From: mec6@quads.uchicago.edu (rini)
Subject: Re: Sexist and 50/50 (Was: Elle MacPherson causes rape?)
Reply-To: mec6@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 21:53:08 GMT

payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne) writes:
>mec6@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

>BTW, tangents are legal, and OK. Many good topics start this way. 

Totally agreed here, Rich. 

>>You seemed to argue "some feminists seem to think feminism is about
> ------------------- (just leave my arguments in when you discuss them)
>>double-standards, while others don't."  So?  What's the point?  Is there
>>something relevant or contentious there?
> 
>I said that it may be true that sexism is about double standards, but not
>all feminists view sexism this way. And some feminists are for double 
>standards
>(when they are in their favor), and some are against them all. But I do
>not think it would be valid to say that feminists are against double
>standards, lest we be guilty of generalizing from a few examples.

Okay fine.  Nothing contentious here.  Nothing particularly new.  I have
no problem agreeing with this basic truism. 

Now, do you feel better that I've addressed your tangent?


[on 50/50 representation....]

>OK, I will retract the 'inherently sexist' claim. But the assumption that 
>there should be 50/50 ratios is not supported. I am not aware of any evidence 
>which would support this contention. Do you have any?

The 50/50 is just an assumption with just about as much support as
any other assumption you want to make.  It doesn't strike me as a 
particularly harmful assumption to start with, so I don't sweat over
it.

>While the 50/50 split may not be based upon sexist assumptions, it will
>be used to enforce sexist hiring/firing/promotion practices, that is, those
>based upon nothing more than a male/female body count. It has already
>been used for this purpose.

Yes, but this, IMO, is a separate issue.  IMO, a slanted body count is
a symptom...  treating the symptom seems misguided.

>>>Counting the number of males and the number of females is not a measure
>>>of sexism. 
>>
>>Why not?  Can you show me a case where it clearly is not?
>
>One more time, since you deleted ALL the previous explanation.
>Perhaps I should do as you have done, tell you to go back and re-read
>the post where it was explained. Then you would have some idea of how
>well this sort of explanation works.
>
>1) It may be true that (SEXISM --> a non 50/50 split) - (sexism implies a
>   non 50/50 split)
>
>2) It is not true that (a non 50/50 split --> SEXISM) - (a non 50/50 split
>   implies sexism)
>
>You are not MEASURING SEXISM by this metric. And without looking into the
>situation (as needs to be done anyway), you have no way of knowing what,
>if anything, it means.

Well, I think if you talk to any social scientists, you'll find that no
tool can measure any social phenomenon perfectly.  They use a number of
different tools.  Since we know that sexism is correlated with slanted
sex ratios, the sex ratios themselves are a handy and quick way of 
gathering information.  

Lot's of sciences are like this.  Karposi's sarcoma (I'm sure I've 
mangled the name) is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition
for the diagnosis of AIDS, but it's surely a helpful indicator.

>Alright, show me that a 50/50 split says something about the absence of 
>sexism. 
>It is not clear that this follows. I cannot off the top of my head come
>up with a situation to fit this bill. All sporting events of this type
>are fixed by quota. 

Yeah, it's hard to come up with real-life examples, simply because I 
don't know where to look for the absence of sexism!!

I look forward to the day, however, when [more or less] half of the 
orchestra is male and half female, when [more or less] half of the fine
chefs are male and half female, when a secretary is as likely to 
be male or female.... etc.

>>In the absence of sexism, I have no reason to believe that higher
>>education, voting, driving, business ownership, child-custody, housework,
>>grocery shopping, tax filing, airplane flying, drug use, and a 
>>bizillion other things would not tend to be something in the
>>neighborhood of 50/50....
 
>And you have no reason to belive that a 50/50 split would result either.

Sure I do.  There is no good evidence that women are inherently dumber, 
can't drive as well, can't run finances as well, are better parents, clean
toilets better, know how to shop better, are worse pilots etc etc etc.
This despite the fact that people have been *looking* for this evidence
for hundreds of years!  

>Can you provide some evidence to support this? I am not saying that it
>would not happen so much as we have no reason to have -any- expectations
>in this regard.

Well, if the lack of evidence of snuff films is enough to emphatically
reject their existence, I think the lack of evidence here works similarly.


>>What I argued was this:  Women and men are held up to different ideals.
>>(To crudely sum it up, women are beauty/sex objects, and men are wallets.)
>>That is sexism for ya.  Different social expectations for different sexes,
>>right?
>
>Again, we have proof by stereotype. The problem with the dumb blonde
>stereotype is that it is usually wrong. Are you willing to claim that
>this is just -the way things are-? 

Right, stereotypes are mostly wrong.  That's the whole problem.

>BTW, if women -do- objectify men as wallet-objects in the manner you
>claim men objectify women, and they right or wrong? Or just oppressed?

IMO, it's not very nice.

>>Now, if it were the case that *both* men and women were expected to be
>>beauty/sex objects... (in which case, we would probably see comparable
>>numbers of men and women in nudey calendars).... where's the sexism?
>
>It's in your starting assumptions. That you change them does not change
>the reasons why men and women buy calendars. 

How/when/where did I change them?  


[the non-sexist world....]

>>It would be a world where people weren't expected to things (or not do
>>things) because of their sex.  I would certainly expect a more equal
>>representation in most things.  
>
>Would you expect -equal- representation though? What does "more equal" mean?
>40/60? 55/45? 38/62?  Where would you draw the line at which you would make
>accusations of sexism blindly?

I would never make accusations of sexism blindly.

rini
Newsgroups: alt.feminism