Those two articles that were published in the Times, are quite far apart in the subject matters they discuss and also chronologically (one of them was published two years ago, the other one just last month), but nonetheless I see some similarity, or a common thread, apart from the fact that both articles discuss women’s issues.
Would a (supposedly) natural evolution of women from submissive, multi-tasking mothers in the hunting ages into independent, strong political, economic and social leaders of the modern world, as happily and self-absorbedly described by power-hungry feminists at the one of the biggest feminists parties (a.k.a. Women's Forum for the Economy and Society) something akin to a theory discussed in the mid-1970’s by sports scientists?
Back in the 70’s people wondered, scientists examined, and feminists revelled at the idea that someday women may overtake men in (extreme) long-distance running (42km marathon or longer) because of the higher fat ratio in their bodies. Now, 30 years later, nobody in right mind seriously believes that. That 70’s extremely simplistic, linear thinking which held that simply because women have more fat than men, women can outrun men in the long distance, has yielded way to more rigorous analysis and studies, which found that that WILL NOT HAPPEN. (Unless we genetically engineer women into men, that is, and I guess there may be many feminists who might like that idea for the sake of no-excuse-allowed gender equality)
Much in the same way, the idea that simply women are better at empathy, communication and multitasking, and since modern world requires more and more of them, women will become natural leaders of the modern world, may be too linear and simplistic. (I am getting used to it, but sometimes still baffled by feminists who say that women and men are absolutely same in every way, and in the next breath say that women are genetically better at communication, empathy, multitasking and son on…) Wouldn’t modern world require more and more of scientific and mechanical knowledge, or more organizational and leadership skill, or more focused, in-depth knowledge on increasingly compartmentalized fields of expertise? Or will empathy such an important factor in getting ahead in the 21 st century career race? Or an ability to chat about boys and fashion and deserts for several hours straight a kind of communication style required in modern world? Is multitasking of feeding baby, washing dishes and cleaning floor same things as overseeing employees, preparing for important presentations, checking company’s balance sheet all at the same time?
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Sexism in Israel, or so declared by feminists
It's apparent that since the prospect for Livni's taking over premiership is not as good as it originally appeared on paper, another woman writer tries to pre-empt any opposition or negative view of the woman as some sort of a "sexist" behavior. The data she cites, such as only 8 percent of Middle Eastern parliaments are women doesn't have anything to do with whether Israel is still a bastion of Neanderthaal macho men, since the figure include all Middle Eastern countries, including such feminists' paradise as Saudi Arabia and so on. And the fact that Meir is not so popular in Israel also have nothing to do with sexist attitude, it's her policy, as even the writer quotes, that make Israeli people not particularly fond of her. But to this author, any negative view of politicians, if they happened to be female, are automatically evidence of "sexism", end of discussion. Only criticism of male politicians are allowed. And since when calling other politician by a full name Tzipora become a sexist act? And what exactly Livni's advisor is whining about? Do they want to ban all meetings between two males in the country. As if they want to say, "from now on all meetings between more than two males are banned in this country as it is considered a subversive act against feminists utopia.". Don’t be surprised that when Livni failed to form a coalition government, the blame will be on sexism (even Israel had Meir and women heading parliament and supreme court), not on her dovish policies that are unacceptable to many Israelis.
New "wage gap"
People seem to be coming up with more and more new, creative and inventive ways to stigmatize men and corporations, and put the dead-old gender wage gap issue on the news.
It’s interesting to see in this article how Neandelthaal men actually out-earn egalitarian tree-hugging type male in the workplace. Forget all the circular and self-serving reasonings for this wage gap between traditional and egalitarian males that these scientists tried to come up with to cozy up to power-feminist type; may be one of the reason for this is that egalitarian male put brake on themselves - they might be thinking, “if I perform at my full potential, I would be so far ahead of women in the next performance review and that is so against my egalitarian view; I will perform on a par or below my female colleagues so that women will be promoted ahead of me, get higher wage, and I can show with my own example that women can be as good as men, or men can be as bad or even worse than women”.
Or the other reason would simply be that these egalitarian men are simply not as good as traditional men. Even if you control for IQ or education, you cannot control for their ability or performance; it may not simply be that these testosterone-ridden traditional males were aggressive during salary negotiations only, they may have been aggressive in their work also, aggressive in completing the task, achieving goals, etc., and these may have led to higher performance review, hence faster promotion and higher salaries. On women’s side, whether they have traditional or progressive views on gender roles would have little to do with their testosterone level (which is low across the board), and therefore resulted in little difference in wage-gap=performance gap between them.
Why do you have to assume that men (or women) with similar IQ or similar education, background will have identical performance?
It’s interesting to see in this article how Neandelthaal men actually out-earn egalitarian tree-hugging type male in the workplace. Forget all the circular and self-serving reasonings for this wage gap between traditional and egalitarian males that these scientists tried to come up with to cozy up to power-feminist type; may be one of the reason for this is that egalitarian male put brake on themselves - they might be thinking, “if I perform at my full potential, I would be so far ahead of women in the next performance review and that is so against my egalitarian view; I will perform on a par or below my female colleagues so that women will be promoted ahead of me, get higher wage, and I can show with my own example that women can be as good as men, or men can be as bad or even worse than women”.
Or the other reason would simply be that these egalitarian men are simply not as good as traditional men. Even if you control for IQ or education, you cannot control for their ability or performance; it may not simply be that these testosterone-ridden traditional males were aggressive during salary negotiations only, they may have been aggressive in their work also, aggressive in completing the task, achieving goals, etc., and these may have led to higher performance review, hence faster promotion and higher salaries. On women’s side, whether they have traditional or progressive views on gender roles would have little to do with their testosterone level (which is low across the board), and therefore resulted in little difference in wage-gap=performance gap between them.
Why do you have to assume that men (or women) with similar IQ or similar education, background will have identical performance?
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Women bosses cause mor stress - and society needs to change!?
I’m sure there must have been a tremendous pressure (and temptation) to manipulate this experiments outcome to fit the current PC agenda, such as
-women feel much better and empowered and motivated and encouraged under female boss;
-women feel threatened and harassed under male boss (and actually were in many cases);
-men started to sexually harass female boss;
-men started to conspire with male boss on how best to preserve male privilidge, etc.
I give kudos for the researchers for at least not giving into those societal pressure or temptations.
But still it seems that they couldn’t resist the inner liberal-progressive urge to somehow attribute the results to discrimination again.
So according to them, women feel more stress under female boss than male boss, because-
Stereotype hold women to be more caring and women workers are surprised and stressed to find out that their female bosses are not like their stereotype-image of caring women and instead conforming to male archetype, or that female bosses themselves are under stress working in male-dominated business world and that stress trick down to female subordinates.
Good work. Very good imagination - they can be a card-carrying feminists from today. Only one explanation provided. No call to increase more male bosses who seem to cause less stress for both female and male workers, but only some pondering on how to change society so that these hated stress-causing female bosses could be more acceptable to both male and female workers. I’m sure if the results have been reverese, i.e. male bosses are found out to be more stress-causing for workers, feminists would be ecstatic (to the point of almost reaching orgasm!) and triumphant that this is the final and indisputable evidence why there should be less male bosses and more female bosses.
-women feel much better and empowered and motivated and encouraged under female boss;
-women feel threatened and harassed under male boss (and actually were in many cases);
-men started to sexually harass female boss;
-men started to conspire with male boss on how best to preserve male privilidge, etc.
I give kudos for the researchers for at least not giving into those societal pressure or temptations.
But still it seems that they couldn’t resist the inner liberal-progressive urge to somehow attribute the results to discrimination again.
So according to them, women feel more stress under female boss than male boss, because-
Stereotype hold women to be more caring and women workers are surprised and stressed to find out that their female bosses are not like their stereotype-image of caring women and instead conforming to male archetype, or that female bosses themselves are under stress working in male-dominated business world and that stress trick down to female subordinates.
Good work. Very good imagination - they can be a card-carrying feminists from today. Only one explanation provided. No call to increase more male bosses who seem to cause less stress for both female and male workers, but only some pondering on how to change society so that these hated stress-causing female bosses could be more acceptable to both male and female workers. I’m sure if the results have been reverese, i.e. male bosses are found out to be more stress-causing for workers, feminists would be ecstatic (to the point of almost reaching orgasm!) and triumphant that this is the final and indisputable evidence why there should be less male bosses and more female bosses.
CEO's pay-gap
I don't how much the so-called "equality" or pay-equity at CEO's level would matter to most of the people. It is in any way an astronimical figures for most of the people which does not have much real meaning, whether women earn 10 million or men earn 20 million. It is so detached from the life of ordinary people and trying to portray this issue as such a huge gender discrimination issue is so ridiculous and makes a mockery of the entire discrimination issue. For these CEOs it is a differnce between one being able to buy 5 vacation houses around the world or only 2 vacations houses, and whether one can own 10 Rolce Royse or only 2 Ferraris - whao, life is so unfair!!!
The only issue here seems to be the old feminist's vindictiveness against men in general. When you care more about super-rich female CEO (most of whom are affirmative-actioned in the first place) earning several millions less (several millions!!) than male counterparts, than, say, thousands of homeless, jobless people on the streets (most of whom are men), you know that only hatred against men motivated this female author.
You can see that same-old same-old feminists lines being repeated here; the much-recycled Summers’ comment (he was talking about science, no!?), the so-called pay gap (21 cent less per dollar, which begs the questions of why companies do not stop hiring such expensive men to cut costs) very shaky and unscientific comparison of salaries without any regard to the size of company, profits, or title, citing one study done by – of course – women to back up a shaky claim, reference to “stereotypes” and exhorting readers (women only) to talk about successful women among themselves so that they can feel better about themselves - no talk about the ditched female CEOs except in the context of blaming male-dominated corporate society, because women CEO deserves only success, failure or not meeting targets or getting profits – is presumably a carefully plotted and disguised form of discrimination against women. She even tries to introduce a new criteria for gender discrimination – low expectation for women. If women fall under pressure for too much expectation- would that also be a “discrimination”?
It is easy to understand that the higher the position goes, the bigger the pay differences could become. It does not make much difference to companies’ overall earning or profits whether an entry level clerk or sales assistants, one of hundreds or even of thousands, do a terrific job or a mediocre job. But it would do make a difference if one CEO or one senior VP makes a big mistake, or make a very wise prescient decision. The pay will reflect that.
It will also be more difficult to assess whether the pay is fair or appropriate or not at more senior level than lower, entry level positions. Lower entry level positions’ jobs are usually more standardized, routine and could be done by any other equally qualified persons. It is much less so at the senior level where persons’ vision, leadership, strategic decisions influence the entire fate of the company.
A risk means a “risk” only when it entails probability for both success and failure. Feminists seems to want a societal guarantee for success for any senior female executives in their quest for higher career and risk-taking jobs, and flabbergasted when that “success” did not come in handy, and start a witch-hunt for those who are responsible for not delivering “success” to these female executives, such as Ms. Cruz or Ms Callan. In many cases, culprits are sexist corporate culture, media or, male colleagues - usual scapegoats who could never escape the eternal sin of being born a male. In other words, in the views of people like Ms. Dobrzynski, women getting CEO positions are “fair” but women not succeeding in their positions are “unfair”. Perhaps a good place to start is to ditch this kind of childish wishful thinking and confront the stern reality of business world where success, results are rewarded and whining are not.
The only issue here seems to be the old feminist's vindictiveness against men in general. When you care more about super-rich female CEO (most of whom are affirmative-actioned in the first place) earning several millions less (several millions!!) than male counterparts, than, say, thousands of homeless, jobless people on the streets (most of whom are men), you know that only hatred against men motivated this female author.
You can see that same-old same-old feminists lines being repeated here; the much-recycled Summers’ comment (he was talking about science, no!?), the so-called pay gap (21 cent less per dollar, which begs the questions of why companies do not stop hiring such expensive men to cut costs) very shaky and unscientific comparison of salaries without any regard to the size of company, profits, or title, citing one study done by – of course – women to back up a shaky claim, reference to “stereotypes” and exhorting readers (women only) to talk about successful women among themselves so that they can feel better about themselves - no talk about the ditched female CEOs except in the context of blaming male-dominated corporate society, because women CEO deserves only success, failure or not meeting targets or getting profits – is presumably a carefully plotted and disguised form of discrimination against women. She even tries to introduce a new criteria for gender discrimination – low expectation for women. If women fall under pressure for too much expectation- would that also be a “discrimination”?
It is easy to understand that the higher the position goes, the bigger the pay differences could become. It does not make much difference to companies’ overall earning or profits whether an entry level clerk or sales assistants, one of hundreds or even of thousands, do a terrific job or a mediocre job. But it would do make a difference if one CEO or one senior VP makes a big mistake, or make a very wise prescient decision. The pay will reflect that.
It will also be more difficult to assess whether the pay is fair or appropriate or not at more senior level than lower, entry level positions. Lower entry level positions’ jobs are usually more standardized, routine and could be done by any other equally qualified persons. It is much less so at the senior level where persons’ vision, leadership, strategic decisions influence the entire fate of the company.
A risk means a “risk” only when it entails probability for both success and failure. Feminists seems to want a societal guarantee for success for any senior female executives in their quest for higher career and risk-taking jobs, and flabbergasted when that “success” did not come in handy, and start a witch-hunt for those who are responsible for not delivering “success” to these female executives, such as Ms. Cruz or Ms Callan. In many cases, culprits are sexist corporate culture, media or, male colleagues - usual scapegoats who could never escape the eternal sin of being born a male. In other words, in the views of people like Ms. Dobrzynski, women getting CEO positions are “fair” but women not succeeding in their positions are “unfair”. Perhaps a good place to start is to ditch this kind of childish wishful thinking and confront the stern reality of business world where success, results are rewarded and whining are not.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Bulgaraia's women's ice hockey
Do these ladies know how to skate? Maybe not! Maybe they could barely stand up with skate shoes! That's the only way a team could possibly lose 82-0. That's more than 1 goal per minute, for the entire 60 minutes of play! I think even without any opponent at all standing in between your team and the goal, and one team playing by themselves, it may not be so easy to score that quickly and frequently. Imagine, place a puck in the center, play, shoot, goal!!, skate to the goal to pick up the puck, place in the center, play, shoot......!! keep doing this for 82 times!! it's a form of torture already!
Women's ice hockey should not be in the Olympics. With only 37 registered (female) players in the country and the country could still send a "national team" to the Olympic qualifiers. It's a joke!!
This simply shows the shallowness of women's sports, not juct ice hockey but sports in general, but because of some political pressure from FEMINISTS, we are supposed to treat these gals as if they are serious "athletes" and representing a nation. This is a huge insult to other serious male athletes who have played sports for years, endured hard training, and go through extremely competitive games to reach Olympics.
I guess that most of these Bulgarian gals must have just started ice hockey recently, because there were some incentive plan or pressure or laws to increase women's sports/teamsplayers in the country or because the gals thought it was an easy way to be on a "national team" and compete for the Olympics. If you are born a male in Bulgaria and play football, there is probably one in million chances that you would make it to the national team, but if you are a female and chose sport wisely, your chance of being in a "national team" and enjoy all the entitlements, fame, glory that come with it, is not just great, but it is automatically assured. Only 37 registered female players in the country.
Women's ice hockey should not be in the Olympics. With only 37 registered (female) players in the country and the country could still send a "national team" to the Olympic qualifiers. It's a joke!!
This simply shows the shallowness of women's sports, not juct ice hockey but sports in general, but because of some political pressure from FEMINISTS, we are supposed to treat these gals as if they are serious "athletes" and representing a nation. This is a huge insult to other serious male athletes who have played sports for years, endured hard training, and go through extremely competitive games to reach Olympics.
I guess that most of these Bulgarian gals must have just started ice hockey recently, because there were some incentive plan or pressure or laws to increase women's sports/teamsplayers in the country or because the gals thought it was an easy way to be on a "national team" and compete for the Olympics. If you are born a male in Bulgaria and play football, there is probably one in million chances that you would make it to the national team, but if you are a female and chose sport wisely, your chance of being in a "national team" and enjoy all the entitlements, fame, glory that come with it, is not just great, but it is automatically assured. Only 37 registered female players in the country.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Some thoughts on sports
The Beijing summer Olympic Games are over, and I will jot down some thoughts on sports and men and women's physical diffferences.
1. Bolt is great. The guy is great. Not just because he won three gold medals in track and fields, all in world records, but because he is now certified the fastest homo sapiense ever. Men's 100 meters sprint is special. It is different. Although the gold won by Bolt is same "one" gold medal as was won by, say, women's rifle, or whatever, but here I have to be blunt and discriminating. Men's 100 meters sprint is ranks one of the highest in the importance in all Olympic sports. Women's 100 meters sprint is just as great, you say feminists? NO!!! Because women's 100 meters ONLY decide who is the fastest WOMAN. The last qualifier "WOMAN" is extremely important here because otherwise boys who won in American state track and field championship may want to compete in the race just to get a gold medal worth ??? dollars and appear on international TV. For example, a boy who won the Oklahoma State high school track meet in May 2008 had 10.62' record. (why Oklahoma, just random pick!!)That 'll easily give him gold in the Beijing's women's 100 meters and the world record as well, if you discount the only one outlier record which is such a suspect for doping (maybe women faces less scrutiny than male athlete) No, that boy won't be allowed to compete, the race is resreved for 'lady" only, where records like 10.78" can get you a gold. that will barely give bronze in the above-mentioned oklahoma State track meet, boy division. Probably that 10.62 boy could get some scholarhsip for university, if lucky, but that's it.
1. Bolt is great. The guy is great. Not just because he won three gold medals in track and fields, all in world records, but because he is now certified the fastest homo sapiense ever. Men's 100 meters sprint is special. It is different. Although the gold won by Bolt is same "one" gold medal as was won by, say, women's rifle, or whatever, but here I have to be blunt and discriminating. Men's 100 meters sprint is ranks one of the highest in the importance in all Olympic sports. Women's 100 meters sprint is just as great, you say feminists? NO!!! Because women's 100 meters ONLY decide who is the fastest WOMAN. The last qualifier "WOMAN" is extremely important here because otherwise boys who won in American state track and field championship may want to compete in the race just to get a gold medal worth ??? dollars and appear on international TV. For example, a boy who won the Oklahoma State high school track meet in May 2008 had 10.62' record. (why Oklahoma, just random pick!!)That 'll easily give him gold in the Beijing's women's 100 meters and the world record as well, if you discount the only one outlier record which is such a suspect for doping (maybe women faces less scrutiny than male athlete) No, that boy won't be allowed to compete, the race is resreved for 'lady" only, where records like 10.78" can get you a gold. that will barely give bronze in the above-mentioned oklahoma State track meet, boy division. Probably that 10.62 boy could get some scholarhsip for university, if lucky, but that's it.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Fussy feminists...
Feminists are just so good at inventing a new kind of "ceiling" one after another; originally there was a glass ceiling, and then "this" ceiling, then "that" ceiling and now a "mirror" ceiling...
And it is so hard to please feminists!! I mean there are so many variations of feminists that there are always one or two tiny factions of them left not 100% satisfied and who would start hauling "sexism" charges randomly.
I think at least recent (over) exposure of Palin in media must have satisfied feminsts who are; 1) hell-bent on counting the number of times women appear in the news, or more preceisly, a number of times women in leadership roles are portrayed positively by the media, and 2) whose only hobby in life is beancounting, countng the number of men and women in senior political positions. But Gosh there are more complicated, or spophisticated, die-hard feminists like Judith who are not happy until they see "their" kind of woman (meaning ultra-liberal) assuming the Office of the U.S. President (not number two and deputy to a man) while all the media (from liberal to conservative to major national media to local media to everything else) paint the woman in completely positive tone without the slightest hint of sexism (almost impossible feat given the astronomically high threshold for judging sexism).
Now look at Palin. Yes she is a WOMAN. She passed the first and the most important litmus test, but don't forget that there are hundreds of other litmus tests that the woman must pass... and let's see how she fares... She is conservative! a Republican! married! with kids! owns a gun! and cheered by men, especialy conservative, Republican, gun-toting men! for the reason JUDITH DISAPPROVES!!!
Palin failed all tests other than the first one and no wonder Judith is going bananas...
If Judith or feminists don’t like Palin to be on a Republican ticket, then I’m all for replacing her with a man, any man, but feminists out there don’t whine about Republican not giving woman a fair chance, blah, blah blah,
And it is so hard to please feminists!! I mean there are so many variations of feminists that there are always one or two tiny factions of them left not 100% satisfied and who would start hauling "sexism" charges randomly.
I think at least recent (over) exposure of Palin in media must have satisfied feminsts who are; 1) hell-bent on counting the number of times women appear in the news, or more preceisly, a number of times women in leadership roles are portrayed positively by the media, and 2) whose only hobby in life is beancounting, countng the number of men and women in senior political positions. But Gosh there are more complicated, or spophisticated, die-hard feminists like Judith who are not happy until they see "their" kind of woman (meaning ultra-liberal) assuming the Office of the U.S. President (not number two and deputy to a man) while all the media (from liberal to conservative to major national media to local media to everything else) paint the woman in completely positive tone without the slightest hint of sexism (almost impossible feat given the astronomically high threshold for judging sexism).
Now look at Palin. Yes she is a WOMAN. She passed the first and the most important litmus test, but don't forget that there are hundreds of other litmus tests that the woman must pass... and let's see how she fares... She is conservative! a Republican! married! with kids! owns a gun! and cheered by men, especialy conservative, Republican, gun-toting men! for the reason JUDITH DISAPPROVES!!!
Palin failed all tests other than the first one and no wonder Judith is going bananas...
If Judith or feminists don’t like Palin to be on a Republican ticket, then I’m all for replacing her with a man, any man, but feminists out there don’t whine about Republican not giving woman a fair chance, blah, blah blah,
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
One --- away from feminists' ultimate dream
Now it is interesting to see that it is the Republicans who are playing the identity politics - by hiring a person who does not much appeal other than the fact that the McCain's running mate is SHE -A WOMAN!!!. I thought this kind of cheap political gimmick belonged only to the Democrats, but apparently I was wrong.
Does he ever thought how old he is? 72!!?? He might be a tough guy who loved brawls and survived torture by the North Vietnamese, but it is a kind of age when anything could happen without moment's notice. There is also a rumor that he might not seek the second term if elecetd because of his age. And he stil chooses this running mate at the last moment! Does he want to leave the United States with the least experienced vice-president(ial candidate) after 4 years or even less (could be one month, who knows, illness can strike senileperson anytime) of his presidency? How IRRESPONSIBLE is that!! All he could think abut was getting some votes from disgruntled old white women type who are irate over Hilary's defeat, so that those extra votes would put him over Obama at the general election. How near-sighted and irreponsible.
But it mut be real political bonanza for the old feminist-type. They wouldn't have imagined that McCain, the "man of integrity", would pander to political correctness. But it doesn't matter. If McCain get elected, they at least got a "consolation prize", and they are still only a "hearbeat away", or if I were to put it, one hearstroke away, one caridac arrest away, or one whatever-conditions that could strike senile men in their 70's away from the feminists' ultimate dream.
Does he ever thought how old he is? 72!!?? He might be a tough guy who loved brawls and survived torture by the North Vietnamese, but it is a kind of age when anything could happen without moment's notice. There is also a rumor that he might not seek the second term if elecetd because of his age. And he stil chooses this running mate at the last moment! Does he want to leave the United States with the least experienced vice-president(ial candidate) after 4 years or even less (could be one month, who knows, illness can strike senileperson anytime) of his presidency? How IRRESPONSIBLE is that!! All he could think abut was getting some votes from disgruntled old white women type who are irate over Hilary's defeat, so that those extra votes would put him over Obama at the general election. How near-sighted and irreponsible.
But it mut be real political bonanza for the old feminist-type. They wouldn't have imagined that McCain, the "man of integrity", would pander to political correctness. But it doesn't matter. If McCain get elected, they at least got a "consolation prize", and they are still only a "hearbeat away", or if I were to put it, one hearstroke away, one caridac arrest away, or one whatever-conditions that could strike senile men in their 70's away from the feminists' ultimate dream.
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