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[GlyphGryph]

They are getting basically every degree that isn't physics, math, comp sci, and engineering.

Though I would ask you to elaborate on how it will add value to all students. I can certainly see how it would add value to some students, but all is a very big claim.

Many colleges have a stated goal of introducing students to a variety of other people, with their own habits, background, and life experiences, with the belief that they will share those experiences to become better people. Gender-skewed colleges, whether one way or another, can serve to isolate the smaller group and cause the students to be less likely to act as equals, and in some cases, such as the not unknown 70/30 or worse splits, greatly reduce the chance for students to have friends, classmates, and partners of the opposite gender. This often limits their experience with the "other side" to sex and dating, which can cause significantly skewed views.

That's the logic, anyways.

[Capntastic]

Personally, I don't think quotas is "fair", and certainly not "gender equal"

You have these mixed up, actually.  Fairness doesn't mean treating people equally- for example, certain groups of people in the US, historically, have been systematically treated as second class citizens or worse.  This is why, in these groups, they are disenfranchised and further unable to 'progress' at the same rate as the rest of the nation.  This is why we give those groups "first dibs" when it comes to things like scholarships and jobs.  It isn't treating them equally, but it is required to get them on equal footing with those of us who have had the privilege of not being discriminated against for centuries.

"But that means sometimes the person selected for a job isn't always going to be 'the best' person for a job":  Perhaps, but if we're talking about selecting people who have been privileged enough to have good homes, educations, etc, for generations, vs people who have not, who do you think needs it, or deserves it more?  If we continue to live in a cut-throat world where we never admit that some people have had it better off for centuries, and continue giving them all the jobs and all the scholarships, then not only are we ignoring that privilege, we're continuing it.

[Heron TSG]

This is particularly enlightening. Near the bottom is a chart showing what percentage of workers of that gender fit into each income bracket, and how much the average pay is. No actual quantities, but it gives some idea.

[Kilroy the Grand]

Perhaps, but if we're talking about selecting people who have been privileged enough to have good homes, educations, etc, for generations, vs people who have not, who do you think needs it, or deserves it more?

I know when people look at me they don't think to themselves "There goes Thadeus Worshnoppes Kilroy the Grand, inherenter of vast tracks of land, and graduate of Yale just as his forefathers did"

My grandparents were from Ireland and Lithuania, they were dirt farmers whose entire existence was getting the shit kicked out of them and starving. They then moved over here, had seven kids and where still dirt poor and starving. My father got kicked out of the house at 16, got two jobs, then had my brother a few years later. He then had 4 other kids, and was still dirt poor, but not starving because of food stamps. Not once did I ever hear him complain about how privileged or unprivileged we were.

Do some people need help, yeah. Should we be giving undeserving people jobs and scholarships because they are under represented? Hell no. If those groups want those jobs or those scholarships they should work for them like everyone else. At my high school one of my classmates was black, she worked really hard and got tons of scholarships. My school also had a black guy who sent in bomb threats, started fights and played the race card every time he got in trouble before eventually dropping out of school. Where I live right now, there are trailer-trash that get subsidized heating fuel, then sell it for booze. People aren't going to do jackshit if you just hand it to them on a silver fucking platter. "Privileged" what a joke.

[Felius]

Summing it up: Sexism against men exist, and it is an issue. Sexism against women also exist and it's also an issue. Sexism (against both male and female) coming from misandrists is revolting but tend to be less problematic since they have far less influence in society. Sexism coming from the traditional norms also hit both sexes, in different forms, and it's more of a problem since those norms have far more influence in society.

Those who advocate against misandrism are, sadly, generally a bunch of jerkass misogynists who tend to be just as bad as the misandrists themselves.

Also, it might be a good idea to make another thread for the quota debate, there's a lot of material to cover there.

[Bauglir]

@Kilroy

Okay, so the major problem with that is that nobody is talking about giving undeserving people anything, but instead giving preference to deserving people who didn't win the genetic lottery in comparison to other deserving people who did. Unless I missed something, which is always possible.

[Capntastic]

At my high school one of my classmates was black, she worked really hard and got tons of scholarships. My school also had a black guy who sent in bomb threats, started fights and played the race card every time he got in trouble before eventually dropping out of school.

I don't really get what you're trying to communicate with this anecdote, really.

[lordcooper]

Misandry is discrimination and therefore bad.  People who try to make an issue seem a lot bigger than it is are also bad.

[scriver]

, I don't think quotas is "fair", and certainly not "gender equal"

You have these mixed up, actually.  Fairness doesn't mean treating people equally- for example, certain groups of people in the US, historically, have been systematically treated as second class citizens or worse.  This is why, in these groups, they are disenfranchised and further unable to 'progress' at the same rate as the rest of the nation.  This is why we give those groups "first dibs" when it comes to things like scholarships and jobs.  It isn't treating them equally, but it is required to get them on equal footing with those of us who have had the privilege of not being discriminated against for centuries.

"But that means sometimes the person selected for a job isn't always going to be 'the best' person for a job":  Perhaps, but if we're talking about selecting people who have been privileged enough to have good homes, educations, etc, for generations, vs people who have not, who do you think needs it, or deserves it more?  If we continue to live in a cut-throat world where we never admit that some people have had it better off for centuries, and continue giving them all the jobs and all the scholarships, then not only are we ignoring that privilege, we're continuing it.

Did you even read the rest of my post?

[Capntastic]

Yes, but I was clarifying that equality and fairness aren't the same thing.  Past the two sentences or so it's basically addressed to everyone.  No need to take it personally, sometimes I ramble.

[King DZA]

At times when I'm not exactly feeling like a helpful little happy camper, I really just wish all the sexist idiots would march on out to the Mojave Desert and kill each other off in their own private war, so that I wouldn't have to hear about stupid bullshit like this anymore.

But alas, in the back of my mind, I know that the fools are capable of redemption.

[palsch]

Though I would ask you to elaborate on how it will add value to all students. I can certainly see how it would add value to some students, but all is a very big claim.

On top of Glyph's logical answer I want to try to provide a more detailed response.

Most of the actual research in this area is primarily focused on racial diversity, with gender as a sideshow. This shows that, even in the argument's weakest form, the factors that come with increased diversity have tangible benefits for both minority and majority students exposed to that diversity. tangible meaning;

Chang also found that having a diverse student body is associated with six other attributes of the institutional climate: stronger commitment to multiculturalism, a greater faculty emphasis on racial and gender issues in their research and in the classroom, and more frequent student involvement in cultural awareness workshops and ethnic studies courses. What is of special interest here is that these same environmental characteristics have also been shown to have positive impacts on student retention, overall college satisfaction, college GPA, intellectual self-confidence, and social self-confidence (Astin 1993).

This was used in front of the Supreme Court to argue that colleges have a genuine and compelling interest in implementing affirmative action programs to increase diversity; it benefits all students.

Now the Court held that quotas were illegal. But affirmative action through valuing diversity was allowed. So I can't say that I'm going to recruit exactly 50% women this year. But if my total number of women on staff or in my student body is well under 50% I can say that I'll give some preference to women during recruitment, in much the same way we might give preference to certain extracurricular activities if we wanted to improve in areas associated with that.

The court put additional limits on this, saying that such scoring should only apply when establishing a 'critical mass' of minority students. This is because it's the first members of a minority entering a field who have the highest barriers. Once there is an existing population then new minority students are more likely to follow. But the underlying logic definitely applies to women entering traditionally male fields.

The social pressures on women that push them out of certain subjects or jobs are intense and pervasive from (near) birth. Resisting these pressures is incredibly hard and so I'm not opposed to recognising that additional effort in those who have made it. A woman who enters a traditionally male role is likely to have fought institutional and social pressures that a man hasn't and recognising those factors is not, to me, discrimination. It's recognising that discrimination happens and that we should make some allowances for it.

Again, quotas aren't really the answer. But some elements of affirmative action are good sense.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I think misandry is not the problem. The problem is that men never had a unified intellectual movement to reexamine the male gender, unlike, say, feminism.

Even if feminism seems weaker today than in the 1970's-1980's, the ideas are pretty ingrained--e.g. few intelligent women would seriously take gender advice from a Cosmo, or define themselves only through their sexual partners, or through how they fulfill traditional gender roles (e.g. for women: household and family and appearance).

On the other hand, intelligent men and women see masculinity as some sort of given--and so listen to all the masculinity vendors out there--guys actually read Maxim for tips on how to be real men, define themselves by how much money they make or how many girls they've slept with and how much they can bench press or binge drink. 

Men aren't alone in promoting repressive gender roles, women do so as well (I recall a recent conversation with a female friend where she stated how she only likes assertive men--I countered with whether or not it would be ok for a men to only like submissive women--granted assertive seems like a better deal than submissive, but it is still a traditional dichotomy and it is still repressive--men should have the right to be passive and still be masculine, just as women have the right to be assertive and still be feminine). In a sense, if in feminism the discussion that the term "bitch" designates women who overstep gender bonds by being assertive has long been held, amongst men a similar discussion about unassertive men is not, and has not been held--I'm sure we all have male friends who have trouble dating or adjusting because they are shy or quiet, or sensitive. A good degree of their maladjustment, is that our present gender definitions leave those kind of men outside the norm, class them into marginal territory, mark them as failures to their gender, and this is wrong.

Feminist critics pointed out that traditional gender roles reduced women to glorified servants, baby-makers and eye-candy, and the vast majority of women (and men) in the west took heed, it was a generational discussion.

 On the other hand,  there has never been a generational discussion that pointed out that traditional gender roles for men reduce them to ill-developed neanderthals, somehow inherently violent, unfeeling and insensitive and unintelligent compared to women.

Men's gender options and choices are now significantly more restrained than a woman's--and it is not legal and institutional society doing it, but other men; social peers. E.g. Women can wear men's clothes and it can mean a fashion statement or a game or a provocation or an actual statement of sexual identity. The structure of what makes the feminine feminine is no longer shaken by a woman wearing pants, or even a woman with a necktie.

On the other hand, If a man wears a woman's clothes he is only, and definitively declaring a sexual identity--no room for play or variation here--unless its obviously meant as a joke--e.g. balloon breasts and a dress--in which case it only reaffirms (an imaginary) stable male identity. If I wore a skirt instead of jeans even my most liberal friends would raise an eyebrow-- a man simply can't opt out of masculine norms.  Masculinity, it turns out, is shaken by damn well near everything. It is as if women's gender roles evolved, whereas men's dumbed down.

This is not sexism towards men, this is men failing to reexamine what makes masculinity masculinity--which are actual values to endorse and what is just oppressive bullshit. Failing to reexmine--but still forcing the unexamined gender roles on their peers (e.g. a recent article suggest that teenage boys read less than their female peers because they feel that reading is feminine (mothers read to children, fathers play ball with them), imagine how that plays out in a middle school context with boys who like reading)

We need a new term for feminism, the old one seems to alienate men and make the movement solely about women, rather than about equality and liberation from repressive norms.

Perhaps if we men understood feminism as a movement to liberate us all (men and women) from the rigidity of traditional gender, rather than women's rights only, misandry and misogyny would fade to the back-shelves of history.

[Eagleon]

^- This.

Though I do see misandry as a problem, in that women I can really have a solid conversation with are few and far between. It's very easy for people at my work to assume I'm gay, being openly bisexual with a male partner, and I definitely notice an increase in conversation with people that haven't bothered asking or finding out the 'other side of the story', so to speak. I've only dated a few women, and there's always that grain of distrust for any interest I have that doesn't fit their expectations - jewelry, for instance, or gardening. I get the strong feeling that many women are very comfortable with male stereotypes, because they've worked their lives around them for so long. I see any kind of discrimination as ultimately limiting to both parties, so it's a shame.

[Sir Finkus]

Both genders have their bullshit to go through, but I think we're roughly equal at this point.  That isn't to say that there aren't issues that need to be addressed, but I don't think one side is "winning".  A lot of the problems on both ends have more to do with social attitudes which I don't think can really be addressed legally.

One thing I think a lot of people fail to acknowledge is that men and women ARE different, and that should be taken into account when citing statistics and such. 

I think a lot of our ideas about gender roles run pretty deep, so equality in all areas is probably going to be an uphill climb, or maybe even impossible.  Certainly something to try for though.

Odd thread title too, misandry literally means "hatred of men".  Is there anyone here that thinks we should hate people because they were born with a penis?  I'm sure there are a few, but probably not enough to have a real discussion.