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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026

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I think you can make the strong case that, in the modern economy, women are better suited to the working world.

So basically, the only gender demanding affirmative action is also the one that from an objective view would be paying a penalty for.

That's kind of what's being litigated now, and why it's being litigated now. Basically, men only make 80% on the dollar in a system that is to a point set up to advantage women, and women are very interested in making sure that is never fixed.

If equality is to be true- if men and women are to have equal moral worth- this needs to be equalized. And I think it would be wise to note the previous answer, "strict legal equality", resulted in selective enforcement of various equality laws, which was how the gynosupremacy got established in the first place- so it might not be the answer now.

Strict legal equality and equal opportunities were never the problem. The issue is that the goal was always equality of outcome, with the assumption that women were oppressed. So instead of A woman and man with the same skillset and drive will have the same opportunities in life, the goalpost moved to the idea that less than equal representation is a sign of discrimination, while women doing better than men is a sign of equality.

This belief is what justifies the current state of affairs. Swapping the genders around so men are now seen as the oppressed group might feel good, but won't solve much in the long run. Rolling back to strict legal equality while recognizing that innate differences between genders will likely results in non-50% representation in many fields, seems much better.

In other words, you could also look at this as a problem of the state trying to micromanage in order to reach a specific outcome. If the state realizes this doesn't work, a rollback to legal equality but this time we learn from experience and don't pass laws that escalate it, should be possible.

but this time we learn from experience and don't pass laws that escalate it, should be possible

No, this is impossible.

Selective prosecution means it doesn't matter how fairly you write equality law.

Which means if you want fairness (and aren't at the same time doing an overhaul of the justice system to prevent that) then you can't have equality law.

This is the same kind of talking point the leftists used to argue for preferential hiring of women.

"Biases in the population means it doesn't matter how fairly you write equality law. The only way to remove those biases is by forcibly including more women in workplaces, which will normalize it."

You are treading dangerous ground here. If anything, the rise of the chud indicates that explicitly giving preferential treatment to one gender will only result in resentment and backlash in the long run.

You misunderstand.

My argument is that legal equality itself is something inherently giving preferential treatment to women.

Women have enough social power to force men to treat them [more than] fairly already; by your words, you prove that the same does not hold true for men.

This is reflected by the fact that, even if you did write the laws perfectly neutrally (and in most nations they are not), they'll only be enforced in favor of women.

Thus, the only fair way is for there to be no law.

Granted, you could do some unfair laws- if you assume men and women are already equal, then the number of crimes committed against them should match, and having quotas for how many cases can be prosecuted (if no man comes in claiming workplace discrimination, that means it isn't happening, so no woman gets to do it either; if no man is demanding Title IX redress, then assuming things are already fair, then no woman gets it either that year) might solve that kind of abuse.

if you assume men and women are already equal, then the number of crimes committed against them should match

Not necessarily. You can assume equality before the law while also acknowledging that there are overall differences between the genders. Men may commit more violent crimes than women, but in each trial the judgement should be based on the specific case rather than the person's gender. The differences in crime rates would be caused by nature or nurture, neither of which the law is capable of controlling directly.

Again, I remind you that feminists have tried using the law as a blunt instrument to change the culture through gender quotas, which has not at all resulted in women being seen as more competent. Instead, they are regarded with increased scrutiny by coworkers, as there is no longer a guarantee that they were hired based on their skills.

Instead, they are regarded with increased scrutiny by coworkers, as there is no longer a guarantee that they were hired based on their skills.

How the co-worker men feel doesn't matter: they have no power to do anything about it, and they know it.

And you can't measure "the degree to which the State induces quiet quitting" in anything outside of a vibes-based manner- you can't go to your boss, or do a risk assessment about it, because even if you did selfish women would [ab]use the current law to throw you in jail for strike-breaking!

The differences in crime rates would be caused by nature or nurture, neither of which the law is capable of controlling directly.

This is why I don't believe for a second that the "crime rate" is actually more of a man thing. Women are just as destructive; assuming equality, we should expect them to be responsible for half of all [anti-social behavior which merits prosecution, or 'crime' for short]. But the ways in which women crime are a lot less identifiable, a lot less cut and dry, than the ways in which men commit them.

So a legal system- one based on evidence and precedent- is the wrong tool to hold women to account for that.

In the same way that 90% of schoolchildren convicted for fighting are male. You can't prosecute bullying or exclusion, which are the ways women destroy each other, with a zero-tolerance policy based on who convinces who to throw the first punch.

And if you want to tell me "well, women destroying each other isn't as big a deal as it is when men do it"... well, that's not equality now, is it?

That's your black pill. The leftists were correct: fairness does not work. There will always be a thumb on the scale and the only real questions are whose thumb, which side of the scale, and just how heavy is it pushing.

While actual complete 100% equality is probably impossible, it is still an ideal worth striving for. There are many cases where striving for objectivity is the best we can do, and once people stop doing that, leaning into their biases instead, the value of what they are doing plummets.

This is part of what is wrong with journalism and academia. Standards have shifted so far towards "bias can never be avoided" that presenting your own POV as objective fact while ignoring the other side is increasingly accepted, because everyone is biased anyway so it is pointless to try and mitigate it.

It is well known that no trial is completely fair. Lawyers literally try to pack juries in a way that make them favorable to their clients. But the law should still strive for objectivity and try to get as close as possible, otherwise it will only become more dystopian with time.

While actual complete 100% equality is probably impossible, it is still an ideal worth striving for.

Striving for "equality" in practice gets you female supremacy.

otherwise it will only become more dystopian with time.

Yes.

Rent control doesn't work. And yet...

Here a false doctrine is arguably more useful for the state (or the people who run the state) than a true one. If a doctrine is true and the issue resolves itself it's no longer a lever.

If a doctrine is false it will continually contradict reality and will require constant government intervention.