Pitched battle on DX.org's forums

[liquiddark]

http://www.gamereaction.com/showthre...&threadid=6975

In light of the recent DN poll, just though you might be interested.

ld

[CIM]

Just a general remark:

Women equality has to long been a tool not of the liberals but of the moralists who want to achieve equality by opressing the opressor instead of freeing the opressed.

This has lead to absurd situations, openly admitting to sexual impulses is considered advanced and open minded for women (freeing themself from the dictate of society) but is considered offensive, uncivilized and retarded for men (obeying to their natural instincts).

"I saw Coyote Ugly yesterday, bad movie but hot actors. But I knew that beforehand."

Now does that sentence come from a male or a female and does it reflect differently on the person dpending on the gender of the person? To me it did. Was one of this enlightening moments which helped me overcome my education. A female friend of mine wrote that on a messageboard where (like everywhere) the majority is male so I saw the subject line before I saw who had posted this, and of course assumed male.

Women are equal to men, the difference is that women think men are stupid and men think women are intelligent when in fact there are just as many stupid women as men.

What I'm saying is that as women have absolute equal rights already the next step to the liberation of women in terms of society and social cliches cannot happen without the liberation of men in this regards.

[Brem_X_Jones]

Posted a reply on their forum - was less diplomatic than you, Liquiddark. Hopefully I'll offend them all enough to make them never want to download Cassandra when it happens.

(On the other hand, maybe the should. Will be a culture shock, to say the least)

Some favourite bits:

"i hate this women equality shit. Women are women and men are men. Women dont deserve more respect then men. I hate the whole thing. A girl walks through the mall half naked and gives you a bad look if you stare. like its my fault cause guys are pigs, right?"

"Women can't drive (due to their brain structure)
We can't remember birthdays (due to our inherent laziness)
These are plain facts."

"i think this feminem(sorry bout the spelling) thing has gone too far to, like there are now godesses, like isn't god supposed to be a man, also women now seem to have more rights than men do, and if they dress like sluts then y shouldn't men look at them like sluts."

Know your enemy.

KG

[Phobia]

Hmm... Liquid I think in that conversation your describing the lot of women to be quite a bit worse than it actually is. I broadly agree with you though. Of course there are examples of discrimination against males. To give 1 quite nasty 1, all men are now considered to be potential child molestors. This was shown by the policies of some airlines of re-seating men who were next to children on their own. Every man. This might also be part of the reason why there are so few men teaching in primary schools.

[liquiddark]

I'm not describing anything I don't see.

And yes, there are bits of society wherein where men are treated as scuzz. Sexual offenses are a big part of that, and your example horrifies me just as much as the presence of that thread in a forum I frequent and usually enjoy. What I objected to in the first place is the propagation of wrong-headedness about women.

I feel the need to rant but it's balanced by the need to go to work.

Thanks all.
ld

[CIM]

On the driving issue, in Germany there was a report recently that per kilometer they drive women have more accidents but they drive much less, which at the same time is of course the reason, they have less practice.

On the special treatment as in quotas and the like, I'm against that kind of action and it is actually illegal in Germany to a degree (Our constitution states that nobody may be favored due gender, religion, ...). There was a man who went to court because he didn't get a job because of a women quota even though he was better qualified, he won.

Equality in law is given, nothing more to fight for on that front, equality in thought and actuall society is not given but it will not come true unless men change and the only way to do that is to free them from the cliches they are bound in, too.

Of course the only possible reply to this thread was yours BXJ, I bow to your tongue (or rather fingers in this case I hope...).

[FiveEight]

Strictly speaking, Womens brains are usually considered to be worse at handling spatial data, thus meaning they would be worse drivers. Of course this is assuming that everyone is trained and experienced to F1 driver levels, and always drives sensibly, which is plainly not true.

I read a thing about accident statistics that suggests that women have more low speed parking type accidents (possibly caused by inferior spatial thinking) and men have more high speed ones (possibly caused by stupid agressive driving).

I think quotas, either maximum or minimum, in favour or against anyone are daft. What we need is a minium quota of people who are actually competant.

[Grey_Area]

What I find amazing is the lack of historical understanding. If someone's spent 2000 years being put down, saying 'oh, it's all equal now, you just trot up and become the head of a large corporation' shows a total lack of understanding.

I honestly thought that someone other than you two would have stepped in before then...

[SchizoSlayer]

Women and men are not the same. Women and men will never be the same. Women and men are not equal in society. This is because society is stupid.

To expand on that the biggest problem with society is the ring leaders. The people who have "A vision" usually have the totally wrong end of the stick of the concept they are fighting for. Expechillay when it comes to womens rights and things like that. I can also safely say that due to the majority of people in the world actually not being the middle class, inteligent beings everybody hopes they are, they are in fact the poorly educated muppets (and being a muppet is a genetic trait that I've noticed) who's views are tainted by the fact that they were brought up by parents who don't believe in equality. As such neither do their children, and if their children (god forbid) have children then the same will happen to them.

The only way to get full equality is to have a fairly extreme police state asa government where you need a licence to have children. You have to pass a test to be able to drive a car but they'll let anybody be a parent.

Schizo
Lifeguard of the Gene Pool

PS I know this post may sound right arrogant of me but then you can't comment on a topic like this without that problem.

[Phobia]

I will challenge you on muppetness being a genetic trait. It is much more down to the environment in which children are educated. Therefore you do not have to have a complete ban on reproduction, you simply have to make sure the children are brought up properly. It might be hereditary but I would imagine little of that is genetic, instead how children learn from parents.

[CIM]

For one, I don't believe in fighting discrimination with counter discrimination which is exactly what quotas are doing. The only true step forward is when we learn to evaluate a Human person as an individual and not as a member of a statistical group. (Not that statistical grouping isn't without benefits scientifically and can tell things about Human nature but it can never tell you anything about the individual person infront of you) This means conciously fighting the subtle programing of your subconciousness by society during education. This isn't a concious process in society nobody is actively programing you but as a small child you observe behavioral patterns and they stick deep within you. But that can be changed by conciously working against this socially implanted prejudices. This is possible.

For the genetic thing, that cannot be. I have lead long discussion with my mother about whether or not women should be allowed to do military service (they weren't in germany until a year or two ago). I argued the side that they should be allowed to my mother argued against it.
The point? Intelligence always wins over Society and Education.

Point Historical understaanding, you are correct, a couple of thousand years of discrimination are nto gonna go away by wishfull thinking, but look at it, any FACTUAL discrimination is outlawed what remains is the SOCIAL discrimination in terms of the social subconciousness mentioned above and in terms of effective education. And you are not gonna change that discrimination with any special legalisation you will only make it stronger.
Instead of telling Girls that they are just as good as boys you lower the entrance requirements and thus tell everybody "They are not as good as you but we should help them to overcome their natural disadvantage". This is sending the EXACTLY wrong signals.

[liquiddark]

Originally posted by CIM:
Instead of telling Girls that they are just as good as boys you lower the entrance requirements and thus tell everybody "They are not as good as you but we should help them to overcome their natural disadvantage". This is sending the EXACTLY wrong signals.

This is the only point I'll address here, since it seems to be a widespread misinterpretation of events. Anything else I discuss will be discussed on the other board.

The reason why these programs are put in place is to try to break the entrenched majority. Not to blindly give places to those with less talent or anything of the sort. You will find that the mechanism tends to be self-correcting. Take the aboriginal people of Canada: for hundreds of years they have been administered by a government which would like them to find their own place in society but has been quite lazy about doing it and hence tried primarily ill-concieved schemes of reparations payment. Now that progress is being made towards restoring them some measure of status within their own communities (ie their social environment), they are seizing the opportunities presented and enthusiastically attempting to reestablish their own sense of identity. How did they get where they are? Well, for several decades, the native peoples of the country have had a massively increased/biased access to things like educational funding and other financial aid as well as affirmative action-type initiatives. Now that the educated members of the society are returning home, the community as a whole has gained the tools to negotiate on the level of the people with whom they are dealing.

It's not a particularly surprising concept: really WORK at giving people increased access and their lot will be improved, eventually. That includes women, people of color, and every other historically marginalized group. As I mentioned in the other forum, the self-correction has already begun to make an impact in the case of women at large.

ld

[CIM]

I see where you are coming from however I find the aboriginies example not particularly applieable for women are not from a different society

The examples you bring can be dealt with totally without discrimination. Just say you establish additional fundings for regions with weak schools/education, offer courses and scholarships for people from difficult circumstances. And so on.

If you try to do this things with special legalisation you are always leaving people out. I agree that this can be acceptable if there are massive FACTUAL differences yet to bridge which can be coherently assosciated with this group, as is the case with your example, this is however not the case for women or minorities within the society, as our laws are already pretty good in this regard. (Not perfect but good, and getting better. Gay Marriage will be allowed in Germany from August)

However this is not applieable to women as women are already going to the same schools as men so all the differences in education they get are due to this social factors which legislation can't improve significantly and reverse discrimination reinforces. That's what's the whole The want to be better then we are paranoia on the other board is about. I fear in terms of women equality what is left is getting through to idiots like the ones on the other board, and do you seriously think any kind of special legislation is gonna help there?

[Grey_Area]

The problem being we have two options.

Either we leave the status quo with an entrenched male misogynistic majority at the top, and attempt to subtley influence the up and coming population, or we use quotas and force the male hierarchy to give way and yield some female role models to aspire to?

Quotas may cause trouble, but they force issues out into the open and cause change to occur now. Otherwise it could be 30 years before the people we educate now to assume those kind of positions, yet we can't be sure our education has had the desired effect.

Lastly I'm always amazed that people assume that 'the best person for the job' is the male one with traditional qualifications. In my job (IT Support) most men with the relevant qualifications are idiots, and the women without qualifications are the only ones whom actually grasp the mechanics of the job. Obviously this isn't scientific, but it seems that idiots occupy the top positions because they've had the advantage of prior training, whereas the intelligent women are held down artificially.

[CIM]

Grey Area. You go by the assumption that women are still conciously discriminated. I don't. Let's keep other minorities out of this because women are no minority, and thus there are some fundamental differences, for one women don't tend to group together in their own areas, there are no women areas/ghettos.

First: Formal education. IMO it is flat out wrong that women are still conciouslly discriminated here. Girls have an advanatage in their development, and thus are usually way ahead of boys in the middle grades and this shows later on, too. There are on avarage more girls getting Abitur in Germany and on avarage they get better marks, more girls start to studie, too. So formal education certainly is an extremely moot point.

Second: I don't believe any boss will conciously take a worse qualified man over the better qualified women when he has to decide whom to employ. This means that people who ar ein the position to make decisions usually dont CONCIOUSLY discriminate anymore today. And no I do not equate qualification with formal qualification and neither do the courts.

Third: The education/social programming I mentioned before, this does not happen conciously. Nobody goes out to program little kids subconciousness towards discrimination of women, we see the traditional gender cliches and we see people acting this way or that way and this programs us. So this is not a concious prcess at all, and I think it isn't a process that quotas can change either for it happens locally around you, I think the media plays a smaller part in this.

So the point in all this is that the discrimination that is happening is happening subconciously and rather subtly and a brute instrument as the quota wont repair that, the only way to wrok on that is self reflection and recognizing your own prejudices eradicating them and educating your children this way.
The media is already rather going in the right direction IMO for it likes to portray the break of the cliche and the "taboo" of the strong woman. This can backfire and isn't ideal as a direction either for it's still a cliche but once none of the cliches is vastly dominant throughout society (and this means both women and men for the cliches are programmed into both of them) they altogether become weaker because they lose much of their programing efficiency in younger years, because the behavior kids see is no longer coherent and no strong prejudices form. The problem now is that nothing is done to fight the gender roles and cliches that still exist for men which are of course closely linked to that of women and as long as that cliche is still strong and dominant it is unlikely that the gender role cliches will break.

[colcobb]

[quote]Originally posted by CIM:

Second: I don't believe any boss will conciously take a worse qualified man over the better qualified women when he has to decide whom to employ. This means that people who ar ein the position to make decisions usually dont CONCIOUSLY discriminate anymore today. And no I do not equate qualification with formal qualification and neither do the courts.[/qb]

That is a rather naive viewpoint, either you work in some utopian egalitarian company, or you dont have very much experience of the workplace. Conscious, deliberate, occasionally vindictive, and somtimes blatant sex discrimination does take place in the workplace, on a large scale. My wife works in engineering and witnesses it and suffers from it everyday, one of her friends who is an accountant was sacked the day she announced her pregnancy on some made up infringment, and was only reinstated and given maternity pay after recourse to the courts. The list is long and depressing and if you genuinely believe that it doesnt happen consciously then you are living in a dream world.

Third: The education/social programming I mentioned before, this does not happen conciously. Nobody goes out to program little kids subconciousness towards discrimination of women, we see the traditional gender cliches and we see people acting this way or that way and this programs us. So this is not a concious prcess at all,

Again, I disagree. Bigoted fathers routinely teach there children to disrespect and discriminate against women. You only have to watch a few social documentaries to see that happening.

[CIM]

I guess you are correct about the naive viewpoint. I have no experience in large workplaces. Still with the example you bring the friend of your wife won in court and this IMO shows that additional legislation is not neccesary, nor would quotas help there, would they? At the moment the situation is pretty much ideal in europe as a shortage of engineers and IP people doesn't allow any discrimination anywhere in this fields.

On education, education is still mainly done by mothers, and the subconciouss programming isn't a result of what you were told in your youth directly, I think that has a rather small impact and mroe often then not backfires, especially in the teen years.

The hope that quotas would produce additional positive rolemodells is IMO in vain. Intelligent women have always played reality to their needs as well or better then intelligent men have. Quotas will not provide any additional role modells.

[Grey_Area]

Originally posted by CIM:
[QB]I guess you are correct about the naive viewpoint. I have no experience in large workplaces. Still with the example you bring the friend of your wife won in court and this IMO shows that additional legislation is not neccesary, nor would quotas help there, would they?

Problem is it shouldn't be necessary to take them to court. It's harrowing enough being discriminated against, but having to relive the nightmare when going through the legal process is horrible - trust me, I nearly went through a legal work-related dispute and it was the nastiest experience of my life.

At the moment the situation is pretty much ideal in europe as a shortage of engineers and IP people doesn't allow any discrimination anywhere in this fields.

Wel, firstly that's fine for those in IT or engineering - not for others. And secondly it's not really true. A lot of IT is a 'boys club' - I have real trouble fitting in as I don't agree with it at all. At least I'm male, thus causing confusion in my misogynistic colleagues. I can't imagine what it's like for women, who don't fit in and have the disadvantage that they are also women.

The hope that quotas would produce additional positive rolemodells is IMO in vain. Intelligent women have always played reality to their needs as well or better then intelligent men have. Quotas will not provide any additional role modells

And I think it will. It means that the male dominated structure will have to hire women, which will then provide both role models, and dilute the 'male' structure, making it easier for other women to get jobs there.

You said earlier that I thought that discrimination was conscious, not sub conscious. I think it's both. And yes, under-qualified men will often be chosen over qualified women - but remember, I'm not necessarily talking about paper qualifications - more about competence.

For example, in my office there is one woman who is very good at her job. But because of the 'male' atmosphere, she keeps quiet as she feels intimidated. So she doesn't catch people's attention, and doesn't get as many courses as the rest. Ergo, she becomes 'less qualified' despite the fact she obviously is more competent and intelligent than her equivalents, and even her superiors. It's this 'unintended' discrimination that quotas can help.

[CIM]

Unintended is perhaps the best word yet, what you described in the last paragraph fell straight under what I meant with subconcious though it isn't really.

Assuming that capitalism works then the intelligent people come to the top positions and intelligent people don't discriminate conciously, that was more or less my reasoning.

You say going to court is painfull and I agree we must come to the point where it is not neccesary anymore. But I maintain that right now special legislation is not helpfull at all. I am in complete agreement, the way to equality (in the positive sense) does not now lie in the courts and in laws anymore, further progress can only come from the inside of society.

You say within companies quotas make sense, I can't argue there for lack of knowledge and experience. I think it might be changing slowly from the inside already, as the numbers of female students in the engineering field and everywhere is constantly rising (30% of 1term students of Math were female this year at my Uni).

Of course I maintain that on the social side the gender roles as they are now are totally screwed up due to the ill guided path some parts of feminism took over the course of the last century and that the only way to come to the goal of a liberated society is to finally start liberating men, too, and for women to take control of their own liberatiion from the hands of the moralists who have abused a just cause in the past.

[Grey_Area]

Assuming that capitalism works then the intelligent people come to the top positions and intelligent people don't discriminate conciously, that was more or less my reasoning.

Unfortunately that's a nice idea, but it rarely equates with reality. I'd say Capitalism, like natural selection, brings to the top those who are best at making money, or at least appearing to play by the rules. They are almost never competent and are often not even adequate at their job. And intelligent people do often consciously discriminate.

You say within companies quotas make sense, I can't argue there for lack of knowledge and experience. I think it might be changing slowly from the inside already, as the numbers of female students in the engineering field and everywhere is constantly rising (30% of 1term students of Math were female this year at my Uni).

This is quite illuminating. We have the most egalitarian and enlightened section of society that has been fighting for equality for 50 years 'coming' to equality slowly. What does that say for the rest of it? We have a very long way to go.

Of course I maintain that on the social side the gender roles as they are now are totally screwed up due to the ill guided path some parts of feminism took over the course of the last century and that the only way to come to the goal of a liberated society is to finally start liberating men, too, and for women to take control of their own liberatiion from the hands of the moralists who have abused a just cause in the past.

This sounds suspiciously like the 'feminists don't want equality they want dominance' reaction you sometime get. Care to elaborate further?

[CIM]

"We have a very long way to go."

We definately agree there we just differ on what way to take to the common goal.

"Care to elaborate"

Let me give you an example where this strategy becomes clearest of all: Porn. An Argument often heared is that it is degrading to women. How can anything a single individual woman does be degrading to womankind as a whole? Is it not much moreso that denying her the choice to do with her own body whatever she wants is degrading?

I don't think they want dominance, but they tie moral agendas with equality.

You have to see that I am struggling with my own education a lot here. One of the results of this upbringing (and certainly not one that resulted from anyone concioussly teaching me this) was that I considered men to be the bad and women to be the good ones. Male sexuality appeared to me inherently aggressive and offensive while female sexuality appeared to me inherently fragile delicate and vulnerable. I was more or less under the impression that women never want sex and sex is just something the man forces on the women. Then I got to know some women. That was a real eye opener. Women are only men after all! I believe in the individual, and I believe in equality, thus I have adopted a simple scheme to check whether my reactions to something are based on rational concerns or prejudices created by the aforementioned upbringing: Reverse genders. In a particular situation to check if it is true discrimination reverse the genders involved and check if you still feel the same about a situation.
An example, how do you intuitively feel about the following situations:

A woman is sitting at a bar, a man walks up to her and offers her money for sex.

A man is sitting at a bar, a woman walks up to him and offers him money for sex.
Perhaps you didn't get that "programing" I got and you react to them the very same, I sure didn't and I still have a different feeling towards both situations. However I have wittnessed this basic tendency with many intelligent people, for example there is a good friend of mine very intelligent, and eh had to go to a seminar where he was together with males only and when he came back he was full of scorn for them for all they talked about was sex and stuff and he was disgusted with their typical male behavior and so on, and he ended with that he much prefered the company of women for they would be much better in this regard.

There are many things involved here. I think we tend to assume that that which we don't understand is superior.
A common mistake I encountered was the assumption that every woman is intelligent. I guess this remains from puberty where girls develop earlier and thus really are more intelligent for a period of time. Intelligent people understand other people. I think, too that it is a misconception that men understand women less then women understand men.

Of course stupid men are more easily used by intelligent women to their own ends then the other way round. They show some cleavage and legs and get their way. I always am at a loss what exactly to think when my female friends discuss this topic how to best exploit men.

There is more going on in this direction in my head but I stop now, I hope you see where I am coming from

[ July 31, 2001: Message edited by: CIM ]

[CIM]

On another note I think you missed what I meant with the University thing. I think in this circles there is no discrimination for quite some time but for women to study mathematics they need to have the interesst in the subject and that is an effect which does not come out of the academic circles but out of society. No matter how fair the treatment at the Universities and how equality minded the male students and teachers are, if in society the gender roles are still working then women musn't be interessted in this kind of stuff. The fact that they are points in the direction that the gender roles are allready much weakened on the leve of society. I think the laws that ensured equal treatment are to a large part responsible for that.