Did that thread about a woman's atlas get deleted?

[Antonio the Sixth]

But eventually it needs to be about "what do you want to do."  There will always be deficits of women in some fields as there will be deficits of men in others.  The point is to ensure that those imbalances are not intentional on an institutional level, but instead reflect the desires of men and women seeking to achieve their goals in life.  (Which is why I strongly oppose a 50/50 balance in parliament, for example.  But it is maybe necessary as an intermediate step.)

I think my point, as well as that of Gustaf, Nathan and others, is to remind that barriers that prevent you from doing what you want to do are not always explicit or visible. They don't generally work in the form of "we don't want women here". It's a much more subtle process, that starts from the early childhood, and slowly encourages men and women to adopt different attitudes, develop different skills, follow different paths, etc. It's not enough to say "now women must not be excluded from certain professions". Because if the general assumptions of the employer and the coworkers are still influenced by gender stereotypes, a woman still has little chance to succeed in certain fields. And furthermore, women are even discouraged from seeking certain careers in the first place, at the level of primary or secondary education already.

It's also worth noting that this form of subtle discrimination exists for men as well, though it's limited to only a few categories like nursing, which do not convey much social consideration.

But the point is, eliminating obvious forms of discrimination is not enough. You have to go deeper and reshape mentalities outright.

Yes.  But you must recognize that men and women are different.  Memphis is correct in bringing up that there is a biological difference.  As long as there are strength requirements for firefighters, men will dominate the field.  You can call this reinforcing gender roles if youw ant, but I don't think it is.

Men and women will likely always tend to gravitate towards different roles in society.  That is because men and women are wired differently and are also physically different.  To ignore that in pursuit of some forced 50/50 equality does nothing but create an imbalance from the natural order of things.

Now of course any active discrimination needs to stop.  Men should be able to fill traditionally female roles and vice versa... but being 100% gender neutral as a society will never happen.. because almost nobody is gender neutral themselves.

Instead, removing as much societal pressure as possible on various roles and making those roles the choice of the individual is the goal.  But I still think even if we achieve that, women will still fill many of the traditional roles that we've come to think as "normal".

I don't think anybody is questioning the physical differences between men and women. If there are jobs like firefighters which require specific physical conditions, a gender imbalance is expectable (note however that the natural physical condition can also be reshaped by a personal initiative, so it is perfectly possible for a woman to overcome the physical barriers to become a firefighter, for example - the social barriers are infinitely harder to remove). But even then, the cases when physical issues come into play are extremely rare, and the gender imbalance almost always doesn't have any biological basis other than pseudo-scientific babble.

I am pretty sure that, the day where individual choice will cease to be influenced by gender-based socialization, most professions will be filled relatively equally (say, not more than a 60/40 difference).

[opebo]

Most men feel they are worse off than women, I think.

Very possible, and absolutely psychotic if true.

Nah, not psychotic - its just point of view.  Most men can't get laid, or at least can't get laid at all easily, so, they feel they have a worse situation than most women, who despite a few catcalls or condescension once in a while, are perceived to 'get what they want'.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Most men feel they are worse off than women, I think.

Very possible, and absolutely psychotic if true.

Nah, not psychotic - its just point of view.  Most men can't get laid, or at least can't get laid at all easily, so, they feel they have a worse situation than most women, who despite a few catcalls or condescension once in a while, are perceived to 'get what they want'.

Define "get laid easily".

[opebo]

Most men feel they are worse off than women, I think.

Very possible, and absolutely psychotic if true.

Nah, not psychotic - its just point of view.  Most men can't get laid, or at least can't get laid at all easily, so, they feel they have a worse situation than most women, who despite a few catcalls or condescension once in a while, are perceived to 'get what they want'.

Define "get laid easily".

Its subjective, obviously, but the point is a huge percentage of males are quite unhappy about this aspect of their lives.

[memphis]

I'm thinking there may a cultural difference between work environments in the US and Europe. All the European posters insist that sexual harassment is omnipresent and intense while most American posters are pointing out that this sort of behavior is completely unacceptable and that companies are aggressive in preventing and punishing it. I don't know anything about European business, but it's the only rational explanation for the disparity in experiences.

[Gustaf]

I'm thinking there may a cultural difference between work environments in the US and Europe. All the European posters insist that sexual harassment is omnipresent and intense while most American posters are pointing out that this sort of behavior is completely unacceptable and that companies are aggressive in preventing and punishing it. I don't know anything about European business, but it's the only rational explanation for the disparity in experiences.

Eh, no. See, none of us have experienced this because we're not women. I just posted a bunch of links to research papers from the US talking about this. Did you just ignore that?

The rational explanation for you (who don't know anything about this topic) not being aware of something is that it doesn't exist? Good luck managing life with that attitude.

[Gustaf]

OK, I found the old thread on this topic from 2010:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=115102.10

Looking through my posts from that thread, I'm reminded of one point that I made back then, which was that, from my own purely anecdotal experience, male/female ratios tend to be higher on messageboards where the moderation is lax, and you have a bunch of trolls running around unchecked (and nothing done about males making creepy comments to the few women who do post there).  Don't know if this was a factor here, but for much of Atlas's history, I'd say that moderation was quite lax, and the forum culture was forged in that era.  (Remember how long it took Dave to act on any punishments for trolls/spammers before Nym was given his current powers?)

I'd also highlight Beet's excellent post on the male/female ratio here:

Well, places usually grow by word of mouth or by advertising. In first person shooter forums for example, the advertising is the game, which men and women both see in stores, and is played by so many men that some women are bound to come into contact with it, try it, and like it enough to post in a forum. With other political sites that I go to, they tend to be well known, or the people in them started out drawn together as a group in real life that expanded into a online group, kind of like phknrocket1k was saying. Groups in real life tend to be mixed gender, so when translated online, it became that way as well.

This site is a place where you aren't going to find it unless you go searching. We're not tied to any particular famous events or personalities. Dave doesn't have a blog that attracts many links or hits to this site. We get a traffic surge around election day just for people looking for information, IIRC, but it mostly hangs beneath the surface. People have made friends here but it's relatively rare for existing members to bring in their friends or family. Statesrights is one of the exceptions and the result that was one of our few female members.

In other words, this site is designed very much as a social networking island. It's unusually disconnected. I'm not sure that answers the OP's question but I think it has something to do with it.

Reading Gustaf's posts from that thread is also interesting, since he was emphasizing the "nature" side in the "nature vs. nurture" debate.  (Not that that contradicts his posts in this thread per se, but it is mildly ironic.)

Well, if you actually read what I said I was saying that I think there are biological differences between men and women but that many if not most observed differences today are probably due to social conditioning. Which is precisely what I said here. The differences has been in which extreme has struck me as most stupid and hence what I feel the need to argue against.

[opebo]

I'm thinking there may a cultural difference between work environments in the US and Europe. All the European posters insist that sexual harassment is omnipresent and intense while most American posters are pointing out that this sort of behavior is completely unacceptable and that companies are aggressive in preventing and punishing it. I don't know anything about European business, but it's the only rational explanation for the disparity in experiences.

Eh, no. See, none of us have experienced this because we're not women. I just posted a bunch of links to research papers from the US talking about this. Did you just ignore that?

The rational explanation for you (who don't know anything about this topic) not being aware of something is that it doesn't exist? Good luck managing life with that attitude.

It definitely doesn't exist here in Thailand in Universities...

[Northeast Rep Snowball]

I'm thinking there may a cultural difference between work environments in the US and Europe. All the European posters insist that sexual harassment is omnipresent and intense while most American posters are pointing out that this sort of behavior is completely unacceptable and that companies are aggressive in preventing and punishing it. I don't know anything about European business, but it's the only rational explanation for the disparity in experiences.

Eh, no. See, none of us have experienced this because we're not women. I just posted a bunch of links to research papers from the US talking about this. Did you just ignore that?

The rational explanation for you (who don't know anything about this topic) not being aware of something is that it doesn't exist? Good luck managing life with that attitude.

It definitely doesn't exist here in Thailand in Universities...

We need a women on this thread to give answers.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Alright, opebo, I apologize for inferring something that was not intended in what you said.

So I'll give you two options.  You can post either of the following:

I was wrong; I am sorry.

or

I have no power dealing with the mods. Therefore it is pointless for me to ever appeal an infraction. I promise to never appeal another infraction again. If I do, the mods should ignore such an appeal, since it is pointless anyway.


(Also, failure to choose will force me to assume the second option, since you've pointed out that you didn't intend to apologize.)

[Northeast Rep Snowball]

The best response if he doesn't want to apologize in not to respond, or to go on about how you misinterpreted his point.

[Sbane]

Gustaf, one of your links is from 1989 and another is from 1994. The one from 2000 is the most recent. I am not saying there is no gender discrimination, but this is one facet of society that has been changing for the better recently.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

I'm thinking there may a cultural difference between work environments in the US and Europe. All the European posters insist that sexual harassment is omnipresent and intense while most American posters are pointing out that this sort of behavior is completely unacceptable and that companies are aggressive in preventing and punishing it. I don't know anything about European business, but it's the only rational explanation for the disparity in experiences.

Eh, no. See, none of us have experienced this because we're not women. I just posted a bunch of links to research papers from the US talking about this. Did you just ignore that?

The rational explanation for you (who don't know anything about this topic) not being aware of something is that it doesn't exist? Good luck managing life with that attitude.

It definitely doesn't exist here in Thailand in Universities...

We need a women on this thread to give answers.

We have three women on the entire forum off of the top of my head, and two of them are transgendered.

Go gender equality! Woo!

[Northeast Rep Snowball]

I'm thinking there may a cultural difference between work environments in the US and Europe. All the European posters insist that sexual harassment is omnipresent and intense while most American posters are pointing out that this sort of behavior is completely unacceptable and that companies are aggressive in preventing and punishing it. I don't know anything about European business, but it's the only rational explanation for the disparity in experiences.

Eh, no. See, none of us have experienced this because we're not women. I just posted a bunch of links to research papers from the US talking about this. Did you just ignore that?

The rational explanation for you (who don't know anything about this topic) not being aware of something is that it doesn't exist? Good luck managing life with that attitude.

It definitely doesn't exist here in Thailand in Universities...

We need a women on this thread to give answers.

We have three women on the entire forum off of the top of my head, and two of them are transgendered.

Go gender equality! Woo!

Yes, I guess then I would want Rinchan to post here... maybe. While I value nathan and DRJ101 not only have the already posted here they haven't been born women, so they a different level of discrimination.

[opebo]

Alright, opebo... I'll give you two options...

Christ, Inks, are the other mods aware of this harassment?

[Gustaf]

Gustaf, one of your links is from 1989 and another is from 1994. The one from 2000 is the most recent. I am not saying there is no gender discrimination, but this is one facet of society that has been changing for the better recently.

*sigh*

At least we moved to the position that there might be some gender discrimination. That's something.

Ok, so we've established that there has been gender discrimination to a large degree up to fairly recently. I think, if anything, that should relieve me of the burden of providing lots of evidence. If you want to argue that a condition that's been in place everywhere in the world for all time has suddenly disappeared right now in the place where you currently happen to be - I think the burden of proof if anything is on you.

So, go ahead. Give me evidence for women being favoured over men in high-wage fields like banking (which is Memphis' assertion in this thread)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There's a fine line between "Women are favored for high wage occupations" and "Sexist workplace discrimination is very widespread and companies almost never enforce rules and policies against it and never take sexual harassment seriously".

memphis' point that there might be a regional difference on this is pretty valid, the fact that the US is so litigation-friendly might have something to do with it. There's no gain to even risk companies having to pay out sexual harassment lawsuits.

[Gustaf]

There's a fine line between "Women are favored for high wage occupations" and "Sexist workplace discrimination is very widespread and companies almost never enforce rules and policies against it and never take sexual harassment seriously".

memphis' point that there might be a regional difference on this is pretty valid, the fact that the US is so litigation-friendly might have something to do with it. There's no gain to even risk companies having to pay out sexual harassment lawsuits.

I never claimed that companies never take sexual harassment seriously. This also is not only about sexual harassment.

Memphis claimed specifically that it was easier for women to get these kind of jobs because all companies want to be PC. Poor, white men having such a hard time.

In Sweden harassment is defined as the victim feeling harassed. So I strongly doubt that it is harder to win a lawsuit on the topic here. What I do know is that it would be highly damaging to any young professional's career to sue their employer first thing they do.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Alright, opebo... I'll give you two options...

Christ, Inks, are the other mods aware of this harassment?

It's not harassment, opebo.  Why should I go above and beyond what's necessary as part of my "job" as a moderator when you lie about what the mods do and then refuse to acknowledge it and apologize.  Giving appeals is not a necessary part of what we do.  All we have to do is moderate posts and infract.  There's no "What you should honor in an appeal" policy from Dave.  So, if you are going to continue to act in bad faith to the mods, I'm just simply going to stop wasting my time trying to help you.  It'd be very simple... you know you were wrong... apologize.

[opebo]

I apologize for jumping to the wrong conclusion about moderator behavior.  I remain opposed to the system and intend to criticize when I can (and hope to be given leeway to do so), but I can recognize and acknowledge that I was mistaken.

As an addendum - and not to dilute the apology, but rather to offer some ideas for progress - I think it is the opacity of the system itself which leads some of us to occasionally 'assume the worst' about moderator action - for example blaming moderators when controversial threads disappear, rather than the original poster.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Thank you for the apology.  And for what it's worth, I'd like to be as transparent as possible... I welcome questions from people.