Fourth wave. . .

I was sitting in health class today, listening to my instructor talk about sexual harassment and violence and so forth. One of the factors leading to sexual violence and rape was "Beliefs that demean women and condone aggression," which is all too true, but the instructor went on to say that we see this a lot in other countries, like in the East, where women have to cover every body part and are not allowed to look at men, and "it's way different than here."

Poor, poor instructor. He doesn't know better. And neither do a lot, A LOT of other people. It's not that different here. Women aren't forced to cover their bodies or anything (in fact, they're sometimes expected to do the opposite. . . ), but America is full of beliefs and actions that demean women and condone aggression. EXAMPLE: Porn.

As stated in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "pornography shows men and women taking pleasure in activities that objectify women and treat women as less than human. By depicting female subjects as dehumanized objects, pornography encourages the idea that women can be treated without moral regard — i.e., raped and tortured. [Helen] Longino writes, 'What's wrong with pornography, then, is its degrading and dehumanizing portrayal of women (and not its sexual content). Pornography, by its very nature, requires that women be subordinate to men and mere instruments for the fulfillment of male fantasies.'" (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-sex-markets/#VioAgaWom)

And anyone who thinks that porn is not big in America also doesn't know any better. The porn industry revenues billions of dollars each year. BILLIONS. BILLIONS! (http://mises.org/story/3668)

(Not) enough said.