A Crash Course in Feminism Mk. II (or, why everyone should be a feminist)

[Eldar_Atog]

Everyone is free to choose what they want to do. (This is a big part of why we now have a student debt crisis in this country. Too many people have borrowed money to pursue careers that are NOT financially viable.)

Aren't the for profit schools the big cause of student debt? Hopefully, people will soon learn that the "for profit" schools don't provide the same level of education as an university.

[40kGamer]

Aren't the for profit schools the big cause of student debt? Hopefully, people will soon learn that the "for profit" schools don't provide the same level of education as an university.

The for profit schools definitely cause lots of issues. But even in the public universities kids can easily accumulate stupid amounts of debt (I've seen $100,000 and up over a 4-5 year term). If they've picked a career they 'like' vs one that pays out this can lead to serious trouble for them. Not too many art or literature students are going to cover the payments on that debt load. Guidance counselors that tell kids to follow their dreams need a serious reality check as to where that type of advice can lead.

[daboarder]

10, 000 isnt a lot in terms of university degrees. The US ones regularly hit 100, 000 or more . Unfortunately for oz our septic PM want to do this to us

[Power Klawz]

Men pontificating about the sanctity of fetal life always have some ulterior motive. There's no such thing as absolute altruism, you're not going to raise the children that result from unwanted pregnancies, hell you don't even want to pay taxes to help support them. You just want to make sure women you'll never even know have to go through the incredibly traumatic experience of delivering a child they do not want. You don't care what that child will become, you don't care about the life of poverty and deprivation it will likely face, you don't care about the sociological realities of the world, the actual world that you live in. All you care about is stringing some ill-conceived words together on a computer screen because you find it difficult to locate a sentient human being who will listen to you ramble on about things you have no earthly conception of.

Its not within your power to arbitrarily declare when human life starts. There are certain physiological factors which determine the viability of a human being outside the womb. Prior to those necessities being met it is dependent on the body of the mother, and if we are a society which truly values freedom we MUST maintain that a person's body is their own. Whatever misbegotten philosophy you espouse is meaningless in the face of intrinsic human rights. If we started dictating what people did with their bodies based on things like religion or consensus then I'm pretty sure the first thing on the list wouldn't be making abortion illegal, it would be taking away people's cheeseburger rights and instituting mandatory exercise time.

Trying to act as though there is only one REAL reason to have sex is completely arrogant and antagonistic to reality. People have sex for many nuanced reasons, and teh vast majority of those reasons are not "in order to produce more humans as efficiently as possible." Just because the biological process is understood to exist as a means of species replication does not place it in that context for the individual. We as humans have the capacity to develop beyond instinctual behaviors. Perhaps you've partaken in such activities as watching a movie, reading a book or listening to music? Yeah, the same apparatus which allows such pleasantries to occur also opens the door to having sex for *gasp* pleasure! Or maybe to strengthen emotional relationships! Or maybe to kill time and get some exercise, hell as long as the involved parties are down for it there doesn't need to be a precise reason, and assuming that this biological imperative is at the heart of all sexual activity a priori is farcical. My car is most fuel efficient at approximately 5000rpms in the highest gear, doesn't mean I don't drive faster than that in lower gears.

The primary functional reasoning for sexual intercourse in modern first world countries is not procreation. I'd wager that its split somewhere between interpersonal relationship development and recreation. We do it to make ourselves feel good, to make other people feel good, to strengthen or create emotional bonds. Most sex in the first world is not undertaken to produce viable offspring. That is a social reality, one with far more weight than instinctual behavior. Trying to scare children and young adults into believing that there are unavoidable consequences for having sex is completely asinine, because there aren't nor should there be.

In effect what you want is to remake the world in some ridiculous puritanical image that has never existed but in the minds of patriarchal egomaniacs. That's your hang up, and it has nothing to do with the choices women make about their own bodies.

[Gotthammer]

[Psychosplodge]

That's possibly one of the better responses to this subject I've seen on here PK.

[Mr Mystery]

Apparenly, 50 Shades of Grey film is better than the book.

Yet it's my understanding that's akin to losing one leg being better than losing both legs?

[Psychosplodge]

It's such a low bar to set that its an essentially meaningless statement.

[Mr Mystery]

Quite so.

"Good news, Mr Bond. I was going to have you thrown to rabid Wolves. But they've spontaneously overcome the Rabies, so it'll just be regular Wolves tearing your flesh apart"

[Morgrim]

I do tend to roll my eyes at anyone that claims the primary purpose of sex is reproduction and that assigning any other meaning in a matter of culture. Our closest biological relatives are bonobos. Are people familiar with bonobos? Their entire social structure revolves around all-in orgies. They use sex to bond, to make friends, to make social claims, as messaging, as dominance displays, and to resolve fights. 'Making babies' is the least important function of bonobo mating.

Given that our other close relative, chimpanzees, uses sex for social reasons too why would people claim that humans instinctively treat it only as a way of making more humans?