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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: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday March 17 2015, @04:42PM
That's a definite "yes". Some reasons why:
- An impoverished white person will escape punishment for many crimes that will land a black person a criminal conviction and jail time. That criminal conviction will effectively bar that black person from most kinds of jobs, most public assistance programs, and most places to live.
- An impoverished white person with a high school diploma has roughly the same career prospects as a black person with a college degree.
- An impoverished white person who eventually gains some wealth and career success is able to "pass" as someone with my kind of privileges and thus gain access to many of the advantages I have.
- An impoverished white person can rent or buy a place to live in more and nicer neighborhoods than a black person of equivalent wealth (and yes, a trailer park is better than the 'hood in a lot of respects). If a white person chooses to buy a home, they will pay a lower interest rate and thus get a better price than a black person with equivalent income and assets.
- Just a name more popular among white people like "Michael" or "Anne" gives a person a significant advantage over a name more popular among black people like "Tyrone" or "Latisha". The white-sounding named person is likely to get more interviews for jobs, for example, even with otherwise identical resumes.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday March 18 2015, @01:05AM
I would like to add to Thexalon's reply that none of this is ever a 100% either/or situation. It is statistical in nature. You can always find exceptions. But statistically, the scenarios Thexalon proposes are overwhelmingly the case.