Is it a man's, man's, man's, man's world?
November 1, 2016 12:32 PM   Subscribe

At Crooked Timber, philosopher Harry Brighouse links to an article from Law, Ethics and Philosophy that features a provocative article by Phillipe Van Parijs. In “Four Puzzles on Gender Equality,” Van Parijs observes: There are dimensions along which men seem to be disadvantaged, on average, relative to women. For example, they can expect to live less years; in a growing number of countries they are, on average, less educated than women; they form an electoral minority; and their greater propensity to misbehave means that the overwhelming majority of the prison population is drawn from their ranks. These disadvantages, if they are real, all derive from an unchosen feature shared by one category of human beings: being a male. Does it follow that these advantages are unjust?

The journal also features responses from authors who argue that Van Parijs’ cited inequalities are not unjust: Pierre –Etienne Vandamme (on female political advantage); Jesus Mora (greater educational achievement among women); Valeria Ottonelli (hormones and male misbehavior). Paula Casal considers whether theories of justice require that societies correct for women’s greater longevity, and Gina Shouten doubts whether we can refute the claim that higher levels of incarceration of males represents a genuine injustice.

The links inside Law, Ethics and Philosophy are to individual PDFs of Van Parijs' piece and the responses. As Brighouse, who has done interesting work on the place of family in theories of justice notes, the discussion is entirely accessible to non-academics, not just because it is free on the internet, but also because most of the papers (including Van Parijs’s) are short, and largely free of technical language.
posted by layceepee (79 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
The PDFs don't load automagically for me, either, but you can get them from a link on the page where they're supposed to appear. (It would have been nice to have the response pieces linked too. For example, here is Mora's response on educational inequality.)

I'm sure this will end well.
posted by spacewrench at 12:55 PM on November 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


if they are real

details, details

the discussion is entirely accessible to non-academics

I'm not actually familiar with any non-academic who has not actually had this argument many times over and many years ago, provided they are either a feminist or an internet bozo or both. but, you know, thanks for coming down to our level, philosophers.
posted by queenofbithynia at 12:59 PM on November 1, 2016 [7 favorites]


Patriarchy is bad for everyone. This is not proof that patriarchy is equally bad for everyone.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 1:02 PM on November 1, 2016 [53 favorites]


The original article and all the responses are linked in the Crooked Timber post. I was able to access the PDFs from both Crooked Timber and the Law, Ethics and Philosophy site. If one doesn't work for you, the other might be worth trying.
posted by layceepee at 1:04 PM on November 1, 2016


Van Parijs' argument is badly flawed in some pretty basic ways: the mere existence of disparities is not evidence of structural disadvantages, the actual character of cross-group disparities is much more important than the mere fact that they exist, and the assumption that, arguendo, real male disadvantages are equivalent to female advantages is a non-sequitur. This is just provocative nonsense.
posted by clockzero at 1:04 PM on November 1, 2016 [15 favorites]


Don't miss Ana de Miguel's response, not linked in the OP but available in PDF with the rest of them, titled "The Rich Also Cry."

"Predictably, the talk did not go down well. And he could have left it there. Philippa would have gone home wanting the earth to swallow her and quietly researched into where she went so horribly wrong until she understood. But not Philippe. Two and a half years later he remains convinced that the problem lay with the female audience. They misunderstood him."

good stuff. good title, too.
posted by queenofbithynia at 1:05 PM on November 1, 2016 [22 favorites]


Probably worth quoting relevant parts that could be missed:
" I want to draw attention to four dimensions along which gender inequality does exist, but in women’s favor. I am not claiming that they are all of the same importance, nor that they can, without qualification, be regarded as dimensions of gender injustice. I am claiming even less that the disadvantages incurred by men along these four dimensions currently offset the disadvantages incurred by women along many others."
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:11 PM on November 1, 2016 [8 favorites]


The line of argument this dude is pursuing seems weird and inhumane. is there some philosophy context that i'm missing where this would come off as less weird and inhumane? i'm not social justice gotcha asking, it just seems like such a bizarre and socially maladroit talk to give that I gotta be missing something
posted by beefetish at 1:15 PM on November 1, 2016


"I want to draw attention to four dimensions along which gender inequality does exist, but in women’s favor. I am not claiming that they are all of the same importance, nor that they can, without qualification, be regarded as dimensions of gender injustice. I am claiming even less that the disadvantages incurred by men along these four dimensions currently offset the disadvantages incurred by women along many others."

Then why is he drawing attention to them?
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:18 PM on November 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


"I want to draw attention to four dimensions along which gender inequality does exist, but in women’s favor. I am not claiming that they are all of the same importance, nor that they can, without qualification, be regarded as dimensions of gender injustice. I am claiming even less that the disadvantages incurred by men along these four dimensions currently offset the disadvantages incurred by women along many others."

So basically, to put it colloquially, he's not saying, he's just saying. Great. That really clears things up.
posted by clockzero at 1:19 PM on November 1, 2016 [22 favorites]


entirely accessible to non-academics, not just because it is free on the internet, but also because most of the papers (including Van Parijs’s) are short, and largely free of technical language.

I don't agree with this. I have an academic background, and my immediate reaction to this is to draw connections to Foucault's notion of biopolitics and Marx's notion of family.

Because as soon as you make the connection to biopolitics, this disclaimer:

" I want to draw attention to four dimensions along which gender inequality does exist, but in women’s favor. I am not claiming that they are all of the same importance, nor that they can, without qualification, be regarded as dimensions of gender injustice. I am claiming even less that the disadvantages incurred by men along these four dimensions currently offset the disadvantages incurred by women along many others."

immediately goes without saying if you're already a Foucauldian. What the author is repeating here is, it is reasonable to distinguish between the descriptive and the prescriptive, between what exists and one's valuation of it, and that there is a pitfall in supposing that the following discussion is about the current situation and more the current viewpoint which is embedded in our status quo i.e. reigning assumptions about justice in relation to equality. If you know a bit of Foucault, the lines above echo all of this.

Similarly, the fact that one philosopher tried to analyze family within this context makes it technical by virtue of the past literature on family and social theory. People who don't have exposure to the prior framework will tend to instead attribute this to absurd misogynistic nonsense.

Hell, even academics are prone to be dismissive of ideas outside their discipline/framework.
posted by polymodus at 1:27 PM on November 1, 2016 [9 favorites]


Because he's a philosopher exploring issues of justice and gender?

The idea that certain questions shouldn't be asked--in places where, like any inane or boring quibble is entertained (meaning philosophy journals)--is an anti-intellectual stance.

Men don't live longer than women.This has implications for how we think about gender and fairness. If you bring this up during a discussion about the patriarchy or unequal treatment of women or any other contemporary issue of gender, then yeah, entirely not appropriate and the person bringing it up is probably doing so for not good reasons. But the idea that this is a discussion that no one should be having is an odd one.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:29 PM on November 1, 2016 [33 favorites]


It is possibly worth contrasting the thoughtful responses and engagement shown by the comment section at Crooked Timber with the greater tendency to glib dismissal here. There are some nice take downs that make more of a point than "MRAs suck", a pretty agreed upon point but not a particularly interesting one.

On preview: Hooray polymodus!
posted by andorphin at 1:29 PM on November 1, 2016 [9 favorites]




I'm fascinated by the way that all of them could be summed up with the phrase "men seem to on average have worse impulse control than women"

This is a very real problem and perhaps we could help society greatly be finding ways to help men manage their impulses to quit school, to violence and crime, and consequently reduce the stress that contributes to our shortened lifespans.
posted by Megafly at 1:34 PM on November 1, 2016 [12 favorites]


I feel like he doesn't actually even make the strongest version of some of the arguments he's trying to make?
posted by atoxyl at 1:37 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


It is possibly worth contrasting the thoughtful responses and engagement shown by the comment section at Crooked Timber with the greater tendency to glib dismissal here.

I can't speak for the six commenters at Crooked Timber, but I am fairly certain that a number of people here have heard all of this before, argued it in good faith, lost their taste for sea lions, and have become dismissive out of sheer fatigue.
posted by Karmakaze at 1:37 PM on November 1, 2016 [31 favorites]


But I'm fairly certain the post was supposed to be about the responders, not just Van Parjis.
posted by atoxyl at 1:40 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Putting an academic sheen on a bullshit derail does not make it less of a bullshit derail.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:40 PM on November 1, 2016


It is possibly worth contrasting the thoughtful responses and engagement shown by the comment section at Crooked Timber with the greater tendency to glib dismissal here

conservation of energy. Those nice people at Crooked Timber are welcome to refight battles that feminists have already repeatedly fought and won -- thoroughly and completely won intellectually and philosophically, which is to say, we lost for practical purposes -- centuries ago up until five minutes ago. Does it do any good for the world to say it one more time, with calmness and good academic manners and fine style, into a gusty wilderness of Men Just Asking Questions? Plenty of things are worth doing again that have already been done, but this one really has been done a lot. like really a lot.

It is possibly worth considering. as they say.
posted by queenofbithynia at 1:41 PM on November 1, 2016 [27 favorites]


A derail from what?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:41 PM on November 1, 2016 [8 favorites]


A derail from fighting patriarchy.

Look, if someone wants to do a "patriarchy hurts men, too!" thing, then fine. More power.

But framing it as "WOMEN HAVE SOME ADVANTAGES WHAT ABOUT THE MEN???" in fancier words is bullshit.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:47 PM on November 1, 2016 [10 favorites]


A refusal to engage based on fatigue is understandable, as is mocking a retrograde opinion. The former seems to hurt the possibility of a discussion of issues that at least some academics in philosophy seem interested in. I just like reading things by smart mefites from disciplines I don't get to interact with much analyze things. I guess I'm arguing that academic discussions have value and glibness makes them harder?
posted by andorphin at 1:49 PM on November 1, 2016 [6 favorites]


The idea that certain questions shouldn't be asked--in places where, like any inane or boring quibble is entertained (meaning philosophy journals)--is an anti-intellectual stance.

No, it's absolutely not. The idea that all questions are, as a matter of course, necessarily and entirely disinterested, and based on equally valid premises, is utterly absurd.
posted by clockzero at 1:49 PM on November 1, 2016 [9 favorites]


The goal of academics is to develop and disseminate new knowledge, not to fight the patriarchy.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:51 PM on November 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


But framing it as "WOMEN HAVE SOME ADVANTAGES WHAT ABOUT THE MEN???" in fancier words is bullshit.

In fairness I think his original intention -- (my woman's intuition is another unfair advantage I hold over the other sex, he didn't think of that one -- you see how easily I read his mind though) -- was to painstakingly lay out a bunch of advantages that women have over men, get a bunch of philosophers to enthusiastically agree that these supposed advantages are not unfair and in some cases not even advantages if you look closer, and then flip the table and say AHA SO WHEN WE RE-REVERSE THE QUESTION AND CONSIDER "GENDER INEQUALITY" AS USUALLY CONCEIVED OF, WE THEN SEE THAT IT RAISES FURTHER QUESTIONS

but I mean, I can get that on Reddit for free. it does not escape my notice that I got it for free here, too. but somehow, reading contemporary popular (?) philosophy always leaves me feeling as though I have paid dearly for it.
posted by queenofbithynia at 1:52 PM on November 1, 2016 [13 favorites]


The goal of academics is to develop and disseminate new knowledge, not to fight the patriarchy.

Once again, the fact that this dude has never had this conversation does not make it a conversation that has never been had. If he wants to develop new knowledge then he should do so.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 1:58 PM on November 1, 2016 [27 favorites]


andorphin: I guess I'm arguing that academic discussions have value and glibness makes them harder?

personally I am not being glib, just mean. that is a fine academic value in all the academic arenas I know.

you want to see mocking, check out that Ana de Miguel, man. even Van Parjis was moderately respectful about her response in his response response. though how could you not be.

MP:
The goal of academics is to develop and disseminate new knowledge, not to fight the patriarchy.

how fortunate for us all that in well-done philosophy touching on the family, the one accomplishes the other. supposing people read it.
posted by queenofbithynia at 1:59 PM on November 1, 2016 [5 favorites]


The Paula Casal article contributes two important points:

Think of being male and female as being bundles of advantages and disadvantages. Even if longer life is seen as an advantage, choosing that bundle means also accepting lifelong discrimination. The being-male bundle still looks pretty good by comparison, and does not merit compensation.

Worse, saying that long life is an advantage would be true in a world where the elderly received adequate resources and were treated with respect. In our society, a longer life is not obviously a happier one.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:00 PM on November 1, 2016 [22 favorites]


Uhm, why is this being met with so much hostility?

Not everything about being a dude is sunshine and roses. Now, I don't know for sure but I'm reasonably confident nobody is saying that excuses the patriarchy writ large.
posted by pmv at 2:03 PM on November 1, 2016 [5 favorites]


It's being met with so much hostility because, while this may be the first time you have seen these ideas, these are not new ideas. And those who have encountered them before have often gotten a side dish of toxic sludge.

For example, one of the reasons why women have a longer life expectancy is that it is the woman's job to care for her man. Men who lose their partners die without that support, whereas women are able to do their own housekeeping and feed themselves, and live longer alone. Describing this as an advantage women face, rather than a problem with the patriarchal system that prevents men from learning these skills and dumps them on women is... not great.

Generally, the reason that women have gotten more degrees than men lately is that there is more work for men that does not require degrees. Describing this as an advantage women gain, rather than a compensation for a system that requires less education from men is... also not great.

And let's not even get into the idea that men are inherently prone to misbehavior. You'd think the men here would be offended by that generalization, and I'm hostile to having that pinned on the men I love.
posted by Karmakaze at 2:12 PM on November 1, 2016 [66 favorites]


i'm just a stickler for good grammar
posted by beerperson at 2:13 PM on November 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


The goal of academics is to develop and disseminate new knowledge, not to fight the patriarchy.

Haha, I know a whole bunch of academics working in philosophy, sociology, and politics that you should meet. Fighting patriarchy through the creation of new knowledge, or the application of existing knowledge in novel ways. And as anyone who has ever met or lived with actual real world academics will know, the creating new knowledge bit is a very small portion of what academics actually spend their time on, but you can fight the patriarchy through your lecturing and in staff meetings and all that, too. So it's probably fighting patriarchy first, creating new knowledge to that end second.
posted by Dysk at 2:23 PM on November 1, 2016 [13 favorites]


The idea that certain questions shouldn't be asked--in places where, like any inane or boring quibble is entertained (meaning philosophy journals)--is an anti-intellectual stance.

I in fact entirely agree with this, but you seem to have an equally anti-intellectual position regarding the idea that certain questions shouldn't be answered. answered soundly, roundly, and correctly. as a proud and lonely intellectual, I am going to keep right on reading questions that start with some version of "isn't it JUST POSSIBLE that..." and, instead of scratching my chin and being struck by the daring of the question, actually consider it and give a prompt response.

("No." in some cases, yes, but usually to questions like that, it's going to be "no.")
posted by queenofbithynia at 2:25 PM on November 1, 2016 [9 favorites]


Male vs female mortality (and sub-lethal morbities too) are a really complex set of topics that really aren't well examined by discourse without reference to lots of data and research. There appears to be biological, behavioral and social aspects that all play roles. It's not a simple binary, there are issues of infant vs adult mortality, access to food, access to care, self-care as well as biological factors (at least). I'd be very careful of any just-so story logic on this topic.
posted by bonehead at 2:30 PM on November 1, 2016 [26 favorites]


I have literally seen these "four puzzles" enumerated on image macros from 4chan/reddit; perhaps brilliant philosophy lurks beneath the deceptive surface but I will forgive myself for loling right past it
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:30 PM on November 1, 2016 [10 favorites]


This is nothing if not a primer on the issue of "everyone has different experiences and expectations". I hadn't thought that this topic rose to the level of chewed-over-and-warrenting-dismissal in philosophy circles that, e.g., anthropogenic climate change has risen to in other circles. What I mean is that I thought there was still some life and worthiness in the discussion. But I completely accept for the some the answer is, "yep, done".
posted by andorphin at 2:34 PM on November 1, 2016


It's fine that you're personally fatigued by the topic. Why tell us about it, then?

There are *some* uniquely negative aspects to being a dude. That's my lived experience. Unfortunately, by the sound of your experience, we can also add "likelier to be a boor" to the list.

>men are inherently prone to misbehavior … You'd think the men here would be offended by that generalization

I was 18 once. It feels… obvious that we have poorer impulse control. Isn't that part of the reason why we have lower life expectancies?

Not to say anyone in this thread is expressing this exact sentiment - I suppose this must be how women are made to feel all the time! - but it doesn't feel good to be told that my experiences and inner life is dumb, wrong, unworthy of examination.
posted by pmv at 2:38 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


>men are inherently prone to misbehavior … You'd think the men here would be offended by that generalization

Nope. That's a fact. The men here are aware that our opinions or natures don't change facts about men in general.
posted by Megafly at 2:42 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was 18 once. It feels… obvious that we have poorer impulse control. Isn't that part of the reason why we have lower life expectancies?

How exactly is that obvious to you? Were you somehow able to observe the inner life of women (and other men) at 18? How do you know what impulses other people were or weren't controlling?
posted by Dysk at 2:52 PM on November 1, 2016 [9 favorites]


Mod note: Couple of comments deleted. People find this author's point tedious, and have explained why, which is fine; let's not make it personal in here please.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:54 PM on November 1, 2016


pmv--I don't think anyone is saying that your inner life is dumb, wrong, unworthy of examination. You are possibly encountering, for the first time, activism fatigue--the classic mechanism of psychological progress whereby the people who fight along a given spectrum of social justice are, often, just flat-out tired of explaining Their Field 101 to people, when they feel that there are readily available resources on the Internet for this.

I found that the best way to deal with this sensation of having been punched in the nose was to imagine what it would be like to have felt, for most of your life, the way I was feeling at that particular moment. This is worthy of examination. [On preview, this is what beefetish is getting at.]

Getting oriented toward radical feminism is mostly about cranking your empathy way up. It sucks to mature emotionally and physically way later than girls, and to die somewhat younger than them, on average, and to have a brain that maybe is more hardwired toward impulsivity but that is, in any event, culturally encouraged toward impulsivity.

But when I look at, say, the things Donald Trump has said about women, and I think about how that would feel if I were female and had been through his shit a million other times to various degrees in my life, except now he'd been nominated to the most influential executive position of any country in the world--

Yeah, I can get how your average female American might be feeling a little bit too beleaguered right now to worry about my guy problems. Ugh, the wage gap alone, whether you measure it purely in cents per dollar or more abstractly in the societal expectations of women to care for children. And now this Trump guy? I would feel like I was literally under attack.
posted by radicalawyer at 2:57 PM on November 1, 2016 [17 favorites]


It's exhausting to rehash this every time a man has ~deep thoughts~ that he needs to share.

This seems somewhat unfair. He was asked to speak by a woman who, as a former student of his, could be hoped to be reasonably familiar with his thinking.

As noted, much of what he said, can be easily dismissed by a pre-constructed link to the alt.mra.not.even.wrong FAQ or whatever the kids are calling it these days. From a philosophical perspective, it's not awful, just naive and shallow, However, sufficient numbers of credible people have sought to point out his clumsiness at length, which makes his response by far the more interesting document.

He basically acknowledges his naivety in his answering piece.He has a fairly well-structured and consistent world-view, and has learned and enriched it from the exchange. Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. This sets him apart from the MRA crowd that many seem quick to lump him in with. You can agree or disagree with where he ends up at this stage, but I found it fascinating to see the development of his thinking, even if I don't agree with all of it.
posted by Sparx at 3:12 PM on November 1, 2016 [8 favorites]


>How exactly is that obvious to you?

All throughout my life - classrooms, parties, bars, whatever - it's more often than not the men who are setting things on fire, breaking things, getting into fights, being loud and obnoxious, egging each other on, etc.

It's part of the reason I size other men up in case they become violent towards me. I assume women have similar reactions.

> You are possibly encountering, for the first time, activism fatigue

I frequent fairly social justicey circles, mefi included. I've learned in recent years, and have been trying to better at, shutting up, taking up less space, stepping aside. I'm OK with this.

I've definitely seen and heard others discuss 101 fatigue before.

It's just unpleasant to encounter reasoning that delights in being uncharitable?
posted by pmv at 3:16 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


"In fairness I think his original intention -- (my woman's intuition is another unfair advantage I hold over the other sex, he didn't think of that one -- you see how easily I read his mind though) -- was to painstakingly lay out a bunch of advantages that women have over men, get a bunch of philosophers to enthusiastically agree that these supposed advantages are not unfair and in some cases not even advantages if you look closer, and then flip the table and say AHA SO WHEN WE RE-REVERSE THE QUESTION AND CONSIDER "GENDER INEQUALITY" AS USUALLY CONCEIVED OF, WE THEN SEE THAT IT RAISES FURTHER QUESTIONS"

And I think you're wrong, and have not adequately supported your argument, instead appealing to a bunch of other times something else has happened in order to reinforce a conclusion you've already assumed.

The case he's making does seem to be that these "advantages" aren't unfair, and may not be advantages when considered — therefore, the arguments for considering them advantages are flawed. But rather than take it as a dismantling of common MRA arguments, you've chosen to intuit that he's actually doing some double-reverse sekrit MRA stanning.

You do this despite his published reply to the criticisms by the other authors, in which he explicitly endorses the conclusions many of them reach, and cites "The Rich Also Cry" as "superbly formulated and entertaining," especially instructive to him in terms of how he could have been misunderstood.

It seems like a lot of people here are substituting their intuitions for actually reading the linked material, and the discussion here is poorer for it. Complaints about "sea lioning" or other glib, dismissive snark do a disservice not just to Parjis' original piece, but to the incisive, illuminating and compelling responses that he got. I'd hate to think that someone would just see a bullshit dismissive summary and conclude there was nothing there that hasn't been on Reddit, because the piece and the responses are worth engaging with.
posted by klangklangston at 3:19 PM on November 1, 2016 [19 favorites]


I think you might be conflating uncharitable with an absolutely sharp and sincere exhaustion with a pattern of behavior that seems benign on an individual level but is absolutely not in the aggregate.
posted by beefetish at 3:19 PM on November 1, 2016 [6 favorites]


have not adequately supported your argument, instead appealing to a bunch of other times something else has happened in order to reinforce a conclusion you've already assumed

dude in fact I appealed to woman's intuition and mind-reading. I said so, check it out. it is true I put it in a parenthesis instead of footnoting it but I do not think that is a grave error in this forum.

I am not a philosopher by special training apart from a few classes and a tiny bit of thinking. I am, though, an expert at reading and writing long sentences and I know from tone and over-elaborate set-up. there is no double-sekrit anything in my supposition, it is basic basic basic argument construction. The last thing I am accusing him of is craftiness. ponderousness, maybe.
posted by queenofbithynia at 3:26 PM on November 1, 2016 [2 favorites]


"dude in fact I appealed to woman's intuition and mind-reading. I said so, check it out. it is true I put it in a parenthesis instead of footnoting it but I do not think that is a grave error in this forum."

uh yeah, I know because at least one of us took the time to read the stuff they were replying to before commenting

I am not a philosopher by special training apart from a few classes and a tiny bit of thinking. I am, though, an expert at reading and writing long sentences and I know from tone and over-elaborate set-up. there is no double-sekrit anything in my supposition, it is basic basic basic argument construction. The last thing I am accusing him of is craftiness. ponderousness, maybe."

Right, and we're back to you not actually supporting your opinion and your opinion not actually aligning all that well with the text we have available so… it's kind of a bullshit accusation that's actually kind of actively hurting any chance at discussing the linked papers. Which should be pretty apparent if you actually read the papers.

But if you have any points you don't think were already adequately addressed by the comments or his reply, feel free to mention those.
posted by klangklangston at 3:38 PM on November 1, 2016 [2 favorites]


klangklangston, I think the point of the pure fatigue response is that fatigue doesn't care about the quality of its inputs.

For example, imagine you were a physicist and got letters from Flat Earthers all day long and had to respond to them. One day a real astronomer came up with some novel and interesting Flat Earth arguments (because someone asked them to). Even if the astronomer was trying to deconstruct those arguments as a novel research effort, and even if the astronomer thanked you for correctly debunking the the arguments, and even if the astronomer ultimately agreed with you, it's still Flat Earth bullshit and you're super tired of it.
posted by 0xFCAF at 3:40 PM on November 1, 2016 [14 favorites]


despite his published reply to the criticisms by the other authors, in which he explicitly endorses the conclusions many of them reach, and cites "The Rich Also Cry" as "superbly formulated and entertaining," especially instructive to him in terms of how he could have been misunderstood.

yes, exactly as I said above when noting, about his published reply, that he took her piece pretty well. As I did say, he was not bewildered and discombobulated by her sprightly tone and entertaining style, although he is a philosopher. there's still some happy surprise left in this old world.

klangklangston, I think the point of the pure fatigue response is that fatigue doesn't care about the quality of its inputs.

oh, I care a great deal. not that you meant me, necessarily.
posted by queenofbithynia at 3:43 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


For example, imagine you were a physicist and got letters from Flat Earthers all day long and had to respond to them.

Just to be clear (for my own understanding), what are we equating with Flat Earth here? Like, what is the well-defined theory that is being pushed back against here?
posted by kyp at 3:44 PM on November 1, 2016


Metafilter: Putting an academic sheen on a bullshit derail...
posted by mr. digits at 3:48 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


"For example, imagine you were a physicist and got letters from Flat Earthers all day long and had to respond to them. One day a real astronomer came up with some novel and interesting Flat Earth arguments (because someone asked them to). Even if the astronomer was trying to deconstruct those arguments as a novel research effort, and even if the astronomer thanked you for correctly debunking the the arguments, and even if the astronomer ultimately agreed with you, it's still Flat Earth bullshit and you're super tired of it."

If a consequence of a novel geometric argument was the implication that the earth was flat, even if the astrophysicist dealt with Flat Earthers all day long, a driveby of "LOL, Flat Earths" wouldn't be good discussion, no matter how tired they were of hearing about Flat Earth theories.

Just to be clear (for my own understanding), what are we equating with Flat Earth here? Like, what is the well-defined theory that is being pushed back against here?

MRA would be the Flat Earthers. The Parjis talk and paper were about assumptions within a niche area of gender theory, gender justice, and is assumed to be arguing against a generalized liberal feminist egalitarian viewpoint.
posted by klangklangston at 3:53 PM on November 1, 2016 [4 favorites]


Mod note: Folks, this is getting super deep in the weeds and it's probably time to take the back-and-forth to memail if it needs to continue.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 3:54 PM on November 1, 2016


what are we equating with Flat Earth here? Like, what is the well-defined theory that is being pushed back against here?

I am sure there is great diversity of opinion in that "we," but here's one of them, just one. He has several. I don't have a snappy name for this but I could work one up if I had to.

"As a point of departure, take the rather unsurprising fact I recently heard that over 95% of the consumers of prostitution services are men. Why is this? This might have something to do with the fact that men’s annual incomes exceed women’s by a significant amount and that men therefore have more pocket money to spend on this expensive form of leisure. Though pretty ignorant on these matters, I suspect that the cause is more basic and has something to do with the difference between male and female libido, their respective hormonal endowments, or some other physiological difference."

That's from the original Four Puzzles piece. The De Miguel response deals with it with a great deal more consideration than it merits. it is, as he says, a point of departure for his argument, not the argument itself. it is not the most objectionable part of that section, but I don't care to quote more.
posted by queenofbithynia at 3:55 PM on November 1, 2016 [4 favorites]


For example, one of the reasons why women have a longer life expectancy is that it is the woman's job to care for her man. Men who lose their partners die without that support, whereas women are able to do their own housekeeping and feed themselves, and live longer alone. Describing this as an advantage women face, rather than a problem with the patriarchal system that prevents men from learning these skills and dumps them on women is... not great.

But Van Parjis explicitly makes the exact argument: Secondly, doesn't the alleged advantage of women in terms of life expectancy overlook the inequality in the distribution of care work generated by this very advantage?

Similarly, in writing about women's advantage in educational achievement, he notes that far more serious is the objection that even though women are, on average, more highly educated than men, they still earn lower incomes. This would seem to make the injustice even worse; not only do women get paid worse than men, but they do so despite studying harder.

Reading beyond the abstract, it seems to me that Van Parjis is noting that inequities exist and inviting people to explain why those inequities don't amount to injustice--not because he doubts that people will be able to come up with those explanations, but because their arguments will tell us something interesting about gender, justice and the intersection of the two.

The quality of the responses he got suggests to me that he was correct. People do often overlook that fact that inequality isn't the same thing as injustice, and investigating just why that is, and thinking about how specifically to build models of justice that go beyond that seems to be a useful exercise.
posted by layceepee at 3:56 PM on November 1, 2016 [23 favorites]


Men suffer these disadvantages largely because of a greater propensity to commit acts of antisocial violence and antisocial acts generally, which are the very means by which they have achieved their illegitimate ascendancy over women in the first place, and that makes any claim that such disadvantages are unfair to men absurd on its face.
posted by jamjam at 4:09 PM on November 1, 2016 [5 favorites]


A few years back I ran across a site that seemed to focus on what seemed like a pretty interesting cross-level analysis to me. The thesis was more or less that the privileges and discrimination that men and women carry are different, and result in different problems. Men tend to be driven towards the margins of various measures of success, women toward the center, on both biological and socioeconomic levels. I think it might have been discussed here, even; wish I could find it to link.

Men suffer these disadvantages largely because of a greater propensity

Assuming it's legitimate to boil that down to one "largely," there's still the question of whether it's more accurate to talk in terms of propensity or structuralized feedback.
posted by wildblueyonder at 5:10 PM on November 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


wildblueyonder: I recall reading something related to that as well - that males tend towards extremes in genetic variation because they only have one copy of the X chromosome (while women have a redundant one). This means that sex-linked traits / disorders are disproportionately male related, because females have a spare copy of any non-standard gene they get which moderates or eliminates its impact. Females therefore tend towards the mean of the bell curve, while males have greater variation on either end of the spectrum - for example, IQ, where there are far more males at the extreme ends, and more females in the middle. This has been theorized to be the reason the top chess players are more likely to be male than female, and that it's also more likely than not there are far more truly awful male chess players than female (except no one knows about it since those people don't play chess)

This was also speculated to be the reason males are over represented in prison (something like over 90% of prison population is male) - since they are more likely than females to end up with the worst level of IQ, impulse control, emotional intelligence, etc. Yet this is why (controversial topic!) they are also over represented in CEO level positions, because they are also more likely to end up with the highest level of IQ, impulse control and emotional intelligence.

I find it pretty convincing anyway, that male imprisonment rates aren't due to some kind of discrimination, it's just due to genetics.

Looking it from an evolutionary fitness perspective: say like in a lion population, it's optimal for males to have a higher level of genetic variability - nature rolls the dice and produces 100 males, and the 10 most fit males get to breed while the other 90 are genetic dead ends. This favors high genetic variability in males (because you only care about the top 10% of results anyway).
posted by xdvesper at 5:49 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


it seems to me that Van Parjis is noting that inequities exist

he is offering some theses about what men are like, calling these qualities by strange and unlikely names, and claiming them as examples of inequities. Claiming, not noting undisputed facts. Shall all those of us still present pretend, in a glorious group delusion, that we have read the original piece and not just the comments and consider what the Parable of the Unhappy Dominique Strauss-Kahn is doing? Anybody who thinks Van Parjis was in his Four Puzzles just noting, just observing facts, care to take a shot at explaining that to me? I am interested.

I understand how basic rhetoric works so I understand the impulse to go straight from his claim that men have a 'greedier' libido than women directly to arguing about whether or not that is true. or, for the more credulous, simply believing it and going straight to what, if anything, to do about it. (Van Parjis does not favor subsidies to cover prostitution visits for men. Hooray! )

However, could we perhaps not gloss over the fact that his example of a man brought down by his inability to cope with this alleged biological inequity and thus perhaps deserving of some pity along with the scorn of the world is DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN, noted serial sexual abuser? Noted for real, noted by a good number of victim eyewitnesses, some of whom are considered [1] credible? He claims to be citing the incidence of prostitution as a bit of evidence for his claimed inequity, but the man he uses as a go-to example is famous and disgraced for forcing and hurting women, not simply for sleeping with them or paying to do it. I remind you, DSK is brought up regarding libido, not in the criminal violence discussion directly following.

Are we to think that rape and assault, like prostitution, are unfortunate outlets for the "greedy" male libido? Is this, too, an inequity that now harms men and favors women? Are we to make nothing of the fact that these events are alluded to in the libido section, not the violent criminal behavior one? One doesn't like to assume the worst of a man based on nothing more than his own lengthy and detailed writings, so are we to think instead that Van Parjis doesn't know what sexual assault is or doesn't know DSK's own reputation, despite bringing it up himself and raising the question of pity for him?

I do not know the answers to these questions, although I do find the idea of treating the original piece with any respect or seriousness fairly repulsive.[2] those bits that are clearly true are many, but they are also facile and un-illuminating of anything in particular. For example, his notion that women might be as violent and criminally-minded as men if they were able to get away with it is quite good, and I thought the same thing every time I read a feminist text making the same point in pithier words any time these last 30 years.

[1] oh passive voice, you never let me down
[2] you may think this manifestly obvious but as VP says so well, "...stating the (fairly) obvious is not always a waste of time." In the interest of charity, a highly important value, let me say that VP talks a good game about free will and that is something the two of us have in common.
posted by queenofbithynia at 5:57 PM on November 1, 2016 [24 favorites]




Yet this is why (controversial topic!) they are also over represented in CEO level positions, because they are also more likely to end up with the highest level of IQ, impulse control and emotional intelligence.

Where is this planet on which the CEO types are there because they have the highest levels of IQ, impulse control and emotional intelligence? I would like to go there. I seem currently to be living on one where very many CEOs are flat-out psychopaths.

It sounds like your planet is better. I hope it exists.
posted by motty at 7:41 PM on November 1, 2016 [17 favorites]


It sounds like your planet is better. I hope it exists.

I think the planet where it's usual to talk about intelligence in this manner is called 1994. "better" is an interesting judgment and, I guess, subjective. back then, some people had a problem with The Bell Curve and some people didn't. it's much the same today?
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:06 PM on November 1, 2016 [2 favorites]


Where is this planet on which the CEO types are there because they have the highest levels of IQ, impulse control and emotional intelligence? I would like to go there. I seem currently to be living on one where very many CEOs are flat-out psychopaths.

Not sure psychopathology is mutually exclusive with IQ, impulse control, and emotional intelligence (see the dark triad). But it probably is a trait that drives one toward the margins.
posted by wildblueyonder at 8:40 PM on November 1, 2016


Wow, that's a viciously poisonous reading of my comment, queenofbithnyia.

I'm genuinely sorry I spoke.
posted by motty at 8:54 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Wow, that's a viciously poisonous reading of my comment, queenofbithnyia.

I'm genuinely sorry I spoke.


dude! no, it's a vicious but, I think, completely justified reading of the same comment you were replying to. not yours. I thought you were being mildly sarcastic and I know I was.

the thing where the best and the brightest, as measured by IQ and other tests and therefore in real reality, are mostly men, but the worst and dumbest are also mostly men, so it's not offensive because it's true, just a little daring to say it out loud. that's the sort of thing I generally do not care for. My comment on that was an add-on to yours because I liked yours.

sorry for any misunderstanding. I have never said "dude" so many times in print before today so it's possible this dreadful outbreak of low-quality sexism seriously is interfering with my fine tonal control.
posted by queenofbithynia at 9:06 PM on November 1, 2016 [8 favorites]


This study is incomplete until they tabulate number of metafilter user bannings by gender. The crooked timber comment on how bad the men have it in Japan is both sad and hilarious.
posted by bukvich at 9:40 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Every time I see a reference to the "women live longer than men" axiom I think about Eyebrow McGee's comment in the emotional labour thread, which I'll partially excerpt:
It's super-great if bros in their 20s don't care if their old roommates send them birthday cards or not, but a lifetime of skipping out on "emotional labor" and the pernicious social expectations that turn it in to women's work (so that men who DO do emotional labor are sometimes bypassed by social structures that push it onto their wives) creates real and significant negative outcomes for men who suffer emotionally and physically from their social isolation -- most notably for widowers, but divorced men also have a drop in well-being when they lose their spouse.
Sure, there's a lot of interconnecting stuff which complicates this angle. But I think the value of social interaction to livelihood and quality of life is pretty much established at this point, as well as the tendency of men to offload the work of arranging and initiating said social interaction onto female relatives.

There's a lot of valid meat in the complexities involved in that, for sure. With a different approach -- different material? -- the discussion would be much more of a discussion and not "this shit again". But Van Parjis's framing, even in his followup, is so reminiscent of leaning my cheek on my knuckles nursing a drink while someone cluelessly and angrily 101s themselves into the abyss of never date again, tell all my friends never to date this dude, that even just finding the link to Eyebrow's excellent comment felt like I was putting more work into the thread than the FFP deserved.

But hey, at least I got to read that comment again. It's pretty good.
posted by E. Whitehall at 12:04 AM on November 2, 2016 [7 favorites]


Where is this planet on which the CEO types are there because they have the highest levels of IQ, impulse control and emotional intelligence?

A psychopath couldn't be very effective at manipulating his victims without himself having a high IQ and a thorough understanding of his victim's emotional state and triggers! I don't dispute the fact that some number of CEO types are psychopaths: I see it as people having the abilities at their disposal to use towards either good or evil.

I've seen and worked with both sorts: some are outright bullies - relentlessly getting their way using fear and intimidation - I've seen people flinch in actual physical fear at their appearance. And some are the total opposite: gentle souls who radiate caring and compassion. Yet I would score both types extremely highly on IQ and emotional intelligence.

I like to tell the story of one of them: he is famously known for being a people person. My colleague got into an elevator with him - she was a nobody, really, far down the organization - and it was 9pm at night, he asked her how her day went, and then went on to ask her how her daughter was, got her daughter's name correct, and even remembered what degree she was studying at university, and my colleague was just flabbergasted that out of an organization of thousands of people he took the time to remember family detail like that. When he was asked about transferring to this country to work, his response about his decision wasn't that "he" decided to take this career opportunity - he said "we" - as a family - decided to move for his work. And he's famous for being a values person: he orients everything around the core values he's written in a worn note paper in his wallet: integrity, compassion, respect. (as opposed to results oriented CEOs!)

I worked with / for one of the "good" ones about 8 years before he became the CEO. He was a really nice and gentle guy. We went into the CEO's office and presented a paper to him: something our team had slaved away at for weeks. He flipped through the first few pages then slammed it shut and snarled "this is a fucking joke"... "can't you do better than this?"

I remember thinking this guy would never be like that if given the chance to lead: and he's sitting in that exact same corner office now.

I think times are changing: we expect more of our leaders, and are less willing to tolerate abuse. Social media is such an effective (and deadly) danger to people like that.
posted by xdvesper at 2:19 AM on November 2, 2016


The Ana de Miguel response is fantastic. It's interesting to note how many more facts there are in her piece, as compared to his; her argument seems to be driven by actual data on actual humans, while his is detailed on theory but very thin on facts and full of anecdotes and speculation. The focus on theory fine in itself - theory is a good thing to do - but his argument depends in part on his empirical claims and he is astonishingly blasé about supporting those.

I can't help agreeing with de Miguel that very few Philippas would have produced a paper so dependent on specific empirical claims without bothering to do any reading on the substantial existing research into claims of that kind. It matters that this guy is a Philip and the research he ignored was feminist research. This is one of the key points she makes, and which he completely ignores in his response to her. (In fact, he ignores many of her substantive points while complimenting her for expressing them in an "entertaining" way. It's hard not to see some link between that strategy, her gender and field, and his generally cavalier attitude to the experiences of women in his original piece.)
posted by Aravis76 at 2:52 AM on November 2, 2016 [14 favorites]


I think times are changing: we expect more of our leaders, and are less willing to tolerate abuse. Social media is such an effective (and deadly) danger to people like that.

Hahahahahaha. In the land of individual offices and large salaries, maybe. In the world of minimum wage and retail, things are shit and getting worse.
posted by Dysk at 3:46 AM on November 2, 2016 [4 favorites]


Even just the abstract of Paula Casal's response (linked earlier) is excellent. I've gone ahead and re-formatted it so the points stand out a little better:
This response argues that, like others, such as John Kekes and Shlomi Segall, Van Parijs underestimates the resources of egalitarian liberalism to avoid this implication.
- One explanation treats individuals as liable for gendered life-shortening behavior, for example, when they value either life-shortening lifestyles or the choice between lifestyles, and one cannot say society has not "done enough" for them.
- A second explanation claims a trait is not a relative advantage when it is systematically part of a package of traits that do not constitute a relative advantage.
- A third explanation claims a trait is not an advantage when its value to the trait bearer is conditional, and the relevant conditions are unlikely to be fulfilled.
A comment was made here recently in one of the US election threads, about how racism was systematized in order for the powerful to better maintain power, e.g. by disincentivizing lower-class white folk from banding together with others.

The same thing happened with women. While it happened much, much earlier and so we can only theorize as to the origins – although Hesiod's "Theogony" is a pretty good treatise on objectifying and demonizing women (literally) – we do have evidence that misogyny is systematized, purposefully, for the same reasons as racism. Among other things, what better way to instill the basic seeds of inequality and contempt than to teach everyone that half of humanity is intrinsically worth less than the other? Tellingly, there's only one study I know of, which resulted in the book Chain Her By One Foot: The Subjugation of Native Women in Seventeenth-Century New France, "An investigation into how relations of subjugation and domination between men and women were introduced into egalitarian societies following the destruction of their cultures. The author uses case studies of two native peoples in the New World to support her theory." Inequality was forcibly introduced so that the white European colonists could ensure their domination over everyone, because they knew that if the men dominated their wives, the men would feel less uncomfortable with submitting to European rule.

On a much more fundamental level, what on earth have we become when we are unable to simply accept that other people too can live well and with agency over their lives. Life is not a zero-sum game. Making someone else's life awful does not make yours better. We don't need scientific studies to know this, and yet we have them and it's true.
posted by fraula at 6:26 AM on November 2, 2016 [9 favorites]


Yet this is why (controversial topic!) they are also over represented in CEO level positions, because they are also more likely to end up with the highest level of IQ, impulse control and emotional intelligence.

This would also be a controversial argument because it presumes that CEO is a 100% merit based position, and not subject to a variety of social pressures and biases, which is, of course, incredible bullshit.
posted by Squeak Attack at 7:48 AM on November 2, 2016 [8 favorites]


Maybe this is too late, but would it make sense to correct the spelling of Parijs in the FPP to make searching easier?
posted by AwkwardPause at 11:54 AM on November 2, 2016


Fixed!
posted by cortex at 12:08 PM on November 2, 2016


"Even just the abstract of Paula Casal's response (linked earlier) is excellent."

Worth noting that she seems to be the student that invited Parijs to begin with.
posted by klangklangston at 3:25 PM on November 2, 2016


This would also be a controversial argument because it presumes that CEO is a 100% merit based position, and not subject to a variety of social pressures and biases, which is, of course, incredible bullshit.

It doesn't make the presumption you're describing at all. It's possible that the kind of competencies we're talking about in outliers who become leaders fits more or less under the umbrella of what you probably mean by "merit." But we might also be talking about the kind of person who is an outlier in what one might call climbing intelligence that lets them navigate and manipulate the variety of social pressures and biases.

I get that there is a level of bullshit where the later gets sold as the former endemic to a lot of the narratives sold in the society we both probably live in. But if it's a mistake to take climbing intelligence for idealized merit, it's also a mistake to ignore climbing intelligence, whether or not it lies comfortably under the heading of merit.

And I also get that there's a lot of luck involved in any success which often gets papered over, some of it involving various privileges one might be assigned by accident of birth. The model xdvesper and I are talking about isn't really so much an attempt to repudiate the idea of privilege as it is an attempt to explain some of why the social/economic structural elements we describe with that term might exist in the first place and articulate the dynamics.
posted by wildblueyonder at 9:19 PM on November 2, 2016


But if it's a mistake to take climbing intelligence for idealized merit, it's also a mistake to ignore climbing intelligence, whether or not it lies comfortably under the heading of merit.

If merit is the ability to do a given job well, then climbing intelligence is at best irrelevant, at worst a negative force that inherently distorts meritocratic systems and leads to people getting themselves into situations they ought not be able to get themselves into on merit.

I mean, I think meritocracy is bullshit, but within a meritocratic framework, anything that determines who gets what job based on anything other than their merit in that position - their ability to do that job - is inherently a bad thing. So I guess if you want to maintain a meritocratic framework and acknowledge climbing intelligence, you would classify it as another form of distorting privilege.
posted by Dysk at 4:03 AM on November 3, 2016


It doesn't make the presumption you're describing at all.

Yes, it does because you misunderstood me. I'm not talking about social pressures and biases the MEN can navigate and manipulate. Ha ha as if. I'm talking about social pressures and biases that keep the high IQ, emotionally intelligent, and impulse control-y WOMEN on the lower rungs of the ladder despite their qualifications.

You're still presuming some sort of equity - that everyone can climb if they have the climbing intelligence and above qualities and I'm saying that those things are usually not enough. You also need to be a WHITE MAN (usually) .
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:56 AM on November 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


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