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The "handicap" in this case is the momentum carried by decades of forced subjugation, which can still be seen in tons of our social and cultural norms. Nothing

The "handicap" in this case is the momentum carried by decades of forced subjugation, which can still be seen in tons of our social and cultural norms. Nothing to do with intrinsic potential.

jules 11y ago
I'm not sure if that was serious, but women dominate in plenty of subjects. When are we going to accept that on average women are not interested in the same things as men? Trying to make everything 50-50 only makes people miserable. Give people equal opportunity, and if they make different choices that is a good thing, because they're choosing what makes them happy.
- adamlett 11y ago
  Yeah, it's just that the subjects women tend to dominate pay less than the subjects men tend to dominate. Go figure. By the way, read this http://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/blind-auditions-orchestras-gender-bias http://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/b... and tell me again that women are not handicapped simply by being women. Or maybe women on average simply do not make an effort to succeed unless they can somehow hide that they are women?
  - jules 11y ago
    I'm all for blind auditions and eliminating discrimination. The problem is that the criterion for success cannot be a 50-50 split between men and women in every profession. That ignores that there are gender differences, and pushing for that goes against personal freedom and well being. The market sets wages of jobs based on the value that they produce. A petroleum engineer earns more than a sociologist. This is not due to discrimination, it's due to market value of the degree. That women choose the lower paying degrees is a mark of a society where women can choose what they really want. If you look at countries like Iran and Pakistan you see more women in engineering than in Sweden and the Netherlands. Arguing that this is because of discrimination is ridiculous. It is out of economic necessity. The more wealthy and equal a society becomes, the more women choose professions they like and men choose professions they like. The criterion for succes should not be equal representation, but equal opportunity. The problem is that you have a fact-free branch of feminism that has completely taken over the political discourse. We need to listen to feminists like Christina Hoff Sommers who care about science and about the actual well being of women, instead of an ideological narrative.
    - adamlett 11y ago
      I'm all for blind auditions and eliminating discrimination. Good for you, but that wasn't really the point of that example. The point was that there is no good reason to assume that the same dynamic that caused women to loose auditions before blind auditions, doesn't apply in all kinds of other fields. How do you propose we deal with in occupations where we can't have the equivalent of blind auditions? The problem is that the criterion for success cannot be a 50-50 split between men and women in every profession. That's a red herring. No one here is arguing for that. Even Spike Lee only added a handful of women to his list of 80 directors. That ignores that there are gender differences, and pushing for that goes against personal freedom and well being. The problem with that argument is that it could have been made at any point during the last 200 years to argue that we had at that particular point in time reached the pinnacle of gender equality. In fact I'm certain that it has been used both for arguing against voting rights for women and against women working at all.
      - jules 11y ago
        What do you propose we do with those professions where we can't have blind auditions? Pull a number out of a hat and enforce those quota? It doesn't matter whether the number you're enforcing is 50-50 or another number. The whole principle is wrong. It's anti equality. The whole point of feminism used to be that we shouldn't care about gender where it's not relevant, and instead treat people as people. It's utter nonsense that you could use the same argument against women's voting rights. Not having voting rights for women is completely opposite because you're discriminating based on gender. My whole point here is that we shouldn't discriminate based on gender. Another problem with this world view is that virtually nobody ever cares about the fact that men are overrepresented as garbage collectors and enforcing gender quotas in those areas. It's plain old sexism masquerading as justice, and it's doing a disservice to both women and men.
        adamlett 11y ago
        What do you propose we do with those professions where we can't have blind auditions? Pull a number out of a hat and enforce those quota? I propose we agree to acknowledge that unconscious sexist bias exists and that it works against women, and that we should stop kidding our selves that the blind hand of the market will somehow fix this problem. If the market worked like that, there would be no reason for blind auditions in the first place. I am not arguing for quotas, certainly not as a general solution. But I can certainly sympathise with the idea, especially where the alternative is the status quo. I also think quotas are a bit of a red herring in context of the discussion about Spike Lee and his list of directors. We can of course not know Spike Lee's mind, but I think it's fair to assume that Spike Lee didn't include women directors simply because they were women, but because he had failed to even consider them in the first place because of unconscious biases he harboured like everyone else. It's utter nonsense that you could use the same argument against women's voting rights. Your mixing the arguments up. The argument I was referring to was your argument that things are the way they are because of unspecified gender differences. That has been argued always. As a society, we've constantly had to make short term sacrifices to further equality. For example having women be part of the work force has necessitated that we make it illegal to fire someone for being pregnant. That is a reduction of the liberties of employers. And paid maternative leave is in principle unfair to working men. But the result of those sacrifices is that the whole pie has grown and we as a society are wealthier.

The "handicap" in this case is the momentum carried by decades of forced subjugation, which can still be seen in tons of our social and cultural norms. Nothing to do with intrinsic potential.

jules 11y ago

I'm not sure if that was serious, but women dominate in plenty of subjects. When are we going to accept that on average women are not interested in the same things as men? Trying to make everything 50-50 only makes people miserable. Give people equal opportunity, and if they make different choices that is a good thing, because they're choosing what makes them happy.

adamlett 11y ago
Yeah, it's just that the subjects women tend to dominate pay less than the subjects men tend to dominate. Go figure. By the way, read this http://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/blind-auditions-orchestras-gender-bias http://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/b... and tell me again that women are not handicapped simply by being women. Or maybe women on average simply do not make an effort to succeed unless they can somehow hide that they are women?
- jules 11y ago
  I'm all for blind auditions and eliminating discrimination. The problem is that the criterion for success cannot be a 50-50 split between men and women in every profession. That ignores that there are gender differences, and pushing for that goes against personal freedom and well being. The market sets wages of jobs based on the value that they produce. A petroleum engineer earns more than a sociologist. This is not due to discrimination, it's due to market value of the degree. That women choose the lower paying degrees is a mark of a society where women can choose what they really want. If you look at countries like Iran and Pakistan you see more women in engineering than in Sweden and the Netherlands. Arguing that this is because of discrimination is ridiculous. It is out of economic necessity. The more wealthy and equal a society becomes, the more women choose professions they like and men choose professions they like. The criterion for succes should not be equal representation, but equal opportunity. The problem is that you have a fact-free branch of feminism that has completely taken over the political discourse. We need to listen to feminists like Christina Hoff Sommers who care about science and about the actual well being of women, instead of an ideological narrative.
  - adamlett 11y ago
    I'm all for blind auditions and eliminating discrimination. Good for you, but that wasn't really the point of that example. The point was that there is no good reason to assume that the same dynamic that caused women to loose auditions before blind auditions, doesn't apply in all kinds of other fields. How do you propose we deal with in occupations where we can't have the equivalent of blind auditions? The problem is that the criterion for success cannot be a 50-50 split between men and women in every profession. That's a red herring. No one here is arguing for that. Even Spike Lee only added a handful of women to his list of 80 directors. That ignores that there are gender differences, and pushing for that goes against personal freedom and well being. The problem with that argument is that it could have been made at any point during the last 200 years to argue that we had at that particular point in time reached the pinnacle of gender equality. In fact I'm certain that it has been used both for arguing against voting rights for women and against women working at all.
    - jules 11y ago
      What do you propose we do with those professions where we can't have blind auditions? Pull a number out of a hat and enforce those quota? It doesn't matter whether the number you're enforcing is 50-50 or another number. The whole principle is wrong. It's anti equality. The whole point of feminism used to be that we shouldn't care about gender where it's not relevant, and instead treat people as people. It's utter nonsense that you could use the same argument against women's voting rights. Not having voting rights for women is completely opposite because you're discriminating based on gender. My whole point here is that we shouldn't discriminate based on gender. Another problem with this world view is that virtually nobody ever cares about the fact that men are overrepresented as garbage collectors and enforcing gender quotas in those areas. It's plain old sexism masquerading as justice, and it's doing a disservice to both women and men.
      - adamlett 11y ago
        What do you propose we do with those professions where we can't have blind auditions? Pull a number out of a hat and enforce those quota? I propose we agree to acknowledge that unconscious sexist bias exists and that it works against women, and that we should stop kidding our selves that the blind hand of the market will somehow fix this problem. If the market worked like that, there would be no reason for blind auditions in the first place. I am not arguing for quotas, certainly not as a general solution. But I can certainly sympathise with the idea, especially where the alternative is the status quo. I also think quotas are a bit of a red herring in context of the discussion about Spike Lee and his list of directors. We can of course not know Spike Lee's mind, but I think it's fair to assume that Spike Lee didn't include women directors simply because they were women, but because he had failed to even consider them in the first place because of unconscious biases he harboured like everyone else. It's utter nonsense that you could use the same argument against women's voting rights. Your mixing the arguments up. The argument I was referring to was your argument that things are the way they are because of unspecified gender differences. That has been argued always. As a society, we've constantly had to make short term sacrifices to further equality. For example having women be part of the work force has necessitated that we make it illegal to fire someone for being pregnant. That is a reduction of the liberties of employers. And paid maternative leave is in principle unfair to working men. But the result of those sacrifices is that the whole pie has grown and we as a society are wealthier.