Astro Cat wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 6:12 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:23 pm
You can do the study. But you can't get it published. You won't be presenting at any conferences. And when your tenure review comes up, the existence of that study is really going to hurt your chances. On top of that, you can count on the fact that even if you get it published, dozens of others will produce reviews, critiques, exposes, and so forth denouncing your methods, your results and your character. And if you're really unlucky, you're going to end up being a news item, and have pickets set up outside your faculty with protesters screaming what a racist-sexist-homophobe-transphobe (or whatever) you are.
All this has happened already, in the rare cases of people with enough courage to do the sorts of studies that Social Science Orthodoxy currently does not approve.
That's why the only place where you find contrarian data is in books, generally by people whose current position is not dependent on the academy. They don't have to kowtow to political correctness, and can put out the results they actually find. The penalties for them are not nonexistent, but considerably reduced in comparison to dwellers of academia.
Yet finding data in books is a risky affair, especially when people have ideological axes to grind. It would be best to be able to see methodology, assumptions, background, statistics, and whether any findings have been reproduced.
Of course. But when a particular kind of research is banned and penalized in the way balanced sex research is right now, that's not even possible. So you have to make the best of the other kinds of information you can get: and books by reputable authors, using their data, are the best available source.
Well, I don't have time to read books about conspiracy theories;
Wow.
Well, that's a pure assumption...but it also happens to be wrong. James Lindsay is right now probably the most articulate and prominent voice in this field...and he's a PhD. But you won't know if you don't look.
There are bazillions of studies that impute biological essentials to women...There are also tons of papers about the demographics of male to female interest. You've even talked about some of this nature (you brought up something, somewhere, about how women talk differently). It doesn't seem verboten to me.
How many studies can you find that contest the gender-sex distinction, for example? How many current studies are being published on why children cannot transition? Why is the only form of "therapy" now allowable "affirmation therapy," and why is telling a boy he's a boy called "conversion therapy" and banned?
Is it really that these questions are so easy, and all the scientific data is so absolutely favourable to the trans ideology, that there just isn't any contrary data? Or is somebody tilting the table?
I think you know the answer.
Now of course I understand some of the chilling effect that you describe. I understand why a SCOTUS justice might hesitate to define "woman," and I understand the reasons why.
Do you?
Why do you think that she (presumably a woman) can't even bring herself to say what she is? Do you think she doesn't know? Do you think she genuinely can't tell us what a woman is, because "she's not a biologist," as she said? But since she said "biologist," she also is confessing that being a woman must be "biological": if not, then a "biologist" would not be the relevant field of expertise...
Or did she just know she was skating to avoid the penalties?
Again, I think you know the answer.
I just doubt that it has as much of a chilling effect to the point of total censorship in scientific literature that you suggest.
Oh, I've seen it. I assure you that's how it is.
For instance, I tried to think of a really "pot-stirring" topic that nobody would probably want to touch with a 10 foot pole ("Race and Intelligence") and typed that in to google scholar, guess what? Many, many, many pages of results of studies people have actually done. On your view where "things that aren't 'PC' don't get studied," I doubt that there would be any studies of this nature.
I'm glad you brought that one up. I know a case.
The professor in question (who already had tenure, but still nearly lost it) simply did a statistical comparison of racial groups vis a vis raw intelligence. He used standard IQ type tests, not culturally-loaded ones: you know, the problem-solving, pattern recognition, logical extension kind of thing, not anything that requires background knowledge.
Anyway, his results showed a higher performance for Asians, then "Whites" (broadly categorized) and then on down. And everybody went ballistic. The first accusation against him was of "white supremacy" -- odd, in the case of a guy who was arguing for Asians being the top. But after that, it was every other accusation under the sun. You can imagine.
In the end, he held tenure, but was pushed into the academic backwaters. He could not longer get privileges, publicity or publication, and was a total embarassment to his university, and a funding liability. He's gone, now.
But all he did was publish his results.
Be sure of this: if you embarass the university and pose a threat to fundraising, they will get you back. And how honest and diligent you've been, or what your results are will no longer matter.
Immanuel Can wrote:
That women report psychological reasons for leaving doesn't tell us much. It's actually exactly what we should expect, if women find that their natural proclivities are not fitting the ethos of the field of science -- that they would soon begin to feel frustrated or unappreciated, and leave.
I am pretty certain that under the hypothesis women want to be nurturers more than analyzers that instead of saying "I was undervalued" they would be saying "A better opportunity came up that better aligns with my interests." But that's not what they're saying:
overwhelmingly they cite negativity with the gendered culture and expectations.
That's perception. What's the reality?
The reality is there's nothing specific. What is this "negativity"? What actual actions and facts account for it? And how can a culture be "gendered," when "gender" is just a social construct, and lacks any objective reality itself? Where are these "expectations"?
And, as I say, I've seen much of the opposite. I've had some excellent female colleagues. But I've also seen shoddy, incompetent female candidates promoted well above competent male ones, merely because they "help" with the quotas and gender-balance expectations. And I can't imagine much more frustrating and alienating to my excellent female collegues than to see these less competent people promoted as their "equals" merely for being female. It throws a shadow on everything they achieve. That would make me annoyed, too: and that's a specific problem, not some vague "implicit" one.
...women experience being undervalued and have to work harder for the same amount of recognition.
I observe the opposite...but then, I'm not in STEM. So it seems that there are "gender biases" of many kinds.
Women are talked over, condescended to, sexually harassed, hired less, paid less, promoted less,
None of these is remotely the case where I am. In fact, if you sexually harass somebody, as a man, your career is done. Even the allegation can kill you. Women are hired more, promoted faster, encouraged much more, and not paid one penny less. And they have quotas, scholarships, mentorships and all sorts of things set aside to advantage them. The equivalent answer to men is inevitably, "Do it yourself, Chuck."
The worm turns on female choice. When women opt for family, they tend to opt out of career. That's just how they roll, it seems.
Ah! "Family life," you say? That would explain a lot, wouldn't it? But that's a biological reality that causes a psychological effect. That's not something inherent to STEM. After all, nobody owes me or you to pay for our decision to have children instead of advancing a career. And nobody tells anybody they have to have children in order to be fulfilled; so why do so many women insist (barring any reference to biology) that they must have children?
You see, it just doesn't work to eliminate the biological from the reckoning.
Actually men want children just as much...
Immaterial. Men will not take time off to have them. And they also don't opt for "life balance" as often as their female colleagues do.
As I said, the issue is not whether or not men and women
want equally to reproduce: it's the biological realities of what happens when they
do choose that.
Either way, it's not the employer's problem. He has no say over whether or not his employees, male or female, have children, and no stake in paying for them to do so. That choice is a liability to the employer, but it's a choice made at the discretion of the man or woman in question. Since the employer cannot prevent it, he cannot be responsible for it either. What happens, happens.
Immanuel Can wrote:But the others..."being talked over, devalued..." those are "grow up" kind of issues. Seriously, you're painting women are pretty fragile there. Men get that stuff all the time, and shake it off.
Sure, in small amounts "suck it up, buttercup" is a perfectly reasonable response.
It is. It's what men have to do all the time.
Have you ever experienced imposter syndrome?
What do you mean? I know several phenomena that go under that umbrella.
For example, one manifestation of an "imposter syndrome" is my able female colleagues feeling like the "imposter diversity hires" drag their achievements down. And I don't wonder that they feel that way; and maybe that just means we get rid of the quotas.
Another "imposter syndrome" is when a person feels as if he/she is an "imposter" for taking on a particular job or role. And everybody has that kind of temporary "imposter" feeling whenever they take on a new job; the answer is, either admit you can't do the job, or stick it out and get over it.
So what sort of "imposter syndrome" do you mean?
So there are no equal wage laws in your country?
In mine, any employer who did that would be sued immediately; and the employer would lose every time. It's actually illegal.
Immanuel Can wrote:As an alternative, what women could do is take the very minimum maternity leave, signing a contract guaranteeing their full return afterward, and then pay a child care worker to take care of their infant. That would hit them in the pocketbook, but it would hit a man equivalently anyway. And it would minimize the disruption and cost to the employer, and the time the women would be out of the workforce. It wouldn't completely eliminate the problem, but it would surely improve it considerably. And if they didn't want to loose career momentum, the answer is simple: don't have kids, don't take leaves, and stop all the talk about "work-life balance." Be more like the men.
And why not? After all, haven't you said there's no biological difference here? So it's behavioural.
But if they choose not to do anything like that, the complaint about "earning less" over a career becomes ridiculous. The answer is simple: stay in the workforce, and don't have babies, and you'll progress ahead of all the men...because there are no affirmative action programs and equality quotas for men, but plenty for women.
...women bear more of a burden at home...
I'm sorry to be so blunt, but in the work world,
who cares?
Home life is a negotiation between spouses. If she married a lout, what's that to the employer? If she had children, good for her; but what's that to the employer? The employer has no role or say in any of that. What he pays is what he pays for a person (male or female) who comes to work, does the job, and then goes home and does whatever he/she wants to do. If a woman allows herself to be more responsible for the domestic sphere than she thinks she should be, then that's on her. It has nothing to do with "implicit bias" at work. It's a matter to be worked out in her own home.
So she can find her own solution. She can't blame the work world for her choices.
...I wonder how many women know they won't get too much support...
Men don't ask for support. They expect competence. They pay for results, not feelings. That's reality. And if somebody (male or female) "feels unloved" by that, well, that's just not something an employer can deal with.
...how often they'd be expected to take the brunt of the cognitive labor and home workload because of gendered expectations rather than with a husband that would equalize the workload?
They didn't have to marry. They didn't have to marry that kind of husband. They didn't have to have children. They didn't have to quit work. Their "workload" at home can be as light as they're willing to make it. But that's all on them.
Besides, one problem we have in the US is a miserable maternity leave situation.
Well, "maternity leave" is a weird idea. It penalizes the employer for hiring females. It punishes the tax payer and the employer for choices a woman makes for entirely by herself and for her self. So not surprisingly, it makes middle-aged women a huge liability economically.
What's surprising about that?
If biases are causing women to drop out,
That's a big "if." We have no reason to think it's true, other than their claim that they "feel bad."
As I say, let's locate that "bias" and get rid of it. So what, exactly, is it that's making them "feel bad'? Let's get to specifics, and fix it.
Of course! I'm still enjoying the conversation and your company. I do think deadnaming is jerkish, but that's just the way it is. I still like you overall despite disagreeing with several of your views. We're getting along fine
Agreed...except with the idea that "deadnaming" is even a thing.
I wonder how those female athletes who are today being absolutely pasted by the transers are feeling about "deadnaming" these days...
Matt Walsh interviewed a couple...but one would only agree to speak on camera with her face totally blacked out and her voice altered. Fear is a terrible thing; but she wasn't wrong to be afraid of what would happen.