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Eek, A Male

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Re: Eek, A Male

#131

Post by Cushman »

krakensden wrote: post #124
Cushman wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Let's debate. Do you have a study documenting the case of a statistically significant number of children raised in an environment where every single other person isn't constantly treating them like they should behave a particular way because of their genitals? Because otherwise you're just redemonstrating the already well-documented fact that children tend to behave the way they are expected to behave, which…

Height?

You'd be forgiven for thinking this is a cheap shot, but nope— Wikipedia lists the difference in mean height for Americans as about 5" (~5'10" for men, ~5'5" for women). If you get three guys together in a room, you've probably already got more variation than that.

The general point here is that there is much, much more overlap between the sexes than there is difference between them. That's why although you certainly can make interesting statistical inferences about populations, applying the same statistics on an individual level (this person is a woman, she's probably [whatever]) is very likely to be false and is equivalent to blind prejudice.

Re: Eek, A Male

#132

Post by oiuhjyftgrdgh »

vacri wrote: post #53
kenjackson wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the better papers to read is http://www.ipt-forensics.com/library/female.htm It is specifically about lifting the lid on abuse perpetuated by females, and not a "cherry picked" story. Here's a site that is more numbers focused: http://www.yellodyno.com/html/child_molester_stats.html Here are some numbers: Nearly all the offenders in sexual assaults reported to law enforcement were male (96%). - Sexual Assault…

Where are the stats about male /teachers/ alone with pupils having a worrying level of sexual predation, which is what you claimed.

Although I'm sure there are men who have a sexual interest in 5year olds - it is shall we say a rather 'specialized' section of society.

However - what proportion of 25year old TAs have a sexual interest in 19year old students? Perhaps we should allow the men to be kindergarten teachers but ban them from being junior professors?

Actually in my new lab we got these nice new offices with big heavy doors. We got 'advised' not to be in a room alone with students, then we got 'advised' by the fire dept that we couldn't wedge the doors open - so much advice for one little physics dept.

Re: Eek, A Male

#133

Post by potatolicious »

btilly wrote: post #115
kenjackson wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer isn't vanishingly low. Contrary to popular belief, while family is the single largest group to molest a child it isn't an order of magnitude difference. And to capture just sheer numbers, I've borrowed a quote from Wikipedia: "In North America, for example, approximately 15% to 25% of women and 5% to 15% of men were sexually abused when they were children.[11][12][13] Most sexual abuse offenders are acquai…

FWIW the 20% figure is reasonable. Reading through http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/content/82/4/457.full and doing some back of the envelope figures, let's suppose that 20% of the population has been abused. Let's suppose that the average abuser abuses 20 people. So 1% of the population are abusers. If virtually all abusers are men, that puts it at about 2% of the male population. (Which is, incidentally, simila…

> " Let's suppose that the average abuser abuses 20 people."

According to kenjackson's post and data, it's closer to 110 people. This seems to put the real number closer to 0.2% of the population.

That being said, this type of context-less extrapolation can be dangerous.

Re: Eek, A Male

#134

Post by sarkozy »

Cushman wrote: post #125
sarkozy wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of many studies that demonstrate empirically that women are more empathic than men. My assumption is that the difference relates to genetics but what matters is that there is an observable difference that will have an impact in the real world - especially in the workplace - which is what this discussion is about.

Found the supplemental PDF: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7075/extref/natur... The second page has a graph of individuals by "empathic concern" (ignoring the brain activity axis, which is what the study is actually demonstrating...) Note that although women, on average, have higher scores than men (a mean difference of 2 on a scale of 1-20), almost half of the men have scores higher than the female avera…

The study indicates women, on average, have higher empathy scores than men. But other studies have demonstrated similar results. Such as this one:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/r2k31831780w417w/

On the "Empathy Quotient" test, the average female score is 47 while for males it is 42.

So, no, I'm not using "a slight statistical association to rationalize" either (a) "a cultural prejudice" or (b) "bigotry" (which you unfairly accused me of in an earlier comment). I could just as easily accuse you of denying the weight of the scientific evidence because of misogyny but that would be silly. The fact is, there is room here for reasonable debate and your attempt to paint this issue in black and white is unjustified.

Re: Eek, A Male

#135

Post by Cushman »

axod wrote: post #128
Cushman wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Let's debate. Do you have a study documenting the case of a statistically significant number of children raised in an environment where every single other person isn't constantly treating them like they should behave a particular way because of their genitals? Because otherwise you're just redemonstrating the already well-documented fact that children tend to behave the way they are expected to behave, which…

> like they should behave a particular way because of their genitals? Come on. There are countless studies that show the biological differences between the sexes and the way their brains work. It's not rocket science. If you believe in evolution, surely you believe that over time, the female and male brains have developed for different functions. I've never understood why people disbelieve this and try to pretend tha…

I'm discussing one such study in a sibling thread. I'd be happy to do the same here if you have one you feel is persuasive.

Re: Eek, A Male

#136

Post by waqf »

Cushman wrote: post #113
waqf wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, sarkozy doesn't have a study proving his point (or proving your straw-man version of his point) and you don't have a study proving yours. Now, why is it that you are entitled to an opinion and he is not?

As far as I can tell, the person bringing up "countless psychological studies" has a responsibility to provide their own evidence. I have no problem with other people having opinions. I likewise have no problem with publicly disapproving of opinions which I think are socially harmful. I don't have any illusions about changing a bigot's mind, but I can hope that others will see my disapproval and think that bigotry is…

I'm intrigued by your willingness to use and to admit to using the metric "socially harmful" (as opposed to, say, "correct") to judge an opinion.

For example, what would you do if your own opinion (that is, your honest best assessment of what the truth actually was) was an opinion you judged to be socially harmful? Would you continue to hold the opinion, but try to avoid mentioning it? Would you publicly lie about your opinion? Would you express the opinion and expect public disapproval? Would you intentionally try to change your own opinion somehow?

Re: Eek, A Male

#137

Post by natnat »

drblast wrote: post #76
aaronroyer wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the phenomenon is undeniable. Commercial after commercial shows a bumbling, silly, or wrongheaded male creating a problem that an eye-rolling female armed with the advertised product is able to solve. I used to find this mildly annoying. I thought that surely our society is sufficiently advanced that we might accept roughly equal occurrences of each gender as the goats in these commercials without it see…

The ads and sitcoms aren't targetting men. That's why they don't care if you're annoyed. The commercials say a lot more about women than they do about men. Watching the commercials, it's hard to deny that a lot of women must like feeling superior to men, and that feeling will eventually cause them to buy a product. Why this patronizing and sexist tactic works on anyone but a 13-year-old girl is a mystery to me, but i…

Ads that target men are a lot worse, IMO, than ads that target women. Have you ever seen a commercial for GoDaddy.com? They typically involve lots of blonde women with huge tits doing vaguely sexual things. The same goes for ads for Bud Light and most sports.

Ads targeted to men are just as, if not more, patronizing and sexist. One wouldn't think they would work on males older than 13 years old, but they apparently do.

Re: Eek, A Male

#138

Post by Cushman »

sarkozy wrote: post #123
Cushman wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, the person bringing up "countless psychological studies" has a responsibility to provide their own evidence. I have no problem with other people having opinions. I likewise have no problem with publicly disapproving of opinions which I think are socially harmful. I don't have any illusions about changing a bigot's mind, but I can hope that others will see my disapproval and think that bigotry is…

Why are you calling me a bigot? Is it possible you could find a less offensive way of engaging in this discussion? I would appreciate it. I also disagree with you, after all, but have not resorted to calling you names.

I apologize— I didn't mean to call you a bigot personally, so although I do feel that sex prejudice is a very important and undervalued issue in our culture, I'll admit it was a poor choice of words.

I was merely trying to elucidate the broader point that shaming can be appropriate in the case of "differences of opinion"— after all, bigotry is just the extremity of the belief that one's personal prejudice is well-grounded in fact.

Of course I appreciate that you're willing to discuss this civilly, and I hope you'll forgive the hyperbole.

Re: Eek, A Male

#139

Post by axod »

Cushman wrote: post #135
axod wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like they should behave a particular way because of their genitals? Come on. There are countless studies that show the biological differences between the sexes and the way their brains work. It's not rocket science. If you believe in evolution, surely you believe that over time, the female and male brains have developed for different functions. I've never understood why people disbelieve this and try to pretend tha…

I'm discussing one such study in a sibling thread. I'd be happy to do the same here if you have one you feel is persuasive.

Show me a study that proves that men and women think in exactly the same ways and that there are no biological differences in their programming.

I really can't understand how anyone who accepts evolution (Surely most people), but doesn't accept the idea that perhaps the female and male minds have evolved and optimized to different things.

Given that we have obvious and numerous physical differences, it seems terribly unlikely that we have no mental differences. Especially given that physically and internally the sexes brains differ quite a lot (size, weight, number of neurons etc).

For example:

  Number of neocortical neurons (females) = 19.3 billion
  (Pakkenberg, B., Pelvig, D., Marner,L., Bundgaard, M.J.,
  Gundersen, H.J.G., Nyengaard, J.R. and Regeur, L. Aging
  and the human neocortex. Exp. Gerontology, 38:95-99, 2003
  and Pakkenberg, B. and Gundersen, H.J.G. Neocortical
  neuron number in humans: effect of sex and age. J. Comp.
  Neurology, 384:312-320, 1997.)

  Number of neocortical neurons (males) = 22.8 billion
  (Pakkenberg et al., 1997; 2003)
Males were traditionally hunters, which is why they have greater spacial abilities. Women were traditionally carers, which is why they have greater communicative and caring ability. This isn't cutting edge stuff. Look up the numerous studies. Look at the anecdotal evidence.

I think that if you disagree with the above, there's no point continuing. It'd be like trying to argue with someone who denies evolution.

I completely get that we should not discriminate UNFAIRLY based on any attribute of anyone. But to deny obvious differences that clearly exist is just silly.

Re: Eek, A Male

#140

Post by sarkozy »

Cushman wrote: post #138
sarkozy wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you calling me a bigot? Is it possible you could find a less offensive way of engaging in this discussion? I would appreciate it. I also disagree with you, after all, but have not resorted to calling you names.

I apologize— I didn't mean to call you a bigot personally, so although I do feel that sex prejudice is a very important and undervalued issue in our culture, I'll admit it was a poor choice of words. I was merely trying to elucidate the broader point that shaming can be appropriate in the case of "differences of opinion"— after all, bigotry is just the extremity of the belief that one's personal prejudice is well-gro…

Apology accepted. It's been an enjoyable discussion and I appreciate that you feel strongly about the issue.
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