there's a reason it's "hard out there" you know (OC) - eviltoast

This comment section: “Actually I’m pretty sure the bike fell over for reasons unrelated to the stick”

  • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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    9 months ago

    Idk, I don’t feel like young women are really offered any kind of safety net or support system that isn’t being offered to boys.

    I mean, there are special scholarships and programs only for women, and explicit preferential hiring for women in some fields. There is nothing like that for men, even in fields men are grossly underrepresented in (which also tend to be fields where men are mistreated or have their duties restricted for more or less explicitly sexist reasons - like child care).

    This is the thing, I constantly hear how awful young men are being treated. I don’t ever really hear any specific reasoning that can’t be explained by other means other than sexism against men.

    Here’s the trick - when you hear how say women or black folks are mistreated, you don’t require “any specific reasoning that can’t be explained by other means other than” discrimination against them.

    I like using criminal justice as an example of this:

    If I asked you to prove that the criminal justice system was racist, you could throw a whole pile of statistics at me. A whole panoply of stats demonstrating how black people are treated worse by the criminal justice system. But if you take those same measures and break them down by sex instead of race, they more or less all have a sex gap, that sex gap favors women over men, and for most of them it’s a similar or larger gap than the racial one. The core difference is that you will treat the racial gaps as proof of racism in and of themselves, while requiring the sex gaps to prove that there is absolutely no other hypothetically possible cause other than sexism.

    When a gap lies in one direction, blaming discrimination is the default move and when it lies in the other then every other possible explanation has to be provably false before it can even be considered.

    Imo this is one of the first generations of young men, especially young white men, that weren’t born on third base. The men’s right movement is a reactionary movement that’s just upset about being placed on an equal footing, and then falling to achieve the same results of previous generations of young white men.

    So long as you define “being on an equal footing” as others having explicit institutional benefits you don’t.

    For example, girls outperform boys in education K-12 (and there are studies that suggest this is at least in part a result of bias in grading favoring girls), girls both enter higher education and graduate from higher education at higher rates than boys, etc, etc, etc.

    My favorite is people being angry when men apply anti-discrimination laws to things like differential pricing that favors women, differential benefits that favor women, literally any application of Title IX that benefits a boy, that sort of thing.

    You aren’t being treated worse than everyone else, it’s just that equality feels like prosecution to those who have traditionally lived charmed lives.

    Ironically, the oldest known expression of this notion comes from a proto-MRA on USENET in the late 90s, except he was talking about women.

    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      If I asked you to prove that the criminal justice system was racist, you could throw a whole pile of statistics at me. A whole panoply of stats demonstrating how black people are treated worse by the criminal justice system. But if you take those same measures and break them down by sex instead of race, they more or less all have a sex gap, that sex gap favors women over men

      Right, but that’s not really an adequate comparison. Women are biologically intrinsically different from men, this presents in attitude and aggression. There is no intrinsic difference between a black or white male.

      Now I’m not claiming that this is an explanation for all of the legal disparity, I’m sure that there is a cultural input. However even if cultural input was entirely responsible for the disparity, it still wouldn’t be an appropriate cross comparison.

      With regards to black men in prison, it’s easy to see who is responsible for the disparity. Black men were victimized by a system controlled by primarily white men.

      With regards to the disparity between men and women in prison, who is responsible for the disparity? We’re women in control of the legislative bodies who set up the justice system? Are these men being arrested sentenced and guarded by a state apparatus largely run by women?

      long as you define “being on an equal footing” as others having explicit institutional benefits you don’t.

      Like…?

      For example, girls outperform boys in education K-12 (and there are studies that suggest this is at least in part a result of bias in grading favoring girls), girls both enter higher education and graduate from higher education at higher rates than boys, etc, etc, etc.

      Lol, I haven’t heard of that one. It’s kinda silly to propose when we already know that girls emotionally and physically mature at a younger age.

      • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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        9 months ago

        First off, thank you for demonstrating my point. You’re totally comfortable with jumping to discrimination as being the first and only (or at least primary) explanation when looking at disparities affecting some groups, but require every other possibility be exhausted before considering it for men.

        Right, but that’s not really an adequate comparison. Women are biologically intrinsically different from men, this presents in attitude and aggression. There is no intrinsic difference between a black or white male.

        So, biological factors that explain why men are more likely to be convicted when prosecuted for a crime, tend to get harsher sentences when convicted for a given crime, tend to be given higher bail for similar charges etc, etc, etc? Let alone being 95% of those killed by police and a large majority of those convicted of violent crimes.

        It’s interesting that you claim there is no intrinsic difference between black and white males, when there are measurable genetic differences (not just between black and white folks, but between black and white folks with ancestry from different regions and those differences are larger than the genetic differences between males and females from the same reason) that manifest as phenotypical differences and one would argue that in the difficult to separate mess of nature and nurture there might in fact be differences in attitude and aggression between typical white and black US males.

        Except those differences apparently do not justify any differences in treatment and any gap between population distribution and distribution of negative criminal justice outcomes is necessarily discriminatory, while the SRY gene does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of criminal tendencies and criminal culpability.

        Lol, I haven’t heard of that one. It’s kinda silly to propose when we already know that girls emotionally and physically mature at a younger age.

        In a particular way that causes them to be graded better than boys, but for much of that difference to go away in standardized testing where the student’s identity is not part of the equation at all?

        • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          First off, thank you for demonstrating my point. You’re totally comfortable with jumping to discrimination as being the first and only (or at least primary) explanation when looking at disparities affecting some groups, but require every other possibility be exhausted before considering it for men.

          I think you might just be jumping to conclusions that fit your biases.

          So, biological factors that explain why men are more likely to be convicted when prosecuted for a crime, tend to get harsher sentences when convicted for a given crime, tend to be given higher bail for similar charges etc, etc, etc? Let alone being 95% of those killed by police and a large majority of those convicted of violent crimes.

          No, I’m saying that they aren’t really comparable. There are too many variables that can’t be accounted for to draw any meaningful conclusions.

          It’s interesting that you claim there is no intrinsic difference between black and white males, when there are measurable genetic differences (not just between black and white folks, but between black and white folks with ancestry from different regions and those differences are larger than the genetic differences between males and females

          Lol, no. The physiology that is most associated with things like attitude and especially violent behavior is based on hormone production. There aren’t going to be phenotypical expressions that modulate hormone production in a significant way.

          Also the genetic variability between ethnic groups are immeasurably small, and inconsistent. There is often more genetic variability within a single ethnic group than there is between two completely different ethnicities. Ethnicity is largely a social construct, with things like skin color just being an expression of phenotypical mutations.

          Except those differences apparently do not justify any differences in treatment and any gap between population distribution and distribution of negative criminal justice outcomes is necessarily discriminatory, while the SRY gene does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of criminal tendencies and criminal culpability.

          My dude, saying that something doesn’t make a decent comparative study is not making any kind of claim.

          In a particular way that causes them to be graded better than boys, but for much of that difference to go away in standardized testing where the student’s identity is not part of the equation at all?

          Yes? Outside of standardized testing what are children being graded on…? Things like cooperation, class participation, communication, and reading and writing. Things girls typically advance in at a younger age.

          The problem with your claim is that discrimination requires someone to be the discriminator. What group is responsible for this discrimination in the justice system? A system that’s historically been comprised of almost entirely males?

          Yes, the justice system in America is messed up, but who exactly is responsible for that if not men? Even if we pretend you are correct, that men have been sent to prison specifically because of their masculinity… Okay, now what?

          So we hunt down those responsible for the discrimination? The judges…male, the cops…male, the lawyers…male, what about the lawmakers?..oh yeah mostly men. Okay, so men are discriminating against other men? Maybe…that suggest that masculinity in and of itself wasn’t actually the target in the first place?

          It’s almost as if the drug war establishing a prison industrial system had some unforeseen consequences… Consequences you may be misinterpreting in a way that fulfills your own preconceptions.

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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            9 months ago

            So, time to shoot you a link. I apologize for it being daily mail up front.

            https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13239821/Female-influencer-rape-boy.html

            Short version is that a 46 year old woman sexually assaulted a 14 year old boy. Not just because he’s underage, but he wasn’t consenting even insofar as his consent is relevant being underage and all.

            Her name is protected from the media, she’ll be eligible for release in less than a year, and she likely won’t be considered a risk to children and subjected to anything as a consequence. She was considered to have reduced culpability due to an eating disorder, an anxiety disorder and an adjustment disorder. Hell, I’m pleasantly surprised the media actually described what happened as “rape” rather than an “incident”, “affair”, or “romp” like usual.

            I can’t imagine a 46 year old man being convicted of forcing himself on a 14 year old girl against her will and potentially getting less than a year, not being considered a risk to children and having his name hidden by the media. And they definitely wouldn’t be reducing his time in incarceration in favor of longer parole because of how bad prison might treat him.

            Nothing about this story is easily explained by biological differences between men and women. But it demonstrates malagency pretty well - she’s not being punished like she’s a man because as a woman she’s not treated as responsible for her actions as a man would be.

            • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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              9 months ago

              apologize for it being daily mail up front.

              No worries

              I can’t imagine a 46 year old man being convicted of forcing himself on a 14 year old girl against her will and potentially getting less than a year

              Right, but is that the specific criteria that we utilize define demographically motivated discrimination.

              This is an anecdotal account, and I don’t really see how it helps your initial claim. Roy Moore raped little girls and almost became a sitting senator. Brock Turner admitted to raping a girl and was given a slap on the wrist.

              If there is systemic discrimination in court on things like sexual assault, I would feel comfortable guessing that women are the victims of said discrimination the vast majority of the time.

              Also this happened in the UK where perpetrators have a lot more rights, so we don’t really know if she is being treated differently than other males in that particular justice system.

              Nothing about this story is easily explained by biological differences

              Men are much more likely to commit sexual assaults, therefore the courts are much more likely to have a precedent when sentencing men. When anything you are familiar with is presented differently, you are more likely to treat it differently, even if they are virtually the same