I believe that virtually perfect gender egalitarianism will not be achieved within my lifetime in the United States with certainty of 90%.
This depends on the assumption that I will only live at most about eighty more years, i.e. that the transhumanist revolution will not occur within that time and that I am either not frozen or fail to thaw. My belief in that assumption is 75%.
I have to admit that I knew in my heart I should define it but didn’t, mostly because I know that the tenets are purely subjective and there’s no way I can cover everything that would be involved. Here are a couple points:
No personality traits are considered acceptable in males and unacceptable in females, or vice versa. E.x. aggressiveness, confinement to the domestic sphere, sexual conquest.
Gender is absent from your evaluation of a person’s potential utility, except in specific cases where reproduction is relevant (e.g., concern about maternity leave). Even if it is conclusively proven that average men cannot work in business companies without getting into some kind of scandal eventually or that average women cannot think about math as seriously, that shouldn’t affect your preconceptions of Jane Doe or John Smith.
For the love of ice, please let the notion of the man as the default human just die, like it should have SO LONG AGO. PLEASE.
I hope this doesn’t fall into a semantics controversy.
“Considered” by whom? Can I have, say, an aesthetic preference about these things (suppose I think that women look better in aprons than men do, can I prefer on this obviously trivial basis that women do more of the cooking?), or is any preference about the division of traits amongst sexes a problem for this criterion?
“Potential utility” meaning the utility that the person under consideration might experience/get, or might produce? Also, does this lack of preconception thing seem to you to be compatible with Bayesianism? If I have no reason to suspect that John and Jane are anything other than average, on what epistemic basis do I not guess that he is likelier (by the hypothetical proofs you suppose) to be better at math and more likely to cause scandal?
So what gender should the default human be, or should we somehow have two defaults, or should the default human be one with a set of sex/gender characteristics that rarely appear together in the species, or should there be no default at all (in which case what will serve the purposes currently served by having a default)?
I’m totally in favor of gender egalitarianism as I understand it, but it seems a little wooly the way you’ve written it up here. I’m sincerely trying to figure out what you mean and I’ll back off if you want me to stop.
Perhaps an aesthetic preference isn’t a problem (obviously there are certain physical traits that are attractive in one sex and not another, which does lend itself to certain aesthetic preferences). Note that I used the word “personality traits”—some division of other traits is inevitable. Things that upset me with the current state of affairs are where one boy fights with another and it is dismissed as boys being boys, while any other combination of genders would probably result in disciplinary action. Or how the general social trends (in Western cultures, at least) think that women wearing suits is commendable and becoming ordinary, but a man in a dress is practically lynched.
Potential utility produced, for your company or project. I think I phrased this one a little wonkily earlier—you’re right, under the proofs I layed out, if all you know about John and Jane are their genders, then of course the Bayesian thing to do is assume John will be better at math. What I mean is more that, if you do know more about John and Jane, having had an interview or read a resume, the assumption that they necessarily reflect the averages of their gender is like not considering whether a woman’s positive mammogram could be false. For an extreme example, the majority of homocides in many countries are committed by men. Should the employer therefore assume that Jane is less likely than John to commit such a crime, even if she has a criminal record?
I don’t see why having an ungendered default is so difficult, besides for the linguistic dance associated with it in our language (and several others, but far from all of them), which is probably not going to be a problem for many more generations due to the increasing use of “they” as a singular pronoun. For instance, having a raceless or creedless default has proven not to be that hard, even if members of different races or creeds would react differently in such a situation. If one of the things I’m talking about actually happens in a cishuman lifetime, my bet would go on this one. Now, in situations where you need a more specific everyman, who goes to church every Sunday and has two children and a dog, there might be more use in a gendered, race-bearing, creed-bearing individual.
Maybe I should just go back and say “where virtually perfect acknowledges that there are some immutable differences between the sexes but that all others with detrimental effect have been eradicated”.
This is why it surprises me so much that the levels of communication post had so little focus on the level of values or potential misunderstandings that can occur on the level of facts due to the ambiguity of language. The value that I am trying to express, and which I assume that you are as well or something close to it, is that men and women should be treated equally, but completely equal treatment would be impractical and not equal in the terms of benefit conferred. (For example, growth of breasts in men should be taken as a health concern, not a sign of attractiveness.) So we are forced to add specifics to our definitions that make them less clear.
Unless you still think something is wrong or missing in my definition to the point that we’re talking about significantly different things, I would appreciate it if we moved on from this aspect of the issue.
As I implicitly stated, I don’t think that personality traits for the most part should be considered attractive in one sex and not another. There are some physical traits that are arbitrary, like long hair, with attractiveness dimorphism, but I’m talking about physical traits that distinctly vary in whether they would be healthy between males and females. Like having pronounced mammary glands. That’s obviously not a fertility marker in both sexes.
Are you sure this doesn’t apply for personality traits as well?
Going into evopsych is so tempting right now, but the “just so story” practically writes itself.
Here’s an alternative:
Since major personality traits are associated with hormones produced by parts of our body produced through embryogenisis based on our genes and the traits of our mother’s womb. And since our reproductive organs are also so, it would be very surprising to find there was no correlation between personality traits and fertility/ virility, and it would be a major blow against your argument if it turned out to be one that is both strong and positive.
Literary “everyman” types, not needing to awkwardly dance around the use of gendered personal pronouns when talking about a hypothetical person of no specific traits besides defaults, and probably something I’m not remembering.
not needing to awkwardly dance around the use of gendered personal pronouns when talking about a hypothetical person of no specific traits besides defaults
People say things like “Take your average human. He’s thus and such.” If you want to start a paragraph with “Take your average human” and not use gendered language, you have to say things like “They’re thus and such” (sometimes awkward, especially if you’re also talking about plural people or objects in the same paragraph) or “Ey’s thus and such”, which many people don’t understand and others don’t like.
I find these invented pronouns awful, not only aesthetically, but also because they destroy the fluency of reading. When I read a text that uses them, it suddenly feels like I’m reading some language in which I’m not fully fluent so that every so often, I have to stop and think how to parse the sentence. It’s the linguistic equivalent of bumps and potholes on the road.
I don’t have an average human, and I don’t think the universe does either. I think there’s a lot to be said for not having a mental image of an average human.
Furthermore, since there are nearly equal numbers of male and female humans, gender is trait where the idea of an average human is especially inaccurate.
I think the best substitute is “Take typical humans. They’re thus and such.” Your average alert listener will be ready to check on just how typical (modal?) those humans are.
Hmm. It’s true, people do, but I think it’s getting less common already. Were you asking, then, which of those alternatives the original commenter preferred?
Not really, I’m just pointing out that gendered language isn’t a one-sided policy debate. (I favor a combination of “they” and “ey”, personally, or creating specific example imaginary people who have genders).
Not sure what you mean about policy, but I think we’re pretty far removed from the main point now, and don’t actually disagree, so I’m disinclined to argue further. :)
It’s not always grammatically feasible or elegant to do so. Also, the singular “you” is much more common than the singular “they,” so your readers are more likely to expect it and are prepared for the potential ambiguity.
I often use “one” if I can get away with it grammatically and if it’s not unbearably pompous. (As a result, I often (in my own judgment) end up sounding bearably pompous.)
I believe that virtually perfect gender egalitarianism will not be achieved within my lifetime in the United States with certainty of 90%.
This depends on the assumption that I will only live at most about eighty more years, i.e. that the transhumanist revolution will not occur within that time and that I am either not frozen or fail to thaw. My belief in that assumption is 75%.
Define “virtually perfect gender egalitarianism”.
I have to admit that I knew in my heart I should define it but didn’t, mostly because I know that the tenets are purely subjective and there’s no way I can cover everything that would be involved. Here are a couple points:
No personality traits are considered acceptable in males and unacceptable in females, or vice versa. E.x. aggressiveness, confinement to the domestic sphere, sexual conquest.
Gender is absent from your evaluation of a person’s potential utility, except in specific cases where reproduction is relevant (e.g., concern about maternity leave). Even if it is conclusively proven that average men cannot work in business companies without getting into some kind of scandal eventually or that average women cannot think about math as seriously, that shouldn’t affect your preconceptions of Jane Doe or John Smith.
For the love of ice, please let the notion of the man as the default human just die, like it should have SO LONG AGO. PLEASE.
I hope this doesn’t fall into a semantics controversy.
“Considered” by whom? Can I have, say, an aesthetic preference about these things (suppose I think that women look better in aprons than men do, can I prefer on this obviously trivial basis that women do more of the cooking?), or is any preference about the division of traits amongst sexes a problem for this criterion?
“Potential utility” meaning the utility that the person under consideration might experience/get, or might produce? Also, does this lack of preconception thing seem to you to be compatible with Bayesianism? If I have no reason to suspect that John and Jane are anything other than average, on what epistemic basis do I not guess that he is likelier (by the hypothetical proofs you suppose) to be better at math and more likely to cause scandal?
So what gender should the default human be, or should we somehow have two defaults, or should the default human be one with a set of sex/gender characteristics that rarely appear together in the species, or should there be no default at all (in which case what will serve the purposes currently served by having a default)?
I’m totally in favor of gender egalitarianism as I understand it, but it seems a little wooly the way you’ve written it up here. I’m sincerely trying to figure out what you mean and I’ll back off if you want me to stop.
Perhaps an aesthetic preference isn’t a problem (obviously there are certain physical traits that are attractive in one sex and not another, which does lend itself to certain aesthetic preferences). Note that I used the word “personality traits”—some division of other traits is inevitable. Things that upset me with the current state of affairs are where one boy fights with another and it is dismissed as boys being boys, while any other combination of genders would probably result in disciplinary action. Or how the general social trends (in Western cultures, at least) think that women wearing suits is commendable and becoming ordinary, but a man in a dress is practically lynched.
Potential utility produced, for your company or project. I think I phrased this one a little wonkily earlier—you’re right, under the proofs I layed out, if all you know about John and Jane are their genders, then of course the Bayesian thing to do is assume John will be better at math. What I mean is more that, if you do know more about John and Jane, having had an interview or read a resume, the assumption that they necessarily reflect the averages of their gender is like not considering whether a woman’s positive mammogram could be false. For an extreme example, the majority of homocides in many countries are committed by men. Should the employer therefore assume that Jane is less likely than John to commit such a crime, even if she has a criminal record?
I don’t see why having an ungendered default is so difficult, besides for the linguistic dance associated with it in our language (and several others, but far from all of them), which is probably not going to be a problem for many more generations due to the increasing use of “they” as a singular pronoun. For instance, having a raceless or creedless default has proven not to be that hard, even if members of different races or creeds would react differently in such a situation. If one of the things I’m talking about actually happens in a cishuman lifetime, my bet would go on this one. Now, in situations where you need a more specific everyman, who goes to church every Sunday and has two children and a dog, there might be more use in a gendered, race-bearing, creed-bearing individual.
Maybe I should just go back and say “where virtually perfect acknowledges that there are some immutable differences between the sexes but that all others with detrimental effect have been eradicated”.
This is why it surprises me so much that the levels of communication post had so little focus on the level of values or potential misunderstandings that can occur on the level of facts due to the ambiguity of language. The value that I am trying to express, and which I assume that you are as well or something close to it, is that men and women should be treated equally, but completely equal treatment would be impractical and not equal in the terms of benefit conferred. (For example, growth of breasts in men should be taken as a health concern, not a sign of attractiveness.) So we are forced to add specifics to our definitions that make them less clear.
Unless you still think something is wrong or missing in my definition to the point that we’re talking about significantly different things, I would appreciate it if we moved on from this aspect of the issue.
Some personality traits are considered attractive in one sex and not another.
As I implicitly stated, I don’t think that personality traits for the most part should be considered attractive in one sex and not another. There are some physical traits that are arbitrary, like long hair, with attractiveness dimorphism, but I’m talking about physical traits that distinctly vary in whether they would be healthy between males and females. Like having pronounced mammary glands. That’s obviously not a fertility marker in both sexes.
Are you sure this doesn’t apply for personality traits as well?
Going into evopsych is so tempting right now, but the “just so story” practically writes itself.
Here’s an alternative:
Since major personality traits are associated with hormones produced by parts of our body produced through embryogenisis based on our genes and the traits of our mother’s womb. And since our reproductive organs are also so, it would be very surprising to find there was no correlation between personality traits and fertility/ virility, and it would be a major blow against your argument if it turned out to be one that is both strong and positive.
What are those purposes, anyway?
Literary “everyman” types, not needing to awkwardly dance around the use of gendered personal pronouns when talking about a hypothetical person of no specific traits besides defaults, and probably something I’m not remembering.
How do you do that in English as it is now?
People say things like “Take your average human. He’s thus and such.” If you want to start a paragraph with “Take your average human” and not use gendered language, you have to say things like “They’re thus and such” (sometimes awkward, especially if you’re also talking about plural people or objects in the same paragraph) or “Ey’s thus and such”, which many people don’t understand and others don’t like.
Alicorn:
I find these invented pronouns awful, not only aesthetically, but also because they destroy the fluency of reading. When I read a text that uses them, it suddenly feels like I’m reading some language in which I’m not fully fluent so that every so often, I have to stop and think how to parse the sentence. It’s the linguistic equivalent of bumps and potholes on the road.
After reading one story that used these pronouns, I was sufficiently used to them that they do not impact my reading fluency.
Link?
The story was Alicorn’s Damage Report.
I don’t have an average human, and I don’t think the universe does either. I think there’s a lot to be said for not having a mental image of an average human.
Furthermore, since there are nearly equal numbers of male and female humans, gender is trait where the idea of an average human is especially inaccurate.
I think the best substitute is “Take typical humans. They’re thus and such.” Your average alert listener will be ready to check on just how typical (modal?) those humans are.
Exactly. People make a fuss about a lack of singular nongendered pronouns. The plural nongendered pronouns are right there.
Hmm. It’s true, people do, but I think it’s getting less common already. Were you asking, then, which of those alternatives the original commenter preferred?
Not really, I’m just pointing out that gendered language isn’t a one-sided policy debate. (I favor a combination of “they” and “ey”, personally, or creating specific example imaginary people who have genders).
Not sure what you mean about policy, but I think we’re pretty far removed from the main point now, and don’t actually disagree, so I’m disinclined to argue further. :)
How is “they” any more ambiguous than “you”? Both can easily qualified with “all”.
It’s not always grammatically feasible or elegant to do so. Also, the singular “you” is much more common than the singular “they,” so your readers are more likely to expect it and are prepared for the potential ambiguity.
I often use “one” if I can get away with it grammatically and if it’s not unbearably pompous. (As a result, I often (in my own judgment) end up sounding bearably pompous.)
Upvoted for drastic underconfidence.