Man tax

[Paq]

I'm proposing a separate, higher, rate of income tax for men. My rationale is that men cost the state more (they are responsible for the vast majority of crime for e.g.), they do much less unpaid labour (care, volunteering), and the patriarchy is responsible for the inequality in pay and wealth of women.

And before anyone says "but maternity care" - it took a man to make that baby.

Only half in jest...

But this isn’t a tax because a person is working it’s because of their male privilege. Or is it only working men who have male privilege?

White feminists employ the same minimizing, gaslighting, and whataboutery towards other types of discrimination that they complain men use against them. Wanting to close the gap between white men and white women isn’t the same thing as wanting equality for women. The latter would have to take into account that white women aren’t the default and that just because it’s important to them, doesn’t mean it’s important to all women. Nor is it something that will benefit all women.

They also love to say that all men are responsible for standing up against sexism and if there are good men in the world then why aren’t they taking action towards equality and why don’t they support women and they aren’t actually good men and blah blah blah. Racism is always, of course, never their fault or responsibility even though they’re white. 🤭

@Avaynia I think the white privilege tax would be another interesting thread. As a white woman, I am painfully aware that I have privilege that black women do not. In a similar, slightly tongue in cheek thread, I'd be interested in the ways I could compensate for that. Is it increased taxes as we're talking about here? Or something else? For example, I instinctively feel like the way I'm treated by the school is different to the way black parents are treated and by extension, our children. What state-mandated thing could be done to prevent that as an example (in our hypothetical, perfect world that isn't always practical)?

I think a lot of people in this thread are thinking mainly about income tax, which is obviously paid in proportion to your income, with higher earners paying more.

But it’s important to remember that a lot of the tax people pay is things such as VAT on products, where everyone pays the same amount of tax on a particular product. And so women (who as a group are lower earners than men) will be paying a higher proportion of their income on buying the same product, and so paying a higher % tax rate than men on these products. It’s a regressive rather than progressive tax.

@TiredButDancing

They 100% are more athletic than women in every mainstream competitive sport in the ways that allow you to win at that sport (which is kind of the point). That’s why you don’t see a man bowling at womens cricketers - they couldn’t handle it. Or a female pace bowler bowling at the boys - she would get hit out the ground.
That holds true across certainly all competitive sports.

Now if you want to say women are better at some forms of gymnastics that’s another thing - but gymnastics aren’t televised outside the Olympics and don’t make money anyway.

<Throws hands up>

Women are less strong than men - yes. That means they cannot compete against men in most sports - yes.

It is not clear to me why an earlier poster thinks therefore that this means women should be paid less. The Invisible Women example would be that because of those two factors, women should not be expected to compete against men nor should their weaker bodies be discriminated against with less pay (although I have conceded there may well be other reasons to pay them less).

yes. Also that women are paying more tax because there are many things they need (genuinely need or perhaps just think they need because that's what society has told them) that men don't.

@TiredButDancing

Because they’re literally not doing the same job to the same standard but a far lower one. As a result they are generally though less entertaining and so less watched and generate less revenue - in fact most womens sports are subsidised wholly by their attachment to mens sports.

Of course it’s fine to discriminate against womens weaker bodies with lower pay in sports which require those who are the best at them to have strong bodies. Just like it would be fine to discriminate against a fireman who couldn’t pick up a hose by not paying him to do the job.

If you had read Invisible Women, you'd know that your fireman example is an interesting one because in fact, she points out that why does the equipment have to be that size/shape/weight? Oh, that's right,.... because it was designed for men's bodies in the first place.

I 100% dispute that watching female athletes play against other female athletes means watching athletes at a lower level because that simply isn't true. Not least because it's the competitive nature of it that is entertaining. Let's take long jump as an example - watching a man compete against a woman would be boring because he would so easily beat her. But two men competing or two women competing has entertainment value. As a spectator, my entertainment does not come because one group consistently jump an additional 1m on average but rather from watching one athlete strive to outperform the athlete he or she is competing against.

Women's team sports involve the same level of skill and dexterity - see some of the amazing moves we all witnessed from the Lionesses recently. But if they played against men, yes, they would be less entertaining as one assumes the men are faster and stronger so more likely to simply outperform in every way.

I assume English isn't your first language - "taking into account" doesn't mean anything to do with earnings.

The argument was that differential outcomes were acceptable where physical differences matter.

Ah - you misunderstood. The differential outcomes need to directly relate to the physical differences. So you can't say "blonde people have a physical difference from ginger people, so we are justified in any treatment at all treating these two groups differently".

I appreciate that if you're used to black-and-white thinking or soundbites this seems incredibly complex to understand. Often people use reasoning to test whether what they are claiming makes logical sense. You need to show that your conclusion logically follows from the premise. And avoid logical fallacies.

@TiredButDancing

Well that may be but they did design it. Maybe if she thinks she should be able to work in that job without the strength she should design something better, rather than expect men to come up with it.

I agree that some womens athletics are as entertaining as mens (but somewhat irrelevant as they make next to nothing anyway) - but can not agree that most womens professional sports are. Womens cricket, soccer, basketball, boxing simply isn’t as entertaining as mens to me because women can not do the similar impressive things that make up the mens game. Women don’t smack the ball over the rope or bowl as fast that it seems dangerous. Women don’t perform fancy dunks and twists, you don’t get the same sense of power and speed from womens boxing etc

And that’s understandable because it actually ties into your first point about things being designed for (and by) men - these games and sports leagues were all invented by men based around what they could do best and what they found entertaining about what men like them could do. Realistically women in those games like cricket l, boxing, soccer, rugby etc are playing mens games made by men to be played by men.
Now that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t bother or can’t have fun, but it does mean that they will always be far worse at the identifiably entertaining and spectacular parts of those games.

Ultimately if things were to be different women would have to design their own sports, but there doesn’t seem to be a drive to do that and ultimately their is greater monetary gain for women to be had by attachment of womens leagues to already successful mens sports leagues rather than women striking out on their own with soemthing original made by them for them.

imo the men honestly deserve more money, they created all those sports and developed them from nothing and getting no pay over a long long time to becoming pro’s. If anything the professional womens players in soccer and the like are actually very lucky to be attached to the mens leagues and funded by them, though it seems unappreciated.

Honestly imo women are to blame for this, as of right now in mainstream sports they are simply doing a lesser impression of the men. Playing on grounds designed for men in sports designed for men and of course not meeting the standard set by men - and doing so in leagues which are copy cats of the male leagues.

Would you pay the same to see an Elvis impersonator as you would to see the real Elvis? That’s how I feel about our soccer, Cricket, rugby etc compared to mens.

I prefer things our own that we are best at like some gymnastics or woman centered sports - if I’m going to watch on TV.

I personally think the people that have had to overcome more obstacles simply to play a sport are more worth watching - the plot of many sports movies would suggest that a plucky backstory equals more entertaining. Hence the Dick Kerr Ladies story. But it's great that we can both choose to watch what we prefer and not dictate others' choices.

@LaughingPriest

Absolutely. To each their own. I simply believe that the revenue a sport brings in should determine pay.

In my mind there is nothing more ridiculous than subsidising grown women (or men) to play a ball game when there is thousands of other things that money would be better spent on than running a charity to make people high payed athletes.

Have you ever watched women's sport? Dh is a huge rugby fan and watches (men's) rugby a LOT. But put a woman's match on and he is instantly fixated by the skill and as this game starts being played more, and on tv more, I have no doubt that yet more of our family tv time will be on sport... but now women's sport as well.

But I'm not going to tell you that you have to watch women's sport. You can watch whatever you like. But if you think cricket is just about the speed of the ball being bowled then you very clearly are not really much of a cricket watcher anyway.

I mean women can moan about the lack of enthusiasm about female sports when they actually watch and support it themselves. The fact is we don’t because we’re not as interested.

Agree. I am fair with blue eyes. I burn easily. DH is not. Me burning easily doesn't mean that I am now banned from all outside activities. It means accommodations are made such as sunscreen, shade or timing.

@GerbilsForever24

Created by who? Perhaps they should create it for themselves rather than demand the exact job they want be created in a way that’s just right for them.

When you start making people pay more because of a characteristic they didn't choose and can't change you just put people against each other - no one should be made to feel they are innately bad or responsible for inequality in the world because they were born male or white.
Positive discrimination didn't work, it just ended up with one set of people thinking that others were being advanced on account of a characteristic, rather than their talent. It caused resentment in workplaces and was unfair on an individual basis.
We wouldn't need to mitigate on an individual basis for advantages that don't always apply to everyone who shares a characteristic, if government took a proper overview of the things which disadvantage certain groups and corrected them on a societal level. So, as I said above, ensuring men don't dodge child/spousal support. Which would free up some of the money taxpayers have to spend supporting the kids of absent fathers (mostly).
But also subsidised, easily accessible childcare, living wages, investing in transport infrastructure, so vulnerable people can travel safely at all hours on buses snd trains that have proper security, ensuring the police conduct themselves appropriately. There's plenty of money sloshing around for stuff the government values so I don't buy that the country can't afford it.

The same we we discriminate against junior and veteran athletes.

As I said above, “feminists” can be very selective about the areas where they want sexual equality.

So, as I said above, ensuring men don't dodge child/spousal support. Which would free up some of the money taxpayers have to spend supporting the kids of absent fathers (mostly).

That would make complete sense and (in spite of the protestations of the 'but I don't waaaaaant to' crowd of deadbeats) would be entirely fair. But going on the principles of this bizarre 'man tax', some people would be punishing all of the committed, devoted, present, financially supportive dads for, erm, being good dads, on account of their also being men, which the majority of the deadbeats also happen to be.

It's as ludicrous and discriminatory as it would be taxing all Nigerians living in the UK for being Nigerian/having Nigerian heritage - on account of the fact that their countryfolk are particularly highly represented in online scams. In fact, why don't we go the whole hog and imprison for life all men in Britain named Frederick West, on account of their sharing the same name as a certain evil killer from Gloucester?

No I don’t believe in spousal support at all.

Created by who?
By the people whose job it is to design and manufacture PPE. Genuine question: Did you not understand that?

Are you seriously advocating that medical professionals whose PPE is impairing their work retrain as clothing designers and stop work as medical professionals? Can you please set out your logic as to why that is an efficient solution?

Why would you not believe in spousal support @Cuppasoupmonster ?
If a couple decide to have dc and between them choose to divvy up childcare and earning, it isn't fair that if the marriage ends, the worker is advantaged and the sahp disadvantaged.

Re PPE etc, it isn't right that lake is the default. See also crash test dummies historically based on male bodies and not female also (or pregnant women). Given women are 50% of the population we really shouldn't be an afterthought when products are developed