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[Orange Wizard]

I agree with LordBucket and Cheeetar.

[Cheeetar]

I agree with LordBucket and Cheeetar.

Uh, cheers

[Reelya]

* More women are accepted into college than men

True. However, the correct response to this is to ask why more women are in and graduate from college than men. Skimming the article, I find some interesting tidbits. Or really, some interesting paragraphs. Specifically, the bit that that attempts to explain the disparity. You know, rather than simply glossing over the surface details? Yeah.

And that may be one of the things at the heart of the issue of men falling behind in higher education: men simply aren’t applying. What’s more, even when men do enroll, they’re much less likely to finish school and to earn a degree than their female counterparts...
Interest in School
One of the simplest explanations may be that fewer men are interested in going to college than their female classmates.
Some research also suggests that men simply put less value on college than women do, questioning whether it’s necessary or whether the cost is worth the benefit.

Ok, there's no discrimination because men just aren't applying and they're less likely to finish the classes. It's their own fault.

Let's apply that logic to computer science classes, then.

And that may be one of the things at the heart of the issue of women falling behind in computer science: women simply aren’t applying. What’s more, even when women do enroll, they’re much less likely to finish school and to earn a degree than their male counterparts....
Interest in School
One of the simplest explanations may be that fewer women are interested in studying computer science than their male classmates....
Some research also suggests that women simply put less value on computer science than men do, questioning whether it’s necessary or whether the cost is worth the benefit.

See, no discrimination there, right? Same logic, just gender-flipped with "college" changed to "computer science". But, of course, when presented like that we're quick to point out all these mitigating factors which are not the woman's fault.

So, by the same logic as the female college admissions article women just aren't into computer science. No more questions allowed. [/sarcasm]

[Neonivek]

Ok, there's no discrimination because men just aren't applying and they're less likely to finish the classes. It's their own fault.

I am astonished by the sheer amount of "If someone said that about women, you wouldn't accept it"

Maybe the discrimination is because of society pushing gender roles onto them

[Reelya]

It's a practical way of shining a light on double standards whichever way they fall.

[palsch]

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.

What summary would that be?

I actually expected you to maybe respect my intelligence enough to assume I hadn't linked you to a fictional novel as a political/historical text. It was silly of me.

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.

My point with this is that you are not a good judge of this. You used coal mining as your example. That example was flat out wrong.

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.

Because it was the plain text reading of your meaning. Quoting the part you used to explain the example above, "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." You viewed coal mining as an area that is undesirable and where the lack of women wouldn't be viewed as an inequality, essentially accepting pushing men into the dangerous work while keeping women out.




Anyway, let's go back and have a real go at this stuff. Given I'm sick today, have already gotten what I need to do done and just finished my book, let's give this a bit of effort. If nothing else I can use it as a reference in the future. I've not particularly proofread this so might have to do some editing at a later date.

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.

Taking this one area at a time;

Finance:
I've had lengthy discussions on this before, most recently here. But to summarise, the gender wage gap is real and substantial and dominant in practical financial differences between the sexes. Comparing like-to-like, full time employment, you have an overall pay ratio of 0.82 (using raw BLS data). My rough and ready analysis from a few months ago showed men earning more than women in 136 out of 139 categories, with a >10% gap in 109.

Women with similar educational levels to men can expect to see lower pay levels. Some raw data here, easy enough to eyeball. A quick graph that covers more intersectional (race/gender) angles;

Spoiler: Data from Census bureau, 2006-8 (click to show/hide)

In a similar vein, there is this report, with this graph (annotated version ripped from various blogs);

Spoiler: Slightly easier to read version of similar data, without race taken into account (click to show/hide)

Even within STEM fields there are notable pay gaps. This pattern replicates across almost every field and subject.

Which is all to say, comparing like-to-like, women can be expected to be earning less than men in the same or similar roles.

All this is before you take into account women more often taking part time jobs, bringing down their overall income in comparison to men and giving you the classic ~77% raw wage gap.

Dating, social exchange, peer expectation:
Going to try to go through all these at once because I view them all as aspects of the same thing; perception of women and gender roles.

To maintain some continuity with the above point, women face severe social barriers to being taken seriously within the workplace or as equals. These tend to feed into the pay gap through the way they are perceived (the peer expectation part) and treated by their employers and co-workers.

There have been many different studies demonstrating unconscious bias against women (or those perceived as women) in recruitment/employment/promotion scenarios. These biases create greater social barriers to women trying to enter or progress through a field in comparison to men, who are granter greater benefit of the doubt. (Again, intersectional issues with race come into play here.) This has obvious relevance to the wage gap discussed above.

Further to this, personality traits that are viewed as admirable and worthy of reward in men are viewed as undesirable and punishable in women. The most high profile and obvious of these is aggression, viewed as key to male progression, status and value, but penalised in women. There are even cases where reducing female aggression (not violence, but assertiveness) is a goal of pre-natal hormone therapy with the explicit goal of pushing them towards acceptable "heterosexual norms", including reducing "interest in what they consider to be men’s occupations and games". NB: The treatment of the underlying disorder makes sense, but the treatment goals are just... eww.

A lot of this comes down to the classic feminist analysis of gendered traits. Feminine traits are expected from women but valued lowly socially. Masculine traits are valued more highly socially, but are not expected and to be punished when displayed by women.

This often carries over into non-workplace social situations. Women are not expected to be assertive or aggressive in interpersonal relationships, and displaying those traits makes them undesirable or unattractive. At the same time passivity is viewed negatively by wider society and condemned by men who have to 'put in all the work'. Women are caught in a catch-22 situation, where they have to choose between the risks of personal or social condemnation for their action or inaction.

And that's hardly the only social catch-22 they face. Literally any action taken by a woman can be condemned from either side. Wearing makeup or generally spending time on their appearance can be condemned as being 'fake' or trying to trick men into thinking they are attractive. Failing to put in such time or effort is nearly universally condemned, as women are so often valued and judged solely on their attractiveness (or rather, their ability to fall into an acceptable socially acknowledged definition of attractive).

This valuing of women by their attractiveness and nothing else complicates dating further. Men who are after an attractive women - either for casual sex or as a status symbol - are unlikely to place much value on other aspects of the woman. This results both in the absurdities of internet dating spam (I've known multiple women who have abandoned multiple sites because they are made worthless by such users) and a complete disregard for women who can be dismissed as ugly or even just flawed. Pointing out minor flaws in a woman's appearance to degrade and devalue her is such a common trend as to be recognised and satirised even outside feminist circles.

Generalising into non-dating social interactions, women on the internet can expect abuse simply as the cost of existing. This is pretty well documented. Comparing with myself, I've been fairly hostile and engaged in politically/emotionally charged debates online, on a range of sites with a range of moderation policies, etc, and never once had a death threat. I think I've been directly threatened with physical violence once, and that was in a League of Legends post-game lobby where it's almost cliché. Women who take far more moderate positions than myself, on less hostile websites, get far more aggressive responses as the norm.

This extends into real life more than might be expected from the usual defences/justifications of internet bad behaviour. I've had unwanted advances before in person, but never felt physically threatened or unable to decline them. Conversely I've had multiple women ask me to serve as a pretend boyfriend to escape someone who either won't accept no for an answer or who they don't feel safe turning down.

Going back to the appearance point for a moment, the tie between a woman's appearance and personal worth is so close that even mentioning a woman's appearance (positively or negatively) can devalue her in other's eyes. Name It Change It's appearance survey showed a negative impact on a hypothetical political candidate's poll ratings based solely on adding a description of her appearance (positive, negative or neutral), actually swinging the pretend election towards her opponent while damaging her ratings in every key trait and favourability rating measured. Actively countering this description repairs the damage done among women but men retain unfavourable views of her regardless.

Combine this with a social and media obsession with analysing the appearance of every woman who comes on a screen or page and you have a recipe for devaluing the contributions and capabilities of women across the board.

Law, health:
Assuming we are solely looking at the USA here I don't think you can detangle the two.

Generally, legislatively, there is near perfect equality now. Sex discrimination laws in the US are written to apply equally, and even previously female-focused laws (eg, definition of rape) are being neutralised at a rather rapid rate when compare to the fixing of past inequalities.

That said, there are still trends that are problematic for women. While women are gaining parity in law degrees, they are nowhere near equally represented in judicial or senior legal roles.

While this dominance of male views in such positions can benefit women, it tends to only do so when aligned with otherwise harmful stereotypes and gender roles. Women are rewarded for conforming to expectations and often punished for deviating from them. Any advantage they have is conditional on following a patriarchal script. As has been pointed out previously, this is something opposed by feminism in general, even when it may appear to advantage women.

This also carries into state legislative bodies where women only make up roughly a quarter of all representatives. All too often laws directly primarily at women are being written, voted on and judged/enforced largely (even near exclusively in some areas) by men.

And that results in horrific anti-woman laws in many cases. Anti-abortion and anti-contraception laws are the current weapon of choice. The laws that have come into force have resulted in clinics closing, denying both abortion and general healthcare in entire regions of the USA. Some of the clinics concerned -particularly Planned Parenthood ones - were the only ones available to low income women for any medical purposes, not just reproductive health.

Under the ACA it's been primarily women's healthcare that has been singled out for attacks. From Hobby Lobby's successful challenge on certain contraceptives (very likely to be expanded to all 20 covered under the law) to the complete exclusion of abortion services, its services targeted at women that have become political, legislative and litigation footballs.

As an aside, I would view the exclusion of male contraceptives from the ACA as a policy mistake and a crisis, but one that generally harms women as well as men. It reinforces the concept that contraceptives are a woman's responsibility and a woman's problem. Here is the Guttmacher Institute arguing against that and the generally more limited guidelines for preventative reproductive care for men also mentioned in the Mill's article. I'm going to assume anyone half familiar will Mills or Guttmacher knows why I chose those two sources for this point...

Speaking about health more generally, healthcare tends to come in two flavours; woman exclusive (generally focused on reproductive) and male-focused. I mentioned this before, but the default medical model is the male body, often to the detriment of women who are subject to procedures only practised or tested on men. One example that has been broadly shared in recent years is that heart attack symptoms - widely publicised to attempt to improve recognition and treatment - are widely different for men and women. Even many doctors don't recognise the signs in women because they are taught to look for the male indicators.

The life expectancy is itself a complex topic. I linked this before to demonstrate it is closing over time (or rather, improvements for men and women are more rapidly progressing in men). It's not clear to me how much is biological and how much is social, but either way the problem is relatively minor and decreasing over time. And, as I've argued above, is despite a male-focused medical system.

Further the social aspects are primarily topics that are topics of study and criticism for feminists, while often not addressed outside the movement often at all. Where there is social progress in this area I would give feminism at least some of the credit.

Before I linked bell hooks' work on the topic, but the concept of toxic masculinity gets a fair amount of play among feminists. It's basically the idea that patriarchal standards of masculinity (or just desirable/admirable/reinforced male behaviour) are harmful to the men who embody them as well as those around them. The examples in that wiki are pretty solid. The obvious example of male violence being expected and anger being the only acceptable emotional response are directly relevant to male health, especially when combined with concepts of emasculation.

This 2006 AlterNet article is a particularly expansive exploration. It focuses mostly on the social aspects, but extrapolating to health/lifespan is relatively easy.

I've actually seen arguments that toxic masculinity as a concept came from the mythopoetic men's movement, which had a drive towards a positive/deep masculinity. I'd disagree strongly with many of their positions and their emphasis on ritual and strong gender roles/essentialism, but some of the positive aspects have relevance today. The emphasis on male socialisation and cooperation over competition and emotional expression are particularly relevant. That said, it is the feminist movement that has taken and progressed the concept, especially through the modern third wave anti-essentialist views.

College:

I'd argue that the primary apparent female advantage in college - more women entering and graduating - are actual representative of completely different issues and that colleges themselves are not biased towards women. Indeed, in many ways they are still biased against them.

Starting with applications, more women than men are applying. As was discussed previously in this thread, there is evidence of (limited and localised, and likely illegal) affirmative action in the favour of male applicants. See also Mother Jones, and the Washington Post. The issue with the numbers of men at universities has little to do with the universities themselves. The leak lies further up the pipeline.

I'd argue much of this goes back to the concept of toxic masculinity, but there is also an economic argument.

Go way back to the charts of women's earnings against men's in those spoilers above. Women have to be more qualified than men to expect similar earnings. A man out of highschool can expect greater earnings and self sufficiency in a wider range of employment options than a woman can. Women simple have fewer options outside university, pushing them to apply in greater numbers. I'd say this is particularly visible in the UK, where rising tuition fees and more vocational/apprenticeship schemes made university a less attractive option. The decrease was considerably higher among men than women.

Now I personally view this as a problem, and one that needs addressing on both levels; making the barriers to college lower (for everyone, but with a view to especially benefiting men) so that more men see it as viable while also making more jobs available and accessible to women out of high school so they don't feel forced into the one path. But I also see this as largely separate to colleges themselves being biased against women or women having it better, something I don't believe is true.

Talking about colleges more broadly, the employment factors come back with a vengeance when talking about women in academia. Particularly in science where the leak in the pipeline has been receiving particular attention. Essentially women are seen as fine students, but not regarded highly at all as academic faculty or even non-student researchers. Combine this with studies such as this one linked above which demonstrate an unconscious bias towards male students from faculty and I feel relatively secure in saying that there is a substantive and real barrier to women in academia that men just don't experience.

I hate to get into personal experience, but I have reasons to believe that similar biases and prejudices operate against female students on all levels. A lot of it comes back to men simply getting the benefit of the doubt from educators more often, with women's work being viewed more sceptically or critically. Again, the strongest evidence I have of this are studies like the above. There is also the fact that college admissions test have been deliberately designed to favour men - with sections that favoured women being 'balanced' till men scored higher again - in the past, and many of those who designed such tests are still designing and running college courses and exams. I fully believe in an unconscious and blind favouring of men in course design at college, particularly in fields where faculty representation lags behind being representative of the student body.

I'll admit that I have far less first hand experience in the arts, and what I say is less relevant to areas with greater female representation in the faculty. But given there are broad representation gaps across all of academia, increasing as you go up in seniority, I would suggest that the issues are the norm with primarily female (or woman designed) courses being a minority at best.

[GreatJustice]

I don't especially want to get stuck into this kind of topic, but I feel like some minor things need to be said so here goes

Finance:
I've had lengthy discussions on this before, most recently here. But to summarise, the gender wage gap is real and substantial and dominant in practical financial differences between the sexes. Comparing like-to-like, full time employment, you have an overall pay ratio of 0.82 (using raw BLS data). My rough and ready analysis from a few months ago showed men earning more than women in 136 out of 139 categories, with a >10% gap in 109.

Women with similar educational levels to men can expect to see lower pay levels. Some raw data here, easy enough to eyeball. A quick graph that covers more intersectional (race/gender) angles;
Spoiler: Data from Census bureau, 2006-8 (click to show/hide)
In a similar vein, there is this report, with this graph (annotated version ripped from various blogs);
Spoiler: Slightly easier to read version of similar data, without race taken into account (click to show/hide)
Even within STEM fields there are notable pay gaps. This pattern replicates across almost every field and subject.

Which is all to say, comparing like-to-like, women can be expected to be earning less than men in the same or similar roles.

All this is before you take into account women more often taking part time jobs, bringing down their overall income in comparison to men and giving you the classic ~77% raw wage gap.

The big thing here that you aren't taking into account the fact that women are far more likely to take extended periods of time off of work, particularly to have children and so on whereas men basically continually work the same job and build lots of experience in the process. When you take that into account, the gender wage gap basically becomes irrelevant.

Oh, and while I don't have the statistics to back it up, I certainly agree with you that employers are probably more likely to hire a man over a woman if they have two identical, equally qualified applicants. Why is that? Because the female applicant can, at just about any time, up and leave the job for several months to raise children, whereas the male applicant can't (accounting for the fact that most countries have mandatory maternal leaves, etc). This is, at the end of the day, a biological issue, not one that is created by employers thinking that women should "go back to the kitchen" or any nonsense like that. There are, of course, a few ways around it; some women simply won't raise children at all while working (though I suspect most businesses wouldn't risk asking about that for fear of being labeled "misogynistic", and there's no chance at all they'd specifically mention it as a factor in hiring), while others would would take significantly less time off of work. Whatever the case, the "gender wage gap" is basically a myth, at least the way it is presented.

That said, there are still trends that are problematic for women. While women are gaining parity in law degrees, they are nowhere near equally represented in judicial or senior legal roles.

Presumably because women only (comparatively) recently began aspiring for those positions in great numbers, meaning that the parity being reached is between younger men and younger women getting into the field. If that is the case, then the proportion of women in the judicial and senior legal positions will increase over time naturally.

This also carries into state legislative bodies where women only make up roughly a quarter of all representatives. All too often laws directly primarily at women are being written, voted on and judged/enforced largely (even near exclusively in some areas) by men.

Why does this matter? Some women would rather be represented by men and some men would rather be represented by women, depending on their political views. Laws being directed at regulating business generally aren't written by entrepreneurs, laws aimed at healthcare aren't usually written by doctors and laws relating to agriculture aren't often written by farmers.

And that results in horrific anti-woman laws in many cases. Anti-abortion and anti-contraception laws are the current weapon of choice. The laws that have come into force have resulted in clinics closing, denying both abortion and general healthcare in entire regions of the USA. Some of the clinics concerned -particularly Planned Parenthood ones - were the only ones available to low income women for any medical purposes, not just reproductive health.

Strange that you call them "anti-woman" laws when support for them is generally evenly split between women and men, with the only difference being that women feel more strongly about the issue either way.

Under the ACA it's been primarily women's healthcare that has been singled out for attacks. From Hobby Lobby's successful challenge on certain contraceptives (very likely to be expanded to all 20 covered under the law) to the complete exclusion of abortion services, its services targeted at women that have become political, legislative and litigation footballs.

This isn't because they hate women, it's because issues relating specifically to women's healthcare in the ACA are much easier to oppose on legal grounds since the Supreme Court decision on the issue of an insurance mandate. If it was easier to oppose legally through attacking the mandate, or requirements for coverage despite preexisting conditions, then it would be opposed for those reasons instead.

[GavJ]

The big thing here that you aren't taking into account the fact that women are far more likely to take extended periods of time off of work, particularly to have children and so on whereas men basically continually work the same job and build lots of experience in the process. When you take that into account, the gender wage gap basically becomes irrelevant.

Except that it is illegal to punish people for taking or being suspected to take maternity (to the extent that it exists, obviously, not just quitting on your own for however long you feel like) leave by docking their salaries, so no, that doesn't make it irrelevant. All you've done is explain precisely where a large part of the illegal discrimination is probably happening. And in fact the laws SHOULD be much stronger, not weaker.

It's a human rights and national interest (by incentivizing children and their nurture for a future where the world shows us that underpopulation is a potentially looming threat), and mere mundane actuarial considerations do not override those necessarily.

Laws being directed at regulating business generally aren't written by entrepreneurs, laws aimed at healthcare aren't usually written by doctors and laws relating to agriculture aren't often written by farmers.

Which is also a major problem. You shouldn't have people entirely writing laws governing themselves, but you should always have considerable official consultancy and committees for the various interested parties. E.g., a Monsanto bill with industry reps + consumers + farmers + neutral scientists, etc. being in on the writing it.

I would probably have agreed with you about "just vote for women then," but the extreme power and meta-influence of parties significantly undermines that should-be-that-simple logic and possibility.

[Reelya]

I think the point is that things wouldn't be much different if we did vote for women to decide these matters, since their views don't differ that much from the men. Plenty, plenty of "pro-life" women out there.

Making a criticism of men deciding "X" being unfair is only meaningful if you can also show that women would have made a different decision. Perhaps it could be argued it would be more politically palatable if pro-life conservative women made the decision to close Planned Parenthood clinics instead of men, but the clinics still close either way.

Personally, I think it's more about religion, social class and race as gender.

[GavJ]

Personally, I think it's more about religion, social class and race as gender.

All of these could have your same logic applied to them...

Literally just sub in the words: "Making a criticism of Catholics deciding "X" being unfair is only meaningful if you can also show that Jews would have made a different decision. " etc. etc.

If you aren't willing to talk based on gut instinct for women, then fine, but you don't get to for religion, class, race either then.

[Neonivek]

I think the point is that things wouldn't be much different if we did vote for women to decide these matters, since their views don't differ that much from the men. Plenty, plenty of "pro-life" women out there.

Well that is because "Pro-Life" Versus "Pro-Choice" isn't an argument about the autonomy of women anyhow... Nor is it an argument over whether or not a woman has the right to kill another human being.

It is a debate entirely centered around as to whether an unborn fetus/child is a human being and thus has a right to life or not... Period.

It has repercussions involving both... and "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are both intentional phrasings to make the other seem wrong... but the debate really just boils down to what you believe.

[Samarkand]

I think the point is that things wouldn't be much different if we did vote for women to decide these matters, since their views don't differ that much from the men. Plenty, plenty of "pro-life" women out there.

Well that is because "Pro-Life" Versus "Pro-Choice" isn't an argument about the autonomy of women anyhow... Nor is it an argument over whether or not a woman has the right to kill another human being.

It is a debate entirely centered around as to whether an unborn fetus/child is a human being and thus has a right to life or not... Period.

It has repercussions involving both... and "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are both intentional phrasings to make the other seem wrong... but the debate really just boils down to what you believe.

It's a little bit more than "right to life" in some cases. There are some terminal diseases not discovered until late in gestation. Those babies never have a chance at life, never mind rights, but "pro-life" proponents will argue against aborting them.

[Neonivek]

True, the debates have opened up quite a bit in complexity.

Mind you, I guess if someone was unconscious from a terminal illness and you could kill them right then and there by tearing out their heart and putting it in a healthy person's... Is that the equivalent?

It still boils right down to what it constitutes.

[GreatJustice]

Except that it is illegal to punish people for taking or being suspected to take maternity (to the extent that it exists, obviously, not just quitting on your own for however long you feel like) leave by docking their salaries, so no, that doesn't make it irrelevant. All you've done is explain precisely where a large part of the illegal discrimination is probably happening. And in fact the laws SHOULD be much stronger, not weaker.

It's a human rights and national interest (by incentivizing children and their nurture for a future where the world shows us that underpopulation is a potentially looming threat), and mere mundane actuarial considerations do not override those necessarily.

But unlike a lot of other kinds of discrimination, this kind is actually grounded in the reality that, ignoring all other concerns and looking at things from a purely logical standpoint, one applicant is an objectively safer bet than the other. This isn't a "mundane actuarial concern" either; one worker on the job for a smaller business can be the difference between getting by and bankruptcy, ESPECIALLY for businesses that can't easily train up new workers (eg. software companies). This also goes beyond the ostensible feminist goal of "female-male equality" in that it requires people to outright ignore actual disadvantages to hiring one worker over the other.

Strengthening the law, by the way, is sort of meaningless unless you go far enough to create a world in which any business that turns down a woman for a job (be she actually more qualified or not) has the legal screws put on it by some judge who can apparently read the mind of the owners and determine whether their motivations were "acceptable" or not. I mean, that basically opens the floodgates for idiots like the "GIANT BOMB IS SEXIST FOR HIRING A MAN" lady to start throwing around their weight legally.

Also, in the case of women not getting paid as much due to taking maternity leave, the issue isn't that women are having their pay cut so much as they aren't getting pay raises while on leave (because they aren't getting the experience their male counterparts are getting, there is a transition in workloads, etc). For women on maternity leave to get the same long term wages as men not on leave, you would have to completely ignore differences in experience and the costs of getting a replacement for a potentially hard to replace job (eg. training up a new programmer).

Which is also a major problem. You shouldn't have people entirely writing laws governing themselves, but you should always have considerable official consultancy and committees for the various interested parties. E.g., a Monsanto bill with industry reps + consumers + farmers + neutral scientists, etc. being in on the writing it.

I would probably have agreed with you about "just vote for women then," but the extreme power and meta-influence of parties significantly undermines that should-be-that-simple logic and possibility.

Maybe. But then that defeats the point of democracy, since such groups aren't equally represented in the public at large or in the people that are motivated to run for public office. Not to say I entirely disagree, though.

[GavJ]

But unlike a lot of other kinds of discrimination, this kind is actually grounded in the reality that, ignoring all other concerns and looking at things from a purely logical standpoint, one applicant is an objectively safer bet than the other.

I don't think it IS unlike as many kinds of discrimination as you think.

It's also probably grounded in reality that all of the following groups of people are probably more expensive investments and lead to slightly fewer profits for an average company:
-Disabled people (even in a job where the disability is irrelevant to performance, they often need extra expensive infrastructure)
-Naturalized immigrants (on average less likely to English fluency, for example, and possibly more culture clash with customer service, etc.)
-Old people are going to die or retire sooner and thus run up your costs of training per year you get return on that investment.

And so on. Yet these are all legally protected. That's one of the main reasons WHY they are protected, BECAUSE it makes mathematical pure-profit sense not to hire or promote them, and Congress has decided that national interest of equality and human rights in these cases trumps a few extra dollars.

If it weren't a profit issue, you wouldn't really need most of the laws, now would you...





Again, this just boils down to "numerical equality" versus "unjust equality" which are different concepts. The former can simply be measured, but isn't actually very useful or meaningful. The latter is what most people care about, however, it is inherently more subjective or even if the subjective parts are agreed on, more practically difficult to measure as well.

You're arguing strict numerical inequality by simply pointing out existing rule differences. But whether or not it's unjust depends on the reasons for those rules and if they are good ones, which requires deep debate, not just statistics. Should minor profit differences count more than raising healthy and well-adjusted Americans by promoting early life bonding? I'd say no. Maybe you say yes. Subjective discussion ensues.

Maybe. But then that defeats the point of democracy, since such groups aren't equally represented in the public at large or in the people that are motivated to run for public office. Not to say I entirely disagree, though.

It does not at all defeat democracy. To be clear, the consultants don't VOTE. They advise and educate the elected representatives.

They already do this sometimes. They just don't do nearly enough of it or require it like they should.