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[palsch]

It appears to be a historical fiction novel.

Wut...

OK, so maybe you didn't glance at more than the first sentence, but from page five;

The foregoing account is an amalgamation of the stories taken from my interviews with fourteen coal-mining women working in souther West Virginia during the early to mid-1990s.

From there forwards it is a straight political history. Even reading brief excerpts I can't believe you could come away with the idea that the (heavily footnoted, academically worded) text is a novel. Hell, even the first four pages don't read particularly like a historical novel...

It charts the history of the feminist workers movement within Appalachia to promote women within coal mines, fighting for both the ability to hold such a job and their rights once in place.

It's also an interesting look at concepts of intersectionality (that other tumblr buzzword) given it deals with race and poverty as well as sex. I'm actually tempted to find a complete copy and read it once I've polished off the latest Stross novel (opens with the abuse of Fortran 77 summoning a minor Old God who has to be suicide bombed by a zombie with a Basilisk gun/mobile phone, then gets weird). I have family in the region and always been interested in Appalachia.

Rather than fictional novels based on real-life female coal miners, can you find me example of feminists saying that it's unfair that so many men work in dirty, dangerous, unpleasant positions like coal mining and "to be fair and equal" we need to get women in those positions to relieve men from the injustice of being unfairly represented in them?

Erm, feminists fought to get women into the mines because women wanted to be in the mines. I doubt you could find anyone who believes anyone should be forced into a job they don't want to do. Feminists just want to remove any barriers from jobs on the basis of sex.

Painting this as forcing men into the coal mines is a complete absurdity. It's painting the world as a zero sum game where every female gain comes at the cost of male pain. I've not seen any feminists who buy into this delusion.

Can you find me examples of feminists saying it's unfair that women hold the vast majority of highly paid nursing positions, and that we need to get more men into those positions to be fair?

Men nurses: a historical and feminist perspective;

Understanding the centrality of gender in relation to the history of men in nursing in Canada, Britain, and the USA is essential if nursing is to address longstanding gender inequities that impact on men and women nurses. This examination of the history of men in nursing offers insights, which can increase our understanding of the barriers that impact on the recruitment and retention of men in the profession. Such insights are vital if nursing is to develop not only recruitment strategies focused on men but, more importantly, retention strategies that address current and uninterrupted gender relations that affect all nurses’ lives.

It is also worth noting that a common feminist perspective is that nursing is a traditionally under valued career, something that is changing as men gain more acceptance within the field. This article (from the WSJ) suggests male nurses even make more than women in at least some areas.

Can you find me examples of feminists saying that it's unfair that women live so much longer than men and that we need to spend more research money on men's health issues to make things more equal?

Given that many of the factors reducing male life expectancy are social factors that feminist work for equality in... but you don't seem interested in that.

For reference, it's not like extra lobbying is needed for life extending research. The current trends are towards longer life across the board, with men gaining faster compared to women (sorry for Daily Mail link, but as with always with their site it's all about the pretty pictures).

Feminists calling for more work on male-focused healthcare would be redundant given that the default model for all non-sex-specific treatments is male, often to the detriment of female patients. There have been a lot of examples of this. The majority of male medical mortality come from gender-neutral sources, which are already male-biased in the majority of research. Trying to narrow a multi-factor life expectancy gap by making medical research more male focused seems wrong-headed to me.

The exception is feminists supporting male-specific campaigns such as this example of them promoting the anti-prostate cancer movember. These things tend to be on the personal or group level rather than the grand political.

I assert, that speaking generally life is better in the US for woman than it is for men. Choose any area you like: finance, dating, social exchange, peer expectation, law, college, health...in most areas, women simply have a better deal than men.

And, frankly, I think that you are wrong about every single one of those. But I doubt I'm ever going to convince you of them given you dismiss my sources out of hand. Sorry, but I honestly feel I would be wasting hours in trying to bring together a comprehensive argument about this. Hopefully someone else can bring some of this together? I might have a go once I get a hundred and one other things done.

[LordBucket]

Let's do this systematically. Correct me on any point, but please also confirm the ones you agree with so we can establish what it is you believe.

Question:

Do you genuinely not understand and are attempting to understand...or are you deliberately engaging in subtle misinterpretation in order to try to trick me into some sort of literal-phrasing self contradiction?

Because not one of your conclusions or propositions do I agree with as literally phrased. And I'm unsure how much of this is written nuance.

[Samarkand]

Let's do this systematically. Correct me on any point, but please also confirm the ones you agree with so we can establish what it is you believe.

Question:

Do you genuinely not understand and are attempting to understand...or are you deliberately engaging in subtle misinterpretation in order to try to trick me into some sort of literal-phrasing self contradiction?

Because not one of your conclusions or propositions do I agree with as literally phrased. And I'm unsure how much of this is written nuance.

Then rewrite them and I'll rewrite my responses. Seriously, I want you pinned down for believing in some particular statements, as opposed to the general vibe of feminism =/= equality. I don't care if its statements as I wrote them or as you write them. So go ahead.

[GavJ]

Brainstorming desirable things in which men are disadvantaged/behind women. To the extent that women aid men in these examples versus fight them versus ignore it, is a good way to gaugue whether feminism is about equality versus specifically female rights

1) Life expectancy, as mentioned
2) Obstetrics/Gynecology jobs (highly lucrative and 65% female)
3) As recently discussed, paid parental leave (maternity leave more common, longer, higher salary % on average than paternity leave)
4) In some colleges, disproportionately high rates of female students, which has prompted male-favoring affirmative action, because equal mixes are more profitable to colleges (students like even mixes and are willing to pay more) http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2009/11/18/us-civil-rights-commission-investigates-college-admission-bias As is obvious from the article, this one comes with evidence already that feminists are not only helping, but fighting vociferously, lobbying for legal investigations. Which suggests a bias toward female rights, not equality (they should be in favor of male affirmative action at those schools if anything for equality, until numbers get back to 50/50)
5) ?? other examples?

[Samarkand]

Brainstorming desirable things in which men are disadvantaged/behind women. To the extent that women aid men in these examples versus fight them versus ignore it, is a good way to gaugue whether feminism is about equality versus specifically female rights

1) Life expectancy, as mentioned
2) Obstetrics/Gynecology jobs (~highly lucrative and 65% female)
3) As recently discussed, paid parental leave (maternity leave more common, longer, higher salary % on average than paternity leave)
4) In some colleges, disproportionately high rates of female students, which has prompted male-favoring affirmative action, because equal mixes are more profitable to colleges (students like even mixes and are willing to pay more) http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2009/11/18/us-civil-rights-commission-investigates-college-admission-bias As is obvious from the article, this one comes with evidence already that feminists are not only helping, but fighting vociferously, lobbying for legal investigations.
5) ?? other examples?

1) Mostly genetics, hard to control
2) That one is really tough... I'll agree this is a terribly difficult point in gender roles.
3) Feminists advocate for paternal leave frequently.
4) As mentioned, affirmative action is swinging back the other way. Also, it has to do with application rates, which are lower for men, drawing from that giant mystery of what-the-hell-is-going-wrong-in-early-education.

[GavJ]

3) Feminists advocate for paternal leave frequently.

Not enough information. It matter whether they lobby for it as much, less, or more than they lobby for maternity leave.
If they are strictly for equality, they should be currently lobbying MORE heavily for paternity than maternity leave, until it catches up.

Lobbying equally or less so for paternity leave, even though it is behind, would be good evidence of motives other than strictly equality.

As mentioned, affirmative action is swinging back the other way.

Direction of swing doesn't really matter. Actual numbers do. If you're for strict equality, you should still be lobbying for male affirmative action exactly to the point of equality. This would not be difficult to do. Laws/policies can include conditional language in them such that they automatically mathematically adjust without squishy emotions or having to touch and tweak them, if that's your goal...  For example:

"Our policy or law is that whenever gender ratios amongst the student body differ from the ratios of the actual population, affirmative action will be automatically applied according to XYZ predetermined equation, to more and more strongly favor the under-represented group the further away from 50% the ratio gets."

Something sort of like this:


(Don't want it to be 45 degrees, because then you're encouraging swing-i-ness. Somewhere between 45 and horizontal will cause you to equillibrate. More horizontal = more precise approach to 50%, whereas steeper = more aggressive and better able to quickly deal with disparities, but less stable. These things don't matter for our discussion, though. The point is that the graph is symmetrical.)

0 = not 50%, but whatever the population actually is (51, 52% or whatever), and the symmetry pivots around this point, not 50%

[Samarkand]

3) Feminists advocate for paternal leave frequently.

Not enough information. It matter whether they lobby for it as much, less, or more than they lobby for maternity leave.
If they are strictly for equality, they should be currently lobbying MORE heavily for paternity than maternity leave, until it catches up.

Lobbying equally or less so for paternity leave, even though it is behind, would be good evidence of motives other than strictly equality.

As mentioned, affirmative action is swinging back the other way.

Direction of swing doesn't really matter. Actual numbers do. If you're for strict equality, you should still be lobbying for male affirmative action exactly to the point of equality. This would not be difficult to do. Laws/policies can include conditional language in them such that they automatically mathematically adjust without squishy emotions or having to touch and tweak them, if that's your goal...  For example:

"Our policy or law is that whenever gender ratios amongst the student body differ from the ratios of the actual population, affirmative action will be automatically applied according to XYZ predetermined equation, to more and more strongly favor the under-represented group the further away from 50% the ratio gets."

Something sort of like this:

Side note: Nice graph!

On affirmative action, my point was that college admissions being a non-issue (which it mostly is amongst feminists). The system may oscillate a little right now, but that's sorta fine compared to other issues.

In the US men and women get the same amount of mandatory paid time off for giving birth to little demons. None. So they needn't advocate more for one side than the other. In countries with lots of maternal leave and little paternal leave they advocate more for paternal leave, at least if you survey media nonsense. Really little is said in Canada about more maternal leave. Some is said about more paternal leave.

Also, there is a reason for slightly more maternal than paternal leave: pregnancy is tough on your body. There is some time that the woman needs off not only for the child but herself.

[GavJ]

Also, there is a reason for slightly more maternal than paternal leave: pregnancy is tough on your body. There is some time that the woman needs off not only for the child but herself.

True, but this only applies for countries that currently have maternity leave at or below the typical amount of physical recovery time needed to be able to resume an average job's duties.

So in the U.S., for this reason, it might make sense to lobby more for maternity, even if for general equality.  But if you're in a country that already has, like, I dunno, 3 months for women and 1 week for men, then you should be lobbying more for men if for equality, because physical recovery is already more than covered.

It sounds like you're suggesting that in those cases, they do in fact lobby more for paternity? (Are you getting this from somewhere specifically?)

[Samarkand]

It sounds like you're suggesting that in those cases, they do in fact lobby more for paternity? (Are you getting this from somewhere specifically?)

More anecdotal, because I'm not good enough with computers to leverage google effectively for data collection and analysis. It's much easier to find articles about feminists supporting paternity than maternity leave in countries like Canada, and others not as devoted to barbaric laws as the U.S.

[palsch]

4) In some colleges, disproportionately high rates of female students, which has prompted male-favoring affirmative action, because equal mixes are more profitable to colleges (students like even mixes and are willing to pay more) http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2009/11/18/us-civil-rights-commission-investigates-college-admission-bias As is obvious from the article, this one comes with evidence already that feminists are not only helping, but fighting vociferously, lobbying for legal investigations. Which suggests a bias toward female rights, not equality (they should be in favor of male affirmative action at those schools if anything for equality, until numbers get back to 50/50)

Don't see any of that in the article. This article even suggests the opposite.

Interestingly, none of these revelations prompted a wave of lawsuits, or even much outrage, from feminist organizations or other groups. It's even more surprising because the issue is probably more clear-cut, legally speaking, than race-based affirmative action.

It goes on to point out that the legal case for sex-based affirmative action is near impossible to make, but even so... It has some analysis from Gail Heriot (the woman quoted in your article and the one in charge of the challenge, a conservative law professor) as to their political and social motivations in not challenging the near legally indefensible affirmative action in this case;

Liberal, feminist groups tend to support affirmative action for racial minorities and could be wary of attacking gender preferences for men lest it leads to attacking racial preferences.

Meanwhile, conservative groups that reject race-based affirmative action would rather draw attention to the "boy crisis" they believe harms men than seize the chance to deal a blow to both race and gender admissions preferences.

Heriot began a commission investigation into whether colleges were discriminating against female applicants in 2009, but the eight-member panel voted to end it at the suggestion of a Democratic appointee in 2011. Several schools had refused to hand over their admissions data to Heriot, which made the investigation difficult.

They also note non-AA efforts being made to target boys (many of which seem a bit weak to me, but still...) by admissions boards and colleges.

Not enough information. It matter whether they lobby for it as much, less, or more than they lobby for maternity leave.
If they are strictly for equality, they should be currently lobbying MORE heavily for paternity than maternity leave, until it catches up.

Lobbying equally or less so for paternity leave, even though it is behind, would be good evidence of motives other than strictly equality.

Paid maternity leave is (in my view) considerably more critical than equal maternity and paternity leave. Both are desirable, but particularly in the US where paid maternity leave is all too often denied it's important to focus on the goal of primary importance first.

For me the baseline is mandatory paid maternity leave. Then equal (or near equal; there is always going to be some medical difference here) paternity leave. Until the baseline is met I'd give any group a pass for focusing on the essentials before the desirable. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good and all that. My experience of the debate in the UK is that we have passed this point and now many feminists are arguing that equal (paid) paternity leave is critical to avoid stigmatising child raising as women's work alone. I can't find it now but I saw one argument that men should have mandatory paternity leave because they tend not to take it otherwise...

EDIT: still can't find it, but think it was advocating the Norwegian system of 2 weeks paid initially, then 14 weeks mandatory before the 3rd birthday. The leave is split with the mother at 49 weeks full pay or 59 80% pay. The mother has 9 weeks mandatory; 3 before the due date and 6 after.

As to the other part, given the above story and the extremely like illegality, I'd argue that no group should be publicly lobbying for affirmative action for sex at schools. Maybe support for targeted recruitment though.

For the record, going to feminist writings again, a lot of the blame is placed on social trends among men combined with historical trends in employment. Men have traditionally had more high paying or high prestige jobs available with a high school diploma, making a working man without college a viable option. Women haven't traditionally had as much access to such roles, so college is more the apparent required path for a woman who wants to support herself through work. How true this holds today (in both cases) is disputable, but then ideas about what is required educationally tend to lag a generation.

[LordBucket]

Then rewrite them and I'll rewrite my responses. Seriously, I want you pinned down for believing in some particular statements, as opposed to the general vibe of feminism =/= equality. I don't care if its statements as I wrote them or as you write them. So go ahead.

I don't think this is likely to be productive, but I'm wiling to play the game and see where we go.

Conclusion: Feminists are women who are interested in being better than men, not equality.

I disagree as it is phrased. Yes, certainly there are individual feminists who are interested in being better than men. And some feminists who just want their lives to be better. But overall your statement appears to be an attempt to trick me into some sort of 100% application fallacy. No, it's not that simple.

Yes, I would agree that on the whole the movement of feminism is not about promoting equality. It's about promoting women.

I don't understand why this is such a point of contention.

Proposition 1: Feminists don't want women to have low paying and dangerous jobs.
     Non sequitur: This does not logically lead to the idea that feminists want to be better than men. That would require demonstrating they advocate for men to have these jobs, which they don't. They'd probably prefer nobody had to do those jobs. Said another way, reluctance to take a shitty job does not imply superiority over the group that takes that job: nobody wants shitty jobs.
     Counter-example: Feminists often advocate for women in active military service which is dangerous and often far from lucrative.

It's plausible that this proposition might generally be true, but it's somewhat missing the point. The following quote of yours is more accurate:

If you asked feminists if they would be fine with women working in coal mines as a result of feminism, they'd say yes. If asked if they wanted women to work in coal mines they'd say no. Because nobody wants to be in those death traps.

It's not that "feminists want women to not have low paying dangerous jobs." I'm sure that in most cases if feminist A believed that woman B genuinely wanted a low-paying and dangerous job, she'd generally approve. However, in most cases in woman B had the low paying and/or dangerous job because it was expected of her or it was the best she could do, I suspect feminist A would disapprove. However, if man C had that same low-paying and/or dangerous job because it was expected of him or the best he could do, regardless of the personal feelings or preferences of feminist A, the movement of feminism itself is not about opposing him being stuck with it.

Which I would think is obvious.

But to be more clear...

If (person of unstated gender) has a low-paying and/or dangerous job he/she/it doesn't want but it's either expected or the best he/she/it can do...feminism as an institution is not about helping or improving the life of that person of unstated gender.

But....

If you replace "person of unstated gender" with "woman" then it is about improving her lot in life.

Which again, I would think would be fairly obvious, and I don't understand why this is such a point of contention. The goal of feminism is to promote women, not to promote equality. It might happen to promote equality in cases where women are at a disadvantage. But the goal isn't equality. It's promoting women.

Proposition 2: Feminists have not actively worked to improve male life expectancy.
     Counter-examples: Princess Diana was a feminists, and viewed part of this position as helping expand people's social definitions of the AIDs epidemic, helping men (who were disproportionately effected by the disease) seek treatment. The National Organization for Women spearheaded a campaign to expand the definition of hate-crimes, which helped the gay community greatly. Lovisa Stannow, noted feminist, worked in a campaign to stop prison rape; which effects men. All of these have had huge public effects.

Just because an individual who is a member of a group engages in an activity, does not mean that that activity is representative of the goals of the group. For example, I am a member of the bay12 community. I enjoy skiing. This does not mean that the bay12 community enjoys skiing or that skiing is an identifying characteristic of bay12.

It is possible that individual feminists have engaged in activities that have benfitted group of which men are a part. It's possible that individual feminists have engaged in activities that have directly benefitted men. That doesn't make it what feminism is about. Nor does it mean that the overall "goal" of feminism is equality.

Proposition 3: Feminists have not redirected funds from their own efforts to help men.
     Non sequitur: This does not imply they think they are superior, or that they do not value equality. Redirecting funds is rarely a platform of any group, regardless of their goals.
     Counter-examples: See AIDs example in Prop. 2. This demonstrates they have helped with men's health issues, though it does not address redirecting funds.

Of the three proposotions, this is the one that I'd most agree with. It's possible there might be isolated examples of this thing happening, but on the whole it's certainly something they probably haven't done much. But...I don't expect that feminists should "redirect funds from their own efforts to help men." It's probable that they haven't done so to any significant degree, but I agree that the interpretation you appear to be attempting to apply does not support the conclusion above that I also don't agree with.

[GavJ]

Sorry if I misread the affirmative action article, did indeed skim pretty quickly.

[Samarkand]

I'm still not sure what your conclusion is, or your supporting propositions. Could you explicitly write them out?

[LordBucket]

maybe you didn't glance at more than the first sentence, but from page five;

Sorry, all you gave me was a link without explanation. I read the first page or two of the introduction, which reads like fiction. And then I read a summary on another site which didn't lead me to believe otherwise.

I apologize if you expected me to sit down and read the entire book before replying.

It charts the history of the feminist workers movement within Appalachia to promote women within coal mines, fighting for both the ability to hold such a job and their rights once in place.

Ok. So then it still doesn't counter the point I was making for reasons I already gave. I don't understand why you keep bringing it up.

Erm, feminists fought to get women into the mines because women wanted to be in the mines. I doubt you could find anyone who believes anyone should be forced into a job they don't want to do. Feminists just want to remove any barriers from jobs on the basis of sex.

Ok, so...feminists fought to get women into mines because women wanted to be in mines? That's entirely consistent with what I've been saying. I can only conclude that you didn't understand the statement that spawned this sub-topic about coal mines and recommend you re-read the explanation I already gave:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the point of the coal mining example, like the other examples given, was that so far as I can tell, feminists are not usually interested in equality. They simply want to make things better for women. If there is a desirable position or industry where there are more men than women, or unpleasant things that more women have to deal with than men, they will be perceived as inequalities. But when there are unpleasant things in which there are more men than women or desireable positions held more by women than men...those won't be perceived as inequalities.

That women fought to enable women to do what they desired to do is completely consistent my position. Giving examples of women fighting to enable women to do what they desired does not counter what I have said.

Painting this as forcing men into the coal mines is a complete absurdity. It's painting the world as a zero sum game where every female gain comes at the cost of male pain. I've not seen any feminists who buy into this delusion.

I agree it would be absurd. Fortunately that's not at all what I was saying, and I really have no idea why you thought that I might have meant that.

And, frankly, I think that you are wrong about every single one of those. But I doubt I'm ever going to convince you of them given you dismiss my sources out of hand. Sorry, but I honestly feel I would be wasting hours in trying to bring together a comprehensive argument about this.

Fairly certain I've cited more sources than anyone else in the thread. And I agree that this entire conversation is likely to be futile. There appear to be massively more petty semantic misunderstandings going on that actual communication.

I agree that there is a certain subjective quality to the discussion. For example, is it worse to be expected to ask a girl to dance and deal with the fear of rejection, or is it worse to be expected to sit around waiting to be asked but not dancing because the guys are too afraid you'll reject them? That's difficult to judge. It's probably not the same for everyone. Evauluating that society-wide is difficult.

But stuff like life expectancy and college degrees and so forth...that's easy to compare, and so I gave examples on that topic.

I think that you are wrong about every single one of those

How can you?

Nobody disputes that women live longer. Nobody disputes that more women are earning degrees. Nobody disputes that women usually win child custody battles. I don't understand how you can turn around and claim I'm wrong when I say women have these things better. Who has it better in terms of cultural dance etiquette? Yes, that's subjective. This stuff? Not so much.

[LordBucket]

I'm still not sure what your conclusion is, or your supporting propositions. Could you explicitly write them out?

Succinctly?

1) Feminism intends to be about making life better for women.

2) In my opinion, life in the US is already better on the whole for women than it is for men.