Everyone can stop telling me to read this article now. I’ve read Social Justice Bullies: The Authoritarianism of Millennial Social Justice, and it is atrocious, a collection of familiar MRA tropes dressed up with pseudo-liberal platitudes. Oh, I am so supportive of feminists…just not feminists who use the horrible tactic of speaking out.
It’s a common strategy of declaring that one fully supports the oppressed, as long as the oppressed don’t cause any trouble.
It’s a sentiment I saw opposed quite nicely this morning.
The same guys who call women cunts and litter their speech with racist slurs will say *noting that they're white guys* is racist and sexist
— Bailey (@the_author_) April 20, 2015
The same guys who call women cunts and litter their speech with racist slurs will say *noting that they’re white guys* is racist and sexist
So what are the problems with this article? Let’s begin with the title, a masterpiece of hypocrisy. He invents a new term — millennial social justice advocate — to substitute for the pejorative “Social Justice Warrior” (oh, he’s so charitable!) but also announces that it is completely equivalent to SJW, and better yet, let’s just go ahead and call them Social Justic Bullies. Good work avoiding pejorative labeling, guy!
And herein lies the problem — in attempting to solve pressing and important social issues, millennial social justice advocates are violently sabotaging genuine opportunities for progress by infecting a liberal political narrative with, ironically, hate.
Many will understand this term I used — millennial social justice advocates — as a synonym to the pejorative “social justice warriors.” It’s a term driven to weakness through overuse, but it illustrates a key issue here: that, sword drawn and bloodthirsty, millennial social justice advocates have taken to verbal, emotional — and sometimes physical — violence.
There’s the tone. If you read the whole thing, one of his common claims is that social justice warriors ignore evidence and are all about feelings — total nonsense, by the way — but nowhere in his whine does he describe them carrying out physical violence. It’s basically all about how SJW’s call white men mean names, therefore it’s fair to accuse them of having sword drawn
and being bloodthirsty
and full of hate
. It’s all of a piece with the title: pretending to a faux equability while ever so politely accusing everyone who fights for social justice with the charge of … accusing people of things.
In all of his essay, the author fails to get into any specifics, with one exception: the purported UVA rape case that was reported in Rolling Stone. In this, he echoes a standard talking point among rape apologists: it’s black and white. Either the rape is confirmed with so much evidence that it will lead to an automatic conviction in a court of law, or it didn’t happen, and the victim has no recourse but to shut up entirely. Gray areas where one has been harmed, there is no doubt that harm has been done, but there is insufficient material evidence to justify locking someone up for 20 years (and rightfully so; standards of evidence are important before significant penalties should be applied), are nonexistent to this guy.
In “No matter what Jackie said, we should generally believe rape claims,” author Zerlina Maxwell suggests that we should generally write the equivalent of a blank check to someone who comes forward with a rape accusation. This is not justice and it certainly is not social justice either. It is an illiberal perversion of the justice system. Sir William Blackstone is famous for what is known as the Blackstone formulation: “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” This axiom is a foundation of modern justice systems worldwide. It as a formulation that assumes innocence; to condemn on the basis of a certain accusation because of the identity or oppressed status of the accuser is a dangerous road to go down. It erodes the most essential tenet of liberalism: due process.
Does he really believe that the courtroom is the universal standard for justice? It is not. The law and justice are often two different things. It is possible to have a situation where innocence has been disproven, but where the case is not strong enough to warrant asking the state to step in and levy serious penalties. No one is arguing for vigilanteism, but many of us are saying that you don’t get to demand silence and acquiescence to oppression because it didn’t go to trial.
And no, Maxwell is not demanding a blank check. The phrase is “Trust but verify.” If someone says they were raped, the appropriate response is not to hyperskeptically announce your doubt. Instead, trust that they are speaking the truth, because a) this is not an unusual claim, and b) there are very few circumstances which reward a woman for saying that. Trust first. Ask what you can do to help. Later, ask what you can do to resolve the situation and bring it to a just conclusion. Trusting someone’s rape claim does not mean in any way that you immediately organize a mob of vigilantes to go string up the accused. It doesn’t mean that they are automatically found guilty in a court of law.
The UVA rape case is an interesting choice, because of what outspoken feminists have said about it. Amanda Marcotte is one of the horrible boogeywomen of feminism (she is mentioned once in the article) — she definitely thinks you should trust the claims of rape victims. But here’s here assessment of the UVA story:
As I noted in my piece at TPM about this, there wasn’t much in the report that surprised me. The various reporting and investigation that was released prior to this paints, I think, a fairly solid picture of what likely happened, which is that Jackie was telling a tall tale and even seems to have invented the guy who she claimed was the ringleader in a gang rape. (He seems to have been a composite character, constructed out of pictures of one guy and biographical details from a couple more.) Her friends suggested to the Washington Post that this was a habit of hers, as they suspected her of making up a date with an imaginary friend in order to try to get the interest of a guy who rejected her. Whether or not she made the rape up whole cloth or embroidered/fictionalized a real event remains unknown, though either way, what she did was very wrong.
That’s a fairly common opinion among the feminists I know. Rolling Stone screwed up big time. There are also standards of evidence for journalism (which are not the same as for a court case…funny, that, that different situations accommodate different levels of verification), and Rolling Stone failed to meet them.
But facts won’t stop the author of the atrocious essay. Instead, let’s just claim that facts are irrelevant to the other side, and pretend they are following ideological dogma.
To the social justice advocate of our time, conclusions are not contingent on facts; rather, facts are contingent on conclusions. In a global example of confirmation bias, the truth is malleable. The malleable truth is molded around the theoretical viewpoints of social justice. In order to uphold the sanctity of this viewpoint, adherents ostracize dissension. It’s nothing new — it’s a tactic as old as religion itself. Instead of holy texts, though, the millennial social justice advocate bows at the altar of the currently-in-vogue ideological Trinity: Marxism, Feminism, and Post-Colonialism.
Jebus. Again, this guy is going to try and have it both ways: he’s going to claim he’s fully supportive of the goals of good causes like feminism, while simultaneously calling feminism an ideological cult. He constantly whipsaws the reader, mouthing a few platitudes about how he supports equality for women while appeasing his feminism-hating readers by calling feminism itself a false religion. It’s dishonest rhetoric.
But look at what he’s complaining about. Post-colonialism? Does he not think this is a serious concern in the modern world? Feminism? Is he or isn’t he? Is it a holy text or a reasonable cause?
As for “Marxism”…what a fucking dog-whistle. I’m sunk deep into the university environment, and have been for decades. I haven’t met any real Marxists. They don’t exist in any significant numbers. There are plenty of us who think Marx had some real insights and brought up genuine problems relevant to the modern world, even if we don’t buy the whole package. “Marxism” is used as a knee-jerk buzzword by people who don’t understand it, except that generations of Americans have been told that it is eeeevil. It’s only right-wing ideologues who throw around the accusation of cultural Marxism
, and I roll my eyes and ignore any who do.
And to simply assign everyone in the struggle for social justice to the pigeonhole of “marxism” — again, like the title, he’s trying to have it both ways, accusing people of abusing labels while labeling everyone falsely.
Why can’t I simply rebut this with a trip to the dictionary? Because this is laughed at by social justice types. The image of a white person walking to the dictionary to define racism is literally a trope at this point because the millennial social justice advocate finds it so entertaining that a dictionary, constructed by those in power for those who speak the language of power, can possibly give an accurate definition of a word.
Do you see where I’m going with this? It is now possible to absolve yourself of guilt by working enough academic nuance into a word to fundamentally change it — in your favor.
Yes, it’s a trope. A hilarious and accurate trope. There’s the privileged white person denying the relevance of serious academic scholarship, by people who have been studying a subject for years, with vast resources at their fingertips backing them up, in favor of some guy who who knows next to nothing about it but who has read a short sentence minimally defining a term. Yet it happens all the time. It’s like all those creationists who yammer at me about evolution, quoting the dictionary definition of the term: “the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form”, and then insisting that this completely overrides everything the damned scientists have said.
In fact, the creationists could use that very same last sentence. It fits perfectly. They claim we keep changing the definition on them, too.
The same is said of sexism and men — that one cannot be sexist against men because we live in a patriarchal society (I thought I’d link to Tumblr since this social justice plays out on the every day stage of social media just as much as it does in article headlines). And yet, when it is brought up that men face legitimate social, political, and economic issues, they are told that feminism has the solution for them as well.
Orwell calls this “doublethink.”
No, he didn’t. Hey, let’s go to your favorite source, the dictionary!
Doublethink: the acceptance of or mental capacity to accept contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time, especially as a result of political indoctrination.
There is nothing contrary about recognizing that sexism in society has consequences for both men and women. Men have some terrible stresses placed on them by social expectations of male behavior: men perpetrate more violence, but are also the victims of that violence; men commit suicide far more frequently than women; men are constantly handed greater public responsibility for the economic upkeep of their family; men are discriminated against in divorces, because women are seen as guardians of the home. Feminism breaks down those expectations based on gender and demands that we treat everyone as individuals. That’s a good deal for men, too.
Go ahead and read that link he provides. Nothing in it is doublethink, there is no disparaging of the unique problems men face, it’s just explaining that unrealistic gender demands on anyone, that disregards their own preferences, is harmful. It does not deny that men face legitimate social, political, and economic issues
. You have to read it with some seriously bitter biases to infer that it does.
It also doesn’t claim that feminism is a panacea. I also think there are distinct problems that men face that have to be confronted by men; I also think it would be silly for men to sit back and wait for feminism to solve everything for everyone all at once. Feminism is going to focus largely on women’s concerns, and you can’t fault them for that. And it would be nice if there were a legitimate men’s rights movement that actually dealt with serious concerns, rather than the current crop of disgruntled asshats who are peeved that women don’t give them sex at their will.
But we men need to fuss over statistics instead.
Let’s return to the Rolling Stone/UVa Rape example. There is an oft-cited statistic that “one in five women will experience sexual assault on campus in America.” This shocks the conscience, as it should, and is used to fuel the hysteria of rape culture on campuses nationwide. Unfortunately for social justice advocates—and fortunately for college-aged women everywhere—this statistic is criminally misleading. As Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post writes, this one in five statistic results from “a single survey, based on the experiences of students at two universities. As the researchers acknowledged, these results clearly can be generalized to those two large four-year universities, but not necessarily elsewhere.” But why should advocates for victims of sexual assault include that? 1-in-5 is a great way to fear-monger. In a report released by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics entitled “Rape and Sexual Assault Among College-Aged Females, 1995–2013,” Lynn Langton, Ph.D. and Sofi Sinozich report that “the rate of rape and sexual assault was 1.2 times higher for non-students (7.6 per 1,000) than for students (6.1 per 1,000).” Using deliberately misleading statistics in a Machiavellian campaign — wherein the eradication of sexual assault on college campuses requires the misinterpretation of data and the removal of due process — does more to “derail” genitive conversations of sexual assault on campus than having productive, legally responsible conversations ever will.
Oh, boy, watch him play games with statistics!
First of all, the results of that survey have been replicated with a broader sample by the CDC, including the general public. These are the facts.
Nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%) and 1 in 71 men (1.4%) in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives, including completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, or alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration.
Secondly, arguing that the frequency of rape is higher among non-students doesn’t make a case for misleading statistics
, if they’re reporting the lower rate.
Thirdly, if you actually read that Langton and Sinozich report, you find that the difference is accounted for by differences in the rates of reporting (college students are also less likely to report rape) and distinctions between sexual assault and rape with penetration.
But this is a typical MRA game. One source reports one in five women experience sexual assault, another reports one in seven…therefore, they all be lyin’. Again with the hyperskepticism: even if it were one in a hundred (it’s not), these are real human beings experiencing something terrible, and complaining because the frequency of that experience is not quite high enough to motivate you to feel any empathy is something only a terrible human being would do.
But wait, he’s not done gaming the stats.
Take also, for instance, the wage gap statistic recited everywhere between a sociology class and the President’s speeches: That women make 70-something cents on a dollar to a man. The truth is that this is, again, a misleading statistic that tries to apply nationally aggregated data to the level of the individual. TIME writes that “the 23-cent gender pay gap is simply the difference between the average earnings of all men and women working full-time. It does not account for differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure or hours worked per week. When such relevant factors are considered, the wage gap narrows to the point of vanishing.” This is corroborated by a seemingly endless amount of sources like the Wall Street Journal and Abigail Hall who quips that “you wouldn’t compare the incomes of elementary school teachers with Bachelor’s degrees to those of individuals with PhDs in physics and complain that there is a ‘teacher-physicist wage gap.’” Note that there are five sources in this paragraph alone.
Yeah, and I could cite ten sources claiming that the earth is less than ten thousand years old without breaking a sweat. None of those sources are particularly good: Time? The Huffington Post? The Wall Street Journal? Good grief.
Finding fudge factors to disappear the difference is irrelevant. The fact is that the average woman makes significantly less money than the average man, and the reason isn’t that she’s dumber or less qualified or less muscular. It’s because of structural biases in our culture.
Don’t compare physicist Ph.D.s with elementary school teachers with a Bachelors; compare technicians with school teachers with equivalent degrees. Compare engineers and sociologists. What you will find almost uniformly across the board is that professions with a preponderance of women are less valued than professions with a majority of men. And that makes no sense. Why do we pay a woman who has a Master’s degree in sociology far less than a man who has an engineering degree, when both have invested the same amount in their education and are working just as hard in an important job?
It really is a self-perpetuating stereotype, too. There are fewer women in physics than in biology, and I have been told in all seriousness that that means that biology is “easier” than physics, and that physics must be a more serious discipline. It’s the same with teaching: there is this common attitude that elementary school teaching is women’s work, because it involves nurturing children. Never mind that teaching is very hard work, and that those school teachers have a greater role to play in shaping the next generation of our culture than any academic physicist — screw ’em, they’re only doing it because they couldn’t cut it at any other job. So I do complain that there is a physicist-teacher wage gap: the teachers deserve more.
I’m going to end this by returning to the beginning, where our brave aggrieved author issued the standard MRA disclaimer.
For example: this is not an article, but an article written by a straight, white, middle-class (etc.) male (and for this reason will be discounted by many on account of how my privilege blinds me — more on this later).
Would you like me to loan you a crowbar to pry out those nails, so you can climb down off that cross?
I am a straight, white, middle-class (etc.) male. I do not have any objection at all to your identity. I don’t dismiss it because you and I share many of the same attributes here; it would be self-defeating if I were to do so.
I disagree with you because your essay is a two-faced, devious, dishonest regurgitation of standard MRA talking points. It is illiberal and anti-feminist, while you scrabble to take the higher ground by insisting that you really are a liberal feminist, which supposedly gives you the moral status to hate feminism and liberalism.
And goddamn, guy, but it sticks in my craw when someone starts out by trying to short-circuit criticism by claiming that you’re only going to be dismissed because you’re a straight white middle-class man. I’m crucifying you because you’re a straight white middle-class dumbass.
I’m gonna plug the RW Cultural Marxism article, ‘cos I’m quite proud of it. And the amazing find that is that gibberingly insane conspiracy diagram, that starts off with a rant against THE JEWS. I still don’t know how they managed to leave the Beatles off.
I barely got through the first blockquote before I was giving myself a headache from the eyerolling.
“Here is this insulting name dudes like me concocted to refer to people who care about issues. It’s a name that implies all sorts of violence and insulting behavior, which proves how violent and insulting the people we apply it to are.”
The term “social justice warrior” isn’t something we called ourselves, dudes. You made it up to try and smear people who actually give two shits about the world, and then got pissed when it didn’t offend us. Also we’ve been here long before millenials, long before Tumblr, and we will be here after you have disappeared into a cloud of self-immolating impotent rage.
And I, as another straight middle-class white man, think that the weasel (sorry weasels) wording bullshitting author deserves all the criticism they get for their verbal diarrhea. They are nowhere near as smart and rational as they think they are. All they are is someone afraid that if they have to treat the rest of the world like they want to be treated, that they won’t be able to compete effectively without their privileged boost to give them an advantage. I pity them.
I enjoyed this a lot, thank you PZ. Two quotes for me to take away,
Excellent.
Another counterpoint to the gender pay gap:
Women, even when performing the exact same job as other men in the same profession, are often paid less than the men. With the, usual, lame excuses of: (1) “commitment” (women will leave early cuz of family issues), and (2) “medical coverage being higher for women”, (n) etc.
I have no statistics on hand, so I suppose I’m gaming the conversation also, but, trust me, I have it on “good authority”, that the facts are out there, and they are not what the poseur says they are.
Since you cited the CDC study, I want to briefly mention that 1 in 71 figure does not include men who were made to penetrate someone else. From the same study, the correct figure is 1 in 21. If we had a *legitimate* men’s rights movement, they’d be fighting rape culture too.
Recently, a study was published about my field: somewhere between 90% and 93% of registered nurses in the United States are women.
The average salary for a female registered nurse is $5,1000 less than the average male registered nurse in the United States, averaging over all levels and specialities.
If you dig into the experience level and speciality data, you find three patterns:
(1) the higher up you go in rank (i.e. once you make the jump to management, and then when you ascend the management ladder) the proportion of male to female nurses begins to skew in favor of men. Yes, it remains overwhelmingly female (a field that is only 7-10% male is going to have trouble getting all-male management teams), but the ratio of male nurses jumps and jumps quickly.
(2) in the specialities of nursing that tend to be highly paid (certified nurse anesthetists are cited specifically), the ratio of male to female nurses is skewed in favor of men, and the men in those fields out-earn their female colleagues (40% of CNAs are men, and male CNAs out-earn female CNAs by over $17,000 a year).
(3) At each level and within each speciality, men out-earn their female colleagues. The study authors didn’t find a single speciality where women, on-average, out-earn men, or where the the pay gap is less than a standard deviation (i.e. none of the pay gaps can be dismissed as statistical noise).
In astrophysics, being a dude is worth an extra $4,500 annually.
What slithey tove said. While disparities across industries matter, it’s vital not to lose sight of the fact that women really are paid less than men for the exact same work. Here’s an experimental measure of the gender wage gap which Ophelia Benson has cited before – “Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students”
Quoting a 2013 Nature News piece:
Incidentally, the nursing phenomenon has been named: it’s the “glass escalator.” Men are swiftly promoted to management, and rewarded richly for their efforts.
Incidentally, one writeup (in the New York Times) of the nursing pay gap study suffered an influx of asshats in the comments arguing that the pay gap is (1) attributable to male nurses being more willing to being visiting home nurses or traveling nurses, which are highly paid (tellingly, they did not offer statistics backing up either the claim that visiting and traveling nurses are disproportionately male or the claim that these nurses are highly paid) and (2) fails to take into account the fact that the proportion of male nurses in the armed forces is over 30%. Now, I’m not sure what the relevance of (2) is at all?
“genitive conversations of sexual assault” ? As in conversations held entirely in the possessive grammatical case?
I thought I’d point out one thing that irks me a bit about people pushing for social justice. It’s where he says, “The same is said of sexism and men — that one cannot be sexist against men because we live in a patriarchal society.” I agree that that is said. And it frustrates me because what is said isn’t true. Sexism* against men does exist…it’s more, though, that what people like this author claim to be sexism against men isn’t. And/or that it doesn’t exist in the quantity claimed. And the source of the sexism tends to be the same source of sexism against women…ideas like a “man card.” Or like Ben Stiller’s character in “Meet the Parents” being teased for being a “male nurse.” But it is overboard for people who do want justice to suggest it doesn’t exist at all. So I wish those advocating for justice would stop saying shit like that.
* Similarly for racism.
Hold up, since when is hating things antithetical to justice (or, for that matter, “progress”)? At the very least, hating injustice – and perhaps even its advocates – is perfectly consistent with a desire and advocacy for justice.
John Horstman @ 14
It’s the time-honored tactic of tu quoque: “How can you say you oppose ‘hate’ when you hate those you accuse of being hateful? Hypocrite! Hypocrite!”
I really wished those people would live their lives according to their mantra “innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.” They will not heed their friend who warns them about a certain car dealer who seems to manipulate the tachometre. They will ignore customer reviews on Amazon.
Hell, they will not even shield the view anymore when typing in their PIN at the ATM
The dipshit wrote:
The lesser-known next sentence to which was, “but we’ll the accusers of those ten guilty men are still lying bitches, amirite?” It’s been covered up by Marxist scholars.
So much stuff to mock, even PZ and the Horde haven’t covered it all yet. I’ll content myself with pointing out that the dipshit whines about extrapolating a survey from two universities to the university population generally, when every dudebro’s favorite field of evo psych is notorious for extrapolating surveys of Western undergraduates to “all humans anywhere in the world, dating back to prehistoric conditions.”
A delurk to point out how wonderfully, gloriously wrong he gets this. It kind of explicitly assumes guilt, like right up front and everything, which makes his dudgeon even more misplaced.
ah so…It hurts, that such don’t see the converse: that there is sexism for men, and so, by definition, against women. And just because it’s for men, does not make it a good behavior.
Almost a zero sum game: ‘sexism for men’ inherently results in ‘sexism against women’, and vice versa.
.
The irony embedded in that quote is mind boggling. “sexism doesn’t exist cuz we live in patriarchy”. The very definition of patriachy implies sexist society.
And why is the man the standard here?
If women are fairly compensated, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say:
Now, I’m not actually taking the position that women’s compensation is fair or that men’s compensation should be brought down…
…but IF someone says that women are being paid fairly, THEN it makes sense to point out that institutions could get 5 full time astrophysicists for the price of 3 by simply ditching all the men.
Hopefully the response to that fact is men buying into gender-just wages rather than management actually engaging in wholesale discrimination against men. But of course, the likelihood that management WOULD actually engage in such wholesale discrimination against men is tiny, to be generous.
Ironically, from the impression I’ve gleaned from numerous sources, the in-the-same-field wage gap, even as a percentage, is generally highest in the ‘professions’ and lowest in the service industry. This is likely, in part, because wages for the lower tiers are generally fixed by companies, while higher prestige and better paying jobs often include both negotiated salaries and judgement-based performance bonuses–both of which skew sharply by gender. So a female VP at an auto manufacturer is more likely to be paid markedly less than her peers than a woman on the factory floor (the line worker may, of course, be more prone to other forms of gender discrimination, but her paycheck is likely to be fairly close to the man standing a step down the line, if they were both hired on the same day).
Just taking a moment to add that Bailey is, indeed, entirely awesome, and a wonderful human being.
That is all.
Naturally I find it ever-curious that educated modern bros who proclaim their love for equality etc. then go on to write hit-pieces aimed at the very people who are fighting for the just society they claim to crave. In this particular case, the McCarthyist accusations of “Marxism” not only starkly demonstrate ignorance of Marxism’s tenets and dramatically overstate its current popularity, they also add decades to the accuser, making them seem as out of touch & time as your average elderly Republican mouthpiece. I guess that’s an indicator of how far to the right the political landscape of the US has shifted in the last couple of decades: when young liberals are castigating other young liberals for being commies in 2015, you have a problem.
Read the first few paragraphs before rolling my eyes so much that further reading was impossible.
Cliff notes version: BOTH SIDES
Literally. In castigating the mean social justice peoples he invokes horseshoe theory, proposing that far left is closer to far right than moderate left to moderate right. As if America has enough of a far left to make a social justice movement.
Are these tone trolls the same idiots that downplayed rape and murder threats?
The problem with rape is that if you use this to decide the alleged rapist is utterly innocent, as there is insufficient evidence to convict them in a court, the most common consequence of that is that the alleged victim is also assumed to be guilty of lying about being raped (and quite often also assumed to be a ‘slut’ who ‘had it coming’), and the consequences of those assumptions can lead to suffering for the alleged victim. That alone means that, for every one of those ten guilty people who go free, someone innocent DOES often suffer, and that’s leaving out the fact that rape is most often about power, not sex, and the victim has just seen the person who raped them walk out of a court, having been declared ‘not guilty’.
While I don’t disagree with the argument in general I do think the answer; your investment in your education is not the standard against against which someone else should judge your works value to them, satisfies this question.
Oh, you are saying it is OK to judge any woman’s value less simply because of her sex? That is de facto what happens when a field is devalued by men because it has a lot of women in it.
@fentex:
No. It satisfies the question, “Why are there ever pay disparities between jobs requiring equivalent educations?”
It also satisfies the question, “How could it ever be possible to develop pay disparities between jobs requiring equivalent educations?”
It does not satisfy the question, “Why does this sociology/engineering disparity exist?”
Re: The Pay Gap
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/news/2013/04/09/59698/the-gender-wage-gap-differs-by-occupation/
This is entirely anecdotal, but I was a 28 year old female shift manager at a chain restaurant for 5 years when I observed/overheard my boss hire as my subordinate a 19 year old male with zero experience for exactly $1 more hourly than I. This was in 2009 and my rate of pay was $8.03. The new hire served only one shift and never returned.
I’m glad the media is talking about it, but often the focus is on professional fields outside of service; this stuff is insidious, and I never thought it was actually going to effect me, let alone the horrifying realization that it had been happening my entire life.
I really hate it when people use the BJS rape statistics to say “See! This rate is lower!” It’s not lower, it simply asks respondents if they have experienced a sexual assault in the past year instead of either a 4-year period (“during college”) or “ever”.
It’s really very simple: if you ask a bunch of people if they’ve been to a baseball game in the last year, and if they’ve ever been to a baseball game, you will get two different percentages of “people who attend baseball games”. They are both correct, but show different information. The same is true of rape. And if you don’t understand that, or can’t be bothered to check the details of the statistics you are citing, then you really shouldn’t accuse other people of “Using deliberately misleading statistics”.
@Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk-
Piling on to what Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- said. Our legal system does not function as innocent until proven guilty until the trial and then only if you have the money for a good lawyer. If you don’t have money, you sit in jail until your trial.
All the comments there are supportive. Hmmm…? I guess Aristotelis Orginos has given the social justice bullies such a kicking with his article that they’re too afraid to comment. Or something like that.
On another note, this guy want to be a teacher. He should put this article in his portfolio, they’ll love him at Bugged Baptist High, Crapweasel, Bammy.
I would just like to note that any slymepitters or MRA types who should happen to be arguing in good faith and read the paragraph quoted below (especially the last two sentences) should sigh in relief that one of their major concerns has been alleviated. I await in eager anticipation for them to come parading here in the comments to let everyone know how happy they are that at least this one misunderstanding has been corrected.
“Why does this sociology/engineering disparity exist?”
Revealed preferences.
Well then, hate is certainly all over this article.
Yep, it’s telling how they all believe how a court of law is
1) about finding the truth
2) actually good at it
They even manage to think that while stating that courts should rather err on the side of “not guilty” 10 times before they err on the side of “guilty” once.
Courts don’t find out The Truth™. That’s what you get from watching too many courtroom dramas. Courts don’t retroactively change the course of events.
What do they think happenes in all the criminal cases where nobody was ever prosecuted? Did my car window break spontaneously and my bag disintegrate?
+++
Also, yeah, jobs traditionally done by women are underpaid. They were not expected to earn a living. They were expected to either pass the time and then stop working when they got married, or to “support” their husband’s income. Why do you pay a mechanic better than a kindergarten teacher? They handle your children, FFS. And if you think it’s because of “physical strength” I invite you to care for a bunch of 2 year olds a full day long. You’ll lift more than an average car weighs over the day.
I rapidly become sick of this shit. Opinions are formed on the basis of probability. If someone comes to me and says “X raped me”, I form an opinion based on what I know of the situation. I know rape is fairly common, and I see no immediately obvious reason for the victim to lie. Therefore, on the balance of probability, it is likely that they are telling the truth. I therefore believe them.
Is this reason enough to lock X up? No, of course it fucking isn’t. How is this complicated? I mean seriously, how monumentally stupid do you have to be to not get that?
It is reason enough to help and support the victim. From a copper’s perspective, it is reason enough to thoroughly investigate the accusation. You reserve the right to change your opinion at any time should new evidence come to light, and you do what you can in the meantime. But the job of a court is to establish guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. If the cop digging into the accusation can’t prove it, then no one gets prosecuted, regardless of whether it actually happened or not. If they can prove it, then it obviously did happen, which means X damn well deserves to be prosecuted.
This is not complicated.
Jesus fucking christ….there’s no end to the whining from this narcissistic arseholes…
The one thing that keep getting confirmed over an over is that they don’t give a flying fuck about people, all they care about is not being held accountable for anything. That’s all that matters. That’s priority number one.
Nothing bruises easier than a white guy’s ego…and for people so enamored of rationality, they fucking suck at it…but then again they are the only ones who can’t see that it is all a giant emotionally driven tantrum.
He’s also exhibiting a confirmation bias – standard for most MRAs – but to an amazing degree. The first sentence is your typical unevidenced assertion that aligns with the MRA outlook and is thus assumed to be too trivial to bother proving, and then every sentence thereafter relies on the one before it to be true. The end result is a bunch of empty assertions buit on top of one another.
More funny to me is the fact that these clowns don’t even know how dictionaries work. If the common use of a word does not match the recorded dictionary entry, the entry gets updated to match the use. Descriptive, not prescriptive you goddamn idiots!
There’s a funny article by García Márquez on dictionaries: One day, he picked up the Dictionary of the Real Academia, THE most prestigious dictionary of Spanish and the only accepted one for a long time. He looked up the word “yellow” and was surprised. The definition was:
1. Colour of flower X
Being from Latin America, he didn’t know that Spanish flower
2. Colour of “limón”
But, but, but limones are green (Spanish doesn’t have different words for lime and lemon)
3. Colour of gold
But that colour was sure “golden”.
That day, Gabriel García Márquez, native speaker and Nobel Prize winner for Literatur found out that apparently he doesn’t speak Spanish because after reading the dictionary entrance, he still had no idea what “yellow” meant.
The unspoken message in that article is “please make it easier for me to ignore you”.
Thing is, the reactionaries wailing about the spectre of eevil social justice warriors are completely into social causes as long as it casts them in the role of the victims and the oppressed!
Just a brief nitpicky reply, then back to lurking:
@Giliell #44 – Apologies if you meant to say, “Latin American Spanish doesn’t have different words for lime and lemon,” but just in case, in peninsular Spanish at least, “lima”=lime & “limón”=lemon.
I love the argument about the wage gap “disappearing” once you control for a host of factors, all of which are the cause of the wage gap. “Well, once you account and control for the existence of the sun, photosynthesis as a process simply vanishes, so it doesn’t really exist.”
@47
Yep.
The confussion doesn’t come from a lack of distinction between the two fruits, but from the fact that some southamerican varieties of lemon are greenish rather than deep yellow (and are easy to confuse with limes), unlike the spanish ones.
CrysT
Yep, sorry, that’s what I meant to say.
To cut a long story short, it’s an example of how power and dominance DO influence dictionaries
@serena #32:
My experience in food service was similar. As a department manager at Restaurant in the 90’s, my own small staff made somewhat less than I did, but I made three dollars an hour less than the assistant managers of the next, closely related department, despite being in charge of hiring, firing, scheduling, accounts, and so forth, which they were not. Flash forward to the 00’s, working for Country Club, as I moved up the responsibility chain from pantry to lead cook, discovering that I was making substantially less per hour than the male trainees I was teaching to replace me. When I was offered– twice– a sous chef position that I turned down both times due to what I thought to be an insultingly low offer, both men hired for that position received starting offers for salaries 5K more than myself.
When I made the discovery I did at Country Club and brought my concerns to the sous chef, he informed me the reason I was making less per hour than the employees I supervised was, and I quote, “Because you’re a woman.” Just a statement of fact. I could not then, and cannot now, assign any value judgment on his part to that statement. I can however assign a value judgment to the act of a company of paying a female supervisor less than her staff.
In my above, first paragraph should read “which they were largely not.” Certainly in some capacity, on some occasions, the assistant managers had comparable responsibilities, but not with the same frequency, accountability, or intensity of managers.
I’m a bisexual, mixed-race, not-quite-middle-class (etc.) female, but I’m not supposed to talk about that, am I ?
Caine:
Nope. Only white, straight, cis-gendered, middle-aged men are ever discriminated against. Or are allowed to talk about their troubles.
Pull the string on GI Joe:
Ogvorbis @ 55:
Naturally. All other experiences, well, they are…other. And strange and stuff.
And because I’m not here very much these days, major hugs to you, Og.
4oz @ 48: The strawcause of the wage gap is villainous misogynist employers saying “women are worth less than men, ergo, I shall pay them less.” And when we control for various factors, that largely (but not entirely) vanishes.
@58 – you don’t understand! When we control for the discrimination, the discrimination mostly disappears. This proves it didn’t happen and you can’t say anything.
There’s a lot of toxic stuff amongst feminists, proof: http://countersignal.tumblr.com/post/116836991318/bgaesop-quantumblog-healthycomfyhappy
the statement about the dictionary lets everyone know that what he really thinks. His whole point of view and his rant is centered on authority. His main complaint boils down to the SJW do not respect the natural authority of him and those who agree with him. That they should have this authority is not questioned and any questioning of it is wrong and by definition evil and dangerously revolutionary.
uncle frogy
“”‘Why do we pay a woman who has a Master’s degree in sociology far less than a man who has an engineering degree, when both have invested the same amount in their education and are working just as hard in an important job??””
So what you’re saying is = you’ve never even *heard* of the Laws of Supply and Demand?
Where did you go to school, again?
There’s a lot of toxic stuff among the anti-feminists. They just don’t believe women are equal to men. But they can’t show evidence to back up those claims, and their word isn’t taken as evidence, just opinion.
Try the academic literature if you want to be heard.
ahilhan:
Proof among the MRA brigade is a chart whining about OH NOES MISANDRY, followed by people fabricating example quotes of misandry.
Better than average. Relatively great work for an anti-feminist.
CEOUNICOM:
Who is doing the Demanding? And why?
(One of the points is that this “demand” itself is revealing the priorities of society)
CEOUNICOM,
Supply and demand are not the only factors at play when wages are set. Thanks for playing though. But I do agree with you that equal wages for the ‘same level’ of diploma seems unrealistic.
If only the law of supply and demand applied to the price of these degrees though….
(I think the relevant concept in regards to that specific instance is demand inelasticity, but I may be screwing up my terms.)
ahilan @60:
Really?
I only saw a fuckton of strawmen.
@CEOUNICOM:
Jeez, I would think someone like you would not only have **heard** of the law of supply and demand, but also know the **content** of that law. You are a CEO after all.
As it happens, it doesn’t tell us anything about why engineers are “demanded”. The law is also known to be entirely unable to predict a stable price for one product based on another product – it only describes consequences for any two of price/supply/demand when one of price/supply/demand changes. And it only does that if you keep a good record of price/supply/demand over a long, long time so as to provide lots of data. It helps if it’s a product whose price shifts frequently anyway, like agricultural commodities. Then you don’t have to keep data for quite as long to have a good number of price/supply/demand shifts in your dataset.
But, sadly, it turns out that if you have a product that ships about a million units a year, and you have a theoretical maximum demand of 7 million units a year, you can’t actually determine the price that will bring that market into supply/demand equilibrium. Surprise!
Also, and quite famously, demand curves shift…and what shifts them and why is not at all covered by the law of supply and demand.
Even more famously, wages are notoriously inelastic. Is that covered by the law of supply and demand, good buddy? The law of supply and demand predicts inelasticity in wage markets compared with other markets?
No?
Do you know anything at all that would allow you to calculate from first principles the median wage of a mechanical engineer with a master’s degree holding a mechanical engineering job that requires that master’s degree?
Yeah, I kinda thought not.
Quel surprise. It turns out that the person goggling over the ignorance of others is too shockingly ignorant to even know when basic laws of economics are useful and applicable…despite being a CEO. It’s a wonder you haven’t run your company into the dirt already.
@Crip Dyke
How are the dynamics of supply and demand not applicable to wages? What kind of usefulness was being assumed that should not have been assumed?
MRAs are mad at feminism because they misunderstood ‘equality’ to mean that women would become free blowjob dispensers and that men wouldn’t have to pay child support.
@brianpansky:
The question was how to explain the difference in wages between engineers and sociologists.
Did you not read this?
Your answers are all above. The law of supply and demand doesn’t say anything about whether sociologists will be paid the same or differently if there is the same level of supply and the same level of demand for each at a particular moment in time.
You cannot predict how wages will shift between different occupations using supply/demand because these are different – though related – markets. It’s true that if the price for all shipped in fruit goes sky high that local fruit could probably get away with charging more and sell the same quantity b/c some people who want fresh fruit won’t want to buy their favorite if their favorite is one of the more expensive ones with the new shipping prices. That shifts some demand to the local-fruit market, ***but on its own it does not actually shift the demand curve*** [though a long term price change in other fruit might, as consumers get used to paying a lot for fruit generally].
Engineering wage-markets and sociologist wage-markets are separate markets. The law of supply and demand can’t be used **between** markets, only **within** one.
Seriously, just go study some economics if you don’t understand this stuff. Any Intro to Macro will do. Try WikiBooks, maybe.
1)dude can only sensibly claim that it’s “ironic” that the SJW’s are supposedly injecting hate into his comfy liberalism if he thinks injustice = hate; and if he does, he’s already got nothing valuable to contribute to this conversation.
2)someone who can seriously accuse millennials of being the violent generation of activists has absolutely no fucking recollection of how historical movements have accomplished social change; he’s probably only heard once that MLKJr. and Ghandi were for non-violence, and that’s as far as it gets. Stonewall Riots? nah, never heard of it. Black Panthers, fully armed, on the steps of the California Stat Capitol? nah, never heard of that either.
3)The people who developed the idea of situated knowledge are not millennials; many are decades dead, in fact; just so happens that it’s only now that black scholarship has become praxis widely enough for a “straight, white, middle-class (etc.) male” to finally notice and get upset.
well and isn’t it just the most marvelous kind of coincidence that, when a field becomes female-dominated, the value of that work suddenly becomes significantly less? I must have missed the explanation for that in my Heritage Foundation Approved econ textbooks.
@ ahilian #60
You have a table which (pretty much) correctly defines feminism, and then rolls out the MRA’s favourite straw-feminist and labels it “misandrist”. Firstly, no one ever actually says any of the stuff on the right, and secondly, the table you link to defines the “toxic” stuff as misandry and not feminism, and thus does not even support the point you are trying to make. I’d say “nice try”, but it’s not, really.
@ CEOUNICOM #62
Lesson for today: if you are a woman, never go for a job at Unicom.
Also, CEOUNICOM, assuming you really are a CEO at Unicom; seeing as quick Google has turned up the contact details for the CEOs of two separate branches of the Unicom group, you should probably not be spouting such silly and blatantly-leading-into-outright-odious views online under such an obvious pseudonym.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a threat to dox you; it’s not worth the effort. But it’s hardly good PR.
ahilan @ 60 sez:
That’s literally a table explaining the difference between actual feminism and the bullshit straw-people that MRAs try to prop up. It actually contradicts your claim. Christ.
I didn’t know that here was no demand for nurses and primary school teachers. Also never an unemployed car mechanic.
Tony @68
Strawmen are actually quite toxic, and people keep throwing them at feminists, so I suppose that kind of means there is externally-sourced toxic stuff in feminism.
;)
@72, Crip Dyke
Once you’ve covered all the reasons that one job gets the pay it does, and then covered all the reasons that another job gets the pay it does, you’ve covered everything that needs to be covered. Additional reasons for those wage rates don’t suddenly pop into existence when you try to compare one job to the other.
The worst that can be said of the answer “supply and demand” is that it is an incomplete answer. But it is indeed a major item that needs to be included in the answer.
Here’s some links about how wages are determined that do indeed talk in terms of supply and demand as major factors:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage#Determinants_of_wage_rates
http://beta.tutor2u.net/economics/reference/labour-market-demand-for-labour
Here’s one with a lot of different factors:
http://www.economicswebinstitute.org/glossary/wages.htm
*well, that’s the worst that could be said of such an answer if it were given in a general context. Since the context here is about considering sexism etc., we can see the answer is implicitly hostile to even considering such possibilities. So the worst that can be said of such an answer in this context is that it is sexist and dismissive.
PZ, there is a legitimate reason to get on Amanda Marcotte’s case, not to mention Jessica Valenti. The reason is she treats skepticism as bad faith. She called those defending those accused in the Duke University case “rape-loving scum,” and people skeptical of the UVA story “rape apologists.” I don’t recall her ever apologizing for this, or even admitting fallibility. And it is not the way to have an argument.
The same people with be skeptical of any and all rape claims. They are mostly wrong. And when they are wrong, they hurt women with their attempts to intimidate the victims.
Are you ready to admit MS is a rapist, since he didn’t have Crystal Clear Consent with a very drunk victim? If not, shut the fuck up.
Joshua Warren @81:
Pray tell, what is the correct way to have an argument?
BTW, false positives happen. In the Rolling Stone story and the UVA that appears to be the case. That doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of time, when someone says they were raped or sexually assaulted, they were. And the vast majority of time, when someone comes forward to say they were raped or sexually assaulted, rape deniers come out of the woodwork with their rape apologetics.
@Nerd of the Redheads
I’m so sick of this argument. You assume that all the critics are all the same. They are not. That’s my point. And I have known a lot of women who have been sexually assaulted/raped. And I have always believed them, unless given a damn good reason not to. What I am against is this constant stream of ad hominem directed against people who express doubts about a given story. By your logic, all the people critical of the UVA story are rape apologists.
@Tony, In any argument, it at least helps if you not automatically assume your opponent is not arguing in bad faith. Sure, there may well be some who are, but to automatically assume that all your opponents are is folly. And I agree that you that the vast majority of the time, when a woman says she’s been raped or sexually assaulted, she was. But I also think that most of the people who have been charged with murder did it. It doesn’t make me a murder apologist when I defend someone I think is innocent of murder.
Joshua Warren @84
That’s because 99 times out of 90 the “people who express doubts” are rape apologists who hyperskeptically “doubt” any and every rape story. As a result, we’ve learned to call these rape apologists on their game. Sorry if reality doesn’t match your wishful thinking.
Fine, you get Michael Nugent to admit the Shermer is a rapist and shouldn’t be defended, and moreso condemned, and I might believe you. Now I don’t. I suspect you don’t like folks who rock and boat, and rape accusers certainly do that.
Joshua Warren: If you’d actually read my post, you’d have notice that I quoted Amanda Marcotte on the UVA story. She was . Is anyone here calling Marcotte a ?
Al Dente @85 So every person who express doubt about the UVA story is a rape apologist? Keep telling yourself that. And we owe to the few who are skeptical and not rape apologists not to tar them with same brush. Would you rather that the UVA skeptics had kept silent? What happened to nuance?
@86 I don’t know the details, so I really can’t comment.
Joshua, if they trotted out the usual lines… then yes, even if in this one case it was indeed a false accusation.
The apologia is the arguments used. A rape apologist uses those arguments.
Do you REALLY think that those people would not react the SAME WAY to an actual rape? If so, if you are that naive, I’ve a bridge to sell you.
@Joshua Warren:
You mean the way that you do to Marcotte?
Because if you had any actual evidence that she was arguing in bad faith, I’m sure you would have presented it, right? Those places where she says, “I have no way to know if you’re arguing in bad faith or not, but I’ll assume you are rape loving scum…” instead of something like, “Oh Great Grizzly Grandmothers, you’re really going to trot out that PRATT? If you’re not willing to acknowledge some arguments have already been addressed, then you’re not arguing in good faith you rape apologist.”
Is there some reason you don’t have any evidence for your arguments?
Any reason at all?
What happened to being empathetic toward the woman. As PZ has said, trust, but verify. Occasionally the claims aren’t verifiable, but that is a low single digits case. Automatic skepticism of any and all rape claims is rape apology.
Joshua Warren @88
There was the UVA non-rape and several years ago the Duke lacrosse team non-rape and….I seem to have run out of rapes that didn’t actually happen. On the other hand, there are a bazillion (give or take a whole bunch) rapes that the hyperskeptical rape apologists and keep trying to explain or excuse away or claim didn’t happen when it’s obvious that they did happen. If I call every rape denier a rape apologist then I have very little chance of being wrong.
Incidentally, notice how everyone is being nice to you and not tar you with the rape apologist brush. That’s because we haven’t made our minds up whether you’re just incredibly ignorant and naive or if you’re a rape apologist. You’re skating on very thin ice right now.
Al Dente @92:
I’m leaning towards incredibly ignorant and naive. That could change though.
First, PZ, you’re partly right. I admit I did not read the full post. But while Marcotte is critical now, she was credulous for to long.
@ 89, of course a lot of, quite possibly most of the critics of the UVA case were rape apologist, MRA douchebags. But you can usually spot these guys a mile away. They’re like the people who go on and on about Jews and Rothschilds yet insist they’re not anti-semitic. I just wish Marcotte wouldn’t label all of the critics rape denialists, or at least acknowledge that fact because not all of them are. Hanna Rosin and Allison Benedikt were two of the earliest critics http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/12/sabrina_rubin_erdely_uva_why_didn_t_a_rolling_stone_writer_talk_to_the_alleged.single.html And it is the height of hubris for us on the left and the feminist movement to assume that we are immune to the fallacies that are so glaringly obvious on the right.
@90, the “rape loving scum” crack of Marcotte’s is a matter of public record. Seriously, just type it in to google along with marcotte and you’ll find plenty of corroboration, but not the original twitter remarks, as they were deleted.
@91 Great way to avoid the question. For the record empathy is not the problem. But I can wear my thinking cap and fell empathy at the same time.
Look, I’m largely in agreement with the left and with feminism. I agree that women have been getting the short end of the stick for pretty much all of recorded history. I agree that campus rape is a massive problem, and that rape goes massively under-reported. Where I largely differ is tactics. As anybody who’s ever argued with an anti-vaxxer can attest, facts won’t necessarily get you anywhere, nor will calling them delusional, anti-science, etc. But insulting people, treating them with scorn instead of patience, that is not how we’re going to win.
I’m seeing a lot of name calling, but not a lot of argument. As for the false rape accusation problem, see http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/09/false_rape_accusations_why_must_be_pretend_they_never_happen.2.html
And I apologize PZ for my lack of courtesy and proper etiquette.
Joshua Warren @94:
Oh shut it with tut tutting already. I’m fine with false positives as long as we live in a world where rape is as prevalent as it is.
Yay, for a discussion about Tactics. That always goes well….
One more thing I’d like to point out before I hit the hay and, just for general interest. Is it just me, or has a lot of the rhetoric on the left started matching that of the left? The quoting of Reagen, the with-us-or-against dichotomy, it sounds a little similar, no?
I mean the rhetoric on the left matching that of the right. My Bad. @94. So you’re fine with injustice as long as it serves justice? Good to know. Do you feel the same way about murder?
Joshua Warren,
Many people have done this already. It’s see-through. You want to cast doubt on women’s accusations of rape for no reason. Heard it all before.
Joshua, #99
Is it just me or have misogynist rape apologists like Joshua started to adapt this fake politeness and skepticism stance more and more thinking that it won’t be obvious?
Nah, definitely not just me.
And I’m sorry did I suggest we might be wrong in our tactics? Try convincing someone you know with loopy ideas about the wrongness of their position by insulting them. See how well it works. You think the it’s just the right that has an echo chamber?
I’ll leave it to Freddie deBoer to put it best. “The word “should” is the worst thing that ever happened to the left. “Should” has become a virus in the contemporary left, a word that is more effective at defeating left-wing resistance than any right-wing argument ever could be. It seems like every day I read fellow leftists telling me what they should and shouldn’t have to do, rather than what they are compelled by injustice to do. “Feminists should not have to teach people the importance of feminism; it’s their responsibility to educate themselves.” Perhaps it is. But they won’t educate themselves. No one will make the world a just place but us. That’s why there is such a thing as feminism. The struggle exists precisely because the world does not fix itself and its people do not educate themselves. That’s such a basic statement of political principles it frightens me that it has to be said at all.” http://fredrikdeboer.com/2014/12/26/race-science-and-shoulds/ (read the whole thing)
Joshua Warren, #103
You think misogynist scum like many of the Slymepitters are really just confused and in need of education? I don’t want to convince rape defenders of anything.
You have yet to present a single reason why we should be nice to rape apologists like yourself.
You’re not a feminist. You think women who come forward with a rape accusation in a climate where the cards are already stacked against them by a culture of victim blamers, people in positions of power, and rape apologists should have still more unwarranted skepticism thrown their way.
Fuck you for being just another lowlife rape defender. Oh shit, I insulted! You would have been convinced otherwise!
anteprepro @98:
But it’s so much fun!
Don’t you remember the Great Accommodationist Wars?
****
Joshua Warren @99:
Dude, you just sunk what little credibility you had left.
I was still prepared to grant you a little leeway, but this is just fucking stupid. But please, give examples of how the rhetoric on “both sides” is similar.
I can’t wait to hear the left-wing version of “I’m not homophobic, I just believe in religious freedom.”
Or the left-wing counterpart to “women should be forced to be walking incubators for 9 months”.
Perhaps you’ll regale us with some left-wing version of “Nuh-uh. Climate change ain’t real.”
Please. Do tell.
Joshua Warren @103:
Have you ever considered, for just a moment that perhaps, maybe, just possibly that insulting others isn’t meant to convince them of any-fucking-thing and that maybe many of us know that already?
#103 Saad, If the best you can do is adhominem and accusing me of fake politeness, then you’re really stretching it. And I can’t help the politeness, I’m Canadian. And I work in a call center, so it’s second nature. Moreover, you’re proving my point.
Joshua Warren @108:
Please quote what you think constitutes an ad hominem from Saad. Right after you define what an ad hominem is.
And no one is proving your point. People have already tried to engage with you politely. The more shit you utter the less people want to continue with the polite part.
Why not just come on out and wear that Tone Troll badge proudly?
Y’know, I know of people who have been reached by a harsh tone. I also know people who have been reached through politeness.
It’s almost as if there’s no guaranteed way to persuade people out of their harmful beliefs and that multiple methods ought to remain available.
Ad hominem? I’m not discrediting your arguments by attacking your character. I’m making a judgement about your character by looking at your arguments.
Speaking of your point, what the fuck is your point? Since there exist very rare cases where rape accusations turn out to be false, we should….. what?
I know what it is already. I wish you’d just come out and say it explicitly. You’ve already outed yourself as a rape apologist. How much worse can it get?
Joshua, I’ll be ‘nice’ and help you out:
This is an ad hominem: You’re an asshole, therefore your argument is wrong.
This is not an ad hominem: You’re an asshole and your argument is wrong.
This is also not an ad hominem: Your argument is wrong and makes you an asshole.
Please feel free to guess which not-ad-hominem you currently are.
Let me see, I’m the troll? I have used no profanity, called anyone stupid, used any adhominem. Welcome to bizzaro world. I can’t help but notice that my arguments or evidence haven’t been responded to.
For the record Tony, it was Reagan who said “Trust but verify.” And if you can’t see the the with-us-or-against rhetoric, you really are in a bubble. The way it’s been put, I either agree with your position, which is that I’m wrong, or I’m a rape apologist. That is the very definition of that dichotomy. Moreover, I believe that humankind and much of the species on the planet are probably screwed due to global warming. I also believe that exemptions for religious organizations should be allowed if and only if the receive no taxpayer money, and should not be allowed at all in business and government. And I’m also pro-choice. And again, you categorically stated you are fine with injustice in order to achieve justice.
@113, Joshua
Slow down and think about what you are saying. Try applying this logic to someone you agree is a rape apologist.
It isn’t “with-us-or-against rhetoric” unless you call all truth statements “with-us-or-against rhetoric”. Which is silly. And no, it isn’t “the very definition of that dichotomy”.
@100, Joshua Warren
What “injustice”? Why would you imply suspicion that it wouldn’t be the same way about murder?
And if you’re so “patient”, try actually articulating your position instead of making mere insinuations like “So you’re fine with injustice as long as it serves justice?”.
Support your weird statements.
Sure, because you can’t possibly be wrong! The left has never been wrong! Oh, wait, crap, that pesky thing called history. Oy. I’m going to bed.
@113, Joshua Warren
Yes, a tone troll. Tone does not make one a troll. Tone trolling does.
And people have already debunked your claim about ad hominems.
Where have you given evidence to support any argument that hasn’t been responded to? I’m pretty sure you’ve been handled already.
@116, Joshua Warren
What the fuck does this even mean? Who are you talking to? Who is even assuming that “the left” has never been wrong? In what ways are they assuming this?
I’m very confused now…
I note you have avoided admitting that you’ve been using ad hominem incorrectly. You’ve been mocked, but no one has used an ad hominem on you. I also note that you avoiding posting anything in response to people asking to clarify or support what you said. I yet further note that you have the *cutest* definition of trolling. Really, it’s adorable.
I’m thinking full blown “concern troll”.
It’s a concerned sea lion. So very, very, very concerned.
@BrianPanksy
Tony is fine with injustice, he stated as much when he wrote “I’m fine with false positives as long as we live in a world where rape is as prevalent as it is.” He was stating he was fine with false accusations as long as we live in a world where rape is as prevalent as it is. Which is another way of saying “if you wanna make an omelet, you’re gonna have to break a few eggs.” Which is another way of saying he’s okay with injustice in the service of justice.
Joshua Warren, Tony! rates harm minimisation much more highly than you. A few false positives are less harmful overall than a much larger number of false negatives. Or is it only the perpetrators of rape that deserve protection?
And yet, Joshua, where are you when the rape apologists come out of the woodwork to ask questions like “what was she wearing? Was she drinking? Was she leading him on? Has she ever had sex before?” Where is your immense concern over injustice when those people say things like “She deserved it. It’s her fault. She should have known better.”
False positives are awful. But the rate of actual rape is a fucking travesty, and one which you are ignoring in order to tone troll.
Joshua Warren @ 122
So you’ve got your knickers all in a twist because Tony! (and most of us) think that 1 innocent person ending up in jail is preferable to untold numbers of people ending up raped because the system is too lenient. Whereas untold numbers of rape victims don’t even seem to register on your radar. You’ve shown us what your priorities are.
You know little about me or my life or what I’ve done, yet I’ve been labeled “scum.” Nobody shows no doubt at all about such a position. Ok, so it’s name-calling instead of adhominem. Fair point. Still not helping. I posted an article that had a long list of people who had been falsely accused of rape. I have yet to see a response to it. I’m anti-injustice.
Since when the fuck did caring about the wrongfully convicted and accused become the same as a rape apologist? Can you imagine making the same argument about Murder? Can’t a person care about the former and rape victims at the same time?
Joshua Warren @122:
Would you just go to bed already? You’ve said that you’re leaving several times now.
As for this:
I never said I was fine with injustice. If you’re going to argue with what I’ve said, then you need to actually do that, rather than erecting a strawman to tear down.
I’ve already said that rape happens a lot. A fuckton of cis and trans women (as well as more than a few cis and trans men) have been victimized by rapists. Because rape happens all the time and because we live in a Rape Culture that demeans, diminishes, and dismisses the victims of rape which adds to the suffering they’ve already endured, I’d rather believe someone who says they’ve been raped or sexually assaulted than not.
Yes this means that occasionally someone will come forward with a rape accusation against someone and it will turn out to be a lie. But those lies do NOT happen that often (as alluded to upthread). Moreover, those who are falsely accused do not suffer in any way comparable to the suffering of rape victims (if they truly suffer at all).
So yes, in the case of rape and sexual assault, I am fine with false positives. I’d rather err on the side of believing victims of rape than doubt them. Because doubting them perpetuates Rape Culture and I fucking well do not want to do that.
If and when rape becomes less common in society, I’ll reassess my position. Perhaps then I won’t be so quick to trust a rape victim. I don’t see incidences of rape diminishing significantly in my lifetime though, so that’s not likely to happen.
Now that I’ve articulated my position, perhaps you ought to do the same with yours. That is if you’re done tone trolling.
Joshua Warren @126:
Oh quit your fucking whining. This is a rude blog. Go look at the commenting rules. If you can’t handle coarse language, this isn’t the blog for you.
And again, as I alluded to upthread, you’re acting as if the insults thrown your way are intended for some purpose *other* than to insult you.
As for your link, I checked it out, and yes, there are multiple examples of false rape accusations. The thing is, I don’t deny that there are some people who claim to be victims of rape who lie. But again, I’m for harm minimization and given the harm that rape causes, I’d rather err on the side of the person who says they’ve been sexually assaulted.
But more importantly, I’m not the law. I’m not a representative of law and order. I don’t have the power to do anything to anyone accused of rape. Looking at 2 good examples-Bill the rapist Cosby (who is up to 41 victims) and Michael the rapist Shermer-I have no power over them. For all that I believe that both are rapists, there’s little I could do that would affect either of them in any meaningful way. My choice to believe rape victims means I believe them when they say that Person(s) X(YZ) sexually assaulted them. So yes, Person(s) X(YZ) get mentally filed in my head as likely rapists (which is where both Cosby and Shermer are). But since I’m not anyone with any power within the criminal justice system, I don’t have to set my standards as high as a courtroom. My choice to believe victims doesn’t mean that the accused will be sent to jail or worse. It just means that I believe the victim. As I’ve said, I can (and do) choose to believe victims of sexual assault when they allege that they’ve been victimized.
The courts shouldn’t do that. The standards should be (and are) higher because innocent people shouldn’t be made to suffer. That’s why people are innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. And I’m fine with that. But again, I’m not a person acting as a representative of the criminal justice system. I’m just a guy on the Internet arguing with a guy on the Internet who appears to be saying that he believes rape victims, but also supports the accused.
And I have no fucking clue how that works.
If someone says they’ve been raped, what your response? When Allison Smith asked PZ to give her a platform to warn other women that Michael Shermer is a rapist, what (if anything) was your response? Did you believe her? Did you not believe her? On what basis?
Do you think people shouldn’t believe those who claim to have been sexually assaulted? If so, then why?
Do you think people should support those accused of rape? If so, then why?
Does the existence of actual, false rape claims make you hesitant to believe those who claim to have been sexually assaulted? If so, then why?
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t support a rape victim while also supporting the accused. So which is it with you?
Joshua, #
Either you are with us that women should be heard without having to deal with bullshit skepticism when they come forward with a rape accusation (particularly when it is against sleazy people with power within the community like Shermer) or you are against us.
I am totally fine with that rhetoric.
I don’t think anyone has said people accused of rape should be treated with injustice. What we’re saying is that to have a skeptical stance on a woman’s accusation of rape from the start is either being in denial about rape culture or being deliberately sexist.
As for the murder example you bring up, it’s not analogous. A better comparison would be if you had said “murder by police of black people in America.” If a black person says their son or daughter was unjustifiably killed by police, I’d most likely believe them because of the we’re living in. Likewise, because of rape culture, when a woman says she was raped or sexually harassed, I’d most likely believe her (or at the minimum not act like a skeptical asshole from the start).
By the way, can you reply to this, so I finally know what it is exactly you’re proposing:
Exactly what change in tactic are you suggesting when dealing with rape defenders and/or rape accusations?
Re: my post #130
That should say “because of the environment we’re living in”.
Okay then asshole. According to this slate article, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2009/10/how_often_do_women_falsely_cry_rape.html if it’s even the very low end of rape accusations that are true, then about 4000 (out of 200,000) of them were false (using the year 2008 as an example). That’s an awful lot of eggs for your omelette there bucko. How many of them end up in prison getting raped themselves? Mighty generous of you to volunteer innocent men to suffer for your beliefs. And like I said, I always believe anybody who’s close to me who says they’ve been raped, unless given a damn good reason not to. Of course I do. I’m not some piece of shit like Paul Elam not matter what you might think. What I object is that the people who picked apart the UVA incident and exposed it’s flaws were routinely vilified an “rape deniers,” and “rape apologists.” Double ex was an early critic for Christ’s sake! Dissent is not fucking treason. And I have have yet to fucking see one of you address the murder analogy. Moreover I’m not tearing down a strawman, Don’t hide behind euphemisms. You call them false positives, I call them innocent people. They have names, families, lives that are destroyed, and you don’t have a problem with that. Because the criminal justice system in America is perfect and never fucks up at all. Never mind that story where we just found out that forensics as practiced many have sent so many innocent people to jail or even death. Here’s a hypothetical for you: what if a dear friend of yours is accused of rape and you have reason to believe his innocence, despite the statical odds, -since its clear that statistics, not people matter – do you throw him under the bus? And here’s a trick you may not have learned, it’s called empathy, or at least pity. I don’t divide the world into black and white and good and evil. People are very rarely like that. I may be a bit more skeptical about the claims of people in the news, but that’s only because I’m not close to them and I can retain a critical distance, something I’m sure you’ll agree is a hell of lot harder to do with people you’re close to. But I reiterate, again, I believe rape claims until given good reason not to. As for Cosby, duh. No bookmaker on earth would take those odds. As for Shermer, I’m inclined to believe Allison Smith. Like she or you fucking care or haven’t made your mind up about me already.
Tone trolling sealioning scum:
You don’t give a shit about the accusers trying to prevent more rapes by a known rapist by airing their own rape. All you care about is the accused.
You aren’t a supporter of feminism, or a person with empathy toward victims of rape. You want all talk of rape to go away, and never solve the problem in any fashion. You are just another MRA fuckwit pretending to be polite, and can’t show third party evidence to support their inane and stupid views. Typical of MRA fuckwits.
Joshua Warren @ 132
Bullshit. Nobody has said they don’t have a problem with it. They’ve said, the alternative is worse. Fuckwit.
Again, nobody here has said anything of the sort.
The relevant part of this sentence is “you have reason to believe his innocence”, fuckwit. Nobody is saying “because 90+% of rape claims are true, we unequivocally believe 100% of them without regard to any further information and gleefully toss all accused in prison for life with no regrets”. Fuckwit. Nobody is advocating for all accused rapists to be summarily thrown in jail with no investigation.
Then what the actual fuck are you even arguing about, dumbass? What constitutes good reason not to for you? Failing to be someone you know personally?
Joshua Warren, #132
Who the fuck is saying send the accused to prison without looking into the accusation and following full legal procedure? I’m not saying I’d give false testimony in court. I’m not saying I’d try to impact the legal proceeding in a rape case because of my feelings towards rape culture. My stance is more about how rape is treated in society OUTSIDE of the courts. I’m not competent in law to deal with the legal aspect of it. Rape culture needs to be eradicated and not treating potential rape victims with some Vulcan detached skepticism is the least I can do in doing so. That and doing my best to discourage and speak against those who do act as rape apologists.
Like Seven of Mine said, the bolded part is key. Now when it’s a woman I don’t know coming forward with an accusation against another person I don’t know, then fuck no, I won’t be implying to her that I don’t believer her.
Then what the hell are you talking about? That’s exactly what our position has been from the start. You’re the one who has been vaguely implying something with all this talk of false positives. Why aren’t you explicitly making your point? Almost every comment of yours is reading like an argument for altering the way we look at rape accusations because of these false positives, but now you say “I believe rape claims until given good reason not to”.
I ask again:
Joshua Warren, #132
Excuse me, but don’t you think that’s the wrong way of approaching this? Treating people with such scorn instead of patience will not get you anywhere!
Standard MRA rape apologist not-thinking. Dismissed.
Considering most rape allegations, even if reported, don’t go to trail, WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM.? The whole “hand grenade” thread was about reporting a rape beyond the statute of limitations in an attempt to prevent other women from becoming victims. How do you make this information available to all to prevent more rapes? MRA’s only care about the menz, not the victims of rape. Which is what you are claiming with your Vulcan bullshit.
#132 Joshua Warren
1. That’s for REPORTED rapes, not rapes with convictions. Given the low rate of rape convictions, you don’t have to worry about 4,000 innocent men in prison.
2. Not every one of those cases had a suspect to name and even those that did, dollars to donuts most men were believed. Unless black or other intersectional factors. So narrow that number down some more.
3. Even IF that 8-10% number is correct, that does NOT mean anyone should doubt victims. False rape reports doesn’t mean the victim lied about being raped or if they knew, who raped them.
4. Even if it’s listed as false or unfounded by law enforcement, I don’t trust the cops to get it right. It’s far more likely they fucked up or shrugged off the investigation, interrogated the victim and that the victim stepped away from the accusation because of them or other fuckhead’s bullshit. Recanting doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t actually happen, just that it was impossible to follow through with because of rape culture.
5. You lecture about different tactics, yet don’t’ see that those here have a different focus, primarily the larger problem of rape culture. Which also helps male victims, so it’s not some “hate all men” bullshit.
6. Victim’s advocates, rape victims, and feminists DO care about false reports. It is a problem, but they work it from a different angle, one you’ve not addressed. Because people take ONE goddamn story and use it to discount all rape victims. Who are the people working on this problem? Feminists. The MRA’s are the ones using their own as fodder while bombarding feminists with bullshit. Instead of, you know, actually doing something about it.
Probably because it sounded and looked just like rape apologist picking apart victims and their rapes? Because it would have the same effect on victims? Because it feeds into rape culture? Because the media blasting such information in unethical ways is another problem to address? Because the cops suck at their jobs?
Just because someone was correct that something in the media didn’t add up, doesn’t mean they weren’t employing rape apologetics nor that they were correct when they pointed it out. The media reports could’ve been wrong for instance. But then, the damage would’ve been done to rape victims and rape culture perpetuated.
Because there’s no point. There’s no living victim nor murder culture. There’s definately the racist as fuck culture, like “cops murder POC freely”, which Saad brought up.
Who the fuck said that? Quote that fucking shit, you dishonest shitstain. Here we’re critical of every part of America’s “justice” system (and America in general really).
Also, no one’s said “there’s no problem” with innocent people going to prison. Just that rape victims putting innocent people in prison is a much smaller problem than rape culture at large and that’s what we’re focused on. There’s also the fact some may be able to work on changing the culture but not able to work on the prison system. You lecture about tone and tactics yet can’t see we’ve got a different focus.
What’s the reason to believe his innocence? Because he’s such a great guy? Because she’s a crazy slut? I’ve seen that too often to count. People default to “But he’s not like that!” before finding out what happened and will defend that position even afterwards.
And what’s this throwing him under the bus nonsense? It’s not like anyone said to lie that the suspect did it in court when they weren’t there or anything. What, are you mad that women around said friend would be wary and keep their distance with such an accusation?
Then you best change focus because it’s rape culture’s fault that happens. If women weren’t blamed for their rapes and so easily let down by everyone, including the system, that shit wouldn’t happen.
Why are you dragging “shades of grey” vs. “good and evil” into this? That’s the kind of shit that sounds like “but really he’s a good guy” kind of crap. No one’s said rapists aren’t people or are monsters.
And yeah, after so many comments most people make up their mind about someone. At least it’s based on shit you’ve said, and not something you didn’t. Perhaps you should think about why people believe this shit about you?
Of course, no one’s said they wouldn’t or couldn’t change their mind, provided you gave them reason to do so.
Joshua Warren, #132
I don’t know how I missed this.
Look at two posts above that (my #130), fuckhead.
You’re shit at analogies (par for the course for bigots).
Damn, the faux politeness from the tone troll didn’t last long.
Also, the numbers: https://rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates
68% of rapes don’t get reported.
Only 7% of rapes lead to an arrest (arrests for 22% of reports)
2% of rapes lead to a conviction (convictions for 28.5% of arrests, 6% of reports).
So if we assume there 200,000 reported rapes, and that 4000 of them were false, and assuming that false accusations are just as likely to lead to an arrest and conviction as real ones (quite the fucking assumption, but let’s go with it), 880 would would lead to false arrests, leading to 246 false convictions. Compared to 400,000 unreported true rapes, the 150,000 reported rapes that don’t lead to an arrest, and the additional 30,000 rape arrests that don’t lead to a conviction.
And then there is also this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-forensic-hair-matches-in-nearly-all-criminal-trials-for-decades/2015/04/18/39c8d8c6-e515-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html
95% of a 250 case sample of 2500 cases involving FBI giving flawed forensic testimony. 32 of the 250 on fucking death row (or rather, 18 on death row, 14 already dead).
But no, let’s ignore all of this. Let us ignore the number of rapists that walk free. Let us ignore the fact that justice system is flawed to put it lightly and does falsely convict people. Let us ignore that there are much bigger, known, verified issues that has resulted in not just false convictions, but also executions of innocent people. No, let us instead focus on a way to blame the dirty lying wimmenz and ask for even more doubt in regards to rape accusation than the massive amount that already exists. Because Priorities.
Also, debate over tactics is a just-so story. It is presumption, assumption, common sensical, folk wisdom. There is no legitimate evidence that a soft and gentle argumentative style is superior and more convincing than a more comical or insulting or emotional or whatever style. If you have the evidence, show it to us. I would love to find the objective best way to convincingly argue with someone. It would be incredibly valuable information to have. But unfortunately, we never get that information. We just get people repeating the idea that insults make people not listen, and sweet sweet sugar is the best way to tempt people into changing their ways and changing their minds. No, there is really no proof of that that I am aware of. There is no one, single, fool proof set of tactics that are guaranteed to change hearts and minds. Not that I know of.
@Joshua Warren, #99:
Ummmmm. Nope?
I guess I haven’t been particularly impressed by this bizarre coincidence, however.
By jove, now you’ve got me wondering if libertarian rhetoric has started matching the rhetoric of libertarians! Anyone have a proposed methodology for investigating that hypothesis?
Thanks to everyone who responded to Joshua Warren @132. I *think* he was responding to me, although there was no quoting of anything I said, nor even my name to indicate that it was a response to me.
It’s like he didn’t even read my post @129.
Okay, so I wasn’t really paying much attention to this thread. I happened to see Joshua Warren’s 99 and laughed my ass off.
I know tupos happen, and if you looked hard enough you could probably find evidence I’ve made one or two myself. But I thought a little levity in the thread might be welcome. So I threw in my #142.
Then a comment in ThunderDome made me come over here and read the thread for JW’s contributions and everyone’s responses to JW.
Fuck me, but I missed the opportunity…and I can’t believe it, but it looks like everyone else did as well.
What the hell is the purpose of the original post? How about this as a description:
It seems to me that’s exactly what PZ is denouncing.
It seems to me that’s exactly what JW is embracing.
Really, JW?
Yuck. Just yuck.