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There can be a consensus of sorts, and to an extent in this thread there has been one.
And there will always be men's issues and women's issues because men and women are not the same and never will be. Being equal doesn't (and shouldn't) mean being identical, and thus being treated or judged as such. That's unrealistic, and imo only fuels these kinds of debates.
It's not about taking sides. We're all still individuals even though we're individuals in the context of our gender.
That really does depend on where and when you look though. there are cultures where women do all the physical labour, and I seem to remember something in the british history books about women during the war doing alright at physical labour too.
Well, I could argue the opposite, that women are more productive as a direct result of their gender, it doesn't make it true. Also, the idea that there are two genders that correspond to biology is only a culturally specific idea, it's not actually 'true'.
Is your unsuitability for that job because of your sex/gender though, or because of your own personal abilities? I worked with a builder when I was 18/19 and he said I was the most productive person he'd had working for him - carrying bricks and breeze blocks and mixing up t'muck etc. And... gasp... I'm a woman, a smallish one too.
Well, it is. Of course there are social and cultural aspects to gender identity.
But to claim that gender is all about culture and is not actually a true distinction is just plain false. Can you name a single culture anywhere in the world that doesn't have some understanding of men and women as distinct categories? Are there any cultures where many people (as opposed to just an atypical tiny minority) are unsure as to which of these categories they belong?
Even if you take into account transgender or intersex people, the point with those people is that they know which gender they think they ought to belong to, and it's not the one they are currently assigned to. But in 99.99% of people, we know which gender we are, and it's the same as the sex our chromosomes identify us with.
Not really.
I don't see how you can argue that men are more suited for physical labour than women because in general they are stronger and have more stamina.
It's not a coincidence that all the athletic world records are held by men and that men in general out perform women at physical sport. Neither is it a coincidence that in the army women are far more likely to suffer injury in training and therefore be less productive.
The same could be said for insurance though. Is my higher premium because I have a cock or because I of my personal ability as a driver?
You deserve to be assessed on your invidual abilities as a worker so why not as a driver?
Are men directly more dangerous drivers because of their gender?
And statistically it is true that women are more prone to injury and sick leave in the army.
As with much of the animal kingdom there are two sexes, with quite clear biological differences that extend further than just having different sexual organs. There may be a very small minority of people that fall somewhere in between but to suggest that there's no such thing is silly.
Nope, of course it isn't.
I think the point was rather 'gender' =/= 'sex'. Just because we think girls wear dresses and men go to war doesn't men that they are the biological prerogatives of either sex, it's just our social construct of what it is to be a 'man' or what is to be a 'woman'. Someone could be violent and not be a man, for example - or someone could not like sexual attention and not be a woman. In fact, the evidence supports this, but the fact is we are still caught up in what we as a collective think either gender should or should not behave like.
The bigger problem of course is that by continuing to perpetuate these predefined roles it actually means they are more widely adopted. So the more we say men should be manly and sacrifice themselves in war / protecting others / whatever the more men growing up think that's what they're supposed to do - and the more we say women should be a good mother and look after their family, the more young women growing up will think that's what they're supposed to do.
I would like us to remove these pre defined gender roles so that we can say - yes, you're male, but you don't have to act like what everyone expects a 'man' to act like (which, I think is to some extent violent, strong, confrontational - not really the most desirable attributes in any case!), and the inverse for females.
As for insurance / pay, people are completely right that people shouldn't be discriminated against because of their sex, but these are the symptoms of the wider problem of pre defined gender roles.
Cultures plays a massive part in gender roles yes, but there are clear biological and chemical differences bewteen the sexes, differences that affect our behaviour and our growth. Culture has exaggerated these biological differences yes, but to suggest that our sex has no bearing on our behaviour is crazy.
Wasn't meaning to pick fault with your assertion, I do agree. Just wondered whether you saw the comment from same perspective I did