you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]MarkTwainiac 24 insightful - 2 fun24 insightful - 1 fun25 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Also, this rule prevents people from all "minority" groups from directing questions to any "majority" groups. I can imagine many situations when it would be useful for a "minority" group member to make inquiries solely of people who come from a particular "majority" group. For example, a person who is one of a small number of racial, religious or immigrant minorities at work, school or in a community or country might have lots of questions about terminology used & behaviors displayed by the majority group, as well as about their customs.

For many years, I as a white American worked in refugee resettlement and taught English to newly-arrived immigrants to the US who were of virtually every nationality under the sun. Much of my job was explaining - and answering questions about - the mystifying ways of the "majority" US population(s) to my clients & students, which was for their benefit. I wasn't oppressing them or enforcing "my ways" or the ways of the majority on them, I was helping them navigate and best survive in an environment that was brand-new and often extremely confusing to them - and which was full of people quick to look down on them, treat them unfairly and/or take advantage of them.

In particular, many of the girls and women who came from certain non-Western countries really needed to get clued in on US sexual mores and norms so they'd be able to spot male sexual predators, pick-up artists and lying Lotharios and be on the defensive against them. It would have been extremely unfair - and harmful - to tell these girls and women they couldn't turn to members of the "majority" for advice on decoding and dealing with the behaviors and harassment of the men they encountered when out and about in public in their newly adopted country.

Also, whomever made up this rule seems unaware that although women make up the majority of the population numerically, historically women - even white women in white countries - were treated as lesser and for all intents and purposes - even in legal definitions - were considered a "minority" group. Even today, there are plenty of situations in which female people regardless of other factors like race and age constitute a numerical minority, such as in STEM, most tech/Silicon Valley/IT workplaces, the executive suites in the corporate world, and the corridors of power in the US Congress, White House, state legislatures and governors' mansions, and municipal posts like city councils and mayoralties.

Finally, I note that this rule-maker has decided that "20-30 year olds" make up the "majority" age group in the US, but this isn't really true. People of that age (especially males) make up the single largest age band out of all age bands at present, but an age group that counts as 22% of the populace is certainly far from being "the majority" in the US. Also, many other age bands come pretty close to that one in size.

Moreover, the age distribution of the US population varies depending on sex. For example, the proportion of females who are age 55-64 is nearly as large as the proportion of females who are 20-29.

One of the reasons males age 20-29 make up such a vastly large proportion of the male population is coz males overall don't tend to live into old age at nearly the same rate as females do.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the-us-by-sex-and-age/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#/media/File:US_population_pyramid_(2020).jpg

The age distribution of the US population also varies enormously depending on race and ethnicity.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/30/most-common-age-among-us-racial-ethnic-groups/

[–]fuckupaddams 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

although women make up the majority of the population numerically, historically women - even white women in white countries - were treated as lesser and for all intents and purposes - even in legal definitions - were considered a "minority" group.

Drives me crazy drives me crazy drives me crazy. "Liberals" always conveniently forget this. White women are just as privileged and powerful as white men and always have been, don't you know? It's not like anyone's mother can remember being denied opening a bank account without her husband's/ father's/ younger brother's permission. Doesn't matter that husbands and fathers (and uncles... brothers...) often enjoy abusing the women in their homes who share the same skin color. Nope. Karen's the enemy.

[–]MarkTwainiac 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Drives me crazy too. In the US, it was legal for banks to refuse to issue credit cards to women without a male co-signer until 1974; women could legally be fired from jobs for getting pregnant until 1978; courts only granted women the right to sue for sexual harassment in the workplace in 1977, but it took until 1980 for the EEOC to define and recognize workplace sexual harassment; and rape of women by their husbands didn't become illegal in every state in the union until 1993. I personally remember when these changes occurred coz they all happened within my own adult lifetime.

When I was growing up in the US in the 1960s, girls in most US public schools not only didn't have any school sports - many didn't even get PE - and many elite universities such as most of the Ivy League didn't admit females as undergrads. Outside of school, girls & women were barred from many activities, including distance running. And since abortion was illegal, girls & unmarried women who got pregnant - as many did - faced terrible prospects and were shamed and ostracized to extents unimaginable by those who today whine about "misgendering," preferred pronouns, micro-aggressions and claim nobody's ever been as "marginalized" and "discriminated" against as trans people.

The first US public schools to permit girls to wear trousers to school only began doing so in 1970, when I was in 10th grade; and women only got the right to wear trousers to office jobs later on in the 70s. In the mid-1970s when finished college (in the first class of women at a previously all-male Ivy), there were still numerical caps limiting the numbers of women admitted to US graduate programs in fields such as law, medicine, business, architecture and engineering.

The world has changed enormously to the benefit of girls and women since I was a kid and young woman - mostly coz women, and some men - fought hard for it to change. But now so many young people, including many women, seem to think the freedoms and rights they grew up enjoying always existed, and they seem more than willing to play a part in eroding the women's rights and freedoms previous generations paid dearly for. It breaks my heart and pisses me off no end!

[–]forwardback 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I also remember changes made in my lifetime, in the US. Young women should NOT take for granted!

I remember playing 6on6 women's basketball;

1970 five player full court game adopted for women's basketball

1972 The Supreme Court upholds the right to use birth control by unmarried couples. (SC ruled married couples had this right in 1965, 1960 was first FDA approval of BC pill)

1973 * college scholarships offered to female athletes for the first time

Jan. 22, 1973: In its landmark 7-2 Roe v. Wade decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declares that the Constitution protects a woman’s legal right to an abortion.

Also in 1973: The Supreme Court, in a separate ruling, bans sex-segregated "help wanted" advertising. (Yes, this was a thing! Help Wanted, Man and Help Wanted, Woman separate columns!)

1974 – Housing discrimination on the basis of sex and credit discrimination against women are outlawed by Congress. (I purchased my own house and property as a single woman thanks to this historic legislation!)

1975 – The Supreme Court denies states the right to exclude women from juries.

1981 – Sandra Day O'Connor becomes first woman to serve on the Supreme Court.