Should everyone be equal all the time?

Should we treat everyone as equal all the time or should they be treated differently based on behaviour or birth status or both?

I'm undecided on this as there's a lot of other questions that go with it like is a criminal worth less then a ordinary citizen? Why? If a criminal serves their time under the justice system, should they come out the same as any other non-offender or should the fact they broke the law stay with them forever?

Should this also apply to behaviours that don't concern the law (cheating for example)?

What do you guys think and why?

Reply 1

bertstare

6

It's not who I am underneath, but what I DOOOO that defines me

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 2

TorpidPhil

19

The world is complex. How someone was born is influential in a lot of aspects of their life and so it will impact how we ought to treat them.

Obviously we should treat people different based on how they act and also how they want to act. We wouldn't react the same to a person who was a murderer and a person who hunted murderers to save the lives of others would we? Likewise however if a person has a particularly preference with regards to how they like to be engaged with, unless it severely detriments us or others to do so, we should respect that preference and abide by it, hence we should also treats others different based on how they want us to act too.

Equality is a good notion, especially economic and social equality but "equality" for everything is preposterous. We shouldn't allow women to join the police if they cannot pass the necessary physical fitness tests and the tests shouldn't be made easier just to accommodate women, this is akin to making tests easier for getting into university so less intellectually gifted people could get in there. Totally ridiculous and defeats the point of the entry requirements in the first place. It's not like we're all born with the same intelligence or social status in our childhood to aid our education so it's exactly the same as not allowing most women to join the police. Why is there a double standard?

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 3

MarriageSucks

7

Inb4 feminist hypocrisy

Reply 4

caravaggio2

Equality of opportunity is the way forward.

Reply 5

Philbert

Original post by MarriageSucks

Inb4 feminist hypocrisy

Do have evidence of a feminist saying both of those things?

Reply 6

Nogoodsorgods

9

Original post by MarriageSucks

Inb4 feminist hypocrisy

Do you think that anyone, man or woman, ever regarded being hit without consent as one of the rights they wanted?

If a woman still regarded their sex as a special matter that is still not hypocritical. Woman don't deny biological differences. A woman being hit is in general potentially more serious than a man receiving the exact same hit. A woman can lose her fertility because of it and might not have the bodily constitution to take the blow so well.

It doesn't mean that 'You can't hit me! i'm a boy' would be any less right if we're talking about a young boy.

Reply 7

caravaggio2

Here's what happens when you treat everyone the same whether male or female

McDonald's Worker beats ANGRY customers with a Me…: http://youtu.be/FjqM2UXsnpY

Reply 8

Rakas21

We should treat people based on how they act and I personally treat people according to my own moral code.

In reality we do to some degree treat people based on where they are born as well.

Reply 9

i.am.lost

18

As an egalitarian, I try to see everyone as equal. But that doesn't stop people's own actions from having consequences on how they should be treated. It just means they shouldn't be treated differently before said actions.

Reply 10

OP

Original post by Philbert

Do have evidence of a feminist saying both of those things?

The hypocrisy isn't that literal, but they do campaign for preferential treatment whilst ignoring all the privileges they have. Have you ever seen them fight for tougher sentences for females or more healthcare spending of male specific illness or funding to help get an equal number of males into university? I haven't either, they just bang on about the constantly disproved wage gap myth or the imaginary rape culture.

Reply 11

Smash Bandicoot

5

Some people are inferior and should be treated as such.

Reply 12

TheMagicalConch

3

What are you going to do;

Enforce mandatory facial sculpting from birth to make sure we are all equally attractive?

Legally enforce the same diet for everyone?

Cull the cretins and scholars alike leaving nothing but mediocrity?

Reply 13

OP

Original post by TheMagicalConch

What are you going to do;

Enforce mandatory facial sculpting from birth to make sure we are all equally attractive?

Legally enforce the same diet for everyone?

Cull the cretins and scholars alike leaving nothing but mediocrity?

I'm not going to do anything. I personally feel people should be judged and treated according to their actions and how they were born, TorpidPhil made a good point. In my opinion not everyone in our society is, or deserves to be treated equally.

Whilst I wouldn't discriminate against someone with severe brittle bone disease or muscular dystrophy in a normal day-to-day setting, I obviously wouldn't hire them to stack shelves in a warehouse I owned for obvious reasons. It's not their fault but that's the real world. However there's no reason they couldn't find another job that their body is more suited for.

Reply 14

Philbert

Original post by Zargabaath

The hypocrisy isn't that literal, but they do campaign for preferential treatment whilst ignoring all the privileges they have. Have you ever seen them fight for tougher sentences for females or more healthcare spending of male specific illness or funding to help get an equal number of males into university? I haven't either, they just bang on about the constantly disproved wage gap myth or the imaginary rape culture.

I've never sen men fight for some of those things, either.
You don't have to be fighting all the issues in order to support equality. No-one has the time or energy to do that. People focus on the ones they feel are most important, for example, I support a charity that funds operations for birth complications in developing countries , for example. I see that as really important, but don't currently support any men's charities long-term, so according to you, I do not support equality. I do see see plenty of feminists supporting Movember and Prostate cancer charities as they do for breast cancer.

Lets have a look at the rest of your points:

•

Tougher sentences for females - for what crimes? Sometimes, women receive longer sentences than men for the same crimes. Mostly, it depends entirely on the situation. Black men receive harsher sentences than anyone for certain crimes. I don't see men campaigning against that.

•

Equal number of males into university - but most anti-feminists don't support quotas for equality in the workplace. Why do you only want greater numbers of males in universities, what about applicants from poorer backgrounds, for example? Especially when universities was originally seen as male-only institutions.

•

I can partially agree with you about the wage gap, although I don't agree that all feminists "bang on" about it.

•

I could go on for days about rape culture, because it does exist and it is important. It affects males, as well (e.g. boys being raped by women and people claiming they must have enjoyed it - that's rape culture). I won't go into it any more here though.

Reply 15

A5ko

3

We should ask God.

However, seeing as he probably doesn't exist then we should ask the next in line.

Anyone that slightly resembles Jesus.

Reply 16

Jammy Duel

Original post by Nogoodsorgods

Do you think that anyone, man or woman, ever regarded being hit without consent as one of the rights they wanted?

You have it the wrong way around, I doubt many people want to be hit without their consent, but that's not the issue being presented, the issue being presented is that whether the person doing the hitting is persecuted by society is dependent on, among other things, gender, i.e., if you hit a man you're fine, if you hit a woman in the same position it probably isn't. Of course, there are the cases where either way you're going to be persecuted, eg the old, disabled, to some extent based on race I should think, etc, but that doesn't change the perceived immunity of women as a whole.

Look at it this way, it that picture had a male saying "you can't hit me, I'm a man" they would probably be ridiculed for such an attitude, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they're called sexist and misogynistic and a supporter of the patriarchy and all sorts of other **** by some.

Reply 17

HigherMinion

5

The only way people will ever be truly equal is through genetic engineering en mass, like in Brave New World. A world without character; all you'd be in an "equal" society is an individual unit of labour with no interesting background to speak of. Because it's everyone elses background too.

No, this goes against human nature. Everyone is different, everyone has a different story to add to the culture and, thankfully, most people are capable of individual thought.

Reply 18

OP