[quote=Zaresto]Television, on the other hand, can sure be seen to favor women in multiple capacities. Let's look at, arguably, the most influential shows of the past two decades: The Simpsons. What do you see there: dumbass Homer Simpson, his wife the voice of reason in his life, his daughter a highly intelligent critical thinker, while his son is a rowdy, lazy, troublemaker. If you want more examples, fine: Lets look at Adventure Time. A show where girls have all the power and are almost flawless, while the men cause all the problems. And yet people still think that women are portrayed badly in television.

Video games, they don't matter.[/quote]

Eh, I wouldn't say that cartoons are the best representative group for television as a whole, seeing as they don't even nearly make up a majority of television programs. I could just as easily cite reality show type things like that one show Bridezilla that shows women being crazy assholes, or that one show about teen moms showcasing women who made dumb choices in their life. Those are also not perfect representatives of TV as a whole, but you can see the problems that arise when you make a very limited and biased selection and then try to generalize with them.

Video games don't matter? Oh, well then, I'll go inform the world that this brilliant fellow who calls himself Zaresto has had this startling epiphany that changes everything. Sarcasm aside, yeah, video games do matter in this context. All kinds of media can have an impact on societal expectations, including video games. You could argue that since they reach much fewer people than television and movies that means it's not worth it to devote so much effort to trying to get the video game industry to fix up some of their problem areas, and on that I would agree with you, but declaring that they don't matter at all is simply incorrect. That's just arbitrarily saying "nope, they don't affect the way people think, irrelevant" despite all the psychological evidence and studies that say otherwise. You might as well say books don't matter, because you've got the same exact lack of evidence to back that claim up as well.

[quote=Zaresto]Gender Wage Gap: [url=http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf]Debunked, time and time again.[/url][/quote]

Hmm, I'm annoyed that that one didn't come up in my searches the other day, though I think I might see why it wasn't high in the results. That report is kind of wonky because it's taking the raw wage gap of 20% across all fields and all types of work, then says the wage gap isn't that big because of part-time versus full-time employment numbers, differing occupational choice trends between the genders, and pregnancy; they're left with a range of 4.8-7.1% of the raw wage gap that they have no strong explanation for, so they don't even debunk the wage gap, they just shrink it. However, when you look full-time workers in the same fields (removing two of those explanatory factors) you still see a 20% wage gap (as shown [url=http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2011/ted_20110216_data.htm]here in table form[/url], and [url=http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2011/ted_20110216.htm]shown here in fancy graph form[/url]). That report you linked claims that 50-60% of that raw wage gap can be accounted for by the different fields that are more dominated by women and happen to pay less and that women work part-time jobs more than men, but the fact that there's a 20% wage gap even when you look only at full-time workers in the same field throws that into question. Also, that report says they found that pregnancy and motherhood, and the interruption of work and loss of experience they entail, account for a 7.3% (though the number gets smaller when they account for other factors apparently, I'll just use the biggest one because why not) wage gap between men and women. Where's that other ~12.7% difference in pay for full-time workers in the same fields coming from? How about the ~30% pay difference that remains in occupations like physicians and surgeons even after you take away the 7.3% that is explained by pregnancy? It can't be explained away with different fields and part-time work because these are numbers from full-time workers in the same fields, so there must be something else to account for it. Whether it's sexist things or other reasonable things like the pregnancy issue remains to be seen, and that lingering question is why the pay gap is still considered an issue despite imperfect attempts to debunk it.

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[quote=Magic Magnum]But for cases like men are oppressors? There is no female equivalent of being oppressors, there are other issues yes such as being vulnerable. But that is a separate issue, not oppression itself.
Both are valid, but separate. Not 100% separate mind you, they're all connected in the same sense that issues like equal pay are connected to other gender issues.

But honestly? This is just arguing fine points, and that really seems to have no point to it.
We both agree that they are all gender issues at least, that's all that should really matter in the end.[/quote]

The female equivalent of male oppressors is that females are the oppressed. That counts as a directly related issue, I think. :hehe

But yeah, fine points, fuck it, they all go in the "things that need to be dealt with" bucket in the end so who cares.

[quote]I guess it really depends on how much value you put on issues that although mainly irrelevant today, have potential (Life breaking in my case. I know if I went to war I'd shut down... You 'might' find me willing to kill another if it was to protect people I cared for. But throwing me without choice in a kill or be killed scenario? Not even like try to survive, but your orders are to kill? I wouldn't last, that is an environment I would completely break down and snap in.) effects in the future?

Though also, if this is such a tiny issue and there's no risk or need for it cause of things like mercenaries, unmanned vehicles etc. Then why is drafting still a law?
Shouldn't we of been able to easily overturn it by now if it wasn't something relevant anymore?

I'd agree that it seems to be a tiny issue for today, but one with potential to explode into a major issue (If not the biggest issue) if the right events set it into motion.[/quote]

Clearly I am one who puts very little value on unlikely hypotheticals, heh.

I'd guess that the reason it hasn't been struck from the books is that it would be seen as and cast as an anti-military move. Congress has gotten to the point where anyone who isn't vehemently pro-military is a pariah and will have to fight tooth and nail to keep their seat in their next election. It would be easy as hell to overturn if it were up to a vote by the American people, but that's unlikely to occur because the issue would be blocked and crushed before it ever got put on a ballot. There's a lot of money in the maintenance and outfitting of the military, so anything that looks like an attack on it gets buried under the monetary counter-attack of the industries that have so much invested in the issue even if it wouldn't actually harm their profits. Case in point, pushes for reform in how the military deals with sexual assault and rape get crushed by money from the military-industrial complex, presumably because they just don't like anything that casts their cash cow in a negative light. All national level politics come down to a matter of money in the end, which should be a surprise to nobody.

[quote]I was more addressing it from a right to consent to what's done to one's own body standpoint than from a physical effects standpoint.

From physical/health effects, like I said above I outright agree women do get it worse in body rights.
As for consent over one's body. There is potential moral argument to made that removing pleasure before they can experience it is worse than taking away something after they know of it. Cause they are unknowingly robbed of a greater pleasure. As for parent approval, I can understand and agree with parent consent for a child's operation before the child can consent when it's in regard to health issues and concerns. Circumcision though, is like you said a cosmetic surgery, meant for appearances and not that much health wise.

That's the sort of thing that should be left up to the Individual once they're at a consenting age, not to the parents since there isn't an immediate danger or risk by being uncircumcised.
As for minors needing parent consent for abortion? I assume by this you mean young teens? I think at that age the child is old enough to make the choice of going through the pregnancy or not themselves rather than the parents decide. However, the parents would probably still have say over if the baby is to be cared for by the family or put up for adoption.

Also, it really is no surprise that both of these issues are from Religion. :P[/quote]

I'd have to argue the opposite moral philosophical position, that reduction of pleasure before one can experience it is not as bad as removal of pleasure after someone has experienced it. There are two phrases that come to mind that apply here: you don't know what you're missing and ignorance is bliss. Circumcised men retain the capability to experience sexual gratification, and it's still a highly pleasurable sensation that most would say trumps all other physical pleasures, so the argument that it's some grievous loss doesn't hold much water for me. Say you give arbitrary point values to sources of physical pleasure, say sex for circumcised men gets a 90 and the next highest thing is only a 70, trying to say a further potential 10 points being lost just isn't that big of a problem because the 90 is still the best thing they've ever known and most circumcised guys probably can't even conceive of a higher level. The fact that they don't know what they're missing is precisely what makes it a lesser problem: there is no noticeable negative impact, thus it's all a matter of hypothetical subjectivity and therefore rather pointless to even bother with.

Whether or not it should be something left to the guy to decide once he's an adult, the fact of the matter is that it exists in an ethical grey area that has no easy answers. Either a child's bodily autonomy remains sacrosanct and parents cannot allow surgery on their minor children, or it's not sacrosanct and that allows for things like circumcision to be legally allowable. I happen to agree that circumcision shouldn't be done to little boys at all, but it rests in that weird grey area that makes it lack a hard and fast answer with solid argumentation to back it up.

By the way, this sort of thing is exactly why an attack on adult female bodily autonomy is so troublesome, just imaging what kind of fucked up things could come in through the door if that right was cracked or torn away completely. And while I'm on the subject, I agree that young women should be allowed to make the choice for themselves, but the law sucks like that. A reasonable first step would be to make it so consent for abortion is in line with ages of sexual consent in each state, because it seems really weird that in some places a girl can legally choose to have sex at the age of 16 but cannot legally choose of solely her own will to have an abortion even if it's otherwise totally legal and available in her state. For some weird reason the age of sexual consent isn't the same thing as the age of consenting to contractual obligations and whatnot though, and I have no idea why that is.

[quote]First a reminder, I'm not just saying Maternity leave causes the 20%. It can also be from career choices, and the fact that time off from maternity leave or raising kids leaves the woman with less work experience overall. Which means less chances/likelihoods for promotion. Both from less time to work, and from an employer's fear of the woman getting promoted, and then leaving cause of family matters. That last part we can argue is sexism in the workplace, but like the Prison rates is one ran by fact and not pure sexism. And one that should correct itself as men and women start to balance/even out the time they spend at home with the children.[/quote]

See my response to Zaresto in regards to the pay gap for more clear numbers on the maternity thing.

[quote]Constructions job's being less than 8%, well that is a largely male dominated field.
With other factors causing women to be paid less considered, it makes sense the overall gap get's smaller when you restrict it to a job where men are dominant.
While desk jobs tend to have more women in the workplace than fields like construction.[/quote]

What? I don't get why you say it makes sense that the pay gap would get smaller in male-dominated fields. Construction work having one of the smallest pay gaps seems really strange to me, both because it's so heavily male-dominated and because it's a physically intensive job that brings up both biological facts and societal perceptions about women being less physically capable than men. Also, if you look at mining and quarrying type jobs, also physical work and even more male-dominated than construction, they're running a 20% pay gap. If there were some truth to male-dominated jobs having less pay disparity, that wouldn't be the case. Agriculture is another area more male-dominated than construction, and they're running a 15% pay gap. Construction is a weird outlier, not the norm.

[quote]But to take financial manager's specifically, [url=https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iwpr.org%2Fpublications%2Fpubs%2Fthe-gender-wage-gap-by-occupation-1%2Fat_download%2Ffile&ei=qpckU575OcTerAHRvoCYDg&usg=AFQjCNHhX2CjH__F7oDLxmCd1TYIgyevHQ&sig2=3sVKNuwgHY_KtPl-GHZ_hA]I'll use this graph here to help calculate this.[/url] 

Note: It is from the "Institute for women's policy research".
Not sure of this is the same source you had, either way though note the potential bias this data will have.

So in this case the total number of male workers is 55.971,000 and for women it's 44,486,000.
Now, for financial managers specifically 0.9% of men work there, and 1.4% of women do.
After some quick math that becomes... 503,739 men and 622,804 women.

That's more women then men, but not by a huge amount.
So even if women were paid less than men for entirely non-sexist reasons, the fact it's only 65.9% of the pay (According to the same source above) is fishy.
You do seem to be onto something in this case, but this does require more digging and research before anything concrete can be done.[/quote]

Nope, my source was the thing from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that I linked when responding to Zaresto. I should've linked that the other day when I first brought it up, whoops.

But yeah, this kind of thing is what I mean. Even if you take that 7.3% lesser income due to pregnancy and motherhood figure that I pulled from Zaresto's link, these pay gaps that remain for full-time workers in the same fields are still far too large to be waved away as a debunked issue.

[quote]As for same job pay gap vs overall pay gap? 
I think we need to find a more neutral/unbiased and altered source before we can make any rulings there.[/quote]

[url=http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2011/ted_20110216.htm]Here, the source I've been using.[/url] [url=http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2011/ted_20110216_data.htm]And here's the chart with the numbers used to make that graph.[/url] It's a simple layout of the wage data gathered by the Bureau of Census, which is as unbiased as you can get.

[quote]I'll note for the future not to dismiss this issue outright.
But until we got that unbiased source we need to make a proper ruling I'm still approaching this from a "Claim without proper evidence" viewpoint and therefore won't be addressing this as a current issue for women.
[/quote]

Take a gander at my source and see if it fits your need for an unbiased one. The only thing really lacking evidence is the claim the income disparity is caused by sexism, because the numbers clearly show that this disparity exists. It could be another issue cause by gender roles and whatnot, or it could stem from other things, but it is indeed a current issue for women nonetheless.