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Black and white thinking: There is only one explanation. Someone who disagrees is automatically a misogynist.

by vimy 5y ago

dahart 5y ago
What other explanations do you have in mind? What “different reasons” are there? Do the reasons you have in mind account for the fact that female representation is growing year over year? I don’t think you’re a misogynist, I wasn’t talking about you. But you are providing multiple comments’ evidence that you may lack historical background and might lack the will to think critically and self-reflect about your own learned assumptions and where you got them, that you might have been trying to make a rhetorical point and aren’t interested in a discussion or in the real answer to the very question you asked - whether women are interested in politics. Answer: they are increasingly. The idea that there are “different reasons” and other explanations besides social bias has historically been a talking point for people who don’t want to either accept or admit that cultural sexism still exists, that’s the undercurrent of your comments even if it’s unintentional on your part. Casting vague criticisms toward me doesn’t change the provenance of the ideas you’ve adopted and shared here. The very idea that there are “different reasons” was suggesting that the discrepancy between male and female representation could be at some kind of natural balance, right? I mean you stated it explicitly, that preferences might explain today’s balance. But it’s not in balance now, and never has been, that’s a fact we know for certain. The data we have - from the fact that there were basically zero women with political careers as little as 100 years ago, to the fact that the number of women in politics has been and continues to steadily increase - the things I’m pointing out pertain to the question of whether there are any other relevant explanations that matter right now. I’m not claiming that there are no sex/gender differences, nor that the numbers should be exactly 50/50. What I’m saying is that the fact that women were (and still are) held back by society obviously shadows all other reasons to this day. We can’t begin to ask whether there are other reasons until we’ve ruled out cultural bias, and we have tons and tons of ongoing data that proves beyond any shadow of doubt that we have not yet fixed cultural bias. Suppose there were additional reasons reasons for today’s gender discrepancy in politics (and I’m sure there are some, like pregnancy). If the reason changed the distribution by 0.1%, would you say that it’s relevant and worth talking about? How would we actually measure it? In terms of what we should do as a society, how would it inform our opinions and policies? At the top of the thread, you asked unironically “what if women are just less interested in politics?” My question to you is: what if interest in politics is primarily determined by cultural biases? What if women thirty years ago said they were less interested in politics precisely because they knew it was a terribly sexist environment? What if that’s still the case to some degree? How would you actually determine which preferences are determined by sex or gender, and which preferences are the result of ongoing discrimination?

Black and white thinking: There is only one explanation. Someone who disagrees is automatically a misogynist.

by vimy 5y ago

Black and white thinking: There is only one explanation. Someone who disagrees is automatically a misogynist.

What other explanations do you have in mind? What “different reasons” are there? Do the reasons you have in mind account for the fact that female representation is growing year over year? I don’t think you’re a misogynist, I wasn’t talking about you. But you are providing multiple comments’ evidence that you may lack historical background and might lack the will to think critically and self-reflect about your own learned assumptions and where you got them, that you might have been trying to make a rhetorical point and aren’t interested in a discussion or in the real answer to the very question you asked - whether women are interested in politics. Answer: they are increasingly. The idea that there are “different reasons” and other explanations besides social bias has historically been a talking point for people who don’t want to either accept or admit that cultural sexism still exists, that’s the undercurrent of your comments even if it’s unintentional on your part. Casting vague criticisms toward me doesn’t change the provenance of the ideas you’ve adopted and shared here. The very idea that there are “different reasons” was suggesting that the discrepancy between male and female representation could be at some kind of natural balance, right? I mean you stated it explicitly, that preferences might explain today’s balance. But it’s not in balance now, and never has been, that’s a fact we know for certain. The data we have - from the fact that there were basically zero women with political careers as little as 100 years ago, to the fact that the number of women in politics has been and continues to steadily increase - the things I’m pointing out pertain to the question of whether there are any other relevant explanations that matter right now. I’m not claiming that there are no sex/gender differences, nor that the numbers should be exactly 50/50. What I’m saying is that the fact that women were (and still are) held back by society obviously shadows all other reasons to this day. We can’t begin to ask whether there are other reasons until we’ve ruled out cultural bias, and we have tons and tons of ongoing data that proves beyond any shadow of doubt that we have not yet fixed cultural bias. Suppose there were additional reasons reasons for today’s gender discrepancy in politics (and I’m sure there are some, like pregnancy). If the reason changed the distribution by 0.1%, would you say that it’s relevant and worth talking about? How would we actually measure it? In terms of what we should do as a society, how would it inform our opinions and policies? At the top of the thread, you asked unironically “what if women are just less interested in politics?” My question to you is: what if interest in politics is primarily determined by cultural biases? What if women thirty years ago said they were less interested in politics precisely because they knew it was a terribly sexist environment? What if that’s still the case to some degree? How would you actually determine which preferences are determined by sex or gender, and which preferences are the result of ongoing discrimination?