International Women's Day

[RB]

No society should operate without the full participation of females and also encouragemnet to the full potential and advancement of females. Statistics are still showing gender biasness and women as a disadvantage group.

So how far have women really gotten?

[Black Dog]

Farther than they were but not nearly far enough.

[kimmy]

Pretty far, I would say.

Any individual woman has such a wide range of choices open to her that a woman of past ages probably couldn't have even imagined. The statistics you mention don't mean much when discussing an individual. As she approaches adulthood, a young woman has virtually the same options available to her as a young man. (I'm ignoring careers in professional sports, though it should be pointed out that biology excludes the overwhelming majority from men from careers in professional sports too.)

That fewer women, in aggregate, choose certain career paths is not evidence that an individual woman doesn't have the opportunity to choose them.

There might still exist certain barriers in certain areas (such as politics or possibly the highest reaches of business) that work against women. And I don't know what might be done about it... but it's likely a situation that few of us will ever be confronted by.

I think in some respects women have more choices than men. For women, leaving work to be a stay-at-home parent is considered a valid (and even noble) choice; a man who chose to be a stay at home parent would likely face a stigma. Some relatives faced this situation; the wife, with twice the earning power of the husband, returned to work after her maternity leave; he stays at home to care for their child. This has been the source of some disapproving comments from other family members, so I can only wonder what "the guys" think of it.

I do think there are some situations that for physiological reasons will never be completely fair between the sexes. Women will likely always be physically smaller and weaker and generally less able to protect themselves physically. I think that reproduction (and all the related issues) will always place a much higher burden on women; I don't see any sensible remedy to that. I think that sexually, women will always need to exercise extra caution. I think that for reasons relating to the basic wiring of the brain, there will always be a surplus of men seeking sex and a shortage of women willing to provide it, and this will continue to have complex implications in many aspects of our society. And none of these factors, as far as I can see, are issues that any amount of social engineering can correct.

But I don't think any of that works against you as an individual, if you make good choices.

-kimmy

[RB]

The theme for this year's International Women's Day campaign is:

"Gender Equality Beyond 2005: Building a More Secure Future"

Thanks to all you gentlemen of Mapleleafweb who will make this possible and to all women I say

May we Dream bigger

Fly Higher

Scale new heights

EVERYDAY

I wanted to say this as I can't respond to the post now - yep, I have a campaign to attend to

[PocketRocket]

Men and women both have biological instincts, as much as we may like to think we are creatures of logic.

When you consider that the social order, vis-a-vis men and women, went virtually unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years, and that any significant changes have only begun to take place in this past century or two, I'd say we're doing pretty good.

Rome wasn't burned in a day, but several brassieres were