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.