What the fuck? 
No idea how you got that from my post but you’re definitely wrong about what conception is.
Hi mhappy. I’ve been lurking on this debate for a couple days. Despite the ugliness of some of the argument, I can see the point you are trying to make about the inherent inequality built into the law when it comes to the decision around continuing a pregnancy and the subsequent child support an unwilling father may have to pay as a result of that. Theoretically, you’re right that this does not treat the genders equally, and that makes it unfeminist. However, the reality is that the traditional nuclear family framework within which these laws were framed has Men taking the role of financial providers, and Women taking the role of primary caregivers for the young. Yes, there are many more women in the workplace across the world, and especially in developed countries in the West than there were before. In many families today, both parents work, and sometimes the woman in the relationship may be earning more than the man.
HOWEVER. The evolution to a truly gender equal society is very much a work in progress. Patriarchal prejudices continue to hinder women in multiple and often insidious ways. Witness the just concluded US election. The gender pay gap persists in the world’s most progressive countries. For this last reason primarily, I think the law is right to favour the unequal treatment of men and women in terms of the financial responsibility towards a child. It may be possible to be a single mother and raise a child on a single income. But study after study has shown the negative impacts this has on the child and the person that child will grow up to become. There is therefore a practical, normative justification for placing the financial burden of even an unwanted child on to the father. At some future point, when men and women have truly equal opportunities, and equal earning capacities (whether or not this point will ever be achieved, or even be observable if it is achieved is debatable), then the inequality built into the law in this respect would become unnecessary and perhaps unjust, in my humble opinion.
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Gender pay gap you do know that has been disproven; gender pay gap calculates the average pay amount of men and women in full time and part time work regardless of position or pay or position. There is is also the equal pay of 1950 or 1960 can’t remember, so no company would want to risk themselves being dragged through court for something so pointless.
Also 53% of women voted for trump so that blows the patriarchy theory out the window.
This is not the the early 20th century men are equal but woman get a lot more allowances then men especially when it comes to children; it’s overwhelming support to the point it takes so much for a man to get custody of that said child from an unfit mother.
As men we’ve been fooled to believe that we need assume responsibility for the conception regardless of the situation, to do otherwise would cast you in a bad light and woman gets of with no criticism; it takes to people to have sex, two people to conceive a child, but only one person can choose whether child is born. As men we have to accept responsibility for every stage beside one.
BTW feminism is not about equality and that’s why a majority of women are abandoning it droves; 18% of US women are feminists, 9% of British women identify as feminists; this ideology is dangerous for equality, it twist facts to and gives false information and does nothing for women outside of the developed world or women of colour.
Just wanted to bump in on this particular part: It is an absolutely bonkers claim I’ve heard a million times and it all stems from an article in the Wall Street Journal and The Washington post based off of a lazy interpretation by a professor (Goldin, at Harvard) and then semi-rehashed by Forbes, CBS Money, Fortune etc. It is interpreted by people with a bias who don’t understand the topic very well at all (on top of the fact that you can’t prove something is nonexistant unless you prove that it does not exist in every possible case which no one is even close to doing in the first place).
Prof. Goldin has explained that the 77-80% number is what you say, a poor number to use. That is all. She clearly says there is a gender gap, she explains her theories of why, she even says that there is partly an actual wage gap in hourly pay for the exact same job by the same qualifications, just that it does not ofc. result in the 77-80% difference, rather that social factors do, which does not in any way mean there is no wage gap, something everyone who rehash it assumes.
Her studies have been used to argue for the exact opposite as well, by herself (Goldin). I just lazily googled three examples:
From the NY times where Goldin apparently argues strongly that there is a gender wage gap:
Harvard magazine and Goldin apparently argues that there is no gender wage gap:
and here is a something inbetween article by the Business Insider:
Funny how they all talk to the same person and get different interpretations? And on top of that there are a bunch of cases where there is exactly that, women on average get less than men, per hour, for the exact same job description and plenty of real published studies have shown it if you care to google, something even the Washington post article concedes, using a 5% difference (from somewhere) instead, as if that makes it ok.
Not to mention that there are droves of economists who argue that there is a wage gap for a bunch of reasons, yet a surprisingly large portion of arguments for why there isn’t stem from these interpretations of Goldin’s studies.
I am in a field where proof is not easily tossed around and this is not by any means disproven in the slightest, not by any proper method of proof theory anyway, so I had to butt in, and to clarify: it is not a dig at you, it is more about killing the misconception that it is all a myth 
Edit:
I googled interviews with her, found one here where she talks a lot, anyone who wants to can read some of her own words, arguments, findings and theories, all in context, it is a radio interview published in a mag, in text (long read):
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His wife will be on Trump’s staff 
The WWF presidency is something we all dreamed of, thank god it is finally happening 
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People say that they don’t trust Trump , and I know the feeling , I had a curry on friday night and I couldnt trust a Trump the next day cos it felt like I would follow through !
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I missed it: “Belgium is a wonderful city”.
:cech: :bellerin:
I just read your report; and t overwhelming supports what I just said 
The gender pay gap isn’t about this idea men get paid more for the same job; it’s about choices with how long you work, flexible work incentives, life style choices.
And again the way it is calculated doesn’t take position and wages earned to calculate the average for example you take 10 people, 5 men and 5 women; all the men work full time, the women 3 work full the other two are flexible; the average earnings of the groups will be calculated and a percentage given between the average earnings; so of course pay gap.
To sort that out you need either men to adopt the same working practice choice as women or women work like men.
It’s all about choices nothing to do with a patriarchy or a systematic bias against women; Claudia Goldin research even highlights this.
Again the equal pay act is there any company breaches that can get sued for millions would they risk it (common sense); I pretty doubt any woman would sit and just accept it, please the amount of feminist fear mongering and lobbying no company would want the hassle.
@oompa cheers for the support
I’m finding all this evidence backed discussion, coupled with actually reading each others links very heartening. Yay for oompa and mhappy.
Leaving aside the question of whether women sometimes get paid less than men for the exact same work (none of us are going to definitively answer such a big question on which there is still much research that needs to be done), I’d like to look at you’re example. You took 10 people, half of whom are men and half of whom are women. All the men work full time, while only a portion of the women do, which results in a gap in the average pay. I’m with you so far.
I could not agree more. I really don’t want to get into a quasi-theological debate about what feminism ‘really’ is, but from my understanding, this is one of the very practical goals that would make up part of an honest feminist agenda for change. One of the maor hurdles women face in their careers is motherhood. Yes they may be entitled to maternity leave, but those long periods out of the workplace coupled with often unbalanced responsibilities of raising a kid mean they find it harder to climb that corporate ladder. My solution would be mandatory extended paternal leave, to the point where there is parity. Why should fathers’ not be allowed to play an equal part in the raising of their child? That’s horribly unfair. You go on to say:
Which is where I must insert a point. Yes, its’ all about choices, but choices don’t come out of a vacuum. Why did those two women in your example choose not to work full time? Why did all 5 of those men work full time? I’m not buying it if you tell me that it was a 100% independent decision made by their completely individual and autonomous brains. The choices we make are shaped by how we are raised, by what roles we see our parents fulfilling and by the society we grow up in. So when I say patriarchy I don’t necessarily mean a negative women hating society (though internet usage has seen that word co-opted to convey that idea). I’m just referring to a male-dominated society, which has certainly been the template for all of the world’s major civilizations. As much as you might say we are moving away from that, that process is not done, the institutions, beliefs and customs instilled over millennia do not get wiped away over night or even over a generation.
Which is why, going back to the original topic I jumped in on, I think it’s fair enough that judges require men to financially support their offspring, even if they don’t want to.
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How to unite a nation.
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With his “positive” talks with absolutely everyone, does anyone else get the impression he’s desperate to be seen to be doing something good and different early on? If he could be the president that brought Russia back into the fold and strengthened ties with an independent UK without killing anybody he’d probably get some credit.
I don’t know how bad Russia really is but I’ve always got the impression they’re treated as one of the US govts go-to bogeymen, so probably aren’t as bad as they’re made out to be. For example right now the western world is told to be in fear of Russian cyber attacks, but are they really more dangerous than anyone else?
Always thought the hate against Russia was overdone.
They are as active politically as any other country.
China is much worse.
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Nailed that one craigie Putin aint no saint but it is the USA and its allies who created and funded the civil war in Syria and the ongoing Iraqi bloodbath in Kurdish Iraq. Far from fighting ISIS the allies are continuing to assist them destroying remaining infrastructures and perpetuating hell. If Trump can bring an end to it it would be good for all except the arms dealers and Israel . which is why it wont happen. perpetual war is what they want. it makes money .
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The problem sometimes with the talk of Western propaganda about Russia is that people go too far in that direction and start acting like Russia is fairly benign, when its actions in Ukraine alone demonstrate how wrong that is.
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Unclear what his position on Israel will be if I’m honest. Netanyahu was quick to proclaim his victory signals the end of a two state solution, but it’s quite clear he has some people close to him with ‘unfavourable’ views towards Israel.
I don’t think he knows what he is doing. First, he appoints a far-right extremist to his cabinet, then maybe a gay. It would be a good choice though.
How do those appointments indicate he doesn’t know what he’s doing?
I’m not saying he does know but I want to know how those choices indicate anything?
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Pretty sure I could guess what his position on Israel is
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His daughter and son-in-law are Jewish for what it’s worth…