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I’ll repeat points that aren’t my original ideas, but are painfully obvious here. It’s very simple what it’s become: sexist against men. This is what happens

I’ll repeat points that aren’t my original ideas, but are painfully obvious here. It’s very simple what it’s become: sexist against men. This is what happens when you aim for equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. I believe we’re in a Kantian second stage. We were sexist against women. Now, we’re sexist against men. The hopeful third step

AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
Kantian second stage For those who slept through the philosophy class, what these stages are?
- jkaptur 8y ago
  Thesis, antithesis, synthesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic#Hegelian_dialectic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic#Hegelian_dialectic
  - scarmig 8y ago
    Kant and Hegel are... different.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      And the Marxian dialectic is supposed to be different still.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > Kant and Hegel are... different Hegel, when discussing his dialectic, ascribed it to Kant. Presumably to keep philosophy majors on their toes.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
chc 8y ago
> This is what happens when you aim for equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. People throw this accusation around all the time, but it doesn't make much sense. Outcomes are the only holistic way to measure opportunity. If you're seeing one group getting lesser outcomes, there are only two possibilities: Their opportunities are being artificially limited somewhere, or one of the groups is simply better than the other. So if you really believe this is a meaningful distinction to draw — that measuring outcomes can't tell us about opportunity — what you're really saying is, "The groups who haven't traditionally been in power are in that position because they are innately less capable."
- leereeves 8y ago
  There's a third possibility: men and women really do have different interests. Further evidence for this comes from the observation that: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...
  - chc 8y ago
    That doesn't seem like a third possibility — it sounds like the same thing as "The groups who haven't traditionally been in power are in that position because they are innately less capable." It's theoretically possible that women just generally suck at computers, but if that's someone's argument, I'd prefer they come out and actually make the argument instead of throwing around smokescreens about "equality of outcomes vs. equality of opportunity."
    - leereeves 8y ago
      Capable isn't the same thing as interested. I know many smart people who have no interest in programming (and wonder why I enjoy it). As The Atlantic said: > Then again, it could just be that, feeling financially secure and on equal footing with men, some women will always choose to follow their passions, rather than whatever labor economists recommend. And those passions don’t always lie within science [or technology].
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
TeMPOraL 8y ago
I think I prefer dynamic systems view. We're oscillating. We've been under the target, overcorrected, and we're above the target now. Like always in (widely-understood) politics, this will be met with another overcorrection; all we can hope for is that there's dampening in the system, so that we'll converge on target at some point.
- whiddershins 8y ago
  I don’t really like being accepting of oscillation. Forward movement, progress, shouldn’t be defined as updating who we discriminate against. Progress would be to stop discriminating. Optimizing for equality of outcome seems to be causing discrimination. That doesn’t look like progress to me.
  - kuzehanka 8y ago
    It is not progress at all. The pendulum of who to discriminate against has been swinging back and forth for hundreds of years. And every time a new group is targeted, it is to the cheers of some other group. It's difficult to have a factual debate around workplace discrimination because anyone who suggests that women are being favoured, is instantly attacked by social justice activists who rely more on moral outrage rather than facts or logic. A lot of the discussion on this thread today would not be something that people would say out loud near coworkers.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    I agree with you strongly. This isn't progress. This is essentially the same shit on a different day, and amplified by social media. I'm by no means accepting of it, I just feel this analogy is more accurate. I brought up dynamic systems to point out that this isn't and won't be a three-step process of "the extreme, the other extreme, the golden middle". This phenomenon is continuous and oscillating; more than that, it can be dampened, stable or runaway, and which of those it is, depends on a lot of factors. If we manage to dampen it down, then we'll have made progress.
  - roguecoder 8y ago
    If you aren't just hiring every person who walks through the door, you are discriminating. The question is whether you are hiring on relevant characteristics or irrelevant bullshit, and whether your job is more appealing to people on the basis of protected characteristics in ways that end up with an overwhelmingly-male workforce of people willing to be treated unfairly. Being thoughtful and taking responsibility for which people you are choosing to include is at least honest, unlike accepting a sexist status quo as magically "neutral".
radicalbyte 8y ago
It's this kind of thing which gets abused in politics. You see the same thing with a certain countries in the Middle East. So, you're a boring white male who works in one of these industries. You're told constantly that you benefit from "white male privilege". Your experience, the statistics, clearly show this to be bullst. What do you do? Do you trust anything that other authority figures tell you? Of course not. So you stop your kids getting vaccinated and vote for your country to leave the EU because it means 350 million a week more for your National Health Service.. This is the trap progressives - whose number I count myself in - must do better to avoid if they want to progress towards a fairer and better world.
- pas 8y ago
  There are a lot of clueless "progressives" out there. Usually more focused on their ideology/dogma, than on actual problems and solutions.
sizzle 8y ago
I'm genuinely curious how we might factor in the differences between genders in occupation selection and that women and men may innately value different types of work e.g. women are more empathic than men and dominate the nursing field etc
- pas 8y ago
  By keeping an open mind. It's ok if 90% of women want to just play with kids all day, and 90% of men want to play with guns all day. But telling, suggesting, stopping the other 10% from trying the other side is the problem. It's inherently hard. After all, statistically 9 out of 10 will match your expectations, but you should embrace the outliers, help them understand, that they're perfectly okay, and capable of doing whatever they think they want, be it guns, C++, teacher, nurse, etc.
pas 8y ago
I'm interested in what you think of actions that aim to correct entrenched issues by forcing them. eg affirmative action.

AlexTWithBeard 8y ago

Kantian second stage For those who slept through the philosophy class, what these stages are?

jkaptur 8y ago
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic#Hegelian_dialectic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic#Hegelian_dialectic
- scarmig 8y ago
  Kant and Hegel are... different.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    And the Marxian dialectic is supposed to be different still.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > Kant and Hegel are... different Hegel, when discussing his dialectic, ascribed it to Kant. Presumably to keep philosophy majors on their toes.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

chc 8y ago

> This is what happens when you aim for equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. People throw this accusation around all the time, but it doesn't make much sense. Outcomes are the only holistic way to measure opportunity. If you're seeing one group getting lesser outcomes, there are only two possibilities: Their opportunities are being artificially limited somewhere, or one of the groups is simply better than the other. So if you really believe this is a meaningful distinction to draw — that measuring outcomes can't tell us about opportunity — what you're really saying is, "The groups who haven't traditionally been in power are in that position because they are innately less capable."

leereeves 8y ago
There's a third possibility: men and women really do have different interests. Further evidence for this comes from the observation that: The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...
- chc 8y ago
  That doesn't seem like a third possibility — it sounds like the same thing as "The groups who haven't traditionally been in power are in that position because they are innately less capable." It's theoretically possible that women just generally suck at computers, but if that's someone's argument, I'd prefer they come out and actually make the argument instead of throwing around smokescreens about "equality of outcomes vs. equality of opportunity."
  - leereeves 8y ago
    Capable isn't the same thing as interested. I know many smart people who have no interest in programming (and wonder why I enjoy it). As The Atlantic said: > Then again, it could just be that, feeling financially secure and on equal footing with men, some women will always choose to follow their passions, rather than whatever labor economists recommend. And those passions don’t always lie within science [or technology].

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

TeMPOraL 8y ago

I think I prefer dynamic systems view. We're oscillating. We've been under the target, overcorrected, and we're above the target now. Like always in (widely-understood) politics, this will be met with another overcorrection; all we can hope for is that there's dampening in the system, so that we'll converge on target at some point.

whiddershins 8y ago
I don’t really like being accepting of oscillation. Forward movement, progress, shouldn’t be defined as updating who we discriminate against. Progress would be to stop discriminating. Optimizing for equality of outcome seems to be causing discrimination. That doesn’t look like progress to me.
- kuzehanka 8y ago
  It is not progress at all. The pendulum of who to discriminate against has been swinging back and forth for hundreds of years. And every time a new group is targeted, it is to the cheers of some other group. It's difficult to have a factual debate around workplace discrimination because anyone who suggests that women are being favoured, is instantly attacked by social justice activists who rely more on moral outrage rather than facts or logic. A lot of the discussion on this thread today would not be something that people would say out loud near coworkers.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  I agree with you strongly. This isn't progress. This is essentially the same shit on a different day, and amplified by social media. I'm by no means accepting of it, I just feel this analogy is more accurate. I brought up dynamic systems to point out that this isn't and won't be a three-step process of "the extreme, the other extreme, the golden middle". This phenomenon is continuous and oscillating; more than that, it can be dampened, stable or runaway, and which of those it is, depends on a lot of factors. If we manage to dampen it down, then we'll have made progress.
- roguecoder 8y ago
  If you aren't just hiring every person who walks through the door, you are discriminating. The question is whether you are hiring on relevant characteristics or irrelevant bullshit, and whether your job is more appealing to people on the basis of protected characteristics in ways that end up with an overwhelmingly-male workforce of people willing to be treated unfairly. Being thoughtful and taking responsibility for which people you are choosing to include is at least honest, unlike accepting a sexist status quo as magically "neutral".

radicalbyte 8y ago

It's this kind of thing which gets abused in politics. You see the same thing with a certain countries in the Middle East. So, you're a boring white male who works in one of these industries. You're told constantly that you benefit from "white male privilege". Your experience, the statistics, clearly show this to be bullst. What do you do? Do you trust anything that other authority figures tell you? Of course not. So you stop your kids getting vaccinated and vote for your country to leave the EU because it means 350 million a week more for your National Health Service.. This is the trap progressives - whose number I count myself in - must do better to avoid if they want to progress towards a fairer and better world.

pas 8y ago
There are a lot of clueless "progressives" out there. Usually more focused on their ideology/dogma, than on actual problems and solutions.

sizzle 8y ago

I'm genuinely curious how we might factor in the differences between genders in occupation selection and that women and men may innately value different types of work e.g. women are more empathic than men and dominate the nursing field etc

pas 8y ago
By keeping an open mind. It's ok if 90% of women want to just play with kids all day, and 90% of men want to play with guns all day. But telling, suggesting, stopping the other 10% from trying the other side is the problem. It's inherently hard. After all, statistically 9 out of 10 will match your expectations, but you should embrace the outliers, help them understand, that they're perfectly okay, and capable of doing whatever they think they want, be it guns, C++, teacher, nurse, etc.

pas 8y ago

I'm interested in what you think of actions that aim to correct entrenched issues by forcing them. eg affirmative action.