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Comment by sliverstorm | Hacker News Reader

Parity with men financially would mean the highs AND the lows. There are more broke, destitute men than women.

If your ideal was realized- parity financially- you'd still have PLENTY of women forced by their financial situation to 'prostitute' themselves into marriage. You'd also have plenty with livable wages who'd try to marry up and STILL 'prostitute' themselves into marriage.

The real difference as I see it is currently more men are willing to 'pay' for such services than women. The way to equalize things is more likely to equalize the demand.

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Yes, this is the nasty little secret at the heart of feminism. They want to be CEOs and who wouldn't? But men are also the vast majority of the homeless, the prison population, the people doing dirty, dangerous jobs, the people getting killed at work. There are more men than women denied the right to see their kids, yet financially crippled supporting them - and their ex-wife - anyway.

Can't have it both ways.

There was another article recently that looked at gender issues and concluded that the differences weren't so much women being better or worse off, but the men being more extreme and greater risk takers. So men see more of both the highs and the lows. It isn't an inherent difference in ability at all, but there may be inherent behavioral differences partly accounted for by hormones and other genetic factors.

It's a very limited comparison, but look at the behavior differences between male cats that have been "fixed" and those that haven't.

Differences in testosterone and oxytocin levels vary and can have a large influence on behavior.

> Yes, this is the nasty little secret at the heart of feminism.

The straw man version of feminism you hold in your head is not the one that exists in real life. Google "patriarchy hurts men, too".

There's a big slice of the feminist segment outside the intelligentsia for whom feminism is pointing to a stat that says that X% of all Fortune 500 C-level execs or some such are men, and being outraged.

All -isms are an attempt to justify the self-interest of their sponsors.

Parity with men financially would mean the highs AND the lows. There are more broke, destitute men than women.

I am aware that men suffer more when it comes to homelessness, etc. But I don't think "parity" has to mean "Our goal is for women to live more similarly to the way men live currently". I think if we are to get there from here, the lives of both men and women would need to change. But, as I stated elsewhere, I'm really not well tonight. So not up to posting any kind of lengthy explanation.

Thanks.

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