Women's Issues

Breasts? Harmless.

Genitals? Hygiene reasons.

I do not think any woman would like to have her boobs flopping around. Not in the pulchritude sense but in the "It sounds real uncomfortable to jog like that" sense.

Can't claim to have that issue myself but I have some very well endowed friends who will tell you that jogging is the bane of their existence. And stairs. And my car since the suspension is gone.

Hell movement in general is awful when you're in that size range

Well, yes, I was being silly with that example, but the point stands. "Why ban breastfeeding?" is a subissue to the larger "Why ban boobs?" umbrella.

On the "Why ban boobs" thing: I think it's because of a mix of breasts being a) a secondary sexual characteristic (that men have to counterpart to; beards are not considered sexual by society as a whole) and b) sexualised to a large degree. Showing your breasts in public would in most cases be considered indecent because of social context, but not as indecent as exposing your genitals (regardless of sex). You'd have to de-sexualise breasts over a long period of time (meaning: for a few generations, at least) to lift such a "ban".

What about the various modesty rulings the Abrahamic religions (among others) have that demand the covering of breasts? Erasing that influence isn't going to be easy to say the least^Asides The same "modesty" issue here has been cropping up a lot in this country as of late. None of my suggestions on what to do with them are particularly family-friendly to say the least, and are fairly graphic.

On paper, in my country, the opinion of a religion should have no bearing on the law due to legally enforced separation of church and state. Abrahamic religions may say breasts are a no-no but they don't get a vote in our state or national legislation.

In practice, this country was founded on Christian principles and has spent a long time trying to figure out what it wants its moral center to be if "Christian doctrine" isn't allowed to be it, which isn't helped by the fact that Christian groups still have such a strong influence in our politics despite that separation of church and state thing.

In any case, I would say that the only way to desexualize breasts would be to decriminalize them, rather than trying to decriminalize them by desexualizing them. As long as breasts remain a taboo, only allowed to exist in sexual contexts, they will remain sexualized.

edited 28th Aug '15 10:21:46 AM by TobiasDrake

Iono. Weird ass shit that isn't criminalized is definitely sexualized. Just not en masse.

Decriminalization does not guarantee desexualization. But criminalization outside of sexual contexts guarantees continued sexualization, because it means sexual content comprises 100% of people's contextual understanding.

It's the same reason Japan has that weird panty fetish. Some people in the U.S. have it too, but Japan has it bad because panties weren't a thing in Japan until we introduced it to them in the aftermath of WWII. In Japan, panties exist solely in a sexual context - they have to wear them to cover their sexual bits because those bits are sexual and not for any practical reason - and so sexualization of panties has gone through the roof.

We can't expect boobs to stop being considered entirely sexual until we're willing to experience boobs outside of sexual context.

Except it wasn't, and the massive influx of christianity into your goverment started during the cold war if I recall that bit of history correctly.

Eh sorta kinda. A lot of our roots lie in fundamentalist Christianity and people who got deported from England being extremists.

It's always been there but in the Cold War we kicked it into overdrive to differentiate ourselves from those Godless Commies and so on.

It was always Christian originally. Our founders were kicked out of the U.K. over disputes over which branch of Christianity they wanted to follow. We like to tell it that it was over "religious freedom" but it was really just intersectional squabbling over who's worshipping Jehova correctly.

That being said, the Cold War did feature a massive influx of Christianity into our government as a way of opposing the Soviets. Things like the addition of "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance, openly violating Separation of Church and State, were considered kosher as a way of sticking it to those damned dirty commies.

Which is why Christianity still has so much power and influence in our government to the point that the Republican party, one of the two primary movers of our nation, might as well just redub themselves the Christian White Men's Party.

edited 28th Aug '15 10:35:21 AM by TobiasDrake

I actualy heard that sevral of the founders of your country were atheists or some other religion.

Eh, they weren't exactly atheists but they weren't Puritans. It's why the separation of Church and State is in there at all.

But ultimately that was irrelevant, the common people were Puritanical so they warped it and changed public opinion of who the founders were.

That's a lovely story. It's an old one, with a simple tune everybody can hum along to because it makes great Lies to Children.

However, meet the Inclosure Acts. Let's play Connect the Date to the Wave of Refugees! <_<

Opportunistic land-grabs by rent seekers? Not quite as romantic as persecution for simply what you believe, is it? :/

edited 28th Aug '15 11:01:43 AM by Euodiachloris

Basically, England is Satan, and Puritans are Lucifers breaking off from Lucifer

I am pretty certain they would have been as evil as the English, had England given them the chance.

edited 28th Aug '15 10:47:00 AM by Aszur

The term you're looking for is Deism.

Just England? Not the Scots or Welsh?

edited 28th Aug '15 10:42:47 AM by Greenmantle

@ Euodiachloris: That is in line with what I had heard yes.

@ Garcon: See the post below yours, they were not...

edited 28th Aug '15 10:46:42 AM by Imca

Eh, not so much other religions as other sects of Christianity. As Le Garcon said, that's why separation of Church and State became a thing. Our forefathers believed in the freedom to practice whatever religion you choose but, in the same way that they wrote "All Men are created equal" while quietly ignoring black people, when they said "whatever religion" they assumed this meant "whichever Christian sect you follow."

There weren't a lot of Pagans, Muslims, or Hindus signing the Declaration of Independence or helping draft the Constitution, is what I'm getting at, which is why we have such a hard time getting a foothold in this country. There are large swaths of the country even to this day that assume that if your religion isn't Abrahamic, you're a Satan-worshipper plotting the doom of their children.

edited 28th Aug '15 11:21:18 AM by TobiasDrake

Well it is not like the whole covering breasts started with the Abrahamic religions either.

Aside the indigenous cultures living too close to the equatorial line (most of them had little clothing for many reasons), I recall that covering most body parts to be the norm as soon as people figured out to make fabrics able to cover the whole body.

[VIDEO] Japan's Womenomics

I'd be nice if such increase in female's economic strength could also result in strengthening the female participation in Japanese politics.

That is a form of religion freedom, since on those days people where entitled to their practice "give me the oportunity to practice my religion because is right, you cant practice your because my religion said you are wrong) also as far I know some funding father where deist or more clearly, know the risk of having religion whisper the goverment ears.

But is clear some christian have some moral myopia here, demand the goverment dosent met in their buissness but want to do whatever they want, or saying that all religion are equal but demanding some privilage.

Granted this is derail a little bit so we should move this into the religion thread.

edited 28th Aug '15 12:51:48 PM by unknowing

Nice yes, but considering how things have been going I am not hopefull... :c

Namely, the women Abe wants to be involved simply don't want to be?

That and the men dont want them to be.

I would like to remind you that when the topic of womens reproductive health was brought up in our parliament, a lady politician was laughed off the podium with comments like.

"If you could actualy be making babies you would not be here"

I don't even...