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- Newsgroups: alt.feminism
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!uchinews!quads!mec6
- From: mec6@quads.uchicago.edu (rini)
- Subject: Re: Sexist and 50/50 (Was: Elle MacPherson causes rape?)
- Message-ID: <1992Nov22.215308.2987@midway.uchicago.edu>
- Sender: news@uchinews.uchicago.edu (News System)
- Reply-To: mec6@midway.uchicago.edu
- Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
- References: <1992Nov21.201338.13473@netcom.com> <1992Nov21.211111.24218@midway.uchicago.edu> <1992Nov22.044436.7341@netcom.com>
- Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 21:53:08 GMT
- Lines: 149
-
- payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne) writes:
- >mec6@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
-
- >BTW, tangents are legal, and OK. Many good topics start this way.
-
- Totally agreed here, Rich.
-
- >>You seemed to argue "some feminists seem to think feminism is about
- > ------------------- (just leave my arguments in when you discuss them)
- >>double-standards, while others don't." So? What's the point? Is there
- >>something relevant or contentious there?
- >
- >I said that it may be true that sexism is about double standards, but not
- >all feminists view sexism this way. And some feminists are for double
- >standards
- >(when they are in their favor), and some are against them all. But I do
- >not think it would be valid to say that feminists are against double
- >standards, lest we be guilty of generalizing from a few examples.
-
- Okay fine. Nothing contentious here. Nothing particularly new. I have
- no problem agreeing with this basic truism.
-
- Now, do you feel better that I've addressed your tangent?
-
-
- [on 50/50 representation....]
-
- >OK, I will retract the 'inherently sexist' claim. But the assumption that
- >there should be 50/50 ratios is not supported. I am not aware of any evidence
- >which would support this contention. Do you have any?
-
- The 50/50 is just an assumption with just about as much support as
- any other assumption you want to make. It doesn't strike me as a
- particularly harmful assumption to start with, so I don't sweat over
- it.
-
- >While the 50/50 split may not be based upon sexist assumptions, it will
- >be used to enforce sexist hiring/firing/promotion practices, that is, those
- >based upon nothing more than a male/female body count. It has already
- >been used for this purpose.
-
- Yes, but this, IMO, is a separate issue. IMO, a slanted body count is
- a symptom... treating the symptom seems misguided.
-
- >>>Counting the number of males and the number of females is not a measure
- >>>of sexism.
- >>
- >>Why not? Can you show me a case where it clearly is not?
- >
- >One more time, since you deleted ALL the previous explanation.
- >Perhaps I should do as you have done, tell you to go back and re-read
- >the post where it was explained. Then you would have some idea of how
- >well this sort of explanation works.
- >
- >1) It may be true that (SEXISM --> a non 50/50 split) - (sexism implies a
- > non 50/50 split)
- >
- >2) It is not true that (a non 50/50 split --> SEXISM) - (a non 50/50 split
- > implies sexism)
- >
- >You are not MEASURING SEXISM by this metric. And without looking into the
- >situation (as needs to be done anyway), you have no way of knowing what,
- >if anything, it means.
-
- Well, I think if you talk to any social scientists, you'll find that no
- tool can measure any social phenomenon perfectly. They use a number of
- different tools. Since we know that sexism is correlated with slanted
- sex ratios, the sex ratios themselves are a handy and quick way of
- gathering information.
-
- Lot's of sciences are like this. Karposi's sarcoma (I'm sure I've
- mangled the name) is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition
- for the diagnosis of AIDS, but it's surely a helpful indicator.
-
- >Alright, show me that a 50/50 split says something about the absence of
- >sexism.
- >It is not clear that this follows. I cannot off the top of my head come
- >up with a situation to fit this bill. All sporting events of this type
- >are fixed by quota.
-
- Yeah, it's hard to come up with real-life examples, simply because I
- don't know where to look for the absence of sexism!!
-
- I look forward to the day, however, when [more or less] half of the
- orchestra is male and half female, when [more or less] half of the fine
- chefs are male and half female, when a secretary is as likely to
- be male or female.... etc.
-
- >>In the absence of sexism, I have no reason to believe that higher
- >>education, voting, driving, business ownership, child-custody, housework,
- >>grocery shopping, tax filing, airplane flying, drug use, and a
- >>bizillion other things would not tend to be something in the
- >>neighborhood of 50/50....
-
- >And you have no reason to belive that a 50/50 split would result either.
-
- Sure I do. There is no good evidence that women are inherently dumber,
- can't drive as well, can't run finances as well, are better parents, clean
- toilets better, know how to shop better, are worse pilots etc etc etc.
- This despite the fact that people have been *looking* for this evidence
- for hundreds of years!
-
- >Can you provide some evidence to support this? I am not saying that it
- >would not happen so much as we have no reason to have -any- expectations
- >in this regard.
-
- Well, if the lack of evidence of snuff films is enough to emphatically
- reject their existence, I think the lack of evidence here works similarly.
-
-
- >>What I argued was this: Women and men are held up to different ideals.
- >>(To crudely sum it up, women are beauty/sex objects, and men are wallets.)
- >>That is sexism for ya. Different social expectations for different sexes,
- >>right?
- >
- >Again, we have proof by stereotype. The problem with the dumb blonde
- >stereotype is that it is usually wrong. Are you willing to claim that
- >this is just -the way things are-?
-
- Right, stereotypes are mostly wrong. That's the whole problem.
-
- >BTW, if women -do- objectify men as wallet-objects in the manner you
- >claim men objectify women, and they right or wrong? Or just oppressed?
-
- IMO, it's not very nice.
-
- >>Now, if it were the case that *both* men and women were expected to be
- >>beauty/sex objects... (in which case, we would probably see comparable
- >>numbers of men and women in nudey calendars).... where's the sexism?
- >
- >It's in your starting assumptions. That you change them does not change
- >the reasons why men and women buy calendars.
-
- How/when/where did I change them?
-
-
- [the non-sexist world....]
-
- >>It would be a world where people weren't expected to things (or not do
- >>things) because of their sex. I would certainly expect a more equal
- >>representation in most things.
- >
- >Would you expect -equal- representation though? What does "more equal" mean?
- >40/60? 55/45? 38/62? Where would you draw the line at which you would make
- >accusations of sexism blindly?
-
- I would never make accusations of sexism blindly.
-
- rini
-