<p>man, i have NO idea what you are talking about there. I guess junk science is junk science....by definition. so junk environmentalism would be junk environmentalism, and junk genderism would be junk genderism. but is what dcircle is talking about junk? I think thats the issue here. And then you discuss Africa and Asia, I think what you're trying to say is that if dcircle advocated women's rights there then the government would take oppressive action. Ok, thats fair, but I don't think that has anything to do with what dcircle is talking about.... I haven't read all the posts in this discussion, but I'm a guy, and I definately think its offensive to tell a woman to go "cook me dinner." Just as someone said, this is as bad as telling a black person to go "pick some cotton," or a Jew (which I am) to go "to a gas chamber." If you EVER want a date, my friend, you want to stay away from that rhetoric.</p>
<p>how are you an adult? how do you have a legal degree for that matter?</p>
<p>if you don't understand the papers or don't feel like reading them, just let me know and i'll give you a synopsis. that doesn't seem to be the issue though, because it appears you've decided any data i could show you is the result of "junk science". so be it then. but i'll ask you again, what kind of evidence would you like to see? you say you want examples but claim anecdotal and quantitative information are "pointless". seriously, what does that leave?</p>
<p>also, the "if you don't like the way things are, leave" argument is incredibly infantile. in our country, a woman must be overqualified to be elected into public office, and could never get away with what a male candidate could. as a result, we have yet to elect a female president, and have relatively few women in other elected positions. the fact that i see room for improvement makes me more patriotic, not less. and it certainly does not mean i would prefer to live in some of those other places you mentioned (some of which, contrary to your ignorant assumptions, actually have elected female heads of state).</p>
<p>you're sending a child to a top notch school, right? let's hope he or she will get a better education than you did.</p>
<p>dcircle: I won't embarass you further. The fact remains you were unable to produce examples to substantiate your original polemic, and that speaks volumes for itself. And until you can you have rendered yourself incredible and irrelevant to further discussion on the subject.</p>
<p>oh man, it seems i've upset you. out of the many examples i've given, i thought the number of women who hold elected office was the most accessible and simple... but i may have been pushing your capacities a little too far</p>
<p>no worries lawyerdad, i don't feel embarassed or have hard feelings.
if you don't want to talk about it anymore, i understand.</p>
<p>dcircle, you're doing just fine. it isn't YOU who lawyerdad embarrassed.</p>
<p>lawyerdad, what are you talking about? Why does dcircle's criticizing of the state of affairs here in the U.S. automatically lead you to believe that dcircle would rather live somewhere else? Isn't constructive criticism by honest citizens exactly what the U.S. is built upon and precisely what it needs? Should prominent abolitionists and civil rights advocates have just left the U.S. because they didn't like the way things were?</p>
<p>"dcircle: I won't embarass you further."
This seems to be a subtle way of pulling out of an argument that you aren't capable of maintaining. You wrote off dcircle's examples as "junk science" in a knee-jerk fashion. How are they "junk science"? If you expect him to do anymore justifying, you might want to consider justifying your argument yourself before launching into any more meaningless ad hominem insults.</p>
<p>Speaking of getting certain heads out of the kool-aid bowl, I think you need to check that out yourself. As jiminy said to dcircle, it certainly isn't YOU lawyerdad embarrassed...</p>
<p>ok dcircle, since i need to grow up and obviously dont get to talk to any women (you almost made me go cry myself to sleep)... we all know that personal attacks are the most mature, i will go down your entire post.</p>
<p>"1) feminism does not preclude women from having babies, raising them, or otherwise being maternal. just because saying so gives you an argument, doesn't make it true." </p>
<p>so to counter me "just saying so" you're also "just saying" that im wrong. Let's see, encouraging women to go out of the house just so they can go work and feel better about their boring lives, which is central to the feminist agenda (i even used the google tip you gave me), aka not relying on their husbands to provide support...and lets not forget that "carrer ahead of family/kids rule" that feminists adore. Where are YOUR facts if youre so smart? give me something more than "youre a woman hater"</p>
<p>"2) pick up a history book. suffrage, roe v. wade, and other rights of women that our country protects were brought about against incredible resistance, mostly from folks like you with tautological arguments like 'why are we trying to change...what has worked for tens of thousands of years'"</p>
<p>roe v. wade - its passed a long time ago and its protections are more than reasonable, protecting the court decision itself lies with politicians/judges, not feminists who do just about nothing except protest and complain about it. If they wanna get anything done, they need to actually DO something about it.
suffrage - i thought this was taken care 90 years ago, but maybe i need to pick up a history book to review. By feminists, of course and i do nothing to take away any credit from the feminists 90 years who actually did something instead of whine.
I dont even know what you mean, by that last bit since i am not against any issues, as you make me look like, i am against the movement who does not have any real goals or accomplishments in the lats 30 years (unless we count the great ERA...what a pity that didnt pass)</p>
<p>3) talk to some women (though in your case, i can understand why you might have limited experience with this). women do not enjoy the same benefits from society as men by most socioeconomic markers. women, as a population, have lower incomes, less access to healthcare, less representation in government and administration, less opporunity to be all that they can be. </p>
<p>i will make sure that i start talking with some women, becuase you just told me that i dont do that and you are sadly correct :-(
"women do not enjoy the same benefits from society as men by most socioeconomic markers" are you suggesting a solution to this? give me ANYTHING! PLEASE smartass!
lower incomes - they are the centerpieces of families, get pregnant more often than most men i know, as a result have less access to higher education (that's called a fact)
less access to healthcare - ???
less representation - let the feminists save us! Serious do you or the feminists have any solutions to any real problems or issues? do you have anything other than complaining about it? You're the typical liberal, which i was for many years, you know why we lose all the time? because we dont have any solutions, we just like to point out problems and wait for to some divine force to solve them.
less opporunity to be all that they can be - education, children, family, structure of every major society - they make mothers and centrepieces of families a hell of a lot more often than men (biology more than anything else) as a result are less likely to have sucessful jobs.
"do you actually think it is right that a woman has to try harder to be an orthapedic surgeon than a man does?" Give me one of the grand solutions the feminists have to this?</p>
<p>is more likely to be a victim of physical and sexual abuse? men are stronger physically, are likely to me more dominant in relationships, wear more clothes and are less sex-appealing. Now i know this is gonna turn into me justifying rape, but in reality this is facts; you can like them or not, theyre true and except for MAYBE the dominance in relationships or a universal dress code cannot be changed.</p>
<p>"do you think society has an obligation to do something about this?"
not really, but if i said yes, what do you suggest?</p>
<p>"grow up, dude."
you do too smartass</p>
<p>I wanna go to sleep and i obviously typed up a long enough entry for you to feel stupid if you can read, but on another day, i will look up the money spent by/on feminist organizations, compare that with some figures for basic nutrition and give you a number of kids in africa that could not die if the money feminists spend every day was spent to get them something to eat. </p>
<p>Do you think society has an obligation to do something THIS?
get your priorities right, your ignorance is the villain here, not my insensitivity.</p>
<p>"how are you an adult? how do you have a legal degree for that matter?"</p>
<p>man i love these idealistic teenagers that think theyre smarter than everyone becuase they think theyre fighting for these noble causes that noone gets</p>
<p>oh never mind youre 23.</p>
<p>oh also saying that women represent less elected officials than men is like saying that the nba has less white people than black people. wait youre 23? and you have a degree from brown? congratulations you have the reason of a 12 year old.</p>
<p>oh and i appreciate all the pre-brown advice so ill give you a belated piece of advice for after you leave brown - dont judge people, their mental abilities, their relationships with females (i do just fine), their maturity, and their legal degrees because they dont agree with your one-sided idealistic dogma.</p>
<p>"saying that women represent less elected officials than men is like saying that the nba has less white people than black people"</p>
<p>1) a white person does not have to be significantly better at basketball than the average NBA player to get drafted. a women often must be overqualified to be elected (and as a result her credentials will be scrutinized much more closely)</p>
<p>2) white basketball players don't meet resistance to their participation because they're white. by contrast, female candidates meet resistance because they are female.</p>
<p>3) there is no a priori reason to assume the discrepancy in basketball has to do with historical prejudice or bias against white people. by marked contrast, females have historically been relegated to traditional gender roles.</p>
<p>4) race disparities in basketball don't correlate with endemic socioeconomic burdens. gender disparities in government and other policy-making structures parallel divides in health, income, and overall quality of life. </p>
<p>5) professional basketball teams are owned by predominantly white managers. there is no superlative structures in government controlled by females</p>
<p>i'll leave differences 6-10 up to you, but if you need help, let me know</p>
<p>Dcircle,</p>
<p>I dont disagree with you that there are structural barriers that make certain professions more unlikely for women (there are even a few for men); however, Im not sure what you mean when you say that a woman must be overqualified to be elected into public office.</p>
<p>As there are currently some women in elected office (congress, senate, Gov, Mayor, etc), are all of those women now holding office more qualified than the men elected to the same offices. Which?</p>
<p>Moreover, is this nebulous idea of qualification quantifiable? </p>
<p>Along those lines, was Bush more qualified than Kerry and if so does that say that qualifications are not necessarily determined by gender but rather by individual it-ness?</p>
<p>Would Ann Coulter, to name one unelected political women, be more qualified than Bush (certainly shes more accomplished and intelligent than Bush, if something of a shrill blow-hard) and thus make a better president than the current Male, Bush?</p>
<p>Were the minority male nurses on average over-qualified when they applied for their jobs? </p>
<p>I was more or less with you until your brought in this semi-democratic idea (after all, even dumb and or sexist people are still allowed to vote) of women in office being over-qualified, needing to be overqualified and then in some sense better than the males currently deemed qualified by those who elected them. </p>
<p>Or even non-elected: was Condeleza Rice more qualified to become secretary of state than Colin Powell, or Warren Christopher, or Madeline Albright, or Henry Kissinger. </p>
<p>Was Hilary Clinton more Qualified than Chuck Schumer, to be Senator of New York?</p>
<p>Though I could do without some of the barbarisms of some of your opponents here, it is also nice to hear them act out--that way you can hear them coming, like cattle.</p>
<p>Last time I checked, Madeline Albright was still a woman.</p>
<p>GDWilner,</p>
<p>What a keen eye for the obvious, you have. It has, I'm sure, served you well in your sexual adventures: I suppose it takes away a bit of the trepidation you might otherwise have faced with your hook-ups and dance partners.</p>
<p>However, Albright, unlike Rice, had a long track record in government. The point, you see, had to do with over/under qualifications, not just gender (as in the Bush v Kerry mono-sexual battle of respect I alluded to earlier). </p>
<p>Bush bumped Rice right up and around the political receiving line of slack-backed men and women, both. Perhaps Condi was a bit under-qualified, as these things go--hadnt paid her dues so to speak and yet she was led straight to the main course. She even got to start a war! Wowey!</p>
<p>Edit:
It is also interesting to me that you would equate a black person in the act of picking cotton (presumably a reference to slavery) and a woman in the act of cooking or serving dinner (presumably a mother). </p>
<p>I shutter to think what your upbringing must have been like. I hope, during your college days your never find yourself within the ear-shot of dorm-room solicitations such as get me a beer while youre at it: For gods sake, at the very least, stay away from keggers! [John Brown comes to mind!]</p>
<p>Meltingsnow, I think what they meant was that saying a black person should pick cotton and a woman should go cook dinner are both stereotypes. One's based on race and one's based on gender, but they're both offensive.</p>
<p>This is the problem with knee jerk P-C:</p>
<p>It is always bad to tell a person to become a slave, i.e. pick cotton.</p>
<p>It is often appropriate to request dinner, and though it can be done in bad taste it has nothing of the moral character of slavery; although, if it were not southern slavery it would likely have been a reference to the holocaust Nazism Hitler, even if only talking about economic disparity.</p>
<p>Somehow, these remarks always seem to lack sincerity, dont you think.</p>
<p>drama...drama!!!!!</p>
<p>dcircle i really really like how of the about 25 factual points i brought up to make your point invalid, you managed to dedicate your entire attention to the one that was supposed to be a joke and is practically unrelated to the topic at hand</p>
<p>why dont you, instead of picking at my satirical points, elaborate on the starving african kids? or what about the women in africa that actually have REAL problems, like having their vaginas sewn shut? To me, this seems just a TINY bit more important than the fact that say... men own the vast majority fortune 500 companies in America and are not primary providers in most families (oh NOOOOOO!")</p>
<p>...priorities... priorities.</p>
<p>man i havent argued this much online ever since i matured past your fakely idealistic level.</p>
<p>I have mixed but mostly positive feelings towards PC. </p>
<p>I personally have never been offended by anything anyone has said to me or in my presence. I can disagree with things, but nothing really offends me. Sometimes I think people need to lighten up and realize that issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. can be dealt with humor, and such humor can use racist/sexist/homophobic language to poke fun at racism/sexism/homophobia. In the process of being overly concerned with PC labels, people can get too focused on the nitty-gritty details and lose sight of the overall sentiment. Excessive PC can discourage people who are uninformed about issues of race/sexual orientation/etc from bringing up questions and becoming more informed. (For example, if a kid from the South uses the term "Oriental" instead of Asian-American because he simply does not know of the right term to use, the appropriate response would not be to attack him as a racist. It would be to calmly explain what term people use now.) </p>
<p>However, I also think that people mistake political convictions for political correctness. If I, an extremely liberal person, express my views, I am not being PC. I am expressing my views. What is deemed PC by conservatives is most often the genuine beliefs of students. </p>
<p>Regarding the women's issue:</p>
<p>I don't know the exact statistics or even which countries they are (if someone could post them it would be great), but some African countries have a much higher percentage of women serving in high elected offices than the US does. </p>
<p>Historians have learned a lot of very interesting things about the history of women's roles (especially in the United States). Going back to the pre-Revolutionary war era, the idea of "separate spheres" was still very much intact. However, the amount of freedom and importance given to the women's sphere was surprising. Traditional household tasks and chores were vital to the economic life of the entire family, and goods and services performed by women made up a significant portion of the household income. In those days, knitting, weaving, nursing, baking, midwifery, gardening, management of finances, etc. fell to the women, and women recieved payment or traded goods (bartering was used extensively). While women still had no role in politics or most "male" professions, their own roles were significant. After that time, the mass-production of goods eventually overpowered women's traditional roles. Instead of having economic significance, women who worked in the home were no longer being paid for their housework. It is important to recognize that today's conceptions of housewives or the women of the 50s bears little resemblance to what women did long ago. Women have always worked; it is the nature of that work that has changed over time. Also, up until very recently, women faced tremendous job discrimination (and they still do, but it's not as bad). Women held lots of "masculine" jobs, for instance, in the WWII era. It is a common misconception that women in the 1950s stopped working outside the home; in fact, the percentage of women in jobs actually increased. What changed was the nature of those jobs. When men returned from war, women were demoted to the dead-end jobs that they held before the war. Another interesting thing about the 50s was the way that juevinile delinquency rates affected the perception of women working outside the home. People blamed the high rates of delinquency on working mothers; however, historians now place the blame on the great amount of domestic migration that occured in that time. That was on of the many times in which working mothers were linked as "bad" mothers. </p>
<p>Regarding the whole Summers controversy, I think people should def. read The Chronicle of Higher Education's coverage. There was a great article outlining recent studies on women in science. They essentially showed that little "genetic difference" exists, and that the small amount that does exist can be changed through different approaches in early-childhood education. (The one area of difference that was found was spatial reasoning at a young age; with just a small amount of additional instruction, the girls who struggled with it soon became fine.) It is vital to recognize the way prejudice shapes what we choose to learn. My mother was always told as a young girl that women were not suited to math and science, and as a result, she chose to focus on the humanities. Whether or not she would have chosen the humanities even without the discouragement of science is unclear, but she was def. told to stay away from science. In the Chronicle, a writer made the important point of saying that Summers, as a person, has the right to his opinions. As a college president, he has the RIGHT to voice them, but having the right to do something does not make it wise. As the president of Harvard, he is not just representing his own opinions when he speaks. He is representing the views of the university, and even American higher education as a whole. When he says that women may be innately disadvantaged, you cannot help but wonder if his beliefs are affecting his hiring practices. How can you expect someone to hire women fairly if that person believes that men are better in the sciences? Also, the number of female tenured/hired professors has gone down greatly since Summers took office, a fact that many people noted even before the controversy. </p>
<p>It is also important to recognize the "stereotype threat," a fascinating but little-known phenomenon. Studies have been conducted on the "threat." For example, when a group of black students were told that blacks do worse on a particular type of test, they actually performed worse than those who were not told. The same happened with women, people of different religious groups, and yes, white males. When people know that the odds are stacked against them, they feel more anxious, and this causes them to not perform as well. Summers has, simply by making such a public statement, created a stereotpye threat for many young girls interested in math and science, and for that, he should be ashamed. </p>
<p>Another interesting fact is that the percentage of women with Phds in math/science has increased dramatically over the past few decades (someone, please, find the exact statistics, as I don't remember them). If genetics were the reason for the inequity, then why would women continue to close the math-science gap? Also, in England, as of the past few years, girls actually have been outperforming boys on math/science achievement tests in high school.</p>
<p>i agree with almost everything you said but i think you draw early conclusions. </p>
<p>"When he says that women may be innately disadvantaged, you cannot help but wonder if his beliefs are affecting his hiring practices."
i do not believe that this proves that in his opinion women are dumber at math. To me what he said sounds like him exploring possible reasons for incongruity, since he did not emphasize any of the 3 or how many ever main possible reasons he had. If he's at a public dinner, and in a conversation he slips in that women may be innately dissadvantaged, thats a different deal. But at a conference WITH and ABOUT female scientists, exploring different possible opinions is not necessarily reflective of his beliefs and is in fact his job. If i am at a convention trying to address black underachievement in high schools. I can say that along with socioeconomic reasons one possible reason asians do better at math tests than blacks is genetic differences. This does not mean that i believe it to be true, but if the point is to figure out the cause and solution, then all possible explanations need be brought to the table. As far as women closing the gap, noone suggests that the disparity is purely genetic, i am SURE even Summers knows that despite any genetic differences the differences are hugely social and conditions are being equalized, which easily explains the new statistic of PhDs. At the same time, many tests including the SAT math are now geared towards females, as they have been for years trying to close the 20 or so point gap in math by trying to put in questions that women are more likely to get. I dont know if that is the case in Britain but you can not draw conclusions from British women doing better if women in most other countries do not.</p>
<p>It's interesting to note that Summers' statement (and others along this line) may be a self-fulfilling prophecy, since, as bjrwrh pointed out, telling a group of people that they are less likely to succeed often prevents them from succeeding. I would never oppose Summers' right to say whatever he wants--for all I care, he could call for a genocide or something. However, the prevalence of these kinds of attitudes may in fact perpetuate existing achievement gaps.</p>
<p>Additionally, my point that compared telling a woman to "go make me dinner" and telling a black person to "go pick some cotton" was intended to illustrate that the use of stereotypes, even in jest, can be incredibly offensive. Since someone raised an objection concerning slavery not comparing to traditional gender stereotypes, we can revise the analogy. Telling a woman to "go make me dinner" is just as offensive as telling a black person to "go sweep some floors" or telling a Hispanic person to "get me a #2 with fries."</p>
<p>i would again disagree with that last statement since those stereotypes are indeed offensive and refer to minorities having poorer and more degrading jobs. "Making dinner" along with other household chores is not degrading (at least to those women that know how to do it) and as someone else has pointed out, has been the essential role of females for thousands of years. In many families, making dinner is still the role of a woman, and many women, including my own mother admit that if a husband provides well (shes divorced and works 50 hours a week), they would gladly take care of the house. Working at McDonalds and sweeping floors is a consequence of socioeconomic factors and are a recent trend in our society as a result of immigration trends and severe discrimination. In addition, most women that actually KNOW how to cook well, enjoy doing it. The ones that take offense simply can't cook and are either really really rebellious or are subconciously ashamed of it, since the ability to cook is to many men very desirable. That said to me cooking is more important than say... breasts. </p>
<p>"The path to a man's heart lies through the stomach."</p>
<p>Not to mention the fact that child and adult obesity in this country isn't the fault of McDonalds, but of parents who take their kids to McDonalds. My mother knows how to cook, she enjoys doing it, as a result i dont have a 800 calorie Big Mac every day. </p>
<p>"Woman make me dinner" is brash; i only say it jokingly, if you get gravely offended by that, you have serious issues (and your food probably sucks anyway)</p>
<p>"'Making dinner' along with other household chores is not degrading (at least to those women that know how to do it) and as someone else has pointed out, has been the essential role of females for thousands of years."</p>
<p>Your argument is a textbook example of the naturalistic fallacy--it is, therefore it ought to be. I really don't care at all for tradition.</p>
<p>Regardless of whatever rationalization you can make for women staying home and cooking, the fact remains that the use of stereotypes is indeed offensive to many people (myself NOT included; my friends call me a "covetous Jew") because it makes light of thousands of years of oppression.</p>
<p>I can understand how you might say that jokingly, however. As I write this, I am reminded of a black friend who invented a dance called "the cotton picker.":-)</p>