This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Throwing more fuel on the bonfire of "women: what is the matter with them?"
On the one hand, this should hearten those who like to leave comments regarding feminism with "why aren't they fighting for the right to work in coal mines?" (disregarding that there was a history of women working in coal mines, this was considered terrible, and it was made illegal for women to work down mines).
On the other hand, it will dishearten those who think the solution to the TFR problem is "just encourage girls to get married and start having babies straight out of high school, don't go to college, don't be career-focused".
Right now, the way most economies in the developed world work, if you want a reasonable standard of living, you need two people working full-time jobs (and as good salaries in those jobs as you can get). Want a mortgage for a house so you finally can have those two kids? Both of you better be working your little behinds off or the banks won't even look at the application form (and I fill in financial details on said application forms for our staff who are applying for mortgages, so I can speak on this).
Want a good enough career to get those salaries? Better go to college and get qualifications, as this newspaper columnist says in his article about his teenage son having a work experience placement:
And that last is the important part: for a decent job, you need qualifications. For qualifications, you need college. If college, no early marriages and child-bearing. And the current economic structure is, as I said, both of you better be working or forget it.
So all the neat solutions about 'get women back into the home' aren't that neat or practical when it comes down to it. I'd love for women to be free to be homemakers, wives and mothers instead of "the only value in your life is work, and the only valuable work is paid work, so get a job outside the home". But it takes two to tango, and it's not all down to "if only women weren't so uppity, problem solved!" Businesses are pushing to get more women into work. Maybe the promised AI future will mean "robots do all the jobs, AI makes the economy so productive nobody has to work, UBI means you can stay at home and have three babies and raise them yourself".
Or maybe not, and it will be "if you're not working some kind of job, you are on the breadline, and if you want a good job in the increasingly AI-dominated economy, you better have super skills and super qualifications, so more college, more everything, personal life? who needs that?".
Maybe I'm being uncharitable/overgeneralizing, but my experience is that the sort of person who says this sort of thing doesn't want women to do this kind of work, they want it as something to justifying subordinating women.
As the person who said such a thing in a recent thread with @HereAndGone2 that definitely isn't my position. I don't want women to go back to working in coal mines, I just want consistency from feminists who largely seem to only push for greater female representation in cushy white collar jobs. Or, alternatively, an admission from feminists that there are actually fundamental differences between men and women, and each are better suited for different jobs and roles in life. I am not claiming that men are superior to women when I claim they are fundamentally different, though that tends to be be the kneejerk assumption feminists make when I say such a thing. I do believe that when women attempt to live like men and assume male roles in life, they generally end up effectively becoming inferior males. But I believe the same is true of men who assume female roles.
It's mildly refreshing to see a trade organization appear to be consistent about gender equality, though I believe the real motives behind their statement are not so high-minded. I am also extremely doubtful that there will be any significant follow-through in terms of hiring trends (i.e. discrimination against men), outreach programs, etc. like we've seen for women in STEM. Most construction jobs require significant physical strength that most women are lacking, and it's far harder to paper over those differences than it is in less physical fields.
Almost every construction trade organization will mouth some BS about wanting to increase the percentage of female -whatever- into the high rather than low single digits. It's simply something they're expected to say.
More options
Context Copy link
Weirdly, my younger (in college, lesbian) sister, when pressed, will outright claim that "women are better than men in every way" yet decline to call this sexism. I'm still a bit flummoxed on how to address this - I think her classic argument is along the lines of how you must view anything like racism or sexism in context of the direction of traditional oppression, but we usually don't get that far before feelings are hurt so that's the one topic we try to avoid recently when family gathers. I guess I'm inclined to simply call this a lack of emotional maturity rather than a genuine intellectual failing for now, we'll see if she feels the same in 5 years, much as that feels stereotypical or possibly-paternalistic/hubristic to type.
More generally, I think the issue here comes down to "money". Money is powerful. Money distorts emotions. Money buys lots of things, notably including many nontangible items too (indirectly). Money ends up being a power system in and of itself. I think unless we manage to agree on the moral nature of money and what it does to people and society, we're going to have trouble coming to grips with the intersection of gender and careers. I don't think that's a super hippie-commie thing to say, nor a super-religious thing to say, just plain truth. My mini-thesis, at least.
I'd be very interested to see some of these thread responses paired with "what do you think about money, its role in society, and its personal influence?" (Bonus points: paired with how financially comfortable are you/secure in your future)
It's only sexism if it's against women.
It remains a gynosupremacist statement, however; X-supremacy was what "X-ism"s were invented to prosecute.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link