And I have yet to hear from anyone on this topic, except Zeality, who's so far out there that I pretty much tune him out at this point, how women are oppressed.
May I be anecdotal for a moment? I work at a biomedical research institution, so I get to hear all sorts of crap come out of the mouths of scientists. One such bit-o-crap happened about a year ago when the chair of a department, after meeting with a potential candidate for a fellowship, commented that she was a poor choice because she was too young and she'd want to have children in a few years.
Now if we define "oppression" as an organized and official means of discriminating against an individual and group, then you are correct: on a national level, women are not oppressed in that limited sense of the word. We might find a similar distinction between hate crimes and acts of genocide; there must be the organized intent for it to qualify. They are heavily discriminated against (the above being a single example), but as there is no formal structure holding them back (just an ad hoc one), they're not "oppressed."
However, I do hope you can realize that this is a fine distinction that most people do not operate under. Exactness of terminology is only useful when that exactness is adopted by the whole group.
If I have read you correctly, you are claiming that there is sexist
discrimination, but not sexist
oppression, in the United States, correct? If so, you and your opponents are largely in agreeance and everything else is quibbling over misunderstood semantics (at least, insofar as this specific topic is concerned). What Z described about the Korean woman a few posts back you'd define as discrimination and he defined as oppression.
Women are not presently treated as equals to men in Western Society. Can everyone (from Truthordeal to Zeality) agree with that statement? Yes? Good. From there we are only arguing over brand names. An apple is what it is; it doesn't matter significantly if you call it an apple or an apfel.
As a side note, however, there are still organizations that are oppressive to women in the United States. The Boy Scouts of America and the Girl Scouts of America are two such organizations that come to mind. This oppression isn't on the federal government level, or indeed even state government levels, but it still exists.
Uboa, the burden of proof lies with the accuser. Always.
Sort of, but it is more accurate to say that the burden of proof lies with the individual making the claim.
Thus, if you make the claim that women are not oppressed, the burden of proof is on you. If others make the claim that women are oppressed, the burden of proof is on them.
I think that burden of proof lies with the one who makes the more outlandish claim.
Nope, because that brings subjectivity into what should otherwise be an objective process. Despite being fearful of derailing the conversation, a creationist finds the claim of evolution to be more outlandish and thus the burden of proof is always on evolutionists. The Evolutionist in turn finds the claims of creationism to be more outlandish and thus the burden of proof is always on the creationist. No dialogue is possible under such a situation.
The burden of proof is with the individual making the claim, regardless of what that claim may be.
When has a woman become president of the US? I think I slept through that history lesson 
I'm curious; we have a black president, so does that mean blacks are no longer oppressed or discriminated against in the US?
Having a president of a particular type (female, black, Icelandic, etc) is only an indicator; it is not definite proof, one way or the other, of discrimination. It is certainly an important consideration, don't get me wrong, but not the end-all be-all.
Several jobs I've had, women have come in to apply and the first question the boss would ask after getting their application would be something like "Was she cute?" This happens with male and female bosses and tends to be more about the stereotype of only having attractive workers so that logically more customers will be attracted to your establishment. It is a blatantly prejudiced practice.
Only if that is not a valid indicator of job performance. Those would seemingly be very valid considerations for a strip club, for example, where the product being marketed is physical appearance. Of course, then there is the question of if strip clubs could exist in a society with no sexism.
I said a woman can become President. After Barack is done, you'll see Hilary take another stab at it. Heck, in 2012, we'll probably see Sarah Palin go for an encore.
I hope Palin will. Obama would really have to f'up (and I mean, so wacky-crazy-pants mess up so that even Democrats will say he was worse than G.W.) for Palin to have a chance in hell of getting even a respectable showing in 2012. Hopefully a firm rejection will get Palin out of the Republican spotlight, so the party might have a chance of making a comeback for the 2016 election (I'm not a fan of a 2 party system as it is; I'd rather not see a 1 party system).
Zeality, the exact same thing happens in reverse. Female on male, and even male on male sexual harassment has been rising steadily over the years.
While I can't talk much about sexual harassment directed towards males, there is a curious amount of discrimination directed at men; the difference is that men tend to accept it without much of a thought, partially because we're trained to not ask questions, and partially because we
like it.
As Faust pointed out, that society accepts the concept that men should feel manly because they get hit on in the workplace is still sexist; men just happen to like it. But what we like isn't necessarily a good thing. It is also socially acceptable to too large of a degree for men to have no responsibility in regards to child bearing. Men get to largely avoid the responsibility if they choose, and a lot of men like it.
I look to common entertainment as an indicator of social norms. Consider the old sit-com "Home Improvement." The episodes followed a fairly standard ritual; husband makes a mistake, pisses wife off, and he then has to figure out what that mistake was and apologize. Message: men are bumbling buffoons who are always in the wrong and must figure out how they are wrong (it also implies that women are always the ones perfectly together and with it). One might notice a degree of similarity with "Everybody Loves Raymond." To be fair, this is vaguely a reverse of the old I Love Lucy show (in which the wife messes up and has to make things right, every single episode, but even then the guys weren't paradigms of virtue).
Though to note, it seems like more recently sit coms have been evening things out a bit better.
The ultimate goal is for there to be no sex-specific treatment of a person unless we're talking about medical care or personal hygiene.
Hmm... it sounds like you are saying that the ultimate goal is to have an asexual society; is that a far interpretation?
