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Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has posted a blog entry on gender discrimination. His goal is to gather as many links as possible on all sides of the issue; he intends to try to summarize what's out there in a subsequent post. His blog entry includes a few interesting, possibly insightful comments, for example:
"Some men are bullies and assholes. And most men are assholes at least some of the time. When men are bullies and assholes to each other, we interpret it as exactly that. But if I observe those same bullies and assholes mistreating a woman, I interpret it as sexism. I assume others see it the same way.
"The other day a good friend who works as a massage therapist was describing a time in her past she was a victim of gender discrimination. The story sounded convincing to me. Then I asked if she knew I would not have considered her as my massage therapist if she were a man. Cricket noises."
"My larger point today is that any discussion of gender in the workplace is like two blind people standing on an elephant and arguing whether the elephant is a sandwich or a bar of soap. Both are 100% wrong. That includes me."
Personally, I find Adams' writing to be frequently interesting — he at least tries to find his way around traditional blindspots. Sometimes he even succeeds. Since gender discrimination is so often a topic in technical fields, perhaps Soylentils will find this of interest...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday March 16 2015, @02:50AM
I work for a division of a large corporation, regularly interacting on both personal and professional levels with people in wide variety of departments.
The amount of sexism complaints I have heard about events that transpired while I was there? Nil. Nada. And I work for a pretty frisky bunch of people in an environment where hallway flirtings are commonplace.
I did hear that my division settled a lawsuit initiated by a male ex-employee, who was able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his female boss and otherwise all-female department had discriminated against him because he was a man. And knowing all of the women who work in that department leaves me with little surprise at hearing all that.
Sexism is indeed a problem in many environments. However, I think people (and especially men) who raise the issue the most are seriously trying to get laid, and that's why I think (among other reasons) prostitution should be legalized. Unfortunately, in practise, the type of woman to go out of her way to be pissed off at things like that is also the type of woman who treats men like Adams as pets while consummating with the very types of men they claim to despise -- men with the balls to challenge 'em.
Sometimes I think this is divide-and-conquer pop culture bullshit to cause Americans to argue with each other and not collectively argue with the government that's fucking them -- but that's another political discussion altogether.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday March 16 2015, @03:01AM
Lame self-reply, but worth mentioning since Adams addressed the issue of massage.
I have fucked 2 massage therapists and have fucked a friend of one, and have made out with yet another. However, there was one I didn't fuck, the only one who actually gave me a massage.
I hurt my back a couple years ago and it just so happened that a friend had a gift certificate for a free massage at Massage Envy, a massage franchise. When you fill out the form, you are asked if you want a male or female to massage you. I didn't think much about it at the time, but reasons for asking that question are strictly sexual. Being the horndog I am, I chose a female, and discovered subsequently that most massage therapists are way underpaid considering that each massage costs around 90 dollars there. I told her to concentrate on my lower back (she asked) and she not only ignored it, but inflicted massive pain to everywhere else. Make no mistake about it, massage therapists can fuck your shit up if they want. I was fucked from the get-go because she assumed that I was a either a horndog or homophobe for requesting a female and it certainly didn't help that I laughed when she timed her hand movements to the shimmering twinkle of new-agey bullshit music they play to relax you during the massage.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Monday March 16 2015, @06:53AM
Sounds like you got a lousy massage therapist...
I had the pleasure of being the "practice dummy" for a woman friend who was training as a massage therapist. She explained a lot of the training to me. In her case, at least, it was really pretty serious training including a lot of study of muscles, tendons, etc.. I remember also discussing the sexual aspects of it. Of course most guys would rather have a woman running her hands all over them. The therapists are perfectly aware of this, and there were quite a number of little tricks of the trade for making it subtly clear to the customer that it the massage was going to be just a massage.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.