Pointing out double standards does NOT make you sexist!

There seems to be a trend online at the moment to jump up and down on anyone pointing out double standards against 'white straight males' automatically is a racist or a sexist. No white straight men are not a discriminated group, they (we) still hold a massive amount of power in the western world, but there are double standards that need to be addressed if we want true equality and pointing them out does not mean you hate women.

A few years ago there was a massive advertising campaign in Australia with the tag line "Violence again Women, Australia says no!", it was an important topic, one that needed addressing, but anyone who criticised it was automatically labelled a wife beating sexist. Most people who had an issue with it mainly had an issue with the fact that it focused excursively on physical abuse, which while devastating is far from the only form of domestic abuse. It also made the problem appear to be exclusively a 'male against female' problem, which is is most definitely not. Domestic abuse can be male against female, male against male, female against male, female against female, etc.

I personally grew up seeing things that if the genders were swapped would automatically be considered domestic violence, but since it was female against male, it wasn't. But when I attempted to point that out online that perhaps a better tag line would have been "Domestic Abuse, Australia says no!", I was howled down as a misogynist.

It's also a cultural problem, how often have we seen a 'comedy' where the female in a relationship strikes the male in anger and it's played for laughs when the male winces in real pain? Switch the genders in your mind and consider it. Yes males on average are stronger then females, but you know what? It doesn't matter, domestic abuse isn't just about physical violence, there is a large mental component where one partner dominates the other.

And woe to anyone who attempts to point out the funding disparity between female outreach programs for the victims of domestic abuse and male outreach programs, or even health programs, like the government funding of things like breast cancer and prostate cancer (which thankfully has gotten much closer to parity).

In fact if you switch the genders in a lot of things you can see a clear double standard.
For example imagine a 33 year old male teacher having an affair with a 16 year old female student. You intellectually want to string the creep up by his toes don't you? Good, that's the way it's suppose to be. They are taking advantage and it's dead creepy.

Yet switching the genders, a 33 year old female teacher having an affair with a 16 year old male student will get a different reaction completely, it's exactly the same thing, but it's seen less of a crime, there are men out there that see nothing wrong with it, indulging in prurient fantasies instead of realising just how damaging such a 'relationship' can be to a persons long term mental health. There are also issues regarding the sentencing and prosecution of female sexual offenders thanks to this stupid double standard.

Hell, there are people online who discount the existence of female against male rape. I remember a few years ago a news story from a respected site that played for laughs the story of a man who was grabbed by three women, held down, and sexually assaulted. Most of the comments were people laughing about it... Again switch the genders.

But apparently because it was a man he must have 'wanted it'. Never mind that the male sexual response (Erection and Ejaculation) is an [b]INVOLUNTARY RESPONSE[/B] that can't be controlled. It's a sad reality that human sexual responses are outside of our control, a significant percentage of women who are sexually assaulted become sexually aroused during their attack and some even orgasm as a result, does that mean they 'wanted it?' OF COURSE NOT, IT WAS RAPE, their bodies betrayed them because of millions of years of evolution, it actually makes their mental recovery harder, yet because a man needs to obtain an erection, again a largely INVOLUNTARY response to stimuli, he is seen as 'wanting it'.

Bollocks.

No, pointing out the existence of these double standards does not make anyone a sexist. Of course there are some men out there that genuinely do hate woman, and wish to wind back the clock, but there are also women out there that hate men, both groups are a tiny tiny minority.

It's a sad sad society where a person is mocked or denied the help they need based on their gender . I don't hate women, not that I should have to say that, I don't think men are 'discriminated' against, but I do think there are issues that need to be addressed.

Things Sim City 2013 needed

A lot of things have been said about the latest Sim City game, things about the DRM, the Online servers, the tiny city sizes. I'm not going to rehash that. But there are a few things that I think were left out that could have made the game great.

  1. Subways
    Since my very first experience with Sim City way back when, there have been Subways. Somethings about the new game made a lot of sense, doing away with Powerlines and pipes, replacing them with roads made a lot of sense... but the lack of subways was a real killer, and makes the traffic seem like a nightmare.
  2. Public Policy.
    There is very little use in upgrade your town hall, sure you get access to a few buildings, but meh, after that? Just so much dross. What they could have done was adding the ability to set public policy from those buildings and wings. If you've ever played Tropico you know what I'm talking about, Edicts.

    The ability to set things like "police crackdown" or "school bakesale" or things like that, would have added much needed flavour to the game which at times is all about sitting around waiting for something to happen.
More to come.

Doctors!

There are times I think Doctors and Dentists need to spend a few months working retail repair, either fixing cars, computers, or something like that, dealing with customers.

It would do their "bedside manner" the world of bloody good.

How many times have you held off going to see either a Doctor or a Dentist because you just didn't want to deal with them lecturing you over things?

Well, make them work retail for a few months, and they'll learn there is no quicker way to get someone's shirt up then being a smart ass and saying things like "well if you didn't download porn". Most people at that point simply want to snot you in the nose for being a prat. They know they shouldn't have done that already, they don't need you being a prick about it and rubbing their nose in it.

Doctors and Dentists need the same bloody lesson, we already know we shouldn't have done whatever we did was stupid, lecturing about us wont fucking help, all it will do is make us want to avoid you tosspots.