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A Permanent Gender War?
A few days ago I heard from a dental nurse that her dentist had looked up the
address of her patient before deciding how much to charge her. The patient lived in a good part of town, and so the bill for the removal of
her wisdom tooth was bumped up - without her knowledge, of course.
That's not fair! - was my initial reaction.
But then, I suppose, the dentist would argue that she can charge whatever she
likes, and, further, that by doing this sort of thing, she would not have to charge so much
to her less well-heeled patients.
Hmm.
Well, that sounds a bit fairer.
I suppose.
But, on the other hand, surely she is just
squeezing out of her patients as much money as she thinks that she can get away
with?
It all depends how you look at it. It depends on the 'spin'.
But what is the right thing to do?
If the dentist charges the same to everyone, then this is a bit unfair on the
poorer patients. On the other hand, if she charges the wealthier more, then this
would be a bit unfair on the wealthier patients.
But what is the right thing to do?
Charging wealthier people more for the same services seems to be morally
acceptable. After all, this is how the income tax system works. The wealthier
pay more taxes for the same governmental goods and services that the
poorer will pay less taxes to receive.
It sounds fair.
On the other hand, in most situations, regardless of their wealth, people
purchase goods and services at the same price. For example, the supermarket and the electricity board do not determine how much to charge people for
their goods and services based on their wealth.
So, in practice, both things seem to be generally acceptable.
And, on the whole, it all seems to be more a question of balance. Provided that the wealthier are not charged too much more than poorer folk
because of their financial position, they do not create too much of a fuss about
it.
But for any given differential between the two, a fuss, at some level, is
usually made.
For example, there are some considerable forces at work both to try to reduce
the tax burdens on the wealthier as well as to increase them.
As a general rule, the right-wing wants the differentials in tax to be
reduced, and the left-wing wants them to be increased. And the only point that I am trying to make in this article is that there is
no real solution to the problem. There is no right and morally correct thing to do.
It is all a question of balance.
And so there will always be a tussle between the two
camps.
But 'tussle' is surely too tame a word for what is, in fact, much more like a
war.
If you think about the huge amount of energy and resources that go into this
problem, it is clearly no minor tussle; the form filling, the accountants, the
lawyers, the politicians, the Revenue services, the investigations, the financial planning and
pension schemes, the hiding of funds in tax havens, the fiddling of accounts,
and so on.
The enterprise concerned with this issue alone is
positively enormous!
And it will probably remain so for a
considerable length of time to come because there
is no solution. There is no right and morally correct thing to do. There is nowhere to be found where to draw a line which will be acceptable
to everyone.
It is all a question of balance, with some people leaning one way and with
other people leaning the other way.
There is a permanent state of war!
But the balance between the two sides can be very much affected by the
motives that appear to be behind the policies being applied.
And this is of considerable significance.
For example, the dentist can be portrayed as a Robin Hood figure, helping the
poor by taking some more from the rich. But, on the other hand, she can be seen
as something of a Scrooge who is simply trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of
each of her
clients.
The more that she can get away with, the more she charges.
And who could ever really know the truth behind her motives?
Now consider the following.
Should a woman who can carry one brick in her wheelbarrow be paid the same as
a man who can carry two?
By and large, the
women will answer Yes to this question, and the men will answer No. But, just as in the previous case concerning the dentist, there is no place
where to draw the line that is acceptable to everyone.
For example, if the woman is to get paid the same as the man despite the fact
that she does only half the work, then the men will see this as unfair. On the
other hand, if the woman gets only half the pay because she does only half the
work, then the women will argue that this is unfair because women cannot
physically do the same job as the men.
And the important point to understand is that there is nowhere to draw the
line that will be acceptable to both sides of the argument.
And so it is that the quest for women's 'equality' will never be
achieved.
Just as in the case of the dentist charging differential amounts to different
patients, there will always be arguments over where to draw the line.
And, just as in the wheelbarrow case, there will always
be different ways of portraying the opponents.
"Women are just too selfish. They expect to get paid
the same for carrying one brick as we men will get paid for carrying two."
"Men are just too selfish. They expect to get
paid more than women even though women put in
the same amount of effort."
A permanent gender war over pay!
And, of course, the one-brick versus two-brick
argument is just a trite metaphor for all the arguments that might surround pay.
In the real world, the arguments over pay
might be over the issue of, say, women in the military getting the same pay as
the men despite the fact that they are very rarely asked to risk their lives.
Or, perhaps, the argument might be over whether or not a woman who has chosen
to take eight years away from her job in order to have children should get the
same pay on returning to work as those men and women who have worked without
such long term absence.
And, of course, the arguments concerning the two genders will not be confined
solely to issues that arise over pay. These
controversial issues will - and do already - extend to the family, the children,
the home, the workplace, divorce, the justice system, the health services, and so on; in fact,
they will extend to wherever there is an issue where one gender might seemingly be
being treated differently, or preferentially, to the other.
And these issues can be made to be controversial wherever men and women
function together in their lives - in other words ...
... just about everywhere!
And in arguing for the line to be drawn so that it
always heavily favours women, the
feminists and their supporters have, indeed, managed to invade everybody's lives just
about everywhere.
Thus, in much the same way that there are huge and pervasive industries that
have to deal with the ins and outs of our taxes and our welfare system in order
to 'draw the lines' when it comes to money, other huge and pervasive industries
have been growing in order to
help to 'draw the lines' in the battles of the genders - though, thus far, these
industries have been highly prejudicial against men.
But, because there is no way that these lines can be drawn in a
manner that will be acceptable to everyone, there will always now
be a tussle between the two genders! - with the tussle becoming much more
evident - and much worse in nature - now that the men's movement is growing.
There is no solution even to the problem of how much a woman should
be paid relative to a man when it comes to carrying bricks in their wheel
barrows.
And there will also certainly be no
solution when it comes to most other matters.
The arguments are therefore going to be endless, and the balance is going to
swing this way and that way for ever more.
What a terrible thought!
Not just over pay, remember. But in just about
every area of life.
Thus far, however, for the past 30 years, the feminists have been arguing the
case for women almost unopposed. The case for men has been silenced through the
weapons of intimidation and political correctness.
In fact, there has not been much of a tussle at all.
But this is now changing.
Even though it is still the case that huge resources are being put into
bolstering the case for women, the case for men, at last, is beginning to garner
more and more support.
And, in the not too distant future, billions upon billions of dollars worth
of our energies and our resources are going to be bound up in dealing with these
insoluble issues - the issues surrounding the differential treatments of the two genders, and
where to draw the lines.
What a waste of our time.
But there are three big differences between the tussles over drawing the line
between those who have more money and those who have less (the dentist scenario,
taxes etc) and between those
tussles relating to gender issues.
The first difference is that our personal relationships, which are probably the most
important areas of our lives - far more important than money in the eyes of most
- are being interfered with by outsiders.
The second difference is that the industries that are being spawned to deal
with these gender issues are encroaching upon people to an extent that is
rapidly becoming unacceptable, and it is causing relationships to break down.
And the third difference is that the two genders are being divided into
opposing sides to an extent that is probably unknown in history.
It is a nightmare scenario.
There is nowhere to draw the line! -
and so there
will be a permanent gender war; until, that is, the feminists and
their phony victim groups are finally kicked into the oblivion where they
belong.
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