Gosh, this thread is so full of sweeping takes. Different or equal in what regard? Income? Violent behavior? Or culinary skills?

The current zeitgeist is trying to say that men and women are identical besides environmental cues.

I think that's a straw man that you won't find anybody defending.

I don't think anybody in their right mind is saying that. There are differences in different bodies that often manifest one way in women and the other in men¹ but that it is a lot more complicated than that, including that the binary male/female divide is not always sufficient³ and that environmental factors can have as much effect as the more easily analysed biological ones.

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[1] particularly in the endocrine system, though in other parts too² including the nervous system

[2] it isn't just emotional matters and related coping mechanisms: heart attacks often manifest differently in women, or if not that then the signs are often misdiagnosed, for instance

[3] either for talking about specific detailed differences, or for identifying people in terms of their identity & phycological makeup more generally

In 2016 it was.

of course they have more differences than that.

no controversy of this in chimps.

no magical evolutionary moment when they became the same in humans.

biologists know this. sociologists start with an unfounded null assumption.

The assumption is that biological masculinity and femininity form a spectrum based on the complex interplay of genes, environment, and time, and that, just because you know what genitals someone sports, it doesn't mean you know how their bodies and minds will respond to particular circumstances.

I would argue the opposite. Women are born with something that (most) Men want. That puts them at a natural advantage.

Care to elaborate? This seems like very obvious double edge sword. We as a society try to mitigate this differences.

There is an asymmetry in the amount of sexual desire between men and women.

The status quo of "sexual liberation" doesn't do much to mitigate this difference. We no longer live in a monogamous society.

Women, likewise, want men. Did you never think of that?

Have you ever spoken with a woman?

I have thought of that. There is a pretty obvious discrepancy of supply/demand in heterosexual relationships, which only becomes more evident through my relations with women.

We're all here arguing the "hender pay gap", yet women have the single most amazing gift granted to them by the universe that men will never have. What I'd give to be the one to have given birth to my own children.

Universal human rights are inalienable.

Distinction is always going to be less effective than universally agreed declaration. We can declare: all human beings have equal rights.

Pandora's box is the universality aspect, which must be manifest by those agreeing to declare the nature of ones rights in respect to others rights, both for oneself and for others. This is the reason a distinction-based legal position is poor policy.

We cannot distinguish between a man and a woman if we are agreeing to the universality of their equal human rights.

The we part is the difficult part, apropos pandora's boxes. But ultimately, universality is very empowering to the individual.

Getting precisely 50% of the assets of a marriage that dissolves isn't a universal human right though.

Well, asset management could also be held as a responsibility of the marriage in the first place, and that can only be done by way of expressing ones rights with another, properly.

That this expression has become the root of an industry of exploitation (divorce proceedings are a big circus) is clear. Rights are not a constant. They have to be expressed.

Like in vows, maybe.

If a man and a woman are both drunk and have sex, the man is declared the rapist. (This is said as an example of where the laws, as applied, are not gender neutral)

Yeah, not all states actualize human rights, whether they are party to the declaration or not, as well as others. I don't need to focus on any particular state - I've seen many of them - and understand that there are definitely shifting loads in the worlds cultural fabric.

There is a very big spectrum of actual rights being manifest in a greater or lesser degree in the world - the free, free world - but on the other hand, it results freedom, not free food.

Folks still have to find a way to work together to feed each other, on top of those rights.

Two people having sex with each other should probably just form a contract before they do it, and then both have 50/50 responsibility from that point forward - the fact that this is 'not normal' is a cultural thing.

Does that still happen if the women penetrate the man?

the desired outcome seems to be that men and women are the same in situations where being a man is beneficial. In situations where being a woman is beneficial that goes away.

I don’t even get how I am supposed to hold my partner to the same standards I would hold a close male friend/family member. If I knew a dude who freaked out and yelled/sobbed several times a month over something inane like where to get dinner I would drop them immediately. I have found just using the old adage “happy wife happy life” is most effective, but isn’t that inherently disrespectful? Like “I can’t reason with this person but if I upset them it’s gonna go poorly for me so I better let them have their way!”. The only way my relationship survives is if I have a bit of internalized misogyny and hold her to a different standard than I do myself or another man.

is being a healthcare worker beneficial?

Not sure why your inability to respect your partner is a societal issue. Maybe find someone you actually like

> have never once seen someone pushing to correct that imbalance.

Conservative men rights advocates find such proposition insulting to men. It is not a manly men job.

Men in those positions are mocked by supposedly pro-male groups

> If I knew a dude who freaked out and yelled/sobbed several times a month over something inane like where to get dinner I would drop them immediately.

Why are you dating someone like that? Genuine question. I dont know ANY woman that cries that often. Not a single one.

Maybe be wise and break up.

I'm not sure if it's about same or universal, someone else already said it's about universal human rights that all humans must agree to demonstrate a practice of care with and towards each other.

Do you have any examples of laws (real or imaginary) that couldn't just be thought out better and anchor their reasoning more accurately and neutrally? Falling back to using gender often just feels like a quick hack.

Falling back to gender (or race, or whatever protected class you’d like to consider) is far less about rote equality or equity than it is about correcting earlier imbalances of power/access.

People chafe against things like DEI as arbitrary favoritism completely failing to note that yes, this policy is meant to promote equality, not to represent it. In the case of promoting female stem workers you might say it’s a policy designed to give women equal-ish access to the job market by way of giving them preferential treatment in hiring, to counteract biases of men favoring men during that process.

The ideal outcome of any policy like this is that once the systemic inequity is resolved, the policy can be retired.

Assuming all humans and populations of humans are interchangeable parts. We are not. Not so much "race" - which is a fairly idiotic concept as it's applied -- but hereditarianism is very much a real thing. IQ equates with life outcomes and is highly heritable. How people migrate (or are forced to migrate) can help you understand a population and population differences. Nigerians who immigrate to the U.S. now do far better than populations that were brought over during chattel slavery. Likely those who were captured by their neighbors and sold to European slavers had to lose battles of some variety. Selection effect. There are also documented differences between native populations in regions. Things like the harsh winter hypothesis pose that harsher environments lead to higher IQs. Otherwise, why doesn't every country look like Japan? If we don't diagnose the real problems societal interventions will fail to help anyone in a lasting/meaningful way.

> If men and women are the same thing with slightly different parts, then gender neutral laws make sense.

> If men and women have meaningful differences then it makes sense to have gendered laws.

This framing of the issue puts the discussion down an awkward rhetorical path that is difficult to recover from.

What if it doesn't matter whether someone looks or acts different; but it matters how society treats them and the outcomes that they face.

Black chess pieces and white chess pieces are superficially, trivially distinct. Yet, the player with the white pieces wins 52% to 56% of the time.

I'm calling it out here because it's a typical technocratic bad-faith argument that I'm personally tired of hearing.

>> I'm calling it out here because it's a typical technocratic bad-faith argument that I'm personally tired of hearing.

I’m guessing you don’t have a uterus, am I right? A man doesn’t end up pregnant if the condom breaks. So don’t lecture us about your “bad faith arguments” when you’re making one.

Sure, biology is not sex-blind. But the law can still be written to favor a parent that's a primary caregiver, regardless of whether that parent is male or female.

What you're revealing is an underlying difference in constitution of Lib/Cons (to apply labels a bit grossly), in that L is usually concerned with enforcing outcomes despite the values it violates and R is usually concerned with enforcing values/rulesets despite the outcomes it produces.