women's officer - should it be "equality officer"?

humbert

I love to see them debating this in the queue to the voting booth, surrounded by girls wondering what the hell's going on.

scop

panda100 wrote:

Well all I know is that as a women I will not be voting for any womens officer in next weeks elections,so I hope all you blokes-happycrackhead,kaptainredeye,darragh etc pick someone who you think is suitable!

Ha!

Amazotheamazing

pretty*monster wrote:

*head explodes*

It's just this kind of nonsesne...

-breif her-story lesson-
There were never any bra-burners. That was a lie made up by a sensationalist male-dominated media to sell more papers and alienate even more men and women from the women's movement.

Surely you mean equality movement?

pretty*monster

Yes, equality officer would be better

Amazotheamazing wrote:

Surely you mean equality movement?

No, I did not.

Amazotheamazing

Fair enough but respect is a 2 way street, in many areas it is men's rights (not to mention lower life expectancy, more at risk for substance abuse, life of crime, suicide etc) that need rapid promotion. Clearly a movement towards equality should include both sexes?

Personally I feel women's officers is an out-dated concept, especially in an age when young men are dying in their hundreds annually due to preventable suicides and car-crashes, men of college age being left behind by the various SU's (imo).

HappyCrackHead

god, your ****tards

Blush_01

Apathy, apathy I say!

Our ****tards what?

Your patriarchy comment is just the same as saying that there can never be equality because we live in a man's world. What do you want us to do, act like cotton-wool clad second class citizens who have "special rights" so we can protect ourselves until we build a world of our own and transport everyone to it? I'm pretty sure we're still a bit away from planet building.

So to that I say cut the crap.

We have to deal with what we have - that's this world. We have to deal with the situation we're in - that's currently patronising and ineffective, where the women's officer is concerned. It's a rare occurance, but I actually agree with Firespinner here - women have a better idea about being women than men, for the most part. Outside UCD things may not be perfect, or fair, or equal. But within the confines of UCD, in my exams (i.e. the things that decide my qualification at the end of the day) I am a number, as is every other male or female student. Nobody is going to hold my hand because I'm female, nor will they mark me more easily or harshly because I'm not a guy. That's pretty much the most important part of being in college.

Look at the staff within UCD - cleaning staff are both male and female. Teaching staff - both male and female. Library staff - both male and female. Shop, photocopying centre, Travelcard centre, 911 - staff both male and female. Why is the SU mainly male? Because mainly men ran. I don't consider that more men running means they're better for the job, I have a fair idea that it might imply that more men wanted the positions or could stump up the deposits than women - who, funnily enough, could decide for themselves if they were interested in running. I, and any other woman here, there or yonder could run if she so wished - if you want to change our desires for us and want to force us into running, fine - but surely that's more wrong than letting those interested run? It has nothing to do with being told we're not good enough, or being told men could do it better - that's codswallop. Heaven forbid it's got more to do with what individuals want to do with their own lives than what members of the general populace think they should be doing with themselves, simply to prove a bloody point!

I don't believe that women should be mollycoddled in UCD if we're going to have to deal with inequalities in the "real world" at the end of the day. Surely we all need a little more reality in our diets and a lot less fiction - it might make us better equipped to deal with the real world, which (since we, shockingly, are the next generation of grown-ups) is in constant flux. Until Planet Femme comes online anyway. :rolleyes:

The_Minister

Apathy, apathy I say!

*spontaneous aplause*

Chinafoot

HappyCrackHead wrote:

god, your ****tards

*sighs and gives HappyCrackHead a smack on the wrist*

You don't have to agree but try and keep it on a somewhat mature level here, ok?

Sangre

This is reminds of something I'm doing atm...feminist criminology.
Oh dear god why did I pick that topic!

We don't like the term 'victim' we prefer 'survivor'.

*releases bullet into head*

The_Minister

Apathy, apathy I say!

Could we gat a poll for this? I think the majority want it changed.

Blush_01

Apathy, apathy I say!

A poll might be interesting, but polls are irritating too.

Chinafoot

Poll added

Stabshauptmann

Yes, equality officer would be better

Blush_01 wrote:

Look at the staff within UCD ...both male and female. Why is the SU mainly male? Because mainly men ran.
...
it might imply that more men wanted the positions ...than women - who, funnily enough, could decide for themselves if they were interested in running.

There exist in people minds subconscious gender profiles. They are formed throughout an entire life time and wont be quickly or easily changed once a person enters a new enviroment. Women may not want to run for election, but my point is why dont they? I dont want to be a nurse or a secretary...

...
It has nothing to do with being told we're not good enough, or being told men could do it better - that's codswallop.

Reminds me of a time in class when the students were asked do they think advertisements influence them and out of 30 ppl on 3 said yes.:rolleyes:

My observations:

1)Within society there is double standards of what is appropriate or acceptable from the different genders.
2)Women dont seem to want positions within the SU, or other positions of power or authority within society.
3)The Union as a result isnt representative of women.

The womens officer is an artifical way of making the union more representative. It is not just about promoting womens issues. Allowing men to vote for the womens officer defeats the purpose of having one!

Yes it does imply women are not on an equal footing with men, but the fact is they're not! I see the womens officer the same way as I see Tax, theoretically unneccessary since women make up the majority of students, but vital to correct a darwinian error*.

And the point that women on this board dont care about the office, well I really put that back to observation no. 2

*You may not agree with me that there is anything wrong with the stong prospering on the backs of the weak

Stabshauptmann

Yes, equality officer would be better

That doesnt mean that there shouldnt be an equality officer to cover everything ranging from womens issues, mens issues, race issues, disabilities, age etc
But that the womens office isnt limited to just womens issues, it could in theory serve a good purpose, but at present the fact that men can vote for her defeats that purpose

PhantomBeaker

Quick question. When people talk about women "wanting" to run for SU, surely they did?

I mean, the new SU is male-dominated, but not because only men ran. Orla ran for pres (one in 3), pretty*monster for education (one in 2), some randomer whose name I can't remember for ents (one in a large number of people), panda for welfare (one in two)... so it was only the position deputy president (which had only one candidate) that didn't have a female contender. So as for wanting the jobs, there were certainly people who wanted them. As far as I'm concerned, with the exception of ents and dep pres, there was a respectable number of female candidates: education and welfare having a 50/50 split on the sexes, and as for president, you very rarely see a 50/50 male/female split on a group of 3 candidates.

As for whether men should vote for the women's officer, I'm with the "if it means a vote on exec, and especially on issues that don't directly impact on their office, everyone should have a say in who's elected" group. Then there's the lovely little question of how male-to-female trans students stand if it was a woman-only vote... and then would female-to-male trans students be struck off the register for voting for women's officer? It's only a corner case, but it's a real one.

Æ

Stabshauptmann

Yes, equality officer would be better

PhantomBeaker wrote:

..on issues that don't directly impact on their office...

Just looked up exactly what the office is. It has nothing to do with the laudible (imnsHo) aim of giving women the representation within the SU they deserve but currently lack. Alarm bells should have been ringing in my head when I (thought I had) discovered the union had such an enlightened keynesian policy that was oppossed to clasical democratic theory.
Most people arent that intelligent, especially union hacks!

The Womens officer has 3 main duties
1)to "assist" the welfare officer in lobbying on womens issues
2)making rape alarms widly available
3)fundraising for womens charities.

Party one is the same job discription is the same as the LGBT officer and disabilities officer.
Why should this lobby group have an exec vote and neither of the above?!*

After a quick read-up, Im going to offer my new slant on things.
We dont need an over all equality officer, because that would involved so much work the equality officer would need to be a sabbat, and surprise surprise we have such a sabbat already: the welfare officer(WO).

The union also has what is called a welfare committee to assists the WO, since the WO has a very broad scope over a number of union bodies and employees. I think Womens, internation students, LGBT and disabilities rights officers should be members of this comitee but not allowed vote at exec. meetings

I dont see any point in the Irish Language officer since every manifesto Ive ever seen for any office contained a piece promising to promote the irish language. Definitly not worthy of an exec vote.

*The only reason the ILO and WO have votes is that they are elected by direct franchise while the otheres are elected by council.

panda100

Apathy, apathy I say!

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

After a quick read-up, Im going to offer my new slant on things.
We dont need an over all equality officer, because that would involved so much work the equality officer would need to be a sabbat, and surprise surprise we have such a sabbat already: the welfare officer(WO).
.

I totally agree with KRE on this one.Cant vote on the poll here cos I dont believe there needs to be an equality officer in replacement for a womens officer.
Oh and Just point of info for phantom beaker-I was'nt the girl who ran in the welfare race that was Michelle Killeen.

The_Minister

Apathy, apathy I say!

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

.
3)The Union as a result isnt representative of women.

Why does everyone seem to think that women are so different? The main (non-phsyical) differences between women and men that i've noticed have been
1) They take offence at my more colourful jokes
2) They like more cutsey-wutsey things (ie. Scragg's chainmail bag or those pink fluffy pencil cases)

Aside from these women are people like men. I don't see gender as being a massive difference, and the issues involved (health etc) are not completely different. I see no reason to segragate on the basis of gender, just because they were considered inferior a decade ago.

Stabshauptmann

Yes, equality officer would be better

Those are the only differences you have noticed between the sexs?

I can see big differences in the types of ents events wanted, health issues, levels of technological literacy, attitudes towards education and levels of empathy / social conscious amongst women I know compared to men.
And thats just off the top of my head while trying to keep the SU offices in mind.

Blush_01

Apathy, apathy I say!

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

There exist in people minds subconscious gender profiles. They are formed throughout an entire life time and wont be quickly or easily changed once a person enters a new enviroment. Women may not want to run for election, but my point is why dont they? I dont want to be a nurse or a secretary...

Nor do I - surely you're stereotyping there? It's offensive that you're implying that they're women's jobs - perhaps male attitudes within their own groups need to be changed. "Big boys don't cry." Men don't work as nurses, MEN are doctors, WOMEN are nurses - that's the kind of sh!te I'd have expected from the guys I grew up with, before they realised that there was more to the world than cowsh!t and wellies. I'll grant you that old biases die hard. But lets face it, those kind of things aren't being addressed by the Women's Officer anyway. I'd love to know how many men's opinions of women have been influenced - either positively or negatively - by the Women's Officer. If the people in question are of the afforementioned mindset, a WO isn't going to make them feel all that differently. Hell, I've been in UCD for over 2 and a half years now and I haven't even noticed women's issues being addressed. All I've ever seen was the DRCS being supported by the Vagina Monologues production DramSoc does on an annual basis or posters advertising personal alarms in the shop - not necessarily focused towards women, but just bland, uninteresting posters that are barely worth noting. How many of your friends in secondary school would have had the balls to have considered nursing? If they'd made their intentions known, how many of them would have been laughed out of it or ribbed to shreds for it? A WO won't solve that.

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

Reminds me of a time in class when the students were asked do they think advertisements influence them and out of 30 ppl on 3 said yes.:rolleyes:

My observations:

1)Within society there is double standards of what is appropriate or acceptable from the different genders.
2)Women dont seem to want positions within the SU, or other positions of power or authority within society.
3)The Union as a result isnt representative of women.

1) Those double standards work both ways, remember. Women get away with things men never would. A WO is ineffectual in tackling that, a gender equality officer would have the wider scope, rather than getting bogged down in wombs.
2)Look at that. Women don't WANT positions within the SU or other positions of power or authority within society.And for the most part, they don't seem to. In fact, they're happy not bothering with it. If that's the whole, and not just partial case however, then why did Holly, Michelle and Kate run for positions within the SU? Why is Uachtaráin na hEireann a woman? Cad é an sceal leis an Tainiste? Ok, so Mary Harney isn't Taoiseach. But she's close. They're women (as far as I know, I'm not getting close enough to check, thanks) and in positions of power - what's up with that, eh? Comparatively more men than women run for those positions. Fine. But that doesn't mean that women think they can't do the job. Hell, I could run for presidency if I really wanted to. Plenty of other women out there don't want it either. As you pointed out, women have a different level of empathy and social consciousness to men. Politics changes people - we can see that. Politics is a cut-throat business. We're not stupid, we're female. As for health, that's a WO issue, and how much difference has that made? Ents - what, we like Girls Aloud and you like Funeral for a Friend? Maybe you want more mud wrestling while we want a Colour Me Beautiful evening. Get real. As for Technological Literacy, which is an interesting issue, how many men who have a high proficiency in technological matters began with an inquisitive mind towards the technological as a child? How many had better exposure to technological equipment in their schools or homes? We didn't get a computer until 1997 - I'm little more than borderline technologically illiterate. I never had access to computers in primary school - my brother did in his final year, my sister was the computer monitor (no, really, they called it that) for two years. We all went to the same school. I had computer classes in Transition Year in secondary school. My brother and sister had much more exposure to them than I did. Hence, they are more comfortable with technology than I am. Does that have anything to do with gender though? As for attitudes to education, I really would like you to extend on that point, because I do think there's an issue there, but I don't know what you think.
3) The Union isn't representative of women (I personally don't really get that myself.). UCD, as a college, isn't representative of students. The government isn't representative of many large sectors of it's electorate. Most of the students in UCD don't give a toss about the Union, what it stands for or how it works. Lots of people come to UCD, go to class, leave and that's it. Just because there are more men than women on the SU doesn't mean that women have no intellectual representation, even if there is a lack of physical representation. At the end of the day, you can only vote for the candidates who go forward. Everyone's entitled to an opinion as to who will do the best job, even if the reality is far from perception. Unfortunately, it's usually too late by then.

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

The womens officer is an artifical way of making the union more representative. It is not just about promoting womens issues. Allowing men to vote for the womens officer defeats the purpose of having one!

If that's the case then to make the Union truly representative then the LGBTO and DO should be fully voting council members too. At the same time, only disabled people can vote for the DO. And you have to prove your sexuality to be allowed to vote for the LGBTO. That's very important. I mean, god forbid the breeders get to decide who should be LGBTO. :rolleyes: Surely the SU is, therefore, not representative of LGBT or Disability issues. But no, LGBT and disabled people are represented just fine by the (until proven otherwise) straight, ablebodied Sabbats. Only women have a significant enough impediment to require an extra voice. It's like saying "We know you voted, but we think you voted wrong, so here, have a token second chance."

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

Yes it does imply women are not on an equal footing with men, but the fact is they're not! I see the womens officer the same way as I see Tax, theoretically unneccessary since women make up the majority of students, but vital to correct a darwinian error. You may not agree with me that there is anything wrong with the stong prospering on the backs of the weak.

Wanna arm wrestle?

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

And the point that women on this board dont care about the office, well I really put that back to observation no. 2.

Hang on there. We do care - if I didn't care would I be wasting this much time cramping up my hand writing this reply? The point is, it's a stupid, pointless position as it stands. It's exclusionary. How many people does the WO actually physically help with women's issues on an annual basis? I mean help with things that can't be handled just as effectively elsewhere. It's an outdated within *cough*modern*cough* UCD.

humbert

you have to be joking:rolleyes:

Blush_01

Apathy, apathy I say!

Why?

I know what I say is overly general. I know I use too many personal references when talking about general things. I am only talking from my point of view. I don't claim to be talking from anyone elses.

I firmly maintain that WO is unnecessary in light of the impact it makes on the student body. Laugh a minute, isn't it?

The_Minister

Apathy, apathy I say!

Blush_01 wrote:

from the guys I grew up with, before they realised that there was more to the world than cowsh!t and wellies.

If I had said that you would have textually castrated me by now:D

humbert

humbert wrote:

you have to be joking:rolleyes:

Was just reacting to the length of the post:).

Stabshauptmann

Yes, equality officer would be better

humbert wrote:

Was just reacting to the length of the post:).

And its funny, because if Blush had scrolled down and read my next post, after I pulled out the SU constitution and found out exactly what the WO does, none of it would be neccessary.
Why in over 100 posts nobody else thought of quoteing the role of the WO is funny in itself.

Stabshauptmann

Yes, equality officer would be better

Blush_01
I posted a retraction to the post you quoted slightly below it. The WO in fact is not the artificial democratic balancer I thought it was, its just a lobby group.

Blush_01 wrote:

Nor do I - surely you're stereotyping there? It's offensive that you're implying that they're women's jobs - perhaps male attitudes within their own groups need to be changed. "Big boys don't cry." Men don't work as nurses, MEN are doctors, WOMEN are nurses - that's the kind of sh!te I'd have expected from the guys I grew up with, before they realised that there was more to the world than cowsh!t and wellies. I'll grant you that old biases die hard.

I was being mature enough to admit that I'm not perfect and I posses the same flaws and weaknesses as everyone else. I was one of the three people in said class who acknowledged that advertising does affect people. Just because I know logically in my head something is wrong doesnt mean I can easily get away from it, I've completely rejected the Catholic church for example but it took a long time and a lot of effort to get over some of their taboos.
I see a lot of posts saying there is no need for a WO because men and women are on equal footing now. Thats a fantasy ppl are choosing to believe.

But lets face it, those kind of things aren't being addressed by the Women's Officer anyway. I'd love to know how many men's opinions of women have been influenced - either positively or negatively - by the Women's Officer. If the people in question are of the afforementioned mindset, a WO isn't going to make them feel all that differently. Hell, I've been in UCD for over 2 and a half years now and I haven't even noticed women's issues being addressed. All I've ever seen was the DRCS being supported by the Vagina Monologues production DramSoc does on an annual basis or posters advertising personal alarms in the shop - not necessarily focused towards women, but just bland, uninteresting posters that are barely worth noting. How many of your friends in secondary school would have had the balls to have considered nursing? If they'd made their intentions known, how many of them would have been laughed out of it or ribbed to shreds for it? A WO won't solve that.

If you read the aforementioned post you'll see I agree that the role of the WO is stupid, limited and ineffective.

1) Those double standards work both ways, remember. Women get away with things men never would. A WO is ineffectual in tackling that, a gender equality officer would have the wider scope, rather than getting bogged down in wombs.

Em, wouldnt agree with you at all there. You're presuming the existance of a competitive or advesarial nature between a WO and a prospective Mens Officer. A WO could just as easily tackle the issue of women getting away with things, I can think of a lot of feminist litriture which condemned using your femininity to get what you want.

2)Look at that. Women don't WANT positions within the SU or other positions of power or authority within society.And for the most part, they don't seem to. In fact, they're happy not bothering with it. If that's the whole, and not just partial case however, then why did Holly, Michelle and Kate run for positions within the SU? Why is Uachtaráin na hEireann a woman? Cad é an sceal leis an Tainiste? Ok, so Mary Harney isn't Taoiseach. But she's close. They're women (as far as I know, I'm not getting close enough to check, thanks) and in positions of power - what's up with that, eh? Comparatively more men than women run for those positions. Fine. But that doesn't mean that women think they can't do the job. Hell, I could run for presidency if I really wanted to. Plenty of other women out there don't want it either.

So you can pick a handful of names, congradulations, I can name male nurses, but you're just clutching at straws and trying to pretend all is equal and well. Statistics on the matter are very clear and well known, no BS please.
It's funny that rather than discussing gender profiling as a real and serious issue, you are denying its existance. The bit I cant understand is, you accuse me of it (though it was an admission on my part, not a slip up:rolleyes: ) while at the same time denying it exists.

As you pointed out, women have a different level of empathy and social consciousness to men. Politics changes people - we can see that. Politics is a cut-throat business. We're not stupid, we're female. As for health, that's a WO issue, and how much difference has that made? Ents - what, we like Girls Aloud and you like Funeral for a Friend? Maybe you want more mud wrestling while we want a Colour Me Beautiful evening. Get real. As for Technological Literacy, which is an interesting issue, how many men who have a high proficiency in technological matters began with an inquisitive mind towards the technological as a child? How many had better exposure to technological equipment in their schools or homes? We didn't get a computer until 1997 - I'm little more than borderline technologically illiterate. I never had access to computers in primary school - my brother did in his final year, my sister was the computer monitor (no, really, they called it that) for two years. We all went to the same school. I had computer classes in Transition Year in secondary school. My brother and sister had much more exposure to them than I did. Hence, they are more comfortable with technology than I am. Does that have anything to do with gender though? As for attitudes to education, I really would like you to extend on that point, because I do think there's an issue there, but I don't know what you think.

. <

---

Point

<

---

You

Those differences I listed are the areas of responsibilities of the sabbats ant the IT officer, one of only 2 execs I feel worthwhile (other being finance).
My point is that there are differences in these areas, I do like mud wrestling , and thats why they need female representation.
And if you've never seen the difference in attitudes re: education between the genders you've been living under a rock.

3) The Union isn't representative of women (I personally don't really get that myself.). UCD, as a college, isn't representative of students. The government isn't representative of many large sectors of it's electorate. Most of the students in UCD don't give a toss about the Union, what it stands for or how it works. Lots of people come to UCD, go to class, leave and that's it. Just because there are more men than women on the SU doesn't mean that women have no intellectual representation, even if there is a lack of physical representation. At the end of the day, you can only vote for the candidates who go forward. Everyone's entitled to an opinion as to who will do the best job, even if the reality is far from perception. Unfortunately, it's usually too late by then.

Lack of women=lack of representation. Quit the make believe.
Funny you bring up th giving a toss arguement because it goes back to an earlier point I made about gender profiles.
The government may not always be representative, but the Dail isnt far off. The main obsticles I mentioned earlier in this thread about RL(tm) politics is fiscal disparity.

If that's the case then to make the Union truly representative then the LGBTO and DO should be fully voting council members too. At the same time, only disabled people can vote for the DO. And you have to prove your sexuality to be allowed to vote for the LGBTO. That's very important. I mean, god forbid the breeders get to decide who should be LGBTO. :rolleyes: Surely the SU is, therefore, not representative of LGBT or Disability issues. But no, LGBT and disabled people are represented just fine by the (until proven otherwise) straight, ablebodied Sabbats. Only women have a significant enough impediment to require an extra voice. It's like saying "We know you voted, but we think you voted wrong, so here, have a token second chance."

I *thought* the WO had a vote because women were undrepresented within the union, the others werent.
I was wrong, the DO and LGBTO are elected by council, the WO is elected by direct franchise. Thats why the WO has a vote. That being said, you'll see I dont think any of them should have a vote on the exec.

Wanna arm wrestle?

Narrow minded interpretation of the word "weak".

Hang on there. We do care - if I didn't care would I be wasting this much time cramping up my hand writing this reply? The point is, it's a stupid, pointless position as it stands. It's exclusionary. How many people does the WO actually physically help with women's issues on an annual basis? I mean help with things that can't be handled just as effectively elsewhere. It's an outdated within *cough*modern*cough* UCD.

Do you know what would have convinced me on day one that it was stupid and pointless, if you'd just quoted to me what it actually does.
Instead the thread got to 108 posts before I bothered to check.

Why did people argue against my points about democratic deficit and gender profiling rather than just telling me that I had he idea of what the WO does all wrong?

panda100

Apathy, apathy I say!

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

And its funny, because if Blush had scrolled down and read my next post, after I pulled out the SU constitution and found out exactly what the WO does, none of it would be neccessary.
Why in over 100 posts nobody else thought of quoteing the role of the WO is funny in itself.

Do you actually read any of the other posts?
The role of the womens officer was defined in the first post straight from the su constitution.

Stabshauptmann

Yes, equality officer would be better

panda100 wrote:

Do you actually read any of the other posts?
The role of the womens officer was defined in the first post straight from the su constitution.

The opening post, in this thread does contain the role of the WO, but it doesnt say that its the word for word role as laid out in the SU consititution.

The opening post from pretty*monster also says:

"Now, that considered, and since men are thus far always the minority on exec despite being the majority in ucd, the woman officer sits as a voting memeber on exec to aid gender balance."

Now, since I know pretty monster to be well up on the union, and was a post quoting her that started this thread, I took it as gospel that the quoted text in the OP and the above in bold was the role of the WO.

The above bold pieces and:
"Replacing the woman's officer with an equality officer is a bad idea because they'd technically have to do the work of the woman's officer, the lgbro, the disability rights officer, and the international students officer. This would be lots of work, far too much for a part-time unpaid student. "

is what I based most of my points in this thread on. However, nobody pointed out that 1) gender balance is in fact not the remit of the WO and not enough mention was made of the fact that 2)The welfare officer deals with all equality issues, the LGBTO, DO, ISO and WO work with/for him in his role as a sabbat.

I think its clear I read what was written, just what was written wasnt clear
How was I to know what was opinion and what was in the constitution unless ppl clearly say, this is what the constituion says?

Blush_01

Apathy, apathy I say!

I think I need to clarify a few things!

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

I was being mature enough to admit that I'm not perfect and I posses the same flaws and weaknesses as everyone else. I was one of the three people in said class who acknowledged that advertising does affect people. Just because I know logically in my head something is wrong doesnt mean I can easily get away from it, I've completely rejected the Catholic church for example but it took a long time and a lot of effort to get over some of their taboos.

My point was not that you were being a 'big bad mean man', it was that the stereotypes you were using were there before you got to college, and the work done by the women's officer (at the moment) wouldn't have impacted on that. Stereotype problem + WO does not = solution. It's too late in college to spend three years teaching someone something that will most likely occur to them anyway, if they have a brain, with the current state of young people in society.

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

Em, wouldnt agree with you at all there. You're presuming the existance of a competitive or advesarial nature between a WO and a prospective Mens Officer. A WO could just as easily tackle the issue of women getting away with things, I can think of a lot of feminist litriture which condemned using your femininity to get what you want.

But you have to admit, it's incredibly unlikely that, in practical terms, the WO would be involved in said condemnation, when the work it does is only visible with a microscope as it is.

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

So you can pick a handful of names, congradulations, I can name male nurses, but you're just clutching at straws and trying to pretend all is equal and well. Statistics on the matter are very clear and well known, no BS please.
It's funny that rather than discussing gender profiling as a real and serious issue, you are denying its existance. The bit I cant understand is, you accuse me of it (though it was an admission on my part, not a slip up:rolleyes: ) while at the same time denying it exists.

I don't deny it exists, we all stereotype someone about something, whether it's conscious or not - be it dress, sex, religion, type of instrument they play in the orchestra (even if that is in relation to the number of STIs they're likely to have). And I'm not saying all is equal and well. But, as you have said yourself, the WO is ineffective - it's not going to change that, it's a cultural thing. And I stand by what I've said, because after all, statistics can be used to whatever effect you want them to be. My post was about point out that the WO isn't doing what it theoretically should be.

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

My point is that there are differences in these areas, I do like mud wrestling , and thats why they need female representation.

:rolleyes: And I don't?

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

And if you've never seen the difference in attitudes re: education between the genders you've been living under a rock.

Then I must live under a rock, because *statistically* the population of UCD is more female than male. No, seriously, tell me what these issues are, buceuse I can't see them myself.

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

Lack of women=lack of representation. Quit the make believe.

I find that funny, considering you were so into having a women's officer. Surely you, if in politics, would listen to your constituents equally, be they woman, man or otherwise?

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

RL(tm)

What? I haven't got a clue what that means. I hate this abbreviation culture we live in!

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

Narrow minded interpretation of the word "weak".

Or, perhaps (I know this is a long shot!) a joke? Hello, any levity in the room whatsoever?

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

Why did people argue against my points about democratic deficit and gender profiling rather than just telling me that I had he idea of what the WO does all wrong?

*facepalm* What Panda said. It was pretty clear. :rolleyes: