Those who have come from Pz's blog, aka THAT thread

[cogwheel]

I forgot to address this point above:

And, if we're down to things that people are unaware they're doing, we've pretty much solved the problem

Yeah, no... not buying that in the slightest. MOST human behavior is caused by motives hidden from the human doing the behaving. If we only focus our attention on what people do with full knowledge and intent, then these problems will NEVER be solved.

Food for thought: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/05/26/ ... ospection/

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's extremely frustrating to have a conversation with someone who keeps turning my very deliberately qualified statements into absolutes. Just sayin....

I never talk to him on serious matters.

[Coito ergo sum]

Rape, of course, is still a "problem," but other than making it illegal and prosecuting it, there's not much more to be done. Murder and theft still happen too.

There is more to be done. There are still people who think that a woman dressing a certain way is "asking" to be raped, and there are still many cases of rape reports not being taken seriously enough by law enforcement. Those sort of things are improving but that improvement is coming about because of people advocating for it.

I disagree on this. The allegations of rape not being taken seriously are at the margins. Generally, rape is taken at least as seriously as any other violent crime. And, the number of people who think that a woman's manner of dress entitles men to fuck them against their will is vanishingly small.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who judge women harshly for the way they dress, but that's another matter altogether.

They are. But, if you're suggesting that there is something "we" can do to stop criminals hurting people, besides make it illegal and prosecute crimes, you'll have to explain.

Again, you do your best to make it clear that as a society we don't accept or tolerate it. It's not going to stop it altogether, but we can aspire to be a society where less people are going out and hurting people.

You think in the West, we don't have a clear culture which finds it unacceptable to rape women?

As for double standards -- there aren't just double standards, there are bazillions of standards. You can't regulate "societal double standards." There is a double standard that it is generally acceptable for women to wear skirts, but not men. Big deal. If a person is concerned about how many people another person has dated, what are you going to do about that?

Reason with them.

Which is precisely what I've said. Once again - if we're down to reasoning with people of different mindsets, then the "problem" has really been solved. That's no different than anything else. When people are rude and obnoxious, you're recourse is to reason with them. That's nothing compared to job discrimination, education discrimination and the like, and those issues have been pretty much solved.

Gender differences will always be an issue between men and women because they are different, and since most people are heterosexual there will often be sexual issues arising between them.

Of course. Doesn't mean we shouldn't want to "bridge the gap" as much as possible, so to speak.

Some might, others might not. Some people might value gender roles as voluntary things. If a woman wants to be a stay at home mom and thinks other women should do the same, and wants to "reason" with other people that it's best if women do that, then that is just as acceptable as someone else "reasoning" with someone else that women shouldn't be stay at home moms any more than men should. As long as everyone has equal opportunity to do as they please, the fact that there is a difference in what people are pleased to do is not a "problem" to be solved. I submit that in "the West" women can do what they want pretty much as much as men.

They have whatever refuges they want to create. There is no impediment besides desire or lack of a market to stop them.

I agree, and that's why I don't see it as a problem.

That's true of just about everything women want to do, nowadays.

Saying one is against violence isn't the hard work. that's the easy part. The hard work is investigating the crime, arresting criminals and prosecuting them. That's the thing with all this Skepchick style "activism." That ISN'T the hard work. That's the easy part. Saying "women need to be more represented in science" is NOT the hard work. Going to college and getting a degree in a scientific discipline - THAT is the hard work.

Law enforcement isn't the only hard work aspect of fighting violence against women. There's also the creation and allocation of resources for victims, which often falls outside the scope of what law enforcement does. Counseling and support groups for rape victims, shelters for battered women with nowhere to go, advocacy groups, legal aid, etc.

Granted. The same goes for victims of other violent crimes.

[mozg]

Work environment is one: http://www.todaysengineer.org/2011/May/ ... eering.asp

The thing is that men are faced with exactly the same demands for time, travel, production and dedication and they're not leaving the profession, so I'm not sure how this is an issue that's discriminatory at all. It's a demanding field. I traveled virtually non-stop for three years, put in the 60 to 80 hour weeks (not including travel time) and produced results. I climbed the ladder a hell of a lot faster than a good portion of the men I worked with too, as long as I was producing more and better work than them.

The rules of the game are tough, but I have yet to see one that applied to me and not my male counterparts. It was like that in school, and it's been like that since.

School environment is another: http://www.asanet.org/press/engineering_and_women.cfm

Success in engineering (and I say this as an engineer) is largely measured by the work the engineer produces. It has nothing whatever to do with being masculine or feminine. I went through engineering school, so I'm very abundantly familiar with the fact that the men and women take the same classes and the same tests and do the same lab work to get the same degree. A grade doesn't changes its value depending on the gender of the student who earned it. If two students, one male and one female, both get a 95% score on an exam, how does that equate to the female student feeling less confident than the male student?

What about that is so inherently biased against women? It seems to me that's the definition of equal opportunity.

As far as having classroom speakers and internships, I will admit that I did not attend one of the institutions in this rather small study, but my experience again differs from that stated in the article. We had numerous guest speakers, male and female, at the weekly department seminar. We were encouraged to intern, and internship fairs were held every year to bring companies right into the engineering school. We participated in inter-collegiate engineering competitions and events, we built electric cars, we had design expos to show what we had designed in our 'senior design' course. The university heaped encouragement onto women to go into and stay in engineering, they set up a club enitrely for women engineers and gave women engineers their own on campus space for that club.

Yet at the end of it all, there were 30 of us in my particular branch of engineering on graduation day, and three were women.

I don't know what else you think they should've done. In my mind, the university bent over backwards to accomodate women in engineering, but the campus women's organization sure thought it wasn't enough. Of course when I asked them why they didn't study engineering they kept saying 'We don't want to.'

Aside from forcing women to be engineers when they have repeatedly stated that they don't want to, what else is left?

[Coito ergo sum]

Nope. Wrong "i.e." I wasn't being technical with my use of "detect," though I could have made that clearer. Think "hard to notice" or "not overt" or basically any other similar concept to "subtle."

My point was that the people "doing" sexism these days don't even realize they're doing it. People are remarkably unaware of the motivations for their own decisions.

Besides, even if I had used "hard to detect" in the technical sense, that still doesn't support your point. That an effect is hard to detect doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Yes, but it's difficult to do much about that which one has a hard time even detecting. How do you stop someone from doing something that you can't detect? And, if we're down to things that people are unaware they're doing, we've pretty much solved the problem, especially where it is pretty clear that discrimination in employment, education and income is pretty much statistically gone or being handed its hat.

It's extremely frustrating to have a conversation with someone who keeps turning my very deliberately qualified statements into absolutes. Just sayin...

I didn't intend to do that. However, it is equally frustrating to have a conversation with someone who keeps using mushy, non-specific, ill-defined generalizations. Just sayin...

But as to the substance of you're point, we're now back to "It's hard to keep people from murdering, so we shouldn't do any more to try." Should we just give up on every problem that's "difficult to do much about?"

Of course, I never said we shouldn't do any more to try, with respect to things like rape, murder, etc. Sure, we should. What I don't think we can do much about is whether someone is engaging in subtle, hard to detect, behaviors of which they are unaware, or things like "double standards" as to male and female etiquette.

And, also, a good deal of disparity now appears to be that women are dominating some fields -- like veterinarians and such - and some demographics of women are out earning men by almost 18% (see above). So, are we going to start going after those "problems" too?

At some point, when the playing field is basically level, and the legal system has pretty much eliminated invidious distinctions, well, that's pretty much it. I don't view the fact that most veterinarians are women, or that most tow truck drivers are men to be problems that need solving.

I agree with that statement completely. I simply don't believe we've reached that point.

Well, then we draw different conclusions, I guess. I don't see a field women can't get into if they don't want to.

I never said anything to the contrary. I'm not making statements about what women are physically/legally capable of doing. I'm talking about a society that prevents them from reaching their goals in much more insidious, and subtle ways that are completely ignored by people who think it's a solved problem.

What the insidious and subtle ways that women are prevented from reaching their goals, and what goals are you referring to?

I think mozg's statement above is right on target. If women want to be engineers and such, all they have to do is go to school. They are certainly not being kept out of school, or even advised against it (like used to be the case).

For certain definitions of "kept." Authority figures denying advancement isn't the only way women are "kept" out of engineering.

Well, the door is open, and women are flocking to formerly male-only fields like law, medicine and veterinary school. If you have evidence of some "way" that women are being "kept" out of engineering, feel free to mention it.

[Audley Strange]

"Huh? What? What are those courses? Math is hard. I took Public Relations, Marketing, Media, and Intro to Journalism as an elective. I had to cram all night before the finals, which put a damper on my partying that week."

I had a lot of conversations like this over the last 15 years. A lot of 'Well, we need more women in technology.' being said to me quite often by a woman who wasn't majoring in, didn't have a degree in, and wasn't employed in a technology, science, math or engineering field. And I would ask them why they didn't take up such a pursuit and it was always that they didn't want to, but we still need more women in these fields.

What women then? Women who are interested? We had those. I'm one of those. I went to school for engineering, I do it for a living, and I want to keep doing it for the rest of my career. I was never told by the men around me that I couldn't do it, that I wasn't smart enough, that I didn't belong there. I haven't found that doors are closed to me on the basis of my gender. I worked hard to get very good at what I do and found that most of the time there's more demand for my time and work than I could fulfill if the day was 36 hours long.

So I've asked repeatedly over the years, who are these women who we 'need' to get into science and math? Where are they? It's clearly not the feminist pundits and the bloggers at Skepchick. It's not the women who told me that they flat out don't have any interest in these fields but keep telling me that there is some group of women somewhere in the western world who want to be scientists and mathematicians and engineers but they're not being allowed to be.

I still want to know... who are these women? Where are they? Point them the fuck out to me, please!

Shush, men are arguing about your rights.

Actually you make the point that I've been making for ages but clearly being a man saying it falls on deaf ears. Opportunities are not fucking mandatory. If women don't want to work in a field they don't want to work in a field. It's funny how you never hear them complaining women aren't represented on the front line or down mining pits, or in shipyards, it's always "prestige" careers they seemingly are concerned they can't get into, except as you prove and millions of other women prove, they can, if they spent the time making an effort rather than complaining how unfair life is.

It doesn't matter how many biases you put in place to encourage women to work in fields they don't want to work in any more than it would be for men. If you are unable or willing to do it, why the fuck would you? Because some spoilt brat with a chip on her shoulder thinks the fucking world owes her and her pals a living?

I have had a quite a few jobs in my life and in none of them, from factories to finance from the NHS to Security I have never seen any limitations on women who were willing to put in the effort. Two of the people I admire in this planet the most were two middle aged women who were my managers in a bank and in a ticket office for a major football club. Those women were fucking brilliant at their jobs. Another women I admire was my first manager, 26 years of age, given an office to run almost by accident, both of us were as nervous as hell to start with, but she turned that office into the most profitable part of the company within 6 months.

Complaining that its someone else's fault that you can't do something when you haven't even fucking tried is so much easier.

[Wumbologist]

I disagree on this. The allegations of rape not being taken seriously are at the margins. Generally, rape is taken at least as seriously as any other violent crime. And, the number of people who think that a woman's manner of dress entitles men to fuck them against their will is vanishingly small.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who judge women harshly for the way they dress, but that's another matter altogether.

I'd say we'll probably have to agree to disagree on this, then, as I think that these issues are still more prevalent than you believe them to be.

You think in the West, we don't have a clear culture which finds it unacceptable to rape women?

I think that too often, rapists are given too light a punishment, and the social stigma that can come along with a rape trial that ends up in the public eye is problematic. Of course, this goes both ways and the damage that can come from a falsified rape allegation can certainly be quite damaging as well.

Which is precisely what I've said. Once again - if we're down to reasoning with people of different mindsets, then the "problem" has really been solved. That's no different than anything else. When people are rude and obnoxious, you're recourse is to reason with them. That's nothing compared to job discrimination, education discrimination and the like, and those issues have been pretty much solved.

As long as there are still people being affected by it in our society the problem isn't solved. That's a clear indicator that people still need to be reasoned with so that they change their ways. When that happens, THEN you've solved the problem.

Some might, others might not. Some people might value gender roles as voluntary things. If a woman wants to be a stay at home mom and thinks other women should do the same, and wants to "reason" with other people that it's best if women do that, then that is just as acceptable as someone else "reasoning" with someone else that women shouldn't be stay at home moms any more than men should. As long as everyone has equal opportunity to do as they please, the fact that there is a difference in what people are pleased to do is not a "problem" to be solved. I submit that in "the West" women can do what they want pretty much as much as men.

There's certainly nothing wrong with a person voluntarily taking on a traditional gender role. Though, as I was hinting at in my reply to mozg, we should make sure as a society to make sure that little girls know they CAN be engineers, or police officers, or whatever else they want to do, and that little boys can grow up to be nurses or be stay at home dads, and all of that is perfectly OK.

Granted. The same goes for victims of other violent crimes.

Right. They need activists and advocates on their side who are passionate about what they do.

[hadespussercats]

If all the "Communications" majors at Skepchick would have gotten engineering, medical, or science-related degrees, they would do far more good....

"Science is awesome!"

You forget that comm majors are usually those who can't cut the mustards in humanities, let alone science.

Or maybe they're just more interested in communications.

I hope that wasn't your own major, because I piss on communication as a specific university field.

As an adjunct to other subjects, it is fine, but learning to communicate in and of itself, independently of what you want to communicate is buying a basket without a bottom... Even Goebbels had other baggage beyond his propaganda skeelz

No, elementary education. But, interests vary and lots of people go on to have very successful careers in the communications field. I, on the other hand, make cakes and take care of my children and home. Not exactly what I went to college for.

To quote Liz Lemon:
I have a degree in technical theatre.

Why did my parents let me do that?!

[Wumbologist]

"Huh? What? What are those courses? Math is hard. I took Public Relations, Marketing, Media, and Intro to Journalism as an elective. I had to cram all night before the finals, which put a damper on my partying that week."

I had a lot of conversations like this over the last 15 years. A lot of 'Well, we need more women in technology.' being said to me quite often by a woman who wasn't majoring in, didn't have a degree in, and wasn't employed in a technology, science, math or engineering field. And I would ask them why they didn't take up such a pursuit and it was always that they didn't want to, but we still need more women in these fields.

What women then? Women who are interested? We had those. I'm one of those. I went to school for engineering, I do it for a living, and I want to keep doing it for the rest of my career. I was never told by the men around me that I couldn't do it, that I wasn't smart enough, that I didn't belong there. I haven't found that doors are closed to me on the basis of my gender. I worked hard to get very good at what I do and found that most of the time there's more demand for my time and work than I could fulfill if the day was 36 hours long.

So I've asked repeatedly over the years, who are these women who we 'need' to get into science and math? Where are they? It's clearly not the feminist pundits and the bloggers at Skepchick. It's not the women who told me that they flat out don't have any interest in these fields but keep telling me that there is some group of women somewhere in the western world who want to be scientists and mathematicians and engineers but they're not being allowed to be.

I still want to know... who are these women? Where are they? Point them the fuck out to me, please!

Shush, men are arguing about your rights.

Actually you make the point that I've been making for ages but clearly being a man saying it falls on deaf ears. Opportunities are not fucking mandatory. If women don't want to work in a field they don't want to work in a field. It's funny how you never hear them complaining women aren't represented on the front line or down mining pits, or in shipyards, it's always "prestige" careers they seemingly are concerned they can't get into, except as you prove and millions of other women prove, they can, if they spent the time making an effort rather than complaining how unfair life is.

It doesn't matter how many biases you put in place to encourage women to work in fields they don't want to work in any more than it would be for men. If you are unable or willing to do it, why the fuck would you? Because some spoilt brat with a chip on her shoulder thinks the fucking world owes her and her pals a living?

I have had a quite a few jobs in my life and in none of them, from factories to finance from the NHS to Security I have never seen any limitations on women who were willing to put in the effort. Two of the people I admire in this planet the most were two middle aged women who were my managers in a bank and in a ticket office for a major football club. Those women were fucking brilliant at their jobs. Another women I admire was my first manager, 26 years of age, given an office to run almost by accident, both of us were as nervous as hell to start with, but she turned that office into the most profitable part of the company within 6 months.

Complaining that its someone else's fault that you can't do something when you haven't even fucking tried is so much easier.

And that's what divides the advocates for real equality from the bunch that want to be "more equal" than other people.

[Kristie]

"Huh? What? What are those courses? Math is hard. I took Public Relations, Marketing, Media, and Intro to Journalism as an elective. I had to cram all night before the finals, which put a damper on my partying that week."

I had a lot of conversations like this over the last 15 years. A lot of 'Well, we need more women in technology.' being said to me quite often by a woman who wasn't majoring in, didn't have a degree in, and wasn't employed in a technology, science, math or engineering field. And I would ask them why they didn't take up such a pursuit and it was always that they didn't want to, but we still need more women in these fields.

What women then? Women who are interested? We had those. I'm one of those. I went to school for engineering, I do it for a living, and I want to keep doing it for the rest of my career. I was never told by the men around me that I couldn't do it, that I wasn't smart enough, that I didn't belong there. I haven't found that doors are closed to me on the basis of my gender. I worked hard to get very good at what I do and found that most of the time there's more demand for my time and work than I could fulfill if the day was 36 hours long.

So I've asked repeatedly over the years, who are these women who we 'need' to get into science and math? Where are they? It's clearly not the feminist pundits and the bloggers at Skepchick. It's not the women who told me that they flat out don't have any interest in these fields but keep telling me that there is some group of women somewhere in the western world who want to be scientists and mathematicians and engineers but they're not being allowed to be.

I still want to know... who are these women? Where are they? Point them the fuck out to me, please!

Shush, men are arguing about your rights.

Actually you make the point that I've been making for ages but clearly being a man saying it falls on deaf ears. Opportunities are not fucking mandatory. If women don't want to work in a field they don't want to work in a field. It's funny how you never hear them complaining women aren't represented on the front line or down mining pits, or in shipyards, it's always "prestige" careers they seemingly are concerned they can't get into, except as you prove and millions of other women prove, they can, if they spent the time making an effort rather than complaining how unfair life is.

It doesn't matter how many biases you put in place to encourage women to work in fields they don't want to work in any more than it would be for men. If you are unable or willing to do it, why the fuck would you? Because some spoilt brat with a chip on her shoulder thinks the fucking world owes her and her pals a living?

I have had a quite a few jobs in my life and in none of them, from factories to finance from the NHS to Security I have never seen any limitations on women who were willing to put in the effort. Two of the people I admire in this planet the most were two middle aged women who were my managers in a bank and in a ticket office for a major football club. Those women were fucking brilliant at their jobs. Another women I admire was my first manager, 26 years of age, given an office to run almost by accident, both of us were as nervous as hell to start with, but she turned that office into the most profitable part of the company within 6 months.

Complaining that its someone else's fault that you can't do something when you haven't even fucking tried is so much easier.

And that's what divides the advocates for real equality from the bunch that want to be "more equal" than other people.

I demand to be more equal than everyone else!

[Audley Strange]

@CES.

I think you're a bit quick to say "problem solved" more like "extent of problem's effects exaggerated." Other than that I think everyone is basically on the same page. I may be wrong.

[Coito ergo sum]

I disagree on this. The allegations of rape not being taken seriously are at the margins. Generally, rape is taken at least as seriously as any other violent crime. And, the number of people who think that a woman's manner of dress entitles men to fuck them against their will is vanishingly small.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who judge women harshly for the way they dress, but that's another matter altogether.

I'd say we'll probably have to agree to disagree on this, then, as I think that these issues are still more prevalent than you believe them to be.

Well, I'm just going by my experience. I've never heard a single person, except Seth, who said anything close to "women who dress sexy are asking to be raped," and even he did not say they were asking to be "raped."

And, I see no evidence that a woman who alleges rape is not taken seriously by police to whom she reports it. But, I'm open to be proven wrong (by something other than mere assertion).

You think in the West, we don't have a clear culture which finds it unacceptable to rape women?

I think that too often, rapists are given too light a punishment, and the social stigma that can come along with a rape trial that ends up in the public eye is problematic. Of course, this goes both ways and the damage that can come from a falsified rape allegation can certainly be quite damaging as well.

Well, having some familiarity with sentencing stats, I don't think that is true, but I guess it may depend on what one thinks the appropriate punishment would be and the severity of the crime, I suppose.

Which is precisely what I've said. Once again - if we're down to reasoning with people of different mindsets, then the "problem" has really been solved. That's no different than anything else. When people are rude and obnoxious, you're recourse is to reason with them. That's nothing compared to job discrimination, education discrimination and the like, and those issues have been pretty much solved.

As long as there are still people being affected by it in our society the problem isn't solved. That's a clear indicator that people still need to be reasoned with so that they change their ways. When that happens, THEN you've solved the problem.

Affected by what, exactly? What "ways" are you talking about? And, I don't mean "sexism and discrimination" -- those are such broad terms they are impossible to discuss. What specific things are you referring to?

Some might, others might not. Some people might value gender roles as voluntary things. If a woman wants to be a stay at home mom and thinks other women should do the same, and wants to "reason" with other people that it's best if women do that, then that is just as acceptable as someone else "reasoning" with someone else that women shouldn't be stay at home moms any more than men should. As long as everyone has equal opportunity to do as they please, the fact that there is a difference in what people are pleased to do is not a "problem" to be solved. I submit that in "the West" women can do what they want pretty much as much as men.

There's certainly nothing wrong with a person voluntarily taking on a traditional gender role.

And, there is nothing "wrong" with her telling other people that what she is doing is the right thing to do for all men or women.

Though, as I was hinting at in my reply to mozg, we should make sure as a society to make sure that little girls know they CAN be engineers, or police officers, or whatever else they want to do, and that little boys can grow up to be nurses or be stay at home dads, and all of that is perfectly OK.

And, aren't they? Who is telling them they can't be?

Granted. The same goes for victims of other violent crimes.

Right. They need activists and advocates on their side who are passionate about what they do.

Now we're on to activism to prevent crime and help victims? Sure. But that has zero to do with subtle attitudes and such. We agree on the former, but you can't bootstrap that to mean that the "subtle attitudes" of some people in our culture mean that we still have some big sexism/discrimination against women problem.

[Coito ergo sum]

@CES.

I think you're a bit quick to say "problem solved" more like "extent of problem's effects exaggerated." Other than that I think everyone is basically on the same page. I may be wrong.

Well, I do recall saying that the problem is out the door, or at least being handed its hat. I think that whatever is left of discrimination against women in the West is pretty minor stuff.

[hadespussercats]

If all the "Communications" majors at Skepchick would have gotten engineering, medical, or science-related degrees, they would do far more good....

"Science is awesome!"

You forget that comm majors are usually those who can't cut the mustards in humanities, let alone science.

Or maybe they're just more interested in communications.

Sure, but it's really a very easy major, relatively speaking.

What's your point? Why major in a difficult field if you want to be a writer? And, difficult to one person is simple to another. Math and science come easy to some, while Shakespeare is beyond their mental grasp.

It's not just that.

Some fields are demanding in terms of a certain stripe of analytical skills, but simple in terms of the defined goals one hopes to accomplish within that field.

When you choose to work in a subjective field, you have to grapple with the absence of correct answers. Which could be easy, or hard, depending on your talent, your work ethic, and any number of other things. Never mind the fact that you're being evaluated subjectively, as well. How can you prove you deserve to pass if your professor simply doesn't cotton to your work?

And you're choosing a life of financial hardship, most of the time.

(Well, I don't know if any of this is true of communications majors. But people who study arts or humanities deal with this trope all the time.)

[/derail]

[Jason]

I could never imagine Scotty in a dress. Just sayin'..