Let me start off by saying that as a 39 year old cis white guy, I have struggled with reconciling the gender based expectations I was raised with and the reality of the world. I won’t lie - I have also grappled with the notion that I am part of the problem in part because of how some people opine on the matter.
This
Men build social order, liberal democracy, and nearly everything else women take for granted that let them live happy, healthy, and cozy lives.
and this
Without men society collapses. Who is going to do all the real dirty jobs that keep the world moving
and this
trying to get power back on when her husband dies from an early heart attack from dealing with her BS all day.
is the patriarchy. The assumption that because they have been historically barred from equal treatment, women are inadequately equipped to participate equally is an inherent part of the problem and one which you and I can change for the better. Yes, a small number of extremely wealthy people are driving many of the levers of social inequality but the solution is not to turn on another group that’s suffering under the same dehumanizing pressures. Acknowledging their struggles - like lacking bodily autonomy, or being shamed for being the victim of assault, or being punished professionally for raising a family - doesn’t diminish or delegitimize your own struggles. Railing against them only serves to drive wedge issues that divide us so we have less ability to organize against the few that profit off of our disunity - don’t do their dirty work for them.
Nobody is saying that women are inadequately equipped for those roles, they are observing that women don’t choose those roles, even when barriers are removed. It’s not a coincidence that everyone is clamoring to bring equity into the C suite and boost women enrolling in STEM programs, but nobody is trying to bring equity to mining jobs, janitorial services, garbage collectors, etc.
I’ve met plenty of women employed in trades and manual work for whom the misogyny and likelihood of assault from their male counterparts was and still is absolutely a barrier to their equal participation.
Name them? It’s easy to provide anecdotal evidence. I let tons of women who don’t go into trades because they think it’s lowly work for dumb expendable men.
First off, truth != sexism. So what I said is not sexist.
How’s that sexist? Women have every opportunity (and in most cases because of preferential hiring, better opportunities) to do these dirty and dangerous jobs, but they don’t? Because of some abstract loosely defined notion that is the “patriarchy”? I bet if I said women aren’t as good of golfers as men your “Cis white man self” would somehow blame the patriarchy.
You have a point that jobs should match the employees and generally speaking men are larger and more muscular than women, but you do know power tools exist, right? You also realize that output is not purely about physical capacity but also mental and emotional buy in? And that construction isn’t purely about nailing boards in place but doing things in the right order at the right time with the right tools and planning appropriately?
I think you’re making too many broad generalizations here and over stating the importance of gender on job performance. I think there are more salient points to be made about job seeking strategies between men and women and how that should affect hiring strategies and gender disparities in certain fields. Women tend to prefer more work flexibility (malleable hours, flexible vacation time, ability to make time to pick up kids from school etc) than men and women tend to be more risk averse than men and this is reflected in the jobs they choose and are recruited for.
Let me start off by saying that as a 39 year old cis white guy, I have struggled with reconciling the gender based expectations I was raised with and the reality of the world. I won’t lie - I have also grappled with the notion that I am part of the problem in part because of how some people opine on the matter.
This
and this
and this
is the patriarchy. The assumption that because they have been historically barred from equal treatment, women are inadequately equipped to participate equally is an inherent part of the problem and one which you and I can change for the better. Yes, a small number of extremely wealthy people are driving many of the levers of social inequality but the solution is not to turn on another group that’s suffering under the same dehumanizing pressures. Acknowledging their struggles - like lacking bodily autonomy, or being shamed for being the victim of assault, or being punished professionally for raising a family - doesn’t diminish or delegitimize your own struggles. Railing against them only serves to drive wedge issues that divide us so we have less ability to organize against the few that profit off of our disunity - don’t do their dirty work for them.
Tl;dr - don’t say sexist shit. It’s not okay
Nobody is saying that women are inadequately equipped for those roles, they are observing that women don’t choose those roles, even when barriers are removed. It’s not a coincidence that everyone is clamoring to bring equity into the C suite and boost women enrolling in STEM programs, but nobody is trying to bring equity to mining jobs, janitorial services, garbage collectors, etc.
I’ve met plenty of women employed in trades and manual work for whom the misogyny and likelihood of assault from their male counterparts was and still is absolutely a barrier to their equal participation.
Name them? It’s easy to provide anecdotal evidence. I let tons of women who don’t go into trades because they think it’s lowly work for dumb expendable men.
First off, truth != sexism. So what I said is not sexist.
How’s that sexist? Women have every opportunity (and in most cases because of preferential hiring, better opportunities) to do these dirty and dangerous jobs, but they don’t? Because of some abstract loosely defined notion that is the “patriarchy”? I bet if I said women aren’t as good of golfers as men your “Cis white man self” would somehow blame the patriarchy.
Removed by mod
This is an incredibly charitable interpretation of their comment.
You have a point that jobs should match the employees and generally speaking men are larger and more muscular than women, but you do know power tools exist, right? You also realize that output is not purely about physical capacity but also mental and emotional buy in? And that construction isn’t purely about nailing boards in place but doing things in the right order at the right time with the right tools and planning appropriately?
I think you’re making too many broad generalizations here and over stating the importance of gender on job performance. I think there are more salient points to be made about job seeking strategies between men and women and how that should affect hiring strategies and gender disparities in certain fields. Women tend to prefer more work flexibility (malleable hours, flexible vacation time, ability to make time to pick up kids from school etc) than men and women tend to be more risk averse than men and this is reflected in the jobs they choose and are recruited for.
Removed by mod