Eek, A Male • Hacker News Board

Re: Eek, A Male

#141

Post by axod » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 12:04 AM UTC

boons wrote: post #80

sarkozy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More men are not needed in childcare/teaching because women are naturally - from birth - better at the type of empathy and communication that is required in those fields. It's the same reason that women excel in technology management roles (while generally being inferior in technical roles because of inadequate training or aptitude, exceptional cases like Marissa Mayer excepted). Even a woman with average communicati…

Are you saying women are, on average more empathethic/ have better communication skills, or women are innately 'guaranteed' to be better in these areas? Any man with the skills needed to perform well in childcare(especially) and teaching jobs are discouraged from taking those jobs, as any woman would 'naturally' be better in such roles (not to mention the significant 'pedo scare' barrier). This is the sort of latent…

That's silly. Most men will naturally also be able to lift heavy weights. That's not to say women aren't allowed to work in jobs where you need to lift big weights, but it'll be more natural for most men.

The sexes have obvious physical differences, as well as obvious mental differences. To deny either of them is stupid.

Re: Eek, A Male

#142

Post by Cushman » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 12:04 AM UTC

sarkozy wrote: post #134

Cushman wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think you see my point here. You can't use statistics to judge individuals.

If that study were a hiring situation and you figured that, since "women are more empathic than men", you should only consider the female applicants, you would be tossing out nearly as many qualified applicants as you'd be keeping. It's just not a useful thing to say based on that data.

When you add in the fact that saying "women are more empathic than men" contributes to the broader social condition that empathy is encouraged in women and discouraged in men, and that mean women get a free pass because they're women and caring men can't get a job teaching children because they're men, it becomes a positively damaging thing to say.

And what do you get out of it?

Re: Eek, A Male

#143

Post by Cushman » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 12:08 AM UTC

axod wrote: post #139

Cushman wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Okay, again, you said there were studies. That means you have to find them, not me.

Re: Eek, A Male

#144

Post by axod » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 12:18 AM UTC

Cushman wrote: post #143

axod wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Okay, again, you said there were studies. That means you have to find them, not me.

Google is your friend. I'm not about to spoon feed you common sense, just like I can't be bothered to find studies that show the earth isn't flat right now.

And if you're serious, you have to respond to all my other points. For example:

  Do you believe that evolution exists
  Do you accept that women are physically different to men
  Do you accept that womens brains are different to mens

We're talking scientifically here. On average.

Is it racist to say most basketball players are black due to them being on average taller? Or maybe you think their extra height is caused by their environment :/

Re: Eek, A Male

#145

Post by Cushman » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 12:19 AM UTC

waqf wrote: post #136

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…

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 yo…

Ooh, that's a fascinating question. I'm not completely sure how to respond, since I think the two are tied together— I use a more or less evidence-based definition of harm.

I mean, looking at it logically, thinking that all women want to have children wouldn't be prejudiced if all women actually did want to have children. Would it still be wrong to say so? I can't see how.

I guess if my assessment of the facts were greatly opposed to my values it'd probably imply some more significant cognitive dissonance.

Re: Eek, A Male

#146

Post by btilly » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 12:30 AM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #133

btilly wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Different studies have found very different figures. The link that I provided includes a range of figures from different studies for different kinds of pedophiles ranging from 5.2-150 victims/pedophile. One of the reported numbers for non-incarcerated heterosexual pedophiles was 19.8. It looked like a reasonable figure, so I used it (after rounding).

It should be noted that I started drawing my figures with the assumption that I'd find that the number was hopelessly overinflated. When I got done I could have easily picked other numbers to show that. But I decided to be honest and report the first set of reasonable numbers that I tried.

Re: Eek, A Male

#147

Post by Cushman » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 12:31 AM UTC

axod wrote: post #144

Cushman wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, again, you said there were studies. That means you have to find them, not me.

Google is your friend. I'm not about to spoon feed you common sense, just like I can't be bothered to find studies that show the earth isn't flat right now. And if you're serious, you have to respond to all my other points. For example: Do you believe that evolution exists Do you accept that women are physically different to men Do you accept that womens brains are different to mens We're talking scientifically here.…

Your world may in fact be flat: http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/spence/Feng,%20Spence,%20...

Since you mentioned spatial awareness, you'll probably like this one. Having both groups play Medal of Honor for only 10 hours total narrowed the spatial gender gap into nonsignificance, with women benefitting much more than men. The benefits were still visible months later, without any instruction to continue playing.

Considering the wildly different toys and games we encourage boys and girls to play from infancy through adolescence, to say that this calls the idea that the spatial gender gap is genetic into question is quite an understatement.

So, uh... got any evidence that it is?

Re: Eek, A Male

#148

Post by axod » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 12:34 AM UTC

Cushman wrote: post #147

axod wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is your friend. I'm not about to spoon feed you common sense, just like I can't be bothered to find studies that show the earth isn't flat right now. And if you're serious, you have to respond to all my other points. For example: Do you believe that evolution exists Do you accept that women are physically different to men Do you accept that womens brains are different to mens We're talking scientifically here.…

Your world may in fact be flat: http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/spence/Feng,%20Spence,%20... Since you mentioned spatial awareness, you'll probably like this one. Having both groups play Medal of Honor for only 10 hours total narrowed the spatial gender gap into nonsignificance, with women benefitting much more than men. The benefits were still visible months later, without any instruction to continue playing. Con…

So, decided to completely ignore all my points and evidence about physical differences in the brain between the sexes, evolution etc eh?

I think we're getting nowhere here. You clearly have an agenda to follow rather than a desire to find out the 'truth'.

I'm also guessing from your comment about toys that you don't have kids yet.

Re: Eek, A Male

#149

Post by Dylanlacey » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 12:35 AM UTC

natnat wrote: post #137

drblast wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

It gets worse if you're a gay male. Then you either get patronizing and clueless "Straight" advertisers that try to appeal to stereotypes, OR you get patronizing and embarrassing "Gay" advertisers deciding that what you need is men. Buff, BUFF men.

Fuck off. Maybe it's just that advertising is mostly patronizing. Sad for their industry, really... Why not learn how to relate to people?

Re: Eek, A Male

#150

Post by Cushman » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 12:36 AM UTC

axod wrote: post #148

Cushman wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your world may in fact be flat: http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/spence/Feng,%20Spence,%20... Since you mentioned spatial awareness, you'll probably like this one. Having both groups play Medal of Honor for only 10 hours total narrowed the spatial gender gap into nonsignificance, with women benefitting much more than men. The benefits were still visible months later, without any instruction to continue playing. Con…

So, decided to completely ignore all my points and evidence about physical differences in the brain between the sexes, evolution etc eh? I think we're getting nowhere here. You clearly have an agenda to follow rather than a desire to find out the 'truth'. I'm also guessing from your comment about toys that you don't have kids yet.

No, really, you should read that study. It directly contradicts what you're saying in an experimental, repeatable way.

It's totally wild.