ENA continued

There seems to be a belief that the words superior and inferior must be value laden. For instance: That you are superior at presenting an argument than I, does not mean that I am in inferior human of less value. It simply means that I am inferior at that particular task.

Consider the word “adult”. Hasn’t it gained more connotations since the sex shop industry has flourished? Also, racists use superior and inferior and derivatives which has tainted the words’ meanings.

Just to recap, if you say I as a human am inferior for being a woman that is wrong , if you say that I as woman am a good cook that is a gendered response, if you say I as a women am better at breast feeding my baby, I would say that you would be correct to say that I am superior in that particular aspect of parenthood. I am not a better human or even parent –just superior in that aspect. This is just an example I am a male.

I certainly have not argued that men and women are not equal in their intrinsic value as humans. That is your mistaken reading. In most cases, being inferior or superior in certain abilities that our sex determines does not equate to saying that a person’s whole intrinsic worth depends on some extrinsic ability. Indeed, psychologists are at pains to tell people with low self esteem that their intrinsic worth does not depend on some extrinsic ability. It is ironic but to follow your line of thinking, Ena, one would have to agree that say Lance Armstrong (Six time Tour De France winner) is a superior human of greater value (nonsense). Follow mine and he is simply a superior cyclist with no greater of lesser worth than grandma who rides her bike to the shops.

To say that one sex has a greater ability then the other at a certain task because of their sex (or age) does not equate to women or men having an overall greater or lesser intrinsic worth as a human.

Here is a better question. If men and women are of equal value; how come more human embryos develop into females than males?

The only thing refreshing about Ms Winter's article is her acknowledgment that

"Hilali and Leunig may both hold women in contempt, but it seems to me that they are holding men in even greater contempt"

It distresses me immensely that the Australian media has only concentrated on the offensiveness of Hilali's comments about women, when his slur on men is of a far greater magnitude. It just shows what a feminist/feminised society we live in. All this outrage about women being slurred and absolutely none about men being slurred!

I worry, however, that Ms Winters might actually agree with Hilali that men actually are "penis-controlled automatons unable to reflect on their own actions or consider women as people". This is evidenced by her comment "the solution to this is not for men to start thinking but for women to go and hide". Why, Ms Winters, should men "start thinking", if THEY ALREADY DO SO - if Hilali's comments are nothing but sexist myths about both men and women?

And, Ms Winters, why did you conveniently omit the fact that men are twice as likely to be victims of violence as are women (the ratio is 3 to 1 in young people)? And the fact that more than a quarter of all sexual abuse of children is commited against BOYS. And that almost 30% of sexual assaults in the past 12 months were commited against MEN. And that, of men who have been sexually assaulted since the age of 15, the vast majority (63.9%) were assaulted by a FEMALE in the most recent incident. All of these figures are contained in the ABS Personal Safety Survey 2005.

I would appreciate it if we moved to talking about violence against PEOPLE rather than just violence against women. Your feminist bias does you a great disservice, Ms Winters.

Our society seems to be having great difficulty in dealing with heterosexuality.

Many early and some current feminists believed;

"In a patriarchal society, all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent." -- Catharine MacKinnon.

The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist." (National NOW Times, Jan.1988).

Heterosexuality was regarded as abnormal and some feminist thought that the only reason women were heterosexual at all is because they had been condition by the patriarchial society.

It seems that our society struggles between making people as asexual as possible and sexual desire. Sex or the promise of sex is a powerful manipulative tool, cutting below the veneer of civilization and striking a the very heart of the primative neanderthal beginnings of our species.

It is even possible that before St...(I cant remember who)who wrote a book listing all the sins and the penance for those sins. Human sexuality was at war with it self.

Religion, Sexual Repression, Guilt and Hypocrisy
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?AuthorID=22136&id=24506

The shift of the debate to issues of equality is interesting. By saying that women are equal to men or that men are equal to women sets one or the other up as the standard. The statement that men are equal to women is not often made mind you, although it is implied in some of these posts that men are not equal to women in policies such as are debated here.

To be considered the same is to attempt to eradicate gender difference and to create a gender-neutral society. Is that ever going to happen? It seems that the move towards gender-neutral policy making has just created more division in some areas.

What a silly, silly lady you are Mrs Winter. How can you compare a philosophy, held not just by Hilali but seemingly 90% of the muslim community who have defended him, where women are 90% to blame for rape and adultery so that she should be "jailed for life" while he should be "counselled in morals" (these were Hilali's words in his sermon or the next day), to men who - slightly chauvanistically - speak merely about the lure of beautiful women. Even the worst examples of chauvanism can not compare to what Hilali said. However, this is still totally besides the point, which is not that one man said such a thing, but that, yet again, the entire Islamic community has defended it in one way or another. Those who say that Hilali has apologised are sick bigots and liars, as they have the audacity to lie so openly to our faces and the the rudeness and bigotry (because we are not of their tribe) to think that we are actually that stupid, or they simply don't care what we think.

What those such as Mrs Winter do is a massive disservice to any potential reformations or critical upheavals that may be wanting to happen within the Islamic communties the world over. By saying that there is no problem when the Hilali's or the Feiz's (the other rape promoting sheik) say such bigoted things, or by thinking that it is necessary to remind everyone that other cultures have bad people too, is not only rude and bigotted to those like myself, but also to the entire Islamic community, as it treats them as though they are ALL like some disabled child who they cannot treat like other "normal" children (or just people, even adults) because they don't consider them as full an agent as they would the "normal" people. This is tacit racism, supremicism, and it is sickenningly unfair to those actually within the Islamic community who are trying to work towards reforming their culture and religion, the same way that Luther did in the Christian dark ages.