You insinuate that I have “ignored evidence” when in fact I have gone to great lengths to cite all manner of evidence… evidence you demanded that I bring to the table.

You’ve actually ignored every piece of contradictory evidence on every level—you haven’t responded to a single philosophical, biological, or sociological critique.

Please note that your current argumentative style is most often employed by those who feel they are losing a debate in terms of the merits of the arguments being presented.

If we’re critiquing debate styles, this probably isn’t a debate anymore. I’m closing it down.

Men do the dirtiest, most dangerous jobs? First off, fight for better working conditions. Everyone benefits when fewer people are maimed/killed on the job. Second, in jobs that require the lifting/hauling/dragging of heavy loads, yes, more men than women will qualify.

Where are the women? http://www.hardhattedwomen.org, http://www.nawic.org , http://www.contractorcity.com to list a few. And…have you never seen a female police officer? A female soldier? They exist.
Also, http://www.lawharvard.edu/students/org/jlg/vol27/moss.php#Heading51 Briefly, there’d be more women in ‘mens’jobs if there was less harrassment.

I myself do janitorial work. The job involves lots of hauling, lifting, carrying heavy equipment up and down stairs, as well as lots of exposure to toxic chemicals and various bodily fluids. Lots of other women there, too.

Although you’ve ‘explained’ high-achieving females (favoritism due to family/gender, lesbianism, a few ‘exceptional’ women…ie bullshit), you haven’t explained how ‘anyone wanting a woman must achieve high social status’ jibes w/ reality. Hint: there are shitloads upon shitloads of couples below the top social strata containing at least one woman. this would seem to blow your little theory clean out of the water.

“In case of a life-or-death situation, I would not be yelling, “Uterus here! Let me out first!” I might trip and then trample you on the way to the lifeboats, but that would be plain selfishness and evil on my part versus an expectation of silly gender-related privilege .”

Of course you wouldn’t yell any of that… you wouldn’t have to, that is the point.

Are you under the impression that off of the advantages you note for being a man is because men go around yelling “penis coming through! Pay me more!”?

Again notice how your standards for what constitutes privilidge shifts and changes as a result of the gender of the person we are talking about. Apparenty women only can be the beneficiaries of gender based privilege if they scream how they deserve it because they have a uterus… but men can be the beneficiaries of privaledge without uttering a word. Seems like you are applying different standards here now aren’t you?

I appreciate your honestly about being selfish about wanting to survive (that isn’t an insult by the way, most people are like this… and to a certain extent they are expected to be). However, let’s say you finally ended up on the life boat and discovered that 9 out of 10 adults were women… would you bother to question the fairness of the situation and seek to make things more even?… or would you remain silent and thank your lucky stars that you made it to the boat… completely ignoring the fact that it makes no sense why 90% of the adults there are female?

Would you be outraged by the gender disparity and demand that things be set straight?… that women should be kicked off the life boat until there was equal representation of the genders?… would you volunteer to be one of those women to give up your spot to let a man live in the name of gender equality?… or would you say “screw equality… I want to live!!!”?

I am asking you an honest question here, because so far as I can tell, women are quite content to be saved and helped out in preference for men being saved or helped out when there is a crisis… I don’t hear women complaining how there is a gender disparity in who ends up being rescued and that affirmative action statutes are necessary to make sure the rescue effort is not gender biased.

“You did not answer my question of how a woman w/ far less testosterone than a vast majority of men can nonetheless rise to the top of a major corporation and competently do that job. Does this mean all the other men in that company are all far less competent than she is? I doubt there’s that much of an ability gap. Or that much less of a competitivness gap, once you reach the upper levels of management.”

For the nth time… I have answered this question… I’ve answered it at least twice. However, now you are asking a more specific question, and the answer is actually going to be “it depends”.

Your question is essentially “how is it possible for a women who by virtue of hormonal/neurochemical differences which result in gender based differences in competativeness to make it through the ranks in a company?”

There are MANY avenues… one is good old fashioned nepotism (this happens for men too, so don’t think this is a gender based thing). If the owner of a company hires their daughter or their son, it should be expected that they are likely going to get promotions even without having to do anything. Take Donad Trumps children for example… do you really think his sons and daughters had to compete very hard to get ahead in that organization?

Another option is that she really is very talented, extremely skilled, and knows what she is doing… much more so than those around her, and as a result gets promoted via merit.

Option number three is that a certain percentage of women are just going to be extremely competitive… exhibiting levels of competativeness on par with or exceeding that of the average man. In this situation she will be driven to work extremely hard, stay late, work on weekends and pretty much devote herself to her career. A woman like this will have a HUGE edge over anyone who is less competitive than she is, which would be most people.

A fourth option is that the company is required by law to have certain diversity represented amongst it’s upper management and as a result the decisions for promotions are not entirely based upon merit or competativeness, but on who allows the company to fulfill the requirements of the law.

There are probably other options as well, but these make for a good start.

You are taking my assertion that in general men are going to be more competitive than women and as a result this will TEND to give them an edge as meaning that no woman has what it takes… that is specifically NOT what I am saying.

Think of it this way, men in general are taller than women, right?… but that doesn’t mean that extremely tall women are nonexistant, they just aren’t typical. Similarly, men in general are more competitive than women… but that doesn’t mean that extremely competitive women are nonexistent, they also just aren’t typical.

“You have Studies…and Facts…and back in the Bad Olde Days there were all types of studies and facts ‘proving’ the superiority of European cultures and peoples. Historically, the finest scientific minds of their days had proof! Dammit! that wimmenz’ dainty liddle ladybrains couldn’t handle the rigors of education beyond their ABC’s, enough math to do the household accounts, and their prayers. And even literacy was suspect in some cases.”

In other words… you don’t have to believe the studies or facts because you “feel” that they are incorrect?

Your objection here really isn’t valid because we don’t just get to pick and choose studies and facts that suit our ideology… if we are after the truth we need to do the study, look at the results, and draw conclusions based upon those results.

Instead what you want to do is draw your conclusion first… then try to create studies which validate your conclusion. Again, this is what creationists do… in fact it is what all fundamentalist organizations do.

If you aren’t interested in facts then just say so… that would have saved us a lot of time. I think you were just under the impression that I wouldn’t be able to back up my contentions with studies and facts, so you specifically asked for ones that you *thought* would back up your philosophy (like when you asked for the 9/11 statistics)… only after the facts are brought to light and they turn out to go against your contention to you then declare facts to be unimportant.

Listen, I understand your objection about various studies in the past coming to wildly inaccurate conclusions about various groups. However, the work being done today bares no resemblance to the kind of work done in the past. For example, they used to take cranial skull measurements and declare that since one race had larger skull capacities that meant they were more intelligent… of course they hadn’t established that brain size was correlated with intelligence, but they brushed that part under the rug to push forth a racist adgenda. Research doesn’t work that way anymore and it hasn’t for many many decades… men and women from all over the world and from every ethnicity perform this work (a large portion of the research I presented here was actually performed by female researchers).

You don’t get to pull the “well all your facts and research doesn’t matter anyway!” routine unless you are ready to admit that you are going to believe what you believe no matter how much evidence is presented which indicates that maybe, just maybe you have things pegged incorrectly. The second you do that though you’ve essentially become a creationist… you just have a different set of faith based beliefs.

“Now, if you really believe it’s unfair how the vast percentage of men are doing dirty and dangerous jobs, support measures to get more women in those lines of work. There are lots of women who would love to take on the risks in exchange for the higher pay.”

Really?… are you one of them?… which dangerous and dirty job would you like to get involved in that you’ve been kept out of?

Or are you just talking about “lots” of other women who are apparently fighting tooth and nail to pick up garbage at the crack of dawn (I haven’t exactly heard about this battle by the way)?… or go underground all day into a mine shaft?… or to work in the sewers all day waste deep in human excrement?

Do you have any evidence of sewer workers, sanitation workers, and miners actively keeping women out of these fields in the modern age?… remember what you said about the titanic, we can’t go back in time, it’s got to be current.

Or do we not need facts to establish any of this?… I’m not sure if you watch the discovery channel at all, but if you do there is a show called “dirty jobs”… take a look sometime and look at which gender is doing all of the disgusting work.

Women aren’t exactly clamoring to break into the field of sanitation like they were to break into the fields of law and medicine now are they?

Care to wager a guess why that might be?

“I forget who said it, but it’s an excellent quote, ‘Trying to explain the concept of the Patriarchy to a man is like trying to explain the concept of ‘water’ to a fish’.”

Could that possibly be because you have an aversion to things like studies and facts?

Believe me, I understand what the concept of the patriarchy is, I have to understand it in order to know what it predicts and what it doesn’t predict.

The patriarchy model fails to predict a whole host of things we observe in society… the model I have presented here accurately predicts those things where the patriarchy model fails.

What do we do when one model is better at making predictions than another?… we toss out the poor model and use the better one.

It is the same reason that we now say that disease is the result of microbiotic infection and not an imbalance of the bodily humors or the result of demonic possession. The two latter theories are not supported by the evidence.

But hey, if you want to ignore the studies and the facts I can’t stop you, just like I can’t stop a creationist from denying the reality of evolution.

I do appreciate your time and hope that your enjoyed the conversation, even if you don’t agree with the model I’ve presented, I am glad that you’ve at least heard it. The truth is though that if you aren’t interested in studies or facts then there is no way for us to get anywhere.

As far as the door thing…there is a workable solution where I live. Person A approaches door, knowing Person B is following right behind. Person A pauses just long enough for Person B to catch the door and hold it in a like fashion for Person C. This model works irrespective of gender. Though if Person B sees Person A is encumbered by a large box, a baby, or mobility issues, it is considered polite for Person B to scoot around Person A and hold the door till Person A is safely through. Again, this can be done regardless of the gender of Persons A or B.

You did not answer my question of how a woman w/ far less testosterone than a vast majority of men can nonetheless rise to the top of a major corporation and competently do that job. Does this mean all the other men in that company are all far less competent than she is? I doubt there’s that much of an ability gap. Or that much less of a competitivness gap, once you reach the upper levels of management.

You have Studies…and Facts…and back in the Bad Olde Days there were all types of studies and facts ‘proving’ the superiority of European cultures and peoples. Historically, the finest scientific minds of their days had proof! Dammit! that wimmenz’ dainty liddle ladybrains couldn’t handle the rigors of education beyond their ABC’s, enough math to do the household accounts, and their prayers. And even literacy was suspect in some cases.

Now, if you really believe it’s unfair how the vast percentage of men are doing dirty and dangerous jobs, support measures to get more women in those lines of work. There are lots of women who would love to take on the risks in exchange for the higher pay. Only in many cases, women are blocked from even entering these fields. Or when women do get in the door, the men in the field are bitterly antagonistic to the women, harassing, sabotaging, and even physically assaulting the women. Who are often told, “Well, what do you expect? You’re infringing on a Man’s world.” when they complain, or seek an end to the harrassment. If you truly think it’s unfair that women aren’t taking on these jobs in greater numbers, support qualified women working to enter these fields, and support measures that would ensure these women would only have to worry about competently performing their duties.

And yes, I’m aware in firefighting/rescue work/combat/mining operations, there are minimum physical standards that must be met in order for a person to safely do the job. Here’s a gender-neutral way of doing this: This job requires a person to lift/haul/drag X lbs in Y amount of time. This job requires applicants to run the course in full gear in Z amount of time. And apply these standards across the board. Yes, there will be more men than women who meet those standards. But if those standards and other relevant tests are the only measure of who gets hired, you’ll see more women in dangerous lines of work.

Historically, there have been a wide range of justifications for denying equal rights to women. Well, countless women have proven they can be productive, self-(and family-)supporting citizens when they’re not hamstrung by discriminatory rules and conventions. Countless women will happily give up ‘privileges’ like having men always pay for dinner, or run frantically to be first at a door. There are many, many women who will happily be self-supporting, or capable of self-support, rather than rely on the dubious protection of the menfolk.

Tell me, do guys ever yell, “Slut!” out their car windows at you? How often have you worried that a date/romantic partner may try to rape/beat you? If someone were to call you fat/ugly, would you feel as if that person had just called your entire worth as a human being into question? Does having a ‘professional’ appearance simply having good hygiene and a modest selection of clean, unstained clothing, or must you try to ‘accentuate’ certain features, ‘downplay’ others, and worry about walking a tightrope between ‘dowdy’ and ’slutty’?

I forget who said it, but it’s an excellent quote, ‘Trying to explain the concept of the Patriarchy to a man is like trying to explain the concept of ‘water’ to a fish’.

Oh, and you never answered how you’ve come to the conclusion only those of high social status can get women. If only the ‘top 10%’ were able to get women, the human race would be a whole lot smaller. Simple observation will reveal countless people in the middle-, working-, and poor classes are forming lasting, often at least reasonably happy unions.

“Oh, so you’re still mad about the Titanic. That was quite some time ago, when women didn’t have nearly as many rights, and were widely assumed to be inferior to men. Also…most of the survivors were rich. Far more than the middle class passengers. Those in steerage were, *ahem* pretty much sunk. Where’s your outrage for those victims of classism? But why not get more current? Got any data from 9/11? How did the survival rates break down by gender then?”

Wow… that is really quite offensive and it really seems like you are taking pains to distort things such that when 73% of the women survive and only 7% of the men survive… that is STILL somehow a negative for women.

Let’s say that the reverse occurred and 73% of the men survived and only 7% of the women were allowed on the life boats… would that be evidence that men were “widely assumed to be inferior to women”?… or would it be evidence of the fact that men are out to oppress women?

Do you see how no matter what occurs either in history or in the modern age you are apt to place women on the receiving end of some sort of negative?

There is literally no way for you to view women as having ANY advantage whatsoever as you instantly classify both detriments AND benefits as being oppressive in some fashion. Neat trick.

First of all, how long ago this occurred is immaterial… unless of course you believe that this is an isolated example of something that never occurred before or since instead of being a repeated pattern of behavior where when men and women are at risk… women get saved and men are left to die. Furthermore, should I limit the discussion to only the last 5 minutes as well?… because that would nullify most of your complaints about the plight of women… after all, I could just say that it was “quite some time ago”.

The point of these examples isn’t to suggest that it has ONLY occurred in the past, it is to demonstrate what I am talking about with a concrete example that you aren’t likely to dispute… as you can see, the facts of my assertion aren’t in dispute here… you are only criticizing how long ago this occurred as if the same exact thing wouldn’t occur today. I’ve got news for you… if we had a repeat, more women would STILL be saved while letting the men freeze and drown. That is a privilege for women no matter how you slice it.

If you don’t think it is a privilege you could always demand to give up your seat to let a guy survive if you ever find yourself in that situation… or would you thank your lucky stars that you were born with two x chromosomes and hence are given special treatment in crisis situations?… I personally wouldn’t mind that advantage if you’re willing to trade it to me for one of the advantages I supposedly have… you know, like not being expected to shave my legs.

You are correct in asserting that there was also a strong class component to who survived, and I have EQUAL outrage that the poor were left to die while the rich got to get onto the life boats. However, what would be the point of me discussing that with you when that point isn’t in dispute. I’m assuming that you would agree with me that that is wrong.

Interestingly you aren’t saying that the rich were preferentially saved because the rich were “widely assumed to be inferior” to the poor. Why for the rich is being saved an advantage and a privilege, but for women being saved it is an insult and yet another form of oppression? It seems to me that your conclusions change depending upon who is the recipient of being saved.

More importantly… gender in this case was a FAR more potent influence than was class. A poor women had a much greater chance of finding a spot on a life boat than a well to do man (not necessarily the richest guy on the ship… but still in fairly well off). That is the inevitable conclusion we must draw when about 3 out of 4 women passengers were saved while less than 1 out of 10 male passengers were saved. The discrepancy is staggering.

As for 9/11, I don’t have the statitistics for that the same way I do for the titanic, but I do have some numbers. However, you aren’t even selecting a good tragedy for comparison. The scenario has to involve a choice were either the women can be saved or the men can be saved. In the case of 9/11, all the victims who died on the planes… there was no choice that could be made between them, when a plane crashes into a building everyone on board dies, no selection process is possible. Similarly, death is instantaneous for anyone who dies as a result of the impact and subsequent explosion… no choice is possible when death is immediate. Next, there was no limitation on how many people could escape the building… new york city is not population limited the way life boats are, so however many people you can get out of the building will fit in the safe area… again no choice needs to be made. Lastly, the time for evacuation of the twin towers was rather long, long enough such that pretty much anyone who could get out, did get out. Only those who were locked in the floors above the flaming wreckage or otherwise inaccessible were unable to escape (without jumping out of the windows to avoid being burned to death that is). Clearly you don’t understand the point I am making otherwise you would know that the 9/11 tragedy is not one that can demonstrate what I am talking about specifically because it wasn’t an either/or scenario… it wasn’t “save the women” or “save the men”… It was “save everyone that can be saved because we aren’t critically limited by space or by time”.

All that being said… the VAST majority of people who went into the burning buildings to get people out were men… and some of those heroic individuals died when the buildings came down while they were still searching for survivors in the hard to access locations. The rescue teams were mostly men.

Now, keeping all this in mind, that 9/11 isn’t even a good example the way the titanic was… here is a figure that you should read:

“Ratio of men to women who died: 3:1”

http://nymag.com/news/articles/wtc/1year/numbers.htm

So even when everything is working in men’s favor not to be left to fend for themselves (i.e. large portions of the deaths were unavoidable… there were no limitations on how many people could be saved etc…) STILL for every one woman who died… 3 men died.

I’m sure you’ll find some way to make this an advantage for men… or to make it a disadvantage for women. However it would be kind of nice to you to admit that when the chips are down and there is a crisis… women are saved more often than men are, and men in particular are expected by society to sacrifice their life if it means that a woman’s life will be saved by that sacrifice.

So go ahead and assert how our society values men more than women… but if that is the case then these results should NEVER be what we see. If society valued men more, women would not be saved in preference of men being saved.

“The ‘We men protect you dainty wimmenz so you should devote your lives to our every whim’ argument wore out a looong time ago. The response of many women, historically and now, goes something like, ‘We’ll give up this so-called ‘protection’ and ‘adoration’ in exchange for being treated like human beings. And really, it’s a damn good bargain.’”

This is NOT my argument… you are twisting things simply because you know you don’t have a leg to stand on in this debate.

My point is NOT that women need to devote their lives to men’s whims… my point IS that men do not live a live of pervasive privilege and advantage while women are always getting the short end of the stick.

You are setting up a straw man here.
Also… you say that you are willing to give up the advantage of being saved first… alright, well you always have the option of saying “no, I don’t need to be saved… let this man survive instead”.

Notice how none of the women in either scenario did this… because ultimately when someone’s life is in danger, they aren’t going to stand on some strange principle and die.

Let’s say you and I were on a sinking ship and it was only possible for one of us to be saved… would you flip a coin with me to see who lived and who died?… or would you expect me to let you live while I went down with the ship?

I’m all for treating women like human beings… I’m not sure how you are treated in your own life, but based upon what you’ve said, if a guy were to even hold a door open for you, you’d take that as an insult and that he wasn’t treating you like a person when all he might have been doing was not letting the door slam in your face.

Based upon what you have said, you are actively looking to be insulted… and when someone is looking to be insulted, they will be no matter how nice and polite someone is to them.

“Odd how you’re ignoring me since I refuted your testosterone argument. Hint: Women at most have a fraction of the testosterone that men do, yet we can still meaningfully compete at all levels of the workforce. When we’re not being shut out by the patriarchy.”

I haven’t ignored it… I addressed it directly the moment you brought it up.

You ignored my response and are apparently too busy trying to be insulted to go back and read what I wrote about it way way back in the thread.

First of all you didn’t refute my argument, actually you demonstrated that you don’t really understand my argument.

I’ll address the point here again very quickly, but if you want the full answer please go back and read my original response.

Testosterone and competativeness are only relevant when we are talking about individuals of equal skill, talent, and competancy. There are MANY very skilled, talented, and competant women out there and if you place them in competition with a less skilled, less talented and less competatant man they will win every time and it simply will not matter that they are less competative.

The extreme example I gave way back when I originally answered you on this subject was that even though I have more testosterone than ANY female olympic athelete… none of that is going to make any difference. I can be as competative as I want, I can put my all into the competition… and they will STILL beat me without even trying very hard simply because they are THAT good at what they do.

No invisible force is shutting you out from any profession you want to be in… and again, you reference this invisible force without actually demonstrating its existance with direct evidence.

Your belief in such an invisible force is no different than a religious persons belief that an invisible force controls the fate of society.

You believe in it as an axiom, it is faith based… I’ve already presented a better and more complete model, yet you choose to ignore it even though it provides BETTER predictions of society than the model you are using.

The ‘We men protect you dainty wimmenz so you should devote your lives to our every whim’ argument wore out a looong time ago. The response of many women, historically and now, goes something like, ‘We’ll give up this so-called ‘protection’ and ‘adoration’ in exchange for being treated like human beings. And really, it’s a damn good bargain.’

You try and claim parental leave justifies paying women less. Why must the woman always be the one to put her career on hold? Why must parental leave be penalized? Isn’t raising children supposed to be important? Shoot, if there’s a shortage of workers in our economy, why not have state-subsidized daycare? Workers can stay in the workforce, and a shitload of additional jobs have just been created.

Odd how you’re ignoring me since I refuted your testosterone argument. Hint: Women at most have a fraction of the testosterone that men do, yet we can still meaningfully compete at all levels of the workforce. When we’re not being shut out by the patriarchy.

Backlash by Susan Faludi
For Her Own Good by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf

And once again, where are you finding all these women who judge men solely on their wallet contents? You’d be much happier looking elsewhere. Or go to an online service and flatout state you’re not rich and/or famous. Weed out anyone looking for a meal ticket. And FTR, men do it too. Which is why women have learned to look for a guy w/ steady employment at the very least. No one likes being viewed primarily as a wallet.

I stated that men were expected to die after asking you to explain the roots of the phrase “women and children first” in the context of the patriarchy model. Maybe you aren’t familiar with the phrase. If not here is a link for you to check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_children_first_(saying)

I’ll quote the part of article here as well:
“Women and children first is a well-known saying, that implies that the lives of women (all ages) and children are to be saved first (as opposed to “Every man for himself”) if the lives of a certain collection of people are at stake.”

This is what I am talking about… I wasn’t talking about the draft (although that is another issue that I wouldn’t exactly call “male privilege”)

This is what I mean when I say that men are expected to die if a choice has to be made between their life and the life of a woman.

That is a pretty huge privilege of being a woman as opposed to being a man, wouldn’t you say?… that if your life and my life were at stake and only one of us could be saved, the rules of society would demand that you get helped and I’m on my own, even if it means I have no hope of survival.

So powerful is this societal compulsion to save the lives of women over the lives of men that on the titanic the following occurred:

“Of the 1,327 passengers on board, 73% of the women made it to the lifeboats, while only 7% of the men survived.”

http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2006/0426roberts.html

Please note that the above is a feminist webpage.

I honestly don’t think you have a very good understanding of what it is like to live as a man in this society… it isn’t exactly all privilege and having life handed to you on a silver platter. Men have challenges to face as well, and not just trivial ones. Could you imagine for example being a guy on that ship, knowing it was sinking and that you were going to die in one of the most gruesome fashions possible (i.e. freezing to death or drowning in utter darkness without any sound except the wails of other men dying)… but also knowing that you couldn’t be given a spot on a life boat because they were reserved for the women.

You talk a good game about oppression and being a victim of societies expectations… but you fail to acknowledge that women actually have a number of privilidges that men don’t have access too (and have never had access too). One of those is that in a crisis you can count on someone trying to save you… for men the phrase goes “every man for himself”.

Sounds kind of different than the phrase for women, doesn’t it?

I realize that your criticism about child rearing status is something that needs to be taken into account. According to the people who performed the research I’m talking about, they have indeed factored children into things. Again, I realize that I have written a huge amount in this thread, but I have done so in an effort to be complete and to make sure that I am being intellectually honest. Here is the excerpt from the abstract along with the citation, please feel free to read the paper for yourself:

“Using data from the 2000 Census, I tested the hypothesis that cohabiting
lesbians have statistically different earnings from cohabiting and married
heterosexual women. Cohabiting lesbians earn more than their heterosexual
counterparts, even when differences in child-rearing status are considered.
Furthermore, the results do not support differences in household specialization
as an explanation for the lesbian earnings premium.”
Jepsen LK, Comparing the earnings of cohabiting lesbians, cohabiting heterosexual women, and married women: Evidence from the 2000 census. 2007, 46:699-727

Please note that it is specifically stated that lesbians earn more “even when child-rearing status is considered”.

I understand that the typical feminist stance would suggest that lesbians shouldn’t earn more than their heterosexual female counterparts… it actually violates the predictions of their theory involving the patriarchy.

That is exactly why I bring this to the table, because essentially the feminist model makes a prediction that fails to comport with reality when the data is collected and analyzed.

By contrast the model have suggested (and to be fair it isn’t *my* model… it is one that has been under development by sociologists, evolutionary psychologists and other experts in human behavior) does account for this disparity.

It correctly predicts this observed outcome… it succeeds where the patriarchy model fails.

I know that you and many others here find this sort of result surprising, but the thing is we cannot allow surprise at a result cause us to just toss it out the window.

I know you thought that gay men typically earned more than heterosexual men, but as you can see there are a number of studies which indicate otherwise.

The research into this area has been very thorough and it is in agreement with all of the predictions the model I have suggested would make while it is in violation of the predictions of the patriarchy model. This isn’t meant to indicate that women to not suffer… we aren’t discussing whether or not women have trials in society (of course they do). We are discussing the source of these trials, trying to understand where they come from.

Feminism posits apriori the existence of a grand male dominated societal force that is ever present and serves to oppress women and minorities. If this were the case then lesbian women could not and should not be effected by this to a lesser extent than heterosexual women… they should in fact be impacted by it *more*. The fact that they earn more than heterosexual women suggests something is very wrong with the patriarchy model.

Any time in science we are presented with two different models where one is more successful at predicting the outcome of scenarios than the other we must invariably replace the less successful model with the more successful one.

What I am saying is that as of now, in the year 2008, we have a better model than the patriarchy model which accounts for everything the patriarchy model accounts for and is successful in areas that the patriarchy model fails in… this new understanding did not always exist, but now that it does we have to keep this new understanding in mind and use it. We can’t just stick to a less successful model out of tradition.

There are several core beliefs within feminism… one of these are the proposition that the genders should be treated equally, and another is that women and minorities are being oppressed by an invisible yet pervasive male dominated societal force.

I personally agree with the first of these because equality and fairness are vitally important to me… I want to see everyone treated fairly by society which includes but is not limited to the government, the legal system, the educational system etc…

The second proposition however is just plain false, unless we look to nations like Saudi Arabia where a woman was recently declared to be a witch… that is the sort of oppressive environment that feminists talk about… it doesn’t exist here. And just because it might exist elsewhere doesn’t mean it carries over to here either. The suffering of those in another nation is horrible (and just to make it clear, men suffer around the world as well) but that doesn’t mean we get to claim victim status because of their victimization and the fact that they resemble us in some way.

Anyway, I hope that I have at least given you some food for thought.

How do you know that the effects I am talking about don’t adequately explain the disparities we see?

“You can’t prove that there isn’t a god, either! So there!”

You don’t just get to claim they aren’t robust enough because you don’t feel they are. You need to establish this in a rigorous fashion.

You might want to check out… well, practically any of the papers I’ve linked to. Gall, Gallantry, and the Gallows presents a particularly strong case for injustice as a quantity embedded in institutions. (Along those lines, Gender and the Politics of Difference and Class, Race, Gender, and Crime are also good.)

Is the patriarchy fond of lesbians but dislikes heterosexual women?

Lesbians may be less likely to enact patriarchal scripts with their partners; it seems likely that lesbian relationships are characterized by a greater degree of equality in terms of domestic roles and the economic power of both partners, and less coercion (from the subtle to the violent) for one partner to disengage from her career.

You could build a study on that, at any rate. Maybe someone has.

My contention isn’t that there has NEVER been gender based disparity… my contention is that it does not exist anymore to the extent that you are talking about or that feminism purports it to be.

Um, actually, your contention up to this point has been that there exist substantial apparent inequalities in society, but that we shouldn’t be concerned with those, because they’re rooted in biology. (Which makes it better. Somehow.)