A "Female Problem"?

[_ajax18]

Just thought I'd tell you guys that I went to a female doctor today. I couldn't find any male doctors and it was either someone who didn't speak English or an American woman. I usually avoid females for counseling or healthcare but this woman was great. I never thought women were not as smart, but I know it's hard understand what is to be a man if you're not. I totally understand women who prefer female doctors. That makes sense as well.

Anyway I expected the worst, but was happy to find someone economically wise and practically minded.

[_Dr. Shades]

I usually avoid females for counseling or healthcare but this woman was great. I never thought women were not as smart, but I know it's hard understand what is to be a man if you're not.

I'm the exact opposite. I chose a female doctor to perform my vasectomy. I just thought it would be less gay than having a man messing around with my package.

[_ajax18]

I usually avoid females for counseling or healthcare but this woman was great. I never thought women were not as smart, but I know it's hard understand what is to be a man if you're not.

I'm the exact opposite. I chose a female doctor to perform my vasectomy. I just thought it would be less gay than having a man messing around with my package.

Well I'm not gay, but if I had prostate trouble, I'd definitely want a male doctor, preferably an older one who may have had it himself. Doing the surgery? Probably a young male doctor. I think that's what my wife would prefer as well. I guess "gay" isn't even a part of my world at all. I guess that's why socially I'd fit into the old Mormon idea of keeping the boys and girls separated. I guess that social structure goes to hell when you add homosexuality to the mix.

[_Coggins7]

In contemporary America, without an egregious redefinition of the spectrum of views on gender roles, this isn't accurate. They're progressive for LDS. For America in general, this is conventional wisdom. While "progressive" is a synonym of "leftist" when used in a certain context, it doesn't really translate here.

Keep up the sophisticated pose Allusion. The term "Progressive" has been used historically to circumscribe everything on the left from various form of democratic socialism to the most extreme forms of utopian collectivism (revolutionary Marxism/Leninism). Progressivism is Leftism, in any western context.

How transparent you really are, Allusion.

So in this sense, Leftism describes whatever you disagree with?

"Progressive", Moksha, is a code for "Left", just as social justice means "socialism" and "participatory democracy" means "socialism' and "Gay" means "homosexual" and "African American" means Black American.

These are all terms used to hide ideology within semantics.

[_ajax18]

I do not know of any feminist who thinks there is some need or reason for restitution or retaliation because of the treatment of women over the past five thousand years.

Affirmative action seems to me to try to compensate for past racial and gender inequalities. I mentioned the divorce law I read as a law student. It left even the most liberal men in the class just shaking their heads as they read the cases and the precedents that were set.

And like I said in repsonse to the original post. I don't think it's fair that Mormon culture girls go out to college and it's a big party or adventure, while the men know it comes down to them to ultimately go to work. It seems to me that the women I've talked to think they should have the choice (and complete autonomy in the decision) to go to work or stay with their children whenever they want. Yet the man must go to work and if he doesn't make enough money, the judge may tell him to get a better job. Yes it happened. My best friend is an illegitimate child with no parental help. He graduated college in chemistry, but there aren't many jobs around undergrad chemists. Times were not good. So we worked at WalMart together in the Vision center, me for the experience, him because that was the best he could get. We earned roughly $1200 a month. He may have been earning as much as $1400 a month since he had been there a while.

His wife went to court and had his child support raised from $200 a month to $800 a month. Now he can't even pay his rent, let alone buy food. Her new man makes up to $30/hr., but welders don't always have steady work, and sometimes he's learned that it pays not to go. Of course she won't even consider working even though her twin daughters are now in 2nd grade. Why would she? Minimum wage jobs suck. But somebody's got to do it. Could my friend have won custody of the children? Absolutely not, the judge would not even consider it. Is that fair?

Then there is the fact that men are basically financially punished (if they have the means) when they end a relationship, while wealthy women seem to walk away from marriages without financial punitive measurements for infidelity.

Title IX. Another case of current inequality as a means of redressing past inequality. Now they want to take our sports away. Not all girls are interested in sports, but most boys are. Perhaps we should say equal money should be spent on boys and girls activities, but to say that equal money should be spent on boys and girls sports is simply unfair.

A man in Florida realized that after 9 years he had been paying child support on a child that was not his through DNA testing. The mother had lied because he was the richest man she happened to have copulated with around that time. The court ruled that he would continue to pay his high child support because it was in the best interest of the child. That's absurb! But absurd is the norm in family law. Look what Larry Birkhead had to go through to win custody of his daughter, from her mother's lover and grandmother, not even her mother herself, and he was clearly the girl's father.

Is it really about the children? No, because if it were they would make women demonstrate that this child support money was used on the children. Nor does a man maintain any part of the decision on what you get for the children. In Florida the man wasn't even a part of the decision to have children in the first place. The court ruled that he was liable for child support to a woman who wanted to implant fertilized embryos into her even after they had already divorced.

What do you see as amiss? Is it fair that women can vote? Get an education? Get paid equally for the same job? Is it fair that a woman can ask for a divorce? Send a rapist husband to jail? Play in a symphony? Own their own body? Speak in public? Be a pastor of a church? Be the Governor? CEO?

Asking for a divorce is fine. But taking his money with her is not if she didn't earn it! It's one thing to help put a man through school, make him who he is, and then be left for a younger woman. This I agree, she should get something. It's another thing to find a man with money, divorce him, and take it with her. She could play that trick on lots of men and theoretically be entitled to lots of money. Also women shouldn't be able to ask for a divorce and expect the man to bear all the cost that divorce creates. A divorce makes for lost money and the woman should share that burden especially if it's just "irreconcilable differences." Maybe she gets fat. He shouldn't have a right to leave her for that. Yet more often I see it where he goes down financially and she leaves him for someone richer, and somehow manages to take what the broke man has left.

No. You can't tell me that divorce law is fair to men.

[_ajax18]

One more thing I didn't add. I once coached a girls tennis team in a high school. I love tennis. I'm definitely better suited for football or basketball, but I like individual competition and objective rules to the game. Unfortunately tennis doesn't have the mass appeal and paying crowds that football and basketball have. So it wasn't surprising that I had to get parents to carpool, players to set the court up, and parents to pay for the equipment. Then the parents give me this line of crap about equality and that I should be pressuring the administration to hire bus drivers to carry five or six girls to a match. Well it wasn't my decision anyway, but I could see that the administration was not as foolish about economics as I thought. They (females by the way) would not order a bus.

It's not about equality. It's about whether or not people pay to watch you do this. That's what gives you the chance to do something you enjoy for money. If you don't like basketball so much or aren't really cut out to compete at the highest level (which is me being white), than you shouldn't be able to order someone to pay for you to play. I play tennis now and am comparatively a lot better at it than I was at basketball, but even still I don't draw the crowds I (and my coach/teammates) drew in high school playing small town football and basketball. So I buy my own equipment now. I can't force someone pay for it if they don't want it.

[_Jason Bourne]

Like it or not women have been suppressed and even abused throughout the ages.

So has everybody, including men and children. The "patriarchy" is pure ideological myth.

Children have certainly been suppressed and at time men have in certain cultures. But women seem to bear the brunt across the historical board in most societies. I don't think the historical fact dispute this.

It is only recently in human history where they really have had equal opportunities for career, political office, choices other than perhaps marriage and mother hood and so on.

And these choices will inevitably produce consequences. This is a mortal probation, not a mortal sinecure.

Yep. The question then remains whether a consequence of a women delaying children, not having as many or not having any disqualifies them from God's love or His salvation. Certainly if they chose not to have children or if they have fewer one consequence is they will miss out on the relationships that could come from those children, now and in the eternities. But I do not think God will love them less or even prohibit them from being with him because of it.

What is wrong with letting them have choices.

Nothing. But choices have consequences, and although we make our own choices, we cannot, thereafter, choose our consequence

yes but determining the consequences can be tough.

Personally I believe family and home are the best choices if a couple agrees that is what works for them.

Wrong. Family and home are the core, fundamental units of civil society. Without them, there is no civil society.

I agree with that as well but I think many if not most will choose a family so those who do not will not impact society negatively. But I am talking about God's love here.

But I do not believe that is should be forced, coerced or used to make someone feel that they are less faithful in the religion of their choice because of another choice.

Nothing in the Gospel is coerced or forced. You can take it,or leave it. Its the apostates, and particularly the secular ones who have moved in to the great and spacious building, who wish to impose their own template upon the rest of the Saints, not vice versa.

Well this person who you think is an apostate does not want to force my view. Sister Beck is the one that implies that woman who know, who have faith and so on have children, don't wait, don't have careers and so on. I say women can do either and still know and they should be able to be happy about choices without pressure and manipulative talks like the one Sister Beck gave.

[_ajax18]

But I do not think God will love them less or even prohibit them from being with him because of it.

Jason in looking at this principle generally as far as keeping any commandment (and since I've already asserted what upsets me about women), it's something I really don't agree with in some people's interpretation of Mormonism. The seminary manual said, "What can you do to make God love you more? What can you make him do to love you less?" I wrote out my response of all the things I could do. Then turned over and looked at the Home study answer. It said, "Nothing," God will always love you the same no matter what. This makes no sense to me. I still don't understand what they mean by "love."

To me their must be a benefit to keeping a commandment, otherwise the one who gave the commandment did not make it with the best interest of the governed in mind. And to me it only makes sense if God loves Jesus more than Satan and every one of us proportionally to where we fall in between on that continuum. Otherwise what is love? Does God still love Satan. Does He still love me as an inactive as much as when I ruined my health in his service. I don't think He should. It wouldn't be fair to the man I once was.

I know devout Mormons who have confided in me that they don't share the view of the seminary manual either. I respected it that they would at least make a stand one way or the other on it. Most Mormons I would talk with would avoid the dilemma with a bunch of double talk designed to protect the Church rather than resolve the paradox.

[_Dr. Shades]

Well I'm not gay, but if I had prostate trouble, I'd definitely want a male doctor, preferably an older one who may have had it himself. Doing the surgery? Probably a young male doctor.

Again, I'm the exact opposite. If I absolutely must be probed "back there," it damn well better be by a woman.

I guess "gay" isn't even a part of my world at all. I guess that's why socially I'd fit into the old Mormon idea of keeping the boys and girls separated.

Not me. In my life, I'd prefer that boys and girls be mixed as much as humanly possible.

[_truth dancer]

Hi Ajax,

I don't think it's fair that Mormon culture girls go out to college and it's a big party or adventure, while the men know it comes down to them to ultimately go to work. It seems to me that the women I've talked to think they should have the choice (and complete autonomy in the decision) to go to work or stay with their children whenever they want. Yet the man must go to work

OK, this may be the teaching in LDS culture but it is most definitely NOT the thought of any feminist I know. Without exception, those I know believe men should have the same choices as women; that parenting should be the decision of both partners depending on their situation and skills. Again, I know of NO feminist who agrees with this. Perhaps you mistake LDS teachings for feminism?

In terms of laws... we could go on and on about specific situations. For example my sister whose TBM, former Bishop husband had an affair, got Xed, left his wife and four children (all under the age of ten), remarried, got re-baptized one year later, had seven more children in the next ten years and does not pay child support, or support his first four children in any way. I mean yea, it sucks. People get screwed. It is horrible regardless of who it is that gets hurt and most often it is everyone. I think most judges and law makers are doing their best to even the playing field which completely hurt women for all of recorded history. Remember it is only recently a woman could even ask for a divorce. We know that after a divorce, typically a man's living standards go up while a woman's goes way down. So, while there are exceptions, it is not like women are somehow living like queens while a man is on welfare. :-(

While, yeah most stay at home moms get primary custody, couples who both work often share custody. I don't know why this is a bad thing.

The problem is Ajax, you seem to have this anger toward women and see everything as a fight; women against men. It is not like this for most of us. Why do you feel this way?

Wanting equality is not about fighting men, it is about moving toward a more enlightened and harmonious society where women and men can live their lives in the best way they can with equal opportunities, rights, and privileges.

~dancer~