> This is an honest question to people who side with the proposal. At what point would these measures become unnecessary? What are the conditions?
> Btw what is the name of the ideology that one would use to justify this?
I'm not one of the supporters, but I've talked many times to such people and have encountered a lot of resistance to them laying out stopping or success conditions. I'm of the option that the diversity activists want these diversity programs to continue until they are happy with the results, which (more than likely) will be never.
I've also seen a lot of resistance the idea considering the perspectives of anyone who's not a member of one of these "victim"-groups (at least not until their group has experienced "10,000 years of oppression and discrimination."
Can't say for certain of course, but I believe the downvotes are because parent comment makes a claim without any factual backup or clarification of meaning.
You forgot the most important part: and it wasn't in-line with the "proper" thinking.
People make "claims without any factual backup or clarification of meaning" on HN all day every day, and no one bats an eye provided they are consistent with the proper thinking.
Once you see this, it can't be unseen. But getting to the point of being able to see it is easier said than done, it isn't merely having an alternative political ideology, but rather understanding how the human mind works. But once you've got a good handle on that, things like reading the news are completely different experiences than before.
> Through 21 years running one of the few campus support centers exclusively for men, he said, “I’ve thought it can only get better. But it just has gone nowhere. Not only are there not programs like ours that are supportive of male students, but at most college campuses the attitude is that men are the problem. … I’ve had male students tell me that their first week in college they were made to feel like potential rapists.”
> Added Maloney: “There’s a lot of attention on empowering girls. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but males are the ones in crisis in education.”
We could start by fixing this problem, which seems like it should be one of the easiest to solve. Lets make sure college is not a hostile environment for anyone, including men.
I think the point of the quote is that the majority of rapists are men, but the majority of men aren’t rapists. The original quote was from someone who felt like they were in a male hostile situation.
Unfortunately, I don’t really have a solution other than “don’t do that” because those people are out there, you never know who they are, and it requires constant vigilance.
And how do we discern if the environment is hostile, for example, if there is disagreement amongst men in a women's psych class? Do we decide based on whichever side is larger? Whichever side is louder?
And what if the perceived hostile environment is, in fact, not hostile? What if it is the result of being exposed to new ideas, new group dynamics, an inability to separate oneself from the group they are a member of, breakdown in communication/terminology, etc.?
What if actions taken to improve the environment for one group is felt to be hostile to a different group? Then what?
No, I think this problem is significantly harder than you believe.
Honestly, I think it's because there's this feminist idea that a woman should bear no responsibility for anything labeled bad that happens to her, especially if it involves anything sexual.
Like most things, that idea began as one legitimately applied to certain, limited circumstances; but that complexity was forgotten in its popularization. Now we're left with an over-simplified (and wrong) remnant that's still treated as gospel.
You're forgetting about the implied sub-selection (or lack thereof), which then needs to be re-applied to the situation over which the group has power.
Take random small town A containing subgroup B, which holds most seats of power in town A. This is the same as: Subgroup B, as a class, having power, within town A.
So let's rephrase:
American men, as a class, have power in America.
Now, what happens if our sub-selection ISN'T a sub-selection, and is just "humanity"?
Human men, as a class, have power in humanity.
This is backed up by leadership statistics.
Now, I think what you're trying to say is: Correlation of the "man" attribute with power is the not the same as the "man" attribute causing power".
Again, this kinda makes sense, but, AFAIK/IMHO, so long as the attribute in question is disproportionately shared by the people with power vs the distribution amongst the population, that attribute IS causing some degree of the power held.
Not really. What I was getting at was that social forces change over time. Certain members of the "man" class benefited from past social forces, not some innate powerful characteristic of the "man" class. So, it's wrong enact (and justify) policies to counteract that non-existent characteristic, like denying that class access to sex-segregated networking groups that are equivalent to those available to other classes.
Power usually goes to the classes who are most organized and cooperative. If you forbid cooperation, you eventually forbid (equal) power as well.
When you're discussing gender-segregated networking or social events that underlie a gender-segregated power structure it is exactly a denial of access to women.
It's kinda unfortunate that this is the top comment. Couldn't we talk about Turkey instead of quoting books that are at best marginally related to the present situation?
it appears your point, while well made, is covered by Point Eight. "All cases arising from and rules not specifically provided for in this directive, shall be settled and determined by the Unification Board, whose decisions will be final."
> In fact, Dr. Cheryan’s research shows that young men tend not to major in English for the same reasons women don’t pick computer science: They compare their notions of who they are to their stereotypes of English majors and decide they won’t fit in.
I wonder how long it will take for humanities departments to adopt a more inclusive culture? Why must our obsessive hand-wringing be be reserved exclusively for computer science and engineering, which are mostly hidden and do not set the wider cultural narrative (for the most part).
Why must our obsessive hand-wringing be be reserved exclusively for computer science and engineering, which are mostly hidden and do not set the wider cultural narrative
Because now there's money in it. No-one cared about this when the IT department was at the bottom of the corporate pecking order. No-one cares that refuse collection is almost exclusively male, but that's a job of real social importance...
As a white male who was at one time considering a double-major in Computer Science and English (it was a dumb idea for me for several reasons) and who therefore attended both English and Computer Science classes, I think the other issue that was mentioned in the article is more immediate.
Which is that just the sheer numbers of male students or female students in particular subjects is overwhelming. For example, in my American Lit class, there were literally three male students including me. The funny thing in that class was that at least half of the subject matter was basically about how the white male was evil.
But I definitely didn't fit in there, even without the subject matter. And its not that the girls treated me differently, they didn't -- but I knew I was different. Because I was surrounded by girls.
So I think that just the fact of the momentum of having lopsided student counts of males versus females has a huge effect. People do need to fit in and being with people who are really just like them is a big part of that. I think the stereotypes do have a big impact too, but its a double-whammy -- even when girls might not really be influenced by the stereotype, the reality of being the only female or one of a small group of females surrounded by young men in their classes will make them question their place.
So I think the social dynamics have more to do with it than people realize and I think this is a good article.
I'm glad she was able to figure out that the team culture didn't fit her and leave for something more suitable to her preferences. Different people are different, and a single team cannot accommodate every style.
So abuse and public humiliation is a style now? Well, if it is, her point is that it's a bad style, a very bad style, and it would be best if it goes out of fashion. Kinda like writing spaghetti code with lots of gotos. That, too, is a style, but generally recognized as a bad one, even if some people like it.
> Btw what is the name of the ideology that one would use to justify this?
I'm not one of the supporters, but I've talked many times to such people and have encountered a lot of resistance to them laying out stopping or success conditions. I'm of the option that the diversity activists want these diversity programs to continue until they are happy with the results, which (more than likely) will be never.
I've also seen a lot of resistance the idea considering the perspectives of anyone who's not a member of one of these "victim"-groups (at least not until their group has experienced "10,000 years of oppression and discrimination."