Modern feminism and you!

[jaybug]

It's been a long time since I last read any studies on gender pay issues, but what I was thinking back to was what I said. And now you are saying something completely different. Could you please cite a source?

20,000 people show up for every Blazer game. There were so few attending the Portland WNBA franchise, it went away. Why pay women the same as Kobe, when there isn't enough money coming through the door? Would paying women more, make a better game? Wouldn't it be better if women were good enough to play in the NBA?

So because my parents got college educations, and I am a white male, that means I should not be able to go to college? Well that's just great, thanks! And you expect me to be on your side when push comes to shove?

[superjaz]

Also, at work women get better breaks for having children.  Men can take an unpaid bonding leave.  Women can take a paid maternity leave, and if they want within a year take the same unpaid bonding leave.  So much for equality.

Look at divorce.  Statistically speaking women come out way ahead in divorce.  84% of single parent families are women. 

I want to know where this mythical place offering paid maternity is, oregon law just has that US women get auto paid maternity?
What is maternity leave?
"Maternity leave, now often called parental or family leave, is the time a mother (or father) takes off from work for the birth or adoption of a child. Actual paid "maternity leave" — while the norm in every other developed country — is unusual in the United States, although some enlightened companies do offer new parents paid time off, up to six weeks in some cases.

Most likely, you'll use a combination of short-term disability (STD), sick leave, vacation, personal days, and unpaid family leave during your time away from work."
unpaid personal days is all my job offers, oregon law  gives the unpaid leave, anything else is in the hands of the employers

As for the skewed divorce, sad to say there is a reason they are called dead beat dads,   maybe males have a gentic predisposition to be okay with leaving the state to avoid child support?

[DancingTofu]

Malaria: This is kind of a really lackluster response and I apologize for that, but there's nothing left that I really have a counter-argument for.  I think I could still argue over some trivial details, but I'll refrain, since doing so wouldn't really be productive in any way whatsoever.  It's probably better to say that I don't necessarily agree with you 100%, but I can respect your views and arguments as you've presented them.  I follow my own advice and live in my own reality where I see things as they can and (I think) ought to be, and you live in the reality where things are a lot less mellow.  I won't fault you on that if you don't fault me for my ignorance (and therein my bliss).

As long as you stop claiming modern feminist activism is a farce, I will leave you to live in as much ignorant bliss as you like.
edit: I actually take that back after thinking about it for a bit. If you acknowledge that my arguments are valid (in that you have no counter-arguments) and therefore acknowledge that sexism is kind of a problem, don't you feel sort of... amoral when you choose not to consider that problem as it appears in your day-to-day life?
Mods, is that too personal? I don't even know at this point.

I also went back and reread my post from last night, and I'm sorry it was full of glaring grammatical issues. >< That's what I get for writing things as quickly as possible while I should be sleeping.

Certainly.  I misspoke, and I entirely withdraw that claim.  I choose not to become a part of the issue, just as I choose not to become a part of politics, war, or other great controversies.  There's too much subjectivity in all of those.  All of existence consists of forces which push against each other.  Think of the yin-yang.  There's the yin, the yang, and the boundaries with separate and enclose them.  Society's the same way.  I choose to be a part of neither side, and instead reside upon the boundary of disputes.  I'm not perfect at it and probably never will be, but I aim to be as objective, uninvolved, and critical as possible.

[Felix]

So because my parents got college educations, and I am a white male, that means I should not be able to go to college? Well that's just great, thanks! And you expect me to be on your side when push comes to shove?

When did anyone say that?

[Malaria]

It's been a long time since I last read any studies on gender pay issues, but what I was thinking back to was what I said. And now you are saying something completely different. Could you please cite a source?

Have a source. Rereading that, I'd actually underestimated the pay gap. 80 cents to the dollar at best, 69 cents to the dollar at worst.
I was actually addressing your point that the pay disparity is owing to the tendency of women to work less, or work lower-paying jobs, and pointing out that that simply isn't true. I didn't address the fact of women working less at lower-paying jobs, but I can do that now.
In the articles Miria pulled up, they make it clear that even in academia, a career for the bloodily career-minded if ever there was one, women's jobs are still valued less than those of their husbands when it comes time to drop hours in order to raise children. The effect is moreso in other fields, where working full time to research and publish isn't as much of a time suck. Because we have these entrenched ideas about women's roles in the home, women are socially disadvantaged if they choose to honor their career above their children. We think of them as irresponsible mothers, even when fathers do exactly that constantly. So it's almost inevitable that a woman will drop hours or take a less-demanding job in order to care for her children. According to her own social programming and the disapproval she'll garner from others, she doesn't have a choice. If we made parenting a more cooperative venture, men and women could be more able to work equal hours.

[Break for comments by Jaybug removed by randompvg. Point below stands on its own okay, so I figure I'll just leave it as is.]

I would prefer it if rape wasn't such a prevalent crime in the United States, such that anyone should even have to consider owning a gun just to deal it. Which, if you think about it, is a hella extreme measure. The onus of violent crime should not be on potential victims. I am not responsible for violent actions taken against me, and I should not have to live in fear just because our society fails to teach men that women are people and not objects for their gratification.

20,000 people show up for every Blazer game. There were so few attending the Portland WNBA franchise, it went away. Why pay women the same as Kobe, when there isn't enough money coming through the door? Would paying women more, make a better game? Wouldn't it be better if women were good enough to play in the NBA?

I remember when I was younger, during the period of time when Mia Hamm was getting more visibility for professional women's soccer, I would often hear this particular gem: "You know what's a funny joke? Women's sports." So maybe no one goes to WNBA games because we've cultivated this culture where women doing a physical activity couldn't possibly be as interesting as men doing a physical activity. And because most young women don't aspire to professional sports because it's not a thing that women get respect in, it removes a lot of the competition that drives the rise in skill level in men's sports.
Maybe it'd help if women's professional sports were as heavily or dramatically advertised. If one were to say it isn't advertised because it isn't bringing in money, and no one cares because their attention is never on it because it's never advertised, then you've got yourself a self-fulfilling prophecy of why no one cares about professional women's sports.

So because my parents got college educations, and I am a white male, that means I should not be able to go to college? Well that's just great, thanks! And you expect me to be on your side when push comes to shove?

This a strawman. No one wants to deny you entry into college. It's already easier for you than it is for everyone who isn't a white son of college-educated professionals.
You get a lot of social advantages for being all the things you listed above. All of these things will make it significantly easier for you to get an education, get a job and get respect. Every other class of society that doesn't have your advantages, so they need support systems in place in order to deal with the disadvantage.
I'm not asking you to "side" with me. I'm asking everyone to try to create a world in which people are judged based on their real personalities, opinions, skills and experiences, regardless of their sex or gender. Speaking more broadly, regardless of any inherent trait that can't be chosen, such as socioeconomic class, physical ability, appearance, race, ethnicity, age, sexuality or anything else a person can be.


DancingTofu: I disagree that you can be separate from conflict, but you have my kudos for the intellectual consistency.

[melchizedek]

Not sure I got my point across as to why I think boggiepop has the correct idea.  People that get way to into a certain line of thinking tend to pre judge. 

If this was a patriarchal thread I'd likely post more stuff about how women have suffered, but most of the posts seem to be going the other way so picked the less popular side.   Someone's got to stand with Tofu

People who are on both extremes need to be kicked like boogie said because either way it is prejudiced and prejudiced sucks 100% IMO

Yeah, boogie has the right idea

[RemSaverem]

Not much to add atm from here at work, & I've only skimmed since my last message, but a few very quick things:Yes, there is still female genital mutilation (the worst of which is infibulation). Yes, some consider male circumcision to also be genital mutilation. Many of the activists working to educate parents into choosing not to engage it are in the midwifery / doula / homebirth movements.@ Kylite: There are books such as the legendary "Women's Ways of Knowing" that posit feminist epistemologies, i.e., that propose that patriarchy has both denigrated women, and, withheld vast amounts of beneficial knowledge from canonic scholarship and from shaping hegemonies, simply because of the chasms that can exist between positivistic science and postulations accredited as valid within patriarchy and subjective, feeling-based/nature-based, empathy-driven observations discredited within patriarchy for being feminine. Feminist revisionist epistemology (which was my major in undergrad) is the discipline of systematically examining who decides what is valid knowledge and what are valid sources of knowledge, on what bases such decisions are made, upheld, enforced, yet simultaneously rendered invisible, what is lost in not acknowledging wisdom accumulated by other parties via other means, and how to re-incorporate or newly-incorporate those sources of wisdom. A classic example would be that modern pharmaceutical science displayed wise women herbalists and curanderas, but now, the industry is recognizing that many herbs actually have healing properties and is rendering them into pills to market. PS Special thanks to Malaria & to randompvg, who have become my favorite posters on the forum (other than some occasionally very fun Doctor Who-related posts).

[reppy]

I would prefer it if rape wasn't such a prevalent crime in the United States, such that anyone should even have to consider owning a gun just to deal it. Which, if you think about it, is a hella extreme measure. The onus of violent crime should not be on potential victims. I am not responsible for violent actions taken against me, and I should not have to live in fear just because our society fails to teach men that women are people and not objects for their gratification.

I think any sensible person would prefer that.  There are certainly precautions one can take to avoid being raped.  You might say, "Well, why can't we just live in a world where I don't need to do that?"  That would be awesome if such a world could ever exist.  But it won't.  There will always be people who, despite being taught otherwise, have no qualms with committing rape, murder, or theft.

I don't walk around late at night because there is always the possibility I could be attacked/mugged.  It'd be cool if I could, but I don't plan on it happening any time soon nor do I lament the fact that I must take precautions to protect myself.

Edit: Just for the record, I think carrying a gun around to protect from rape is a bit extreme.  Yeah, I bet it's damn effective, but it seems like overkill.

I remember when I was younger, during the period of time when Mia Hamm was getting more visibility for professional women's soccer, I would often hear this particular gem: "You know what's a funny joke? Women's sports." So maybe no one goes to WNBA games because we've cultivated this culture where women doing a physical activity couldn't possibly be as interesting as men doing a physical activity. And because most young women don't aspire to professional sports because it's not a thing that women get respect in, it removes a lot of the competition that drives the rise in skill level in men's sports.
Maybe it'd help if women's professional sports were as heavily or dramatically advertised. If one were to say it isn't advertised because it isn't bringing in money, and no one cares because their attention is never on it because it's never advertised, then you've got yourself a self-fulfilling prophecy of why no one cares about professional women's sports.

I can only speak for the WNBA, but I feel like it is heavily advertised.  They advertise the heck out of it during NBA games, especially when the WNBA season is approaching.  The WNBA is integrated into the NBA All-Star game in a segment called "Shooting Stars."

As to why I think it isn't as popular?  I've watched a few of the playoff games and they can be exciting, but I don't feel like the overall product is anywhere near the same as the NBA.  I don't know if it ever will be on par with the NBA product. NBA as it currently exists puts a very large emphasis on athleticism and height.  WNBA has a higher emphasis on fundamentals.  If you want to watch a more technical game, then you watch the WNBA.  If you want to watch guys that will dunk over 3 people in traffic, then you watch the NBA.

I'm not asking you to "side" with me. I'm asking everyone to try to create a world in which people are judged based on their real personalities, opinions, skills and experiences, regardless of their sex or gender. Speaking more broadly, regardless of any inherent trait that can't be chosen, such as socioeconomic class, physical ability, appearance, race, ethnicity, age, sexuality or anything else a person can be.

(This response doesn't make sense out of context, but if I recall the original discussion was about school.)  My preference would be that higher education be free for everyone.

But one issue I have with favoring one gender or race in order to create "balance" is that you deny things to decent people that have no control over their gender or race and how they're treated.  I have no control over the fact that I'm a white male; I have no control over how society treats white males.  Yet, since white males receive preferential treatment by some/most, that can be held against me in certain cases.  How is that fair?  Why not look at socioeconomic backgrounds on an individual basis and determine if that person say, needs more financial aid for school?

[legoman60]

Entrenched androcentrism in research science is often literally deadly. Take the medical research field. For years what you saw in print about what to watch for in heart attack warning signs was based solely on how heart attacks present in men, which was presumed to be generalizable to women. But it's not. Heart attacks can present differently in women (i.e. have different onset symptoms). Heart medicines that were tested only on men can kill women, etc.
http://www.public.asu.edu/~squiroga/santill.HTM

I'm sorry to bring this post up but it has been bugging me since I read it. Just to make sure I understand what you are saying: Basically heart attacks present differently in men than in women. Therefore if women are taught to look for the symptoms that men present they wont know that they are having a heart attack, and it is more likely to kill them.

I have a very big problem with this line of thinking. I believe that the scientists/doctors conducting these studies Assumed that a condition that (usually) does not affect hormones or sex organs would present the same symptoms for men and for women. I believe that this is a safe assumption. This is because nearly every disease and condition on the history of medicine that does not affect hormones or sex organs will present the same symptoms in both men and women. Yes, there can be exceptions. Yes, they found one the hard way. Yes, medicine is not an exact science. It might be easier to think of this way: if a person rolls a die 3000 times, and every time it comes up six, this person (as well as any observer) would expect it to be a six on that 3001st roll.

I do apologize if I sound rude, I tend to make my points quite forcefully. I will continue to follow this thread as it interests me, however I probably will not post again unless it is to point out logical fallacies or flawed logic as I am not fond of debating -isms.

[@random]

Speaking personally: I don't understand. Why is any person's response to the possibility of being raped anyone's business but their own? 

Speaking as moderator: I do not want to see another post that gets within a mile of making judgments on your fellow posters' feelings on that (or any other) matter, or what you think it says about them. If you want to articulate your own feelings, that's okay as long as you make sure it relates to the topic. But I'm not going to repeat again that the forum Code of Conduct states, in part:

• Keep discussion friendly and civil, and keep discussion focused on the issue rather than the person. No personal attacks or speculating about another person's motives.
• Respect the subject matter of each thread. If you'd like to hold a discussion about a separate issue, please post in a separate thread.

To be a little clearer: "You said XYZ, and I think it's wrong for the following reasons" is fine. "You said XYZ, so you must hate freedom and want the terrorists to win?" is going to be deleted.

_{(For the record, reppy's post is not the reason I'm saying this - in fact, it's a pretty darn good example to follow. It just happens to be two posts above mine and mention the same subject of rape.)}

[kylite]

An observaiton only:

over the last week I have paid attention to what footwear males and females wear and seen an interesting trend.

Men tend to prefer a shoe with a bit of flair and a heavy tread. Sneakers or loafers seem to be the norm

Women tend to gravitate to calf high boots, or flat sole skater shoes.
The occasional high heel but thats more a rarety then the norm.

[RemSaverem]

@ legoman60: How you think and feel in regard to a post is up to you, but how you think and feel in regard to medical science does not change the fact that historically, studies have been done on and about one subgroup, and that results are not generalizable. Everyone needs to take into consideration that factors far beyond genetics/organs/hormones are at play in how symptoms present. There are such environmental factors as who is enculturated to express when they have physical and/or emotional pain and who is not, who is validated for their opinions about themselves and who is not, diet, size, muscle tone, medications taken regularly, access to insurance, etc. There are so many factors that influence whether or not the "same" medical emergency (such as a heart attack) will have the "same" outcome (percentage likelihood of comorbidity or fatality) in different people. The desire to minimize the extent to which any gender is more likely to die from something than any other gender is entirely legit.

[Malaria]

If this was a patriarchal thread I'd likely post more stuff about how women have suffered, but most of the posts seem to be going the other way so picked the less popular side.   Someone's got to stand with Tofu

So... are you saying you concede the points I made, but were playing devil's advocate for discussion's sake?

People who are on both extremes need to be kicked like boogie said because either way it is prejudiced and prejudiced sucks 100% IMO

Yeah, boogie has the right idea

Uh, I'd prefer to discuss rather than kick anyone, but that's cool too I guess?

[legoman60]

@ legoman60: How you think and feel in regard to a post is up to you, but how you think and feel in regard to medical science does not change the fact that historically, studies have been done on and about one subgroup, and that results are not generalizable. Everyone needs to take into consideration that factors far beyond genetics/organs/hormones are at play in how symptoms present. There are such environmental factors as who is enculturated to express when they have physical and/or emotional pain and who is not, who is validated for their opinions about themselves and who is not, diet, size, muscle tone, medications taken regularly, access to insurance, etc. There are so many factors that influence whether or not the "same" medical emergency (such as a heart attack) will have the "same" outcome (percentage likelihood of comorbidity or fatality) in different people. The desire to minimize the extent to which any gender is more likely to die from something than any other gender is entirely legit.

Okay either I misunderstood to you or you have misunderstood me. In a nutshell what I am saying is upwards of 90% of diseases and conditions that do not affect hormones or sex organs present with the same symptoms in both men and women. Therefore, it is a safe assumption that a disease or condition that does not affect hormones or sex organs will present the same in men and women. Therefore the exact example of heart attacks in men and women is not an example of sexism because it is a valid assumption that a disease or condition that does not affect hormones or sex organs will present the same or very similarly in men and women.

The expression of a symptom and the choice to act or not act on it does not change that fact that it presented itself. I am not looking at the outcomes, there are too many variables to predict those (at least in medicine) with any sort of reliability. I am looking at symptoms, something you have failed to address.

What you are using in your most recent post is a logical fallacy known as a red herring ( definition of a red herring). The issue is symptoms of conditions that do not affect hormones or sex organs generally present the same in men or women. What you are addressing is who will act on the presenting symptoms, which has nothing to do with my point.

[Malaria]

I think any sensible person would prefer that.  There are certainly precautions one can take to avoid being raped.  You might say, "Well, why can't we just live in a world where I don't need to do that?"  That would be awesome if such a world could ever exist.  But it won't.  There will always be people who, despite being taught otherwise, have no qualms with committing rape, murder, or theft.

I'm not suggesting we should be working towards a crime-free utopia, I'm saying we should be working on the underlying attitudes in our society that make rape so prevalent. If fewer people found themselves okay with rape, or willing to justify or victim-blame the crime into something less severe, we'd have less rape period.

I don't walk around late at night because there is always the possibility I could be attacked/mugged.  It'd be cool if I could, but I don't plan on it happening any time soon nor do I lament the fact that I must take precautions to protect myself.

Let's say you are walking around late at night and you do get mugged. What do you expect people's reactions to be? I think, in your case, most people wouldn't immediately say "oh, well, it's your fault for being out so late." But if a woman, who was out alone at night, is raped, the initial reaction by most people is exactly that.
And really, all this ignores the fact that 84% of rapes are acquaintance rapes. The men women trust most in their lives are most likely to be the ones that rape them. Talk about constant fear.

Edit: Just for the record, I think carrying a gun around to protect from rape is a bit extreme.  Yeah, I bet it's damn effective, but it seems like overkill.

And if you do shoot your rapist, you really don't have a guarantee you won't get charged for it.

I can only speak for the WNBA, but I feel like it is heavily advertised.  They advertise the heck out of it during NBA games, especially when the WNBA season is approaching.  The WNBA is integrated into the NBA All-Star game in a segment called "Shooting Stars."

As to why I think it isn't as popular?  I've watched a few of the playoff games and they can be exciting, but I don't feel like the overall product is anywhere near the same as the NBA.  I don't know if it ever will be on par with the NBA product. NBA as it currently exists puts a very large emphasis on athleticism and height.  WNBA has a higher emphasis on fundamentals.  If you want to watch a more technical game, then you watch the WNBA.  If you want to watch guys that will dunk over 3 people in traffic, then you watch the NBA.

I meant outside advertising, but that's good to know.

I see what you're saying. Our basketball-watching market isn't geared to the sort of play the WNBA engages in, and that makes more sense. I've learned something new, thank you. : D

(This response doesn't make sense out of context, but if I recall the original discussion was about school.)  My preference would be that higher education be free for everyone.

But one issue I have with favoring one gender or race in order to create "balance" is that you deny things to decent people that have no control over their gender or race and how they're treated.  I have no control over the fact that I'm a white male; I have no control over how society treats white males.  Yet, since white males receive preferential treatment by some/most, that can be held against me in certain cases.  How is that fair?  Why not look at socioeconomic backgrounds on an individual basis and determine if that person say, needs more financial aid for school?

I'd prefer that too. Loans suck. :I

Socioeconomic background is a factor. If you're the first member of your family to go to college, or if you're from a lower class or impoverished family, regardless of your sex, race, gender, whatever else, you can expect a lot of financial aid.
However, historically disadvantaged classes of people get extra help, because it's necessary if we want to see parity of education, opportunity and wealth across classes and segments of society.
To dispel an assumption that seems to be underlying this line of argument, there aren't any scholarships that you can get just for being a woman. You can get scholarships for feminist activism, or for being a single mother returning to college, (this incentive is necessary, considering how much harder it is for single mothers to support themselves and their children even without attending college full or part time) or for being a non-trad student entering college for the first time, but there's no special advantage just for women. White, straight, middle class women with college-educated parents have to work to get scholarships in other arenas, just like white, straight, middle class men with college-educated parents do.

[RemSaverem]

I'm confused by your post. I'm curious where you would obtain a statistic such as the 90% that you cite. I'm curious if there is even the hypothetical possibility for there to be any "disease or condition that does not affect hormones or sex organs". Perhaps you meant to say "does not affect reproductive hormones". Because, to take the simplest example, even a common cold can affect hormones. Say it's pouring rain, you're driving 65 mph on the freeway, and you have a sneezing fit, during which for the briefest of moments you're actually unsafe because your eyes are forced shut by a full 30-60 seconds of sneezing. Almost anyone would feel a little bit of fear in that moment, thus circulating adrenaline (the "fight or flight" hormone) through their system.

I am not solely addressing "who will act on" anything. I'm addressing that historically, what constituted medical research was based solely on a small portion of the population, and that extrapolating based on presumption of generalizability has proven both false and dangerous.

[Malaria]

An observaiton only:

over the last week I have paid attention to what footwear males and females wear and seen an interesting trend.

Men tend to prefer a shoe with a bit of flair and a heavy tread. Sneakers or loafers seem to be the norm

Women tend to gravitate to calf high boots, or flat sole skater shoes.
The occasional high heel but thats more a rarety then the norm.

Makes sense. Fashion's just as dimorphic as our perception of sex and gender.

[legoman60]

I'm confused by your post. I'm curious where you would obtain a statistic such as the 90% that you cite. I'm curious if there is even the hypothetical possibility for there to be any "disease or condition that does not affect hormones or sex organs". Perhaps you meant to say "does not affect reproductive hormones". Because, to take the simplest example, even a common cold can affect hormones. Say it's pouring rain, you're driving 65 mph on the freeway, and you have a sneezing fit, during which for the briefest of moments you're actually unsafe because your eyes are forced shut by a full 30-60 seconds of sneezing. Almost anyone would feel a little bit of fear in that moment, thus circulating adrenaline (the "fight or flight" hormone) through their system.

I am not solely addressing "who will act on" anything. I'm addressing that historically, what constituted medical research was based solely on a small portion of the population, and that extrapolating based on presumption of generalizability has proven both false and dangerous.

A. Now you are nitpicking my argument. Don't do it. You knew exactly what I was trying to get across, therefore I have accomplished the goal of communication. How I format said message in inconsequential.

B. "extrapolating based on presumption of generalizability" is fairly close to how medicine works. Think about it, this person's forearm has an unexpected 90 degree angle in it; generally, A human arm can not do that naturally, therefore, coupling that with the excruciating pain,  this person has a broken arm. Of course, there is no presumption here. This is because generally speaking (and with leeway for gender differences) humans are the same.

Humans fall into generalizations very easily. Nearly every human has 206 bones, two kidneys, one stomach, 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs, etc. (Insert the standard, "Yes, there are exceptions" clause.)Generally all humans will (within reason) react the same way to stimuli, this has proven true time and time again by both psychology and medicine.

Thats a great deal if generalities there. Hmmm, maybe humans are all generally the same. Maybe, just maybe, conditions and diseases, other than those that affect sex organs or sex hormones (because you insist), will, more often than not, present the same in both men and women.

Oh, as for the statistic, they teach in collegiate level writing courses that you don't need to cite common sense information. I did make up the number. However the logic still holds true. To test this I would like you to name, off the top of your head (everyone can join in this too), ten diseases or conditions that present differently in men and women that do not affect sex organs or sex hormones.

[RemSaverem]

I'm going to try to word this gently and rationally, so that it is clear that what I am trying to fix is the illogic of an argument, not the person presenting it, in contrast to the prior post, with negative characterization of me personally.

Simple point of fact #1:
It is not nitpicking an argument to ask for the source of a percentage or statistic that is cited. It is seeking clarification as to the validity of the source. Presenting the implication that there is a source puts the responsibility on the presenter to be able to back it up, if clarification is requested.

Simple point of fact #2:
It is especially not nitpicking, if it turns out that the person who presented the supposed data as though it were factual, admits to having completely made it up. It is correctly having doubted the validity of the assertion. I am not saying that I think the poster had ill intention, simply that the poster was making a guess based on what is likely to be an absence of medical knowledge. (Poster: If you are actually medically trained, I apologize for making that guess.) I've worked in medical fields from translator to transcriptionist for over a decade and have never heard anything along the lines of what you suggest, and if there had happened to be any scientific evidence to back the disputed claims up, it could have influenced my beliefs, so asking for it was entirely valid.

 #3: If it happens that what the poster wants to do is make an assertion that there are no significant differences between men and women because both are genetically human and almost everything in each of them is the same, well, a logical extrapolation from that would be that the poster would join feminists in activism for equal rights, equal pay, abolishing any form of discrimination or oppression based on gender. If that's one's agenda, more power to those aims! But anyone will be more of service to the cause by being able to back up what s/he says, rather than seeing it as adversarial to as her/him to do so, when that is not the aim.

#4: To the poster: I have no idea who you are, so I do not know if you have been authorized by any colleges to actually teach any courses, to know what is permissible at any specific college in terms of telling students to lie (make up their own statistics or overgeneralizations). However, I have actually taught Women's Studies 100 at one of the best universities in the country (arguably the world): University of Michigan (Ann Arbor campus). There is no such carte blanche, and in fact, blanket assertions devoid of fact are among the key factors that lead to the lowering of a grade or the consideration of a term paper to be incomplete. Given that there many forum participants are newly college students, please do not recommend a strategy that could cause them to fail a class or assignment.

BTW: I have to leave work but here are 4 off the top of my head: alcoholism, depression, eating disorders, fibromyalgia.

[AllyKat]

*moderator hat on*

I'm going to once again stress the neccesity to not take argumentation personally. saying someone "could seem foolish" or "stupid" for something that they say is bordering on the negative side of the code of conduct. I know that stuff flies in Speech & Debate but I'm saying here and now for all of us to watch our tone with each other. Mind your p's and q's and have a gentleman's & gentlewoman's debate here. It seems to be going great other wise!

To test this I would like you to name, off the top of your head (everyone can join in this too), ten diseases or conditions that present differently in men and women that do not affect sex organs or sex hormones.

Just for fun I thought I'd answer this, since I can!
 
Heart Disease
Bi-Polar Disorder
Depression
Stroke
Muscular Dystrophy
Cancer
Infertility (I wont count this one entirely because symptoms are so wide and vary situation to situation)
Parkinson's Disease
Panic Attacks
Autism

And thats all I could think of off the top of my head... the last one I had to ask my mom to think of and she reminded me...

Sleep Apnea!

^_^ That was fun!

[reppy]

And really, all this ignores the fact that 84% of rapes are acquaintance rapes. The men women trust most in their lives are most likely to be the ones that rape them. Talk about constant fear.

You know, I read this response awhile ago and it has been weighing heavy on my mind.  Lots of thoughts going through my head.  It is really disgusting and sad that so many men see nothing wrong, or have no fear of repercussions, with taking a woman's body for his own pleasure.

Sometimes you can't see the gravity of something because it isn't real to you.  It's like willful ignorance due to lack of proximity.  

I don't know.  I'm not really making sense right now. ^^  Sometimes when I hear something like that, I stop and think about all the girls I know and the girls I have loved in the past.  I think about how they are and were so much more than just something for sexual pleasure.  I think about their smile, their intellect, their determination, the hopes and dreams they had, etc.  Ever just stop and really look at someone and you can see how truly human they are?  Like you can almost see the thoughts as they go around in their head? It just breaks my heart to think that people don't see that or they just look the other way and can harm someone like that.

My mom was molested at a very young age.  She repressed it for many, many years.  I'll spare you all the details of how she came to remember it.  But it was a very traumatic experience for her.  She said she woke up in the middle of the night, screaming like she was being killed, because she suddenly remembered everything that happened and pieced all these weird feelings and memories together.  I know it had a huge impact on her life in a negative way.  My sister was also molested.  My parents noticed she was acting very strange, drawing weird pictures in school, talking about killing herself, drawing pictures of nooses.  I think she was only 8 years old at the time.  In both cases, it was by someone "close": in my mother's case, it was her mother's boyfriend at the time; in my sister's case, it was a couple of our uncles who were teenagers at the time.

Sometimes I wonder what it's like to have no conscience.  I would never want to live that way, but I do wonder how some people can't see the harm they cause other people with their actions.  A moment of satisfaction, and you have visited years of ruin upon someone that did nothing to deserve it.

[RemSaverem]

@ Ally, great list. Especially in light of the post that follows it, I'd add PTSD. @ Reppy: Thank you for such a brave, raw, candid, unfiltered post, presented with empathy and respect. I was there the moment a best friend was triggered to recall suppressed memories of her dad molesting her when she was a child (later externally verified) and decompensated into a PTSD-induced breakdown. It was one of the most harrowing and heartbreaking things I have ever seen. The only caveat is that while there are fetishists and pedophiles, many sexual assaults are about power and control, not gratification, for the assailant.

[melchizedek]

If this was a patriarchal thread I'd likely post more stuff about how women have suffered, but most of the posts seem to be going the other way so picked the less popular side.   Someone's got to stand with Tofu

So... are you saying you concede the points I made, but were playing devil's advocate for discussion's sake?

People who are on both extremes need to be kicked like boogie said because either way it is prejudiced and prejudiced sucks 100% IMO

Yeah, boogie has the right idea

Uh, I'd prefer to discuss rather than kick anyone, but that's cool too I guess?

People that are close minded are not worth the time of discussion.  If someone becomes emotionally invested in their point it becomes more about defense than considering how other people might think / feel. 

Some of the stuff I agree with in these post, other stuff I don't. 

Red herrings in the thread kinda bug me, take a debate class perhaps sometime and learn about debate structure

[superjaz]

This is definitely a subject that we can agree to disagree.  We all have had 101 events in our lives that shaped our view on the subject.  Even the extreme opinions shouldn't be dismissed as they are based on real events that occurred.                             

[@random]

True. In the abstract, anecdotal evidence is never as compelling as true data... but then again, when's the last time you heard of someone saying they decided to become an activist because they read a study that showed that women earn 69% of what men doing the same job get? Statistics are more true to the universal experience, but they have little meaning to us individually.

The stories that change someone's attitude for life are never the ones that made the most "logical" sense. They're the personal ones, like goatchild's or reppy's. They're the stories of one person's experience.

It'd be a tremendous error to extrapolate and decide that since one female doctor was blatantly discriminated against, all female doctors are. But that doesn't mean personal stories don't have a lot of meaning to the people who experienced them.

[RemSaverem]

This is definitely a subject that we can agree to disagree.  We all have had 101 events in our lives that shaped our view on the subject.  Even the extreme opinions shouldn't be dismissed as they are based on real events that occurred.                             

Thank you. I agree, and so does the field of radical feminist social science.
It actually is a cornerstone of radical feminist epistemology to see n=1 as the ultimate in social research. N=1 is a modality in which open-ended oral histories are taken and transcribed, and an individual's life story, with the individual defining for herself/himself what constitutes the major milestones, turning points, epiphanies, accomplishments, and themes, is itself the data. The researcher does not define the data, direct the narrative, etc. It is a natural flow, thus empowering to the person contributing the research. The model is collaborative rather than top-down, exploratory rather than empirical. I engaged several of these studies as an Honors Women's Studies major, and then found the same techniques very helpful as a Masters in Social Work major. The best authors on the subject are Liz Stanley  Sue Wise, in their groundbreaking 1982 book, "Breaking Out: Feminist Consciousness and Feminist Research".

[AllyKat]

Not the opinion of Kumoricon/Altoniumbus Entertainment... yada yada yada...

And yet, because we are a survivalist "me" oriented species, we normally have little internal response to other peoples hardship.

(which sounds like I'm saying I don't care about anyone's problems, when thats not what I mean, give me a moment to explain)

We may feel regret or pain of loss for someone elses problems, but we can never truly feel the depth of suffering that those close to trauma or affected by disaster feel. We don't respond emotionally to those events, unless in guilt and feeling of "preventative" karma.

One instead will give money to charities, or disaster relief out of a feeling of neccesity to their humanity. Because I am human, I care about other humans, because I care, I must show I care. To show I care I will provide a service to those in need, the service I have the ability to provide is monetary/time/supplies/comfort. While many people genuinely feel something for those in crisis, humans by nature are singular beasts and cannot adequately feel the same despair as someone who has experience a trauma until they have gone through one themselves, even then, its a different situation, different feelings - apples to oranges - and you can't translate pain.

So to sway others to the cause or reasoning, the only sure-fire means is objectivity. We can understand numbers, we can justify statistics (that are credible) and we use Ad Populum and Ad Verecundian, to appeal to those who follow. We use Ad Nauseam and Ad Numerum to appeal to those who are motivated by shock.

There is a bag of tricks a mile wide and deep for every situation and a fallacie for every type of person. Why? Because "sob stories" as it were (please don't take that personally, I'm speaking from the wide perspective) don't affect the populous who is dissaosicated with you. Most people without general reason or reguirement to care, rarely will. Those who do are most likely already a part of your previous constituencey and are not the target of your discourse or persuasion. So we appeal to the masses. We throw facts and we throw shock and awe and we tell them what will happen to THEM if they don't agree.

Because while personal experience should work in debate, because it's real, it rarely does because people don't trust people.

(at least in my personal experience)

[RemSaverem]

I definitely understand where you are coming from, Ally, in that we in this culture are so vastly oversaturated with exposure to both real and fake violence by mass media that we become somewhat inured to it. However, I actually find (and we each are likely to have our own different responses) that I respond more viscerally, empathize more clearly, with first-person accounts than with statistics. Both are valid, when collected and presented with integrity, and both have their place.

[reppy]

I recall this phrase, I'm totally going to botch it, but .. "A toothache in Philadelphia is more important to that person than a flood in Indonesia."

If it doesn't affect us, a lot of times we don't care.

I have a guy come in a lot where I work.  We always talk about subjects like religion or politics or strange things. ^^  One day he comes in and remarks at how I'm always smiling and seem so happy all the time.  "How can you be so happy?  There's so many terrible things going on in the world.  I can't stand it."

Gotta strike that balance.  I'm not unaware of what's going on in the world, but you can't let it consume you, either.  Having said that, I do appreciate the work of the people that do let it consume them, because they are the best advocates.

[kylite]

now to toss in one little defense for the male species

No man will EVER say "if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you"

Women coined that phrase and use it with the precision of a doctor with a scalpel

[RemSaverem]

@ Reppy -- I totally agree.
It's the same with *any* kind of politics--including interpersonal stuff at work/volunteer, even convention, sites. If one lets it, negativity will consume a person (& make him/her unable to fight it to protect yourself or others)-- so we need to not let it!

@ Kylite-- I would conjecture that if women are more likely to say that to men than the reverse, it might be because men are more likely to think it and not say it out loud to women. I am fully certain that people of all genders have tendencies to hide things from partners of all genders, whether in relationships of an intimate or a business nature. Sometimes "for their own good", sometimes to "not rock the boat", sometimes selfishly. But it's a relatively omnipresent phenomenon.

[MiriaRose]

now to toss in one little defense for the male species

No man will EVER say "if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you"

Women coined that phrase and use it with the precision of a doctor with a scalpel

I so wish that were true.

If this was a patriarchal thread I'd likely post more stuff about how women have suffered, but most of the posts seem to be going the other way so picked the less popular side.   Someone's got to stand with Tofu

So... are you saying you concede the points I made, but were playing devil's advocate for discussion's sake?

People who are on both extremes need to be kicked like boogie said because either way it is prejudiced and prejudiced sucks 100% IMO

Yeah, boogie has the right idea

Uh, I'd prefer to discuss rather than kick anyone, but that's cool too I guess?

People that are close minded are not worth the time of discussion.  If someone becomes emotionally invested in their point it becomes more about defense than considering how other people might think / feel.  

Some of the stuff I agree with in these post, other stuff I don't.  

Red herrings in the thread kinda bug me, take a debate class perhaps sometime and learn about debate structure

Wait, do you mean people with extreme opinions or people who are closed minded? I consider myself to be a "radical," but I'm willing to hear what other people have to say.

As for red herrings, I'm not sure what you mean, but in public debate one can debate anything as long as one can link it back to the subject matter. It's possible to link these back to the subject matter.

[RemSaverem]

@Miria, I agree that what was being called red herrings links back, given that the topic of the thread is simply "Modern feminism and you!", so anything related to feminism (or to issues that point to a need for feminist activism) is valid for discussion here.

[melchizedek]

Red herring is a particularly smelly fish that people will run across a trail to get someone (maybe a sent dog) off track. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring

If say rem makes a point, and someone says btw, "insert obscure reply." I'd call that a red herring.

[MiriaRose]

Only if they're trying to divert attention from the main point of the thread.

Which is probably what we're accidentally doing now.

Also, still curious about whether you think extremism and open mindedness are mutually exclusive.

[AllyKat]

Red herring is a particularly smelly fish that people will run across a trail to get someone (maybe a sent dog) off track. 

I thought Red Herring was the name of that mean bully kid on a Pup named Scooby Doo!

Jeese, I am so out of the loop.

Actually, a red herring is a logical fallacy where someone uses an alternate causality that seems plausible, but has fabricated evidence in its favor. If you can't prove it, don't use it. If you use it and can't prove it, then you are fabricating evidence in your favor and have mislead people with a red herring... gets you off the track of the real culprit, or, even worse, destroys a case for a legitimate threat.

For more information on Red Herrings; see the classic movie "Clue"

[RemSaverem]

How funny. All this time I was only aware of its use in mystery novel plotting. A red herring is a set of clues that leads you to suspect someone of the crime --you can come up with a plausible motive and method, but they are not actually the perpetrator. And sometimes the set of clues is deliberately set by another, to throw the detectives (or whomever) off the proverbial scent of the actual perpetrator. How funny to find out the other derivations and usages of the phrase! Thanks!

Speaking of derivations of phrases: I try very hard to never use "rule of thumb" when I mean "short cut" or "heuristic" or "easy set of steps or rules to remember". The reason is the origin of the phrase, which I'd never heard until my first Women's Studies class. Centuries ago it was part of English Common Law that a man could beat his wife, legally, so long as the "switch" (piece of wood) used was no thicker than the width of his thumb. Of course, there was no comparable permission for wives to beat their husbands.....

[legoman60]

...Because, to take the simplest example, even a common cold can affect hormones. Say it's pouring rain, you're driving 65 mph on the freeway, and you have a sneezing fit, during which for the briefest of moments you're actually unsafe because your eyes are forced shut by a full 30-60 seconds of sneezing. Almost anyone would feel a little bit of fear in that moment, thus circulating adrenaline (the "fight or flight" hormone) through their system.

This is called Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.

#3: If it happens that what the poster wants to do is make an assertion that there are no significant differences between men and women because both are genetically human and almost everything in each of them is the same, well, a logical extrapolation from that would be that the poster would join feminists in activism for equal rights, equal pay, abolishing any form of discrimination or oppression based on gender. If that's one's agenda, more power to those aims! But anyone will be more of service to the cause by being able to back up what s/he says, rather than seeing it as adversarial to as her/him to do so, when that is not the aim...

This is another red herring.

#4: To the poster: I have no idea who you are, so I do not know if you have been authorized by any colleges to actually teach any courses, to know what is permissible at any specific college in terms of telling students to lie (make up their own statistics or overgeneralizations). However, I have actually taught Women's Studies 100 at one of the best universities in the country (arguably the world): University of Michigan (Ann Arbor campus)...

This is the False Authority Fallacy Just because you are certified teach woman's studies does not mean you are an authority on English writing.

That is three different fallacies so far, one use twice for a total of four.

Simple point of fact #1:
It is not nitpicking an argument to ask for the source of a percentage or statistic that is cited. It is seeking clarification as to the validity of the source. Presenting the implication that there is a source puts the responsibility on the presenter to be able to back it up, if clarification is requested.

You were nitpicking my word choice (reproductive hormones).

...There is no such carte blanche, and in fact, blanket assertions devoid of fact are among the key factors that lead to the lowering of a grade or the consideration of a term paper to be incomplete. Given that there many forum participants are newly college students, please do not recommend a strategy that could cause them to fail a class or assignment.

Any and every collegiate level writing course teaches that you do not have to cite information that is considered common knowledge or common sense. For example: if I said that John F> Kennedy was killed in 1963 I would not have to cite my source for that because, even if you (the reader) do not know the year, every legitimate source you look into would say the same thing. Other examples of this are: the capitol of Oregon is Salem, Barack Obama is the 44th president of the U.S., the twin towers in NYC were destroyed on 9/11/01, humans have 206 bones (normally), caffeine is a legal drug, diseases and conditions that do not affect sex hormones or sex organs will generally present the same (symptoms) in both men and women, etc.

That last line is what this is about.

For years what you saw in print about what to watch for in heart attack warning signs was based solely on how heart attacks present in men, which was presumed to be generalizable to women. But it's not. Heart attacks can present differently in women (i.e. have different onset symptoms).

List of mentioned diseases and conditions that have similar symptoms (present the same) in both men and women:
Alcoholism
Depression
Fibromyalgia
Bipolar Disorder
Parkinson's Disease

List of mentioned diseases and conditions that have dissimilar symptoms (present differently) in both men and women:
Heart attacks (according to RemSaverem)
Stroke

List of mentioned diseases and conditions that are umbrella names for multiple similar conditions (needs further refining):
Eating disorders
Heart disease
Cancer
Infertility
Autism
Muscular Dystrophy

Occurrence and Presentation are two different things. It seems that this is the source of the confusion.
BTW, that is two out of seven (not counting umbrella terms) that I researched for 28%, which is still the minority.

Yes I still have to look up Panic Attacks and Sleep Apnea. I do, however, have to leave at this point.

[AllyKat]

*Mod Hat Off*

Any and every collegiate level writing course teaches that you do not have to cite information that is considered common knowledge or common sense. For example: if I said that John F> Kennedy was killed in 1963 I would not have to cite my source for that because, even if you (the reader) do not know the year, every legitimate source you look into would say the same thing. Other examples of this are: the capitol of Oregon is Salem, Barack Obama is the 44th president of the U.S., the twin towers in NYC were destroyed on 9/11/01, humans have 206 bones (normally), caffeine is a legal drug, diseases and conditions that do not affect sex hormones or sex organs will generally present the same (symptoms) in both men and women, etc.

While I could argue that you are using a straw-man fallacy to reciprocate, I think it better than I address the argumentation, than continue to "get nitpicky" about different fallacies. The point of knowing all the logical fallacies is not to flount the knowledge or argue them, it is to teach people what *not* to do in a debate. Discourse is not the where's waldo of inmproper debate, we recognize the inacuries, show why they are wrong (IE: "when you say that all disesase effect hormones, you are really getting away from the point of my argumentation, which was to explain a specific type of hormone that most disease do not effect. I did make an error in my speech, but lets not get distracted by the language errors and forget the debate) as opposed to derailing your argumentation further by trying to define "is" as it were.

Further more, when we talk about "common knowledge" a lot of the argumentation show so far fills us with further jargon and hear-say. What one teacher and one college may consider appropriate does not automatically stretch across all colleges. In order to assert this you would need the curriculum of at least 60% of the colleges (either from around the state, the USA or the world) and have comparitive evidence to suppose that they all legitimately teach it is "okay to make up percentages and statistics as long as the general populous believes it to be true." What you have stated here, is Ad Populum or an appeal to the popular choice or public opinion. This is the most widely used fallacy, as I'm sure you know and is probably the center of this entire debate (Re: Feminism). You cannot justify inaccurate percentages and impericals with the allowance of a teacher based on "What everyone else" does. No teacher will let you get away with that because the deffinition of "Common Knowledge" is so diverse. If you were speaking to Canadian youth, or in a public forum debate in a low income ghetto in the united state, the assertion that JFK died in XXXX may be common knowledge to you, but would not be common knowledge to everyone else. A judge would ask for the same documentation they ask for of any evidence. Regardless of the impunity of the item, if it weighs on the case, it must be backed by citation.

The only leeway one MAY have in this argumentation is if the item is seen as an aside from the important evidence. For instance, if I were to want to convey that men are the most prevalent criminals associated with rape, I could infer to you that generally those who report victimization by rape are female, and then I would cite a source showing that the percentage of female to female rape or sexual assault crimes is lower than XX% of all total reported rapes in the United States. I would then surmise that if it is not a female doing the majority of the crimes reported, and that the trans gender or gender neutral populous at this time is low enough to have insignificant effect on the numbers, than males would be the largest demographic perpetrating rape in the USA.

I used two un-cited "facts" in that argumentation line. Either of which could legitimately be knocked down by my opponent if they found empirical evidence to disprove. However since both the idea that women are the most common rape victims is inherent in our societies psyche, and that trans gender/ gender neutral folks are few and far between is an easy idea for anyone to swallow, they can be stated without fact safely... but do not be shocked if your opponent at least attempts to come up with argumentation against items that you have not cited. Any points that you do not prove outright can be used against you, and if they fall, so does your entire case on that point. So its best not to leave a source or fact un-cited.

However, we are all a bit guilty of Ad Vericandium (authority without authority) because none of us is a major in genetics and properly understand the difference between human males and human females. We can use conjecture and Web MD all we want but the truth of the matter is that the actual differences between human females and human males are probably so diverse between races and naturalization that it would be hard for even the best geneticists working completely on the Human Genome Project to completely quantify them.

What differences we know to be between males and females, have to be understood as superficial at best, and at worst, fabricated.

Then again, most of science starts out as fabrication and hypothesis doesn't it?

List of mentioned diseases and conditions that have similar symptoms (present the same) in both men and women:
Alcoholism
Depression
Fibromyalgia
Bipolar Disorder
Parkinson's Disease

List of mentioned diseases and conditions that have dissimilar symptoms (present differently) in both men and women:
Heart attacks (according to RemSaverem)
Stroke

List of mentioned diseases and conditions that are umbrella names for multiple similar conditions (needs further refining):
Eating disorders
Heart disease
Cancer
Infertility
Autism
Muscular Dystrophy

Occurrence and Presentation are two different things. It seems that this is the source of the confusion.
BTW, that is two out of seven (not counting umbrella terms) that I researched for 28%, which is still the minority.

Yes I still have to look up Panic Attacks and Sleep Apnea. I do, however, have to leave at this point.

I'm confused by what you are asserting here? Are you discrediting certain examples we have brought forth? or merely putting them into a different subcategory?

Occurrence and Presentation are different things, although I don't know where this is prevalent in our conversation. At what point did the mistake get made to confuse the two? I was under the impression we were looking for disease/disorders which show different symptoms for males then do females.

While I'm certain that one might adhere to the idea that WebMD or other scholarly documents on the Internet may have most of the data and therefore be a credibly resource in contention, it is by no means the end all or be all of discourse regarding medical data. Most symptoms of diseases require a diagnostician, of some great skill to adequately sift through and decode. Most of us will never see one, much less be treated by one, they are a very expensive luxury. The majority of cases of anything are broken down to its simpliest and most common of attributes and diagnosed thusly.

From here we get the rampant amount of misdiagnoses and incorrect treatment that is a large part of our medical field today. What I presented was a list of disease and disorders (as narrow scope or wide as I pleased as the definition was not set to require a specific strand or stage or scientific name of condition) that host a wide variety of symptoms which present themselves in females but not males, or males but not females. This is what was asked for, as my understanding is. So you'll have to clarify for me the exact request so I can do better research. All of my proclamations were valid however, under that scope.

(EDIT: You may notice that previous to this edit there was some discourse missing, apparently my copy and paste skills did not shield me from missing a piece of my own quotation)

[RemSaverem]

As I am writing from my phone, I will be brief atm, & Ally: very impressive &informative. Thank you. Lego, you overlook the obvious. It is your lengthy, tedious, &fallacy-full assertion,which not only is not common knowlege,but nowhere near the medical/scientific community's consensus,that initiated the diversion from the thread's topic.If diversion + falsehood, falsification,&/or fallacy = red herring, then you're the one who gets that mantle.It happens that I'm curious about formal logic, speech & debate, &enjoy learning new terms, even in Latin.But such was neither the title of Malaria's thread, nor a stipulation for participation therein. This is not a contest for who can bully another into regretting their posts  as not worth the baseless nitpicking that follows.IMHO, this should be a safe space for sharing (a) real experiences,(b) documented facts, (c)helpful suggestions, theories,opinions, but to dissect arguments only in ways that feel collaborative, exploratory, symbiotic (feminist didactic praxis).

[AllyKat]

*mod hat still off, but I'm keeping it in plain sight just in case we get waay too derailed here*

I guess I just don't like the word feminist/feminism. Why does one who fights for equality have to have the name of one of the parties involved in the inequality.

What if, 100 years from now, it's males who are outnumbered, out ranked and misrepresented? Will we change the name of those fighting for equality to masculinist/masculinism? It just seems to me that the name breed the negativity that we are trying to cease.

Here's the cycle:

Men & Women Cooperate -> Evolution of commerce breed competition and dissension -> Dissension leads to class-ism, and monetary focus -> Jobs and duties not reciprocated with monies or goods are treated as inferior -> Women who traditionally took on non-monetary focused duties are linked to those duties and inferiority -> Women are decreased in professional importance and intelligence publicly -> Women are subdued -> Women are dissatisfied -> women are disobedient -> women are punished -> women revolt -> women gain power/prowess -> women work to revise historical perception -> women achieve rights -> women gain public favor -> Economic excess due to increased workforce and production without increased consumption -> Decrease in consumption in western civilizations due to female workforce growth -> Increase in technology -> decrease in manual labor jobs in western civilizations -> male populous loses work -> male populous becomes assigned and dependent on duties and jobs not reciprocated with monies or goods -> men are associated with duties and jobs assigned to them -> men are viewed as inferior do to lack of monetary gain

And the cycle continues. When we put the name "Feminist" on a action of equality it means that we are asking the woman to fight to rise up, and the men to let us rise up... which does that thing where, you aren't really accusing the guys around you of propagating anti female action, but because of the way the protest is worded, it feels like a slam on all guys for something they had no control over really (I'm speaking of course of the layman, not our politicians and historical male figures who did do bad things to the image of females) so they begrudgingly concede and assist in the cause, but there is a bitterness to their assistance, which is passed on through the generations, continuing to breed the same separation of the male and the female that we are trying to destroy.

I suppose this comes down to one sentence; "What's in a name?"

[RemSaverem]

@ Ally's edit: Great clarifying questions, and I totally agree. @ Lego: I believe that you saw my initial clarification of your 1st post as though it were a denigration, when my intent had been to (a) be sure I understood what you meant, and (b) look into what medical research and/or personal medical experience would have to say on the subject, rather than generalize. I own that I could have been more explicit.

[@random]

_{(As Ally said, "Mod hat off", and I'm quite guilty of not always making that clear. For reference, unless I say I'm speaking as moderator or I'm taking an action which only a moderator could take, it's pretty safe to assume I'm speaking only for myself. But I will try to make the difference clearer in the future.)}

However, we are all a bit guilty of Ad Vericandium (authority without authority) because none of us is a major in genetics and properly understand the difference between human males and human females.

*sheepishly raises his hand*
I'm neither an expert nor a genetics major - however, I did major in biochemistry, and did a couple of years of graduate study in cellular and molecular biology as well as an independent study of hormonal contraception. But don't think of me as an authority in the field of physiological (including neurochemistry) differentiation by gender, because I'm not.

Even the "experts" in any given field are almost always experts only in their very narrow specialties. A geneticist may be able to tell you everything there is to know about sex-linked traits, but they're not likely to have specialized medical knowledge of how hormones do or don't affect disease processes. The number of people in the entire US who could honestly call themselves experts in physiologically differentiating by gender (by virtue of expert knowledge in multiple fields of study) can almost certainly be counted on two hands. And they're typically pretty busy people. So, as Ally says, the odds that one of those people is posting here is negligible.

List of mentioned diseases and conditions that are umbrella names for multiple similar conditions (needs further refining):

It's a fair point that some of the terms (cancer, eating disorders, etc) are umbrella terms that should be differentiated. And it's also a fair point that some of the conditions under those umbrellas (uterine cancer, prostate cancer, etc) don't really belong in the discussion. But it hardly reduces the size of the list to go from "eating disorders" to "anorexia", "bulimia", and all of their nasty little cousins. Or to go from "cancer" to "cancer of" every non-gender-specific organ system that can be affected by sex hormones. Hormones have receptors all over the body, not just the places you'd automatically think of.

[RemSaverem]

@ Random, you continue to amaze me. I had no idea you had such expertise. Your modesty about it is as impressive. @ Ally, I can follow your line of thinking. The emphasis on job access and valuation is surpisingly neo-Marxian. I believe the teeter-totter is not equally balanced, though, because no matter what happens in the marketplace, there are still other patriarhal institutions and attitudes in almost every other component of society.

[jaybug]

Does anyone have any new numbers for people in abusive relationships? Last I read it was 90% stayed, and 90% of men left. Seems 90% of women have some serious self-esteem issues. Why?

Did you read about the Women's safe house in California that men began to show up to abuse the women that fled them? Turns out the men were grown up boys of women who went there to flee from their abusive partners. Why wasn't the cycle broken?

But then I am still wondering how we got more racist after 40 years of Americans grew up watching Sesame Street.

[JeffT]

Speaking of derivations of phrases: I try very hard to never use "rule of thumb" when I mean "short cut" or "heuristic" or "easy set of steps or rules to remember". The reason is the origin of the phrase, which I'd never heard until my first Women's Studies class. Centuries ago it was part of English Common Law that a man could beat his wife, legally, so long as the "switch" (piece of wood) used was no thicker than the width of his thumb. Of course, there was no comparable permission for wives to beat their husbands.....

This is a debunked urban legend (and quite an old one):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/mythsofwomenshistory/a/rule_of_thumb.htm

[reppy]

Does anyone have any new numbers for people in abusive relationships? Last I read it was 90% stayed, and 90% of men left. Seems 90% of women have some serious self-esteem issues. Why?

I really don't understand the mentality behind this.  Is it fear of reprisal?  Do the women think he only hits them because he "loves them" so much and hates it when they "act up"?  Are they not independent enough to where they could get out of the relationship?  I think there a lot of factors, and self-esteem issues are only one of them.  Maybe the women in question grew up with an abusive father, so they think that's how normal relationships work.

Did you read about the Women's safe house in California that men began to show up to abuse the women that fled them? Turns out the men were grown up boys of women who went there to flee from their abusive partners. Why wasn't the cycle broken?

I'm having a hard time deciphering this. ^^;


Just wanted to say I agree with AllyKat (re: "feminism").  It does seem odd to complain about all the "-manisms" in language, and then....  Realistically, it's probably the most suitable name because, well, how else are you going to know where the heck they stand? ^^  Just a little funny, I guess.

[RemSaverem]

@ Urban myth-- haven't had time to research it.
@ What Jaybug was saying. I hadn't heard the story, but I think he was saying that there was a shelter that was in a location known only to law enforcement, employees/volunteers, and the women and kids who are sheltered at that location because of being victims of domestic violence. And that boys who had been there when their moms were abused, and therefore knew the location of the shelter, had grown up to, themselves, become abusers, thereby knowing where their own victims were sheltered, and trying to attack/harrass/intimidate them at the physical shelter itself. (Of note: The shelter at which I worked only took male kids up to the age of 12 for various reasons, including fear of something like this, as well as to reduce likelihood of molestation or sexual pressuring by kids who had seen or experienced abuse upon peers at the shelter.)
@ Why abuse victims stay: A huge spectrum of reasons. Fear of being killed if caught trying to leave (happens frequently). Love, mistaking control for love, not having $, not having anywhere safe to go, not having family or social support, fear/threats of having kids and/or pet taken away or killed (happens frequently), fear of being outed (for same-sex domestic violence), fear of being deported (in cases where marriage was the basis for a green card; we saw a lot of this), and above all "The Cycle of Violence", the pattern of tension-building --> violent explosion --> honeymoon period, shockingly effectively depicted in "Love the Way You Lie", the Eminem/Rhiana song/video with Dominic Monaghan & Megan Fox.

[legoman60]

from ten minutes using google:

Read the 4th (marked) point
princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/08/cite

Read the second set of bullet points
owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/

Read the section titled "Common knowledge? Or not?"
library.albany.edu/usered/cite/citing.html

Ad populum? I think not.

[RemSaverem]

Lego, though quite bored of the subject, I will once again try to point out the glaring pink elephant in the room that you continue to miss:
You are repeatedly trying to defend that you should not have had to cite any sources on something because it was "common knowledge". However
(a) It was not common-- It is not the case that the majority of the scientific/medical world agrees with you, let alone that the general population would. You have not shown this to be the case.
And (b) It was not knowledge--Your statement as initially worded was factually incorrect to begin with.

Since you've already admitted you made up your statistic, that's totally different than simply failing to cite one.

This is not in any way saying that I think you are a negative person. Just that you're repetitively interjecting material that, IMHO, does not belong in the thread and could decrease others' interest in following the stated purview of the thread.

Can we please drop this entire soap box that is off-topic and detracts from the rest of the thread, thus, once again, being its own red herring? I know I personally am done with it, in the sense that I would be so very grateful if we could please get back to actually talking about issues pertaining to injustices against or empowerment of women, and not just sit and defend ourselves or our own ways of approaching arguments.

Of note: If your intent is not to defend yourself personally, but to educate others about what certain internet sources think is okay to do in certain circumstances, or about what Latin terms mean what in  formal logic/debate systems, I would be glad to read about such in separate, appropriately titled threads. I do genuinely have interest in learning logic/debate strategy. But it is not for this thread, IMHO. Thank you.