I've been in meetings most of the day and am just about to go in another, but here's my initial reaction... and the article dates from June 14th 1993... and the webpage it is on looks like it would quote selectively to make a point... the real deal on the lady is here;
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/justices/ginsburg.bio.html
1. The traditional family concept of the husband as a breadwinner and wife as a homemaker must be eliminated.
And the problem with that is? Why can't guys be homemakers and women breadwinners? Wouldn't it be nice if both men and women took an equal part in raising children? Or are that many women interested in remaining at the sidelines of business and polotics whilst they keep house and wait for hubby? Well let them. I like my ladies liberated. Don;t worry, there's a difference between eliminating a stereotype and making something illegal!!!
2. The federal government must provide comprehensive child care.
... so they can get taxes from the mothers that would thus be able to work? Oh, how terrible. I mean, all those single teen mothers who got pregnant because of the prudish level of sex education in the US would be - gasp - helped out of the poverty trap their horniness and their countries religiosity has trapped them and their children in. Maybe, over time, the enabling them to stand on their own two feet with a little help will ensure they don't remain a burden. What a bad idea!
3. The Homestead Law must give twice as much benefit to couples who live apart from each other as to a husband and wife who live together.
Don't know enough about this to comment
4. In the military, women must be drafted when men are drafted, and women must be assigned to combat duty.
Which part of sexual equality have people failed to understand? Great idea... will make people think twice about having wars; dismembered female is far less attractive than dismembered man.
5. Affirmative action must be applied to equalize the number of men and women in the armed forces.
Armed forces? Hell, just as I think as a woman I'd not vote for a political party that didn't have equal numbers of male and female candidates (why help men stay in control? Doh!). Likewise I'd be wary of any company where the gender make-up of the company didn't mirror society... or do we still think women are stupid? Or do we still think that women, because they do the hard part of breeding, should have to choose between biology and a successful career? Last time I looked the human race would die out if women stopped having babies. Maybe we owe women something for this... I can understand men disagreeing with this... after all, they'd have to work harder to compete against women, and who wants competiton when you can just scream about how unfair it is? "Oh, I'm a man, 95% of CEO are men, it's SO UNFAIR waaaaah! God right-wingers are the biggest babies going...
6. The age of consent for sexual acts must be lowered to 12 years of age.
Does this being highlighted in yellow mean I have to disagree? Seriously, how many people who will go on about how we must protect out children have their teen or pre-teen daughter's wearing stuff that makes them look like mini-hookers, or who will have a secret thing about that Britney school-girl video? Our society SEXUALISES children hand-over-fist, and we are suprised there is a problem? Maybe society should grow up, or at least stop taking the stupid pills.
Age of consent used to have nothing that much to do with consent in the way we mean it nowaday. It was based on fertiltiy. In tribal societies it's normally mensturation age, in Europe in the middle ages it was 12, by Church Law... in quite a few of the United States states it has only been raised from 14 in the past few years. According to Wikipedia you can still get married at 14 in Texas with your parent's consent.
However, now we base age of consent on the ability to give informed consent. As people are not expected to be acting as adults (boys working, girls being married) in their early teens anymore, they are not raised with the expectation of adulthood at 14, or whatever. Because of this they are still children at that age, and need protection. 16 is the commonest age of consent around the developed world, and is a good enough one.
HOWEVER, does this mean a 17 year-old should go to prison for having consensual sex with a 15 year-old? No, that would be silly, let alone unjust.
I think that a staged-consent rule is sensible, as some countries already have; the rules in Germany for example;
- 18 years in dependency relationships (teacher/student etc.)
- 16 years if the older partner is over 18 and coerces the younger partner into sex other than by physical means, or if the older partner pays the younger partner to have sex.
- 16 years if the older partner is over 21 and exploits "lack of sexual self-determination" of the younger partner (only prosecuted after complaints or "public interest", in practice rarely prosecuted with little or no punishment)
- 14 years for all other sexual relationships.
(source: Wikipedia)
... other countries have small differences - in Holland it's similar, but sex for money under 18 is illegal (quite rightly), and if (as an adult) you've EVER had sex with anyone under 16 ANYWHERE in the world, you're a criminal. A very good idea. In Canada 14 year-olds can have sex with 12 year-olds.
Of course, having a 13 year-old daughter the idea of that is horrid. But I would rather a country have a decent sex education system, and not punish or stigmatise teenagers for having sex with each other (as what good does it do?) than make rules that will criminalise the inevitable small numbers who develop early and experiment? Even in countries with age-of-consent rules like those mentioned above, the average age of first intercourse is above 16; a lower age doesn't encourage kids, it criminalises the early developers.
And as far as an age-of-consent of 16 or 18 being some cure-all from harm, well, teen pregnancy is far higher in the USA and UK (with crappy sex education systems) than in the rest of Europe or Canada http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/journals/3324401.html.
7. Prostitution must be legalized. She wrote, "Prostitution as a consensual act between adults is arguably within the zone of privacy protected by recent constitutional decisions."
Anyone going to argue it isn't? If you can sell guns, why can't you sell your vagina? I wonder if pornographers or arms manufacturers get invited to the Whitewash House more often? Anyone want to discuss the difference between the health of a hooker in a country where it is legal and where it isn't legal?
8. All-boy and all-girl organizations must be sexually integrated, as must all fraternities and sororities. The Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts must change their names and their purposes to become sex-integrated.
Well, on the other hand we could carry on with Victorian institutions that seperate the sexs like they were different species. Maybe that cute little uniform is more important than laying the foundations for equality after all...
Sounds amazing she ever got in in a country as religious and right-wing as the USA; oh, yeah... 1993... ha!
(edited to remove factual error)
