On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 12:03 AM, . <svaks...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 10:07 PM, Zainab Bawa <bawazaina...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> > >> > > Dear . > > Discrimination in the rental housing market is not limited to religion. > It > > extends to caste, sex, nationality (and is there anything else under the > > sun?). > > Yes, Gender. Would it be wrong to say its the largest group being > discriminated against in many different situations? To (re)cite an > earlier experience, the landlord never asked me the woman's religion > or age (both of which I didnt know) but her singular status and living > alone upset him enough to claim that "single women are a big problem > that no landlord wants". Now that does get my goat (pun (un)intended) > as I never understood what its supposed to imply or mean or was I > reading too much into it. But he was not the first to say that so when > 2 brokers echoed his s(ub)lim(e)y thoughts I realized how dangerous > single women are, never mind that men speaking thus have daughters. > The irony is befuddling!! > I must admit in my time here I am somewhat surprised at the bullshit women have to put up with here, and that they seem to put up with it. If they want this to end they need to fight back (metaphorically through many channels: political, legal, community, self-defense, etc.). It can be done and there will be conscientious people who may happen to have a Y chromosome who will help, on principle.
I'm still trying to comprehend on what basis single women in an apartment can be so nefariously dangerous. I don't think I get it (it being the specious reason that these landlords believe). I come from a country where almost everyone has premarital sex (men AND women), and with mutiple partners in serial (sometimes in parallel for the kinky types) over time, before they get married. Plenty of dating. And we're prudes compared to the Europeans or Aussies. People make their choices of their free will with their bodies and lives. If someone doesn't like it, they're welcome to remain celebate. While I'm no lothario, I can't take my situation and make it into some moral bullshit crusade and shove it down everyone's throat. The respectable way is to mask my bitter jealousy over my salacious ineptitude with alcohol and humor. :-) Mating issues and such are big deals to most creatures, and the tactics used are clever and brutal. Sorry, but usually the Animal Channel is the most interesting thing on TV that I can understand during those times when I feel chilling out in front of the tube. All this male obcession about who can access which vagina when makes more sense when you see how our fellow mammals behave. (but it doesn't make it right in a society that values freedom) Vervet monkeys in different troops, for example, alternate between trying to get with the females from a different troop (smart -- don't interbreed) but trying to stop males from other troops (violently) from getting with their females. Both positive and negative competition exist. But in Meerkats, the dominant female tries to stop other females in their group from having kids -- she insists on being the only one. Our ancestry is sad and brutal -- unbecoming of an enlightened, sentient species. Men can't blame women for the male sex drive and our need for self-control -- which is what I think is some part of this repression -- as if they women did something wrong to us because we feel a way that makes us uncomfortable or competitive or bellicose. We need to take responsibility for how we are and manage it. It can be done. There are entire parts of the world where that's the norm (and those who violate it can get in some serious trouble where they end up having many sexual partners of the same gender, against their will, in a maximum security prison... ironic indeed). If there's a way to do this other than the threat of law, I'd love to hear it. Because for most cases of sufferage and equal rights, it's a nasty battle that requires courage, legislation, and enforcement... at least until the old people with unenlightened views shed their moral coil and become some embarassing footnote in the history of humanity that kids years from now look back and giggle at, like I do when I read about European doctors in the middle ages bleeding people to treat them, or people not eating tomatoes becuase they thought the red color meant they were poisonous... http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodhistory/a/tomatohistory.htm If anyone wants to merge this womans rights things with pedestrian rights, you've got my support on that, too... :-)
