4 ms·

It may surprise you to know that roughly half the population of the UK is female. So doesn't it strike you as odd that off the people featured on the reverse of

by drcongo 13y ago

It may surprise you to know that roughly half the population of the UK is female. So doesn't it strike you as odd that off the people featured on the reverse of UK bank notes, we had a period where 100% of them were male? Surely I shouldn't need to explain this to someone in 2014.

yummyfajitas 13y ago
I don't understand. There are many "odd" facts (by which I assume you mean "improbable"?), but I see no compelling reason to alter them. For example, suppose there was no one on a banknote with a last name starting with a letter from N-Z. The population of people with such last names might also be 50% of the UK. Would this situation also require changing? (Incidentally, I find it less than odd, because I'm choosing a more accurate reference class. The notable enough to be put on a banknote population of the UK is probably far less than 50% female - for example, Thatcher is the only female PM. Scientists like Newton/Darwin go on money, but there are no females of their caliber.)
- aaren 13y ago
  You mistake the population of women for some arbitrary selection. I don't think that your N-Z population will be suffering from systemic oppression. Perhaps your interpretation of uk history under represents the achievements of women? We are in a transition between a past where women are under-represented and a future in which women are well-represented equal members of society. This transition is not guaranteed to happen. Small things like ensuring the representation of women on bank notes are seen as helping this transition to occur.
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    I don't "mistake" women for some arbitrary selection, I don't know what principle to use to distinguish between women and other subsets of Britain. Can you explain this principle? I'm not sure what "systemic oppression" is. If "systemic oppression" simply refers to individual bad acts that apply to some subpopulation at a disproportionate rate, here is a recipe for cooking up other "systemically oppressed" subsets: choose a group of 90% people who have suffered individual bad acts, throw in 10-20% more random people. You now have a group who has suffered individual bad acts at a disproportionate rate. How does your morality/political philosophy distinguish women from other statistically similar subsets? (Note that if it does not distinguish between such groups, you get an intractible ideology - there are more subsets of Britain like the one I described than there are atoms in the universe.)
    - dkoston 13y ago
      It's been clearly documented that women are subject to lower wages(1) then men and while I don't have statistics about online harassment, women accounted for 84% of potential workplace harassment victims in 2007(2) which may or may not be similar to the online harassment gap. USC also did a study noting that men are less empathetic to discrimination(3) which can cause even more harm. You argue that choosing any subset is arbitrary but it is clearly not if we choose that subset based on a set of data that shows behavior which society disapproves of (attaching criteria to our subset inherently makes it non-arbitrary). Now, you could argue that choosing women as a subset is arbitrary because you don't think that the representation of people on money should be correlated to population statistics. However, why are you arguing against correlation for pictures on money but not also arguing that nothing should be correlated to population statistics at all (or perhaps your comment wasn't perfectly written? same as the article?). In general, it seems that you are also choosing to be arbitrary as well. In addition, you seem to lack compassion for other people who are expressing their concerns about their right to live a happy life, free from harassment. Whether or not you agree with the small details in the article or whether or not they are 100% accurate is not important. If you can't read the article for the overall concept it purveys, and feel some sympathy for the author, I feel sorry for you. (1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21698522 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21698522 (2) http://www.workharassment.net/index.php/sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace.html http://www.workharassment.net/index.php/sexual-harassment-in... (3) http://www.livescience.com/2428-men-discrimination-women.html http://www.livescience.com/2428-men-discrimination-women.htm...
      - yummyfajitas 13y ago
        Give me 85,000 people who have been victims of workplace harassment (of any gender), 15,000 more random people, and I've found a group who has suffered more workplace harassment than women. Why do you assign this arbitrary group no moral/political weight? (Again: there are orders of magnitude more such subgroups of Britain than there are cells in the human body. I don't understand how you pick one to the exclusion of all others.) However, why are you arguing against... I'm arguing nothing - I merely asked why CJefferson found a lack of non-royal women on money unacceptable. Then I asked drcongo (and later you and aaren) about your underlying political/moral philosophy. But everyone seems to be ducking the fundamental question. So I'll ask one more time before I give up. Consider a statistical reference class X, which suffers disproportionately from one or more harms. How do I determine whether X deserves moral/political consideration of the sort you are advocating for? (E.g., we should make sure more of X has their picture printed on money.)

by drcongo 13y ago

yummyfajitas 13y ago

I don't understand. There are many "odd" facts (by which I assume you mean "improbable"?), but I see no compelling reason to alter them. For example, suppose there was no one on a banknote with a last name starting with a letter from N-Z. The population of people with such last names might also be 50% of the UK. Would this situation also require changing? (Incidentally, I find it less than odd, because I'm choosing a more accurate reference class. The notable enough to be put on a banknote population of the UK is probably far less than 50% female - for example, Thatcher is the only female PM. Scientists like Newton/Darwin go on money, but there are no females of their caliber.)

aaren 13y ago
You mistake the population of women for some arbitrary selection. I don't think that your N-Z population will be suffering from systemic oppression. Perhaps your interpretation of uk history under represents the achievements of women? We are in a transition between a past where women are under-represented and a future in which women are well-represented equal members of society. This transition is not guaranteed to happen. Small things like ensuring the representation of women on bank notes are seen as helping this transition to occur.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  I don't "mistake" women for some arbitrary selection, I don't know what principle to use to distinguish between women and other subsets of Britain. Can you explain this principle? I'm not sure what "systemic oppression" is. If "systemic oppression" simply refers to individual bad acts that apply to some subpopulation at a disproportionate rate, here is a recipe for cooking up other "systemically oppressed" subsets: choose a group of 90% people who have suffered individual bad acts, throw in 10-20% more random people. You now have a group who has suffered individual bad acts at a disproportionate rate. How does your morality/political philosophy distinguish women from other statistically similar subsets? (Note that if it does not distinguish between such groups, you get an intractible ideology - there are more subsets of Britain like the one I described than there are atoms in the universe.)
  - dkoston 13y ago
    It's been clearly documented that women are subject to lower wages(1) then men and while I don't have statistics about online harassment, women accounted for 84% of potential workplace harassment victims in 2007(2) which may or may not be similar to the online harassment gap. USC also did a study noting that men are less empathetic to discrimination(3) which can cause even more harm. You argue that choosing any subset is arbitrary but it is clearly not if we choose that subset based on a set of data that shows behavior which society disapproves of (attaching criteria to our subset inherently makes it non-arbitrary). Now, you could argue that choosing women as a subset is arbitrary because you don't think that the representation of people on money should be correlated to population statistics. However, why are you arguing against correlation for pictures on money but not also arguing that nothing should be correlated to population statistics at all (or perhaps your comment wasn't perfectly written? same as the article?). In general, it seems that you are also choosing to be arbitrary as well. In addition, you seem to lack compassion for other people who are expressing their concerns about their right to live a happy life, free from harassment. Whether or not you agree with the small details in the article or whether or not they are 100% accurate is not important. If you can't read the article for the overall concept it purveys, and feel some sympathy for the author, I feel sorry for you. (1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21698522 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21698522 (2) http://www.workharassment.net/index.php/sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace.html http://www.workharassment.net/index.php/sexual-harassment-in... (3) http://www.livescience.com/2428-men-discrimination-women.html http://www.livescience.com/2428-men-discrimination-women.htm...
    - yummyfajitas 13y ago
      Give me 85,000 people who have been victims of workplace harassment (of any gender), 15,000 more random people, and I've found a group who has suffered more workplace harassment than women. Why do you assign this arbitrary group no moral/political weight? (Again: there are orders of magnitude more such subgroups of Britain than there are cells in the human body. I don't understand how you pick one to the exclusion of all others.) However, why are you arguing against... I'm arguing nothing - I merely asked why CJefferson found a lack of non-royal women on money unacceptable. Then I asked drcongo (and later you and aaren) about your underlying political/moral philosophy. But everyone seems to be ducking the fundamental question. So I'll ask one more time before I give up. Consider a statistical reference class X, which suffers disproportionately from one or more harms. How do I determine whether X deserves moral/political consideration of the sort you are advocating for? (E.g., we should make sure more of X has their picture printed on money.)