Friday, July 08, 2011

[puekrhuf] Democracy and the lack of topless women

As has been legally tested a few times, it is generally impossible to create a law that forbids topless women in public but permits shirtless men, because such a law would be gender discrimination.

Nevertheless, we don't see many topless women in public, certainly not at the rate of shirtless men on a hot summer day.  Society has evolved mechanisms outside of the law to coerce a certain behavior, even among people who don't want to behave that way, despite them legally having the right not to have to behave that way.  The most ugly mechanism, in this case is, "you'll get raped, and society will judge the rape to be your fault because you were dressed in a way asking for it."

However, this example was merely inspiration to consider the issue abstractly: there exist successful, pervasive, extra-legal mechanisms for coercing the vast majority of people to behave in a certain way, even if they don't want to.  These mechanisms are written down no where, with no means of challenging it or changing it.

On one hand, this is scary.  What other instances are out there?  Such mechanisms could be used for good or for evil: Murphy's Law predicts they are being used for evil.

One the other hand, this is not unusual.  This is why sociology exists as a discipline of study.  Mores do change over time.

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