[socialism thread] Another important victory won in the fight against sexism!

[Nodrog]

'Ladies Night' Discount Axed in N.J. Bars
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: June 2, 2004


Filed at 6:37 p.m. ET

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- The state's top civil rights official has ruled that taverns cannot offer discounts to women on ``ladies nights,'' agreeing with a man who claimed such gender-based promotions discriminated against men.

David R. Gillespie said it was not fair for women to get into the Coastline nightclub for free and receive discounted drinks while men paid a $5 cover charge and full price for drinks.

In his ruling Tuesday, J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo, director of the state Division on Civil Rights, rejected arguments by the nightclub that ladies nights were a legitimate promotion. Commercial interests do not override the ``important social policy objective of eradicating discrimination,'' he ruled.

Gov. James E. McGreevey criticized the decision, calling it ``bureaucratic nonsense.''

``It is an overreaction that reflects a complete lack of common sense and good judgment,'' McGreevey said in a statement.

The governor does not have the authority directly rescind the ruling. But he met with state Attorney General Peter C. Harvey on Wednesday, telling him that the civil rights division had better things to do with its time, said Micah Rasmussen, a spokesman for McGreevey.

A spokesman for Harvey did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The ruling specifically addressed the weekly ladies nights at the Coastline in Cherry Hill, but it carries the force of a court decision and applies statewide. Vespa-Papaleo said state officials would write formal rules after a public hearing.

The restaurant's attorney, Colleen Ready, did not immediately return a telephone message left Wednesday by The Associated Press.

Courts in other states have issued divergent opinions on such promotions.

Judges in Pennsylvania and Iowa have said similar events are illegal, but courts in Illinois and Washington state have said that ladies nights are permissible because they do not discriminate against men but rather encourage women to attend.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nati...ies-Night.html

what

[Lupin]

"women deserve a special treatment"

i agree with Illinois and Washingtion.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

what

It's a completely consistent interpretation of an anti-discrimination law.

[Dante Hicks]

Almost all anti-discrimination law is hilariously bad. It's all sort of well-meaning (jn a perverse sense) but fundamentally rubbish.

I was recently trained on how to interview people (for recruitment) and I commented at the beginning of the session that I always found the questions asked in interviews exceptionally boring. By the end of the training I could see why all questions are identikit HR crap. Almost everything else can be challenged under some sort of discrimination law.

[IncubusGod]

Well think of it the other way, if clubs were not charging men in and giving them discounts on drinks but charged women full price there'd be uproar.
But NooOO,its never discrimination when its in favour of women.

[pablissimo]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

It's a completely consistent interpretation of an anti-discrimination law.

Ladies night -> greater proportion of women at the pub -> CAN WE GUESS WHAT GOES HERE?

Christ on a bike I hate politics.

[IncubusGod]

Originally Posted by pablissimo

Ladies night -> greater proportion of women at the pub -> CAN WE GUESS WHAT GOES HERE?

Christ on a bike I hate politics.

It's been my experience these nights are excuses for 'girls nights out' where they get pissed,hate men,prick tease on the dancefloor and take their feminism tips from Beyonce songs.

Standard stupid women things. I spent one of these nights sober and was watching how many ppl scored around the place, almost no guys were scoring where usually most succeeded in their ventures on other nights.

[pablissimo]

I claim discrimination on the part of drunk women and demand compensation.

[IncubusGod]

I demand a Guys Night were there is free entry and drinks are cheaper. I also demand that women try desperatly to pick us up at the bar and on the floor, buy us drinks and take advantage of us in an alley.

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

It's a completely consistent interpretation of an anti-discrimination law.

Hmmmm, point taken. I support this now.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

Hmmmm, point taken. I support this now.

Although I should add that anti-discrimination laws are bad. Perhaps one way to get rid of bad laws is to see they're applied to everyone.

[Nodrog]

Yeah, the best way to get across the full badness of a law is to enforce it to the strongest extent possible. If they keep along these lines and outlaw the most petty examples of things that give one sex even the most minor benefit over the other, theres a good chance they will be repealed.

This is why the police should arrest 6 year old children running lemonade stands who do not charge and submit sales tax/VAT

[thaeter]

ladies night is good... its just a promotion tool to attract more females. So what if its price discrimination? The guys get more females to hit on...

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

This is why the police should arrest 6 year old children running lemonade stands who do not charge and submit sales tax/VAT

I'd pay good money to see a SWAT team hit a lemonade stand.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

Yeah, the best way to get across the full badness of a law is to enforce it to the strongest extent possible

I agree (I'd love to see copyright law enforced to it's fullest extent) but it's difficult to get the government to do things like that.

[evil one]

How are different prices for men and women not discrimination?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by evil one

How are different prices for men and women not discrimination?

Who said it wasn't?

[JonnyBGood]

Giving jobs to qualified people is discrimination against the intellectually challenged.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Giving jobs to qualified people is discrimination against the intellectually challenged.

Beautiful women should be forced to have sex with ugly men, starting with me.

Anything else is discrimnatory fascism against the facially challenged.

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Who said it wasn't?

Judges in Pennsylvania and Iowa have said similar events are illegal, but courts in Illinois and Washington state have said that ladies nights are permissible because they do not discriminate against men but rather encourage women to attend.

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Beautiful women should be forced to have sex with ugly men.

Forcing beautiful people to have sex with uglies isnt all that different from forcing the rich to help the poor you know.

[pablissimo]

Maybe they didn't say it wasn't so much as it was stupid. Though their official line of reasoning there seems horribly flawed.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

Forcing beautiful people to have sex with uglies isnt all that different from forcing the rich to help the poor you know.

Fortunately I oppose both.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

Judges in Pennsylvania and Iowa have said similar events are illegal, but courts in Illinois and Washington state have said that ladies nights are permissible because they do not discriminate against men but rather encourage women to attend.

Oh right.

Isn't discriminatory pricing legal in some contexts anyway? e.g. discount for senior citizens/students and the like?

[Nodrog]

sounds like age discrimination to me.

Theres been quite a lot of fuss made recently about wiping out the age discrimination in the workplace that prevents old people from finding work (I think this is mainly to delay the collapse of the welfare state). I certainly wouldnt object to eliminating senior citizen discounts on the same grounds.

[Dante Hicks]

Yeah. Probably will be banned soon I guess.

I always thought the "No more than 2 school kids at a time" type signs on shop windows were going to be iffy legally speaking, eventually. I know you can deny service to whomever you want, but wouldn't a "No more than two negroes at a time" sign be illegal?

[Nodrog]

Yep, that would have to go too - its fairly clear case of age discrimination also.

The prices in hair-dressers are going to have to be standardised too; its grossly unfair to expect women to pay more for a haircut than a male counterpart. They should be based on hair length, not sex.

[pablissimo]

How long does an average female wash, dry, cut and whatever else the **** they have done take compared to the 9 minutes it took my barber to give me a #3 today?

[Nodrog]

I said it should be based on hair length you halfwit.

In any case, its unfair that women should be expected to pay more money just because the corporate patriarchy has dictated aesthetic standards for them that are more costly to adhere to than those set down for males.

[pablissimo]

It should be based on time and the skills required to do the job, who gives a **** if your hair's three feet down your back if someone's just going to take clippers to it?

[JonnyBGood]

This problem can be solved fairly easily by just banning body hair guys


Try to think creatively please.

[pablissimo]

An entire society of Duncan Goodhew.

[Proteus]

The government will never outlaw age discrimination, because they'd then have to give the vote to babies.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Proteus

The government will never outlaw age discrimination, because they'd then have to give the vote to babies.

All discrimination is legal if it can be defended basically.

It is legal to put in a job advert that it's only available for whites only, or blacks only, or whatever. But there needs be some kind of over-riding justification for it. So you can say "Women Only" if you're advertising for someone who works with female rape victims (say). The voting thing would be like this.

The problems with Pabs thing about the hair dressers is that he's starting from a discriminatory mindset. Not every woman has an intricate hair cut, and not every guy simply has a crew cut. Therefore, a policy which charged women and men different rates (without more criteria being applied) could easily be challenged on it.

[pablissimo]

It was an extreme example, but I stand by the 'time and skill required' bit compared to 'every inch'll cost you an extra pound' idea.

ps this isn't aiding my revision and i lack the willpower not to F5 the GD front page every few minutes =((

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

All discrimination is legal if it can be defended basically.

It is legal to put in a job advert that it's only available for whites only, or blacks only, or whatever. But there needs be some kind of over-riding justification for it. So you can say "Women Only" if you're advertising for someone who works with female rape victims (say). The voting thing would be like this.

I don't see how. You can in your example legitimately say "any woman applying for this job is automatically suited to the job more than any man, so excluding men is justified", but you can't say "any 18 year old is automatically more suited to elect MPs than any 17 year old, so excluding 17 year olds from the voting process is justified", because you'd be talking nonsense. You'd have to define some form of criterion which determines how suitable people are to vote and then apply it to everyone, which would be an administrative nightmare and deeply unpopular amongst stupid people.

[Weeks]

I hate it when i see posters that say "ladies free before 11".

That just screams out "brothel/whores/rudeboys/badmusic" for me.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Proteus

You'd have to define some form of criterion which determines how suitable people are to vote and then apply it to everyone, which would be an administrative nightmare and deeply unpopular amongst stupid people.

They'd probably oppose it on pragmatic grounds, but yeah I agree it's an inconsistency. (Imagine that, an inconsistent approach in government policy). Of course, the first steps to sort-of abolishing age discrimination have been taken, and I think legislation is coming into force this year which strengthens the law on this issue. Of course by strengthen I mean "makes worse".

Almost all the focus though is on the other end of the spectrum (the old not the young) possibly for the welfare reasons Nod has mentioned, but also because old people vote (in reasonable numbers) compared to the young.

[JonnyBGood]

Voting gives an unfair advantage to old people who have nothing to do with their time and discriminates against the younger go-getting members of society and their high-intensity lives.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by Dr. Octagonecologyst

I hate it when i see posters that say "ladies free before 11".

That just screams out "brothel/whores/rudeboys/badmusic" for me.

That's very true.

[acropolis]

I don't get the point here. Do you think charging men extra money is okay or not okay? What about making blacks sit at the back of the bus? At least that doesn't cost them extra:/

Generally I'd think the answer to be "is this discrimination in the interest of those being 'discriminated against'"? If yes, then it's obviously okay.

[Nodrog]

The elderly should have their voting priviledges revoked, they proved they could not be trusted when they voted to sell the younger generation into slavery. I'd make 55 the cut off point.

edit: Actually this would give too much power to the younger generation who have generally speaking been brainwashed with statist/left wing propaganda as a result of state schooling, and generally dont have much in the way of intelligence, critical thinking skills, or vague economic knowledge. The best solution still seems to be the 'scrapping democracy' one.

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

The elderly should have their voting priviledges revoked, they proved they could not be trusted when they voted to sell the younger generation into slavery. I'd make 55 the cut off point.

edit: Actually this would give too much power to the younger generation who have generally speaking been brainwashed with statist/left wing propaganda as a result of state schooling, and generally dont have much in the way of intelligence, critical thinking skills, or vague economic knowledge. The best solution still seems to be the 'scrapping democracy' one.

adolf doesn't look so bad now, does he?

[Texan]

Originally Posted by Proteus

I don't see how. You can in your example legitimately say "any woman applying for this job is automatically suited to the job more than any man, so excluding men is justified", but you can't say "any 18 year old is automatically more suited to elect MPs than any 17 year old, so excluding 17 year olds from the voting process is justified", because you'd be talking nonsense. You'd have to define some form of criterion which determines how suitable people are to vote and then apply it to everyone, which would be an administrative nightmare and deeply unpopular amongst stupid people.

I think it is unfair and unconstitutional (in the U.S.) for 17 year olds to pay income tax without being allowed to vote.

"No taxation without representation."

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

The best solution still seems to be the 'scrapping democracy' one.

Out of interest, how would you make decisions regarding shared concerns? Some kind of council of the wise?

[Dace]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

Forcing beautiful people to have sex with uglies isnt all that different from forcing the rich to help the poor you know.

This is a good point.

I think i might start arguing it.

Probably at work (where there are two highly ****able* twins) first.



















*female

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Out of interest, how would you make decisions regarding shared concerns? Some kind of council of the wise?

What do you mean "shared concerns"? I favour some kind of constitutional aristocracy, possibly hereditary. I suppose people could be allowed to vote on fairly minor issues, but I can't think of any offhand that would require it.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

What do you mean "shared concerns"?

Well, for instance criminal penalties for certain crimes, how much funding should be given for what would still be public services (say fire brigade, I don't know what exactly you'd advocate remaining state run), externalities where property rights don't scale well (e.g. the atmosphere / oceans), how far copyright/etc should extend. That sort of things. Since you seem to still favour a state with coercive powers (to be used to stop rights violations like murder, assault, copyright-theft) do we not all have a say in how this coercive force is used/managed/funded?

I favour some kind of constitutional aristocracy, possibly hereditary.

Erm....what? Assuming you're not joking, what powers would they hold?

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Well, for instance criminal penalties for certain crimes, how much funding should be given for what would still be public services (say fire brigade, I don't know what exactly you'd advocate remaining state run), externalities where property rights don't scale well (e.g. the atmosphere / oceans), how far copyright/etc should extend. That sort of things

I'm not sure why people should get a vote on any of these matters. Why would anyone want to vote on things like "how to pay the fire service"?

Erm....what? Assuming you're not joking, what powers would they hold?

I'm not joking. They'd maintain the constitution, and manage day to day affairs. Theres not much else that the government would be able to do under laissez faire (foreign affairs would largely be handled by the military/specialist agencies).

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

I'm not sure why people should get a vote on any of these matters. Why would anyone want to vote on things like "how to pay the fire service"?

Becuase they're being forced (I presume, again I maybe wrong) to pay for it? I'm not talking about technical issues (e.g. do we pay them on the 20th of the month or the 27th?) I'm talking about how much risk individuals would be willing to put up with compared to how much they'd have to pay, that sort of thing. Or does the King decide this?

Or things like criminal penalties ; I presume we'd have prisons or some sort of other manner of dealing with criminals. Even if all the prisons were privately run, I presume there'd be some input on how long a sentence would generally last. Or do judges make this sort of thing up themselves?

I'm not joking. They'd maintain the constitution, and manage day to day affairs if necessary.

Manage day-to-day affairs? This is hardly a uncontroversial matter. There'd be considerable disagreements on any issue you can care to mention.

(foreign affairs would largely be handled by the military/specialist agencies).

How would these agencies be funded? Who decides how much funding they'd receive? Etc.

Also, presuming this is a new state, who agrees the original constitution?