Redwall: Warlords

With the UMD discussion going on, I'm just curious to see what the tallies are.

Poll aggregators overwhelmingly predict Clinton at this point, and they have a pretty good track record. I wonder if the RWL consensus is in line with reality. I'm guessing not.

Is this who I actually will probably end up voting for, or who I would like to vote for if it actually looks they have a shot at winning?

the former is whats going to happen anyways, since we're being realistic here right :V

Johnson is hovering right around 10%, last time I checked, he needs 15% to get into the debates. If he can get into the debates, who knows what might happen. That said, the most likely scenario is that none of the third party candidates makes a serious run at it. Which means Clinton for me.

Quote from: Shadow on August 15, 2016, 12:17:24 PM
Poll aggregators overwhelmingly predict Clinton at this point, and they have a pretty good track record. I wonder if the RWL consensus is in line with reality. I'm guessing not.

Well here in Britain, the poll of polls got both Brexit and the 2015 General Election. Both were only out by a few percentage points, though, and I think the lead Clinton has over Trump holds, then you'd need a bigger margin of error than would be possible for Trump to win.

P.S. Would vote Clinton. People only hate her because of the sexist, right-wing media narrative. She's not great but literally supports basically all the same policies that Obama does - yet he has 52% approval. Why is she known as Kilary, but the man responsible for the mass expansion of drone bombings (with pretty significant collateral) is so popular?

Speaking of Brexit, did you guys know Raine was on the staff for the Leave.EU campaign?

Interesting.

As for poll aggregators, it's not too surprising they got the UK votes too. As XKCD put it...

(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/math.png)

Tbh I haven't seen much sexism at all. Lots of reaching by extremists on the internet (new wave feminists, sjws, huffpo, etc) but nothing from any legitimate sources. Hell even breibart and drudge are focusing on twisting facts rather than pointing out anatomy.

Also she's known as killary because of her hawking and the curiously large number of political enemies that seem to die conveniently. Tally is up to like 47 now or something? That's tinfoil talk though. Need a Snowden for the physical machinations of the elites in addition to the digital before anyone will take it seriously.

Quote from: The Lady Shael on August 15, 2016, 04:40:36 PM
Speaking of Brexit, did you guys know Raine was on the staff for the Leave.EU campaign?

That is interesting Shael, I did not know that. I'm curious as to how you know that.

Quote from: Neobaron on August 15, 2016, 05:02:48 PM
Tbh I haven't seen much sexism at all. Lots of reaching by extremists on the internet (new wave feminists, sjws, huffpo, etc) but nothing from any legitimate sources. Hell even breibart and drudge are focusing on twisting facts rather than pointing out anatomy.

Also she's known as killary because of her hawking and the curiously large number of political enemies that seem to die conveniently. Tally is up to like 47 now or something? That's tinfoil talk though. Need a Snowden for the physical machinations of the elites in addition to the digital before anyone will take it seriously.

Sexism is not always expressed overtly - that's not how it works. One of the main mechanisms through which sexism works is by internalising the values espoused by the media and a society which is still male-dominated, and basically everybody has at least some of these sexist values internalised, whether the like to admit it or not. Those Bernie bros that constantly slag Hilary off as a [dog] might not think that they're subconsciously influenced by media portrayals of ambitious women such as Hilary as fundamentally unpleasant, but they are.

As for the Kilary thing: again, why isn't Obama subject to the same kind of scrutiny? Obomba? Hundreds dead from drones collateral? Like, 160+ dead kids from drone collateral in Pakistan? Yet 52% approval, whilst Hilary Clinton is blasted as a murderer over Benghazi and a bunch of conspiracist nonsense. As usual, double standards apply to women.

Look at the facts regarding Clinton. Yes, she's had a few scandals, but so have most politicians who have been in the public eye for as long as her. Yeah, she's changed some positions, but which politician hasn't over a career spanning decades? Would we rather she still opposed s/s marriage and refused to move with the times? After all, we all enjoy blasting the GOP for being out of touch. Yet when a politician does change their stance on issues - either through personal change or through a desire to better represent the people (or a combination thereof) - we cynically condemn it as awful. It's just as possible imo, that she supported s/s marriage before she said she did, and was giving the standard US politician's response - as many far more popular Democrats did - of marriage being between a man and a woman.

Oh, and again on the double standards:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5L2LMJcRIg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5L2LMJcRIg)

edit: video won't work atm, so can't verify it's not hacked together. But Obama's changing stance on s/s is documented here. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/may/11/barack-obama/president-barack-obamas-shift-gay-marriage/ (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/may/11/barack-obama/president-barack-obamas-shift-gay-marriage/)

So yeah, she's basically a continuation of Obama, with most of the foibles and controversies and changes of opinion you'd expect from any heavyweight politician who's been as long in the public eye as she has. Yet she is uniquely unpopular when compared to her male counterparts.

Also, not sure who "Raine," but Leave.EU was not the official Leave campaign. It was the unofficial Leave campaign led by UKIP and led by Nigel Farage, a man chummy with Russia, plenty of the GOP, and far-right politicians across Europe. Oh, and there's this:

(http://i3.dailyrecord.co.uk/incoming/article8210544.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200/JS92738860.jpg)

So yeah, I'm afraid being a staffer for Leave.EU is nothing to be proud of.

^ I like femitooth.

Quote from: Firetooth on August 15, 2016, 06:30:27 PM
Also, not sure who "Raine," but Leave.EU was not the official Leave campaign. It was the unofficial Leave campaign led by UKIP and led by Nigel Farage, a man chummy with Russia, plenty of the GOP, and far-right politicians across Europe. Oh, and there's this:

So yeah, I'm afraid being a staffer for Leave.EU is nothing to be proud of.

Just thought I would mention it since it's not often you see a RWLer in the national/international spotlight. He was the press officer so he did a few TV and radio interviews. His forum name is Vengerak, but we call him Raine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sknRa_6GqCM

Quote from: Gen. Volkov on August 15, 2016, 05:56:22 PM

Quote from: The Lady Shael on August 15, 2016, 04:40:36 PM
Speaking of Brexit, did you guys know Raine was on the staff for the Leave.EU campaign?

That is interesting Shael, I did not know that. I'm curious as to how you know that.

I'm friends with him on Facebook. :p So, it was hard to miss all the pro-Brexit posts.

Add a Blobfish option.

Quote from: FiretoothSexism is not always expressed overtly - that's not how it works. One of the main mechanisms through which sexism works is by internalising the values espoused by the media and a society which is still male-dominated, and basically everybody has at least some of these sexist values internalised, whether the like to admit it or not. Those Bernie bros that constantly slag Hilary off as a [dog] might not think that they're subconsciously influenced by media portrayals of ambitious women such as Hilary as fundamentally unpleasant, but they are.

I'm going to call shenanigans here Firefight. I've read a lot of the same pieces you have about how assertive women are bitches, while assertive men are respected. I never really bought any of them though. There are certainly examples given to support that narrative, but just like any well-written persuasion piece, they gloss over the large number of counter-examples that ruin the whole thing. There are any number of movies which depict the ambitious, career-driven man as a total jerk. If he's the protagonist, he comes to realize that family is most important, etc. you know the story. Think "Click" or "Liar Liar", or pretty much any 90's comedy. It's a really old storyline though, at least as old as Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol", if not older. Conversely, if the ambitious, career driven guy is not the protagonist, he is inevitably the main villain who the good, kind, family-oriented hero must defeat or gets his comeuppance in some way. If you can find a statistical analysis with a decent sample size showing that assertive, career-oriented women are portrayed negatively significantly more often than men, I might believe you, but from where I'm sitting, the same story-lines that Dickens laid out in "A Christmas Carol" seem to be applied pretty equally to men and women.

I'm not saying our society is entirely free of gender bias, little boys are encouraged to do certain things, little girls encouraged to do others, but this whole "unconscious sexism" thing just rubs me the wrong way. It smacks heavily of thought policing. One can recognize sexist thoughts, I don't buy for a second that its so ingrained in our society that we can't even recognize it. Furthermore, in reality, its quite easy to distinguish between the ambitious, assertive people, and the complete jerks. At 32, I've worked quite a few jobs, and I've had bosses in both categories, they were both male and female. It never took me long to figure out who the jerks were. Being a jerk knows no gender.

There are many legitimate counter-arguments to the people who deride Hillary Clinton, but the accusation that they are all secretly, unconsciously sexist isn't one of them, as far as I can tell. If you have data that would change my mind, I am of course open to it.

Quote from: ShaelI'm friends with him on Facebook. :p So, it was hard to miss all the pro-Brexit posts.

Ah, LOL, OK then. You should get him to come back to RWL.

[edit] LOL @ word filter turned Dickens into [lance].

Quote from: Gen. Volkov on August 15, 2016, 07:30:04 PM

Quote from: FiretoothSexism is not always expressed overtly - that's not how it works. One of the main mechanisms through which sexism works is by internalising the values espoused by the media and a society which is still male-dominated, and basically everybody has at least some of these sexist values internalised, whether the like to admit it or not. Those Bernie bros that constantly slag Hilary off as a [dog] might not think that they're subconsciously influenced by media portrayals of ambitious women such as Hilary as fundamentally unpleasant, but they are.

I'm going to call shenanigans here Firefight. I've read a lot of the same pieces you have about how assertive women are bitches, while assertive men are respected. I never really bought any of them though. There are certainly examples given to support that narrative, but just like any well-written persuasion piece, they gloss over the large number of counter-examples that ruin the whole thing. There are any number of movies which depict the ambitious, career-driven man as a total jerk. If he's the protagonist, he comes to realize that family is most important, etc. you know the story. Think "Click" or "Liar Liar", or pretty much any 90's comedy. It's a really old storyline though, at least as old as Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol", if not older. Conversely, if the ambitious, career driven guy is not the protagonist, he is inevitably the main villain who the good, kind, family-oriented hero must defeat or gets his comeuppance in some way.

Ok, when I said media, I think it's interesting you're immediately drawn to cinema and fiction. I'm talking primarily about news and coverage of influential women in many fields, from politics to sports. Yeah fictional portrayals are relevant, but that's not really what I was referring to. It would be worth noting, though, that even ambition is often portrayed as negative for both genders, male characters nevertheless tend to possess far more agency and control over their position, whereas woman are universally either there as an object of affection, or as a plot device - something to be rescued (see: Lois Lane, BvS, 2016). Audiences aren't used to powerful women, and sure enough, when women do possess agency and power, it is seen as by some as feminist propaganda and people moan and complain (TFA, Ghostbusters, Rogue One etc). This includes lots of people who aren't meninists too, btw - try having a discussion down the pub about it. (the supermarket test should be replaced with the pub test)

Quote from: Gen. Volkov on August 15, 2016, 07:30:04 PM
If you can find a statistical analysis with a decent sample size showing that assertive, career-oriented women are portrayed negatively significantly more often than men, I might believe you, but from where I'm sitting, the same story-lines that Dickens laid out in "A Christmas Carol" seem to be applied pretty equally to men and women.

I'll look one specific to this current contest tomorrow, if I remember - it's 2:20am atm and I'm about to go to sleep. But studies into media portrayals of men vs. women aren't that rare a thing. For now, I've linked an interesting article related to the 08 Democratic contest below, which cites various academic articles you can track down if you want (put a few of the most relevant bits as extracts - the bolded it in particular should sound familiar):

QuoteFor instance, studies have shown that for women, simply being successful in male sex-typed occupations leads to dislike and negative interpersonal characterizations (Okimoto and Brescoll, 924).

QuoteHowever, "in proving that they are qualified to be leaders, women can easily cross the line and appear to be insufficiently feminine – that is, not 'nice enough" (Carroll, 6). This is precisely where gender bias against Hillary Clinton's was most evident – the media frequently criticized her for not being sufficiently feminine and regularly referenced her "toughness" (Carlin and Winfrey, 337).

QuoteWomen also encounter more dislike than men do for showing dominance, expressing disagreement, or being highly assertive – all key behaviors of running a political campaign (Carroll, 5)

Quote"Interacting with counterstereotypical women elicits discomfort and negative affective reactions, and may lead to the assignment of negative interpersonal characterizations. Indeed, counterstereotypical women are often depicted as 'bitchy,' 'selfish,' 'ice-queens,' and 'battle-axes'" (Okimoto and Brescoll, 924).

https://genderandsocs13.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/gender-bias-in-the-media-coverage-of-hillary-clintons-2008-presidential-campaign/

Quote from: Gen. Volkov on August 15, 2016, 07:30:04 PM
I'm not saying our society is entirely free of gender bias, little boys are encouraged to do certain things, little girls encouraged to do others, but this whole "unconscious sexism" thing just rubs me the wrong way. It smacks heavily of thought policing. One can recognize sexist thoughts, I don't buy for a second that its so ingrained in our society that we can't even recognize it. Furthermore, in reality, its quite easy to distinguish between the ambitious, assertive people, and the complete jerks. At 32, I've worked quite a few jobs, and I've had bosses in both categories, they were both male and female. It never took me long to figure out who the jerks were. Being a jerk knows no gender.

Saying that sexism is largely unconscious doesn't mean you can't recognise these thoughts, but it does mean it's more difficult to. The point is that you need to always challenge yourself, rather than believing just because you don't vote Trump that you therefore are an 100% perfect man with no lingering sexist attitudes whatsoever - not very unlikely considering how dominated society is by men, from the bottom to the top. I agree though that there's probably a fine line with attributing any disagreement of a female politician to sexism - we had that problem with Yvette Cooper in the 2015 Labour leadership contest, and it was rather frustrating.

This is besides the point, though. My point was that just because somebody isn't literally saying "Hilary Clinton is a woman gross she can't be president make me a sandwich" doesn't mean that there aren't any sexist prejudices behind their view. You and I know both know being beaten over the head with the same media narrative for a solid two decades rubs off on people. And I think you and I both know that Trump has capitalised on this with how he has referred to Hilary throughout the campaign, eg. the "schlonged" remarks.

Quote from: Gen. Volkov on August 15, 2016, 07:30:04 PM

There are many legitimate counter-arguments to the people who deride Hillary Clinton, but the accusation that they are all secretly, unconsciously sexist isn't one of them, as far as I can tell. If you have data that would change my mind, I am of course open to it.

Again, I don't think that's a fair representation of my argument. I said almost all of us have sexist attitudes ingrained into us to some degree (this includes women btw as they internalise certain patriarchal values telling them how they should talk, dress, act etc.), but I didn't say that accounts entirely for Clinton derision. I think it would be naive to dismiss it as a major factor, though.

Blanketing all of society with a predisposition in order to invoke that disposition to explain away valid criticisms as symptoms of the disposition seems fishy as a basis for rational thought.

In fact i'm pretty sure its a classical example of a red herring.

Quote from: Gen. Volkov on August 15, 2016, 07:30:04 PM
I'm going to call shenanigans here Firefight. I've read a lot of the same pieces you have about how assertive women are bitches, while assertive men are respected. I never really bought any of them though. There are certainly examples given to support that narrative, but just like any well-written persuasion piece, they gloss over the large number of counter-examples that ruin the whole thing. There are any number of movies which depict the ambitious, career-driven man as a total jerk. If he's the protagonist, he comes to realize that family is most important, etc. you know the story. Think "Click" or "Liar Liar", or pretty much any 90's comedy. It's a really old storyline though, at least as old as Charles lance "A Christmas Carol", if not older. Conversely, if the ambitious, career driven guy is not the protagonist, he is inevitably the main villain who the good, kind, family-oriented hero must defeat or gets his comeuppance in some way. If you can find a statistical analysis with a decent sample size showing that assertive, career-oriented women are portrayed negatively significantly more often than men, I might believe you, but from where I'm sitting, the same story-lines that lance laid out in "A Christmas Carol" seem to be applied pretty equally to men and women.

You can not honestly defend this, Volkov. We're not talking about Christmas movies here, we're talking about the challenges that real women face in professional contexts all over the world. It's called the backlash effect, where women are socially punished for displaying counterstereotypial behaviours. If a woman is not stereotypically "nice" enough, they receive social repercussions and are disliked. If she is feminine and nice (as women should be), she is seen as not competent for leadership roles.  (https://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/courses/PSYC-309-clwilkins/week4/Rudman.Glick.2001.pdf)

May I also add the example of our own female former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. She faced constant misogyny in the media throughout her leadership, including criticism for being unmarried and childless, while unmarried childless men have ruled many times without being questioned. (http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/handle/10072/13696/34656_1.pdf?sequence=1) In fact the marital and parental status of men in leadership hardly comes up at all. And then there was the time Tony Abbott stood in front of signs calling her a [dog] and a witch. (http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/julia-gillard-on-the-moment-that-should-have-killed-tony-abbotts-career-20150622-ghug63.html) Because she was a woman, but not a mother, and had the assertiveness to beat other men to the leadership of the party, she was a [dog] and a witch. 

Here in England, too, Andrea Leadsom (remember her, Volk?) implied she would make a better PM than Theresa May, because she had kids and May didn't.

Quote from: Neobaron on August 15, 2016, 09:06:54 PM
Blanketing all of society with a predisposition in order to invoke that disposition to explain away valid criticisms as symptoms of the disposition seems fishy as a basis for rational thought.

In fact i'm pretty sure its a classical example of a red herring.

And responding to complex points with flippant dismissal is fishy as a basis for a decent debate or discussion. This is about backdrop and context, not "explaining away." Perhaps, too, your unwillingness to admit the possibility of such a predisposition supports my assertion - that much sexism is unconscious, because we don't like to challenge our attitudes. But if you think people calling Hilary a [dog] en masse constitutes valid criticism, or that a climate where the media constantly portrays her in ways very consistent with the backlash effect Gen just mentioned has no bearing on broadly "valid" (YMMV) concerns, then we should probably just agree to disagree.

The fundamental basis of your position and the request you are making of me and anyone else is not to dispel the idea that sexism exists, but to dispel the idea that we do not like Hillary because we hate women. Ergo, you are asking anyone responding to you to assume the role of a secret sexist in order to blow away that notion and to prove that they have a valid reason to criticize Hillary Clinton. You are asking them to assume guilt and then prove innocence. There is no 'agree to disagree' in this instance.

Suggesting that everyone who hates Hillary is secretly a misogynist is no different than suggesting that everyone who is an atheist secretly hates god or that everyone who opposes immigration secretly hates brown people. You are lumping everyone who disagrees with you into an easily manageable lump and then asking them why they are a lump.

---

There are people who hate Hillary Clinton because she is a woman.

There are people who hate Hillary Clinton because she is corrupt and manipulative.

What you are suggesting is that the second group is a superset of the first group. The suggestion is not only blatantly a red herring, but also really offensive to anyone who has valid reasons to criticize Hillary.

I don't know how thoroughly your news is covering the election, but from our perspective Hillary is not a poor woman under attack, but a career politician who is currently fighting off legitimate claims of corruption and negligence.

As for why Obama doesn't get a bad rap, he is a sitting president and our media giants (with the exception of Fox news) are very much liberal organisms. Fox News does mention the drone strikes, BUT the people who watch Fox news are, by and large, people who see no issue with the practice. There isn't any widespread outrage (outside of the internet) because it is a 'liberal' president bombing brown people and it would be bad for his liberal supporters to decry the drone strikes because that would only serve to hurt the party and, since there's only really 2 of those, it would mean helping the opposition with swing voters.

Hillary is a candidate - essentially a civilian - so she is open game for criticism. No major outlet or politician is suggesting that Hillary is bad because shes a woman. Mostly because that would be suicide. It seems like straya and England are much more backwards in this regard if politicians and news organizations are actively bringing anatomy and gender roles to light.

They are, or at least Australia is. Aus has a truly horrendous track record of sexism in politics, which Genevieve alluded to.

For example, this little doozy from Tony Abbott:

"What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it's going to go up in price, and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up,"

While I largely agree with Neo that Firetooth's approach is not one that will lead to any useful discussion, as long as this article exists, you can't seriously make the claim that systematic sexism does not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap_in_the_United_States.

Not that anyone has, yet, but the way this argument is going so far it seems like things are going to get polarized to the point that someone might try, and I want to moderate things a little bit going forward.

Quote from: Shadow on August 16, 2016, 08:44:38 AM
They are, or at least Australia is. Aus has a truly horrendous track record of sexism in politics, which Genevieve alluded to.

For example, this little doozy from Tony Abbott:

"What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it's going to go up in price, and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up,"

thats pretty awful

Quote from: Neobaron on August 16, 2016, 08:35:36 AM
The fundamental basis of your position and the request you are making of me and anyone else is not to dispel the idea that sexism exists, but to dispel the idea that we do not like Hillary because we hate women.

Strawman 1. Sexism =/= misogyny. The former can lead to the latter, but they are two distinct phenomena. Of course all of society is not misogynistic - that would be ridiculous. But the bulk of society is dominated by male politicians, male CEOs, male journalists, male editors etc. Patriarchal attitudes diffuse down society, and most people absorb some sexist prejudices - however diffusely. This probably doesn't mean that they become a meninist or misogynist, but it does subtly influence their views - unless they are prepared to try and challenge their prejudice.

I'm not saying this is exclusive to sexism, btw. Part my problem with the traditional idea of patriarchy is that it ignores the kind of men who comprise the patriarchy, who are far from representative of your regular man. Our attitudes towards all sorts of groups and peoples are influenced by the media in this way, with sexism just an example.

So no, the majority of people don't hate Hilary because they hate women, but it definitely does serve to amplify their existing grievances. To put it in another way, people are intellectually dishonest in how they critique Clinton compared to contemporaries like Obama; the double standards are real.

Quote from: Neobaron on August 16, 2016, 08:35:36 AM

Ergo, you are asking anyone responding to you to assume the role of a secret sexist in order to blow away that notion and to prove that they have a valid reason to criticize Hillary Clinton. You are asking them to assume guilt and then prove innocence. There is no 'agree to disagree' in this instance.

Suggesting that everyone who hates Hillary is secretly a misogynist is no different than suggesting that everyone who is an atheist secretly hates god or that everyone who opposes immigration secretly hates brown people. You are lumping everyone who disagrees with you into an easily manageable lump and then asking them why they are a lump.

I'd call this strawman 2, but it's really just an extension of strawman 1. Therefore, I don't really have anything to add here. Moving on.

Quote from: Neobaron on August 16, 2016, 08:35:36 AM
There are people who hate Hillary Clinton because she is a woman.

There are people who hate Hillary Clinton because she is corrupt and manipulative.

What you are suggesting is that the second group is a superset of the first group. The suggestion is not only blatantly a red herring, but also really offensive to anyone who has valid reasons to criticize Hillary.

I don't know how thoroughly your news is covering the election, but from our perspective Hillary is not a poor woman under attack, but a career politician who is currently fighting off legitimate claims of corruption and negligence.

Strawman 2: people who hate Hilary because she is corrupt really hate her because she's a woman. I didn't say this, and I have covered above what my actual position was:

QuoteSo no, the majority of people don't hate Hilary because they hate women, but it definitely does serve to amplify their existing grievances. To put it in another way, people are intellectually dishonest in how they critique Clinton compared to contemporaries like Obama; the double standards are real.

Quote from: Neobaron on August 16, 2016, 08:39:46 AM
As for why Obama doesn't get a bad rap, he is a sitting president and our media giants (with the exception of Fox news) are very much liberal organisms. Fox News does mention the drone strikes, BUT the people who watch Fox news are, by and large, people who see no issue with the practice. There isn't any widespread outrage (outside of the internet) because it is a 'liberal' president bombing brown people and it would be bad for his liberal supporters to decry the drone strikes because that would only serve to hurt the party and, since there's only really 2 of those, it would mean helping the opposition with swing voters.

Hillary is a candidate - essentially a civilian - so she is open game for criticism. No major outlet or politician is suggesting that Hillary is bad because shes a woman. Mostly because that would be suicide. It seems like straya and England are much more backwards in this regard if politicians and news organizations are actively bringing anatomy and gender roles to light.

I don't think that's entirely fair, as Obama's approval ratings have fluctuated heavily. Granted, the fact that he's incumbent whilst there are two loathed candidates must help, and I don't dispute the validity of your analysis of the differing ways in which the media treat incumbents vs candidates in election season. I would dispute the extent to which you think this accounts for the disparity in perceptions of the two.

To address both your final point (strawman 3), and indeed your post in summation: you've missed the overt vs. subtle sexism point. You are attacking a position that doesn't exist - or strawmanning, if we're going to be fancy. Of course nobody is going to actively say Hilary is a woman and can't be president! Again, I never said or even implied this; my whole point from the start has been about subtle, unconscious sexism. I don't know how many times I have to make this point; it's not difficult to understand that sexist attitudes can inform opinions. News coverage might not actively connect Hilary's flaws to her gender, but the connections are there. Did you even read the stuff on the backlash effect that me and Gen posted?

I'll freely admit that the media in the UK have problems covering female candidates, but I'm not convinced that we're really more backwards. You're the one who freely admits you're voting for US president a politician who uses sexist language to belittle any woman - Clinton or Kelly or breastfeeding mothers - who speaks out against him. Plus, whilst the U.S. has yet to have a female president, both the UK and Australia have had female PMs, whilst in the 2015 General Election, there were almost as many female party leaders as male party leaders (3 vs 4) in the main televised debates.

edit: corrected a point on UK television debates. As Natalie Bennett would say, I had a brain fade.

To suggest that positions are informed by diffuse prejudices perpetrated by real sexists at the top of the food chain is the exact same thing as suggesting that society is sexist. I did not create this argument, you did.

A cogent argument is one that can be boiled down to its constituent parts and analyzed without drawing in too many complications or details to justify or rationalize the constituent parts. This is why third wave feminism has largely been confined to the internet - under public scrutiny and outside of the confines of the echo chambers it does not hold up. The work the second-wavers and first-wavers did is paying dividends, albeit slowly. Its the same with civil rights and other equality initiatives. Society does not change overnight, and continuing to loudly and dismissively marginalize vast portions of society can only serve to incite a backlash against the fundamental principles of the original feminists, those being justice and equality for all.

What your argument boils down to is that society is sexist, thus Hillary is hated.

You are trying to dodge that fact by painting it as accidental, that somehow people who hate Hillary just didn't know any better than to hate her, but that does not change the constituent parts of the argument. It simply obfuscates them with a barrier of plausible deniability.

There is also the problem of the direct contradictions:

QuoteSo no, the majority of people don't hate Hilary because they hate women, but it definitely does serve to amplify their existing grievances.

Quoteovert vs. subtle sexism

So are they sexist or aren't they?
If you suggest that they aren't, then the foundation of the entire argument crumbles.
If you suggest that they are then I am right.
If you suggest that there is a grey area, then that opens your argument up to the the same accusations of gender-based criticism - people support Hillary only because she is a woman.

See you aren't participating in some crusade against MUH PATRIARCHY, you are actively perpetuating a dead-end line of thinking that only serves to incite with no tangible end-game. You will never eliminate sexism, racism, other -isms, or indeed any other societal ill by painting all of society with a large brush and then complaining about the paint job.

---

QuoteYou're the one who freely who admits you're voting for US president a politician who uses sexist language to belittle his female candidates.

And this is the perfect example of the point I am making. I've made probably nearly 6,000 words worth of explanations for why I will be voting for Trump including sources and rationalizations for that action. And with the exception of the last blurb in my first post on the UMD thread, the gender of the candidates has been the furthest thing from my mind.

Yet my support for a candidate who said something offensive - a quirk I have not shied away from calling him names for - is all your point boils down to.

That is your argument in a nutshell, and why it is objectively wrong.

I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding you and Volkov here, Neo, but it sounds like you don't think people are capable of unconscious gender bias.

This is one of my favorite studies in unconscious gender bias: http://www.leadershippsychologyinstitute.com/women-the-leadership-labyrinth-howard-vs-heidi/

QuoteProfessor Frank Flynn, presented half his class with the case study with Heidi's name on it and gave half the class the same case study with her name changed to "Howard".The students rated "Howard" and Heidi, equally competent, but they liked Howard, but not Heidi.

Specifically, students felt Heidi was significantly less likable and worthy of being hired than Howard and perceived her as more "selfish" than Howard. Deborah Gruenfeld, of Stanford's Graduate School of Business, cited the same study, adding that "the more assertive a student found the female venture capitalist to be, the more they rejected her." The essence is that research has demonstrated a negative correlation for women between power and success.

do you have a link to the actual study?

Sorry, Neo, but you're just wrong here.

Quote from: Neobaron on August 16, 2016, 09:45:51 AM
There is also the problem of the direct contradictions:

QuoteSo no, the majority of people don't hate Hilary because they hate women, but it definitely does serve to amplify their existing grievances.

Quoteovert vs. subtle sexism

So are they sexist or aren't they?
If you suggest that they aren't, then the foundation of the entire argument crumbles.
If you suggest that they are then I am right.
If you suggest that there is a grey area, then that opens your argument up to the the same accusations of gender-based criticism - people support Hillary only because she is a woman.

sexism
ˈsɛksɪz(ə)m/Submit
noun
prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

misogyny
mɪˈsɒdʒ(ə)ni/Submit
noun
dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.

So holding a sexist prejudice doesn't mean you hate women. Far from it, many fathers are overly protective of their daughters for this reason. That doesn't mean they hate women. So misogyny and sexism are two distinct things, an herein lies the problem: I am talking about sexism, but you are critiquing me as if I'm talking about misogyny.

Again, it's a strawman argument. I won't cover this again, as I don't feel it's productive to continue a debate where your position is continually misrepresented for whatever reasons. Regardless, it is not my argument that crumbles here, it is yours, as if you are attacking a position I do not hold, your argument therefore cannot refute mine.

Quote from: Neobaron on August 16, 2016, 09:45:51 AM
See you aren't participating in some crusade against MUH PATRIARCHY, you are actively perpetuating a dead-end line of thinking that only serves to incite with no tangible end-game. You will never eliminate sexism, racism, other -isms, or indeed any other societal ill by painting all of society with a large brush and then complaining about the paint job.

You won't eliminate sexism, racism, other -isms, or any other societal ill by burying your head in the sand and refusing to engage with the unpleasant reality that you probably do hold some unpleasant prejudices buried deep down, either. Prejudice is defeat when it is confronted, and that is what I am saying we need to do. I'm not trying to put this firmly into and us and them situation, either - all of us need to challenge ourselves as well as others, and that includes me. But I do think the influence and extent of these prejudices is notably more pronounced from the anti-Hilary camp.

Quote from: Neobaron on August 16, 2016, 09:45:51 AM

QuoteYou're the one who freely who admits you're voting for US president a politician who uses sexist language to belittle his female candidates.

And this is the perfect example of the point I am making. I've made probably nearly 6,000 words worth of explanations for why I will be voting for Trump including sources and rationalizations for that action. And with the exception of the last blurb in my first post on the UMD thread, the gender of the candidates has been the furthest thing from my mind.

Yet my support for a candidate who said something offensive - a quirk I have not shied away from calling him names for - is all your point boils down to.

That is your argument in a nutshell, and why it is objectively wrong.

You've misread what I meant there, but it's my fault. My point re Trump is that the presidential candidate for the GOP is openly sexist - thus refuting this:

Quote from: Neobaron on August 16, 2016, 08:39:46 AM
No major outlet or politician is suggesting that Hillary is bad because shes a woman. Mostly because that would be suicide. It seems like straya and England are much more backwards in this regard if politicians and news organizations are actively bringing anatomy and gender roles to light.

So my point was a very major politician - the GOP presidential candidate, has more or less done that. But I do apologise for my wording. The flaw here was firmly my own, for I worded what I was saying very poorly on re-reading. It was not my intent to call you a raging sexist Trump fanboy - please believe me when I say that.

Quote from: The Lady Shael on August 16, 2016, 09:51:46 AM
I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding you and Volkov here, Neo, but it sounds like you don't think people are capable of unconscious gender bias.

This is one of my favorite studies in unconscious gender bias: http://www.leadershippsychologyinstitute.com/women-the-leadership-labyrinth-howard-vs-heidi/

QuoteProfessor Frank Flynn, presented half his class with the case study with Heidi's name on it and gave half the class the same case study with her name changed to "Howard".The students rated "Howard" and Heidi, equally competent, but they liked Howard, but not Heidi.

Specifically, students felt Heidi was significantly less likable and worthy of being hired than Howard and perceived her as more "selfish" than Howard. Deborah Gruenfeld, of Stanford's Graduate School of Business, cited the same study, adding that "the more assertive a student found the female venture capitalist to be, the more they rejected her." The essence is that research has demonstrated a negative correlation for women between power and success.

Unrelated to the sexist sphere of this, but in terms of unconscious prejudices, there's also an interesting study where an array of employers were went the exact same CVs, except for one main difference. The first sample had names such as Patel, whilst the second sample had names such as Smith - no prizes for guessing which batch of CVs fared better in terms of responses and interviews.

It can go the other way as well Firefight... 
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said young women had a duty to vote for Clinton -- "And just remember there's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other."

I don't think the average person today has a problem with strong female leads in media. 
Superman is a product of the 30's, if they're keeping to canon Lois Lane is a damsel in distress.  That just sorta is what it is, a product of history.  You can argue that they shouldn't make anymore Superman movies, or change canon, but that's something different. 
Also BvS got awful reviews. 
Star Wars The Force Awakens got great reviews from critics and the audience.  The Hunger Games series did too. There's actually quite a few movies with strong female roles and audiences appear to have no problem with them. 

Hell, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is all about four strong willed girl ponies and its' gotten inexplicable attention...  a large portion of which is made up of male 'Bronies'. 

Depends what crowds you're hanging out with I guess? 

The gender pay gap is a bit of a myth btw. 
http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/
"ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER: If you take women who don't have caregiving obligations, they're almost equal with men. It's somewhere in the 95 percent range. But when women then have children, or again are caring for their own parents or other sick family members who need care, then they need to work differently. They need to work flexibly, and often go part-time. They often get less-good assignments because their bosses think that they're not going to want work that allows them to travel, or they're not going to be able to stay up all night, or whatever it is. And so then you start — if you're working part-time, you don't get the same raises. And if you're working flexibly your boss very typically thinks that you're not that committed to your career, so you don't get promoted."

Apples to apples women earn about the same amount.

I'm not saying there aren't issues.  There are. 
It's just how much of an issue. 
In this case, how much of an issue to women who want to participate in politics in the US. 

Are you going to tell me people disliked Carly Fiorina because she's a women?  Or is it something else?  Like maybe dealing the finishing blow to one of the largest tech powerhouses in US history.. 
Nah. 
How about Sarah Palin? 

In Clinton's case I think it's safe to say the vast majority of people aren't looking at her gender as much as her career accomplishments (good and bad). 

......also, many fathers are more protective of their daughters because the world is a more dangerous place for young women than it is for young men? 

(you guys are posting quick today, dang..)

Depending on how you cut the data you can get almost anything out of the pay gap story. Unmarried women have a very small gap (95%) compared to the average, which, when controlled for things like motherhood may well fall into that 95% line. On the other hand, it's a fact that on average, women earn about 80% of what men do for the same job, regardless of the reasoning for it. If that reason is that women are working differently or going part time that's interesting, but it doesn't change the gap, it just explains it. The whole unconscious gender bias discussion enters into things when you look at why it is the women that are affected by the family issues more than men. I don't think comparing unmarried women to all men, or comparing [insert women's stats adjusted for effect X] to all men, is comparing apples to apples.

A more telling comparison might be between one-income families where the man is the breadwinner vs when the women is. I'll poke around and see if such a thing exists.

Quote from: windhound on August 16, 2016, 11:09:06 AM
It can go the other way as well Firefight... 
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said young women had a duty to vote for Clinton -- "And just remember there's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other."

True, but young women don't control the media. Also: see the earlier study Briar posted. But I agree that arguing you have to vote for x candidate in anything because they are of x group is irritating. To return again to Yvette Cooper, in the labour leadership the only similarity she chose to raise when asked what *quality* she shared with Nicola Sturgeon was what she was a woman, and that Labour is overdue a female leader. Which is true and all, but your gender isn't really a quality of character.

Quote from: windhound on August 16, 2016, 11:09:06 AM

I don't think the average person today has a problem with strong female leads in media. 
Superman is a product of the 30's, if they're keeping to canon Lois Lane is a damsel in distress.  That just sorta is what it is, a product of history.  You can argue that they shouldn't make anymore Superman movies, or change canon, but that's something different. 
Also BvS got awful reviews. 
Star Wars The Force Awakens got great reviews from critics and the audience.  The Hunger Games series did too. There's actually quite a few movies with strong female roles and audiences appear to have no problem with them. 

MoS and BvS took Lois backwards as a character compared to the earlier films, where she enjoyed more agency and narrative purpose. TFA was always going to hit big at the box office - it was new Star Wars! That said, whilst it did get good reviews, you can hardly discuss it today without somebody calling Rey a Mary Sue (she isn't). Again, when was the last time you saw a strong, badass male character dismissed as a Gary Stu?

Plus, there's the furore about (horror of horrors) ANOTHER female lead in Rogue One, and how this reveals Disney's true feminazi agenda (even though Jyn Erso and Mon Mothma are likely the only two major female characters in that film). I agree that these things don't have much impact on the film revenues, but they do crop up again and again in commentary and critique.

As for the Hunger Games, again, not denying that female-led films can and do succeed. I think film is finally beginning to move in the right direction - but let's not get complacent. There is still a huge gulf in representation (not just of gender), and just because there are a few successful representative films doesn't mean that there isn't any problem. For one, lots of CEOs of production companies are still caught up in old values, whilst marketing teams still see female-led pieces of media (not just films - the case of Remember Me's troubled production is an excellent example) are less likely to return a profit.

Quote from: windhound on August 16, 2016, 11:09:06 AM

The gender pay gap is a bit of a myth btw. 
http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/
"ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER: If you take women who don't have caregiving obligations, they're almost equal with men. It's somewhere in the 95 percent range. But when women then have children, or again are caring for their own parents or other sick family members who need care, then they need to work differently. They need to work flexibly, and often go part-time. They often get less-good assignments because their bosses think that they're not going to want work that allows them to travel, or they're not going to be able to stay up all night, or whatever it is. And so then you start — if you're working part-time, you don't get the same raises. And if you're working flexibly your boss very typically thinks that you're not that committed to your career, so you don't get promoted."

See: Shadow's post

Quote from: windhound on August 16, 2016, 11:09:06 AM
I'm not saying there aren't issues.  There are. 
It's just how much of an issue. 
In this case, how much of an issue to women who want to participate in politics in the US. 

Are you going to tell me people disliked Carly Fiorina because she's a women?  Or is it something else?  Like maybe dealing the finishing blow to one of the largest tech powerhouses in US history.. 
Nah. 
How about Sarah Palin? 

In Clinton's case I think it's safe to say the vast majority of people aren't looking at her gender as much as her career accomplishments (good and bad). 

Let me just reply to that with this:

QuoteSo no, the majority of people don't hate Hilary because they hate women, but it definitely does serve to amplify their existing grievances.

Plus, of course, everything me, Gen and Shael have posted on unconscious bias. The reason people dislike female politicians like Clinton is rarely because they're women, but is frequently exacerbated by it - especially if these women don't strike the perfect balance between the levels of agency expected of leaders, and the levels of communality excepted of women.

Quote from: windhound on August 16, 2016, 11:09:06 AM

......also, many fathers are more protective of their daughters because the world is a more dangerous place for young women than it is for young men? 

Equally possible. You knew what I meant, though - it's just one example of where a sexist attitude clearly isn't leading to the hatred of women. Don't get caught up too much in extrapolating.

A study on the wage gap by the Joint Economic Comittee Deomcratic Staff that might be of interest ITT: http://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/0779dc2f-4a4e-4386-b847-9ae919735acc/gender-pay-inequality----us-congress-joint-economic-committee.pdf

I'm like 8 posts behind but oh well.

Quote from: Neobaron on August 16, 2016, 09:56:03 AM
do you have a link to the actual study?

It was an experiment that the professor (Frank Flynn) performed in his business classes, here is a link to where he talks more about the "Heidi Roizen case":
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/stanford-gsb-experience/news-history/gender-related-material-new-core-curriculum

I think he first performed it in 2003, and it's been performed many times since then, with more favorable results. But it's one of the most famous examples people mention when gender bias comes up.

But if you want to read some research papers on gender bias in leadership, here's a few:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597806000677

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-011-0012-7

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1048984303000584

There's a difference between overt sexism and unconscious gender bias. It's something you can't control, it's a subconscious reaction, but it can be trained by being more aware of your judgments. The problem is when you use that subconscious reaction as the basis for a judgment that you wouldn't have made for the opposite gender.

I agree with windy that it's less of an issue than a lot of people make it out to be. But you can't dismiss it as a myth or something that doesn't exist. I work in a mostly male-dominated field, and I've been fortunate to not have seen much gender bias in the workplace. I even get paid significantly a lot more than my husband (who is also an engineer).
But occasionally I'll see glimpses of subtle gender bias. Example: "Every woman [program manager] in this organization, you really don't want to piss her off." This was at a table full of male engineers (plus me) and they all agreed. Really? But it's okay to piss off the men? It's not a particularly demeaning comment, but this comment just interested me because it not only shows how people perceive women leaders, but possibly the personality traits required for a woman to gain leadership positions.

Anyways. A lot of issues raised on gender discrimination are blown out of proportion. But there is a tiny bit of truth at the heart of it and these issues should not be dismissed as not real.

A write-up of a US variation on the study I was talking about earlier in relation to subconscious racial bias, as well as the actual paper, linked below:

http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html (http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html)

http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873.pdf (http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873.pdf)

Ok. We have gotten off the original message here, so I will say a couple things to clear this up and restart. I forget that you're not 10 or whatever anymore so being sloppy isn't going to work like it used to. My argument remains unchanged, but perhaps a rephrasing will clear things up.

Nobody disputes that ~sexism~ in whatever form it may take still exists in the western world. My grandmother is refusing to vote for Hillary despite being a lifelong solid south democrat because "thats not a job for a woman." Likewise there are probably some men (and women) who are wary of Hillary being in that position as a woman and refusing to vote for her. But there is a much, much larger number of people who have come to the perfectly valid conclusion that Hillary Clinton is a corrupt and manipulative tool of the elite. I am one of those people. To suggest that anyone who dislikes Hillary Clinton is a potential sexist even at a very low level is an affront not only to those people, but also those who are still fighting legitimate battles against inequality in the western world. Using their weapon to push Hillary bastardizes the original aim of the feminists which sought not to see women be free of critique, but rather to be in a position where they could be critiqued with the same qualifiers as their male counterparts.

Further, without knowing the particular circumstances of a person's background and lifestyle, it can only serve to do harm to your position to suggest that they are - inadvertently or otherwise - guilty of harboring sexist prejudices. So to throw the entirety of anti-Hillary voters into the mix as possible sexists is beyond extreme and greatly mitigates the power of their legitimate criticisms of a presidential candidate of the United States. You are effectively shaping the conversation to be about something that does not, and should not, even matter in this scenario.

As a motivator and topic for discussion in choosing a president, sex/race/religion/etc. do not have a place. Society is changing and it has become more egalitarian than ever. Our current president is walking proof of that. I do not want a president that was chosen because society at large was bullied into supporting her, just like I do not want a president that was chosen because his opponent had a vagina.

Obama was famously quiet about being black in both 2008 and 2012. Even though to a pragmatist that would appear to be his most devastating weapon, he did not use it. He didn't have to. His positions and record spoke for themselves. Hillary's campaign shouting to every corner of the country that she is, in fact, a woman, is offensive and childish and utterly epitomizes the concept of pandering. Go and watch the democratic debates. At one point she literally answers a question about how she would be different from Obama by saying "because I am a woman." Why does that even matter? Almost nobody under the age of 30 today will get the benefit of social security and even fewer will ever retire but you're the best choice for president because of your lot in the genetic lottery?

However, as others have mentioned, sexism as a motivator is a much less important issue than it was in the past and its continued value as a weapon is very often espoused by an extremist vocal minority in order to push their agenda and browbeat people into an apology they do not owe, an action they needn't take, or a position they don't necessarily believe in.

---

Now for why I was initially so mad:

My initial reaction when I read your second post was one of incredulity along the lines of "jesus christ he grew up and went to university and now hes one of those social justice nutcases" so my objectivity wasn't all that strong when I made my first (long) reply.

Third wave feminism is dangerously attractive to young people. It offers an easy excuse for why things suck for our generations, and the ease with which opponents are shut down is even more attractive because while confronting prejudice is the best way to end it, inventing prejudice where none exists is much easier to do and much harder to combat. Any movement which turns minor sleights into 'micro-aggressions' and loudly and vehemently shouts down opposing thought using red herrings and appeals to ignorance while calling for the implementation of voluntary segregation in the form of 'safe spaces' is not a movement worth defending. And those are the less insane ones - others espouse killing all white men or infringing rights to prove some kind of vacuous point. It is a fruitless distraction from the real issues facing everyone in today's world - income inequality, crippling debt at every level, corporate involvement in politics, etc.

Especially when it seems appear in the form of a sweeping generalization about the nature of what will eventually be about half of the US electorate. Burying ones head in the sand is a much different act than consciously ignoring an issue because it does not matter.

Hillary Clinton being a woman does not matter.

Hillary Clinton taking bribes from sovereign states through her foundation, using that private email server, pushing for the arming of what would become ISIS, loudly advocating for wars in the middle east and greater intervention in the Levant and Libya, bullying women who spoke out against Bill's sexual abuses in the white house, actively manipulating her party to ensure her eventual selection... These are things that do matter, and 100% valid criticisms of any political candidate that can be made before even considering who is behind them. I firmly believe that if the presidential race was an anonymous contest without the gaffes and comments, that Trump would be winning with an historic margin of victory predicted. To me, that is the measure of a political candidate.

Can the things they have done hold up to scrutiny when separated from their person?
How do those things inform their present positions?
How often do they change positions?
Have they ever stood for something controversial and stuck with it despite opposition?

Quote from: Genevieve on August 16, 2016, 05:09:40 AM
You can not honestly defend this, Volkov. We're not talking about Christmas movies here, we're talking about the challenges that real women face in professional contexts all over the world. It's called the backlash effect, where women are socially punished for displaying counterstereotypial behaviours. If a woman is not stereotypically "nice" enough, they receive social repercussions and are disliked. If she is feminine and nice (as women should be), she is seen as not competent for leadership roles.  (https://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/courses/PSYC-309-clwilkins/week4/Rudman.Glick.2001.pdf)

May I also add the example of our own female former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. She faced constant misogyny in the media throughout her leadership, including criticism for being unmarried and childless, while unmarried childless men have ruled many times without being questioned. (http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/handle/10072/13696/34656_1.pdf?sequence=1) In fact the marital and parental status of men in leadership hardly comes up at all. And then there was the time Tony Abbott stood in front of signs calling her a [dog] and a witch. (http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/julia-gillard-on-the-moment-that-should-have-killed-tony-abbotts-career-20150622-ghug63.html) Because she was a woman, but not a mother, and had the assertiveness to beat other men to the leadership of the party, she was a [dog] and a witch.

Gender bias and sexism do exist in the real world, that's not what I was saying. I in fact acknowledged that later in my post. My argument was against Firefight's assertion that women in media are portrayed negatively if they do not conform to traditional gender roles. The real heart of my disagreement with Firetooth though is the unconscious gender bias thing, which I just don't think is a scientific idea. There probably are studies that have found evidence of its existence,  but the ongoing replication crisis in psychology has thrown essentially all of psychology into turmoil. There are entire fields of study that may not exist, because the foundational studies can't be replicated. I have rather serious doubts that an objective test for unconscious gender bias has been, or even can be devised. Which, to me, makes it just a way to say someone is sexist, whether they are really being sexist or not.

What?!?! Another US election topic? Is this one set in bizarro world...because here I apparently agree with Volkov.

It's been kinda derailed from the election

Well in the interest of bringing this back on topic, I have to stay that if Hillary Clinton was attractive I would be slightly more inclined to vote for her.

Quote from: Juska on August 16, 2016, 08:09:24 PM
Well in the interest of bringing this back on topic, I have to stay that if Hillary Clinton was attractive I would be slightly more inclined to vote for her.

Would you say your comment is consciously or unconsciously sexist, though?

Quote from: Shadow on August 16, 2016, 08:44:38 AM
For example, this little doozy from Tony Abbott:

"What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it's going to go up in price, and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up,"

Just wanted to add that this guy then appointed himself Minister for Women...

He sounds like Donald Trump, but you know, more eloquent. *Rimshot*

What a colossal butt.

Just for the record, I have plenty of problems with third wave feminism, even if I do still consider myself a feminist. Safe spaces, no platform etc. is all indefensible. Equally, though, I do think some of the backlash against third wave feminism is more due to imagined evils and the extremities of view at the forefront of the movement that don't really reflect the rank-and-file - such as this.

QuoteHowever, as others have mentioned, sexism as a motivator is a much less important issue than it was in the past and its continued value as a weapon is very often espoused by an extremist vocal minority in order to push their agenda and browbeat people into an apology they do not owe, an action they needn't take, or a position they don't necessarily believe in.

Less important issue than it was in the past? Perhaps, but these things are all relative - especially when you are talking about the infringement of our basic values of meritocracy and equality. I hate seeing people pretend that sexism isn't still a problem and that the feminists need to just stfu, and whilst I appreciate that's not exactly what you're doing, it is along the same lines. I just don't think we can afford to be dismissive in the developed world because of the progress we have made - that progress is good, but it would be better if it spurred us on to make even further progress, rather than rest on our laurels and congratulate ourselves.

We shouldn't be satisfied that we have eliminated the inequalities that we have so far, we should be ashamed that there are still inequalities left. And I'm sorry, but regardless of your reasoning, and regardless of how much you chide him for it, I don't think you can fully appreciate this point if you are still willing to elect as your head of state a well-known racist, sexist, ableist, and all-round bigot. You are willing to tolerate discrimination under certain grounds, and I just fundamentally disagree with that position.

Again, another problem I've had with third wave feminism is that it has been too focused on white, middle-class women, rather than women of different ethnicities and backgrounds - who tend to have enjoyed far fewer of the benefits second wave feminism work. However, I do think much of third wave feminism has started to shift towards this angle in recent times.

QuoteAnd those are the less insane ones - others espouse killing all white men or infringing rights to prove some kind of vacuous point

Never met an actual person who believes this, even if I know that these people do exist, at any point in my time at uni. The worst I've come across is our SU president first year, who claimed she was a misandrist (I think mostly just to provoke and irritate people), as well as the various NUS gaffes (which are just general regressive leftism rather than specifically messed up feminism). There are those who once more want to make the movement entirely-female, but these are again largely a vocal minority. End of the day, I'd still say this "kill all white men" thing is a bigger red herring than any other alleged red herring (and there have been a lot lo - do you eat lots of Omega-3 because you really like herringsl) in this discussion so far, and I think it's an unfair, blinkered way to dismiss an entire social movement.

I mean, you yourself freely admitted you blasted me with a bunch of strawmans and reductive reasoning simply because you knew I went to uni; you freely admit you lack objectivity here. End of the day, both sides definitely need to just step back and get a little bit more perspective, and stop applying the views of vocal minorities to majorities. We need more of a dialogue between feminism and wider society, imo, with the problem atm that third wave feminism is becoming somewhat more of an inward-looking movement, whereas feminism should be a gender equality movement that does actually benefit men by challenging traditional gender roles (ie. toxic masculinity, the frequent anti-feminist "but divorcing men never get custody" complaint), even if the net benefit is mostly to women.

QuoteHillary Clinton being a woman does not matter.

But it patently does though - to both sides. I agree that it shouldn't influence voting intention, but the positive impact that a female POTUS would have in breaking the glass ceiling is obvious, and can't be dismissed out of hand. The day Hilary Clinton being a woman does not matter to her presidential campaign will be the day that being a woman doesn't matter to your career prospects and place in the world as a whole - and we are a fair way off of that.

Quote from: Gen. Volkov on August 16, 2016, 10:08:59 PM

He sounds like Donald Trump, but you know, more eloquent. *Rimshot*

What a colossal [crab].

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RchE5c-cYnM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RchE5c-cYnM)

EDIT: Accidentally wrote "defensible" rather than "indefensible" when referring to safe spaces and no-platform. Bolded for emphasis - have written multiple times criticising no platforming, in particular - including on this board.

QuoteThe day Hilary Clinton being a woman does not matter to her presidential campaign will be the day that being a woman doesn't matter to your career prospects and place in the world as a whole - and we are a fair way off of that.

How do we get to that place Firetooth? There are fundamental natural differences between male and female that will always influence a person's role in this world, short of abolishing gender or an absolute power enforcing equality I don't know how society gets there.

Quote from: Juska on August 17, 2016, 07:40:22 PM

QuoteThe day Hilary Clinton being a woman does not matter to her presidential campaign will be the day that being a woman doesn't matter to your career prospects and place in the world as a whole - and we are a fair way off of that.

How do we get to that place Firetooth? There are fundamental natural differences between male and female that will always influence a person's role in this world, short of abolishing gender or an absolute power enforcing equality I don't know how society gets there.

That's a bit of a disingenuous point. What we're talking about here isn't literal equality as much as it is equity. It's about not having doors closed to you in life based on anything other than your ability and competence, rather than literally getting 50/50 employment in every field of life. Very few people would deny that there are fundamental biological differences between a man and a woman, but that is in no way a justification for the glass ceiling for women in business, nor widespread sexual harassment in the workplace, nor being denied a promotion or paid less contingent on your gender. Therefore, we're really talking about equality of opportunity at every level of society - from the lowest levels of education to the highest levels of employment.

So how we get there is defined by how open the society we create is for women and men who want their employment prospects to go beyond traditional gendered spheres of employment. We need to stop closing entire fields of employment off to people based off of gender - and this is not just limited to women. Mainly, we need to make the sciences, computing and engineering feel less like old boys club, but likewise fields like construction need to be more open to women, and fields like health and beauty and childcare more open to men (there's never gonna be an equal gender balance here, but that's not the point - here in Britain, Andrea Leadsom implied there's a risk of paedophilia with male carers). Mostly, this is about the education system, but the fields themselves can and often to have plenty of issues present for the women who do manage to enter them.

Long term, positive discrimination is of course anti-meritocratic. In the short-to-mid term, however, some level of it is a necessary tool to help achieve this by providing more visible female role models in fields where they are under-represented, as a way of showing young women that pursuing a career in politics or the sciences isn't futile. I think mostly, though, you start by changing the ways parents raise their kids, and how the education system genders roles.

So we don't get there by telling women they should find a new job if they're sexually harassed. We don't get there by scapping gender quotas. We don't get there by calling breastfeeding mothers disgusting. We don't get there by implying that influential female politicians are not worthy of the presidency because of their appearance. We don't get there by implying women in the media are only critical of men because they're menstruating. We don't get there by blasting mothers who are trying to be politically involved for having their child cry.

We definitely don't get there when fathers repeatedly and grotesquely sexualise their own daughters.

As an aside, the natural differences you claim exist between men and women are not as big a factor as I suspect you think they are. They're real, even if some radical feminists would try and deny it, but so much of our gender roles are a social construct.

(also because somebody will probably shoe-horn in maternity leave, my counter is quite simple - increase paternity leave)

ooook. I took a day off from this and the other thread. Lets dive back in.

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Quoteespecially when you are talking about the infringement of our basic values of meritocracy and equality.

I'm gonna need you to clarify this blurb. I know definitions of words these days are fluid when talking about topics like feminism and (more often) civil rights so this statement is kind of a curve ball for me as the concepts of meritocracy and equality are diametrically opposed in this context.

You cannot achieve equality without abolishing or, at the very least, putting a hiatus on meritocracy as the baseline required for the former does not allow for the latter, and the latter can never be achieved without inviting criticisms that the former has been compromised.

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QuoteWe shouldn't be satisfied that we have eliminated the inequalities that we have so far, we should be ashamed that there are still inequalities left. And I'm sorry, but regardless of your reasoning, and regardless of how much you chide him for it, I don't think you can fully appreciate this point if you are still willing to elect as your head of state a well-known racist, sexist, ableist, and all-round bigot. You are willing to tolerate discrimination under certain grounds, and I just fundamentally disagree with that position.

I'm willing to tolerate a lot of things if I gauge that the benefit is greater than the cost. That is the basis of compromise. If anything, it makes me a realist. Not a proponent of all the horrible things Trump says/does. We don't elect perfect candidates because such a thing does not exist. From a realistic perspective, we don't elect the candidate that represents us best, we elect the candidate that is least in opposition to our interests as citizens. Perhaps you elect your officials on the basis of what feels right, but I elect mine on the basis of whether or not they will make my life better or worse with their policies. Idealism flies out the window when you have to figure out where rent is going to come from next month.

In this election, I have come to the conclusion that while Trump and Hillary would be equally bad, I am supporting Trump because he is less likely to make things worse simply because he will not have the broad base support to do anything. Remember that only about half of the population of the US votes, and due to the quirks of the electoral system, a majority of those don't even necessarily select the president. Thus a presidential win is not a mandate as <25% of the population elects the president in the US. And those are the high turnout elections - a fraction of that elects the real power in the midterms. These considerations are where I have hedged my bets. It has almost nothing to do with a belief that Trump is the better candidate from a policy standpoint.

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QuoteAgain, another problem I've had with third wave feminism is that it has been too focused on white, middle-class women, rather than women of different ethnicities and backgrounds - who tend to have enjoyed far fewer of the benefits second wave feminism work. However, I do think much of third wave feminism has started to shift towards this angle in recent times.

And this is where I think the national differences start to rear their heads. At least in the US, third-wave feminism (hence 3F its a fingerfull m8) is notoriously objectiveless and welcoming to 'other' causes. The 3F focus on intersectionality has done nothing but hurt the valid causes because 3Fers tend to get lumped in with their allies and frustrations with both groups are amplified. If they focused on, say, the gender pay gap then that would give them more cohesion and something to rally behind. Instead its just an amorphous blob of people that just seem angry about everything without offering real solutions to what seems to be, more often than not, the fake problems they highlight. Body/fat acceptance, for example, tends to fall under the feminist umbrella and I don't think any rational person will find that to be a valid cause, nor do I think it is a feminist issue because overeating is a genderless sin.

3Fers are currently wandering around in the desert firing scuds at the mirages of the ivory towers they seek to destroy. Its ineffectual and pointless, but I guess if nothing else its a statement. They don't have a Gloria Steinem or a Susan B. Anthony to lead them out. When they find their Moses and decide on a destination, they will have no issues getting support and conquering whatever they want.

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QuoteI mean, you yourself freely admitted you blasted me with a bunch of strawmans and reductive reasoning simply because you knew I went to uni; you freely admit you lack objectivity here. End of the day, both sides definitely need to just step back and get a little bit more perspective, and stop applying the views of vocal minorities to majorities. We need more of a dialogue between feminism and wider society, imo, with the problem atm that third wave feminism is becoming somewhat more of an inward-looking movement, whereas feminism should be a gender equality movement that does actually benefit men by challenging traditional gender roles (ie. toxic masculinity, the frequent anti-feminist "but divorcing men never get custody" complaint), even if the net benefit is mostly to women.

I freely admitted I went hard on the offensive because I assumed you were one of the indoctrinated massed that floods out of the university gates with a useless degree and a mind full of tropes invented by people who have never left academia. I knew you were older, but I did not give you the consideration of assuming you grew mentally along with physically. I admit to mischaracterizing and underestimating your ability to think rationally on the basis of our past interactions.

I do not admit to anything else you claim.

3F in its current form is dangerous from an intellectual standpoint because of the prior mentioned lack of an objective, and the fact that so many vocal minorities can get so much airtime is the best example of that. 3F is dangerous because the alleged silent majority isn't standing up to the vocal minorities and telling them that they do not represent the majority. And those very loud, very belligerent minorities are the ones that are going hard into the totalitarian mindset and accusing everyone who stands up to them of thoughtcrime or guilt by association. Fighting against 3F in its current, leaderless and objectiveless, form is not wrong. Movements like those can do nothing but harm as they ultimately become impenetrable to outside influence and interaction. Attacking in every direction is bad for both sides.

I think we agree on this at least, yes?

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QuoteBut it patently does though - to both sides. I agree that it shouldn't influence voting intention, but the positive impact that a female POTUS would have in breaking the glass ceiling is obvious, and can't be dismissed out of hand. The day Hilary Clinton being a woman does not matter to her presidential campaign will be the day that being a woman doesn't matter to your career prospects and place in the world as a whole - and we are a fair way off of that.

I'd argue that it would have been much more important in 2008.

Electing a black man as the undisputed leader of the free world is the single most progressive thing the US has ever done or likely will do unless we can finesse a dog or something into the presidency. Perhaps the impact of that statement won't really resonate with you, since I imagine you only have a topical understanding of race relations in US history, but every other glass ceiling was shattered the moment he took office. A woman taking office at this point would be little more than a formality to reiterate the point. And like I said in another post elsewhere, there are many other women who are more deserving of that honor than Hillary Clinton.

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QuoteSo how we get there is defined by how open the society we create is for women and men who want their employment prospects to go beyond traditional gendered spheres of employment. We need to stop closing entire fields of employment off to people based off of gender - and this is not just limited to women. Mainly, we need to make the sciences, computing and engineering feel less like old boys club, but likewise fields like construction need to be more open to women, and fields like health and beauty and childcare more open to men (there's never gonna be an equal gender balance here, but that's not the point - here in Britain, Andrea Leadsom implied there's a risk of paedophilia with male carers). Mostly, this is about the education system, but the fields themselves can and often to have plenty of issues present for the women who do manage to enter them.

Long term, positive discrimination is of course anti-meritocratic. In the short-to-mid term, however, some level of it is a necessary tool to help achieve this by providing more visible female role models in fields where they are under-represented, as a way of showing young women that pursuing a career in politics or the sciences isn't futile. I think mostly, though, you start by changing the ways parents raise their kids, and how the education system genders roles.

Take a look at this (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1790742) and this (http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/marketing/women/current_glance_statistics_may2016.authcheckdam.pdf)

It shows a ~2% growth in female representation in the span of 6-7 years in traditionally male dominated positions, specifically as it relates to STEM. I don't really think the workforce at large will ever see full equality in either pay or representation simply do to the fact that females will never be physically capable of performing the highly dangerous and physically demanding jobs that usually garner higher pay for their risks. I'm talking about oil workers, construction, and things like that. But if you narrow it down to a particular sector that doesn't carry those caveats, then you see gradual growth.

The ramifications of the victories won by the 2Fers in the 70s are starting to pay dividends a generation and a half after they won their battles, which is about what you would expect to see given the time it takes for a human life cycle. Nobody should ever suggest that we will see equal representation in the workforce overnight, and continuing to highlight what is a changing situation only acts as an irritant. Things are changing. Gradually. As they should.

The pay gap, however, is a concern, and a very valid cause that I wish had a cohesive movement behind it.

Quote from: Neobaron on August 18, 2016, 01:39:33 PM

I'm gonna need you to clarify this blurb. I know definitions of words these days are fluid when talking about topics like feminism and (more often) civil rights so this statement is kind of a curve ball for me as the concepts of meritocracy and equality are diametrically opposed in this context.

You cannot achieve equality without abolishing or, at the very least, putting a hiatus on meritocracy as the baseline required for the former does not allow for the latter, and the latter can never be achieved without inviting criticisms that the former has been compromised.

Fair enough. The goal is meritocracy in the long term, with measures like positive discrimination in the short-to-mid term. The contradiction only exists if you don't see the distinction between the conditions needed to met a goal, and the temporary measures needed to reach those conditions. I did more or less make this distinction in an extract which you did quote later on, but it was late on in my post.

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I'm willing to tolerate a lot of things if I gauge that the benefit is greater than the cost. That is the basis of compromise. If anything, it makes me a realist. Not a proponent of all the horrible things Trump says/does. We don't elect perfect candidates because such a thing does not exist. From a realistic perspective, we don't elect the candidate that represents us best, we elect the candidate that is least in opposition to our interests as citizens. Perhaps you elect your officials on the basis of what feels right, but I elect mine on the basis of whether or not they will make my life better or worse with their policies. Idealism flies out the window when you have to figure out where rent is going to come from next month.

In this election, I have come to the conclusion that while Trump and Hillary would be equally bad, I am supporting Trump because he is less likely to make things worse simply because he will not have the broad base support to do anything. Remember that only about half of the population of the US votes, and due to the quirks of the electoral system, a majority of those don't even necessarily select the president. Thus a presidential win is not a mandate as <25% of the population elects the president in the US. And those are the high turnout elections - a fraction of that elects the real power in the midterms. These considerations are where I have hedged my bets. It has almost nothing to do with a belief that Trump is the better candidate from a policy standpoint.

Generally, I believe it actually takes more courage to compromise on your principles to achieve real change that it does to just cling to a few principles. But there are some things you can't compromise on, and a few principles that are inalienable.

Re next month's rent: It's quite short-sighted to base your decision to vote for a candidate based solely upon their immediate impact, and with only a five-year window in mind. I think you are doing this with regards to Trump, which is bizarre as your entire criticism of Clinton seems to be focused upon the long-term damage she would do. I appreciate you probably have weighed up the long-term implications of a Trump presidency to some degree, but I do not think you have considered the full spectrum of these implications, nor the full extent of these implications, with the level of attention which they deserve.

I don't want to sound too self-righteous here, though, as I appreciate I don't have proper bills and rent and such (I do nevertheless have to work a lot of night shifts to afford to eat and such). Nevertheless, wouldn't vote Labour next election, even though they claim they'd eliminate tuition fees, because I realise what an unmitigated economic disaster that would be. You definitely have to weigh up what seems proximately beneficial vs the ultimate good of the country (which ultimately will impact upon you at some point in the future, be it near or far).

As for the broad support base: I appreciate the foibles of the US electoral system, and our own system has plenty of problems with representation. That said, it seems an odd point to argue a chaotic, divided political system is what is best suited to lead America through the turbulent times coming up. Strong leadership is needed to navigate the challenges ahead. Furthermore, to return to the long-term implications of a Trump presidency: don't dismiss the authoritarian undertones to Trump's campaign. Besides the links to Russia and Paul Manafort having lobbied for several authoritarians, most notably Yanukovych, there is the completely anti-media spin to Trump's campaign, as well as his suggestion that he could force the military to torture terrorists in earlier debates. Using the constraints the existing system provides on a candidate who, bolstered by a grassroots movement, has shown he does not care for, and would willingly dismantle, such constraints, is unwise. History (and Volkov) would warn you of this.

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And this is where I think the national differences start to rear their heads. At least in the US, third-wave feminism (hence 3F its a fingerfull m8) is notoriously objectiveless and welcoming to 'other' causes. The 3F focus on intersectionality has done nothing but hurt the valid causes because 3Fers tend to get lumped in with their allies and frustrations with both groups are amplified. If they focused on, say, the gender pay gap then that would give them more cohesion and something to rally behind. Instead its just an amorphous blob of people that just seem angry about everything without offering real solutions to what seems to be, more often than not, the fake problems they highlight. Body/fat acceptance, for example, tends to fall under the feminist umbrella and I don't think any rational person will find that to be a valid cause, nor do I think it is a feminist issue because overeating is a genderless sin.

Ok, I can agree that one of the main problems of 3F (it is indeed a fingerful) is that its grievances are diffuse. But that is because we have reached a stage where most of the laws second wave feminism wanted to overturn have been overturned, and most of the laws that second wave feminism wanted to introduce have been introduced. Yet sexism is still widespread - not as overtly, but it is there. This does definitely tie into the unconscious bias I was talking about earlier, but more prominently into stuff that is difficult to police with laws, like some ignoramus at work or on campus harassing you, or media ads on perfect beach bodies. Plus, as you highlight later in this post, it's taken a while for the dividends of the reforms won by 2F to pay - and they are still paying slowly.

That's why the movement is so angry, and it is in turn difficult to criticise them for wanting to change a world that still, in its own way, vilifies and subjects their primarily female membership based upon their gender.

I don't think a broad church is necessarily the wrong approach to take. Patently, the benefits of 2F feminism have primarily gone to middle-class, white women, and I think the movement needed to adapt to that reality. Many causes do have common grounds and almost always the same enemies (don't over-analyse that word choice I'm just too tired to think of something more fitting). I agree that it can go too far, however.

Ultimately, I like to think that the movement will diffuse and fizzle out as the older generations die off, positive discriminatory measures have a cumulative effect, and events like the potential election of Hilary Clinton to POTUS finalise the smashing of the glass ceiling. But that's an optimistic take on events, so we'll see.

That said, I agree with you that the movement could still be more focused on a few keys areas, such as the wage gap. This ties into your next point regarding leadership, though, so I'll get to it in a second.

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3Fers are currently wandering around in the desert firing scuds at the mirages of the ivory towers they seek to destroy. Its ineffectual and pointless, but I guess if nothing else its a statement. They don't have a Gloria Steinem or a Susan B. Anthony to lead them out. When they find their Moses and decide on a destination, they will have no issues getting support and conquering whatever they want.

I agree entirely with this, which is why I think it's odd that you use the extreme viewpoints of a few figureheads - who you and I can agree practically don't lead or speak for the movement in its entirety - to criticise the movement in its entirety. I can guarantee you that the majority of people who self-identify as feminist do not fall into the "kill all men" camp, nor even a significant minority of those actively involved in the movement. Thus, the point remains a red herring.

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I freely admitted I went hard on the offensive because I assumed you were one of the indoctrinated massed that floods out of the university gates with a useless degree and a mind full of tropes invented by people who have never left academia. I knew you were older, but I did not give you the consideration of assuming you grew mentally along with physically. I admit to mischaracterizing and underestimating your ability to think rationally on the basis of our past interactions.

I do not admit to anything else you claim.

Well thanks for your more positive assessment of my intellect. That said, your assessment of the average student is plain snobbery; I agree some students don't know what they're talking about, but it's not healthy to develop an attitude of superiority in these things - as you have demonstrated with your earlier overly-rash approach. Objectivity is key, after all.

That said, you 100% strawmanned me. I'm not really interested in retreading that ground, but I still will briefly mention it, asthe posts are there to see. You attacked exaggerated versions of my argument, rather than my actual argument, for which you apologised for. I think somebody with a reasonable level of objectivity re-reading those exchanges would come to the same conclusion I have. But let's not get caught up on it.

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3F in its current form is dangerous from an intellectual standpoint because of the prior mentioned lack of an objective, and the fact that so many vocal minorities can get so much airtime is the best example of that. 3F is dangerous because the alleged silent majority isn't standing up to the vocal minorities and telling them that they do not represent the majority. And those very loud, very belligerent minorities are the ones that are going hard into the totalitarian mindset and accusing everyone who stands up to them of thoughtcrime or guilt by association. Fighting against 3F in its current, leaderless and objectiveless, form is not wrong. Movements like those can do nothing but harm as they ultimately become impenetrable to outside influence and interaction. Attacking in every direction is bad for both sides.

I think we agree on this at least, yes?

I think we get into the territory of who actually comprises third wave feminism. Ask most students in Sheffield if they consider themselves a feminist, the majority would say yes. Ask that majority if they supported if they agree with stuff like "kill all white men," obviously they'll say no. Ask them about something like no platforming, however, and they probably don't know enough to have an opinion - they probably don't know who Peter Tatchell is. These very are the silent majority, but the question is how far you can consider them as part of the core 3F movement.

If you get into the core activists of 3F groups, things get a bit more complicated. The impression I've always gotten from my own encounters and those of my friends, however, is definitely different to the impression you get from people who don't interact with members of the movement on the ground.

In general, you have to remember that the world is becoming a more polarised place. You can see this over here with the rise of UKIP, with Brexit, and with the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. You can see it across Europe - Syriza, Golden Dawn, and the recent far-left vs far-right election in Austria. You see it in America, right now, with two of the most hated presidential candidates in recent history. Student politics - indeed, any form of politics - has always given the biggest platform to whoever can yell the loudest and longest; the NUS here in the UK is made up of 1,000 delegates elected by a clique yet is that national representative of the student body). This is only going to be amplified in the current climate in which we live.

"Fighting" against the movement is not what I want to do, but I do want to hold the movement to account and challenge it on its misconceptions, echo-chamber mentality and reductive knowledge. I do this not with the attention of undermining it, but because I believe there is still a need for third wave feminist movement - and that the current movement needs a bit of a course correction.

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I'd argue that it would have been much more important in 2008.

Electing a black man as the undisputed leader of the free world is the single most progressive thing the US has ever done or likely will do unless we can finesse a dog or something into the presidency. Perhaps the impact of that statement won't really resonate with you, since I imagine you only have a topical understanding of race relations in US history, but every other glass ceiling was shattered the moment he took office. A woman taking office at this point would be little more than a formality to reiterate the point. And like I said in another post elsewhere, there are many other women who are more deserving of that honor than Hillary Clinton.

My understanding of US race relations aside, I agree with your assessment of the significance of the event now vs 08, and would also posit that the levels of sexism - both subtle and overt (primarily the latter) - in media coverage of Clinton are far lower in this contest.

That said, I think it's naive to make this a competition about electing which member of which group is more progressive - and counter-productive. Even if we were to assume your point about all glass ceilings being shattered was correct (and it patently is not - I'd be shocked if we see an openly gay or even openly atheist US president any time soon), the significance of Clinton as an aspirational role-model for young women would surely still be a positive force for young women. A competent, vocally-feminist female president, leading the free world for five years - don't you think that might make a young girl think she could achieve more?

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Take a look at this (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1790742) and this (http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/marketing/women/current_glance_statistics_may2016.authcheckdam.pdf)

ATM I can only open PDFs in browser, and you need an account to do that for the first link. Thus, can only comment in more detail on the second link.

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It shows a ~2% growth in female representation in the span of 6-7 years in traditionally male dominated positions, specifically as it relates to STEM. I don't really think the workforce at large will ever see full equality in either pay or representation simply do to the fact that females will never be physically capable of performing the highly dangerous and physically demanding jobs that usually garner higher pay for their risks. I'm talking about oil workers, construction, and things like that. But if you narrow it down to a particular sector that doesn't carry those caveats, then you see gradual growth.

The ramifications of the victories won by the 2Fers in the 70s are starting to pay dividends a generation and a half after they won their battles, which is about what you would expect to see given the time it takes for a human life cycle.

Agreed that 50/50 equal representation is just never going to happen in some fields. Full equality in pay? That depends. Lots of these manual, high-risk jobs you're talking about are becoming lost to automation.

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Nobody should ever suggest that we will see equal representation in the workforce overnight, and continuing to highlight what is a changing situation only acts as an irritant. Things are changing. Gradually. As they should.

Agree with the first bit, disagree with the second; sitting back and waiting for reforms to come good is just now how social progress works. Is highlighting continuing inequality an "irritant"? Yes - that's kind of the point.

QuoteThe pay gap, however, is a concern, and a very valid cause that I wish had a cohesive movement behind it.

As mentioned earlier, agree on this.