This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Classic Theme
Thottbot Theme
Australia has their first female Prime Minister, and people are celebrating. Should they be?
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
Heckler
Do you know for a fact that equal numbers of men a women want to lead a given country? DO you know for a fact that equal numbers of men and women are qualified to lead a given country? Do you know for a fact that women lead any differently than men?
Okay, I figured those were rhetorical. No, of course I don't (which is exactly why I default to the total population split, 50/50)
So, then why are you so quick to keep dismissing that one could be better suited for politics than the other?
Either their equal in every way, or they aren't.
I'm not dismissing it, I'm saying I don't see any reason for it -- and you haven't provided any. Your reply has been that I can't provide a reason against it, and that should be enough. And then we get into discussions about statistical representations in subsections vs. the whole and I come up with 50/50 based on that, and it's not good enough, and you ask me again...
Do you have anything (even something as flimsy as my statistical argument) to support something other than 50/50?
You say 2 and you say 5...I just put them together and get 7.
It's more like I say 2, then I say 5, then you 'just put them together' and get 49.629.
Given what you've presented, you'd have to agree with what I labeled as "you are saying."
No, I wouldn't, for the reasons I've tried to explain. But if you've convinced
yourself
you're not a hypocrite in this regard, we can move on because I'll just be repeating myself if I try to change your mind (which isn't supposed to be the goal anyways).
What makes 50/50 so great? 8% of the human race is left-handed? Should we get 50 southpaws in Congress? 50% is just and arbitrary number. It looks pretty because it's right in the middle, but that doesn't make it any less arbitrary.
I bet the percentage in Congress
is
about 8% if your numbers are true, because it doesn't (and shouldn't) have any impact on the selection process, so the statistical representation in the subset should be representative of the whole. (which is why 50/50 is not arbitrary at all, since that is the male/female split in population)
Like I said, I'm not saying we should require 50/50, I'm just saying that a step in that direction indicates good things, to me. If there were only 2 lefties in Congress and a 3rd got elected, I'd probably smile. Statistical parity makes me happy.
Edit:
Going to sleep =) Thanks for the discussion.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
I'm not dismissing it, I'm saying I don't see any reason for it -- and you haven't provided any. Your reply has been that I can't provide a reason against it, and that should be enough. And then we get into discussions about statistical representations in subsections vs. the whole and I come up with 50/50 based on that, and it's not good enough, and you ask me again...
Do you have anything (even something as flimsy as my statistical argument) to support something other than 50/50?
I don't need to provide any reason for it, because I'm not arguing for it. There are 4 possible views here regarding politics:
men > women
men < women
men = women
we have no evidence for any of the above
My very position is that there is no evidence. You agreed by not answering the questions.
So, to tout 1-3 as what's "right" or "just" is to base it off of something besides evidence (prejudice).
No, I wouldn't, for the reasons I've tried to explain.
It's a very very simple line of thought.
Premise 1: You think Congress should be divided 50/50 based on sex
(You stated this yourself)
Premise 2: There is no evidence to prove or disprove that one sex might be more suited for politics than the other.
(You agreed with this)
Premise 3: Men might naturally be more suited to politics than women.
(Derived from Premise 2)
Premise 4: If something is naturally suited for some activity, to deny it that activity would be to deny the thing its nature.
(Metaphysics + definition)
Premise 5: To deny men access to politics would be to deny his nature as man.
(3 + 4)
Premise 6: Dividing Congress 50/50 would be to deny a portion (equal to half the percentage by which men are more suited to politics) of men access to politics.
(Basic reasoning and mathematics)
Premise 7: Dividing Congress 50/50 would be to deny man his nature.
(5 + 6)
Conclusion: You think man should be denied his nature.
(1 + 7)
I bet the percentage in Congress is about 8% if your numbers are true, because it doesn't (and shouldn't) have any impact on the selection process, so the statistical representation in the subset should be representative of the whole.
And guess why? Because left-handedness doesn't affect desire for office. It doesn't affect qualification for office. Both righties and lefties in fact lead the same way.
There. I just answered all my questions. So I can now make a claim:
Righties and lefties are equal in the political realm.
You can't do the same for sex.
Edit: Bed time for real.
..and I just read my last line out of context when I can to edit this.
That's what she said.
Post by
Haxzor
ihate JuliaGillard and I hate Tony Abbott, so I'm voting Greens next election
Heh, I think a lot of people are joining you on that front.
Me... my electorate is 73-75% Liberal (Phillip Ruddock). My vote isn't going to do a thing.
yeah same here.
The Northern Beaches is a huge liberal strong point
Post by
375923
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Heckler
Premise 3: Men might naturally be more suited to politics than women.
So by substituting 'Women' into Premise 3, we can change the Conclusion to 'You think Woman should be denied her nature'? If your explanation is
this
pliable, then I guess I could agree with it, except I'd probably pick something different for Premise 3 altogether (probably something that's
not
sexist, by the definition I gave earlier). Your Premise 3 has no basis whatsoever in fact, or in anything I said, it's just a wild hypothetical that is
necessary
to reach your Conclusion.
Any
conclusion can be reached by this method, so I'm not sure what purpose it serves.
Regardless, we're arguing two completely different things here. As a justification for non-sexist 50/50 baseline:
Let's say we want to set up a representative body of 500 people from the 300 million or so in the U.S. Let's start with the
knowable fact
that there is a 50/50 split between males and females.
Now let's split the country into even chunks. Let's set some minimum level of qualification (probably in terms of education, interest, and willingness) to serve as a representative, let's make the arbitrary assumption that we have 3 million people who meet this qualification. So we split the country into chunks large enough that each chunk contains 2 qualified representatives.
Here's the catch of this analysis. We don't reveal anything concerning the candidates' gender to the voting public. The only information available would be their level of education, their age, and their spoken and/or written works to serve as a basis for their views. They are identified by something other than their name, and elections are held in each chunk, cutting the number of candidates in half.
We continue this process (or a derivative of it) until our pool of 3 million representatives is reduced to 500. If there is no correlation between gender and the qualifying attributes, you would expect about 250 of this body to be female once the masks were removed (as you would expect 40 to be left handed, and on and on).
Since the qualifying attributes were willingness, level of education, and interest -- I think it would be safe to say there's no
solid
evidence that gender has anything to do with these three things, and therefore
in the absence of that evidence, 50/50 becomes the baseline assumption for the makeup of the representative body
, from a purely statistical standpoint.
There is no prejudice here
, it's simply a translation of the
knowable fact
that we started with, into the subset.
I'm not sure what it would mean to be 'more suited' to politics, as your 3rd Premise implies men
may
be. However, I do not believe that gender
should
have any positive or negative effect on a person's ability as a political representative, or at any political skill (at least none I can think of). I'm using the word 'should' here because clearly there is a disparity somewhere -- men make up 80%+ of the House and Senate, I don't believe this is because 'Men are better suited to politics.' Women don't run as often, and when they do they don't win as often, and the reasons for that are probably based in cultural sexism of one form or another. Which leads me again to my simple point that I've been trying to make since the beginning: a step
toward
statistical parity is a good thing (at least in politics).
Now, if you could prove to me (or even just suggest) that there were some actual physical link between gender and ability in politics, then I wouldn't be making these arguments. For example, I wouldn't say that the NHL should be 50/50 by gender, because there are clearly physical differences which lend themselves to hockey ability (at the same time, i think it would be silly to
prevent
women from joining the NHL if they had the ability).
If all you're attacking is that in the absence of such proof, I'm wrong to default to the 50/50 gender split of the entire population as to what I would expect to see; then I'll stop trying to argue because clearly my math-ish reasoning isn't sufficient for you, while it's plenty sufficient for me. It's a simple statistical translation, nothing more. In addition,
accepting anything other than a statistical translation indicates some prejudice that one gender may be superior to the other
-- since this completely lacks evidential support, this serves as a decent definition for sexism, no matter which gender you think is 'better.'
However, I think your argument is that you're not saying either is better, just that there's not enough evidence to say
anything
about it at all, so by choosing to say 50/50, I'm being sexist. To me, this (1)
ignores
the
known fact
of the 50/50 split that naturally exists, (2)
does not
seek to explain the disparity that
does
exist, and (3)
does nothing
to advance the thought process behind the entire conversation.
Because left-handedness doesn't affect desire for office. It doesn't affect qualification for office. Both righties and lefties
in fact
lead the same way.
I'd like to see the research that led you to your conclusions about handedness, and how they differ from
anything
I've said about gender. Your own questions said "do you know for a fact" -- so tell me, how do you know, for a fact, that what you said about handedness is true? Where's the
proof
? Shouldn't handedness be subject to the same inspection that you are giving gender? Or are you simply willing to look at the empirical evidence and make the assumptions you made concerning handedness, but not gender. If so, explain to me how this isn't a double standard.
Post by
Squishalot
However, I think your argument is that you're not saying either is better, just that there's not enough evidence to say anything about it at all, so by choosing to say 50/50, I'm being sexist. To me, this (1) ignores the known fact of the 50/50 split that naturally exists, (2) does not seek to explain the disparity that does exist, and (3) does nothing to advance the thought process behind the entire conversation.
1) The 50/50 split that naturally exists is not necessarily relevant to their ability at lawmaking / being representative, just as it's not relevant to babymaking (which does have a relevant biological bias).
2) Your argument of 50/50 doesn't seek to explain the disparity that exists either. So this is a moot point.
3) It does advance the thought process by narrowing out one option - making a temporary conclusion before it is warranted. With no evidence, you could suggest that no conclusions are warranted.
Since the qualifying attributes were willingness, level of education, and interest -- I think it would be safe to say there's no solid evidence that gender has anything to do with these three things
I think they're horrible assumptions you're making there.
1) Willingness. Presumably, this refers to the act of moving to the relevant capital city and being away from friends/family for reasonably long periods of time. It probably also includes working fairly long hours, especially around major policy periods and times of international turmoil. For senior positions, it would involve long hours year-long around.
Are men or women more likely (intrinsicly or by society-driven choice) to give up such contact with friends and family for a position in Congress?
2) Education. Not trying to suggest that spatial awareness is important in politics (though geography is important, as demonstrated by Ms. Palin), but I recall that studies have shown that men are biologically more capable of dealing with 2d and 3d spatial problems than females are, due to the way our brains are wired. (This was big news, when it was announced, there was finally a biological reason why women can't reverse park and why they spin maps around.) There are probably other studies involving other fields of education and learning, with positive marks on both sides of the gender line.
If any of these studies are true, then automatically, there is a biologically driven bias between the sexes that would suggest that one or the other is more educationally capable of lawmaking and being a representative.
3) Interest. I don't actually really see this as a separate thing to (1), to be honest. But realistically speaking, I don't think there would be an even split. Blame it on political culture. But who's to say that political culture is 'wrong'?
Post by
GoGoGodzilla
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Patty
Politics is somewhat difficult for women to get into, compared to men - if you were to look at figures for the UK Parliament's MPs, for example, out of the 650 seats available; 507 are men and 143 are women (
source
). Now, this might be because men are generally more qualified than women for the job, but sexism still exists, especially in
workplaces
. I
personally
think it's a combination of more men being qualified and having 'better' agendas for their constituencies, but also because the 'glass-ceiling' is still present and acting as a barrier for women.
However, seeing as Australia has just gained its first female Prime Minister - well done to her, she must have been qualified for the job! But...I wouldn't expect another one for some time. (eg.
Margerat Thatcher
, only UK female PM - although her policies were quite harsh in many cases.) As, I think, a General Election is scheduled in a few months for Australia, the main test would be for her to be
elected
into power. But, I digress, I think that the whole 'let's pat you on the back' is a bit like the election of Obama, because he was black (which is probably one reason why he was elected); to show how the country has moved on from racial/(in Australia's case) sexual discrimination.
Post by
Heckler
1) The 50/50 split that naturally exists is not necessarily relevant to their ability at lawmaking / being representative, just as it's not relevant to babymaking (which does have a relevant biological bias).
Right, my point was that in my view, there's no clear-cut solid proof (as in babymaking) that can be applied to the selection process I laid down that would result in a skewing of the split. In reality, I think there are differences in all 3 of my criteria due to gender, but none of them are intrinsically natural parts of gender -- they are only due to cultural sexism. (which I think you basically agreed with)
2) Your argument of 50/50 doesn't seek to explain the disparity that exists either. So this is a moot point.
I think it does, insofar as they must at least be examined in order to come to the conclusion (or rather, identified and neglected). I already identified at least 2 things that led you to discuss how there may be a gender bias in both, although not a provably intrinsic one. To me, this is a pretty good start for finding the source of the cultural sexisms that do exist (that is,
assume they don't exist and compare statistical data along the way
as a method for thinking about cultural sexism). The "we don't know anything so we can't assume anything" is akin to saying "after a full examination of the penny, it is wholly improper to guess that the chance of heads vs. tails is 50%" - I don't see a path for further discussion there.
3) It does advance the thought process by narrowing out one option - making a temporary conclusion before it is warranted. With no evidence, you could suggest that no conclusions are warranted.
Keep in mind the only reasons I'm saying 50/50 is because I'm trying to form a "best guess" as to what I would
expect
to see once I unmasked all the participants (similar to how one may give a penny a cursory glance before deciding it's probably 50/50, as I stated earlier). It doesn't mean that it's correct, so I'm not trying to say that (clearly, in the current Congress, it's not). It simply provides a 'measuring stick' of sorts that can then be used to find sexism (similar to how HsR reached the conclusion that handedness has nothing to do with politics -- because the 8% exists in both. I think this is an incomplete analysis, but it provides a good starting point).
This has been my point from the beginning and most of my hypotheticals have been to try to convey this. I'm going to try to write this carefully, so read it carefully (consider my coin flip analogy earlier):
In my mind, I see no
intrinsic
difference between the genders that lends itself to political skill, and therefore I would expect Congress to be 50/50, simply as a statistical translation. Because this is
not
the case, it warrants a thought process as to why. In this thought process, since I still haven't discovered anything intrinsic, I have made the assumption that the statistical deviation in the data is due to some other
cultural pressure
. This pressure is
necessarily
a form of sexism, as it targets the genders differently. I think these pressures are worth identifying, studying, possibly eradicating from above. But none of those steps are necessary to make it okay to smile when you see society take a
voluntary
step in the direction that would not be indicative of sexist cultural pressures.
I think they're horrible assumptions you're making there.
I agree, but your listed reasons are all either non-intrinsic (1), or not provable (2) as it pertains to future humans.
Just keep in mind, I'm not trying to
prove
50/50, I'm trying to form a default baseline that would be
most probable
in a situation where no provable intrinsic steering factors exist. I completely agree with the things you said in part (1), and to me, they serve as reasons to smile that a female PM was chosen (that is, possible proof that at least one sexist cultural pressure is on the decline).
But realistically speaking, I don't think there would be an even split. Blame it on political culture. But who's to say that political culture is 'wrong'?
Almost exactly my point from the beginning =) I'm not even saying it's wrong for certain, but until it's identified I'm going to place it in that category, because I don't
understand
the source. If it's not intrinsic, then I don't want to have to tell my daughter "No honey, you're just naturally worse at politics than men, you better pick something else if you want to have a fair shot." So until someone can point to a provable intrinsic difference between the genders that explains the current 80/20 split, then I'm going to keep assuming it is due to sexist culture, and I'm going to also assume that is a bad thing. And therefore, I'll smile when society voluntarily takes a step away from that sexism.
On that note, congratulations to her anyway. It’s not like she was the deputy because they just grabbed someone off the street; I suspect it took some work to get to where she is now. Effort and achievement should be congratulated, imo. Though I’m sure someone will find a way to make that wrong somehow.
If you work up the motivation to read all of our wall-of-texts, your questions are the very basis of the disagreement between myself, Hyper, and Squish. My simple statement from the beginning is that a step towards equality is something to be happy about, in some regard. From here, it's all turned into a question of whether or not men
should be
equal to women in politics, since there's no proof that they are even in 'skill' (although everyone also agrees there's no proof that they aren't, either).
Post by
Dragoonman
@gogogodzilla.
I do not believe it should be celebrated, nor abandoned.
Instead it should be a fact on the calender and in the history books.
Post by
GoGoGodzilla
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
...
...
...
...
should be
...
You can't make a "should be" without some basis.
How is your prejudice that men and women are "most probably" equal, when it come to politics, any different from Bob's prejudice that men are "most probably" better at it than women?
You're making a judgment call that has no business being made.
Post by
Heckler
You're making a judgment call that has no business being made.
lol, what I'm trying to do is set a statistical expectation to which I can compare reality in the absence of any intrinsic steering factors. But I've tried explaining this multiple times, in multiple ways, and this is the only thing you saw worthy of a reply (and your reply was a simple restatement of previous arguments with no reference to my rebuttal to them), so I'm done with this conversation with you. Thanks for the insight.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Expecting something =/= it should be that way.
Again. You're making a judgment, by saying X should be Y.
I expect Judgment Day not to arrive tomorrow. But I have no evidence to support it either way, so I don't go around saying it
shouldn't
arrive tomorrow.
Post by
Heckler
Anytime I've said "should be" I meant from a statistical standpoint (similar to saying a coin should be 50/50 heads/tails). I'm not making an argument about properness, or correctness. Go back and read all my posts, this is consistent. Maybe I should have said "statistically expected" but I thought my reasoning more than supported this as my point. Maybe you didn't read what I wrote carefully enough, or in the way I intended it to be read.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Anytime I've said "should be" I meant from a statistical standpoint (similar to saying a coin should be 50/50 heads/tails). I'm not making an argument about properness, or correctness. Go back and read all my posts, this is consistent. Maybe I should have said "statistically expected" but I thought my reasoning more than supported this as my point. Maybe you didn't read what I wrote carefully enough, or in the way I intended it to be read.
I flip two heads in a row, I don't say that it
should have
been a heads and a tails. I might have
expected it
, but there is no law in the universe saying that it should have been that way.
Post by
Heckler
lol, okay, let's get into a grammatical argument then.
If you see a sealed envelope that contains the results of 100,000 coin flips of a fair coin, you would expect it to say 50/50. I'm not making a past tense argument, I'm making a future tense expectation. It should be 50/50 when I look at it, or to make the correction you would like me to make -- I would statistically expect the result to be 50/50.
I'm not arguing that "should be" is the proper way to say this, I don't care about that in the context of this discussion. That's a grammar / structure argument whose outcome has no bearing on what I was trying to say, regardless of how proper I said it. I accept that you were confused by it, which is why I'm trying to explain it now.
I'm saying that if "expected" means to you what i was trying to convey by "should be" then you should go back and read my posts and insert the words "would be statistically expected" wherever I said "should be" -- and then maybe you'll better understand my point, because that's what I've meant all along.
Not once was I trying to make any assertion about "laws in the universe" dictating the structure of Congress, or coin flips.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
lol, okay, let's get into a grammatical argument then.
If you see a sealed envelope that contains the results of 100,000 coin flips of a fair coin, you would expect it to say 50/50. I'm not making a past tense argument, I'm making a future tense expectation. It should be 50/50 when I look at it, or to make the correction you would like me to make -- I would statistically expect the result to be 50/50.
I'm not arguing that "should be" is the proper way to say this, I don't care about that in the context of this discussion. That's a grammar / structure argument whose outcome has no bearing on what I was trying to say, regardless of how proper I said it. I accept that you were confused by it, which is why I'm trying to explain it now.
I'm saying that if "expected" means to you what i was trying to convey by "should be" then you should go back and read my posts and insert the words "would be statistically expected" wherever I said "should be" -- and then maybe you'll better understand my point.
So you're admitting that you're sexist?
You're basing expectations of sex based on no evidence, on this prejudice that they are equal.
It's not an issue of grammar...it's an issue of no matter which term you use, your position defeats itself.
It's no different than the guy who expects the black guy he sees on the street to mug him or expects the woman to be docile.
Post by
Heckler
But I do have evidence, which I've already gone through and you haven't replied to. So I'm not sure if you just don't accept it, or if you just didn't read it.
I select 500 people by some statistical qualification. If this selection criteria is not affected in any way by gender, then I would expect the same proportion in the 500 as in the whole. I'm not making any assumptions about whether the selection criteria is or isn't affected by gender, I'm simply saying that
if
it isn't, I would expect 50% women.
There's no
equality
argument in there anywhere, it just statistical truth that if a subset is selected from a whole, any properties that have no relation to the selection criteria would be expected to have the same proportion in that subset as in the whole it was selected from. 50% is not based on a claim of equality, and is not an arbitrary number somewhere in the middle -- its a translation from the entire population, which is known to be 50/50.
Again, I'm not trying to say anything about whether it's proper or correct that the Congress should be 50/50, I'm saying that in the absence of any steering factors, it would statistically expected to be so.
I'm also not saying that these steering factors don't exist, I'm saying that if they are not intrinsically part of being male or female, that they are just cultural pressures -- and unless I fully understand why the sexism in these pressures is justified, I will assume it isn't.
It's no different than the guy who expects the black guy he sees on the street to mug him or expects the woman to be docile.
This proves that you have no idea what I'm trying to say.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
It's no different than the guy who expects the black guy he sees on the street to mug him or expects the woman to be docile.
This proves that you have no idea what I'm trying to say.
It shows that you don't know how statistics work.
You get to judge things based on your statistics, but the guy on the street can judge things on his?
Statistically, a given black person is more likely to mug you that a given white person. But since we have no evidence showing that race really is or is not the cause of that, we call a judgment based on that "sexist."
Statistically, body taken from a society would match the society as a whole (specifically in the ratio of men to women). But since we have no evidence showing that sex is or is not relevant, I would call a judgment based on that "sexist."
You're expecting it to be 50/50 because you're uninformed and/or prejudiced. The guy who expects it to be 90/10 does so because he's uninformed and/or prejudiced. You don't have any evidence of what any of the connections between sex and politics might be. It's like saying you expect the answer of x + y to be 23 because you get that answer a lot on other math problems.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.