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gender issues Archive

Friday

19

December 2014

0

COMMENTS

A Moral Panic Over ‘Rape Culture’

Written by , Posted in Culture & Society

The folks at EveryJoe have been kind enough to offer me a platform for a weekly column under the title Free Radical. It will feature many of the same topics I address here, though are likely to be a bit more in-depth.

The first column is up today, and takes a look at the troubling emergence of a new moral panic:

Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Erdely’s sensational tale of a gang rape at a University of Virginia frat house has been unraveling practically since the day it was published. From the beginning, the article’s parade of sociopathetic characters – both the alleged perpetrators and the friends of Jackie, the pseudonymous accuser – were hard for many to believe. Other claims, such as the idea that Jackie was rolled around on broken glass for three hours without sustaining serious injuries requiring hospitalization, were simply nonsensical. It took only minimal scrutiny and the kind of basic fact-checking that should have preceded publication to poke major holes in the story, eventually forcing Rolling Stone to repeatedly backtrack and apologize.

Perhaps the final blow to the sordid tale came in the form of a Washington Post story featuring interviews with Jackie’s friends, who despite never being contacted by Erdely were portrayed as more concerned with their social status and popularity than getting Jackie help or justice. Not only do they refute that account, but they also claim that Jackie identified her alleged attacker to them, only to have it turn out that no such person attended the university or met the description provided.

Even more interesting than how Erdely botched the facts is why it happened.

Simply put, Jackie’s tale was too good to verify. It fit neatly the “rape culture” narrative that contends not only that the nation is suffering an epidemic of sexual assaults, but that the public is grossly indifferent to the plight of female victims, particularly on college campuses.

The rape culture narrative has become so ubiquitous that it has reached the level of a moral panic, with ideologues seeing signs of its influence everywhere. And like the moral panics that have come before, it is becoming a major threat to individual liberty.

You can find the entire piece here.

Tuesday

21

August 2012

1

COMMENTS

What’s Wrong With Gender Specific Clubs?

Written by , Posted in Culture & Society

A lot of the talk around Augusta National’s decision to admit its first two female members has me baffled, just as I was baffled when this whole brouhaha began years ago.  What principle, exactly, are the people upset with Augusta’s membership practices enforcing? What’s wrong with gender specific clubs?

On every college campus in America, you’ll find clubs excluding at least half of the population. No women in the fraternities; no men in the sororities. Who does that harm?

Augusta, up until now, was a private, male-only golf club. So what? There are a multitude of private, women-only clubs, and I don’t see the angry feminists busting down their doors demanding men be let in for the sake of equality. Because this really has nothing to do with equality. Anyone was already equally free to start their own private club and set their own rules for it. That’s equality.

These people, who usually prattle on about the benefits of diversity, don’t seem to actually want any. What’s that, how can I say they don’t want diversity when they are trying to make Augusta more diverse? Because if every club has the same rules, the same membership, and the same demographics, then there is no diversity among the universe of private clubs. They’ll all be the same. What’s the fun in that?

Sure, you can make a particular women’s only college more diverse by forcing them to accept men, but in so doing you’ll have made colleges as a whole less diverse. Take the extreme example and say you eliminate gender specific colleges altogether. People will necessarily have fewer choices when it comes to the type of collegiate environment they can choose, meaning the total universe of colleges has become less diverse.

True diversity means allowing different types of clubs, universities and other institutions to exist. If every institution must cater to the exact same crowd, then people will have less interesting and meaningful options available to them. Yes, Augusta is prestigious and well-known, but should their success mean that they are no longer free to set their own membership rules? Shouldn’t the same be expected of every club, or better yet, none at all?

Monday

4

June 2012

3

COMMENTS

Obama Continues Cynical Campaign of Division, Trots Out Unequal Gender Pay Myth

Written by , Posted in Economics & the Economy, Free Markets, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

In a cynical, dishonest and divisive effort to boost his flailing campaign and distract from the latest jobs report reflecting his dismal economic record, President Obama is trumping the Paycheck Fairness Act (or as I like to call it, the Trial Lawyer Payout Enhancement Act), a new onerous regulatory regime which will benefit trial lawyers at the expense of businesses and the economy, and which is based on the discredited premise that women earn less than men for equal work.

The administration propaganda machine is now offering e-cards that you can send to annoy your friends and remind everyone you know that America is still an awful, sexist country. Here is an example:

Notice the fundamental dishonesty here. A “typical 25-year-old woman” is not the same as “a typical 25-year-old man.” Women are more risk-averse, make different career choices, work different hours and value different rewards. So why should they be expected to earn the same?

Individuals draw paychecks, not identity groups, and it is their individual choices which determine what that pay check is. Men, for instance, work in more dangerous jobs and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2010 (the most recent year for which data is available) were 12 times more likely to die from work-related injuries than women. Should we also create a new government agency to randomly kill enough female workers each year until this grisly inequality is eliminated? The BLS American Time Use Survey also reveals that men work more hours, even when only looking at those with full-time jobs, averaging 8.2 hours per workday for men compared to 7.8 for women.

When actually looking at the facts, it is rather ridiculous to look just at average pay for full-time men and women and conclude that any difference is necessarily the result of discrimination, as the feminists do whenever they trot out the context-less “pay gap.” Even the White House has in the past acknowledged these facts by observing that men choose to work in higher paying fields than women (many of which are higher paying because they are deadly, as evidenced above).

In fact, when comparing apples to apples, women often come out ahead:

When you compare apples to apples, the so-called wage gap disappears. Young, childless, single urban women earn 8 percent more than their male counterparts. Women who have never had a child earn 113 percent of what men earn. Unmarried college-educated males between the ages of 40 and 64 earn nearly 15 percent less than their female counterparts.

The Paycheck Fairness Act, in other words, is based on a faulty premise. Men earn more on average because they choose, on average, to work in riskier jobs, work longer hours, and are also more likely to negotiate salaries and ask for raises. That’s not discrimination; It’s individuals making free choices in a free society. This is not jut my own conclusion, but also that of Obama’s own Deparment of Labor:

“This study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.”

Unfortunately, the faulty premise behind the Paycheck Fairness Act is not its only problem.  Aside from being unnecessary, the law would have significant negative consequences if enacted. The Wall Street Journal explains:

The law automatically lists women as plaintiffs in class actions when lawyers sue employers, thereby requiring female employees to opt-out of litigation with which they don’t agree. Businesses would be treated as guilty until shown to be innocent, having to prove in court that their pay practices aren’t the result of workplace bias. The legislation contains no caps on damage awards, allowing plaintiffs to claim unlimited punitive damages even in cases of unintentional discrimination.

The bill is also a first step toward federal pay mandates. It requires the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to collect data from employers about how they compensate on the basis of sex, race and national origin. Government rarely collects data merely to put it in a vault. These numbers will form the basis of class-action suits and will invite regulators to issue federal compensation guidelines.

This is a bad law to treat a non-existent problem. Worse, it is being advanced solely for the purpose of further dividing Americans in order to elevate President Obama’s reelection campaign. Because he has no record worth running on, the President will continue dredging up every myth, fable and scare-story imaginable in order to hit on every perceived identity grievance in existence.

Saturday

21

April 2012

0

COMMENTS

Freedom and Social Engineering Don’t Mix

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Liberty & Limited Government

Slate reports on Sweden’s radical move toward gender-neutrality:

Many are pushing for the Nordic nation to be not simply gender-equal but gender-neutral. The idea is that the government and society should tolerate no distinctions at all between the sexes. This means on the narrow level that society should show sensitivity to people who don’t identify themselves as either male or female, including allowing any type of couple to marry. But that’s the least radical part of the project. What many gender-neutral activists are after is a society that entirely erases traditional gender roles and stereotypes at even the most mundane levels.

…Earlier this month, the movement for gender neutrality reached a milestone: Just days after International Women’s Day a new pronoun, hen (pronounced like the bird in English), was added to the online version of the country’s National Encyclopedia. The entry defines hen as a “proposed gender-neutral personal pronoun instead of he [han in Swedish] and she [hon].”The National Encyclopedia announcement came amid a heated debate about gender neutrality that has been raging in Swedish newspaper columns and TV studios and on parenting blogs and feminist websites…

Hen was first mentioned by Swedish linguists in the mid-1960s, and then in 1994 the late linguist Hans Karlgren suggested adding hen as a new personal pronoun, mostly for practical reasons. Karlgren was trying to avoid the awkward he/she that gums up writing, and invent a single word “that enables us to speak of a person without specifying their gender. He argued that it could improve the Swedish language and make it more nuanced.

Today’s hen champions, however, have a distinctly political agenda…

The Swedish school system has wholeheartedly, and probably too quickly and eagerly, embraced this new agenda. Last fall, 200 teachers attended a major government-sponsored conference discussing how to avoid “traditional gender patterns” in schools. At Egalia, one model Stockholm preschool, everything from the decoration to the books and toys are carefully selected to promote a gender-equal perspective and to avoid traditional presentations of gender and parenting roles…

Ironically, in the effort to free Swedish children from so-called normative behavior, gender-neutral proponents are also subjecting them to a whole set of new rules and new norms as certain forms of play become taboo, language becomes regulated, and children’s interactions and attitudes are closely observed by teachers. One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys “gender-coded” them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. Another preschool removed “free playtime” from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the school put it, when children play freely “stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented. In free play there is hierarchy, exclusion, and the seed to bullying.” And so every detail of children’s interactions gets micromanaged by concerned adults, who end up problematizing minute aspects of children’s lives, from how they form friendships to what games they play and what songs they sing.

As a philosophical conservative I place value on tradition, or the social roles and institutions that have developed over time. I am not resistant to change per se, but think it should be largely endogenous and happen gradually. I also see political systems, which necessarily operate on the principle of force, as existing outside civil society, which is governed by voluntary interaction. Therefore, I naturally resist the exogenous nature of social change as directed by government.

But I have more than just philosophical objections to this sort of meddling. There are also very practical concerns. Namely, it necessarily means a loss of freedom.

In order to force change on society, government must discourage the old behavior while also encouraging the new. The more entrenched the behavior, and I can’t really think of anything with a deeper foundation in human society than gender roles, the more discouragement tends to become suppression and encouragement force. The last paragraph above provides examples.

Social engineering necessarily diminishes freedom. The greater the change desired, the greater the loss of freedom required. For that reason alone, Sweden’s experiment is one I would consider dangerous and unwelcome.

Friday

6

May 2011

1

COMMENTS

Department of Education Wants More Students Falsely Convicted of Sexual Harassment

Written by , Posted in Education, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

Does the headline sound preposterous? Well, that’s exactly what will happen in response to this:

In a “Dear Colleague” letter sent to colleges and universities in April, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali announced new federal regulations publicly funded schools must employ to address allegations of sexual harassment and sexual violence.

The new standards most notably lower the burden of proof to prosecute.

“[I]n order for a school’s grievance procedures to be consistent with Title IX standards, the school must use a preponderance of the evidence standard (i.e., it is more likely than not that sexual harassment or violence occurred),” Ali wrote.

FIRE responds:

“The Office for Civil Rights’ unilateral revision of campus codes across the country is unquestionably unjust. Students accused of serious crimes like rape should not be tried under the same standard of proof used for a parking ticket,” said FIRE President Greg Lukianoff. “OCR is proceeding from the fallacy that reducing protections for the accused will somehow increase justice. This is a dangerous and wrongheaded idea that will undermine the accuracy and reliability of the findings of campus courts.”

Indeed.

“Preponderance of evidence” standards are not used in criminal proceedings for a reason. And while these are not strictly speaking criminal preceedings, they have far more in common with such than the civil action cited by DoE as justification in their letter. Courts have specifically found that use of a preponderance of evidence standard can violate Due Process when the repercussions are serious enough, such as when states use it as a justification to deprive parents of custody of their children. What happens to a student “convicted” of sexual harassment in a college is not as bad as losing custody of a child, but it will have severe and lasting repercussions for that individual. Depriving a student of their education and good name should thus, at the least, require the more onerous of the civil tests, clear and convincing evidence.

In addition to lowering the standard of proof, DoE is taking the unusual stance that accusers should get multiple bites at the apple. They demand that any appeals process must allow both parties to appeal a verdict, rather than the typical practice of reserving such protections for defendants, so that they do not have to repeatedly defend themselves from the same charge:

OCR strongly discourages schools from allowing the parties personally to question or cross-examine each other during the hearing. Allowing an alleged perpetrator to question an alleged victim directly may be traumatic or intimidating, thereby possibly escalating or perpetuating a hostile environment. OCR also recommends that schools provide an appeals process. If a school provides for appeal of the findings or remedy, it must do so for both parties. Schools must maintain documentation of all proceedings, which may include written findings of facts, transcripts, or audio recordings.

They also wish to deny defendants (who they repeatedly refer to with the more inflammatory “alleged perpetrator”) their normal right to confront accusers (which they again tellingly call “alleged victims”).

This system clearly eschews the normal American disposition toward favoring the rights of the defendants, and instead stacks the deck in favor of the accusers. It’s the Mike Nifonging of campus sexual harassment enforcement, and should serve as a warning to any entity considering accepting federal dollars.

Thursday

21

April 2011

0

COMMENTS

Mexico: A Feminist Utopia?

Written by , Posted in General/Misc.

Mexican men beware – if you cross an arbitrary line for the acceptable levels of jealousy allowed to be exhibited, show “indifference” toward your wife, or neglect her carnal needs, you might just find yourself behind bars:

Mexican men who display extreme jealousy or avoid sex with their wives could be tried in court and punished under a new law, the special prosecutor for crimes against women told a local newspaper on Friday.

Men who phone their wives every half hour to check up on them, constantly suspect them of infidelity or try to control the way they dress are committing the crime of jealousy, special prosecutor Alicia Elena Perez Duarte told Excelsior newspaper.

Those who stop talking to their wives, avoid sex or try to convince suspicious spouses they are “crazy” even if they are caught red-handed having an affair, are guilty of indifference, she said.

Men found guilty of jealousy or indifference could face up to five years in prison, the newspaper said. Mexico’s individual states will determine the punishments, it said.

Controlling women, presumably, are just keeping their philandering men in line. Or so we are left to surmise.

From what I gather, the law is ostensibly designed to reduce domestic violence by criminalizing sometimes correlated behaviors, but that is simply sloppy lawmaking. The result is a law patronizing women by presuming they cannot deal with civil disputes on their own like adults, and subjects men to a ridiculous double-standard, effectively codifying in the criminal code the already existing social view in Western societies that anything men do is immediately suspect.

I’d say this is a feminist Utopia, but it’s not quite. If that were true, merely being married would be evidence of criminal patriarchal oppression.

Tuesday

20

April 2010

0

COMMENTS

Busting The Equal Pay Day Nonsense

Written by , Posted in Identity Politics

Another leftwing myth shattered:

Today is Equal Pay Day. Feminist groups and political leaders have set aside this day to protest the fact that women’s wages are, on average, 78 percent of men’s wages. “This date symbolizes how far into 2010 women must work to earn what men earned in 2009,”says the National Committee on Pay Equity. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) has enlisted supporters to wear red “to represent the way the pay gap puts women ‘in the red.’” There will be rallies, speak outs, mass mailings of equity e-cards, and even bake sales featuring cookies with a “bite” taken out to represent women’s losses to men. The National Organization for Women (NOW) suggests women gather together at local bars for “Un-happy Hours” where they can share their dissatisfactions. “See if a local bar, club, or restaurant (try the women-owned ones first!) will give you drink specials [where] women pay 78% of their tabs and men pay 100%.”

I seriously doubt women are paying for 78% of their drinks to begin with.  Sorry, back to the smack-down:

Excuse me for interrupting, but this holiday has no basis in reality. Even feminist economists acknowledge that today’s pay disparities are almost entirely the result of women’s different life choices—what they study in school, where they work, and how they balance home and career. This is not to deny that some employers will try to pay Jill 78 cents and Jack $1.00 for an identical job. But our strict laws give Jill the right to take that employer to court. The claim that American women as a group face systemic wage discrimination is groundless.

…Psychologist Susan Pinker has aptly noted that men are more likely than women to give priority to salary and promotions over personal fulfillment. Women are not as ready to sacrifice their deep interests in, say, history, psychology, or public policy—“all in order to fix, sell, or distribute widgets” or “to spend the best years of [their lives] planning air conditioning ductwork for luxury condos.” Men also work longer hours and are more willing than women to take dangerous but well-paid jobs as truck drivers, loggers, coal miners, or oil riggers. (My American Enterprise Institute colleague Mark Perry has suggested we designate October 11, 2020, Equal Occupational Fatality Day. That is how far into the future women will have to work to experience the same number of work-related deaths that men experienced in 2008 alone. )

Thursday

8

April 2010

0

COMMENTS

White Males Should Not Attend Duke

Written by , Posted in General/Misc.

Duke University has a new “sexual misconduct” policy straight out of the minds of the most demented, male-hating feminists.

Duke University has instituted a new “sexual misconduct” policy that can render a student guilty of non-consensual sex simply because he or she is considered “powerful” on campus. The policy claims that “perceived power differentials may create an unintentional atmosphere of coercion.” Duke’s new policy transforms students of both sexes into unwitting rapists simply because of the “atmosphere” or because one or more students are “intoxicated,” no matter the degree. The policy also establishes unfair rules for judging sexual misconduct accusations. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is challenging the policy.

“Duke’s new sexual misconduct policy could have been written by Mike Nifong,” said FIRE Vice President Robert Shibley. “Members of the men’s basketball team could be punished for consensual sexual activity simply because they are ‘perceived’ as more powerful than other students after winning the national championship. Students who engage in sexual behavior after a few beers could be found guilty of sexual misconduct towards each other. This is not just illogical and impractical, but insane. Given its experience during the lacrosse team rape hoax, Duke, of all schools, should know better than to institute such unjust rules about sexual misconduct.”

…Duke’s vastly overbroad definition of non-consensual sex puts nearly every student at risk of being found guilty of sexual misconduct. Students are said to be able to unintentionally coerce others into sexual activity through “perceived power differentials,” which could include otherwise unremarkable and consensual liaisons between a varsity athlete and an average student, a senior and a freshman, or a student government member and a non-member.

Further, students are said to be unable to consent to sexual behavior when “intoxicated,” regardless of their level of intoxication. Duke has turned mutually consensual sexual conduct, which might merely be poorly considered, into a punishable act. Adding to the confusion, if both parties are intoxicated at all, both are guilty of sexual misconduct, since neither can officially give consent. North Carolina law does not support this definition of consent.

…Furthermore, Duke has made fair enforcement of the sexual misconduct policy even more difficult by establishing different procedures and even a different “jury” to judge sexual misconduct complaints. For instance, sexual misconduct charges are judged by two faculty or staff members and only one student, but all other offenses are judged by a panel of three students and two faculty or staff members. Duke fails to explain why a jury with a majority of one’s peers is necessary for charges like assault or theft but not sexual misconduct.

On its face this policy is gender and race neutral. However, the enforcement of such a broad policy will necessarily be subjective. And if the Duke Lacrosse rape scandal showed us anything, it’s that Duke staff have an axe to grind against white males, who they see as unfairly privileged. This perception will both prejudice the jury against them, as well as make the rules more likely to be triggered, since such perceived power is what is being defined.

Which brings us to the real issue, the stupidity of defining misconduct this way. Women like power. That’s just how it is. They are attracted to alpha males who either have or show the potential to acquire power. Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have programmed them this way. It makes no more sense to punish high-status males for this than it does to punish physically attractive women, but we all know that’s what this rule would do.

If you’re a white male looking to attend Duke, I suggest you look elsewhere. Why take the chance when they seem so intent on destroying you?

Tuesday

16

January 2007

0

COMMENTS

Title IX Silliness

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Culture & Society, Government Meddling

Despite the fact that no one involved wants it, government busy-bodies are demanding cheerleaders provide their…uh, services…for women’s basketball games and not just the men’s games. No one’s happy about it, especially not the cheerleaders themselves.

Whitney Point is one of 14 high schools in the Binghamton area that began sending cheerleaders to girls? games in late November, after the mother of a female basketball player in Johnson City, N.Y., filed a discrimination complaint with the United States Department of Education. She said the lack of official sideline support made the girls seem like second-string, and violated Title IX’s promise of equal playing fields for both sexes.

But the ruling has left many people here and across the New York region booing, as dozens of schools have chosen to stop sending cheerleaders to away games, as part of an effort to squeeze all the home girls’ games into the cheerleading schedule.

Boys’ basketball boosters say something is missing in the stands at away games, cheerleaders resent not being able to meet their rivals on the road, and even female basketball players being hurrahed are unhappy.

Here’s a simple reality that may send some of you into convulsions. Men are men and women are women. They cannot, by definition, be exactly equal. Different genders have different wants, needs and abilities. This is not a good or bad thing, this is simply reality. Laws that eschew reality for political correctness make a mockery of the intended functions of government and do a grave disservice to society by refusing it the right to function in a manner the majority of its members find desirable.

Hat tip: Overlawyered

Wednesday

28

June 2006

0

COMMENTS

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Sexism Witch Hunts

Written by , Posted in Big Government

John Stossel on the EEOC.

. . .Sears found itself in the EEOC’s cross hairs because more men than women held jobs selling things like lawn mowers and appliances. The disparate numbers themselves were proof, said the government, that Sears discriminated against women.

Sears denied discriminatiing: “We asked women to do those jobs. It’s just that few women want to sell things like lawn mowers.”

Is that too politically incorrect a concept for government lawyers to get? Men and women do have different interests. Go to any Wal-Mart and you’ll see women looking at clothes, men in the hardware department. There are exceptions, of course, but the sexes do tend to have different interests.

More men selling lawn mowers and more women selling cosmetics does not imply evil discrimination that requires armies of lawyers from the State. Show me women who want to sell lawn mowers but are being required to sell cosmetics instead — or men who want to sell cosmetics but have to sell lawn mowers — and we have grounds for discussion. But if the women choose the cosmetics counter, any discrimination is their own. . .

About Me

profileI serve as Vice President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a non-profit think tank dedicated to preserving tax competition and free markets. This site features my personal views, which are not reflective of CF&P.

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