Being Excluded From Debates Due To Gender

[DebateChallenge]

Earlier I started a thread which questioned whether or not the voting age should've been lowered from 21 to 18 for women when it was done so for men. The fact of the matter was that this was during the Vietnam era and the fact that men were being drafted was a major issue at the time, if you could be drafted you should be allowed to vote. While I was not taking any position I was questioning if the voting age for women should've been lowered as well. Some other posters have pointed out that it was not just the draft that caused the voting age to be lowered but other factors as well. Since then I've seen that yes it was the right thing to lower the voting age for women too.

That aside though, Im wondering if its proper to restrict people of certain genders from getting involved in certain debates. For instance, some people say men should not be involved in the abortion debate because men don't get pregnant. It doesn't matter if a man is pro choice or pro life, men should not be involved in the abortion debate, period. That is one example of how there might be a push to restrict people from getting involved in certain political debates because of their gender, is it acceptable?

 

[lwf]

Earlier I started a thread which questioned whether or not the voting age should've been lowered from 21 to 18 for women when it was done so for men. The fact of the matter was that this was during the Vietnam era and the fact that men were being drafted was a major issue at the time, if you could be drafted you should be allowed to vote. While I was not taking any position I was questioning if the voting age for women should've been lowered as well. Some other posters have pointed out that it was not just the draft that caused the voting age to be lowered but other factors as well. Since then I've seen that yes it was the right thing to lower the voting age for women too.

That aside though, Im wondering if its proper to restrict people of certain genders from getting involved in certain debates. For instance, some people say men should not be involved in the abortion debate because men don't get pregnant. It doesn't matter if a man is pro choice or pro life, men should not be involved in the abortion debate, period. That is one example of how there might be a push to restrict people from getting involved in certain political debates because of their gender, is it acceptable?

Good question. In most cases, I would say no, but there seem to be some cases where one particular gender is entirely affected and other genders are not where it seems inappropriate to voice one's opinion if you are the gender not affected. For example: should women have a say in a hypothetical debate about the morality of making male circumcision legally mandatory for everyone? If they're against it, I would be fine with hearing their opinion. If they're for it, I'm not so sure anyone should care what they think.

 

[trixare4kids]

Earlier I started a thread which questioned whether or not the voting age should've been lowered from 21 to 18 for women when it was done so for men. The fact of the matter was that this was during the Vietnam era and the fact that men were being drafted was a major issue at the time, if you could be drafted you should be allowed to vote. While I was not taking any position I was questioning if the voting age for women should've been lowered as well. Some other posters have pointed out that it was not just the draft that caused the voting age to be lowered but other factors as well. Since then I've seen that yes it was the right thing to lower the voting age for women too.

That aside though, Im wondering if its proper to restrict people of certain genders from getting involved in certain debates. For instance, some people say men should not be involved in the abortion debate because men don't get pregnant. It doesn't matter if a man is pro choice or pro life, men should not be involved in the abortion debate, period. That is one example of how there might be a push to restrict people from getting involved in certain political debates because of their gender, is it acceptable?

I don't think people should be restricted from public debates for any reason.
In the example you gave, men can be involved in the debate over abortion just as long as they realize their opinion shouldn't effect the rights of women to govern their own reproductive autonomy.

 

[DebateChallenge]

For example: should women have a say in a hypothetical debate about the morality of making male circumcision legally mandatory for everyone?

I've never heard of any argument or movement that seeks to make male circumcision mandatory although I do know of movements that want to ban infant male circumcision.

 

[lwf]

I've never heard of any argument or movement that seeks to make male circumcision mandatory although I do know of movements that want to ban infant male circumcision.

I haven't either. It was purely hypothetical. It is an example of a situation where I wouldn't particularly care about any woman's opinion on the subject aside from those whose opinions supported mine that male circumcision should not be legally mandated.

 

[DebateChallenge]

I haven't either. It was purely hypothetical. It is an example of a situation where I wouldn't particularly care about any woman's opinion on the subject aside from those whose opinions supported mine that male circumcision should not be legally mandated.

Alright, well the fact remains there are movements that want to ban infant circumcision, should women be involved in them?
Also, should men be involved in the abortion debate?

 

[NeverTrump]

Earlier I started a thread which questioned whether or not the voting age should've been lowered from 21 to 18 for women when it was done so for men. The fact of the matter was that this was during the Vietnam era and the fact that men were being drafted was a major issue at the time, if you could be drafted you should be allowed to vote. While I was not taking any position I was questioning if the voting age for women should've been lowered as well. Some other posters have pointed out that it was not just the draft that caused the voting age to be lowered but other factors as well. Since then I've seen that yes it was the right thing to lower the voting age for women too.

That aside though, Im wondering if its proper to restrict people of certain genders from getting involved in certain debates. For instance, some people say men should not be involved in the abortion debate because men don't get pregnant. It doesn't matter if a man is pro choice or pro life, men should not be involved in the abortion debate, period. That is one example of how there might be a push to restrict people from getting involved in certain political debates because of their gender, is it acceptable?

On the flip side of this: I asked many of my female friends over the years if they were all bisexual, b/c they kiss each other in clubs and often call each other cute, hot sexy and men never do this to each other. They tended to agree with me and tended to agree with me that on a deeper level girls have more bisexual tendencies than guys.

 

[Phys251]

Earlier I started a thread which questioned whether or not the voting age should've been lowered from 21 to 18 for women when it was done so for men. The fact of the matter was that this was during the Vietnam era and the fact that men were being drafted was a major issue at the time, if you could be drafted you should be allowed to vote. While I was not taking any position I was questioning if the voting age for women should've been lowered as well. Some other posters have pointed out that it was not just the draft that caused the voting age to be lowered but other factors as well. Since then I've seen that yes it was the right thing to lower the voting age for women too.

That aside though, Im wondering if its proper to restrict people of certain genders from getting involved in certain debates. For instance, some people say men should not be involved in the abortion debate because men don't get pregnant. It doesn't matter if a man is pro choice or pro life, men should not be involved in the abortion debate, period. That is one example of how there might be a push to restrict people from getting involved in certain political debates because of their gender, is it acceptable?

There's a world of difference between admission to a debate and the weight of an individual's words in a debate.

If you've got two people debating a topic, one of whom is basically a walking encyclopedia on that topic and the other feels that they got their degree from the University of Google, then the expert's opinion must count for more. This is a distinction that people who are intellectually unskilled often fail to make. You'll often hear the unskilled raising false complaints such as "Appeal to authority!" without recognizing that appeals to authority only fail with deductive reasoning, not inductive reasoning, where expertise does count.

This raises the question as to who deserves the microphone. What point is there giving one microphone to an expert and the other to a fool? If there really is a debate, if there really is a controversy, then let's give the microphones to people who are actually experts on the matter, not armchair quarterbacks who've probably never researched the matter in their lives. Consider the vaccination "debate" as an example. If there were an actual, real-live controversy within the epidemiology community as to whether to vaccinate babies, then we should hear from them. But there is no such controversy. The need to vaccinate is settled science. The "debate" is manufactured by a bunch of angry idiots who refuse to educate themselves on the most basic matters of epidemiology.

This is not an issue of free speech! Nobody is saying that the anti-vaxxer morons cannot go stand on the nearest street corner and spew their ignorance. But there is no corresponding right to give them a platform in an arranged formal debate. There has to be a high bar of not just competency but expertise to clear, and the anti-vaxxers fall well short of this bar.

The bottom line is, laypeople should not be strictly silenced from participating in discussions about matters that they know little about, but they should show much more respect to those who do.

 

[southwest88]

Part of our political mythos

In the US, men are taxpayers & citizens of the polity. & so men help pay for TANF, Food Stamps, Section 8 housing, health & dental coverage for the indigent. They also pay into the funding hospitals have for medical care for the indigent. & pay property taxes, funding public schools K-12, state universities, & so on. As taxpayers & citizens then, they have a direct stake in the impacts of policy on abortion, childcare, state costs for these policies.

If we're serious about no taxation without representation, then men & women both need to be included in policy discussions, legislation, and however else the state elects to proceed on these questions.

 

[DebateChallenge]

Re: Part of our political mythos

So anyway, should men be allowed to get involved in the abortion debate? It doesn't matter if they take the pro choice or pro life side and Im not trying to sound like Im taking any side myself but should men be allowed to get involved? After all, men don't get pregnant.

 

[trouble13]

I don't think people should be restricted from public debates for any reason.
In the example you gave, men can be involved in the debate over abortion just as long as they realize their opinion shouldn't effect the rights of women to govern their own reproductive autonomy.

Why should men respect women's choices if women dont respect mens choices? If you want to exclude men from a vote make sure you exclude them from the consequences of the choices made for them by someone else.

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[jnug]

Earlier I started a thread which questioned whether or not the voting age should've been lowered from 21 to 18 for women when it was done so for men. The fact of the matter was that this was during the Vietnam era and the fact that men were being drafted was a major issue at the time, if you could be drafted you should be allowed to vote. While I was not taking any position I was questioning if the voting age for women should've been lowered as well. Some other posters have pointed out that it was not just the draft that caused the voting age to be lowered but other factors as well. Since then I've seen that yes it was the right thing to lower the voting age for women too.

That aside though, Im wondering if its proper to restrict people of certain genders from getting involved in certain debates. For instance, some people say men should not be involved in the abortion debate because men don't get pregnant. It doesn't matter if a man is pro choice or pro life, men should not be involved in the abortion debate, period. That is one example of how there might be a push to restrict people from getting involved in certain political debates because of their gender, is it acceptable?

I will give you this much. When I see the WH Security Officer that blew the whistle on the WH Security Clearance mess suspended from HER job, it does make me wonder at least a little if the fact that the officer was a woman made it easier in some minds to dispense with her that way. Lets face it, Trump has Dr Peabody's WayBack Machine and he uses it to get most of his WH staffing done.

 

[jnug]

In fact, if some to the left of the political spectrum are so called Progressives then I think its time to drop the moniker of Conservative for most in the Trump camp. They are not any brand of Conservative I know about. But Regressives fits now doesn't it. Yup, I like that...the Regressives.

 

[trixare4kids]

Why should men respect women's choices if women dont respect mens choices? If you want to exclude men from a vote make sure you exclude them from the consequences of the choices made for them by someone else.

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I'm not going down that path and answering your question on this particular thread.
The reason being is that it's a no win discussion and one of the reasons I rarely discuss women's rights.
But... as I said, I don't think men should be excluded from any debate, and that would also include women's rights.
Note that what I wrote was this.... men realize their opinion shouldn't effect the rights of women to govern their own reproductive autonomy. The reason I wrote this is because it's the law.

 

[trouble13]

I'm not going down that path and answering your question on this particular thread.
The reason being is that it's a no win discussion and one of the reasons I rarely discuss women's rights.
But... as I said, I don't think men should be excluded from any debate, and that would also include women's rights.
Note that what I wrote was this.... men realize their opinion shouldn't effect the rights of women to govern their own reproductive autonomy. The reason I wrote this is because it's the law.

I get it and my post was not meant as an attack. I was raising what I think is s fair point. Women say abortion only effects them but it's not true. There is the father and the child to consider. We dismiss the child opinion cause he isnt capable of expressing his opinion. We dismiss mens opinions because they dont have the burden of carrying the child to term.

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