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

[memphis]

Can't say I'm gonna miss it, but I would have kept it as a reminder of what's wrong with some posters out here.

Positions that you take that I don't agree with are what's "wrong" with you too.

[memphis]

What a terrible injustice that women must endure. Being uninterested in compulsively shading detailed maps and discussing the possibility of how said shaded maps may differ in the future.

[memphis]

That's a little frustrating.  I asked a question in it and never got to see the answer.

You think that's bad? I never even got to see the question.

[memphis]

Ok, so I'll just restate what I was asking Nathan, who was being very respectful and answering my questions. It is a fact that the vast majority of people who are interested in politics, male and female, are interested in the social policy aspect of it, as well as supporting/opposing candidates and parties. Interest in political maps is a niche within that, and it seems as if men are mostly interested in it. If this is due to socialization, how is that the case? I understand how socialization can cause women to avoid fields like Math but our website? How?

I'd like to know how it is that society causes boys to have substantially higher incidents of ADHD and autism. These are serious conditions. If society is to blame, we need to know how we can fix them.

[memphis]

memphis, diagnosis of mental maladies of all kinds is incredibly subjective. It's true there's some observed tendency towards maleness among people with the conditions you mention, at least some manifestations of which might induce people to be more interested in the things we do here on Atlas Forum, but the fact that they're, for better or for worse, fad diagnoses at present or in recent years might tend to inflate that quite a bit.

Mental health diagnoses are hazy and not always discrete. No question about it. But to dismiss real, established conditions as mere "fads" is beyond callous. Frankly, it's unnecessary intellectual recklessness. Any public school teacher can tell you that the special ed label also falls very heavily on boys, despite misguided (IMO) attempts to change this. Also an accident? A fad? A willfull and spiteful disregard for the specialness of females? There's something about the Y chromosome. Ignore the elephant in the room if it makes you feel more comfortable. We all know he's there.

[memphis]

memphis, diagnosis of mental maladies of all kinds is incredibly subjective. It's true there's some observed tendency towards maleness among people with the conditions you mention, at least some manifestations of which might induce people to be more interested in the things we do here on Atlas Forum, but the fact that they're, for better or for worse, fad diagnoses at present or in recent years might tend to inflate that quite a bit.

Mental health diagnoses are hazy and not always discrete. No question about it. But to dismiss real, established conditions as mere "fads" is beyond callous. Frankly, it's unnecessary intellectual recklessness. Any public school teacher can tell you that the special ed label also falls very heavily on boys, despite misguided (IMO) attempts to change this. Also an accident? A fad? A willfull and spiteful disregard for the specialness of females? There's something about the Y chromosome. Ignore the elephant in the room if it makes you feel more comfortable. We all know he's there.

I know I appreciate being schooled on conditions I have and situations I've been in by the likes of you.

You are, once again, unable or unwilling to respond to my points with any sort of relavent rebuttal whatsoever?  Duly noted. I'm sure your preferance for dismissiveness is society's fault.

[memphis]

memphis, diagnosis of mental maladies of all kinds is incredibly subjective. It's true there's some observed tendency towards maleness among people with the conditions you mention, at least some manifestations of which might induce people to be more interested in the things we do here on Atlas Forum, but the fact that they're, for better or for worse, fad diagnoses at present or in recent years might tend to inflate that quite a bit.

Mental health diagnoses are hazy and not always discrete. No question about it. But to dismiss real, established conditions as mere "fads" is beyond callous. Frankly, it's unnecessary intellectual recklessness. Any public school teacher can tell you that the special ed label also falls very heavily on boys, despite misguided (IMO) attempts to change this. Also an accident? A fad? A willfull and spiteful disregard for the specialness of females? There's something about the Y chromosome. Ignore the elephant in the room if it makes you feel more comfortable. We all know he's there.

I know I appreciate being schooled on conditions I have and situations I've been in by the likes of you.

You are, once again, unable or unwilling to respond to my points with any sort of relavent rebuttal whatsoever?  Duly noted. I'm sure your preferance for dismissiveness is society's fault.

No, in this case it's yours. And my response was relevant. Not sure if it was relavent, though.

Oh noez, I made a minor spelling error. That's totally as important to the conversation as your complete refusal to defend your position in any meaningful way. Well played. Men frequently have more trouble with spelling and language. Dyslexia and so forth. So you can go ahead and blame society for that one too.

[memphis]

memphis, diagnosis of mental maladies of all kinds is incredibly subjective. It's true there's some observed tendency towards maleness among people with the conditions you mention, at least some manifestations of which might induce people to be more interested in the things we do here on Atlas Forum, but the fact that they're, for better or for worse, fad diagnoses at present or in recent years might tend to inflate that quite a bit.

Mental health diagnoses are hazy and not always discrete. No question about it. But to dismiss real, established conditions as mere "fads" is beyond callous. Frankly, it's unnecessary intellectual recklessness. Any public school teacher can tell you that the special ed label also falls very heavily on boys, despite misguided (IMO) attempts to change this. Also an accident? A fad? A willfull and spiteful disregard for the specialness of females? There's something about the Y chromosome. Ignore the elephant in the room if it makes you feel more comfortable. We all know he's there.

I know I appreciate being schooled on conditions I have and situations I've been in by the likes of you.

You are, once again, unable or unwilling to respond to my points with any sort of relavent rebuttal whatsoever?  Duly noted. I'm sure your preferance for dismissiveness is society's fault.

No, in this case it's yours. And my response was relevant. Not sure if it was relavent, though.

Oh noez, I made a minor spelling error. That's totally as important to the conversation as your complete refusal to defend your position in any meaningful way. Well played. Men frequently have more trouble with spelling and language. Dyslexia and so forth. So you can go ahead and blame society for that one too.

Now you're mischaracterizing my position to cover your own lazy, sexist ass. I, as the person who isn't advocating the bizarre notion that environments end up >90% one sex or another for purely natural, inborn reasons, am obviously in the 'defensive' position here, whereas you, unable as you are (or are pretending to be, possibly in bad faith?) to comprehend my multiple concessions that once some factor socialization is presumed--as it obviously can be to anybody not interested in being a internet tough-guy sexist--it becomes a lot harder to tell what any percentage of anything would look like without the socialization and there might very well be some 2:1 or 3:1 factor in some kind of hypothetical, counterfactual 'natural' setting, are clearly the one in the position to be demanding satisfaction.

I have presented multiple examples of situations in which personality traits or occupational categories which you or I would not think of as gendered, or would think of as 'masculine', were socialized to a proportion of females approaching that of your fond original example of preschool teachers, to the point of the 'femininity' of those categories seeming ineradicable and innate to most people in the societies in question. You have responded by listing examples of same, except limited to our society, and hitching your wagon to the star of mental health diagnostics.

There's no need to limit gender specificities to mental health diagnoses. Although I think it's very strange that you now think that the many learning disabilities I've been pointing out were mental health issues. That puts you in a very strange position indeed. As yet another example, let's take the subject of first person shooter video games. Another overwhelmingly male field. Women are more than welcome to enjoy the fun. Heck, if they find the current culture there oppressive, they can start a league of their own and talk about how weak and stupid men are while blowing each other to bits. And yet, in overwhelming numbers, they don't. But I think the most telling example is right in front of us. I return to the maps and the prediction of them, which are a core element of this website. They're what brought me here in the first place many years ago, and I doubt very much that I am unusual in this regard. The pre-election 2012 board was awful for many reasons, but on the smorgasbord of fail, sexism wasn't even on the menu.  If some sort of oppressive anti-female bigotry were to blame, as some alleged a while back, you'd expect to see roughly the same number of male and female joining each month or so, with the females getting scared away after a brief period. Or at least in numbers that would satisfy your necessary 3:1 ratio. And yet we don't even come close. Until this silly womens' studies seminar, I had never seen much discussion of womens' issues at all here. Which, you might say is why we are not getting more girls, but it would also suggest females are incapable of having opinions on other political topics, a notion that is obviously false  The most vaguely offensive thing toward women on the entire site was the Hot Girls Thread, but there was also an almost as extensive Hot Guys Thread. Didn't seem to scare the straight guys away. There are plenty of them. If the Atlas Forum is anybody's poster child for sexism on the internet, a google search may be in order. So, there's no need for you to continue describing the world as you would like it to be and telling us that's how it is. And, by all means, let go of the Carefully Taught Alienation. You don't want to be the gender studies version of the boy who cried wolf. I'm also changing my signature. It's now long out of date and understang sarcasm is just too much to expect of some posters.

[memphis]

It's not about legal or physical barriers. Have you never known a woman intimately? And I don't necessarily mean sleeping with one. Just knowing a woman pretty well is sufficient to see this. I had a girlfriend who avoided working for investment banks. Not because she didn't want to, because she did. Not because they said they didn't like women, because they actually did the opposite, claiming to want more female employees. But because she very acutely felt the barriers of the sexist culture of those places and the way society expects men to do such jobs better. That's just a tiny anecdotal example from a country usually considered one of the most gender-equal in the world.

You're clearly viewing this from the perspective of a man. Which is natural since you are one. But the whole idea of tolerance and human rights is that we attempt to understand those coming from other positions in life. Not only do you fail in that but you seem uninterested to even try, content to retain misogynist positions. You should really reconsider that.  

For whatever reason, my closest friends tend to be women, so please spare me the "have you ever known a woman "spiel. The question that struck me immediately after reading your post was, why do you position women as some sort of extraordinarily fragile creatures unable to advance merely because they "feel the [perceived] barriers of a sexist culture?" Are they really that weak? I certainly don't think so. What you just said is far more insulting to women that any position I have stated. I'm not at all familiar with Swedish customs or business policy, but in the United States, companies are constantly going out of their way to find female employees, especially in traditionally male dominated fields like finance or engineering. It is, in fact, far easier to get a job in one of these fields as a woman than as a man. We all had a good laugh about "binders full of women" but companies really do this. Women have a serious edge in many fields just because we're all trying to overcompensate for something that nobody can ever define concretely. Which is a bit crazy to me, but companies are more than welcome to run their HR any legal way they see fit. Regarding the Atlas, and I think that was how this thread got started in the first place, nobody takes more crap here than fat people. I would much rather be a woman posting here than a fat. But we still have plenty of fats who are able to "overcome" the slings and arrows enough to post here. I'm even a little husky myself. And as I told Nathan, who remains in his sad little trench with his fingers in his ears, you should be far more reluctant to drop words like misogynist and sexist when they don't truly apply, if only because you may need these words in the future in more appropriate circumstances. When your racist/sexist/whateverist reflex is too strong, you completely destroy the meaning of these words.

[memphis]

It's not about legal or physical barriers. Have you never known a woman intimately? And I don't necessarily mean sleeping with one. Just knowing a woman pretty well is sufficient to see this. I had a girlfriend who avoided working for investment banks. Not because she didn't want to, because she did. Not because they said they didn't like women, because they actually did the opposite, claiming to want more female employees. But because she very acutely felt the barriers of the sexist culture of those places and the way society expects men to do such jobs better. That's just a tiny anecdotal example from a country usually considered one of the most gender-equal in the world.

You're clearly viewing this from the perspective of a man. Which is natural since you are one. But the whole idea of tolerance and human rights is that we attempt to understand those coming from other positions in life. Not only do you fail in that but you seem uninterested to even try, content to retain misogynist positions. You should really reconsider that. 

For whatever reason, my closest friends tend to be women, so please spare me the "have you ever known a woman "spiel. The question that struck me immediately after reading your post was, why do you position women as some sort of extraordinarily fragile creatures unable to advance merely because they "feel the [perceived] barriers of a sexist culture?" Are they really that weak? I certainly don't think so. What you just said is far more insulting to women that any position I have stated. I'm not at all familiar with Swedish customs or business policy, but in the United States, companies are constantly going out of their way to find female employees, especially in traditionally male dominated fields like finance or engineering. It is, in fact, far easier to get a job in one of these fields as a woman than as a man. We all had a good laugh about "binders full of women" but companies really do this. Women have a serious edge in many fields just because we're all trying to overcompensate for something that nobody can ever define concretely. Which is a bit crazy to me, but companies are more than welcome to run their HR any legal way they see fit. Regarding the Atlas, and I think that was how this thread got started in the first place, nobody takes more crap here than fat people. I would much rather be a woman posting here than a fat. But we still have plenty of fats who are able to "overcome" the slings and arrows enough to post here. I'm even a little husky myself. And as I told Nathan, who remains in his sad little trench with his fingers in his ears, you should be far more reluctant to drop words like misogynist and sexist when they don't truly apply, if only because you may need these words in the future in more appropriate circumstances. When your racist/sexist/whateverist reflex is too strong, you completely destroy the meaning of these words.

(I appreciate the serious responses by Nathan, Antonio, Gustaf et al but at a certain point I don't really feel like taking this seriously)

Personal attacks are against terms of service and have consequences. They are also not a good way to get people to take you seriously either on the internet or in real life. Just FYI. You may want to consider a substantive rebuttal. A tactic that has been woefully avoided by you and all parties you mentioned. OMGZ, you are a sexist stupidhead!!!11 does not win a thread. It just makes you look foolish.

[memphis]

It's not about legal or physical barriers. Have you never known a woman intimately? And I don't necessarily mean sleeping with one. Just knowing a woman pretty well is sufficient to see this. I had a girlfriend who avoided working for investment banks. Not because she didn't want to, because she did. Not because they said they didn't like women, because they actually did the opposite, claiming to want more female employees. But because she very acutely felt the barriers of the sexist culture of those places and the way society expects men to do such jobs better. That's just a tiny anecdotal example from a country usually considered one of the most gender-equal in the world.

You're clearly viewing this from the perspective of a man. Which is natural since you are one. But the whole idea of tolerance and human rights is that we attempt to understand those coming from other positions in life. Not only do you fail in that but you seem uninterested to even try, content to retain misogynist positions. You should really reconsider that.  

For whatever reason, my closest friends tend to be women, so please spare me the "have you ever known a woman "spiel. The question that struck me immediately after reading your post was, why do you position women as some sort of extraordinarily fragile creatures unable to advance merely because they "feel the [perceived] barriers of a sexist culture?" Are they really that weak? I certainly don't think so. What you just said is far more insulting to women that any position I have stated. I'm not at all familiar with Swedish customs or business policy, but in the United States, companies are constantly going out of their way to find female employees, especially in traditionally male dominated fields like finance or engineering. It is, in fact, far easier to get a job in one of these fields as a woman than as a man. We all had a good laugh about "binders full of women" but companies really do this. Women have a serious edge in many fields just because we're all trying to overcompensate for something that nobody can ever define concretely. Which is a bit crazy to me, but companies are more than welcome to run their HR any legal way they see fit. Regarding the Atlas, and I think that was how this thread got started in the first place, nobody takes more crap here than fat people. I would much rather be a woman posting here than a fat. But we still have plenty of fats who are able to "overcome" the slings and arrows enough to post here. I'm even a little husky myself. And as I told Nathan, who remains in his sad little trench with his fingers in his ears, you should be far more reluctant to drop words like misogynist and sexist when they don't truly apply, if only because you may need these words in the future in more appropriate circumstances. When your racist/sexist/whateverist reflex is too strong, you completely destroy the meaning of these words.

So, you do have no idea what it is to be a woman. Got it.

You're, to be honest, being totally and utterly ridiculous. Belonging to the privileged group of society it's obviously easy for you to say that disadvantaged groups are just being weak and if they just pulled themselves up by their bootstraps all would be fine. I'm not saying women are weak. Do you think black people are poorer than whites in the US because they're weak? Do you think anyone calling for government intervention on the behalf of black people are suggesting that blacks are stupid or weak?

You're being a fairly disgusting, entitled idiot. I guess that's a violation of the TOS, but sometimes one has to state the truth anyway. Thinking that it's easier for women to have careers in banking...wow. You should know how it is in Sweden, since I explicitly stated that in my post. The women I've known who have reacted to these things have been far from weak or fragile. If you had to face the constant barrage of weird expectations and pressures that women face every day you might find yourself feeling less smug about how easy life is.

I can give you another example. A girl I know who is an engineer. Her male group supervisor told her that he thought her had been bad and yelled at her a bit about it (at a social gathering, not in the actual work place). Then he added something like "good thing I can't stay mad at you with those eyes and that ass" Women get demeaned that way all the time. It happens daily on here, for example.

It really saddens me that you're so devoid of empathy that you think women have it easy.

Nobody has it easy in life. Take a look around. Life is a difficult and complicated muddle for everybody. Of course, it's true I have no idea what it's like to be a woman, but neither do you. And it's frankly absurd that you pretend to have more insight into it than I do. But calling my background privileged is rather ridiculous, which you would know, if you knew anything about me and the obstacles I've faced. As for comparing sex with race, it's a total non-starter until you can identify an entire chromosome dedicated to race. It's not the same situation at all. Unlike race, sex is actually a real biological thing. And I never said I knew the first thing about how businesses operate in Sweden. I actually made a special point to state the opposite. If your business culture is really that crass, that's unfortunate. I can assure you that, in most cases, that is not the situation in the United States, where businesses make a special point to be "inclusive" of all. I can assure you that organizations do not want sex/race trouble. They're busy enough, as is. In fact, there is no quicker way to end an important career than to make callous sexist (or racist) comments. It may just be a difference in what is acceptable between Sweden and in the United States. Oh an you are also  "totally and utterly ridiculous" as well as a "fairly disgusting, entitled idiot." Those sort of comments make your positions so very much stronger...

[memphis]

Isn't it a nonsense arguing that "all differences are biological" as well? The biological determinism can be as boring as the fundamentalism concerning gender theories. I can hardly enjoy arguments between fundamentalists in general. Don't you realize that probably biological and societal factors interact in a way that is probably very complex and out of the scope of an internet forum? And all of this because someone asked why are so few women here. If I were one, I'd be laughing or I would go out running. I think this is a terrible thread with some good replies to Memphis' nonsense. I won't be sad if someone deletes or locks it.

There has to be some reason women don't post here. Do you think it's just too darn taboo or the climate here is just too darn oppressive for even a few brave female souls to post, even on the order of 10%? Or have 100% of women been raised in an environment that so strongly disinclines them? Keeping in mind that we have posters from much of the US, Europe, and Australia. That idea strikes me as "nonsense." Please specifically indicate what it is that I've said that you find to be such. I very much look forward to investigating this further.

[memphis]

Aside from a small bit of name calling, which I've been quite willing to overlook, what is it that people find so objectionable about this thread? Compared with the 23rd thread about who will Romney pick for veep, this thread is of exceptional quality. Does it really make people that uncomfortable to talk about men and women on an anonymous online forum?

[memphis]

But it might be time to lock it.

Why?

I see no need to lock it though I do think it has played itself out. Everybody knows exactly how everybody else feels and more than a few posters have told other posters exactly what they think of each other. It's not like anybody comes here to be convinced. Same as it ever was.

[memphis]

And if you truly have no power, and you believe that actions should be based on power, does that allow me to start infracting you at 10 points just because I have the "power"?

Yeah, I don't know of anything stopping you from doing that.

So since you have no power, would you just let it happen?  Or would you protest such a move?

Its a tight-rope.. last time that happened I just didn't post for about six weeks and it seemed to blow over.

I find it hard to believe that you would just accept what you think is an unjust punishment.  No, opebo... you are not beneath apologizing.  What you are is a hypocrite and arrogant.  You enjoy this little fan base you've accumulated by carrying on your shtick here, an you know that if you apologized, you'd begin to lose that following.  And it's a shame... you could be a good poster if you weren't wrapped up continuing your anti-mod fights even when you are objectively wrong.

Personal attacks. Careful.

[memphis]

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.

Pretty much this. Although I'll add that it's a lot worse to be discriminated against in, you know, every high-paying job like banking, law, politics and so on than in the ones with the lowest status and wages, like elderly care, nursing and teaching.

PS: in before Lief says that women have an advantage in the great career choice of porn stardom...

Again with the d word. It's a very powerful and meaningful term. Reflexively applying it without any evidence other than unprovable claims of subtle, undefined situations is quite an injustice to people who have actually faced discrimination. It is very insulting to people who have faced real and substantial institutionalized hurdles to apply the term so liberally. A couple of specific counter examples may help to draw a contrast. Both of my parents grew up in cities with large black populations. However, both of them went to public schools that were 100% white because blacks were not allowed to attend them. My grandparents faced a great many legal restrictions in their childhood because they were Jewish. All you are able to suggest is that women face some sort of very subtle and undefined cultural roadblock. Which brings us back to my earlier point. Why do you think women are so weak that they are unable to get past even the most subtle of challenges even though they very much want to? I know that you are trying to be sympathetic, but your rigid orthodixies are not painting a very nice picture of women. Women are not passive victims. They are real people with agency.

[memphis]

Gustaf, what sort of sexual harassment laws do you guys have in Sweden? The comment "good thing I can't stay mad at you with those eyes and that ass" would lead to an instant lawsuit here in America. These things may be said in private between men, but never to a woman's face.

Of course you could sue over it. Do you think a woman with a reputation of having no sense of humour about an innocent joke like that would be hired again?

Sweden has extremely favourable sexual harassment laws for the victim.

How would they know? In any case, most workplaces take sexual harassment very seriously. I am not sure if that is the case in Sweden or not. If I was a manager, even totally ignoring the woman's plight, I would fire that guy. The consequences are just too steep for the company since they would have to pay off lawsuits and of course creating a hostile culture for half the workforce is not good for business.

If you 100% knew the incident was true, and you didn't fire him, you would get into crazy trouble with your superiors at any American business. Ditto for launching a racial slur at somebody. Being a middle manager is all about knowing what's going on and preventing it from reaching the big boys. As to Gus's claims, if he wants to claim that women routinely face serious levels of discrimination in the American (or Swedish) workplace, the burden of proof is on him. I can't demonstrate a negative beyond pointing out the many measures in place to prevent it.

[memphis]

Ok, there is no sexual harassment or discrimination of women anywhere in the US because it is against the law. If you think that I'm sorry, but I don't think anything I can do would change your mind.

This is not what I said at all. Of course, laws are frequently broken. For example, I can show that drug laws are frequenty broken by the number of arrests made. I can show that immigration laws are often broken by pointing to the large undocumented population in the United States. If you are suggesting that discrimination laws are frequently broken, you need to show some evidence. Making very serious claims without any proof is extremely reckless and does not win a conversation.

[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.