And that’s just the extreme case. Technically speaking, any woman whose contribution to household income relative to the average contribution of women to household incomes is lower than her share in household expenditure relative to the average share of all women in household expenditure will not be adequately compensated by a policy that uses direct tax breaks to correct for indirect tax inequalities - with the result that such a policy will only serve to perpetuate inequality, not correct it.

And all that’s assuming that the true gender effect of indirect taxation is accurately measured in calculating the extent of the direct tax break to provide, which is almost sure not to happen if people who call themselves feminists are willing to blindly accept the sop of a direct tax break in compensation for unequal indirect taxes without thinking through the implications and impact of such a policy.

[1] The only way this wouldn’t happen is if the direct tax break for women was entirely made up by an increased incidence of tax on men. Anyone seriously think that’s going to happen?

The overall point is that you shouldn’t give tax breaks on something that’s correlated to disadvantage - you should give tax breaks for the source of the disadvantage itself.

And you still haven’t given us a reason why gender-bias in indirect taxation should be fixed through gender-bias in direct taxation, instead of by correcting the gender bias in indirect taxation itself. I’m all for scrutinizing tax impact from a gender perspective. In fact, I’m suggesting that instead of providing some arbitrary compensation for unspecified and unmeasured inequalities in indirect taxation through tax breaks in direct taxation (your suggestion) we actually scrutinize and measure these alleged inequalities in indirect taxation and fix them at their source, rather than trying for a piecemeal direct tax break that is likely to be both inefficient and ineffective.

women earning lower wages, even when their tax incidence is low are being burdened through indirect taxation. Indirect taxes are not neutral and the impacts needs to be scrutinised from a gender perspective is waht I was pointing out.

“I’m not sure why tax breaks for child-rearing costs should translate into tax breaks for women generally”.

well women, whether they like it or not are esponsible- emotionally, physically and financially for childrearing- across the board so why shouldn’t women have tax breaks in general? the overall point is that you can’t decide tax based only the income that is earned without factoring in other disadvantages that being woman entails.
@bombay dosti
it was good for me to tackle a different subject, glad you found it interesting
@ Shreya Bhandari
yes we have to understand equality in some depth. it is not just formal but needs to tanslate substantively into wome’s lives.

I just found your site and it is really brilliant.

Keep up the good work.

Tom.

Female to male transofrmation is gaining visibility in India. The Mafatlal industries heir Aparna alias Ajay Mafatlal has been a high profile case in this regard. Born as Aparna Mafatlal, he underwent sex change and got rechristened as Ajay mafatlal.

Although modern medical science offers more options to a male to female transsexual as to a large extent the surgery has been perfected, the same doesnt necessarily hold good for female to male transsexuals. If you are serious about this, you need to start by visiting a psychiatrist who will identify your case and rule out other conditions such as schizophrenica and autogenophlylia.

Equal rights for men and women should be asked for when they reach the same level. It is also an indirect way for the men to encourage girls and women to be undergo higher education and consequently take up jobs in tertiary sectors which are highly paid.

This may sound elitist : most people don’t read or post on blogs or read feminist literature and we must use popular culture to fill the gap.

Personally, I do not like the word feminist any more than I would like the word ‘masculinist’ but that is a matter of style and relevance in the current context. There are too many good things associated with the F Word to casually dump it now.

Try Racialicious and Apostate (latter by an exMuslim Pakistani woman) for more articulate arguments than mine.

Read the first paragraph of my last comment again. What kind of recruitment do we want to achieve? Do we want people to join the movement because they care about the issues and subscribe to a clearly defined set of ideas? Or do we want people to join because they saw a phony ad and the people in it looked cool. And how much ’success’ are we likely to achieve with people who are more concerned with appearances than content? We cannot succeed by proselytizing without saying anything.

The point is simply this: if the feminist shorthand is turning away people who otherwise agree with feminist principles, then should we be investing time, money and effort in defending the shorthand, or looking for an alternate shorthand (or a sub-label) that everyone could live with? Do you not see the irony in claiming that a label or shorthand is useful because it provides a convenient way of referring to a whole realm of ideas even as you struggle against the inconvenient stereotypes it comes burdened with?

Oh, and thanks for the link, though it’s very basic isn’t it? Just to be clear - there’s a great deal of feminist writing / theory I agree with. There’s also a good bit that I disagree with, and wouldn’t care to be identified with. Which is why I don’t find the shorthand / label of feminism useful.

Also it may be an idea to add a link explaining “What is feminism” to the curious uninitiated looking at this site and considering your ideas.