Many traditional cultures in North America ban women from any political office. Native American tribes frequently do. IIRC, the more fundamental Mormons do also. They may not support the harshness of Sharia law, but they are decidedly anti women.
Women in Christian politics
- Thread starter dutchfire
- Start date
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
It's debatable how "traditional" that sort of thing actually is, though. In the pre-colonial era, formal political office in many Indian societies was concerned with the relationship of the tribe to external entities, either to other communities or to spiritual beings. The internal administration of the tribe was often much more egalitarian, often lacking any formal political office and sometimes being female-dominated. The reconstruction of offices such as "chief" as political offices in the Western sense, as authorities within the tribe rather than authorities on behalf of the tribe, is for many Indian peoples very much an innovation.
Which doesn't change your central point, of course, that this is already a Thing, just that it's always worth keeping in mind the sorts of historical complexities that are often lost behind the apparent simplicity of "tradition". (An especially pertinent concern when dealing with as modern, invented a "tradition" as Protestant fundamentalism.)
ParkCungHee
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2006
- Messages
- 12,921
You know, they're halfway to a great political platform.
classical_hero
In whom I trust
Are there any other Christian Parties in The Netherlands?
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
There are apparently two of them.
I take it from the descriptions that Dutchfire is referring to the Christian Union instead of the Christian Democratic Appeal, since the latter has a female chairman.
I take it from the descriptions that Dutchfire is referring to the Christian Union instead of the Christian Democratic Appeal, since the latter has a female chairman.
Ailedhoo
wonderer
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2012
- Messages
- 7,809
There is the Gaulists in France (named after the famed heoric general), the Tories in Britain (as well as UKIP for British ultraconseratives), the Conservative Democratic Party of Switzerland in guess where, the Conservative People's Party in Denmark, the (liberal conserative) Christian Democratic Union of Germany in I wonder where, the Conservative Party in Norway... there are plenty of conserative parties in Europe.
Banning a party in Germany is extremely tricky - the party not only needs to be proven to be opposed to the constitutional order but also proven to actively and militantly ("aktiv - kämpferisch") work to overthrow the constitutional order - and please note that simply working against some parts of the constitution doesn't cut it either - the whole free and democratic constitutional order ("freiheitlich-demokratische Grundordnung") needs to be threatened. That is why only three attempts at banning a party have ever been made with only two being succesful (against the Sozialistische Reichspartei in 1952 - a direct successor of the NSDAP, and against the communist party of Germany in 1956). The third attempt against a modern day neo-nazi party (NPD) failed spectacularly 12 years ago and another attempt against them is being undertaken this year - apparently to make them ban-proof for good since I seriously doubt that it is going to be successful.
Banning non-party political societies though is relatively easy around here. [/nitpick]
As for the topic at hand: Either a party's program is so incompatible with the democratic rules as to warrant a ban (then go ban them) or it is not in which case the state (including the courts) has no business interfering with their program or the candidate lists they are offering to voters. Let the electorate decide on the party platform/candidates without diluting either the platform or the candidate list through outside intervention.
My thoughts exactly. But I think it would be a dangerous road to go down if we forced a party to have a certain number of women on their list. Parties should make their own decisions on who they make their candidates. It's the voter's job to judge whether they're the right ones. Knowing Dutch society, I doubt this particular party will have success with this policy.
Wow, I didn't know Coulter was that much of a boomerang bigot.
All with varying degrees of effective conservatism. Germany's CDU for example certainly wouldn't feel like a conservative party to the average American, for example. Heck, even to German conservatives, these days.
And that same religion not allowing men to do certain things is decidedly anti man, then? Is having defined roles for genders necessarily being anti that gender?
Ailedhoo
wonderer
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2012
- Messages
- 7,809
The issue of gender is that gender roles are not a positive product or the positives are overweighted by the grand negatives. People are people, not simply biological machines. Discrimination is bad.
Men and women ARE different. To refuse to see that for the purpose of some grand overreaching political pie in the sky dream of "everyone is the same" is asinine. Our bodies are different, our basic physical abilities are different, and so forth. Men are generally better at some things, women are generally better at others.
Also, discrimination in and of itself is not always bad. That's silliness. You need a tall person for your basketball team? Well hells bells son, don't discriminate against Tyrion Lannister! That's bad.
(I suspect now a lot of people are going to assume I'm a midget hating misogynist)
Also, discrimination in and of itself is not always bad. That's silliness. You need a tall person for your basketball team? Well hells bells son, don't discriminate against Tyrion Lannister! That's bad.
(I suspect now a lot of people are going to assume I'm a midget hating misogynist)
Borachio
Way past lunacy
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2012
- Messages
- 26,698
Yes. I think it does mean that, by and large.
I honestly don't see any occupation/role as being gender specific. It makes absolutely no sense to me.
It is true, of course, that men are, on average, taller and more muscular than women. And you might argue that simply because of this then certain occupations are more relevant for men than women. Alternatively, you might decide to "discover" that women have, on average, smaller hands than men, and therefore they should be favoured for work requiring greater manual dexterity - or whatever.
But this line of reasoning ignores two important points, in my opinion:
1. Males may be larger on average because of cultural factors which favour them, for example they may be fed in preference to females. And over several generations this could have resulted in the differences you observe.
2. Just because, on average, men are this or that, and women, on average, are the other and so on, doesn't mean, automatically, that occupations should be gender specific in any way. There are after all, I'm sure you'll agree, some very large muscular women and some very small delicately formed men.
But all that is concerned with physical attributes. There is the mental aspect to consider.
Here again, there seems nothing to suppose that males are, necessarily and intrinsically, different from females in any way.
In what, exactly, would this intrinsic difference manifest itself? In what way is the female brain hardwired differently from that of the male brain?
Is there any way to tell, just by examining them, that one brain is male and another female? I've not heard of any research being able to do this.
Still, perhaps this will convince you:
Link to video.
Ailedhoo
wonderer
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2012
- Messages
- 7,809
You bought a case of "biotruths..." which is not a state of holding.
To quote a comrade from Beylond the Lampshade:
Octo said:
The thread it was posted in is here. Warning: language.
Anyway: the point is men and women are not programed like machines to be focus on certain tasks. They are people. Individually one studied a figure, instead of blantent generalisations that are the defended by fallacies like "the idea of equality is eye in the sky." The structural differences? The idea "men are stronger then women" is for instance a fallacy. The sexual context is not the issue here but on the setting of roles. Expectations by society are not what the natural considerations are. Men and women are not different by the scales your making them out to be.
VRWCAgent said:
To be hostile to discrimination is not silliness. To combine cynicallism with Reddit style "biotruthism" is not the best of cases to take.
...as for your example: I am not a sportsperson but I am certain a expert might take considerations. It also makes presumtions of the high of th basketball court...
At least they're being consistent. I often wondered why conservative Christians so often emphasize prohibitions against homosexuality while ignoring the limitations set on women in the Bible. I'm more familiar with American Evangelical Christians and some of the ultra conservatives may have rules like this but honestly you don't see too many evangelical Christians saying things like, Sarah Pailin shouldn't be in politics because she's a woman. It just seems ridiculously old fashioned.
Forcing this political party to admit women seems pointless because - the women who would support this party's policies would probably not want to be in office and those who don't would not want anything to do with them.
Forcing this political party to admit women seems pointless because - the women who would support this party's policies would probably not want to be in office and those who don't would not want anything to do with them.
I think Ann Coulter says a lot of things for shock value.
That could be true for some jobs but I don't see how it's relevant to politicians. It may be true that women just naturally gravitate less towards certain jobs regardless of the amount of barriers that exist or don't exist and it's unrealistic to expect 50/50 representation in politics like some people seem to want.
Old Hippy
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2011
- Messages
- 3,606
it reminds me that when Australia became a federation, they had to give women the vote, 1901, because the colony of Western Australia had given women the vote, because they had a minning boom,(gold) and lots of single English minners were coming, and they were lefty's so the rightwing male land owning establishment, decided to give women the vote 1899, to bulster their postion, to even the vote up, because of course women would always vote the same way as their menfolk.... what went wrong...
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
All you have left to do now is explain the parallel between small people being not as suited for basketball and women in politics.
Otherwise you just made an excellent point why we need more incentives to have women in politics. Their unique aspects need to be represented.
