6 ms·

a poor Black woman The article says nothing about her economic status aside from stating that she successfully posted a $50,000 bond and was released. Assuming

a poor Black woman The article says nothing about her economic status aside from stating that she successfully posted a $50,000 bond and was released. Assuming that she is poor because she is black is racist.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
No, I'm not. I'm just not phrasing things very well. If you look at the stats, in the aggregate, blacks in America have dramatically fewer resources than whites on a per capita basis. Generally speaking, this typically means that even those who do make good money have more needy relatives that they may feel some obligation towards. Even if money is not an issue for this woman, she's still a black woman in America. No amount of money completely washes that off. Here's a story about Oprah Winfrey being told no, we won't show you a $40k handbag because we think you can't afford it (yes, I'm aware the incident occurred in Zurich): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oprah-winfrey-says-racism-kept-pricey-bag-out-of-her-hands-at-zurich-switzerland-shop/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oprah-winfrey-says-racism-kept-... Laws are written by men, about men, for men. They do a poor job of addressing the realities of women. When an abusive husband finally beats his wife to death after years of abusing her, he does less time on average than when an abused wife kills her abusive husband in self defense. He will probably beat her to death "in a fit of rage" with his bare hands. She will probably have to use some kind of equalizer and preplan it. He will be charged with a crime if passion, possibly only manslaughter because he didn't actually intend to kill her. She will be charged with premeditated murder. Our laws are written as if two people of equal size, strength etc are up against each other. We don't have good mechanisms in place for accounting for substantial differences a both physically and socially between the sexes. Most poor women in the US were solidly middle class until their spouse died, they got divorced or they turned up unexpectedly pregnant. Even if you make good money, being a single parent is burdensome. Men routinely complain about being imposed upon for childcare expenses and alimony. Meanwhile, it's just taken as a given that women are supposed to take time off from their careers for their children. Some people even argue that there is no gender wage gap once you account for the fact that women tend to spend less time doing paid work than men. Women tend to earn nearly as much as men, until there is a man or child in her life. Then a woman will tend to earn substantially less than a man. (My stats are a bit out of date, but it used to drop to 2/3s in average.) So having kids suppresses the income of women, but women get treated like they just aren't ambitious enough and don't want a career badly enough. Meanwhile, the entire world defaults to holding women responsible for the care of children. I hooked up with a guy during my divorce. He failed to supply the condom that he was informed in advance I expected him to supply. Because of that, I never wanted to see him again. He was a moderator on a forum I belonged to. He raked me over the coals on that forum in a manner where the subtext was "Bitch, how dare you reject me over not supplying a condom!" I left the forum. I returned for a bit some years later. When I talked about that, they didn't investigate his abuse if his position of power on the forum (I was not the only female member of the forum he hooked up with -- he was treating it like his personal flesh pot). Instead, I was banned. While getting divorced, I sometimes had men tell me they would like to have a threesome with me and another man. When I asked "And what happens if I turn up pregnant and we don't know who the baby is?" They never had a good answer for that and I know what the law/the world would say and it would not be good news for me. I'm perfectly happy to take responsibility for my choices and my sexuality. But the biological realities involved in sex combined with the social and legal landscape has made it exceedingly, shockingly easy for me to just say no for more than a decade. It's an actively hostile environment where women are actively punished and routinely have little to no recourse if the man they sleep with isn't a stand up guy. I'm fortunate to have been involved with some really good men. I've overall been treated pretty well. But the reality is that arguments by men about holding women accountable and respecting their agency are typically done in an actively hostile and misogynistic fashion that fails to hold men responsible for their role. A woman doesn't get pregnant alone. It takes a man to get her pregnant. Both are equally responsible for the existence of that pregnancy, but it will disproportionately impact her body and her life. You cannot have sane, humane laws and social policies that don't account for how uneven their outcomes are. It amounts to saying "Women are free to just be celibate if they don't want to get burned." and that has all kinds of inherent problems. This is an overwhelmingly male forum. I frequently post in an evenhanded manner. I'm certainly not some man-hating feminazi. But I'm pretty sure that track record will make zero difference. So excuse me, but I think I've said enough about this in this actively hostile environment.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

No, I'm not. I'm just not phrasing things very well. If you look at the stats, in the aggregate, blacks in America have dramatically fewer resources than whites on a per capita basis. Generally speaking, this typically means that even those who do make good money have more needy relatives that they may feel some obligation towards. Even if money is not an issue for this woman, she's still a black woman in America. No amount of money completely washes that off. Here's a story about Oprah Winfrey being told no, we won't show you a $40k handbag because we think you can't afford it (yes, I'm aware the incident occurred in Zurich): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oprah-winfrey-says-racism-kept-pricey-bag-out-of-her-hands-at-zurich-switzerland-shop/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oprah-winfrey-says-racism-kept-... Laws are written by men, about men, for men. They do a poor job of addressing the realities of women. When an abusive husband finally beats his wife to death after years of abusing her, he does less time on average than when an abused wife kills her abusive husband in self defense. He will probably beat her to death "in a fit of rage" with his bare hands. She will probably have to use some kind of equalizer and preplan it. He will be charged with a crime if passion, possibly only manslaughter because he didn't actually intend to kill her. She will be charged with premeditated murder. Our laws are written as if two people of equal size, strength etc are up against each other. We don't have good mechanisms in place for accounting for substantial differences a both physically and socially between the sexes. Most poor women in the US were solidly middle class until their spouse died, they got divorced or they turned up unexpectedly pregnant. Even if you make good money, being a single parent is burdensome. Men routinely complain about being imposed upon for childcare expenses and alimony. Meanwhile, it's just taken as a given that women are supposed to take time off from their careers for their children. Some people even argue that there is no gender wage gap once you account for the fact that women tend to spend less time doing paid work than men. Women tend to earn nearly as much as men, until there is a man or child in her life. Then a woman will tend to earn substantially less than a man. (My stats are a bit out of date, but it used to drop to 2/3s in average.) So having kids suppresses the income of women, but women get treated like they just aren't ambitious enough and don't want a career badly enough. Meanwhile, the entire world defaults to holding women responsible for the care of children. I hooked up with a guy during my divorce. He failed to supply the condom that he was informed in advance I expected him to supply. Because of that, I never wanted to see him again. He was a moderator on a forum I belonged to. He raked me over the coals on that forum in a manner where the subtext was "Bitch, how dare you reject me over not supplying a condom!" I left the forum. I returned for a bit some years later. When I talked about that, they didn't investigate his abuse if his position of power on the forum (I was not the only female member of the forum he hooked up with -- he was treating it like his personal flesh pot). Instead, I was banned. While getting divorced, I sometimes had men tell me they would like to have a threesome with me and another man. When I asked "And what happens if I turn up pregnant and we don't know who the baby is?" They never had a good answer for that and I know what the law/the world would say and it would not be good news for me. I'm perfectly happy to take responsibility for my choices and my sexuality. But the biological realities involved in sex combined with the social and legal landscape has made it exceedingly, shockingly easy for me to just say no for more than a decade. It's an actively hostile environment where women are actively punished and routinely have little to no recourse if the man they sleep with isn't a stand up guy. I'm fortunate to have been involved with some really good men. I've overall been treated pretty well. But the reality is that arguments by men about holding women accountable and respecting their agency are typically done in an actively hostile and misogynistic fashion that fails to hold men responsible for their role. A woman doesn't get pregnant alone. It takes a man to get her pregnant. Both are equally responsible for the existence of that pregnancy, but it will disproportionately impact her body and her life. You cannot have sane, humane laws and social policies that don't account for how uneven their outcomes are. It amounts to saying "Women are free to just be celibate if they don't want to get burned." and that has all kinds of inherent problems. This is an overwhelmingly male forum. I frequently post in an evenhanded manner. I'm certainly not some man-hating feminazi. But I'm pretty sure that track record will make zero difference. So excuse me, but I think I've said enough about this in this actively hostile environment.