Suella Braverman thread 2

[AdamRyan]

As we filled up thread one eith our battling over whether it's feminist or racist to support Suella Braverman's weekend statements, I thought another would be good.

Here's some of what she said:

"What's clear is what we've seen is a practice whereby vulnerable white English girls, sometimes who are in care, sometimes in challenging circumstances, being pursued and raped and drugged and harmed by gangs of British Pakistani men who've worked in child abuse rings or networks. We've seen institutions and state agencies, whether it's social workers, teachers, the police turn a blind eye to these signs of abuse out of political correctness, out of fear of being called racist, out of fear of being called bigoted. And as a result, thousands, we are not talking small numbers, we are talking large numbers, thousands of children have had their childhoods robbed and devastated. And there are many of these perpetrators still running wild, behaving in this way. And it's now down to the authorities to track these perpetrators down, without fear or favour, relentlessly and bring them to justice"

Sunak has since rowed back on this and the Home Offices own research suggests there is not enough quality research to say any particular ethnicity is disproportionately involved in "grooming gangs"

It takes 10 hyenas to bring down a male lion. A starving group of hungry hyenas will attack a lion if they're alone. Normally, it will take 10 hyenas to break down a single stable lion at its peak, but even with those numbers, it's not a guarantee. And a lion will fear and fend off a whole hyena clan. It will take 5 or 6 hyenas to take down a lioness.

Different creatures, like different human societies have different patterns and cultures - but within those cultures there are sex based differences, and in the vast majority of cases the sexes have different roles. In most instances males are bigger than females.

Too much disney?

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ten-things-weve-learned-about-lions-disneys-original-lion-king-180972689/#:~:text=Prides%20of%20lions%20are%20run%20by%20females%2C%20but%20there's%20no%20queen.&text=Prides%20are%20run%20by%20generations,males%20and%20establishing%20a%20hierarchy.

Are hyenas creatures too? What about elephants?

Who leads that pack of hyenas?

I hate Disney and hold it responsible for so much of the gender stereotyping which is so pronounced today. It is all princesses. Pure commodification.

Does it matter? There are two sexes. They are distinct from each other.

Its just that a previous poster suggested that in all creatures on Earth males dominate females.

I imagine they are unaware of orcas.

Spiders?
Honey bees?

Not in birds

Or reptiles
Do you mean mammals when you say creatures?

Actually also not in fish or a lot of insects

Interesting drift in this thread.

I've gone down a geek wormhole

If you look at all animals, females are larger than males.

And in mammals, males tend to be larger than females if its a sexually dimorphic species, but overall its not true to say males are larger than females

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.02.23.529628v1

So I've learnt new biology today. Thanks random evopsych poster 🤓

Not even all mammals, but apparently that it is cryptic.

What I find most interesting in each of these threads is that no one is even trying to defend the Conservatives record in government for the past 13 years.
Why is that?

No money for Criminal Justice, schools or the NHS, but.

https://twitter.com/PhilMyers53/status/1643190637485760512?s=19&t=TEKeAdf2dbdxlllvUHSkuQ

Er, there is no record that can be defended, and I'm usually a cheerleader for the Tories.

I haven't suggested that. But using the example of a female hyena with its elongated and retractable clitoris does not negate the fact that are two sexes and that each sex is differentiated from the other. Or using the example of Clownfish to declare that sex is no longer binary in human beings is a pointless exercise.

I can imagine you use the word 'patriarchy' ( I did too - in the 1980's....) by which you mean a system of male dominance? I now tend to recognise ( through experience and throughobservation) that there are generic differences between males and females which are down to biology, even as they can be mediated and/or modified according to culture, individual character and so on.

What you are calling 'the patriarchy' is simply male pattern behaviour. It is not some conscious construction that has been designed to keep females down - it is the way that male/female relationships have evolved through time and social and economic conditions to meet the needs of any given society at any given time.

As human beings we have the potential to rise above our animal natures to some extent and so to modify or mollify the instinctive drives - but not completely. It seems to me that the sort of liberal feminism that many proclaim is predicated on negating the female aspects of of women's nature so that women can be as supposedly liberated as men. People have been trying to control and, effectively, banish nature ( and women as representatives of nature) for a long time - and now a lot of women are doing it too. To themselves.

Whilst simutaneously recognising that violence against women and girls is still a thing.......and not joining up the dots and wondering why.( "It must be to do with the 'patriarchy' and once we've de-constructed it there will be no more violence against women ever again") People still seem to believe they can legislate away the differences betwen males and females - along with some of the darker aspects of those differences.

That's the only reason i can see that explains why so many women now are sex deniers and are seeking freedom from being female. In doing so they under-value, deny, suppress, negate their own nature and can see no positive value in it. Especially the more midle class and educated. They enlist or pay other women to do the jobs and carry out the roles they don't want to do themselves. ( Hey, though - lots of women would actually like to stay at home with their baby, and actually like creating a home/a nest......are they simply victims of the patriarchy?)

Once you accept that there limits in life, that differences exist, and that boundaries can have a healthy function there can be a liberation. You can then focus on managing those differences in a more socially cohesive way,

Why do you think?

That you have constrained your thinking in order to comply with a black and white, binary theoretical construction - in which one cannot argue, or see things, from different perspectives. So , if someone disagrees with your points about 'racism' it must mean they are, inherently, an evil Tory bigot. That not everyone aligns in such rigidly ideological and tribal ways must seem confusing?

And?

Some women are taller than some men. This fact does not negate the differences, though.

You said in "creatures" males are bigger than females to justify your evopsych position. It's demonstrably false. Other posters including me were giving examples of where it's false.

You are making am awful lot of assumptions about what I meant by the patriarchy by the way. But I'm not interested in discussing it with someone who believes male violence is innate and so we have to live with it. Its boring.

I am glad we are now in agreement that for not all animals males dominate females.

A good example of how no one is trying to defend the government's record.

Why it is that no defence is putting put up I don't know. Surely a popular and successful government would be busy telling us all the many things they had achieved during their 13 years in power. Where are all their supporters telling us how wonderful life has been due to the government's many initiatives.

Height is an interesting example of how differences work.

The difference between a tall man and a short man, or a tall woman and a short woman is much greater than the difference between an average man and an average woman.

I'm not much interested in conversing with someone who misrepresents arguments for the purpose of political point scoring, and who reduces complexity and nuance to black and white dogma. So boring!