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 -
An article was recently published which found that the reason women aren't as represented in leadership roles as much as men are is that they simply do not aspire to leadership roles as much. I cannot describe how annoyed I am at this. Over the past, say, 10 years, the notion that sexism is infused into corporate structures has dominated and been a key battle cry, and it was said that evidence for this was clear using an equity lens (that, simply put, women are proportionately less present in leadership roles which necessarily means that the structure is sexist). How the fuck did no one think to ask 'could it be that women simply do not aspire to leadership roles?' This strikes me as a real face palm moment for feminists. At the outset, it's a valid criticism that the research just hadn't been done prior. But
A. it's a widely known and uncontested fact that testosterone promotes status seeking behaviors. Why was that not the null hypothesis?? I'm not an academic researcher, but I question the intellectual integrity of anyone performing research in this area that failed to extrapolate out such a basic and widely known fact, even at a superficial level.
B. Given that women are, naturally, the most ardent students/researchers in academic studies, how the fuck did none of them, when thinking about the reason there are less women in leadership positions, think to observe the basic fact that they themselves do not aspire to a leadership position??
I think this really highlights the inadequacy of identity lenses and equity as an analytical tool, as they systematically and by design fail to consider endogenous factors. This is a perfect example of why causal forces cannot be easily inferred based on inequitable outcomes. Reverse causation is a serious and, at least conceptually, easily avoidable flaw. This really highlights the risk of low quality research for bodies of thought driven by identity and ideology.
I hate to have this ranty tone, but this is quite literally someone railing against the system for years and years claiming it is corrupt because it will not give them something, while failing to disclose that those people actually don't really want that thing.
Other comments have already pointed out the gotcha whereby sexism is also said to be a societal cause that shapes a woman's desires. In this way, a society where everyone is happy can still be sexist!
This is a little odd, but not too odd because otherwise you would be also able to justify American chattel slavery. It's been said that emancipated blacks were unhappier on average etc.
Now, there are some things about being a slave that are, irrespective of being happy, potentially unhealthy. For example, it might be the case that slaves were malnourished or abused. Even if they were happy, keeping someone down and making them happy about it is generally considered bad.
I think feminists are making a similar argument. They don't care if (on average) women are happy being homemakers instead of programmers and CEOs. The feminist believes it is harmful, likely because programmers and CEOs are paid more and so are more financially independent.
I kind of see this angle, because I for one feel fortunate that I enjoy programming, and am good at programming, and I can make a buck while I'm at it. It's one of the few ways I feel like I'm meant for this world, and i suppose it is a little unfortunate (for them) that the median person does not desire this. I suppose women are disproportionately affected by this.
A lot of people don't like beats or brussel sprouts. (I hope I can form a consensus about this!) These people speak as if those foods are gross and icky and wouldn't even want to like them. But I would say, it is probably better to like them. It is inconvenient to be picky. Let us decouple our thoughts on brussel sprouts from our thoughts on liking them.
Feminism is kind of condescending in that it tells women what they should and should not want. Else, it must defend that the lot of a western woman is like that of a slave. The latter appears to be the more common strategy.
Can you elaborate on that?
Feminism as you describe it purports to represent women's interests, but instead of shaping its actions around what women want, they shape what women want around the actions they would like to take.
I would agree that regardless of whether women actually want to be in leadership roles, there should not be structural bias against it. However, the point here is that feminists claim the gender disparity at management levels is evidence that structural bias exists, which is clearly not the case.
You appear to use "structural bias" as a negative term here, and "actually want" as a neutral term, as if peoples preferences are just the way the world is. (What if preferences are malleable to social engineering?)
Firstly, there are many feminists and they claim different things, so we need to be specific. Secondly, as other comments have alluded to, the structural bias here causes female preferences.
It is common for a feminist to make the above empirical claim about gender disparity, and use "structural bias" in the same way you do. When evidence to the contrary is presented, the feminist interlocutor either ends the conversation, changes the topic, or falls back on a subtly different meaning of "structural bias." I suppose charitably he used this other meaning of "structural bias" the entire time, but I will explain the complications of assuming that charity.
The fallback meaning of "structural bias" require us to read the feminist claim as being tautological, not empirical. "Structural bias" is simply anything socially-constructed which makes men and women different. "Bias" should be read here like statistical bias not "human bias." Since women have a tendency to not be leaders, this is tautological evidence for some systemic bias. I will also explain the complications of the term "socially-constructed."
I originally had a monologue on preferences and meta-preferences, but to keep it shorter: feminism's true preferences are not merely "women are happy" or "women face no discrimination." Feminism's true preference appears to be: "women are not different from men." Since the first two are an easier sell to the public, those are what we hear the most about, but I think those are only stated reasons, not the true reasons. The problem with assuming that feminists always use "structural bias" in the tautological sense is that the layman thinks it means discrimination anyways (Standard motte-and-bailey)
The problem with socially-constructed things is that it is just a synonym for "things." My inflammatory claim that feminism aims to erase all distinction between man and woman seems like it would fly in the face of biology, but we mutate biology all the time. To demonstrate, I will make an even more inflammatory prediction: if artificial wombs become feasible, I would expect feminists to agitate for one or both of these:
men to receive artificial wombs to equally bear the cost of bearing children
an end to all traditional conception
In both of these cases, I would expect feminism to use social engineering to align peoples preferences with this outcome. According to this model, feminism is in the business of world-outcomes, not making people happy. There is another model I alluded to in my original reply that describes feminism as harm-reduction, but that model wasn't as relevant to the quoted text.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link