Why is sexism universal?

[Zamfir]

These are two fundamentally different mechanisms to explain extreme outliers.

The "addition of many variables" model implies that no single factor can have more than a small effect. People at the end of the scale had lots of variables going one way. If someone points out a difference in the way men and women are treated, then this difference alone cannot have a large impact on outcomes.

The feedback model on the other hand implies that differences in the feedback mechanisms are the main factors behind differences in outcome.

[HungryHobo]

The feedback model on the other hand implies that differences in the feedback mechanisms are the main factors behind differences in outcome.

How do you come to that conclusion?

A feedback model would imply that even with the exact same mechanisms for everyone, with no differences then the people who have a tiny advantage will have it magnified.

[Zamfir]

The feedback model on the other hand implies that differences in the feedback mechanisms are the main factors behind differences in outcome.

How do you come to that conclusion?

A feedback model would imply that even with the exact same mechanisms for everyone, with no differences then the people who have a tiny advantage will have it magnified.

Does the world look as if it has the exact same mechanisms for everyone?

EDIT: also, such mechanisms don't have to be linear multipliers or something. Someone has to be in charge of the project, and they get justified kudos if they pull it off. But the amount of kudos is mostly related to the improtance of the project, not to the skill that went into becoming the manager of it.

[krogoth]

HH, I would say it arises from "little differences" rather than "no differences". Where repeated iterations of the same or similar 'small' changes stack. So a sort of slippery slope effect.

[HungryHobo]

Does the world look as if it has the exact same mechanisms for everyone?

Does it look like I said it did?
note the words "even if"

HH, I would say it arises from "little differences" rather than "no differences". Where repeated iterations of the same or similar 'small' changes stack. So a sort of slippery slope effect.

that's exactly that I'm talking about.

[Zamfir]

I don't understand the 'even'. If we were sure that all relevant mechanisms were gender-neutral, then we could try to reason back from observed differences in outcome to inborn differences. We might find that some large differences in outcome are caused by small differences at birth, or that some large differences are caused by large innate differences. And presumably some social differences would just be the amplification of random noise.

But we don't know that all relevant mechanisms are gender-neutral, and we have every reason to assume they are not.

[gmalivuk]

Does it look like I said it did?
note the words "even if"

Yes, it does look like you said it did, because you said "even with", not "even if". "Even with" could reasonably be read either way, so stop getting so defensive when the miscommunication started on your end.

[Iceman]

Because kings are usually selected from the best 100 people in the country.

Kings are usually 'selected' from the 100 people most likely to become Kings.

Does it look like I said it did?
note the words "even if"

Yes, it does look like you said it did, because you said "even with", not "even if". "Even with" could reasonably be read either way, so stop getting so defensive when the miscommunication started on your end.

I think you'd have to be willingly misunderstanding to read his sentence as if he was stating mechanisms were identical for everyone.


But again I find people are very much focused on why say, a woman born today or even 500 years ago may have a different experience when I think the answers become more and more obvious the farther back in time you go.

Once you kind of get why it would be like that in very early times, I think it becomes evident that everything since then has just been the result of those initial conditions. As things move forward, the physical differences matter less and things will smooth, but we're talking on the scale of 100,000 years to develop and 1,000s of years to resolve itself.
But I think if we're asking why its basically universal, you'd want to be looking back and saying 'Because we all started in 50-150 person tribes where that seemed inevitable'

[Sleeper]

I've been out of the country with no Internet access for about the past three weeks, but I have a few more comments to make when I have some time. Probably in a day or two.

[Sleeper]

OK, a few points:

It’s not helpful to these discussions to say things like “oh for fuck’s sake.” I've noticed a few people saying stuff like that. Just throwing it out there.

Queen Elizabeth matters how? If we want, I can say ‘Boudica’ now, and then you can name a female ruler who was just a figurehead, and I can name another actual female ruler with power. Or I could name male figureheads, like any Japanese Emperor during the time of the Shogunate. I don't see your point at all in what you wrote

This exercise in communication is proving to be difficult: I don’t see how you could miss my point. I’ve willingly acknowledged the validity of some of your points. I’d appreciate a similar effort on your part. Here again is the point of bringing up Queen Elizabeth: “the pattern through most of history has had women fulfilling a secondary role. You say to look at history. You're right, we should. Women have traditionally not been heads of household in most places. Queens and empresses traditionally did not reign.” Remember that you brought up the fact that there have been lots of queens and empresses, and then I pointed out that queens and empresses are traditionally secondary to kings and emperors. That’s the point of using Queen Elizabeth 1 as an illustration. Everyone recognizes that ruling females were a small minority throughout history up to and including the present day. Even when there were ruling queens and empresses, their gender was an obstacle to overcome.

So there is a global history of female disadvantage. This is what I meant by “sexism” in the OP. You're right to criticize that usage. I’ll acknowledge that “only sexism against women” is not the right usage of “sexism” and that I was wrong to neglect sexism against men. That’s also a global problem. My point from the beginning has been that sexism against women usually has a stronger effect and has made females a disadvantaged class in almost every culture. That’s why I’m asking about it.

In most of Kenya, domestic abuse is "normal", with men beating their wives. However, certain parts that are seeing development have seen a complete shift. How do you feel about this?

Thank you for acknowledging that it’s more common for males to beat females. That’s my point.

You say that certain parts of Kenya “have seen a complete shift” and ask how I feel about that. I feel very doubtful. I acknowledge that in certain parts of Kenya abusive females are more common than elsewhere, but no part of any of your links says that any part of Kenya has “seen a complete shift”. The following indicates that Kenya still has a large male-to-female disparity in domestic violence: Your BBC link says that an advocacy group found that “up to 460,000 [Kenyan] men said they had been subjected to domestic abuse.” On the other hand, as jestingrabbit pointed out, a 2010 survey says that up to 75% of Kenya’s women have been abused. [which would work out to about 2 million] There’s no evidence that any part of Kenya has seen a “complete shift.” There apparently has been a growth of abusive females in Kenya, but the male-female pattern still seems to hold throughout Kenya. And I feel the same way you do about the growth of abusers who are female: It’s wrong and should be stopped.

So the main point is just that there is generally a stronger tendency for extreme violence among males than females. (The point of that was, “does this help explain the global pattern of female disadvantage?”) I’ll acknowledge that there’s also a global pattern of abusive females which is a separate issue, but as you’ve acknowledged it’s less common.

And you keep going on about men being "more violent". Well, I made an entire post about that which you didn't even touch.

Sorry I didn’t touch it, I was getting ready to leave for a trip. I’m back now. You say “Men are more violent because men at the bottom have no options.” Thank you for acknowledging that men are more violent (although that’s only a general pattern). I acknowledge that poverty is probably a contributing factor for violence in the overall US male population.

But—this is important—note that more violent crimes and more domestic abuse are committed by males than females in all economic classes. You can’t claim that the male-female violence disparity in the non-impoverished classes is due to poverty.

I'm beginning to think it's likely that the male-female violence disparity is not solely cultural. There's also a biological factor. As Firebrns pointed out, female disadvantage is common in the animal kingdom. There are counterexamples like the praying mantis and other species distantly related to us, but among the primates sexual dimorphism typically produces males who are larger and have a tendency to coerce females.

Our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, have a similar pattern of male domination. Another quotation from one of those online Yale lectures:

We've seen four different models of male/female relationships: the rape in orangutans, infanticide in gorillas, battering in chimps, and total promiscuity in Bonobos. One of the questions that you can ask is which one most resembles the human condition? Well it turns out that if you do the statistics, in humans, rape is relatively rare. Of course we all know that it happens, but it's not a frequent event. Infanticide, which you'll see happens very frequently, but not against the will of the mother. The males, unrelated males, killing the infants of other females is a very, very rare event in humans, again it happens, but it's quite rare.

The common form of male/female human violence, what do we call it? Battering, right. Battering is extremely common almost all over the earth and for as far back in history as we know. Various studies have been done in different places. In Punjab in North India, 75% of scheduled cast women, that's lower caste women, reported being beaten frequently by their husbands. There's an agreement there, 75% of the men report beating their wives. In Bangladesh 47% of the women report having been beaten. A study of ten countries ranging from Japan to Ethiopia showed that in most sites between 30% and 56% of ever partnered women, had experienced both physical and sexual violence.

Of course these are almost certainly, whenever you collect statistics on something that is not exactly appreciated in the society, you're getting a very low report. These are certainly under reports because people don't want to report it, but also when you ask about not just casual, a little bit of violence, but, 'Have you been severely beaten,' in a society where 75% of the women are beaten frequently, the standard for what they're going to call severe is going to be very high. If you used our understanding of male/female battering the numbers would clearly be much, much higher.

What's interesting is there's a fair amount of collusion between the males and the females in this beating, this battering. Both--in the culture--both the men and the women feel that it is the husband's right to beat the woman, and it's justified. It's the woman's due. She should be beaten, and they talk about this quite openly; 40% to 80% again in different surveys, 40% to 80% of wives agree that a beating is justified if a wife neglects household chores or is disobedient. Again, disobedient probably has a much more minor meaning--disobedience worth a beating would not be even considered disobedience by us maybe, probably very minor.

Severe beating is almost uniformly justified and condoned for many reasons, including for example, a husband--a woman disobeying her husband's orders. If a husband gives a woman a direct order and she does not follow it, she gets beaten. It's her duty to obey her husband and they describe it--the women talking to each other and talking to investigators describe it as selfish when she follows what she wants to do, which of course there is always conflict between what Person A wants to do and Person B, then they said, 'I was selfish, I deserved a beating. Or they say that of another woman, 'She was selfish and she deserves a beating.'

In the U.S. of course we haven't escaped this, this has now become--it was hush hush for a very long time, but now it's fairly open because of the feminist movement, and the numbers are something like 50% of U.S. women will be physically abused by the men with whom they live, so again this is partner violence. Six million will be really battered and that's way more than rape, and auto accidents, and muggings, and every other kind of mishap put together.

Battering seems to be both the chimpanzee mode of violence, it's not the orangutan, it's not the ape, and it's certainly not--not the orangutan, not the gorilla, and certainly not the Bonobo, but humans seems to engage in the same kind of violence as chimpanzees.

Now, you say I'm "using a broad brush to paint all men in a certain way."

So please, instead of using a broad brush to paint all men in a certain way with absolutely no thought as to why more men are violent, take a look at the societal factors that go into this so you can realize that, by only focusing on women's problems, we are only creating more problems for men and women.

I'm sorry if I've come across that way, but I've actually tried not to paint all men in a certain way. I've specifically pointed out that not all men are like that, and that it's only a statistical tendency. None of this should be taken as an insult or attack on any group. You're right to say that we shouldn't focus solely on "women's issues". In the future I will be more careful to acknowledge that sexism affects both groups.

I'm interested in hearing if you think there are any other societal factors that explain why there's a stronger tendency to violence among males than females. I've already pointed out that poverty at the bottom can't explain why the pattern of more violence among males holds even outside of poverty.

Why is that pattern so consistent?

[Jplus]

A lot of behavioral differences are obviously cultural, because we've seen them change. Crying used to be a seriously manly thing to do. Women used to faint.

Just a minor nitpick on this one: (rich) women used to faint because they were nearly suffocated by their corsets and because they got almost no exercise, so they were in rather bad condition. It might be the case that people considered it a womanly thing in that time, but that's not the reason those women fainted. I also don't think men cried more in those days than they do now, women just got less opportunity to cry (because of fainting) than they do now.

[CorruptUser]

In ancient Greece it was a very manly thing to cry. Crying meant you really cared about something. Of course, it depends on what it is you were crying over.

[pyronius]

thought i'd bump this with a little personal anecdote exemplifying how it can sometimes go both ways.

I'm a male, and obviously both today and in the past males in the U.S. have typically been favored. that does not however exclude us from certain forms of sexism. while looking into finding a better job i scanned my college paper and came across one that looked promising. $15/hr, starting asap, working with children in a gymnastics related manner, no gymnastics experience necessary. Kids tend to love me and i'm getting tired of the fact that the dogs i deal with both willfully ignore me and don't understand so getting rid of one of those would be an awesome change of pace.

I called up the lady and the conversation went something like this:

"Hi!, I'm calling regards to the job ad you have posted in (school paper), I was wondering if i could get some details."

*pause* then with a sort of strange inflection "I'm sorry, the position has been filled, goodbye" *hangs up*

So i'm thinking, huh, that was a bit odd, but its a good job and i'm sure other people saw it before i did. well, at least that's what i thought for the next week and a half or so until i picked up another copy of the paper to try again. same job ad still posted. well then, guess i sound like a rapist...

[Sleeper]

thought i'd bump this with a little personal anecdote exemplifying how it can sometimes go both ways.
...

That's a good example of anti-male sexism. Sorry to hear about it. Good luck with the job hunt, though.

[KestrelLowing]

Right, sexism can totally go both ways and I think it once again goes back to the initial separation of labor. Men didn't 'do' child care, and even today they're often pictured as bumbling idiots who can't do anything right with kids or housework. And while today it's mostly not tolerated to indicate that women know nothing about physical activity, etc. somehow it's still ok to indicate that men are horrible with kids and housework. (As an aside, I've often seen this stereotype validated, but I'm just about positive it's a 'how you raise your kids' type thing along with intrinsic personality. My brothers are much more fastidious with housework than I am but my mother made certain we all knew how to do it all, thank you! And I've met my fair share of females that are disgusting when it comes to keeping things clean)

Add to that the fact that somehow in this culture that any man who takes a "woman's" job is weird because there is automatically a devaluation (typically female jobs are often valued less and when females begin to enter and possibly become dominant in a certain job, it's devalued - for example, teaching, secretaries, etc.). So any male who would willing work with children must have some ulterior, unsavory motive.

At this point, I really think that in order for women to finally get past that last barrier of inequality is to make traditionally female jobs 100% accessible to males. This means no more devaluation of the 'female jobs', this means no worrying that all males that work with children are child molesters, this means actual support for dads who are the primary caregiver instead of being ostracized at any "mommy and me" event.

As to how that's going to happen, I have no freaking idea.

[HungryHobo]

Add to that the fact that somehow in this culture that any man who takes a "woman's" job is weird because there is automatically a devaluation

remarkable how you managed to reason your way to the conclusion that the reason a woman would be sexist towards a man re a job is due to anti-woman aspects of society.

There are things which are simply anti-male rather than being a side effect of something anti-female.

There's the vastly simpler version: men are assumed to probably be rapists/pedophiles if they want to be around kids.
Many would be afriad to help a crying child in the street for fear of being assumed to be a pedophile.

I wouldn't touch a profession involving kids since as a male: if there was any accusation I would be assumed guilty due to the hard work and dedication of countless groups who have made sure that any other assumption is socially seen as an attack on the accuser.

There's also the politicking, backstabbing etc in many mostly female workplaces keeping men out. They can be insanely hostile to anyone who doesn't want to play politics as well or who's friendly to someone on the wrong side of some disagreement. Talk in a civil manner to the wrong person and suddenly half the women in the office start being hostile to you having decided you're "on her side". It's driven some women I know into more male oriented workplaces and made otherwise pleasent jobs unpleasent for me.

[omgryebread]

Add to that the fact that somehow in this culture that any man who takes a "woman's" job is weird because there is automatically a devaluation

remarkable how you managed to reason your way to the conclusion that the reason a woman would be sexist towards a man re a job is due to anti-woman aspects of society.

There are things which are simply anti-male rather than being a side effect of something anti-female.

There's the vastly simpler version: men are assumed to probably be rapists/pedophiles if they want to be around kids.
Many would be afriad to help a crying child in the street for fear of being assumed to be a pedophile.

...because child-rearing is a "woman thing". I wouldn't say it's neccessarily "anti-man" or "anti-woman" but "pro-traditional-gender-binary." And the traditional gender binary has harmed women more than men.

I wouldn't touch a profession involving kids since as a male: if there was any accusation I would be assumed guilty due to the hard work and dedication of countless groups who have made sure that any other assumption is socially seen as an attack on the accuser.

Except this isn't incredibly true. Teachers are generally judged by fellows to be innocent. In fact, it's really hard for them to be fired when a kid makes an accusation of abuse. (Though it sucks for the teacher still. My mom's friend had to spend about a month and a half at home because a kid accused her of grabbing his arm.) Anecdotal, but it seems to me that most high school girls' coaches are guys, especially on more competitive teams.

There's also the politicking, backstabbing etc in many mostly female workplaces keeping men out. They can be insanely hostile to anyone who doesn't want to play politics as well or who's friendly to someone on the wrong side of some disagreement. Talk in a civil manner to the wrong person and suddenly half the women in the office start being hostile to you having decided you're "on her side". It's driven some women I know into more male oriented workplaces and made otherwise pleasent jobs unpleasent for me.

ooookay. I actually thought your post was reasonable. Then I got to the part where you basically went "Women. Them bitches crazy, amirite?"

[HungryHobo]

ooookay. I actually thought your post was reasonable. Then I got to the part where you basically went "Women. Them bitches crazy, amirite?"

You honestly think there's no equivilent of the macho culture you get in some primarily male workplaces?

Cultures that tend to develop in primarily male groups can be toxic and extremely offputting to many women and equally some of the cultures that develop in primarily female workplaces can be toxic and extremely offputting to men.

You know how some men just turn around and scoff when someone points out some of the macho shit which happens in male workplaces?
You're doing exactly that now.

But if it makes you happier to just make up a strawman whenever you don't like something someone says as a thin excuse to ignore it so that you don't have to consider anything which conflicts with how you prefer to view the world, sure, "Them bitches crazy, amirite?"

there's also the mothers, working with a large group of mothers made my gf want to never ever work with a large group of mothers again and drove her slowly insane though that's a very specific subgroup of primarily female workplaces.
Roughly how she put it: "once they spawn they start treating everyone who isn't a mother like a child and talk about Absolutely. Nothing. Else."
though that one I've never encountered personally.

[pyronius]

Anecdotal, but it seems to me that most high school girls' coaches are guys, especially on more competitive teams.

you know, I think i have another anecdotal explanation for that. hope this doesn't come off as to sexist, its not a matter of bias, just a matter of social interactions. A few semesters ago i was sitting in a chemistry class with two friends a guy and a girl trying to learn a particularly complex (for the level) topic. two girls behind us decided to have a rather loud and annoying conversation which a girl next to us eventually asked them very politely to stop. they did not. another girl asked them somewhat less politely to please be a quieter. they did not. my female friend eventually summoned all of her inner bitch (a considerable amount) and in a tone that could only mean "i will cut your ovaries out you god damn whores!" told them to quiet the fuck down. they just sneered at her and went back to it. finally i turned around and in a somewhat less terrifying tone told them to "please just go outside if you're going to have a conversation so i can concentrate." They instantly looked ashamed, stopped and began listening to the lecture.

When i later asked my friend what the hell just happened the inflection in her voice seemed to indicate that she was confused i didn't already know. her response was as follows "Bitches don't listen to other bitches. only to nice guys."

it sort of makes sense on a primal level. its the reverse of the "damsel in distress effect" where every guy in a ten mile radius wants to fix her flat tire. a guy is much more likely to behave himself around a pretty girl than another guy and a girl as in this case is much more likely to listen to a guy than another girl for fear of dating repercussions (being considered "a bitch") if she doesn't. its not necessarily conscious though and so it applies in a lot of settings including the position of high school coach. a coach inherently has to be a bit harsh and a girl is more inclined to listen to a guy being harsh than a woman. it all comes down to teen hormones and evolution. this also explains why all the female high school coaches i ever had to deal with were so awful. they had to ramp up the harsh attitude to compensate.

[KestrelLowing]

Add to that the fact that somehow in this culture that any man who takes a "woman's" job is weird because there is automatically a devaluation

remarkable how you managed to reason your way to the conclusion that the reason a woman would be sexist towards a man re a job is due to anti-woman aspects of society.

There are things which are simply anti-male rather than being a side effect of something anti-female.

There's the vastly simpler version: men are assumed to probably be rapists/pedophiles if they want to be around kids.
Many would be afriad to help a crying child in the street for fear of being assumed to be a pedophile.

I wouldn't touch a profession involving kids since as a male: if there was any accusation I would be assumed guilty due to the hard work and dedication of countless groups who have made sure that any other assumption is socially seen as an attack on the accuser.

There's also the politicking, backstabbing etc in many mostly female workplaces keeping men out. They can be insanely hostile to anyone who doesn't want to play politics as well or who's friendly to someone on the wrong side of some disagreement. Talk in a civil manner to the wrong person and suddenly half the women in the office start being hostile to you having decided you're "on her side". It's driven some women I know into more male oriented workplaces and made otherwise pleasent jobs unpleasent for me.

I totally agree with the 'being the odd man out' deal. It sucks. Being the only male in a group can be ostracizing, but it's probably the same as being the only female. Now, it could be worse as a male because you're supposed to 'suck it up and deal with it', but I don't know because I've never been in that situation. I have been the only female in a group. Perhaps it's not overt sexism (in fact, most guys are very nice) but the "have to do more work to be seen as equal" is a pretty big bummer. Again, I think women can get away with more overt sexism towards men and that may make a more openly hostile work environment. That needs to change!

And yes, I really do believe that men are assumed to be rapist/pedophiles because anyone who would take a 'lower' job than they could feasibly achieve is someone who has 'ulterior motives'. If, for example, being a daycare worker was considered one of the best jobs you could get, you can bet that there would be a lot of men in that profession.

I don't think any sexism issue is only an anti-woman thing, it's also an anti-man thing. If you've got a negative towards males, it's likely a negative towards females as well. Devaluing anything female is one of the biggest issues I see. That's why guys can't wear skirts, aren't allowed to like being around children, and are considered sissies if they show emotion. It's all intertwined. You can't have a positive or negative with one sex without having a positive or negative of the other. The relative levels of negativeness and positiveness can be varied, but everything is connected.

@pyronius - I think the main thing there is that there was simply a different social dynamic between you and the girls - now, this social dynamic could be partially because of sex. Think about a time when someone you didn't really respect asked you to stop doing something that is generally seen as annoying. Not much got done, right? Particularly if they were slightly annoying in the asking. Now say someone you don't know, or don't have any idea whether they're 'respectable' or not asked you to stop that same thing. You stop.

In this case, it sounds like the girls automatically didn't respect any other of the girls. Now, it could be something as petty as they were seen as 'lower on the pecking order' because of superficial things. Those stupid pecking orders do exist and one reason that I've never really understood the 'stereotypical teenage girl'. However it's obviously not a universal experience. Anecdotal evidence: I was just about the only person that could get our marching band to shut up. Why? I don't know. But our male drum major and male band director couldn't.

As to the male coaches, I think it's often seen because males typically are better at sports and often more males are interested in sports. Therefore, there will be more males in the coaching profession.

[Panonadin]

thought i'd bump this with a little personal anecdote exemplifying how it can sometimes go both ways.

I'm a male, and obviously both today and in the past males in the U.S. have typically been favored. that does not however exclude us from certain forms of sexism. while looking into finding a better job i scanned my college paper and came across one that looked promising. $15/hr, starting asap, working with children in a gymnastics related manner, no gymnastics experience necessary. Kids tend to love me and i'm getting tired of the fact that the dogs i deal with both willfully ignore me and don't understand so getting rid of one of those would be an awesome change of pace.

I called up the lady and the conversation went something like this:

"Hi!, I'm calling regards to the job ad you have posted in (school paper), I was wondering if i could get some details."

*pause* then with a sort of strange inflection "I'm sorry, the position has been filled, goodbye" *hangs up*

So i'm thinking, huh, that was a bit odd, but its a good job and i'm sure other people saw it before i did. well, at least that's what i thought for the next week and a half or so until i picked up another copy of the paper to try again. same job ad still posted. well then, guess i sound like a rapist...

Excuse me, but unless I'm missing some details it seems to me like your jumping to conclusions here.

The "I'm sorry it's been filled and hanging up" is kind of rude but other than that, how is the above sexism?

I think that's part of the problem both ways. It's ok to be offended it's ok to feel how ever you feel about something but I see/read a lot of people TRYING THEIR DAMN HARDEST to get offended through assumptions.

If I see a woman/man talking to a child in a store in an angry tone and the child looks upset I don't tackle the adult and assume they kidnapped the kid. Why are we always going out of our way to take somethings the wrong way?

[pyronius]

thought i'd bump this with a little personal anecdote exemplifying how it can sometimes go both ways.

I'm a male, and obviously both today and in the past males in the U.S. have typically been favored. that does not however exclude us from certain forms of sexism. while looking into finding a better job i scanned my college paper and came across one that looked promising. $15/hr, starting asap, working with children in a gymnastics related manner, no gymnastics experience necessary. Kids tend to love me and i'm getting tired of the fact that the dogs i deal with both willfully ignore me and don't understand so getting rid of one of those would be an awesome change of pace.

I called up the lady and the conversation went something like this:

"Hi!, I'm calling regards to the job ad you have posted in (school paper), I was wondering if i could get some details."

*pause* then with a sort of strange inflection "I'm sorry, the position has been filled, goodbye" *hangs up*

So i'm thinking, huh, that was a bit odd, but its a good job and i'm sure other people saw it before i did. well, at least that's what i thought for the next week and a half or so until i picked up another copy of the paper to try again. same job ad still posted. well then, guess i sound like a rapist...

Excuse me, but unless I'm missing some details it seems to me like your jumping to conclusions here.

The "I'm sorry it's been filled and hanging up" is kind of rude but other than that, how is the above sexism?

I think that's part of the problem both ways. It's ok to be offended it's ok to feel how ever you feel about something but I see/read a lot of people TRYING THEIR DAMN HARDEST to get offended through assumptions.

If I see a woman/man talking to a child in a store in an angry tone and the child looks upset I don't tackle the adult and assume they kidnapped the kid. Why are we always going out of our way to take somethings the wrong way?

The problem wasn't her attitude, but that the job has not been filled. Either she's wasting vast amounts of money on advertising it or she denied me even an interview based only on three seconds of hearing my voice. If she can get anything beyond Male then she's psychic

[Panonadin]

Just seems like your looking for that to be the reason.

Maybe they paid for the ad for a month.
Maybe she has 500 interviews and cant take any more now.
Maybe the position is filled and the people that do the ads messed up.
Maybe 450 other things actually.

Why is it "Heard a male voice, made up a lie"?

[Cheezwhiz Jenkins]

A lot of behavioral differences are obviously cultural, because we've seen them change. Crying used to be a seriously manly thing to do. Women used to faint.

Just a minor nitpick on this one: (rich) women used to faint because they were nearly suffocated by their corsets and because they got almost no exercise, so they were in rather bad condition. It might be the case that people considered it a womanly thing in that time, but that's not the reason those women fainted. I also don't think men cried more in those days than they do now, women just got less opportunity to cry (because of fainting) than they do now.

What is this I don't even.

[ddxxdd]

Just seems like your looking for that to be the reason.

Maybe they paid for the ad for a month.
Maybe she has 500 interviews and cant take any more now.
Maybe the position is filled and the people that do the ads messed up.
Maybe 450 other things actually.

Why is it "Heard a male voice, made up a lie"?

On a similar vein, why do many feminists claim discrimination in the job market and being treated like an outsider in STEM fields when there are many other explanations out there? I think that if accusations of sexism against women is to be taken seriously, then accusations of sexism against men should be taken seriously as well.

And, looking at the evidence, it seems that people don't rudely hang up the phone without taking 5 seconds to politely explain why she'd hanging up. Not wanting a male employee, and not wanting to sound sexist does appear to be a very reasonable explanation for that behavior.

[egalitarian_activist]

The "1 in 71 men have been raped" stat from the CDC survey doesn’t tell the whole story. It defines "rape" as the attacker penetrating the victim, which excludes women who use their vagina to rape a man (rape by envelopment) which is counted as “made to penetrate”. The very same survey says “1 in 21 men (4.8%) reported that they were made to penetrate someone else,” which is far more than 1 in 71. Also, the study says that 79.2% of male victims of “made to penetrate” reported only female perpetrators, meaning they were raped by a woman.

The above, lifetime stats do show a lower percentage of male victims (up to 1.4% rape by penetration + 4.8% made to penetrate = 6.2%) than female victims (18.3%) although it is far more than commonly believed. However, if you look at the report’s stats for the past 12 months, just as many number of men were “forced to penetrate” as women were raped, meaning that if you properly define “made to penetrate” as rape, men were raped as often as women.