I didn't agree (in the most friendly way) with your post. It's scary when Robert can understand. I'll save that response for him in future...

I agree that certain events can become scary ... but ...
I thought I was being ULTRA progressive (as RB puts it) ... with my post !
Surely it would be far better for a woman to squeeze the pimples on another woman's upper limbs?
Surely it would be better for a man to be a .... ummmmm well, I don't know, let's say ... a coal miner ...
or a night-bucket remover?

No! Hev ... I thought I was opening the door for uniformity and equality between the sexes.
But you cannot deny that the woman will always have the last say ...
And IF the answer is NO! ... then it is off and away with no biccies for Percy ...
Or has all that changed whilst my attention was fixed elsewhere?

;-))

As a humanist myself I would tend to agree. I would think that you would be well aware of the power relationships within our societies and this is the area where discrimination can be tackled. Statistical monitoring is a way of making sure that imbalances can be addressed. In a perfect world, gender shouldn't be an issue, neither should race and class etc. But for me the struggle is to try and make the world a fairer place. That does depend on whether one believes in a progressive development of society or not.

There are several problems with what you've said here:

1) You haven't determined how one would tell in any individual case when "discrimination" takes place. Which was my point in posting the article. One can say that women are making better choices and thus they are excelling in the statistics, or one can say that men are being victimized and discriminated against--the statistics prove it. To use the argument that has been used here (everywhere) personal choice and reality have nothing to do with it, those men are clearly being discriminated against. The numbers prove it.

2) "Power relationships" have always existed and always will on all levels and in every aspect of human interaction. They cannot be eliminated without eliminating the human psyche.

3) Your struggle to try to make "the world a fairer place," is why Robert has called your position immoral. You see, first you define "fair" by looking at aggregate statistics, which, as evidenced by the article, is not an accurate way of doing so. Second, your idea of "progressive development of society" involves the initiation of gov't force. In this example, to treat both men and woman "equally," the gov't will have to stick a gun into college adminstrator's faces and force them not to choose how they think is best, but by irrevelant social factors that produce aggregate statistical results that you agree with.

That is just the initiation of force because you agree with it, which, of course is the same principle that Dubya has used in Iraq. This is why Robert calls it immoral: when the basis for society is nothing more than a struggle to see who can get more guns pointed into more faces, we end up with war.

---

Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

I didn't agree (in the most friendly way) with your post. It's scary when Robert can understand. I'll save that response for him in future...

I agree that certain events can become scary ... but ...
I thought I was being ULTRA progressive (as RB puts it) ... with my post !
Surely it would be far better for a woman to squeeze the pimples on another woman's upper limbs?
Surely it would be better for a man to be a .... ummmmm well, I don't know, let's say ... a coal miner ...
or a night-bucket remover?

No! Hev ... I thought I was opening the door for uniformity and equality between the sexes.
But you cannot deny that the woman will always have the last say ...
And IF the answer is NO! ... then it is off and away with no biccies for Percy ...
Or has all that changed whilst my attention was fixed elsewhere?

;-))

Umm....ok..although I think I'm lost now:)

---

I didn't agree (in the most friendly way) with your post. It's scary when Robert can understand. I'll save that response for him in future...

I agree that certain events can become scary ... but ...
I thought I was being ULTRA progressive (as RB puts it) ... with my post !
Surely it would be far better for a woman to squeeze the pimples on another woman's upper limbs?
Surely it would be better for a man to be a .... ummmmm well, I don't know, let's say ... a coal miner ...
or a night-bucket remover?
No! Hev ... I thought I was opening the door for uniformity and equality between the sexes.
But you cannot deny that the woman will always have the last say ...
And IF the answer is NO! ... then it is off and away with no biccies for Percy ...
Or has all that changed whilst my attention was fixed elsewhere?
;-))

Umm....ok..although I think I'm lost now:)

:-)) ... me too ... but that's not a problem!!!
I am so glad you took that in good part!
In that we have met, I think you will accept that I believe women are by far and away the more balanced
of the sexes ... and that I am very happy to have matters remain that way!

I think that Rush is really a feminist at heart. His point was to share the information about how well women were doing these days.

Well done Rush...

If anything I am a humanist (unless there is some definition of that term that I am unaware of). It doesn't matter what gender you are: if it's OK to file suit against some company for their gender ratio, it's OK to do the same to the child care professions and women's magazine.

Because, you know, statistical disparity is, as you two seem to think, prima facie evidence of discrimination. Since that's true, I think we need to sue these skools because they are clearly discriminating against men: the numbers aren't equal.

Think that makes sense? If not, why not?

I agree with you that there is an imbalance in the child care professions that needs to be addressed. Men can get just as much out of caring for children as women, and can also be valuable role models. I think it is sad that there are so few male primary school (age 5 to 11) teachers. I want my sons to have everyday role models who can set a positive examples to them. This is sadly lacking in their lives at the moment. I would certainly recommend positive discrimination towards men in this area. This would help those children who are being raised with out fathers or whose fathers really do not set the best example to their children.

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Reality Internet Personality

I believe you're still missing his point.

---

Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

I believe you're still missing his point.

Not at all. There are many reasons why an imbalance occurs. Some are obvious discrimination, some are intuitional or socially taught discrimination (you just have to visit any branch of Toys R Us to realise that expectations for boys and girls are programmed from a very young age).

The idea is to try and find out what is the cause and then deal with it. Either through teaching new ways of thinking, altering the structure of organisations or as a last case resort, suing (not very popular over here, we don't go in for that sort of thing).

Rush has pointed out a situation where women are now out performing men. It now has to be decided what is causing this and there are several possibilities:

1) They are stupider than women (This was what was assumed about women in the past and used to explain their lack of success, we now know that there is in fact very little difference intellectually between the 2 sexes. Any biological differences are very slight and are usually exaggerated by social conditioning.)
2) They are being discriminated against. (This is a possibility, but is very unlikely seeing as it is still only recently that the discrimination went in their favour.)
3) There are other factors affecting their lack of performance (ie, staying up all night playing 'HALO'..however this might be a reflection of an overall apathy and disenfranchisement that men may feel with the rapidly changing modern world. Or it could be a lack of maturity, but more likely it is a show of complacency and they have not yet caught onto the fact that there is more competition about and the fact that women are aware that they have a much smaller window of opportunity in which to establish a career)

Rush thinks that this is fine and the men should be allowed to drift and become a sub layer of society. I do not think this is ok, however, at the moment I do not yet think it is something to worry about. It is too early to tell.

I would rather see men and women taking equal part in society as befits their individual talents, which really have very little to do with gender. If a woman wishes to stay at home and raise children then she should have that choice (choice being the operative word here). If a man wishes to do the same then he should be able to without there being any stigma or shame attached to his choice.

The problem is we have to decide whether a choice is really a free choice, or it is a choice that reflects the social pressure and the hidden prejudices that we are often unaware of. Unfortunately society still has a larger influence than a child’s upbringing (again, see Toys R US - and I am so glad that I have sons and never have to venture into that dreaded pink section.)

Another child’s mocking laughter can be more a powerful deterrent than a parents reassurance that of course boys can play with toy ironing boards if they want to..and no, wearing a pink item of clothing does not turn you into a girl..and so I watched my children put aside toys they loved because of peer pressure and their natural desire to belong and fit in.

This covert pressure lasts beyond our childhood and ensures that men rarely train to be child minders (after all, what mother would put her baby in the care of a MAN. If he wants to look after babies he must be weird! <mock horror)...and that women aren't as good at maths as men (This is a statistical chimera that has been exaggerated way beyond the reality of the situation).

So Rush is wrong because he assumes that there is free choice involved. There isn't, and until there is we need to use artificial means to ensure equality and create a level playing field.

Sorry about the length of this essay...I'll stop now as there is too much to say in just one post and I doubt anyone will read it anyway.

---

Reality Internet Personality

I read it.

The idea is to try and find out what is the cause and then deal with it.

The root cause is the breakdown of the 'family unit'... Until that is restored, things will never improve to any degree other than 'wishful thinking'...

Flame away... Argue away... But we ALL know that this is true... All one has to do is reflect back on the time when these problem first started some 50 years ago to see it... Some just don't want to see it... ;)

---

It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

I believe you're still missing his point.

Not at all. There are many reasons why an imbalance occurs. Some are obvious discrimination, some are intuitional or socially taught discrimination (you just have to visit any branch of Toys R Us to realise that expectations for boys and girls are programmed from a very young age).

The idea is to try and find out what is the cause and then deal with it. Either through teaching new ways of thinking, altering the structure of organisations or as a last case resort, suing (not very popular over here, we don't go in for that sort of thing).

Rush has pointed out a situation where women are now out performing men. It now has to be decided what is causing this and there are several possibilities:

1) They are stupider than women (This was what was assumed about women in the past and used to explain their lack of success, we now know that there is in fact very little difference intellectually between the 2 sexes. Any biological differences are very slight and are usually exaggerated by social conditioning.)
2) They are being discriminated against. (This is a possibility, but is very unlikely seeing as it is still only recently that the discrimination went in their favour.)
3) There are other factors affecting their lack of performance (ie, staying up all night playing 'HALO'..however this might be a reflection of an overall apathy and disenfranchisement that men may feel with the rapidly changing modern world. Or it could be a lack of maturity, but more likely it is a show of complacency and they have not yet caught onto the fact that there is more competition about and the fact that women are aware that they have a much smaller window of opportunity in which to establish a career)

Rush thinks that this is fine and the men should be allowed to drift and become a sub layer of society. I do not think this is ok, however, at the moment I do not yet think it is something to worry about. It is too early to tell.

I would rather see men and women taking equal part in society as befits their individual talents, which really have very little to do with gender. If a woman wishes to stay at home and raise children then she should have that choice (choice being the operative word here). If a man wishes to do the same then he should be able to without there being any stigma or shame attached to his choice.

The problem is we have to decide whether a choice is really a free choice, or it is a choice that reflects the social pressure and the hidden prejudices that we are often unaware of. Unfortunately society still has a larger influence than a child’s upbringing (again, see Toys R US - and I am so glad that I have sons and never have to venture into that dreaded pink section.)

Another child’s mocking laughter can be more a powerful deterrent than a parents reassurance that of course boys can play with toy ironing boards if they want to..and no, wearing a pink item of clothing does not turn you into a girl..and so I watched my children put aside toys they loved because of peer pressure and their natural desire to belong and fit in.

This covert pressure lasts beyond our childhood and ensures that men rarely train to be child minders (after all, what mother would put her baby in the care of a MAN. If he wants to look after babies he must be weird! <mock horror)...and that women aren't as good at maths as men (This is a statistical chimera that has been exaggerated way beyond the reality of the situation).

So Rush is wrong because he assumes that there is free choice involved. There isn't, and until there is we need to use artificial means to ensure equality and create a level playing field.

Sorry about the length of this essay...I'll stop now as there is too much to say in just one post and I doubt anyone will read it anyway.

Rush's point was much simpler than your essay makes it out to be.

The Affirmative Action crowd, if it had a fit of conscience and targetted all industries equally, would have rendered a judgement of "obvious, pervasive and pernicious bias" in the child-care industry because 94% of the practitioners are of the same gender.

No social handwringing over why... just establish a quota, extort money from the industry (either directly via lawsuits or indirectly through mandated diversity training from politically-connected training vendors), and ruthlessly deny that any member of the majority gender could ever under any circumstance be the victim of "reverse discrimination."

One state office (I think it was Minnesota but I'm not sure) found that its workforce was 4.0% Asian males but the local population was 4.1% Asian males. Crisis! An expensive, taxpayer-funded outreach program was rushed into service at the "suggestion" of the national EEOC until the disapity was repaired.

---

No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

The idea is to try and find out what is the cause and then deal with it.

The root cause is the breakdown of the 'family unit'... Until that is restored, things will never improve to any degree other than 'wishful thinking'...

Flame away... Argue away... But we ALL know that this is true... All one has to do is reflect back on the time when these problem first started some 50 years ago to see it... Some just don't want to see it... ;)

And why do you think the family unit broke down Jeffrey? What happened in the fifties?

---

Rush's point was much simpler than your essay makes it out to be.

True, but the issue is more complex that Rush makes it out to be.

The Affirmative Action crowd, if it had a fit of conscience and targetted all industries equally, would have rendered a judgement of "obvious, pervasive and pernicious bias" in the child-care industry because 94% of the practitioners are of the same gender.

I agree, and if more men were actually trying to get into the profession and finding themselves barred from it you can bet there would have been an unholy stink about it and something would have been done quick time. However, seeing as it is a low status, poorly paid woman's profession they don't seem to have bothered much.

No social handwringing over why... just establish a quota, extort money from the industry (either directly via lawsuits or indirectly through mandated diversity training from politically-connected training vendors), and ruthlessly deny that any member of the majority gender could ever under any circumstance be the victim of "reverse discrimination."

Shocking, and the women only spent about 100 years hand wringing over why before they decided to start filing lawsuits. Although they did find chaining themselves to railings and chucking themselves under horses quite successful too.

I bet if Child minders were paid $100,000 per annum you might see things a little differently if you were barred from that job by your gender.

One state office (I think it was Minnesota but I'm not sure) found that its workforce was 4.0% Asian males but the local population was 4.1% Asian males. Crisis! An expensive, taxpayer-funded outreach program was rushed into service at the "suggestion" of the national EEOC until the disapity was repaired.

Dunno, sounds silly and like one of those urban legends. Show me more info please.

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Reality Internet Personality

One state office (I think it was Minnesota but I'm not sure) found that its workforce was 4.0% Asian males but the local population was 4.1% Asian males. Crisis! An expensive, taxpayer-funded outreach program was rushed into service at the "suggestion" of the national EEOC until the disapity was repaired.

Dunno, sounds silly and like one of those urban legends. Show me more info please.

You couldn't find it because I mangled the facts. Sorry. It's late in the workday here...

It was a federal agency, HUD, and the percentages were 3.4% and 3.5%.

Worth v. Martinez

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

One state office (I think it was Minnesota but I'm not sure) found that its workforce was 4.0% Asian males but the local population was 4.1% Asian males. Crisis! An expensive, taxpayer-funded outreach program was rushed into service at the "suggestion" of the national EEOC until the disapity was repaired.

Dunno, sounds silly and like one of those urban legends. Show me more info please.

You couldn't find it because I mangled the facts. Sorry. It's late in the workday here...

It was a federal agency, HUD, and the percentages were 3.4% and 3.5%.

Worth v. Martinez

Well it looks like a sad abuse of the system. You get corrupt idiots on the left as well you know. ;-)

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Reality Internet Personality

The problem is we have to decide whether a choice is really a free choice, or it is a choice that reflects the social pressure and the hidden prejudices that we are often unaware of. Unfortunately society still has a larger influence than a child’s upbringing (again, see Toys R US - and I am so glad that I have sons and never have to venture into that dreaded pink section.)

Who is "we?" WE don't need to decide anything. Individuals will choose for themselves. There will ALWAYS be, among others, social, societal, and economic pressures involved--some will bow, some will ignore, some will rise above, some simply won't care. Their lives, their choice.

So Rush is wrong because he assumes that there is free choice involved. There isn't, and until there is we need to use artificial means to ensure equality and create a level playing field.

And here is where the dilemma comes in.

A) There is free choice, within the confines of reality. Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman are ample evidence of that.

B) You still haven't demonstrated how one would tell in an individual case whether there was so-called discrimination or not. As shown, the aggregate statistics are insufficient.

C) More importantly, you advocate the use of force. "We" (who ever that is) do not need to use "artificial means to ensure equality and create a level playing field." What you actually mean is sticking a gov't gun in people's faces to make them do what you think is right. This is exactly what has caused the dilemmas you see now. Dubya uses force in Iraq because he agrees with it. The Hutus butchered the Tutsis because they agreed with it. You use force because you agree with it, because what individuals decide for themselves is not good enough for you.

This is wrong and as a basis for society, fails miserably.

---

Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

And why do you think the family unit broke down Jeffrey? What happened in the fifties?

I'll be the first to admit it... Men were 'jerks'... Women rebelled...

Now men are just 'lost puppies'... 'Insecurity' does that to a man... ;)

---

It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

True, but the issue is more complex that Rush makes it out to be.

No, it isn't. The principle is the same: you want to use gov't force against others to make them conform to your random approximation and ill-defined idea of what's "fair" and "equal."

I said that aggregate statistics are ineffective at deciding what's "equal" and demonstrated why. Since those statistics fail at detemining what's equal, the only way you can make others do as you wish is to use gov't force. There's nothing complex about it. People won't do as you wish, so you have to force them. That's what Dubya's doing in Iraq.

I agree, and if more men were actually trying to get into the profession and finding themselves barred from it you can bet there would have been an unholy stink about it and something would have been done quick time. However, seeing as it is a low status, poorly paid woman's profession they don't seem to have bothered much.

Maybe, but that's just speculation on your part. You are willing to use failed aggregates to cry "discrimination" and Octo had it right when he said "No social handwringing over why... just establish a quota, extort money from the industry (either directly via lawsuits or indirectly through mandated diversity training from politically-connected training vendors), and ruthlessly deny that any member of the majority gender could ever under any circumstance be the victim of 'reverse discrimination.'"

I bet if Child minders were paid $100,000 per annum you might see things a little differently if you were barred from that job by your gender.

But you haven't made the case that women are barred by their gender, any more than I have made the case that the men in the story are barred by their gender. You just assume that it must be that way. The aggregate stats don't make your case, anymore than they made mine because it is a flawed way to come to a conclusion.

---

Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

And why do you think the family unit broke down Jeffrey? What happened in the fifties?

I'll be the first to admit it... Men were 'jerks'... Women rebelled...

Now men are just 'lost puppies'... 'Insecurity' does that to a man... ;)

Don't hesitate to overcomplicate things, Jeffrey!

I think I could successfully argue that 'in the fifties' men probably had better manners towards women than they do today. Feminism had a role in undermining certain social norms to the detriment of civility between the sexes. But you can't have your cake and eat it too. It's an unintended consequence of feminist idealogy. Women want to step up to the plate and be on equal footing with men? Fine, but you can't cry foul when your feelings get hurt and things don't go your way because you're playing with the 'big boys' now and that's what they asked for.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Crap, forgot something. Suffice it:

I would rather see men and women taking equal part in society as befits their individual talents, which really have very little to do with gender....

Exactly, hence gender shouldn't even be tracked.

If a woman wishes to stay at home and raise children then she should have that choice (choice being the operative word here). If a man wishes to do the same then he should be able to without there being any stigma or shame attached to his choice.

Women do have that choice, just as men do. However, these choices (like all choices) are simple cost/benefit analyses. Regardless of the gender, the person that takes, say, 10 years off, to raise kids has likely sacrificed their career. Not because of their gender, but because they have given up 10 years of experience to do so. Just as the parent freely chooses to raise that child, the employer freely chooses to hire someone else--who hasn't been out of the workforce and who has 10 years more experience. That's just rational.

---

Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

That's just rational.

Rational? Do you have a permit to use that here?

I thought they stopped issuing those papers....