Side-effects of feminist solutions and influences

Introduction

One complication with many feminist propositions is that the benefits they bring are outweighed by the damage they do—if they, at all, bring benefits/work as intended.

Almost without exception, there is a lack of understanding of side-effects, long-term consequences, and why something currently is as it is. An excellent example: Some years ago I read a newspaper article about an unusually tall female ballet dancer, who was under pressure for being too heavy (note: not too fat, too heavy)—and raised hell about discrimination and whatnot. The article was highly sympathetic, and on a first glance it may appear as though she had a case. On a deeper investigation, however, we see that the poor men who would have to carry and throw her about would be in severe problems without weight restrictions—even with lighter girls the strains on, e.g, the lower back are considerable. Effectively, there is a choice: Keep the women’s weights down or send the men into premature retirement with back injuries—or remove a slew of traditional elements from the art...

It should be noted, however, that it is often hard to tell exactly what goes back to feminism, women’s involvement in general, “liberal” political movements of other types, whatnot. Other factors, like the wish to make money (e.g. by schools, psychiatrists, pharmaceutical companies, in the case of drugging children) can also play in. These factors all contribute in a complicated network, and this discussion should not be seen as limited to feminism, be it as a cause of problems or as a problem in its own right. Still the influence of feminism on the below issues has been considerable, often crucial.

The following consists of first a section with assorted examples written at an early stage, followed by several sections with larger examples written during the course of my readings.

Various examples

The lowering of entry-criteria to occupations like fire-fighter or police officer for women: Considerable doubts has been raised as to their ability to actually do these jobs. Consider e.g. lowering the requirement of being able to carrying a certain weight (to simulate carrying a normal-sized human), with the result that some victims of a fire may die when they could have been saved by a male fire-fighter. These criteria were originally instituted to make sure that all male applicants not suited for the job were weeded out (clearly indicating that their numbers were not trivially small), and to lower the criteria just to let more women in puts human lives at risk. The same applies to the military^e.

In the US, men’s sports team are being axed from the college program, because Title IX^w requires equal treatment of men and women—and there are not enough women who want to join the sports teams to allow for equal treatment in the sense demanded...

Domestic violence is another good example: In the wish to protect women (and in ignorance over the fact that women are more likely to be perpetrators than victims) some countries now have laws and practices that do far more harm than good, e.g. in that a man who calls the police for protection is arrested himself, or that women can get restraining orders filed on their word alone (which is constantly abused in e.g. divorce proceedings).

Similarly, although not necessarily a feminist issue, consider the case of Mary Winkler^e. Let us overlook the fact that this is a grave injustice. Let us overlook that this is one of the very rare cases where I would have favoured capital punishment—or a permanent lock-up in a psychiatric hospital. Let us overlook that this decision puts the children in considerable danger of being hurt at a later time. Let us overlook that if a man had committed the same crime, he would have been lynched in media (possibly, even in real-life), would never have been allowed contact with his children again, and would have been lucky to get away with a life-time sentence. Instead, let us consider just one thing: How will this affect the risk of other women committing similar crimes? For all practical purposes, this ruling says that a woman who so wishes, even on a whim, can execute her husband—and do so with consequences that are trivial.

Educational system

(See also my discussion of education, dumbing dumb, etc.)

In the educational system there is currently at least two problems:

1. As the lower reaches of education become dominated by female teachers, the environment for boys is severely worsened: The female teachers have a different way of approaching things than male teachers, they are less understanding of what constitutes natural behaviour in boys, they tend to move away from discussing facts and towards discussing feelings about facts (at least according to some articles I have read), they reward effort rather than accomplishment, ...

   These are all things that severely disadvantage boys in comparison to girls.

   A particular danger—and one that can result in absolute disaster, if nothing is done—is the abuse of drugs like Ritalin to make boys compliant by effectively castrating their minds. It should be noted that Ritalin is a very dangerous and addictive drug—and is know to negatively affect learning ability. Some claim that even permanent brain damage can follow. A further complication is that with the rising proportion of female teachers and abuse of drugs, the norm for what is considered normal behaviour is in danger of being moved further and further away from what is natural, until the point is reached where half of the students (most of which will be boys) are drugged. Fortunately, awareness of these problems are spreading sufficiently fast, that this eventuality is likely to be prevented.)

   At any rate, it is clear that these drugs are intended for the benefit of the teachers (by enforcing compliance and “appropriate” behaviour)—not the children. This in a similar manner to the “treatments” seen in the stereotypical psychiatric hospital.

   Another danger is the lack of male role-models and disciplinarians—for both girls and boys. While this problem could affect the boys’ development more than girls’, there seems to be considerable evidence that girls are also negatively affected. (This problem may have been tolerable in a time where a traditional two-parent family was standard; however, with the high number of single mothers, fathers driven away from their children by courts, and the like, many children will simply not have a good “father figure” for most of their childhoods.)

   These two dangers come together in the area of punishment: In a world where a teacher can get into severe problems for just grabbing a child, it becomes near impossible to maintain discipline, which makes the children more unruly, which gives further incentives to abuse drugs to induce compliance. While physical discipline should be heavily regulated and the excesses of yore prevented, the current system errs on the side of lenience: Do we want our children to grow up into undisciplined junkies; or would we rather see a child receive a single slap or be held fast on rare occasions?

   Cf. e.g.:
   article with discussion and links relating to education^e
   article on disparate treatment of boys^e
   article on Ritalin^e
   article on difference between boys and girls^e
   article on Ritalin and arguable non-existence of ADHD^e

   Saving education is an issue large enough to double this article in size, but among the things to do: Stop drug abuse, make education better adapted to the individual’s needs, and make sure that noticeably more men become teachers. While I am normally very strongly opposed to quotas, the question of teachers is one area where it might be justified. (Unlike typical cases, however, this is not a pseudo-equality issue, but a matter of the well-being of the children and of society.) Still, the first try should be creating greater incentives for men to become teachers than today.

2. As more and more women enter higher education the process of dumbing-down must be taken to greater and greater lengths, in turn allowing more and more women to study on a (pseudo-)high level. This results in a vicious circle where higher education goes down the drain and diplomas become worth less and less.

   ---

   Side-note:

   It is important to bear in mind that this problem is not exclusively caused by the influx of women, but that a process of dumbing-dumb has been in progress for quite some time, driven by a wish to increase the number of students in general: They have, however, done disproportionate damage, because women are far fewer than men in the higher intelligence reaches, tend to be weak in critical thinking, problem solving, whatnot. (Look e.g. at the adult data in this article on differences in IQ^e and note that the traditional lower limit for US “college material” was around 110.) This would likely not be a problem with e.g. 60–40 (men–women) proportions, but when 40–60 is reached then the number of sufficiently bright women is simply too low to fill out the student body with qualified candidates.

   Further note that, conversely, a too high proportion of men (at a fix number of places) would bring the same problem, if to a lesser degree: 80–20 proportions may well be as bad as 40–60, and 100–0 would be a complete waste.

   ---

   As a side-effect the number of men who want to study is diminished: For one thing, more men than women are aware of and concerned about the diminishing value of education and diplomas (which in some countries, notably the US, can be very, very expensive). For another, those who are of higher intelligence are increasingly frustrated and demotivated—just like on lower levels. (Note that the men of lower intelligence who could study as the standards drop, unlike women, are typically entirely disinterested in study; in particular, they often have a wish to earn money and are less likely to fall for common misconception that going through college, in and by it self, makes one smart or accomplished.)

   This should be brought in line by raising the criteria for admission, making the courses harder, and limiting the number of students to a more sensible proportion than today: It does not make sense to try to force a majority of the population through tertiary education. Most of them are not up to the task, resources are wasted, and criteria have to be lowered and lowered to avoid disastrous fall-through rates.

In addition, there may be a risk that girls (and, to a lesser degree, boys) are met with an environment too tolerant, or even supportive, of feminist lies when they grow up, by which their long-term perceptions of reality can be severely distorted—and the problems discussed in this article worsened.

Women voting

For similar reasons as with education, including the additional fact that women are far easier for the skilled to manipulate, letting women vote has made it easier for populistic politicians to gain office, which has brought a decrease in competence and an increase in corruption relative to what could have been. In particular, politicians who try to gain power through emotional issues, distortion of facts, promising this-and-that, have been more successful, and following in that success yet more politicians have turned into that direction.

Another complication is that women tend to focus on issues that may seem important in the short term, but will be less important in the long term (and, to make matters worse, they often additionally misjudge the situations). Consequences include policies that are bad for long-term growth, over-spending in the social systems, and similar. (Note, in particular, that the policies of social systems are usually developed without considering human psychology and game theory, leading to both lower success than intended and incentives to abuse the system—e.g. in that a policy intended to help the existing single mothers provide for their children, leads to a drastic increase in the number of single mothers, because they know that they will be provided for, one way or the other.)

Quotas

An interesting issue is how demands for quotas tend to be formulated, often even implemented. Statements like “A minimum of 40 % women.” are abundant, but “A minimum of 40 % of each sex.” are rare. I have even, on very rare occasions seen “A minimum of 50 % women.”, which effectively gives women an automatic and permanent majority.

I can see two explanations for this: Either a one-sided advantage for women is intended (which amounts to sexist discrimination), or the authors lack the brains to make trivial generalizations and consider alternate scenarios (in which case they have very little credibility, and should better remain silent while those with a brain debate).

Notably, it would cost nothing (except, possibly, rhetorical persuasiveness towards the more gullible women) to use the more generic version; notably, the mere fact that men have a natural majority today does not mean that they will remain above even 40 % tomorrow (consider e.g. statistics on college graduations); notably, there are areas, e.g. proportion of teachers, where men are highly underrepresented and this underrepresentation has severe negative side-effects (but, interestingly, with very few calls for quotas).

An interesting twist is sports events, youth organisations, and similar: Originally, there was often a “boys only” version—which may or may not have been a bad thing, depending on the circumstances. (Contrast e.g. a men-only sauna club with a men-only chess club; further, note that some activities, e.g. long distance running, were forbidden for women for their own protection based on well-meaning, albeit highly flawed, assumptions.)

As time went by, a parallel “girls only” version was instituted, which should have brought everything into a satisfactory equilibrium. It can be disputed whether these dual versions were better or worse than a single unisex version, but there would have been no actual reason to complain—and in many cases the dual versions brought tangible benefits. Consider e.g. a soccer league with unisex teams: Either women would have very little playing time or team strategy would have focused on over-coming the restrictions caused by quotas (rather than on playing good soccer). In the long term, these issues would have (and partially do have) resolved themselves in mutually favourable manner.

Unfortunately, feminists insisted on taking it further with a forced opening of many boys’ versions to girls no matter what—while keeping the girls’ version closed to boys. In Sweden, e.g., it is quite common to have two versions of a particular competition (e.g Vasaloppet^w): One reserved for women and one free-for-all—with the latter still giving full winner’s prizes to both the male and female number ones.