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Source: (consider it) Thread: The trouble with girls
Porridge
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quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
I work in an industry in which there is a majority of very powerful women - and nevertheless often the spokespeople and leaders often end up being male. Why is this? The spiritual group I am in also has a very similar gravitational arrangement... When no suitable male is around, women do the leadership task extraordinarily well, and if there is a man around then - not by any specific decision or injunction - more often than not the woman takes on a supportive role (without which the man would be a lot reduced) and the man takes on the leading role. And I can name one or two exceptional cases in which that situation is reversed. Understand that I am not arguing that this should or has to be the case, or that women are inferior or incapable, but rather - the biological internals and probably the nature of the spiritual male-female polarity mean that in a very broad and general sense those are the roles that are most naturally enacted. <<[My italics]>> Call it a Yin/Yang thing - or whatever. And there ought to always be exceptions to that broad "rule" because it's not a rule - it's a propensity. That is quite clearly demonstrated when one sees a person strongly inhabiting the archetype of a particular task, because - except where gender is important - the person becomes androgynous in that task.

I think you give far more weight to these so-called "biological internals" than they deserve. The facts that women menstruate, gestate, and nurse (and men do not) are indeed biological in character. These facts also mean that men and women have different physiological experience of going about their daily business, and develop differing strategies for coping with these necessities.

One only need read about how different cultures have organized themselves in reference to these varying imperatives to understand that responses and reactions to biological facts and physiological/experiential differences are culturally, not biologically, determined.

If women often hang back and assume secondary roles, it is largely because that's the behavior which their culture generally expects / demands of them. If men often assume the "spokesperson / leadership" role in public, it is largely because that's the behavior which their culture generally expects / demands of them.

Behaving in ways that run counter to the expectations of one's culture is socially costly; it can lead to loss of such status as one has managed to achieve.

I recall reading, back in a college anthropology course, about a culture in which men took to their beds amid much complaining when their (female) mates fell pregnant. For the ensuing several months, these men were relieved of work responsibilities, were fussed over and catered to, while their pregnant mates carried on with business-as-usual. It's important to note that nobody could be presumed to be "faking it" here; their culture taught them that men would experience discomfort during this period, and so they did.

Similarly, women culturally taught that normal childbirth is a painful ordeal generally experience it as such. In other cultures, normal childbirth is considered a simple, fuss-free process which constitutes, at best, an interruption of daily business.

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Bibliophile
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
Throughout politics, academia and on this very thread the argument is made that the so called 'gender pay gap' is unfair, an injustice, should be eliminated etc. The various other factors that have been shown to cause most (if not all) of the 'pay gap' are explained as being part of how sexism works.

You simply haven't shown this.
Just look at what people say in politics, in academia, in this very thread. The 'pay gap' is consistently represented as something that is unjust, unfair and desirable for society to seek to eliminate. You'd be hard pressed to find a public figure to put a contrary view

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Nor this.

You don't think that the existence of major gaps generally agreed not to be the result of unfairness (e.g.the imprisonment gap between men and women, the Nobel Prize gap between Jews and gentiles) suggests that is wrong to make the default assumption that inequalities are the result of unfairness.
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Again, we have to ask, what is unfair about egalitarianism? And would you have university departments and the legal system promoting unfairness?

Well it depends. If egalitarianism promotes equality in situations where such equality is unfair then its not fair. Would it be fair to imprison men and women at an equal rate? No, clearly not. Would it be fair for academic institutions to introduce quotas to ensure that gentiles were not underrepresented in academic institutions (or amongst Nobel Prize winners) but were represented at a rate more equal to their proportion of the population? No clearly that would be deeply unfair.
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Porridge
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quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
Well it depends. If egalitarianism promotes equality in situations where such equality is unfair then its not fair.

It appears that you're, er, equating "equality" with "sameness." Men and women are clearly not the same. Unless we're going down the "Harrison Bergeron" route (that's a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, btw, in which people with greater ability at some particular skillset are "awarded" -- penalized -- with artificial disadvantages in an effort to even out human abilities across the population), they never will be. (We're more alike than different, though, when you start comparing us to other species.)

Naturally-occurring differences create different outcomes. Thus, someone with a talent for science has an advantage in scientific pursuits over someone without these gifts. Someone with great athletic prowess has the advantage in athletic pursuits over someone without this prowess. Someone who possesses great beauty will win more beauty pageants than someone who's plain or homely.

Whether that's as it should be, I can't say, but that's how it is. We are socially-oriented primates, we form hierarchical social structures, and we jockey / compete for status within our assorted cultures in assorted ways, typically by exploiting whatever little advantages we might have over others.

When one group of people is constantly denied the opportunity to exploit some of its gifts, especially when they are defined as not having it at all (example: in fairly recent Western human history, women were believed to be stupider than men because women (being somewhat smaller generally than men generally) have (again, generally) smaller brains. Therefore it made no sense for women to pursue higher education (or in some cases, ANY education), and colleges routinely denied admission to women. This in turn led to women being unable to pursue professions, earn independent livings and decent incomes, etc. Since at the time, having a profession was one way of gaining status (and having plenty of income was another), this practice denied those women who had intellectual gifts the opportunity of cultivating said gifts, and the chance to acquire higher status by using them.

Of course, the problem here is that the assumption on which this outcome was predicated was simply wrong. While a certain amount of brain mass is certainly required for what we call "intelligence" to emerge in living beings, it's not just the size of the brain that ultimately matters (although some believe that the ratio of brain mass to body mass does).

What DOES matter in this regard? We're apparently a fair distance from knowing this.

Our hierarchies also get hierarchically-ordered, though. If we take the "best-in-show" representatives of the scientists, the athletes, the beauty queens, the preachers, the train conductors, the dentists, the farmers, the tax-preparers, the you-name-it, and pit them all against one another for the rewards this society metes out to its highest-status individuals, we see this. Who acquires the most wealth (one reward)? Who acquires the most power (another reward)? Who acquires the most fame (and for how long -- another reward)?

And, once again, why would losing male soccer players get 40 times as much pay as winning female soccer players?

Women occupy a lower status than men in the sports hierarchy.

quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
Would it be fair to imprison men and women at an equal rate? No, clearly not.

Why wouldn't it? Assuming, of course, that women were committing the crimes for which imprisonment is the legally-prescribed punishment at an equal rate. Oh, wait . . . they don't.

quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
Would it be fair for academic institutions to introduce quotas to ensure that gentiles were not underrepresented in academic institutions (or amongst Nobel Prize winners) but were represented at a rate more equal to their proportion of the population? No clearly that would be deeply unfair.

Academic institutions have no control I'm aware of over who is awarded Nobel prizes; nor do they reap any direct rewards (though certainly they derive plenty of INdirect ones) for having Nobel laureates on their faculty, so your example makes no sense. Few if any academic institutions claim that producing Nobel prize winners is their primary mission, even if that may be a desirable, if rare, achievement.

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Moon: That's not true!

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Barnabas62
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@ Croesos

Excellent and helpful links; many thanks. The levels of presumption in those papers are jaw-dropping. I think they provide impressive evidence of the obstructive mindset at work.

I think your observations about "instinctive roles" are also very much to the point.

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Jemima the 9th
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quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:

It's always struck me as odd that hysterectomies are seen by everyone as being acceptable but castration is not so popular... This can be seen as a societal loss of value of the female body and/or it could be that indeed there is such a profound difference between men and women that what would be destructive to one is of relatively little consequence to another.

Isn't it far simpler than that? ie that women have hysterectomies - far less performed than they used to be, AIUI, for medical reasons - heavy / painful periods, endometriosis, that sort of thing. I can't think of a comparable situation in men.

quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:

Emotionally, the hormonal changes in the menstrual cycle make it almost impossible for a woman to totally ignore emotions in the way that a man can suppress emotions - so generally speaking, women are forced by their bodies to be emotionally aware in ways that men are not.

Hm. This line of reasoning makes me rather uncomfortable (and no, not because of the time of the month [Biased] ) I am, generally, fairly well in control of my emotions, and the times when I am not do not tend to be hormone related - they're triggered by the things that would cause upset in a fella, I would imagine. I am very careful to teach my daughters never to blame their bad behaviour on their hormones, and I try never to do it myself. Because once you do, people can use it against you to imply that you're somehow a silly little woman. I think that does women a great disservice. It's that line of thinking in a different time and place, that prevented women from getting the vote. Silly little women. What with their hormones. Pthrhtht.

quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:

The menstrual cycle and the sheer blood and guts experience of carrying a baby to term and delivering it also automatically makes it so that women - generally speaking - are more aware of nature and the Earth and the quality of the natural environment.

I'm as proud as the next woman of my baby carrying, delivering and feeding body, but I don't think this follows at all.
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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by Jemima the 9th:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:

Emotionally, the hormonal changes in the menstrual cycle make it almost impossible for a woman to totally ignore emotions in the way that a man can suppress emotions - so generally speaking, women are forced by their bodies to be emotionally aware in ways that men are not.

Hm. This line of reasoning makes me rather uncomfortable (and no, not because of the time of the month [Biased] ) I am, generally, fairly well in control of my emotions, and the times when I am not do not tend to be hormone related - they're triggered by the things that would cause upset in a fella, I would imagine. I am very careful to teach my daughters never to blame their bad behaviour on their hormones, and I try never to do it myself. Because once you do, people can use it against you to imply that you're somehow a silly little woman. I think that does women a great disservice. It's that line of thinking in a different time and place, that prevented women from getting the vote. Silly little women. What with their hormones. Pthrhtht.

Jemima is far more polite than I'm prone to be with this b***. The fact is, it's based on a false premise. Women are NOT "more emotional" then men. It's rather than women have a different set of socially acceptable responses to frustration/ sadness/ irritation/ disappointment then men do. When confronted with those kinds of situations, men will show emotion--by looking angry, making themselves large (puffing up chest, etc), raising their voices. Anger is an acceptable emotion for men, sadness and disappointment is not. If a women does the same thing, she of course is a b****. Anger is not acceptable for women to show-- so they will express sadness. They will cry. All of that is socially conditioned into us, and is of course, as much of an emotional straitjacket for men as it is for women. The problem is (to the OP) that men's socially conditioned emotional behavior (being angry) is considered "assertive leadership" while women's socially conditioned emotional behavior (crying) is considered "unprofessional". Mostly because men can't cope with it.

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Soror Magna
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quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
... Emotionally, the hormonal changes in the menstrual cycle make it almost impossible for a woman to totally ignore emotions in the way that a man can suppress emotions - so generally speaking, women are forced by their bodies to be emotionally aware in ways that men are not. The menstrual cycle and the sheer blood and guts experience of carrying a baby to term and delivering it also automatically makes it so that women - generally speaking - are more aware of nature and the Earth and the quality of the natural environment. That's not to say that men cannot also have that awareness, but they have to make more of a conscious choice. ...

Wow, that was some odoriferous accretion of equine fecal matter. Ever see a man lose his temper? Ever heard someone say "boys don't cry"? Boys and men do cry - that's why society has to constantly remind them not to.

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Barnabas62
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I think there may be a relationship between a tendency to generalise about others who are different and a lack of emotional intelligence. The inability to relate is responsible for a lot of confusion. And the comments about suppressions of emotions are on the ball.

I grew up in the 40s and 50s "John Wayne" culture, but always felt uncomfortable with it. Ethnic and gender stereotyping, both roles and behaviour, were also commonplace. I never felt comfortable with those either. Those discomforts were not always easy to live with at the time; someone I knew well once advised me that I had "a penchant for minority viewpoints". Looking back, I'm rather glad that I did.

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itsarumdo
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Soror Magna and Cliffdweller

The fact is that men don't get PMT because our hormonal system doesn't push us in that direction. I'm specifically talking about "suppressed" emotions, which are a bit different from everyday ones that are consciously and deliberately expressed and which are also therefore to some degree controllable.

Pregnancy is similar in a different way because the oxytocin softens ligaments and so (again) makes it far more difficult NOT to be self-aware (because emotional armouring is mainly facilitated by contraction at the joints). Yes - there are women who are not self-aware as well as men. But your hormonal shifts both during menstruation and pregnancy make it so that women have a harder job to NOT be aware of their emotions. Men OTOH are just as capable of feeling and expressing emotions BUT if they don't wish to go there consciously or for some reason their emotional system is suppressed, their hormonal system will not generally force the issue. Which is why (again in a very general sense) men tend to do nervous breakdowns and "snap" whereas women tend to side into a breakdown more gradually because they have let off steam along the way. And it's why for years there have been far more women in all kinds of spiritual groups than men. I don't know what the male-female balance is on your church, but most of the spiritual groups I've seen have a majority of women. It's important to ask - why that is.

And IF everything emotionally/cognitively is working as it should be (i.e. no suppression, no dissociation), then there is NO difference between men and women in this regard. However, I'm talking about at least 70% of the population being affected such that the normal arrangement of emotions is not working as it should. Ideal is not normal. Normal/average is not healthy.

Wrt different social systems, yes - there are different male-female balances in some cultures. if any women would prefer that I writhe around and be debilitated by my wife's pregnancy, then say so now. Ditto for the women running all the businesses while I sit and have a nice drink with my mates on the beach - if that's how you like it, then Ghana is a great place to live. We live in the social structure that we live in, and the fact that this has been historically distorted by mysogyny (and this is still an issue) doesn't mean that there is not a "natural" social relationship of equal mutual respect within which mean and women will both usually feel most comfortable in. And there will also be individual variations.

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Penny S
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This may not be helpful, but is a thought about the way men end up in positions of status even in organisations in which women, including capable women, are in the majority.

I, as a teacher, joined the NUT (National Union of Teachers.)

I found myself on the committee, and served as President of the local branch on a couple of occasions. I realised then that being the face of the organisation has snags. ("Why did you allow the meeting to decide that? You must have known we would not like it." "Well, you knew it was on the agenda and you weren't here.")

In the block of flats, I found myself Company Secretary of the freeholding company. (No-one else would do it, and someone had to.) And that, too, had snags. Chasing up people who withheld their contributions without explaining why. (It was because the shareholders had decided against them at the last meeting, or something else similar.) Trying to deliver notices to an absentee sub-letter who had withheld their address. ("We don't want you turning up on our doorstep." From the people harassing me. Same lot as the other example.)

In those, and other organisations, it has become very obvious that most people do not want to get involved with running things. (This has become more obvious over the years since Mrs Thatcher's government, I think possibly because the day jobs done by the sort of people involved in service to others have become more time consuming and more stressful and draining.) It is, at the best of times, hassle. At the worst, harassing. That being so, if someone appears who does want to get involved, and particularly wants to get involved in the most obvious and high status functions, others will be glad to fade away and let them get on with it. (In some cases, eager to fade out of what may become confrontational.)

Curiously, there seems, often, to be a correlation between the people who want the jobs and the levels of testosterone in their system (not always between that and their efficiency, or their ability to deal with others effectively). In those instances, it's easier for women to do the fading than if the leader is a woman, who will look to delegate.

I'm just listening to news about Angela Merkel. My own experience is with a lower level of society. There are always exceptions.

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Soror Magna
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quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
The fact is that men don't get PMT because our hormonal system doesn't push us in that direction. ...

Well, guess what? Many women do not experience PMT. Ever. Pre-pubescent and post-menopausal women don't either.

quote:
... Pregnancy is similar in a different way because the oxytocin softens ligaments and so (again) makes it far more difficult NOT to be self-aware (because emotional armouring is mainly facilitated by contraction at the joints). ...
Unless you have a citation, this is magical babble. And there are lots of women who have never been pregnant.

quote:
... But your hormonal shifts both during menstruation and pregnancy make it so that women have a harder job to NOT be aware of their emotions. Men OTOH are just as capable of feeling and expressing emotions BUT if they don't wish to go there consciously or for some reason their emotional system is suppressed, their hormonal system will not generally force the issue.
Unless you have a citation, this is too is babble. WTF does "force the issue" mean? Are you claiming that women are mindless hormone factories with no self-control whatsoever, no better than a cat in heat? And that men are rational and self-controlled and are never overwhelmed by their emotions?

Give it up.

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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"

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Barnabas62
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I haven't yet seen an answer to what is wrong with egalitarianism. The closest was this by Bibliophile.

quote:
If egalitarianism promotes equality in situations where such equality is unfair then its not fair.
But I think this is another category error. Egalitarianism does not lead, necessarily, to positive discrimination as some kind of temporary redressing of a historical imbalance. I think the pros and cons of positive discrimination can be debated on a case by case basis.

If there are faults in policies which promote positive discrimination, those are not faults in the egalitarian principle, simply a matter of the political application of the principle.

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itsarumdo
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Sorror Magna - if you read my post carefully, you'll see that I think the biggest problem is on the male side, not the female one - and that in general I see the hormonal effects of self-awareness favour women. Penny's comment about testosterone is along the same lines - largely sex-dependent hormonal states on balance create a tendency (look at all the caveats there) that results in generally different roles that men and women are most comfortable adopting. I'm not saying that anyone is a bag irresistible hormones in the way that you are implying.

But I would say that everyone - BOTH men and women are driven by instinct and mid/hind brain (rather than frontal cortex) more often than is generally assumed. If that instinctive action is not conscious and it's just reactive, then it can cause societal and interrelational problems. And it's not fully conscious in at least 70% of the population. And due to the hormonal changes women experience you are in the lucky position that your body tends to make you more conscious. Which is why you are as a generic whole, on average, in a slightly better position than men when it comes to using all of the brain.

And that general tendency should not affect how men treat/view women or how women treat/view men OR what specific role each person ends up in. What it does mean is that going proactively for 50-50 representational parity in everything is not feasible. I'm not talking about pay, which should be equal - I'm talking about bums on seats. You can see this in UK politics, because the nature of UK politics is that anyone who is NOT testosterone-driven just won't survive the course. My personal opinion is that is an indictment of the style of UK politics - because that kind of way of thinking/acting is often a poor way to make decisions. Yes - more women are needed in politics, but what happens at the moment is that the women largely adapt to Westminster rather than Westminster being substantially changed by the presence of women.

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Crœsos
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quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Pregnancy is similar in a different way because the oxytocin softens ligaments . . .

Like quantum mechanics, oxytocin is a real thing. Also like finding the word "quantum" in just about anything not written by a specialist in that field, citations for "oxytocin" as the over-arching explanation for some broad area of human behavior is a pretty good indicator that what you're dealing with is a particularly fragrant pile of . . . something.

Citation needed.

quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
But I would say that everyone - BOTH men and women are driven by instinct and mid/hind brain (rather than frontal cortex) more often than is generally assumed. If that instinctive action is not conscious and it's just reactive, then it can cause societal and interrelational problems. And it's not fully conscious in at least 70% of the population.

I think you're attributing a lot of things to "instinct" that are actually the result of conditioning and rote behavior, which can also take place without direct, conscious thought.

quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
You can see this in UK politics, because the nature of UK politics is that anyone who is NOT testosterone-driven just won't survive the course.

Have you considered the possibility that it's prejudices like this (tl;dr version: chicks can't handle politics) that account for at least part of the imbalance?

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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Jemima the 9th
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And how would Westminster change as a result of the presence of more women? More crying? More empathy? More love ins? (Think of all that oxytocin! Yummy).

Or would there be a surfeit of lattes and scatter cushions?

I find this idea that men are like *this* and women are like *that* to be untrue in my experience, and, to repeat, damaging to women. And therefore to society as a whole. Some women are like *this* some are like *that* and the same for men. It's a very short step from "women are like *this*" to "women should be like *this* and therefore they are not like *that* and so they absolutely shouldn't try to do *the other*.

True story - after the GS initial vote not to allow women bishops, I tracked down one of the no voters to ask him his reasons. There were the usual arguments about headship, and he then said that he was surprised and disappointed at the angry tone of the debate, especially coming from the pro-OOW side. He had hoped that the inclusion of more women in synod and in the debate would bring a calming, civilising influence.

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Jemima the 9th
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As a bit of relief (esp for those of us humourless feminists), some ideas of why equality might be a good thing, and may not be happening terribly well at present, can be found at My tights won't stay up's weekly roundup: http://mytightswontstayup.com/the-week-in-sexist-news-170715/
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Penny S
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Hidden in my post was the information that the majority of men fade away from status position as well as the women. People do not want the hassle of being in charge. People usually step back when the sergeant asks volunteers to step forward, leaving in front the ones who know someone has to do the dratted job. Most men don't go round as victims of the delusion that testosterone makes them ideal leaders.

I would only blame hormones for anything in either women or men when it is blatantly obvious that they are involved.

I was being arch by referring to testosterone rather than simply saying "men". Must be more careful.

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I haven't yet seen an answer to what is wrong with egalitarianism. The closest was this by Bibliophile.

quote:
If egalitarianism promotes equality in situations where such equality is unfair then its not fair.
But I think this is another category error.
No, it isn't a category error. What he is attempting to say might be a category error, but what he actually said is either insane or a grievous misuse of the language.

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Barnabas62
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Perhaps I was being kind? I think it is possible to confuse egalitarianism with positive discrimination, or think that the latter follows inevitably from the former.

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