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[GreatJustice]

-Disabled people (even in a job where the disability is irrelevant to performance, they often need extra expensive infrastructure)

This one gets a bit complicated since a lot of the extra infrastructure is mandated anyway (which is an entirely different discussion I don't want to get into). Regardless, "disabled" can mean any number of things, but quite often the "protection" for them only extends for people with comparatively common disabilities. I mean, I've yet to find anyone working tirelessly to make all facilities available to people with iron lungs, or to prevent hiring discrimination against them. Also, this is one of those issues that tends to become bait for lawyers looking to make easy money off of people that make hiring choices they don't like.

-Naturalized immigrants (on average less likely to English fluency, for example, and possibly more culture clash with customer service, etc.)

This can easily be ascertained by an interview. In general though, it's pretty damn silly to have someone with an unintelligible accent handle a job like customer service or something else that requires clear communication. This is actually a pretty common form of hiring discrimination, actually, but it extends quite a bit farther since a lot of jobs basically require that the applicant have a fairly clear Midwestern American accent, for the simple reason that pretty much any English speaker in the world can understand them without much issue.

-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.

Depends on the job and the circumstances.

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.

A few extra dollars here, a few laws mandating equality there and before you know it even meeting an applicant from a "protected minority" creates a legal minefield in which you can be sued for not hiring them, sued for not accommodating them in specific ways, sued for firing them, sued for docking pay or sued for not giving them a raise. It gets to a point where it actually makes more sense to avoid hiring them entirely if possible because having such an employee is a ticking time bomb if you ever have issues with them.

This is absolutely a subjective argument, but at the end of the day I'd say that the equality that matters most is equality under the law, of which anti-discriminatory hiring requirements go well beyond.

[GavJ]

This is absolutely a subjective argument, but at the end of the day I'd say that the equality that matters most is equality under the law, of which anti-discriminatory hiring requirements go well beyond.

I'm sure that all the disabled, 50 year old females will be very appreciative of that privilege while they are starving to death in gutters in a town near you.

OR alternatively forced to live in nearly fully subsidized Section 8 housing on SSI disability payments with food stamps (maximum combined total = about $1400 a month where I live) + possibly vocational rehab assistance (could be thousands more in tax dollars in paying for re-training in other fields in an attempt to find people employability), thus not only having moral implications, but also costing taxpayers (including businesses) far more money anyway than it would have cost to accommodate the minor profit losses from discrimination laws that allow them to be productive members of society. Undermining the entire main purpose you state of repealing them.

[Reelya]

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.

That seems like a bit of a stretch having read the article. You've left out so much detail as to completely bias anyone's understanding of what that issue is.

First, you neglect to mention that it's treating congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which is a condition which can cause "ambiguous" genitalia in female babies. It's related to massive testosterone level spikes in the womb.

Then, you state there are "cases" where the treatment is used to prevent "assertiveness" in female babies when in fact:

The majority of researchers and clinicians interested in the use of prenatal “dex” focus on preventing development of ambiguous genitalia in girls with CAH. CAH results in an excess of androgens prenatally, and this can lead to a “masculinizing” of a female fetus’s genitals. One group of researchers, however, seems to be suggesting that prenatal dex also might prevent affected girls from turning out to be homosexual or bisexual.

Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University, and her long-time collaborator, psychologist Heino F. L. Meyer-Bahlburg, of Columbia University, have been tracing evidence for the influence of prenatal androgens in sexual orientation. In a paper entitled “Sexual Orientation in Women with Classical or Non-Classical Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia as a Function of Degree of Prenatal Androgen Excess” published in 2008 in Archives of Sexual Behavior, Meyer-Bahlburg and New (with two others) gather evidence of “a dose-response relationship of androgens with sexual orientation” through a study of women with various forms of CAH.

They specifically point to reasons to believe that it is prenatal androgens that have an impact on the development of sexual orientation...

There are no people being "treated" with these goal at all. There is only reasearch into what CAH actually means for the affected children.

All these people did was study the link between CAH hormones and sexual orientation. There's no mythical "treatment" they're dishing out. The only link is researchers who are finding that CAH women have very low levels of relationship-forming. So, because of a genetic hormone malfunction, they'll most likely never have a family. This boils down to a medical issue, not a "choice" issue. You don't "chose" to have abnormal prenatal hormone levels, even if they later influence your life choices.

Personally I don't think the treatment is that important other than the deformed genitalia issue. Nobody wants to put a child through that. If you know why something is happening and can control it, should you be "hands off" or should you change it? At the end of the day, the parents are going to make that decision.

If you told parents "you're having a girl, but we know due to science that she will never wants kids of her own, and we have medicine that, if given now, would change that", how do you think parents would react? Once the science and medicine exists this is going to be a huge issue.

Also, the idea of making them "less assertive" being a goal appears nowhere in the linked article whatsoever.

[TD1]

This is a case of "It mentions [Insert Controversial Thing Here] so normal ways of investigating things can't be used as it will be [something]ist.

[LordBucket]

You used coal mining as your example. That example was flat out wrong.

it was the plain text reading of your meaning.

A misunderstanding occured. What I intended to communicate was clearly not received by you. If you wish to place the blame for that entirely on me, *shrug* ok. Other people understood what was being said. You didn't. I'm over it.

Pro tip, however: reading the "plain text" of sentences in isolation from the sentences around them and ignoring the context in which they exist is likely to result in further miscommunication in your life apart from bay12 forum discussions. That's probably going to be more important in your life than this discussion.


It's Friday night. I have plans. Only going to respond to one of your sections tonight:

Finance:

the gender wage gap is real

Data from Census bureau, 2006-8

giving you the classic ~77% raw wage gap.

From the title of the graph in your first spoiler:

"Work-Life earnings"

Meaning, that graph shows the lifetime earnings.

From the executive summary of your link:

"no data source exists with a large number of cases that tracks individuals through-out their careers by earnings, occupation, and hours worked per year, this approach is the only viable one to construct even a rough estimate of lifetime earnings. "

Again, your data shows "life time earnings." Go through the chapters. Go through the graphs. It repeats this all over the place. Your study shows lifetimes earnings.

Well, guess what? Women work less over their lifetimes than men.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303592404577361883019414296

"The Labor Department defines full-time as 35 hours a week or more, and the "or more" is far more likely to refer to male workers than to female ones. According to the department, almost 55% of workers logging more than 35 hours a week are men. In 2007, 25% of men working full-time jobs had workweeks of 41 or more hours, compared with 14% of female full-time workers. In other words, the famous gender-wage gap is to a considerable degree a gender-hours gap."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement

"women tend to retire earlier than men"

So, yes. The women who works fewer hours per week and retires earlier than a man makes less money over their lifetimes...regardless of the fact that they both have the same degree.

And incidentally, women don't have the same degrees.:

Also from your report:

"variations are not just among people of diff erent degree levels or by gender or race/ethnicity. In spite of the obvious returns to more education, the job someone is doing — their occupation — also matters when it comes to earnings. In fact, there is a wide variation in earnings by occupation even among people with the same degree. For example, financial managers with a Bachelor’s degree earn $3.1 million over a lifetime, while accountants and auditors with a Bachelor’s make $2.5 million."

Or, to put it another way:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/01/no-women-don-t-make-less-money-than-men.html

"Here is a list of the ten most remunerative majors compiled by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Men overwhelmingly outnumber women in all but one of them:

1.   Petroleum Engineering: 87% male
2.   Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration: 48% male
3.   Mathematics and Computer Science: 67% male
4.   Aerospace Engineering: 88% male
5.   Chemical Engineering: 72% male
6.   Electrical Engineering: 89% male
7.   Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering: 97% male
8.   Mechanical Engineering: 90% male
9.   Metallurgical Engineering: 83% male
10. Mining and Mineral Engineering: 90% male

And here are the 10 least remunerative majors—where women prevail in nine out of ten:

1.  Counseling Psychology: 74% female
2.  Early Childhood Education: 97% female
3.  Theology and Religious Vocations: 34% female
4.  Human Services and Community Organization: 81% female
5.  Social Work: 88% female
6.  Drama and Theater Arts: 60% female
7.   Studio Arts: 66% female
8.   Communication Disorders Sciences and Services: 94% female
9.   Visual and Performing Arts: 77% female
10. Health and Medical Preparatory Programs: 55% female"

Here's your chart again. Read the labels.

That chart is a chart of earnings by degree. Not by profession. So yes, if the average woman not only works fewer hours per week than men, not only retires earlier then men, but also chooses a less useful degree and then say...gets a job as a preschool teacher instead of an aerospace engineer...it should come as no surprise that she makes less money over her lifetime.

So what happens when we account for these differences?

http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html

"according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group."

"with young women in New York City, Los Angeles and San Diego making 17%, 12% and 15% more than their male peers"

" Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that for the first time, women made up the majority of the workforce in highly paid managerial positions."

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2010-09-01-single-women_n.htm

"Women ages 22 to 30 with no husband and no kids earn a median $27,000 a year, 8% more than comparable men in the top 366 metropolitan areas"

"women out-earn men in 39 of the 50 biggest cities and match them in another eight. "


Isn't that interesting? When you remove "married, has kids" and therefore presumbly stuff like "only working part time because is a stay at home mom" from the equation, women make more money than men.

As this forbes article puts it:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/02/24/childless-women-in-their-twenties-out-earn-men-so/

"If you insist that the gender wage gap is a result of discrimination against women, here are a few other claims that must be equally true. By the same logic, young men are discriminated against in favor of young women. Women in their 20s without children out-earn men by as much as $1.08 to every dollar, according to some estimates. It must also be true that white men are discriminated against in favor of Asian-American men, who earn over 5 percent more than white men. To claim either of these as discrimination would be ridiculous, though, right?"

But, since the socially accepted gender role for men is that they be underdogs, and the socially accepted gender role of women is that they must always be protected no matter what, the article does nevertheless acknowledge:

"The reality remains that women, on average, do earn less than men."

Which is corroborated elsewhere. On average, women do make less money. But even so, your 77% figure simply doesn't account for job position, work hours, etc. Once that's accounted for:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap

"The raw wage gap data shows that a woman would earn roughly 73.7% to 77% of what a man would earn over their lifetime. However, when controllable variables are accounted for, such as job position, total hours worked, number of children, and the frequency at which unpaid leave is taken, in addition to other factors, the U.S. Department of Labor found in 2008 that the gap can be brought down from 23% to between 4.8% and 7.1%"

A pay gap still exists, but it's between 5 and 7%. Not 23%.

So we know that single childless women get paid 8% more than men. But why is it that if we only account for the job position and work hours difference, but not the single childless bit...why is it that women are paid on average between 5% and 7% less than men? Well, I'm going to take a shot in the dark and speculate:

It's because society expects that men work and provide for their family.

Think about that. Perception is that we have families, men work, women stay at home and take care of kids. This thread is about gender roles, and this is absolutely one of them.

Are you laughing yet? Are you thinking to yourself "Haha! Bucket is totally playing into my hands and admitting there's discrimination here!"

Well, maybe. But I ask you to consider the implications.

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm

Civilian labor force participation, 2012:

 * Men, 16 years and older: 70.2%
 * Women, 16 years and older: 57.7%

70% of men work. Only 57% of women work.

Why is that? Because the perception is that it's ok for women to not work. Whereas the perception is that the "proper place gender role" of a man...is to work and provide for his family.

You can probably see where I'm going with this. Who has it better? The gender who is expected to spend his life working and providing...for a woman. Or a woman, who isn't expected to provide for a man. But can if she wants to. And who can make on average 8% more than men if she chooses to go that route.

I say that the gender who can do whatever they want has it better. The gender who has a choice of getting married and letting somebody else pay their way if they want...or paying their own way if they want...has it better than the gender who lacks that choice, and is expected to spend his life working to provide for a woman.

But it actually gets worse, for reasons already linked and mentioned a dozen or so thread pages ago.

Even though men do the majority of work, women control the majority of money.

Fun fact: I used to sell cars in California. Want to know what they said during their salesperson training? women make the final decision whether to buy. That is part of the official Toyota in California dealership training program: women make the final purchase decision.

But hey, my own personal anecdote probably doesn't mean anything to you. So here's something you can do personally: go to mall. Look at the stores. Count the number of stores that cater to women vs the number of stores that cater to men. Count the number of women's shoe/clothing/etc stores vs the number of men's stores. I think you'll find that women's stores vastly outnumber men's stores. While you're at it, take a look at some allegedly "gender neutral" stores. For example, go to a store that sells both men's and women's clothing. Compare the size of the men's and women's departments. Go to a jewelry store that sells both men and women's jewelry. Compare the size of the men's section to the women's section the watch section to the rest of the store.

Why is this? Because women spend the majority of money. This is well known.

http://www.trendsight.com/content/view/40/204/

"Women Control about 80% of Household Spending"

http://she-conomy.com/facts-on-women

"Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases including everything from autos to health care:
91% of New Homes
66% PCs
92% Vacations
80% Healthcare
65% New Cars
89% Bank Accounts
93% Food
93 % OTC Pharmaceuticals"

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-07-24/women-controlling-consumer-spending-sparse-among-central-bankers.html

""women account for 80 percent of all consumer- expenditure decisions in the U.S."

http://www.inwomenwetrust.com/resources/just-the-facts/

"Women spend over 70% of consumer dollars worldwide"

So...the gender that does less work...spends most of the money. Again, this thread is about gender roles. The expected gender role for men is that they make the money. The expected gender role for women is that they spend it.

Who has the better deal?

[Orange Wizard]

So...the gender that does less work...spends most of the money. Again, this thread is about gender roles. The expected gender role for men is that they make the money. The expected gender role for women is that they spend it.

Who has the better deal?

Gay men.

[Rolepgeek]

LordBucket, are you a member of the MRA? Because whether or not you are, the type of things you're saying and claiming lead me to believe you're one.

No. Even my guess as to what it stood for wasn't correct. Than you google for the correction. Though I did guess two of the three letters right.

You understand why I ask? Even from a purely logical viewpoint? And why it isn't usually considered a good thing?

So...I've read your post. A lot of it not very well thought out. I conclude that you're approaching this from a very emotional place. Which...you confirm a couple times. So, it is what it is. i notice that you seem so very enthusiastically excited about having "refuted my points." But you really haven't done that.

More women are accepted into college than men

True. However, the correct response to this is to ask why

More women graduate with degrees

Interesting. But you know the real interesting thing about it? It's pretty easily explained

"In 2008, single, childless women between ages 22 and 30 were earning more than their male counterparts in most U.S. cities, with incomes that were 8% greater on average, "

And again, it explains why

...so...you're agreeing with me...and then attempting to explain why these things are the case. Ok...but giving reasons for why I'm right doesn't refute my position. I mean...you're agreeing with me that these things I'm saying are in fact true. Ok, umm...thank you? Next?

I 'agree' with facts. Yes. Duh. You presented facts(most of the time). The error you made was in the leap of logic to follow. There were explanations for a significant number of them as to why it wasn't gender bias at work(and thus why feminism doesn't actively worsen said issues). The ones in which it was, other than the CEO salary(and you somehow believe that 16 out of 500 CEOs making 40% more on average than the other 484 CEOs is equal or in favor of women? Seriously?), are pretty much all things that the feminist movement will help reduce, by virtue of trying to break gender roles. And yet you continue to believe it's not for equality! Just because they aren't focusing on your issues.

it explains why, going back upwards to other points you've made, and my refutations of them

What refutations? You do understand that agreeing with me and telling me why I'm right...pointing out that the articles explain why the things I'm saying are the case...you do understand that's not a refutation of what I'm saying...right?

It's a refutation of your warrants and conclusion, not a direct refutation of facts. Why would I try and disprove facts? They're facts. However, when you purposefully present them in a fashion that doesn't show the whole picture? That's being dishonest. It's being misleading. It's a point against you, because it implies that you can't prove your case without resorting to such methods.

Also, are you trying to insinuate that this entire topic isn't inherently emotional? Because I'm not trying to insinuate it is inherently emotional. I'm stating it outright. It is. Being unemotional around subjects like, say, people getting raped and murdered, tends to show sociopathic tendencies and a lack of empathy in an individual.

Gender roles in society place a 'greater wrong' on harming a woman, because they are seen as weak, vulnerable, and helpless, as compared to men, who oughta be able to defend themselves. After all, if they can't, they're not a real man!

Ok, yes. Thank you for making one of my points for me. It's perceived as a greater wrong to harm women. I would call that a gender role/cultural perception where women have the better deal. Men are perceived as "not real men" if they can't defend themselves, whereas it's ok for women. Again, I would call that a gender role/cultural perception where women have the better deal. Being "perceived as weak" just doesn't like such a terrible thing to me when it's compared to "society doesn't care as much if you're harmed, and if you are...it's your own fault for not being manly enough to stop it."

I....I'm having trouble following your logic, because it's, to be blunt, insane. You think that being viewed as weak, vulnerable, and helpless, unable to take care of yourself, and thus unsuitable for any number of tasks or positions, is a good thing? Especially considering that women get beaten for trying to go against that stereotype, how can you believe this? At all? I mean, hell, the whole 'not real men' thing applies more to being raped than getting the shit beaten out of you(on the one hand, thank the gods it doesn't apply to getting the shit beaten out of you, most of the time, on the other hand, it's really fucked up the way we view rape).

No, they were excellent examples. And others have pointed out that they were accurate. You just don't like them because they don't support your conclusion.

But there are equally excellent examples that demonstrate the opposite effect. Which I'm sure you don't like because they don't support your conclusion; that feminism is actively detrimental or at the very least unnecessary.

I've on many occasions acknowledged that there are things women have to deal with than men don't, and that there are some things that men have better. For example:

Are there certain specific areas in which men have a better deal? Yes.

There are more men in politics. And more male CEO's.

I've also repeatedly acknowledged that there are some issues that are more difficult to conclusively say who has it better, and. For example:

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.

So if you're trying to paint me as unreasonable here...you're not doing a very good job of it.

Honestly, I get the impression that you're not even arguing with me. You're arguing with the emotional baggage you have associated with this issue, and incorrectly assuming that the things I'm saying correlate with that baggage. And they don't.

There aren't 'certain specific areas in which men have a better deal' except by a very literal definition of the terms. They have a better deal in the vast majority of areas -but that doesn't even matter, because it's not a godsdamned contest! You cannot say 'this many more women get raped than men, but this many more men get murdered than women, but this many more women are abused by their spouses, but this many more men can't get a date, but this...' and try to judge them on the same scale.

But on the other hand, let's look at the rejection thing for a moment. There was something interesting I read a while back and I'd been looking for a way to insert it into the conversation for you to look at. Unfortunately, I seem unable to find the article I remember, but in searching I find that the exact article is, perhaps, unimportant. Allow me to instead ask you if you have heard of Schrodinger's Rapist, and Margaret Atwood? Specifically, a quote of hers.

“Why are you afraid of women?” I asked a group of men.
“We’re afraid they’ll laugh at us,” replied the men.
“Why are you afraid of men?” I asked a group of women
“We’re afraid they’ll kill us,” replied the woman.

And you tell me that such is equal, no, advantageous to women. Truly?

In all seriousness, research these sorts of things, please, particularly Schrodinger's Rapist. If you have not come into this discussion without a firm knowledge of such things beforehand, it is not my responsibility to educate you; it is your own. If you believe the only places women 'have it worse'(as if it were a contest) are in politics and the number of CEOs? Who are not sadly mistaken, but tragically so. To the point that I want to break out into hysterics over it, either with fury that you could even suggest that these aren't issues, or with great sadness that our society has enabled people like you to continue believing such misconceptions.

I'll ask if you are honestly so resentful of the few 'advantages' women get from gender roles in these issues that you would attempt to use them as part of an argument.

...umm...what? My thesis here is that women have it better than men. Obviously I'm going to use examples of women having advantages over men as evidence that women have it better than men. Resentment has nothing to do with it.

I'll address your questions in turn, sometimes with questions of my own. 1. Why not go to a bar with a female friend and see which gender of waiter gets groped more often? Which of you is leered at more often? This all depends entirely on the women being attractive to men, which forms part of the pressures on women being pretty; not to get free drinks, but as a symptom of the underlying problem. 2. Again, she'd have to be attractive, and if someone did offer to help, which of you is more likely to be sexually assaulted? 3. Ties back into gender roles, women are seen as weak and unable to harm men. And honestly, unless you're referring to strangers? If you both have good friends and approximately equal numbers, odds are your friends would be supportive regardless of gender of you or the assailant(try being sexually assaulted as either by a member of the same gender and see who gets more sympathy, as well, huh?). That's before all of the various double standards regarding rape come into play, but that's partially because we're part of a victim blaming culture(in fact, I'd argue your entire rant and opposition is evidence of that!).

1) I've been eating out for 20+ years, and I've never in my entire life seen anyone grope a waitress. Nevertheless, I'll grant you that it happens to women more than men. Leered at? Absolutely that happens to women more than men. Yes, women receive more unwanted attention that men. They receive more attention at all than men. And that's a mixed situation.

You were asking this question in response to my question about "who gets drinks bought for them more often." And so yes, I will acknowledge that this is one of those situations where it's difficult to judge who has it better or worse. Women get more attention than men. Sometimes that attention is unwanted. Is it better to get attention, but sometimes unwanted attention...or to not get attention? It's a valid question. I don't have a definite answer. I suspect this specific issue is a case of the grass seeming greener on the other side. Sure, there are some women who resent getting catcalls and whistles all the time. And there are some guys watching on from the sidelines wishing anyone would pay attention to them at all. Who has it worse? I don't know. Neither do you.

2) No, pretty sure even an unattractive woman stuck on the side of the road would have more people stop to help her than a man stuck on the side of the road.

3. Yes, I agree this ties into gender roles. And I agree that there are some double standards here. Those work both ways.

1. Lucky you. You must live somewhere nice, then. What about to women who aren't waitresses? Let me put it this way. What would you do if a woman bought you a free drink? Would you instantly start thinking of a way to get into her pants? How many people do you know who would instantly start trying to think of a way to get into her pants? But you know what, maybe you're right. Maybe women only wish they could be as invisible as men because they don't go have to go through being ignored all the time(oh those poor men, it must be so tragic to be ignored by the opposite sex at bars). Maybe men only wish they could get as much attention as women because they haven't had to go through the sexual harassment that often accompanies such attentions. It's not a matter of who has it worse though. It's not a competition with points to be tallied. Life is cooperative, not competitive. Or at the very least, it should be.

2. You have evidence of this? And I see you ignore the sexual assault aspect, as if it was irrelevant.

3. And such double standards, while harmful to both genders, are typically worse for women. This is not debatable. It's been a fact through history. It's a fact now. It's why the feminism movement is trying to get rid of such double standards. Certainly you can agree with that, yes?

"Older, unattractive men" find dating easier than "older, unattractive women." Primarily because men die younger which leads to not enough men to go around. Are you seriously trying to paint the fact that men die younger as a bad thing for women? I mean, yes...I see how it could be inconvenient. But painting men dying as a women's problem seems a bit twisted to me.

Are you seriously trying to paint the fact that men die younger as a good thing for women?!?

This comment is interesting for a couple reasons. First off...no, obviously that wasn't what I was doing. Even in the section you're quoting, I point out that men dying is inconvenient for women. Why would you ask if I'm painting men dying as good for women...when I just said it was inconvenient for them? I question your reading comprehension. In any case, you seem to be missing the point, which was my response to Angle's claim that older women have a more difficult time dating than men...by pointing out that the reason for that is that men die younger than women.

You see, he was attempting to claim older women's dating difficult was a case of "women having it worse than men." To which my response was that the men in that equation are dying young.

Clearly dying is worse than having a difficult time finding a dating partner, right? And that's why I suggest it was twisted. Angle was proposing that "older women have difficulty dating" was worse than men dying young being the cause of older women having difficulty dating.

Do you get it now?

No, because that's not the reason they have difficulty. But in all honesty, this whole discussion is fairly asinine because it doesn't matter who has more difficulty dating when you're old. That doesn't even compare to the shit we're talking about. Plus I answered below first and I don't want to try and do it again up here. And once again, I'll bring up the whole 'this isn't a competition' and the 'apples to oranges' thing. You're trying to connect things that are completely separate; society's focus on women needing to look young and beautiful, and men having shorter lifespans.

you completely ignored the unattractive part, focusing only on the old

Look, I apologize...but have you ever dated? Like, let's ask a very simple question here. Imagine a 20-something ugly guy and a 20-something ugly girl. Who would have an easier time finding a date? Who would have an easier time getting laid? Even if you're still in high school, you should be able to answer this question.

...I find myself at a loss for words, right now. The sheer ignorance inherent in your question baffles me. I mean...alright, let's start from the beginning.
First off, it comes from a very masculine viewpoint, and a stereotypically masculine one at that; that the important thing, the thing you're looking for, is a date, or sex, regardless of whom.
Second, it uses the stereotypes of both men and women to try and reinforce itself; that All Men Want Sex, and that Women Are Chaste. I say this because the correlation you're trying to make is that a guy would have a harder time finding a date because girls are far pickier about who they go out with because they're not as interested in sex. Similarly, you think that a girl would have an easy time getting a guy because they can just lower their standards and a guy can't say no. I'll be honest; I'd have a difficult time saying no, myself. But I'd have just as hard of a time if I was a girl; and while I can't be certain of such in our culture means guys are expected to go out and try and have sex, because Real Men Want Sex, while women are cut off from being able to express desires due to Slut-Shaming. If such boundaries could be removed? It would be so much easier for either!
Third, you're completely ignoring gay men and women, which doesn't really surprise me but I can't really say it's disappointing, either. I expected that. But you still shouldn't have.
Fourth, here's the problem with that; what's the quality of their dates likely to be, eh? Even going off your own stereotyping viewpoints, this is true; if a 20-something ugly guy gets a date, odds are it's either out of pity(which I would consider mostly unlikely), or because the girl likes him for who he is as a person(which means she would probably be normally considered 'out of his league'; oh, but sorry, did I forget about the mythical 'friend zone'? Ugh. :). Whereas the girl is likely to get either an ugly guy, someone who nobody else will go out with(probably for a reason, though not always), or someone looking to take advantage of her apparent desperation, or, if she's very lucky, a guy who isn't an asshole and likes her for who she is as a person. And then the lopsided focus our society places on beauty between the sexes adds another dimension to the whole discussion...

We don't need to be continually cherry picking the few things that men still have better and forcing those to be better for women too.

No. I think it's time to stop championing for women and start making life better for everybody.

sarcasm=on]Right, because rape is anywhere near the level of, *ahem* 'social favoritism'.

...so...you're not disagreeing...you're basically just saying "Your arguments are invalid because rape!"

There are a couple responses to this, none of which individually adequately convey either my feelings on the matter, or the actual matter at hand. So I'll list them, I think.
- And you seem to be saying "Your arguments are invalid because emotions!"
- Are you seriously fucking implying that we shouldn't bother with trying to lower the possibilities of a woman being fucking raped, often without consequence to the rapist, because that's one of 'the few things men still have better'? Are you seriously fucking doing that right now? ...I'm going to refrain from saying more on the matter because I feel I would be unable to finish posting if I didn't, but suffice to say that I think everyone here would have serious questions as to the quality of your character if you were in fact, doing so.
- Women are part of everybody! Surprise! Part of making life better for that part of everybody includes all the stuff feminism is doing! So incredibly astounding! Wow! Who would've thought?
- I am disagreeing. I'm saying that if you honestly believe that these issues are on the same level, you have something wrong with you on an emotional level. Free drinks =/= rape. Difficulty dating =/= spousal abuse. Maybe I'm missing something here? Oh right, the crime victim things. I mean, other than how women are more likely to be a victim of a crime from someone they know, arguably far worse than being a victim of a crime from a stranger. And again, quite a few of those issues are solved by feminism trying to get rid of gender roles and put more women in positions of authority; you're more likely to get robbed if you're more likely to be the manager of a store or otherwise the one in charge, yes.

The fuck is wrong with you?

Well, you're wrong. Demonstrably wrong.

Well, your opinion is wrong

You. Are. Wrong.

Simply chanting "You're wrong!" is not a convincing argument. If that's the best you have, you wasted the two hours you spent on this.

See, it's when you say things like these that make me think you think of this as a contest, a war of wills rather than an actual issue that happens in real life. "If that's the best you have". I mean seriously.

But lest that bring me offtopic, I notice you fail to address many of the points I made in a meaningful way, choosing instead to 'cherry pick' the statements I made surrounding such points. Did you just, actually fail to notice them? Or ignore them in hopes that everyone else would too, if you did?

You know, I think I'mma ignore this one for the moment until I can be rational

Well, ok. That's fine. When you're ready to be rational, come back and post.

I've been rational. I've been emotional, too. They are not mutually exclusive.

@LordBucket

Don't women live longer due to their biology? Something to do with the hormones, IIRC.

It's a bunch of things. But the big ones...if you simply go down a list of top cause of death, several of them do relate to biology, yes. For example:

 * The leading cause of death in the US is heart disease and estrogen has beneficial/protective effects for both cholesterol and heart disease. That's just biology.

 * Deaths due to cancer are about 50% higher for men than women. According to google  it looks like basically nobody knows why yet. But cancer kills more men. Could be biological. Could be greater exposure to cancer agents. Could be a variety of factors.

 * Stroke is a complicated one. Men have more strokes, but the majority of stroke deaths are women...but women live longer, and when people die they have to die of something...so it seems plausible that the higher overall stroke death count for women is because they live longer. But looking at the numbers for age and race...I'm hesitant to make the call on this without looking into it more closely. For example, a lot of strokes are related to heart attacks and blood pressure, both of which are bigger issues for men than women...but while white men have strokes roughly half again more often than white women, black women have strokes about half again more often than white men. That's not uncommon. A lot of health problems affect blacks more than whites, but overall I'm hesitant to make any broad claims here without examining it more closely. This might be more of a racial issue than a gender issue.

Then there are hings like the ~80% of murder victims being men, and ~93% of job-related deaths being men. Those sorts of issues probably have very little to do with biology, but the heart attack thing alone probably causes more of the disparity than all of the obviously non-biological issues combined.

Only replying to this because I feel I must point out some counterpoints with your apparent views;

Having a longer lifespan is not synonymous with 'dying less often'. Just as many women die as men, probably more because birth rates as a whole tend towards women. It's just that the ones dying tend towards being a bit older when it happens. I think you have somehow gotten these mixed up. I'm not entirely sure in either case because it's just so odd and off to one side of the discussion.

As for race and gender, it may be because of the circumstances surrounding such issues; for example, do black women and white women of the same body type, weight, diet choice, environment, etc. and predisposed with approximately equal family histories of how prone they are to heart disease and the like have different chances of being affected? Or is it because of pervading racism in our culture that forces them into positions where other factors contribute to their likelihood to have a stroke? Just wanted to point this out.

* 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.

Neither what I, nor what the article, is saying. Nor is that the whole of the portion of the article that I was referring to; I referred to the entire section, not merely a paragraph or two.

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]

But is that actually true? I mean, leaving aside college as a whole being significantly different than a sub-category within college courses available to them, and the nested nature meaning a more drastic reversal would thus be required lest the reduced interest in computer science be counterbalanced by the overall higher interest in college. Are those actually factual claims, or are you merely reversing the roles in an attempt to undermine an argument wherein you have no true grounds to do so?

I mean, seriously, the article even provides tips and options for how more men can get into college and make it through. Yet you try to make it seem as though the article was trying to sweep away all issues of the sort?


Blagh; while I was writing LordBucket wrote another huge thing on what seems to be a single subject.

...I think I'll leave it to the person he was responding to to respond to him, for the moment. >_>

[Reelya]

You're missing the point, which is that if you dismiss the idea that there's inherent anti-male bias in the gender gap in college admission because "reasons" you also have to dismiss the idea that there's inherent anti-female bias in the gender gap in computer science admission because "virtually identical reasons".

We measure the bias based on outcomes for the girls, not process. Worse outcome for a female person = automatically discriminatory. It's ideologically suspect to then focus in on details of the process for males to "explain away" why they have worse outcomes, unless we also allow those arguments as valid for both genders.

I mean, seriously, the article even provides tips and options for how more men can get into college and make it through.

Pointing out that "someone wants to fix it" doesn't make something that happened to a person non-discriminatory. For any women's problem someone wants to fix those too, so it proves nothing. Giving "tips" doesn't say anything about the underlying problem, and it could easily interpreted as a "blame the victim" mentality, i.e. those "don't get raped" tips everyone hates.

As for "is it true":

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.

Which of the bolded statements is not factual?

1. Women are not applying in the first place, rather than being rejected for placements.
2. female graduation rates are in fact low
3. Women and girls do in fact express less interest in computer science
4. women do in fact put less value on computer science career than men do.

Spoiler: Supporting link (click to show/hide)

http://www.usnews.com/news/stem-solutions/articles/2014/05/05/getting-girls-to-study-stem-its-about-more-than-just-making-science-cool

MK: Research shows that teenage girls think that disciplines involving programming and hardware like CS and EE are boring, that they won’t do well in these courses, and the majors are mostly geeky guys with no social life. As a society we encourage our young people to study what they love and what they are good at, so it’s not surprising that girls are not interested in enrolling in these majors. Moreover, in many cases when a female student does enroll in an intro course, she withdraws because she feels underprepared in comparison to some of the students (mostly geeky guys) who seem to know all kinds of arcane info about the subject.

[Reelya]

BTW that "birth rates as a whole tend toward girls" is not true. All countries have excess boy births, and not just places which conduct infanticide of girls. This balances out with higher infant mortality and shorter life expectancy. Maybe lighter sperm are faster (sperm are a lot smaller than regular cells, so half a chromosome less can lead to measurable differences between male and female sperm).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_ratio
As of 2014, the global sex ratio at birth is estimated at 107 boys to 100 girls (934 girls per 1000 boys).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio
In a study around 2002, the natural sex ratio at birth was estimated to be close to 1.06 males/female.[

The sex ratio at birth is actually more skewed towards males for rich countries that have very good data on birth than for poor countries where you'd expect female infanticide.

There's some evidence from human and animal studies that the mother animal can biologically skew the sex of her offspring based on environmental conditions. High health and good nutrition increases the chance of having boys. This could be seen as a gamble based on available resources: if you have poor resources, having a girl is a better guarantee of grand-children than a weak boy, whereas if you have relatively good resources (compared to the average) a strong boy could father a lot of grand-children.

[Neonivek]

BTW that "birth rates as a whole tend toward girls" is not true

Your... own evidence suggests otherwise...

[Reelya]

What?

As of 2014, the global sex ratio at birth is estimated at 107 boys to 100 girls (934 girls per 1000 boys).

Roplegeek wasn't talking about total living proportions, but ratios at birth. Maybe you didn't follow what I was responding to, which was ...

Just as many women die as men, probably more because birth rates as a whole tend towards women.

Which is just wrong. 107 men die per 100 women. Assuming everyone dies once

Before anyone jumps in with "but what does that prove": it doesn't prove anything except the statement that births favor girls is plain wrong.

[GreatJustice]

I'm sure that all the disabled, 50 year old females will be very appreciative of that privilege while they are starving to death in gutters in a town near you.

There is a pretty big difference between "I'd prefer an equally qualified younger, non-disabled male to do this job because of various potential additional costs that I avoid by doing so" and "I'm only hiring young men, ever, regardless of circumstances". For some jobs, going on leave occasionally isn't a problem, installing extra equipment is worth the cost, training is cheap, etc etc. Other times, it can be slightly annoying for the owner, but they can accept it when the person in question is undoubtedly very qualified for the job and/or accepts a wage slightly lower than what they would otherwise get to account for the difference. Quite a difference from "starving to death in gutters", but I guess you can stretch the definition of "gutter" to mean "slightly smaller house than otherwise".

OR alternatively forced to live in nearly fully subsidized Section 8 housing on SSI disability payments with food stamps (maximum combined total = about $1400 a month where I live) + possibly vocational rehab assistance (could be thousands more in tax dollars in paying for re-training in other fields in an attempt to find people employability), thus not only having moral implications, but also costing taxpayers (including businesses) far more money anyway than it would have cost to accommodate the minor profit losses from discrimination laws that allow them to be productive members of society. Undermining the entire main purpose you state of repealing them.

Ignoring the above, comparing the costs of welfare to the costs of complying with byzantine laws is a bit disingenuous. Welfare is paid for by taxes basically as a lump sum by nearly everyone, while laws on businesses like this are concentrated solely on the owners, and generally hurt a few specific businesses in particular, depending on what they focus on and how large they are. So you see either people on welfare or people maybe getting hired (though anyone concerned about hiring a person in a "protected" group is still going to avoid hiring them, simply because they run an even higher legal risk if they find reason to fire them later), but what you don't notice is businesses going bankrupt because of the costs of compliance, or businesses that simply never come into existence because, unlike in the past where getting started was a matter of having an idea, some starting capital and some people willing to work for you, you now need to comply with myriad regulations as to how to run things, while even a single obstructive bureaucrat can basically shut you down. The lost potential is far more valuable than the money spent on welfare, even pretending that qualified people would be rejected outright for every job.

[GavJ]

"I'd prefer an equally qualified younger, non-disabled male to do this job because of various potential additional costs that I avoid by doing so"

But it isn't that. It's definitely worse than that. It's "I'll take a younger, non-disabled male over the other candidate, even if the male is up to 65% more incompetent" or whatever amount.
Only when incompetency = the same handicap as the actual handicaps do they become equally considered.

and/or accepts a wage slightly lower than what they would otherwise get

great solution...except when there is a minimum wage in your country. McDonald's doesn't offer lower wages if you aren't profitable below $8 or whatever. Because they can't. They just don't hire you, period. Nobody does, because that is an absolute cutoff, there's nothing else available ANYWHERE if your labor is not worth minimum wage.

i.e. one of the following must happen to such people:
1) Gutter
2) Welfare
3) Laws that force companies to not discriminate

OR the same thing happens if the cost of living in your area is too high to make ends meet at lower than standard or minimum wages, even if there weren't a law. "A slightly smaller house" doesn't work indefinitely. Try it out yourself. Go type in "Seattle, WA" let's say, into google, and find me a house for $30,000, or an apartment for $100 a month. If they do exist, which I doubt, they're probably not appreciably different than living in the gutter in terms of quality.  If they don't exist, then guess what? You're homeless, even if somebody offers you such a job.  And you'll probably get fired soon anyway for smelling bad or getting sick too often due to being homeless.

but I guess you can stretch the definition of "gutter" to mean "slightly smaller house than otherwise".

Pro tip, by the way, if you don't want to look like a complete and utter ass, you should really not talk about relative scale of HOME OWNERSHIP in the context of discussing the fate of the terribly poor.

Welfare is paid for by taxes basically as a lump sum by nearly everyone, while laws on businesses like this are concentrated solely on the owners, and generally hurt a few specific businesses in particular,

Citation? This is not common sense to me.
Nearly everyone who is not on welfare is part of a business, most of which are large enough to have greater than zero instances of having to make such hires. Therefore it seems quite reasonable to directly compare. Everybody in the nation's wages virtually are directly affected by companies making less money, and nearly all businesses should have a similar share of such cases. Just like everybody in the nation pays taxes.

Pointing out that business X might not have EXACTLY the same burden as business Y is irrelevant, unless you can demonstrate that the differences tend to be larger than the differences between how much taxes person X pays versus person Y, which differs quite a lot as well.

[Rolepgeek]

You're missing the point, which is that if you dismiss the idea that there's inherent anti-male bias in the gender gap in college admission because "reasons" you also have to dismiss the idea that there's inherent anti-female bias in the gender gap in computer science admission because "virtually identical reasons".

We measure the bias based on outcomes for the girls, not process. Worse outcome for a female person = automatically discriminatory. It's ideologically suspect to then focus in on details of the process for males to "explain away" why they have worse outcomes, unless we also allow those arguments as valid for both genders.

I mean, seriously, the article even provides tips and options for how more men can get into college and make it through.

Pointing out that "someone wants to fix it" doesn't make something that happened to a person non-discriminatory. For any women's problem someone wants to fix those too, so it proves nothing. Giving "tips" doesn't say anything about the underlying problem, and it could easily interpreted as a "blame the victim" mentality, i.e. those "don't get raped" tips everyone hates.

As for "is it true":

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.

Which of the bolded statements is not factual?

1. Women are not applying in the first place, rather than being rejected for placements.
2. female graduation rates are in fact low
3. Women and girls do in fact express less interest in computer science
4. women do in fact put less value on computer science career than men do.

Spoiler: Supporting link (click to show/hide)

http://www.usnews.com/news/stem-solutions/articles/2014/05/05/getting-girls-to-study-stem-its-about-more-than-just-making-science-cool

MK: Research shows that teenage girls think that disciplines involving programming and hardware like CS and EE are boring, that they won’t do well in these courses, and the majors are mostly geeky guys with no social life. As a society we encourage our young people to study what they love and what they are good at, so it’s not surprising that girls are not interested in enrolling in these majors. Moreover, in many cases when a female student does enroll in an intro course, she withdraws because she feels underprepared in comparison to some of the students (mostly geeky guys) who seem to know all kinds of arcane info about the subject.

Reelya, I'm kinda confused as to your point with this.

I never said anything about computer science. That was never one of my points. I mean, I honestly feel that getting people interested in a single subject of study is a different task than getting them interested in college as a whole, but I really don't care about how girls feel about computer science. It sounds harsh, but I mean. There's so many other things to worry about. So I really don't get why you're hacking on this. I never claimed you couldn't explain it for the same reasons. I think maybe it's something that might need to be changed at some point in the future, just like I feel more people should go to college, period(it's getting really damned expensive is the problem, as far as I'm aware). But, I just don't get why you're so focused on this.

Also, there's a fairly significant difference between 'didn't show interest in course or felt it was too difficult' and 'got raped in an alleyway'. >_>

Apologies for getting male to female birth ratio wrong. *shrug* I figured that was the reason for different percentages in the population, but whatever. I fail to see how it makes too much of a difference in the end. It feels like semantics, in all honesty.

Also, my question to you is this: Do you believe that colleges do, then, show unfair bias towards women in admitting applicants? And on what grounds? And what should we do about it? I mean, this isn't really the focus for me, but...

Also, for the whole 'lower lifespan' thing, it's maybe unrelated, but considering the advances in science, and I personally am making it my life's goal to achieve functional immortality for everyone, that could well be solved in the next 30+ years or so. Hard to put a hard number on something like that.

[LordBucket]

Reelya, I'm kinda confused as to your point with this.

I never said anything about computer science.

Reelya is pointing out the double standard.

Here, I'll do the same:

LordBucket, are you a member of the MRA? Because whether or not you are, the type of things you're saying and claiming lead me to believe you're one.

No. Even my guess as to what it stood for wasn't correct. Than you google for the correction. Though I did guess two of the three letters right.

You understand why I ask? Even from a purely logical viewpoint? And why it isn't usually considered a good thing?

So...you appear to think that:

Women's rights activist = good
Men's rights activist = bad

See, all we do is change the gender and suddenly everything is different to you. You have a very strong anti-male prejudice, and you seem to not even be aware of it. This is why Reelya is pointing out the double standard with the computer science example and you're not even getting it.

What would you do if a woman bought you a free drink? Would you instantly start thinking of a way to get into
her pants? How many people do you know who would instantly start trying to think of a way to get into her pants?

...because...let me guess: wanting to have sex with a woman who buys me a drink is somehow a bad thing? Why?

Are men just fundamentally evil or something? Wanting a woman automatically makes me a villain?

That kind of seems to be where you're going with a lot of things you say.

there's a fairly significant difference between 'didn't show interest in course
or felt it was too difficult' and 'got raped in an alleyway'

If "because rape!" is your answer to everything, that makes meaningful conservation difficult. Go through the past couple pages and do word searches for rape. You're using it as a response to discussions of college admissions, discussion of social favoritism, you're saying it's ok for society to think it's better for men to be hurt than women because women can be raped...go back a another thread page or two and you were responding to discussion of waitressing, coal mines and dating with "but rape!"

You seem really fixated on this.