The Guardian cares about strip searches...when women are the victims

[Derec]

If you are just talking about gender roles and gender bias, why call it "patriarchy"? Why not "matriarchy" and why not simply "gender roles" or "gender bias"?

Because you get to blame men, even if the traditional gender roles really benefit women. Logic doesn't matter, blaming men for everything does.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

But remember: we live in a patriarchy that hates women, just hates them. Don't let The Guardian's seeming empathetic reporting on female victims distort that truth.

Treating women the same as men is "misogyny". Women must be paid equally (or more) for unequal work, and must be awarded special rights or protections, or otherwise you are just a woman hating agent of the patriarchy!

We do live in society that very much has prejudice based expected roles for both men and women, but that can work to the unfair benefit or detriment to either. Women are taken less seriously and treated as having less agency than men. That impacts both the boardroom and criminal sentencing. Its a real thing. But calling it "patriarchy" is no more sensible than calling it "matriarchy". Its just gender bias, and I think to a large extent it is is inherent to our minds and then furthered by societal pressures and norms.

 

[Jarhyn]

But remember: we live in a patriarchy that hates women, just hates them. Don't let The Guardian's seeming empathetic reporting on female victims distort that truth.

Treating women the same as men is "misogyny". Women must be paid equally (or more) for unequal work, and must be awarded special rights or protections, or otherwise you are just a woman hating agent of the patriarchy!

We do live in society that very much has prejudice based expected roles for both men and women, but that can work to the unfair benefit or detriment to either. Women are taken less seriously and treated as having less agency than men. That impacts both the boardroom and criminal sentencing. Its a real thing. But calling it "patriarchy" is no more sensible than calling it "matriarchy". Its just gender bias, and I think to a large extent it is is inherent to our minds and then furthered by societal pressures and norms.

Patriarchy is what we call it because it is a systematic enforced reduction of agency by men, against women, and the echoing effects of that relationship over many thousands of years.

And now, we call it that as a proper noun. If you want to coin a new term to more accurately describe it as disegalitarian society, go for it, but I doubt it will catch on.

Maybe quit whinging about what we call it and start working alongside the rest of us to FIX it.

 

[laughing dog]

If you are just talking about gender roles and gender bias, why call it "patriarchy"? Why not "matriarchy" and why not simply "gender roles" or "gender bias"?

Because you get to blame men, even if the traditional gender roles really benefit women. Logic doesn't matter, blaming men for everything does.

Recognizing that current social norms and social structures were designed, implemented and evolved occurred during the times when men were basically in charge. That is not blaming anyone- that is acknowledging history. Acknowledging history is logical.

 

[laughing dog]

Really? You think 8 year olds should be strip searched like 35 year olds?

Under the same conditions or with the same evidence against them, yes. Yes I do. Why shouldn't they be? Do want their bodies to be the primary place to stash whatever is being hidden?

I can understand why someone who would wrongly believe that the bodies are the same at those ages, along with the emotional and intellectual maturities are the same would think so. But I cannot understand why anyone would think that an 8 year would be as able to understand and deal with a strip search by a stranger as a 38 year old.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Maybe quit whinging about what we call it and start working alongside the rest of us to FIX it.

1. WTF is "whinGing"?

2. I am working to fix gender biases along with other group level identity politics biases. Are you?

3. I've seen little interest from "Feminists" in joining me or other egalitarians in this effort, rather than working to oppose men and declaring masculinity toxic etc. Try to speak up about any gender bias issue facing a man and prepare to be attacked as a misogynist simply for raising the issue.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Really? You think 8 year olds should be strip searched like 35 year olds?

Under the same conditions or with the same evidence against them, yes. Yes I do. Why shouldn't they be? Do want their bodies to be the primary place to stash whatever is being hidden?

I can understand why someone who would wrongly believe that the bodies are the same at those ages, along with the emotional and intellectual maturities are the same would think so. But I cannot understand why anyone would think that an 8 year would be as able to understand and deal with a strip search by a stranger as a 38 year old.

So offer them counselling or something. Don't make them immune from the search if the search is warranted by the evidence. And if the 38 year old is especially vulnerable (and some are) then offer them counseling too.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I can understand why someone who would wrongly believe that the bodies are the same at those ages, along with the emotional and intellectual maturities are the same would think so. But I cannot understand why anyone would think that an 8 year would be as able to understand and deal with a strip search by a stranger as a 38 year old.

So offer them counselling or something. Don't make them immune from the search if the search is warranted by the evidence. And if the 38 year old is especially vulnerable (and some are) then offer them counseling too.

Any search by the police that requires counseling should qualify under "illegal search and seizure".

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Maybe quit whinging about what we call it and start working alongside the rest of us to FIX it.

1. WTF is "whinGing"?

2. I am working to fix gender biases along with other group level identity politics biases. Are you?

Maybe if you bothered to read what Jarhyn wrote, you wouldn't ask such a thoughtless question.

The fact of the matter is, this kind of reporting DOES have an effect, a pointedly patriarchal one: it implies through selective omission that women are to be treated as fragile victims. This has an overall negative impact on women, at the same time as it places an undue burden on men to "man up" and repress or ignore trauma that happens to them.

 

[Gun Nut]

I used to get paid to watch people get undressed.
You may be surprised to know that there are very few states that actually disallow surveillance in retail store dressing rooms... like 10 of them, maybe.
I used to be an undercover shopper... except I shopped for shoplifters. 50% watching the cash register, 20% chasing the smash and grab guy down the block, and 30% watching young girls get undressed in the dressing room where they attempted to conceal stolen property.
The only difference between this and that is in this case, they don't know they are being observed, and in that case, they do.

 

[KeepTalking]

Maybe quit whinging about what we call it and start working alongside the rest of us to FIX it.

1. WTF is "whinGing"?

Good question:
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=whinge&s=g

 

[laughing dog]

I can understand why someone who would wrongly believe that the bodies are the same at those ages, along with the emotional and intellectual maturities are the same would think so. But I cannot understand why anyone would think that an 8 year would be as able to understand and deal with a strip search by a stranger as a 38 year old.

So offer them counselling or something. Don't make them immune from the search if the search is warranted by the evidence.

Where did I advocate immunity from strip searching? For some reason you think young children are no different than adults when it comes to their bodies and their ability to understand what is happening. Anyone with children or who has had to take care of children understands that children are different. No one who actually has had long term relationships with children would seriously advocate "counselling" as a panacea for strip searching them like we strip search adults.

 

[Metaphor]

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ed-more-than-100-girls-including-12-year-olds

The New South Wales police performed strip-searches on more than 100 girls in the last three years, including two 12-year-olds.

Following the NSW police watchdog’s investigation into the allegedly illegal strip-search of a 16-year-old girl at a music festival last year, data obtained under freedom of information laws show she was just one of 122 girls under the age of 18 who have been forced to undergo the controversial practice by police since 2016.

The revelations come as the NSW police watchdog revealed last week that it investigated six separate allegations of misuse of strip-search powers by police last year, and is likely to place the practice under increased scrutiny.
...



The data, obtained by the Redfern Legal Centre, reveals that since 2016 there have been 3,919 strip-searches by police on women in NSW. Young women aged 25 and under accounted for almost half the searches, while the oldest woman strip-searched was 72 years old.

Most shockingly, the data shows that two 12-year-olds and eight 13-year-olds have been strip-searched by police since 2016.
“Girls as young as 12 and 13, some just finishing primary school, are being taken by police to a strange place and ordered by someone with a huge amount of power to take off their clothes,” Samantha Lee, the head of police accountability at the Redfern Legal Centre said.
“There is no doubt these young women would have been scared, some terrified and most having no idea of their legal rights.”
...
(more at link)

I was curious about the focus on women and girls in the article, and I wondered whether strip-searching was a gendered issue that affected women more.

Doing some digging,l I found the report that contains the numbers in the article. And, I was half-right. It is a gendered issue, but in the other direction. Three quarters of all strip searches in the time period were on men, and 59% of strip searches on children under 18 were on boys.

But remember: we live in a patriarchy that hates women, just hates them. Don't let The Guardian's seeming empathetic reporting on female victims distort that truth.

Well thank god that newspapers never sensationalize anything to grab headlines or to bring attention to the subject! And are immune to titillation being any part of their reporting.

From a US perspective, strip searches are problematic, particularly when they involve minors. Unfortunately my sense is that they are more common than before. Or perhaps they are just being tracked more than they used to be.

The report (and not the newspaper story) shows they've increased a lot over the last decade. My feeling is that 2006 in NSW wasn't a lawless hellhole and the number of strip searches may now be too excessive.

But, as I imply, my curiosity is really about the reporting spin. The Guardian knows that if it wants to make an audience care about something, make it about women as victims.

 

[Metaphor]

So, mysoginistic spin aside, you bring up an interesting g topic.

Please demonstrate what I wrote that was misogynistic or withdraw the claim.

As to the differences in numbers, you haven't corrected for police contact in general: of police contacts, more police contacts are had by men. So to get a good understanding, one would have to correct for that. If women are stripped more per contact, then it is still exactly the case that women are more likely to be abused when encountering an officer.

Whether one has to 'correct' for that depends on one's philosophy about it in the first place. Certainly Black Lives Matter does not 'correct' for the fact that black people have higher contact with the police.

However, 'correcting' for it would show us evidence that may point to bias. For example, the report shows that as a result of strip searches, men are slightly more likely to be found with contraband on their person. This shows that police either have their 'criminal activity detector' calibrated better for men (since they produce more true positives when searching men), or women are better at concealing contraband before a strip search, or that police target women unfairly, or any other number of hypotheses which this data won't distinguish between.

 

[Metaphor]

Perhaps I am missing something that goes in Australia. But in the US, all strip searches are performed by women (if for a woman) so I would expect there to be no issue of modesty. Or if a man does perform a strip search on a woman (or vice versa) it would have to be an out of ordinary event where someone thought they were in serious danger. Is it normal for a guy to be strip searching a woman? As far as strip searching young people, how is that any different than adults? Its still going to be the same sex doing the search, or am I missing something here?

Yes, strip searches in Australia must be by an officer of the same sex, unless there are extraordinary and time-sensitive exceptions (like the imminent destruction of evidence).

 

[Metaphor]

is stripping necessary at all?!

Probably not in the US because we like concealed guns here.

But in Australia they have made guns illegal for normal people, hence the need to search. Hmm... maybe they should change their gun laws more like the US so that your modesty is not offended so much.

When people are strip searched in Australia and contraband is found, about 80% of the time it's illicit drugs, and a small percentage of the time it's a restricted weapon.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Perhaps I am missing something that goes in Australia. But in the US, all strip searches are performed by women (if for a woman) so I would expect there to be no issue of modesty. Or if a man does perform a strip search on a woman (or vice versa) it would have to be an out of ordinary event where someone thought they were in serious danger. Is it normal for a guy to be strip searching a woman? As far as strip searching young people, how is that any different than adults? Its still going to be the same sex doing the search, or am I missing something here?

Yes, strip searches in Australia must be by an officer of the same sex, unless there are extraordinary and time-sensitive exceptions (like the imminent destruction of evidence).

How do they justify this must be by the same sex rule? Seems a bit hetero-cis-normative to me!

 

[Metaphor]

How do they justify this must be by the same sex rule? Seems a bit hetero-cis-normative to me!

It certainly IS hetero-cis-normative, but the police can't change that rule practically speaking, and in any case it would be for nothing. Nothing would please the real radicals. The loonies-even-for-a-feminist (see Australia's Monday night ABC program Q&A transcript here: https://www.abc.net.au/qanda/2019-04-11/11646878) want to abolish police. They think police can't be reformed, and, like any airhead space-cadet anarchist, they think the role of the police can be replaced by 'community'.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Something to keep in mind here. The outrage over strip searches is much more so when the searchee is female than when they are male. This article is simply going along with how the average person feels.

 

[J842P]

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ed-more-than-100-girls-including-12-year-olds

The New South Wales police performed strip-searches on more than 100 girls in the last three years, including two 12-year-olds.

Following the NSW police watchdog’s investigation into the allegedly illegal strip-search of a 16-year-old girl at a music festival last year, data obtained under freedom of information laws show she was just one of 122 girls under the age of 18 who have been forced to undergo the controversial practice by police since 2016.

The revelations come as the NSW police watchdog revealed last week that it investigated six separate allegations of misuse of strip-search powers by police last year, and is likely to place the practice under increased scrutiny.
...



The data, obtained by the Redfern Legal Centre, reveals that since 2016 there have been 3,919 strip-searches by police on women in NSW. Young women aged 25 and under accounted for almost half the searches, while the oldest woman strip-searched was 72 years old.

Most shockingly, the data shows that two 12-year-olds and eight 13-year-olds have been strip-searched by police since 2016.
“Girls as young as 12 and 13, some just finishing primary school, are being taken by police to a strange place and ordered by someone with a huge amount of power to take off their clothes,” Samantha Lee, the head of police accountability at the Redfern Legal Centre said.
“There is no doubt these young women would have been scared, some terrified and most having no idea of their legal rights.”
...
(more at link)

I was curious about the focus on women and girls in the article, and I wondered whether strip-searching was a gendered issue that affected women more.

Doing some digging,l I found the report that contains the numbers in the article. And, I was half-right. It is a gendered issue, but in the other direction. Three quarters of all strip searches in the time period were on men, and 59% of strip searches on children under 18 were on boys.

But remember: we live in a patriarchy that hates women, just hates them. Don't let The Guardian's seeming empathetic reporting on female victims distort that truth.

So, mysoginistic spin aside, you bring up an interesting g topic.

The fact of the matter is, this kind of reporting DOES have an effect, a pointedly patriarchal one: it implies through selective omission that women are to be treated as fragile victims. This has an overall negative impact on women, at the same time as it places an undue burden on men to "man up" and repress or ignore trauma that happens to them.

Too much empathy can indeed be patriarchal, and patronizing, and a better feminist would seek to report on men being abused in this way as well, as it shows empathy and frees men from the structures of patriarchy as much as it frees women.

As to the differences in numbers, you haven't corrected for police contact in general: of police contacts, more police contacts are had by men. So to get a good understanding, one would have to correct for that. If women are stripped more per contact, then it is still exactly the case that women are more likely to be abused when encountering an officer.

Men are also victims of the patriarchy.

Good lord, you are almost like a caricature hand-crafted by the right wing.