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Not in STEM departments, no. Why would you run a pro-male affirmative action programme in a department where men were already over-represented? But there's aff

Not in STEM departments, no. Why would you run a pro-male affirmative action programme in a department where men were already over-represented? But there's affirmative action for men in nursing, teaching, social studies, and similar female-dominated departments. There are active campaigns to recruit more male nurses - and male teachers are more likely to be promoted. I also know first-hand that vocational ballet schools recruit equal numbers of boys and girls, so they can teach partnering - despite the fact they probably get 30 female applicants for every male applicant! Of course, a male might find it unfair that the pro-male affirmative action is only applied in areas like ballet and nursing which they're not interested in - but that's the whole point of affirmative action. And if you find it unfair that the pro-male affirmative action for female-dominated jobs only provides low-paid, low-status jobs - then feminists are very much in agreement with you about the unfairness of the situation :)

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> if you find it unfair that the pro-male affirmative action for female-dominated jobs only provides low-paid, low-status jobs - then feminists are very much in agreement with you about the unfairness of the situation :) This is an interesting point, how much of the salary is determined by presumably impartial market forces, and how much of it is just status and social signalling. We know status and social signalling play a significant role, otherwise behavioural economics and marketing wouldn't exist. We also know that the diffrence between salaries of rank and file staff and C-suit executives have increased 15x in the past 20 years, without any corresponding increase in productivity There is good reason to believe that if you could magically shove high-status men into nursing; nursing salaries would go up. But it's hard to see how it would happen unless we'd have equivalent of the draft for low status jobs.
- duvenaud 4y ago
  >We also know that the diffrence between salaries of rank and file staff and C-suit executives have increased 15x in the past 20 years, without any corresponding increase in productivity Seems like evidence against the claim that status plays a significant role in setting salaries, unless their status has also increased massively in that time.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  >There is good reason to believe that if you could magically shove high-status men into nursing; nursing salaries would go up. What is this inherent quality of high status for men? Generally, status follows the possible utility one can provide for another, whether it be from being able to earn a lot of money, or having connections, having characteristics associated with positive stereotypes, or some other in demand quality. Higher pay will increase status for whoever gets it, whether it be men or women or majority or minority. But the status follows the utility (or money in this case), not the other way around.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    > Higher pay will increase status for whoever gets it Drug dealing and Escort / prostitution provide significant income and poor status. Aristocracy had high status and sometimes little income. They are not one and the same
- randomdata 4y ago
  > There is good reason to believe that if you could magically shove high-status men into nursing; nursing salaries would go up. All else equal, if you shoved high status men into nursing they would only serve to increase the supply of workers, thereby reducing bargaining power and thus incomes would be more likely to fall. High status men become high status because they find places to go where supply is extremely constrained (naturally or artificially). When you are one of few people able to do something that is desired then status and income follow. The CEO gets there by first being one of a very select number of people who has built trust with the board. The board certainly isn't handing the keys to the kingdom of a multi-billion dollar operation to any random Joe off the street for obvious reasons. When the supply is nearly non-existent and the demand is nearly insatiable, price goes to the moon and so too does status much the same way.
duvenaud 4y ago
Thanks for providing more context. However, the original claim I was reacting to was that "half the population ... [are] beneficiaries of affirmative action", i.e. that all men in college are beneficiaries of AA. I agree there are exceptions, but I stand by my claim that very few college-attending men benefit from AA for males.
imgabe 4y ago
Isn't the goal of a nursing school to provide the best possible nurses to the healthcare industry? If we assume that: Whatever merit based metrics the school uses to determine admission are predictive of eventual performance and that men are admitted with lower performance on these metrics than some women Then removing the affirmative action should result in the school graduating nurses who perform better, right? Why wouldn't we want that?
- nwiswell 4y ago
  > Why wouldn't we want that? Because it's possible to have multiple goals at the same time. Reality is a co-optimization problem. The points that you have made above are why there are still many more female nurses -- it's not like they will accept every single man, there's simply a lower threshold than there is for women. I think a lot of the arguments about whether AA makes sense at all should really be reframed as discussions about how much AA makes sense. How do goals like diversity, inclusion, and minimizing inequality weigh against other objectives like rewarding merit and maximizing productivity outcomes? Surely the balance-point is not zero, but it's conceivably much closer to zero than today's policies would imply.
  - wheels 4y ago
    > Because it's possible to have multiple goals at the same time. Reality is a co-optimization problem. And one thing to consider is that people don't choose colleges just based on academics, they also choose them based on social environments, and as such universities have an incentive to try to create amicable social environments to attract the best students. Case in point: I decided not to go to a good engineering school because it was more than 80% male and in a small town. The social environment was desperately bro-ish. I backpedaled and went to a liberal arts college primarily because of vastly superior social environment.
    - hardware2win 4y ago
      > I decided not to go to a good engineering school because it was more than 80% male and in a small town. The social environment was desperately bro-ish. I backpedaled and went to a liberal arts college primarily because of vastly superior social environment. I dont think many people have such a privilege

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

> if you find it unfair that the pro-male affirmative action for female-dominated jobs only provides low-paid, low-status jobs - then feminists are very much in agreement with you about the unfairness of the situation :) This is an interesting point, how much of the salary is determined by presumably impartial market forces, and how much of it is just status and social signalling. We know status and social signalling play a significant role, otherwise behavioural economics and marketing wouldn't exist. We also know that the diffrence between salaries of rank and file staff and C-suit executives have increased 15x in the past 20 years, without any corresponding increase in productivity There is good reason to believe that if you could magically shove high-status men into nursing; nursing salaries would go up. But it's hard to see how it would happen unless we'd have equivalent of the draft for low status jobs.

duvenaud 4y ago
>We also know that the diffrence between salaries of rank and file staff and C-suit executives have increased 15x in the past 20 years, without any corresponding increase in productivity Seems like evidence against the claim that status plays a significant role in setting salaries, unless their status has also increased massively in that time.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
>There is good reason to believe that if you could magically shove high-status men into nursing; nursing salaries would go up. What is this inherent quality of high status for men? Generally, status follows the possible utility one can provide for another, whether it be from being able to earn a lot of money, or having connections, having characteristics associated with positive stereotypes, or some other in demand quality. Higher pay will increase status for whoever gets it, whether it be men or women or majority or minority. But the status follows the utility (or money in this case), not the other way around.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > Higher pay will increase status for whoever gets it Drug dealing and Escort / prostitution provide significant income and poor status. Aristocracy had high status and sometimes little income. They are not one and the same
randomdata 4y ago
> There is good reason to believe that if you could magically shove high-status men into nursing; nursing salaries would go up. All else equal, if you shoved high status men into nursing they would only serve to increase the supply of workers, thereby reducing bargaining power and thus incomes would be more likely to fall. High status men become high status because they find places to go where supply is extremely constrained (naturally or artificially). When you are one of few people able to do something that is desired then status and income follow. The CEO gets there by first being one of a very select number of people who has built trust with the board. The board certainly isn't handing the keys to the kingdom of a multi-billion dollar operation to any random Joe off the street for obvious reasons. When the supply is nearly non-existent and the demand is nearly insatiable, price goes to the moon and so too does status much the same way.

duvenaud 4y ago

Thanks for providing more context. However, the original claim I was reacting to was that "half the population ... [are] beneficiaries of affirmative action", i.e. that all men in college are beneficiaries of AA. I agree there are exceptions, but I stand by my claim that very few college-attending men benefit from AA for males.

imgabe 4y ago

Isn't the goal of a nursing school to provide the best possible nurses to the healthcare industry? If we assume that: Whatever merit based metrics the school uses to determine admission are predictive of eventual performance and that men are admitted with lower performance on these metrics than some women Then removing the affirmative action should result in the school graduating nurses who perform better, right? Why wouldn't we want that?

nwiswell 4y ago
> Why wouldn't we want that? Because it's possible to have multiple goals at the same time. Reality is a co-optimization problem. The points that you have made above are why there are still many more female nurses -- it's not like they will accept every single man, there's simply a lower threshold than there is for women. I think a lot of the arguments about whether AA makes sense at all should really be reframed as discussions about how much AA makes sense. How do goals like diversity, inclusion, and minimizing inequality weigh against other objectives like rewarding merit and maximizing productivity outcomes? Surely the balance-point is not zero, but it's conceivably much closer to zero than today's policies would imply.
- wheels 4y ago
  > Because it's possible to have multiple goals at the same time. Reality is a co-optimization problem. And one thing to consider is that people don't choose colleges just based on academics, they also choose them based on social environments, and as such universities have an incentive to try to create amicable social environments to attract the best students. Case in point: I decided not to go to a good engineering school because it was more than 80% male and in a small town. The social environment was desperately bro-ish. I backpedaled and went to a liberal arts college primarily because of vastly superior social environment.
  - hardware2win 4y ago
    > I decided not to go to a good engineering school because it was more than 80% male and in a small town. The social environment was desperately bro-ish. I backpedaled and went to a liberal arts college primarily because of vastly superior social environment. I dont think many people have such a privilege