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Sweden’s ‘Gender-Equal’ Snow Clearing Approach Ends In Chaos
Submitted by Mastodon on Mon, 2016-11-14 00:48
Article here. Excerpt:
'Politicians blame a new “gender equal” snow plowing policy for the Swedish capital of Stockholm’s failure to clear roads during the season’s first snow fall.
Stockholm’s center-left government introduced a new “gender equal” approach to clearing the roads of snow last year. The policy states that sidewalks, public transport and bicycle lanes should be cleared before turning attention to the roads. The reason is that women are more likely to use sidewalks while men are overrepresented among commuters driving to work.
When the first major snow storm swept the capital last week, traffic went into a standstill as no one cleared the streets. People couldn’t get to work, schools had to close and commuters were stuck in traffic for hours without moving.'
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Comments
It should mean women clear snow as much as men
A true "gender equal" snow removal policy would require women to actually clear the snow as much as men in Stockholm. Instead of just concentrating on who benefits most from snow removal.
It's utterly asinine what they did here, and it put the local economy and even lives at risk (in terms of emergency services not being able to navigate the streets.).
The fruits of ideology
Ideologically-driven policies rarely result in successes b/c of the nature of ideologies. An ideology is a form of ideal. An ideal by definition represents an unattainable standard, thus aiming for an ideal is already by def'n doomed to failure. But more importantly, ideologies require ppl to deny realities they don't want to recognize, or they cause policy-makers to ignore realities while chasing ideals.
The Russian Bolsheviks also pursued ideology over pragmatic concerns. The result? Ppl starved to death needlessly. Others were murdered in large numbers driven by ideology-based, arbitrary value judgments.
Failing to pragmatically prioritize snow clearance due to an arbitrary ideology is not nearly as bad as starving ppl to death. But yes, what happens if uncleared roads keep an ambulance from getting to a heart attack victim in time to save the person? If ideologues are allowed to progress from small matters to large, well, that's when things get really nasty.