"Why can't we hate men?"

[d4m10n]

Of all the possible things that might be true, most aren't. You've given us no good reason to think that the number you offered is correct, so I'm going to say we shouldn't base any idea or actions on it.

Should we base our system on the wholly unevidenced assumption that men and women are equally likely to empathise with problems uniquely faced by either men or women?

 

[Roboramma]

You haven't provided any examples of quotas leading to fascism, much less quotas specifically designed to make representative bodies more demographically representative somehow leading to fascism.

Everything occurs at some level of abstraction. Do you want quotas, or the specific type of quota that you are talking about? Perhaps we should go further and look only at quotas in countries that already have strong democratic institutions that can help to prevent any slide in to facism, otherwise it's not an apples to apples comparison. But at some point when we take into account all the possible variables there can be no previous examples because every situation is unique.

Of course the issue them becomes which aspects of the situation are meaningful and which are not. Ziggurat is not arguing that quotas in particular lead to facism, but rather that "Every totalitarian ideology requires that you subsume your individual identity into a group identity." and thus that anything that does so is something that we should consider dangerous.

Of course if there are enough examples of quotas not having any negative consequences for democracy that might suggest that he is empirically wrong, but all ideas have some theoretical underpinning.

 

[angrysoba]

Gathering a subjective sense of how people tend to think in one's own native culture probably should not be compared with gathering data in an experimental sense.

Agree or disagree with it, or suggest some way to find actual data to settle the issue.

You mean a better way than your poorly arrived at hunch?

Here's an idea, let's have, say, a referendum in which a country with a long, well-known aversion to abortion on religious grounds is asked whether or not they support a woman's right to choose an abortion for an unwanted pregnancy.

If you are correct, it is possible to have 100% of women support the measure (assuming none of them were against abortion) plus perhaps 1% of men.

The Irish referendum on repealing a prohibition to abortion would be a good place to start.

66.4 % were in favour of repealing it, and 33.6% against. If your contention is correct then that result is inexplicable.

 

[Roboramma]

Should we base our system on the wholly unevidenced assumption that men and women are equally likely to empathise with problems uniquely faced by either men or women?

I don't think anyone has suggested that we should.

 

[d4m10n]

You mean a better way than your poorly arrived at hunch?

Yes, that.

Here's an idea, let's have, say, a referendum in which a country with a long, well-known aversion to abortion on religious grounds is asked whether or not they support a woman's right to choose an abortion for an unwanted pregnancy.

Good idea, but it won't tell us anything about how the U.S. Senate ought to be composed.

What is your argument that men ought to be persistently overrepresented in that particular legislative body?

 

[angrysoba]

Yes, that.



Good idea, but it won't tell us anything about how the U.S. Senate ought to be composed.

What is your argument that men ought to be persistently overrepresented in that particular legislative body?

You want to change the subject? I was addressing your claim about men in general (As were you unless you regularly chat to US Senators) not putting in the mental effort to empathize with women having an unwanted pregnancy.

How is my example of the Irish referendum not contrary to your claim of only 1% of men putting in the necessary mental effort to empathize?

 

[d4m10n]

How is my example of the Irish referendum not contrary to your claim of only 1% of men putting in the necessary mental effort to empathize?

I'll show you how, using only highlighter.

Gathering a subjective sense of how people tend to think in one's own native culture probably should not be compared with gathering data in an experimental sense.

 

[angrysoba]

I'll show you how, using only highlighter.

That's a recently added qualification added long after your original claim was questioned:

Men are most likely capable of empathizing with what it would be like to face an unwanted pregnancy, but I doubt that even 1% of them ever bother to put in the necessary mental effort.

You certainly did not say "Men in my native culture", which I think is probably slippery enough to make it whatever you want it to be.

Do you mind clarifying what you mean by your native culture and also why you think the Irish population is so much more enlightened?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Should we base our system on the wholly unevidenced assumption that men and women are equally likely to empathise with problems uniquely faced by either men or women?

We should base our system that voters are the ultimate authority in who they would like to represent them. The nature of the electoral system is that voters have to prioritize issues, as it is very unlikely that a viable candidate exists that is a 100% match to their personal politics. Despite what you seem to be suggesting, "women's issues" are not the highest priority of many women voters. Plenty are openly hostile to these platforms. Women are free to decide how they prioritize their political positions just like everyone else.

Women are not a monolithic voting block. They hold a wide variety of incompatible views, including on women specific issues. Treating them as some narrow interest group is foolish.

 

[3point14]

You think the number should be lower?

Which number?

I think your numbers are nonsense. Your own, self-selecting sample of friends and acquaintances is definitely not suitable for drawing conclusions about all men. That's fairly fundamental statistics.

 

[d4m10n]

Your own, self-selecting sample of friends and acquaintances is definitely not suitable for drawing conclusions about all men.

American men, mostly. Admittedly, I've only my own experiences to go off of here, unless Pew has done a study which I've yet to find.

 

[d4m10n]

You certainly did not say "Men in my native culture", which I think is probably slippery enough to make it whatever you want it to be.

You may have missed that this branch of discussion grew out of talk about proposed political reforms in a specific nation other than Ireland.

If a group holds all the levers of power in a country (as men currently do), then some men are going to suffer if we carve out a spot for women at the table. I would not be opposed to a law that guaranteed women at least 40% of the seats in Congress.

I'd be cool with one female senator per state as part of the ERA.

(Talking about an hypothetical future ERA here, not the historical one which failed.)

I don't see how that quota could be enforced without seriously interfering with the democratic voting process. I might not be thinking it all through, but how would that work?

Cannot speak for Fudbucker, but this process need not be complicated for the Senate. Keep the election cycles specified by Article I, Section 3, Clause 2 (modified by Amendment XVII), but require each State to elect a Senator who is the opposite sex of the incumbent who is not facing reelection in the current cycle.

To take Ohio as an example, this would mean that instead of incumbent Sherrod Brown running against Jim Renacci, we’d have two female Ohioans facing off for that same seat. I like Sherrod Brown well enough, but he could always run against Rob Portman in 2022.

There are those who warn that such forced demographic equality would lead us down the path to fascism, but so far they’ve yet to provide and historical examples of this process in action.

 

[theprestige]

American men, mostly. Admittedly, I've only my own experiences to go off of here, unless Pew has done a study which I've yet to find.

Your own experiences are so profoundly problematic in this regard, that you're reduced to slurring any policy disagreement as a lack of empathy.

ETA: If you consider your Dunbar number is somewhere around 150, how many American men can you have actually interviewed in enough depth to understand their thoughts and feelings, the extent of their empathy and their political reasoning? Even if every single one of your meaningful human contacts were American men, and even if every single one were focused on their degree of empathy towards women's issues, you'd still have a sample size of... one hundred and fifty subjects.

So, again: When you present your opinion here, is it your understanding that you're telling us about a real problem that we should solve?

 

[Ziggurat]

You haven't provided any examples of quotas leading to fascism

Are you intentionally missing the point here? Elevating group identity above individual identity is a bad thing.

 

[d4m10n]

Are you intentionally missing the point here? Elevating group identity above individual identity is a bad thing.

If you're talking about the dictatorship of the proletariat, I can see your point.

If you're talking about pure Ayrans and their need for lebensraum in the lands currently occupied by "lesser races," I can see your point.

If you're talking about men and women having equal representation in a democratic republic, I cannot see your point.

 

[3point14]

American men, mostly. Admittedly, I've only my own experiences to go off of here, unless Pew has done a study which I've yet to find.

Then please don't use blanket statements using the phrase "all men" when that's not what you mean. This is a fairly international board and, at least nominally a board for skepticism and critical thinking. It's fairly important that you say what you mean and not make us all have to go drilling for it. In the face of some resistance too, I might add.

 

[Ziggurat]

If you're talking about the dictatorship of the proletariat, I can see your point.

If you're talking about pure Ayrans and their need for lebensraum in the lands currently occupied by "lesser races," I can see your point.

If you're talking about men and women having equal representation in a democratic republic, I cannot see your point.

I already explicitly said that equal representation isn't a problem in and of itself. Were you not paying attention?

But if you think quotas would end with men and women, you're naive. There is no limiting principle here.

 

[angrysoba]

How is my example of the Irish referendum not contrary to your claim of only 1% of men putting in the necessary mental effort to empathize?

You may have missed that this branch of discussion grew out of talk about proposed political reforms in a specific nation other than Ireland.

Okay, so how about I be generous and allow the qualification that we are talking about American men only.

You certainly did not say "Men in my native culture", which I think is probably slippery enough to make it whatever you want it to be.

Do you mind clarifying what you mean by your native culture and also why you think the Irish population is so much more enlightened?

American men, mostly. Admittedly, I've only my own experiences to go off of here, unless Pew has done a study which I've yet to find.

Okay, well here is a link to a Pew poll on attitudes to abortion:

http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/

Women support legal abortion by 59% to 38%
Men support legal abortion by 55% to 42%

That's almost within a margin of error in similarity.

To me that suggests heavily that gender is a fairly minor factor in the difference between acceptance of abortion and by extension empathizing with women who have unwanted pregnancies, not the radical difference you have been arguing it to be.

Maybe women and men have a larger intra-gender variability in opinions and empathy for others than you give the respective genders credit for.

 

[phiwum]

Okay, so how about I be generous and allow the qualification that we are talking about American men only.





Okay, well here is a link to a Pew poll on attitudes to abortion:

http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/

Women support legal abortion by 59% to 38%
Men support legal abortion by 55% to 42%

That's almost within a margin of error in similarity.

To me that suggests heavily that gender is a fairly minor factor in the difference between acceptance of abortion and by extension empathizing with women who have unwanted pregnancies, not the radical difference you have been arguing it to be.

Maybe women and men have a larger intra-gender variability in opinions and empathy for others than you give the respective genders credit for.

If I'm not mistaken, you are responding to a liberal Okie. His state (which is my home state) is quite conservative. This may explain his bias on this issue to some extent.

I live in the Boston area now, where there's a clear tendency towards the left. I don't feel the need for gender parity in the Senate.

An odd fact about the south is that they elect female governors rather a lot. More, it seems, than up here.

 

[angrysoba]

If I'm not mistaken, you are responding to a liberal Okie. His state (which is my home state) is quite conservative. This may explain his bias on this issue to some extent.

I live in the Boston area now, where there's a clear tendency towards the left. I don't feel the need for gender parity in the Senate.

An odd fact about the south is that they elect female governors rather a lot. More, it seems, than up here.

Sure, which is why I (and others) have been trying to work out if the sample of people he has spoken to is representative of men in general, and, whether or not his own interpretations of his sample is biased in some way. I have been trying over the course of a few pages to get him to clarify various parts of his original statement and been frustrated by his evasiveness.

It's not the behaviour that I would hope for from someone who appears ostensibly to be calling for action and a change to the status quo.