Some feminists may respond like this: "Most people actually are feminists, but don't identify as such. Because feminism gets caricatured so much, people believe that feminism means hating men and therefore reject the label even though they agree with the message."
Edit: I just watched part of the video and it seems like Cathy Reisenwitz is making that exact point.
2. our society generally treats men more fairly than women
then they would probably agree that
3. we should try to correct the situation described in 2.
What seems to be happening is that feminists implicitly assume 2 to be true (maybe because it feels more factual than 1?), so when someone says 1 but doesn't think 3, that means they're saying 1 but not doing anything about 2 and are therefore actually sexist ("talk is cheap").
And perhaps:
For feminists, 1 is what they think defines feminism, and since 2 is obviously true, 3 follows.
For non-feminists, 3 is what they think defines feminism because that's the belief implied by the actions of feminists. And even though they agree with 1, they don't accept 2 so they don't think 3 either and they don't think they're feminists.
People don't really believe in gender equality. As illustrated recently in the following dialogue (that I translated from Polish)
> Journalist: And are women discriminated against in Poland today, or not?
> Politician: I don't see any such discrimination.
> Journalist: In terms of wages, in terms of positions, in terms of status?
> Politician: Of course they are not discriminated against.
> Journalist: There is total equality, are you satisfied with what is there?
> Politician: I mean, equality is obviously not the case. Men have a higher retirement age, men are drafted into the army...
> Journalist: So it's men who are discriminated against?
> Politician: Of course men are discriminated against by law, however men have no issue with this, they can be discriminated against in favor of women, this is due to our culture, ladies are let through the door first and this is completely normal.
Quote: "While we demand recognition and equal rights, we don't want an equal share of the harms produced by patriarchy. We want those harms to be none - or at least less."
We want equal rights. We don't want equal share of harms. Cute, isn't it? Not-very-funny meme https://i.imgur.com/0BXBNN1.jpg
When it comes to inequalities hitting men, suddenly there's no need for equality. Women hold inherent advantage in relationships due to principle of least interest? This is fine and should not be corrected in any way because that'd be oppression!
> You want a theory of gender? Historically, for every one man who managed to reproduce, two women did. Let me write that another way, to seed your intuition. 20% of women and 60% of men never reproduced, ever.
> You want a theory of gender? We WILL make every concession necessary and then some to fix the grievous inequalities inflicted on women by men ONLY when women agree that the men's issue of the reproduction gap is a form of structural matriarchal oppression
> No? I thought not
And lastly, this gem "Worth the Risk? Greater Acceptance of Instrumental Harm Befalling Men than Women", which also explains why feminism happened to us. And mostly destroys any hope things could possibly improve. No, they will get worse. Feminism got men's sympathy because they prefer women to men. And women also prefer women to men. Outcome is obvious - men will be exploited. Women think they deserve better treatment than men. Men don't object. So...
Ofc soon it won't really matter because of AGI. I wonder what are the chances, if misalignment won't be an issue somehow - that men's status as second class people will be immutable part of the Friendly AI utility function... I guess we should be thankful transgender was accepted by the left...
> Instrumental / collateral harm allows a moral actor to use, seriously injure, or even kill innocent people for the greater good. (...) people are more willing to inflict instrumental harm on men than women. Especially women are less willing to harm other women collaterally (...) this asymmetry was driven primarily by women, but not men, being more likely to accept IH to men than to women across a variety of contexts (...) even in caregiving domains, people show greater endorsement of instrumental harm befalling men, rather than greater tolerance for female sacrifice, as might be predicted for these stereotypically female caregiving roles (...) diminished concern for men’s suffering due to a greater tendency to stereotype men as perpetrators rather than victims
And now the best part
> Interestingly, certain ideologies magnified this gender bias: "Studies 2 and 3 revealed that individuals more strongly endorsing egalitarian, feminist, or liberal ideologies exhibited greater disparities in their acceptance of instrumental harm, such that they more readily tolerated instrumental harm borne by men.
> The current findings revealed this gender bias persists in highly consequential, yet understudied domains: assessments of beneficial interventions carrying negative externalities across a variety of contexts: medical, psychological, educational, sexual, and caregiving. (...) female participants were more likely than male participants to accept [collateral damage suffered] by men than women. This pattern lends further support to the well-documented finding that women have a stronger in-group bias than men
> female policymakers might be especially wary of advancing policies or initiatives risking harm to other women, but less so when they risk harming men [...]. Throughout history, countless male lives have been sacrificed on the battlefield, ostensibly to promote the greater good (Baumeister, 2010). Our findings suggest that these sentiments persist beyond the field of combat. For many people, accepting instrumental harm to men is perceived as worth the cost to advance other social aims.
I wonder. The woke obsession with "representation", where it hugely matters whether someone influential is white or black, or a man vs a woman - are women aware they're biased that way, and actually believe (through typical mind-ing) men are the same? So, since men are often in power - there just _must be_ some sort of oppression of women?
Our current right-wing government rolled back raising of the retirement age (unpopular reform done by previous government). It was finally made equal, and then equality was reverted so that currently men can retire at 65, and women at 60. Average man born in 2021 will spend about 10 years on retirement. Average woman... about 20 years.
Since women work significantly less, their pensions are lower. This is sometimes presented to (attempt to) show that women are discriminated! No matter how slanted the system is, it's just now enough.
The thing is, women receive higher pensions, if you control for how many years they worked. Because... _for some reason_, projected remaining lifetime - used to calculate pensions - does not take gender into account!
Elected MP (from the Left party)> "Should the retirement age be equal? Yes or no?" When the average life expectancy of men and women will be equal. Currently, the difference is eight years. It is also for this reason, not just the level of contributions, that women's pensions are lower than men's, since the system assumes that they are paid out longer.
Twitter user> BULLSHIT. Life expectancy for both sexes in aggregate is used in calculating pensions. (This favors women, who live longer). These are the basics of the pension system. A person who knows less about it than I do decides in the parliament what this system should be like.
> I would add that she used this nonsense as an excuse to not equalize the retirement age yet. Well then, Mrs. Anna Maria, since I have already pointed out your mistake, there is nothing left to do but to postulate an equal retirement age. Anyway, this is the first time I've ever encountered anyone justifying a higher retirement age for men on the grounds that they live shorter lives xD Usually it was an argument for equality.
> In fact, because men live shorter and retire later, our system is based on the redistribution of money from men's contributions to women's benefits. 27.2% of Poles do not live to the legal retirement age, compared to 7.5% of Polish women.
Elected MP (from the Left party)> It's a bonus for women to have lower pensions as a result? Intriguing.
Twitter user> You don't understand the algorithm for calculating pensions. The accumulated capital is divided by the average life expectancy for an X-year-old. And this average is taken of both sexes together. This favors women. In the next tweets I'll draw this out with candle crayons so you'll understand.
> 60-year-old Anna Maria has accumulated 100,000 zloty in premiums. Now we need to divide that by the further life expectancy for a 60-year-old. If we took the average life expectancy for women (let's assume 25 years), we would have to divide that by 25. This would give the result of a 4,000 zloty pension per year.
> However, this is not what we do. We divide it by the average of further life expectancy taken out for the whole population. It is lowered by men, who die earlier. This average is, let's say, 20 years. 10000/20 = Anna Maria has a 5000 zloty pension. So women - AT A LEVEL OF THE ALGORITHM - receive a bonus, contrary to what you wrote.
> You are mixing two issues in general. Yes, the age of retirement affects the pension - but that was not your original thesis. Your original thesis was that the difference in LIFE LENGTH affects pensions - and that is not true.
Some other Twitter user> I am amused by the character of Anna Maria. She publishes some crap-take, argues in the comments to try to defend her position, and when she gets owned - she doesn't respond, pretends that she didn't see it and there was no issue. A mature approach by a mature MP.
-----------------------
Our current right-wing government enacted laws against domestic violence, which allow women to call the police, claim they're abused - and a man has to immediately leave the house. Without evidence. Even if it is his house. Even if a woman doesn't own it. Here's a fragment of an article (from a major mainstream newspaper, "Wyborcza") published soon after law went into effect:
"(...) police officers received a report of a man's violence against his partner, with whom he was living together. The woman reported that her partner was aggressive. Uniformed officers immediately headed to the indicated address, where they found the victim, who reported that her partner was insulting her, threatening her and wanted to hit her. The man was not at the scene during the intervention. Police officers set up a blue card for him, and then, taking advantage of the opportunities provided by the new legislation, issued a restraining order against the man in the apartment and its immediate vicinity"
Notice that "the victim" didn't need to provide any evidence. And didn't even need to claim any violence happened - her partner _mysteriously_ tried to hit her, but didn't. Also... if a woman objects, you might be unable to take personal items from the house.
> Art. 15ae. (4) A domestic violence offender against whom a restraining order has been issued shall have the right to take from the jointly occupied apartment items of personal use and work equipment or pets owned by him. **In the event of objection by the persons jointly occupying the apartment, such items or pets shall be left in the jointly occupied apartment.**
Translation of a few comments about it
> Cool, so without any proof and without the right to defend himself. There wasn't even any violence, but he had "tried" to hit her, she presumably knew aikido, rolled away and he was so shocked, that he left to join the dojo himself.
> And that's the worst part about it. There doesn't even have to be any evidence. Just the woman's word that he threatened her. That's all it takes, and the guy goes flying out of the apartment in whatever he's currently wearing. The policeman is the prosecutor, the judge and the executioner.
> AND the coolest thing is that if the woman says "no, because no", he's not even allowed to take his wallet, underwear or a work laptop he needs to work XD
> Wait a moment, hold on. Am I to understand that it already reached the level where a woman I don't know can just call the cops, say that I'm beating her up... The cops will barge into my apartment with her, and without checking anything kick me out for two weeks and she in the meantime could rob my apartment? XD
Answer> This is not the best way to steal from someone, especially because the police will have her data and she will be the first suspect. Although knowing the Polish police, the case will be dropped due to failure to detect the perpetrator
And even comment from a policeman, detailing the absurdity:
> I will tell you even better how it works. If someone calling 112 says that there was violence (or a threat of violence) in the household, and the police officers DO NOT CONFIRM it happened, then there is still an REQUIREMENT to set up a blue card, based entirely on the whims of a person reporting it.
> So you understand, someone can tell as much lies as they want on the phone, the policeman arrives on the scene and doesn't confirm any violence. He is still obliged to set up a blue card for the other party - or if he has brains and human decency then he won't do so, but then he must write a very detailed note as to why he thinks the blue card shouldn't be set up.
> And then all of this can still turn to mush, because some specialist sitting in the provincial headquarters checks for himself all of the reports of "domestic violence" and how such intervention ended. And if such an intervention did not end with a blue card, he demands an explanation from the commanding officer, so the commanding officer, in order to have peace of mind, orders the police officers to set up this blue card, for example, the next day. The pinnacle of stupidity at my workplace was to set up a blue card for a guy who didn't live with his woman, but sometimes they met at her apartment. People who introduce such regulations really are out of their minds.
Reading this, I realizd that depending on what we mean by "treat" and "fairly", I might be a feminist. There's certainly a sense in which it is true that 'society' 'treats' more 'fairly' people who work hard, do well in school, perform more useful and more dangerous tasks, prioritize long work hours away from home, take risks, etc. Men really are paid more for (on balance) resembling this list. Similarly, it's true that society 'treats' more 'fairly' people who avoid violent crime and stay out of jail, become proficient at reading and writing, do not construct an identity of victimhood, and are not grievance grifters.
Is society therefore sexist and racist? If we say that 'fairness' would involve treating everyone the same regardless of how they behave, then certainly yes.
Also there is ambiguity with the meaning of "treat equally". Is it enough that the government treats men and women the same and I personally try to do so or is it a demand to rectify instances where 3rd parties don't treat them equally.
And what does that even mean in a world with sexual dimorphism? Do we need to try to rectify the fact that it's harder for men to have casual sex and are more likely to want, but be unable to find, a sexual partner?
If no, then why would the same concept require us to rectify negative consequences of that dimorphism (eg cat calling, harassment etc)? Indeed, wouldn't that be treating men and women u equally? What about rectifying the disparity in violent attacks (men are killed far more often).
Anyway, I think the upshot is that as a conceptual matter the notion of 'treat equally' isn't really clear and not that useful because there are lots of shitty ways to be equal.
I think what we actually want is a bit different:. it's not equality but the sense that our sex won't be used to predict our (not directly related) traits like ability to do math, drive cars, commit crimes etc in high stakes environments... nor used as a reason to deny the chance to try your hand at careers, clubs etc That plus the basic decent treatment we all deserve as humans.
I don't think it really helps to ask if that's equal. Ultimately, it's not a moral absolute that genders should be treated equally (we could be like bees) but it's about responding to certain contingent aspects of human psychology which make us resent being denied the chance to show our own abilities because they were inferred from an identity.
I'm not sure if you're trying to charitably steelman the feminist's concept of equality or are genuinely an egalitarian who wants to figure out how to create equity. Equity is a racist or sexist dog-whistle (i.e. a rallying cry for anti-white, anti-male resentment), equality is a false ideal that is absolutely impracticable in reality, and egalitarianism is a mental disease created by our compassionate nature no longer being held in check by the cruel necessities of the pre-industrial natural world. So yes, you're right to say it's not a moral absolute to treat equally, but you might as well close the loop entirely and reject your own final conclusion. After all, caring about the resentments of the resentful is something only the excessively compassionate would fall into.
"Fairness" as a concept is inherently unreasonable. As they say, the concept of 'fair' was invented so that children and the unintelligent would have something to talk about.
That doesn't logically follow at all. What follows is that those 53% are either non-opponents of sexism or don't believe men and women should be treated equally OR have a misapprehension about what feminism is. Indeed, I presume what they would say is that many of these people are making the same error they presumably take you to be making of being mistaken about what feminism is.
Besides, it's often the case that people have confused and even incoherent beliefs which is why we can't always ascribe people beliefs that are logically entailed by what they say. Otherwise, anytime I thought someone had inconsistent beliefs I could say they, by implication, are asserting someone should molest your kids (because everything is a logical consequence of a contradiction).
I believe that women’s treatment varies depending on their age group. Many women in my generation (early baby boomer) often express their dependence on their husbands’ approval or permission for their actions. For example, they might say “My husband won’t let me do that” or “I need to ask my husband”. I do not observe this behavior among older men. I also think that younger couples have a more egalitarian relationship. However, I do not hear older women complaining about this situation. In her memoir, Deirdre Mccloskey describes the subtle changes she had to make after her transition. She had to learn new social norms such as clearing the table after dinner, being less assertive and outspoken, and many more.
Violence against women occurs in twenty percent of marriages. Men do scant housework or childcare. Workplace harassment of women remains prevalent. Men dominate women in most work environments. Men interrupt women's conversations routinely. And much more. Polling and self-reports are weak data on which to build anti-feminist credentials. Read Frans de Waal (Different) and books by Deborah Tannen.
> “Feminism is the view that our society generally treats men more fairly than women - and that you have to be foolish or evil to disagree.”
"and that you have to be foolish or evil to disagree" is pretty much the either spoken or unspoken addendum to almost any argument (left, right or centre) taking place in the public forum.
Sometimes it's a tactic, but I think in a lot of cases it simply reflects drastically different life experiences that the speaker cannot imagine are not shared by others. To the speaker, others are either unaware of the screamingly obvious (foolish) or willing to accept (evil).
From my experience, it's very common among those who feel a strong grievance of any sort, whether it's women, minorities, social conservatives or Libertarians.
But if women have it decent and we are basically close to a fair equilibrium today, how can one agitate for more status or goodies for women?
Isn't the point to complain until someone gives you something for free?
I honestly don't think that's a caricature of feminism. Maybe not everyone who calls themselves a feminist (most don't think about it and aren't active). But certainly for people actively trying to be feminists and agitating for things the end goal is favorable treatment and loot.
There will of course be an excuse as to why the favorable treatment is justified, which doesn't even have to be true, but doesn't everyone always have some bogus excuse.
Sorry but I just feel Hanania was a lot more direct and accurate with "women's tears". Maybe it stings more but that's because it was a bullseye.
If feminism is defined as both A and B then someone who claims not to be a feminist either doesn't hold A or doesn't hold B or doesn't hold both.
So when 53% of Americans say they aren't feminists this is consistent with 3% rejecting A and 50% rejecting B for example. It doesn't necessarily imply that 53% reject A and 53% reject B.
I don't understand why you don't go for (what I think is) the winning rhetorical move and just say:
Great, feminism is the belief that men and women should be treated equally and sexism is bad. Therefore anyone who isn't against (insert list of places/ways men are treated worse) isn't really a feminist?
That way you avoid getting stuck on this obfuscatory definitional point and instead of you being on the hook for saying what feminism is instead they have to try to squirm out of the implications of their definition.
Of course, what they will try to come back with I'd the claim that overall men are advantaged and women disadvantaged so that justifies it. But now you get two great counterpunches:
1) Women exceed men in expected lifetime and men and women have similar average levels of satisfaction (so women win on QALYs and what else matters).
2) Ask if they are claiming benefit to other women makes up for discrimination against different women. If not then what happens on net isn't a reason not to care about treating men equally in those areas.
Urgh I think this is missing the point. Feminism is a political movement. I'd liken it to Environmentalism.
If you ask most people "Do you think we should take care of the environment?" - they'd say yes. However, the policy positions taking action on the broad goal can be argued about eg. should we invest in nuclear energy? should we "Just Stop Oil"?
Both of these groups have the broad goal of taking care of the environment and are taking action and political positions on that basis.
Feminism is a broad coalition of a lot of different policy positions under the banner of advocacy for equity between genders.
Yes, and TBF I think Bryan would say: yes ofc it is which is why it's incorrect to define it as 'the belief that men and women should be treated equally'.
“Yes, outright opponents of gender equality and defenders of sexism do exist, but you have to go to the internet to find them. Because that’s where every kind of crazy lives.”
As you are an opponent of anti-discrimination laws, I assume you would defend a company’s liberty to hire only men. Is that sexism?
How would that contradict what he wrote? One can favor legal equality while opposing anti-discrimination laws, as long as one supports the right to discriminate against either sex.
You must realise that the more likely explanation for their disagreement with the 53% is that those 53% are using a different definition of feminism! Cat and Kathy likely realise that, anyway, which is why their defining feminism according to certain principles does *not* imply that anyone who doesn't call themselves a feminist opposes those principles. It's a really sloppy argument from you, and ironically a caricature of feminism.
"When you say that “feminism is just the belief that men and women should be treated equally,” you are by implication claiming that 53% of American adults are non-believers in gender equality."
No, one is by implication claiming that (up to) 53% of Americans have an inaccurate definition of feminism.
Bryan you've written in the past that the view that men and women should be treated equally isn't a good definition of feminism because most people already agree with it. But why should % agreement be a metric to judge what a movement stands for? You've suggested replacing the normative claim that feminists themselves declared with a positive one that you invented (the view that women are treated more unfairly than men). But aren't political/philosophical associations usually based on normative beliefs, not positive ones?
Some feminists may respond like this: "Most people actually are feminists, but don't identify as such. Because feminism gets caricatured so much, people believe that feminism means hating men and therefore reject the label even though they agree with the message."
Edit: I just watched part of the video and it seems like Cathy Reisenwitz is making that exact point.
Most people aren't feminists because they know feminism isn't about sexual equality. Liberal feminism was also a myth
If one believes that
1. men and women should be treated equally, and
2. our society generally treats men more fairly than women
then they would probably agree that
3. we should try to correct the situation described in 2.
What seems to be happening is that feminists implicitly assume 2 to be true (maybe because it feels more factual than 1?), so when someone says 1 but doesn't think 3, that means they're saying 1 but not doing anything about 2 and are therefore actually sexist ("talk is cheap").
And perhaps:
For feminists, 1 is what they think defines feminism, and since 2 is obviously true, 3 follows.
For non-feminists, 3 is what they think defines feminism because that's the belief implied by the actions of feminists. And even though they agree with 1, they don't accept 2 so they don't think 3 either and they don't think they're feminists.
People don't really believe in gender equality. As illustrated recently in the following dialogue (that I translated from Polish)
> Journalist: And are women discriminated against in Poland today, or not?
> Politician: I don't see any such discrimination.
> Journalist: In terms of wages, in terms of positions, in terms of status?
> Politician: Of course they are not discriminated against.
> Journalist: There is total equality, are you satisfied with what is there?
> Politician: I mean, equality is obviously not the case. Men have a higher retirement age, men are drafted into the army...
> Journalist: So it's men who are discriminated against?
> Politician: Of course men are discriminated against by law, however men have no issue with this, they can be discriminated against in favor of women, this is due to our culture, ladies are let through the door first and this is completely normal.
Or in this feminist article concerning draft (also translated from Polish): https://www.themotte.org/post/229/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/42022?context=8
Quote: "While we demand recognition and equal rights, we don't want an equal share of the harms produced by patriarchy. We want those harms to be none - or at least less."
We want equal rights. We don't want equal share of harms. Cute, isn't it? Not-very-funny meme https://i.imgur.com/0BXBNN1.jpg
When it comes to inequalities hitting men, suddenly there's no need for equality. Women hold inherent advantage in relationships due to principle of least interest? This is fine and should not be corrected in any way because that'd be oppression!
https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1075401897790472192
> You want a theory of gender? Historically, for every one man who managed to reproduce, two women did. Let me write that another way, to seed your intuition. 20% of women and 60% of men never reproduced, ever.
> You want a theory of gender? We WILL make every concession necessary and then some to fix the grievous inequalities inflicted on women by men ONLY when women agree that the men's issue of the reproduction gap is a form of structural matriarchal oppression
> No? I thought not
And lastly, this gem "Worth the Risk? Greater Acceptance of Instrumental Harm Befalling Men than Women", which also explains why feminism happened to us. And mostly destroys any hope things could possibly improve. No, they will get worse. Feminism got men's sympathy because they prefer women to men. And women also prefer women to men. Outcome is obvious - men will be exploited. Women think they deserve better treatment than men. Men don't object. So...
Ofc soon it won't really matter because of AGI. I wonder what are the chances, if misalignment won't be an issue somehow - that men's status as second class people will be immutable part of the Friendly AI utility function... I guess we should be thankful transgender was accepted by the left...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Male_Studies/comments/11v2icl/worth_the_risk_greater_acceptance_of_instrumental/jeaatmx/
> Instrumental / collateral harm allows a moral actor to use, seriously injure, or even kill innocent people for the greater good. (...) people are more willing to inflict instrumental harm on men than women. Especially women are less willing to harm other women collaterally (...) this asymmetry was driven primarily by women, but not men, being more likely to accept IH to men than to women across a variety of contexts (...) even in caregiving domains, people show greater endorsement of instrumental harm befalling men, rather than greater tolerance for female sacrifice, as might be predicted for these stereotypically female caregiving roles (...) diminished concern for men’s suffering due to a greater tendency to stereotype men as perpetrators rather than victims
And now the best part
> Interestingly, certain ideologies magnified this gender bias: "Studies 2 and 3 revealed that individuals more strongly endorsing egalitarian, feminist, or liberal ideologies exhibited greater disparities in their acceptance of instrumental harm, such that they more readily tolerated instrumental harm borne by men.
> The current findings revealed this gender bias persists in highly consequential, yet understudied domains: assessments of beneficial interventions carrying negative externalities across a variety of contexts: medical, psychological, educational, sexual, and caregiving. (...) female participants were more likely than male participants to accept [collateral damage suffered] by men than women. This pattern lends further support to the well-documented finding that women have a stronger in-group bias than men
> female policymakers might be especially wary of advancing policies or initiatives risking harm to other women, but less so when they risk harming men [...]. Throughout history, countless male lives have been sacrificed on the battlefield, ostensibly to promote the greater good (Baumeister, 2010). Our findings suggest that these sentiments persist beyond the field of combat. For many people, accepting instrumental harm to men is perceived as worth the cost to advance other social aims.
I wonder. The woke obsession with "representation", where it hugely matters whether someone influential is white or black, or a man vs a woman - are women aware they're biased that way, and actually believe (through typical mind-ing) men are the same? So, since men are often in power - there just _must be_ some sort of oppression of women?
Meanwhile, in actuality, ensuring equal gender "representation" destroys gender equality. Heh.
Fun fact: Poland is one of the best (heh) countries worldwide when it comes to male-to-female suicide ratio: 7.4 in 2017. And it's been that way for decades. #12, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/Male-Female-Ratio-of-Suicide-Rates?tab=table
Our current right-wing government rolled back raising of the retirement age (unpopular reform done by previous government). It was finally made equal, and then equality was reverted so that currently men can retire at 65, and women at 60. Average man born in 2021 will spend about 10 years on retirement. Average woman... about 20 years.
Since women work significantly less, their pensions are lower. This is sometimes presented to (attempt to) show that women are discriminated! No matter how slanted the system is, it's just now enough.
The thing is, women receive higher pensions, if you control for how many years they worked. Because... _for some reason_, projected remaining lifetime - used to calculate pensions - does not take gender into account!
This Twitter thread is hilarious: https://twitter.com/KorolukM/status/1620021692373549057
Elected MP (from the Left party)> "Should the retirement age be equal? Yes or no?" When the average life expectancy of men and women will be equal. Currently, the difference is eight years. It is also for this reason, not just the level of contributions, that women's pensions are lower than men's, since the system assumes that they are paid out longer.
Twitter user> BULLSHIT. Life expectancy for both sexes in aggregate is used in calculating pensions. (This favors women, who live longer). These are the basics of the pension system. A person who knows less about it than I do decides in the parliament what this system should be like.
> I would add that she used this nonsense as an excuse to not equalize the retirement age yet. Well then, Mrs. Anna Maria, since I have already pointed out your mistake, there is nothing left to do but to postulate an equal retirement age. Anyway, this is the first time I've ever encountered anyone justifying a higher retirement age for men on the grounds that they live shorter lives xD Usually it was an argument for equality.
> In fact, because men live shorter and retire later, our system is based on the redistribution of money from men's contributions to women's benefits. 27.2% of Poles do not live to the legal retirement age, compared to 7.5% of Polish women.
Elected MP (from the Left party)> It's a bonus for women to have lower pensions as a result? Intriguing.
Twitter user> You don't understand the algorithm for calculating pensions. The accumulated capital is divided by the average life expectancy for an X-year-old. And this average is taken of both sexes together. This favors women. In the next tweets I'll draw this out with candle crayons so you'll understand.
> 60-year-old Anna Maria has accumulated 100,000 zloty in premiums. Now we need to divide that by the further life expectancy for a 60-year-old. If we took the average life expectancy for women (let's assume 25 years), we would have to divide that by 25. This would give the result of a 4,000 zloty pension per year.
> However, this is not what we do. We divide it by the average of further life expectancy taken out for the whole population. It is lowered by men, who die earlier. This average is, let's say, 20 years. 10000/20 = Anna Maria has a 5000 zloty pension. So women - AT A LEVEL OF THE ALGORITHM - receive a bonus, contrary to what you wrote.
> You are mixing two issues in general. Yes, the age of retirement affects the pension - but that was not your original thesis. Your original thesis was that the difference in LIFE LENGTH affects pensions - and that is not true.
Some other Twitter user> I am amused by the character of Anna Maria. She publishes some crap-take, argues in the comments to try to defend her position, and when she gets owned - she doesn't respond, pretends that she didn't see it and there was no issue. A mature approach by a mature MP.
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Our current right-wing government enacted laws against domestic violence, which allow women to call the police, claim they're abused - and a man has to immediately leave the house. Without evidence. Even if it is his house. Even if a woman doesn't own it. Here's a fragment of an article (from a major mainstream newspaper, "Wyborcza") published soon after law went into effect:
"(...) police officers received a report of a man's violence against his partner, with whom he was living together. The woman reported that her partner was aggressive. Uniformed officers immediately headed to the indicated address, where they found the victim, who reported that her partner was insulting her, threatening her and wanted to hit her. The man was not at the scene during the intervention. Police officers set up a blue card for him, and then, taking advantage of the opportunities provided by the new legislation, issued a restraining order against the man in the apartment and its immediate vicinity"
Notice that "the victim" didn't need to provide any evidence. And didn't even need to claim any violence happened - her partner _mysteriously_ tried to hit her, but didn't. Also... if a woman objects, you might be unable to take personal items from the house.
> Art. 15ae. (4) A domestic violence offender against whom a restraining order has been issued shall have the right to take from the jointly occupied apartment items of personal use and work equipment or pets owned by him. **In the event of objection by the persons jointly occupying the apartment, such items or pets shall be left in the jointly occupied apartment.**
Translation of a few comments about it
> Cool, so without any proof and without the right to defend himself. There wasn't even any violence, but he had "tried" to hit her, she presumably knew aikido, rolled away and he was so shocked, that he left to join the dojo himself.
> And that's the worst part about it. There doesn't even have to be any evidence. Just the woman's word that he threatened her. That's all it takes, and the guy goes flying out of the apartment in whatever he's currently wearing. The policeman is the prosecutor, the judge and the executioner.
> AND the coolest thing is that if the woman says "no, because no", he's not even allowed to take his wallet, underwear or a work laptop he needs to work XD
> Wait a moment, hold on. Am I to understand that it already reached the level where a woman I don't know can just call the cops, say that I'm beating her up... The cops will barge into my apartment with her, and without checking anything kick me out for two weeks and she in the meantime could rob my apartment? XD
Answer> This is not the best way to steal from someone, especially because the police will have her data and she will be the first suspect. Although knowing the Polish police, the case will be dropped due to failure to detect the perpetrator
And even comment from a policeman, detailing the absurdity:
> I will tell you even better how it works. If someone calling 112 says that there was violence (or a threat of violence) in the household, and the police officers DO NOT CONFIRM it happened, then there is still an REQUIREMENT to set up a blue card, based entirely on the whims of a person reporting it.
> So you understand, someone can tell as much lies as they want on the phone, the policeman arrives on the scene and doesn't confirm any violence. He is still obliged to set up a blue card for the other party - or if he has brains and human decency then he won't do so, but then he must write a very detailed note as to why he thinks the blue card shouldn't be set up.
> And then all of this can still turn to mush, because some specialist sitting in the provincial headquarters checks for himself all of the reports of "domestic violence" and how such intervention ended. And if such an intervention did not end with a blue card, he demands an explanation from the commanding officer, so the commanding officer, in order to have peace of mind, orders the police officers to set up this blue card, for example, the next day. The pinnacle of stupidity at my workplace was to set up a blue card for a guy who didn't live with his woman, but sometimes they met at her apartment. People who introduce such regulations really are out of their minds.
Reading this, I realizd that depending on what we mean by "treat" and "fairly", I might be a feminist. There's certainly a sense in which it is true that 'society' 'treats' more 'fairly' people who work hard, do well in school, perform more useful and more dangerous tasks, prioritize long work hours away from home, take risks, etc. Men really are paid more for (on balance) resembling this list. Similarly, it's true that society 'treats' more 'fairly' people who avoid violent crime and stay out of jail, become proficient at reading and writing, do not construct an identity of victimhood, and are not grievance grifters.
Is society therefore sexist and racist? If we say that 'fairness' would involve treating everyone the same regardless of how they behave, then certainly yes.
Also there is ambiguity with the meaning of "treat equally". Is it enough that the government treats men and women the same and I personally try to do so or is it a demand to rectify instances where 3rd parties don't treat them equally.
And what does that even mean in a world with sexual dimorphism? Do we need to try to rectify the fact that it's harder for men to have casual sex and are more likely to want, but be unable to find, a sexual partner?
If no, then why would the same concept require us to rectify negative consequences of that dimorphism (eg cat calling, harassment etc)? Indeed, wouldn't that be treating men and women u equally? What about rectifying the disparity in violent attacks (men are killed far more often).
Anyway, I think the upshot is that as a conceptual matter the notion of 'treat equally' isn't really clear and not that useful because there are lots of shitty ways to be equal.
I think what we actually want is a bit different:. it's not equality but the sense that our sex won't be used to predict our (not directly related) traits like ability to do math, drive cars, commit crimes etc in high stakes environments... nor used as a reason to deny the chance to try your hand at careers, clubs etc That plus the basic decent treatment we all deserve as humans.
I don't think it really helps to ask if that's equal. Ultimately, it's not a moral absolute that genders should be treated equally (we could be like bees) but it's about responding to certain contingent aspects of human psychology which make us resent being denied the chance to show our own abilities because they were inferred from an identity.
I'm not sure if you're trying to charitably steelman the feminist's concept of equality or are genuinely an egalitarian who wants to figure out how to create equity. Equity is a racist or sexist dog-whistle (i.e. a rallying cry for anti-white, anti-male resentment), equality is a false ideal that is absolutely impracticable in reality, and egalitarianism is a mental disease created by our compassionate nature no longer being held in check by the cruel necessities of the pre-industrial natural world. So yes, you're right to say it's not a moral absolute to treat equally, but you might as well close the loop entirely and reject your own final conclusion. After all, caring about the resentments of the resentful is something only the excessively compassionate would fall into.
Do you really think that’s a reasonable definition of “fairness”?
"Fairness" as a concept is inherently unreasonable. As they say, the concept of 'fair' was invented so that children and the unintelligent would have something to talk about.
Whoever said that sounds like a high school student who just discovered Nietzsche last week...
That checks out. Better to seem like a high school student than a preschooler having a tantrum, though.
That doesn't logically follow at all. What follows is that those 53% are either non-opponents of sexism or don't believe men and women should be treated equally OR have a misapprehension about what feminism is. Indeed, I presume what they would say is that many of these people are making the same error they presumably take you to be making of being mistaken about what feminism is.
Besides, it's often the case that people have confused and even incoherent beliefs which is why we can't always ascribe people beliefs that are logically entailed by what they say. Otherwise, anytime I thought someone had inconsistent beliefs I could say they, by implication, are asserting someone should molest your kids (because everything is a logical consequence of a contradiction).
I believe that women’s treatment varies depending on their age group. Many women in my generation (early baby boomer) often express their dependence on their husbands’ approval or permission for their actions. For example, they might say “My husband won’t let me do that” or “I need to ask my husband”. I do not observe this behavior among older men. I also think that younger couples have a more egalitarian relationship. However, I do not hear older women complaining about this situation. In her memoir, Deirdre Mccloskey describes the subtle changes she had to make after her transition. She had to learn new social norms such as clearing the table after dinner, being less assertive and outspoken, and many more.
Violence against women occurs in twenty percent of marriages. Men do scant housework or childcare. Workplace harassment of women remains prevalent. Men dominate women in most work environments. Men interrupt women's conversations routinely. And much more. Polling and self-reports are weak data on which to build anti-feminist credentials. Read Frans de Waal (Different) and books by Deborah Tannen.
> “Feminism is the view that our society generally treats men more fairly than women - and that you have to be foolish or evil to disagree.”
"and that you have to be foolish or evil to disagree" is pretty much the either spoken or unspoken addendum to almost any argument (left, right or centre) taking place in the public forum.
Sometimes it's a tactic, but I think in a lot of cases it simply reflects drastically different life experiences that the speaker cannot imagine are not shared by others. To the speaker, others are either unaware of the screamingly obvious (foolish) or willing to accept (evil).
From my experience, it's very common among those who feel a strong grievance of any sort, whether it's women, minorities, social conservatives or Libertarians.
But if women have it decent and we are basically close to a fair equilibrium today, how can one agitate for more status or goodies for women?
Isn't the point to complain until someone gives you something for free?
I honestly don't think that's a caricature of feminism. Maybe not everyone who calls themselves a feminist (most don't think about it and aren't active). But certainly for people actively trying to be feminists and agitating for things the end goal is favorable treatment and loot.
There will of course be an excuse as to why the favorable treatment is justified, which doesn't even have to be true, but doesn't everyone always have some bogus excuse.
Sorry but I just feel Hanania was a lot more direct and accurate with "women's tears". Maybe it stings more but that's because it was a bullseye.
If feminism is defined as both A and B then someone who claims not to be a feminist either doesn't hold A or doesn't hold B or doesn't hold both.
So when 53% of Americans say they aren't feminists this is consistent with 3% rejecting A and 50% rejecting B for example. It doesn't necessarily imply that 53% reject A and 53% reject B.
I don't understand why you don't go for (what I think is) the winning rhetorical move and just say:
Great, feminism is the belief that men and women should be treated equally and sexism is bad. Therefore anyone who isn't against (insert list of places/ways men are treated worse) isn't really a feminist?
That way you avoid getting stuck on this obfuscatory definitional point and instead of you being on the hook for saying what feminism is instead they have to try to squirm out of the implications of their definition.
Of course, what they will try to come back with I'd the claim that overall men are advantaged and women disadvantaged so that justifies it. But now you get two great counterpunches:
1) Women exceed men in expected lifetime and men and women have similar average levels of satisfaction (so women win on QALYs and what else matters).
2) Ask if they are claiming benefit to other women makes up for discrimination against different women. If not then what happens on net isn't a reason not to care about treating men equally in those areas.
Urgh I think this is missing the point. Feminism is a political movement. I'd liken it to Environmentalism.
If you ask most people "Do you think we should take care of the environment?" - they'd say yes. However, the policy positions taking action on the broad goal can be argued about eg. should we invest in nuclear energy? should we "Just Stop Oil"?
Both of these groups have the broad goal of taking care of the environment and are taking action and political positions on that basis.
Feminism is a broad coalition of a lot of different policy positions under the banner of advocacy for equity between genders.
Yes, and TBF I think Bryan would say: yes ofc it is which is why it's incorrect to define it as 'the belief that men and women should be treated equally'.
“Yes, outright opponents of gender equality and defenders of sexism do exist, but you have to go to the internet to find them. Because that’s where every kind of crazy lives.”
As you are an opponent of anti-discrimination laws, I assume you would defend a company’s liberty to hire only men. Is that sexism?
How would that contradict what he wrote? One can favor legal equality while opposing anti-discrimination laws, as long as one supports the right to discriminate against either sex.
You must realise that the more likely explanation for their disagreement with the 53% is that those 53% are using a different definition of feminism! Cat and Kathy likely realise that, anyway, which is why their defining feminism according to certain principles does *not* imply that anyone who doesn't call themselves a feminist opposes those principles. It's a really sloppy argument from you, and ironically a caricature of feminism.
"When you say that “feminism is just the belief that men and women should be treated equally,” you are by implication claiming that 53% of American adults are non-believers in gender equality."
No, one is by implication claiming that (up to) 53% of Americans have an inaccurate definition of feminism.
Bryan you've written in the past that the view that men and women should be treated equally isn't a good definition of feminism because most people already agree with it. But why should % agreement be a metric to judge what a movement stands for? You've suggested replacing the normative claim that feminists themselves declared with a positive one that you invented (the view that women are treated more unfairly than men). But aren't political/philosophical associations usually based on normative beliefs, not positive ones?
Hi Brian, my latest article about feminist lies & rape statistics is over here. Hope you can take a look! Paula
https://helendale.substack.com/p/the-unethics-of-denial