Women in pants

Clippings from news sources involving fashion freedom and other gender equality issues.
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Jim
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Re: Women in pants

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Disaffected.citizen wrote: There is only one "minority" to whom they are dismissed and denied - the white heterosexual male - if they don't tick a box, they're not covered. It's a hidden bias because nobody considers them to be "a minority" or that they can suffer from discrimination or bias.
If you look at a picture of a gathering of political or business leaders in the US, you will see a big majority of white heterosexual males. Sure, some have a bias against the ruling class. Statistically, it's justified, but not against individuals.
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Re: Women in pants

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FranTastic444 wrote:
Given time to ponder over the text, I was drawn to her statement "You cannot logically pick and choose verses that you wish to apply from this chapter." But if we are being logical about things, aren't there huge swathes of the bible that even practicing Christians choose to ignore? Working on weekends, eating particular types of food, killing people of other religions, inflicting physical violence upon their naughty children. Or things that people should do but don't such as loving thy neighbour or Leviticus 19:33-19:34 “the foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born”?
If you are interested in the logic, most Christians believe the New Covenant, open to all, not just the Jewish people, does not include the majority of Old Covenant Law, and that the Law didn't apply to Gentiles. They will believe, but may have trouble practicing, teachings that are continued under the New Covenant such as loving your neighbor.

Now, if you ask about the logic of Christians not loving their neighbors or enemies, I'm with you. The Gospel has been co-opted by the world.
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Re: Women in pants

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crfriend wrote:
FranTastic444 wrote:As a former coding monkey, I always started my loops at 1 rather than 0 [...]
I'm not sure what you wrote in, but suspect it wasn't either ALGOL or assembler. In the former, you started off at whatever bound you specified your array to begin with -- and it could be negative -- and if you do so in assembler you automatically waste a memory location (at least for iterating across an array or hacking at memory).
I was a MUMPS / Caché developer. When I first started out our source code was limited to 2K memory partitions, but over time this was upped to 10 or even 20k. As local arrays and (persistent) data storage are hierarchical sparse arrays, you could do crazy things like setting up arrays such as account(1)="fred", account(1000000)="mary" without having to dimension your array and allocate loads of memory for every numeric account value between the two extremes. In such instances, the structure is traversed using a $ORDER command rather than a loop. I'm going off topic (apologies to the original poster), so I'll create a separate thread with a programming challenge that some may find of interest....
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Re: Women in pants

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Jim wrote:
Disaffected.citizen wrote: There is only one "minority" to whom they are dismissed and denied - the white heterosexual male - if they don't tick a box, they're not covered. It's a hidden bias because nobody considers them to be "a minority" or that they can suffer from discrimination or bias.
If you look at a picture of a gathering of political or business leaders in the US, you will see a big majority of white heterosexual males. Sure, some have a bias against the ruling class. Statistically, it's justified, but not against individuals.
The fact that the majority of a group is formed from one minority or another hides the fact that those individuals are from a minority. When last I looked, white heterosexual males formed less than 50% of whichever society in which they lived - think carefully about the demographics.
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Re: Women in pants

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Jim wrote: If you are interested in the logic, most Christians believe the New Covenant, open to all, not just the Jewish people, does not include the majority of Old Covenant Law, and that the Law didn't apply to Gentiles. They will believe, but may have trouble practicing, teachings that are continued under the New Covenant such as loving your neighbor.

Now, if you ask about the logic of Christians not loving their neighbors or enemies, I'm with you. The Gospel has been co-opted by the world.
Thanks Jim - I was unaware of the concept of old and new covenants (although I'm aware of the old and new testaments). Read some articles this morning comparing the old and new covenants.
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Re: Women in pants

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Disaffected.citizen wrote:Not just in the US; we suffer similarly in the UK.

Contemplate the diversity and anti-discrimination laws in place to protect "minorities"; then consider their application. There is only one "minority" to whom they are dismissed and denied - the white heterosexual male - if they don't tick a box, they're not covered. It's a hidden bias because nobody considers them to be "a minority" or that they can suffer from discrimination or bias.
...
Disaffected.citizen wrote:
Jim wrote: If you look at a picture of a gathering of political or business leaders in the US, you will see a big majority of white heterosexual males. Sure, some have a bias against the ruling class. Statistically, it's justified, but not against individuals.

The fact that the majority of a group is formed from one minority or another hides the fact that those individuals are from a minority. When last I looked, white heterosexual males formed less than 50% of whichever society in which they lived - think carefully about the demographics.
I will admit that there are virtually no specific legal protections in place that spell out "white heterosexual male" as a protected class, and I also admit that I'm not really privy to the culture of our society as a whole past that of Appalachia, so with that in mind, I understand that my view on this is somewhat limited and narrow. But I can say, that in the area I've lived for basically my entire life, there does seem to be a certain "straight white privilege" present. Being a self proclaimed "Christian" or at least "Christian friendly" doesn't hurt either.

It's nothing you can really spell out in an official poll, or statistic because the culture is largely underground, yet ironically, "right under your nose" at the same time.

For basically my entire life, prior to 2015 (when I started wearing skirts), I basically looked like your typical southern white guy, and as a result of which, I have been a witness to on countless occasions discussion and banter that typically only takes place between other straight white guys, each who assume are "cool" with each other. I still witness this to the present day, though only in trouser mode (i.e. among certain customers at work), and I can tell you this for certain, as I've been a witness to it for as long as I've been an adult:
PLEASE NOTE: On the points below I will not elaborate on names, or companies in question. My aim here is not to be some "whistle blower", rather to simply illustrate that straight white privilege does exist, and there does seem to be somewhat of a "bro-code" (for lack of a better term) where straight, Christian [0] whites do tend to look out for one another, and when these certain ones get in positions of authority (such as in the case of supervisor or hiring manager), they do tend to favor their own kind.
  • There is an anti-gay (homosexual) rhetoric that takes place among many men and women in informal settings. I've witnessed it prior to 2015 first hand, not so much after, but I suspect that's because those I worked with were afraid to speak of such things in my presence as I was now considered of "a protected class".
  • I have seen lesbians favored by male hiring managers for the sole reason that "he thought it was hot".
  • The "N" word is still used A LOT among both white men and women when no other social minorities (black, any other race, or anyone who they'd deem as "liberal") are around. And yes, it is said in a context of "we are better than them"
  • Yes, I have worked with supervisors in the past who didn't hire a man because he was black, or a woman because he thought the job applied for was "a mans job".
  • Yes, I have seen a department of men grumble at the notion of having a "female boss", and later gravitate to comments like "wonder who she had to blow to get that job?".
  • Though not recently (mainly because the jobs I've had in the last 10 years were mostly male dominated), but I have worked in plants where women were constantly hounded for sexual favors. I've seen this bust up quite a few marriages. Jenn can also testify to this, back when she used to work, she'd come home constantly complaining of other male co-workers and customers soliciting her for sex.
  • Muslim? Forget it. It will be difficult for you to find a job, especially entry level, unless you have some skills already under your belt and keep your religion on the down low. (Note: Other non-Christians (i.g. Pagan, Hindu, Jewish, etc) as well as atheist and agnostics do not seem to suffer from this to the extent that Muslims do)
  • There are a few other key occurrences I've witnessed first hand that I don't even want to discuss further.
But yes, straight white privilege does exist. Now I'm not saying things like "protected classes" and other programs like "affirmative action" are the solution, but I will say that we do have a problem in this society and we have to work towards a solution. Really, if people would just stop judging one another, that would eliminate at least half our social problems overnight!

Oh... and a BIG SOLAR FLARE to knock out all of those God forsaken TV satellites (ALL OF THEM) in orbit broadcasting all of that trash back to the planet. If more people would turn off their TV, walk across the street and visit their neighbors, I believe most of the other half of our social problems would be eliminated.

We don't need more laws, what we need is more love, and you can't legislate that -- that's up to us.



[0] "Christian", as in those who play the religion for worldly gain. Christians who were true to the message of Christ, by its own virtue could not be prejudiced, or would at least endevour not to be by constant self assessments and improvements.

Edit: corrected a typo that was bugging me
Last edited by moonshadow on Sun Oct 14, 2018 10:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Women in pants

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moonshadow wrote:But yes, straight white privilege does exist.
It only exists in the minds of "straight white males" who haven't looked at the world around them as it stands today. That mirage vanished years ago to those who actually pay attention. The rest of us find ourselves at the bottom of the well, looking up, and not finding a rope to climb.
\Really, if people would just stop judging one another, that would eliminate at least half our social problems overnight!
In an ideal world...
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Re: Women in pants

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crfriend wrote:It only exists in the minds of "straight white males" who haven't looked at the world around them as it stands today. That mirage vanished years ago to those who actually pay attention. The rest of us find ourselves at the bottom of the well, looking up, and not finding a rope to climb.
True, but note that in Appalachia, we are generally socially and culturally cut off from the rest of the world. What's stranger yet is this isolation appears to be by choice alone, as virtually every residence and community in the region is connected via some sort of road or right of way that your typical two wheel drive vehicle can easily traverse. Further, Satellite TV, and internet service is available virtually everywhere. Even some of the smallest coal town communities are within 30 minutes to a major U.S. highway, so the cultural backwardness of the local people can be somewhat baffling. Though I do believe it's getting better, otherwise I'd probably be raped and left for dead by now....

But despite the overall grudging tolerance I experience here, the "good ole boy" network is alive and well. These people look out for one another (hell, most of them are related anyway).

Even if not for my eccentric fashion sense and personality, I'd still have a somewhat hard row to hoe trying to cut it here mainly due to being an outsider. Unless you have a last name that takes up an entire page in the phone book, you're really going to have to prove yourself to cut it in Appalachia. It's not impossible to make it, but you have to be damned cunning and good at what you do. Frankly, often times I barely hold myself above water in that regard. Women, blacks, and other races will do well if they're top in their field, Muslims and trans-women might as well keep on moving on down the line. There's nothing here for those two groups other than poverty, harassment, and a strong possibility of physical danger. White trans-men, and masculine women are thriving. (I wonder why??)

I'm afraid we can't have it both ways it seems. We're either going to be a tribal culture, or we're going to be diverse. It seems most parts of the U.S. are open to diversity, to the point of enacting protected classes to encourage such, while regions where I live are still tribal by nature and only look out for their own kind. I'd love to see a world where our diversity unites us, a little more "E pluribus unum" and a little less religious obnoxiousness, but I'm afraid from my vantage point deep in this hollar, I don't see that world on the horizon any time soon.

And.. to pull this back on topic to a degree, "women wearing pants", is definitely dinner table discussion in my region. Quite a few women do not wear pants around here strictly for religious reasons alone.
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Re: Women in pants

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FranTastic444 wrote:Thanks Jim - I was unaware of the concept of old and new covenants (although I'm aware of the old and new testaments). Read some articles this morning comparing the old and new covenants.
To expand on what Jim said, and possibly whatever you have found in your reading, here's my take from the perspective of an overprivileged white male of European ancestry and a conservative evangelical theology...
When we talk about the "old covenant" we mean the agreement G-d* made with Abraham and Moses, every single thou-shalt-not including eating shellfish, wearing cotton-polyester blends, getting tattoos, or wearing clothing intended for the opposite sex. Any sin -- violation of these rules -- however great or small, required the shedding of blood for atonement. Lambs, bulls, doves, calves... only the finest, unblemished specimens bled out with precise rules regarding which body parts are treated in which way, what could be eaten by the priests afterwards, etc. The entire theology of the "new covenant" is built upon the premise that the promised messiah was the final sacrifice, one so perfect that no other animal sacrifices would ever be needed again.
This is not intended to be a debate over the validity of anyone's religious beliefs or lack thereof, or a recruiting screed. I'm counting on all of us being mature enough to read and discuss one another's beliefs without things getting ugly. I'm just trying to provide, in my clumsy way, an objective summary of what Christians believe and how it affects daily life.

In theory, this means we're free from all guilt for failing to adhere to every one of those Old Covenant laws, which is good because we're told if you have failed to obey a single one of them, you have failed all of them. In theory, all that's left is to love G-d and love our neighbor ("the whole of the Law is summed up in these").

And yet... as Jim said, that's easier said than done. An awful lot of Christians worry less about their own relationship with the almighty and more about trying to guess whether their neighbor is on the straight and narrow. It's bad enough that they'll insist no true Christian would ever participate in, or condone, homosexuality; I've seen people go so far as to say if you vote Democrat you can't possibly be a Christian.

For people like that, it's all about selective interpretation of OT laws. First off let's assume that anyone who deviates in the slightest degree from their vision of what is sexually pure must be some kind of satanic pervert -- so gays, men who wear skirts, full-on crossdressers, and men who use the word "fabulous" are lumped in with child molesters and men who rape sheep. Fun fact: Jesus spoke harshly against divorce numerous times, but never once said anything about homosexuality. Want to take a guess as to how many gay-bashing evangelicals have been divorced or even had affairs while married? Don't get me started.

So you might wonder, how could I identify with that philosophy if I'm so angry at many of its practitioners? Because none of that is the fault of the text, or the fault of the deity. My orders come from above, and I'll just keep working at that whole "love" thing with all my heart without worrying about the folks who fail at it so spectacularly. They are NOT my problem. Occasionally I'll try to gently remind them what our mission is, but it usually falls on deaf ears. And I'd be a lying hypocrite if I claimed I never judge someone else for their actions or question whether they belong in paradise, so I can't even honestly judge someone else for judging.

* A Jewish friend informed me that it is considered blasphemous to write out the full name of our deity; out of respect to folks who follow that law I use the redacted form when I'm addressing an audience of unknown or mixed faith.
Ralph!
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Re: Women in pants

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Well said! You're a good man Ralph! And to be fair I believe most Chrsitians feel somewhat similar to the way you do. It's the ultra obnoxious ones that hog the spot light.
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Re: Women in pants

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crfriend wrote:
\Really, if people would just stop judging one another, that would eliminate at least half our social problems overnight!
In an ideal world...
In that ideal world, we would not judge on another based on things that don't matter in the situation, like ethnicity or appearances. Some things, like job performance, do matter and should be honestly and objectively judged when appropriate.
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Re: Women in pants

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Did you see the very positive press that Cara Delevingne got for her outfit at the recent royal wedding? Wonder if it would have been as positive if there had been a guy in a dress or skirt in attendance?
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Re: Women in pants

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FranTastic444 wrote:Wonder if it would have been as positive if there had been a guy in a dress or skirt in attendance?
No.
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Re: Women in pants

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Actually, she looks a bit ridiculous in that getup. The top hat looks too big, the shirt collar far too big, the jacket not quite right, although I can't put my finger on why not, the trousers ( spit ) are too narrow in the leg, are too short and don't go at all with the shoes ( too much ankle showing ). Apart from that, it's very nicely put together. :twisted:
I believe in offering every assistance short of actual help but then mainly just want to be left to be myself in all my difference and uniqueness.
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Re: Women in pants

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crfriend wrote: It (straight, white male privilege) only exists in the minds of "straight white males" who haven't looked at the world around them as it stands today. That mirage vanished years ago to those who actually pay attention. The rest of us find ourselves at the bottom of the well, looking up, and not finding a rope to climb.
Really Carl?

If you weren't paying attention, listen to the women who have told their stories through the Me Too Movement. Read the news accounts of Harvey Weinstein's shenanigans. Look at the aftermath of the Kavanaugh hearings; Dr. Ford is getting death threats and Judge Kavanaugh got his seat on the Supreme Court.

Oh, I know, you got hosed in your break-up with your latest partner. So did a lot of us in our respective break-ups, myself included.

Get over it! And look at the world as it really exists.

You are absolutely right that the US is becoming an increasingly stratified society with 90% of us falling further and further behind. But at each socio-economic level the people who don't fit the default mold of white, straight male get the short end of the stick. The statistics on any measure of well-being confirm that.

So could we please stow the misogynistic crap and figure out who our natural allies are and make common cause with them?

It's the only way we'll change anything! And there's plenty that's overdue for changing!
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