:
: So men are responsible for all the wars in the world Kevin? BS. This is so funny i can't help laughing. I'm sure you're aware that some of the most reactionary, descipcable leaders of modern times have been women. Maggie Thatcher? Indira Gandhi? Golda Meir? Corazon Aquino, who held more political prisoners than MArcos? And my personal favorite, the notorious liar, aristocrat and charlatan, Lady Chamorro?: if I was a sexist, I could make some nasty connections about whatever happens when women come to power. But I'm not and I won't. Obviously they aren't representative of all women. But they do demonstrate that women are no better than men when it coems to progressive leadership.
: I will, say however, that any analogy between racism and sexism is without foundation. there is no meaningful difference, biological or otherwise, between different 'races'. oin fact, races do not even exist scientifically; they're a human construction. A black man is literally interchangeable for a white, or a Chinese, or an Indian. To argue that there are no significant differences bewteen men and women, hwoever, is facially absurd. All of biology and evolution states otherwise. A man and a woman are different, while a black man and a white man are not.
Those women you mentioned are outnumbered thousands to one... tens of thousands to one throughout recorded history. Is it not possible that they have learned to play men's game well enough to make the history books. After all, it takes a war to make it into the history books, whereas male and female leaders who have struggled for peace are less (in)famous.
Taking one of these examples, wasn't Margaret Thatcher de-womanized by the media and her fellow politicians? Didn't she "have balls"? If I cared enough about her I'm sure I could find thousands of references to her masculinity. Why is this? She certainly did not maintain her "feminine" attributes in the eyes of society.
As for comparisons between racism and gender-based discrimination, I'd like to clarify something. I have been attempting here to draw a comparison between racism and discrimination based on perceived gender, not on what's in the pants. Gender is a social construct just as race is. Men are not naturally more gifted with automobiles, nor are they less gifted with diapers. These are socially constructed differences, which people learn. Often they do not exist at all, but are perceived because people feel they SHOULD exist. For example, the notion that women cannot be doctors or that they are not adept at math, or that men are not good teachers for young children. These are gender-based constructs that have no truth to them except insofar as they have been self-fulilling prophecies.
One frightening example of the construction of gender (which also serves to show that sex is not so black and white as most people think) is the case of intersexed infants. Many children are born each year who exhibit physical signs of both sexes. They are not left as such to mature as they would normally. They are operated on. Prior to this, their parents and their doctors consult and decide which sex they are more likely to live successfully as. In most cases the baby is made into a girl, because the enlarged clitoris is simply "too small" to pass as a decent sized penis. The underlying reason seems to be that men need to have certain sized members to be "members" of the male club. Otherwise, they are of inferior quality, and therefore worthy only of female-ness.
BTW, let me just reiterate I don't think all wmoen are sweet and innocent any more than I think all men are always evil in nature. In this case I am speaking of gender-based persecution, which is systematically carried out against women by men. My comments about wars were intended only to emphasize that violent behaviour is something primarily carried out by men, against both men and women.
