Asymmetrical Information

That's not a blog post. That's a term paper.

I think my eyeballs are bleeding.

Having gotten the snarkiness out of my system (for now), do you plan to comment on Todd's post only or will you address the heat he took in his comments as well?

I've never been to NYC. Is it as bad as those feminist commenters act like?

Wow! They are some seriously angry people.

I think the funniest comment was Allie's(?) where she defines a set of beliefs for feminism and doesn't realize that she is implicitly demonstrating Todd's thesis for him ie the a priori assumptions, etc. I thought it odd that only thing other commenters grabbed on from that post was the obvious flaw in her rape arguments...

I got as far as his response to the attempt at a short, sharp definition of feminism.

If someone can willfully twist "Women are people, too" into yes, women "have lungs and circulatory systems," then there's not much point in reading anything else he writes.

Cheers,

I know its off topic, but I wonder if anyone's had any thoughts about whether we've now gone through an interesting political realignment in the world ?

- it used to be Republicans (small government, pro business, anti labor) versus Democrats (large government, pro labor, less pro business).
- now it seems to be both parties are in favor of big government (slightly different sectors), and are surrounded by corporate donors and rent seekers.
- the real difference now is between the insider class, which hovers around most main parties and scoops up the lucrative government contracts and positions, and the rest of us, who pay for it all.

What do people think?

In fact I'd go further and say that most of the most succesful corporations and wealthy businessmen, have some non market monopoly or government presence - Microsoft, investment bankers, drug companies, defence companies, they rely on government decisions and monopolies

Whereas your average street vendor in Vietnam is an arch capitalist by nature. But who's wealthier?

The people who can manipulate the state and monopolies are the real winners in this world.

So Dave, if you know it's off-topic, why bug us about it?

Thoughts on Seavey: When your Point 2 is that feminism is not clearly defined, that pretty much makes a hash of the rest of your complaints. "Another thing about this ill-defined thing that's effed up . . . !" just doesn't compel. Since by his own assertion the topic is undefined, he ought to be much more specific about whose version of feminism he's criticising in his first complaint, for instance.

Am I crazy to conclude that Seavey's rant, and the critics' responses in his comments section, are all deeply flawed? Maybe it's just me, but I can't remember the topic of "feminism" being addressed in a cogent manner very frequently, no matter what the commenter's views.

In the mid-90s, my daughter got the full nutjob indoctrination in feminism at Antioch College.

She called me on the phone to announce that women are "oppressed" and insisted that I agree with her.

"Give me an example of how they are oppressed," I asked her.

"Well, women didn't get the right to vote until 1920," she answered.

"My great-grandparents came to the U.S. in the 1880s," I answered. "Before that they had been serfs in Germany and Wales. Neither the women or the men had the right to vote before they came to America. So, in about half of one human lifetime, women gained the same rights as men in my family. I think it shows just how fair minded men are that change came so quickly."

I've solved the problem of dealing with crazy, chip on the shoulder feminist women by refusing to associate with them outside the workplace. My late wife was as anti-feminist as you can get. She also had a great job and she was my partner in the music business. My girlfriend also doesn't care a whit about feminism and she has a great job. She sings with me, too. In the workplace, I've solved the dilemma of putting up with feminist twits by going into a technical field. There are virtually no die hard feminists in technical fields. They were too busy taking the basket weaving and grievance courses in college.

If you want to tell me about your feminist complaint... well, take a hike.

Sounds like Dave Sim.

Interesting.

What high school is he currently attending?

A few potentially interesting observations buried in a mountain of illogic. Empty gems like "[b]eing a lefist means, above all else, never admitting you made a mistake" are the sort of meat one tosses out to distract the attack dogs from the real vulnerabilities, which are legion.

I also laughed out loud at Kate's comment: "I want to leave you an intelligent reply. I want to respond point-by-point. But first, I really have to get over the feeling that you need a sound fucking beating." Not very constructive, but a gut-truth nonetheless.

One may certainly take issue with Todd Seavey on one or several issues.

But he is not the type to produce a "rant," a verbal, digital, or print one.

On the whole, I have to say it's one of the best rants against 'Feminism' that I've read in a long time, and does a good job of skewering their most irritating sacred cows.

The problem is he needlessly exaggerates his position, and originally defensible arguments become untenable. For example, although I think he very correctly traces most male/female differences to the inherent inequality of reproduction, he neglects to mention that women also have a strong interest in finding spousal support for their child, which offsets the harem impulse. As borne out in real life, only men who demonstrate the ability to effortlessly support litters of offspring will attract harems. It's not clear if women prefer the partial attention of an alpha male over the exclusive devotion of a lesser male. Since many of his objections flow from this "harem" argument, those arguments are weakened.

His objections based on the post-modern nature of feminism are spot-on, in my opinion.

But he is not the type to produce a "rant," a verbal, digital, or print one.

Unfortunately, he did this time.

Altoids' comment captures it best: He started out well in most cases, but needlessly exagerates his points to the weakening of the entire essay.

Point (4), in particular, was a train wreck. If he had omitted it entirely, and the focused its better claims into some of the surrounding similar points, rather than careening out of control in that section and then referencing back to it generally several subequent times, the whole thing would have improved by at least a letter grade.

Sounds like something I would say. T'was not me but some other "Kate".

I couldn't read most of it. The problem, it seems, is that you have to except the premise on which he is basing his arguments. Many time I don't. I do agree with him that we have to define feminism. He seems to be defining it as radical 1970s style.

Now, I'm no fan of 1970s style radical feminists but I do consider myself a feminist in the equal-pay for equal work, consider me for a job based on my abilities and not assumptions about my sex, don't not give me a job because I *might* get pregnant mold. I do believe that men and women are inherently different based on brain chemistry and I just...I can't even begin.

Then I went off to his 10 rules for dating him and, wow. Man, between the anti-feminist screed and the dislike of anyone who disagrees with him or who has emotions of any kind that guy's not exactly a lover of women.

Seriously, two kinds of straight men in the world.

Type 1) Those who like women and find them interesting and want to spend time with them and get their take on the world. And sex is great too. (I am not saying that men who like women aren't into objectifying, I'm simply saying that these are guys who actively like socializing with women).

Type 2) Those who like sex with women and resent the hell out of the fact that they have to spend time talking to women to get themselves laid.

Bet ya dollars to donuts that he's a Type 2 kind of guy.

I thought it was a pretty good piece. I’m not sure if it qualifies as a “rant” or an “essay” – probably something in between. I thought that the author made some very excellent points particularly #3, 5, and 6 in how gender feminists have shot themselves in the foot by trying to weaken or destroy rather than reform the very institutions which benefit both men and women. #7 is particularly cogent in light of the way popular culture has defined deviancy down to the point where the “empowerment” of women has shifted its focus from accepting that women are just as good as men in general, to making it “hip” for women to act as bad as men.

The Kate in question was the second commenter on the linked blog post.

"I do agree with him that we have to define feminism."

I think this is where Todd starts to go wrong. "Feminism" is like "libertarianism" or "Islam" or "democracies": an umbrella term. It's a not a body of thought that starts from a set of axioms, it's a collection of ideologically proximate groups/efforts/aims. There are functional commonalities, but any attempt to craft a strict definition for group membership will exclude some obvious cases, include some dubious ones, and obliterate more than it illuminates.

For Todd to ask for a clear definition is for him to ask for someone else to provide his straw men.

I know which one you were talking about Justin. Thanks.

Exactly. I certainly think that his little screed would have gone over better if it had been: "Here are my issues with modern feminist theary as based on the books by..." or "Here are my issues with Amanda Marcotte's brand of feminist theory..." But, yeah, saying "feminists" is like saying "liberals" or "democrats" or "republicans".

A better example would be if I wrote a screed on Libertarians and included the points that they're just cheap-ass punks who want access to marijuana and guns. I mean that does describe *some* libertarians, but not many of them. There seems to be a lack of understanding od what he's arguing against. Is he arguing against the concept that women are social and intellectual equals to men or is he simply arguing against the arguements made to support the opinion?

What is he attempting to communicate, because whatever it is, he seems to be failing at it.

I have distain for feminists, so I enjoyed much of the rant, though it was mostly a rant designed to raise the hackles of those it ridicules.

I especially liked the fact that the commenter Allie made a spectacular ass out of herself by doing exactly what Todd had accused feminists of doing.

I think the problem with women in general and feminists in particular is the elevation of feelings to something unassailable. God forbid anyone state a plain fact, like that men are in many ways superior to women, because it will hurt the feelings of women.

I spent most of my childhood and adolescence wishing that I was a male because I could see how much better boys were at pretty much any physical task. Why was I cursed with a smaller frame, weaker muscles, and lower endurance? Why did the boys have such an easier time with spacial reasoning than I did?

Of course now that I'm a grown married woman I still see those disparities, but I'm happy with being a woman because I can carry and nurture LIFE inside of me. Plus I'm pretty damn good at womanly things like language, social networking, and empathizing. Most women implicitly understand this tradeoff, but deny it outwardly, as if admitting it would undermine the value of women everywhere.

Feminists have lost the debate because they have framed the it in terms of what men can get away with that women can't. By valuing male strengths more than female ones, they have devalued womanhood.

Christina, for a women who considers herself good at "empathizing" you don't seem to empathize with why someone would have an emotional response to may of the arguments made against feminism.

Now I agree with you that often "feminists" put a value on male strengths but isn't it likely that it's because *society* has put a value on those strengths?

As for your anecdote about being physically weaker, I can see how that would be frustrating for you and I agree there is a difference between men and women physically:

http://home.hia.no/~stephens/gender.htm

But it seems to me that you take the anecdote and extrapolate fact from that. So let me give you an anecdote in return. I am freakishly strong for a woman. I have a tremendous amount of upper body strength. I was the only woman on my college's intramural weightlifting team and got second place in one competition doing the clean and jerk in my weight class (most times I placed somewhere in the middle of the pack). I was the only woman. Now, it's pretty obvious that this is unusual, but I was able to do it. Should I have been prevented because I was a woman and most can not? Should I have been discouraged? Should I have been forbidden from joining that team?

So, let's go back to this woman who gets all emotional and icky when you tell her, "You know men are naturally stronger than woman. They have so much upper body strength." Then there is this woman, me, saying, "Hey, wait a second, I came in second in 129lb class for the clean and jerk. I lifted over 300 lbs. What do you mean I can't do something?"

I get why the reaction is emotional. I agree that *generally* men can do a lot of things better than woman, and *generally* women can do a lot of things better than men but by saying "Men are better at math." "Women are better at art" do we dissuade the boy who is the next Picasso or the girl who is the next Einstein? And if you feel like you were put down all your life by people who told you you *couldn't* do things by nature of your genetics, and that you shouldn't even try, well no wonder these women get offended and emotional.

Kate, you do point out it is wrong to judge an individual based on the average of a shared group, but that is not what we are talking about here.

No matter how much you can bench press, the fact is that men, on average, bench press significantly more than women. So if there is a job that requires that degree of strength, say one that employs 100,000 people nationwide, your strength notwithstanding, 99% of those jobs are going to be held by men. Is that an example of the patriarchy that must be eliminated by feminism? Or is that just an example of how men and women are different, and so in certain areas, for one reason or another related to that, you will see more men than women, or vice versa?

The point is that an inequality in demographics in a given area does not necessarily result from sexism or sexual discrimination, it may simply reflect the differences between men and women that, absent severe genetic engineering, will never go away.

The problem, disgusted, is that where demographics might self-select for a gender imbalance, the naturalistic fallacy causes people to make rules that enforce that imbalance. Thus, a person like Kate is denied the opportunity to swim against the demographic stream for no better reason than the received wisdom of the crowd, arbitrary policy decisions, and plain unconscious bigotry.

And when feminists try to kick down those irrational supports for enforcing the demographic status quo, the result is heat and light from people like Christine who disdain feminism, or people like Todd who proudly declare themselves anti-feminist. It's funny, in its own sad way, that a libertarian should stand up for preventing individuals from escaping the statistical norms.

That may be so, but if you fail to recognize that there will always be a gender imbalance, even in a world of gender-equality-nirvana, then you'll essentially be setting impossible goals and you'll also blame gender discrimination on those imbalances where none exists.

But, yeah, saying "feminists" is like saying "liberals" or "democrats" or "republicans".

He does that plenty, too, which helps explain the broad swath of criticism that he is receiving in return.

I get why the reaction is emotional. I agree that *generally* men can do a lot of things better than woman, and *generally* women can do a lot of things better than men but by saying "Men are better at math." "Women are better at art" do we dissuade the boy who is the next Picasso or the girl who is the next Einstein?

This is the part where I say you should have read the essay ;-) He does concede, early on, that generalized distinctions between the sexes should not translate into specific discriminations against the capable individual.

His general point seems to be what Disgusted is saying above:

inequality in demographics in a given area does not necessarily result from sexism or sexual discrimination, it may simply reflect the differences between men and women that, absent severe genetic engineering, will never go away.

(At least, I assume so. I only read the essay once and have no desire to read it again for careful content review.) And there is a very real risk that when emotional reactions to a hard fact begin to generate generalized corrective policy prescriptions, somebody is going to royally screw up the system with good intentions.

Okay, so let me get this straight. If I look at everything on a gender neutral basis and allow the "wheat to naturally fall from the chaif" regardless of sex then I'm setting up impossible goals?

Sorry, that's just about the dumbest argument I ever heard.

You know, I've never seen feminists have a problem accepting natural demographic gender imbalances in principle, such as the overused 'upper body strength' meme. What I always see is questioning whether or not current imbalances are 'normal', and pointing out that many, if not most, are the result of the naturalistic fallacy, of self-imposed limitations like Christina's, or prohibitive social/political/legal norms.

The 20th century is littered with barriers to women fully participating in society that, in hindsight, were ridiculous. In light of that, it's perfectly reasonable to question and test existing imbalances, and doing so doesn't imply a commitment to the strawman that there are no differences between the genders.

anony-mouse,

Right I know he said it but still....

And there is a very real risk that when emotional reactions to a hard fact begin to generate generalized corrective policy prescriptions, somebody is going to royally screw up the system with good intentions.

I couldn't agree more.

If I look at everything on a gender neutral basis and allow the "wheat to naturally fall from the chaif" regardless of sex then I'm setting up impossible goals?

What does that mean?

Are you saying, "If I treat all regardless of gender and allow the meritless to fail, regardless of gender, I'm setting up impossible goals?"

Are you saying, "If I expect others to treat everone regardless and allow the meritless to fail, regardless of gender, I'm setting up impossible goals?"

If the latter, no one accused you of that. What they accused of doing was interpreting any deviation from your preconceived picture of "what it would look like without discrimination", as evidence of discrimination, while holding an unrealistic picture.

For one, do you agree that a solid history of more women leaving due to childbirth than men, decreases the expected value of a woman's labor compared to an otherwise equal man? And if you think it doesn't, why has no profit-hungry business seized on the opportunity to kill 26% of its labor costs simply by not discriminating?

First, what I mean by impossible goals is if you define equality only as "all positions in government, industry, homes are held 50/50 by men and women" then that is simply unrealistic and will never happen due to the differences between men and women - certainly it won't happen if you have an otherwise 'even playing field'. I do not claim that whatever the ratio is now in various places that this ratio is not at least partly the result of discrimination.

As for women only making 60 or 75 cents for every dollar made by men for exactly the same job and experience level, well, I think that myth has been pretty well debunked. I think person has pretty well indicated why it has been debunked - if women were REALLY that much cheaper than men at the same skill level, some enterprising business person would be tapping into that something fierce, firing all their men and hiring only women and then undercutting all those businesses that employ all those "expensive" men.

Here is a point that no one has made. There isn't a single "alpha male" type. A lot of boys that suck at sports realize their alpha male dreams through their skill at the guitar, or skateboarding. Other times it takes much longer. Philosophy professors can become alpha males when they dominate the ivory tower world. I'll bet Bertrand Russell sucked at Cricket.

Even if we have to live with alpha males, as a society we should make it so that the right skills are rewarded. I nominate calm, dispassionate, expository writing.

Person, I dom't think I was being accused of anything. And I meant the latter. And I think you're misunderstanding but let me take your last paragraph:

For one, do you agree that a solid history of more women leaving due to childbirth than men, decreases the expected value of a woman's labor compared to an otherwise equal man? And if you think it doesn't, why has no profit-hungry business seized on the opportunity to kill 26% of its labor costs simply by not discriminating?

Okay, you completely lost me in the last sentence there. First, substantiate the 26% labor cost number please and it's 26% of what? I request that you rephrase.

Next, let me NOT answer the question and turn this around on you:

For one, do you agree that a solid history of more black people being imprisoned for crimes like theft, decreases the expected value of a black person's labor compared to an otherwise white equal man?

Kate Said "I came in second in 129lb class for the clean and jerk. I lifted over 300 lbs"

Are you sure about those numbers kate? The largest lift this year in the clean & jerk in the in the women's world championships in the 58Kg weight class was a 130 Kg (280lbs).

Link

Kate:

Okay, you completely lost me in the last sentence there.

I can see why.

First, substantiate the 26% labor cost number please and it's 26% of what? I request that you rephrase.

I'm speechless. Are you really this slow? Aren't you the one claiming women are paid 74, or 75 or whatever, percent of what men are paid for, for the "same work"? That's your claim, not mine.

It if really were the case that women could be paid 74% of what men are, for the same work, then you could save 26% on labor costs (100 - 26 = 74) simply by hiring underpriced women.

Now, to rephrase: why do businesses routinely decide to overpay 26% for labor, when they could easily cut costs (if you are correct) by hiring women?

For one, do you agree that a solid history of more black people being imprisoned for crimes like theft, decreases the expected value of a black person's labor compared to an otherwise white equal man?

No.

I do, however, agree that, "a solid history of greater retail theft by blacks than whites, decrease the expected value of an unscreened, unmonitored black person's labor compared to an otherwise equal white man's". And this is why employers screen and monitor -- to show the true likelihood of the negative event. Similarly, if women offered to smooth out the possible loss in revenue from quitting, say, by offering your car as collateral if you ever quit for that reason, then you could eliminate the pay differential.

Kate, if I may ask a clarifying question?

At my local firehouse, the ratio of male to female firefighters is not 1:1, not even close. Far less than 50% of the firefighters are women. I ask this because the classic feminist answer I've encountered going all the way back to the mid 70's is "discrimination, and nothing else".

What do you think?

As for women only making 60 or 75 cents for every dollar made by men for exactly the same job and experience level, well, I think that myth has been pretty well debunked.

I think that the current claim being mindlessly regurgitated is 73 cents but you’re quite correct, that it’s a load of BS. Former CBO director June O’Neil did a study in which she compared (a) men and women in the same occupational areas, (b) with the same educational qualifications, and (c) with the same number of years work experience in their fields and found that the number was about 93 cents on the dollar. And that’s not even accounting for the fact that on the aggregate when a male employee works “full time” outside the home, he usually works more hours than a female worker who is also classified as working “full time.”

The topic was huge in the early eighties when I was in college. Now it's hardly mentioned. We all weren't feminists and then we all were..and still are but so many other things dominate our lives and my friends, male and female just accept each other. We fight, fuck have fun..argue but rarely use sexism as amunition. You are either telling the truth or lying. Was the Duke case about feminism? No, it was about telling the truth.

Todd Seavey is a mess. He will probably never have a satisfying relationship with a woman.

Wait, I can see some possible reasons for the confusion in my first post:

1) Kate does not see that as a logical implication of the fact that women can be paid 26% less than men for the same work, labor costs can be reduced by 26% with impacting output value, merely by replacing women with men.

2) I had the audacity to use the term "percent" and "%" instead of dumbing it down, as per the rest of the media, to the more verbose "cents on the dollar". So, e.g. replace "labor costs can be reduced by 26%" with "labor costs can be reduced by twenty-six cents on the dollar".

Aww, poor widdle guy just needs to get laid.

You're being a real ass, Person.

Todd Seavey is a mess. He will probably never have a satisfying relationship with a woman.

I got those same comments from many of my socially liberal female friends back when I was a socially liberal male who was emphatically not a feminist. I think it says more about the commenter than the commentee. Now I'm a happily married socially conservative Christian to a socially conservative Christian woman (she brought me to the Lord). The only difference is that I now feel sorry for my socially liberal female friends. They include: (1) the woman who hates marriage but now that she is in the 30's wants to have a baby. So she is getting pregnant with her boyfriend who is more interested in his rock band, (2) the woman who proudly dated a younger man, only to spend six of the best years of her life with him. Later she realized she wanted to marry and settle down. He didn't. Now in her early 30's she reenters the dating pool and settles with a pothead on probation. (3) the 40 year old woman who just got a divorce because her husband is still hoping his rock band will make it.

The lives that feminists make for themselves is more punishment than I would wish on anyone.

Judson, are you saying that you personally did not see any feminists chiming in about "whitemale privilege" in the Duke false-arrest case?

You're being a real ass, Person.

Especially considering Kate never even claimed or made reference to the 76 cents on the dollar statistic. WTF? But by all means go on being nasty and implying that she's a drooling moron for not immediately discerning the meaning of the number you pulled out of your ass.

At my local firehouse, the ratio of male to female firefighters is not 1:1, not even close. Far less than 50% of the firefighters are women. I ask this because the classic feminist answer I've encountered going all the way back to the mid 70's is "discrimination, and nothing else".

The "classic feminist answer" you claim to have encountered is probably a straw woman (dur hur). Does any feminist seriously claim that physically demanding jobs like firefighting, ditch-digging, and humping freezer loads are *only* restricted to men because of discrimination? People may giggle when feminists cite "upper body strength" as one of the common biological differences between most males and females, but, um, they actually kind of have a point when it comes to explaining why firehouses and construction crews aren't 50-50.

But I'll take everything back if you can demonstrate that your "classic feminist answer" is a fair representation of feminist argument. And by "feminist argument" I don't mean the viewpoints of lovely ladies like these:

http://www.female-bodybuilders.org/

:-)

Todd Seavey is a mess. He will probably never have a satisfying relationship with a woman.

I got those same comments from many of my socially liberal female friends back when I was a socially liberal male who was emphatically not a feminist. I think it says more about the commenter than the commentee.

I think it says quite a lot about Mr. Seavey and those who claim to be writing devastating critiques of "feminism" when they're really just indulging their inner Maddox because they can't figure out why women don't dig them. Apologies to Mr. Seavey if he's happily married or is actually James Bond moonlighting as a sexually frustrated crank, but the tone and tenor of his post makes for a fascinating psychological case study of male resentment and emasculation. This guy has probably got some serious hang-ups about women, probably had some humiliating experiences with women he desired sexually but couldn't obtain, and he thinks it's all the fault of...feminism? Really?

No. He thinks it's all the woman's fault.

Look at the way he compares the sexual behavior of women to "harem girls." What does that say to you? I know what it says to me: This guy is pissed because the same "alpha-male" guys who bullied him in school and stole his lunch money (football captains, CEOs, "pimp-daddys") are getting all the poontang and he isn't getting any. It's the classic, "I'm a nice guy and he's an asshole, so why does she let him do her and all I get to do is her homework?" Ergo: Girls are sluts, because evolution makes 'em that way and feminism is just a big lie that makes me think that I can get girls because I support abortion rights and the ERA (but am still personally needy and self-conscious and lacking in self-esteem...).

Or how about this line: "And who knows, if I were sleazy enough to lie, behave callously, or jockey for position, perhaps I too could one day become a pimp-daddy." Uh-huh, sure, buddy. No doubt he's already tried it and failed smashingly. But it's a great denial defense mechanism: I could be like the cool kids, too, if I sacrificed my pious principles.

Ugh. I can't be too hard on this guy, because there's some real anger issues there, and it's not cool to be too much of a dick to angry people. But he's obviously a smart dude, so he'll probably figure it all out in a couple years and find some nice girl. And then he'll stop blaming feminism for his problems.

I asked:
At my local firehouse, the ratio of male to female firefighters is not 1:1, not even close. Far less than 50% of the firefighters are women. I ask this because the classic feminist answer I've encountered going all the way back to the mid 70's is "discrimination, and nothing else".

Immoralist answered for Kate:
The "classic feminist answer" you claim to have encountered is probably a straw woman (dur hur).
Does any feminist seriously claim that physically demanding jobs like firefighting, ditch-digging, and humping freezer loads are *only* restricted to men because of discrimination?

And thus the perpetual issue of "what is a REAL feminist" is once again dragged out. I have been through this, oh, a few times. Let's suppose I produce an example, such as the poster over on Seavey's blog who stated flatly that in her Feminist version of the United States there'd be pretty much a 50-50 representation in all jobs. Based on a couple of decades of experience with these things, I expect Immoralist to somehow find said poster to be lacking in some essential element of feminist purity, so her answer "doesn't count, nyah-nyah". In fact, this discussion is futile as a rule, because no matter how many real world examples I produce, somehow each and every one of them is somehow found wanting of the elusive REAL feminism, and so the pro-feminist debater can in triumph proclaim victory. Tis rather like debating Socialism back in the 70's and 80's; somehow, all the failures from Stalin to Mao to Hoxha to Kim Il Sung to Pol Pot were always wanting in some way the mantle of REAL Socialism, and thus proved nothing, nothing at all.

Forgive me, but I don't really feel like playing that game. It consumes too much of my time and has little to no payoff.

People may giggle when feminists cite "upper body strength" as one of the common biological differences between most males and females, but, um, they actually kind of have a point when it comes to explaining why firehouses and construction crews aren't 50-50.

I repeat: over on the Seavey blog there is a person who (a) claims to be a feminist who (b) states that in her dream of a fully equal United States, there would be roughly 50-50 women/men in all jobs. Please go read that posting. Then explain how she didn't really say what she said, or what she meant isn't what I meant, or how she's really a gender-equity-post-70's-pre-modernist and thus merely a confused person rather than a feminist at all, etc.

But I'll take everything back if you can demonstrate that your "classic feminist answer" is a fair representation of feminist argument.

I have nearly 30 years of experience that tells me you won't "take everything back" no matter how many facts I can post on this topic. I could be wrong, but the data suggests otherwise.

And by "feminist argument" I don't mean the viewpoints of lovely ladies like these:

http://www.female-bodybuilders.org/

yawn.

PS:

Don't you feel ashamed of yourself for cutting in front of Kate? Are you implying that she's unable to answer her own questions, standing tall and proud? If she has to, she can do anything! She is strong! She is invincible! And you are exhibiting distinct patriarchal, misogynist/anti-gynocratic, even phallocentric tendencies by insisting that you have the authority to answer for her. As penance, I suggest you read Susan Brownmiller's "Men, Women and Rape", arguably the ovular (not seminal! That's IKKY!) book on the subject from 1977. In fact, read it twice. Three times if you have to.

On the plus side, so far I haven't seen "wimmin", "wimmyn","wymmin", "wymmyn", etc. here or at Seavey's blog. That could be a tiny step. Or it could be sample error...

I think he's got a whole lot of good points to make, but I've seen pretty much all of them presented better elsewhere.

In general, denying biological reality makes for an unhappy and bitter life.

As does pretending that biology is destiny.

I must admit, once he got to the "Girls want to be in a harem" bit, the whole thing just dripped "Girls don't like nice guys (i.e. me)". I read a couple more of the points, but I stopped once I saw how much it was dripping venom about how girls won't date him. And I am hardly one to talk about girls dating me!

Nothing against you, Jane, but "Go read what this libertarian guy hates about feminism!" is just not much of an incentive to click on a link.

"I repeat: over on the Seavey blog there is a person who (a) claims to be a feminist who (b) states that in her dream of a fully equal United States, there would be roughly 50-50 women/men in all jobs. Please go read that posting. Then explain how she didn't really say what she said,"

Ok, I read it.

She didn't say that.

I'm sure it just works better for you if she did, so for you it becomes true.

There are a lot of good points in Seavey's essay, but it is drowning in a lot of obnoxious and useless verbiage. He really does sound, at times, like someone who is carrying a huge chip on his shoulder due to sexual rejection.

Where is his argument is strongest is the attack on the idea that inequality is evidence of injustice; and that idea is a core principle in feminism. Indeed, one of the commentators on his blog (Allie, I think her name was) does a fantastic, although unintentional, job of demonstrating his contention.

What is completely missing in Seavey’s essay is any discussion of how his libertarianism figures in all of that. In the United States, the law is close to being completely gender neutral, as it should be, in my opinion; and the law is enforced in a mostly gender neutral manner, though there is always room for improvement in this regard. However, a libertarian, a true libertarian, will have problems with laws that force things like equal pay in private businesses, or equal access to private property, or any host of laws that use force to change cultural gender biases.

Nothing against you, Jane, but "Go read what this libertarian guy hates about feminism!" is just not much of an incentive to click on a link.

Best comment of the thread, by far.

You're being a real ass, Person.

I think I'm being completely reasonable. What is happening here is (as happens quite often), people are told what a ridiculously stupid mistake they made, and interpreting it as meanness. This is a very human failing from which I don't claim to be immune. But it's important to learn to not to mislabel it.

Especially considering Kate never even claimed or made reference to the 76 cents on the dollar statistic.

Oh, don't even. Kate believes women are underpaid by some amount. The typical figure given is roughly the one I used. The posters on Seavy's blog that she agreed with, quoted those figures. This really is just another case of, "oh, well, feminists don't actually believe that ridiculous argument ... just this other one that we'll soon disown."

WTF? But by all means go on being nasty and implying that she's a drooling moron for not immediately discerning the meaning of the number you pulled out of your ass.

The only way Kate would have failed to recognize the "26 = 100-74" is if it never once occurred to her that systematic underpayment of women for genuinely equal work, would imply a killer cost-cutting strategy. And that is certainly a sign of lack of rigor. The other possibility, of course, is that Kate (like, apparently, most readers of mass media) is unable to understand percentages involving money as being anything other than "cents on the dollar", and the fact that I said "cut labor costs by 26%" rather than "pay seventy-four cents on the dollar for labor" confused her. Go fig.

I wrote:
"I repeat: over on the Seavey blog there is a person who (a) claims to be a feminist who (b) states that in her dream of a fully equal United States, there would be roughly 50-50 women/men in all jobs. Please go read that posting. Then explain how she didn't really say what she said,"

Njori replied:

Ok, I read it.

She didn't say that.

I'm sure it just works better for you if she did, so for you it becomes true.

Here is a direct quote. Please tell me what it means.

One would be equally likely to encounter women as men at any point in a given hierarchy, and as many men would have a female boss as women would have a male one.

Sorry Person, but you're overestimating the clarity of your writing. I work in financial consulting, and I didn't grasp your point until I read Disgusted's clarification.

Perhaps Kate and I are both dense. In fact, perhaps we're both ridiculously stupid. Or perhaps you are just too proud of the point you made - which, now that Digusted cleared it up, I grant is excellent.

Whatever the case, there's no debate that you're being . . . unreasonable.

I'd suggest the next time someone doesn't understand you, try rewriting instead of maligning. You might even win some converts instead of alienating people.

Cheers,

"I think I'm being completely reasonable. "

There's nothing reasonable about being personally insulting to someone who didn't understand your point, which wasn't a miracle of clarity to start with. Rather than articulate the mental steps you omitted, that you assumed others would make, you called her slow and repeated the obvious parts in a condescending way, implying further stupidity.

I repeat: ass.

I can't speak for the other posters, but I'm really looking forward to your thoughts, erm, Ms. Galt! A quick thought to some of the commenters above - the essay is striking and curmudgeonly in tone (I've never heard the 'harem' argument before, though Kissinger's quote about power being the ultimate aphrodesiac must have some truth behind it), but I'd recommend people criticize his arguments rather than impugn his (imaginary) psychological profile or (unknown) sexual successes/failures. Mud flinging is a singularly uncompelling form of argument.

Here is a direct quote. Please tell me what it means.

"One would be equally likely to encounter women as men at any point in a given hierarchy, and as many men would have a female boss as women would have a male one."

How about we add one more line that you conveniently left out.

'And that the “most traditionally female” jobs would not pay, as a rule, less than the ones with the most men working them. One would be equally likely to encounter women as men at any point in a given hierarchy, and as many men would have a female boss as women would have a male one.
'

That is not a demand that there be "roughly 50-50 women/men in all jobs. " The bold line is an explicitl acknowledgement of the idea of traditionally female and male occupations. It asks, while a city may have a mostly female teaching force, and a mostly male firefighting force, that city managers and high level bureaucrats be roughly equally divided between men and women.

"The lives that feminists make for themselves is more punishment than I would wish on anyone"

Justin...

You cite lots of anecdotes that add up to nothing. Some of us are married some off us not. Some are happy some are not. You might be happy but, clearly, Todd is not.

Njorl,

I would suggest you give up trying to defend that commentator's comment. Too much of it is logically inconsistent. The two sentences you quoted don't even make sense when considered together. If there are going to be gender-different jobs, then why the insistence on equality in the hierarchy (and she doesn't even tell us what she means by hierarchy) or the equality in pay? Exactly how is one to determine when a level should be equally divided between men and women, or when different jobs actually should have equal pay? To me, this is the rabbit hole into which feminism always falls when it advocates state power to enforce its principles on society as a whole.

I asked:
Here is a direct quote. Please tell me what it means.

"One would be equally likely to encounter women as men at any point in a given hierarchy, and as many men would have a female boss as women would have a male one."

Njori replied:
How about we add one more line that you conveniently left out.

'And that the “most traditionally female” jobs would not pay, as a rule, less than the ones with the most men working them. One would be equally likely to encounter women as men at any point in a given hierarchy, and as many men would have a female boss as women would have a male one.'

That is not a demand that there be "roughly 50-50 women/men in all jobs.

Really? Then how, exactly, would one be "equally likely to encounter women as men at any point in a given hierarchy", please?

Example: the hierarchy of firefighters or police officers. Equal probability of women as men at any point, starting with people on a firetruck or cops in a car on patrol means...what?

" The bold line is an explicit acknowledgement of the idea of traditionally female and male occupations. It asks, while a city may have a mostly female teaching force, and a mostly male firefighting force, that city managers and high level bureaucrats be roughly equally divided between men and women.

But that isn't what "equally likely to encounter women as men at any point in a given hierarchy" means, and isn't what she said. Maybe that's what she meant, I don't know, but it's not what she said.

I'm sure it just works better for you if she did, so for you it becomes true.

I never said I had self-imposed limitations, or that I was a weak little girl. I was better then every girl I knew in school at everything intellectual, and most things physical. But I wasn't better than the boys at spacial problems, or most physical activities, and I saw that, and it bothered me. Then I realized that fixating on that was a waste of time, especially since I was a generally competent person.

Kate, it's great that you are stronger than most men and I applaud you for excelling in a male-dominated field. But the vast majority of women aren't naturally as strong as men. Should men be punished for that fact? I don't think so, and in a nutshell, that's why I'm not a feminist.

But that isn't what "equally likely to encounter women as men at any point in a given hierarchy" means,

Yes it is. If you just refuse to accept what words mean, there is no hope for you.

and isn't what she said.

I cut and pasted her remarks verbatim. Unlike you, I chose not to leave out the part that completely contradicted you.

Maybe that's what she meant, I don't know, but it's not what she said.

English is a powerful and versatile language; you should learn it. Not every sentence is designed to stand alone as a complete manifesto of the author's thoughts. Sometimes, two or even three sentences need to be combined just for a single thought to be made clear. When you rend the sentences apart, the meaning can be lost or perverted. Unscrupulous people can then quote these detached fragments to deceptively imply that the author's thoughts are different than they actually are.

I'm sure it just works better for you if she did, so for you it becomes true."
Posted by ellipsis

The problem with snark is that when you are obviously wrong while being snarky, you just look like a fool.

Njorl,

I would suggest you give up trying to defend that commentator's comment. Too much of it is logically inconsistent. The two sentences you quoted don't even make sense when considered together.

Yancey,
I find that the rectifications for the past oppression of women are complicated by biology to an extent that I would not expect to solve them on a blog post, so I am not surprised that that particular poster may have well come up short in her off-the-cuff arguments. I am not going to pass judgement. I was defending that post from one specific false allegation, that the author wanted all jobs divided up 50-50. The topic would be difficult enough if all involved limited themselves to genuine arguments. Ellipsis did not do so. He chose to deceptively present her views in a convenient manner - one that is commonly used by critics of feminists.

The tactic of overstating one's opponent's case to the point of dishonesty is common, and annoying. Those who practice it should be called on it.

It does seem like the female desire for social acceptance and prestige is as strong as the male desire for sex. And women do choose men largely based on how much they are likely to help with this project.

Women seem to have something of a built-in sexual response to any kind of fame: why else are so many women eager to sleep with ugly and unpersonable rock stars?

I wrote:
But that isn't what "equally likely to encounter women as men at any point in a given hierarchy" means,

Yes it is. If you just refuse to accept what words mean, there is no hope for you.

No, it isn't, and if you refuse to accept what words like "equally likely to encounter women as men at any point in a given hierarchy" mean, then I'm not surprised.
and isn't what she said.

I cut and pasted her remarks verbatim. Unlike you, I chose not to leave out the part that completely contradicted you.

Here, have the entire paragraph.

There would not be a significant difference in pay between women and men, overall. I’m not saying all jobs would be evenly split between the genders, but that if you took a slice of people doing similar (education requirements, position in the company heirarchy, experience generally required to reach that position, etc) work, you wouldn’t see a difference in pay between men and women. And that the “most traditionally female” jobs would not pay, as a rule, less than the ones with the most men working them. One would be equally likely to encounter women as men at any point in a given hierarchy, and as many men would have a female boss as women would have a male one.

Note how the last sentence contradicts the second one. It is a confused set of text that I'll grant was likely written in haste, but frankly the last sentence pretty much lets the cat out of the bag, and reveals someone who wants a 50-50 split of men/women "at any point in a given hierarchy".

Fact: There are people who (a) call themselves "feminists" who (b) want a 50-50 women-men split in all aspects of life. It appears that Njori doesn't like this fact, and is willing to expend considerable effort to pretend it doesn't exist. But no matter how much name calling Njori engages in, the facts do not change...

I wrote:
Maybe that's what she meant, I don't know, but it's not what she said.

Njori replied;
English is a powerful and versatile language; you should learn it. Not every sentence is designed to stand alone as a complete manifesto of the author's thoughts. Sometimes, two or even three sentences need to be combined just for a single thought to be made clear. When you rend the sentences apart, the meaning can be lost or perverted. Unscrupulous people can then quote these detached fragments to deceptively imply that the author's thoughts are different than they actually are.

I don't know what the writer meant, because I cannot read her mind. But Njori knows, knows that the words mean exactly what Njori wants them to mean. Furthermore, if they don't mean what Njori wants them to mean, then they must be re-interpreted to mean what Njori wants them to mean.

Those people who look at the text, parse the plain language and observe what it means, on the other hand, are "unscrupulous"...

I wrote:
I'm sure it just works better for you if she did, so for you it becomes true."

Njori replied:
The problem with snark is that when you are obviously wrong while being snarky, you just look like a fool.

You might want to take that idea and ponder if it could possibly apply not just to people you don't like, but to people like you...in fact, to you yourself. You also might want to consider that in this case, impossible though it may seem, you are wrong and too rigidly, dogmatically ideological to admit it.

Njori wrote:
Yancey,
I find that the rectifications for the past oppression of women are complicated by biology to an extent that I would not expect to solve them on a blog post, so I am not surprised that that particular poster may have well come up short in her off-the-cuff arguments. I am not going to pass judgement. I was defending that post from one specific false allegation, that the author wanted all jobs divided up 50-50. The topic would be difficult enough if all involved limited themselves to genuine arguments. Ellipsis did not do so. He chose to deceptively present her views in a convenient manner - one that is commonly used by critics of feminists.

More accurately, because I read plain text in a way that Njori doesn't like, I must be attacked in a personal manner. Njori apparently cannot simply disagree with how I read the text, but must first make snarky remarks, and then when I fail to captiulate to the Official Njori Party Line, immediately proclaim that I am dishonest, deceptive, cannot read and understand English, etc. I find this to be all too common in such debates; the facts soon are irrelevent, smearing anyone who dares to criticize the holy cult of Feminism must be attacked in any way possible becomes the real goal...

The tactic of overstating one's opponent's case to the point of dishonesty is common, and annoying. Those who practice it should be called on it.

The tactic of eschewing logical debate and engaging in namecalling, personal insults, etc. is also common, and those who practice it should be called on it. I'm calling Njori on it right here, right now....

On a related note, can anyone help me with this;

When discrimination is present, the people most likely to be culled are the ones with the least skill. Those who break through a 'glass ceiling' are , as a group, above average. And this is a decent measure of discrimination.

But I can't remember the name of this effect or who the source is. Anyone know?

Le sigh….

I was the fourth generation of women in my family to go to college. It never occurred to me, growing up, that any kind of sexism still existed. I currently don’t believe that I have ever been prevented from doing anything because of my gender.

But that is primarily because when I wanted to try something that was considered a “male” pursuit, like weightlifting, I was allowed to try. When it turned out I was good at some of those pursuits I was allowed to continue them. I never expected, nor did I want, to be given something because of my gender. I never wished to displace a man who was better qualified. But it seemed to me that I should have the opportunity to do whatever the task was if I was the better candidate. It is the opportunity, the fair shot, that I feel is important.

Where I take issue is when equally qualified or better qualified women are not given opportunities for whatever reason. I have seen it happen on a variety of occasions in my adult life and it never ceases to shock me. Although it’s completely anecdotal I recall once having to hire a new associate in my office. We had a choice between a married man in his 30s and an unmarried woman in her 30s and the suggestion was made that the woman shouldn’t be hired even though she fit the job description better because, and I quote, “she’s going to want to get married and have babies.” It horrified me at the time and I said so. So far as I know the woman is still unmarried, still working, without children and without plans to have children. Why should she have been penalized because of her sex if she was the better qualified candidate?

I never made any comment about women not being paid the same as men for the same job. It never even occurred to me. That’s not the reason for pay disparity and I never said otherwise. Perhaps that’s why I couldn’t figure out the 26% that was thrown about.

And I apologize for not participating in the conversation after my last comment. I would like to thank those people who defended me in my absence. Unfortunately I have a family emergency and, believe it or not, do not spend my days analyzing what people write on comments sections of blogs.

But Kate, men don't get pregnant (or at least I hope they don't). Men and women are not the same.

In other words, we don't spend 6 months per pregnancy in a debilitated physical state during our most productive years. Hence in the not-so-distant past it was us men who farmed, became priests (or engineers), went to war, discovered geometry (or relativity), tried to conquer the world, etc.. Women meanwhile stayed home producing the next generation (an equally important job I might add).

Only recently have women been (mostly) freed from the chains of pregnancy. Improvements in sanitation, antibiotics, and science have cut infancy deaths to a minimum. Women, on average now only need to become pregnant 3 times in order to maintain our population.

But... MOSTLY freed from the chains of pregnancy. Three times pregnant in a lifetime still means 18 months out of action during a woman's peak physical and mental state. Until we decide to repopulate the globe with test-tube babies, men will always have an advantage over women in the business world, universities, the marketplace or on the battlefield. If there are 3 billion men and 3 billion women out there (rough estimate) 3 billion multiply 18 months = 54 billion months. In other words, in a single generation, men have 54 billion more hours to explore, war, invent, etc...

That's a lot of time to make up.

I can't believe that at this stage of the discussion Zhong's point even had to be made or that (inevitably) people will now try to discredit it or him/her...Would anyone with a business (man or woman) not take that elementary fact into account? I understand its now against the law but in any business that required significant training, one would be stupid not to...Kate might think that averages don't matter but if her livelihood was at stake I would gamble that her feminist principles would have some "modifications" despite her status as a woman just as every other woman business owner...

Kate,

RE the woman in your last post. Would you be opposed to the company offering the woman the job conditional on her signing something promising never to leave the work force for childbirth? The company could then be assured that she was no more likely to leave than the man, which would make their actual qualifications the only factor.

Given that you assert she wasn't planning on having kids anyway, it seems like she would happily sign this paper. What about a woman in her 20s who IS planning a family? She would almost certainly NOT sign this paper. And if she didn't, how much $$ would the company need in return to still offer her the job? Probably quite a bit...

In the end, it seems like contracts like this would have the effect of making each woman responsible for her own choices, versus the "averaging" over all women that takes place today. It would likely benefit some women at the expense of others. So my question to Kate is then, as a woman, would you prefer this new world where each woman pays for the life she chooses, or the current one where the "sisterhood" pays mostly uniformly?

I don't disagree with anything any of you say. I guess I just disagree with the base premise, that the almighty dollar is enough of a reason to discriminate.

Society has a vested interest in encouraging people, especially educated people who can get jobs, be productive members of society, and to have upstanding citizens procreate. Right?

In addition the way society is structured we need women in the workforce. There aren't enough men around for all of the jobs anymore, we need qualified women. It's one of the reasons American productivity is so high. Otherwise we have incompetent men in jobs they're not good at and I suspect that those less qualified men will be more the 26% less productive than their smarter male counterparts.

So, given the realities of the situation shouldn't we encourage a job to be given to the best qualified candidate as opposed to a man by default? Isn't it better to spread the risk to a large number of organizations? And isn't it better for society as a whole to do this?

You all seem to be looking at this from the micro level whereas I'm trying to look at it from the macro level.

In addition, while I see the merits of your argument (although I disagree) from an economic standpoint it still doesn't apply for sports or extracurriculars before a woman is ready to get pregnant. Do we now quash any and all opportunities for women because they *might* give birth one day and will therefore be disqualified from the profession of their choosing?

Let's go a step further, how about only women who agree to be steralized be allowed to join the workforce at all? Or even be educated, because it's not like they're going to need to read for a job or something. You know what would be even better, don't allow women out of the house without a male escort who is a family member, it will seriously decrease the number of rapes against women. Where does it end? Where is your bright line?

>I can't believe that at this stage of the discussion Zhong's point even had to be made...Would anyone with a business (man or woman) not take that elementary fact into account? I understand its now against the law but...

Sex discrimination of this type (discounting wages because of *expected* productivity loss) might be reasonable, from a cold-blooded calculating point of view, at the level of individual hiring decisions. But it also grossly unfair to the women, who after all are being punished for (a) something that is a fundamental human behavior and (b) something they may have not, in fact, done.

Of course an employer is more likely to treat his workers fairly when he/she knows that the competition is likely to do the same. That is why the law exists -- to eliminate the competitive advantage gained from the unfair, if rational, discrimination.

I'm perfectly happy to add a small inefficiency to the system if the result is that people are hired and salaried on the basis of their actual experience, not possible future family decisions.

Sounds like a job for game theory. Isn't it possible to structure compensation such that it's no big deal if an employee quits after a few years, and/or so that people planning on quitting after a few years are discouraged from applying?

Alternatively, a woman who really doesn't want to have children could submit proof of sterility with her resume.

I surely would like to know the specifics of the case Kate is referring to, because it's one of the crash-landings that every newbie manager is told in no uncertain terms WILL end his or her career at any large company or in any branch of government. It's actionable on the same level with "don't hire him, he's a Negro", and frankly I'm extremely astounded that anyone would get away with such a bald statement. Kate can rest assured that this isn't an issue for a weblog, it's an issue for the EEO group of HR at the company in question, because failure to address such things will sooner or later lead to a big, fat lawsuit that will have to be settled out of court because it would be a slam-dunk before a civil jury.

Now I'll ask a question of Kate or anyone else who wants to tackle it: for years, any numerical imbalance in a workforce has been treated as evidence to some degree of discrimination. In the late 60's, flat out quotas along the lines of "10 percent of your entry level labor better be black people or you're going to Federal court" were demanded, although that got backed off in the 70's to some extent if a good-faith effort could be showed. Nowadays we have a number of metrics, including outreach efforts, active recruiting efforts, etc. that constitute "good faith to try to recruit protected minorities". Nevertheless, I still find a lot of people who look at any large group, whether college graduates or doctors or a sales force, and if a group isn't represented in proportion to their percent of society, cry "discrimination!".

So that's my longwinded question, to Kate or whoever: is a numerical imbalance in any given group of employees, or any other group that doesn't restrict membership, de facto evidence of discrimination?

Brandon Berg wrote:
Sounds like a job for game theory. Isn't it possible to structure compensation such that it's no big deal if an employee quits after a few years, and/or so that people planning on quitting after a few years are discouraged from applying?

Not really, no, because people are cranky critters that change their minds. I know women who declared to the world while in college they had absolutely no interest in ever having a child, whatsoever. If you'd interviewed them on their first job(s) they'd give the same answer. But by and by, most of them did have children, sometimes by surprise (even tubal ligation isn't 100%, although it's close) or by intent. Because their priorities changed. Working 80 hours a week on a project and getting paid a ton of overtime was superexciting at 23, by 30 it was often another example of bad project planning and a real pain, while parents were getting older and the screwed-up siblings spawn was the only grandchild...

That's just one story. The world is full of 'em, but the point is that people change and their life priorities change as well. An agreement like the above would never stand up in an court.

Alternatively, a woman who really doesn't want to have children could submit proof of sterility with her resume.

That might fly in Libertopia, but in the real world it's preposterous. Nothing personal, but this is a very silly notion. Have you ever had a job where you were responsible for the work of others? It sure doesn't look like it.

Kate wrote:
I don't disagree with anything any of you say. I guess I just disagree with the base premise, that the almighty dollar is enough of a reason to discriminate.

That looks a whole lot like a straw man to me. Maybe I missed a posting, but I don't see anyone making that argument at all.

A while back on another comment thread, I posted a few real-world examples for all the smart folks to step up and solve, as managers do every day. Not one reply addressed them. I'm inclined to suspect that this weblog has a lot of readers who are either in college, or are fairly recent college graduates; either way, they have no experience in supervising the work of other people or in hiring. Kate seems to be the exception, but I dunno, this strawman kind of suggests otherwise.

The almighty dollar pretty much dictates that you better come as close as you can to the voluntary goals that EEO sets for your work group, department, division, etc. or you'll be in trouble. Maybe that's not true where Kate works, but it sure is true in most big companies, and in every governmental agency I've seen.

Ok, I just thought of something else about Kate's anecdote. She says the hiring was of a "new associate", which suggests a legal firm. Some people in small outfits get away with stuff others do not, at least for a while.

One other thought out of the blue occurred to me while mowing the grass: it may have been a test. Some people do that, I had it done to me once in a seminar where in a one-on-one session the trainer said something that was mildly prejudicial about a race that neither of us belong to, then he paused and looked at me and started on to a different topic. I realized that silence could be construed as assent, so I objected politely to the statement, and the trainer just nodded to me and kept on with the next issue. This strikes me as a risky thing for a manager to do in the modern environment, but it is possible someone was testing others in the room, including you. I have no idea if that makes sense or not, but it is a possibility.

I certainly didn't mean it as a straw man argument. I currently work for a Fortune 50 company. It is one of the ten best places for women to work. It is very profitable. They have more rigorous EEO standards then are required by law. They are not a generous place. It is a monolithic behemoth that lumbers along like a giant. They are extremely risk averse. I doubt that if there were not benefits to their extraordinary efforts they would not bother doing anything more then the law mandated. But they do. I am an attorney. I work with a team of seven attorneys, one paralegal and three admins. Every person in the department with the exception of two of the attorneys, are female. The head of the department is female. Her deputy is female.

So, yeah, it's true where I work...except they take extraordinary diversity measures. While I am sure they do it so that they can tout the company as one of the ten best places for women to work I am sure that the real reason they do it is that there are significant benefits to having women excel within the organization.

As for the place I worked where a colleague suggested that we shouldn't hire a better educated woman because she might have babies, it was at a law firm I worked at, and prior to my switching jobs so I could be at the large company. Ask anyone who works in a large NYC law firm, that kind of crap happens all the time.

ellipsis:

It was not a manager who made the suggestion. It was simply a member of the practice group who had a say in who we hired (we all had a say, the Partner had the final word). It was also not a test. The person was sincere.

I should also mention, the person making the suggestion was female.

Not really, no, because people are cranky critters that change their minds. I know women who declared to the world while in college they had absolutely no interest in ever having a child, whatsoever.

Yes, and not just women. My son decided upon a career in the military, and after gathering lots of information comparing the various services decided upon the Navy, nuclear subs. I warned him that while the Navy might be the best for a single man, it's generally hard on family life, and submariners have it worse than usual - they might not be able to call home for months. No problem, he was never getting married and never going to have kids... He was married before he even finished training, had two kids in three years, and a couple of years later returned from 10 months at sea to find another man in his bed.

So I doubt that there's a court in this country that would enforce the "no children" contract Josh proposed. In fact, I know of cases where employers with a much better reason for never hiring women who might become pregnant have not legally been able to do so. There are manufacturers that necessarily work with chemicals that are especially hazardous to pregant women because even a slight one time exposure causes birth defects. This is a huge problem because, while it's possible to handle such things in a closed process that normally emits nothing at all into the workplace, it's not possible to guarantee that there will never be any leaks. Other employees are safe enough if leaks are detected promptly, and immediately cleaned up by a crew in full protective gear while the rest are evacuated, but only thing that will assuredly prevent birth defects is to never have a pregnant woman in the plant - and yet, taking steps to ensure that is illegal.

I just disagree with the base premise, that the almighty dollar is enough of a reason to discriminate.

I can't think of a more fair reason to discriminate than the projected value of someone's work. Any deviation from that is unfair. It makes one person pay for another person's decisions.

So, given the realities of the situation, shouldn't we encourage a job to be given to the best qualified candidate as opposed to a man by default?

Employers will tend to choose the best qualified candidate without external encouragement. We're talking about coercing companies to give jobs to less qualified candidates in order to lower the cost of childbirth to professional women. All hiring decisions are based on a great deal of conjecture.

Let's go a step further, how about only women who agree to be steralized be allowed to join the workforce at all?

Why would that be, in any way, better than simply slightly discounting a risky investment.

Where is your bright line?

The free market does whatever it finds most efficient and individuals do whatever they choose.

I'm perfectly happy to add a small inefficiency to the system

How generous. But then, it's not your money. If we were talking only about a business you owned, it'd be a different story.

Here's what I propose; a business offers all employees a bonus based on the number of years they stay with the company. That way, men and women would get the same starting salary and same chance of being hired.

Anyone who was fired by the company for anything other than a criminal offense would 'cash out' automatically, and get their full bonus. If they quit for any reason, they forfeit their whole bonus. I'm not sure if there's a way to prevent a person from deliberately acting incompetent to be fired.

The concept of "equal opportunity and rights" for women is a very recent one. In the not-so-distant past (3 or more generations ago) with infant mortality rates in the 50% range and life expectancy around 40, women had to be pregnant child-bearing factories or else society would collapse from catastrophic population loss. This biological necessity left men in charge of business, politics, war, i.e. everything outside of the home.

Only in the last 50 years and only in certain countries has this pattern begun to change. Thanks to antibiotics, better health education, and science, women in developed countries need to get pregnant an average of only 2.5 times in order to maintain a steady level of population.

My point is "feminism," "Equal Opportunity" and "EEO" are MODERN Western concepts that could not have and should not have existed 100 years ago. If America or any other country adopted these ideas 100 years ago it would have quickly committed demographic suicide.

Liberals and feminists like to portray the woman's rights movement as a valiant and triumphant march against male chauvinism. Perhaps. Millenia of dominance over women gave men an arrogance disportionate to their abilities, and it was correct of women to challenge that. But the real reason why the women's rights movement succeeded, in fact the only reason why the women's rights movemnet existed at all, was because of the scientific breakthroughs of Pasteur, Koch, Leueuwenhoek and others.

However, until women are completely freed from the shackles of pregnancy, women on average will always be inferior to men in the workplace, and in society. Women get pregant; men don't. Even if we accept the feminists' argument that men and women are created completely equal, women on average will always have one less year than men to succeed outside of the home. One year is a lot of time, especially since that one year is taken out of a woman's most productive phase of life (early-mid 20s).

Unless we're willing to undertake radical social changes, women will continue to get pregnant and men will continue to have an edge outside the home. Our government can level the playing ground, but it can never make the playing grounds completely equal.

Megan...Megan?...MEGANNN!

But first, I really have to get over the feeling that you need a sound fucking beating.

Stay classy, ladies.

First, the "sound fucking beating" comment. I think she meant that in a good way. (Getting her perv on, so to speak).

As to the actual essay, I think the title of Seavey's piece is wrong. I think it is less about feminism, or my idea of what feminism should be-that of insuring women's fair treatment in the world- than it is a rather particularly accurate description of how women actually operate.

I found most engaging the sections that many seemed to have the greatest problems with (points 4 and 5). Granted his points mix biological determinism up with the finer ethics of harem maintenance in a manner not quite precise or true to life, but then again I don't know that the whole exercise was not entirely a bit of rhetorical analingus to begin with, tongue firmly in cheek, and designed to stimulate.

It is always the easy and tired path to suggest, "Oh he just needs to get laid" or "He's just frustrated with his lack of success with women." As if we actually knew the details.

What we DO know is that some women in fact actually fit the pattern of the behavior he depicted, and what we DON'T know is whether he gets laid or is having a suffiently romantic personal life.

As for feminism itself, I think it's ridiculous as a movement, in that those who bellow most for changing the status of women, have actually done the least, and owe most successes to the attitudes or energies of men.

Here is what I mean. Women lived one way (some would say "oppressed") for hundreds, thousands of years. Suddenly, circa 1900's things radically change.

There two scenarios. Either:

Women were oppressed for hundred/thousdands of years. Eventually women pressed for change but had to rely on men ceding their physically inforced power and allowing change to occur. Obviously, women did not physically fight their way to a changed society. Something had to give (as in the will of men to maintain the status quo).

OR,

Eventually women pressed for change, and without the general acceptance or help of men. Women just asserted their rights and change happened. Husbands and fathers gave in to the will of wives and daughters. Of course, in this scenario, if men were not required to "allow change" then one must ask what took so long for women to assert their rights in the first place (like back around Adam and Eve or when we were amebas in the swamps).

But the scenario you DON't have, can't logically have, is one of women being completely oppressed, and then magically becoming unoppressed of their own doing.

Either, men are responsible for women's rights, or, women were never so repressed to begin with.

Or a third possibility occurred.

What happened in the 1900's to allow for women (in either scenario) to actually make change happen? Because I would argue that 1) many women were held down and that 2) many other women just did not bother to assert their own desires and 3) some combination of the two kept women in their status.

But what changed? Well the way we live. Technology. In the past those women who were not obviously oppressed still depended on the brute strength of men for protection in a violent world. And the large group of women who were obviously oppresed not only had to depend on man's strength for means of living, but had to fear it due to violence and abuse.

But technology (along with law) has rendered strength irrelevant in today's world to a greater and greater degree. This freedom from the physical allows people-men and women- to compete largely on an intellectual plain.

So in actuality, when we think of true feminists, the actual important ones, it is not the people at the top of the list who should be on our minds. It is people like Bill Gates and various others that have worked to remove the physical from daily life that are the true giants of feminism. Remove technology from life, and society regresses to the historical norm, and we see this all over in the more backward parts of the world.

Everyone else, and women most of all, are largely just talking. And as Seavey pointed out, what women say and what they actually do, work in total contradiction. Not all women. Not all the time. Enough women, and much of the time. Women don't like to hear that, and men (who want to have sex with those women) don't like to admit it.

As a somewhat unrelated aside, I am reminded of a conversation I had with a friend. They argued that a woman in a given job is totally capable (as any man) and I agreed, but offered a corollary that the same woman, while capable, might not actually be deserving of the position.

What my friend failed to consider is that there is a large subset of men who will give a woman a job (capable or not) or promotion largely on the hopes that there is a high fuckability factor (FF). This is a fault of men, and most women like to pretend that FF does not exist. Which is why women can also imagine that their guy friends don't really want to paste them to the wall and do them from behind.

And sadly, it's all unfortunate.

Which is why women can also imagine that their guy friends don't really want to paste them to the wall and do them from behind.

Maybe in the circles YOU run with. There are, however, still a few gentlemen roaming this wide world. Being a gentleman doesn't mean not having a male sexual drive, it just means disciplining its application.

So you admit, anony-mous, that you discipline your sex drive toward your female friends, as opposed to having no sex drive toward your male friends?

I am not suggesting men cannot be gentlemen, or that they should even want to have sex with their female friends. I am merely pointing out that they often do.

It is always the easy and tired path to suggest, "Oh he just needs to get laid" or "He's just frustrated with his lack of success with women." As if we actually knew the details.

Yes, because it would be wrong to assume anything about anybody's personal behavior without "details" to back it up. And in your next sentence...

What we DO know is that some women in fact actually fit the pattern of the behavior he depicted...

...you do just that. You claim we don't "know" anything about Seavey's personal life, but then you claim we "know" there are some women out there who "fit the pattern" that Seavey described. I mean, who hasn't had experiences with crazy irrational bitches in heat? Oh, excuse me. I meant harem girls.

Don't get me wrong: I have no problem with assuming, as you do, that lots of women respond positively to guys who keep 'em off balance with cocky and funny behavior (which is NOT the same thing as acting like an asshole, though Seavey mistakenly believes it is). But you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. You can't assume one behavioral archetype and apply it to a swath of the female population while piously chastising me for assuming another archetype and applying it to Seavey. (That would be the archetype of human male known as "Loser.")

Hey, like I admitted above, I don't really know if Seavey has female troubles. Yet this tired and lazy mind of mine is perfectly willing to guess that if Seavey got nearly as much as he wishes he were getting, he wouldn't have the time or the inclination to write his embarrassing little harangues. He'd be enjoying himself too much to worry about whether feminism has hampered his booty batting average.

First, the "sound fucking beating" comment. I think she meant that in a good way. (Getting her perv on, so to speak).

Uhhhh...right. If a man left that comment on some feminista's blog, he'd be looking at fifteen to life...

RMc:

Uhhhh...right. If a man left that comment on some feminista's blog, he'd be looking at fifteen to life...

A male friend of mine wisely responded to that by saying he wished that girls hitting boys was just as frowned upon. Violence from anybody, against anybody, regardless of gender, should be deemed Not Cool Indeed.

I found this the best comment to this whole thing I'd heard so far.

So you admit, anony-mous, that you discipline your sex drive toward your female friends, as opposed to having no sex drive toward your male friends?

It was your premise, finn. I took issue with the overarching generalization you added to it in the quoted sentence.

". But you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. You can't assume one behavioral archetype and apply it to a swath of the female population while piously chastising me for assuming another archetype and applying it to Seavey. (That would be the archetype of human male known as "Loser."

Assuming that an archetype exists in a broad population(in this case the single women of New York City) seems rather reasonable. No single woman is being assigned to that group, rather it is being stated that a set of behavior common enough(or perceived to be common enough) to be considered an archetype is common amongst the million+ single women of New York.

Seavey is an individual that we don't know anything about. Assigning him, as an individual, to an archetype is making an assumption of a different sort.

However saying that there are plenty of "Losers" in New York would be comprable to saying there are plenty of "Crazy Women" in NYC.

Assuming that an archetype exists in a broad population(in this case the single women of New York City) seems rather reasonable. No single woman is being assigned to that group, rather it is being stated that a set of behavior common enough(or perceived to be common enough) to be considered an archetype is common amongst the million+ single women of New York.

You're right that neither Seavey nor the above commentator are assigning any single woman to their sluts-and-hos category. If they did, they would risk having the example contradict the group. Much easier to assume that such women exist without actually having to name any (that is, beyond personal anecdotes that can't be verified, like his "female co-worker from ABC"). Argument by archetype isn't too tough when you don't have to apply that archetype to anyone.

Seavey is an individual that we don't know anything about.

Not true. Based on his post, assuming that he isn't lying about what he wrote, we know quite a few things about him. We know he doesn't much care for feminism, we know that he likens the behavior of some women to harem girls, we know that he believes he could be a pimp-daddy if he "were sleazy enough to lie, behave callously, or jockey for position," etc. Based on that knowledge, there are plenty of inferences that can be drawn about certain aspects of his character. You might not think mine are reasonable, but at least I'm basing my inferences on information that you can see for yourself rather than anecdotes of which nobody except me would have personal knowledge.

Sorry guys and gals, Seavey won this round gloves down. If you can't see that, you are evidence of the problem.

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