I’d be interested in a similar study concerning something non-violent such as fraud. My experience covering courts, only anecdotal I know, would lead me to hypothesize a similar bias in sentencing would be observed.
They do have a basis in reality though, and I have pointed out a number of ways that pregnancy and nursing could adversely affect your ability to do your job. I have also said that we should work to minimise these effects. Pregnancy brings very few benefits in and of itself to the workplace (it’s hard to imagine pregnant people being able to work harder or longer, or focus more than people who aren’t pregnant), but a most workplaces should have no trouble integrating pregnant and nursing women into their working environment. It’s a bit like dealing with disabilities: an office which can only be accessed by stairs unjustly disadvantages people in wheelchairs, but one that only has lifts and ramps wouldn’t disadvantage more able people. Forcing nursing women to work 8-12 hours with only very short breaks would put them at a disadvantage, but forcing everyone to take longer breaks more regularly or choose their hours wouldn’t be putting them at a disadvantage. We don’t have to say that someone has no natural disadvantage before we can see their value and accommodate their needs (this applies to men too, wherever there are issues that need to be addressed).
I agree.
Yes, but this is an example of how technology allows us to have a better working environment than before. At an earlier time, it would have been more difficult to integrate certain people into the workforce, and not just because there was an active desire to exclude them.
The retirement age is the same for both genders in many countries, and I don’t know of any examples of a later retirement age for women. Does this mean that men are being discriminated against in our current system? (There are factors other than age to consider when fixing the retirement age, so I don’t think so). It’s already been established that starting work too early in life has disastrous consequences on men and women, so it seems good for everyone that we only start when we’re older. One area that would be a factor is in our hypothetical woman-focused working environment, men might well be considered the primary caregivers from an early age. Right now women are often left holding the baby if they can’t find childcare, or have to make do with lower pay in exchange for hours that are more suitable to them. If the roles were reversed, a lot of this disparity would fall on men.
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“Silberkleit contends that the case should be tossed out because white males are not ‘a protected class.’”
Since it’s illegal to discriminate against anyone regarding their race and/or gender, white males are most certainly protected by non-discrimination and/or anti-harassment workplace laws.
Off subject but: That’s one thing I don’t get about so many straight people being against ENDA in the U.S. - It will protect employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation - and ‘straight’ is an orientation that will be protected.
Male is a gender.
White is a race.
Christian is a religion.
Straight is a sexual orientation.
Not-Transgendered (cisgendered) is a gender identity.
You’d be correct that my point of view is more rights based and less emotional for a better word of it. I certainly understand the history of women being oppressed, but at the same time we are living in an age where both sexes have more and more equal rights (rights in terms of the law, not socially created ones). I base my opinion on my observations of the real world, which certainly can be flawed, and on basic reasoning and logic. I, personally, have never seen a woman oppressed, not in a class/group based fashion. My wife has had to deal with a sexist boss, but I don’t consider that some wide spread sign of female oppression by men. To me it’s the same type of issue that even though I’m a white male (with all my privilege - sarcasm), at work I am treated differently because I am not the same race as my boss. That’s racism - and yes in my world it works in every direction. But it’s not something I experience 24/7 in my life, so I work with it the best I can and move on. It’s being created by an individual, not a class or group, ie in a couple more generations hopefully things like this improve and begin to die out.
I point about the power over men issue only really crops up at your extremes. I think for the most part people want to be seen as equal, or at least as equal as they would like to be. I’m sure there are some women who want to dominate the men in their lives, just like I’m sure there are men who want to be controlled by a woman - nothing wrong with either one as long as everyone is on the same page. I think there are women (just like their are men in the MR area) that get some wrapped up in feminism and the history of oppression that it becomes a way of life for them (and not in a good way). These type of people exist in every group, where they can’t step back and see everything from both or multiple sides. You end up with people who do nothing but spout back what/who they feel is wrong without evidence:
-he’s wrong because he’s a man
-they are wrong because they are liberals/tea party/conservative
It’s shitty because a lot of these people can do better, they just have to be willing to apply some mental ability and think about things for themselves.
I know some women who have become involved in feminism–one of them a family member who used to be very meek and apt to let herself be dominated–and it’s had a largely a positive influence. But you hit the nail on the head. Heck, I’ve even been in situations where a female superior would just flat-out bully me, and cry foul if I stood up for myself. As my state (rightly) stands up for the rights of anyone with minor status, you can guess how those complaints turn out. But it’s clear from talking to them about feminism is that I shouldn’t talk to them about feminism, because it’s hard to take them seriously when they claim the world hasn’t changed toward women over the past 100 years (good thing they can’t vote, amirite? Wait, they can? Shit, patriarchy, WTF?)
When they learn about someone like my horribly abusive aunt and the way she treated her kids (and me when I was over), they’ll point to her pressing marital rape charges against my uncle when they got divorced, and dismiss the rest. What kind of sick person do you have to be to point toward charges and say, “Welp, those are never false,”–at which point I point out that she has a history of mental illness–“so that means she’s right and you’re all wrong.” Okay…uh…fuck everyone who thinks that way. If my uncle did it (again, she mentally ill) he was a shitty person for doing it, but neither that nor the mental illness negate the abuse.
And I mean…here on Boing Boing, you’re not going to get anywhere with this, because I’m sure what I just said will get someone’s jimmies rustled enough to shout “WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE MENZ!” Well, that’s when you know you’re dealing with a child and all rational discourse is over.
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No, pretty sure “perspective” is actually the correct term here. I’ve seen plenty of guys like you on the internet, whining because they think someone is “try to make them feel bad!” Grow up. I’m white as well. I don’t feel guilty about it, but I at least have enough awareness to recognize that being part of a very powerful majority in this country has lent me certain privileges that people who are part of historically discriminated-against minorities just don’t have. Guess what - life is hard, and it’s hard for everyone. No one who talks about male or white privilege thinks that all white guys have easy lives. But white guys don’t have the same degree of difficulty that groups who have only recently (from a historical perspective) begun to have serious discrimination against their groups addressed.
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Only “job” (and “ability”, too) as defined through a culture that optimized jobs for men. A system that considered pregnancy and nursing in the first place would not have any detrimental side effect for anyone - no one would be at a disadvantage or advantage. Culture has always wanted healthy babies and successful nursing, and has provided for that. But it hasn’t provided for such things in conjunction with women having careers. That’s a conscious choice on culture’s part, and it was never necessary. Path of least resistance? Especially in a patriarchy? Yes. Necessary? No.
Natural disadvantage, sure. But not cultural. I think where we’re sticking here is when (or if) natural disadvantages can actually translate to cultural disadvantages without discrimination. I say they cannot, even given all your examples, I’ve tried to show where those still fail to address how they can be chosen to become embedded into culture as disadvantages (vs. simple differences) without discrimination.
More difficult, maybe, but not definitely. Technology has made change within a globally connect economy easier, but I’m not sure it somehow changed how easy it would have been to establish a different system from the get go.
You’ve lost me on this one, as to what you’re trying to say. How could men possibly be considered discriminated against with a retirement age optimized for them? Also, the retirement age difference was a fictional system, as I said. There aren’t any that exist that have been optimized for women.
Again, this is in our current system, where our schooling, parenting, and ability to start careers are centered around men’s maturity rates. If if was centered around women, and it was natural to finish school earlier and begin careers earlier, good careers that were not exploitative or unusual - and if this happened as a natural part of the system and not as an odd bird which doesn’t fit - then it’s no easy argument to say it would be still be the same.
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To try and illustrate the point jsroberts is making, let me ask you these questions.
Most cultures use a base 10 number system (there are probably some exceptions). We agree on the fact that any culture could come up with arbitrary numeric systems, e.g., base 43. Would you say that the traditional choice of a number system is purely cultural / coincidental?
Most languages have a recursive grammar. There may be some exceptions (e.g., the language of the piraha or whatever they’re called). Would say that recursion in language is purely cultural / coincidental?
Most cultures organize in family units according to kinship relations. There have been some exception (e.g., to some extent a Kibbutz). Would you say the fact that we organize in this way is purely cultural / coincidental?
Most sufficiently large cultures develop some basic form market economy. Would you say that the this is purely cultural / coincidental?
In most cultures, women tend to take on a stronger role in childcare and warriors tend to be men. Do you think this is purely cultural / coincidental? Clearly one can imagine a culture where positions are reversed.
I’m sure you understand that I’m not making value judgements here.
I can imagine a culture in which women have traditionally been warriors, and in which men have taken over all childcare obligations. I can imagine a city-dwelling culture where distribution of goods is based purely on making gifts. I can imagine a culture that uses language only for poetry, and exchanges factual information by hand gestures. I can imagine a culture in which every single person on the planet gets up at precisely 6am and dances the macarena.
Just because you can tell a story doesn’t mean what you’re saying is very likely. Just because there is a possible world in which a state of affairs exists doesn’t mean that our current situation is an accident of history. I don’t consider an accident that we’re not daily macarena dancers, and I don’t think this fact is the result of some active agent or conscious force that MADE things the way they are. The desire to find an active, conscious force behind major human developments is natural but - on its own - simplistic and misguided.
Just I feel I can explain the status quo and how it came about as a more likely alternative to other systems, doesn’t mean I am justifying it. I understand that we have a base 10 system because we have ten fingers. This doesn’t mean I’m justifying it, far from it, I think base 2 is much better for many purposes. Again, I’m with you in your political beliefs. I just think the justifications for your beliefs are confused.
So we agree that women’s situation in today’s workplace is not justified. Do you think there is an explanation though, or do you think it is a complete accident of history that things turned roughly the way they did? If the latter, how certain are you and how do you justify this belief? How do you explain that many cultures independently developed towards patriarchal structures? Do you think it is purely based on “unjust” factors, such as male aggression and physical superiority used as an instrument against women? If so, where does this belief come from?
I understand that explanations can sometimes be too convenient and provide tempting justifications for horrible things. I understand that we can’t look at the world except through our own filters and biases. I understand that there is historically a pro-male bias. I don’t think that - as a consequence - we are better off avoiding rational analysis and judgements of cost and likelihood altogether. What’s the alternative? Wild guessing? Story telling?
First off, I don’t think anything is coincidental. Culture is certainly not synonymous with coincidental. Why do you make that comparison?
There is plenty of evidence that cultures, especially early in their formation, did not use base-10 as prevalently as you’re claiming. The French used base-20, as did the Scottish and Gaelic, Chinese units of weight are base-16 (though other Chinese measures are base-10), and Latin was originally base-20, Babylonians base-60. So it wasn’t that cultures - all on their own - decided to use base-10, but rather a homogenization effect occurred when other cultures that DID use base-10 imposed their will on others, either aggressively (the Spanish forcibly ridding the Mayans of their base-20 system) or benignly (through the need for unified system of commerce between cultures)
I simply don’t know enough about this one to have an educated opinion. So I can’t say one way or the other until I do. All I can say is an educated guess: we’re a tribal species, by nature, and so I suppose kinship were the first “groups” of people aka “cultures” before larger cultures were able to be formed. Once we formed them, though, we had the ability to change this if we cared to. Why didn’t we? My argument: because it served the people in power. Even in cultures where the family unit tends to be matriarchal, these are cultures that are patriarchal outside of the family, which suggests that the family was the one cultural space the men decided the women could exert power without contesting their control of the larger social, economic or political spheres. And this proves to be trues in most cultures: having influence on the family unit does not translate directly to cultural power. Sometime it can be indirect, if the woman is clever enough (scheming to place sons on thrones), but it does not directly offer this influence.
Part of this is answered above (the family being the one space where women were allowed power of any kind preserves the economic and political power of the patriarchy). Further, warriors were rarely powerless within the politics of culture as well. In most cases, whoever controlled the army wielded the greatest influence. Allowing women to childrear does not offer any cultural power. Being a warrior absolutely does.
I understand that you’d argue there was a natural difference in physical prowess between men and women, but this does not explain why one grants cultural influence and the other does not. Discrimination, on the other hand, does.
I’m pretty sure no market economies existed until cultures were very much pouring through one another. These were not established within single cultures but as responses to cultures encountering one another. The fact that market economies exist through many economies, when it was created during a time of heavy economic exchange between cultures, makes perfect sense. And, again, in cases of economy, it’s often the case that powerful economies can force their system onto weaker economies. Again, a form of oppression, not independent development.
Almost. Again, the ten finger thing isn’t the whole truth, far from it - oppression (both aggressive and benign) caused the homogenization of number systems into base-10 standard far more than ten fingers ever did.
But more to the point: the element of my argument both jsroberts and yourself are missing is that a natural difference does not have to equal cultural disparity/disadvantage, only a difference. Taking your own example, women as warriors - the problem is not that women aren’t warriors in most cultures; the problem is that not being a warrior puts them at a cultural disadvantage from a social, economic, and political standpoint (social, economic, and political has been my definition of cultural from the very start, I’ve stated this numerous times, not changing anything here).
So take an inverse example to the situation in your own home country: let’s say men were forced to enlist and women were not allowed to enlist at all. But let’s say men who enlisted actually got better pay, better jobs when they were done, and better social standing. If that were true, then not letting women enlist would be discrimination, not because women should be warriors, but because in this culture warriors are given advantages that should not be denied women. By lumping these advantages in with “being a warrior”, something that is entirely unnecessary, it is active discrimination against women. Do you see?
Immoral? What? Why would I think that?
You’ve lost me a little bit with this last paragraph. I think you’re attributing too many motives and beliefs to me that I don’t have. I don’t think anything is an “accident of history”, no. Probably not even one single thing. I think everything is an active decision made by those in power at any given time. I think men having physical superiority over women made them natural oppressors (I know that’s a loaded word, but it’s also true if you take it in an unemotional way) to begin with. Once any group is in power, they shape culture to reflect their needs and to keep influence and cultural power. None of that is accidental. But it is a whole lot of oppression.
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I’m kind of getting frustrated here. Don’t you see that my larger point still holds? Is it also a result of oppression that most of the number systems you name are multiples of ten? Man… try to understand what I’m saying rather than trying to be a smart ass. I did read the wikipedia page. Are you claiming that all number systems are equally likely?
edit: ok rereading your post, you don’t really disagree with the special role of the ten…
Market economy
I did misuse the word. I meant a culture in which trade occurs. I think trade is a natural development and more likely to evolve in larger groups than gift-giving as a primary means of distribution. I concede the point since I made the mistake, but my larger point is that the usefulness of trade informs cultural development independently of groups oppressing each other.
I think everything is an active decision made by those in power at any given time.
I think this is truly the source of our disagreement.
Once any group is in power, they shape culture to reflect their needs and to keep influence and cultural power.
To clarify my own stance: I think culture is indeed shaped by the forces you name, but is much more strongly shaped by human nature and the reality of our lives on earth. I think that many individual decisions can lead to collective forces that we might as well consider forces of nature, and that if we want to make progress we have to deal with them as such.
the element of my argument both jsroberts and yourself are missing is that a natural difference does not have to equal cultural disparity/disadvantage,
I understand that point. All I’m saying is that natural difference CAN equal cultural disparity / disadvantage. Just as you say that men’s physical prowess makes them natural oppressors. I think jsroberts point was that sometimes we have to expend extra effort to work against a natural tendency. I.e., we need umbrellas to stay dry in the rain, and we need special, inventive social arrangements to equalize gender relations. Not all inequalities are the result of groups actively exerting power. Sometimes equality is a hard engineering problem.
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Anyway, since the thread will close soon, I wanted to say thanks a lot for the discussion. I’ve discussed these topics numerous times before, and I’ve never found someone willing and able to go as deep as you did on this one. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into your responses. I learned quite a bit and you did manage to break open my mind a bit, although I think I’ll have to wait a week or two to appreciate the full effect.
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I do see what you’re trying to say, honestly, but I’m arguing that it doesn’t address what I myself am saying. I did acknowledge that your argument is about the natural state of things (cold hard reality) dictating our decisions when I said: “I understand that you’d argue there was a natural difference in physical prowess between men and women, but this does not explain why one grants cultural influence and the other does not. Discrimination, on the other hand, does.”
And that’s what I’m not entirely certain I’ve gotten across to you about my own stance - that while I agree with both you and jsroberts that reality influences decisions and/or the cultural make up of things at any given time, these realities do not account for cultural advantages/disadvantages that go along with the decisions. The fact that women cannot or should not do something and/or that men cannot or should not do something, has no bearing on why one group gets social, political, or economic advantage over the other.
EDIT: Maybe the best way to say this is - I don’t think that humanity’s options are unlimited (this we agree on), but I also don’t think there is one single “most suitable” answer that we naturally gravitate towards, which is close is not quite what I think you’re saying you believe. I think the reasons behind decisions, and why we wind up selecting what we do, is much more complex than that. We probably also agree with that, it just boils down to how much we think cultural power games play into it.
(Also, for the record, I didn’t read the Wikipedia article. I once was a lurker/silent part of an xkcd forum discussion on this, and I went back to it for the details. Technically, base-16 isn’t a multiple of ten. And there was some group that had base-2. Also, for the record, I really wasn’t trying to be a smart ass, I was trying to address your arguments in ways that I thought were sincere and appropriate, but this is because what I’m trying to say isn’t what you’re trying to say, and so I think you might be consistently thinking I’m being obtuse. I’m not: i’m trying to state my case in a way that isn’t paraphrased incorrectly when you next respond. So far this hasn’t worked out so well, but I tried. Believe me, I understand the frustration, it’s mutual, but we were both committed and stuck it out, which is good.)
Ditto. Until the next gauntlet is thrown!
I already gave you a better word for it than “emotional”. A rights-based view of morality is not inherently more nor less 'emotional" than a consequence-based view. In fact, arguments for a rights-based view are often predicated on a notion of injustice that is developed through the use of highly emotional examples. Consequence-based is “for the greater good” and is often argued as the less emotional, more rational perspective. (I don’t buy it, but then I don’t subscribe to either of those views.)
I’m not entirely sure how to interpret this statement. “More and more equal rights” suggests that “we’re living in an age” in which women are actively gaining rights thus implying that they don’t have all the same rights and they’re catching up. Based on the tone of the statement, though, it seems like you’re saying there’s no problem even while the content suggests there is a problem.
However, you should already know this is a nonsense argument either way. We’ve had 150 years now to figure out the “equality under the law” is not actually equality (even ignoring the admittedly few areas in which women’s legal rights don’t match men’s).
[quote=“bcsizemo, post:220, topic:16422”] I base my opinion on my observations of the real world, which certainly can be flawed, and on basic reasoning and logic. I, personally, have never seen a woman oppressed, not in a class/group based fashion. My wife has had to deal with a sexist boss, but I don’t consider that some wide spread sign of female oppression by men.
[/quote]
First of all, I always groan when I hear people say stuff like that first sentence. Your observations of the “real world” are really observations of a model of the “real world” your brain has constructed. It’s not based on reasoning and logic – sensory data is not subjected to either when it impinges on your brain and is incorporated into your internal model of the world. Plenty of psychological and neurological research demonstrates that incoming sense data is filtered according to a “best fit” with the existing model – the brain selectively admits data that is consistent with its current state and rejects data that contradicts that state (a phenomenon called confirmation bias).
Second of all, what would it mean to see “a(n individual) woman oppressed…in a class/group based fashion”? It seems to me you’re somehow bracketing off unequal treatment of women so that it “doesn’t count” as oppression. Obviously a great deal of “class/group based” oppression will manifest as consequences for individual women. My girlfriend isn’t necessarily directly affected by your wife’s sexist boss, for example, but that doesn’t imply that your wife’s boss’s attitudes aren’t part of a more broad social more that results in unfair treatment of women. Perhaps if your wife’s boss was an aberration you might have a point but when there’s thousands of assholes like him in management all across the country you get effects on the whole “class/group”. Whatever the state of parity between men and women before the law, the attitudes of individuals like your wife’s boss results in fewer women managers and executives and lower pay.
When you say “oppression by men” you almost seem to think that it only “counts” if these effects are intentional. Well, no. I’d agree there’s little intention by men to oppress women. But many people – men and women – subscribe to belief systems that do seem to have the effect of promoting unequal treatment of women. They don’t see it that way because to them it’s normal.
Just like separate water fountains and lunch counters seemed normal and not unequal treatment to an earlier generation of white folks.
That’s the point of feminists calling out this shit. If it doesn’t get called out it just goes on and people see it as just another part of the wallpaper. You say this:
Yeah, “hopefully.” The odds are a lot better of this sort of thing improving if people actually note it as a problem rather than just accepting it as part of life.
I (and most feminists I’d expect) aren’t talking about individual relationships between men and women. I’m talking about attitudes held and acted upon across society. If you can believe there’s such a thing as institutional racism (and given nothing besides the sentencing disparities between crack and cocaine I’d say there’s obviously such a thing) then I don’t understand why it’s so hard to recognize that there might be an analogous institutional sexism. Technically blacks have been equal before the law since the late 1860’s. How has that worked out in practice?
Now obviously some progress has been made. Yes, women can vote and own property now. Some progress has even been made in the last few decades which is when most laws against spousal rape were implemented. However, it’s quite clear in the context of the civil rights movement that such attempts at equality de jure do not necessarily translate into de facto equality. Feminists typically argue that there is still not de facto equality between men and women. As evidence they point out circumstances from their lived experience. You can blind yourself to those experiences and continue to insist that there’s no such thing as male privilege but please don’t do so in the same breath that you insist that you observe the “real world” using “reasoning and logic”.
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