Post-equality

[Masonity]

On this, I quite agree. There should be more urgency to address gender imbalance in some fields. Just as we actively seek to recruit and retain women in STEM, so, too, should we actively recruit and retain men in nursing, or elementary education, or any number of professions.

In the UK, they are desperately trying to get men into Primary School (5-11) teaching. To the point that it looks like as soon as I get my 2 weeks classroom experience, I'll be rushed through university interviews (so long as I don't mess up TOO bad) and put on my post grad course.

My problem with this is that it means that a woman who might have made a better teacher than me will miss out. That said I think I'll be a great teacher, and I have to think about myself primarily so I'm not too upset that it'll benefit me.

I would much rather they addressed the imbalance by trying to change attitudes, rather than actually discriminating.

edit: Why do I always seem to start a new page!

[litechick]

In all the years I've done the message board thing, never have I seen a feminism thread go well. Ever. Not once. I do not understand why we still make them.

Coming to terms with gender issues was a huge part of my professional development. Still, I have nothing to offer in these threads. I keep skimming them in hopes that some useful discussion could creep in but so far I have been disappointed.

When it comes to gender issues I think it is particularly difficult to find a balance between the formal and the casual discussion. People who speak formally will not permit informal dialog and people who speak informally find no value in the formal debate.

Or maybe that's just me.

[Happy Ent]

(For example, teachers in particular used to be expected to be men. It was only as they became acceptable for women that they started becoming unacceptable for men. [...])

Is this true? I though teaching used to be the default job for academically gifted women, until societal barriers to other academic professions (law, medicine, clergy) were removed. Then these highly competent people left their criminally underpaid and underappreciated teaching positions and left the school system with people who are as good as the pay they receive.

(It’s possible I’m completely wrong about this.)

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

I'm sure it varied from country to country, and there are multiple causes, but 1) this entirely unauthoritative encylopedic summary aligns with what I've been told and have read, and 2) your point doesn't actually disagree with mine. Teaching might long have been one of the few acceptable careers for women, but that doesn't mean that there were more women than men teaching. You can also look up articles touching on the feminization of teaching for other viewpoints on this.

[Brienne the Beauty]

In the UK, they are desperately trying to get men into Primary School (5-11) teaching. To the point that it looks like as soon as I get my 2 weeks classroom experience, I'll be rushed through university interviews (so long as I don't mess up TOO bad) and put on my post grad course.

My problem with this is that it means that a woman who might have made a better teacher than me will miss out. That said I think I'll be a great teacher, and I have to think about myself primarily so I'm not too upset that it'll benefit me.

I wouldn't feel too bad about it, positive discrimination can really help with institutional bias. In your case, you might have been at a disadvantage for you if you were simply judged equally for the post, because our society does not think of primary school teacher as a typical role for males. So it's really just evening out the bias.

By the way, have you noticed that although men don't typically become primary school teachers, those that do often rise to headmaster? In my primary school there were only 3 male teachers out of about 12, one was a teaching assistant, the other was temporary, and the third was headmaster. I think that's because male teachers don't tend to take career breaks when their children are young, giving them a big boost in potential for more rapid advancement.

[Happy Ent]

[…links…]

Cheers, LRLA. And as you point out, there’s no contradiction.

[aimlessgun]

When it comes to gender issues I think it is particularly difficult to find a balance between the formal and the casual discussion. People who speak formally will not permit informal dialog and people who speak informally find no value in the formal debate.

What do you mean exactly by formal and casual?

[The Iceman of the North]

Is this true? I though teaching used to be the default job for academically gifted women, until societal barriers to other academic professions (law, medicine, clergy) were removed. Then these highly competent people left their criminally underpaid and underappreciated teaching positions and left the school system with people who are as good as the pay they receive.

(It’s possible I’m completely wrong about this.)

I believe you are. Looking at schools in 19th Century Norway, the teachers seems to be almost all men, highly respected in the community.

ETA: I see Eefa have already answered with links and all.

[Guest Raids]

I strongly agree with that. I always stand baffled that this debate revolves around arguments from nature. As if, for example, the morality of racism or sexism in any way depended on whether the real-real reason is genetic, hormonal, or "something in the water." The real-real reason is a geeky scientific concept that should be no more or no less interesting than if P=NP or Goldbach's conjecture.

Oh, I know. We all know. :lol: I, however, would limit my comments to risk-taking behaviors only. There are plenty of things were I definitely do care where the difference comes from. Like science and math ability, as you probably remember.

It's funny - in science fiction, the gender difference in risk taking behavior is often erased, and to fairly believable effect, IMO, and yet it's generally utterly present in the realm of fantasy.

Anyway, for the most part, it's useful for feminists to focus on social construction, because then the identification of the problem also contains its own solution, or at least the path to the solution.

Even the risk-taking question is interesting on a personal, introspective level because it is an aspect of my personality that is supposed to be stable, theoretically, and yet has radically, radically changed as I have gotten older. Were this the case for many women, I would almost conclude that we all suffer from some kind of mild PTSD due to the consequences we may have suffered growing up from engaging in risky behaviors.

Or maybe it is biologically-based - I can pretty much pin-point the end of being a pretty aggressive risk-taker to when I started regularly taking birth control, and when I initially started doing that the hormone doses were really pretty high. I mean, it would also make sense that the hormones that make your body think it's pregnant would also make one pretty physically risk-adverse, yeah? That's at least as facially plausible as the evolutionary explanation you put forth earlier.

But, as a said, on a societal level, it doesn't matter to me all that much.

I keep skimming them in hopes that some useful discussion could creep in but so far I have been disappointed.

That's too bad, as I think the discussion I specifically referenced earlier was one that I had with you. :)

[Happy Ent]

Anyway, for the most part, it's useful for feminists to focus on social construction, because then the identification of the problem also contains its own solution, or at least the path to the solution.

Well, I don’t agree.

I consider academic feminism (as a postmodern branch of the social sciences, sometimes called gender studies) to be a historical aberration. Its academic standards are ludicrous. Worse, it hurts the political movement. Maths belong at the uni, socialism in the parliament. These things oughtn’t be mixed, because they operate and thrive in ideologically and epistemologically different contexts.

Worse, I don’t think social construction is intrinsically more noble than genetic engineering. The argument that by focussing on social construction we could then also solve the problem (because Lysenko didn’t live in vein: we know that social engineering works, so some extent) can be used with the same justification towards genetic reductionism: as soon as we find “the risk-taking gene” we can just activate it on all females in our wonderful new society. Problem solved.

Of course, the idea that the world should be so simple that there is just a handful of genes that we could selectively tweak is ludicrous. But if anything, society is more complex than genetics. So the idea that we could “fix society” (as soon as we’ve just found out exactly how it works) is at least as preposterous. Both could work. None is intrinsically morally superior.

[Masonity]

I wouldn't feel too bad about it, positive discrimination can really help with institutional bias. In your case, you might have been at a disadvantage for you if you were simply judged equally for the post, because our society does not think of primary school teacher as a typical role for males. So it's really just evening out the bias.

By the way, have you noticed that although men don't typically become primary school teachers, those that do often rise to headmaster? In my primary school there were only 3 male teachers out of about 12, one was a teaching assistant, the other was temporary, and the third was headmaster. I think that's because male teachers don't tend to take career breaks when their children are young, giving them a big boost in potential for more rapid advancement.

Yeah, we only had 3 men in my primary school too, 1 was a classroom assistant, one a teacher, one the head.

It could also be that while men aren't seen as typical primary school teachers, they are still seen as typical head teachers, and thus benefit from bias when going for promotion, positive discrimination for the early steps, then genuine pro-male discrimination for the latter ones?

[DrownedCrow]

I just found an interesting piece of research that might be relevant to this thread (through The Economist's Democracy in America blog). According to the paper, it seems that despite conventional wisdom, there is no bias against female candidates for elected offic the the US. In fact, the paper showed a positive bias toward women. Since discrmination against women in business and politics seem to be the instances of inequality that are mentioned most often, this result, if true, should change the debate somewhat. Not that it will.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

So we can actually read the study and the Economist's analysis before blithely dismissing it, as DrownedCrow is sure everyone will, here's the blog post talking about the study.

BTW, "some support for a positive bias" in low-information state elections in California is not the same as saying there's no bias when discussing, say, the nationwide election for President of the United States. I think it would be too easy to either dismiss or extrapolate from one study in one state covering very specific election conditions.

[Brienne the Beauty]

I just found an interesting piece of research that might be relevant to this thread (through The Economist's Democracy in America blog). According to the paper, it seems that despite conventional wisdom, there is no bias against female candidates for elected offic the the US. In fact, the paper showed a positive bias toward women. Since discrmination against women in business and politics seem to be the instances of inequality that are mentioned most often, this result, if true, should change the debate somewhat. Not that it will.

This is good news. There certainly used to be bias, but times can change. And don't just assume that the EEVUL feminazis will continue to claim discrimination where there is none. When a victory is won, feminists tend to accept it and move on to other fields in need of attention. See any suffragettes recently?

[Blaine]

I never said it was an authority. On the other hand, it does raise some points that are eminently appilcable. Of course, you could also just start with "Annoying things people do in internet arguments Part 1: dismiss the concern because they don't see how it affects them or anyone around them"

You are correct. I was dismissing the concern regarding "purple people." I don't know how I let such an important thing slip past my radar.

Or, you know, since the discussions about feminism seem to (and the arguments about feminism definitely seem to) irritate the hell out of you, how about you just don't hit the fucking reply button? Or do you think we really need to hear every single time how little you think of us and these sources?

Or, you know, since you can't discuss feminism without running back to various blogs to create your arguments, maybe you should, you know, articulate them yourself.

Or you could just continue telling people when they should and shouldn't post a reply in an open forum when they get on your bad side.

Whichever.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

What can I say, I learn from those around me. Why don't you articulate your own responses rather than only comment on (and usually dismiss) the fact that someone else already wrote it out? Why don't you read the link and see why 'purple people' really does have an effect on the discussion of racism and intersectionality? Why don't you stop telling what they should and should not post in an open forum when they get on your bad side? <Insert pithy, dismissive, one-word conclusion here.>

BTW, the only reason you're on my bad side when it comes to feminism discussions -- and you aren't on my bad side for any other topic -- is because I can't remember the last time you made a substantial contribution to the discussion. You come in, take potshots at anybody who 1) is so tired of rewriting the same arguments and/or 2) feels that someone else has represented their views better than they can themselves and thus 3) links to an off-site presentation of the issue/concern at hand, and then make comments as though we're all ridiculous. I certainly don't agree with everything, say, Happy Ent posts, but at least I appreciate that he's genuinely discussing it. (Usually. ;) Sometimes I don't appreciate it, it's true.)

[Kat]

Slightly tongue-in-cheek question: If males engage in more risky behavior which leads to a lower average life expectancy, can this be used as an argument for anti-risk legislation e.g. wearing helmets while sledding? How would you balance the effectively pro-"equality" leading to more equal life expectancies, for clarification) legislation meant to prevent unnecessarily risky/dangerous habits, such as smoking, or sledding without a helmet, with the pro-"freedom" legislation, e.g. less regulation, let people decide for themselves what to do whether or not that leads to a decrease in life expectancy. There isn't much of a gap between that and, "OMG, Feminists Want to Take Away My Freedom!"

Despite having been a low-risk-taker my whole life, I don't consider all risk a bad thing in general, but there are definitely smart risks (low risk, high reward, such as asking for a raise) and not-so-smart risks (high risk, low-high reward, such as becoming a drug dealer).

[DrownedCrow]

This is good news. There certainly used to be bias, but times can change. And don't just assume that the EEVUL feminazis will continue to claim discrimination where there is none. When a victory is won, feminists tend to accept it and move on to other fields in need of attention. See any suffragettes recently?

See, this is what I was talking about. Is it good news? If what you're really interested in is equality, then it shouldn't be. After all, a positive bias for women is the same as a negative bias against men. Also, I wasn't really taking a shot at feminists there so much as making an observation about debates in general. Which is to say that they rarely revolve around facts.

[Blaine]

What can I say, I learn from those around me. Why don't you articulate your own responses rather than only comment on (and usually dismiss) the fact that someone else already wrote it out? Why don't you read the link and see why 'purple people' really does have an effect on the discussion of racism and intersectionality? Why don't you stop telling what they should and should not post in an open forum when they get on your bad side? <Insert pithy, dismissive, one-word conclusion here.>

BTW, the only reason you're on my bad side when it comes to feminism discussions -- and you aren't on my bad side for any other topic -- is because I can't remember the last time you made a substantial contribution to the discussion. You come in, take potshots at anybody who 1) is so tired of rewriting the same arguments and/or 2) feels that someone else has represented their views better than they can themselves and thus 3) links to an off-site presentation of the issue/concern at hand, and then make comments as though we're all ridiculous. I certainly don't agree with everything, say, Happy Ent posts, but at least I appreciate that he's genuinely discussing it. (Usually. ;) Sometimes I don't appreciate it, it's true.)

See that part I bolded? That's for irony. Because linking to a blog post about how terrible "purple people" is? That's not genuinely discussing anything. Which is my point.

Fact is, I have made plenty of posts in feminism threads, especially ones where I felt like I had something substantial to add to the conversation. The one about the Dodge ad from last year's Super Bowl immediately comes to mind, because I know about advertising, as it is my occupation. I haven't posted anything in this one, simply because I was learning more by reading it.

I have posted before regarding linking to feminism blogs as a cheap way of arguing your position. It doesn't mean I don't respect your position because I do. I just think, regardless of how tired you are making the same points, or no matter how much better you feel some blogger said it - if you're going to engage in discussion, it's intellectually lazy to link to blogs to do the work for you.

And I read the blog about "purple people" being a terrible thing that white people say. Not really buying it at all. It just seems like an unnecessary way to poke holes in someone's argument over an insubstantial figure of speech, in my opinion. It's frivolous. At least as frivolous as me coming in and making a pithy remark about it.

So, to reiterate. No, not everything said in the name of feminism is ridiculous. That "Purple People" post? It is.

And yes, I think linking to blogs to express or validate your opinion is lazy. Say it yourself. And while you're at it, make it your own. Why does it bother YOU when white people say "purple people."

Also, there's nothing wrong with inserting a bit of humor in your posts. Seriously. Try it out.

Lastly, don't assume just because someone disagrees with you about one thing - that they disagree with you about everything. It's not all or nothing. It's one point.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

We were doing so well, and yet the humor thing was really unnecessary. I'm fucking hilarious, I am.