The real affirmative action babies

“The Real Affirmative Action Babies - Why white women are the real winners in affirmative action.”

Absolutely. I wonder why not many others have said or pointed this obvious fact before…

But for more rigorous analysis of this issue, it is not sufficient to simply point out that white women on the whole gain most in the last 30 years since the affirmative action came into being. It needs to show that white women were demographic group that was most often promoted, hired for post or selected to enter school, etc, despite their inferior qualifications, pushing aside more qualified white males along the way.

“So why is it that people of color still lag so far behind their white female counterparts? Could it be that white men—who still overwhelming control hiring and promotion in the workplace—chose the lesser of two evils, if you will, in advancing white women over black men and women of color?”

In a way, yes, but remember that white women are far more likely than coloured women to be white men’s wives, daughters, nieces, wives’ friends, daughters’ friends, etc. The point here is that white women have much more and stronger connection, mostly through family connection, to white men. Not many white men have women of colour as their wives (increasingly visible exception is Asian women though), and if their wives are not non-white, their kids are not non-white either (except adopted Asian girls).

Do female judges use sex appeal to influence male judges?

There are a quite a lot of points to make on this article;

Obama owes his victory to whom? Women? Weren’t women (especially, white old ones) firmly behind Hillary to realize their dream of “a woman President in their lifetime” at the expense of the first black President? Wasn’t it actually white men, who weren’t caught in either race or gender identity politics that shaped the democratic nominee process who tipped the whole election in favour of Obama? Shouldn’t Obama owe his victory to white men and therefore give another seat to one of them in case someone retires from the Supreme Court bench?

And whose “article of faith” is it that the next vacancy (and the next one too – yes, keep wishing) will be filled by a woman? Isn’t it just Ms. Dahlia Lithwick and other small group of fellow feminist comrades who want to promote as an article of faith that not only the next vacancy in the Supreme Court but any high-profile public (and private) positions be filled by women? This advocacy article conveniently comes with a list of possible female candidates to fill the vacancy if it indeed comes up. Again, keep wishing.

Now let’s turn on to the arguments made in the article.

"The male judges were 10 percent more likely to rule against alleged sex-discrimination victims. And male judges were "significantly more likely" to rule in their favor if a woman judge served on their panel"

First of all, who decided that it is better for judges to rule in favour of alleged sex discrimination victim? Isn’t it precisely judges’ job to decide whether there are merits in the cases brought about by the suitors (and by the way who are sex discrimination “victim”?) Doesn’t author know that “significant” percentage of sex discrimination cases do not have case or filed for profit or personal (such as retaliation) reasons. And if female judges rule in favour for alleged sex discrimination victims just because they are women and their ovary or breasts whatever female things interfere with their legal reasoning and analysis of the cases, then there should be fewer female judges, not more. Remember, whenever there are women (so-called “victims”) and her feminists attorneys profiting from baseless sex discrimination cases, there are plenty of male supervisors/co-workers/management suffering unjust legal and financial consequences. And ultimately it is consumers and public at large who have to bear the cost.

"It may suggest female moral reasoning—if such a thing exists—might be contagious."

Or is it because male judges were afraid that not rendering judgments along with the feminist party line (that all women are discriminated against and women never lie) would make their own positions vulnerable? That female judges sitting on the same bench would report to some “gender committee” about her male colleagues “resistance” to rule in favour of “victims”? Or are these female judges using their “sex appeal” or some “feminine attributes” to coax fellow male judges into thinking that they should rule in favour of women?

"It's why liberal lion William Brennan could write so expansively about equality and fairness and justice while still refusing to hire female law clerks."

Doesn’t he have a right “not to hire”, as opposed to “refuse to hire” underqualified female law clerks or does Ms. Lithwick think gender quota should apply in every judges’ offices?

Mr. Kristof - Part 5 "Token" women indeed

The article also advances ther tired argument of “token” women;

"There are a couple of issues I didn’t have space for. One is a point that Marie Wilson of the White House Project makes in her excellent book, Closing the Leadership Gap: Add Women, Change Everything. She notes that it’s important not just to have a token woman or two, but some critical mass. As she puts it: “A single woman leader or a few women in a larger group are tokens; each token has to prove she’s man enough for the job.”"

But actually they are right. They are TOKENS, definitely. They are nothing other than the expression of company’s commitment to politically-correct notion of gender equality, that a company is willing to sacrifice some degree of competitiveness and productivity by hiring second-rate person who doesn’t merit to be there, that company is paying price, to play along with feminists' game.

What the White House project doesn't understand is that;

1) even a large company cannot afford to have too many "tokens", the cost become simply too much for a company to bear. It is especially so in the times of economic downturn like now. it is correct when feminists complain that current economic downturn hit women's career prospect harder than that of men's, but wrong in blaming discrimination as a reason. It's just a bad time to expect affirmative action for women.
These are indeed difficult times for women and other under-qualified people to get ahead.

2) people who advance this line of argument also imply that women cannot begin to function if they find themselves to be in a demographic minority. Why should company even bother to promote or hire a woman who will just freak out to find out that she is mostly surrounded by males colleagues in a boardroom and is too frighten or "disempowered" to work?

Mr. Kristof - Part 4 Hidden costs of affirmative action

I think there are quite large social and economic costs for trying to artificially increase women in senior posts just to satisfy statistic-obsessed people like Mr. Kristof and feminists. These are:

1. costs for the campaign to put more women in senior posts, such as campaign ads, time and energy that could have been used otherwise for other, more productive purpose.

2. costs for the company that was pressured to hire second-rate people (affirmative-actioned women) in senior posts, which is essentially a productivity decrease by bypassing the most qualified people for the job (sorry Mr. Kristof and other readers but they are most likely men) and hiring under-qualified women.

3. further costs for the company that was put in disadvantageous position against other companies that hire the most qualified person whom it had to pass simply because that person was a male.

4. costs associated with setting up and operating government agencies tasked with monitoring percentage of women in senior jobs.

Now, let's look at the benefits of having second-rate women as senior managers:

1. It will make Mr. Kristof and other feminists happy; nothing could give them more pleasure than sipping coffee and glancing at a pie chart showing more women are getting senior jobs.

2. It will make women who got unusually fast promotion happy - who doesn't like promotion, which means more power, more status and more money!?

Remember, if you know economics even a little bit, all the costs for the above 1-4 will eventually be passed on to general public in the long run. The only winner in this bizarre gender-equity game is Mr. Kristof and some women who would get undeserved promotion, who could not rise to senior posts otherwise.

Working While Female (WWF) vs.Working While Male (WWM)

Another related post on the same site (my favourite XX blog in Slate)

Feminists have craftily adapted DHB (driving while black) into WWF (working while female).

Well maybe there is such a thing as WWF – such as promoted over other more qualified men (especially Caucasian men) into senior management positions, freedom to pick and choose the male targets of your sexual harassment charges, opportunity to file sex discrimination lawsuits against your company if you are in a mood of buying a new mansion or luxury cars, watches and precious stones, etc. threaten your boss that low performance review for you will bring a big trouble for him, for example, finding his name on one of the defendants of sexual discrimination case, etc.

The moment you start working for a company, all of the above benefits come with you as WWF. You think the above are exaggerated? No, many companies (especially larger ones that could become easy target of feminist lawyers) have de facto gender quota, or numerical target for female representation at senior positions, and evaluate managers performance by how many female workers he have promoted, hired, or evaluated positively. Not to mention many “women-only” career networks, study groups, career orientations, mentorship programs or counseling programs in the industry or inside company that benefits only women. These are certainly beneficial, although to much less dramatic ways than the above, and are mostly or exclusively available for women.

Now let’s imagine the benefits and risks of WWM (working while male)

Promotion being passed over because you are men – companies has numerical target for senior female managers to meet and you are so getting in the way!

24/7 risk of being accused by female workers of sexual harassment/discrimination/assault or whatever convenient charges women can haul against men.

Work in physically dangerous occupation that have much higher risk of getting injured than, say, cleaning hotel rooms, and at the same time vilified by feminists for out-earning blue-color women.

If you happen to be a manager in a large company, you will be living and breathing in a corporate and social environment that defines you and your presence as the relic of patriarchal past, and view your presence as the evidence of the company's lack of commitment to gender equality at the senior positions and hindrance to achieving women’s full empowerment

Nissan's gender quota

Nissan's CEO Carlos Ghosn is a kind of superstar in an auto industry, as he had turned around a failing motor company into one of the most profiting ones, but hee too, as a Wester-educated CEO of this generation, is not immune from being contaminated by political correctness.

In a magazine interview he gave some years ago, he set a goal of having 5% of senior managers women.

Good. But it begs a lot of questions for this legendary guy whose life was portrayed in a popular comic book.

First, if having women as senior managers is so important, why this wasn't the first thing Mr. Ghosn did when he took over the job at Nissan? Instead, he waited until the company's performance turned around and got firmly on track for further growth. What does it mean? To me, it only means that "affirmative-actioning" women into senior positions is a luxury that only a few large companies could afford. You can make a political gesturing like this only when company is in good order.

Second, he seems to exhort other auto companies to do the same,but it strikes as odd, as if getting more women into senior positions is the success for suto company, you would rathr NOT other companies to do the same, since in this way, you can be rest assured that only Nissan will benefit from the supposed benefit derived from the increased female managers, while other companies do not. Why do you want to reveal key for success in trade, and ask that competitors follow suit?

Actually what is going on here is that Mr. Ghosn know that affirmative-actioning more female managers, and setting numerical target and gender quaota, will put his company in disadvantage, as 5% of the managers will be sub-standard ones, who are articifially promoted for their jobs. If its rivals pack their senior manager posts with 100% compitent people who won their posts on merit, guess which one has more compitent manager team as a whole? Nissan, with 95% managers chosen on merit and 5% filled in as quota, or Toyota, with 100% managers chosen on merit and 0% quota people?

In this sense, it might not be "fair", if other companies fo not set up the same 5% gender quota and fill it with sub-standard people. One analogy would be gender mixed sports that are a staple of intramural sports events. In these mixed sports, typically a ballgame like basketball or a volleyball, the number of men and women who can play in one team is strictly set. So, let's say, in volleyball, if the rule says one team should consist of 3 men and 3 women, then that raito has to be observed. You cannot field a team of 4 men and 2 women, because it will give an unfair advantage to such a team that have a higher ratio of men. In sports, obviously women's weaker physical fitness level is a liability, and therefore, to be fair, all teams must have equall number of women, not less. Similarly, in a corporate world, if one company wants to show chivalrish side and adopt a gender quota, in order not to be put in a disadvantegous position in a cut-throat competition in the market, that company will naturaly wish that other companies adopt similar measures.

Help! there is a dearth of top female chefs!

I’ve always wondered why most of the top chefs in the word are men, even though most of the home cooking, throughout the world and history have been done by women. This article in the New York magazine tells you that it is because of a blatant sexism.

Perhaps the author of the article graduated from Women’s Studies programme just a few months ago, and employ a pure gender-feminist style analytical framework - The author knows the answer to the low number of top female chefs already – so she does not stop just because “ the chefs we spoke to were at first reluctant to cite sexism as the reason there aren’t more women among the city’s elite chefs .”. Instead she pushed, cajoled and guided the women until she get desired answers and arrived at a pre-set conclusion “ it became clear that gender bias is still an issue.”

So you round up seven of not-exactly-top-tier chefs in New York restaurants, who, to a various degree, are holding anguish and resentment against their male colleagues who pass them over for whatever reasons, real (not as good as male colleagues) or imagined (I am discriminated against because I am a woman), and spit out their rants against male colleagues and patriarchy in consciousness-raising-group-style interview.

Off course food cooked women is better since;

“It’s more from the heart and more from the soul.” And

“more accessible, it’s easier to understand, it’s friendlier, it’s more comforting, and it doesn’t get bogged down in all these nutty freaking trends. And

“because it’s comfort food or it’s very nurturing."

Wait, is this a feminists-approved line?

Anyway, I think the reason why there is a dearth of top-female chefs is the same for why there are fewer top female politicians or scientists or whoever rose to the highest level in whatever fields, compared to males. Men put extraordinary energy and determination to rise to the top. You cannot just do the same job as every others do and wait for someone to promote you over the others. You have to be better than others and have an edge that differentiates between you and the rest of them.

Feminists have now become too accustomed to the idea of just doing ordinary job and waiting for the government or media to pick up on you and push you to the top of the ladder due to your specific demographic character. That complacency (“I am a woman, and I WORK (as opposed to EXCEL), THEREFORE I need to be promoted) seems to be slowly spreading to the chef world too.

Maybe it is not too long before some feminist organizations would start screaming “discrimination” against women in the restaurant business, call for immediate government action and file a string of multi-million dollar sexual harassment lawsuits. It would be soon followed by Five-year government or industry action plan to affirmative- action women into more top chef posts – only then they could see their number increase. Bottom line; they can never rise to the top on their own merit, they need government / industry backed affirmative-action plan to rise to the top.

Reverse pay gap - borad directors

Uhhhh… where’s the outrage?? Where is NEWSWEEK’s 20-page special report on appalling wage discrimination against male corporate directors who were so discriminated against that they earn only 87 percent of what female directors earn?
I also looked through New York Times, Washington Post and the Time magazine for any special reports, article, or op-ed that bring the nation’s attention to this outrageous discrimination, but I found none. And then I realized, - oh, yes, it is WOMEN who is outearning men, not the other way around – of course in this case the whole media would go silent.

But why is the disparity? I could speculate a few reasons behind this.

Maybe the board has to put token women director in senior posts, which would come with higher compensations than the rest of directors – this would be understandable as corporations would naturally want to advertise their diversity efforts by putting the token hires in more visible, senior positions.

Also, a larger corporation are more likely to have additional financial resources to place token directors, who cannot contribute to substantive works but could contribute, by their very presence, to meet diversity goals and satisfy diversity-compliance monitors, and one could expect that compensations for directors at large corporations are higher than that of smaller corporations who may not have much room for diversity hires.

Of course, these are my mere speculations and do not have nay data to back up, but looks quite plausible. Maybe I should look into the data someday.

Reverse-reverse discrimination or women victim of gender quota

Feminists are extremely quick to react to anything that affects their agenda. It may be partly due to a modern trend in leftist political activism for "quick reaction" or partly due to women's natural tendency to defend themselves (as a child-bearer, women put primacy on protecting and defending their bodies, a contrast to man's rather risk-taking and assertive nature). A New York Times Op-ed author is already hinting that there is reverse-reverse discrimination against women in college admission as college admission officers engage in affirmative action admission for prospective male students, since there have been not enough males on campus.

I do not know how true the story is, (no stats to back-up, only anecdotal stories told by feminists, as usual) and if it is true, how widespread this phenomenon is, but it is quite interesting to see that seemingly women are now being adversely affected by gender quota principle that is held so sacrosanct in every public decisions these days. On the other hand, the timing of the publication of this article and its coverage in major newspaper points to the privileged status of women, as an government-designated "oppressed" or "marginalized" group, in getting their voices heard in mainstream media.

Anyway, however disappointed these women maybe for not being admitted at their first choice schools, these women are receiving admissions from a number of good universities, and once in the universities, they are going to enjoy a number of special privileges and entitlements as a women, including a chance to start a sport and join a team for the first time at collegiate level, which are created by eliminating men's varsity teams, a chance to join Vagina monologue event and shout at male students, and so on and so on・. In the meantime, issues that negatively affect men in much severerer way, will continued to be ignored and pushed aside by editorial board now controlled by man-hating feminists.