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Surprising gender biases in GPT

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Re: Surprising gender biases in GPT

#91

Post by n4r9 »

tossandthrow wrote: post #79
n4r9 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there has not really been a push accepting men as primary caregivers in the family As a father of one year, I disagree with this. There's been steady progress towards giving men the opportunity to take on caregiving duties compared to a generation ago, for example: * Plenty of US/UK companies now offer paternity leave of between 12 and 52 weeks. * I know multiple recent fathers who've used their leave to be primary…

Do you experience that it would be OK to be a stay at home dad? Is that encouraged? While you are absolutely right about the things you list, the motivation is not to accept men as caregivers, but to get women in the workforce.

I feel it would be OK in the sense that my friends and family would accept and support me if that's what I chose to do in my life at this moment. It's definitely socially acceptable in my circles.

Re: Surprising gender biases in GPT

#92

Post by n4r9 »

globular-toast wrote: post #80
n4r9 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The initial movements were surely about equality and human rights. But this seems to have been achieved decades ago. To me it feels like passing laws is one goal; changing social perceptions is a more fulfilling but trickier goal. Studies consistently show, for example, that women continue to take on a larger proportion of household chores and admin, despite both being in full time work. Compare it to racism, or ho…

Sure, I agree, society and law are not often in sync. Sometimes the law changes first, other times society changes first. Going back to the voting rights, prior to ~1830 no women had the right to vote, but nor did more than 90% of men. By 1928 all men and all women had the right to vote. So in that 100 year period men went from We all know about women's suffrage, but nobody seems to mention that it took men about 100…

I'm in general agreement. But that doesn't mean that we should stop talking about feminism. Women's issues continue to be relevant, for example 1 in 4 women has been raped or sexually abused compared to 1 in 20 men. Men's issues are also relevant, for example suicide is three times more common in men than in women in the UK. But neither has to be a distraction from class struggle.

Re: Surprising gender biases in GPT

#93

Post by dTal »

Izkata wrote: post #89
dTal wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. "Man" and "mankind" are already low key deprecated terms, because they reinforce a very strong historical bias towards male being the "default" sex. In this worldview, society is made of men, and women are accessories. Modern language prefers more egalitarian terms like "humans" and "humanity". The parent was arguing for "egalitarianism" in favor of so-called "reverse sexism" - a point of view I am very sympathe…

If we're going to go that kind of linguistic route, then "human" is also just a type of "man". Making "man" still the default. This kind of argument doesn't make sense to me.

The words "human" and "man" are etymologically unrelated. It's just a coincidence they both have m-a-n in them.

Re: Surprising gender biases in GPT

#94

Post by cheschire »

dTal wrote: post #85
cheschire wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m interested what you saw here that I clearly missed when I read it. Were you keying into something with the contemporary effort to replace a lot of language with gender neutral terms?

Yes. "Man" and "mankind" are already low key deprecated terms, because they reinforce a very strong historical bias towards male being the "default" sex. In this worldview, society is made of men, and women are accessories. Modern language prefers more egalitarian terms like "humans" and "humanity". The parent was arguing for "egalitarianism" in favor of so-called "reverse sexism" - a point of view I am very sympathe…

I wonder if this perspective is the path that leads to newspeak.

Re: Surprising gender biases in GPT

#95

Post by globular-toast »

n4r9 wrote: post #92
globular-toast wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I agree, society and law are not often in sync. Sometimes the law changes first, other times society changes first. Going back to the voting rights, prior to ~1830 no women had the right to vote, but nor did more than 90% of men. By 1928 all men and all women had the right to vote. So in that 100 year period men went from We all know about women's suffrage, but nobody seems to mention that it took men about 100…

I'm in general agreement. But that doesn't mean that we should stop talking about feminism. Women's issues continue to be relevant, for example 1 in 4 women has been raped or sexually abused compared to 1 in 20 men. Men's issues are also relevant, for example suicide is three times more common in men than in women in the UK. But neither has to be a distraction from class struggle.

1 in 4 women report having been raped or sexually assaulted compared to 1 in 20 men. I'm not saying it's not a bigger problem for more women, I'm sure it is (after all, there is an entire section of men that get off on making people, especially women, feel vulnerable). But it's easy to get carried away with a subset of a larger problem.

I feel like a lot of feminism nowadays is confused with real issues (like what you mentioned) and the fake "patriarchy" shit which is a distraction from problems unrelated to feminism, namely oligarchy.

Re: Surprising gender biases in GPT

#96

Post by temporarely »

dTal wrote: post #93
Izkata wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to go that kind of linguistic route, then "human" is also just a type of "man". Making "man" still the default. This kind of argument doesn't make sense to me.

The words "human" and "man" are etymologically unrelated. It's just a coincidence they both have m-a-n in them.

"late Middle English humaine, from Old French humain(e), from Latin humanus, from homo ‘man, human being’. The present spelling became usual in the 18th century; compare with humane."

and for man:

"Old English man(n), (plural) menn (noun), mannian (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch man, German Mann, and Sanskrit manu ‘mankind’."

Interestingly enough, Manu was "the progenitor of mankind" and in Persian (which shares roots with Sanscrit) after Islam the equivalent "progenitor" Adam [aa-dam] is also commonly used to intend 'mankind'.

Re: Surprising gender biases in GPT

#97

Post by Llamamoe »

Akronymus wrote: post #77
Dalewyn wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am forever unsympathetic to feminism so long as it's about forcing the pendulum to the other end. As someone who sincerely believes in gender equality, any argument (other than something stemming from unchangable facts of biology) that involves "men" or "women" specifically is hogwash. No, it should be for man as in mankind. Everyone deserves to be treated fairly and equally.

That reminds me of the argument that feminism is for equality. Hell no, it isn't. Otherwise they'd advocate for mens issues as well, rather than taking any mens advocacy as being inherently misogynistic.

The problem is that a lot of the time, at least online, any ground you give to men's issues is almost immediately overtaken by bad faith misogyny with the original, meaningful discourse drowning in it :/

Re: Surprising gender biases in GPT

#98

Post by Dalewyn »

dTal wrote: post #85
cheschire wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m interested what you saw here that I clearly missed when I read it. Were you keying into something with the contemporary effort to replace a lot of language with gender neutral terms?

Yes. "Man" and "mankind" are already low key deprecated terms, because they reinforce a very strong historical bias towards male being the "default" sex. In this worldview, society is made of men, and women are accessories. Modern language prefers more egalitarian terms like "humans" and "humanity". The parent was arguing for "egalitarianism" in favor of so-called "reverse sexism" - a point of view I am very sympathe…

>In this worldview, society is made of men, and women are accessories.

>Pushback against the overwhelming backlog of casual male-dominating sexism that they deliberately exemplified is the entire reason for the "pushing the pendulum the other way" that they attack. Hence their point was immediately undermined.

The actual bigots are the ones crying bigot.

Also, what the sincere fuck. Please get your head out of the toilet bowl and get some fresh air.

Re: Surprising gender biases in GPT

#99

Post by n4r9 »

globular-toast wrote: post #95
n4r9 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in general agreement. But that doesn't mean that we should stop talking about feminism. Women's issues continue to be relevant, for example 1 in 4 women has been raped or sexually abused compared to 1 in 20 men. Men's issues are also relevant, for example suicide is three times more common in men than in women in the UK. But neither has to be a distraction from class struggle.

1 in 4 women report having been raped or sexually assaulted compared to 1 in 20 men. I'm not saying it's not a bigger problem for more women, I'm sure it is (after all, there is an entire section of men that get off on making people, especially women, feel vulnerable). But it's easy to get carried away with a subset of a larger problem. I feel like a lot of feminism nowadays is confused with real issues (like what yo…

No doubt there are some feminists that focus on trivial things, and who get a lot of negative air time especially on TV shows that like to send up progressive ideas.

That said I think patriarchal gender norms are still an issue. It doesn't mean that all women suffer more than all men. But there are social expectations stemming from gender roles where men are perceived as leaders and providers, and women are seen as carers and sex objects. And men and women both suffer as a result. I suspect sexual assault against women is so prevalent precisely because of those patriarchal gender norms. Men are often not guided in how to process difficult emotions, and are conditioned to see sexual conquest as something that makes them powerful. On top of which, pornography consistenly associates sex with a certain level of violence and male dominance. The result is such an explosive cocktail of messages that it's almost predictable that sexual assault and domestic violence is an outcome.

Re: Surprising gender biases in GPT

#100

Post by dTal »

cheschire wrote: post #94
dTal wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. "Man" and "mankind" are already low key deprecated terms, because they reinforce a very strong historical bias towards male being the "default" sex. In this worldview, society is made of men, and women are accessories. Modern language prefers more egalitarian terms like "humans" and "humanity". The parent was arguing for "egalitarianism" in favor of so-called "reverse sexism" - a point of view I am very sympathe…

I wonder if this perspective is the path that leads to newspeak.

You know, that's an interesting question. "Newspeak" in 1984 describes two phenomena welded together: that language influences thought (Sapir-Worf), and that government has levers to influence language (which in the book look quite parochial compared to the modern information age). This casts language itself as a political battleground. Supposing we accept this perspective. Then surely it is imperative that we examine the language that we use very critically? Should we not fear the hidden mind-traps in Oldspeak as much as Newspeak? Might we already be unknowing slaves to some politically expedient worldview?
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