Topic: Bechdel test and other media analysis about discrimination

[Blondbraid]

That sound precisely like what I figured it was. They could have just done the normal thing and said the changes were made to improve efficiency and better serve the most people with available resources, but as we keep seeing Sweden has some weird fetish about appearing to be the most progressive nation on the Earth, which gives the Finnish media plenty to laugh about! Don't worry, Swedes: we love you for it.

Really, you think caring about equality is, in your own words, "some weird fetish"? This really says it all about where you stand, doesn't it?

[Honza]

I don't understand the issue, unless we believe that men have written better books than women, and that equal representation would mean replacing good books with worse books. Which, I think, is what people are actually afraid of.

My issue was choosing books based on anything else than their actual content. I can't fully speak for my biased subconscious, but I like to think I would be saying the same if the imbalance was reversed. I'd find it weird if I was given a book to read because it was written by a man, or denied a book because it was written by a woman - as if having a Y chromosome was some unique quality with intrinsic worth.

But I realize that's not the full picture. The imbalance seems to be bigger than I imagined, I'll be the first to agree that seeing the world through many different sets of eyes is important, and it's true that there are other arbitrary criteria which I take for granted (nationality). A quick google search gave me this: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/206631137.pdf, I'll probably check it out sooner or later. I'm in a place where I could easily be swayed to your side.

[Ali]

What I've seen of that essay looks interesting. If I were being generous about the standard conservative perspective on affirmative action, I'd say it seems to be rooted in the misanthropic view that there are very few great books and very few great people. And of the few greats we have, most are men. And great men (we tend to imagine) are society's engines of progress (winning battles and being captains of industry and whatnot).

So prioritising the voices of women, especially women of ethnic minority groups, is seen as profound risk. Because society already is pretty much fair, and great men are at the top because of their greatness. So raising up a woman means casting out a Great Man™, and what are the chances that she's really up to the job?

The tiny flaw in this understanding of reality being - to paraphrase Blackadder - that it's bollocks.

[WHAM]

Really, you think caring about equality is, in your own words, "some weird fetish"? This really says it all about where you stand, doesn't it?

As I've said, I am an egalitarian, and I care about equality. There is a difference between caring about something and doing what you can to promote it, and trying to paint every mundane action you take as being some grand crusade for equality and making a massive show out of it in order to get more attention.

[Blondbraid]

As I've said, I am an egalitarian, and I care about equality.

The way I've seen it used in practice, the phrase "I'm not a feminist, I'm a humanitarian/equalist" virtually always means that you think the status quo is fine and any oppression western women face is made-up.
Or if you truly did care for equality, could you name and acknowledge any gendered injustice western women face or name anything you've done to further gender equality?

There is a difference between caring about something and doing what you can to promote it, and trying to paint every mundane action you take as being some grand crusade for equality and making a massive show out of it in order to get more attention.

Again, are politicians 100% honest in Finland? Has no Finnish politician ever dressed up cost-saving as something more palatable to the masses? And also, a great deal of cost-cutting is done in idiotic ways that just wind up more expensive in the
long run, and at least in Sweden, voters are pretty jaded to blatant penny-pinching, so politicians more or less have to give another political reason if they want to seem like good leaders. But the snow-plowing thing was something that only happened once,
most of the time, it's dressed up in talk of freedom of choice, future greatness, or how one expert they had said it was great.

This isn't some weird Swedish thing, just look at American politicians and how they paint any mundane legislation as a WAR, war on poverty, war on drugs, war on illiteracy, not necessarily because their leaders want to fight a literal war in those areas,
but because that's the rhetoric that goes home with US voters, but it feels like you're just trying to single out my homeland and paint my culture as bad right now, and you're blowing up a one-off event that's not even representative of Swedish politics as a whole.

[Blondbraid]

I don't understand the issue, unless we believe that men have written better books than women, and that equal representation would mean replacing good books with worse books. Which, I think, is what people are actually afraid of.

My issue was choosing books based on anything else than their actual content. I can't fully speak for my biased subconscious, but I like to think I would be saying the same if the imbalance was reversed. I'd find it weird if I was given a book to read because it was written by a man, or denied a book because it was written by a woman - as if having a Y chromosome was some unique quality with intrinsic worth.

But I realize that's not the full picture. The imbalance seems to be bigger than I imagined, I'll be the first to agree that seeing the world through many different sets of eyes is important, and it's true that there are other arbitrary criteria which I take for granted (nationality). A quick google search gave me this: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/206631137.pdf, I'll probably check it out sooner or later. I'm in a place where I could easily be swayed to your side.

It's great that you've found a research text on the study, I'll check it out when I find the time! 

This discussion reminds me of this article, citing a study showing that if there are 17 percent women in a crowd, the men in the audience think it’s 50 – 50, and if there’s 33 percent women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men.
I'd say it's a pretty clear illustration of unconscious bias, and worth pondering on how it affects other views on women.

[Honza]

This discussion reminds me of this article, citing a study showing that if there are 17 percent women in a crowd, the men in the audience think it’s 50 – 50, and if there’s 33 percent women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men.

In my field and social bubble, it's genuinely about 60 - 70% women. Most of my teachers have been women, most of my bosses have been women, some of the smartest people and worst sociopathic assholes - all women. The majority of anti-feminist rhetoric I've heard has come from women. So I hope you'll understand if I don't exactly see oppression on every corner in my day to day life.

[Crimson Wizard]

This discussion reminds me of this article, citing a study showing that if there are 17 percent women in a crowd, the men in the audience think it’s 50 – 50, and if there’s 33 percent women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men.
I'd say it's a pretty clear illustration of unconscious bias, and worth pondering on how it affects other views on women.

Never heard of this before, but what I immediately wonder, is this only gender related thing or more generic psychological effect regarding anyone who a group of people see "different"? In other words, will the same happen with the groups of noticeably different ethniticies for instance.

In my field and social bubble, it's genuinely about 60 - 70% women. Most of my teachers have been women,

I think over 90% teachers in my school were women (and all or most of the head staff) . In fact, I can barely remember seeing more than 3 male teachers same year.
Things were much different in university, however.

[WHAM]

Or if you truly did care for equality, could you name and acknowledge any gendered injustice western women face or name anything you've done to further gender equality?

I cannot really think of any injustices that western women face. From a legal standpoint, and at least within the justice systems I am familiar with, women are on equal terms with men and in many cases enjoy freedoms men do not (such as being freed from conscription in Finland, and being treated more gently when facing criminal prosecution for a wide variety of crimes). I would be most curious to hear one or two examples of what you consider injustices women face in western societies? Say, specifically, in the Nordic countries, since you and I are clearly most familiar with that region of the world.

The only issue in which I feel there is a debate left to be had is reproductive rights, and the right to abortion, but as the opinions on that topic are wide ranging and vary greatly from country to country and society to society, I feel I should only comment on that as far as my own country is involved. Ensuring the rights of both the mother and the father to the unborn child, let alone ensuring the rights of that unborn child, however, is a tricky business an very much depend on how we interpret the word "human" to begin with, so that is likely a conversation well beyond the scope of this thread. As always, I'll be happy to discuss elsewhere as well. My Discord and PM's are open.

As for what I do: I participate in the politics of my country by voting for candidates I feel best promote the interests of the Finnish people, which obviously includes both men and women, up to and including voting for a female presidential candidate in the last election we had (sadly, she lost). I promote meritocratic ideals where people should be rewarded and recruited based on their merit and ability, regardless of their gender. I also strive to promote female characters in the fiction I create, whether it be as protagonists or otherwise key characters of short stories I write, or in the games I develop.

Funny how this turned into "WHAM, prove your egalitarian credentials" somehow, but here we go.

[Blondbraid]

This discussion reminds me of this article, citing a study showing that if there are 17 percent women in a crowd, the men in the audience think it’s 50 – 50, and if there’s 33 percent women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men.
I'd say it's a pretty clear illustration of unconscious bias, and worth pondering on how it affects other views on women.

Never heard of this before, but what I immediately wonder, is this only gender related thing or more generic psychological effect regarding anyone who a group of people see "different"? In other words, will the same happen with the groups of noticeably different ethniticies for instance.

I bet there is, just from the top of my head, I remember people complaining that the live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast was too unrealistic, because in their words, "Half the villagers were black!,
when rewatching it and looking for visible black people though, I could only see one black priest and maybe a handful in the far back of the crowd shots...

In my field and social bubble, it's genuinely about 60 - 70% women. Most of my teachers have been women,

I think over 90% teachers in my school were women (and all or most of the head staff) . In fact, I can barely remember seeing more than 3 male teachers same year.
Things were much different in university, however.

It's similar in Sweden, I had many male teachers in the higher classes, teaching children is a female-dominated job, but it's also a very low-paying job here in Sweden, in large part due to being female-dominated.

[Blondbraid]

Funny how this turned into "WHAM, prove your egalitarian credentials" somehow, but here we go.

Because you keep saying that you are all for equality and women's rights, but then keep saying things directly antithetical to exactly that.

I've already tried to explain all this multiple times in this thread.

[Ali]

The thread has not turned into a demand for WHAM to show his egalitarian credentials, from the start it turned into "Blondbraid, prove sexism exists, because I just don't believe in it."

And you can say sexism (in the west) doesn't exist and then a moment later imply that men ought to have rights over an embryo inside a woman's body. This is incomprehensible to me, and seems totally incompatible with egalitarianism.

[WHAM]

And you can say sexism (in the west) doesn't exist and then a moment later imply that men ought to have rights over an embryo inside a woman's body. This is incomprehensible to me, and seems totally incompatible with egalitarianism.

How are equal rights between parents incompatible with egalitarianism? As there is a continued and increasing push to turn the process of raising children into an equal effort in order to free women from that particular burden and give them a fully equal footing in life, it seems to me that this should extend to all parts of a child's life.

I also notice that both times I've asked for examples of modern injustices toward women in a western society, or the Nordic countries more specifically, this question has gone unanswered.

[Ali]

Equal rights between parents is a great idea, but an embryo inside a woman is not the same as a child. The idea that either an embryo or a partner could have any "right" over a pregnant adult's body is completely incompatible with equality and personal freedom.

"Men and women should have an equal say over women's bodies," is not equality.

There are lots of injustices women face, Honza just posted an article giving relevant examples. We could look at the rate at which men kill women by contrast with the rate at which women kill men, but the purpose of a thread like this is not to convince you personally of a reality you will never accept.

[WHAM]

Equal rights between parents is a great idea, but an embryo inside a woman is not the same as a child.

Yeah, that's the other sticky subject of debate: at what point is that embryo a living human being. Alas, that topic will get us to travel down the abortion legality rabbit hole, and I am really not in the mood for that one today.

Men and women should not, in my opinion, have equal say over the womans body. That would be akin to slavery. But the father and mother should both have equal rights over their child, so the line is not quite as clear as one might think, as the aforementioned abortion debate has proven.

Killing is also very much against the law, so to speak of person on person violence as an injustice is true, but bringing gender into the matter seems extraneous to me. Violence against a woman is no more just or unjust than violence against a man, unless you're suggesting changing the laws to make one even more illegal, or harshly punished, than the other. Which in turn would mean we have to assign a measurable value to a mans life and a womans life, measured in how harsh the penalty is for damaging one over the other. Again, a sticky subject, at least if you consider equality among the genders.

[Ali]

bringing gender into the matter seems extraneous to me.

You don't say?

[Blondbraid]

WHAM, it seems you have no real arguments left for this topic, so you just tried to derail this thread by steering it towards the most inflammatory topics you could think of now,
with the crime and abortion talk. I and many others have already posted multiple links on the discrimination women still face, and how this is exuberated by
media promoting sexist stereotypes and discouraging empathy for women. You seem to play willfully obtuse at this point.

A woman is just as much a full human being as a man and women's human right's should not be up for debate, so don't treat it as one.

[WHAM]

So the argument for "women are treated unjustly by western society" boils down to "individual artists don't create art in the way we like it".

A woman is just as much a full human being as a man and women's human right's should not be up for debate, so don't treat it as one.

At no point have I treated human rights, for men or women, as being up for debate. They are not, nor should they be.
It is starting to feel rather humorous that you keep acting as if I did, though!

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always give a feminist an excuse to be offended."

[Ali]

You are literally saying that women shouldn't have the final say in their own pregnancies. You're debating rights that women currently have in our countries, and it's taking the piss.

[Scavenger]

much like we've seen in the whole LGBTTQQPPAA+ movements success in becoming mainstream in most of the civilized world in a few short decades.

Honestly it's this that makes me think that WHAM will never change their mind. Referring to the LGBT community as this ridiculous alphabet soup (by adding on letters etc, it's LGBTQIA+, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Intersex Asexual +, each letter has an actual meaning.) is at best disrespectful and at worst actively contributing to the miasma of disbelief about people's identities.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always give a feminist an excuse to be offended."

Also this, doing the ole "feminists are shrill and irrational in their complaints" bit.