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Sorry to hear that. The point I was trying to make is that inequalities != oppression. I think it is important to distinguish between unfairness arising from ra

by jm__87 9y ago

Sorry to hear that. The point I was trying to make is that inequalities != oppression. I think it is important to distinguish between unfairness arising from random natural events (e.g. being weaker, shorter, uglier or below average in some other way) vs unfairness that arises from one group having authority over another group and placing undue constraints on them. I think it is hard to disagree that historically, women who wished to live a life outside of the cultural norm at the time were oppressed. I just disagree that beauty standards had anything to do with it.

weberc2 9y ago
> I think it is hard to disagree that historically, women who wished to live a life outside of the cultural norm at the time were oppressed I absolutely agree (especially that beauty standards have nothing to do with oppression); however, our culture seems to take this as proof that women as a class are oppressed (optionally oppressed by men, depending on who you talk to). Of course, this is trivially refuted--life is difficult for men who wish to live outside the norm as well; however, despite being clearly false, the myth has a strong hold over our culture. On the subject of beauty standards, it's particularly hard to make the case that they're used to oppress women given that they equally oppress men, and while I think that 'beauty' affects women more than men, it's important to note that (1) there are lots of other social factors that impact men more strongly than women and (2) this also means above-average beauty affords women more social capital than it does men. The folks who claim that women are oppressed almost exclusively sample poorly--they focus exclusively on criteria that favor men over women or they focus on the top 10% of a distribution such that men appear favored favored for their disproportionate representation, failing to note that men are even more represented in the bottom 10%. If they're not sampling wrongly, they're looking at criteria like 'beauty' and double-dipping: beautiful women and homely women are both wronged while beautiful men and homely men are both privileged. It's hard not to conclude that the folks who hold these positions are acting in bad faith.
- jm__87 9y ago
  Ah I don't want to comment on most of that, but I do think there is good reason to ask if women as a class are oppressed today, as they certainly were in the past. This means looking for and removing any biases in the hiring practices of our institutions, our education system, and so forth. You will never get rid of inequalities as men and women are just too different, but you can definitely make the system as fair as possible.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    The problem is how we make the determination. For whatever reason, many well-educated, powerful people (university faculty and journalists come to mind) are content to conclude that women are oppressed today based on C-suite or STEM demographics while ignoring mining, garbage collection, construction, forestry, oil rigging, and other hazardous or otherwise undesirable occupations. Or serial assault vs literally any other kind of assault. Not to mention the myriad criteria for which men are clearly disadvantaged (health/longevity, judicial prejudice, homeless, mental illness, public resources, education, etc). I don't know how we can hope to answer your question with such a blatantly biased approach.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      So you're saying that everyone who disagrees with you isn't paying attention to the evidence, which you find totally convincing. Somehow I suspect that is not the case. BTW, my aunt went to welding school and then had to sue the union in order to be able to get an actual job. Is a study of that sort of discrimination a sufficient counter-example to welders being overwhelmingly male, or is it just that most women don't want to be welders? It's totally true that my aunt is an unusual woman. Not only did she want to be a welder, but she was willing to sue.
pjc50 9y ago
> women who wished to live a life outside of the cultural norm at the time were oppressed I think you've missed that living within the cultural norm was pretty oppressive for women, and still can be sometimes.
- jm__87 9y ago
  Yeah, I suppose I lacked some precision in my language there.. I agree with you that women as a group were certainly oppressed in the past, and any woman who didn't want to live within the cultural norm would have felt oppressed, whether she went along with it or not. Feeling you're being treated unfairly and attributing it to oppression and actually being oppressed are two different things, though.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    > Feeling you're being treated unfairly and attributing it to oppression and actually being oppressed are two different things, though. Are they? Or is this a "false consciousness" argument?
    - scotty79 9y ago
      They are. You can feel oppressed without being oppressed and be oppressed without feeling oppressed. Second case seems to fit wiki definition of "false conciousness". Both seem to me to be just overestimating and underestimating of how much universe ows you. Both easy mistakes to make if you try to define it too precisely.

by jm__87 9y ago

weberc2 9y ago

> I think it is hard to disagree that historically, women who wished to live a life outside of the cultural norm at the time were oppressed I absolutely agree (especially that beauty standards have nothing to do with oppression); however, our culture seems to take this as proof that women as a class are oppressed (optionally oppressed by men, depending on who you talk to). Of course, this is trivially refuted--life is difficult for men who wish to live outside the norm as well; however, despite being clearly false, the myth has a strong hold over our culture. On the subject of beauty standards, it's particularly hard to make the case that they're used to oppress women given that they equally oppress men, and while I think that 'beauty' affects women more than men, it's important to note that (1) there are lots of other social factors that impact men more strongly than women and (2) this also means above-average beauty affords women more social capital than it does men. The folks who claim that women are oppressed almost exclusively sample poorly--they focus exclusively on criteria that favor men over women or they focus on the top 10% of a distribution such that men appear favored favored for their disproportionate representation, failing to note that men are even more represented in the bottom 10%. If they're not sampling wrongly, they're looking at criteria like 'beauty' and double-dipping: beautiful women and homely women are both wronged while beautiful men and homely men are both privileged. It's hard not to conclude that the folks who hold these positions are acting in bad faith.

jm__87 9y ago
Ah I don't want to comment on most of that, but I do think there is good reason to ask if women as a class are oppressed today, as they certainly were in the past. This means looking for and removing any biases in the hiring practices of our institutions, our education system, and so forth. You will never get rid of inequalities as men and women are just too different, but you can definitely make the system as fair as possible.
- weberc2 9y ago
  The problem is how we make the determination. For whatever reason, many well-educated, powerful people (university faculty and journalists come to mind) are content to conclude that women are oppressed today based on C-suite or STEM demographics while ignoring mining, garbage collection, construction, forestry, oil rigging, and other hazardous or otherwise undesirable occupations. Or serial assault vs literally any other kind of assault. Not to mention the myriad criteria for which men are clearly disadvantaged (health/longevity, judicial prejudice, homeless, mental illness, public resources, education, etc). I don't know how we can hope to answer your question with such a blatantly biased approach.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    So you're saying that everyone who disagrees with you isn't paying attention to the evidence, which you find totally convincing. Somehow I suspect that is not the case. BTW, my aunt went to welding school and then had to sue the union in order to be able to get an actual job. Is a study of that sort of discrimination a sufficient counter-example to welders being overwhelmingly male, or is it just that most women don't want to be welders? It's totally true that my aunt is an unusual woman. Not only did she want to be a welder, but she was willing to sue.

pjc50 9y ago

> women who wished to live a life outside of the cultural norm at the time were oppressed I think you've missed that living within the cultural norm was pretty oppressive for women, and still can be sometimes.

jm__87 9y ago
Yeah, I suppose I lacked some precision in my language there.. I agree with you that women as a group were certainly oppressed in the past, and any woman who didn't want to live within the cultural norm would have felt oppressed, whether she went along with it or not. Feeling you're being treated unfairly and attributing it to oppression and actually being oppressed are two different things, though.
- pjc50 9y ago
  > Feeling you're being treated unfairly and attributing it to oppression and actually being oppressed are two different things, though. Are they? Or is this a "false consciousness" argument?
  - scotty79 9y ago
    They are. You can feel oppressed without being oppressed and be oppressed without feeling oppressed. Second case seems to fit wiki definition of "false conciousness". Both seem to me to be just overestimating and underestimating of how much universe ows you. Both easy mistakes to make if you try to define it too precisely.