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[Tiruin]

Could you edit your posts and make the quotes and answers separate?

[Vector]

Women who choose to aggressively pursue positions in STEM fields, politics, or other positions of a high-risk, high-reward nature are just as free to do so as men.  [...] The problem, if there is one, is the lack of women choosing to grab for the ring, as it were.

Hi, I'm a graduate from the top mathematics program in the United States and you're wrong.

I really don't want to engage in-depth in this conversation, but if your definition of "just as free to do so" involves:

• perpetually glossing over women's achievements when bringing them up in the classroom would be appropriate (example: Early contributors to computer science not including Ada Lovelace)
• ogling female students during office hours
• being sexually harassed during lecture
• being more harshly graded
• being told that your idea is wrong until a man repeats it and receives the credit
• male pupils saying "geez, there's a lot of women in this class!" when there's two
• male students thinking it's appropriate to loudly make rape jokes for hours in the computer lab
• TAs saying "Don't write like a girl on the class forums unless you want sex rather than answers"
• when getting into an argument or debate, being asked if you're on your period

then I really don't know what to say. These are all things I personally experienced, and frankly it's a non-exhaustive list. It's a hostile environment.

[GavJ]

Rape Culture is Rape Culture. People defending or justifying rape. They are a tiny minority but they certainly exist.

Rape culture is not just overt defense of rape (although that obviously and undeniably exists as part of it, since RAPES exist - everyone who commits a rape is overtly supporting rape, at the very least, and of course there are others who fall a little bit short of that but still do).

It is also, though, making light of rape or minimizing rape through jokes, etc. There are plenty of people who would not support actual rape, but who are happy to make jokes about it. Some may both support actual rape and also publicly joke about it (but not publicly defend actual rape).

Even if they are able to draw a hard line between jokes and reality, those jokes can desensitize other people who are less able to distinguish and more on the fringe and can therefore encourage more rapes.

Additionally, rape culture would include apologists, such as many universities' faculty and administrations who attempt to get athletes off easy on rape charges to maintain applicants and football income, etc.



It's a whole collection of things (like any culture)

[Vector]

Double-post ahoy.

Where?  Point to them, please.  The only place I've seen anyone defending or justifying rape (personal research alert - not to encyclopedic standards), has been the feminist canard that women cannot be rapists, ergo females in positions of authority who use said authority to have sexual relationships with minors are, in fact, not at fault.  Thankfully, the law says otherwise.

You've seriously never, ever heard a story of someone being raped and the response was: "What was she wearing?" Or "But it wasn't really rape?" I have literally heard people justifying rape as dinnertable conversation: "Well, if you're already in, and she says no, it's ok if you finish." Or my mother: "Are you sure your friend was raped and doesn't just like rough sex?"

(The woman in question had been so hurt that she'd had to be sent to the hospital)

Again, just a couple of examples here of a pervasive phenomenon.

[Tiruin]

...Hostile seems to be an understatement. That's a real bad place...with questionable(something worse) values. ._.

PPEx2
...Ayup, seems like the values.
^{How can people declaim rape so...easily?!}

[GavJ]

You've seriously never, ever heard a story of someone being raped

You could just put a period right there.  The response or explanation is irrelevant, because the fact that the rape occurred is already a sufficient example of a group od people defending and/or justifying rape. And it's one that doesn't even rely on anybody believing any anecdotes or anything -- it's in hard legal demographic numbers. The fact that they DID it means they think it was justified, the end.

Their particular individual reasons for justification may be various and don't matter for the purposes of answering his silly question (though they do matter for improving law enforcement and culture and recovery, etc)

[WoobMonkey]

Hi, I'm a graduate from the top mathematics program in the United States and you're wrong.

Was that M.I.T., or Princeton?

• perpetually glossing over women's achievements when bringing them up in the classroom would be appropriate (example: Early contributors to computer science not including Ada Lovelace)

Care to give examples?  Are we talking about Grace Booth, Betty Snyder, Grace Hopper. . . ?

• ogling female students during office hours

What, in this context, qualifies as 'ogling?'

• being sexually harassed during lecture

This is a serious charge, which ought to have serious consequences if proven true.  What, if any, action(s) was/were taken by the governing body of the school, upon registering complaints?

• being more harshly graded

Please clarify.  Were the exact same answers, using the exact same methodologies/formulae, given differing evaluations?

• being told that your idea is wrong until a man repeats it and receives the credit

By whom?  A single professor?  All of them?  PAs?  Fellow students?  All of the above?

• male pupils saying "geez, there's a lot of women in this class!" when there's two

C'mon.  Without any context, this seems a rather superficial point.

• male students thinking it's appropriate to loudly make rape jokes for hours in the computer lab

You recognized them as jokes, yes?  Moving on. . .

• TAs saying "Don't write like a girl on the class forums unless you want sex rather than answers"

Once again, a rightfully punishable offense.  What action(s) were taken by the governing body of the school, upon filing a formal complaint?

• when getting into an argument or debate, being asked if you're on your period

Idiocy as a bolstering of poor argumentation isn't monopolized by either sex.  Also, how much debating and argumentation is involved in mathematics?

Double-post ahoy.


You've seriously never, ever heard a story of someone being raped and the response was: "What was she wearing?" Or "But it wasn't really rape?" I have literally heard people justifying rape as dinnertable conversation: "Well, if you're already in, and she says no, it's ok if you finish." Or my mother: "Are you sure your friend was raped and doesn't just like rough sex?"

(The woman in question had been so hurt that she'd had to be sent to the hospital)

Again, just a couple of examples here of a pervasive phenomenon.

Let's compare that to an example of a situation in which actual rape, not jokes or conversation about it (however deplorable), is overlooked on an official, legal, basis.  Yes, I'm referring to prisons.  Where a much larger percentage of men are raped then women in the outside world.  That, my friend, is a rape culture.  Not a tasteless joke; an actual, violent sexual act performed on a non-consenting human being, with no legal recourse nor support.

You've seriously never, ever heard a story of someone being raped

You could just put a period right there.  The response or explanation is irrelevant, because the fact that the rape occurred is already a sufficient example of a group od people defending and/or justifying rape. And it's one that doesn't even rely on anybody believing any anecdotes or anything -- it's in hard legal demographic numbers. The fact that they DID it means they think it was justified, the end.

Their particular individual reasons for justification may be various and don't matter for the purposes of answering his silly question (though they do matter for improving law enforcement and culture and recovery, etc)

And how is rape treated by our culture, specifically in law?  As an example, the United States is the last of the G8 nations to use execution as a form of punishment.  Of the laws which call for capital punishment, we can see:

Murder;
Drug Trafficking (Because Florida);
Sexual Battery;
Treason;
Aircraft Hijacking;
Sexual intercourse without consent (rape);
Arson, Robbery, Burglary, Abuse of a minor (Wyoming, WTF?);
Kidnapping resulting in Death.

How is placing rape at the same level of seriousness as 1st-degree homicide anything other than taking it very seriously, indeed?

Source.  (PDF)

[GavJ]

And how is rape treated by our culture, specifically in law?

This summarizes what seems to be your deeply flawed understanding of what culture means in a nutshell. Law =/= all culture. Or even if you understand this, you're still bizarre-ly obsessing over that one aspect of culture for no apparent reason.

It's not that one paragraph. One example would be fine. The same sentiment is reflected throughout the rest of the post(s). Such as "What was the result of the formal complaint" being the entire relevant analysis of several of the situations to you. That would be a legal-type aspect of the situation. Which is one tiny sliver of the issue, not the whole of it.

(It happens to be exceedingly practically dumb, by the way, to file formal complaints immediately and automatically and without any regard of potential consequences, which is what you're doing since you're suggesting that course of action without having requested any other relevant information first. Reprisals and potentially damaged career prospects are an aspect of any formal complaint by anybody that they have to weigh against the benefits, not just in the realm of sexism. People who live on planet Earth are generally aware of this. But I digress)

Law in general is one tiny dusty corner of the whole of culture. And even the partial importance of the law itself is further greatly diminished if other aspects of culture don't take a thing seriously, because law depends on regular folk reporting things. Regular folk (witnesses) don't report things that they don't view as important, regardless of statutory penalties, etc. And, as described above, regular folk (victims) also don't report things if the culture is so protective of them that reprisals for reporting are feared.

[WoobMonkey]

And how is rape treated by our culture, specifically in law?

This summarizes what seems to be your deeply flawed understanding of what culture means in a nutshell. Law =/= all culture. Or even if you understand this, you're still bizarre-ly obsessing over that one aspect of culture for no apparent reason.

It's not that one paragraph. One example would be fine. The same sentiment is reflected throughout the rest of the post(s). Such as "What was the result of the formal complaint" being the entire relevant analysis of several of the situations to you. That would be a legal-type aspect of the situation. Which is one tiny sliver of the issue, not the whole of it.

(It happens to be exceedingly practically dumb, by the way, to file formal complaints immediately and automatically and without any regard of potential consequences, which is what you're doing since you're suggesting that course of action without having requested any other relevant information first. Reprisals and potentially damaged career prospects are an aspect of any formal complaint by anybody that they have to weigh against the benefits, not just in the realm of sexism. People who live on planet Earth are generally aware of this. But I digress)

Law in general is one tiny dusty corner of the whole of culture. And even the partial importance of the law itself is further greatly diminished if other aspects of culture don't take a thing seriously, because law depends on regular folk reporting things. Regular folk (witnesses) don't report things that they don't view as important, regardless of statutory penalties, etc. And, as described above, regular folk (victims) also don't report things if the culture is so protective of them that reprisals for reporting are feared.

My intent on focusing on law, specifically, is that it is law which sums up society's will to act upon transgressions against the norms and values of said society.  I have not made the claim that law is the be-all and end-all of culture; as you rightfully point out, such a position would be extremely limited.

Another reason for focusing on law is the wealth of publicly-available data which comes from it - whether in the form of crime statistics, punishments meted, reported cases of criminality vs cases acted upon, etc. 

To avoid simply throwing opinions at one another, I'm looking for data.  You yourself have suggested that this is proper procedure.

As to asking about what actions, if any, were taken by governing bodies: what better metric do you propose, to distinguish between the actions of one jerk, vs. systemic sexism?  Certainly, my aim is not, nor has been, to diminish the experience of anyone; rather, to look at what structures are in place which promulgate, or attempt to end, such negative/hostile environmental pressures.  This is the stated aim of others on this thread, as well; regardless of whether we agree with each other on other points.

[Vector]

Was that M.I.T., or Princeton?

UC Berkeley.

EDIT: I see that our rankings have fallen recently; in any case, #3 is relevant enough.

• perpetually glossing over women's achievements when bringing them up in the classroom would be appropriate (example: Early contributors to computer science not including Ada Lovelace)

Care to give examples?  Are we talking about Grace Booth, Betty Snyder, Grace Hopper. . . ?

I gave an example. It's right there next to the bullet point. Ada Lovelace. Other examples include Emmy Noethur (for a basic course in abstract algebra), Sophie Germain (should have showed up in our discrete mathematics course), Hypatia (history of mathematics course), Sofia Kabalevskaya (diffeqs/linear algebra course), and so on and so forth. I'm only listing off the ones that should have been included, not ones I'd shoe-horn in for female exposure.

• ogling female students during office hours

What, in this context, qualifies as 'ogling?'

Staring at my breasts instead of focusing on teaching me.

• being sexually harassed during lecture

This is a serious charge, which ought to have serious consequences if proven true.  What, if any, action(s) was/were taken by the governing body of the school, upon registering complaints?

None. He was one of the key teachers for the honors program and so I didn't report him for staring at me and zipping and unzipping his fly, because I needed the letter of recommendation and could not afford to damage my reputation.

I anonymously complained as part of a study of the "on-campus atmosphere." UC Berkeley is currently being tried for failing to respond to sexual assault allegations under Title IX, along with a lot of other universities. As of the year I graduated, a mathematics circle for female students was formed.

• being more harshly graded

Please clarify.  Were the exact same answers, using the exact same methodologies/formulae, given differing evaluations?

Yep. On one memorable event, I was given an F on an assignment for, according to the grader, making an error that was nowhere present (and, if present, would have been minor). I was repeatedly graded down in that course, maybe 3 or 4 times.

• being told that your idea is wrong until a man repeats it and receives the credit

By whom?  A single professor?  All of them?  PAs?  Fellow students?  All of the above?

Repeatedly, by a graduate student given the responsibility of teaching an "introductory research course" on topological surfaces. There were similar events with other staff.

• male pupils saying "geez, there's a lot of women in this class!" when there's two

C'mon.  Without any context, this seems a rather superficial point.

That's a barometer. When 2/17 people in a class being female is "good representation," something is wrong.

• male students thinking it's appropriate to loudly make rape jokes for hours in the computer lab

You recognized them as jokes, yes?  Moving on. . .

Next time you see a couple of women joking about how they totally cut the cock and balls off that last assignment, hahaha, really emasculated it, fuckin' NEUTERED it, LOL, FUCKING NEUTERED IT, you might understand why this is a problem.

• TAs saying "Don't write like a girl on the class forums unless you want sex rather than answers"

Once again, a rightfully punishable offense.  What action(s) were taken by the governing body of the school, upon filing a formal complaint?

None that I know of. Again, I didn't complain until the end of the semester because I needed my grade and no one monitoring the forums--including the lead professor--seemed to think it was notable. I wrote it up in full for my evaluations of the course.

• when getting into an argument or debate, being asked if you're on your period

Idiocy as a bolstering of poor argumentation isn't monopolized by either sex.  Also, how much debating and argumentation is involved in mathematics?

... This more than anything else convinces me that you don't know what you're talking about. There's a lot of it. Arguing over the correct approach, arguing over whether or not there's a hole in the mathematical argument, arguing about whether or not this approach is cleaner than the other one, arguing about whether this or that definition produces better mathematics, arguing about whether intuitionists who refuse to admit proofs by contradiction have a leg to stand on, arguing about notation, arguing about whether such and such problem can be solved under such and such condition.

And calling rank sexism idiocy is something of a side-step, I think. Yes, it's a stupid argument, but there's lots of stupid arguments that don't require sexism. I don't know of any common argument techniques like that that women use to discredit arguments, like: "You disapprove of my shaving my legs with your razor? Is your penis adequately functional today?"

That, my friend, is a rape culture.

. . . I was raped in college, buddy. I'm pretty sure that I know what rape culture is. You don't need to talk down to me about it.

[Mindmaker]

Next time you see a couple of women joking about how they totally cut the cock and balls off that last assignment, hahaha, really emasculated it, fuckin' NEUTERED it, LOL, FUCKING NEUTERED IT, you might understand why this is a problem.

A very tasteless talkshow comes to mind.

[scriver]

Was that M.I.T., or Princeton?

UC Berkeley.

But Vector, that's a socialist school!

[WoobMonkey]

First of all, I'd like to preface this with, once again, my asking questions was with the intent of clarification, not of insulting nor belittling your experiences.

UC Berkeley.

I gave an example. It's right there next to the bullet point. Ada Lovelace. Other examples include Emmy Noethur (for a basic course in abstract algebra), Sophie Germain (should have showed up in our discrete mathematics course), Hypatia (history of mathematics course), Sofia Kabalevskaya (diffeqs/linear algebra course), and so on and so forth. I'm only listing off the ones that should have been included, not ones I'd shoe-horn in for female exposure.

Thank you.  To be clear, I was looking for examples of women who were sytematically overlooked in relevant courses.  Thank you for providing them.

None. He was one of the key teachers for the honors program and so I didn't report him for staring at me and zipping and unzipping his fly, because I needed the letter of recommendation and could not afford to damage my reputation.

I anonymously complained as part of a study of the "on-campus atmosphere." UC Berkeley is currently being tried for failing to respond to sexual assault allegations under Title IX, along with a lot of other universities. As of the year I graduated, a mathematics circle for female students was formed.

Sounds like an incredibly difficult position to be in.  However, doesn't the response by UC Berkeley show that the intent is to curtail such activities?  Or was this circle formed independently of campus authority?

Also, this somewhat ties into points I've been trying to make concerning the rule of law as the ultimate social barometer.  I'm glad to hear that poor policies are being met with appropriate responses.  Little good that does for you situation, I know, but the argument going on is about larger societal structures, so I hope you'll forgive me.

Yep. On one memorable event, I was given an F on an assignment for, according to the grader, making an error that was nowhere present (and, if present, would have been minor). I was repeatedly graded down in that course, maybe 3 or 4 times.

Seems that you were dealing with a true asshat.  I do sincerely hope that your further acedemic aims weren't compromised, and that appeals have been carefully scrutinized.

Repeatedly, by a graduate student given the responsibility of teaching an "introductory research course" on topological surfaces. There were similar events with other staff.

Reprehensible.  Once again, when all evidence is considered in open court, I hope that appropriate disciplinary action is taken.  There is no excuse, from anyone, for denying rightful credit.

That's a barometer. When 2/17 people in a class being female is "good representation," something is wrong.

Point of fact: a few grad students do not represent the whole of society.  By the standards of many universities, these numbers would warrant further investigation concerning outreach.

Next time you see a couple of women joking about how they totally cut the cock and balls off that last assignment, hahaha, really emasculated it, fuckin' NEUTERED it, LOL, FUCKING NEUTERED IT, you might understand why this is a problem.

It's pretty common practice when discussing issues with Feminists on various web fora.  Note, please, that I am not out to laud tasteless jokes; just to recognize them for what they are.

None that I know of. Again, I didn't complain until the end of the semester because I needed my grade and no one monitoring the forums--including the lead professor--seemed to think it was notable. I wrote it up in full for my evaluations of the course.

Conflict of interest is never a good thing, when promoting an open discussion forum.  It seems rather irresponsible, imho, for UC Berkeley to allow this to go on.

And calling rank sexism idiocy is something of a side-step, I think. Yes, it's a stupid argument, but there's lots of stupid arguments that don't require sexism. I don't know of any common argument techniques like that that women use to discredit arguments, like: "You disapprove of my shaving my legs with your razor? Is your penis adequately functional today?"

Once again, it seems you and I frequent different areas where these discussions come up.  It is far from uncommon for me to have my genitalia questioned, when having the temerity to disagree with points made.  It is a regular occurrance to be labeled a misogynist, when bringing up points of order and/or fact.  The number of times I've been mislabeled a rape apologist, a potential abuser, an embittered failure with women, etc. when discussing completely unrelated topics is astounding.

You are, of course, quite correct that there is no place for such behaviour in an academic setting.  Not that there is, elsewhere; but especially not there.

Personally, I just stick to the basic adage that 'the first to sling insults loses,' and leave it at that.

. . . I was raped in college, buddy. I'm pretty sure that I know what rape culture is. You don't need to talk down to me about it.

I'm genuinely sorry to hear that.  That is a criminal act, performed by a criminal.  How does that relate to culture as a whole?  If this is, quite understandably, an exceedingly sensitive topic, I won't press.

[GavJ]

My intent on focusing on law, specifically, is that it is law which sums up society's will to act upon transgressions against the norms and values of said society.

[citation needed]
The many court cases recently (Oregon just a few days ago) legalizing gay marriage in states that had popular referandums against it being a convenient  counterexample. Lawmakers are constrained by all SORTS of things other than the norms and values of society.  Amongst them:
* They are constrained by compromise, if/when different portions of society disagree on norms and values. Even if the disagreement isn't about the current topic, one might be obligated due to having struck deals elsewhere
* They are constrained by practical realities of law enforcement and record keeping and such
* They are constrained by the realities of how actual punishments are likely to reform people or not, and the associated costs of paying for people in prison and having them not contribute to the economy in the meantime if they aren't reformed.
* Judges in particular are almost entirely UN-constrained by society and much more constrained by personally applied logic and personal morality. This is more true at higher levels of judgery where terms are longer.

Yes norms and values are also factors, but I see little reason to think that law is some sort of specially transparent window onto these factors, compared to anything and everything else.

To avoid simply throwing opinions at one another, I'm looking for data.

I'm a (research) psychologist and I routinely do literature searches in broad reaching databases that include medical and legal people, looking for this very sort of data. The entire legal sector is almost never the source of properly run experiments on anything, actually, at the end of the day. They just don't ever really do that. Or VERY rarely.

If you want well controlled data like I said was good procedure, you want scientists of various sorts, not lawyers or legal record keepers. Arrest rates and things are not controlled data sources. In this case, psychologists would be one, also probably some good papers from sociology, gender studies, anthropology, biology.

[Ogdibus]

Once again, 'culture' is an aggregate term; it is the sum total of freely-chosen outlooks and actions, made by rational, individual agents.

I know it's a little late, but this is false.  Culture is produced by societies.  Individuals, even in quantity, are not necessarily part of a society, much less the same society.  The actions of an individual, even when that individual is a member of a society, do not necessarily constitute culture.  The actions of that individual are affected by culture, however, as are the motives for those actions.

It doesn't matter how consistent your argument is if you base it on false premises, not that your argument has been consistent. 

Many of your questions lead to answers that don't advance the conversation.  Others have answers that are obvious, but are favorable to the position that you oppose. 

When you ask for examples, and get them, you say that they mean nothing because they are not statistics.  When you are presented with statistics, you want examples.


Take your time when you post.  It'll probably reduce these problems.  It's not as if the conversation is going to disappear overnight.