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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   27782 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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I believe the ERA, which would apply strict scrutiny for sex-based discrimination, same as the level for race, instead of intermediate scrutiny which is used now, is very much a "careful what you wish" situation for its cheerleaders on the left generally. As strict scrutiny is an almost impossibly high bar, meaning common female-centric societal advantages advantages build into the law or policies become illegal: the draft, sex-based crime initiatives, female-focused jobs and skills initiatives, affirmative-action (theoretically already dead), etc.

But I could be wrong.

As a metaphor, from Ames v. Ohio:

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars employment discrimination against "any individual"—itself a phrase that is entirely clear—"because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin[.]" 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). Thus, to state the obvious, the statute bars discrimination against "any individual" on the grounds specified therein. Yet our court and some others have construed this same provision to impose different burdens on different plaintiffs based on their membership in different demographic groups. Specifically—to establish a prima-facie case when (as in most cases) the plaintiff relies upon indirect evidence of discrimination—members of "majority" groups must make a showing that other plaintiffs need not make: namely, they must show "background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority." Zambetti v. Cuyahoga Cmty. Coll., 314 F.3d 249, 255 (6th Cir. 2002) (cleaned up) (quoting Murray v. Thistledown Racing Club, Inc., 770 F.2d 63, 67 (6th Cir. 1985)).

To be fair, SCOTUS is hearing this matter on appeal in February.. To be less naive, I included those very long citations because Murray v Thisledown dates back to 1985, aka over forty years of Some People Are More Equal before SCOTUS might slap their wrists.

But I could be wrong.

In this thread the phrase "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" came up. And this is one of those cases where it applies. Were the ERA to pass, all sexes would be equal, but some sexes would be more equal than others. Through a combination of procedural trickery and sophistry, measures which favor women would remain legal, while measures which favor men would become Constitutionally illegal. Since neither conservatives nor leftists want to draft women, court cases requiring that would face impossible barriers.

Yeah, one only needs to look at the National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality to see how this would play out.

Jesus. In a 42 page document, beginning on page 7, men aren't mentioned till page 9:

We also combat discrimination and harmful gender norms that affect people of all genders: women and girls— including transgender women and girls—gender nonbinary and gender nonconforming people, as well as men and boys. (Emphasis mine)

In total, men are mentioned a grand total of 11 times in 42 pages, and with only two exceptions those instances reference men purely to illustrate the comparative plight of women.

42 pages. 11 mentions. 1 positive mention.

That 'positive' mention is the one I give above, where it's suggested that men need help to liberate them from their masculinity. The other mention is neutral, stating that the commission will work with men to, of course, help women.

I'd be less critical of it if it merely ignored men. Instead it often takes blatant evidence of discrimination against men and views it as discrimination against women. Eg, consider the section on education, which says of higher education:

While women have made substantial progress in rates of enrollment in postsecondary education and represent a majority of college students, they hold two-thirds of the nation’s student debt

"Women represent a majority of college students" here is hiding a large and growing gender gap in college education going back over 40 years at this point. Worse, pointing out women hold two-third's of the nation's student debt and implying it is discriminatory against women completely hides both that women are very nearly two-thirds of college students (so it is nearly proportionate) and hides the structural issues that disproportionately prevent men from accessing student loans, most prominently being men having to sign up for selective service in order to be eligible for (note this changed very recently, with men being automatically enrolled since so many weren't doing so voluntarily...) the government subsidized loans which make up over 90% of student loan debt. This is like claiming whites were being discriminated against because they held a disproportionate amount of outstanding mortgage debt at the height of redlining.

Page 4:

The single father who depends on paid leave to care for his family.

Well done! I used Ctrl+F for ‘men’, I should have tried some more synonyms.

How many times are transgender women mentioned?

Trans people (generally) twice, and trans women (specifically) three times. I could've missed some because it was a simple ctrl+F.

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