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On September 15 2013 04:36 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2013 03:18 r.Evo wrote:
Requirements should have exactly one standard: Whether the person meets the general requirement or not.
Can't run fast enough to be a police officer (because you're too old/too fat/physically disabled/your genes suck)? Tough luck.
Lol. I have yet to see a physical fitness test standard that is remotely challenging. Actually, in that respect, does anyone know of any jobs that have decently challenging aerobic minimums and what those are?
PJs
Seals
Recon marine
All have hard physical requirements once you're far up the pipeline. Not talking about the basic requirements -- talking about the cutoff marks for things like swims, rucks, etc., once you're several weeks/months into the process. It gets harder and harder and the attrition/drop out rate is incredibly high
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On September 20 2013 00:48 Darkwhite wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2013 17:12 ninazerg wrote:On September 19 2013 05:19 Djzapz wrote:On September 19 2013 02:28 iamho wrote:
If women were given the physically easier jobs like "shooting water" as firefighters, they'd also get paid lower wages. Which means masses of sexual discrimination lawsuits against municipal governments. I'm saying it should be. Not it legally yaddayadda... Sexual equality will be reached when weak/skinny men are also given affirmative action and weaker standards.
And no, anti-male discrimination won't help women in this context. In intellectual pursuits maybe, but no amount of discrimination will give women male strength. Beside the point entirely. On September 19 2013 03:01 Darkwhite wrote:On September 19 2013 01:57 Djzapz wrote:I personally believe that the fair compromise is somewhere between 1 and 2 and probably needs to be considered on a case by case basis. Positive discrimination is fine for a variety of reasons, namely the fact that women are typically disadvantages (socially and physically speaking) so there's nothing with trying to equalize it, so long as it doesn't affect others negatively. Positive discrimination is just an euphemistic phrase for giving someone a comparative advantage on the basis of otherwise irrelevant criteria such as sex or race, over the people who would have gotten the positions given an level playing field. You may argue that the benefits outweigh the downsides - this is largely dependent on your values - but pretending there's any way others won't be negatively affected is nothing but doublespeak. Men are clearly disadvantaged by this. Good fucking thing we''ve got a bunch of other advantages to make up for it. White dudes whining is the bane of my existence, and I'm a whiny white dude. In most domains where you get tested for physical strength and whatnot, presumably in many cases there are jobs where you don't need it. If that's so, then why not hire people who perhaps are as physically strong, but are perhaps better suited for other jobs? Anyhow, I don't know why people keep ragging on affirmative action since that's not what this thread is about. When it comes down to it, you always want the most qualified individuals for a job. In an "ideal" world where there is no bias anywhere, women would still be allowed to join the military, and serve in combat conditions. I know hating on women's rights is the cool thing right now, come on. But did you guys know... men are actually taller than women? That's right - men have longer legs on average, and therefore, each step in a running stride will cover slightly more distance. Is it enough to justify the times the military has? Probably not, but there's always room for improvement when it comes to recruiting and training personnel. This thread is literally about affirmative action. Feel free to compare the use of different standards for men and women with Wikipedia's article on affirmative action here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_actionWe do indeed know that men are taller than women. However, physical requirements are not about giving everybody a fair chance, they are about being able to do your job. If you want to go down the fair chance route - did you know people with asthma have trouble breathing? Should they have their own standards to make it all fair?
So, cool. You're linking me to wikipedia.
It is my contention that "women" are not a disadvantaged group, and therefore do not require any extra benefits due to underrepresentation. However, women do have a different physical make-up than men, and may require a different set of physical standards. This is why I said "Is it [the differences between men and women physically] enough to justify the [minimum running distance] times the military has? Probably not, but there's always room for improvement when it comes to recruiting and training personnel." and if you would have actually read that part, you'd see that I'm trying to put forward a well-balanced response.
When I say that women have shorter legs ON AVERAGE than men, and I mean that in a very general way. However, being a woman isn't a medical ailment like asthma is. That's a very unfair comparison. When someone joins the military, they might not be very physically fit, so if they want to get high marks and get a prestigious position like a sniper, then they better bust their ass, no matter what. The army isn't going to put 50 lbs of equipment on the back of weak man or woman, period. Just because the minimum physical requirements for joining the military are different for men and women doesn't mean one gender is going to get it easy when they get in. If that's not happening, then we have to do either two over-simplified solutions:
1. Fix the standards of the military so women get an equal ass-kicking to the men while enlisted.
2. Come together as a society to agree that women are weaker than men and should get easier jobs.
Is that what you want to hear? What do you guys want, exactly? Because we live in a real world where no one-size-fits-all, and that reality collides with a predominately male-dominated organization designed to transform a collective cornucopia of varying individuals and mold them into near-identical fighting machines while political action committees spend exorbitant amounts of money to lobby the government to incorporate more "women and minorities" into institutions that have to face the complexity of changing their traditions while preserving their core principles. Or do you just want to argue, because that facet of this discussion is being handled poorly and slothfully incrementally by jargon-spewing politicos on C-SPAN who inevitably will come up with a nonsensical 'solution' that actually solves nothing until that solution's legislation is reviewed by a panel of bureaucrats who decide to add amendments to the original statutes with a bunch of retroactive legislation to close all the loopholes and form a bureau to oversee the renewed legislation, which will be defunded 6 months later in some political back-door deal that will grant the opposing party twenty million dollars to fund some initiative that nobody asked for, and it will be all over MSNBC for like a week until their ratings get so bad that they decide to headline their news with the latest Lindsay Lohan arrest.
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On September 19 2013 22:38 farvacola wrote:
And off the deep end we go.......
Here's a tip LastWish; lying and manipulating are not the essence of womanhood, no matter how many women lie to you and manipulate you.
First you need to see the truth, then you'll see all the lies.
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On September 20 2013 08:58 Djzapz wrote:
Let's review the history of posts here:
Your first post in this thread is here: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=429114¤tpage=4#64 , including these fine little snippets:
I personally believe that the fair compromise is somewhere between 1 and 2 and probably needs to be considered on a case by case basis. Positive discrimination is fine for a variety of reasons, namely the fact that women are typically disadvantages (socially and physically speaking) so there's nothing with trying to equalize it, so long as it doesn't affect others negatively.
If on the other hand the standards are not necessarily relevant and only exist to select people out of a pool, then perhaps it's ok to have different standards. And then, IMO there's nothing discriminatory about giving people jobs which are more suitable for them.
IMO it's important to think practically first. Don't do positive discrimination when it can be dangerous, but I'd assume that in a vast majority of the situations, there are are reasonable solutions.
There is literally no way to read this, other than as an argument in favor of some sorts of discrimination in some cases.
My direct reply is here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=19781288 , which mostly states that favoring one group will necessarily affect those left out negatively.
Your direct reply is here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=19782139 , which recognizes that men get the short end when women's standards are laxer. In its entirety:
Men are clearly disadvantaged by this. Good fucking thing we''ve got a bunch of other advantages to make up for it. White dudes whining is the bane of my existence, and I'm a whiny white dude.
In most domains where you get tested for physical strength and whatnot, presumably in many cases there are jobs where you don't need it. If that's so, then why not hire people who perhaps are as physically strong, but are perhaps better suited for other jobs?
This post includes the lovely line about why discrimination is okay as long as it compensates for male/white privilege, which is where feminist ideology enters the picture. The last paragraph, I interpreted as a defense for laxer female standards - if this is the wrong interpretation, then it's just a non-sequitur instead.
This in turn promts this post: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=19784530 , where I try to explain why I find separate standards problematic; because it calls for an explanation of why a man who fails to meet the male standard is expected to be less qualified than the female who fails to meet the same standard, but qualifies by the laxer female standard.
In your next post: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=19785506 , given as a direct reply, you write:
People who do not make the cut by arbitrary physical standards may have other particularities which make them suitable for specific combat jobs though. You can fail the regular male physical test and still be better than some idiot who passed because you have other talents.
Which I expected was meant to answer the question from my previous post and still relate to discrimination in particular, not just having a single, lower unisex standard. I can hardly see how this is an unfair interpretation. You also include this part:
Anyway I don't buy into the idea that positive discrimination is necessarily negative discrimination for somebody else. Odds are, the person who gets discriminated against is otherwise advantaged in many ways. Like I said, being a white guy is playing life on easy mode. Just do better.
Which supports the interpretation that you are indeed defending laxer female standards.
My next post, http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=19785967 , keeps focusing on different standards. Your follow up, http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=19786388 , goes off an absurd tangent, including claims like these:
In some cases, I'm sure it's true that the the physical standards set for men are adequate and practical, but you have to prove that.
Which I don't have to prove, because I have never claimed it.
Don't tell me there aren't perfectly competent women who were rejected because of some bullshit rules that were made up for men. In all likelyhood, it happens all the time because people like you are so keen on accepting the old standards as if they were perfect and designed with practicality in mind rather than to weed out people.
I have never told you anything like this. Weeding out people when recruiting is the whole point of selection. I have never supported the old standards, I have supported that whatever standards should be unisex unless a very explicit reason can be given otherwise.
My direct reply, http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=19786473 , bows out of the discussion because you are trying to make me defend assertions I have never made (see above), while at the same time subtly changing the topic from different female standards to all sorts of irrelevant nonsense, including much wider feminist assertions. This sort of bait and switch discussion technique does not interest me at all:
Assuming that old standards are good even though they were put together by men for men in a society controlled by men is just absurd.
On the other hand, what discriminates more against women than arbitrary* physical requirements set for men
It especially needs to be reviewed if said rule was instituted when it was only for men, for instance.
Your reply, http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=19786815 , insists that I reply to your post, even though you are at this point arguing about physical standards in general - which I have never discussed and no interest in discussing. You only reiterate that:
IMO your main fault is that you assume that the standards set when women simply didn't postulate to make an arbitrary cutoff are necessarily relevant, and they're not. Now I'm not necessarily advocating for separate standards between men and women, not that I would disapprove if it was done correctly.
That is, supporting different standards, tautologically, if it is done correctly, without even attempting what's the correct way of doing it and why it would be beneficial, which I have repeatedly asked you to explain.
Our last two posts, http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=19787237 and http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=19788299 , are derailed into the meta discussion, because you refuse to defend your original assertions about positive discrimination and insist on changing the topic.
I just prefer my version because I'm more willing to break your bullshit canned rules.
I have a single bullshit canned rule - discrimination, in the popular sense of favoring or disfavoring people on the basis of criteria irrelevant to filling the position, is a bad thing, while equality is a good baseline, and departing from it requires a lot sounder arguments than:
Men are clearly disadvantaged by this. Good fucking thing we''ve got a bunch of other advantages to make up for it. White dudes whining is the bane of my existence, and I'm a whiny white dude.
Finally, let me state this as clearly as possible: I am only interested in discussing the pros and cons of different male and female standards.
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On September 20 2013 16:10 ninazerg wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2013 00:48 Darkwhite wrote:On September 19 2013 17:12 ninazerg wrote:On September 19 2013 05:19 Djzapz wrote:On September 19 2013 02:28 iamho wrote:
If women were given the physically easier jobs like "shooting water" as firefighters, they'd also get paid lower wages. Which means masses of sexual discrimination lawsuits against municipal governments. I'm saying it should be. Not it legally yaddayadda... Sexual equality will be reached when weak/skinny men are also given affirmative action and weaker standards.
And no, anti-male discrimination won't help women in this context. In intellectual pursuits maybe, but no amount of discrimination will give women male strength. Beside the point entirely. On September 19 2013 03:01 Darkwhite wrote:On September 19 2013 01:57 Djzapz wrote:I personally believe that the fair compromise is somewhere between 1 and 2 and probably needs to be considered on a case by case basis. Positive discrimination is fine for a variety of reasons, namely the fact that women are typically disadvantages (socially and physically speaking) so there's nothing with trying to equalize it, so long as it doesn't affect others negatively. Positive discrimination is just an euphemistic phrase for giving someone a comparative advantage on the basis of otherwise irrelevant criteria such as sex or race, over the people who would have gotten the positions given an level playing field. You may argue that the benefits outweigh the downsides - this is largely dependent on your values - but pretending there's any way others won't be negatively affected is nothing but doublespeak. Men are clearly disadvantaged by this. Good fucking thing we''ve got a bunch of other advantages to make up for it. White dudes whining is the bane of my existence, and I'm a whiny white dude. In most domains where you get tested for physical strength and whatnot, presumably in many cases there are jobs where you don't need it. If that's so, then why not hire people who perhaps are as physically strong, but are perhaps better suited for other jobs? Anyhow, I don't know why people keep ragging on affirmative action since that's not what this thread is about. When it comes down to it, you always want the most qualified individuals for a job. In an "ideal" world where there is no bias anywhere, women would still be allowed to join the military, and serve in combat conditions. I know hating on women's rights is the cool thing right now, come on. But did you guys know... men are actually taller than women? That's right - men have longer legs on average, and therefore, each step in a running stride will cover slightly more distance. Is it enough to justify the times the military has? Probably not, but there's always room for improvement when it comes to recruiting and training personnel. This thread is literally about affirmative action. Feel free to compare the use of different standards for men and women with Wikipedia's article on affirmative action here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_actionWe do indeed know that men are taller than women. However, physical requirements are not about giving everybody a fair chance, they are about being able to do your job. If you want to go down the fair chance route - did you know people with asthma have trouble breathing? Should they have their own standards to make it all fair? So, cool. You're linking me to wikipedia. It is my contention that "women" are not a disadvantaged group, and therefore do not require any extra benefits due to underrepresentation. However, women do have a different physical make-up than men, and may require a different set of physical standards. This is why I said "Is it [the differences between men and women physically] enough to justify the [minimum running distance] times the military has? Probably not, but there's always room for improvement when it comes to recruiting and training personnel." and if you would have actually read that part, you'd see that I'm trying to put forward a well-balanced response. When I say that women have shorter legs ON AVERAGE than men, and I mean that in a very general way. However, being a woman isn't a medical ailment like asthma is. That's a very unfair comparison. When someone joins the military, they might not be very physically fit, so if they want to get high marks and get a prestigious position like a sniper, then they better bust their ass, no matter what. The army isn't going to put 50 lbs of equipment on the back of weak man or woman, period. Just because the minimum physical requirements for joining the military are different for men and women doesn't mean one gender is going to get it easy when they get in. If that's not happening, then we have to do either two over-simplified solutions: 1. Fix the standards of the military so women get an equal ass-kicking to the men while enlisted. 2. Come together as a society to agree that women are weaker than men and should get easier jobs. Is that what you want to hear? What do you guys want, exactly? Because we live in a real world where no one-size-fits-all, and that reality collides with a predominately male-dominated organization designed to transform a collective cornucopia of varying individuals and mold them into near-identical fighting machines while political action committees spend exorbitant amounts of money to lobby the government to incorporate more "women and minorities" into institutions that have to face the complexity of changing their traditions while preserving their core principles. Or do you just want to argue, because that facet of this discussion is being handled poorly and slothfully incrementally by jargon-spewing politicos on C-SPAN who inevitably will come up with a nonsensical 'solution' that actually solves nothing until that solution's legislation is reviewed by a panel of bureaucrats who decide to add amendments to the original statutes with a bunch of retroactive legislation to close all the loopholes and form a bureau to oversee the renewed legislation, which will be defunded 6 months later in some political back-door deal that will grant the opposing party twenty million dollars to fund some initiative that nobody asked for, and it will be all over MSNBC for like a week until their ratings get so bad that they decide to headline their news with the latest Lindsay Lohan arrest.
It is my contention that asthmatic men have a different physical make-up than non-asthmatic men, and may require a different set of physical standards, perhaps the same as the female ones. As you must know, asthmatic men have poorer oxygen uptake on average than non-asthmatic men. The army isn't going to put 50lbs of equipment on the back of an asthmatic man or female or weak man, period. Just because the the minimum physical requirements for joining the military are different for asthmatics and non-asthmatics doesn't mean one group is going to get it easy when they get in.
Indeed, asthma is a physical ailment as being a woman isn't, but that only means it's even more unfair for asthmatic men. Why don't they deserve the same extra consideration as women do, to compensate for their physical handicaps?
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On September 20 2013 16:10 ninazerg wrote:
1. Fix the standards of the military so women get an equal ass-kicking to the men while enlisted.
2. Come together as a society to agree that women are weaker than men and should get easier jobs.
3. Figure out the mental, physical and psychological standard for job x. Figure out ways to test those standards. Let Men, Women, Jews and Muslims, Blacks and Whites compete according to that standard.
Truly equal treatment has a tendency to not result in nice even amounts of people from every possible category. It gives everyone the exact same chance to compete and reduces the cut-off to things almost entirely biological and/or cultural.
The original issue comes from people believing that men and women are so equal that they need to fill 50% of the slots each. Lowering standards across the board should be unacceptable, different standards simply based on gender are nothing but discriminatory.
If it was up to me I'd have one general lowest possible standard (most likely close to the lowest female standard) and then up the bar depending on what jobs people want to do. There are enough things people not close to the best of the best physically can do but it should be possible to do those kind things for both men and women, judged by the same standard.
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On September 21 2013 01:43 Darkwhite wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2013 16:10 ninazerg wrote:On September 20 2013 00:48 Darkwhite wrote:On September 19 2013 17:12 ninazerg wrote:On September 19 2013 05:19 Djzapz wrote:On September 19 2013 02:28 iamho wrote:
If women were given the physically easier jobs like "shooting water" as firefighters, they'd also get paid lower wages. Which means masses of sexual discrimination lawsuits against municipal governments. I'm saying it should be. Not it legally yaddayadda... Sexual equality will be reached when weak/skinny men are also given affirmative action and weaker standards.
And no, anti-male discrimination won't help women in this context. In intellectual pursuits maybe, but no amount of discrimination will give women male strength. Beside the point entirely. On September 19 2013 03:01 Darkwhite wrote:On September 19 2013 01:57 Djzapz wrote:I personally believe that the fair compromise is somewhere between 1 and 2 and probably needs to be considered on a case by case basis. Positive discrimination is fine for a variety of reasons, namely the fact that women are typically disadvantages (socially and physically speaking) so there's nothing with trying to equalize it, so long as it doesn't affect others negatively. Positive discrimination is just an euphemistic phrase for giving someone a comparative advantage on the basis of otherwise irrelevant criteria such as sex or race, over the people who would have gotten the positions given an level playing field. You may argue that the benefits outweigh the downsides - this is largely dependent on your values - but pretending there's any way others won't be negatively affected is nothing but doublespeak. Men are clearly disadvantaged by this. Good fucking thing we''ve got a bunch of other advantages to make up for it. White dudes whining is the bane of my existence, and I'm a whiny white dude. In most domains where you get tested for physical strength and whatnot, presumably in many cases there are jobs where you don't need it. If that's so, then why not hire people who perhaps are as physically strong, but are perhaps better suited for other jobs? Anyhow, I don't know why people keep ragging on affirmative action since that's not what this thread is about. When it comes down to it, you always want the most qualified individuals for a job. In an "ideal" world where there is no bias anywhere, women would still be allowed to join the military, and serve in combat conditions. I know hating on women's rights is the cool thing right now, come on. But did you guys know... men are actually taller than women? That's right - men have longer legs on average, and therefore, each step in a running stride will cover slightly more distance. Is it enough to justify the times the military has? Probably not, but there's always room for improvement when it comes to recruiting and training personnel. This thread is literally about affirmative action. Feel free to compare the use of different standards for men and women with Wikipedia's article on affirmative action here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_actionWe do indeed know that men are taller than women. However, physical requirements are not about giving everybody a fair chance, they are about being able to do your job. If you want to go down the fair chance route - did you know people with asthma have trouble breathing? Should they have their own standards to make it all fair? So, cool. You're linking me to wikipedia. It is my contention that "women" are not a disadvantaged group, and therefore do not require any extra benefits due to underrepresentation. However, women do have a different physical make-up than men, and may require a different set of physical standards. This is why I said "Is it [the differences between men and women physically] enough to justify the [minimum running distance] times the military has? Probably not, but there's always room for improvement when it comes to recruiting and training personnel." and if you would have actually read that part, you'd see that I'm trying to put forward a well-balanced response. When I say that women have shorter legs ON AVERAGE than men, and I mean that in a very general way. However, being a woman isn't a medical ailment like asthma is. That's a very unfair comparison. When someone joins the military, they might not be very physically fit, so if they want to get high marks and get a prestigious position like a sniper, then they better bust their ass, no matter what. The army isn't going to put 50 lbs of equipment on the back of weak man or woman, period. Just because the minimum physical requirements for joining the military are different for men and women doesn't mean one gender is going to get it easy when they get in. If that's not happening, then we have to do either two over-simplified solutions: 1. Fix the standards of the military so women get an equal ass-kicking to the men while enlisted. 2. Come together as a society to agree that women are weaker than men and should get easier jobs. Is that what you want to hear? What do you guys want, exactly? Because we live in a real world where no one-size-fits-all, and that reality collides with a predominately male-dominated organization designed to transform a collective cornucopia of varying individuals and mold them into near-identical fighting machines while political action committees spend exorbitant amounts of money to lobby the government to incorporate more "women and minorities" into institutions that have to face the complexity of changing their traditions while preserving their core principles. Or do you just want to argue, because that facet of this discussion is being handled poorly and slothfully incrementally by jargon-spewing politicos on C-SPAN who inevitably will come up with a nonsensical 'solution' that actually solves nothing until that solution's legislation is reviewed by a panel of bureaucrats who decide to add amendments to the original statutes with a bunch of retroactive legislation to close all the loopholes and form a bureau to oversee the renewed legislation, which will be defunded 6 months later in some political back-door deal that will grant the opposing party twenty million dollars to fund some initiative that nobody asked for, and it will be all over MSNBC for like a week until their ratings get so bad that they decide to headline their news with the latest Lindsay Lohan arrest. It is my contention that asthmatic men have a different physical make-up than non-asthmatic men, and may require a different set of physical standards, perhaps the same as the female ones. As you must know, asthmatic men have poorer oxygen uptake on average than non-asthmatic men. The army isn't going to put 50lbs of equipment on the back of an asthmatic man or female or weak man, period. Just because the the minimum physical requirements for joining the military are different for asthmatics and non-asthmatics doesn't mean one group is going to get it easy when they get in. Indeed, asthma is a physical ailment as being a woman isn't, but that only means it's even more unfair for asthmatic men. Why don't they deserve the same extra consideration as women do, to compensate for their physical handicaps?
Because being a woman isn't a physical handicap.
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On September 21 2013 08:17 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2013 16:10 ninazerg wrote:
1. Fix the standards of the military so women get an equal ass-kicking to the men while enlisted.
2. Come together as a society to agree that women are weaker than men and should get easier jobs. 3. Figure out the mental, physical and psychological standard for job x. Figure out ways to test those standards. Let Men, Women, Jews and Muslims, Blacks and Whites compete according to that standard. Truly equal treatment has a tendency to not result in nice even amounts of people from every possible category. It gives everyone the exact same chance to compete and reduces the cut-off to things almost entirely biological and/or cultural. The original issue comes from people believing that men and women are so equal that they need to fill 50% of the slots each. Lowering standards across the board should be unacceptable, different standards simply based on gender are nothing but discriminatory. If it was up to me I'd have one general lowest possible standard (most likely close to the lowest female standard) and then up the bar depending on what jobs people want to do. There are enough things people not close to the best of the best physically can do but it should be possible to do those kind things for both men and women, judged by the same standard.
I know those aren't the only two options. My was that these extremely opinionated people have these drastically unrealistic solutions and expectations that don't work. One of the TL users posted something along the lines of "Women shouldn't be in the military because they are weaker, end of discussion" and I wanted to know why he thought that. He still hasn't answered me.
It is sometimes difficult to discuss something sensitive like this without someone trying to turn it into an argument, so I was begging the question of what these people who are so anti or pro double-standard want and most especially, why. I know there are a lot of women who want to join the military. I'm not one of them, but I understand that there are a lot of incentives to join the military, and although the women at the ground level just want to join the service and get a fair shot like everyone else and do their best to serve in the military, above them, and completely unrelated to their views about the world, political action committees have lobbied the government to adjust the military's recruitment methodology to attract more women into the armed services. Is this necessarily a problem though? In some cases, there may be problems here and there, but I don't see there being a massive undermining of the entire armed forces. In many cases, I think this has opened up a lot of opportunities for women that didn't exist before. As far as combat-readiness goes, I believe as long as the military properly trains their personnel and has the proper funding, equipment and logistics, the U.S. armed forces will remain a very strong fighting force, regardless of the controversy over entrance standards.
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On September 21 2013 01:31 Darkwhite wrote:
Finally, let me state this as clearly as possible: I am only interested in discussing the pros and cons of different male and female standards.
Guess that's why you were unfairly dismissive to my points. You're narrow minded. As for the rest, everything I said stands, you just decided to call it off topic, and you maneuver around my points.
I read the long list of events that you've laid down because you're probably some sort of OCD, and I'm forced to say, I was wrong, you're not lazy, you're just very selective of what you want to hear about and what you want to discuss.
I won't respond to everything you said because you're ignoring my points and it'll get ridiculous with the "I said you said he said I said..." I'll still respond about the general state of what's been going on.
That is, supporting different standards, tautologically, if it is done correctly, without even attempting what's the correct way of doing it and why it would be beneficial, which I have repeatedly asked you to explain.
I emphasized multiple times that different situations require different standards, and you're asking me to point out specifically what to do? I'm not an expert on any of these things, how could I possibly know how to build standards which integrate women without being detrimental to the organization's functions?
I am however saying that it is possible to have positive discrimination which is acceptable, when the resulting "negative discrimination" counter-balances the previously existing inequalities, whether they are inherent or social. How, exactly, I don't know! Every situation has its set of constraints so I can't give you specifics. I'm merely saying that it's possible.
As an artificial example, say some government agency is hiring for a physical job that pays well. Many people are interested so the agency decides to weed out certain people by have some physical standard test, and people who don't pass it, while quite possibly more than competent enough, are automatically rejected. By its nature, it tends to reject more women than men, perhaps unfairly so. For any number of reason, that standard could be difficult to changes (administrations are dumb and unwieldy, or previously rejected people would have grounds for lawsuits, whatever). Given that the situation is inherently unfair, it may not be entirely wrong to have positive discrimination for women so that they can make the arbitrary cutoff which was just an artificial way to weed out people, provided that said women are also good for the job. You could argue that men are discriminated against, but women were, in the situation, discriminated against first. The change, whatever it is, tries to recenter things. Now it's entirely possible that this could tip the balance the other way around and that's not what I'm saying should happen. So I can't discuss with you the specific measures because I can't just wing artificial numbers for you. That said, although you don't like to hear it for whatever bullshit reasons you may have, it's preferable, when possible to have more reasonable and more relevant standards in the first place, when it's possible, rather than to split the genders.
Most of what we disagree with is bullshit semantics and details, but this is where we clash. I would argue that it's because you're not a sensible person and you're more interested in holding your ground. You are egotistically defending your flawed, overly rigid moral compass and refuse to actually think about shit. You act as if you put equality on this great pedestal and any attempt to be more egalitarian by tipping the balance is, according to you, unfair.
If you were the kind of person who actually thinks out of the box, you couldn't possibly be comfortable with such a shallow and narrow conclusion... but you've said it yourself: You are "only interested in discussing the pros and cons of different male and female standards.". You intentionally limit, for yourself, the spectrum of this discussion, which could be a lot more dynamic and interesting if adjacent arguments could be brought in.
We could agree to disagree, if you want. Or we could elaborate and keep hurling shit at each other. But to summarize I think that, when the standards are unfair, we can change the standards, but if the standards don't change and remain unfair, then it's ok to do some positive discrimination to counterbalance the otherwise inegalitarian situation. You disagree. Fine.
Cheers.
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On September 15 2013 14:45 TyrantPotato wrote:
I see it like this.
If you want job A you must meet requirements XYZ
Gender ignored. Thats equality.
Would u like to be rescued by a firefighter which has minimum requirement of 10 (male) or minimum requirement of 8 (female).
If u phrase the question like that. Id bet 100% would choose 10 if they were ignorant of the gender behind the numbers.
Those 10 and 8 just example numbers ftr
Yeah this. Most qualified person gets the job, genetics or not.
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On September 21 2013 08:58 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2013 01:31 Darkwhite wrote:
Finally, let me state this as clearly as possible: I am only interested in discussing the pros and cons of different male and female standards. Guess that's why you were unfairly dismissive to my points. You're narrow minded. As for the rest, everything I said stands, you just decided to call it off topic, and you maneuver around my points. I read the long list of events that you've laid down because you're probably some sort of OCD, and I'm forced to say, I was wrong, you're not lazy, you're just very selective of what you want to hear about and what you want to discuss. I won't respond to everything you said because you're ignoring my points and it'll get ridiculous with the "I said you said he said I said..." I'll still respond about the general state of what's been going on.
The thread is about different female standards, your first post was about positive discrimination, my direct reply likewise. How is it narrow minded to try to keep the discussion focused on this instead of going all over the place on all sorts of re- and unrelated tangents? Why is it ridiculous to point to the things you've already written in here? I thought your posts represented your opinions?
Show nested quote +That is, supporting different standards, tautologically, if it is done correctly, without even attempting what's the correct way of doing it and why it would be beneficial, which I have repeatedly asked you to explain. I emphasized multiple times that different situations require different standards, and you're asking me to point out specifically what to do? I'm not an expert on any of these things, how could I possibly know how to build standards which integrate women without being detrimental to the organization's functions?
Different situations require different standards - and we're still in the land of tautology. I hope you have some idea about how to build standards which integrate women without being detrimental to the organization's functions, though, because you have been suggesting a solution, i.e. female-positive male-negative discrimination.
I am however saying that it is possible to have positive discrimination which is acceptable, when the resulting "negative discrimination" counter-balances the previously existing inequalities, whether they are inherent or social. How, exactly, I don't know! Every situation has its set of constraints so I can't give you specifics. I'm merely saying that it's possible.
I really need the specifics, because whether discrimination and inequalities cancel out or make things even worse is not at all obvious. If you leave out one of the steps between positive discrimination and problem solved, then you have a lot of faith and very little argument. While gut feeling is fine when you're shopping for dinner, I hoped for something a bit more stringent to explain why a man loses out a woman who tests worse.
As an artificial example, say some government agency is hiring for a physical job that pays well. Many people are interested so the agency decides to weed out certain people by have some physical standard test, and people who don't pass it, while quite possibly more than competent enough, are automatically rejected. By its nature, it tends to reject more women than men, perhaps unfairly so. For any number of reason, that standard could be difficult to changes (administrations are dumb and unwieldy, or previously rejected people would have grounds for lawsuits, whatever). Given that the situation is inherently unfair, it may not be entirely wrong to have positive discrimination for women so that they can make the arbitrary cutoff which was just an artificial way to weed out people, provided that said women are also good for the job. You could argue that men are discriminated against, but women were, in the situation, discriminated against first. The change, whatever it is, tries to recenter things. Now it's entirely possible that this could tip the balance the other way around and that's not what I'm saying should happen. So I can't discuss with you the specific measures because I can't just wing artificial numbers for you. That said, although you don't like to hear it for whatever bullshit reasons you may have, it's preferable, when possible to have more reasonable and more relevant standards in the first place, when it's possible, rather than to split the genders.
See my added bold: For a physical test to unfairly reject more women than men, women failing need to be more likely to be suitable for the job than the men failing the test. This is exactly what I have been asking you to substantiate for about five posts - not just that it's thinkable, but to give some real world case where positive discrimination should be used to counteract it. I do agree that, given this condition you have assumed without argument, a lower female standard would make sense.
Most of what we disagree with is bullshit semantics and details, but this is where we clash. I would argue that it's because you're not a sensible person and you're more interested in holding your ground. You are egotistically defending your flawed, overly rigid moral compass and refuse to actually think about shit. You act as if you put equality on this great pedestal and any attempt to be more egalitarian by tipping the balance is, according to you, unfair.
If you were the kind of person who actually thinks out of the box, you couldn't possibly be comfortable with such a shallow and narrow conclusion... but you've said it yourself: You are "only interested in discussing the pros and cons of different male and female standards.". You intentionally limit, for yourself, the spectrum of this discussion, which could be a lot more dynamic and interesting if adjacent arguments could be brought in.
We could agree to disagree, if you want. Or we could elaborate and keep hurling shit at each other. But to summarize I think that, when the standards are unfair, we can change the standards, but if the standards don't change and remain unfair, then it's ok to do some positive discrimination to counterbalance the otherwise inegalitarian situation. You disagree. Fine.
Cheers.
I am defending equality as a baseline and requesting an actual argument for why discrimination would improve on it. Equality does deserve to be put on a pedestal - it is the principle by which women were given the right to vote, to divorce their husbands and hold the same offices as men, for starters. It doesn't trump all other concerns, but should not be violated lightly.
I do think that limiting the scope of the discussion is the best way to give it its due attention.
Finally, I have trouble pinning down what you're actually saying at the end. Are either of these accurate?
a) Lower, unisex physical requirements using other tests to select for the relevant qualities would be the best solution. Failing this, lowering the standards for women only is a step in the right direction.
b) The ideal physical requirements would be lower for women than men.
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On September 21 2013 08:30 ninazerg wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2013 01:43 Darkwhite wrote:On September 20 2013 16:10 ninazerg wrote:On September 20 2013 00:48 Darkwhite wrote:On September 19 2013 17:12 ninazerg wrote:On September 19 2013 05:19 Djzapz wrote:On September 19 2013 02:28 iamho wrote:
If women were given the physically easier jobs like "shooting water" as firefighters, they'd also get paid lower wages. Which means masses of sexual discrimination lawsuits against municipal governments. I'm saying it should be. Not it legally yaddayadda... Sexual equality will be reached when weak/skinny men are also given affirmative action and weaker standards.
And no, anti-male discrimination won't help women in this context. In intellectual pursuits maybe, but no amount of discrimination will give women male strength. Beside the point entirely. On September 19 2013 03:01 Darkwhite wrote:On September 19 2013 01:57 Djzapz wrote:I personally believe that the fair compromise is somewhere between 1 and 2 and probably needs to be considered on a case by case basis. Positive discrimination is fine for a variety of reasons, namely the fact that women are typically disadvantages (socially and physically speaking) so there's nothing with trying to equalize it, so long as it doesn't affect others negatively. Positive discrimination is just an euphemistic phrase for giving someone a comparative advantage on the basis of otherwise irrelevant criteria such as sex or race, over the people who would have gotten the positions given an level playing field. You may argue that the benefits outweigh the downsides - this is largely dependent on your values - but pretending there's any way others won't be negatively affected is nothing but doublespeak. Men are clearly disadvantaged by this. Good fucking thing we''ve got a bunch of other advantages to make up for it. White dudes whining is the bane of my existence, and I'm a whiny white dude. In most domains where you get tested for physical strength and whatnot, presumably in many cases there are jobs where you don't need it. If that's so, then why not hire people who perhaps are as physically strong, but are perhaps better suited for other jobs? Anyhow, I don't know why people keep ragging on affirmative action since that's not what this thread is about. When it comes down to it, you always want the most qualified individuals for a job. In an "ideal" world where there is no bias anywhere, women would still be allowed to join the military, and serve in combat conditions. I know hating on women's rights is the cool thing right now, come on. But did you guys know... men are actually taller than women? That's right - men have longer legs on average, and therefore, each step in a running stride will cover slightly more distance. Is it enough to justify the times the military has? Probably not, but there's always room for improvement when it comes to recruiting and training personnel. This thread is literally about affirmative action. Feel free to compare the use of different standards for men and women with Wikipedia's article on affirmative action here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_actionWe do indeed know that men are taller than women. However, physical requirements are not about giving everybody a fair chance, they are about being able to do your job. If you want to go down the fair chance route - did you know people with asthma have trouble breathing? Should they have their own standards to make it all fair? So, cool. You're linking me to wikipedia. It is my contention that "women" are not a disadvantaged group, and therefore do not require any extra benefits due to underrepresentation. However, women do have a different physical make-up than men, and may require a different set of physical standards. This is why I said "Is it [the differences between men and women physically] enough to justify the [minimum running distance] times the military has? Probably not, but there's always room for improvement when it comes to recruiting and training personnel." and if you would have actually read that part, you'd see that I'm trying to put forward a well-balanced response. When I say that women have shorter legs ON AVERAGE than men, and I mean that in a very general way. However, being a woman isn't a medical ailment like asthma is. That's a very unfair comparison. When someone joins the military, they might not be very physically fit, so if they want to get high marks and get a prestigious position like a sniper, then they better bust their ass, no matter what. The army isn't going to put 50 lbs of equipment on the back of weak man or woman, period. Just because the minimum physical requirements for joining the military are different for men and women doesn't mean one gender is going to get it easy when they get in. If that's not happening, then we have to do either two over-simplified solutions: 1. Fix the standards of the military so women get an equal ass-kicking to the men while enlisted. 2. Come together as a society to agree that women are weaker than men and should get easier jobs. Is that what you want to hear? What do you guys want, exactly? Because we live in a real world where no one-size-fits-all, and that reality collides with a predominately male-dominated organization designed to transform a collective cornucopia of varying individuals and mold them into near-identical fighting machines while political action committees spend exorbitant amounts of money to lobby the government to incorporate more "women and minorities" into institutions that have to face the complexity of changing their traditions while preserving their core principles. Or do you just want to argue, because that facet of this discussion is being handled poorly and slothfully incrementally by jargon-spewing politicos on C-SPAN who inevitably will come up with a nonsensical 'solution' that actually solves nothing until that solution's legislation is reviewed by a panel of bureaucrats who decide to add amendments to the original statutes with a bunch of retroactive legislation to close all the loopholes and form a bureau to oversee the renewed legislation, which will be defunded 6 months later in some political back-door deal that will grant the opposing party twenty million dollars to fund some initiative that nobody asked for, and it will be all over MSNBC for like a week until their ratings get so bad that they decide to headline their news with the latest Lindsay Lohan arrest. It is my contention that asthmatic men have a different physical make-up than non-asthmatic men, and may require a different set of physical standards, perhaps the same as the female ones. As you must know, asthmatic men have poorer oxygen uptake on average than non-asthmatic men. The army isn't going to put 50lbs of equipment on the back of an asthmatic man or female or weak man, period. Just because the the minimum physical requirements for joining the military are different for asthmatics and non-asthmatics doesn't mean one group is going to get it easy when they get in. Indeed, asthma is a physical ailment as being a woman isn't, but that only means it's even more unfair for asthmatic men. Why don't they deserve the same extra consideration as women do, to compensate for their physical handicaps? Because being a woman isn't a physical handicap.
You just explained how women, on average, have shorter legs, which is detrimental to running quickly. I guess we can agree that asthma is also detrimental to running quickly. I thought it made sense to say that both of these conditions were handicaps, for performing, physically, compared to being a man, but that's not the important part. I realize than being asthmatic and being women are not functionally identical.
Can you please point, not only to asthma and womanhood being different, but the relevant differences which explain why women should have a lower standard, but not asthmatics?
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On September 23 2013 09:25 Darkwhite wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2013 08:30 ninazerg wrote:On September 21 2013 01:43 Darkwhite wrote:On September 20 2013 16:10 ninazerg wrote:On September 20 2013 00:48 Darkwhite wrote:On September 19 2013 17:12 ninazerg wrote:On September 19 2013 05:19 Djzapz wrote:On September 19 2013 02:28 iamho wrote:
If women were given the physically easier jobs like "shooting water" as firefighters, they'd also get paid lower wages. Which means masses of sexual discrimination lawsuits against municipal governments. I'm saying it should be. Not it legally yaddayadda... Sexual equality will be reached when weak/skinny men are also given affirmative action and weaker standards.
And no, anti-male discrimination won't help women in this context. In intellectual pursuits maybe, but no amount of discrimination will give women male strength. Beside the point entirely. On September 19 2013 03:01 Darkwhite wrote:On September 19 2013 01:57 Djzapz wrote:I personally believe that the fair compromise is somewhere between 1 and 2 and probably needs to be considered on a case by case basis. Positive discrimination is fine for a variety of reasons, namely the fact that women are typically disadvantages (socially and physically speaking) so there's nothing with trying to equalize it, so long as it doesn't affect others negatively. Positive discrimination is just an euphemistic phrase for giving someone a comparative advantage on the basis of otherwise irrelevant criteria such as sex or race, over the people who would have gotten the positions given an level playing field. You may argue that the benefits outweigh the downsides - this is largely dependent on your values - but pretending there's any way others won't be negatively affected is nothing but doublespeak. Men are clearly disadvantaged by this. Good fucking thing we''ve got a bunch of other advantages to make up for it. White dudes whining is the bane of my existence, and I'm a whiny white dude. In most domains where you get tested for physical strength and whatnot, presumably in many cases there are jobs where you don't need it. If that's so, then why not hire people who perhaps are as physically strong, but are perhaps better suited for other jobs? Anyhow, I don't know why people keep ragging on affirmative action since that's not what this thread is about. When it comes down to it, you always want the most qualified individuals for a job. In an "ideal" world where there is no bias anywhere, women would still be allowed to join the military, and serve in combat conditions. I know hating on women's rights is the cool thing right now, come on. But did you guys know... men are actually taller than women? That's right - men have longer legs on average, and therefore, each step in a running stride will cover slightly more distance. Is it enough to justify the times the military has? Probably not, but there's always room for improvement when it comes to recruiting and training personnel. This thread is literally about affirmative action. Feel free to compare the use of different standards for men and women with Wikipedia's article on affirmative action here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_actionWe do indeed know that men are taller than women. However, physical requirements are not about giving everybody a fair chance, they are about being able to do your job. If you want to go down the fair chance route - did you know people with asthma have trouble breathing? Should they have their own standards to make it all fair? So, cool. You're linking me to wikipedia. It is my contention that "women" are not a disadvantaged group, and therefore do not require any extra benefits due to underrepresentation. However, women do have a different physical make-up than men, and may require a different set of physical standards. This is why I said "Is it [the differences between men and women physically] enough to justify the [minimum running distance] times the military has? Probably not, but there's always room for improvement when it comes to recruiting and training personnel." and if you would have actually read that part, you'd see that I'm trying to put forward a well-balanced response. When I say that women have shorter legs ON AVERAGE than men, and I mean that in a very general way. However, being a woman isn't a medical ailment like asthma is. That's a very unfair comparison. When someone joins the military, they might not be very physically fit, so if they want to get high marks and get a prestigious position like a sniper, then they better bust their ass, no matter what. The army isn't going to put 50 lbs of equipment on the back of weak man or woman, period. Just because the minimum physical requirements for joining the military are different for men and women doesn't mean one gender is going to get it easy when they get in. If that's not happening, then we have to do either two over-simplified solutions: 1. Fix the standards of the military so women get an equal ass-kicking to the men while enlisted. 2. Come together as a society to agree that women are weaker than men and should get easier jobs. Is that what you want to hear? What do you guys want, exactly? Because we live in a real world where no one-size-fits-all, and that reality collides with a predominately male-dominated organization designed to transform a collective cornucopia of varying individuals and mold them into near-identical fighting machines while political action committees spend exorbitant amounts of money to lobby the government to incorporate more "women and minorities" into institutions that have to face the complexity of changing their traditions while preserving their core principles. Or do you just want to argue, because that facet of this discussion is being handled poorly and slothfully incrementally by jargon-spewing politicos on C-SPAN who inevitably will come up with a nonsensical 'solution' that actually solves nothing until that solution's legislation is reviewed by a panel of bureaucrats who decide to add amendments to the original statutes with a bunch of retroactive legislation to close all the loopholes and form a bureau to oversee the renewed legislation, which will be defunded 6 months later in some political back-door deal that will grant the opposing party twenty million dollars to fund some initiative that nobody asked for, and it will be all over MSNBC for like a week until their ratings get so bad that they decide to headline their news with the latest Lindsay Lohan arrest. It is my contention that asthmatic men have a different physical make-up than non-asthmatic men, and may require a different set of physical standards, perhaps the same as the female ones. As you must know, asthmatic men have poorer oxygen uptake on average than non-asthmatic men. The army isn't going to put 50lbs of equipment on the back of an asthmatic man or female or weak man, period. Just because the the minimum physical requirements for joining the military are different for asthmatics and non-asthmatics doesn't mean one group is going to get it easy when they get in. Indeed, asthma is a physical ailment as being a woman isn't, but that only means it's even more unfair for asthmatic men. Why don't they deserve the same extra consideration as women do, to compensate for their physical handicaps? Because being a woman isn't a physical handicap. You just explained how women, on average, have shorter legs, which is detrimental to running quickly. I guess we can agree that asthma is also detrimental to running quickly. I thought it made sense to say that both of these conditions were handicaps, for performing, physically, compared to being a man, but that's not the important part. I realize than being asthmatic and being women are not functionally identical. Can you please point, not only to asthma and womanhood being different, but the relevant differences which explain why women should have a lower standard, but not asthmatics?
You're confused as to what asthma is. It affects your breathing, not your ability to run. You can take medication for asthma, but you can't go to the doctor and say "Hey, I feel really womany, can you prescribe me something for that?"
I said on average, most women are shorter than men. That means some women are taller than men and vice-versa. Given that, *generally*, women have less muscle mass than men, and have shorter frames, it makes a lot of sense that the general test would change depending on sex.
The difference between a "weak" person and a medical condition is that a weak person can become stronger, whereas, depending on the ailment, many medical conditions cannot be remedied. Such as asthma.
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On September 23 2013 09:11 Darkwhite wrote:
Finally, I have trouble pinning down what you're actually saying at the end. Are either of these accurate?
a) Lower, unisex physical requirements using other tests to select for the relevant qualities would be the best solution. Failing this, lowering the standards for women only is a step in the right direction.
b) The ideal physical requirements would be lower for women than men.
Where possible, have one universal physical requirement for both men and women. This requirement should be fixed for practical purposes (physical characteristics that are required to do the job), as opposed to using it as a tool to reject potential candidates. By fixing it to be practical, in many cases it would make the standards more achievable for women (they're currently, in many cases, more unfair than they need to be because they're used for selection purposes).
Basically, I agree with "a" for the most part. And I would only agree with lowering the physical standards for women if doing so is "practical". Essentially, I don't think it's a very optimal way to go about it, but for reasons I've brought up, sometimes you have to run around the pot a little to get shit done when it comes down to old rules and whatnot.
TLDR: When possible, it's better not to use high physical standards for selective purposes unless the fixed physical standards are truly necessary for every member of whatever group it is.
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On September 23 2013 10:12 ninazerg wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 09:25 Darkwhite wrote:On September 21 2013 08:30 ninazerg wrote:On September 21 2013 01:43 Darkwhite wrote:On September 20 2013 16:10 ninazerg wrote:On September 20 2013 00:48 Darkwhite wrote:On September 19 2013 17:12 ninazerg wrote:On September 19 2013 05:19 Djzapz wrote:On September 19 2013 02:28 iamho wrote:
If women were given the physically easier jobs like "shooting water" as firefighters, they'd also get paid lower wages. Which means masses of sexual discrimination lawsuits against municipal governments. I'm saying it should be. Not it legally yaddayadda... Sexual equality will be reached when weak/skinny men are also given affirmative action and weaker standards.
And no, anti-male discrimination won't help women in this context. In intellectual pursuits maybe, but no amount of discrimination will give women male strength. Beside the point entirely. On September 19 2013 03:01 Darkwhite wrote:On September 19 2013 01:57 Djzapz wrote:I personally believe that the fair compromise is somewhere between 1 and 2 and probably needs to be considered on a case by case basis. Positive discrimination is fine for a variety of reasons, namely the fact that women are typically disadvantages (socially and physically speaking) so there's nothing with trying to equalize it, so long as it doesn't affect others negatively. Positive discrimination is just an euphemistic phrase for giving someone a comparative advantage on the basis of otherwise irrelevant criteria such as sex or race, over the people who would have gotten the positions given an level playing field. You may argue that the benefits outweigh the downsides - this is largely dependent on your values - but pretending there's any way others won't be negatively affected is nothing but doublespeak. Men are clearly disadvantaged by this. Good fucking thing we''ve got a bunch of other advantages to make up for it. White dudes whining is the bane of my existence, and I'm a whiny white dude. In most domains where you get tested for physical strength and whatnot, presumably in many cases there are jobs where you don't need it. If that's so, then why not hire people who perhaps are as physically strong, but are perhaps better suited for other jobs? Anyhow, I don't know why people keep ragging on affirmative action since that's not what this thread is about. When it comes down to it, you always want the most qualified individuals for a job. In an "ideal" world where there is no bias anywhere, women would still be allowed to join the military, and serve in combat conditions. I know hating on women's rights is the cool thing right now, come on. But did you guys know... men are actually taller than women? That's right - men have longer legs on average, and therefore, each step in a running stride will cover slightly more distance. Is it enough to justify the times the military has? Probably not, but there's always room for improvement when it comes to recruiting and training personnel. This thread is literally about affirmative action. Feel free to compare the use of different standards for men and women with Wikipedia's article on affirmative action here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_actionWe do indeed know that men are taller than women. However, physical requirements are not about giving everybody a fair chance, they are about being able to do your job. If you want to go down the fair chance route - did you know people with asthma have trouble breathing? Should they have their own standards to make it all fair? So, cool. You're linking me to wikipedia. It is my contention that "women" are not a disadvantaged group, and therefore do not require any extra benefits due to underrepresentation. However, women do have a different physical make-up than men, and may require a different set of physical standards. This is why I said "Is it [the differences between men and women physically] enough to justify the [minimum running distance] times the military has? Probably not, but there's always room for improvement when it comes to recruiting and training personnel." and if you would have actually read that part, you'd see that I'm trying to put forward a well-balanced response. When I say that women have shorter legs ON AVERAGE than men, and I mean that in a very general way. However, being a woman isn't a medical ailment like asthma is. That's a very unfair comparison. When someone joins the military, they might not be very physically fit, so if they want to get high marks and get a prestigious position like a sniper, then they better bust their ass, no matter what. The army isn't going to put 50 lbs of equipment on the back of weak man or woman, period. Just because the minimum physical requirements for joining the military are different for men and women doesn't mean one gender is going to get it easy when they get in. If that's not happening, then we have to do either two over-simplified solutions: 1. Fix the standards of the military so women get an equal ass-kicking to the men while enlisted. 2. Come together as a society to agree that women are weaker than men and should get easier jobs. Is that what you want to hear? What do you guys want, exactly? Because we live in a real world where no one-size-fits-all, and that reality collides with a predominately male-dominated organization designed to transform a collective cornucopia of varying individuals and mold them into near-identical fighting machines while political action committees spend exorbitant amounts of money to lobby the government to incorporate more "women and minorities" into institutions that have to face the complexity of changing their traditions while preserving their core principles. Or do you just want to argue, because that facet of this discussion is being handled poorly and slothfully incrementally by jargon-spewing politicos on C-SPAN who inevitably will come up with a nonsensical 'solution' that actually solves nothing until that solution's legislation is reviewed by a panel of bureaucrats who decide to add amendments to the original statutes with a bunch of retroactive legislation to close all the loopholes and form a bureau to oversee the renewed legislation, which will be defunded 6 months later in some political back-door deal that will grant the opposing party twenty million dollars to fund some initiative that nobody asked for, and it will be all over MSNBC for like a week until their ratings get so bad that they decide to headline their news with the latest Lindsay Lohan arrest. It is my contention that asthmatic men have a different physical make-up than non-asthmatic men, and may require a different set of physical standards, perhaps the same as the female ones. As you must know, asthmatic men have poorer oxygen uptake on average than non-asthmatic men. The army isn't going to put 50lbs of equipment on the back of an asthmatic man or female or weak man, period. Just because the the minimum physical requirements for joining the military are different for asthmatics and non-asthmatics doesn't mean one group is going to get it easy when they get in. Indeed, asthma is a physical ailment as being a woman isn't, but that only means it's even more unfair for asthmatic men. Why don't they deserve the same extra consideration as women do, to compensate for their physical handicaps? Because being a woman isn't a physical handicap. You just explained how women, on average, have shorter legs, which is detrimental to running quickly. I guess we can agree that asthma is also detrimental to running quickly. I thought it made sense to say that both of these conditions were handicaps, for performing, physically, compared to being a man, but that's not the important part. I realize than being asthmatic and being women are not functionally identical. Can you please point, not only to asthma and womanhood being different, but the relevant differences which explain why women should have a lower standard, but not asthmatics? You're confused as to what asthma is.
Maybe. At least my posts aren't riddled with falsehoods.
It affects your breathing, not your ability to run.
Literally false. Breathing is a very important part of running, just like stride (which is related to long legs).
You can take medication for asthma, but you can't go to the doctor and say "Hey, I feel really womany, can you prescribe me something for that?"
Also false. Read up on transsexuality or testosterone. More importantly, why does this distinction matter?
I said on average, most women are shorter than men. That means some women are taller than men and vice-versa. Given that, *generally*, women have less muscle mass than men, and have shorter frames, it makes a lot of sense that the general test would change depending on sex.
With the appropriate substitutions, all of this is true for asthma as well. Some asthmatics run faster than non-asthmatic men, though they generally have poorer respiration.
The difference between a "weak" person and a medical condition is that a weak person can become stronger, whereas, depending on the ailment, many medical conditions cannot be remedied. Such as asthma.
Being asthmatic and being a woman are both generally lifelong conditions. Both put you at a competitive disadvantage compared to men. Both groups contain individuals who are fitter than most males. Both groups respond to exercise and/or medication to become stronger. What is the relevant difference, again?
On September 23 2013 10:25 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 09:11 Darkwhite wrote:
Finally, I have trouble pinning down what you're actually saying at the end. Are either of these accurate?
a) Lower, unisex physical requirements using other tests to select for the relevant qualities would be the best solution. Failing this, lowering the standards for women only is a step in the right direction.
b) The ideal physical requirements would be lower for women than men. Where possible, have one universal physical requirement for both men and women. This requirement should be fixed for practical purposes (physical characteristics that are required to do the job), as opposed to using it as a tool to reject potential candidates. By fixing it to be practical, in many cases it would make the standards more achievable for women (they're currently, in many cases, more unfair than they need to be because they're used for selection purposes). Basically, I agree with "a" for the most part. And I would only agree with lowering the physical standards for women if doing so is "practical". Essentially, I don't think it's a very optimal way to go about it, but for reasons I've brought up, sometimes you have to run around the pot a little to get shit done when it comes down to old rules and whatnot. TLDR: When possible, it's better not to use high physical standards for selective purposes unless the fixed physical standards are truly necessary for every member of whatever group it is.
Would you then agree that unisex standards are the ideal, and that you don't prefer laxer female standards to sensible unisex standards, only to senseless unisex standards?
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I agree that unisex standards are the best when possible, and laxer female physical standards are a less elegant alternative, although I would argue that it's more viable than an unfair and unpractical unisex standard.
Like I said, it all boils down to using physical standards for practical purposes as opposed to selection purposes. If that's not directly possible, you go around it and establish another standard - it's clumsy but there you go.
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EPT
