth control?

Some people react extremely negatively or have conditions where they shouldn't take it. But that's on the same level as "You need a doctors note to buy peanuts because some peoples bodies react strangely to it" or "Some people need to eat less salt because of a heart condition, and because some people are like that, doctors note for salty goods is needed".

So while there's a reason why some people shouldn't do it, it's rare enough that the norm should be to presume people can have it, and be told by their doctors if they're one of the few who can't.

Presumably this does imply some degree of "Your doctor told you to stop doing this, you keep doing it, you're a danger to yourself so we're committing you" though.

It's a matter of balancing safety and liberty of society as a whole.

I would guess that if birth control were sufficiently dangerous then doctors would be pushing for a doctors note requirement. On the whole, it appears to be on the level of "Shitty diet" in terms of impact on the average person. Some risks from long-term usage, very rarely immediate.

Most of it is just symptoms rather than diseases. Stuff like headaches, nausea, and so on. Long-term, those symptoms can cause stress to the body and stuff.

The major one is blood clotting, which can kill or severely disable someone, but that is low risk enough and requires sustained usage over decades that a doctors note seems... odd... considering we don't regulate fatty foods and so on in a similar fashion.

There is probably a stronger case to be made against the pill in terms of societal impact rather than impact on an individual, but a doctor isn't supposed to consider that and their duty is to the patient.

[Kowani]

Illinois legislature considering legislation to allow pharmacists to provide birth control without a doctors’ prescription

Has there ever actually been a legitimate medical reason that one would need a doctor's prescription for birth control?

As far as I can understand it, no
There are, as ostro mentioned, a few people who might react negatively to it, but that’s kind of a given with almost every medication there is, and those people should really be informed by their doctors, rather than the presumption being that it requires permission to begin with

[Luminesa]

A Louisiana lawmaker has introduced a statewide “Pink Tax Bill” which would cut taxes on feminine hygiene products, and possibly some male hygiene products as well:
https://www.wafb.com/2021/03/22/lawmake ... -products/

This would be very helpful for people trying to start new families, I think. Or just for a lot of women in general. This is the kind of steps we need to take going forward to make our states friendlier to families.

[Galloism]

A Louisiana lawmaker has introduced a statewide “Pink Tax Bill” which would cut taxes on feminine hygiene products, and possibly some male hygiene products as well:
https://www.wafb.com/2021/03/22/lawmake ... -products/

This would be very helpful for people trying to start new families, I think. Or just for a lot of women in general. This is the kind of steps we need to take going forward to make our states friendlier to families.

If it also includes the male hygiene products I approve. No more sexism - all or none.

[Luminesa]

A Louisiana lawmaker has introduced a statewide “Pink Tax Bill” which would cut taxes on feminine hygiene products, and possibly some male hygiene products as well:
https://www.wafb.com/2021/03/22/lawmake ... -products/

This would be very helpful for people trying to start new families, I think. Or just for a lot of women in general. This is the kind of steps we need to take going forward to make our states friendlier to families.

If it also includes the male hygiene products I approve. No more sexism - all or none.

It very well could:

The bill is gaining support, but one Baton Rouge resident thinks the bill could be expanded by adding some male hygiene products as well.
“I don’t see why not, for the younger boys who are still home with their mothers. If she can’t afford their own products and she has to help them with theirs”, said Baton Rouge resident Carmel Taylor.

I agree, male hygiene products shouldn’t be taxed if feminine hygiene products aren’t. We’ll see if they add it. Either way I think it’s a step in a good direction.

[Auzkhia]

If it also includes the male hygiene products I approve. No more sexism - all or none.

It very well could:

The bill is gaining support, but one Baton Rouge resident thinks the bill could be expanded by adding some male hygiene products as well.
“I don’t see why not, for the younger boys who are still home with their mothers. If she can’t afford their own products and she has to help them with theirs”, said Baton Rouge resident Carmel Taylor.

I agree, male hygiene products shouldn’t be taxed if feminine hygiene products aren’t. We’ll see if they add it. Either way I think it’s a step in a good direction.

Usually "feminine hygiene" refers to menstrual products, and considering that some men menstruate, but that's besides the point, all hygienic products should not be taxed more.

[Forsher]

It very well could:

The bill is gaining support, but one Baton Rouge resident thinks the bill could be expanded by adding some male hygiene products as well.
“I don’t see why not, for the younger boys who are still home with their mothers. If she can’t afford their own products and she has to help them with theirs”, said Baton Rouge resident Carmel Taylor.

I agree, male hygiene products shouldn’t be taxed if feminine hygiene products aren’t. We’ll see if they add it. Either way I think it’s a step in a good direction.

Usually "feminine hygiene" refers to menstrual products, and considering that some men menstruate, but that's besides the point, all hygienic products should not be taxed more.

Tax exceptions cause all sorts of problems. If you're in a country with a fucked up tax code, adding more exceptions probably isn't a big deal (or doesn't seem like a big deal) but all those exceptions really are problematic from the point of view of "how you should design a tax system". This is how you end up with "pizza is a vegetable" or "pizza is bread" and so on because certain things are eligible for exceptions and both their producers and retailers are incentivised to have them count as things which aren't taxed.

Of course, there's a separate argument to whether revenue geared consumption/sales taxes should exist at all (honestly, replace 'em with a land tax) because they're regressive but if you're going to have them, you should have special cases where things are taxed more (e.g. petrol, cigarettes) and not exceptions. (This paragraph may not make much sense if you live in the US but tax in NZ looks like this. Not sure what OECD countries, if any, the thread comes from but here's the UK, Canada, Australia and Spain.)

I'm not sure how much the perspective changes when we're talking about sales taxes that aren't VAT/GST taxes (which, as far as I can tell, don't exist in the US at either state or federal levels) but I don't think it changes much.

Alternative Perspective (my emphasis):

Most OECD countries continue to apply a wide variety of reduced VAT rates and exemptions (see Annex Table 2.A.2 and Annex Table 2.A.3). With the exception of Chile, all OECD countries that have a VAT apply one or more reduced rates to support various policy objectives. A major reason for the application of reduced rates is the promotion of equity. Countries generally consider it desirable to alleviate the VAT burden on necessity goods and services (e.g. food, water), which typically form a larger share of expenditure of lower income households by taxing them at a preferential VAT rate. Most countries also apply reduced VAT rates or exemptions to medicine, health, education and housing. Reduced VAT rates have also been used to stimulate the consumption of “merit goods” (such as cultural products) or promoting locally supplied labour-intensive activities (e.g. tourism) and addressing environmental externalities.

Evidence suggests that exemptions and reduced VAT rates are not an effective way of achieving such objectives (OECD/KIPF, 2014[2]) and can be even regressive in some instances. Other measures, such as providing targeted through the income tax and/or the social transfer and benefit system, tend to be more effective in addressing equity concerns and to pursue policy objectives other than raising tax revenues (Thomas, 2020[3]). Reduced VAT rates that are targeted at supporting lower-income households (i.e. to address distributional goals) typically do have the desired progressive effect. Notably reduced rates for basic food generally provide greater support to the poor than to the rich as a proportion of household income and as a proportion of expenditure. However, despite their progressive effect, research led notably by the OECD has shown that these reduced VAT rates remain a very poor distributive tool. This is because better-off households tend to benefit more in absolute terms from VAT reduced rates than low-income households. As richer households tend to consume more, and more expensive products than poorer households, their consumption of the tax-favoured goods and services is generally greater than that of poorer households. Research has also demonstrated that preferential VAT rates to stimulate employment (e.g. in the tourism or hospitality sectors), or to support cultural activities (e.g. theatre) or pursue other non-distributional goals, clearly benefit richer households more than lower-income categories of the population, and often considerably so.

Wait... what I have described may be the problem with general sales taxes because it does appear, at least not in a way that I recognise, here (same document):

VAT exemptions introduce a cascading effect when applied in a B2B context. The business making an exempt supply can be expected to pass on the uncreditable input tax by including it in the price of this supply. This “hidden tax” will subsequently not be deductible/recoverable by the recipient business. If the outputs of this recipient business are not also exempt, this hidden VAT will presumably be part of the price for the supplies on which it will charge output VAT. The result is a hidden tax at a variable rate depending on the number of production stages that are subject to the tax. This distorts businesses’ production decisions and choices of organisational form. The size of this cascading effect depends on where the exemption is applied in the supply chain. If the exemption is applied at the stage of the final consumption, there is no cascading effect and the consequence is simply a loss of tax revenue since the value added at the final stage escapes tax. If the exemption occurs at some intermediate stage, the consequence of the cascading effect may be an increase of net revenues in a non-transparent manner.

Exemptions create incentives for reducing tax liability by vertical integration (“self-supply”) and disincentives for outsourcing as firms have an incentive to produce their inputs internally rather than to purchase externally and incur irrecoverable VAT. This may lead to economic inefficiencies from the distortion of the structure of the supply chain. It can also initiate a dynamic whereby exemptions feed on each other resulting in “exemption creep”: once a sector receives an exemption, it has an incentive to lobby for exemptions for those from whom it buys its inputs in order to avoid paying hidden VAT on its inputs. [this might be what I was thinking of]

Exemptions generally lead to the under-taxation of supplies to consumers, who face a tax burden equal to the tax on inputs used by the businesses without its value-added, and an over-taxation of businesses who are unable to deduct the “hidden” tax embedded in their inputs. It also leads to the taxation of investments rather than consumption, which is in contradiction with the main purpose of the tax.

[Fahran]

Snip.

A land tax has the same problem that a lot of taxes based on assets have. They might not be taxing people based on their income or wherewithal to pay. They're also regressive and have a disproportionate impact on the poor, pensioners, and the like who may have inherited or purchased property that high taxes make it impossible for them to retain. And the government forcing vulnerable people off their land is rather awful as a point of moral principle. It's a bit different if we're talking about multiple large properties that aren't intended for agriculture. I think the best option remains a combination of progressive income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, etc. This way we know people can pay and we actually mitigate income inequality somewhat.

[Yeet Nationss]

Hey guys can someone please explain to me what Feminism is. Im a guy and all I really understand is the toxic feminist who want to kill men. Can you tell me what real feminism is?

[Forsher]

Snip.

A land tax has the same problem that a lot of taxes based on assets have. They might not be taxing people based on their income or wherewithal to pay. They're also regressive and have a disproportionate impact on the poor, pensioners, and the like who may have inherited or purchased property that high taxes make it impossible for them to retain. And the government forcing vulnerable people off their land is rather awful as a point of moral principle. It's a bit different if we're talking about multiple large properties that aren't intended for agriculture. I think the best option remains a combination of progressive income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, etc. This way we know people can pay and we actually mitigate income inequality somewhat.

In a crude but very real sense, poor people don't own land.

And given that poor people are the ones knobbled by consumption taxes that I suggest should go away... the "inheriting land" problem doesn't feature. That's a problem with death duties/inheritance taxes, which I do not like and consider the ultimate exercise in short term thinking (since it is the tax system inherently being designed around the notion that people not consider life after themselves).

[Forsher]

Hey guys can someone please explain to me what Feminism is. Im a guy and all I really understand is the toxic feminist who want to kill men. Can you tell me what real feminism is?

There is no coherent definition of feminism. You can read the OP if you want to know more.

As a hot take:

feminism is the political belief that women should have agency combined with the intellectual theory that women do not have agency. In radical feminism, the cause of this is "the patriarchy" and as long as "the patriarchy" exists women cannot have agency. Also, in radical feminism the definition of "women" is incoherent too (see: TERFs and SWERFs).

[Luminesa]

We may start to begin receiving solid data on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, thanks to a nine-person team in Utah:
https://amber-ic.org/news/amber-alert-i ... ue-4-2020/

This would be a huge step forward in combatting the crisis among MMIW.

[Kowani]

We may start to begin receiving solid data on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, thanks to a nine-person team in Utah:
https://amber-ic.org/news/amber-alert-i ... ue-4-2020/

This would be a huge step forward in combatting the crisis among MMIW.

oh finally
you know this already
but data collection in indigenous areas is fucking atrocious
so anything that covers that gap is a good step forward

[Kowani]

The NCAA will review differences between the men’s and women’s facilities after dropping the ball this year

Alex Azzi of NBC Sports summarized more of the differences, which extended to men's players using PCR tests for COVID-19 compared to women's players using daily antigen tests. There were also differences in the food available, and most of the courts for the women's tournament did not feature NCAA branding.

Even the logos for the Final Four are different with the women's one including the word "women's" and the men's one just saying Final Four.

[Galloism]

The NCAA will review differences between the men’s and women’s facilities after dropping the ball this year

(Image)
(Image)

Alex Azzi of NBC Sports summarized more of the differences, which extended to men's players using PCR tests for COVID-19 compared to women's players using daily antigen tests. There were also differences in the food available, and most of the courts for the women's tournament did not feature NCAA branding.

Even the logos for the Final Four are different with the women's one including the word "women's" and the men's one just saying Final Four.

Your pun has met my approval.

[Auzkhia]

The NCAA will review differences between the men’s and women’s facilities after dropping the ball this year

(Image)
(Image)

Alex Azzi of NBC Sports summarized more of the differences, which extended to men's players using PCR tests for COVID-19 compared to women's players using daily antigen tests. There were also differences in the food available, and most of the courts for the women's tournament did not feature NCAA branding.

Even the logos for the Final Four are different with the women's one including the word "women's" and the men's one just saying Final Four.

And they say that us trans girls are the biggest to women's sports, and not institutional sexism and misogyny.

[Odreria]

The NCAA will review differences between the men’s and women’s facilities after dropping the ball this year

(Image)
(Image)

Alex Azzi of NBC Sports summarized more of the differences, which extended to men's players using PCR tests for COVID-19 compared to women's players using daily antigen tests. There were also differences in the food available, and most of the courts for the women's tournament did not feature NCAA branding.

Even the logos for the Final Four are different with the women's one including the word "women's" and the men's one just saying Final Four.

What am I looking at in these pictures

[Ostroeuropa]

The psychological projection of a privileged class seeps into feminist theory through the continual insistence that men feel entitled to things and are raised to be entitled to things.

I can't tell if this emerged through a substantial number of feminist women simply projecting their own attitudes onto men, or through actively malicious DARVO, but either way it remains a laughable claim.

Men are raised to be told they are entitled to absolutely nothing and have to fight and take everything they hope to have, law of the jungle style. They're not raised to feel entitled to what they have. They're not women.

A man is raised and told that if he wants basic respect he has to fight for it and throw some punches.

A woman is raised and told that if someone isn't giving her respect, it's because that person is entitled. (Rather than her feeling entitled to respect simply for existing).

Once again feminism has framed a disparity in entirely backwards terms.

Men could stand to be more entitled and women could stand to be less.


Like, actually examine the psychological analysis of entitlement for a moment.

The inflated sense of entitlement sought special privileges for the individual alone, perhaps to compensate for childhood suffering or narcissistic injury; while the compromised sense involved an inability to expect the basic rights enjoyed by those around one

Which people does this describe?

"Womens historical oppression"

vs

"He got raped? How lucky.".

[Fahran]

In a crude but very real sense, poor people don't own land.

It rather depends on how we're defining "poor people" here. Land is an asset that adds to a person's wealth, but we can have no assurances that it is a revenue-generating asset. That makes a high tax on it problematic if we expect people to pay the tax without selling the asset. We're assuming adequate income and wherewithal to pay without actually looking at income and wherewithal to pay. That's a more general reason I'm hesitant to support any tax based on assets or wealth instead of income. Even taxing revenue-generating assets to a high degree can be problematic to continuing to draw tax revenues from a person or family.

We're likely drifting a bit off-topic, though one could argue that any regressive tax is bound to impact younger men and women more than more established men and women who have families. It's especially likely to impact lower-class women without an education in the event that they manage by some means to acquire nice things.

And given that poor people are the ones knobbled by consumption taxes that I suggest should go away... the "inheriting land" problem doesn't feature. That's a problem with death duties/inheritance taxes, which I do not like and consider the ultimate exercise in short term thinking (since it is the tax system inherently being designed around the notion that people not consider life after themselves).

My point here, more broadly, is that property taxes are often about as regressive as income taxes and, similarly, do not take wherewithal to pay into consideration. A person with a lot of income can meet them without issue whereas a person with less income will be left without adequate recourse. I'd argue taxes on revenues provide the best option in that respect and are the most progressive, though I suppose we could make land/property taxes more progressive than they presently are.

[Fahran]

We may start to begin receiving solid data on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, thanks to a nine-person team in Utah:
https://amber-ic.org/news/amber-alert-i ... ue-4-2020/

This would be a huge step forward in combatting the crisis among MMIW.

This is definitely a step in the right direction. It's a bit disheartening that we've known about this ongoing crisis for awhile and that the response has been so slow and muted despite the best efforts of a lot of people.

[Fahran]

There is no coherent definition of feminism. You can read the OP if you want to know more.

In many respects, feminism is more of an orientation, tendency, or broad movement that emphasizes the role of women in society than a singular philosophy, framework, or paradigm. That's not especially surprising given that feminism's history spans about three hundred years and that proto-feminism stretches as far back as antiquity at the very least.

As a hot take:

feminism is the political belief that women should have agency combined with the intellectual theory that women do not have agency. In radical feminism, the cause of this is "the patriarchy" and as long as "the patriarchy" exists women cannot have agency. Also, in radical feminism the definition of "women" is incoherent too (see: TERFs and SWERFs).

I don't actually think the definition of womanhood embraced by TERFs and SWERFs is incoherent. If anything, it is arguably the most straightforward and simplistic definition - as (biological) essentialism is always bound to be. They seldom have difficulty articulating what it means to be a woman since they simply have to retort "adult human female" when asked about the subject. Where they struggle is when it comes to sociological issues and a lot of that has to do with them using a very narrow paradigm more rooted in ideology than in reality. That makes their often acerbic rejection of social construction of gender not unsurprising, though their theories lend themselves to social construction at their heart.

[Kowani]

Illinois legislature considering legislation to allow pharmacists to provide birth control without a doctors’ prescription

Nevada legislature to do the same

[Suriyanakhon]

I don't actually think the definition of womanhood embraced by TERFs and SWERFs is incoherent. If anything, it is arguably the most straightforward and simplistic definition - as (biological) essentialism is always bound to be. They seldom have difficulty articulating what it means to be a woman since they simply have to retort "adult human female" when asked about the subject. Where they struggle is when it comes to sociological issues and a lot of that has to do with them using a very narrow paradigm more rooted in ideology than in reality. That makes their often acerbic rejection of social construction of gender not unsurprising, though their theories lend themselves to social construction at their heart.

This, as much as I disagree with trans-exclusionary feminists and those who attempt to overtly medicalize trans issues, it is pretty discomforting that they have much more coherent understandings of gender than some who advocate trans acceptance (or coopt it as some sort of revolutionary act or postmodernist statement). Although ultimately, the former's interpretations are motivated by hatred and bigotry and will change at the spur of the moment once they realize that there are trans women who meet their criterion (or cis women who don't).

[Kowani]

Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Patty Murray (D-WA), and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) reintroduce the Survivors’ Access to Supportive Care Act to help improve and expand access to health care services for survivors of sexual assault

The Survivors’ Access to Supportive Care (SASCA) Act would: Strengthen the sexual assault examiner workforce by evaluating state-level needs. On the basis of literature reviewed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), as well as interviews with experts and state officials, data on the number of examiners nationwide and in selected states are limited or unavailable. SASCA will authorize $2 million per year for state-level surveys to better understand barriers to accessing sexual assault care and services, the availability of sexual assault
examiners, the costs of training, the spectrum of state-training requirements and standards, and the status of funding at the state level for sexual assault examinations. Develop and test national standards of care for survivors of sexual assault. Currently, no federal
programs exist for the sole purpose of expanding access to health care for survivors of sexual assault, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) does not oversee any national standard or certification protocol for sexual assault examiners. SASCA starts to address both of these by directing HHS to establish a pilot training and continuing education program, to be tested and incorporated by health care providers nationwide, including in rural areas where access to sexual assault examinations is limited due to provider and hospital shortages.

Increase understanding of and access to sexual assault care nationwide. The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (VAWA) of 2013 identified gender-based violence and sexual assault as ongoing threats to women, children, and families. SASCA will establish a pilot grant program to expand medical forensic exam training and services to new providers as well as to expand access in rural areas. SASCA will also establish a national sexual assault taskforce of government agencies and key stakeholders to better understand sexual assault and address the gaps in care for survivors.

Expand access to SAFE/SANE services: SASCA requires that hospitals provide information about their capacity to provide sexual assault care and services to survivors, and calls for the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality and individuals states to establish and keep an updated online maps
of where survivors can access SAFE/SANE Services. Additionally, SASCA will:
• Increase access for rural and tribal communities. SASCA provides training grants to entities that serve rural and tribal communities, with 15% of the funding allocated for these grants set aside for Indian-affiliated organizations. SASCA also calls for the development of tools and best practices that will address the unique features and cultural sensitivities within these communities.

• Increase access for students. SASCA will require that institutions of higher education make students aware of SAFE/SANE services on campus, including by providing information on the nearest hospital with SAFE/SANE services for student as well as information on transportation costs.

• Create a new resource center to provide technical assistance to states and hospitals in providing care to survivors. SASCA will create a new resource center, available to any hospital receiving federal funds, which aims to support access to sexual assault forensic examinations and encourage training. In addition, the center will facilitate interstate learning collectives to help share and learn best practices.

billtext here
and a neat little video too