[Dadding]

I saw the words 'Banned Halloween costumes' so I had to chime in as a Canadian university grad student. According to our student union, using henna as a non-Southeast Asian is racist, and styling your hair into cornrows and dreadlocks as a non-African descent person is racist. Also their handy-dandy Halloween costume flowchart says that as a white person, you can't dress up as anyone who isn't white for Halloween. Little white kid watches black panther and wants to dress up in his suit? No - "its racist". A mother in our lab got reprimanded for dressing her kids as characters from Moana because she was appropriating that culture.

I think things like that are ridiculous. As to the rest of the comments here, I'm not smart enough to argue for either side.

[Anomander]

You can always count on Dalhousie to make a mess of any situation (social or otherwise). Lots of knee-jerk behaviour on their part to mask their ineptness on issues like William Sandeson or the dentistry group fiasco from a couple years ago.

[Aptorian]

I'll try to get around to replying to Studlocks post later but first:

 Grief, on 24 November 2018 - 11:51 AM, said:

Also to chime in on the pay-gap point specifically:

I don't think it's a very good argument to write it off by saying "it's because of people's choices". Choices aren't made in a vacuum. If women are more likely to choose lower paying jobs then we should ask why that is, and whether we're pressuring men to care more about wages for example. And we also have to question why some jobs pay less than othes; especially given research showing that jobs start to devalue after women start doing them. That is, it doesn't appear to simply be a case of women choosing professions that pay less well.

On top of this, there is a huge discrepancy in the impact of children on wages. I do think that is something we can and should work to address: by encouaging paternity leaves, working against certain gender norms, and more fundamentally altering how we view and treat labour. And just to show the extent this has not been alleviated by current policies:



Source: Kleven, Landais and Søgaard, Children and Gender Inequality: Evidence from Denmark (2018).

You're right, choices aren't made in a vacuum. There certainly are gender equality issues in terms of fields women are discouraged from persuing because of culture and societal pressure. No place is perfect, including Denmark.

But there's often also counter arguments to popular talking points that I see getting ignored. There's a tendency of looking at statistics instead of individual choices. Most notably the 70 cents to the dollar arguments.

I found a random English article that refers to the USA. Ignore it's click bait title:

https://www.cbsnews....-complete-myth/

It makes the following observations.

Men are more likely to work in dangerous and solitary fields, like oil rigs, machine rooms, trave g, etc. Where as women are more likely to work in care giving and education fields.

Men on average work more hours a week and more often work weekends and weird hours. Probably an artifact of mom staying more with the kids.

Men are more likely to specialize in more lucrative areas of their field then women.

Generally men prioritize money where women tend to prioritize shorter work weeks, proximity to home, fulfillment, autonomy, and safety.

The article also links to this 2009 report

An Analysis of Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women

From the page 15 summary

Quote

Extant economic research has identified numerous factors that contribute to the gender wage gap. Many of the factors relate to differences in the choices and behavior of women and men in balancing their work, personal, and family lives. These factors include, most notably, the occupations and industries in which they work, and their human capital development, work experience, career interruptions, and motherhood. Other factors are sources of wage adjustments that compensate specific groups of workers for benefits or duties that disproportionately impact them. Such factors for which empirical evidence has been developed include health insurance, other fringe benefits, and overtime work. It is not possible to produce a reliable quantitative estimate of the aggregate portion of the raw gender wage gap for which the explanatory factors that have been identified account. Nevertheless, it can confidently be concluded that, collectively, those factors account for a major portion and, possibly, almost all of the raw gender wage gap.

Now this where a feminist would say that the patriarchy forces women into these low paying choices while it rewards men for being assholes. Where as I would say in some cases this is true, like women being forced out of computer science in the 80s, but a lot of these issues are natural, healthy artifacts of societal and even biological roles. All the education and nurturing in the world will not change the way we're hard wired.

I know feminists hate the biological determination argument but some times it's okay to just say men and women er different and not make gender difference more problematic than it necessarily is.

If you look at individuals in the same field, who make the same choices, then that wage gap is less likely to exist.

Edit: forgot to add the Danish angle;

According to this analysis which unfortunately is in Danish, Denmark ranks at the top of European countries when it comes to perceived gender equality:

Analyse: Hvor udbredt er kønsdiskrimination i Danmark? / Analysis: How widespread is gender discrimination in Denmark

http://kraka.org/sit...i_danmark_0.pdf

According to the analysis 25 % think gender descrimination is widespread. But only 3.2% Have experienced discrimination. In a survey about traditional family values, like men should be the bread winner, women should take for the kids, etc. Only 22% of respondents agreed, this is compared to average of 42% for the median of European countries.

In comparison to the rest of Europe Denmark is leading when comparing the ratio of reported incidents if discrimination to the views on traditional gender roles. Now this is of course not conclusive, it's just a small report but Denmark is in no way a misogynist hell hole.

We're doing pretty damn well.

This post has been edited by Alternative Goose: 26 November 2018 - 04:22 PM

[Aptorian]

 Studlock, on 23 November 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

 Alternative Goose, on 21 November 2018 - 05:48 PM, said:

Now I know that feminist waves is actually a misnomer and there's counter movements within their sphere but I'm just going to generalize this and address this like all feminists are fourth wave and beyond.

I don't believe that modern fourth or fifth wave feminism is pro-men, nor am I actually sure that they're pro-women. I think they believe some people are more equal than others. I think they're a splintered group of confused and angry people who lack a grasp on their own identity so they spend their time telling other people how to be a human being. They spend as much time fighting one another as they do fighting for one another.

They attack men for sexualizing women. But they also attack women for wanting to be sexualized. They hate the way we're programmed biologically, so they make up socio-constructivistic windmills they can fight.

They act like social justice warriors picking fights on the internet but they get upset when the internet punches back. They consider social media an open forum but please don't speak back to them because that kind of micro-aggression triggers them.

They create their own language that they select from feminist theory and other sociological, ethnological academia, which they use to quantify the world they live in. They then get angry and confused when other people don't know what patriarchy, cisgender, rape culture, hegemonic masculinity, etc. means. It's suddenly problematic when other people dont check their privilege or the white, male, straight guilt they were born with as an original sin.

Which leads me to my original gripe. I don't think feminism at its end point stops with equality. I think it will, and in some way already does, erode men's rights. I think that for some feminists this is a real culture and gender war, with real hatred for men underneath that justice for women they crave.

Kill all male babies is not said in jest.

... I'll just let that hang for a second.

... And then I'll say that's pretty far fetched. That's just baseless fearmongering. Of course I don't think that the vast majority of people who identity as feminists think this way. But I do believe that there's erosion of trust and understanding that comes from putting labels on yourself and others.

I find the idea of a man calling himself feminist to be preposterous. It's like a sheep dressing up as a wolf.

So no, I don't consider myself feminist. Equalitarian? Egalitarian? More like but I think the meninist have already tainted these terms. Maybe I'm a gender centrist then?

If anything I'd be a second-wave feminist. We already won which leads me to the other problem you guys had. Calling Denmark Post-feminist.

We're definitely post-feminist. The goal posts are just shifting. The bigger issues are conquered, now we're sanding off edges.

Is there a wage gap, yes. Is there a disparity between the distribution of genders between job types? Yes. But I think most of us know that debate and the counter arguments.

The wage gap on a wider scale is affected by the types of jobs women and men take. That's not patriarchy that's picking the jobs we're suited for and economic realism. A male construction worker doesn't necessarily work harder than a female kindergarten teacher but the employer is able to pay differently. Maternity leave delays career paths but what do you want an employer to do? Promote you for taking time off? In Denmark this is alleviated by men beginning to have the same maternity rights as women, just as an example.

As for the whole misogyny issue, I don't know what to say. This post is already a mile long. Maybe Primateus wants to cut in and tell me I am full of shit but Denmark is not a rape culture and I can't think of a right men have that women don't.

If I am always so mean, it precisely because of posts like this Apt. This isn't a well argued post, but you seem to think it is. You make a bunch of claims, support none of them, and then get made when this is point out as if it is incredulous thing. I'll go point-by-point in the most neutral language possible.

Okay, let's pick this back up. I was hoping you'd edit in some numbers in my post because I'm not always sure what you're responding to specifically.

Anyway first off all, take a deep breath. I am not attacking you, I'm engaging you intellectually. Maybe not as intellectually or academically as you'd like but it's okay to not assume the worst about the people you disagree with.

 Studlock, on 23 November 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

1. correct, so your generalization here of '4th-wave' feminism is, from the outset, a mostly rhetorical and flawed endeavor which more concerned with pushing a political feeling (feminism has gone too far) and not with attending to the reality of the situation.

No I think my description was pretty succinct.

I don't think feminism as a whole has gone too far. I do however believe lots of feminists do go too far. There's that smug aura of superiority you can detect in the way they post. As though they have a monopoly on truth. *Nudge, nudge, wink, wink*

 Studlock, on 23 November 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

2. fifth-wave feminism doesn't exist--it's not a thing. '4th-wave' feminism, in-so-much it exists is concerned primarily with sexual violence acted towards both men and women, with women taking up the majority of the screen time because the majority of sexual violence happens to women. If it seems to be 'anti-men' it is only because the vast majority of sexual violence is conducted by men onto women, or children. That you can look at a huge movement like Metoo and come away with idea that '4th-wave' feminism is anti-men is telling me about your underlining motivated reasoning.

Of course there's fifth wave feminism. You can Google it

It's not a solidified grouping yet but the concept is out there. I've heard people on the radio identifying as such. People can call themselves anything I guess.

 Studlock, on 23 November 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

3. the attack men for objectifying women. This is wholly different from 'sexualizing' people in general. The act of dehumanizing someone, of turning that person into a thing to be used is not 'biologically' programmed in us in anyway--because to construct humans as wholly biological is not only incorrect, empirically (population genetics, biological anthropology, and so on have all demonstrated that we fundamentally biocultural beings, that their exists in a complex and interweaving relationship between our culture and our biology, so much that is doesn't make sense to separate them), it is gross, in my opinion, ideological justification to excuse the actions of rapists. We, for the most post, as all sexual beings--denying that is silly, by trying to conflate that with how we, as a society, treat women is horrible and the text book definition of rape culture. Have you never had an actual passionate sexual relationship with someone based in emotional desire as well as physical attraction?

First of all you're injecting a lot of typical debate in there that I never touched upon in my post but I find it strange you bring up biocultural beings as a term and then in the same breath reject biology as a significant part of gender interaction.

You use terms like objectify and dehumanize, where I might use the terms desire or fantasize about. Sure, there's a lot of Western culture that treats beautiful women as marketing products but I've found that feminists often take this too far. Any kind of sexual desire and attempt at selling sex in a can is construed as being problematic. To the point that feminists some times adopt this weirdly Victorian attitude to other women's behavior, chiding them for dressing too slutty or actually desiring men's attention.

Hearing some feminists talk about prostitutes or pornography makes me wonder whether they really do support women's right to do what they want.

Are we just going to ignore the concept of sexual desire? Of men and women simply following their biological design? I for one unapologetically enjoy the sight of a beautiful woman. That's not dehumanizing or objectifying. That's life afferming.

God bless the inventor of the bikini.

 Studlock, on 23 November 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

4. lmao says the guy who is willing to vote from a far-right party because its less 'politically incorrect'--its amazing the amount of cognitive dissonance is possible when you set your mind to it

It's also amazing the mental leaps of logic you can make when you disagree on something. I never said I vote far right, I said it makes me feel like it. Typically I vote for the most far left party in protest.

 Studlock, on 23 November 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

5. this is true of literally every single academic culture in existence--by necessity. Specialized language decided useful by experts in their field to describe something, but that isn't the issue here. When I use the term 'hegemonic masculinity', even in a neutral context, you'll get a number of people angrily disagreeing with it on simply fact that it is examining something that they believe shouldn't be examined, not because it is being examined in a way they disagree with it. MRAs don't care that men use more violent means to conduct self-harm, and thus kill themselves more often when doing so unless its used to tell women that they don't have it as bad as men (which isn't true, women actually attempt suicide more often, just in less destructive ways, and men do because hegemonic masculinity). I've explain these terms as much as I possible could in any setting thought possible, and it doesn't really matter, because the underlining complaint isn't the language, by the study, the critique. If you want a glossary I will provide one is neutral language explaining in way that is plain exactly what those words mean.

You miss my point. By creating your own vocabulary, or borrowing another field's, you also construct an academic world separate from the mundane one. By creating a feministic perspective, everything is filtered through a lense. Any interaction between man and woman has to be slotted into the model of gender politics. Man punches a woman? Must be misogyny. Woman paid less than a man? Patriarchal supression. Somebody tells a sexist joke? Marginalized women, etc.

There are other outlying factors that explain and compel human behavior. Everything isn't always about gender and, more importantly, a lot of people are completely oblivious to these perceived elements.

 Studlock, on 23 November 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

6. men's right are eroded, but not by feminists, but by other men. This is what I don't get--men are constantly abused by other men because they are genderized to act that way, and yet somehow its the feminists fault for point this out? Its an absurdity. Who hurts men the most, empirically? Other fucking men. Men rape other men more often than women rape men. Men violently hurt other men far more often than men. Judges who are men are more likely to favour women in child custody cases because of stereotypical ideal of who raises children and who doesn't. And we only know this because feminism--which from the last 3 decades have been pretty much the only group of who give a shit about what masculinity does to men.

I think you're pulling a what aboutism now. You're basically saying, we're not bad, men are so bad, they're even bad for themselves! Stop hitting yourself!

What I am referring to is stories like what we've discussed in the PC culture thread. The insinuation that men are dangerous. That women need safe spaces at schools. That men can't go to kindergartens and preschools because of stranger danger, etc.

 Studlock, on 23 November 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

7. so you've just made this horrible thing up, placed it at the feet of feminists, and followed it up 'well there comes an erosion of trust with certain labels' without a lick of self-awareness. Wild.

I'm assuming this is a reference to kill all male babies? Are you really going to be this obtuse?

You've never seen any writing from or interviews with radical feminists? Or even better radical lesbians? Never heard a feminist say that any sex with any men is a form of rape? All men are evil? What about SCUM? Society for Cutting Up Men?

Like I said, of course most normal feminists don't think like that, but there's always the fruity people that stand out.

 Studlock, on 23 November 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

8. which speaks greatly to your view of gender relations, and exactly why men need feminism just as much as women. As I've said before, proudly declaring yourself a egalitarianist without first understanding why we are unequal is claptrap. I understand that you think we are already equal, but as was point out in this very thread, Denmark has some of the worst gender relations in Europe according to the UN. The reality of situation is punching you in face and your response is 'why am I bleeding, weird, must be nothing of note'. Denmark isn't 'post-feminist', its not even feminists by any coherent definition of that.

Can you direct me at this UN report? Can't see it in this thread, if it's been posted.

My point about egalitarianismas a standpoint is that, if you work out from the stance that everyone is equal, you'll work to keep things that way. Where as I'd argue that if you start out from the position that women are the underdog, you're setting up for a fight. Feminism in my view easily becomes an us versus them phenomenon. It clouds people's minds and all they see are enemies.

 Studlock, on 23 November 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

9. love this justification crap, at the end of the day, you're all the same, with the same excuses.

What exactly is it that you think I am and who am I apart of? The MRA?

 Studlock, on 23 November 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

We are socialized into different roles in our society--and this isn't just on issues of gender, though its much more obvious there. This is class and race and religion even. It isn't a mistake them roles women are socialized into pay less, and that they are activately punished getting pregnant--not accepted as a fact of life, but punished. I mean it doesn't surprise me that you're also a bootlicker on top of everything else, but no, the employer shouldn't punish you because of who you are, in fact that is engraved in so many 'liberal' states that it should be an obvious conclusion. Allowing men to take time off (a product of feminism) is a start, but it isn't enough.

I'm gonna ignore the weird bootlicker accusation and question how terrible you actually think life in Denmark is? Have you been watching FOX News!

I've just commented on this above in a reply to Grief but are you sure the roles we take are purely a product of evil? You don't like biological determination but you can't change the differences x and y chromosomes and hormones make. The genders are designed to be better at certain tasks. That's not patriarchy that's human evolution. Luckily we also have free will but I am not sure the gender roles we fall into are a social construct alone.

 Studlock, on 23 November 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

10. well, of course you don't, that has been made clear. Rape culture is pretty much universal, and that you actively deny that rape isn't a problem in Denmark, despite it having some of the worse in Europe, is a product of that, because what you're essentially doing is running apologia for the current states of affair despite them being bad for women.

Have I denied rape is a problem in Denmark?

Any case of rape is a problem but just because somebody gets raped does not equal rape culture. It's a hysterical and insulting suggestion that Western culture is a rape culture. India is a rape culture. Denmark is the opposite of that.

This post has been edited by Alternative Goose: 26 November 2018 - 09:26 PM

[rant]

 Alternative Goose, on 26 November 2018 - 03:59 PM, said:

You're right, choices aren't made in a vacuum. There certainly are gender equality issues in terms of fields women are discouraged from persuing because of culture and societal pressure. No place is perfect, including Denmark.

But there's often also counter arguments to popular talking points that I see getting ignored. There's a tendency of looking at statistics instead of individual choices. Most notably the 70 cents to the dollar arguments.

I found a random English article that refers to the USA. Ignore it's click bait title:

https://www.cbsnews....-complete-myth/

It makes the following observations.

Men are more likely to work in dangerous and solitary fields, like oil rigs, machine rooms, trave g, etc. Where as women are more likely to work in care giving and education fields.

Men on average work more hours a week and more often work weekends and weird hours. Probably an artifact of mom staying more with the kids.

Men are more likely to specialize in more lucrative areas of their field then women.

Generally men prioritize money where women tend to prioritize shorter work weeks, proximity to home, fulfillment, autonomy, and safety.

I feel the need to point out that these are in fact all statistics--aggregate data (group trends) utilized to summarize microdata (individual choices). Just stats you prefer lol.

 Alternative Goose, on 26 November 2018 - 03:59 PM, said:

Now this where a feminist would say that the patriarchy forces women into these low paying choices while it rewards men for being assholes. Where as I would say in some cases this is true, like women being forced out of computer science in the 80s, but a lot of these issues are natural, healthy artifacts of societal and even biological roles. All the education and nurturing in the world will not change the way we're hard wired.

This feminist would actually say that he thinks the patriarchy rewards men (literally) for buying into the belief that they need to be the primary/sole breadwinner for their family. That their REASON FOR EXISTENCE is to provide for their wife and kids--even if it kills them (literally). That as fewer and fewer options remain open to them, it is THEIR DUTY AS MEN to walk into a coal mine, even if it has a horrendous safety record. It is better for their family to risk death earning an extra $2/hour then for them to be safe and present. This critical theorist would point out that until recently (and even now) men who enter non-traditionally masculine jobs are often derided and used as sources of humor (e.g. the best example I can think of at the moment is Ben from The Mindy project, who is a 'male nurse')--often by men ourselves.

The system (patriarchy) doesn't reward men for being assholes (well, tangentially sure), it rewards them for living up to the ideals of masculinity that it (the patriarchy) puts forward. It reinforces them every time one of us thinks it is strange that that girl is a mechanic, or that guy is a secretary (seriously, think about secretaries.....and think about how weird it is that they could be men.....then pinch yourself and ask WHY THE FUCK CANT A SECRETARY BE A MAN).

Feminism got us paternity leave (to differing degrees). It didn't do that by making women more equal. It got us that by broadening the definition of what a man/father/husband is to his family, making it acceptable (barely I would argue tbh) for a father to take time off work to be with his newborn. Beyond the basic decency of wanting to help people when they say they need help, THATs why I'm a feminist.

You....forgot (being charitable)..... the article Grief posted. I'm going to repost, sans paywall, as I think it is a really telling piece of work.
http://www.statistic...8.2.levanon.pdf
I'm not an economist/econometrist, but a lot of the stats they use are similar to what I use. At first glance, it seems like a solid piece of work--I'll run it by the economists/econometrists tmo at work and let you know their opinion on it. That said, it is thoughtprovoking.

If any of the 'male' jobs you defined above were infiltrated by women, and we saw the value of that pay decrease, it would reinforce the idea that women are paid somewhat less than men by virtue of being women. If I'm being honest, I actually suspect that is more of a market factor (not letting it slide--market factors are much easier to address than biological ones)--e.g the first company that starts bringing women in at 75/dollar of men for the same quality of work will be extremely successful--their competitors will either mirror that move, or start devaluaing mens wages....ultimately lowering the aggregate salary of that position.

 Alternative Goose, on 26 November 2018 - 03:59 PM, said:

I know feminists hate the biological determination argument but some times it's okay to just say men and women er different and not make gender difference more problematic than it necessarily is.

I know non-feminists hate the social influence argument, but some times its okay to just say men and women are not as different as we're led to believe, and acknowledge that artificial gender differences are problematic.

I'll be the first to admit that there are structural differences (neurological, biological, etc.) between men and women. BUT, I dunno how important those differences actually are. Draw two normal distributions, with the 2nd ..lets say a full standard deviation to the right of the 1st. The 1st is the male distribution of some characteristic (crushing cans), the 2nd is the female distribution. On average women are better can crushers, by a full standard deviation. BUT the difference between the BEST AND WORST female can crusher is larger than the difference between average male can crusher and the BEST female can crusher. In that case, as a guy who needs to get some fucking cans crushed everyday, I shouldnt hire only women to meet my crushed can quotas. I should hire everyone I can, as on average, my worker distribution of can crusher skill will be the average of those (TBH I'm a bit drunk, someone sober check the stats on this lol).

(Also, please keep in mind that few group differences are as significantly different as an entire sd).

Now, compound this with the fact that this innate biological difference in can crushing isnt actually as innate as we always believed. SURE, in a purely biologically test (meaning biology is THE ONLY FACTOR that differentiates men and women) women crush cans slightly better than men. Now imagine that historically men arent allowed to leave the house to crush cans, crushing cans is frowned upon even when they are in the house, and when they go to school are taught that crushing cans is a feminine biological trait and men just arent as good at it--so even if you are good at it, just give up (meanwhile women are encouraged to crush cans WHEREVER the fuck they go). Further, social and religious reasons argue men shouldn't be crushing cans! That said, people recognize that some men love crushing cans, and think they should get the chance to do it. HOWEVER, given the "reality" that men are so much worse at crushing cans, it wouldn't be "fair" to have them compete against women. So they should have their own league in which to crush cans against other men. Ignore the fact that some of the men ARE SO MUCH BETTER at crushing cans than many of the women. By rights of their gender, they can't enter that league. Now imagine that differential is continued for several generations. We have a "biological determination"

I'm not explicitly saying Serena Williams is the undisputed greatest tennis player of all time. I'm just saying that if she had been continuously exposed to the same levels of competition as Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer, she'd undoubtedly be the best tennis player in the world.

Basically, what I'm saying is that kids experience deep and profound selection effects -selection effects determined entirely by their sex. Until those selection effects are addressed in someway, the causal pathway between biology and whatever characteristic you're focusing on is completely muddled. Until you can show me a group of kids who grew up in a social vacuum with only biology, I'm not going to buy any gendered argument that starts with: 'biological determinants'.

This post has been edited by rant: 27 November 2018 - 01:19 AM

[Grief]

 Alternative Goose, on 26 November 2018 - 03:59 PM, said:

Men are more likely to work in dangerous and solitary fields, like oil rigs, machine rooms, trave g, etc. Where as women are more likely to work in care giving and education fields.

Men on average work more hours a week and more often work weekends and weird hours. Probably an artifact of mom staying more with the kids.

Men are more likely to specialize in more lucrative areas of their field then women.

Generally men prioritize money where women tend to prioritize shorter work weeks, proximity to home, fulfillment, autonomy, and safety.

[...]

Now this where a feminist would say that the patriarchy forces women into these low paying choices while it rewards men for being assholes. Where as I would say in some cases this is true, like women being forced out of computer science in the 80s, but a lot of these issues are natural, healthy artifacts of societal and even biological roles. All the education and nurturing in the world will not change the way we're hard wired.

I'm definitely not trying to take people's choices out of the equation because statistically they're absolutely a key driver of the wage gap. I think this is something we agree on. I think the important points of discussion is really in the way society is structured; and whether it might not be structured in such a way that it doesn't systematically favour the choices that one group tends to make. I tend to fall on the side of 'nurture' rather than 'nature', but let's assume that one of these differences is truly biological. Let's say women have a hard-wired aversion to oil-rigs for whatever reason. Naturally they choose to work on oil-rigs less because of this. But even if the choice is biologically rooted, the fact that oil-rigs pay well (and care-work does not) is a social fact.

Ultimately, I don't think it's a healthy sign if society systematically tends to assign more value to the work that men tend to choose. Particularly not when research does suggest that women taking those jobs actually devalues them.

To chime in on a couple of other elements:

 Alternative Goose, on 26 November 2018 - 09:10 PM, said:

Hearing some feminists talk about prostitutes or pornography makes me wonder whether they really do support women's right to do what they want

This is a fairly big divide within feminism; some feminists will argue sex-work can be empowering, others will point out that it's frequently exploitative in reality and that we shouldn't overlook this. It's questionable whether most sex-workers would define their work as "what they want". While decriminalisation is often lauded as progressive - and may have benefits in terms of legal security for sex-workers - it also drives human trafficking and the people who see the largest benefits probably aren't the average workers.

 Alternative Goose, on 26 November 2018 - 09:10 PM, said:

Never heard a feminist say that any sex with any men is a form of rape?

To be honest I've only ever heard this particular point from people criticising feminism. Usually it's misattributed to Dworkin or MacKinnon or suchlike; drawing on work that was written in a very different time and context. There has been a considerable (and ongoing) shift in how society has viewed rape in fairly recent history and this has always been an area of feminist activism. For one example, most of the world didn't acknowledge marital rape as a legal possibility until the last 50 years or so. It took until 1993 for it to be a crime everywhere in the US (in Denmark the Penal Code allowed for reduced sentences on account of marriage until 2013). Within a context where there's no legal distinction between marital rape and marital sex, it's rhetorically powerful to reformulate the fact that within marriage sex is apparently indistinguihable from rape in a negative rather than positive manner. But it's also pretty easy to take those arguments out of context.

[Grief]

 rant, on 27 November 2018 - 01:14 AM, said:

This critical theorist would point out that until recently (and even now) men who enter non-traditionally masculine jobs are often derided and used as sources of humor (e.g. the best example I can think of at the moment is Ben from The Mindy project, who is a 'male nurse')--often by men ourselves.

This definitely resonates on a cultural level. At the same time there's research suggesting that men rise to leadership positions disproportionately quickly - and are disproportionately represented in these positions - within female-dominated professions. For example, statistics from the UK department of Education show that women make up 62% of the secondary school teaching workforce but only 38% of headteachers, and that men also achieve these positions with fewer years of qualification on average. This effect has sometimes been termed the 'glass elevator'.

Source: Department of Education, School Leadership in England 2010 to 2016: characteristics and trends (2018), pp 32, 48-49.

[rant]

 Grief, on 27 November 2018 - 02:03 AM, said:

 rant, on 27 November 2018 - 01:14 AM, said:

This critical theorist would point out that until recently (and even now) men who enter non-traditionally masculine jobs are often derided and used as sources of humor (e.g. the best example I can think of at the moment is Ben from The Mindy project, who is a 'male nurse')--often by men ourselves.

This definitely resonates on a cultural level. At the same time there's research suggesting that men rise to leadership positions disproportionately quickly - and are disproportionately represented in these positions - within female-dominated professions. For example, statistics from the UK department of Education show that women make up 62% of the secondary school teaching workforce but only 38% of headteachers, and that men also achieve these positions with fewer years of qualification on average. This effect has sometimes been termed the 'glass elevator'.

Source: Department of Education, School Leadership in England 2010 to 2016: characteristics and trends (2018), pp 32, 48-49.

Thats interesting. I always picture these gendered socialization issues as being expressed as individual behavioural economics/ cognitive biases. So in this case I wonder if it is some kind of gendered halo effect...truthfully I dunno how you'd actually test that.

[Studlock]

"I've just commented on this above in a reply to Grief butare you sure the roles we take are purely a product of evil? You don't likebiological determination but you can't change the differences x and ychromosomes and hormones make. The genders are designed to be better at certaintasks. That's not patriarchy that's human evolution. Luckily we also have freewill but I am not sure the gender roles we fall into are a social constructalone."

So, I might come back to rest of it, but I want to hone in on this, because it underlines the hilarious contradiction that emerges from your kind of thought process, which is not unique, new, or correct. Call me smug, call me whatever, I don't really care. To start off with, I don't think you know what biocultural beings means, and what it means in this context. This is my fault, which I'll now correct. From Human Biology: An Evolutionary and Biocultural Perscpective (Sara Stinson, Barry Bogin, and Dennis O'Rourke):




Humans are a peculiar species of mammal: bipedal, omnivorous, relatively hairless,massively encephalized, intensely social, and reliant on complex learned behaviorfor survival. We are genetically diverse, although less so than many other species ofmammals (Wise et al. 1997; Jensen-Seaman et al. 2001; Kaessmann et al. 2001).Behaviorally, we are extremely diverse. Individuals communicate by using thousandsof different languages, are organized into societies with widely varying structures,and solve environmental problems with myriad technological solutions. Thus,humans are a species with a highly developed capacity for symbolic thought andrepresentation; environmental manipulation; and invention, learning, and appreciationof social facts. In short, humans have culture, a system of socially learned behavior and belief. While other animals may have something that could be calledculture (Janson and Smith 2003), no one contests that humans have elaboratedculture to a greater extent than any other animal, particularly in the realm of languageand symbolic thought.These human peculiarities have ramifications for how we approach humanbiology. Any understanding of human biology requires that we attend to the factthat humans are cultural beings. Human biologists therefore rely heavily on a bioculturalperspective. This approach recognizes that human biology interacts with culture and can only be understood in light of culture—culture both influences ourenvironment and affects how we respond to that environment.

Culture can be considered a part of the human package of adaptive strategies,but it can also be a source of change in that both human culture and human biologyrequire continuous flexibility and adaptability in order for humans to survive. Thereare numerous examples of the ways in which culture shapes the environments towhich humans must adapt. The classic cases are the clearing of forests for horticultureestablishing conditions for natural selection for hemoglobin S (Livingstone1958) and the domestication of cattle and other milk-producing animals initiatingnatural selection for the persistence into adulthood of the ability to digest the sugarin milk (see Chapter 7). Looking at contemporary events, the ability to quickly travelthe globe by air has increased the speed with which infectious disease can spread(see Chapter 9), reductions in physical activity as a result of technological and economicchanges are probably a key cause of worldwide increases in rates of obesity(see Chapters 7, 8, and 12), employment can be an important source of stress (seeChapter 10), and food shortages due to the seasonal nature of human agriculturalsystems, economic and political inequality, and civil disturbances and war, causedisruptions in female ovarian function (see Chapter 15). Humans respond biologicallyto all of these biocultural environmental circumstances, though, as will bediscussed further below, whether these responses can always be considered adaptationsis debated.Culture also plays a major role in determining how humans respond to environmentalchallenges. Cultural norms and traditions encode information for dealingwith environmental challenges, but they also limit the available options for dealingwith new environments. Your culture provides information about how to make orwhere to buy clothing, but it also tells you that not all possible ways of covering the body are acceptable (cardboard may keep off the rain, but it is not usually consideredclothing in the context of European-American culture).

The examples below illustrate some of the complexities in fully comprehendingthe interaction of culture and human biology. While human biologists recognize theimportance of culture as it affects human biology, measuring cultural factors andachieving a complete biocultural understanding is frequently more difficult thanmeasuring biological characteristics (Dufour 2006).




So what this is saying is this: biological determination is, by and large, incorrect, and that any kind of accounting of human difference that ignores our complex symbolic thought, and the systems we build around ourselves is doom to be incorrect. In the context of sex and gender you are arguing that a behaviour as complex as working an abstract job (from the perspective of evolutionary stressors), for an abstract reward, is determined by our fucking genetic material, which, is just on its face, fucking absurd if you know a lick about human biology, or human society. Claim I'm putting on airs here, or whatever, but Apt, I'm sorry to tell you, but you're ignorant of human biology. Which gene is tied to a woman's profession getting paid less than a man's profession? The X and Y genes? Which part of it? Or is it polygenetic?

Also the word 'designed' is very much against what evolution is. Evolution doesn't 'design', it doesn't have a will, its a population adapting to evolutionary stressors, which again in the context of your argument, is nearly zero. No one is evolutionary primed to be a philosopher professor in a late capitalist economy. No one is evolutionary primed to be a nurse in a environment that is dominated not by survival, but by mundanity.

Lastly, because I am petty. The idea of free will and biological determinism cannot coexist--like it logically cannot--if your behaviour is predicted by your biology, which includes your brain, then free will no longer exist because you are simply behaving in such a way that your biology determines is best for your survival and reproduction.

[D'rek]

 rant, on 27 November 2018 - 01:14 AM, said:

Now, compound this with the fact that this innate biological difference in can crushing isnt actually as innate as we always believed. SURE, in a purely biologically test (meaning biology is THE ONLY FACTOR that differentiates men and women) women crush cans slightly better than men. Now imagine that historically men arent allowed to leave the house to crush cans, crushing cans is frowned upon even when they are in the house, and when they go to school are taught that crushing cans is a feminine biological trait and men just arent as good at it--so even if you are good at it, just give up (meanwhile women are encouraged to crush cans WHEREVER the fuck they go). Further, social and religious reasons argue men shouldn't be crushing cans! That said, people recognize that some men love crushing cans, and think they should get the chance to do it. HOWEVER, given the "reality" that men are so much worse at crushing cans, it wouldn't be "fair" to have them compete against women. So they should have their own league in which to crush cans against other men. Ignore the fact that some of the men ARE SO MUCH BETTER at crushing cans than many of the women. By rights of their gender, they can't enter that league. Now imagine that differential is continued for several generations. We have a "biological determination"

I'm not explicitly saying Serena Williams is the undisputed greatest tennis player of all time. I'm just saying that if she had been continuously exposed to the same levels of competition as Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer, she'd undoubtedly be the best tennis player in the world.

Basically, what I'm saying is that kids experience deep and profound selection effects -selection effects determined entirely by their sex. Until those selection effects are addressed in someway, the causal pathway between biology and whatever characteristic you're focusing on is completely muddled. Until you can show me a group of kids who grew up in a social vacuum with only biology, I'm not going to buy any gendered argument that starts with: 'biological determinants'.

I don't know if Serena Williams is the best example to use for this, even just within tennis

Of course, it's nigh-impossible to separate out the purely biological factors from the other factors in just about any physical sport. But then again, what about sports that aren't physical at all? Like, say, chess. Unless you believe that there are biological differences between men and women that make women worse at chess (basically saying women are on average born stupider than men), there shouldn't be any biological factors to contend with at all. And purely from non-biological factors, then, there is still a separate women's only league+championship in parallel to the open league+championship, and the top female player is only 91st in the combined rankings. Which leads to the very interesting (and, for me, pretty inspiring) story of Judit Polgar, who basically rejected the whole separate women's league, stuck only to the open league and never once played for the women's championship, was ranked 55th at the age of 12, grandmaster at 15, at her highest point reached 8th overall, and has defeated 11 world champions. Her self-described attitude is "I always say that women should have the self-confidence that they are as good as male players, but only if they are willing to work and take it seriously as much as male players. If they would have a higher goal, they would also reach higher."

I think competitive sport is definitely one of, if not the, biggest places where those sorts of non-bio factors are the most at play in setting men and women apart. Not in opportunity, but in fostering the right attitude and encouraging the passion needed at a young age to generate as many adult stars.

[Grief]

By and large I'd argue that rather than men being designed better for sport, sport is designed better for men.

[Aptorian]

Lots of people dropping knowledge bombs and making very logical counter arguments in here. I'm not going to try and argue against science.

I'm not trying to make absolute statements when arguing against certain gender discussion, I just can't help trying to poke holes in some positions because I don't think saying it's our society's fault is the full explanation.

In an argument about race I'd always argue nurture trumps nature. I don't believe there exists a significant difference between races biologically and or cognitevly. However I think that a distinction between men and women can be made and should be made. Not as an excuse for un-equal treatment but as an insight into why those differences exist. Maybe that's just me going by gut feeling but I believe there's more to us than just culture. There's an underlying primal nature that shines through some times. Be it in our mating habits or social interaction. We are still just self aware primates.

Regarding the Serena Williams argument, interestingly, there's been several battles of the sexes in Tennis.

https://en.m.wikiped...e_Sexes_(tennis)

In the 90s both the Williams sisters took on a guy ranked around 200 in the world and got utterly crushed. Testosterone is a hell of a drug.

Quote

1998: Karsten Braasch vs. the Williams sisters

Another event dubbed a "Battle of the Sexes" took place during the 1998 Australian Open[52] between Karsten Braasch and the Williams sisters. Venus and Serena Williams had claimed that they could beat any male player ranked outside the world's top 200, so Braasch, then ranked 203rd, challenged them both. Braasch was described by one journalist as "a man whose training regime centered around a pack of cigarettes and more than a couple bottles of ice cold lager".[53][52] The matches took place on court number 12 in Melbourne Park,[54] after Braasch had finished a round of golf and two shandies. He first took on Serena and after leading 5–0, beat her 6–1. Venus then walked on court and again Braasch was victorious, this time winning 6–2.[55] Braasch said afterwards, "500 and above, no chance". He added that he had played like someone ranked 600th in order to keep the game "fun".[56] Braasch said the big difference was that men can chase down shots much easier, and that men put spin on the ball that the women can't handle. The Williams sisters adjusted their claim to beating men outside the top 350.[52]

This post has been edited by Alternative Goose: 27 November 2018 - 09:25 AM

[rant]

 Studlock, on 27 November 2018 - 04:53 AM, said:

Also the word 'designed' is very much against what evolution is. Evolution doesn't 'design', it doesn't have a will, its a population adapting to evolutionary stressors, which again in the context of your argument, is nearly zero. No one is evolutionary primed to be a philosopher professor in a late capitalist economy. No one is evolutionary primed to be a nurse in a environment that is dominated not by survival, but by mundanity.

I agree that the link between gene and profession will always be tenuous at best. I'm just spitballing here cuz you got me thinking.

I don't think that we (being humans living in WEIRD countries) are free of the effects of natural selection. Fitness and intra-population competition still exist. We're just in this super strange & novel place where we partially control the environment which ultimately defines our stressors. So in fact, due to sexual selection (instead of natural) I think a gendered society such as we have now could theoretically lead to true biological differences (this is obviously on an evolutionary scale, not in the next 15 years lol). If everyone buys into the patriarchal dichotomy of men as breadwinners, and women as child rearers, and start REALLY working to optimize that dichotomy, differences could arise. I'm not sure what differences, as I'm not clear on what specific traits would actually be associated with those two archetypes.

Maybe not even super slowly--isn't the disappearance of lactose intolerance an example of rapid & adaptive human evolution? That happened on a relatively speedy scale evolutionarily speaking.

 Grief, on 27 November 2018 - 08:25 AM, said:

By and large I'd argue that rather than men being designed better for sport, sport is designed better for men.

Could you elaborate on this thought? I'm struggling to get my head around it.

[Grief]

 rant, on 27 November 2018 - 12:41 PM, said:

 Grief, on 27 November 2018 - 08:25 AM, said:

By and large I'd argue that rather than men being designed better for sport, sport is designed better for men.

Could you elaborate on this thought? I'm struggling to get my head around it.

Sure . As a flawed simplifcation, assume that 50% world is left-handed but 99% of popular sports are played right-handedly.

Men and women are physically different and so tend to excel at slightly different tasks on the average, population level. Sports are essentially arbitrary tests. There's no special reason to play 'kick the ball in the net' rather than, well, anything else. Which sports we play and care about is an arbitrary cultural and social artifact. Our society cares far more about some sports than others; and the ones it cares about are largely based upon the things that men are better at (which in turn we'd expect to affect participation rates and such). We could invent an infinite number of sports, so there's not a metaphysical reason this has to be the case. In a parallel universe perhaps all the popular sports draw on manual dexterity and women dominate.

Then this can also inteplay with how we raise children, and what children prefer to do, and what ideas we have about which genders do what.

[QuickTidal]

 Alternative Goose, on 27 November 2018 - 09:22 AM, said:

In the 90s both the Williams sisters took on a guy ranked around 200 in the world and got utterly crushed. Testosterone is a hell of a drug.

Quote

1998: Karsten Braasch vs. the Williams sisters

Another event dubbed a "Battle of the Sexes" took place during the 1998 Australian Open[52] between Karsten Braasch and the Williams sisters. Venus and Serena Williams had claimed that they could beat any male player ranked outside the world's top 200, so Braasch, then ranked 203rd, challenged them both. Braasch was described by one journalist as "a man whose training regime centered around a pack of cigarettes and more than a couple bottles of ice cold lager".[53][52] The matches took place on court number 12 in Melbourne Park,[54] after Braasch had finished a round of golf and two shandies. He first took on Serena and after leading 5–0, beat her 6–1. Venus then walked on court and again Braasch was victorious, this time winning 6–2.[55] Braasch said afterwards, "500 and above, no chance". He added that he had played like someone ranked 600th in order to keep the game "fun".[56] Braasch said the big difference was that men can chase down shots much easier, and that men put spin on the ball that the women can't handle. The Williams sisters adjusted their claim to beating men outside the top 350.[52]

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it (partially because I've been immersed in tennis my entire life VIA my dad's hobby)...the Williams sisters don't play a finesse game. EVER. They straddle the line on the mens side of "brute force = wins", but they aren't filled with testosterone either so they are on the lower rungs of that part of the field. It often means they can dominate the women tennis ranks (because how can you stop that 400mph serve? for example) because not very many other women are playing that type of game. BUT...This also means that when they face a truly gifted finesse player in women's tennis who can dance around their brute force play...they lose, and sometimes they lose badly and throw McEnroe style fits. To me this speaks to the fact that tennis is a two-pronged sport which requires both disciplines (force/strength and finesse)....and the Williams sisters are missing half of that equation. To that end, they will never be the greatest tennis players in history to me. Not a chance.

[Aptorian]

What's your opinion on the rumors of the Williams using PEDs?

[rant]

 Grief, on 27 November 2018 - 02:28 PM, said:

 rant, on 27 November 2018 - 12:41 PM, said:

 Grief, on 27 November 2018 - 08:25 AM, said:

By and large I'd argue that rather than men being designed better for sport, sport is designed better for men.

Could you elaborate on this thought? I'm struggling to get my head around it.

Sure . As a flawed simplifcation, assume that 50% world is left-handed but 99% of popular sports are played right-handedly.

Men and women are physically different and so tend to excel at slightly different tasks on the average, population level. Sports are essentially arbitrary tests. There's no special reason to play 'kick the ball in the net' rather than, well, anything else. Which sports we play and care about is an arbitrary cultural and social artifact. Our society cares far more about some sports than others; and the ones it cares about are largely based upon the things that men are better at (which in turn we'd expect to affect participation rates and such). We could invent an infinite number of sports, so there's not a metaphysical reason this has to be the case. In a parallel universe perhaps all the popular sports draw on manual dexterity and women dominate.

Ah I see. I think what we define as 'sport' really plays into this right? Examining my normally unexamined thoughts/ opinions on this, it seems I have degrees of 'sport'. For example I always joke with my friends that golf isn't a sport....or view american football as more 'sportsy' than say...baseball. Despite the fact that both are these incredibly arbitrary systems of competition, no less arbitrary than chess as D'rek mentioned above (in fact some people refer football as 'the chess of sports'). The arbitrariness of those games may explain why there are so many more olympics fans than professional sports fans----a competition to see who can throw a spear the farthest has way lower entry barriers than hockey.

 Grief, on 27 November 2018 - 02:28 PM, said:

Then this can also inteplay with how we raise children, and what children prefer to do, and what ideas we have about which genders do what.

Yea definitely--not entirely related to your above point, but the effect parents have on kids play could totally maintain the monopoly of current sports over any 'new' ones. E.G if I ever have kids, the second they're old enough to hold a football I'm going to show them how to play (rather than them creating their own game to play).


LOL now I'm picturing like 40 9 year olds coming up with football on their own.

Okay guys, we're gonna have two teams--each team will get turns with the ball, and will try to get the ball to the opposite end of the field from where they started. BUT they only get 4 tries (3 in canada). Okay, okay to make it fair, they only need to go 30 feet in their 4 tries---if they get that far they get another 4 tries. Now, listen, this is important: you can throw it forward....but only so long as you're behind where the ball started. But you can run it too. And you can always pass backwards, like in rugby. Okay, so if you get to the other end...you get like 6 points I guess. BUT before the other team gets a chance with the ball, you get to try and score again, right from the end. BUT its only 2 points. If you chicken out on a 2 pointer, I guess you can kick it or something. Okay....once it is the other teams goal, we arent just going to let them start right at their end. Why not you ask? Well, it wouldn't be fair....because if the ball touches the ground at your endzone in your possession, the other team gets 2 points. Because I said so! Okay, so to make it fair.....the team that just scored is going to kick it as far as they can....and the other team will bring it forward as far as they'll go.

[QuickTidal]

 Alternative Goose, on 27 November 2018 - 03:37 PM, said:

What's your opinion on the rumors of the Williams using PEDs?

I mean it's possible, and the mildly frequent rages Serena seems to go into certainly feed that theory, but it's hard to tell. They've both been fairly ripped since they began doing this, so unless they've been hiding it for all these years, it's probably not PEDs, and instead they are just really strong physically and sometimes behave like assholes. But then that describes a lot of men in tennis too, so familiar ground and all that.

I don't think I buy that the TUEs she was found to be taking retroactively between 2010 and 2015 are reason to call her out, as they could be innocuous and surround normal illness.

I DO however, feel like the oversight of doping in tennis needs an overhaul to be more explicit in its rules.

It also bothers me that she often lies/tweets that she's the only one being tested for PEDs as if she faces some sort of discrimination on that front that others don't...which is garbage nonsense. Everyone gets tested or the WADA and the IFT would be answering for higher crimes.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

 worry, on 21 November 2018 - 11:42 PM, said:

 Itwæs Nom, on 21 November 2018 - 08:48 PM, said:

The banning of Mexican costumes for example, it doesn't change anything about how mexicans are viewed by people does it?

I know this is phrased as a question, but it seems at least somewhat like it's making an argument, so I'll just say it seems like a pretty big assumption is being made there. For one thing, 'stereotype threat' is a real phenomenon that affects people's health and performance. For another, reinforcing stereotypes does in turn reinforce various prejudices and even oppression. Here's a quick rundown on costumes in particular: http://www.lspirg.org/costumes/

In terms of whether you "should" or "shouldn't" be offended by something, that's up to you to decide for you. But it's not up to you to decide for others, especially those who are living through oppression and violence as we speak, let alone historically. And I will also say that something that doesn't overtly promote hate or violence can still contribute and reinforce hate and violence, even if it's in a death by a thousand cuts kind of way. And to be frank, conceptions of violence solely as acts of physical harm are limited and inadequate. Erasure, dehumanization, exclusion, and other nebulous phenomena can all be very violent.

The research on stereotype threat has failed to replicate in larger and more rigorous studies. There's a discussion of it here:

https://www.wnycstud...ry/stereothreat

That's not to deny that it may sometimes have effects, for particular individuals or particular situations. (Some psychology professors claim they know it's real because they can 'prove' it in a classroom demonstration... of their own professorial ability to influence students.) But it doesn't appear to be a significant factor in group differences in performance on tests, which is what the theory was initially proposed to explain.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 27 November 2018 - 07:00 PM

[worry]

That's interesting, thanks! I was thinking in terms of social effects (including formal interactions like job interviews) but not necessarily testing. Like issues of code-switching, feelings (and the reality) of being watched/monitored/suspected, etc. and the kind of psychic effects that has long-term. Gonna listen to this episode of Radiolab though!