Feminism Thread.

[Mark]

Clarisse's book is well-written and will definitely be interesting to anyone who's been involved in PUA. It's kind of a bizarro version of "The Game," except written by a feminist woman. She gets sucked pretty deep into it, attending bootcamps and conferences and whatnot (as a guest, not a customer). Her reactions are always interesting and well thought out. She also talks about how getting involved in PUA affects her own love life, both in good and bad ways.

[crazyhorse]

@ Chaos, you're still believing the "wage gap". It's a myth, it has been debunked over and over. Yet mainstream media keeps believing it.

check out warren Farell's book "why men earn more". You can even read the first 10 pages on amazon.com. You'll quickly understand why there is a difference in pay.

The wage gap exist because women make different choices then men. They tend to work more part time and they usually work in social professions. It sucks that these earn less, but don't blame men (the patriarchy, society) for your own choices.

http://www.american.com/archive/2010/apr...lity-check

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http://goodmenproject.com/featured-conte...tionships/

Yesterday I read this article by Clarisse. I'm actually amazed that hey see gender roles everywhere. Personally I've been approached quite frequentlly. I've had it all happen: girls giving me their numbers, girls stepping on my toes, girls dancing around you, girls putting their assess on you etc. that type of stuff.

What Clarisse noticed is something that isn't only experienced by men. Some women get too intimidated with an agressive approach as well.

That

and perhaps she was just playing out of her league?

But what annoys me is this quote:

"As Hugo Schwyzer, a senior professor of gender and women’s studies at Pasadena College in California, says: “Men often say that they have no problem with an aggressive woman, until they actually meet one—and find themselves confused. What might seem flattering and relieving in theory becomes discombobulating in practice, as some men (by no means all) flounder without … a clear-cut role. Many men claim that it is burdensome to have to risk rejection by always taking the initiative—but many discover that they feel equally burdened rather than liberated by having to let go of the culturally familiar role as dominant partner.”

Immediately it are men who are having trouble with gender roles, because some women find out that their advances arn't being met by a guy. Sorry girls, but if a guy is put in a choosing position, he's just as picky as you.

The explanation given by Hugo Schwyzer, is one that makes me question his sanity.

[FirstAidKit]

(04-06-2012 09:37 AM)crazyhorse Wrote:  @ Chaos, you're still believing the "wage gap". It's a myth, it has been debunked over and over. Yet mainstream media keeps believing it.

check out warren Farell's book "why men earn more". You can even read the first 10 pages on amazon.com. You'll quickly understand why there is a difference in pay.

The wage gap exist because women make different choices then men. They tend to work more part time and they usually work in social professions. It sucks that these earn less, but don't blame men (the patriarchy, society) for your own choices.

These choices don't exist in a vacuum though... women are still expected to pick up most of the slack for childcare even when they are working. No one ever questions male CEOs about how they manage juggling a career and a family - people just assume the wife is taking care of it. Also a lot of jobs designated as 'women's work' such as childcare, care of the elderly, care of the sick has been undervalued and underpaid (or not paid at all, just expected that it will be done by them) no matter how difficult or time consuming it is.

[Chaos]

@crazyhorse, I can assure you it is NOT a myth, at least not in Spain. I only have to look around at my job to know it. Women have a harder time getting higher salaries... It's changing but it's still there.

[FirstAidKit]

I saw one contributing factor to the wage gap is that when negotiating salaries, men will typically ask for more and not accept the first one, or two offers, whearas women are more likely to not push for a higher salary and accept something lower. Though since I read this I go in much higher on my asking price

[crazyhorse]

(04-06-2012 05:47 PM)FirstAidKit Wrote:  

(04-06-2012 09:37 AM)crazyhorse Wrote:  @ Chaos, you're still believing the "wage gap". It's a myth, it has been debunked over and over. Yet mainstream media keeps believing it.

check out warren Farell's book "why men earn more". You can even read the first 10 pages on amazon.com. You'll quickly understand why there is a difference in pay.

The wage gap exist because women make different choices then men. They tend to work more part time and they usually work in social professions. It sucks that these earn less, but don't blame men (the patriarchy, society) for your own choices.

These choices don't exist in a vacuum though... women are still expected to pick up most of the slack for childcare even when they are working. No one ever questions male CEOs about how they manage juggling a career and a family - people just assume the wife is taking care of it. Also a lot of jobs designated as 'women's work' such as childcare, care of the elderly, care of the sick has been undervalued and underpaid (or not paid at all, just expected that it will be done by them) no matter how difficult or time consuming it is.

I agree that work in social sectors is usually enormously underpaid. My mom helps people with dissabilities and she has already reached her wage platform. But in these social sectors, you also have men who work there. So again the reality is far more complex, then simply stating women earn less. Particurarily the reasons for earning less. Women do earn less, but it's entirelly justified by labour market conditions.

In Belgium, women still work more part time then men, on average. That's a huge contribution as to why women earn less.

But once again the reason is economical and not a sexist one, which is often the basis for stating such arguments.

(04-06-2012 06:08 PM)Chaos Wrote:  @crazyhorse, I can assure you it is NOT a myth, at least not in Spain. I only have to look around at my job to know it. Women have a harder time getting higher salaries... It's changing but it's still there.

Two of my professors (one a male and the other one a female) have even debunked this in their lesson. The first one is a professor of economics and the other one is a research professor. The first one has stated the same arguments, women often work in social secotors and usually work more part time. The other one said that their claims can't be generalized.

Here's how they measured it (in Belgium): they make the sum of the men's wages and the women's wages. They look at it and notice that there is a difference between the two. So they conclude that there is sexism going on.

That's a pretty invalid way of making a statement. In Belgium how much you earn depends a lot about the CAO-rules of your current sector. Not every sector is the same.

You said that all you need to do is look at your company?

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Men-Earn-More-...0814472109

Read this book. You don't even have to buy it. You can read the first pages and you'll find the awnser to your company's situation.

I quote:

"sometimes we promote a man fater then we would a women, given here the same title. But we pay people with less years less in the company'. page XVI in the book.

there's your explanation. The book goes further in depth about it. But I urge everyone to look at these claims with a healthy sense of criticism.

(04-06-2012 06:13 PM)FirstAidKit Wrote:  I saw one contributing factor to the wage gap is that when negotiating salaries, men will typically ask for more and not accept the first one, or two offers, whearas women are more likely to not push for a higher salary and accept something lower. Though since I read this I go in much higher on my asking price

good for you!

[Chaos]

@Crazyhorse, I don't understand. If you look at page 8 of the book you're suggesting you'll see a table called The 20 ocupations that pay the most, which is a list of 20 jobs and the median payment for men and women. Except for two jobs, women are paid significantly less in each of those jobs, so it seems the book makes the point for me.

It should be easy to make a study of this. Pick a random sample of companies, take out 20% of the best payed for both sexs, 20% of the worst payed for both sex and compare the median pay for men and women for each sector. With a wide enough sample the results should be pretty valid so it's not THAT difficult to get.

[crazyhorse]

(04-06-2012 06:48 PM)Chaos Wrote:  @Crazyhorse, I don't understand. If you look at page 8 of the book you're suggesting you'll see a table called The 20 ocupations that pay the most, which is a list of 20 jobs and the median payment for men and women. Except for two jobs, women are paid significantly less in each of those jobs, so it seems the book makes the point for me.

It should be easy to make a study of this. Pick a random sample of companies, take out 20% of the best payed for both sexs, 20% of the worst payed for both sex and compare the median pay for men and women for each sector. With a wide enough sample the results should be pretty valid so it's not THAT difficult to get.

Page XVI, that's not page 8 . It's about a conversation between a business men and Warren Farrell. The book gives reasons as to why men earn more. That's true, men do earn more, but it's entirerely justified by economic reasons and it's not based on sexism. That's the point I'm making.

Men often work longer hours and often work in more dangerous circumstances. Men oftend tend to work in the hard sciences, not the social sciences. You can't take into account these factors by simply looking at the 20% best payed people in a sector and compare them with the 20% worst payed people.

My point is, that it's entirely normal that men get paid more. Not because they are men, but because there professions are more of economic value. Is it fair? no, it's not. The same way that professors in the social school get paid less then people in the business school. Why? capitalism and the law of economics and not sexism.

sidenote: When I say men I mean on average. That is the case with statistics, the averages doesn't say anything about an individual. So it's perfectly reasonable for a women to earn more then a man.

[Mark]

As someone who actually read the entire book, Warren Farrell's argument is that yes, men are paid more, but when adjusted for overtime, maternity leave, and women quitting their careers to raise children, the gap closes to almost even. The other points Farrell makes is that men work more dangerous jobs (mining, demolition, construction), and they also work higher risk, higher reward jobs (financial trader, real estate investor, entrepreneurs, etc.). So the extreme high rewards of those professions skew the numbers in their favor.

Feminists have found ways to debate some of Farrell's conclusions and numbers. I honestly haven't looked into their arguments enough to see how much weight they hold.

There definitely are still some industries that do have a pay gap.

What's interesting as well is that the famed "Halo Effect" (the psychological effect where better-looking people get better jobs and more raises) is significantly more pronounced for women than men.

[Mark]

Also, this article came out the other week. It's pretty solid: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...59420.html

Points out a couple things, all of which I agree with:

1) Women under 30 are better off then men under 30, over 30 men are probably still better off.
2) The sexual revolution has helped women but not necessarily made women happier
3) Despite the new subset of problems the sexual revolution presents, it's unlikely women would ever want to go back.

[machiavelli]

The thing is, even if it's women's "choices" (note scare quotes) that lead to the wage gap, those choices are not made in isolation. For example, if, as feminists contend, women are still excepted to carry a greater burden of childrearing duties, then of course that means that they will be unable to put in as much at the workplace to get ahead; ergo wage gap.

But Schwyzer *is* insane. I can't stand that idiot.

[crazyhorse]

Firstaidkit,

Those housekeeping statistics are indeed correct. But I wouldn't put choices between brackets. Frankly, I think women these days are independent enough to decide for themselves what they want. After all if you can march on a street and call it slut walk, you should be confident enough to assert yourself back at home.

I actually think that women gladly take up these roles. I'm not saying that they have to do this, and i'm also not implying that every women is the same. But you can definetly not claim the opposite and that is that women are being forced into this position.

I hear this all the time from the feminist camp. If women would have to work less around the house, they would have more time for their careers. If women wouldn't have to take care of the children, they move more quickly up the corporate ladder. Well in the scandinavian countries, they tried this. The result? 10 000 extra jobs in child care. In the same regard, you can't claim that women who take up part time work, are being forced into this. You might think that it serves men up to this point, after all they can work harder and earn more money. Not precisely. New law coming up in Belgium, a man should now be able to pay for his women's lesser pension in terms of carreer opportunities that she has missed.

What I don't understand is this entire "we are independent - vicitim mentality paradox"

[FirstAidKit]

I don't think it's a victim mentality to acknowledge that there are some things that are a disadvantage or lead to choices being more difficult, and try and make things more equal. For example, it's becoming more common for workers to offer flexible working hours for women (and for men) which makes juggling work and family life easier. Basically, I think if the accomodations can be made reasonably, they should be made. I also think a lot of change comes from attitudes changing in the long term - I don't think any guys I date would expect me to clean up after them.

[crazyhorse]

(04-07-2012 10:54 AM)FirstAidKit Wrote:  I don't think it's a victim mentality to acknowledge that there are some things that are a disadvantage or lead to choices being more difficult, and try and make things more equal. For example, it's becoming more common for workers to offer flexible working hours for women (and for men) which makes juggling work and family life easier. Basically, I think if the accomodations can be made reasonably, they should be made. I also think a lot of change comes from attitudes changing in the long term - I don't think any guys I date would expect me to clean up after them.

Work-life balance is a pretty common topic these days. Whether it's inspired by a feminist ideology, hardly doesn't matter. If we can make it better for everybody, then why shouldn't we do it? Unfortunately this doesn't adress the "we are independent - victim mentality paradox".

The only thing that matters is "what do you value the most?". If you value your carreer the most, then you go for your carreer. Whereas if you value your family the most, then you choose for your family. I really don't see what's so difficult about that? You see this pattern over and over. When a women is very ambitious, she usually dates a guy who's very family oriented and vice versa. Therefore I believe that it's entirely a myth that flexible working hours will all of a sudden make all (emphasis on ALL) women high achiever's. I'm not saying that it won't make things easier, but if you value your family more then you value your carreer, then it won't matter whether something is easier or more difficult for you.

I still believe that on average (emphasis on average) women will be more inclinded to take on a nurturing role as opposed to men. This doesn't mean that the roles can't be switched, but I don't see that happenning on such a global level. I also don't see what is bad about these "roles", if people are happy that way. Then why bother?

A lot of what feminism preaches is based on dogma. Child care, which is another popular topic among feminists, didn't gave women more access to high ranking positions. Instead, it created 10.000 extra jobs in child care, all sponsored by the government (see Scandanivian countries for an example of this). Yet they keep preaching it over and over.

It's your right to state that you don't expect to clean up for a guy. But I actually know a lot of women who love it when their husband doesn't do these things (no joke). We're talking anno 2012 here. So what does that show us? Even after years of feminist "revolution", some women are still more likely to choose these roles. Have we been blinded by sheer dogma to the point that we demonize everything that differs from it?

What annoys me enormously about this, is that nurturing roles in our society are looked down upon. These days, it’s like you only count when you either have a high-ranking position somewhere or when you are working towards it. Why is that? We shouldn’t forget, that these jobs are often times the hardest to perform. Whenever something is being provided as a service, people always expect you to be ready for them 100% of the time. We expect the service and we no longer appreciate the kindness of the person who performs it. This is where dogma comes into play. Gloria Steinem called homemakers “parasites,” “Inferiors” and “dependent” creatures who are still children. Yet at this point we don’t see this as sexism or discrimination. We still see it as the liberation of the female, who’s still being crippled by the manacles of segregation and by the chains of discrimination.

How far should we drift in order to forget who we are? How far have we been drifting in order to ignore our own personal choices by endorsing dogmatic beliefs. Perhaps true independence is where you can make your own choices. Whether you will get critiqued for these, doesn’t matter. People will always critique you, in the same way that people will always have expectations about you. Don’t you have this as well? Towards your friends? Towards you children, your parents or just people that you share a connection with? It’s precisely for this reason that we can’t allow true indepence to be influenced by the critique we get from others.

True indepence is where you set yourself free of these expectations and you endorse the criticism that comes with it. For else, you aren’t an independent person, but you are merely a reflection of a dogmatic way of thinking.

[crazyhorse]

seriously no response?

come on guys!!!! This is my favourite thread

[YMZ]

Not quite sure if this is the most appropriate thread for this, but here goes.

I just finished Clarisse Thorn's book recently after seeing it mentioned it here a bunch of times. It was thoroughly enjoyable and extremely interesting to see dating/gender dynamics from a woman's perspective after reading too much PUA than I care to admit. In truth, it's my first exposure to feminism and changed some ways I think about consent, connections, and emotions as it relates to dating. I don't think I would've been as open to her ideas if they were presented in a more traditional, preachy sort of way.

From here, I was hoping to get a few more recommendations on the subject of the dating culture (gender dynamics and other related stuff) from a female perspective, from noted feminists or otherwise. I don't read enough female writers in general, and I feel like Clarisse's book raised my sensitivity to the concerns of women in the dating culture. As a result, I'm more empathetic and have been having better connections. I'd love to continue this trend. Thanks guys, books/blogs/websites all sincerely welcome

[Creatine Dreams]

Well, I gave you a like crazyhorse for your post!

[FirstAidKit]

(05-11-2012 01:57 AM)YMZ Wrote:  Not quite sure if this is the most appropriate thread for this, but here goes.

I just finished Clarisse Thorn's book recently after seeing it mentioned it here a bunch of times. It was thoroughly enjoyable and extremely interesting to see dating/gender dynamics from a woman's perspective after reading too much PUA than I care to admit. In truth, it's my first exposure to feminism and changed some ways I think about consent, connections, and emotions as it relates to dating. I don't think I would've been as open to her ideas if they were presented in a more traditional, preachy sort of way.

From here, I was hoping to get a few more recommendations on the subject of the dating culture (gender dynamics and other related stuff) from a female perspective, from noted feminists or otherwise. I don't read enough female writers in general, and I feel like Clarisse's book raised my sensitivity to the concerns of women in the dating culture. As a result, I'm more empathetic and have been having better connections. I'd love to continue this trend. Thanks guys, books/blogs/websites all sincerely welcome

I'm really enjoying seeing how this site has opened people up to more female perspectives, it's like the opposite of me coming here to check out male ones. I'm not well versed in the classic feminism canon but Tiger Beatdown's Feminist Reading List gives a good rundown of first wave to present day - if you're going to choose one author, I'd recommend bell hooks.

I'm going to round up some specific bits of writing that I like - will post back here later in the weekend.