Feminist Philosophy

[BaneTheBrawler]

Discuss the current thinking, goals, and obstacles of the Feminist... Movement? Concept? Agenda? Whatever you want to call it.

If you find yourself repeating the same arguments with the same people, just stop. You're not going to convert everyone to your way of thinking. Accept that, and move on.

As always, I expect a civil tone. I've been playing softball with you all since I was modded. I'm still not likely to be as hammer-heavy as some of the other mods, but I'm also not going to coddle you anymore.

That being said, keep it clean and remember we're just a bunch of vidya nerds.

[Charismatic]

You know that neither of us can definitively prove that "gender preferences" is more or less a factor than sexism, and you are using that as a cudgel to grind the conversation to a halt.

Congrats. I'm out.

While I'm glad you're leaving (since you never like to actually address the points people are making and prefer to argue with people about things that no one was saying), you should probably not presume you understand my reasoning because are not me. (Surprised?)


I am not attempting to grind anything to a halt, but rather interested in knowing more about what investigation has been done and hoping someone has some insight that I don't have.

And now that I'm finished reading the information from your link, it doesn't appear that there was a prominent effect on hireability but their study did show a big potential pay gap. That's also troubling as pay may well be a factor when it comes to interest in staying in the field.

Spoiler: show

Numbers-wise over the course of a year, not huge imo... but percentage-wise, that's kinda silly.
(Pay attention to the axis though, the difference isn't quite as extreme as it appears to be but still big enough to be notable to me)

This is just one study though, there needs to be a lot more if this is going to be the angle people are going to push.

[Blubbartron]

I'm only partly through reading the study, but I have concerns about the researchers competence when they make statements like the following:

Because all other information was held constant between conditions, any differences in participants’ responses are attributable to the gender of the student.

When I read something like that, I think they have an agenda, or they're a moron. Each professor only got one application to rate. The innate criticism level of a person is extremely important when it comes to something like this. In the same way that two professors might not grade the same research project the same, two professors are unlikely to "grade" a potential application the same. It seems to me that you would need a lot more than 60 people on each side in order to average out any personal differences. If not that, then you would need to give each professor two roughly equal applications, one male, one female, and use that additional information to determine if someone is an asshole in general, or only towards one sex.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Chari, this thread is not an invitation to simply continue the old thread. Leave the old argument at the door. The topic of the argument is fine, but that sarcastic nastiness was the old thread. I will consider such as trolling and act accordingly. Only warning.

Keep it CIVIL.

[Charismatic]

Oh, they definitely had an agenda. There's no doubt about that.
Keep reading and you'll see more evidence of that, but even so... using the study instead of throwing it out based on that is more of a good faith effort on my part than anything.

[Mazmaz]

ITT: hypotheses are agendas

[Charismatic]

ITT: hypotheses are agendas

There's no issue with their hypothesis. The issue is with how they went about finding supporting evidence (and ignored that there are other possible factors for the differences).
Its possible that sexism is indeed the cause for the differences we see but its not controlled for every well, but I'm not going to really take issue with that, I was content to ignore that and assume that they are correct for the purposes of this conversation.

[BerenTebogo]

So I'm a big fan of BBC Horizon, I think they generally do a good job summarizing scientific studies from a number of different fields in a way that any layperson can digest, while still preserving the integrity of the science.

I recently argued pretty strongly against inherent differences in males and females in early development and later in life re: STEM stuff. However, after watching the BBC Horizon "Is your brain male or female" http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvi..._FEMALE_BRAIN/ I can honestly say that my stance has shifted a bit.

The 200k / 53 country study is briefly referenced, which I still think is shit to draw conclusions from (they don't, it's just alluded to in discussion of other similar experiments), and a number of other good studies are discussed. Primarily, what prompted me to reconsider my stance the most is the study about prenatal testosterone levels possibly having an effect on brain functions that would typically swing people to or from STEM fields. It seems to be a pretty good study (would like to see more on though) that has followed a number of children from prenatal care in the 90s through today.

Anyway, I found the episode very interesting, and being science minded I think it's important to be able to admit when your ideas are wrong. I'm not going to say that the arguments that some of you fuckheads were tossing out were pulled from anywhere besides the deepest recesses of your colons, but that's another point for another time.

Watch it, it's 58 minutes, and BBC horizon is awesome so just fucking do it.

Edit: At the end there's also a very interesting study that contradicts the results of the 200k survey / some other studies by framing many of the same questions asked in those tests a different way (same question, asked differently, different results)

So, like I said, interesting.

[hey]

I recently argued pretty strongly against inherent differences in males and females in early development and later in life

Honestly, i am curious how people who think this justify the existence of trans people. Or do they never consider it? To me, it would seem to be totally at ends with that theory.

[Blubbartron]

Thanks for sharing Sath, I'll definitely have to give that a look. Also, for what it's worth, that prenatal testosterone study was also mentioned in the Brainwash video, and I agree that it's much stronger evidence. I'll be curious to see what you were talking about with the different phrasings changing the results of the surveys.

[6souls]

Here is a fun read that helps put things in perspective;



http://www.buzzfeed.com/danieldalton...tch#.ksnERon14

[Milkster]

Here is a fun read that helps put things in perspective;



http://www.buzzfeed.com/danieldalton...tch#.ksnERon14

Buzzfeed... Really? The "news" outlet that uses gifs in its "articles" is seriously being used to prove a point?

[6souls]

Don't bitch, just read it.

[Blubbartron]

Retarded, but entertaining. I give it a 7/10.

[Koul]

What perspective am I supposed to be looking for. I guess J.K. Rowling is some crazy woman-hating-anti-feminist-misogynistic-straight-white-privileged male who just KNEW that he would rustle the jimmies and further shit on the poor delicate female flowers of the world. Yes, this fantasy fiction series will SURELY keep the all powerful and deserving white men on top. Mwahahahahaha!

I wasn't able to make it through all the way though, made it to the point where Dumbledore is glad he gets killed because the Patriarchy. Right.

[Meresgi]

Read about half of it, is it supposed to be satire or actually trying to prove a point that the Harry Potter books are sexist? I'm assuming satire just from what way it's written.

[6souls]

It's satire. I found it funny. All of my co-workers are Harry Potter fans and they found it funny, too.

[Galkaeater]

Its not really a dig at the books

[Sho]

In my honest opinion, as an African-American male, I'd say the Feminist agenda (Third Wave) really has no focus at all in this age. First Wave Feminism had the ultimate goal of women's suffrage, which they ultimately won, but took a while in other countries. Second Wave Feminism had the ultimate agenda to break down a sexist power structure that placed men in higher positions in most, if not all forms of the workplace. They also tackled the issues of sexuality, prostitution, pornography, and abortion, as well as intra-familial rape. To be honest, we are still watching this Wave of Feminism right now in real time.

To that end, what really is the real goal of Third Wave Feminism? What purpose does it really serve? It's already a stretch that they extend their current agenda to the LGBT community, as the focus no longer is a woman's rights agenda (unless of course people in the LGBT community identify as female). You then have feminists taking this to cyber arena of the Internet. There's way too many distractions and grandstanding in this Wave of feminism to even have a focused agenda at all. In my opinion there's really no need for it, and feminists should be furthering the agendas of their mothers and grandmothers before them as there's still room to grow. The glass ceiling still exists in the workplace, rape and abortion are still hot topics. Why deviate from these problems?

[Meresgi]

Third wave of feminism seems to be centered around attention pure and simple. A lot of what is said and does seems only to strive for some attention in the media or any outlet they can get and like you said, has no real set goal in mind other then "EVERYTHING IS WRONG ARRRGGGGHHH". When you take a magnifying glass up to anything you can find something wrong with it if you look hard enough or skew things to match your opinion.