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That's how the world works. Deal with it. I have a friend who works in the call center at a day trading firm in Chicago. He's a sailor and the owner/founder

That's how the world works. Deal with it. I have a friend who works in the call center at a day trading firm in Chicago. He's a sailor and the owner/founder of the firm has a boat so he gets long stretches of unfiltered time with the guy outside of work. The guy regularly affirms that they intentionally try to hire only HRI's ("hot russian immigrants") when they hire women because it boosts morale, makes hiring ambitious men easier and apparently exploits a small dip in the local hiring pool where the the immigrant women have a slightly harder time getting jobs at most places than the non-immigrant hotties they go up against elsewhere. My friend's firm found that going the extra mile to help them with visa status stuff meant they could get better looking women on staff than their competition.

kabuks 16y ago
> That's how the world works. Deal with it. Really? When I see any argument start with this sentence, I immediately mistrust it. I suspect that world works in mysterious, complex, and ever changing ways, and that I get to be a part of shaping it. I prefer: "That's how things seem to be going right now. If you don't like it, there are probably others out there who feel the same. You could work with them to make it a little better. As you're working folks will tell you to just deal with it. Smile politely, ignore their advice, and keep working."
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  I think you're being blindly optomistic. The only way to "make it a little better" is to: a: make it so that ANYBODY can get a hot woman, which makes having lots of hot women about useless b: flood the industry with women. This is happening slowly, but you can't force it. Of course, if the balance tips towards women, then we'll just have the opposite, and having hot powerful handsome men around will replace hot women. c: (myriad of ridiculous examples about fundamentally changing our species and the nature of sexuality) You have to remember this isn't about sexism. It may well be sexist, but all it's about is having what all of your peers want but can't have makes you look powerful. It just so happens the most common want-but-can't-have is attractive women. "making it better" can only be achieved my removing the want.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - readymade 16y ago
    Slavery wasn't about racism, it was about cheap, unregulated labor. Pure economics. It doesn't absolve the moral dilemma inherent to it, or negate the racism that frequently underpinned public support for it. For what it's worth I'm sure people defended human slavery by saying "that's just the way the world works" then as well. You're not ethically tantamount to a slave owner by glibly justifying using women as ornaments or pawns in your little networking game, but it's a bit troubling that "treating women with the same respect you'd expect from your peers" doesn't factor into your assessment.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - sliverstorm 16y ago
      If you treat them and see them like pawns, then shame on you. (though odds are if you see them like pawns, you see everybody as a pawn, female or not. An equal-opportunity exploiter, if you will). Still, I'd observe this is tied to basic human nature & sexuality. Unlike slavery, as best I can tell it cannot be done away with, short of making it illegal for a man to have a hot woman/entourage of women present (totally not a sexist law, btw)
      - readymade 16y ago
        Fair enough, but one can justify racism and ethnocentrism by appealing to our animal instincts as well – we may very well be predisposed to seeking power over others and reserving trust for those we perceive to be our own kind. Now granted, I have no way of proving that there isn't some kind of misogyny gene. But legally, slavery was done away with by passing a constitutional amendment that makes no direct reference to race. Culturally, there was a large precedent of underground and increasingly popular outrage against the practice, founded in principles of human equality that had to be actively argued for. I bring up the parallel, again, not because it's an equivalent situation, but to illustrate what I think is a common ethical trap we can fall into: what good is it to see an injustice and wave our hands, saying that it's just the way the things are? You suggested that the grandposter is blindly optimistic for wanting to change the way men relate to women in the workplace (or something like that), but think about how much has changed culturally, that we can have this conversation in 2010 and have it be basically a given that human bondage is morally wrong? It took a law in 1865, and it was controversial at the time. Today you have to be on the fringe of society in order to believe that it was ever morally defensible, presumably. That's not a triumph of law, it's a triumph of active social change.
- jdp23 16y ago
  Yeah really. And this particularly applies to guys justifying sexism by saying "that's how the world works". If you're not doing anything to change it, that's part of the problem.
  - brandnewlow 16y ago
    There are many more important things to change in the world than the fact that men are impressed by a guy who is accompanied by an attractive female. I don't get how it's evil to point this out. It's not a pleasant reality, but neither is death, the odds of being in a car crash, the unemployment figures these days...i.e. all just statements of facts, neither good nor evil.
    - kabuks 16y ago
      I'm not sure anybody is implying it's evil to point it out. imho, it's not evil, just a little sad to accept things as they are and 'deal with it'.

kabuks 16y ago

> That's how the world works. Deal with it. Really? When I see any argument start with this sentence, I immediately mistrust it. I suspect that world works in mysterious, complex, and ever changing ways, and that I get to be a part of shaping it. I prefer: "That's how things seem to be going right now. If you don't like it, there are probably others out there who feel the same. You could work with them to make it a little better. As you're working folks will tell you to just deal with it. Smile politely, ignore their advice, and keep working."

sliverstorm 16y ago
I think you're being blindly optomistic. The only way to "make it a little better" is to: a: make it so that ANYBODY can get a hot woman, which makes having lots of hot women about useless b: flood the industry with women. This is happening slowly, but you can't force it. Of course, if the balance tips towards women, then we'll just have the opposite, and having hot powerful handsome men around will replace hot women. c: (myriad of ridiculous examples about fundamentally changing our species and the nature of sexuality) You have to remember this isn't about sexism. It may well be sexist, but all it's about is having what all of your peers want but can't have makes you look powerful. It just so happens the most common want-but-can't-have is attractive women. "making it better" can only be achieved my removing the want.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- readymade 16y ago
  Slavery wasn't about racism, it was about cheap, unregulated labor. Pure economics. It doesn't absolve the moral dilemma inherent to it, or negate the racism that frequently underpinned public support for it. For what it's worth I'm sure people defended human slavery by saying "that's just the way the world works" then as well. You're not ethically tantamount to a slave owner by glibly justifying using women as ornaments or pawns in your little networking game, but it's a bit troubling that "treating women with the same respect you'd expect from your peers" doesn't factor into your assessment.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    If you treat them and see them like pawns, then shame on you. (though odds are if you see them like pawns, you see everybody as a pawn, female or not. An equal-opportunity exploiter, if you will). Still, I'd observe this is tied to basic human nature & sexuality. Unlike slavery, as best I can tell it cannot be done away with, short of making it illegal for a man to have a hot woman/entourage of women present (totally not a sexist law, btw)
    - readymade 16y ago
      Fair enough, but one can justify racism and ethnocentrism by appealing to our animal instincts as well – we may very well be predisposed to seeking power over others and reserving trust for those we perceive to be our own kind. Now granted, I have no way of proving that there isn't some kind of misogyny gene. But legally, slavery was done away with by passing a constitutional amendment that makes no direct reference to race. Culturally, there was a large precedent of underground and increasingly popular outrage against the practice, founded in principles of human equality that had to be actively argued for. I bring up the parallel, again, not because it's an equivalent situation, but to illustrate what I think is a common ethical trap we can fall into: what good is it to see an injustice and wave our hands, saying that it's just the way the things are? You suggested that the grandposter is blindly optimistic for wanting to change the way men relate to women in the workplace (or something like that), but think about how much has changed culturally, that we can have this conversation in 2010 and have it be basically a given that human bondage is morally wrong? It took a law in 1865, and it was controversial at the time. Today you have to be on the fringe of society in order to believe that it was ever morally defensible, presumably. That's not a triumph of law, it's a triumph of active social change.
jdp23 16y ago
Yeah really. And this particularly applies to guys justifying sexism by saying "that's how the world works". If you're not doing anything to change it, that's part of the problem.
- brandnewlow 16y ago
  There are many more important things to change in the world than the fact that men are impressed by a guy who is accompanied by an attractive female. I don't get how it's evil to point this out. It's not a pleasant reality, but neither is death, the odds of being in a car crash, the unemployment figures these days...i.e. all just statements of facts, neither good nor evil.
  - kabuks 16y ago
    I'm not sure anybody is implying it's evil to point it out. imho, it's not evil, just a little sad to accept things as they are and 'deal with it'.