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Reflecting on that question means saying things that many people would find offensive. It's a lost cause to suggest that corporations implicitly understand som

Reflecting on that question means saying things that many people would find offensive. It's a lost cause to suggest that corporations implicitly understand something innate about female psychology and are taking advantage of it, and that's exactly why social media wins; the current politics you mentioned are a protective layer against taking meaningful action against the machine. If society was as concerned about the online activity of boys (news flash, your kid is likely watching hardcore porn every day), action would be more swift because there's no political manifold to dissuade elders from trying to save boys. This analogy is of course imperfect because parents are evidently not as concerned about boys. > you would think one solution to this issue would be to advance a society in which women are valued equally to men. There's no reason to believe such a society can exist any more than believing it's possible for a thing to be both dry and wet at the same time. It's dubious whether such a society is even desirable, and even if it is, it's been debated since time immemorial and isn't a practical way to address real world issues. You might as well ask why the world can't be more like Star Trek.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
You think it would be dubious for a society to value men and women equally?
- catiopatio 4y ago
  Men and women are not identical; inescapably, the mean value contributed by each will material differ in at least some contexts. If a society equally values the contributions of men and women in all contexts, then, by definition, it must be using an inequitable metric to ascribe value to their contributions.
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    People aren't abstract mathematical concepts. No two people are identical, and the range of difference between the two most extreme men almost certainly exceeds the range of difference between the most woman-like men and the most man-like women. Given the obvious differences between humans, nobody expects that every single person will contribute identical value, or should be valued identically. However, there is a very, very, very long history of the inverse. In nearly every area of life, the activities and contributions most commonly fulfilled by women are under-valued, while the activities and contributions most commonly fulfilled by men are over-valued. This can be seen historically, as the primary occupants of careers shifted from one sex to the other. The early computer programmers (women) were treated as doing secretarial work, while modern computer programmers (mostly men) are compensated like rock stars. Conversely, early school teachers were highly respected and well-compensated when they were mostly men, and respect and compensation both dropped relative to other careers as teachers became more likely to be women. These are systemic biases so ingrained that we don't think about them. People are lining up to respond to this comment to helpfully explain to me that those earlier programmers weren't the same, or that modern teachers are every bit as respected and well-compensated as they should be, or whatever. The Venn diagram of all men and all women is not a circle, because of course there are differences. But there is much overlap between the two circles, and women are mostly not valued equally where the circles overlap, and the non-overlapping areas of each circle are valued completely differently as well. When you see it, it's clear as day. When you don't or won't, it sounds silly. Feel free to dig in to the truth of it, or dismiss it as folklore.
    - fleddr 4y ago
      Cherry-picked examples. I could easily do the same and claim that men are undervalued. They are sacrificed in wars, make up the main portion of the homeless and they do the hardest and dirtiest work to provide the modern infrastructure of the world. They have no support structure, can't fail and are constantly pissed on in culture and media. Neither of us is telling the whole story.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - pwinnski 4y ago
        At some level, humans are undervalued, seen only as grist for the mill, to be ground up and their value extracted, then discarded. Soldiers, homeless people, food service workers, child care workers, teachers, oil rig workers, and on and on and on. That is universal and a larger issue. My point was to focus on the center of the venn diagram, where men and women do the same or similar jobs, especially jobs in which the balance has shifted over time, so that we can see that even in the midst of a general undervaluing of humans, separate from the extreme undervaluing that happens at the edges, women are undervalued even more than usual. For some reason, many people find it hard to understand this.
  - gallopingcomp 4y ago
    No, it would mean not attributing innate value to maleness or femaleness, so to speak,, but to the relevant metrics. One can still compute a mean afterward and potentially find that it differs, but that is no judgment of inherent value / not a causative factor for the value judgment being made. And even then, there might sometimes be benefit to treating people more equally than they are on some metrics. Maximizing efficiency often means sacrificing resiliency, after all.
    - catiopatio 4y ago
      Given that there is clearly a difference in relative value produced across a non-trivial number of (often incomparable!) contexts, men and women cannot be equal, and the fiction that they are would not survive an afternoon spent watching the Olympics, or a brief visit to a maternity ward. In my opinion, the only thing we should do with that information is accept that (1) men and women are different, (2) disparity of outcome may be the result of those differences, as opposed to systemic bias, and (3) insisting on equality of outcome will, invariably, produce grossly inequitable results in some contexts.
      - gallopingcomp 4y ago
        Alas, I see that we (you and I and great-grandparent) are talking past each other.
beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
> ...that many people would find offensive. It's a lost cause to suggest that corporations implicitly understand something innate about female psychology... You are wrong. Feminism as a broad social movement, and as an academic discipline, explicitly sought to question and attack the social structures and behaviors that were often insisted to be "innate" about female psychology and well being. Basically no one would find that offensive today. It's profoundly mainstream. Many more people would find it offensive to imply that social media addiction, or that an increasing trend of suicidal ideation as a result of social media use, is somehow a result of femaleness tout-court. That's downright archaic. Social media companies take advantage of the ways women are socialized into an incredible and unnecessary focus on their bodies by pouring rocket fuel on it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hn92726819 4y ago
  I am not agreeing or disagreeing with either of you. However, it seems you say > You are wrong But also: > Many more people would find it offensive ... Is somehow a result of femaleness tout-court But the person you're replying to seems to be saying that if there is some ingrained female-related cause, it couldn't be discussed today. How does the second thing I quoted from you not directly agree with the comment you replied to?
  - beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
    Because the implication of their argument is biological causation, which is pure conjecture on their part. On the other hand, the entire posted article goes at length to study the social impact of social media for young people and young girls in particular and routinely references the heightened effect of the hyper focus on bodies for young girls. Their comment is just a naked assertion. Would people find it offensive? Well, if the entire basis for your point is a strawman, then yes. But as far as I can tell, there is no causal evidence between femaleness and social media addiction or suicidal ideation. The need to leap to biological causation is unwarranted and unsupported. Acting like they're already agrieved is a rhetorical slight of hand without substance.
pwinnski 4y ago
I can't imagine why anyone would find it offensive to believe that women should not be valued equally with men. Oh wait, right, because that's inherently offensive. The world can be more like Star Trek, and might move in that direction a bit more quickly if there weren't so many people premature playing a victim before they try to undermine the effort.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

You think it would be dubious for a society to value men and women equally?

catiopatio 4y ago
Men and women are not identical; inescapably, the mean value contributed by each will material differ in at least some contexts. If a society equally values the contributions of men and women in all contexts, then, by definition, it must be using an inequitable metric to ascribe value to their contributions.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  People aren't abstract mathematical concepts. No two people are identical, and the range of difference between the two most extreme men almost certainly exceeds the range of difference between the most woman-like men and the most man-like women. Given the obvious differences between humans, nobody expects that every single person will contribute identical value, or should be valued identically. However, there is a very, very, very long history of the inverse. In nearly every area of life, the activities and contributions most commonly fulfilled by women are under-valued, while the activities and contributions most commonly fulfilled by men are over-valued. This can be seen historically, as the primary occupants of careers shifted from one sex to the other. The early computer programmers (women) were treated as doing secretarial work, while modern computer programmers (mostly men) are compensated like rock stars. Conversely, early school teachers were highly respected and well-compensated when they were mostly men, and respect and compensation both dropped relative to other careers as teachers became more likely to be women. These are systemic biases so ingrained that we don't think about them. People are lining up to respond to this comment to helpfully explain to me that those earlier programmers weren't the same, or that modern teachers are every bit as respected and well-compensated as they should be, or whatever. The Venn diagram of all men and all women is not a circle, because of course there are differences. But there is much overlap between the two circles, and women are mostly not valued equally where the circles overlap, and the non-overlapping areas of each circle are valued completely differently as well. When you see it, it's clear as day. When you don't or won't, it sounds silly. Feel free to dig in to the truth of it, or dismiss it as folklore.
  - fleddr 4y ago
    Cherry-picked examples. I could easily do the same and claim that men are undervalued. They are sacrificed in wars, make up the main portion of the homeless and they do the hardest and dirtiest work to provide the modern infrastructure of the world. They have no support structure, can't fail and are constantly pissed on in culture and media. Neither of us is telling the whole story.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - pwinnski 4y ago
      At some level, humans are undervalued, seen only as grist for the mill, to be ground up and their value extracted, then discarded. Soldiers, homeless people, food service workers, child care workers, teachers, oil rig workers, and on and on and on. That is universal and a larger issue. My point was to focus on the center of the venn diagram, where men and women do the same or similar jobs, especially jobs in which the balance has shifted over time, so that we can see that even in the midst of a general undervaluing of humans, separate from the extreme undervaluing that happens at the edges, women are undervalued even more than usual. For some reason, many people find it hard to understand this.
- gallopingcomp 4y ago
  No, it would mean not attributing innate value to maleness or femaleness, so to speak,, but to the relevant metrics. One can still compute a mean afterward and potentially find that it differs, but that is no judgment of inherent value / not a causative factor for the value judgment being made. And even then, there might sometimes be benefit to treating people more equally than they are on some metrics. Maximizing efficiency often means sacrificing resiliency, after all.
  - catiopatio 4y ago
    Given that there is clearly a difference in relative value produced across a non-trivial number of (often incomparable!) contexts, men and women cannot be equal, and the fiction that they are would not survive an afternoon spent watching the Olympics, or a brief visit to a maternity ward. In my opinion, the only thing we should do with that information is accept that (1) men and women are different, (2) disparity of outcome may be the result of those differences, as opposed to systemic bias, and (3) insisting on equality of outcome will, invariably, produce grossly inequitable results in some contexts.
    - gallopingcomp 4y ago
      Alas, I see that we (you and I and great-grandparent) are talking past each other.

beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago

> ...that many people would find offensive. It's a lost cause to suggest that corporations implicitly understand something innate about female psychology... You are wrong. Feminism as a broad social movement, and as an academic discipline, explicitly sought to question and attack the social structures and behaviors that were often insisted to be "innate" about female psychology and well being. Basically no one would find that offensive today. It's profoundly mainstream. Many more people would find it offensive to imply that social media addiction, or that an increasing trend of suicidal ideation as a result of social media use, is somehow a result of femaleness tout-court. That's downright archaic. Social media companies take advantage of the ways women are socialized into an incredible and unnecessary focus on their bodies by pouring rocket fuel on it.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hn92726819 4y ago
I am not agreeing or disagreeing with either of you. However, it seems you say > You are wrong But also: > Many more people would find it offensive ... Is somehow a result of femaleness tout-court But the person you're replying to seems to be saying that if there is some ingrained female-related cause, it couldn't be discussed today. How does the second thing I quoted from you not directly agree with the comment you replied to?
- beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
  Because the implication of their argument is biological causation, which is pure conjecture on their part. On the other hand, the entire posted article goes at length to study the social impact of social media for young people and young girls in particular and routinely references the heightened effect of the hyper focus on bodies for young girls. Their comment is just a naked assertion. Would people find it offensive? Well, if the entire basis for your point is a strawman, then yes. But as far as I can tell, there is no causal evidence between femaleness and social media addiction or suicidal ideation. The need to leap to biological causation is unwarranted and unsupported. Acting like they're already agrieved is a rhetorical slight of hand without substance.

pwinnski 4y ago

I can't imagine why anyone would find it offensive to believe that women should not be valued equally with men. Oh wait, right, because that's inherently offensive. The world can be more like Star Trek, and might move in that direction a bit more quickly if there weren't so many people premature playing a victim before they try to undermine the effort.