Gender Issues

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I still don't see how this is more efficient than simply letting both men and women into the military based on some relevant criteria like combat fitness.

However, I think this is the basis of our disagreement. You feel that the most important criteria is gender, so that is the first selector. After that other qualities/skills applicants possess would mean they would carry on in the army. I place other qualities/skills ahead of gender, so they are the first selector instead. What do you think?

Let's look at this a different way. Let's just say that all women's eyes, for whatever reason, are incapable of properly looking through a rifle's scope. Not possessing this ability is unacceptable in the army. Therefore, no woman can be in any part of the army where she would have to use a rifle. The limitation is based not on the fact that she is a woman, but because she can't physically use a rifle. If a man couldn't use a rifle either, he would face the same restrictions. Therefore it's not about gender, but about ability. Do you see the difference here?

Maybe I don't see fully what you're talking about. The way I see it, a psychological combat-preparedness that is genetically engrained in a gender may very possibly affect a person's ability in combat. I also don't think it would be very easy to test this, though maybe trainers have techniques that can do it and that I don't know of. But you know some troops (I'm talking about male ones here) just crack under pressure when put in the actual battlefield. They were okay beforehand and in training, but the pressure of actual battle is too much for them. They didn't know it would be like that before it happened to them.

I do think that there is a lot of evidence that men tend to overall be more psychologically prepared for battle than women. Gender, in my view, therefore directly connects to combat ability. Though I accept that there will be variation within both genders and I hope I could allow for that in my country's laws.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I see what you mean now.

We actually know very little about the human brain and how the mind works, so you should be extremely careful about what judgements you make about people based on perceived psychological differences.

Well, in my view there is very strong evidence that there are significant psychological differences between the genders. I presented a good deal already.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Political science is an art, not a hard science. The scientific aspect of this dicipline is the methodology used for surveys, studies, writing papers, etc. Academically, political scientists try to be as rigorous as possible, presenting data with statistical significance etc.

Political science being an art doesn't make it any less valid, but it is important to remember that it is an art, and that means there is a lot in this field (as with psychology, for example) that we simply cannot study properly. This matters. We may never reach an answer to questions like "to what lever does our culture affect political leanings?"

In this thread, you've made a few statements along the lines of "this study shows that women vote for war less often, therefore they should not be in politics," or some such. But what is the scope of the study? What is the sample size? How diverse was the sample size? These things affect what kind of conclusions you can draw from the answers.

I absolutely agree. And in the same Political Science textbook that told me about the observed difference between the voting of men and women, these points about statistical reliability were discussed. They know all of those things and wouldn't put these kinds of statistics or statements in college textbooks (remember I read it in two different books I was assigned to read) as facts if they didn't check out.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

More importantly, consider carefully what conclusions it is appropriate to draw from a study. If the study concludes that women politicians vote to go to war less often, what exactly is that telling you? Be careful not to overreach what the study has actually covered.

I agree. I also have used a variety of sources and forms of evidence to back my conclusions, and I believe that they are all strong. I'm not relying on any single piece, though. I'm not saying, "because this system of male leadership and male fighting role exists in most of our primates, it exists in us too and is biological." Nor am I saying, "because this system of male leadership and male fighting role exists throughout human history across cultures, geographical areas and time periods, it is biologically established." And neither am I making the statement that, "because the Political Science Branch has established through a variety of statistics taken from many diverse countries that have distinctly different cultures and in all of them it holds up that men are more aggressive than women in spite of those different ideological values, we can say that women are psychologically different from men." I'm using all three of those evidences together to draw the conclusions I am, and those are all big, well established sources of evidence. I also have cited some smaller scale sources that add additional evidence to back my conclusions, such as the licensed and published psychotherapist who described how women are more left brain and men more right brain, and the feminist who argued that there is no reliable evidence of any matriarchy having existed in human history, which, if true, would also contradict expectation if one assumed that men and women are psychologically about the same. You see, it's an accumulation of evidence that I'm using, not any single piece alone.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

2. Different Votes for Different Folks

With the women and war example again, let's assume for the sake of argument that women support war less than men. Let's also assume that this is bad for the country.

Lawmakers, then, decide that women will not vote on a bill pertaining to war, while men don't get to vote on, say, whether or not education is mandatory.

Problems with giving adults different voting rights will be endless, and I do mean endless.

I'm arguing that we deny women the right to vote at all, not that we only allow them to vote on certain things. I do think that we would probably do better if their minds dominated certain professions such as health care or education. That's within the profession itself and how it's internally managed. That's not involving issues that would be voted on in state or national elections. Those involve a leadership role that I think the evidence (from biology and history) indicates should be primarily men's.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

A. Women today will never stand for this crap.

Suggesting different voting rights would be political suicide, and if it ever happened, there would be rioting in the streets.

Agreed. I don't think that this will ever get anywhere in the West.

The most I'm hoping for is that my own personal activism in discussing these things with people and perhaps strangling myself by publishing something discussing it is that this may cause some people to show more respect toward our ancestors.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

C. The costs and benefits of this dual voting system.

Let's just say for the sake of argument that the useless data (see below) was actually correct. That means that if women are not allowed to vote on matters of war, the country will trend more towards being in favour of war. However, this does not reflect the wishes of the entire nation, thus defeating the entire purpose of democracy.

Votes always involve a majority winning over a minority. Therefore the wishes of the entire nation are never reflected in a democracy.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Now, if it's not democracy you care about, why bother giving anyone the vote? I mean, if you don't want to know what your people think, why ask?

I believe that men were more genetically, psychologically prepared for leadership than women. And I think that women were genetically, psychologically prepared for other things than men are. So while I care what all the people think, I think that the decisions should be made by the gender most genetically prepared to make them.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Also, your above quote implies that it's bad to not support war. But if you prejudge what the outcome of a vote should be, you again defeat the purpose of democracy - questions at the polls must be completely neutral so that you can allow the country to make up its own mind. By imposing these restrictions, you are defeating this goal.

This doesn't presume that fighting every war or maintaining support for every war is a good thing. However, it says that men are more psychologically equipped for the fighting role and for the decisions involving that role than women are and therefore should make those decisions.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

A note on statistical significance

Statistical significance is important. It decides if data from the group surveyed indicates a meaningful difference in the population as a whole. (More detail on this concept here.)

<stats rant>

Let us examine these numbers:
These numbers are utterly and completely useless. They tell us nothing. Why? Because they are not, say it with me folks, statistically significant. "But," I hear you protest, "Most of the percentages for men are higher then that for women." Doesn't matter, all the numbers are devoid of meaning.

Now, if these numbers are actually significant, give us the real stats and then we'll talk. </stats rant>

Why do you say these numbers are not statistically significant? I've read part 1 of your link (I don't have the mathematical expertise to do part 2, I expect), but I find nothing in there that undermines the significance of these statistics.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Dont do that! Youll blow his gender concepts about females and aggression. Now be a good girl and follow your biological stereotypes. You are allowed to pout and brood and flirt but that’s about it.

Right, what was I thinking? I'll just get my dragon and hole up in my tower, waiting for some testosteron-charged prince to fit me in his bussy rescuing-damsels-in-distress-schedule... I better start practising my swooning.

[Mari]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Dont do that! Youll blow his gender concepts about females and aggression. Now be a good girl and follow your biological stereotypes. You are allowed to pout and brood and flirt but that’s about it.

Hitting works so much better to get the point across

[Mari]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Right, what was I thinking? I'll just get my dragon and hole up in my tower, waiting for some testosteron-charged prince to fit me in his bussy rescuing-damsels-in-distress-schedule... I better start practising my swooning.

Don't forget to practice the fluttering with you eyelashes

[Lief Erikson]

Lol.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Right, what was I thinking? I'll just get my dragon and hole up in my tower, waiting for some testosteron-charged prince to fit me in his bussy rescuing-damsels-in-distress-schedule... I better start practising my swooning.

Don't worry, I'm running late, so just keep coloring in the coloring book... and distract the dragon for me, will ya?

[Tessar]

My voice teacher said he used to know a soprano who, as she ascended into her upper range, would stick her butt out and flutter her eyelashes. The higher she got, the faster she fluttered and the more she stuck it out.


THAT'S one gender difference. I personally, as a male, would never flutter my eyelashes. I'd just stick my butt out.





Okay, I know, I'm horrible.

Uhh... back on topic, all of you! o(>.<)O

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Don't worry, I'm running late, so just keep coloring in the coloring book... and distract the dragon for me, will ya?

Get with the programme, Hector. We're talking girly stereotypes, not childish ones. I'll fill my time with crocheting a scarf for the dragon, though.

You know, for someone who just spent her day breaking up a granite tile floor and dismantling electricity wires, this is starting to become a rather surreal conversation...

Originally Posted by Tessar

THAT'S one gender difference. I personally, as a male, would never flutter my eyelashes. I'd just stick my butt out.

TOO much information, dear. (Or is this difference only because you couldn't find fake eyelashes that matched your complexion? )

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Get with the programme, Hector. We're talking girly stereotypes, not childish ones. I'll fill my time with crocheting a scarf for the dragon, though.

Well...I guess if he's friendly
And by the way: you think you're too old for coloring? I happen to enjoy it when I have nothing else to do.

[Tessar]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

TOO much information, dear. (Or is this difference only because you couldn't find fake eyelashes that matched your complexion? )

>.>

<.<

I admit to nothing.



...

But oh. my. God.

Is it so hard to make eyelashes that are a dark blond, instead of actual brown. OMG. IS IT SO HARD? Do I need to, like, DRAW THEM A MODEL?

[Mari]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Well...I guess if he's friendly
And by the way: you think you're too old for coloring? I happen to enjoy it when I have nothing else to do.

My art teacher used to say that kids who are coloring are just playing around, but adults who are coloring are creating art.
But he had a really weird sense of art.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Maybe I don't see fully what you're talking about. The way I see it, a psychological combat-preparedness that is genetically engrained in a gender may very possibly affect a person's ability in combat. I also don't think it would be very easy to test this, though maybe trainers have techniques that can do it and that I don't know of. But you know some troops (I'm talking about male ones here) just crack under pressure when put in the actual battlefield. They were okay beforehand and in training, but the pressure of actual battle is too much for them. They didn't know it would be like that before it happened to them.

How can you possibly know to what extent, if any, combat prepardness is ingrained in gender? Even the most top-notch military specialists do not currently have a method to test for this. However, combat training emulates as much as possible of the real experience, so any soldier on the battlefield is, to the best of his or her commander's knowledge, ready for combat. (That means men and women.)

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I do think that there is a lot of evidence that men tend to overall be more psychologically prepared for battle than women. Gender, in my view, therefore directly connects to combat ability. Though I accept that there will be variation within both genders and I hope I could allow for that in my country's laws.

Well, before you make this assertion, you'd better pony up that evidence.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Well, in my view there is very strong evidence that there are significant psychological differences between the genders. I presented a good deal already.

I looked at a lot of it, though it has been a while since I've read the early posts of this thread. Data from the field of political science is exceedingly unconvincing in an argument about gender. Political science, like many disciplines, only look at a few aspects of a person. You can't take a political science study and make sweeping statements about every person on this planet.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I absolutely agree. And in the same Political Science textbook that told me about the observed difference between the voting of men and women, these points about statistical reliability were discussed. They know all of those things and wouldn't put these kinds of statistics or statements in college textbooks (remember I read it in two different books I was assigned to read) as facts if they didn't check out.

I suspect you have made conclusions broader than the scope of those studies.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I agree. I also have used a variety of sources and forms of evidence to back my conclusions, and I believe that they are all strong. I'm not relying on any single piece, though. I'm not saying, "because this system of male leadership and male fighting role exists in most of our primates, it exists in us too and is biological." Nor am I saying, "because this system of male leadership and male fighting role exists throughout human history across cultures, geographical areas and time periods, it is biologically established." And neither am I making the statement that, "because the Political Science Branch has established through a variety of statistics taken from many diverse countries that have distinctly different cultures and in all of them it holds up that men are more aggressive than women in spite of those different ideological values, we can say that women are psychologically different from men." I'm using all three of those evidences together to draw the conclusions I am, and those are all big, well established sources of evidence. I also have cited some smaller scale sources that add additional evidence to back my conclusions, such as the licensed and published psychotherapist who described how women are more left brain and men more right brain, and the feminist who argued that there is no reliable evidence of any matriarchy having existed in human history, which, if true, would also contradict expectation if one assumed that men and women are psychologically about the same. You see, it's an accumulation of evidence that I'm using, not any single piece alone.

Yes, but all three of those arguments are very much overreaching themselves.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I'm arguing that we deny women the right to vote at all, not that we only allow them to vote on certain things. I do think that we would probably do better if their minds dominated certain professions such as health care or education. That's within the profession itself and how it's internally managed. That's not involving issues that would be voted on in state or national elections. Those involve a leadership role that I think the evidence (from biology and history) indicates should be primarily men's.

It's 11pm and I'm moving tomorrow and I haven't packed yet (heh), and there's a lot more I'd like to say about this.

So just two quick things then: So you would leave men's and women's voting rights as they are now then?

And, don't forget that while you can make guesses about the future based on history, you can't predict what the future holds. Two hundred years ago, who would have predicted that more women than men would be attending university in Canada in 2007? Likewise, how do you know that history will basically repeat itself?

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Agreed. I don't think that this will ever get anywhere in the West.

But it will get somewhere other places? (Though, there are countries that don't allow women to vote.)

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

The most I'm hoping for is that my own personal activism in discussing these things with people and perhaps strangling myself by publishing something discussing it is that this may cause some people to show more respect toward our ancestors.

I for one have a great deal of respect for our ancestors. To respect them, I don't feel the need to emulate them. I admire what they've built, recognise some faults, and will carry on not allowing anyone to boss me around just because they have a twig and berries.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Votes always involve a majority winning over a minority. Therefore the wishes of the entire nation are never reflected in a democracy.

True, but at least it's a majority. If only one gender votes on a matter, than the wishes of less than half the country are represented. Do I really need to explain how deeply wrong this is?

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I believe that men were more genetically, psychologically prepared for leadership than women. And I think that women were genetically, psychologically prepared for other things than men are. So while I care what all the people think, I think that the decisions should be made by the gender most genetically prepared to make them.

Well, I think this is a complete load of garbage, but there we are.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

This doesn't presume that fighting every war or maintaining support for every war is a good thing. However, it says that men are more psychologically equipped for the fighting role and for the decisions involving that role than women are and therefore should make those decisions.

Like I said above: insufficient evidence.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Why do you say these numbers are not statistically significant? I've read part 1 of your link (I don't have the mathematical expertise to do part 2, I expect), but I find nothing in there that undermines the significance of these statistics.

You may have more of the study than I do, and may actually have the statistical significance handy. If you do, it will say somewhere in the study, "This data significant to a 95% confidence level," or the like. (95% is the most common.)

The idea of significance is to make sure that the data from a study is not due to chance.

I'd explain more, but I really need to go to bed. If you give me a link to the study, I'll look for the confidence level.

I'll reply to this thread once I'm done moving in a couple days. (Sorry about the short answers.)

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

You may have more of the study than I do, and may actually have the statistical significance handy. If you do, it will say somewhere in the study, "This data significant to a 95% confidence level," or the like. (95% is the most common.)

Either that or, more likely, there will be a p value mentioned somewhere. Every proper study has one, and it should be 0.05 (5%) or less.

[Nurvingiel]

Isn't the P value the confidence level? 1-p = confidence, right?

[Jonathan]

Right. Confidence intervals and p values are two sides of the same coin.
Traditionally you reject a hypothesis if the p value is less than 0.05.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

How can you possibly know to what extent, if any, combat prepardness is ingrained in gender?

I believe that I have already shown evidence sufficient to warrant this conclusion. And I don't know how tests would be conducted regarding the connection between gender and combat ability, not being either an extremely administrative type of person or in the military bureaucracy. However, I'm not willing to take for granted your assertion that this is impossible.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I looked at a lot of it, though it has been a while since I've read the early posts of this thread. Data from the field of political science is exceedingly unconvincing in an argument about gender. Political science, like many disciplines, only look at a few aspects of a person. You can't take a political science study and make sweeping statements about every person on this planet.

They take a great deal of care in how they prepare their statistics and also teach in their textbooks the necessity and means to prepare such statistics. What the statistics show of the genders crosses ideological boundaries, and according to the Gender Organization and some of the other sources I've cited, historical boundaries too. I find them very adequate. So there we may have to just agree to disagree, after we talk a little more about the confidence levels.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Yes, but all three of those arguments are very much overreaching themselves.

If it was any of those arguments alone, you might be right. I think that the three together make a strong case.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

And, don't forget that while you can make guesses about the future based on history, you can't predict what the future holds. Two hundred years ago, who would have predicted that more women than men would be attending university in Canada in 2007? Likewise, how do you know that history will basically repeat itself?

I don't. The Gender Organization mentioned that the continuity of history implies that biology is involved and argues that recent changes show the power of socialization. For all I know, socialization may well continue to push humanity in unnatural directions.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

But it will get somewhere other places? (Though, there are countries that don't allow women to vote.)

I don't know how far it'll get or if it'll get anywhere in any place. But neither does that really matter to my position at all. I don't jump on the bandwagon just because everyone else says, "this is the right way." It has to make sense to me, too.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I for one have a great deal of respect for our ancestors. To respect them, I don't feel the need to emulate them. I admire what they've built, recognise some faults, and will carry on not allowing anyone to boss me around just because they have a twig and berries.

Perhaps I see a lot fewer faults in them than you do, though, so I'll just try to correct the imbalance in opinion as much as I can . I think that there could be more practical utility in this perspective I'm coming to of the past, though, then I was thinking when I originally said that to you about respect. This is also about helping some people to become aware of where they stand in history, where our Western culture's positions are taking us and what we need to do to keep from being swept along with the rest of a tide in a damaging and spiritually and physically unhealthy direction. So I hope that I can have some measure of impact. And you can hope I don't along with most everyone else who knows about me, but oh well . There we are.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

True, but at least it's a majority. If only one gender votes on a matter, than the wishes of less than half the country are represented. Do I really need to explain how deeply wrong this is?

If the voting half is the half that is biologically better designed to make the decisions, then it seems like this will overall improve things.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

You may have more of the study than I do, and may actually have the statistical significance handy. If you do, it will say somewhere in the study, "This data significant to a 95% confidence level," or the like. (95% is the most common.)

The idea of significance is to make sure that the data from a study is not due to chance.

In my Statistics class last year, I was taught that 95% confidence level is used on things where the degree of certainty is not very important, where the statistic in question isn't a very important one. 99% is used when knowing the real information is important. I don't think that my textbook would have been silly enough to put in insignificant statistics, but I'll double check . . . *Checks.*

My book doesn't have the statistical significance in it, but I found more about this particular statistic elsewhere.

According to the Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Feb., 1996), pp. 67-82, the gender related differences noted in this study "are statistically significant," though it also calls them "substantively modest." So there is statistical significance to those numbers. Regarding the "substantively modest" nature of some of the figures, I would again refer to The Essentials of American Government, which says that more unmarried women are opposed to war than married women. If this was taken into account, it would add to how substantial the biological difference is.

In addition to that, I would point out again from Rourke that gender related differences in men and women's voting are not only reflected in this one poll. It is one example of a general trend that has been observed throughout polls taken on the subject. In International Relations on a World Stage, Rourke states on page 67, "Polls going back as far as World War II have almost always found women less ready than men to resort to war or to continue war."

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

He's still quoting "The Gender Organization".

Hard to believe.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

For all I know, socialization may well continue to push humanity in unnatural directions.

How can humans create anything "unnatural", since we too are a part of nature?

[Lief Erikson]

Whatever . There are still ideas people can have that are not good ones .

[Nurvingiel]

What the heck is the Gender Organisation? And where is their website?


There is so much material in this thread I haven't responded to, I don't know when I'll get around to it. Operations Research is a callin'...