talkpolitics | Entries tagged with gender issues

The military-industrial complex is now run by women
"The CEOs of four of the five biggest defense contractors are women. Watch Ali Velshi break down who is running Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing’s defense wing, and weapons negotiations for the U.S."

Hmmmm, now this is interesting. We have heard for at least 50 years that when women get this kind of power they would be different, kinder, gentler and less warlike than men have been.

As I recall Hillary was quite hawkish.

I have always been skeptical about that theory that says all or most violence, especially war, comes from men.

There are hundreds of huge examples to the contrary spread throughout history.

Take WWII for example. Or for that matter, let's just look at white supremacy. One should have no problem seeing clearly that white supremacy, which has been responsible for 2 of the biggest, most bloody war's in recent human history,is not gender specific.

Those women who support white supremacy are just as violent as the men who perform most of the violent acts that we associate with white supremacy. They teach it to their sons and daughters.

Unfortunately for all of us, the simplistic feminists theory about violence and its source is way wrong. These women are not going to change the military imdustrial complex. Trillions have been lost and their budget was increased, which is good for the bottomline.

Nothing is gonna stop that train.

kiaa

Gender gaps and inequalities between women and men exist across all areas of society and impact on our daily lives. So obviously, it's important for policy-makers to be able to identify what these inequalities are, and more importantly, how they can be addressed.

However, I'll have to ask a question that's been nagging me for some time, and I'm sure some of you as well. Why is the forceful, top-down effort to close those gaps even necessary? And, isn't that unnatural, as opposed to letting society run its course?

I mean, there is no way you can achieve 50%/50% absolute equality and there is always some imbalances in areas. If we import the quota, how can you ensure that the most qualified person will be chosen for a position? Furthermore, it seems for most occupations (farmer/nurse/police officers/accountant/manager/factory workers), there is very limited differences in terms of the outputs and performances of either men or women, therefore it is still effective to hire anyone disregarding the gender. (And of course, some exceptional cases, like the fashion industries, where gender might be a consideration). There are many studies showing that the difference between male or female performances are minimal, then why do we persist to push for this agenda?

( Read more... )

mahnmut

Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Persistence of the Bad Male Apology
Advocates for survivors of sexual assault say statements like Tyson's are rarely about apologizing to alleged victims.

I used to think he's all for critical thought and all that stuff, and he may well still be - but his response to all this kerfuffle doesn't strike me as particularly sensitive to what #MeToo is really about. It's about inter-gender power dynamic (he was the boss of the woman he invited to his room after all) - not the presence or lack of a good sense of humor as some are making this sound.

Let's make something very clear. Responses like, "But how did she remember that I did all that stuff to her if she was really drugged?" are NOT helping.

Naturally, the usual question would come up again, "But why are they bringing this up NOW?" Well, guess what. The spirit of our time has become such that it has allowed women who've been victims of sexual harassment that's been prevalent for years and decades, and that has a lot to do with the above-mentioned inter-gender power dynamic, to finally feel comfortable enough to come out and speak. And we shouldn't underestimate the avalanche effect either, e.g. when one woman speaks and others see that she's getting support in response rather than the usual hush-hush and mansplaining, they also decide to come out in turn. And so it goes on. That's how culture tends to change, folks.

And guys like NdGT, as much as we love him for all he's done to popularize science and critical thought, should recognize this, instead of issuing half-assed, too-little-too-late apologies, or even worse, doubling down on those they may or may not have slighted.

Note: I'm saying "may not have". Because, if we're to remain true to the principles of critical thought that he professes (and the legal system too), the Innocent Until Proven Guilty premise should have precedence. Let's hear all sides of the story, and try to understand them, while refraining from judging. Obviously, it's one's word against another's at this point, so no real legal action could be taken. But there's much more beyond that - public perception, personal credibility and people's belief in a person's integrity that could affect their career and their standing in society - and yes, character assassination, too. That can be a factor. Let's take all this into account before hasting to judge any side. But let's also assume that if a number of women have decided to come out and speak, there must be some substance and truth to what they have to say.

And, Neil, next time you decide to reach under a woman's sleeveless blouse to find where she has tatooed Pluto, despite all your curiosity, please, PLEASE think twice and ask for permission first. Better yet, ask her if it's approriate if she did it herself. It can't be that hard for a guy like yourself, can it?

luzribeiro.livejournal.com

In historic decision, Pentagon chief opens all jobs in combat units to women

Sounds like great news. Glad to know they're upholding the current standards as well. Ideally, I'd say anyone who can pass an objective, universal standard, should be allowed to do a thing - including serving at any position in the military. The tricky thing in this case though is, if we're talking about embedding men and women together, we'd have to work around rape allegations, discrimination and such, unless we'd like to start segregating units along gender lines. Some people can't even stomach or handle unisex bathrooms, mind you. Is anything remotely close to the Battlestar Galatica type of unisex culture possible any time soon, how'd'ya think?

We've often heard the Israeli military being given as an example. We've seen those collections of pics of hot Israeli military women, etc. However, if memory serves, and correct me if I'm wrong, but there's only one female combat unit in the Israeli military, and most female IDF soldiers do not engage in combat missions, and only take supporting roles. American female GIs would have to pass the same tests as their male counterparts, and by that token, getting into the SEALs would be almost impossible, while female soldiers could be assigned to normal infantry units.

( Read more... )

abomvubuso.livejournal.com

How advancing women’s equality can add $12 trillion to global growth

This new MGI research attests to what many smart employers have known for a while: gender equality in the labour force has a huge value. The paper analyses the current and the potential GDP of 95 countries, and concludes that in the ideal case, if women and men contribute equally for production (equal work hours, equal pay, equal participation in the various industries), that would add a total of 28 trillion dollar (or 26%) to the global GDP by 2025. This is roughly equal to the US and Chinese economies combined. Which is quite a big deal really.

In the more realistic scenario, where every country would be able to catch up with their neighbour who's dealing best in terms of gender equality in the economy, the global GDP would increase by 12 trillion dollars for the next decade, or 11%. That's the British, German and Japanese economies combined.

( Read more... )

anfalicious.livejournal.com

I didn't really know what community to put this in, it's not nonsense, and it's not a cartoon, so I'll put it here and make a comment.

I believe there is a crisis of manhood at the moment. Ideas of masculinity have been completely undermined by Feminism (which is a good thing IMO), but nothing has come in to replace it. I've experienced it myself, seen it amongst my friends and see it in the teenage boys I teach. Feminism taught us that "girls can do anything", which is true, they can, but for a young boy that was a pretty confusing message, as it implied that boys couldn't (you can argue with that, but I've found it to be a common misunderstanding amongst men of my generation). The counter to that statement that I've heard a lot is that boys have strong male role models everywhere, cos, y'know the patriarchy and everything (not being flippant, the patriarchy exists). To that I counter "oh, men like Bill Clinton and Kobe Bryant?" Yep, real great role models.

There has been a complete lack of conversation amongst men about what it is to be a man. In much the same way we don't get to define feminism, this is something that we as men have to do ourselves. It's up to us to call out misogyny amongst our peers. It's up to us to say that just being good at sports or a powerful business leader does not make you a man. Men have an opportunity right now to redefine manhood, and that has to be done positively. Defining manhood isn't bitching about feminism. It isn't about saying how women and men are different. Defining manhood is about positive statements about what real men do. We need to have this conversation ourselves, and we need to teach it to our sons.

Real men respect women.

Real men bake quiche (after all, it's an egg, bacon and cheese pie, what could possibly be more manly than that).

==========================================
EDIT

I wanted to edit to put my conclusion on the front page, not buried in the post:

I just want to say to everyone thanks for the level of respect shown in this post. I thought twice about posting it, because I didn't want to get into a gender war. Special thanks to any women who felt like posting but thought twice for giving us our space to talk this out, something us men can take note of.

So what makes a man? Well, it's just what makes an adult as expressed by someone who identifies with being male; respect and responsibility.

johnny9fingers.livejournal.com

...about some influential men's attitudes to, and public statements about, rape and abortion: wherein I posed this:

So, here are questions mainly for the women on this comm: do you think that things are getting better, and such opinions as these are becoming marginalised? Or is this indicative of such opinions becoming resurgent? Do folk think that religions have anything to do with these sort of views?

Now for some reason, perhaps the vitriolic nature of some of my prose, or maybe for other unspecified reasons, almost no women responded. Instead, many chaps of the male persuasion took it upon themselves to inform me and others of what various women of their acquaintance thought and felt, and how various sides in the political debate were not denigrating women in the slightest. (It must also be said, that some decent and reasonable chaps restricted themselves to commenting upon the public utterances of the misogynists involved, or questioning the categories in which I had put those who had made misogynistic remarks.)

http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1625029.html#comments

Now this in itself is not surprising, after all, I'm a chap of the male persuasion myself, and I wrote the post. But I do wonder if it is indicative of the gulf between what men imagine women think, and what they actually think.

In modern America is it usual that men speak for women? I know such is true of places like Saudi Arabia, but for some reason or other I had thought that it was less true for the US, and very much less true for an enlightened community like ours.

Of course, to some small extent I blame myself, being a man, for raising what I perceived to be appalling misogyny by some of my fellow men, and then asking women their opinions about such misogyny: but it is nevertheless salutary to learn that male privilege is so entrenched that we are all prepared to sit and discuss exactly what women think and feel, and how they would/should/could react to some other men's idiotic statements in regard to women's bodies.

notmrgarrison.livejournal.com

Imagine if you will that you were born back in the times when the Old Testament was being written.

There was no David Bowie, no Elton John, and no Ellen DeGeneres. And there was no scientific evidence that people were born gay. Exactly how then could you consider the people of your time who were writing the bible to be hateful of gays? Homosexual sex was simply an act people chose to indulge in.

Now imagine you're living in the dark age of 1970. There are no openly gay celebrities or politicians. Just a few years earlier the New York Times wrote an editorial demanding that President Johnson fire a man in his administration simply because he was gay ("sexual deviant"). There is no scientific evidence that people are born gay, and in fact the American Psychological Association considers being gay to be a mental disorder. Do you consider the people of your time (1970) who are against homosexual acts to be hateful? (Note: you can't use the fact that some people are born gay because that is not a known scientific fact to you, a person living in the year 1970).

Now imagine you're not living but instead went back in time to September 1996. The phrase "lifestyle choice" was still being used. President Bill Clinton has just signed the Defense of Marriage act, 3 years after signing Don't Ask Don't Tell. Do you, having gone back to the year 1996, consider Bill Clinton to be a hate-filled bigoted leader?

They are creatures of their surroundings, as am I, as are you.

Not everyone goes to college. Some don't want to, some aren't smart enough, and a lot of people can't afford it. And a lot of people don't have liberal friends or post in political forums full of liberals. This is to say a lot of people don't have the same experiences as you. They haven't had the same discussions as you, haven't been exposed to the same ideas as you, as often as you have. Do you consider this when you pronounce them hate filled bigots?

underlankers.livejournal.com

A few days ago, a post was made in which it was asserted that to solve matters in a sense of true solidarity requires bypassing issues of race, class, religion, and gender.
( cut for length and number of links )

These are all examples purely from the 20th Century, of a phenomenon that is in fact far, far deeper than this, and which has a whole constellation of aspects. Solidarity, ultimately, is not transcending these differences, which requires handwaving their very existence, it is working together despite them for the common good. There is also no more a true solidarity than there is a true Scotsman, unless we're referring to Solidarnosc.

mahnmut.livejournal.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/18912902

So, Caster Semenya has taken the silver in 800m, whereas she could've easily taken the gold. If she wanted to. But maybe she didn't. The reason?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/five_ring_circus/2012/08/11/caster_semenya_2012_olympics_did_the_south_african_runner_lose_the_women_s_800_meters_on_purpose_.html

"Speculations are that she had pulled a badminton move and tanked the race. Why would someone intentionally perform below their standard in the biggest race in four years? One South African track and field observer suggested that it might be “scandal avoidance” - her 2009 triumph brought such unpleasant consequences that she’d just as soon avoid further scrutiny, and an Olympic silver medal brings considerably less attention than the gold."

I hate to say it, but that was the first thought that crossed my mind as I was watching the 800m women's final. I confess I'm guilty of having my own suspicions. And then, there's that too:

"In fact, Sports Illustrated’s David Epstein called it in a piece published days before the final: “If Semenya wins the gold, she is likely to be accused of having an unfair advantage. If she runs poorly, she is likely to be accused of sandbagging the race so as not to be accused of having an unfair advantage.”"

Damned if you do, damned if you don't, eh?

( Some more thoughts )

malasadas.livejournal.com

There was a recent post in this community on the topic of the "men's movement". Among the many responses to the post were many on a similar theme: that the so-called goals of almost any so-called "men's movement" that have been raised, are not issues that require an additional movement other than feminism, a movement aimed, as it were, at forces OUTSIDE of the population of men in our society.

I have to agree. In my experience, many claims, even those made in earnest, about sytemic problems faced by men, are claims about problems that would mostly cease to be major factors harming men if feminism were successful. It is one thing to observe that many men suffer due to negative social trends and would lead better, more fulfilled lives with broad social change. It is quite another thing to conclude that a separate social movement aimed at factors EXTERNAL to men and, often, in opposition to feminism is what will solve them.

I'd like to look at some of the various issues I've heard related to problems faced by men and boys -- some raised by "men's rights" activists and others by research into socialization -- and look at them personally and whether or not a "men's rights" movement would do anything effectively about them. This will be heavy on anecdote and personal experience, and behind spoiler tags to avoid boring anyone to death.

Issue #1:

There's growing research that shows that being brought up as a boy is not as well understood as we thought and that while research from the 1970s through the 1990s helped us undserstand girls' socialization better, boys have been overlooked. What we have been learning in recent years is that there are, indeed, damaging socialization trends that impact boys as a whole and we need a systemic approach to more healthy growth and development.

None of that, however, is something that is exactly OUTSIDE of feminism. In fact, feminism's anlysis and criticism of society are entirely germain to improving the lives of boys. I would go so far as to say that any men's rights advocates who look at the problems faced by boys as they grow up and see a large number of issues that stem from anything other than patriarchy are being myopic. Those who look and see issues stemming from an alleged "female power structure" are being dishonest.

A personal example: I grew up short, nerdy and listening to classical music. I was bullied which probably surprises nobody. One particular bully was especially persistent throughout 7th Grade, even bragging to his buddies that he had given me a bruise a day every day for a month. I was certainly not alone being on the receiving end of bullying, and fellow victims were typically boys who also fell outside of normal role types or behavior that was deemed acceptable for boys. Another classmate who, in retrospect, was very likely autistic was bullied until he committed suicide. The bullies, themselves products of homes often with brutal messaging about how boys SHOULD behave, were enforcers of our social roles: since I did not like to play sports and did not participate in other social likes of my classmates, I was an easy target. And I was luckier than most, having a very supportive family structure and at least my own social niche within the school, small as it was. Regardless, it took a damaging and lasting toll.

And the right solution for that problem lies within feminism's analysis. The gender roles enforced by bullying were not ones where females were dominent in any way -- they were ones where any indication of being LIKE a girl were violently attacked in a boy while simultaneously expecting girls to be meek.

Issue #2:

I'm not proud of this at all, but there was a long period of my life when I flirted with what has been called "nice guy" syndrome. Combine some very low self esteem from the bullying with some deeply flawed thinking and my "fantasy" of how relationships could go is summed up in this XKCD:

Alt Text: Friends with detriments

Of coures, "nice guy" syndrome also comes with some terribly anti-woman traps as well -- over time, becoming convinced that women "always go for jerks" means you end up thinking you are a the "good person" while simultaneously risking bigoted conclusions about 50% of the population. It took some serious and unpleasant looks at myself to climb out of that.

One of the worst things that "nice guy" ends up doing as a mode of thought is it plays right into the foolish trope that women hold all the power in relationships and dating. It is part of that thinking that women can be vapid and dependent even as objects of desire, but they also get to pick who they sleep with...so that's the real power in relationships. Meanwhile, men have to all things, secure, confident, financially powerful and professional -- and they still lose.

In a very few words: fuck. that. shit.

Let's suppose that the "nice guy" conclusion is even vaguely correct and that "jerks" get a lot more "success" in dating. But that's not indicative of something wrong with women as the brokers of power in relationships -- that's something wrong with society-wide socialization that valorizes demeaning behavior.

But much more important than that, another deeply sexist flaw with "nice guy" thinking is that anyone is OWED a chance at a relationship. Seeing loyal friednship with deeply ulterior motives as a path towards relationships assumes that one has a gained a privelege to someone else's very personal decision making, so the "nice guy", ends up thinking he is owed something nobody is actually owed.

So again, there's no need for a men's movement to address men's lack of power in relationships. What is needed is for men to seriously reconsider some the widely held ideas about how relationships work.

Issue #3:

Former director of policy planning at the State Department, Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, caused a stir recently with an article in the Atlantic Magazine called Why Women Still Can't Have It All describing her efforts to combined being an involved parent with her appointment to one of the highest level positions within the State Department and her beliefs about why women in her cohort of highly educated and successful professionals have been taught to expect to do what she now sees as impossible -- reach the highest echelons in government service or business and educational leadership while simultaneously maintaining a healthy and involved family life.

Dr. Slaughter's article has spawned a fair amount of criticism and much of it is well-earned. She is, by her own admission, talking to only about an elite group among the elite where she regained her involvement in parenting by stepping down to...a tenured full professor at Princeton University, not exactly a part time job itself. Her essay does not consider the situation of women who choose to be and to remain childless, and there is serious question about whether or not feminism ever did promise that women could "have it all".

Regardless, quite a lot of what Dr. Slaughter wrote seems familiar to me, although from a different role perspective. Namely, most of our "professional" fields were constructed when the expectation was that a highly professional job, such as a doctor, a lawyer, a business executive or an academic, would be held by a man, and that man would have a full time wife at home to see to "household duties". These careers were never intended to be populated by people who did less than dedicate the majority of the weekdays to career, placing family into a secondary position. In order to rise among the highest eschelons on those careers, family had to be essentially neglected.

I've had this experience in my own career as an academic. Early in my pre-tenure years, my colleagues recognized that I have a talent for organizing things so I was blessed with service assignments. Also early in those years, I married and had our first child. One reason that I enjoy an academic careeris that it has flexible hours, but given that I was responsible for program administration, would never short change my students and was determined to be an involved father in my daughter's life, I did neglect one aspect of my job: scholarship. I published, but the kind of time commitment needed to churn out a large number of articles each and every year was not something I felt I had. I took my time working on projects that got me a few, high quality publications prior to tenure.

And prioritizing my family when I got high accolades at two aspects of my job and did reasonably well at the third nearly cost me my career. My closest colleagues appreciated my work and how I worked, but further up the university hierarchy, being satisfied with slow but high quality scholarship was greeted with hostility even at a university with an undergraduate, liberal arts focus.

At the end of the process, I came out tenured but not without extraordinary efforts on my behalf.

So what does this teach me? That we have entire career trajectories that are modeled after people not being able to engage home and work with both being satisfactory if one values both. It is very likely that corporate CEOs, high level government employees and their equivalents in academia, law and medicine will never have a work/home balance, but does one have to expect career consequences at all levels of these professions? I know junior faculty who believe they can never prioritize family life for fear of losing tenure as I almost did, and junior law associates and medical residents are well known for their inhumane work schedules.

These are not work patterns that were designed to privilege women. A men's movement that discusses work and family would need to ask MEN to think about how necessary these career requirements should be and why anyone finds them acceptable.

Issue #4:

"Men's Rights" advocates are not wrong to point out that men are more likely to be victims of violence overall. What they obsfuscate is that sexual and domestic violence are overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women. It isn't that men are not victims of violence; it is that the seriousness of what women face at the hands of rapists and abusers is not diminished by that nor does it make it less important to investigate what elements of our culture are teaching a cohort of men that violence is an acceptable response in a home dispute or that sexual violence is ever something they can justify.

Simply put: violence that is visited by men against other men is not a phenomenon, however how tragic, that takes away from the fact that someone who is beaten or killed in the home environment is overwhelmingly likely a woamn at the hands of her partner.

And men are raped as well. I say that as someone who was sexually assaulted by another man. But again, what I see as needed to help with that is more and better feminism on the subject of rape prevention. My assailant needed to believe that he had no right to assume an aggressive physical advance would have been acceptable towards ANYONE, even someone who might have been a willing sexual partner. I needed support in the wake of that attack that helped me understand HIS violation was HIS fault.

Sounds like feminism to me.

And even in the general outlier case of female on male sexual violence -- it is almost always something I observe that is made more difficult by a fairly perverted view of male sexuality. Think of the case that makes the media with some frequency: a female teacher or other adult authority figure having sex with a barely pubescent boy. Since boys are frequently raised to believe that saying "no" to sex is something boys don't do, it makes the violation of trust even more damaging for many, and that is directly the fault of a view of male sexuality that is perpetuated mostly by men. What can the "men's movement" do in this case? It certainly has no external, female power structure to deconstruct -- it is much more a case of "Physician, Heal Thyself".

So there I have it, after mostly personal reflection and experience, a conclusion: I don't need a "men's movement" that is organized around reforming a power structure that disempowers men. If anything, I need a men's movement that is dedicated to changing how men view ourselves and disinvesting ourselves of distorting elements of privilege that lead to bullying, maladjusted senses of relationships, alienating ideas about career expectations and flat out disordered views of power and sexuality. I'd be interested in men talking to other men about those things.

I wouldn't mind more and more successful feminism too.

underlankers.livejournal.com

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/12/2011122793851983193.html

It's good to see that a country founded by a bunch of secular socialist nationalists hasn't forgotten where it came from. These Haredi will be a disaster for Israel, let alone for Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, if left to run unchecked. Their actions of demanding gender segregation to the point of photoshopping women from photographs and throwing acid in women's faces should not and do not pass unchallenged. Unlike in Palestinian territory where this kind of thing usually makes one a walking target for whichever asshole happens to have the biggest stick at the time, the Israelis can and do protest fairly for their national tradition.

As someone who is invariably unsympathetic to any bunch of medieval holdouts who want to party like it's 1099, I think that this is something we should all agree is a good thing. Is there anyone in this community who will defend what these Haredim are doing and consider to be good things?

blue-mangos.livejournal.com

We haven't had a good battle of the sexes for a while, let's talk about this:

Danish hotel to keep woman only rooms despite it being declared illegal

Seems last year a hotel in Copenhagan opened up a floor with 20 rooms offered exclusively to women. No men are allowed on that floor (I am curious how this is enforced. Special elevator/stairwell key upon proving your sex?) The rooms are described as "scented and there are flowers. The bathrooms have spacious showers, lots of mirrors and large hair dryers."

A man filed a complaint with the Danish Gender Equality Board, despite there being 794 other rooms in that hotel for him to use, rooms that presumably are not comprised of dirty mattresses on the floor and broken toilets, and the case was decided in his favour. The hotel has decided to continue on with their concept despite the ruling.

So what say you TP? Is this sexist? Towards men? Towards women? I am kind of torn on this issue. I'd be a lot more likely to support it if they had created the floor as a measure of safety for women travelling alone rather than playing into gender stereotypes and creating girly rooms. Scented rooms would be a nightmare for me with my perfume allergies. Although I do like the sound of the blowdryers. My hair takes forever to dry and I have to spend every vacation with it tied back in a ponytail as hotel blowdryers just don't cut it.

If I had to take a stand on this I would say the man who filed the complaint was being petty but the Gender Equality Board made a fair call.

Mods, can we get a gender issues tag?

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June 2025

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Talk politics.

A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods.

Entries tagged with gender issues

Are we really the gentle sex?

On the gender gap, and all those efforts to close it

Neil, really?

All combat roles now open for women

A major upside of gender equality

What to do when a drunk girl passes out on your couch.

Last Friday I posted a rant...

Gay

On solidarity and race, class, religion, and gender:

Of Caster and Oscar

I don't need a men's movement

Israel returns to its roots:

No boys allowed

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June 2025

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