Your very own feminist thread.

I agree they should have equal rights, but special privileges?

Like what?

And what special privileges do men have?

Am I missing out on something?

Hddj, I'm plenty familiar with women's issues, thanks : )

My point that feminism has an image problem is for feminists to understand where their message is missing it's mark.

What special privileges to accommodate their issues should women have that they don't already have?

The 'Woman Tax': How Gendered Pricing Costs Women Almost $1,400 A Year

In 2010, Consumer Reports found that equivalent products in a drugstore, like deodorant or shampoo, cost more if they were marketed to women. They asked the manufacturers why and almost across the board, the companies said it was more expensive to manufacture products for women.

“They are completely different formulations,” said one spokesperson of two antiperspirants with the exact same percentages of the exact same ingredients. Representatives of the offending companies also cited differences in packaging and foaming action (which women apparently requested) as reasons for disparate pricing.

A study from the University of Central Florida drew similar conclusions. It found that on average, women’s deodorants were priced 30 cents higher than men’s, when “the only discernible difference was scent.” It’s a similar case for most products marketed to women, such as razors and shampoo, which smell different and look different but at the end of the day serve the same purpose as scent-less, glitter-less versions. (Learn how to save on beauty products in our Priceless Style Bootcamp.)

On Anything Imported

Part of the reason this happens is because products for women cost more from the get-go, starting when they enter the United States. Marie Claire tells the story of a trade lawyer named Michael Cone, who was sifting through the list of tariffs (fees the U.S. charges to import goods from other countries) and noticed something incredible: The tariffs differed across gender lines.

For example, men’s sneakers were taxed at 8.5%, while women’s were taxed at 10%. Not every garment tariff he discovered was in favor of men, but he did find that women were susceptible to higher taxes on those goods imported to the U.S. at the highest volume. While there is no legal loophole or ostensible reason for the discrepancy, Marie Claire points out that there’s a history of bias in tariffs–before the Civil War, it cost less to import cheap wool so slaveowners could clothe their slaves. At this point, inequality in tariffs is just the way it has always been.

Cone gathered together over 100 companies to join him in the discrimination lawsuit he brought against the U.S. government, promising millions of dollars of unconstitutional fees if they won. The suit is currently pending.

… And at the Doctor’s Office

And then there’s health insurance. Here’s a startling fact: A nonsmoking woman often pays a higher premium than a smoking man. Women pay a total $1 billion more on annual health care costs than men, according to the National Women’s Law Center. The discrepancy is called gender rating, and in states that haven’t banned it, 92% of the top insurance plans charge women more.

Insurance companies say that women pay more because they’re more expensive customers who utilize more health services. While there are the obvious reasons (there is no male equivalent to the gynecologist, and women are the only ones seeing doctors when pregnant), most plans that discriminate, according to new research from the National Women’s Law Center, don’t cover maternity services.

There is also the fact that healthy men don’t go to doctors like healthy women. Research consistently proves this: A Louis Harris and Associates survey of over 4,000 men showed that not only did three times more men than women avoid the doctor in the previous year, but that a third of those men surveyed had no regular physician. A 2011 survey from Esquire Magazine found similar results.

Therefore, women demand more from health insurance … and pay for it.

Craig Fry wrote
And they should have special women privileges, why not?
Their life should be just as privileged as us white males have.

Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.
Tim Allen