Be Excellent To Each Other

What rights are being fought for here?

Well, crikey, where to start?

I guess there was the right to vote, the right for access to birth controls, the right to the same legal protections as men, etc etc etc

These days it's more about trying to get society to move towards equality. That's in removing discrimination, giving equal opportunities, respect and so on.

There are more male MPs at the moment than there have been female MPs in history, and it isn't even close.

Much like racism is still a thing, despite legal attempts to outlaw it, so is sexism.

Unless you're trying to say that a fair equilibrium of society has been reached already, but I doubt you'd say that.

Discrimination on sex is illegal, so you fix attitudes by educating the young and waiting for those with an archaic mindset to die off.

I don't think we really need 50% of females in all jobs everywhere in some kind of 'positive discrimination' quota, unless you're also going to start aggressively fighting the corner for 50% of all bin collectors to be female also. Funny how people demand equity except when it's for something shitty that we're typically happy for mostly males to do. Best person for the job in all instances, whether that's 90% female or 90% male.

If there's a problem with aspirations, that's education again. You don't need to be a housewife, but there are no legal impediments now to doing whatever the heck you like. We need to be satisfied that we have equality of opportunity, and what people then choose to do is entirely up to them.

Positive discrimination is condescending and actually imo does more harm than good to improve women condition.

Not enough women in Politics? So what? Man are more interested in it.
Not enough women in IT and programming? Also, see above.

Is there anyone complaining that there aren't enough men biologists and elementary teachers?

Shockingly sexist and outdated views here, RuySan, for shame. Girls are just as interested in science, politics, tech and gaming. Just that the opportunities are limited growing up due to being taught that 'gender normalcy' is a real thing (chemistry kits for boys, princess dresses for girls etc). Also some industries such as tech treat women so badly that women end up leaving their careers because it's too stressful to have to prove themselves all the time in ways men don't.

The notion that men and women are somehow fundamentally different species a la 'Men are from Mars...' needs to stop now. We are basically the same. Men shouldn't be ridiculed for liking ballet or drinking cocktails instead of beer (but they are); they should be able to show emotion whenever they want (poor mental health among men due to our macho culture is another thing entirely). Women should be able to work in traditional male industries without constantly having to prove themselves that they know about computers. We have a long way to go, and it's comments like yours which are stopping society getting to where it needs to get to.

That reminds me, I should really update my sewing blog.

Agree with the equality of opportunity, but it's exceedingly obvious that it doesn't yet exist.

Sewing? What a poof.

Next you'll be packing fudge at the cottage.

What next, men wearing skirts?

Malc

The Onion nails it, as usual.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-dont ... all,37301/

They aren't "interested in" it due to social/cultural conditioning.

The gender roles that define and determine our life chances and opportunities are wholly social constructions. The fact that they appear 'natural' and 'ordinary' to the unquestioning is a reflection of the power of those social constructions.

Incidentally, modern academic feminism often looks at how gender roles negatively affect men and male identities as much as how they affect females. (And please, anyone who responds, please actually learn what things like 'feminism', 'cultural criticism' actually entail, it's relatively straightforward to grasp the basics about what both broadly entail, but there seems to be some on this thread who fail to understand the very basics of what they are attacking. Being wilfully and uncorrectably ignorant isn't a positive trait and not really constructive if we're trying to have a coherent discussion.)

Why SJW is the worst insult ever: http://www.josephscrimshaw.com/2014/10/ ... sult-ever/

I agree.

That's a great piece. Pffft.

Yes, I can see how that might catch on around here!

Jeeezzz, calm down man. You know nothing about me, and yet it didn't stopped you from name calling.

No, we are not basically the same. Not at all one bit. My wife is an academic in a chemistry related field, and she'll tell me constantly all the strange difference scientists are discovering everyday between genders. Be it do to hormones, genes, or just biochemistry. I think it's just ignorance to assume that every difference is due to social conditioning.

But surely it's also ignorance to say that it's all just chemistry, unless you have the evidence?

Feel free to link me to multiple peer reviewed studies and meta-studies where it shows that women are clinically less interested in politics, if you can.

He'd have to link to at least zero of them to debunk the data you provided!

He made the claims - the burden of proof is on him.

What? No he didn't - you claimed it was social.

The statement is:



I am disputing that and asking for evidence.

You can't start with the assumption that women aren't interested in politics. That makes no sense whatsoever.

'Politics' does not occur naturally, e.g. it does not occur at cellular level through biochemical reactions. 'Politics' exists through social interaction between humans, and does not exist independentally of human culture.

'Politics' is therefore undeniably a socio-cultural construction. What constitutes 'politics' varies from culture to culture, whether that be in developed or pre-industrial forms of society, and even varies within the same culture historically. Culture is transmitted through social conditioning. Therefore any factors which determine or influence the level of personal interest held by members of a particular gender towards 'politics' are entirely due to the effects of social conditioning.

Myp claimed that man and women are fundamentally the same, which to me is so ridiculous as claiming that homeopathy works and that climate change is a myth. My point is: Since genders differ so much, is only natural that men and women get interest in different things.

Also, many of you are assuming that jobs traditionally held by men are more important or dignified (like IT, engineering or politics) and measures should be taken to force some sort of balance. My point is, why are those jobs more important that the ones that are traditionally held by women, in fields like biology, psychology, teaching or chemistry? Or even Medical School which has been dominated by women in the last two decades, which means that in some years we'll barely have any man doctor (in this last case i'm speaking only of my country case). I don't see people worried that there aren't many men in these fields...

I wouldn't trust sociology as a model of who does what any more as I would trust psychology as model as to who thinks why, both areas are notoriously unreliable when it comes to reproducible results. And most stuff they come up with is the sort a 15 year old girls writes on her mirror in lipstick.

Anyway, here's some light reading on the effect of gender on behaviour and perception from a very brief search of the public databases.

EDIT: 2009 BMA report on 'Equality and Diversity at UK Medical Schools' says:



2013 thing form the Guardian which show an increase in female students studying engineering and technology. Decrease in COmputer science but that is decreasing overall.

The sexes are equal, but that doesn't mean they're the same, or even that they should act the same. As Ruy says, things like science and medicine are deemed (by who, I don't know) to be worthy careers and therefore we must alter the 'social construction' to construct more women to go into those fields. Socially constructing people is evil unless the self-appointed authorities on sexual equality decide it isn't.

I'll repeat again, nobody is falling over themselves to right the imbalance of the male-dominated bin collectors. Isn't that just as worthy and essential a job? Are we not concerned about the low aspirations of millions of men in such careers just because there also happen to be more of them in roles that 'we' consider more prestigious? Gosh, I feel so sorry for those men that have been socially engineered to believe that bin collecting and manual labour is only fit for a man. Women must be saved for better things.

IT jobs were tradionally held by women until around 1985.

Here's a link for Curio: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html

Did anyone see the documentary a few weeks ago about the differences between the sexes? Presented by Alice Roberts and Michael Mosley?

They looked at nature vs nuture and concluded that it was a bit of both.

They gave some toys to some monkeys and the male monkeys played with the "boys" toys (cars and stuff) and the female monkeys played with the "girls" toys (dolls etc)

But they also did things like telling an adult a child was a boy, when it was girl. Then they left them to play with some toys. the adults invariably felt the child was naturally drown to the "boys" toys. They then did the opposite (told them the child was a girl when it was boy) and the adults once again felt the child was drawn to the "girls" toys.

It's worth catching it on iplayer ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04knbny ) if you are interested.

Malc

Still waiting on some proof of this. This was your opening statement. I am happy to discuss my rebuttal afterwards.

Maybe ask your wife for some links seeing as you seem to be floundering here.

The very simple message is that this is not about a single type of career or job; it is about ethics in gaming journalism equality of opportunity.

The point that I am trying to make is that this country (and the world in general) should be sufficiently enlightened that people of either sex do not face discrimination in their chosen field. This can be politics, science, medicine, construction, engineering, waste removal, serving tables, being air crew, soldiers, sewage workers, whatever.

The only way this can be attacked is if you are either sexist or believe sexism doesn't exist (or isn't a problem).

The reason that there is a focus on high paid jobs and positions of influence is because these are very obviously desirable positions that are generally male dominated. There are obviously other areas that are male dominated that are less desirable, but referencing that as some kind of weird straw man makes absolutely no argument at all. If you think there aren't women out there doing unpopular jobs on low or minimum wages then you're insane.

So yes, I believe that if a woman wants to be a bin person then they should be able to without any bullying or discrimination. If a man wants to be a Personal Assistant, likewise. I do not believe that you can just shrug your shoulders, say equality of opportunity has been reached, and take a 'Men are from Mars...' view on life without inherently supporting any sexist constructs that exist.

Honestly, a (zoological) study using an entirely different species is going to tell us nothing of any validity about social transmission of gender roles in humans. After all, human gender roles and norms do not exist independentally of human culture. Also, the concept of 'toys' and their relative symbolic significance is a wholly human cultural construction.

Dogs play with toys.

I was surprised they didn't use chimps, but, unless they take some kids away from their parents and make them grow up without any influences from adult humans, then it's the closest they are going to get.

Malc

Are you doing this on purpose?

Shit, sorry.

Source

Clearly invalid data.

I have seen pics of them playing poker.

Dogs aren't really playing with toys for fun, though. They're just mock-hunting. Remember they are all vicious killers.

Damnit - one day we're going to talk about this.

Well, chimpanzees aren't humans either, so wouldn't provide any valid data about human gender roles either. A cross-cultural study with humans would be valid, but not another cross-species zoological study.

Put it this way: You weren't born speaking English. No one is born speaking their 'native' language. Language is a cultural construction and is transmitted by human social interaction at a micro and macro level.

Gender roles are the same as languages: Artificial human constructs, nothing more.

There are a few things that are gender-specific, of course.

Piffle and poppycock.

If you're observed behaviours specific to gender in other species (looking after young, foraging, hunting) then the young reenacting those behaviours is perfectly valid and testable. Then moving the idea forward to humans is also testable.

As for language: there are many examples of language that has developed in the animal Kingdom. So much so, two herds of humpback whales cannot understand each other as they have developed the sounds independently.to name but one.

You haven't quite grasped what I've written above.

Of course there's a biologically determined ability to create language in the sense of emitting sounds that can be used for intra-species communication, but that doesn't mean that English, or Mandarin Chinese, or Swahili are 'natural' or are transmitted immutably and biologically via inherited genetic material.

Think about it this way: English is different now compared to how it was spoken in the 17th century. Also British English is different to American English in 2014. Gender roles also vary between cultures and within the same culture, and between eras in history. That's because language and gender roles are both human cultural constructs, they are not fixed in stone by nature forever to remain unchanged.

You were…being serious?

But chimps are quite close to Humans, and it was interesting to see that male monkeys like playing with the same sort of toys that male children stereotypically like to play with. And female monkeys like to play with the same sort of toys that female children stereotypically like to play with.

They explained in the documentary the limitation of the comparison, and they speculated that the "male brain" might be more interested in cause and effect, and what happens when you push something (ie a toy car or train or whatever) and the female brain is more attuned to looking after young (hence dolls and whatnot). And as I said unless you want to raise some children without any adult intervention I can't see how you can do any better study on if the type of toy a child likes is determined by birth or social pressures.

Malc

Sounds like neurobollocks to me.

I'm probably doing the documentary a disservice, just watch it yourself.

Malc

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010 ... delia-fine

But hey, what do these so-called experts know? I'm sure RuySan will be along soon to explain why they're talking nonsense. I bet they're climate change-deniers too!