Ho hum, more claims of female privilege from the feminists.

The self-contradiction is obvious.

The main premise of feminism is that men and women are equal or should be treated as equals. However if you need a whole raft of sex-specific policies, privileges, threats and grabbings for women's special benefit in order to bring this about, then obviously the premise is false, isn't it?

Petra? It's not true is it? Men and women are not factually equal, you yourself don’t value them equally, and there is no reason why their differences should be valued equally, is there? Please answer this question.

This article is just special pleading for others to be forced to pay the costs of women's sexual and reproductive choices, for women to have the benefits of patriarchy and feminism, and for men to have the downsides, costs and risks of both.

The assumption is that there is no way that women could possibly hope to compete in the workplace on merit. And so the productive sub-set of the population are to be forced to have women in jobs on the ground of their sex, in violation of the human right of freedom of association, and all based on the false pretence that there is no difference between men and women, which not even the feminists agree with.

Talk about hypocrisy.

Petra's sneeers at the supposed "neo-liberal" order (without explaining what it's supposed to mean), are in contradistinction to what? The socialist paradise that will be ushered in when no-one has to engage in productive activity having regard to costs?

She assumes that there is an unidentified boundless fund somewhere somehow that can be indefinitely drained to pay for women to have these sex-specific benefits and special privileges, accessed by way of the *unequal* power of the state forcing and threatening people to submit to and obey. Perhaps you could show how you took that into account in your theory of equality, Petra? Go ahead.

Petra stands for sexist hypocrisy backed up by unequal power and force and threats, and should be dismissed and condemned for her bigotry.

This was a stupid mistake by Scott Buchholz who should have known better – and should have known standing orders. But it was no more than that. To identify the request to express more milk as a manifestation of neo-liberalism is frankly ridiculous. If anything, feminism owes a huge debt to the liberal principles of equality and self-ownership.

JKJ, you should pull your head in.
David

From this article it would appear that Miss Bueskens believes fathers to be incapable of being primary caregivers or of feeding their children (with a bottle, obviously). An appallingly sexist and outdated conceit.

David, you should pull your head in. Start by acknowledging your double standards and sexist hypocrisy, and answer my questions which Petra is too cowardly to answer.
JKJ

Toni

Of course men are capable of being primary caregivers. But there is good scientific evidence both that breast milk is better for infants than formula, and that breast feeding nurtures an emotional bond that benefits both mother and child. There is nothing wrong with using formula or expressed milk, but breast feeding is the preferred default option. It may also be that the father is not able to act as primary care giver, for any number of reasons.

Families make decisions on these things based on a host of circumstances. Where reasonable, workplaces try to accommodate these. Allowing breastfeeding MPs to use a proxy vote is hardly an earthshattering concession.

JKJ

Men and women are not identical (hooray!), but they are equal. Equal treatment does not necessarily equate to identical treatment. You and I might have different skin colour, religion, ideology, gender, height, girth or any number of other characteristics, but it doesn't make me intrinsically of greater or lesser value than you.

I fail to see how the provision that breastfeeding MPs can use a proxy vote imposes any significant costs on the taxpayer, or anyone else.

J K J

What article were you reading? Your rant seems to have no relevance to the content of the piece. The male dominated work environment has to/has changed to accomodate people with different needs (not just women). This does not imply privilege for minorities. The best workplace contributors will not always be men (either childless or with 'good' wives at home) or women that wish to/are forced to fit into the dominant paradigm. Get over it

Rhian/Linden

The author is arguing that women are not equal to men, so you need to take that up with her, not me.

Obviously if the costs, and risks of costs, of employing women are greater than for men, then they are not equal and there is no reason why people should be forced on pain of imprisonment to pretend that they are and pay the difference in costs.

And if the costs, and risks of costs, of employing women are not greater than for men, then we are all agreed that the author is a hypocritical fool seeking sexist special privileges for women.

JKJ

Some of my most successful and productive appointees have been women escaping workplaces dominated by attitudes such as yours.

Employees are human. They have kids, get sick, and need holidays. Some have sick or elderly relatives that occasionally need care. Some are in the army reserve or volunteer firefighters. Some are studying and need time off to attend lectures or exams. All of this can be inconvenient for employers. But if you do what you reasonably can to accommodate their needs, you ultimately get a lot more out of them.

Then there'll be no need to threaten people with imprisonment to force them to pay will there? Because that's what the author is suggesting and you are supporting, you hypocrites. You need to understand these are real people we are talking about, real fathers and mother and brothers and sisters with real needs and real families to care for. They are not just milking-cows and chattels to be ordered around and exploited at will to pay for your overweening selfishness, greed and self-entitlement backed by aggressive violence and intellectual dishonesty.

If you can't understand it's self-contradictory to argue that women are equal and not equal both at the same time, then you're too dumb to participate in the discussion, and that's the end of the matter.

Jardine K. Jardine,

I suggest you put in for Mark Scotts job at the abc. You will do well there.

JKJ
where, precisely, does the author "threaten people with imprisonment to force them to pay"?

Rhian

Oh you thought it was voluntary, did you? If it is, then certainly I have no objection. But I think you'll find that when the author says "policy" she means policy.

"Some of my most successful and productive appointees ..."

Appointees to what? London to a brick you are talking about appointments that are not funded voluntarily.

You can see, can't you, that anyone who doesn't understand the difference between rape and making love, between consensual and coerced transactions, is operating at the level of a moral idiot? Can you see that? Or not?

And can you see that anyone who pretends they don't understand the difference when they do is being intellectually dishonest?

Tell you what, why don't we ask Patra whether she meant exclusively voluntary arrangements?

Petra?

Petra

Isn’t it true that:
1. You have no intention of voluntarily funding from your own pocket, or using your own time and money to form a voluntary organisation for the voluntary funding, of the amount you say women should be paid for looking after their own babies?, and
2. You advocate getting the funding by urging the State to physically attack, or threaten to physically attack people to force them to submit and obey because you know they don’t consent?
3. Your premise is that all other things being equal, it’s easier, quicker, and cheaper to employ a man for any given employment, and you deny that women are equal to men, because women give birth to and suckle babies and men don’t?

Yes? That’s all correct, isn’t it?

If not, what part do you disagree with?

JKJ
My reading of Petra’s argument is that the policies she describes are mainly voluntary policies that organisations put in place to support their employees. They are not legally mandated on pain of imprisonment or fines, but managers and recruiters are required to comply with the policies of their employers.

Likewise, a Chief Whip should be familiar with, and comply with, the provisions of Standing Orders. But no one is threatening Buchholz with jail.

Rhian
As I said, so far as they are voluntary, I am fine with them.

Government is not funded voluntarily, so it is nothing for politicians to be generous with other people's money, which is all that giving, or rather ordering, special consideration and privileges to women, by way of Standing Orders, amounts to. The Standing Orders are what Parliament will enforce as concerns its own procedure. It is not acceptable for you to attempt to confuse consensual with coerced arrangements.

We will not know to what extent Petra had in mind voluntary versus coerced arrangements, since she will not answer because she knows she has just made a complete fool of herself and will only add to her jumble of self-contradictions by anything she says, else she would answer my questions, wouldn't she?

The deeper issue here is that Petra is openly arguing that women as a group are not equal to men and cannot hope to perform the duties of their work equally without special paternalistic privileges and double standards.

Thus she is actually arguing that the entire basis of anti-discrimination and equal pay legislation is without justification.

I think both you and Petra need to understand that other people are not a footstool for women to climb up on.

"Some of my most successful and productive appointees..."
Appointments to what body, pray?

JKJ

Allowing breast feeding women to vote by proxy is hardly a special privilege and costs no-one anything.

When I wrote of appointees I just meant ordinary recruitment processes. I have worked in both the public and private sectors and have run recruitment processes in both, but spent most of my working life in the private sector. The public sector processes are more bureaucratic, as you’d expect

Rhian

To the extent that it is allowed to women because of breast-feeding, of course it's a special privilege and sexist.

You can't have it both ways. Either the concessions you seek are valuable, or they’re not. If they are, then you support in principle others being forced to subsidise women unequally because of their sex and reproductive choices, so stop trying to deny and minimise it.

"My reading of Petra’s argument is that the policies she describes are mainly voluntary policies..."

Imagine if a man said to you "My sexual strategy is MAINLY not rape. Apart from all the raping I do, the women consent." What would you say to that?

Well that's the ethical level that you are operating at. You know it’s abusive moral nonsense.

The fact you are using the State as your instrument of force and threats is irrelevant. The ethical question always remains. If the State legalised slavery or rape, that wouldn't make it okay, would it?

You are an educated and sensible person, and I shouldn't need to teach you kindergarten-level ethics. You know what you're doing is indefensible, ethically bankrupt and abusive , and if anyone tried that on you, you would condemn and despise them.

You should be renouncing it and condemning it. Where is your condemnation of Petra for even failing to make the distinction between voluntary and coerced benefits?

The fact is, Petra is pushing a double standard by which women are supposed to be entitled to the benefits of feminism, and the benefits of patriarchy, and men are to have the costs and risks of both. It is appalling sexist hypocrisy and you know it.

Your superficial replies have completely failed to come to terms with the deeper issue. You can see, can’t you, that if groups A and B can do equal work, but …

the costs, or risks of costs, of employing members of group B are higher, then it’s NOT TRUE that they’re equal in fact? Not even the feminists are arguing that it’s true in fact.

Therefore it’s not true in logic or ethics either. We have just established by agreement that men and women are not equal in value, and it’s simply untrue to argue that they are. Therefore there is no reason why people should not prefer males and females for different things, and in particular, why they should not value men more highly as employees, all other things being equal. PETRA IS TELLING US ITS RATIONAL AND SENSIBLE TO DO SO.

So-called equal pay is not about fairness or gender equality at all, it’s about sexist female privilege, and forcing others to pay for women’s reproductive choices on a double standard, because the costs, and risks of costs, of employing women are not equal for all the reasons Petra has explained.

It is not “unfair”, let alone an abuse of human rights, for people to recognise that women are members of the class of persons who have babies, and it is not unfair to women in general for consumers or employers to prefer employing men and value their services accordingly higher. Therefore is no such thing as a “right” to bully and threaten employers or consumers to pretend that the difference doesn’t exist, and unequally favour women, which is all that equal pay and anti-discrimination laws amount to.

Then when confronted with the self-contradictions and falsities of what you’re saying, you try to squirm out it, and defend it, try to confuse voluntary with coerced, cite minimal claims, and claim that these female privileges are really beneficial for those they are forced on.

Of course if they were really beneficial for employers:
a) they wouldn’t need you or Petra to tell them, and
b) there’s obviously no justification for laws threatening to imprison them for not agreeing with you.

You and Petra need to acknowledge your own many self-contradictions, re-think your hypocritical belief that it's okay to use aggression and threats and lies and bullsh!t and double standards and sexist bigotry and abuse to get what you want from the opposite sex.

Other people are not your slaves and your property, and you try practising what you preach.

JKJ

It is no more a “concession” to allow women to breast feed than it is to place urinals in men’s toilets. Breastfeeding costs nobody anything.

Most employers offer benefits and what you call “privileges” to employees over and above what the law demands because they know it is an effective way of attracting and retaining good staff. As a fan of free markets and deregulation, I would expect you to approve. Employers must offer the salary and benefits packages necessary to attract the candidates they want. Given the choice of employing a competent mother or a mediocre male, I’d go for the woman every time. The disruption and cost of her parenting responsibilities are more than offset by her greater abilities.

Rhian
"It is no more a “concession” to allow women to breast feed than it is to place urinals in men’s toilets."

Both sexes equally urinate; only women breastfeed. It is a sex-specific characteristic directly tied to the woman's reproductive choices. The same does not apply to urination, so your argument is
a) nonsense
b) a sexist hypocritical double standard favouring females, as usual.

"Breastfeeding costs nobody anything."

Of course breastfeeding costs somebody something. If it didn't, there would be no issue. You are contradicting yourself: arguing that the female-reproduction-specific conditions you favour are highly valuable, and yet immaterial and cost-free, both at the same time. You're talking nonsense.

You are also back to your phony premise of pretending that there is no difference between the sexes, that giving birth to and suckling babies has no costs in time, disruption, delay, or money.

But if there were no difference between the sexes, then there'd be no issue, and you wouldn't be pleading for special sex-specific conditions favouring women's reproductive choices, would you?

And stop trying to confuse voluntary arrangements with coerced. If you want to try that line, then renounce anti-discrimination and equal pay legislation, and we'll see how fair dinkum you are. I have shown above why such statutes entrench sexist female privileges, and you have responded by simply failing to deal with the issues, just trying to pretend it all hasn't happened.

The fact that employers need to have special consideration for the most productive workers is exactly what equal pay and anti-discrimination legislation are intended to stop them doing. The whole point of such legislation is to force employers to employ women, whether they want to or not, so that women can have the political privilege of forcibly externalising onto someone else part of the greater costs, and risks of costs, that inhere in being female in respect of the reproductive difference between the sexes.

If this were not so,
a) you must be arguing that employers deliberately choose to make a loss rather than to employ the better worker at the market price, which is just more nonsense and you know it;
b) you would have no objection to getting rid of such legislation, and
c) you and Petra would agree to pay the money and disruption costs of women having time off work to look after their babies. I'd like to see that!

You are completely failing to engage with the issues, and merely re-asserting your contradictory premise, that women are equal and not equal both at the same time. They are entitled to financial independende, but it is to be at other people's enforced cost. You affirm it's necessary and valuable, then you deny it exists or has any cost. It's nonsense.

“most employers offer benefits and what you call “privileges”

I am not calling “privileges” any voluntary conditions of employment. By privilege I mean where the State legally imposes a condition favouring women employees, compared to what would obtain under a voluntary dispensation. This includes equal pay legislation (equal pay for unequal costs and risks of costs = unequal pay).

“The disruption and cost of her parenting responsibilities are more than offset by her greater abilities.”

Then there’s no need to threaten people with imprisonment to force them to employ her, is there? Go ahead: answer the question. According to your theory, there is no justification for equal pay or anti-discrimination legislation, is there?

Yours is *not* a doctrine of people merely choosing what is more humanely and obviously sensible and economic - which you oppose. It is a doctrine of entrenched sexist female privilege backed up by force, self-contradiction, and outright lies.

Otherwise what are the answers to all my questions in this thread which you have steadfastly ignored from the very beginning?

JKJ

Both sexes urinate, but overwhelmingly it is men that do it standing up. Most men don’t have urinals their own homes; why should they enjoy this sex-specific privilege at work? I assure you, no ladies’ loos include urinals!

[in case you're wondering, I am not actually against urinals; just sillly arguments equating acceptance of biological reality with "privilege"]

In the example under discussion, a breast feeding MP can give a proxy vote rather than attending a vote in person. How, exactly, is that a cost to the taxpayer?

I have never argued that giving birth to and suckling babies has no costs in time, disruption, delay, or money. But there is a lot more to being a parent that these biological functions. As Toni pointed out in an earlier post, fathers can be, and often are, the primary caregiver of children. When and where they are, they get the same entitlements as mothers. If men were able to give birth or breastfeed, they would get the same treatment as women in these respects, too.

Actually, I’m not a great fan of equal pay legislation, certainly not of equal pay for work of “equal value”. Nor do I think employers should be required to provide paid parental leave, though I support unpaid leave for both parents. If we as a society decide parenthood should be supported financially (a whole other debate, and I’m pretty sure where you stand on it!) then the costs should be carried by the taxpayer, not the employer.

Of course, many employers will continue to choose to offer parental benefits, including pay, for both mothers and fathers over and above legal requirements, as a way of attracting and retaining staff and treating their employees decently. That makes perfect sense to me.

Well you can't argue that a proxy vote is a benefit and not a benefit at the same time; or, what amounts to the same thing, a benefit without a cost. We can see what a cost it is by the thought experiment if everyone did it, in which case, the cost would be greater than if no-one did it, all other things being equal.

However I think we can find common ground as follows.

I am not arguing that a sex-specific benefit is, for that reason, a privilege.

A privilege does not mean a condition of work that is the result of voluntary agreement between the parties, whether or not it confers a sex-specific benefit. Employers who make special sex-specific consideration for an employee either
a) do it because they consider that the benefit outweigh the costs, i.e. it is economical, i.e. profitable, which is no-one's business but their own; and
b) they voluntarily undertake a cost or loss for reasons of their own, e.g. they like that employee, or want to help them with raising their baby, or help them with urinating standing up for that matter.

But where the State imposes a condition to favour its pet political favourites for whatever reasons, and forces others to pay the costs, that is what I mean by a privilege.

I don't accept that society is the State or vice versa; and I don't accept the State helping itself and its interested dependants to other people's property, backed by force and bullsh!t, can be described as "we as a society" making decisions. That expression is factually, logically and ethically incoherent for a number of reasons.

Equal pay for workers who have *unequal* costs or risks of costs is not equal pay from an economic or ethical point of view. It's a *legal privilege* for the favoured workers who have unequal costs or risks of costs, and the State to force someone else to pay them equally.

For this reason, all and any State measures conferring sex-specific benefits on women, or forcing people to pretend that women are the same as, or equal to men, when in fact this is not true, are sexist privileges. This includes all the measures that Petra or you support that are provided by, funded by or enforced by the State.

"Of course, many employers will continue to choose to offer parental benefits, including pay, for both mothers and fathers over and above legal requirements, as a way of attracting and retaining staff and treating their employees decently. That makes perfect sense to me."

Certainly I have no problem with it. But it only begs the question why there would be any need for any legislation to threaten employers to force them to employ women or pay them the same as men, if the women can succeed on their own merits. If they can do so, then there is no need for equal pay or anti-discrimination legislation; and if they can't, there is no justification for these force-backed, false, hypocritical, sexist, fascist, legal privileges for females.

JKJ

You say in regard to proxy voting: “ We can see what a cost it is by the thought experiment if everyone did it”. I agree. If everyone did it, this would be quicker and more efficient. The theatre of divisions, and MPs physically traipsing around Parliament to vote may be a nice piece of tradition, but it is a waste of time, and hence money.

Proxies for all, I say!

I agree that society is not the State and vice versa. I also believe, however, that the State is the vehicle by which society meets some of its needs and gives effect to some of its preferences. In a democracy, that process is legitimised though the ballot box. If you don’t like parental leave, vote for a party that will abolish it.

Your argument against taxpayer funding of maternity/paternity pay on the grounds it is coercive is equally an argument against taxpayer funding of anything at all – roads, schools, police, courts, health services. And your argument against sex-specific government spending would equally rule out public health services for men with prostate cancer.

I have already indicated that I am not a supporter of equal pay for work of equal value. Equal pay for the same work is different. Unless pay differences between men and women doing the same job are due solely to the relative costs of employing them, unequal pay is discrimination.

"Proxies for all, I say!"

Indeed. Sack the politicians I say, because we can all exercise a proxy vote as well as any of them, and be more genuinely representative of our views while we're at it.

However assuming it's politicians who are voting in their usual way on their usual pretence of knowing what’s better for people, than people, then you have not established that proxy votes for all, or any, would be less costly than voting in person, since the whole machinery is still kept going.

You merely assume that, if women are to be given the sex-specific benefit of a proxy vote, then everyone else – i.e. mostly men - will just carry on and carry that extra burden and transaction cost on women’s behalf, on a plea of motherhood privilege; and then denying or minimising the extra cost when challenged.

"I agree that society is not the State and vice versa. I also believe, however, that the State is the vehicle by which society meets some of its needs and gives effect to some of its preferences. In a democracy, that process is legitimised though the ballot box. If you don’t like parental leave, vote for a party that will abolish it."

That only begs the question of the legitimate uses or limits of power. You don't specify any. If a majority votes for the oppression of a racial minority, or rape or robbery, can you see something, or anything wrong with that in principle?

The question is how you identify the *principle* by which you distinguish the use of force and threats that is okay, from that which is not. You haven't done that; and I don't think you have any such principle.

But if you do, what is it?

"I have already indicated that I am not a supporter of equal pay for work of equal value. Equal pay for the same work is different. Unless pay differences between men and women doing the same job are due solely to the relative costs of employing them, unequal pay is discrimination."

a) As things stand now, even if the pay differences between men and women doing the same job are due solely to the relative costs of employing them, and even if it’s quite explicit that they are due to the women’s unequal reproductive costs, it’s still a criminal offence for the employer to prefer the man. Do you agree with this violent sexist bigotry?

b) Everything, all human action, without exception, is "discrimination". And discrimination is just preference by another name; only with a negative moral connotation. But here the issue is the justification for any negative moral connotation itself. You are assuming there is something wrong with people valuing male and female differently. But you have not established any reason for this, let alone justification for threatening to have people caged and raped for doing it.

c) The question is not whether equal pay for equal work. It’s whether equal pay for equal work *at equal costs and risks of costs*, as judged by the employer. Anyone who is not in the position to cop the loss and risk, is not in a position to substitute their opinion, and that includes you, Petra, and the government.

d) But here's the acid test. If, in your opinion, the employer's preference is not justified, then your remedy is to employ that worker yourself and make the profit that you allege is going untaken. Thus you will do well at the same time as doing good, won’t you?

The fact feminists don't do this, is because they're wrong and they know it. Otherwise, why aren't you and Petra doing it? There’s a massive world-wide super-profit just waiting for the taking, supposedly. And you're arguing that the capitalists actively prefer making a loss rather than employ at the market rate the better and more profitable worker. And why are they doing this? Supposedly to indulge an irrational prejudice against females that *just happens* to coincide with the factually greater risk of costs owing to the female’s inequality of reproductive costs.

Sorry, but it’s just confused, or facile, nonsense.

e) Even if people are wrong, that doesn't give you a right to use force or threats to try to bully them into obedience and submission with your opinion. There is no general right to force people to pretend that men and women are the same, or to force people to stop people valuing men and women differently for different things. It's none of your business, none of Petra’s business, and none of the government's business.

f) But if you do have such a right, it applies to sexual discrimination in general. According to your theory of morality, people should be imprisoned for sexual preference.

Got that objective criterion, or principle, for distinguishing when one is justified in using aggressive violence or threats to get what you want from the opposite sex yet? Because your whole argument depends on it.

You have not justified any policy for any sex-specific benefit favouring women. And begging the question as to the arbitrariness of policy in general, is no advance on your original problem.

It all only falls back, on examination, to a creed that might is right that not even you or Petra agree with.

So it’s factually, logically and ethically false and hypocritical from start to finish, from top to bottom. It is merely nasty parasitical behaviour, that is all, and it needs to be named and shamed as such, not least for its pathetic sexist hypocrisy. And I think you should be *re-thinking* your views, and rejecting and condemning this kind of abuse and special pleading, not trying to deny and minimise and justify it.

For goodness sake, JKJ, the question at issue is the cost, or otherwise, of allowing breastfeeding mothers a proxy vote. The matter of what MPs do with their votes, of how government in general operates, is a whole other question.

Likewise, the legitimate uses of State power are a far broader matter than the topic in question. If by “force and threats” you mean Government’s use of law and taxation to achieve its ends, then it applies equally to laws against assault and use of taxes to provide armed forces and infrastructure such as roads. If so, your argument is not against laws protecting women’s rights, but against laws and taxes in principle.

Would you agree that requiring employers to give time off for (mostly male) volunteer emergency service workers and army reservists, often with little or no advance notice, is no less “violent sexist bigotry” than requiring them to treat women the same as men?

And that other workplace regulations, such as those mandating minimum pay rates and health and safety standards, are no less achieved by “threatening to have people caged and raped” than equal employment legislation?

You say “But here's the acid test. If, in your opinion, the employer's preference is not justified, then your remedy is to employ that worker yourself and make the profit that you allege is going untaken. Thus you will do well at the same time as doing good, won’t you?”

Well, yes. That is exactly the point I made in my first response to you in this thread, when I said: “Some of my most successful and productive appointees have been women escaping workplaces dominated by attitudes such as yours."

"For goodness sake, JKJ, the question at issue is the cost, or otherwise, of allowing breastfeeding mothers a proxy vote."

The article was not confined to the issue of proxy votes for breastfeeding mothers, but advocated a whole slew of policies to favour some women at the expense of other people, mostly men. It was an appalling piece of sexist hypocrisy, so stop ignoring what you can't defend.

As to the proxy vote issue, we have just established that there is a cost to the sex-specific benefit you are arguing for, which means you just lost that argument, even on your attempt to make as small a target as possible by ignoring all the other issues.

"The matter of what MPs do with their votes, of how government in general operates, is a whole other question."

If it's government that provides the benefit in issue, it's not a whole other question, the question then becomes whether you can justify the use of government to provide it, without falling back to a "might is right" moral theory, which is all you've done.

The very fact that you have to plead the case of roads, to try to justify special sexist privileges for women, only show that you have no theory of the State to support your argument; in addition to the fact I have just demonstrated: that what you're saying is factually, logically and ethically false.

Kindly stop evading and trying to squirm out of it, and answer the questions, or concede the general issue.

1.
If A physically seizes B, and locks him or her up where he or she has a high likelihood being attacked and raped, can you see a moral issue in that, or not?

Don't ignore or evade the question, or rail about generalities. What's the answer, specifically on point?

2.
Can you see that the very fact I have to take you back to first principles of morality at a kindergarten level, means that there is a more fundamental problem in your theory of ethics and the State, which is why you keep contradicting yourself, literally every step?

I'll prove it. State any tenet of feminism that you wish to rely on, and I'll show you the self-contradiction. You're facing checkmate in one move, every move, and you know it.

2.
Do you believe that might is right? Or not? Yes? Or no?

3.
How do you distinguish the legitimate from the illegitimate use of force and threats to get what one wants? What is the principle by which government power should be limited?

4.
Have you personally risked your capital to employ women and give them all the sex-specific benefits you say they deserve? If no, why not? If so, prove it.

5.
If preferential treatment on the ground of sex deserves criminalisation, then please admit you support the criminalisation of sexual preference? If not, why not?

In any event, we have now established by agreement that, according to you, the question is not to be resolved by recourse to reason, but only by brute force, so you're performing a self-contradiction by even participating in the discussion.

Rhian, the fact that you are floundering in self-contradictions is nature's way of telling you that you're wrong and you need to re-think your belief system. It should be sufficient for me to point it out, for you to concede what you can't defend, which is, the author's nauseating hypocrisy in particular, and any tenet of feminism in general.

If you don't care that what you're saying is demonstrably untrue, that's not something for me to resolve, you need to take a good look inside and ask yourself why you're doing what you know is wrong.

If you are a professional intellectual, you are a disgrace and should be dismissed on the evidence of this thread.