[0596] 97 Points
└ posted on Monday, 7 July 2014, by Novil
On Sunday, 6 June 2014, I posted the submissions between place 13 and 25 of the Sandra and Woo and Gaia fanart contest 2014. Go check them out!
- Title: The Human Brain: IQ (3)
- Footnote: Ian J. Deary et al. [2007]
- Biology teacher: This graph shows that the distribution of IQ in men has a larger variance than in women. This means that there are significantly more very intelligent men than women.
- Biology teacher: On the other hand this also means… Oh no, it’s the moral police!
- Dorothy Cambridge: GET HIM!
- Teacher: Tell my wife and children that I love them!
- Male activist: 97 points on the privilege-o-meter!
- Female activist: High time to cull him from the herd!
- Principal: Please welcome your new biology teacher, Mrs. Dorothy Um… Cambridge!
- Dorothy Cambridge: Margaret Cavendish! Laura Bassi! Caroline Herschel! Elizabeth Báthory! Ada Lovelace! Marie Curie! Lise Meitner! Emmy Noether! Dorothy Hodgkin! Rosalind Franklin! Ada Yonath!
- Sandra: This will not end well.
![[0596] 97 Points](/comics/2014-07-07-0596-97-points.png "[0596] 97 Points")
@ Arent:
No, you’re the one “rewriting” history, moron. The original intent of communism, as written by Karl Marx and eventually adopted by Vladimir Lenin (before Joseph Stalin, who was NEVER supposed to have power, took over by assassinating Leon Trotsky, the actual heir, and then corrupted the entire system) was to create equality by making a society without money or class, giving everyone the essential resources they needed and the same share of commodities, regardless of who they were. It doesn’t work, but that’s ALL communism EVER was, and if it hadn’t been for Joseph Stalin it would have gone much better. It ultimately would have likely lead to collapse, but that happened anyway and it would have taken longer, been more peaceful, and not have been so horrible before it happened. The entire issue with the USSR wasn’t communism, it was Joseph Stalin, who damaged what would have been an actual communist system so badly during his life it never managed to recover. Learn your history, moron.
And also, while fascism is used inaccurately today, Mussolini was a real bastard anyway and it’s not something anyone wants to be compared to.
@ Tom West:
By the ruling of Wikipedia, maybe. But that’s Wikipedia. Feminists describe themselves as a gender equality group, as do the overwhelming majority of their defenders. If they want to describe themselves as such, they need to act the part. What’s more, women already have vastly superior treatment to men in western society, so even by your definition they’ve already hit their “goal” and kept right on going, so they can’t actually be striving for “equality” anymore since they’re going in the opposite direction.
And that’s not the worst of it. When groups out there try to do something about the much larger and more numerous issues men face in western society, they attack them. They do things like standing outside their meeting hall screaming profanity at them, pulling fire alarms and throwing things. Remember what they did to the MRA at the University of Toronto? That’s just one example of them actively opposing groups working for men’s rights, and it’s a pretty standard one too.
And you’re expecting me to abide a group that attacks, slanders and attempts to silence groups that actually work towards equality, instead of away from it like they do? One that is blatantly sexist and spews hate speech at every interval while pretending to be victims as a shield from criticism, that silences dissent and free speech, pushes unfair legislation that takes away human rights from both men and women, and immediately resorts to insults and name calling when challenged, never making an argument and seldom bothering to actually defend its own actions? Fuck that. I’m not going to abide that group of evil cackling cravens, and I’m certainly not going to respect them.
@ Jozarin:
It’s like you’re not listening to a fucking word. No, most rape is of men, by men. Prison rape in the US alone accounts for more than all female rape in the entire world combined.
Avian Mosquito wrote:
Wow. Just wow. Is every man’s life superior in *every* possible way? No. But John Scalzi put it far more eloquently than I could: Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is
And dear God, not MRA at U of T!
I’ll tell you the one big difference between MRA and the campus feminists. The campus feminists actual *do* something for the community while the MRA just whine about how everybody else isn’t doing enough to help them. They spend all their time whining how terribly men are treated yet I’ve not seen social campaign to provide support for single male parents, campaigns to reform prisons, campaigns that to stop drug wars that put men in prison, etc. These campaigns exists alright. But I’ve never seen MRAs have anything to do with them. It’s all about whining how badly the world treats them.
And then whining about how the world holds them in contempt for their whining.
Ugh. Can’t they “go their own way” without the whining?
Paerus, I almost forgot.
My apologies for my cheap shot about spelling.
Not only are you a non-native-English speaker and thus fluency in the arcane mess that is English is always admirable, but this interface makes it almost impossible to notice typos.
Sorry.
Tom West wrote:
Just to point out, there have been plenty of feminists and feminist groups (including some prominent feminists, IIRC) that have actively ridiculed the idea of males being rape victims. So, it’s not so simple as “They aren’t campaigning against this issue”, as it can shade all the way into “They are actively dismissing and normalizing THE VERY SAME ISSUE THEY COMPLAIN ABOUT MOST when the victim is not part of their group”.
If a feminist chooses not to pay any attention to the issue of male rape, whatever. That’s their choice, even if others may not agree with it. But for some of them to be decrying the rape of females on one hand and actively dismissing the rape of males as a non-issue (and sometimes even mocking the male rape victims) on the other? That’s disgusting behavior, and deserves to be called out.
Tom West wrote:
I’ve noticed a strange tendency for this argument to only be applied in one direction by feminists…
Any time that a critic of radical feminism or feminist philosophy gives an example, feminist apologists always jump to the “Feminism is incredibly diverse. Not all feminists are like that!” lines. Contrarily, whenever the feminist apologists themselves make a statement about feminism, all that diversity is suddenly out the window — they immediately begin talking as if they speak for all feminists everywhere, even when making statements that do not have majority support amongst feminist groups or that directly contradict positions held by some feminist groups.
Tom West wrote:
And what attitude is this? I’m honestly not sure what you’re talking about here, and that’s not enough info to reliably find out by Google search.
Arent wrote:
Actually, no, he was not. Given that the governments of Russia, China, and the like had virtually nothing to do with the actual Communist ideology as described by Karl Marx, they are often termed differently — “Stalinism” in the case of Russia, and “Maoism” in the case of China, with the latter having a more rural/agrarian focus than the more industrialized focus of the former. There have been other governments that were much closer to Marx’s writings on Communism, but they were generally either very small (i.e., local community level) and/or very short-lived (e.g., the Paris Commune), and it is convenient to have a different label for them than for the various petty dictatorships that claim to be Communist without following the ideals of Communism.
Communism, as described by Karl Marx, is well-intentioned; it just happens to also be flawed because of how readily it ignores human nature.
Jozarin wrote:
No, most people do not “choose” to be atheists. At no point during my crisis of faith back when I was Christian did I “choose” to stop believing and become an atheist.
Frankly, I find the suggestion that my lack of belief is just a choice to be rather insulting. Do you “choose” not to believe in leprechauns? Shall we start labeling you as as an alephrechaunist and stereotyping you based on that?
Finishes the sentence.. “However this means that the most intelligent women have higher IQs than the most intelligent men.”
Tom West wrote:
I hadn’t even heard about the UoT issue before AM mentioned it, but after reading it, I have to say:
What the HELL are you blabbering about here? What does any of that evasive nonsense you spewed have to do with a group of feminists disrupting a peaceful meeting, vandalizing the premises, and then pulling the fire alarms to force the meeting to end prematurely? Whatever else the MRA and feminists do is entirely irrelevant; the sort of childish, selfish behavior that the feminists there displayed is entirely unacceptable.
If they want to peacefully protest outside the meeting, that’s one thing. Trying to completely silence the other side is another entirely, as is the rank vandalism they engaged in when they damaged the lecture hall and caused firefighters to get dispatched unnecessarily. I’m disgusted that you ignore all of this and instead try to act like the MRAs are to blame for it all. Is this not the very same sort of victim blaming that feminists so often note happens against female victims of rape, sexual harassment, and other problems? Is there no end to the hypocrisy from feminist apologists?
Why exactly did she name off Elizabeth Báthory? Why name one of the earliest serial killer in history. She was a well known noble that killed young girls and bathed in there blood to, in her mind stay young. What relevance does this have? And all those other names, thought this was science not history?
Goes to show you what happens when you put some loon in to take over a teaching position. Like trying to teach creationism. Completely ruins the works!
@ Tom West:
Read the other comments replying to this. I’m *winning* this debate. Your “arguments” are entirely non-arguments. They’re shallow mockery with no points made and a shocking lack of research.
You are a sexist, and your source is bullshit. Males are subject to:
Being much more likely to be convicted at trial.
Being much more likely to serve prison sentences instead of probation or other punishments, for the same crime.
Spending much more time in prison for the same crime when prison sentences are given.
A complete lack of legal recourse against rapists, domestic abusers and harassers.
Unable to defend at all if falsely accused of rape or sexual harassment, which is a large minority of rape cases and the majority of sexual harassment cases.
A much greater chance of being raped, likely due to the above.
Draft.
By far worse treatment if homosexual.
Worse treatment if a fetishist, such as a furry or a vorarephiliac.
Inferior treatment during divorce to the point where the woman dictates the terms and the man frequently ends up having to give her a continuous stream of money for the rest of her life, even if there’s NO justification for it. (It’s called alimony. Look it up.)
Complete inability to adopt.
Much worse treatment if a single parent. (I have a rather noteworthy amount of first-hand experience).
Inferior treatment by social workers, especially CPS, to the point where if CPS is ever called on a single man it is overwhelmingly likely that their child will be removed regardless of the actual conditions. (CPS IS blatantly sexist.)
Being the single lowest priority to emergency workers.
But go ahead. Tell me how women are treated so much worse. Go ahead and tell me how occasional sexual harassment and 5-10% lower pay outweighs all of that. I’m waiting.
Avian Mosquito wrote:
You try to claim that people like Mao/Stalin/Hitler/Pol Pot were no ‘true’ socialists, and that is rewriting history. Instead of investing 24h/day of your time to claim that all that was not ‘true’ socialism you should instead think about what exactly went wrong 70 years ago and what you could possibly change in your ideology so that you do not repeat your errors. Because, frankly, a ‘scientific’ ideology would *learn* from the experiment & a lot of the victims of socialism were socialists. And as long as the socialists refuse to learn from their errors and instead rewrite their history they are not a ‘scientific’ ideology but a fundamentalist one :/
Avian Mosquito wrote:
*bragging* I’ve a PhD in cell biology/physics. It is unlikely that you of all people are more intelligent than me 😛
Tom West wrote:
Our brains do not attempt to mislead us. they are simply computers, programed by experience and genetics to give “best possible” result !!they are capable of!!!.
Brain is a tool for survival, it has proved somewhat more efficient than claws and teeth… since using a bow with arrows proved much superior to the claws.
Using nuclear weaponry even more.
The sucesfull choice propagates forward… the unsucesfull choice makes the chooser die out.
Thus, by sheer empiric experimentation the species survives and gets rids of inefficient individuals and does not propagate the traits forward.
However when you prevend people from actualy doing mistakes the whole proces breaks down… and when people do not suffer for their mistakes they never learn… and in each sucessive generation you get more and more people doing mistakes and it costs more resources to sanate the problem.
This stride for equality is the same thing… let those who discriminate (as you use the word) either die out, or actually prove the their are right by unregulated empirical experiment. Let the problem be resolved naturaly in time.
Arent wrote:
Where are you getting this idea that he is a communist or socialist? He never said he was, and he outright criticized communism.
A little bit of reading comprehension goes a long ways.
Arent wrote:
Wow, anonymous waving of an e-peen that is entirely unrelated to the subject at hand. Why, color me impressed. /snark
Furthermore, having a degree in one topic says nothing about your knowledge or competence in other fields… as you are aptly demonstrating with your misplaced diatribes about political science.
Woden wrote:
But all adherents of all ideologies, even fundamentalists, believe their ideology is ‘well intentioned’. And maybe they are(?) He objected to tom west listing communism alongside fundamentalism & said he would ‘slap him’ if he was standing in front of him. I just replied that in turn I would ‘slap him’ because his argument that ‘communism is well intentioned but misguided’ and therefore should not be listed alongside fundamentalism is, in my humble opinion, absurd.
Woden wrote:
¨
the issue is that they DID apply the STUPIDEST part of Marx ideology…
and that is the economical model he proposed. And actualy… that was the result of their downfall.
Chinese communists managed to abandon the stupidity in time.
Sad thing is that nowadays America and Europe are falling to the trap notion that states can regulate economy effectively… even when that was proven wrong empiricaly over and over again. And more power state gets to regulate, the worse it actualy gets…
Communism and socialism is something that can work for ants, and until individuality of human beeing is completly eliminated it can never work for humans effectively. It will just keep wasting resources and collapses when they run out.
@ Arent:
Ignoring the history. Classy. I haven’t studied Chinese history, but I can assure you Stalin was NOT a socialist. Their society may have been moneyless, but it was NOT classless, so he’s already definitionally not a socialist. Then he slaps on extreme corruption that was entirely his own fault (he was NEVER meant to rule Russia), violence and a despotic regime that placed him as the god of a cult of personality. The way the USSR turned was ENTIRELY Stalin’s fault, and he was NOT a socialist.
Woden wrote:
So what kind of experiment did you do in ‘political science’ to proof that Stalin had ‘nothing to do’ with the ‘nationalisation of the means of production’ as defined by Marx? Or could it be that there are *no* experiments in ‘political science’? And therefore, according to Feynman, there simply is no ‘political science’ because science is defined as doing experiments to proof or disprove a theory? Could it be that the ‘experts’ who call themselves scientists are simply voicing their own, private opinion and believe if enough of them claim the earth is flat, maybe it becomes true?
Avian Mosquito wrote:
Socialism is defined as the nationalization of the means of production. You should know that, you began with citing Marx.
@ Arent:
Oh there is experiment in “political science”….
national socialism was an experiment that failed…
Consequently… soviet socialism was an experiment that failed…
Scientificaly – none was tried before so it was entirely possible both would work. However reality of the universe was somewhat incompatible with their operation.
I assure you – had any of them “won” they would be proven a correct and right way to live and few people would protest since everyone who had different Idea would be in possition to object.
(Well…. B.J. Blazkowitz says “Hi”… I have to get new Wolfenstein finally…)
@ Paeris Kiran:
would be in NO possition to…
@ Paeris Kiran:
Yeah, I’m going to be busy for a couple days, so I think I’ll just leave this “debate” to you.
Woden wrote:
My apologies.
Let me make it clear. My comments were directed at MRA and women’s groups in general, not to what happened at UofT . While I find the MRA line such as has pushed its way into blogs I read painfully whiny, and I was sad to hear U of T has an MRA chapter, I find the response of the group that reacted to UofT’s MRA meeting to be flat out wrong, and the group that did this diminished themselves in the process.
It’s stupid university games, and the proper mature approach would be to have ignored the MRAs. Instead, they fed the victimization meme held by so many of its members.
Sorry for being unclear.
@ SmartAlec105:
Dorothy Cambridge…. Dolores Umbridge….
I definitely sense a reference here
@ Tom West:
I’m going to say it once: If you removed your own bias, feminist dogma would be JUST as whiny, if not moreso.
does any of this matter? the comic is a joke. its a comic with strong likeable female characters. its allowed to make an off color joke about reactionaries once in awhile.
@ LaughGirl:
A privilege that should be a right if there ever was one.
Paeris Kiran wrote:
I invoke Poe’s law. You’re making an evil villain speech and may actually be serious.
Avian Mosquito wrote:
I don’t have the stats, but I’d be surprised if that wasn’t true.
Which is why the reporting and conviction rates are 100%. Oh wait.
The less than 100% conviction rate makes the first absurd. The sheer impossibility of getting statistics about false allegations makes the second phrase absurd.
I’ll grant that society has a delicate balancing act between the rights of the accuser and the rights of the accused. Given the low rates of reporting and conviction, I’m not at all convinced that it’s tilted against men.
Look, it’s an interesting, if disputed, factoid. However, I notice that you’re spending all your time time to attack attempts to prevent women’s rape rather than make efforts to prevent men’s rape. Written to your representative about this lately? Joined a protest? Meaningfully discussed prison reform?
Yes. On the other hand, a lot easier to get in if you’re volunteering. When was the last draft?
You know, I’d assume you were correct a while back. But having heard a lot of stories about the violence against lesbians, I’m not so certain. Any stats to back that up? And of course, if it’s violence, then we can be about 95% certain as to the gender of the perpetrator.
I’ll plead lack of knowledge here.
At least where I live, there is very little in the way of discretion and the law talks only of spouses. And yes, alimony flows from the bigger earner to the smaller earner. The rules are black and white, and they’re there when you go in.
Is this true? Gay male couples have been adopting in Ontario since 2000.
However, there will always be more suspicion towards males wanting contact with small children. An unfortunate consequence of the fact that the vast majority (albeit, not all) of sexual predators are male. And yes, it is unfortunate.
That is highly unfortunate. Being a single parent is never easy and you have my admiration for persevering in an incredibly difficult task, voluntary or not.
I have to say that when I had my young children alone, I’d get *more* support as people were happy to help a father who was “brave” enough to take on the responsibility that all mothers handled every day. But this may be a geographical/cultural difference.
No experience there, but it wouldn’t surprise me. It’s probably hard not to when you’ve seen too many cases of domestic violence. That doesn’t make it right, though.
Well, welcome to being the disposable sex. It the price we pay for being the masters of the universe everywhere else. Of course, in a physical emergency, we have the strength to be a lot likelier to survive. The Titanic disaster was, sadly, an anomaly when you compare rates of survival of men and women in natural disasters.
I’m not going to have a “who is victimized more” contest.
I will say that at least in a middle class setting, I’ve *never* found it a disadvantage to be a straight, white male. Not always an advantage, when things are just, but never a disadvantage. (Okay, except for when I was searching for a male washroom with a change table – but I hear that’s gotten easier.)
More to the point, this *isn’t* a zero-sum game. Correcting an injustice doesn’t mean that someone else is losing. What I admire about feminist organizations is that aside from antics by extremists, most organizations are actually trying to provide services to make women’s lives easier.
My beef about the MRA is that I don’t see any evidence that they care about men. Everything they talk about is about women. It’s like they decided to model themselves on the least productive aspects of the women’s movement.
I’ll change my opinion when I see MRA groups actively involved in providing men’s shelters, raising funds to help single male parents, helping former convicts re-integrate into society, establish organizations to help young men stay out of crime.
There are groups that do these. But none (that I’m aware of) are MRAs.
Anyway, feel free to reply and call yourself the victor, but I think I’ll have to let this rest. I’ve made my points, and I don’t think I have anything meaningfully more to add.
Also I get the feeling that this is far too personal an issue to you for me to get any joy out of using my rhetorical guns (ineffective or effective as they may be – never forget you’re arguing to influence the reader, not the person whose post you’re commenting on…)
@ Tom West:
there is nothing like good and evil. Universe does not care one bit about either of these human invented terms.
Really – if society finds something desirable then it marks these things “good” and by sheer propaganda and “sugar” will get them benefits if they follow it… even when it is selfdestructive in long run.
conversly the “evil” tag is used to discourage and “whip” is used to make people not do what society does not like.
Neither is objective, measurable and quantifiable.
@ Paeris Kiran:
@ Woden:
That ‘Marxism works, but only if humans aren’t individuals) is exactly how radical feminism is flawed.
@ Woden:
Um yes, one does choose to not believe in leprechauns. You had facts and personal experience to tell you it was better to not believe, but in the end you still take the step from being presented with the possibility to choosing that the possibility is stupid and has no basis in reality. The only way a person doesn’t choose something is if they are never presented with another possibility.
Paeris Kiran wrote:
You must be fun at parties :-).
Look, life is meaningless in the big picture. We’re all just bundles of chemicals that move around until those chemicals get redistributed.
So what? We’re not the big picture – we’re humans who care (at least most of us).
We don’t serve the big picture. We don’t serve the universe, and we certainly don’t serve evolution. Your comments about letting evolution have its way betray a deep misunderstanding of evolution. Evolution doesn’t build towards a goal. It doesn’t punish. It’s simply the mathematical outcome of a constrained system.
It’s tantamount to claiming we shouldn’t build dams because water wants to roll down hill. And we should let gravity have its way because things inevitably fall…
Is there a universal definition of good/evil?
No, but that doesn’t make it any less real for us right now. It doesn’t lessen our need to push for good and stand up to evil.
I really hope you are 16 and going through your nihilism phase.
Tom West wrote:
He was saying if they are the victim of those crimes, not if they are accused of those crimes. Your response to that is a non-sequitur.
Tom West wrote:
I’m not certain, but I think he is referring to the “trial by media” phenomenom, where even if someone gets declared not guilty by the courts, social media slanders their name outrageously. You need look no further than the Duke Lacrosse case or the Zimmerman trial to see such results in action; regardless of how you feel about either trial, it’s inarguable fact that, even after they were found not guilty by the courts, their reputations were still nonetheless sullied.
Then, of course, there are also the attempts of some feminist groups (a minority of them, to be sure, but they certainly do exist) to remove or weaken due process in rape trials.
Tom West wrote:
My understanding is that, at least in the U.S., it is nearly impossible for a single male to adopt (though single women may be allowed), and that it is harder for gay couples to adopt than it is for straight or lesbian couples. Granted, I have no interest in having any kids, so I admittedly haven’t looked very deeply into the issue at all
Tom West wrote:
But this is a false dichotomy. Their isn’t some binary choice between feminists and the MRAs. It is fully possible to disagree with feminists on a wide variety of issues, as well as on philosophical and methodological grounds, and still be in favor of, and politically working towards, equality.
I will reiterate that one of my biggest beefs with feminism is how widely it practices bad science and bad statistics, then parades the results around while trying to silence and shame anyone who points out flaws with it. You need look no further than any of the numerous feminist studies that have been done on rape prevalence; every single one that I am aware of uses a non-standard broad definition of rape. Similarly, some of the “wage gap” studies I’ve looked over have made broad groupings of very dissimilar types of jobs (in terms of education and other requirements, as well as in levels of responsibility and other such relevant criteria), then cited a gap between the wages without even attempting to control for those differences; the figures then typically are cited as women being paid such-and-such less for the same work as a man, despite the study not having actually given adequate support to such a claim.
fwtrump wrote:
Dear Powree and Mr. Knorzer,
Please publicly and openly give your readers assurance that this sort of strip will not happen again. I have a brilliant sister who is starting college in the fall, and I have watched her belittled for years. I’ve defended my friends, and I’ve defended strangers from my friends, and I am tired. I’ve dreaded visiting Sandra and Woo, knowing I would be painted a villain for daring to dream of a better world.
– A world where a man doesn’t challenge a woman wearing a metal band shirt about her knowledge of the band.
– A world where the girls getting As in Calculus are considered the best students, instead of the boys getting Bs.
– A world where the work of my programmer friends aren’t dismissed for being “too cute”.
– A world where I didn’t have to walk past the “no girls allowed” sign that HR thinks is hilarious at work every day.
– A world where my sister grew up seeing movies about women, people like her, pursuing careers and adventures of many kinds, instead of being some guy’s side story over and over.
– A world where my sister’s classmates didn’t accuse her of being “not a girl” because she loved science and math.
So although I am tired, I’ll fight you for my sister, I’ll fight you for the girls everywhere who never even knew they could become scientists, for all the women past and present who played with the deck stacked against them from the very start.
—
Sophie Germain was a French mathematicienne. She taught herself mathematics, and when the books were in Latin and Greek, she taught herself those languages. Her parents thought mathematics was not for women, and they tried to freeze it out of her, taking away her clothes and her fire at night. She was not allowed to attend university, so she studied the lecture notes by herself and took a male pseudonym to submit the homework. Her work was often plagued by errors in advanced fields such as real analysis.
And despite all that she contributed something to mathematics in elasticity theory and number theory. And, by excluding her, by obstructing her and refusing to properly educate her, the world lost out on a great mathematicienne.
—
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, he notes that nearly all players on the major league baseball teams were born in January, February, and March. Does that mean there are “significantly more” good baseball players born in those months? Sure, but is it innate?
From an early age, the kids born in those months are better baseball players. They are better because 10 months is a long time when a child is 5. The child is bigger and has better motor control. Because of this initial advantage, the child gets put on the better teams, gets more game time, gets more practice, gets more encouragement. This advantage carries over to the next year, and the next, all the way up to adulthood.
—
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks about writing stories. She wrote stories about blue-eyed children who ate apples and played in the snow. She lived in Nigeria but told those stories anyways, because those were the stories she’d heard.
Girls grow up seeing women in the media, women in the movies as mothers, nurses instead of doctors, teachers instead of professors, and love interests. So many love interests. So often part of a guy’s story, with no story of her own. And then they tell stories about themselves. Horrible stories where they lie asleep waiting for a stranger to kiss them without their consent. I was one of them.
—
Women in STEM are like December-born players in baseball. Women in leadership are hampered like Sophie Germain. The small differences add up. When a girl is given a doll while the boy next door gets a geology kit, she is falling behind. When a family with a daughter doesn’t think to send her to a math camp, she is falling behind. When a woman takes a programming class where her classmates say belittling and lewd things to her, she is developing a dislike of the field. When a woman is taught to back down because it’s ladylike, her leadership is damaged. All these things add up.
—
Last year, I saw a study on men, women, and sexual regrets. The men wished they’d had more sex when they were younger. The women wished they had waited more. The researchers speculated about possible evolutionary causes, as if sexual regrets were some innate thing. They did not consider the culture where men keep score: the more sexual partners he has, the higher his status. They did not consider the culture that calls women whores and sluts.
When people talk of more men among the intellectual elites, they are like this. They assume it’s some innate thing, and then they use it as an excuse. “Why bother encourage women in STEM”, they say, “when women just aren’t cut out for it?” This is why presenting graphs like the IQ graph with no discussion of societal causes is dangerous. It is damaging to women and girls young and old. Damaging to their careers, damaging to their prospects, damaging to their futures, damaging to their dreams. It becomes a self-fulfilling cycle, from the teacher who overlooks the bright girl, to the employer who dismisses the female applicant, to the voter who questions the female candidate’s leadership, and everywhere in between.
—
I fight for my sister who deserved the same opportunities as anyone. I challenge charts like the IQ chart because they are the results of a system-wide discrimination against girls. I share the histories of great and important women because girls see themselves in those stories.
And I do not appreciate the abuse I have gotten for it. I do not appreciate being threatened with rape, I do not appreciate getting called moral police (or a Nazi for that matter), and I most certainly do not appreciate being compared to a hated fictional villain.
—
I read webcomics because they are fun and relaxing for me, but Sandra and Woo has ceased to be fun and relaxing. You have pushed me into a defensive position. You pushed me to defend my sister from the people past and present who held her back with their unfounded IQ claims and their prejudice. You gave the bigots fuel and painted me as ridiculous for protesting. By painting me as a stupid, laughable villain; you ridiculed my response before I even made it, “oh here comes the political correctness police, she takes things way too seriously, isn’t that hilarious!” You prompted your readers to think of my protests as worthless.
My sister is half as likely to be hired as an equally-skilled man, and it’s not funny.
I don’t have the time or the energy to spend my nights dealing with this.
Thank you Woden for the clarification. I’d have to agree that it certainly is much tougher for males who are the victim of sexual abuse or harassment. (I don’t agree with “complete lack of recourse”, but I’ll assume that’s rhetoric.)
And yes, trial by media and sullied reputation occurs for *any* high profile case. Since men tend to criminality far more than women, this means that there will also be far more acquittals as well.
Actually, that’s my beef with humanity. Apparently a few percent rape rate *is* acceptable and no cause for action. Apparently being physically groped against one’s will is acceptable. Apparently being intimidated into sex is acceptable.
So yeah, they, like every other successful movement, gin up the figures. And you know what? Getting that outrage seems to have worked. Young women now are far less willing to put up with the sort of sexual harassment and coercion that almost every women of my wife’s generation had to endure, so I’m having a hard time getting too excited.
But am I aware that every action has its costs. Just as having a justice system means that we *are* imprisoning and (in the US) executing innocent people, I have no doubt that it is easier to be falsely accused.
However, a line has to be drawn somewhere, and I’m happy to see it moved from the previous status quo where pretty much all women had to accept that they’d be physically harassed (assaulted in the legal term) multiple times in their youth, to say nothing of those who suffered far worse.
Tom West wrote:
You mistake nihilism for my attemp to actually live acording to the nature of the universe and not fighting it every single second.
I have no issue with building a dam… but I always ask wheather resources expanded will come back in reasonable amount of time. If not I won´t contribute to building the dam one bit.
I have found out that is far simpler and easier to live acording to what universe is, not according to what I would like it to be.
All things I mentioned I see as verifiable facts of universe to which humans are subject equaly as any other thing that has to live in it.
Warping the universe to what we want is possible, but usualy requires constant resource and energy expeditiures and result is scarcely more worth then the resources expanded. And when resources seize to be applied universe relaxes into it´s natural state anyway.
@ wobster109:
Heartwarming. However, don’t be an ass and pin it on the authors. If you can’t handle the joke (which is clearly unlikely to contribute to the problem) then the onus is on you to back away. Basic freedoms.
You obviously have massive involvement in this issue, but the comic itself has nothing to do with it.
You could be 100% correct about every fact you stated, and it wouldn’t change that the whole thing is one big non-sequitur.
You were defensive long before this comic. And that’s rarely a good thing. Being defensive means that you’re very likely to find slight where none exists.
@ Paeris Kiran:
Remember, of course, that we are not outside the universe. Our own desires are but other gears in its works. When we want something, or avoid something, that is also the path of least resistance.
When we forego something we want because we can plan and prioritize, that too is the path of least resistance.
Where conscious life discovers the path of least resistance, only infinite recursion can follow.
Good luck with it.
Joe wrote:
For a short while he was dating a feminist who was more on the rad-fem side of the spectrum. They apparently broke up a while ago, but as I saw one person describe it, he’s kept up the rad-fem trend of the comic on some vain hope of winning her back, and it’s starting to sink in that she’s not coming back.
@ Woden:
First of all, you completely messed up the formatting somehow. For people reading this, everything before “techniques and technology” in the quoted post was said by me.
And, like I said, Aristotle’s logic was flawed. HOWEVER, common sense doesn’t include rigorous fact-checking either. In fact, common sense and rigor are diametrically opposed; common sense is what gives us the Gambler’s Fallacy and the Golden Mean Fallacy, rigor is what disproves them.
Actual logic is, by definition, perfect reasoning; imperfect reasoning is, therefore, not logic. QED.
Carl W. Roden wrote:
No it isn’t. What could possibly lead you to think this?
Common sense without logic is just stupid. Common sense with logic is less stupid. Pure logic is purely logical, leading to a dramatic or complete drop in cognitive dissonance and freedom from the chains of culture and bigotry. Only people who’ve developed an emotional attachment to their chains hate their liberator.
It seems to me that, usually (and this is just idle, anecdotal speculation, here), people come to the conclusion that logic is evil because some belief they hold dear has been recently torn to shreds by our vicious logic hounds, and they need some excuse to cling to the shrapnel.
Just speculation on my part, though.
@ Takashoru:
Of course the comic has something to do with it. I mean, it joins in the culture of making fun of women. It’s like a kid on the playground that joins in bullying the smallest kid. Sure, they didn’t start it, but they joined in and became part of the problem. This comic is encouraging people to laugh at women together. Just because the author thinks it’s a joke doesn’t mean there are no real world consequences.
Of course I’m defensive. When you insult people, call them moral police, portray them as a villain, and tell them their troubles don’t matter, that makes people defensive. Sometimes it’s right to be defensive. If I said “all men are sexist pigs”, wouldn’t that be awful? Any man would be right to get defensive. If I said “your job is stupid and worthless”, wouldn’t you be defensive too? Defensive is a reaction. It takes two. Sometimes it’s the person slinging the insults that needs to back off and apologize.
Generally calling some the moral police and comparing them to a storybook villain is intended to be a slight.
Anime fan wrote:
@ Anime fan:
Aggreed.Equal rights does not mean that one sex is superior that the other.Sure,there’s a lot of things women can do that men can’t and vice versa.But that DOESN’T make the other sex more powerful or more right.I feel that miss Cambridge here is feminism incarnate,start saying things about women the same apologetics do with little to no evidence,just because she says so and we’re in for a LONG one.
@ Woden:
You know, I was just writing a long and vitriolic comment to Tom West that basically amounted to what you just said. Thanks for saving me some time in the early sections.
Tom West wrote:
It’s true. It’s also sexist and wrong.
Ah, yes. This ludicrous fallacy. I guess I’ll waste a minute of time here to explain why this is stupid. With a metaphor.
If somebody was wasting their time finding better treatments for the common cold, and I said they should stop wasting their time on the cold and focus on trying to treat cancer, would you then look at me and tell me not to attack them for treating the cold since I’m not trying to cure cancer?
Oh yes, because the ability to go murder brown people in blasted wastelands for the benefit of rich white people who don’t give a fuck about anything but money is totally worth the inability to say no if they order it. Fucking moron.
Thanks for that last sentence. Way to put your misandry on display, you sexist sack of shit.
Let me summarize: If a woman has a weird fetish, it’s “Kinky…”. If a man has a weird fetish, it’s “Disgusting, how can he live with himself? He should be locked up, in a psych ward! Don’t let him around your kids, he’s probably a paedophile too!”
The same also goes for homosexuality.
Except that’s bullshit. Not just alimony itself being bullshit, that’s pretty straightforward, but alimony ALWAYS goes from man to woman. If the woman earns more than the man, the man doesn’t GET alimony.
That’s bullshit, and you are a sexist piece of shit not worth the air you are breathing. There is NO SIGNIFICANT STATISTICAL DIFFERENCE in child molestation rates between males and females, and the very small difference that does exist, and is well within the standard of deviation, actually shows females being a tiny bit MORE likely to molest children. It’s just sexist scumbags like YOU that spread that BULLSHIT STEREOTYPE that have people believing it.
I first lived in a liberal area, now in a hyperconservative pocket just a stone’s throw away from it. In the liberal area, people assumed I was a paedophilic child-molesting pervert because they couldn’t see any other reason a man would want a baby that wasn’t biologically his. In the conservative area, the same, and then went on to assume my child’s bisexuality was somehow proof of molestation. (You know, because it’s not like she was BORN THAT WAY or anything.) When that bullshit wasn’t happening, they were always insisting the girl should be with her mother instead, that a man is useless as a parent, and that she’s going to die if she’s left in my care because I’m a man and therefore can’t raise a child.
I’ve had CPS called on me for no reason dozens of times, mostly by my mother (she’s insane) but even excluding her at least six times. If my best friend’s mother wasn’t a CPS worker, I would not still have my daughter. I’ve actually had her briefly taken from me EVERY SINGLE TIME they showed up despite good conditions in my house, her excellent health, her happiness and her very strong desire to stay with me. (Which is why I have her in the first place.) The only difference between me and other men is that I got her returned later due to my friend’s mother, and my ex-wife.
Translation: “I’m a misandrist ass and I’ve got the mental acquity of loose gravel!”
I’m fucking done with you.
I know that, dipshit. Look around you, at the rest of the comment section. That’s how I know I’m winning. Or at the very least, you’re losing. And after the hate speech you’ve put out here, I’ll gladly count your loss as my victory.
Pretty sure it isn’t so much morals as it is ethics.
FYI my biases: I’m a silly disabled lesbian who wants everyone to be happy.
We need to tackle women’s issues and men’s issues if we want equality without hating each other. Draft is bad. Alimony should be based on who is less equipped to work. It used to be women who were always less equipped to work because they weren’t allowed jobs. Now it can be either. Biologically both men and women have reason to want children.
Sexism hurts men and women. Men get the short end of the stick if they aren’t “manly” enough. Women get it if they aren’t “girly” enough. Yet somehow its okay for women to wear “men’s” clothing but not the other way around. These days men get more flak and abuse from peers for liking “girly” things and girls get to do more and more “boyish” things because they are feeding into the current power dynamic. This is absurd. Let kids play with whatever they want. Let adults dress however they want as long as its decent. Laws should be adjusted to be more egalitarian.
I know of someone whose wife was crazy. But she got the kids and not him. That is absurd. We try to update things so women can be more equal, now that they are more equal, we are still a long way away from full equality, we need to make laws more equal so that the best parent gets the kid and the person less able to work gets alimony. Among many other laws.
Avian Mosquito wrote:
No politics here. Just wanted to say good on you for your efforts to raise your child in the face was quite horrific circumstances. Being a single parent is never easy, and having anti-help from a parent would take it from challenging to heart-breakingly difficult.
I certainly understand where your rage comes from. I suspect I’d be similar under similar circumstances.
Ya’ll are get’n a lil way too uptight about an online comic
@ LaughGirl:
I almost entirely agree with you. The only thing I’d change is the bit on alimony. I’d make it so alimony flat-out doesn’t exist. If the partner without a job doesn’t have kids and they break up with the provider, they need to get a job because they’re not doing anything for that money anymore and shouldn’t get to ride off their ex husband/wife now that they’re not married. If they still have the children they should still get a job anyway, for the same reason, and only give them child support for what the children need. That’s a more moral and practical than the current system.