Why so much hatred for feminism?

[KingMerv00]

This is an example of the kind of Feminism that I think is a bit too emotional, even though many of the things the writer says are true. But the tone is undisputedly on the defensive and many times, condescending, thus insulting.

Part of the problem is, for example, sentences that start by saying "Men do this", "Men do that". It already sounds like it's referring to all men, even though the writer does say that she acknowledges that not all men are like that. But why then, does she not say "Some men do this", "some men do that"?

There's a part where the writer says



So on one hand, she says it's not that she hates men... but she doesn't trust them. It is still a defensive attitude against "men", obviously based on her previous experiences. There's this armor we build to protect ourselves against future attacks, and we become defensive. We create a mentality of putting everyone on a "Guilty until proven otherwise" status.

Also, many of the descriptions that the writer makes, make assumptions about what "all men" think. For instance:



In this bit, the writer is assuming that all men who make such jokes, are doing so just to get a raise out of her.

Still, the writer says many true things about the men who do those things. But in her tone and way of writing, one can tell she suspects this from all men.

I didn't click on the link but I will say I agree with you in that she is probably a sexist feminist.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

....Please point out where I claimed this or recant this statement.

You have a lot of nerve making this demand after making false claims about my posts again and again. Using an arbitrary cutoff of only the last 14 PMs requires an underlying assumption that all of Indian culture was tossed out and society went through some kind of instant gender equality change when the Brits pulled. Your claim "women make up 22% of India's Prime Ministers" is based on an arbitrary cutoff point of 1947. If you go back a decade in the US half the Presidents were black. Would that be a valid representation of politics in the US or a distorted one based on the cutoff I chose? If one goes back to 1947, 1 of 12 Presidents (8%) in the US were black. Saying 50% or 8% of US Presidents were black presents a false picture of racism in the US.


However, this is a side track and I rather not waste more time on it.

Maybe Ray Fisher from Slate can explain it to you in a way you'll begin to understand:

Women in government are associated with lots of good things.... But the obvious problem with this sort of exercise is that Scandinavians are different from Saudis in lots of ways. Their progressive attitudes—not to mention all that free child care—may be what allows women to get elected, not the other way around.
To avoid this type of Swede-to-Saudi comparison, social scientists are always on the lookout for "natural experiments" in which we can look at before-after changes within a community rather than making comparisons across very different societies. In this sense, India's decision to put women in charge was an economist's manna from heaven, and the reason that Duflo and Topalova went there for insight on the effects of female leadership. In 1991, almost none of India's village councils were headed by women; the 1991 constitutional amendment passed to redress this imbalance mandated the election of women as pradhans, or council heads, in a third of villages that were chosen entirely at random. This means the villages reserved for female candidates were no different from other villages before the women-only elections.

(emphasis mine) You keep tying to compare vastly different cultures and you cannot legitimately do that in this case.

So, before 1991 ALL the local leaders in India were male, not exactly evidence of gender equality. But then after some equality was IMPOSED by law, it turned out where things got better opinion polls still found the women leaders were less popular than the men leaders:

Rural Indians are learning firsthand what it's like to live under female leadership as a result of a 1991 law that restricted one-third of village council elections to female candidates. The villagers' experiences are analyzed by economists Esther Duflo and Petia Topalova in a recent unpublished study. Using opinion surveys and data on local "public goods"—like schools, roads, and water pumps—Duflo and Topalova find that the villages headed by women invested in more services that benefited the entire community than did those with gender-neutral elections, nearly all of which were won by men. But as the opinion polls showed, for all their effectiveness, the women's governance was literally a thankless effort, with the new leaders getting lower approval ratings than their male counterparts.

"It Takes a Village … to fail to thank its female leader, no matter how good she is," is the name of the article.

.Repeat strawman and a red herring to boot. I have never said that women have equal status in India. If anything, I have claimed the opposite.

It's your straw man. You keep trying to compare a single key indicator between the two distinctly different countries.

Post #739 ... Post #746 ... If you honestly want to understand my position, feel free to check my post above to KingMerv.

I do understand your position and I keep trying to address your false underlying premise. Perhaps you will get it from Fisher's column.

 

[Francesca R]

Re: women in political high office in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan . . . Do some posters not know the difference between dynastic family rule and meritocracy? Or the recent-ish history of assassinations?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

If that's what SG is claiming (not saying she is) ......

"She" is not making that claim.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I don't know if this has been posted before, but there was a study in 2010 that showed that single, childless women have higher salaries than men in 147 of the 150 cities that were polled. I cannot get my hands on the study itself, but here's a write up about it in the Times.

Thoughts?

From the article it looks like you left out a couple other variables.

Here's the slightly deflating caveat: this reverse gender gap, as it's known, applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities. The rest of working women — even those of the same age, but who are married or don't live in a major metropolitan area — are still on the less scenic side of the wage divide.

(emphasis mine)

That's a narrow slice and gives a significantly different picture than, 'it's all about giving up career for kids and marriage'.


It suggests things are continuing to improve, however, and I would agree with that.

 

[truethat]

Re: women in political high office in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan . . . Do some posters not know the difference between dynastic family rule and meritocracy? Or the recent-ish history of assassinations?

Welcome to America where everything is viewed through the Western lens.

 

[Francesca R]

IIRC (can't check right now), to a woman every female PM/party leader in all three countries since independence/creation got the job due to a father, husband or other heir-apparent dying or being bumped off.

 

[KingMerv00]

"She" is not making that claim.

Hmm...judging from those quotes, I think I'll do the polite thing and just refer to you as "Ginger" from now on.

 

[KingMerv00]

Hmm, sorry KingMerv00, I was going to go into my earlier posts and reply to yours, but seems pointless looking at everything since then.

No big deal.

 

[cyborg]

Would it help if I ordered you?

You can try.

You can't tell us we are cherry-picking and then refuse to show us where we are wrong.

I can, but then I haven't. I've been addressing what has been presented and no more.

Again, the answer to your question is "mu" because the measurement needs to be taken in context with other figures.

So as a headline figure we can all agree that the price of tea in China is as relevant to gender equality?

Good.

 

[Francesca R]

(Just for the record):

India:
Indira Gandhi: Only child of Jawaharlal Nehru (first PM)
Sonia Gandhi (not PM but Congress leader): Widow of Rajiv Gandhi (predecessor PM)

Pakistan:
Benazir Bhutto: Eldest child of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (predecessor PM)

Bangladesh:
Khaleda Zia: Widow of Ziaur Rahman (predecessor president and party leader)
Sheikh Hasina: Eldest child of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (first president)

 

[KingMerv00]

So as a headline figure we can all agree that the price of tea in China is as relevant to gender equality?

We could but we don't. I know what you are trying to say but you aren't really doing a good job proving your point.

You think the my selection of government, business, wealth, and the media are arbitrary ways of measuring power. Fine. Tell me how legislation, multi-billion dollar corporations, personal wealth, and the mass exchange of memes don't constitute "power". If you don't want to do that, give me something better to work with.

As to your original question:

So again the question no one wants to answer - what number of female presidents would not be immoral, sexist revenge but would show the end of gender inequality?

How many pieces of evidence does it take to find a person guilty of a crime in the court of law?

 

[epepke]

Just trying to understand your thought process. Why would this give a better understanding of the wage comparison?

When trying to figure out a correlation, it's generally best to have the categories broken out as far as possible.

For example, let's say you were trying to figure out the correlates with foot pain, and all you had were data on long-distance walkers and runners who were also diabetic, compared to the rest of the population. You wouldn't be able to figure out whether the walking or the diabetes were correlated with the foot pain from those statistics. With the statistics broken out for diabetics versus non-diabetics, and separately for long-distance walkers/runners and the more sedentary, you could say more, more clearly. Ideally, if you had unified statistics for all four combinations, you could say even more. For example, there's a plausible hypothesis that, while long-distance walking/running might generally be correlated with more foot pain, long-distance walking might reduce diabetic foot pain, and you'd be able to test this one.

With separate categories for age, marital status, and children, you could more easily and clearly figure out what's going on from the evidence.

 

[Moss]

(Just for the record):

India:
Indira Gandhi: Only child of Jawaharlal Nehru (first PM)
Sonia Gandhi (not PM but Congress leader): Widow of Rajiv Gandhi (predecessor PM)

Pakistan:
Benazir Bhutto: Eldest child of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (predecessor PM)

Bangladesh:
Khaleda Zia: Widow of Ziaur Rahman (predecessor president and party leader)
Sheikh Hasina: Eldest child of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (first president)

You also get the whole slew of varnas and jatis to complicate things. Early Indian democracy was mostly members of the Brahmin or Kshatrya varnas (or equivalent groups)talking to and at each other. Many female politicians also hail from that background. Which is why I earlier stated "I suppose it is quite complicated".
For the record: I don't think I made the claim that the careers of the ladies Gandhi prove there is gender equality. I still think it's remarkable given the somewhat traditionalist culture.
I think the "dynasty not meritocracy" argument Francesca R puts up is somewhat valid. I think that those women were able to get into such a high position is not only the result of their relatives but also better education and more personal freedom. Which also comes back to their families and their upbringing. But then again you could argue that being so steeped in politics from a young age makes you a good politician.

 

[Francesca R]

I still think it's remarkable given the somewhat traditionalist culture.

No more than Queen Victoria, or Elizabeth I, in my view. That is, to some extent, where each of them got it from.

 

[epepke]

1. The data only looks at a very small portion of the workforce (young, childless, city-dwellers). The wage gap is normally calculated across a wider spectrum so the data ignores women already deep into their careers. I won't call it "cherry-picking" because there is useful information to be had here. In particular, it gives a hint at the future. On the other hand, it doesn't give a fair presentation of the whole.

Of course not. It cannot. But that's OK, because you aren't looking for a fair representation of the whole. You're looking at wages.

It's a reasonable thing to look at in cities, because it's the primary means that people earn their livelihood. (There's also public assistance, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to look at that.) That's not true in rural areas. A substantial number of people earn their livelihood by family farming, hunting, and barter. Of course, there are regular, city-style jobs (industry, which is much less than years ago, and factory farming, which is more than years ago).

The data creates a paradox. It seems like women are more liked overall but aren't worthy of getting elected. Pew gives potential reasons for the paradox in the text. Regardless of what side you're on, I recommending it.

One thing that most people seem to be forgetting is that being elected to high office is dangerous. Of the 43 men who have been President of the US and have left office, 4 left office because they died of assassination. That's almost 10%. Being President is more dangerous than any trade I can think of, except possibly for certain levels in the illegal drug trade.

It seems to be the case that the most dangerous professions and trades, whether actually dangerous (garbage collection, fishing, and lumberjacking, roofing, mining) or perceived as dangerous (soldiering, police work, firefighting) are dominated by men.

Now, if you want to say that this is a result of sexism, that's fine. I might even agree. I don't think it's the kind of sexism that more than a vanishingly small number of feminists care about. As I wrote 20 years ago, you know and I know that nobody is going to impose affirmative action quotas on Arlington National Cemetery.

Which is kind of too bad, because there are probably some individuals other than I who are interested in getting rid of gender disparities from an individual, humanistic viewpoint. Feminists aren't really interested, though, and here I'm not just talking about what you call "radical" feminists.

 

[Moss]

No more than Queen Victoria, or Elizabeth I, in my view. That is, to some extent, where each of them got it from.

Which neither had to swing democratic votes in their favor. I'm quite certain there were enough Nehru loyalists around to give Indira Gandhi a powerbase. Not sure if those same people were around for her reelection. It gets even more complicated after the "Emergency". "Only got into power because a male relative died" seems to be too simple an answer.

 

[Piggy]

Why so much hatred for feminism?

Just because it's tiresome.

Yes, we're a patriarchal species, and yes, women have gotten the short end of the stick in a lot of significant ways -- I think John Lenon wrote a song about it once.

I suppose you could call that observation an "ism" but to me it's just part of the natural world and if we want a more fair and equal society, well, we do what we have to do. And if we don't, then we don't bother.

But I don't need a separate doctrine for that. It's just part and parcel of a larger notion of the world being a better place to live the more we all get treated fairly and stop believing that our primitive traditions are holy.

Why would I think women are an exception? Why would I think anyone is an exception?

And personally, having done time in academia, my experience with folks who do need to wrap the "treat women equally" bit in its own doctrine, well, it hasn't been great. It becomes the lens through which everything is viewed, and that just gets tedious after awhile.

I could take every statement made "from a feminist perspective" and substitute "from a humanist perspective" and all the valid points would remain valid.

 

[KingMerv00]

Of course not. It cannot. But that's OK, because you aren't looking for a fair representation of the whole. You're looking at wages.

I meant that it's not a fair representation of wages as a whole in America.

It's a reasonable thing to look at in cities, because it's the primary means that people earn their livelihood. (There's also public assistance, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to look at that.) That's not true in rural areas. A substantial number of people earn their livelihood by family farming, hunting, and barter. Of course, there are regular, city-style jobs (industry, which is much less than years ago, and factory farming, which is more than years ago).

Looking at cities is definitely important. I'm not contesting that. I'm just saying that when you combine "city-dweller" with "under 20", "single", and "childless" you end up with a small portion of what you started with.

One thing that most people seem to be forgetting is that being elected to high office is dangerous. Of the 43 men who have been President of the US and have left office, 4 left office because they died of assassination. That's almost 10%. Being President is more dangerous than any trade I can think of, except possibly for certain levels in the illegal drug trade.

If we assume for the moment that women truly have equal opportunity become president, the only way I can interpret the above is to say women are too cowardly to follow through, men are protecting women from danger, or a combination of the two. Given the controversial nature of those views, I'll just assume I misunderstood you until you clarify.

Whatever your opinion, it doesn't explain why women are vastly underrepresented in less dangerous positions like Senator and Representative.

It seems to be the case that the most dangerous professions and trades, whether actually dangerous (garbage collection, fishing, and lumberjacking, roofing, mining) or perceived as dangerous (soldiering, police work, firefighting) are dominated by men.

Now, if you want to say that this is a result of sexism, that's fine. I might even agree. I don't think it's the kind of sexism that more than a vanishingly small number of feminists care about. As I wrote 20 years ago, you know and I know that nobody is going to impose affirmative action quotas on Arlington National Cemetery.

Which is kind of too bad, because there are probably some individuals other than I who are interested in getting rid of gender disparities from an individual, humanistic viewpoint. Feminists aren't really interested, though, and here I'm not just talking about what you call "radical" feminists.

You probably missed it but Tyr and I had a brief discussion about the disproportionate number of men in dangerous jobs. I gladly acknowledged that it was wrong and that it was likely the result of sexist gender roles. It is poisonous to say that danger is "a man's work".

Not much to say about Arlington except that are factually wrong. The National Organization of Women has offically supported equality in the draft and in the military since the early 80s. I believe that every feminist in this thread agrees with them.

I had a bunch more critiques of the Time article in my post. Any thoughts on them?

 

[bookitty]

I meant that it's not a fair representation of wages as a whole in America.



Looking at cities is definitely important. I'm not contesting that. I'm just saying that when you combine "city-dweller" with "under 20", "single", and "childless" you end up with a small portion of what you started with.



If we assume for the moment that women truly have equal opportunity become president, the only way I can interpret the above is to say women are too cowardly to follow through, men are protecting women from danger, or a combination of the two. Given the controversial nature of those views, I'll just assume I misunderstood you until you clarify.

Whatever your opinion, it doesn't explain why women are vastly underrepresented in less dangerous positions like Senator and Representative.



You probably missed it but Tyr and I had a brief discussion about the disproportionate number of men in dangerous jobs. I gladly acknowledged that it was wrong and that it was likely the result of sexist gender roles. It is poisonous to say that danger is "a man's work".

Not much to say about Arlington except that are factually wrong. The National Organization of Women has offically supported equality in the draft and in the military since the early 80s. I believe that every feminist in this thread agrees with them.
I had a bunch more critiques of the Time article in my post. Any thoughts on them?

A very small quibble. I agree that every person who wants to join the military should be allowed to take any role within that military. If a woman wants to be a soldier, let her.

However, I am completely opposed to the draft and selective service. I believe that it is a human rights violation and should not be required of anyone, ever. (For the same reason I am opposed to forced birth. It's your body, you get to decide when to risk it.) So I do not believe that anyone should be drafted or that anyone should have to register for selective service. At this point, only men are required. That is wrong and should be changed. It should not be changed by forcing women to register. A "more equal" human rights violation is merely a larger one and I can not support that.