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Post by Komori on Jun 21, 2013 11:51:36 GMT -5
Also, I'm a Christian, and I don't understand why Christians would complain about being discriminated against. o__o Like guys, the Bible says in Matthew 5:10-12 that "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven" So the case is either: A) the persecution and unfairness towards Christians is all false perceptions, or B) it's real and you get awesome presents for it in Heaven. Either way, complaining isn't the proper response. It's as if these people don't even read the Bible!  *Appears* Okay, I haven't been participating here despite observing, but I just had a joking observation. Does that mean that racism on the part of religious christians (or those familiar with that passage you pointed to) is actually a positive thing, since they're blessing those they're discriminating against? No, because this verse is Jesus speaking, so when He says "for My sake," that specifically means those who are following Him, ie, Christians. It's not justification for Christians to go and persecute others. When you said "complaining isn't the proper response", I'm not sure if you meant just Christians. If you did, then I'm kind of on the fence about what you said there. But I'm just going to point out that if you belong to group undergoing serious discrimination like Native Americans, homosexuals, Muslims etc., than yes, complaining IS the proper response. Otherwise no one will do anything about it. Also, even if you believe that it doesn't matter since you're going to Heaven, you should still complain since you don't want it to continue for future generations after you're gone. Yes, I am specifically referring to Christians not complaining, hence why I was using a Bible verse to show where the Bible says to "rejoice and be exceedingly glad." If Christians are following the Bible, which they should be, then they shouldn't be complaining. And complaining about persecution is VERY different from trying to correct poor perceptions of Christianity. When groups like Westboro are doing horrible things in the name of your God, that is a WHOLE other kettle of fish, and isn't remotely reverse discrimination. |
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Post by M is for Morphine on Jun 21, 2013 11:53:34 GMT -5
Okay, I haven't been participating here despite observing, but I just had a joking observation. Does that mean that racism on the part of religious christians (or those familiar with that passage you pointed to) is actually a positive thing, since they're blessing those they're discriminating against? It says right in the quote "persecuted for righteousness" and "for my sake", it's pretty clear on being specifically about the persecution of Christians. So, pretty thin joke. |
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Post by Stal on Jun 21, 2013 12:56:42 GMT -5
I've been debating saying anything...but why not.
First and foremost, know that I find discrimination itself abhorrent. Or at least what I consider discrimination.
See we discriminate everyday. We discriminate against religions that want to practice human sacrifice. We discriminate against murderers who just want to murder. We discriminate against pedophiles. There is society-approved and legal discrimination that occurs every day.
So the question becomes, what discrimination isn't okay?
What do we consider sacred and holy? Everybody really has their own view of it (also influenced by societal pressures and legal concerns)
To me, once a standard is established, it should be upheld across the board no matter who else gets protected by it. If we say it's illegal and wrong to discriminate based on race, that should apply to the majority race as well.
I don't believe in protected classes that get special treatment just because they're a minority. I also find that behavior distasteful.
I know the reasoning for it (systemic/institutionalized racism, need to force an arbitrary representation level at all areas of life, etc). None of that matters to me and I truly believe it causes more problems than it's worth. I've personally seen "majority" members who were otherwise reasonable get burned one too many times and start descending into irrational racism as a kneejerk reaction--it's not been pretty. Therein a program designed to "stamp out" the impact of racism has actually created more.
There's even been studies that have shown that across the board, a person is more psychologically geared towards being hostile to a person/group of people they're actively told they can't be hostile to/have to like/etc. This is true across races, cultures, sexes, etc.
I just don't buy into the philosophy that giving anyone special treatment or privilege because of arbitrary traits is a worthwhile goal. No matter how minority or majority they are. Those are not my values.
Do not mistake me as forgiving or excusing the real issues with sexism and racism and other isms that exist. (Although too often some things are considered racism/sexism that are just generally not). There are real problems that need to be fixed. But I don't think we're going about it the right way.
Although I don't think "equal representation in proportion to population" is a worthwhile goal either. For one thing it comes from a false assumption of such things being a standard distribution, and they're often not. Just for example, an INFJ in the MBTI is about ~1.5% of the population. But based off what I can find, out of that group 2/3 are likely to be women. INTJ, on the other hand, is just a bit more common (~2 to 2.5%), but about 2/3 to 5/6 of it are men!
Brain chemistry impacts a lot of personality traits, and personality traits impact a lot of our interests and desires.
Culture, etc, also has a lot of impact on /what/ people like to do. I'm all for women going into the sciences and STEM fields. But in my personal experience (which I know is only anecdotal, yes), the girls I know that are interested in it are far fewer than guys. It's not that they've been discouraged, or they hate it, or see it as a guy's thing. They just find themselves drawn to and interested in other pursuits. Social sciences (Econ, Psych, etc) seem over represented in my circles.
(Again that's generalization going off the women I know personally, no data to back this up, but I recall reading statistics in this vein before)
I also know a far number of girls who have outright admitted things like "Honestly? I think it's great I have the options that have been provided me, and the choice to do what I want, but I really just want to be a stay-at-home wife and handle the household." (Something I see men express a lot less often)
I'm an economist. I believe in the power of the market and the power of choosing for oneself. We can open the market up and let people have the freedom to choose their path. But trying to force it to reach an outcome that we've decided it should be is ridiculous. The market will work itself out.
(Although again, that's assuming that some of the other systemic issues are resolved; i.e. I think a resume review should be blind at first; no name just a contact number. Let the skills speak for the individual, not cultural perceptions or the desire to stick with the "familiar")
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Post by Stal on Jun 21, 2013 15:20:16 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2013 15:40:21 GMT -5
Carrie, I get what you were saying, but I didn't mean that Christians faced as much unfairness as minority groups, because they don't. I was just saying I see why they would complain. See we discriminate everyday. We discriminate against religions that want to practice human sacrifice. We discriminate against murderers who just want to murder. We discriminate against pedophiles. There is society-approved and legal discrimination that occurs every day. So the question becomes, what discrimination isn't okay? Here's what I think (I personally call this the "Kaladoria philosophy" since "Kaladoria" is my made-up word for paradise in my made-up fantasy language): No one should, for any reason, discriminate against a person who isn't causing harm to anybody else. Murderers and pedophiles hurt other people. People who happen to have a different skin color than the majority aren't causing harm just by being African-American or Latino or any of the other millions of nonwhite races. People who are homosexual, bisexual, or transexual (sp?) aren't harming people by being that sexuality. People who practice religions or lack thereof don't harm anyone if they don't sacrifice innocent lives. These are seven "commandments" I made for myself to live by and I think everyone else should live by these too: 1. Be true to yourself. If something in your heart feels right for you, do it.
2. Love those who love you.
3. Never give up hope.
4. Respect all living things. If you wouldn't want it done to you, don't do it to anyone else.
5. Don't judge anyone else by their lifestyle. Remember that what works for one person may be impossible for another.
6. Respect Mother Earth. The planet is not your personal wastebasket or your MegaBloks to knock over and rebuild to your liking.
7. Do things you enjoy. Life your life to the fullest.
In a nutshell, they basically say "Do whatever you want but don't hurt anyone". That's all anyone needs. |
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Post by Thorn on Jun 21, 2013 17:38:05 GMT -5
Like, what? The new Sesame Street? xD
I dunno. I don't think I've been exposed to it enough.
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Post by Nimras on Jun 21, 2013 20:29:26 GMT -5
Culture, etc, also has a lot of impact on /what/ people like to do. I'm all for women going into the sciences and STEM fields. But in my personal experience (which I know is only anecdotal, yes), the girls I know that are interested in it are far fewer than guys. It's not that they've been discouraged, or they hate it, or see it as a guy's thing. They just find themselves drawn to and interested in other pursuits. Social sciences (Econ, Psych, etc) seem over represented in my circles. In my experience, girls are discouraged from going into the sciences and STEM fields, it's just not an overt, obvious thing unless you're brought to it face-to-face. It's something that starts very young, and then gets continued as the status quo. It's subtle, but it's very much there. When I worked in a computer repair shop, I was one of the senior technicians, but every customer who walked in assumed I was the secretary -- so much so that it wasn't uncommon for them to ask me to grab them a cup of coffee while "they waited for the tech to show up." It was very frustrating, often embarrassing, and ultimately why I didn't go on to get my CS degree. Sexism is built into the culture -- so yes, it is sexism, via culture, that keeps women from going into sciences and STEM. Women are "drawn" to social sciences because that's what they get positive reinforcement for studying -- not because women are "naturally" drawn to such studies. To remove the sexism, the culture itself has to change. |
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Post by Komori on Jun 21, 2013 21:53:52 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm with Nim here. It's almost like a chicken and egg problem. There aren't many women in STEM, and therefore few role models for young girls to look to, which means not many of them go into STEM, which means few role models, etc. Heck, the only famous woman scientist/inventor currently alive that I can name is Jane Goodall. I really don't think it's all down to nature, either. There's a study (here: rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/gneezy/pub/docs/gender-differences-competition.pdf) that looked at the competitiveness of the different genders in matriarchal vs patriarchal societies (the Khasi in India and the Masaai in Africa). We usually think of males being just biologically much more competitive than females, but in the women-led Khasi, the women were more competitive than the men. It's an interesting study. Granted, only one, but it does raise the question of whether a lot of these gender roles aren't also influenced by the culture. In the case of your soft admissions because more women are applying to colleges, I don't really have much of a problem with the colleges trying to balance the genders. I mean, the gender-proportions of colleges are definitely something people look at when applying to places, so I don't blame the colleges for trying to be as appealing as possible. I know I wouldn't have wanted to attend a college where the the women outnumbered the men by a large amount. (I mean, even though I didn't get a boyfriend there, I wouldn't have appreciated the increased competition. XD) |
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Post by Stal on Jun 21, 2013 23:51:09 GMT -5
Oh trust me, I know that sexism exists. Nim, I agree entirely. Culture must change. But on one hand I don't believe that the problem is as /bad/ as people make it out to be. But also, I think there' s /better/ ways of handling it. I'm not trying to excuse sexism. It's awful. I do believe systemic issues need to be fixed (as I said before). But I don't think equal representation by population is the best arbitrary goal to aim for.
I /want/ more women to go into STEM fields. Even as a selfish person for wholly selfish reasons I want that. But I think it's best for the economy. And you all know how much I love what's best for that.
I just don't think the current processes and ways of doing it are the best incentives for it or best way of going about it. But then maybe I should clarify that's for the US. I'm all for educating all the women in Africa (it's been shown educating women in Africa is one of the most effective ways of solving their major crises, for example, and it's my favorite solution for a lot of Sub-Saharan Africa... educate the women).
I just don't like inconsistent applications of any philosophy. To that extent, I also hate how current society also doesn't provide for the same opportunities for everyone.
But in my own anecdotal experience, I do know that girls far outnumbered men in a lot of the classes I took for econ and accounting. I can name a few girls that were better at me in both topics, and excelled in it. Those were the areas they drawn to. And they were amazing at it. I have no problem admitting to that.
But all ideas of protective classes go against a lot of my other values. Giving others a leg up, no matter the reason, I hate it.
(And why do people hate economists again? XD )
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Post by M is for Morphine on Jun 22, 2013 5:44:05 GMT -5
But all ideas of protective classes go against a lot of my other values. Giving others a leg up, no matter the reason, I hate it. Yeah man, why should we have to build ramps and crap for the disabled? They should walk around like everyone else. And those Veterans, getting their own special hospitals? That's some garbage. Also let's quietly ignore the fact that as a Christian YOU are a protected class.  |
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Post by Mostly Harmless (flufflepuff) on Jun 22, 2013 6:44:47 GMT -5
*whispers because she doesn't want to get actively involved* We're not necessarily protected. I keep hearing about how intolerant we are and how our beliefs are a joke. But I guess that's the radio station I heard once or twice.
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Post by M is for Morphine on Jun 22, 2013 8:32:18 GMT -5
*whispers because she doesn't want to get actively involved* We're not necessarily protected. I keep hearing about how intolerant we are and how our beliefs are a joke. But I guess that's the radio station I heard once or twice.Protected class is a specific legal term. A protected class is: And being protected legally does not mean protected from criticism. We still have the 1st amendment after all, at least in the US. Obviously the first amendment doesn't cover defamation, but unkind words and slander are not necessarily the same thing. |
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Post by Yoyti on Jun 22, 2013 9:46:19 GMT -5
Okay, Thorn got to it first, but Protected Classes are not distinct groups, and it covers everyone, since everyone by default has a gender race and age. There's really no way around that. Surprisingly, I actually agree with Stal on this point. Sexism isn't as big a problem as it's made out to be (and I'm not sure, but here the agreement with Stal may end), I think. And the problem isn't getting more women into science and tech fields, but rather, taking the women already there and representing them more fairly. My sister is a tech person. Many (actually, most) of my female acquaintances are tech people. If I take a random sampling of tech people with whom I am acquainted, even slightly, surprisingly, girls outnumber boys. Alright, I'll admit to the possibility of a sampling bias, but the problem isn't that they're not there. It's just that they're not prominently displayed. Where's our Nellie DeGrasse Tyson? Our Carla Sagan? Physicist Nina Byers compiled this archive of female scientists (mostly physicists). Only 83 of them, but that's far more than most people can name. There are plenty of women scientists, but not enough famous women scientists, which is why Komori can only name Jane Goodall. But then, Natalie Portman has said "I don't care if [college] ruins my caree. I'd rather be smart than a movie star" (although in the end she managed both) and Mayim Bialik, known for playing a neuroscientist on The Big Bang Theory, is an actual neuroscientist in real life. I just thought I'd get that out there. XKCD and SMBC break! |
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Post by Komori on Jun 22, 2013 9:55:19 GMT -5
See, considering how much worse off a lot of minorities start, giving them a bit of a boost at the minor discomfort of some of the groups at the top, I don't really see that as a problem. And besides, are there really any affirmative actions used to put women into STEM fields at the expense of men? As I understand it, you can declare whatever major you want in college, it's not like there's an attendance cap per major. (But then, I went to art school, so maybe they DO have a cap in regular colleges?) Trying to get women into STEM fields doesn't even seem like anyone else is being discriminated against. Sexism isn't as big a problem as it's made out to be Mmmp, now you done it. |
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Post by Yoyti on Jun 22, 2013 10:15:39 GMT -5
Sexism isn't as big a problem as it's made out to be Mmmp, now you done it. Done what? |
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