Boo-freaking-hoo. Every male poster in PWI has been called something unpleasant at one time or another. Nobody cares. None of us begins biting his fingernails, worrying over the integrity of the debate or the bad-faith of the opponent. If I did happen to whine about it, other posters would, rightly, call me a pussy, or a crybaby. Hell, call me a fag. I don’t care. Calling people names can even be fun. If someone is not arguing in good faith, you make that part of your counter-argument. You don’t whine about it.
Can we please all stop being so fucking sensitive and hyper-offended over every little thing?
Because hey, we are all COMPLETELY, 100% equal in every way except for that pesky testosterone, right? Why would the way men and women argue be any different?
Well, then, WHY is it such a big deal that anyone notes what they see as weak debate tactics? So boo-freaking-hoo I called Chushin passive-aggressive when he intimated that I’d shivved him in the back with my vague allusions to poor tone.
Why am I held to a higher standard? If you don’t like my accusation that you debate like an asshole, ignore it like a man!
Why has this turned into a week-long frenzy of butt-hurt over my off-handed condemnation of tone and observation that it’s not substantive?
Cortez: I’m not being overly sensitive. I don’t really care if you guys want to stoop to name calling and such. I just realize it has no place in true debate and find that it’s simply a waste of my time to participate when it degrades to that level.
Out of curiosity, do you call people names when you disagree with them in person? How about your wife when you argue?
Well, when I debate, I usually keep it friendly enough that the name calling remains in context. In other words, I’m not arguing, I’m enjoying an intellectual exercise. It’s not serious. It’s fun. Like what we’re supposed to be having here.
I call my wife names all the time. That’s also in fun. Of course I would never call her a name when we were actually arguing. Mature adults understand there is a difference, and a time and a place for both.
From my perspective you have held the line between debating, by which I mean advancing your own position, and simply attacking. Where you have insulted, as far as I recall, it has been the ideas, not the person.
There is an important difference, because yes, we’re all presumably here to both learn and teach for fun, even if only “teaching” what the opposition thinks and why.
As far as choice goes, I mean the second. I suppose if a gun were put to my head I would say that highly athletic TG people would have yet another difficult choice to make - pursue their sport or transition knowing that it will potentially disqualify them from competing.
The girl with gigantism is alike to Michael Phelps, with his wide, paddle-like feet, or Lance Armstrong with his longer femur - advantages bestowed by nature rather than added in after the fact. Doesn’t make it all fair, but that’s where I would draw the line.
Hmmm…But Michael Phelps’ physical advantages did not result from a medical condition, while those of both the gigantism girl and the TG girl did. So while I could see grouping the three of them this way:
Phelps represents one status; gigantism girl and TG girl another.
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around (what I believe to be) your suggestion that they should be grouped thusly:
Phelps & gigantism girl represent one status; TG girl another.
(BTW, tip of the hat to @anon71262119, who long ago in this thread suggested that TG might better be thought of as a medical condition rather than a psychiatric condition. I have come to agree with her on that score.)
No, I didn’t oppose it. I think Title IX was a good law, that has gone terribly wrong. A fair-minded law that we could both support, ended up demanding quotas and proportionality where there wasn’t a natural demand for it. That said, I think it’s done a lot of good for female athletics, but I think we need to revisit Title IX and it’s unintended negative consequences. The idea that women are equally interested in competitive athletics is a myth. Just as the idea that women are going to ever be equally interested in STEM fields is a myth. If our standard is direct proportionality in everything, we will fail forever.
There is a reason more women are drawn to the humanities and social sciences. As a group, women tend to choose flexibility and stability, and part-time employment when raising young kids over higher salaries. I hope we never see a day where those differences cease to exist.
Just as temperament tends to effect political party. Your neurosurgeon is more likely to be Republican, and your psychiatrist is more likely to be Democrat. The recent studies about how political differences likely have a biological basis are very compelling to me. We need both to have a healthy society. Both have their positives.
Related tangent, my ideas about affirmative action were forever changed by a dear friend of mine since childhood. He’s a gay Hispanic man who graduated second in our high school class. Work ethic that wouldn’t quit and very bright. We competed in state science fairs together. He’s now an MBA/JD. He rose out of being a first generation American with a mother who worked as a school janitor. His story just makes you want to cry, it’s so amazing. He hates affirmative action because he has experienced the assumption that he might not have been accepted to the schools he did on his own merit. People rightly assume that the bar was likely lowered for him, and he’s felt like he constantly has had to prove that wrong. I had never really thought about that until he told me about the negative effects he felt it’s had on his life. I have another friend who is female and Pacific Islander. She went to Harvard. She’s always felt like she was fighting those same kinds of assumptions.
Re: your T levels. It would have been more interesting if I knew what they were before I started lifting, as a baseline. I was just curious. In women, GH and probably insulin responsiveness are the primary drivers, I believe. Somebody correct me if I’m remembering that wrong.
Absolutely. That’s a bit what I was trying to get at talking about Title IX and the ideas of equality or direct proportionality between the sexes. Unfortunately, in terms of public policy we have a hard time figuring out how to put this into practice in a reasonable way that trips our fairness wire.
We hear about studies where women are less likely to negotiate for higher starting salaries, or are less likely to be competitive or assertive in going after pay increases than men. We can teach these skills to our daughters, and we should. BUT the idea that in life I need to be just as aggressive or as assertive as my male counterpart, like math as much, be as interested in competitive sports … These ideas undervalue the positive things about my personality.
Such blanket assertions are problematic, on several fronts. For one thing, we (humans) tend to over-interpret the way things are as the way they were meant to be; ie, as reflecting some sort of timeless imperative. For example, let us assume that you are correct that women in America circa 2016 are not as interested as men in competitive sports. This fact would not justify a blanket statement concerning a fundamental difference between the sexes, because it might be simply a product of our particular time and culture. The same is true of your assertion about women’s relative lack of interest in STEM fields–while it may be true in this particular culture at this particular time, there is simply no basis for assuming it represents a fundamental, timeless difference between the sexes. (I would remind you that history is filled with examples of similar sex-based assumptions that are now considered ludicrous.)
I want it noted that Eye Dentist sort of acknowledged that a liberal social policy has had some small scale negative impact to some individuals.
Teasing you, but I think you conceded at least a quarter of a point. That said, I think affirmative action has had some positive effects as well, particularly in it’s early years. You didn’t respond to my answer to your question about Title IX so I’m assuming you disagree with me that it needs to be revisited? Are you happy with it’s effects some 40 years later?
Maybe. But there are so many women who are avid exercisers, but have no interest in competitive sports. I think that’s a fundamental difference. I don’t see all the women who prefer yoga, or ballet classes, or jogging with their friends, as a problem. Look at the percentage of men watching ESPN, or following sports and then look at the very small percentage of women. Do you think that’s a flaw in women? Something we should make a goal to fix? And why would we think it’s better to have more women competing in sports? That attitude shows a male-centric view (how can we make women more like us). I think there’s a fundamental biology there. The same with STEM fields. We can encourage, and create opportunities, but we can’t force more women to become engineering majors, and why would we want to? We need some people to love special ed kids. Would my life have been better served as a petroleum engineer? Agree to disagree on this one.
On that tangent, since we’re talking about gender and education.
From economist Mark J. Perry’s Carpe Diem blog - “Prediction: No commencement speaker will mention this—the huge ‘gender college degree gap’ favoring women,’ ” May 1:
Based on Department of Education estimates, women will earn a disproportionate share of college degrees at every level of higher education in 2016 for the eleventh straight year. Overall, women in the Class of 2016 will earn 139 college degrees at all levels for every 100 men, and there will be a 610,000 college degree gap in favor of women for this year’s college graduates (2.195 million total degrees for women vs. 1.585 million total degrees for men). By level of degree, women will earn: a) 154 associate’s degrees for every 100 men (female majority in every year since 1978), b) 135 bachelor’s degrees for every 100 men (female majority since 1982), 139 master’s degrees for every 100 men (female majority since 1987) and 106 doctoral degrees for every 100 men (female majority since 2006). . . .
Now that there’s a huge (and growing) college degree gap in favor of women such that men have become the “second sex” in higher education, maybe it’s time to stop taxpayer funding of hundreds of women’s centers that promote a goal of gender equity that was achieved more than thirty years ago in higher education, at least in terms of earning college degrees? And perhaps the selective concern about gender imbalances in higher education should be expanded to include greater concern about the new “second sex.”
ED, a question for you: generally speaking and simply as a supposition, do you think elite high school athletes would be as likely to want to transition and compete on the opposite field if they are FTM as if they are MTF? Because while I see one as a tremendous advantage, I see the other as a distinct disadvantage. Do you think it would matter to these elite teenage competitors, by and large?
I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said in your last several posts, PP, including that “helping” programs should be revisited occasionally in order to make adjustments as needed.
To be honest, I don’t know enough about it to have an informed opinion (ie, one worth sharing).
This is what I was referring to above–interpreting the current state of the culture as if it reflects the fundamental nature of maleness and femaleness. Consider the conclusions that would have been drawn by a Powerpuff living in 1916, 1816, 1716, etc. Needless to say, these women would have come to very, very different conclusions about the ‘true’ nature of men and women–conclusions at least some of which you would find anathema. I dare say, the only thing all these Powerpuffs would have in common would be that they would all look uncannily like the future movie star Claire Forlani.
So did the previous Powerpuffs. But the fact is, until said biology is actually and objectively found, it is pure speculation–a non-explanation, really. What’s worse, the ‘it’s biology’ non-explanation can be used to justify many states-of-the-world that we would agree are morally repugnant (racism, etc).
Personally, if I were transgendered, I can’t imagine anything being more important to me than getting my outside to match my inside. However, I was never an elite athlete, so I have no personal experience to draw from vis a vis the mindset involved in being one.
What I will say is, if an athlete voiced competitive-advantage issues as a factor regarding the timing of their transition, I suspect this would be a giant red flag to his/her gender-orientation treatment team.
So did the previous Powerpuffs. But the fact is, until said biology is actually and objectively found, it is pure speculation–a non-explanation, really. What’s worse, the ‘it’s biology’ non-explanation can be used to justify many states-of-the-world that we would agree are morally repugnant (racism, etc).
Just like “it´s all nurture” leads straight to concentration camps?
