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Australia has their first female Prime Minister, and people are celebrating. Should they be?
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Post by
Heckler
a given black person is more likely to mug you that a given white person
I'm not
judging
anything based on statistics. And it's almost laughable that you would claim that I don't know how statistics work, and then you would claim that a black person is statistically more likely to mug me than a white person -- this is a fundamentally wrong use of statistics.
My entire point is that I don't know if gender has anything to do with it, but I do know that
if
it didn't
, I could statistically expect 50/50. And that's all I've been saying from the beginning. Notice this is a conditional statement, not a judgment. As I said above, it just provides a measuring stick to then investigate which steering factors do actually exist.
And I've been trying to investigate this, and as of yet, no one has shown me anything that makes me think gender
should
have anything to do with it (note that this use of should
is
meant to imply properness).
It feels like you're making no attempt to understand my point -- if this is true, can you just tell me? I'm not trying to change your mind, the only reason I keep posting is because your posts are convincing me you don't understand what I'm trying to say. If you have no desire to understand, and you just want to paint me as a racist, sexist, ignorant dolt who doesn't know how to use statistics -- then just let me know, it will remove any motivation I have to continue to try to explain my views.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
And it's almost laughable that you would claim that I don't know how statistics work, and then you would claim that a black person is statistically more likely to mug me than a white person -- this is a fundamentally wrong use of statistics.
Just some quick statistic I pulled:
Of the 17,272 convicted murders in 1997, 53 percent were black and 45 percent were white. Take into account that that blacks only made up 12% of the population, that's a huge gap.
So yes, a statistically, if I'm walking down the average American street, and I see a black guy and a white guy, I'm statistically more likely to be attacked by the black person.
That's cold hard statistics. Facts. I have made no claims of expectations or should-be's.
Even given those statistics, there is no evidence that being prone to crime is a consequence of being black. So to connect the two in an expectation or judgment based on no evidence would be racist.
My entire point is that I don't know if gender has anything to do with it, but I do know that if it didn't, I could statistically expect 50/50.
And now we get to the crux. IF you knew, the you could expect 50/50. You don't know, so you can't.
No one really cares what would happen if you knew something. The issue is you stating that 50/50 is expected and "should be" so, over and over without any qualifiers at all.
Post by
Heckler
It becomes wrong to extrapolate that data and apply it to a person (the random guy on the street) who was not part of the data set, based on his skin color. I'm not even going to continue this discussion though, what you're trying to do is a classic misuse of statistical data, and not at all analogous to what I'm saying.
And now we get to the crux.
It's actually that
you
just got to the crux, I've been saying the same thing all along. All I know (and all anyone knows) is that 50% of the total population male, and 50% is female. That is a knowable fact, and it's the only thing that has had any affect on my statements.
The issue is you stating that 50/50 is expected and "should be" so, over and over without any qualifiers at all.
The qualifier is,
in the case that there are
no
sexist steering factors
, 50/50 would be expected statistically. That
is
the qualifier. I'm not saying it has any basis in reality, it just serves as a comparison to reality, to seek out and investigate the steering factors that
do
exist.
Post by
Elitebuster
I'm not sure how the whole Black and White thing came up in this thread; I'm pretty sure the topic is gender discrimination, not skin color discrimination.
On that note, yes, I do believe the people of Australia should celebrate. If history is being made for the first time, why not? As long as the person who stepped down isn't treated badly for his decision (he DID have a choice to either step down or keep going), it could even be considered a holiday if the citizens so choose.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
It becomes wrong to extrapolate that data and apply it to a person (the random guy on the street) who was not part of the data set, based on his skin color. I'm not even going to continue this discussion though, what you're trying to do is a classic misuse of statistical data, and not at all analogous to what I'm saying.
So black people are now not part of the data set of black people?
...
And now we get to the crux.
It's actually that
you
just got to the crux, I've been saying the same thing all along. All I know (and all anyone knows) is that 50% of the total population male, and 50% is female. That is a knowable fact, and it's the only thing that has had any affect on my statements.
The issue is you stating that 50/50 is expected and "should be" so, over and over without any qualifiers at all.
The qualifier is,
in the case that there are
no
sexist steering factors
, 50/50 would be expected statistically. That
is
the qualifier. I'm not saying it has any basis in reality, it just serves as a comparison to reality, to seek out and investigate the steering factors that
do
exist.
It seriously sounds like your saving ass at this point. First the frantic jump from "should be" to expectation. Now the addition of a qualifier that makes your entire argument have no more relevance than if you had said "if unicorns existed, they would have a horn." It's an irrelevant truism.
Post by
Heckler
It seriously sounds like your saving ass at this point. First the frantic jump from "should be" to expectation. Now the addition of a qualifier that makes your entire argument have no more relevance than if you had said "if unicorns existed, they would have a horn."
That's fine if you think that, you can go back and read my previous posts and look for inconsistencies -- you won't find any, because I'm not "frantically jumping" -- I'm just explaining it in a different (better) way, according to
your
complaints. As far as the relevance vs. unicorns, the entire point, from the beginning, was to identify sexism in order to both (1) know when it's okay to celebrate and (2) know when it's time to stop celebrating (the first question Squish asked me).
In order to identify when it would be proper to stop celebrating, I tried to come up with some data point that would exist in the hypothetical reality where sexism did not exist in any form that I could compare our current reality to. In this hypothetical reality, the split in politics would be the same as the split in total population, which happens to be 50/50 (for all the simple statistical reasons I've already explained). This then serves a a measuring stick to answer both of the questions posed by Squish, and to further refine what a more realistic hypothetical reality might look like by comparison to the simplistic 50/50 model.
Again, as I've stated many times, the only reason I'm providing
any
sort of explanation of my views is to explain them to anyone who is interested. If you're not interested in understanding my views (that is, if you're perfectly satisfied to sideline them without a complete understanding) -- then there's no point in continuing this discussion with you.
Post by
Squishalot
I'm personally still with Hyper on this one. To posit that 50/50 representation in parliament is 'ideal' because of the population split is equally as uninformed / illogical / etc as to posit that 80/20 or 90/10 representation in parliament is 'ideal' because that's what it is at the moment. You're taking one piece of evidence, and using that as justification for coming to a (temporary) conclusion that something should be, when in reality, it's nowhere near enough information to make an informed judgement.
@GGG - It's more about whether such a mold is 'typical' these days anyway. You've got a black president. The UK, our motherland, has had a female PM and has a female monarch. Our nearest neighbour, New Zealand, has had a female PM for ages in the past. Germany has a female Chancellor. We already had a female Governor General (formal head of state), and female state Premiers.
Are we going to celebrate when we get female janitors, just because it breaks the 'typical' mold?
Effort and achievement should be congratulated, definitely. Full kudos to her for becoming PM, even if I disagree with the way she did it. But most of the kudos is coming from the fact that she's female.
And it seems to be worth noting - despite an announcement that she's not changing the major policy that's been leading to Labor's downfall in polling in the last month, within the first 2 hours of being appointed PM, new polling has led to Labor's popularity jumping 14%. Sadly, it looks like a great deal of our population intend to vote for her, simply because she's female.
And it's almost laughable that you would claim that I don't know how statistics work, and then you would claim that a black person is statistically more likely to mug me than a white person -- this is a fundamentally wrong use of statistics.
Just to be clear, Hyper's use of statistics in this regard is perfectly correct, but only once you factor in how many of the criminals are in jail and remove them from the 'would commit a crime' segment. A random black person has a chance of being someone who would mug you. A random white person has a chance of being someone who would mug you. Statistically, the random white person has a lower chance than the random black person,
without any further information than the colour of their skin
.
Post by
Heckler
To posit that 50/50 representation in parliament is 'ideal' . . .
Again, I never said anything about 'ideal' -- I just came up with 50/50 as a device for comparison to reality, in an effort to search out sexism. Deciding what is ideal would be done later in the analysis, but you guys both disagreed with my baseline premise for analysis, and so that's what I've spent this whole time defending -- I never even got a chance to reach any 'ideal' conclusions.
I would
agree
that it is shortsighted to say "it is proper and ideal to be split 50/50" -- I'm not saying that. I'm simply saying, as I've explained over and over, that if you try to come up with a baseline for comparison, then carrying the proportion from the total population is a decent starting point. This provides a step by step method to locate gender biased steering factors by comparing them to a hypothetical in which they don't exist.
This is at least the fourth time I've said this, where are we disconnecting?
As for your 'statistically backed' racism, I already said I wouldn't expand on that further. I'll simply repeat that it is a
classic
misuse of statistics.
Post by
Squishalot
This is at least the fourth time I've said this, where are we disconnecting?
Because 50/50 as a starting point is just as illogical as 'where are now' as a starting point. I specified later that it was a temporary conclusion. You're picking on my use of 'ideal', when I clearly compared it to an 80/20 split as 'ideal' as well. Context, friend.
As for your 'statistically backed' racism, I already said I wouldn't expand on that further. I'll simply repeat that it is a classic misuse of statistics.
Moral misuse, possibly. Statistical misuse, no.
Post by
Heckler
Because 50/50 as a starting point is just as illogical as 'where are now' as a starting point. I specified later that it was a temporary conclusion. You're picking on my use of 'ideal', when I clearly compared it to an 80/20 split as 'ideal' as well. Context, friend.
My point has been and continues to be that 50/50 has basis in statistical selection, given the right number of assumptions.. These assumption are not meant to find the truth, they are only meant to serve a comparative purpose. However, if no intrinsic reason can be found to support a deviation from the statistical-selection backed 50/50, then I don't see anything wrong with using that as a baseline.
Post by
Squishalot
My point has been and continues to be that 50/50 has basis in statistical selection, given the right number of assumptions.. These assumption are not meant to find the truth, they are only meant to serve a comparative purpose. However, if no intrinsic reason can be found to support a deviation from the statistical-selection backed 50/50, then I don't see anything wrong with using that as a baseline.
"80/20 has basis in practical experience (i.e. it works).. However, if no intrinsic reason can be found to support a deviation from the existing 80/20, then I don't see anything wrong with using that as a baseline."
Built on exactly the same argument lines. If you can't justify how 50/50 is an
improvement
on 80/20, then it's not reasonable to use 50/50 as a baseline.
Post by
Heckler
But i'm not trying to say it's an improvement, or that its reasonable (at least not yet)
Here's an easier way to think about the same basic quaestion I'm asking: What is the reason for the difference in male/female ratios between the population and the Congress? I'm not making any assumptions about the reasons, just asking what the reasons
are
because until I know that, I can't make any judgment about them being proper.
And in my own explorations (and so far in this thread) no one has provided any reason that I would support that leads to a non 50/50 split that I would statistically expect in a non-sexist environment. So for now, unless someone has reason to steer me otherwise, I'll continue to think that gender should not have any effect on elections or politics, and therefore a 50/50 split should eventually happen simply due to statistical chance.
Post by
Squishalot
But i'm not trying to say it's an improvement, or that its reasonable (at least not yet)
By definition, you are - you're saying that there isn't enough female representation, and that 50/50 should be a good baseline. By that, you're implying (directly and indirectly) that the current split between genders of representation isn't good, and that the 50/50 is a better place to start from.
What is the reason for the difference in male/female ratios between the population and the Congress? I'm not making any assumptions about the reasons, just asking what the reasons are because until I know that, I can't make any judgment about them being proper.
Workplace culture, interest and willingness to work in said culture, and the baseline skills of relevant people (and interest in said skills as well), I would presume. Electability is probably an issue too, but given that females have been on voting cards in both sides of American politics, I'd say it's a lesser issue.
To be honest, I don't think we're due for a female Treasurer for an extremely long time in Australia, despite the fact that we may have a female PM at the moment. Why? Because females in Australia who take an interest in financial areas are typically disinterested in macroeconomic policy development, and more interested in areas of personal and corporate finance / accounting. Why? That's a really good question, can't actually answer that one. I can't think of any societal reason for it, other than the fact that economists are essentially a bunch of nerds, and girls don't like to be nerds. But, that's the basis for the lack of females pushing for Treasurer.
And in my own explorations (and so far in this thread) no one has provided any reason that I would support that leads to a non 50/50 split that I would statistically expect in a non-sexist environment.
I gave you reasons, you claimed they were 'non-intrinsic' (relating to willingness) or 'not provable' (relating to the biological makeup of males vs females lending itself to certain skills).
1) Certain species of animals have more 'attached' maternal figures. Others have more 'attached' paternal figures. A few have equally 'attached' male and female figures. You can't claim that willingness to leave family is non-intrinsic unless you can demonstrate humans do not have an attachment bias. The very fact that breastfeeding builds an attachment between mother and child, by definition, means there is a biological difference between the two (i.e. either before or after breastfeeding).
2) I'd like to hear why you think that males and females being better/worse at certain skills is 'not provable as it pertains to future humans'. I fail to see your argument at all.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
So for now, unless someone has reason to steer me otherwise, I'll continue to think that gender
should not
have any effect on elections or politics, and therefore a 50/50 split should eventually happen simply due to statistical chance.
There you go again with the
should
's.
Next are you going top tell me that aliens shouldn't exist?
Post by
288048
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
Intelligence:
This
, and its
refered
source (Looking through the sources I'd assume it was the primary reference) show no reason why males would have a leg up over women in the educational level of politics.
Only if you think literacy and having a college education are the only relevant educational skills to being in politics.
Stability:
Shows
a realitivly even balance in the psychological balance between males and females
Ok, let's look at that, shall we?
However, some researchers (such as Rachel Simmons) have suggested that females are not necessarily less aggressive, but that they tend to show their aggression in less overt, less physical ways (Bjorkqvist et al. 1994, Hines and Saudino 2003). For example, females may display more
verbal and relational aggression, such as social rejection
.
Men are more likely to strut and physically intimidate. Women are more likely to verbally abuse and ostracise.
Simon Baron-Cohen's EQ SQ Theory claims that, in general,
men are better at systematizing
(the desire to analyze and explore systems and rules) and that
women are better at empathizing
(the ability to identify with other people’s feelings).
Men are more likely to be better able to explore systems and rules (laws). Women are more likely to be better at empathising with people (representation).
Other studies show a greater variance in the IQ performance of men compared to that of women, i.e. men are
more represented at the extremes of performance
, and less represented at the median.
If you want the top 5% of intelligent people to be your politicians, then it is more likely that there is a higher representation of men in that bracket, because of the distribution of IQ. That's quite an interesting one, I didn't know that.
Men and women use different cognitive strategies when coping with emotional situations. Women are more prone to depression because of their tendency to dwell on the causes of negative emotions while men distract themselves from dwelling on these emotions.
Men are more likely to deal better in emotional situations because they 'get over' it, whereas women are more likely to dwell on the causes, making them more likely to actually deal with the emotionally stressful problem.
Women have a greater affect intensity, which makes them more prone to "self-referring, overgeneralizing, and selective attention to emotional information, which may lead to more intense emotional reactions." Women also have a tendency to catch others' emotions, known as emotional contagion.
Women are more likely to get caught up in the 'wave of feeling' when it happens. (This suggests that George W Bush, John Howard and Tony Blair have distinctly feminine traits in that respect.)
Psychological differences, fairly significant ones, that would all impact one's ability to be a politician. Did you even read the article?
Post by
Heckler
2) I'd like to hear why you think that males and females being better/worse at certain skills is 'not provable as it pertains to future humans'. I fail to see your argument at all.
First, let me expand a little on what I mean by 'provable' -- I simply mean, things that
I
would believe as truth.
If these things were intrinsic, then I would accept that it could be applied to future humans. My point is that if they are not intrinsic, meaning they are cultural, then there's no guarantee that the same culture will apply to future humans. I simply mean that if the behavior your describing is a consequence of environment, and not biology, then I would probably disagree with them -- which is an opinion, and is my own. Clearly stated: Cultural sexism is something that I would generally classify as bad (again, this is an
opinion
).
If you take 100 humans and isolate them on an island when they're born (as a thought experiment, don't get caught up in the details of this being feasible) -- would the same characteristics exist? If not, then they are not intrinsic, they are cultural -- which, as I said, in my opinion are bad things generally. If these 100 people elected 10 representatives, whatever proportion they came up with would probably be what I would call 'right,' assuming they didn't form cultural sexisms of their own, which they almost certainly would (and here, I'm not talking statistically, I'm talking about properness -- in the absence of cultural pressures).
The reason I keep saying "provable" is because I'm trying to convince
myself
of something other than a 50/50 split. Simple statistical selection (in the absence of
any and all
sexist steering factors,
intrinsic
or
cultural
) would result in a 50/50 split in any subset as well. So I'm not saying it's proper or anything, I'm just saying that if there were no sexisms at all, you would expect a 50/50 split statistically, and so when I ask myself what a sexist-free Congress would look like, I come up with 50/50.
This doesn't mean 50/50 is better, more likely, or anything (yet), it just provides me with a point for comparison. As I said before, this can be restated simply by answering the question:
Why is the male/female ratio different in Congress than in the entire population?
This is why I'm saying I'm not making any pre-judgments or assumptions. I'm not saying it's right or proper that the male/female split would be the same, I'm simply looking for reasons
why it isn't
. Now, I classify these reasons into two categories, intrinsic and cultural. If they are intrinsic, it becomes nearly impossible to argue their properness (breastfeeding). As in the NHL, I have no problem with almost every single player being male -- there are intrinsic differences that I accept as truth that lend themselves to Hockey. Conversely, I have no problem that all of the servers at Hooters are female, again there are intrinsic reasons that I accept as truth in their gender that lend themselves to that company's mission.
However, even in these cases, I would start with a 50/50 baseline in mind when I ask:
Why is the male/female ratio any different among NHL players or Hooters waitresses than in the entire population?
(AGAIN: By asking this question, I'm making no statement about the properness of a 50/50 split, I'm only using it as a
starting point for discussion
) Your answer would be to list the intrinsic differences that I described above (or I would come up with them on my own), and I would accept them and move on.
Most
intrinsic reasons (that are provable, or to be more proper to this discussion, that I believe as truth) will suffice for me,
most
cultural reasons will not -- these are my
opinions
, this is where I form a stance on
properness
.
So now I ask again, without any prejudice or assumption:
Why is the male/female ratio different in Congress than in the entire population?
Not as an assumption about properness, but as a starting point for discussion.
So far, no one has given me any intrinsic reasons that I accept as
truth
, and no cultural reasons that I accept as
proper
. Now I form an opinion: in the absence of any reasons that I accept, I think it is proper that Congress should be split in the same proportion as the population: 50/50. This is simply because I can't come up with any reasons that I accept as truth or as proper that would cause it to be any other way.
So for now, unless someone has reason to steer me otherwise, I'll continue to think that gender
should not
have any effect on elections or politics, and therefore a 50/50 split should eventually happen simply due to statistical chance.
There you go again with the
should
's.
In the case you quoted, I
was
referring to properness. The statement you quoted is a concise restatement of the wall of text above. Hopefully it makes more sense now. If not, instead of just saying the same thing over again, please be really precise about what you don't like so I can address it specifically. I've tried to separate out my opinion statements this time, and I've tried to very clearly state the reasons I've landed on 50/50.
Edit: I think I finally understand what you're saying, should is the wrong word to use when making an assumption based on no evidence. All I can really say is that I think at this point I'm making an opinion decision based on the fact that I don't see any reason for deviation from the original known split. So I'm less saying that a
reason
shouldn't exist, just that since I don't know any reasons,
the split itself shouldn't exist if there aren't any reasons
. Admittedly I've blurred the line between those statements repeatedly, but hopefully the 2nd sheds some light on why it didn't seem 'wrong' in my mind.
By definition, you are - you're saying that there isn't enough female representation, and that 50/50 should be a good baseline. By that, you're implying (directly and indirectly) that the current split between genders of representation isn't good, and that the 50/50 is a better place to start from.
Hopefully my explanation above gives a little more clarity by what I mean as baseline: I simply mean a starting point for discussion about the topic. As far as what I call what is 'better' or 'worse' -- that comes after I get the list of reasons and decide whether I like them. Again, as of yet, I haven't seen a single intrinsic reason that I accept as truth, or cultural reason that I accept as proper.
To address the reasons you provided (which I thank you for providing, if I'm looking for any input at all, this is exactly the type of input that i find helpful in my own discussion):
1) Certain species of animals have more 'attached' maternal figures. Others have more 'attached' paternal figures. A few have equally 'attached' male and female figures. You can't claim that willingness to leave family is non-intrinsic unless you can demonstrate humans do not have an attachment bias. The very fact that breastfeeding builds an attachment between mother and child, by definition, means there is a biological difference between the two (i.e. either before or after breastfeeding).
Since not everyone has kids, and not everyone has a mother while growing up, I don't call these things intrinsic. I think they are cultural. The level of testosterone in your body is intrinsic, your sex organs are intrinsic, probabilities of height, weight, facial hair, heart disease to a certain extent, these are all intrinsic. A close relationship with your mother is cultural, and while I accept what you're saying as truth for a large majority of Americans, I don't think I believe that this is a main cause of the split, nor do I accept it as a
proper
reason.
I like this point a lot, some people are much better than me at communicating:
Now unless a counterpoint can be shown to prove that women (or men) are infact less able, or capable to act as a member of government then it must be extrapolated that it is an exterior force beyond gender.
Squishalot's discussion above, citing specific reasons for the split, is a
much more beneficial
discussion in my opinion than the one we've covered 5 pages with arguing about 50/50 with very few
reasons
whatsoever. However, I don't like arguing psychological things, unless they have some provable basis in biochemistry that I can bring myself to believe, so I probably won't take much part in it =)
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Squish's whole analysis was no different than looking at how blacks have a higher crime rate. It's an exercise in correlatives, but it doesn't bring us any closer to finding consequences.
Until we piece together the political "gene" and figure out where it overlaps with those of sex, we can't know what the connections are.
Post by
Heckler
I don't see anything wrong with
investigating
higher crime rate among races. I do see something wrong with extrapolating predictions on future behavior from it prematurely though.
The investigation is important. I edited above in response to your comments on 'should' -- I dunno if you saw the edit, I just barely did it.
Anyways, I think that's what we should be doing, is looking for that political 'gene' -- but until we find it, I would like to think it doesn't exist (at least not in a gender specific way -- my opinion). I know you'll call this sexist, but to me, it's exactly
not
sexist. I'm not making any assumptions on my model, I'm just using known facts (50/50) until I see some evidence that steering factors do exist.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
I'm not making any assumptions on my model, I'm just using known facts (50/50) until I see some evidence that steering factors do exist.
You've got two things in your model.
The population is 50/50 male and female. No one is denying that.
Men and women are equally political. That's the assumption.
And as far as your edit goes...there is a difference between there not being any reasons, and us not knowing them.
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