Nicko wrote:I agree that it is a reasonable view to hold for an interest group for "women's interests". That is, if one is only claiming to be a special interest group for issues that affect women, all well and good. Where I think many* feminist groups go wrong is claiming they are for "gender equality" when they are in fact only addressing areas where gender inequity adversely affects women and ignoring - in some cases actively discouraging efforts to address - areas where gender inequity adversely affects men.

And I disagree with that you are saying here, because I do not think feminist groups are going "wrong" by pushing for equality by addressing issues that effect women. This is a perfectly logical approach and not in anyway undermines by the notion of them not also pushing for inequity issues facing men. The greatest inroads into tackling equality are still from the direction of addressing discrimination against women, so it is logical that feminists do this.

I will agree that any feminist group actively campaigning to discourage efforts to address the issues of inequity to men, is reprehensible but, that's true for any group actively campaigning against another that is trying to right a wrong. Feminists shouldn't do it. Neither should anyone else.

Nicko wrote:If feminist groups simply said, "This is not something we are going to address. Only so many hours in each day, people. If someone else wants to get this, fine." then there would not be a problem.

The problem only arises if pressure is brought to bare to discourage action, in the manner you have outlined. Even then, this is a problem created by some feminists rather than all and isn't, in anyway, a problem caused by feminism or the feminist movement.

Nicko wrote:Where I think the justifiable** antagonism towards feminists from the MRM comes from is that every time they try to do the things you were under the impression they never do, there are feminists standing in their way. Stating that feminism is all the fuck over this problem and that the MRAs should go home or join up with them.

As I said, it is reprehensible behaviour. Unfortunately where my sympathies (never abundant at the best of times), run dry is when the MRM's decide to tar all feminists with same brush. It is unsurprising that cries fall on deaf ears at this point.

Nicko wrote:The problem for this argument is that the MRM has a number of prominent figures who did try to address men's issues from within feminism. And it didn't work out well for them.

I've learned that, even as a male feminist, trying to get involved with feminist groups is incredibly dicey business if you're a man. Even if you're a man advocating for the issues feminists are concerned about. They're not all like that but some of them, hooooooooo boy. I've seen feminist groups absolutely tear into other groups for misandry, others for being TERFs, others implode for being too tolerant of men.

But then, the same would be true for a feminist trying to address equality issues from within certain MRM groups. So really this line of thinking achieves nothing other than to have the negative beliefs of both sides reinforced.

Nicko wrote:It is simply not rational for anyone advocating for men's issues (oh, how I hate the term "Men's Rights") to regard any feminist group as anything other than a potential obstacle.

This is sensible stakeholder management after all. In any line of policy work, you've got to identify who your potential antagonists are and work out how to either get them on side or go around them.

Nicko wrote:Personally, I think that - at least in modern developed democracies - things have progressed at least to the point where real progress on gender issues is not going to be achieved by just getting "stuff" for one gender. Issues like women's lack of credibility in the workplace when bucking for promotion are just not going to be addressed in any truly meaningful way until we look critically at just why - to use the reverse example - the criminal behaviour of women is also taken less seriously.

I see where you are coming from and I think broadly, no, developed democracies collectively are not yet at that point. I think some of them are, mostly ones in Europe, whereas others are a way off that point.

There is also the problem of whilst the ideal would be to tackle these issues in a nice balanced way as you've proposed, which shows inequalities being addressed on both sides of the line, legalistically this isn't a neat a tidy thing to do. There isn't a single set of law for "women" and another for "men" and it is rare, speaking from experience as a legislator, that you ever get to make a coherent set of changes that cuts across all sectors of law.

But, if we take the principle of tackling issues on both sides of the line within respective areas of law, then this would be the ideal way to achieve a demonstrable move towards greater fairness and equality.

TMB wrote:So you are saying that the way sports are constructed favors men, so when women participate they are at a disadvantage because the activity is designed for men to do these better than women. Do you think the advantages that men have are biologically innate or are they socially constructed?

Designed "for" men to do better? I don't know if I'd put it in that way. The worry is that various sports privilege male attributes and thus disadvantage or outright exclude women competitors. You say that men are "faster, stronger" etc, but you won't seem to countenance the view that this may have had an influence, perhaps even a secondary one, on how sports have developed and how an athlete's merits are judged within them.

As far as innateness/construction, my suspicion is that it may be both.

TMB wrote:While my view is that men are better at most sporting/athletics activity primarily because they are faster, stronger, and probably more motivated and with better motor skill, and let us suppose this is the case, then do you think it makes sense to provide women their own event so they are only judged against the merit of other women? And if so, do you think that a women tennis player, who performs to a lower standard than a man, should get an equal reward?

It makes sense to me to provide women with their own sporting events, yes. That's not a very strong claim though. Similarly, I'm not bothered if women receive the same rewards as men. I quite like the idea, actually. Should they? I don't know. I don't consider women's sporting events to be less competitive versions of male ones.

TMB wrote:Clearly segregation into mens and womens events provides protection, but why do you think that this is protection against sexism? By definition segregation on the basis of a persons sex is sexism (or racism etc), and becomes an issue when it is done to favour one sex (or race). For example separate toilet facilities is sexism, but both sexes appear to think its an advantage so there is limited pressure to offer only unisex toilets despite its cost saving.

I've said why in my previous posts, but I've also said why above. So I won't go further with this.

TMB wrote:You say that running is not the sport of running. Since running is inherent in the sport of running, and all sports have been constructed for showcasing of skills in a competitive way in order to identify and celebrate physical excellence, how are you able to separate them? Just because we have constructed the 'sport' element? Running in nature is competitive just as it is on the track, and I do not see how running itself which is the core, can be considered 'constructed' to favour men. Running has arisen from life interacting with physical laws. As it happen men do it faster than women on average, and for all species including human faster is seen as better because it helps survival. If you are going to support your position, you need to give more detail and join the dots.

I get that you have to make things blurry here. Running as a sport and running as an activity or behaviour seem to bear the least difference or distance between forms, especially when compared with game sports that have a heavier artifice. If you can get running performances (as they appear and are judged in the sport) to look like the complement of running as a behaviour or activity (as it appears in nature), then you think that the "merit" as judged in sports like running is on a sturdier footing and can thus be applied generally. I think you're sneaking in a questionable normativity, of course. But, mainly, I just don't think you're open to the sort of point I've been trying to make. Maybe I can get at it better with a question.

You say above that sports have been constructed as showcases of skill to identify and celebrate physical excellence. You also note that these physical excellences can aid survival. Why, then, are we showcasing physical excellence? Why did these sports develop to be these showcases? Where does this fit into these evolutionary type stories?

Nicko wrote:Of course, behind these smears there are occasionally good things to come out of the MRM (the idea of male/female gender roles as hyperagency vs. hypoagency is my favourite). At this stage they are mostly "consciousness rising" types of things; one can't after all get society to address a problem until society admits the problem exists. And what happens when MRA groups try to organise for this most basic step? What happens when, for example, a group tries to hold a talk on the topic of male suicide? Or the "boy crisis" in schools?

I don't know, Nicko. What happens? What happens when a feminist group wants to hold a talk at a school? A radfem group? What's the point of asking these questions? Insiuation? Or are you actually making a claim that men's groups are uniquely denied access? Who knows?

Outside of MRA groups, advocates of men's and boys' mental health and suicide prevention seem to get a pretty fair hearing: dedicated men's services like MensLine, peak organisations like BeyondBlue specifically highlighting their work with men, and others. Headspace, the peak youth mental health body here, use an image of a boy on their self-harm page, and have male specific programs to adresss male suicide risk.

But getting back to schools, my elder son's school runs specific camps for boys' transition to manhood, and hires a local, sensible, MRA to facilitate them. We held one last year in my son's class that was attended by all the boys, and all their fathers/stepfathers/etc. at which male specific issues, including reluctance to seek help for health problems generally, and mental health and suicide risk specifically, were addressed. Is that the sort of thing you're concerned about not happening?

EDIT: On re-reading, it's clear that you weren't just talking about talks in schools. In that case, when men's groups want to hold talks, they just hold them. Heard of Steve Biddulph? Doesn't seem to have held him back (and yes, I know he now also gives talks on parenting girls).

The only "men's groups" that are denied access (protests don't constitute denial of access) are the useless ones that spew misogyny and even they often get to have their conferences and their figureheads are permitted to give talks.

I'll wager women's groups that spout talking points and hilarious parodies the equivalent of Paul Elam's would be denied access virtually everywhere.

Spinozasgalt wrote:Designed "for" men to do better? I don't know if I'd put it in that way. The worry is that various sports privilege male attributes and thus disadvantage or outright exclude women competitors. You say that men are "faster, stronger" etc, but you won't seem to countenance the view that this may have had an influence, perhaps even a secondary one, on how sports have developed and how an athlete's merits are judged within them.

Ok this means that sport as human construct just happens to fit male attributes better than it fits female attributes as a general rule. We might also say that nurturing a baby in a secure environment, something we call gestation, fits female attributes better than male attributes, unless you are a seahorse in which case the male acts as the ‘womb’ for the young the female bears. Your statement above stating the obvious, is notable because it has no moral content. Across many scenarios we see the same thing, and there is no doubt that these attributes are at least partly responsible for the way it has develop. How does this fact affect how we position and reward female athletes and sportswomen.

Spinozasgalt wrote:It makes sense to me to provide women with their own sporting events, yes. That's not a very strong claim though. Similarly, I'm not bothered if women receive the same rewards as men. I quite like the idea, actually. Should they? I don't know. I don't consider women's sporting events to be less competitive versions of male ones.

It does make sense to give groups their own event so they can compete on more equal terms, there is not much entertainment value in seeing people compete with each other at different levels. And we do this all the time, we divide on age, disability, and in all cases every group gets paid less than able bodied, young adults, except in the case of tennis Grand Slam tourneys where the best women get paid the same as the best men although they play to a lower level. So what principle do we apply to pay people equally for unequal performance? How would you feel about doing a job to a certain level and they paid someone else the same amount as you for doing the same job to a lower standard? Or how about being excluded from something altogether and a place given to someone of the lower standard, pretty much on a quota system?

Spinozasgalt wrote:I get that you have to make things blurry here. Running as a sport and running as an activity or behaviour seem to bear the least difference or distance between forms, especially when compared with game sports that have a heavier artifice. If you can get running performances (as they appear and are judged in the sport) to look like the complement of running as a behaviour or activity (as it appears in nature), then you think that the "merit" as judged in sports like running is on a sturdier footing and can thus be applied generally. I think you're sneaking in a questionable normativity, of course. But, mainly, I just don't think you're open to the sort of point I've been trying to make. Maybe I can get at it better with a question.

I am having trouble seeing a coherent point here.

Spinozasgalt wrote:You say above that sports have been constructed as showcases of skill to identify and celebrate physical excellence. You also note that these physical excellences can aid survival. Why, then, are we showcasing physical excellence? Why did these sports develop to be these showcases? Where does this fit into these evolutionary type stories?

If sports show physical excellence attributes that aid survival, why do we showcase them? Evolution by natural selection happens through competition for scarce resources, traits that are heritable and aid survival sustain, heritable traits that hinder survival (at least to the point of procreation) tend to disappear. Hierarchies from in groups and individual seek control over outcomes in their favour. Groups have arisen in cases where they aid this process, individuals suffer some compromise in order to get some benefit from group, so we get relative competition in a wide variety of ways. In nations, companies, sport, mating, arms wars, song, dance, technology et al. People seek to excel, relative to others and do so as an attempt to get control over their life, and being social this comes at a cost to other people. Like all social institutions, part of this process is a celebration of excellence, one of these being sport. You might well ask why we do not see to find a loser in sport and reward them the most, the one who plays the worst tennis, or runs the slowest and this is both a physics problem, as well as one that could not arise through a process of evolution by natural selection. Physics because there is no obvious way to assess the worst tennis player except by finding the better and best ones, but even then each person could actively become worse in so many different ways that it is untenable. Imagine awarding the prize for the slowest 100m sprint. Once again we can only drive the exclusion mechanism in one direction, that of speed and not of slowness because we would never complete the 100m race as everyone slows to nothing. Making the metric for the 100m as ‘fast as possible’ means we easily find the individual we wish to celebrate.

Good god this is moronic.

Sugar Ray Robinson is widely regarded as a contender for the best boxer ever to have lived. He would, however, almost certainly be beaten if he was matched up against a relatively mediocre heavyweight boxer.

To be consistent, your idiotic argument would have to insist that either (a) all middleweights or lower be forced to box in completely open weight competitions or (b) be allowed to box in segregated competition but only for hugely reduced purses in recognition that they are not as good as the big boys. It would also conclude that Sugar Ray Robinson was actually a completely mediocre boxer on account of his probable ranking in open weight competition.

That wouldn't be an inconsistent argument, admittedly. It would just be a fucking stupid one.

It would also, if applied, result in the non-existence of the majority of the most skilful and entertaining boxers and boxing events in history. A dubious achievement for an industry whose main objective, and means of revenue, is the provision of entertainment.

TMB wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:Designed "for" men to do better? I don't know if I'd put it in that way. The worry is that various sports privilege male attributes and thus disadvantage or outright exclude women competitors. You say that men are "faster, stronger" etc, but you won't seem to countenance the view that this may have had an influence, perhaps even a secondary one, on how sports have developed and how an athlete's merits are judged within them.

Ok this means that sport as human construct just happens to fit male attributes better than it fits female attributes as a general rule. We might also say that nurturing a baby in a secure environment, something we call gestation, fits female attributes better than male attributes, unless you are a seahorse in which case the male acts as the ‘womb’ for the young the female bears. Your statement above stating the obvious, is notable because it has no moral content. Across many scenarios we see the same thing, and there is no doubt that these attributes are at least partly responsible for the way it has develop. How does this fact affect how we position and reward female athletes and sportswomen.

I didn't say that sports "just happen" to fit male attributes better than female attributes, either. I said that I wouldn't put it as strongly as you did initially. That doesn't mean taking on this much weaker claim that sports in general just happen to favour male attributes. And it's not clear to me how either the weaker claim you're pushing or the more ambiguous one I'm leaning toward should evacuate the moral content here.

TMB wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:It makes sense to me to provide women with their own sporting events, yes. That's not a very strong claim though. Similarly, I'm not bothered if women receive the same rewards as men. I quite like the idea, actually. Should they? I don't know. I don't consider women's sporting events to be less competitive versions of male ones.

It does make sense to give groups their own event so they can compete on more equal terms, there is not much entertainment value in seeing people compete with each other at different levels. And we do this all the time, we divide on age, disability, and in all cases every group gets paid less than able bodied, young adults, except in the case of tennis Grand Slam tourneys where the best women get paid the same as the best men although they play to a lower level. So what principle do we apply to pay people equally for unequal performance? How would you feel about doing a job to a certain level and they paid someone else the same amount as you for doing the same job to a lower standard? Or how about being excluded from something altogether and a place given to someone of the lower standard, pretty much on a quota system?

I quite like Precambrian Rabbi's way of talking to your point here. But, aside from that, you're relying on this "lower standard" that's heavy with your own conception of merit again. And that continues to be precisely what's in dispute here. As long as you keep asking these questions, I'll keep pointing to the dispute.

TMB wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:I get that you have to make things blurry here. Running as a sport and running as an activity or behaviour seem to bear the least difference or distance between forms, especially when compared with game sports that have a heavier artifice. If you can get running performances (as they appear and are judged in the sport) to look like the complement of running as a behaviour or activity (as it appears in nature), then you think that the "merit" as judged in sports like running is on a sturdier footing and can thus be applied generally. I think you're sneaking in a questionable normativity, of course. But, mainly, I just don't think you're open to the sort of point I've been trying to make. Maybe I can get at it better with a question.

I am having trouble seeing a coherent point here.

Shorter version: you're blurring a distinction between running and running as a sport because it helps your argument. You're kicking up the dust and then claiming you can't see. But the normativity at work behind the scenes is controversial, anyway.

TMB wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:You say above that sports have been constructed as showcases of skill to identify and celebrate physical excellence. You also note that these physical excellences can aid survival. Why, then, are we showcasing physical excellence? Why did these sports develop to be these showcases? Where does this fit into these evolutionary type stories?

If sports show physical excellence attributes that aid survival, why do we showcase them? Evolution by natural selection happens through competition for scarce resources, traits that are heritable and aid survival sustain, heritable traits that hinder survival (at least to the point of procreation) tend to disappear. Hierarchies from in groups and individual seek control over outcomes in their favour. Groups have arisen in cases where they aid this process, individuals suffer some compromise in order to get some benefit from group, so we get relative competition in a wide variety of ways. In nations, companies, sport, mating, arms wars, song, dance, technology et al. People seek to excel, relative to others and do so as an attempt to get control over their life, and being social this comes at a cost to other people. Like all social institutions, part of this process is a celebration of excellence, one of these being sport.

This is so run together that I can't see what your answer is. What's noticeable is how you're at pains to keep sex out of it.

Precambrian Rabbi wrote:Good god this is moronic.

Not a good start for a rationally sceptical post, lets see how the rest of your post goes

Precambrian Rabbi wrote:Sugar Ray Robinson is widely regarded as a contender for the best boxer ever to have lived. He would, however, almost certainly be beaten if he was matched up against a relatively mediocre heavyweight boxer.

I agree with you, just as Royce Gracie dominated UFC for its first few years in the 90’s and as an 82kg BJJ expert he beat fighters 50kg heavier than himself, however they have now split into weight classes. The question is can your example of Sugar Ray be applied across all of boxing and from there across all sport and athletics and be applied to the discussion of gender bias, not weight differences and in this instance in the sport of boxing (noting that weight classes are applied across a limited number of sports, martial arts, boxing, weight lifting, schoolboy rugby, body building are some obvious ones). As you might know (or not) weight categories are not applied in surfing or tennis and these are the two sports most discussed in this moronic debate.

Another possible question is does the existence of a Royce Gracie or Sugar Ray mean that we should pay women who are lower merit tennis players the same as the men. Sugar Ray Robinson is an anomaly in boxing, added to which this is a weight based discrimination and apply it to the argument that women who perform to a measurably lower standard in just about every sport and then get paid the same. Just as we know that in just about every sport, older, younger and disabled athletes and sportspeople also perform to a lower standard and get paid less, is there a logical basis to say that in terms of sport we will still pay women the same despite their lower abaility.

Precambrian Rabbi wrote:To be consistent, your idiotic argument would have to insist that either (a) all middleweights or lower be forced to box in completely open weight competitions or (b) be allowed to box in segregated competition but only for hugely reduced purses in recognition that they are not as good as the big boys. It would also conclude that Sugar Ray Robinson was actually a completely mediocre boxer on account of his probable ranking in open weight competition.

Since I consider the metrics in boxing to be different and specifically around weight classes and not applicable to looking at sex discrimination, you need to show the links from Sugar Ray, who as an exception even in boxing, then leap the chasm to the justification behind paying women the same reward for demonstrably showing lower merit (without out any reference to weight classes) – as you say yourself – idiotic fits in well right about here. Also note there are over a dozen weight classes in boxing, yet the heavyweights get the most coverage and earn the best $, some exceptions aside, so even here rewards lean toward an ‘open’ class where there is no restriction. Boxing is also different in that weight is a strong factor in winning, however at every weight the specific boxing skills draw audiences. Perhaps you are suggesting that while men do play better tennis, people want to watch and admire women for reasons other than their tennis skills?

Precambrian Rabbi wrote:That wouldn't be an inconsistent argument, admittedly. It would just be a fucking stupid one.

You got that right, fucking stupid and precisely why it has no relevance to the argument about gender segregation and equal payment for lower performance. What is interesting is how its possible that an argument could be so fucking stupid to propose connections that were not suggested and don’t exist in any but moronic arguments, a leap from Sugar Ray to the implication that its somehow relevant to a discussion about paying women the same as men for lower quality tennis (based upon the metrics that define tennis, and as you might guess don’t define or apply to boxing) – I am glad you said it, how fucking stupid

Precambrian Rabbi wrote:It would also, if applied, result in the non-existence of the majority of the most skilful and entertaining boxers and boxing events in history. A dubious achievement for an industry whose main objective, and means of revenue, is the provision of entertainment.

So where has it been suggested to do this for boxing around its division of weight classes and thus eliminate those from lower weight classes? However note the competitors don’t whine about getting paid less than the heavyweights who aside from some exceptional boxers in lower weights get better paid. Cassius Clay gave heavyweight boxing its boost and as he boxed more like a lightweight than heavyweight and had a mouth to match turned it into what it is today? Robinson prompted the ‘pound for pound’ ranking that gets used in boxing and martial arts, specifically because while it is recognised (at least by people who are not idiotic morons) that while weight is a deciding factor in who wins this specific type of competition, the hand and foot skills of the competitors are a critical part of how we judge the sport and its entertainment value. The other Sugar Ray (Leonard) also primarily boxed welter (and others classes) and during the 80’s along with Duran, Hearns and Hagler gave that weight division more status and made Leonard the top purse winner in boxing, however it would be fucking stupid, moronic and idiotic to apply what happens in boxing around weight groups to gender segregation in any sport, without offering an argument to support this leap. One would hope on a forum for rational sceptics it wouldn’t happen.

Sendraks wrote:Thanks for that response TMB, you basically just handwaved away everything I said with a wall of text that predictably just regurgitates what you've said many times before already and thusly confirmed that engaging with you is a pointless exercise.

You're not hear to discuss or listen, you've already rehearsed your arguments and reached your conclusion with the kind of terminal intensity I normally see from fundamental theists.

If that is what you think, then show the basis for seeing the number of set men play relative to women to be the criteria of how merit is measured, since you appear to think the set numbers are the relevant metric to judge relative ability and reward. Whilst I am suggest its more simple than this, men are just better players than women are, so why measure the sets (pretty much like how many hours you sat at your desk) as opposed to what was the tennis skill in those sets (aka while you sat at your desk, how good are you at the job).

Tone policing and handwaving.

I really don't see what is in it for me to participate in your game of pigeon chess.

TMB wrote:

Precambrian Rabbi wrote:Good god this is moronic.

Not a good start for a rationally sceptical post, lets see how the rest of your post goes

Actually, when someone posts something that's moronic, it's textbook definition of a rational-skeptic response.

Spinozasgalt wrote:I didn't say that sports "just happen" to fit male attributes better than female attributes, either. I said that I wouldn't put it as strongly as you did initially. That doesn't mean taking on this much weaker claim that sports in general just happen to favour male attributes. And it's not clear to me how either the weaker claim you're pushing or the more ambiguous one I'm leaning toward should evacuate the moral content here.

Then what exactly are you saying?

Spinozasgalt wrote:[I quite like Precambrian Rabbi's way of talking to your point here. But, aside from that, you're relying on this "lower standard" that's heavy with your own conception of merit again. And that continues to be precisely what's in dispute here. As long as you keep asking these questions, I'll keep pointing to the dispute.

My conception of lower merit? Merit in tennis and most sports are clear and quantitative, and if you take the rules that are applied in a womans competition between the women to find who is the ‘best’ player (eg Serena Williams for tennis) and apply them between men and women, men have higher merit. This is not a hard concept to grasp.

Spinozasgalt wrote:[Shorter version: you're blurring a distinction between running and running as a sport because it helps your argument. You're kicking up the dust and then claiming you can't see. But the normativity at work behind the scenes is controversial, anyway.

OK lets look at running in more detailed as well as other sports that might apply. There are multiple forms of running, from sprint to marathon, track to x country, hurdles et al. In each case men are better and running is a common natural behaviour. Swimming is also something where men excel and it seems like a useful skill to have and to be faster, better endurance, and as it happens women do unusually well at endurance swimming. Surf lifesaving events consists of a number of disciplines of swimming, running and board paddling specifically trained to make people good lifeguards. Jumping, javelin, are all testing human ability around strength, flexibility, fine and gross motor skills, hand/eye coordination, speed etc etc.

And since you think pretty much all the sports we can think if privilege male attributes then give me some suggestion of sports that privilege female attributes. Then women can set up these new institutions and get more privilege than men. I think you will find that men dominate sport precisely because they do have better attributes than women do to perform them and they have invested a lot of time and resource to get them to the elevsl they currently are at. Once again I have no issue that women can take advantage of what men have set up and participate, but I see no reason why we should compromise the principle of merit just because they are women. In exactly the same way there are other things that privilege female attributes like beauty contests and modelling, that men do not expect to get equal reward for showing lesser attributes.

I cannot read your mind with you saying the normativity is controversial, however I suggest the best approach is to be constative to start with, and once the factual aspects of reality is better understood and agreed then you can look at the normative side. Doing it the other way about is a sure recipe for disaster. If we begin with things the way think they ought to be the odds of agreement are very low since by definition they are subjective and relative, how will we then clearly see the facts if we have already taken a moral view on something that is sure to try and bend the facts to fit. However its interesting to note that this is the usual approach taken by most people.

Spinozasgalt wrote:This is so run together that I can't see what your answer is. What's noticeable is how you're at pains to keep sex out of it.

You asked why we showcase physical excellence, and I said it has arisen through natural selection. You then added I have been at pains to keep sex out of it? You make assertions with nothing to back them up or even explain what you are talking about. How have I kept sex out of it? Sexual reproduction exists because it worked better for some species than asexual reproduction simply because it did a better job shuffling the DNA at replication time than did asexual reproduction. You appear to have a question and you seem to think I should be able to read your mind and work out what it is without you appearing to know yourself.

Thommo wrote:

TMB wrote:

Sendraks wrote:The frustrating thing is that TMB is operating from a position of absolutes and assumes that anyone who disagrees with him is doing the same. Plus, he's not here to discuss and learn but, win at all costs. And as he's already made his mind up that anyone who disagrees is wrong, it is pigeon chess all the way down.

Are some feminists actually just frothing misandrists with a hugely negative view of men, who want to establish female privilege? Yes, yes they are. I've seen them in action and it is deeply unnerving stuff.

Do they represent the majority of feminists? No
Do they represent feminism? No.
Are the a problem? Yes.

But, it simply isn't possible to have a discussion about that without TMB without him twisting it around into blaming all feminists for the actions and views of a minority and coming back to arguing a distorted caricature of feminism as being fact.

There is a significant number of both men and women who support and do not question many assertions made by vocal and high profile feminists, or the many female athletes who are demanding equal reward for less merit. I accept that there are extreme feminists and more moderate ones, so I am not specifying feminist groups like SCUM or the MRA. What you post misses is that I am taking a specific scenario and arguing about what is being presented, so if you can rebut the details of how I criticise the current, and increasing groundswell that will see women in sport be given more and privilege without having to perform at the same level as men do, and it all gets carried under the banner of unfair discrimination against women. Focus your efforts on the content of what is being debated instead of chucking in red herrings.

A good example of 'feminist' thought is in a book by Laura Pappano and Eileen McDonagh, called "playing with the Boys" and while the specific points they are trying to make are unclearly presented, the book is underlaid by the fact that women just need to get a better deal, and to do this they fudge the facts. Many readers might not examine their claims very closely (as this one reviewer did not), but it creates false information about what the real situation is. Ironically Pappano and Donagh appear to argue that women can and will be beat men in certain events, and should be allowed to compete in a single event, however they have to bend the facts to do this.

In this review below, the author says this, and because she probably wanted to believe what she was reading, she did not bother to check the facts. The gem of the three example of Boston marathon, Ultramarathons and Iditarod is the statistical manipulation of the Boston Marathon figures that compares men and women runners. Can you see the error?

http://isreview.org/issue/72/are-men-re ... r-athletes

"When it comes to endurance sports, women can often leave men in the dust. Women’s greater amounts of estrogen seem to play a role in enabling some women to outperform men in endurance sports, especially in what are known as ultra-endurance sports. At marathon distances, twenty-six miles, women can perform identically to men—and in Boston’s 2003 Marathon the mean running time for the top 207 runners showed women’s times to be nearly five minutes faster, a mean time of 2:36:55 versus men’s men mean time of 2:41:33. But men on average have a harder time keeping up with women in ultra-endurance races of fifty-five miles or more.

Alaska’s Iditarod, the ultimate ultra-endurance sport, an annual 1,200-mile dogsled race from Anchorage to Nome, is frequently won by women. In addition to women’s capacity for greater stamina, it is one of several sports where women’s higher percentage of body fat also plays a role in providing a biological advantage."

Well done, you've found three people who hold a silly view.

I can do that too:
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/pseud ... t8539.html

Why were you unable to count beyond three? The book has been given plenty of admiring editorial reviews who are probably also indulging in wishful thinking and although reader reviews are sparse for a book that has been in print 8 years they show a similar willingness to believe something that looks like its not just an assertion, but based upon some snappy and presumably reliable statistics. And while the authors do contradict themselves to the point that its unclear what their exact stance is on some key principles, they still come out strongly with the view that women need to be given more privilege in the sporting domain. The fact that much of their argument rests upon analytics that do not stack up does not mean they are just 'three people'.

I have no idea quite how flicking me to an unrelated thread that you seem to think counts as an argument, so lets hear what the logical proposition is that supports your assertion.

Argumentum ad populem.

TMB wrote:Why were you unable to count beyond three?

I'm not unable, that's an accurate number of the people you mentioned (the two authors and the reviewer). But this kind of pettifoggery you're engaging in is tiresome. My point didn't depend on the exact number, did it? If you're going to make pedantic attempts at condescension, at least do me the courtesy of being right about the pointless details you pick up on please.

Thommo wrote:

TMB wrote:Why were you unable to count beyond three?

I'm not unable, that's an accurate number of the people you mentioned (the two authors and the reviewer). But this kind of pettifoggery you're engaging in is tiresome. My point didn't depend on the exact number, did it? If you're going to make pedantic attempts at condescension, at least do me the courtesy of being right about the pointless details you pick up on please.

All I did was drop to the level of your post that dismissed mine on the basis that it was just three people, insufficient swallows to make a summer. Aside from the fact that books like this a seen as scholarly works, McDonagh is a University professor and is putting up fudged research to support a non existent case. If you are unable to address the content in my post with substance do not be surprised if my posts drop to your level.

TMB wrote:

Thommo wrote:

TMB wrote:Why were you unable to count beyond three?

I'm not unable, that's an accurate number of the people you mentioned (the two authors and the reviewer). But this kind of pettifoggery you're engaging in is tiresome. My point didn't depend on the exact number, did it? If you're going to make pedantic attempts at condescension, at least do me the courtesy of being right about the pointless details you pick up on please.

All I did was drop to the level of your post that dismissed mine on the basis that it was just three people, insufficient swallows to make a summer.

That's neither what I said or implied. The problem isn't that "not enough people" hold stupid ideas. It's the absolute reverse. There are billions of people holding stupid ideas. Finding three or ten or a million is neither here nor there.

TMB wrote:Aside from the fact that books like this a seen as scholarly works, McDonagh is a University professor and is putting up fudged research to support a non existent case. If you are unable to address the content in my post with substance do not be surprised if my posts drop to your level.

You found a crappy book review, this isn't you dropping to my level, this is you making a crap point and then misunderstanding an objection to it. There are thousands upon thousands of university professors who are creationists for fuck's sake. Whatever point you think you're making, you're not.

Sendraks wrote:Argumentum ad populem.

Sendraks the problem with your posts is the lack of substance and logic, dropping in someone elses one-liner, while it requires no thought or effort does not amount to anything rationally valid. And since we are talking about sport here, your post reminds me of all the ads trying to sell people physical fitness with machines and techniques that do all the work for the buyer, when the reality is effective health and fitness regimes require effort and applied knowledge. So instead of leaning on someone elses effort in your posts why not try some thinking of your own and the merit of your posts might be in contention for a medal in a gender neutral contest?

I don't get the 'we' in the question 'should we pay female athletes more?' Where you this 'we' shit, white man? I don't pay any sports figure anything at all. Don't watch it on TV, don't go to games, don't wear sports jerseys or ball caps, don't buy overpriced tennis shoes, don't even eat cereal. I guess you could argue that some small portion of my taxes supports sports stadiums, but if it were in my power not to contribute I would cease doing so immediately. I don't expect anyone else to financially support things I enjoy, why should I contribute so some over-paid muscleheads can run around a field chasing a ball while a bunch of pseudo-tribal idiots hoot and jabber and smack each other about?

I also don't get the 'should' bit. Should? By what authority? Sez who? Some feminist or MRA or activist? Fuck 'em. Let them send Serena a check if it bothers them so much, because the vast majority of the world's population couldn't give a rat fuck. This isn't just a first world problem, it's a 0.01% of the first world problem.

Sendraks wrote:Tone policing and handwaving.

I really don't see what is in it for me to participate in your game of pigeon chess.

What makes you think you are participating? Surely for this to happen you would have to have a logical proposition that has at least inductive logic in it, and then some evidence to finish it off, or if you dismantle the argument of another, deconstruct the principles and counter to show where it falls down. On this basis, at least on a forum for rational sceptics, you don't even qualify for pigeon chess. And your first success is recognising this - well done.