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Why is it lousy thejeff? I think it's kind of neat that YOU have control over how others see you simply by changing your clothes, hair and speech. When I was the religious nut in junior high and the outcast all I needed to do to fit in WAS decide I wanted to fit in. I switched from home made clothing to trendy styles, I got a popular hair style, and I stopped talking about God except when it specifically came up. And next thing I knew I was a cheerleader, I was popular instead of the outcast. Sure I had more lessons to learn in life, but hey I was a kid and this made school fun instead of hell.Because it's about pushing blacks to conform to white standards to fit in. Not the clothes so much, but the hair, especially. Treatments to make black hair do what white hair often does naturally. Particularly prevalent among black women, even in settings where "gang" isn't really in question.
Like kindergarten.
On the larger scale, I'm also not real fond of the idea of judging people by superficialities like dress, fashion and hairstyles. As you say those have drastic effects on how people treat us, in the job market and elsewhere, while being relatively easy to fake and having very little to do with any actual qualifications.
So your saying black educators are forcing "white standards" that's crazy there is no white standard. Look around white people have all manner of different standards. That is just a black on black myth... "Your acting white" is a lie. What black educators are forcing is probably a college prep culture. Which makes sense since those black educators are part of that culture. And you don't need hair treatments to have conservative hair, just invest in this invention called scissors. Well... Unless you're a girl, but then we have to buy a lot of beauty products boys don't regardless of race.
As for judging by superficial standards? Well humans are tribal and always will be. every group prosecutes the outsiders. If you have some...
"College prep culture" is without question a euphemism for "acceptable to white people."
I won't argue that there is a certain pragmatism involved, but let's call it what it is.
...I'd like to make a comment on the "Gender is only a part of your identity if you make it so" line.
This is flat out false. My wife has never made an issue of her gender until just the past few years - because she's discriminated against due to her gender.
She's one of the best chemists I know (and I know a lot of them). She is by far the best chemist at her work, getting her own work done significantly faster than everyone else while also producing higher quality work. Just last week her manager assigned her two weeks worth of work to get done. She had it done within two days. Her work is fast and top quality. Some of this is because she doesn't sit around and BS half the day like many of her coworkers do. Some of it is because she simply works more efficiently - she doesn't sit around and watch the instruments run, once she starts one, she walks away and works on another project. What takes her a single day to do, it can take some of her slower coworkers upwards of two weeks. I've even listened to her complain about a coworker taking three months to do something that she can get done in a single day - and then his work was so bad that she had to repeat it! But he still got the credit, not her.
Despite all this, she was skipped over for the supposedly automatic annual raise last December. Despite all this, it took her three years (3!) to get the supposedly automatic title and raise that came with the promotion to this position (whereas it took her male colleagues zero time to get the pay increase for the promotion to this position). Despite all this, she was just skipped over a title promotion and ou raise just last month over two of her less experienced and slower coworkers.
For projects that she and other women are in charge of, they've been told to give all their data to male colleagues so the guy can present the data at major meetings - while the women weren't even invited to those meetings. For their own projects! Because somehow having a dick makes you a better
I've actually heard that story before, from the individual it happened to. I heard it on the radio with an interview with the guy. So, it's a real story.
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If all they have to do to "not fit in" is have their natural hair, then the standards they're being coerced into conforming too are utter b#@$**@@.
Edit for phrasing.
Right. Her hair is not a distraction or a problem. People being little s*&#s in school are a problem. Correct the problem, leave the little girl alone.
But, if we are going to say it was so easy that the girl should just cut/change her hair, why was it a bad thing to say "Hey brony, please leave Twinklestar the backpack at home. It apparently incites people to beat you up, as opposed to something else about your manner, face, hair or whatnot?"
Nope. We got outrage and the apparent start of a "brony persecution" age.
Again, kids don't need a reason to not like you. The school is trying for the easiest route that requires the least effort. Have her cut her hair, it'll make her fit in and the fighting stops so we can get back to teaching them to color.
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Confession: this is exactly why I have the love-hate relationship with players who want to play nonstandard races; they care more about the mechanics and I want to look at sociopolitical ramifications.
Not always true. I like being the outcast weirdo of the group, and its sociopolitical ramifications. If I'm a tiefling, I invest in disguise and bluff, and the like. If I'm a goblin, I wear chains made to look like I'm a slave, or stealth like there's no tomorrow. I almost never play a human 'cause I am one in real life, and the other races are pretty much just differently flavored humans in society's eyes in most GM worlds.
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You kinda miss something. Race and gender are physical. They only become part of your identity if you make them. They are not required elements of an identity.
Besides, I care more about where culture is headed in the future than where it came from. Heritage is a nice thing to study, to learn from, but it isn't often a good thing to model your life on. Take what is learned and make something better, that means realizing that racial issues are a problem and can be reduced by not basing identity on race, therefore, the way you live should adapt to not base identity on race.
History in general is to be learned from, not emulated.
There is so much privilege in these statements that I almost choked. So, I'll make a statement and then address the two points in your comment.
Being "color blind" perpetuates white privilege.
Point 1: Race and gender ARE ALWAYS parts of your identity. You don't see that because your self-identity is what you concider, "generic," or "non race or gender related." This is because your race and gender are societal "norms." You don't realize that being a white male ARE defining characteristics of your identity because society treats YOUR identity as BASELINE.
Point 2: The future is what is at stake. You want to continue to live your life and have the future generations of the world live their lives without racial consideration. What you are in effect doing is requiring everyone who isn't a white male to conform to your sensibilities of "generic" identity. In effect you are actually asking them to conform to a white male identity. If this were to happen people of the future would lose the cultural history, diversity, and richness that we are able to celebrate today.
Don't be too literal. Of course one's gender is part of their identity because everyone has a gender (though some are more complicated than others).
But, run a game here for me. Can you be...
A male and like to play tennis?
A female and like to play tennis?
A queer and like to play tennis?
A transgender who went trough five sex change operations and like tennis?
The reason for this brief mental exercise it to prove the following point - your gender does not determine anything else about you. There might, of course, be some tendencies for one thing or another depending on gender (and even they might be nothing more than a social convention, it's hard to tell), but the bottom line is that knowing one's gender says nothing about their like or dislike of tennis, or of anything else.
This is what I and others mean when we say that gender does not have to be part of your identity if you don't want it to. Since your gender does not constrain you in any way, it only means something in one of two cases. If you want it to, or if somebody else is forcing it on you (sometimes for good and sometimes for bad). In cases where somebody else - maybe even society as a whole - is making an issue out of someone's gender without that person willing it, we have a problem and such cases should be avoided as much as possible through legislation and education.
But if a man is training to be a professional ballet dancer and the dominantly female society he finds himself in accepts him as who he is without judgment or special treatment, then he is the only one who decides if it matters that he is of a different gender than his surrounding or not.
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So your saying black educators are forcing "white standards" that's crazy there is no white standard. Look around white people have all manner of different standards. That is just a black on black myth... "Your acting white" is a lie. What black educators are forcing is probably a college prep culture. Which makes sense since those black educators are part of that culture. And you don't need hair treatments to have conservative hair, just invest in this invention called scissors. Well... Unless you're a girl, but then we have to buy a lot of beauty products boys don't regardless of race.
As for judging by superficial standards? Well humans are tribal and always will be. every group prosecutes the outsiders. If you have some...
There may not be "white standard" but there definitely is the opposite - the stereotypical "black standard". If a black person is not acting like that, she might be blamed for conforming to white standards. This is something that is important to note, even setting aside the hyperbolic and out of control talk of privileges - there might not actually be less freedom for many minorities in modern western culture, but there's more pressure from society to act a certain way. Not everyone is like that - I'd like to think I'm not - but enough people are. A girl playing basketball will be looked at differently by many people from a boy playing basketball. Doesn't mean she can't play, also doesn't mean no male on earth could possibly comprehend what she's going through, does not even mean most people mind. But some will, and that could be unpleasant.
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I think its utterly hilarious that Arana's argument boils down to it being perfectly acceptable to run a society by the merits of "assimilate into the dominant culture or suffer inferior treatment."
You kinda miss something. Race and gender are physical. They only become part of your identity if you make them. They are not required elements of an identity.
Besides, I care more about where culture is headed in the future than where it came from. Heritage is a nice thing to study, to learn from, but it isn't often a good thing to model your life on. Take what is learned and make something better, that means realizing that racial issues are a problem and can be reduced by not basing identity on race, therefore, the way you live should adapt to not base identity on race.
History in general is to be learned from, not emulated.
There is so much privilege in these statements that I almost choked. So, I'll make a statement and then address the two points in your comment.
Being "color blind" perpetuates white privilege.
Point 1: Race and gender ARE ALWAYS parts of your identity. You don't see that because your self-identity is what you concider, "generic," or "non race or gender related." This is because your race and gender are societal "norms." You don't realize that being a white male ARE defining characteristics of your identity because society treats YOUR identity as BASELINE.
Point 2: The future is what is at stake. You want to continue to live your life and have the future generations of the world live their lives without racial consideration. What you are in effect doing is requiring everyone who isn't a white male to conform to your sensibilities of "generic" identity. In effect you are actually asking them to conform to a white male identity. If this were to happen people of the future would lose the cultural history, diversity, and richness that we are able to celebrate today.
Don't be too literal. Of course one's gender is part of their identity because everyone has a gender (though some are more complicated than others).
But, run a game here for me. Can you be...
A male and like to play tennis?
A female and...
It just says that tennis isn't a gender dependent activity.
But, what I really mean with regards to gender norms and baseline assumption in society (and forgive my American privilege here, I'm about to make some comments where I conflate "society," with "American culture," I understand you are not living here) is that females are objectified and set as desirable for males to obtain.
It is very easy to be a male and not consider how being a male affects your identity. You see it as "generic," or "non-gender related," because society is constantly conforming to your sensibility. You don't have to concider what it is or what it means to be objectified and sought after by 50% of the population. Even if you choose to not treat females in this way, you "walk away" from that aspect of society completely you are still experiencing a privileged position. Females CANNOT just walk away. They cannot just choose to not be objectified. And if you don't think that informs identity then you should reconsider that position.
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Wistfully remembers a thread about shunning.
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1)It just says that tennis isn't a gender dependent activity.
2)But, what I really mean with regards to gender norms and baseline assumption in society (and forgive my American privilege here, I'm about to make some comments where I conflate "society," with "American culture," I understand you are not living here) is that females are objectified and set as desirable for males to obtain.
3)It is very easy to be a male and not consider how being a male affects your identity. You see it as "generic," or "non-gender related," because society is constantly conforming to your sensibility. You don't have to concider what it is or what it means to be objectified and sought after by 50% of the population. Even if you choose to not treat females in this way, you "walk away" from that aspect of society completely you are still experiencing a privileged position. Females CANNOT just walk away. They cannot just choose to not be objectified. And if you don't think that informs identity then you should reconsider that position.
1) Pry tell, what is a gender dependent activity? Which activity can one gender perform that another can't?
2) It's not an American Privilege, it is an American Perspective. There's a serious difference between the two,even if the first one even exists at all.
3) OK, please answer these two question:
3a) Are there women who also don't consider their gender a big deal, the way I don't treat being a man as a big deal? Or do all women feel like objectified male sex toys all the time everywhere?
3b) Logically, if in a group there are members who uphold characteristic X and other members who don't uphold it, could characteristic X be an inherent one for that group?
Since we're on this topic, let's not forget the works of Devah Pager, who has shown in her sociology research that in the U.S. black men with no criminal record have the same chance of getting hired as a white man fresh out of prison.
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Runs about in futility, waving his arms and shunning willy nilly.
1)It just says that tennis isn't a gender dependent activity.
2)But, what I really mean with regards to gender norms and baseline assumption in society (and forgive my American privilege here, I'm about to make some comments where I conflate "society," with "American culture," I understand you are not living here) is that females are objectified and set as desirable for males to obtain.
3)It is very easy to be a male and not consider how being a male affects your identity. You see it as "generic," or "non-gender related," because society is constantly conforming to your sensibility. You don't have to concider what it is or what it means to be objectified and sought after by 50% of the population. Even if you choose to not treat females in this way, you "walk away" from that aspect of society completely you are still experiencing a privileged position. Females CANNOT just walk away. They cannot just choose to not be objectified. And if you don't think that informs identity then you should reconsider that position.
1) Pry tell, what is a gender dependent activity? Which activity can one gender perform that another can't?
2) It's not an American Privilege, it is an American Perspective. There's a serious difference between the two,even if the first one even exists at all.
3) OK, please answer these two question:
3a) Are there women who also don't consider their gender a big deal, the way I don't treat being a man as a big deal? Or do all women feel like objectified male sex toys all the time everywhere?
3b) Logically, if in a group there are members who uphold characteristic X and other members who don't uphold it, could characteristic X be an inherent one for that group?
1) I'm not certain there is one. But I'm also not required to make your arguments for you so I didn't put much thought in. I will say that the enjoyment of leisure activities is not the summation of gender or personal identity.
2) Only privilege in so far as I could generally equate "my culture," with "human culture," and in most places people would either agree with me or conform to me. I felt it was important to awknowledge I was operating under personal views that may not have been universal so your point about perspective is well-received.
3a) I'm sure there are women who don't see their gender as a big deal. It may not be a big deal to them that people expect them to put more effort into their appearance than their male counterparts. It may not be a big deal to them that certain professions are harder to break into for them than their male counterparts. They may not think it is a big deal that people think she is b*+~!y when her male counterpart is assertive. They may not think it is a big deal that her career is set back a year or more because of 4 weeks she took off to have a child. They may not care that "Women and children first," was a sexist attitude that saved her life. But whether she thinks those things are a big deal, or in several cases doesn't care because she might have chosen to take the 20 minutes for make-up or become a nurse instead of a doctor or got off the ship alive... They still absolutely informed her identity AND perhaps just as importantly, how society sees her. And how society sees you also has a large impact on your self-identity.
3b) If by characteristic X you mean that females have vaginas (for example) then yes. There are certainly those who are gender=female who do not have a vagina but I would argue that having a vagina is as close to a "inherent characteristic" of being a female as you could get. Other than that, I'm really not sure what you are asking so maybe a specific example you have in mind could be useful.
Cultural absorption will happen, but it won't be quick. There was a time when red haired and brown haired white people looked at one another as different races, long, long, long ago. Enough interbreeding and education with new generations leads other races to merely be considered normal variations within the overall group.
Cultural absorption will happen, but it won't be quick. There was a time when red haired and brown haired white people looked at one another as different races, long, long, long ago. Enough interbreeding and education with new generations leads other races to merely be considered normal variations within the overall group.
This reminds me of a sociologist from the 40's I saw quoted recently. It was something akin to, [paraphrase]"one day the Mexican race will be considered white just as we consider the Itallians as white today."[/paraphrase]
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1) I'm not certain there is one. But I'm also not required to make your arguments for you so I didn't put much thought in. I will say that the enjoyment of leisure activities is not the summation of gender or personal identity.
2) Only privilege in so far as I could generally equate "my culture," with "human culture," and in most places people would either agree with me or conform to me. I felt it was important to awknowledge I was operating under personal views that may not have been universal so your point about perspective is well-received.
3a) I'm sure there are women who don't see their gender as a big deal. It may not be a big deal to them that people expect them to put more effort into their appearance than their male counterparts. It may not be a big deal to them that certain professions are harder to break into for them than their male counterparts. They may not think it is a big deal that people think she is b+~%*y when her male counterpart is assertive. They may not think it is a big deal that her career is set back a year or more because of 4 weeks she took off to have a child. They may not care that "Women and children first," was a sexist attitude that saved her life. But whether she thinks those things are a big deal, or in several cases doesn't care because she might have chosen to take the 20 minutes for make-up or become a nurse instead of a doctor or got off the ship alive... They still absolutely informed her identity AND perhaps just as importantly, how society sees her. And how society sees you also has a large impact on your self-identity.
3b) If by characteristic X you mean that females have vaginas (for example) then yes. There are certainly those who are gender=female who do not have a vagina but I would argue that having a vagina is as close to a "inherent characteristic" of being a female as you could get. Other than that, I'm really not sure what you are asking so maybe a specific example you have in mind could be useful.
1) *snort*. This is a new one, this "not required to make your argument for you" thing. Intellectual honesty requires that you be willing to seriously reconsider things when you encounter a new idea that challenges your existing one. I think I did - I showed you a new way to look at things - if your gender does not dictate any of your other aspects of personality, does not that challenge the conception that it has some sort of absolute meaning?
2) neat :)
3) Look, I'm not arguing that there isn't an asymmetry between gender roles in society. There obviously is, but each person can decide for themselves what they wish to do with that. To me, if a woman does not see her gender as a big deal, and does not encounter any serious manifestation of sexism... then it really isn't a big deal for her. For example, a know a woman who I took a course with me in university. She is very smart and capable, and she finished her first degree with high grades. She landed a good job at Intel, joining their crew of algorithmists. Once she had a full time job there (rather than a student compatible part time job), she very quickly got pregnant' gave birth and got pregnant again within a few months (second baby due soon). Through talking with her I learned that she was always accepted, both in the engineering faculty of the university and the R&D department in Intel, despite being in a serious minority due to her gender. She gets along fine with guys and nobody ever gave her a hard time. Her husband managed to take a short paternity leave from his job, which allowed her to shorten her maternity leave from hers, and her coworkers and managers were never piggish about the time she has to spend away.
If this woman is going to claim her life is not dictated by her gender, can you seriously argue the point?
And in the shared characteristic part, I was not referencing genitals of any kind. Rather I tried to point you towards a logical conclusion - if there are many women who don't think their gender is a big part of their being and identity, claiming that it is is not only false, but in some ways borderline sexist on its own.
*Not actually possible. The sum of seething rage that festers in the deepest places in hell could not begin to account for enough anger to be considered "too much" to respond to this.
This right here pissed me off far more than it should have.
In all fairness I suspect that when I had discovered the article, I was suffering from outrage fatigue.
Anger at injustice burns like a sun, and at a certain point the fuel is nearly all consumed, which is when either the step of fuel increases and changes the nature of the stellar fury, or it burns out.
Confession: this is why I am wary of my own anger, which frustrates my beloved - she thinks I clamp down far more on my emotions as a whole than I should. She doesn't seem to understand the peril of not doing so.
3) Look, I'm not arguing that there isn't an asymmetry between gender roles in society. There obviously is, but each person can decide for themselves what they wish to do with that. To me, if a woman does not see her gender as a big deal, and does not encounter any serious manifestation of sexism... then it really isn't a big deal for her. For example, a know a woman who I took a course with me in university. She is very smart and capable, and she finished her first degree with high grades. She landed a good job at Intel, joining their crew of algorithmists. Once she had a full time job there (rather than a student compatible part time job), she very quickly got pregnant' gave birth and got pregnant again within a few months (second baby due soon). Through talking with her I learned that she was always accepted, both in the engineering faculty of the university and the R&D department in Intel, despite being in a serious minority due to her gender. She gets along fine with guys and nobody ever gave her a hard time. Her husband managed to take a short paternity leave from his job, which allowed her to shorten her maternity leave from hers, and her coworkers and managers were never piggish about the time she has to spend away.
If this woman is going to claim her life is not dictated by her gender, can you seriously argue the point?
In your isolated, non-precedent setting case it is entirely possible that the very fortunate female you know was able to overcome the obstacles society puts before her and simply "incidentally" be a female.
I would argue she was able to leverage a p<.05 level of intelligence and also probably an affluent background to mask her obstacles.
Which leaves us with all the folks who don't have those gifts to leverage.
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3) Look, I'm not arguing that there isn't an asymmetry between gender roles in society. There obviously is, but each person can decide for themselves what they wish to do with that. To me, if a woman does not see her gender as a big deal, and does not encounter any serious manifestation of sexism... then it really isn't a big deal for her. For example, a know a woman who I took a course with me in university. She is very smart and capable, and she finished her first degree with high grades. She landed a good job at Intel, joining their crew of algorithmists. Once she had a full time job there (rather than a student compatible part time job), she very quickly got pregnant' gave birth and got pregnant again within a few months (second baby due soon). Through talking with her I learned that she was always accepted, both in the engineering faculty of the university and the R&D department in Intel, despite being in a serious minority due to her gender. She gets along fine with guys and nobody ever gave her a hard time. Her husband managed to take a short paternity leave from his job, which allowed her to shorten her maternity leave from hers, and her coworkers and managers were never piggish about the time she has to spend away.
If this woman is going to claim her life is not dictated by her gender, can you seriously argue the point?In your isolated, non-precedent setting case it is entirely possible that the very fortunate female you know was able to overcome the obstacles society puts before her and simply "incidentally" be a female.
I would argue she was able to leverage a p<.05 level of intelligence and also probably an affluent background to mask her obstacles.
Which leaves us with all the folks who don't have those gifts to leverage.
Ah! But, note what is not different about this woman - she lives in the same society is everybody else. She also watches TV and sees women being objectified (I will set aside for a moment that fact that men are as well, all the time, just for the sake of the argument), she also is underrepresented in politics, and is being watched and judged by the same unwashed masses as everybody else.
Yet, based solely on my description of her life experience, you readily agreed with me that she is not a slave to her gender but rather her own person, who decided not to attribute much importance to her gender.
Notice what happened here! you essentially agreed to my point that whether or not gender is an important part of a persons' life is not some abstract binary state defined by the society they live in, but rather the product of their own conception of the matter and actual stuff that happened to them personally.
This embodies my criticism of the way "privilege" is being misused by liberals nowadays. They present a distorted image of reality, wherein there is an omnipresent, inescapable oppression that seems to have a life of its own. It is simply there, incomprehensible and invisible to everyone not of the minority being oppressed, and overpowering everyone who are.
That many can and do live their life otherwise is (gasp!) a complication of reality, an unfortunate truth that does not aid the narrative, and so the very possibility is ruled out by the dogma. I do not mean this in an offensive way, BigDTBone, so please don't see this as an attack, but your earlier "I don't have to prove your claims so I won't think about them" is my new classic example of this school of thought. I'm not saying it makes you unintelligent, merely that I think you have squandered some measure of critical thought in exchange for conviction, which I personally am strongly opposed to.
I think its utterly hilarious that Arana's argument boils down to it being perfectly acceptable to run a society by the merits of "assimilate into the dominant culture or suffer inferior treatment."To be fair, it works if you can do it. On the individual scale it's probably your best plan - you can't change the dominant culture all on your own, but you can change yourself to your best advantage. And, throughout history, it's the way things have always worked. Even fairly recently, with many European groups who were once despised minorities - Irish and Italians being the classic examples, but there are plenty of others.
On a historical scale, the trouble comes when one group can't assimilate. No matter how much individual black people "act white", they're still black and that means they're still not assimilated. Not unless the dominant culture changes. Which we're working on, but sometimes I think a few hundred generations of interbreeding until everyone is a nice shade of light brown is the only plan that will work. :)
Thanks thejeff.
Also it's important to note that I don't believe there is a "dominant culture". There are countless different cultures in the US, and most of them transcend race. Corporate culture for example contains all races and it's rather different from the college prep culture. I am saying you should adapt to whatever culture you are dealing with in depth. if you are living in an urban place then "become" an urban culture member while you live there. Why be an outsider? If I lived in an urban black neighborhood I would learn to present myself as they expect me to. No different than my job expects me to present myself as a good member of corporate culture.
Since we're on this topic, let's not forget the works of Devah Pager, who has shown in her sociology research that in the U.S. black men with no criminal record have the same chance of getting hired as a white man fresh out of prison.
I suspect this is faked. Or perhaps only looks at a certain sampling of blacks and whites. Every black man I knew in university is gainfully employed in a white collar job. None of these jobs would ever hire a convict regardless of race.
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Since we're on this topic, let's not forget the works of Devah Pager, who has shown in her sociology research that in the U.S. black men with no criminal record have the same chance of getting hired as a white man fresh out of prison.I suspect this is faked. Or perhaps only looks at a certain sampling of blacks and whites. Every black man I knew in university is gainfully employed in a white collar job. None of these jobs would ever hire a convict regardless of race.
I guess that's one way to go through life: Reject any published research that conflicts with your preconceived opinions without even looking at it.
I guess that means I can safely reject anything you say.
Since we're on this topic, let's not forget the works of Devah Pager, who has shown in her sociology research that in the U.S. black men with no criminal record have the same chance of getting hired as a white man fresh out of prison.I suspect this is faked. Or perhaps only looks at a certain sampling of blacks and whites. Every black man I knew in university is gainfully employed in a white collar job. None of these jobs would ever hire a convict regardless of race.I guess that's one way to go through life: Reject any published research that conflicts with your preconceived opinions without even looking at it.
I guess that means I can safely reject anything you say.
I fail to see any danger in ignoring me... Well beyond anything you normally do might be dangerous.
There is nothing preconceived about it, I am noting my personal experience is very different than her report.
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Since we're on this topic, let's not forget the works of Devah Pager, who has shown in her sociology research that in the U.S. black men with no criminal record have the same chance of getting hired as a white man fresh out of prison.I suspect this is faked. Or perhaps only looks at a certain sampling of blacks and whites. Every black man I knew in university is gainfully employed in a white collar job. None of these jobs would ever hire a convict regardless of race.I guess that's one way to go through life: Reject any published research that conflicts with your preconceived opinions without even looking at it.
I guess that means I can safely reject anything you say.
I fail to see any danger in ignoring me... Well beyond anything you normally do might be dangerous.
There is nothing preconceived about it, I am noting my personal experience is very different than her report.
Ok.
Personal opinions and anecdota experience always trumps full published research with statistical analysis involving thousands of test subjects. Totally.
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Since we're on this topic, let's not forget the works of Devah Pager, who has shown in her sociology research that in the U.S. black men with no criminal record have the same chance of getting hired as a white man fresh out of prison.I suspect this is faked. Or perhaps only looks at a certain sampling of blacks and whites. Every black man I knew in university is gainfully employed in a white collar job. None of these jobs would ever hire a convict regardless of race.I guess that's one way to go through life: Reject any published research that conflicts with your preconceived opinions without even looking at it.
I guess that means I can safely reject anything you say.
I fail to see any danger in ignoring me... Well beyond anything you normally do might be dangerous.
There is nothing preconceived about it, I am noting my personal experience is very different than her report.
Ok.
Personal opinions and anecdota experience always trumps full published research with statistical analysis involving thousands of test subjects. Totally.
Well, it works well enough for these people and those people.
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Since we're on this topic, let's not forget the works of Devah Pager, who has shown in her sociology research that in the U.S. black men with no criminal record have the same chance of getting hired as a white man fresh out of prison.I suspect this is faked. Or perhaps only looks at a certain sampling of blacks and whites. Every black man I knew in university is gainfully employed in a white collar job. None of these jobs would ever hire a convict regardless of race.I guess that's one way to go through life: Reject any published research that conflicts with your preconceived opinions without even looking at it.
I guess that means I can safely reject anything you say.
So, here's another piece of published research. According to it, employment rates of blacks in america are very near identical to that of whites.
Assuming the article you've mentioned is accurate, which I can't verify, we are led to one of two conclusions. Either the article is referring to only a subset of jobs where the discrepancy is much larger, or employment rates are almost identical for men with criminal records and men without. Either way, the information as you presented it is misleading, if the statistics I linked to, which claim to be drawn from 2010 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics are to be believed.
And now for the true test - will you reject this research that conflict with your preconceived opinions?
EDIT: I now noticed I misread the article, confusing the "not in labor force" category with the "unemployed" category. In truth it seems that for every unemployed white there are two unemployed blacks. It does appear the statistics are those of a first world country for whites, and closer to that of a third world country for blacks. I still think there is much information missing from this picture (are blacks actually disfavored in job interviews or are there other reasons - such as not being in a position to be at job interviews in the first place - that causes the gap. Either way things are bad and need to change, but I would be careful in deriving hasty conclusions from such a standalone statistic.
Ah! But, note what is not different about this woman - she lives in the same society is everybody else. She also watches TV and sees women being objectified (I will set aside for a moment that fact that men...3) Look, I'm not arguing that there isn't an asymmetry between gender roles in society. There obviously is, but each person can decide for themselves what they wish to do with that. To me, if a woman does not see her gender as a big deal, and does not encounter any serious manifestation of sexism... then it really isn't a big deal for her. For example, a know a woman who I took a course with me in university. She is very smart and capable, and she finished her first degree with high grades. She landed a good job at Intel, joining their crew of algorithmists. Once she had a full time job there (rather than a student compatible part time job), she very quickly got pregnant' gave birth and got pregnant again within a few months (second baby due soon). Through talking with her I learned that she was always accepted, both in the engineering faculty of the university and the R&D department in Intel, despite being in a serious minority due to her gender. She gets along fine with guys and nobody ever gave her a hard time. Her husband managed to take a short paternity leave from his job, which allowed her to shorten her maternity leave from hers, and her coworkers and managers were never piggish about the time she has to spend away.
If this woman is going to claim her life is not dictated by her gender, can you seriously argue the point?In your isolated, non-precedent setting case it is entirely possible that the very fortunate female you know was able to overcome the obstacles society puts before her and simply "incidentally" be a female.
I would argue she was able to leverage a p<.05 level of intelligence and also probably an affluent background to mask her obstacles.
Which leaves us with all the folks who don't have those gifts to leverage.
So I think that you misread a few points.
(1) in the specific, I state that she was able to overcome obstacles through use of intellect and affluence. Those are two very powerful boons to achieve position in society. Ultimately she would have had a MUCH more difficult time achieving her position if she didn't posses those gifts. So, to abstract slightly; a avg intelligence, low income female would have a more difficult time achieving that position than an avg intelligence, low income male.
(2) in the general, Privilege is pervasive and ubiquitous but it isn't malicious. Those who benefit from it aren't necessarily racist/sexist/etc. Privilege doesn't mean that you had things handed to you, or that you have an easy life. It is an artifact that remains from when systemic or institutionalized discrimination took place.
1) Pry tell, what is a gender dependent activity? Which activity can one gender perform that another can't?1)It just says that tennis isn't a gender dependent activity.
2)But, what I really mean with regards to gender norms and baseline assumption in society (and forgive my American privilege here, I'm about to make some comments where I conflate "society," with "American culture," I understand you are not living here) is that females are objectified and set as desirable for males to obtain.
3)It is very easy to be a male and not consider how being a male affects your identity. You see it as "generic," or "non-gender related," because society is constantly conforming to your sensibility. You don't have to concider what it is or what it means to be objectified and sought after by 50% of the population. Even if you choose to not treat females in this way, you "walk away" from that aspect of society completely you are still experiencing a privileged position. Females CANNOT just walk away. They cannot just choose to not be objectified. And if you don't think that informs identity then you should reconsider that position.
Unless I miss something glaringly obvious in your post, Lord Snow (which may be the case, depending on the meaning you attribute to the word "gender") a male can't grow a baby in his womb, and give birth to it.
No matter what you may think, you are not any more of a special snowflake than anybody else.
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So there are no gender or racial biases in society, we are not influenced by it at all? Unless we choose to be or in (rare?)...Ah! But, note what is not different about this woman - she lives in the same society is everybody else. She also watches TV and sees women being objectified (I will set aside for a moment that fact that men are as well, all the time, just for the sake of the argument), she also is underrepresented in politics, and is being watched and judged by the same unwashed masses as everybody else.
Yet, based solely on my description of her life experience, you readily agreed with me that she is not a slave to her gender but rather her own person, who decided not to attribute much importance to her gender.
Notice what happened here! you essentially agreed to my point that whether or not gender is an important part of a persons' life is not some abstract binary state defined by the society they live in, but rather the product of their own conception of the matter and actual stuff that happened to them personally.
This embodies my criticism of the way "privilege" is being misused by liberals nowadays. They present a distorted image of reality, wherein there is an omnipresent, inescapable oppression that seems to have a life of its own. It is simply there, incomprehensible and invisible to everyone not of the minority being oppressed, and overpowering everyone who are.
That many can and do live their life otherwise is (gasp!) a complication of reality, an unfortunate truth that does not aid the narrative, and so the very possibility is ruled out by the dogma. I do not mean this in an offensive way, BigDTBone, so please don't see this as an attack, but your earlier "I don't have to prove your claims so I won't think about them" is my new classic example of this school of thought. I'm not saying it makes you unintelligent, merely that I think you have squandered some measure of critical thought in exchange for conviction, which I personally am strongly opposed to.
There are gender and race biases in every society and they are likely to have an effect on the lives of most members of any society, which I have included in my posts several time, which means you are either intentionally misreading me or I have failed to communicate myself. I just happened to actually summerise my opinion on the matter a couple of posts up, and I will quote it here:
This is something that is important to note, even setting aside the hyperbolic and out of control talk of privileges - there might not actually be less freedom for many minorities in modern western culture, but there's more pressure from society to act a certain way. Not everyone is like that - I'd like to think I'm not - but enough people are. A girl playing basketball will be looked at differently by many people from a boy playing basketball. Doesn't mean she can't play, also doesn't mean no male on earth could possibly comprehend what she's going through, does not even mean most people mind. But some will, and that could be unpleasant.
This is it, really. My objection is not to the idea that some people have it easier for arbitrary reasons, but to the dogmatic "you can't ever refute this because you are one of the privileged and therefore simply cannot comprehend how it would feel not to be", with the constant companion "not having the privilege means not being able to escape a lesser life as a consequence".
There is a very big difference between a statement like "most women will be less effective athletes than their male counterparts because on average men are stronger", which is a provable statistical claim about a shift in the position of a bell curve, and the statement "women can't do sport, and if they do that means they are not really women", which is a bigoted pile of nonsense.
From my point of view, liberalism is about figuring out that differences. About ferreting the truth and using logic and reason rather than hateful preconceptions.
Which is why I find it especially exasperated when supposed liberals confuse the statement "society exerts a pressure on its members to act according to stiff gender or racial roles, thus preventing true equality for its various members" which is a statistical claim about how wrong and misguided social constructs create unnecessary shifts in a bell curve, with the statement "some are privileged and some are not! those who aren't can't possibly escape it and those who are cannot possibly comprehend it!", which is every bit as illogical and wrongheaded the corresponding bigoted worldview, if not quite as damaging.
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Unless I miss something glaringly obvious in your post, Lord Snow (which may be the case, depending on the meaning you attribute to the word "gender") a male can't grow a baby in his womb, and give birth to it.1) Pry tell, what is a gender dependent activity? Which activity can one gender perform that another can't?1)It just says that tennis isn't a gender dependent activity.
2)But, what I really mean with regards to gender norms and baseline assumption in society (and forgive my American privilege here, I'm about to make some comments where I conflate "society," with "American culture," I understand you are not living here) is that females are objectified and set as desirable for males to obtain.
3)It is very easy to be a male and not consider how being a male affects your identity. You see it as "generic," or "non-gender related," because society is constantly conforming to your sensibility. You don't have to concider what it is or what it means to be objectified and sought after by 50% of the population. Even if you choose to not treat females in this way, you "walk away" from that aspect of society completely you are still experiencing a privileged position. Females CANNOT just walk away. They cannot just choose to not be objectified. And if you don't think that informs identity then you should reconsider that position.
It is not glaringly obvious, but I believe it makes sense in the scope of this conversation that gender does not always correspond with sex, that is a person with a woman's body might consider himself to be of the male gender.
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Confession: I never cared about the edition wars. You like another game? Good for you, enjoy yourself, have some fun for me. I look at it like being pissy that someone likes a style of music or an album from an artist that I don't. It affects me slightly less than the TV shows that I don't care for that people prattle about.
Confession: I never cared about the edition wars. You like another game? Good for you, enjoy yourself, have some fun for me. I look at it like being pissy that someone likes a style of music or an album from an artist that I don't. It affects me slightly less than the TV shows that I don't care for that people prattle about.
Fully agreed. Sure, after playing and running 4e myself, I could understand why people didn't like it, but that doesn't mean I have to stop other people from having fun. Besides, I fully live by my eventual post-apocalyptic noble house model of "Strength through Indifference."
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(1) in the specific, I state that she was able to overcome obstacles through use of intellect and affluence. Those are two very powerful boons to achieve position in society. Ultimately she would have had a MUCH more difficult time achieving her position if she didn't posses those gifts. So, to abstract slightly; a avg intelligence, low income female would have a more difficult time achieving that position than an avg intelligence, low income male.
(2) in the general, Privilege is pervasive and ubiquitous but it isn't malicious. Those who benefit from it aren't necessarily racist/sexist/etc. Privilege doesn't mean that you had things handed to you, or that you have an easy life. It is an artifact that remains from when systemic or institutionalized discrimination took place.
For the most part my answer to theJeff is relevant here as well, but for a quick couple of more specific answers,
(1) yes, gender may present some obstacles depending on the path you choose in life, but if that is the way you wish to measure the important of certain traits to a person, I would argue that gender is actually relatively minor. Socio-economic standing seems like a much, much bigger issue. Receiving good education and having a supporting family are such huge factors that no amount of objectifying commercials on TV or micro-aggressions would be able to offset that. Does that mean that the amount of money your parents had is the most important part of your identity? Or merely that your identity should probably not be measured by the amount of obstacles you'll have to overcome in order to live the life that suits you best?
(2) See my answer to theJeff. it's the irrational, unprovable nature of the usage you do with "privileges" that upsets me, not that I think you accuse me or anyone else with malicious intent. It's the "I have proof but it is invisible to you" nature of the claims that annoys me.
Since we're on this topic, let's not forget the works of Devah Pager, who has shown in her sociology research that in the U.S. black men with no criminal record have the same chance of getting hired as a white man fresh out of prison.I suspect this is faked. Or perhaps only looks at a certain sampling of blacks and whites. Every black man I knew in university is gainfully employed in a white collar job. None of these jobs would ever hire a convict regardless of race.I guess that's one way to go through life: Reject any published research that conflicts with your preconceived opinions without even looking at it.
I guess that means I can safely reject anything you say.
I fail to see any danger in ignoring me... Well beyond anything you normally do might be dangerous.
There is nothing preconceived about it, I am noting my personal experience is very different than her report.
Ok.
Personal opinions and anecdota experience always trumps full published research with statistical analysis involving thousands of test subjects. Totally.
Right so I actually read the silly report.
I was right it ONLY tested 150 white pairs and 200 black pairs FAR from the thousands you claim. It ONLY tested in one city. And the jobs were for uneducated entry level positions. So YES I was right the sample size was tiny and none of the jobs were for trained or educated positions where qualifications might be more important than race. While it isn't fake it is seriously a tiny and restrictive sample.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You can be annoyed all you want. You attribute far more meaning to the word than it is given. I don't say it is inescapable and I don't say it is unknowable. I simply state that it is real, it is an artifact of a previously discriminatory society, it functions as an obstacle to those who don't have it, and it influences identity (both in society and if self.)
Degree of severity doesn't change existence. A two pound weight on your chest is still a weight on your chest.
I think a lot of men really are blind to the daily sexism women face.
I recall a couple stories from men who became women and they were both professionals and both were shocked by the level of sexism they faced in their careers after the change.
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Well thanks guys, was a nice thread, maybe you want to take this somewhere else now :-)