[Snow-i]

Unsurprisingly, none of the traditionally liberal outlets are reporting on this.

Anyone know where I can sign up for this club? I could sure use some unfair unearned advantages simply because I'm white. I wonder if I'm white enough to qualify.

Pentagon training manual: white males have unfair advantages | Fox News

[Snow-i]

Racism is okay as long as it's against white people. I hate myself. What an asshole I must be. I only work about 60 hours a week, so any opportunities I take advantage of are definitely because I'm white. I only manage save about 5% of my after tax income each, so any returns on my investments will certainly be because I'm white. I also only pay full tuition to a state school myself on my own income with no financial aid or other assistance, so i definitely had an advantage in school.

You know I've been white my whole life and never managed to oppress anyone else. I bet that's why the club doesn't want me. :/

What are you supposed to do if you're white and not part of this club? I guess I don't fit in anywhere

[subego]

Basically, you are a member of this club, even if you don't realize it.

An equivalent amount of effort by a white female would garner less, as would the same amount of effort by a black male.

If you were a black, openly* lesbian female, it would be even less.

This is in the aggregate. Of course there will be exceptions and variance. Just like you'd have different effects yourself if you put that effort in, say, Utah, versus where you are now.



*By "openly", I mean doing things which are considered normal for heterosexuals to do. Hold hands, peck on the cheek, etc.

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by subego 

Basically, you are a member of this club, even if you don't realize it.

When do I start getting these advantages? Do we have a country club or something?

An equivalent amount of effort by a white female would garner less, as would the same amount of effort by a black male.

And the DOD should be wary of me because....? I'm a wizard that can negatively affect those around me who aren't in this club simply by the color of my skin? Well shit subego, you make it sound awesome! If only I could find the damn application. I've had a pretty awful decade and could sure use some of the benefits of this club.

If you were a black, openly* lesbian female, it would be even less.

I'm still not sure what I did to cause this or for what I did to warrant extra scrutiny from the DoD.

This is in the aggregate. Of course there will be exceptions and variance. Just like you'd have different effects yourself if you put that effort in, say, Utah, versus where you are now.

So I should change races next chance I get to avoid extra scrutiny from the government? Anyone know a good clinic? Which one did MJ use?
I know, too soon. It was too easy though

*By "openly", I mean doing things which are considered normal for heterosexuals to do. Hold hands, peck on the cheek, etc.

Now I know I'm not a part of this club since I've been working and schooling too much to meet someone, and as such I am on a pretty wicked dry spell. Does this club help me out there too? That'ad be awesome!

Forgive my satire. I don't deny anything subego has said. I'm just hoping to point out how ludicrous it is to train our military leaders to hate me for being white, considering I've always been an ardent supporter of racial/ethnic equality. Aren't we supposed to all be equal and working towards a world where race doesn't matter? I hardly see how that can happen when our government sanctions extra scrutiny to one racial group over another.

[subego]

You're losing me on the jump from "claim you have received privileges due to societal norms" to "personally responsible" and "needs to be punished".

[subego]

Never mind the above. Allow me to digest your whiteness.

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by subego 

Never mind the above. Allow me to digest your whiteness.

I see what you did there

[subego]

Let me flip this around a little.

Ignore the means (like the manual) for a second.

Would a military comprised of thoughtful and considerate people be a bad thing in your (or anyone else's) opinion?

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by subego 

Let me flip this around a little.

Ignore the means (like the manual) for a second.

Would a military comprised of thoughtful and considerate people be a bad thing in your (or anyone else's) opinion?

I'll follow as long as the logic is there. In a vacuum, absolutely.

--
I don't see how singling out whitey is going to do anything but make more people hate white people, and force equal outcome via prejudice and discrimination. It does nothing for equal opportunity. Hate begets more hate, love begets more love. You cannot put out one fire with another, yada yada.

[el chupacabra]

… .

[subego]

Either I misunderstand, or you're talking out of both sides of your mouth.

On one hand, you claim you're not against entitlements, but if someone starts talking about why those entitlements are needed in the first place, they're being ungrateful.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

I'll follow as long as the logic is there. In a vacuum, absolutely.

--
I don't see how singling out whitey is going to do anything but make more people hate white people, and force equal outcome via prejudice and discrimination. It does nothing for equal opportunity. Hate begets more hate, love begets more love. You cannot put out one fire with another, yada yada.

I'd imagine the vast majority of people receiving the training are white. The manual even talks about being a "white ally".

Will the training cause self-loathing in these people?


Note, I find phrases like "white ally" to be OTT, but what I'm specifically addressing is does the manual "teach hate". If it was clearly aimed at non-whites, I think you'd have a different story. Not the least of which being you don't need to teach this stuff to non-whites. They already know it.

[The Final Dakar]

Do good looking people have advantages?

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Do good looking people have advantages?

Yes, I do.

But in all seriousness, yes. Good looking people have advantages. So do people with common, one syllable first names and common last names such as Smith, Williams, etc. That reminds me, where is the DoD handbook on being wary of good looking people?

[subego]

It was written by Gen. Petraeus I belive.

[el chupacabra]

… .

[el chupacabra]

… .

[subego]

@el chupacabra,

What is discrimination the culprit for in your estimation?

One would presume you think discrimination has some effect on something?

[el chupacabra]

… .

[BadKosh]

Any excuse for the lesser people. Who ever said life was fair? Who ever said you would do just as well as everyone else? Its jealousy redefined.

[subego]

@el chupacabra,

You mention there are issues with affirmative action laws, and it may surprise you to know I agree with you on most of them. I'm also of a certain libertarian bent, so on a philosophical level I think the ideal situation would be to discriminate all you want. If you (general you) don't like black people, a black person is going to have a better time somewhere else. As you said. If you are going to let me steal talent out from under you, that benefits both me and the black person.

When it comes to my own hiring practices, I don't hold myself up as some paragon of equality, but I go out of my way in the women and minorities department. This is because my business (film) is a ****ing white boy's club, and I don't like that. Now, I deal with freelancers, so I don't have to do the EEOC dance, but if I did, and as someone who bends over backwards, the idea I could get hit with a lawsuit would make me go nuclear. It would make me want to hire white men just so I could sack them without the hassle.

So, affirmative action laws have problems, and are easily abused. You'll get no argument from me.

OTOH, you'll have a hard time convincing me our society isn't massively stacked towards white males. I'm 42. I've never been hassled by the cops, and I've never felt in danger of being raped. You won't be able to find a black guy or a woman my age who can say the same. Those are just two examples. I've also never had someone call me a slut, or behave in a way which declared that without saying it. I've never been groped on the bus. I've never had the face of the person at the counter at the store go from cheery for the white person and then become gruff because I'm black. I've never had to worry about someone thinking I got my job not because I'm good, but because I ****ed someone, or (directly relevant to this discussion) as a "thank you" from whitey. No one's ever crossed to the other side of the street when they see me coming. I've never been the only other person on a train platform with a woman who is pants-shitting scared of me, so I needed to start whistling Vivaldi to let her know I'm "educated". I've never been called a ******, or a cracker for that matter. I've never gotten the cold shoulder when my girlfriend introduces me to the family.

I've never had someone pay me less because I'm white, or because I have a wang.

I've never had less than 50% representation on the Supreme Court, and it's been much higher for most of my life. My representation in the legislature is even more skewed on many counts. Excepting Obama, Washington, and Byrne, all the executives in my life, from local to federal, have been white males. Is this because white males are just that much better? Women are too much of a risk?

[subego]

Sorry for the wall-o-text. The tl;dr is,

I agree with you on a lot of things.

I think I disagree with you on the pervasiveness of discrimination.

Long list of examples which in total, are meant to be considered an irrefutable argument.

[ghporter]

I found it interesting that every Equal Opportunity worker in the Air Force seemed to be "other than white and male." In fact, my unit in the late 1990s had our Executive Officer abruptly reassigned to Patrick AFB where EEO career field training is conducted, so that he could take command of the school. He was Major Tony Nelson, and yes, Patrick AFB is the base connected with the Kennedy Space Center. Except my Major Nelson was about 5'6" tall and most of his forefathers definitely came from Africa rather than Europe.

Anyway, as a white male Senior NCO, I had to pay extremely close attention to specific "P's and Q's" when it came to anything that might possibly be interpreted as discriminatory, while on the other hand, it was generally believed (with plenty of empirical evidence to support that belief) that a non-white, female (or both) GI or civilian employee could suggest that some sort of discrimination had taken place for the purpose of disrupting a unit's operations, ruining someone's career, both, and more.

On a daily basis, I saw almost zero friction between groups in the Air Force. One day, my team mates and I decided to go to breakfast together before digging into a project we were working on. We sat together in a booth and commented about how others in the dining hall seemed to congregate with like-others (Anglo guys with other Anglo guys, African American females with other African American females, etc.). But these groups were all very junior people who had been hanging out at home 2 or 3 months before, and these little groups were a measure of "like home" to them. My coworkers and I were one Italian American, one African American, and two "Heinz 57" Anglo guys, and we were all NCOs with 12+ years of service. After working with folks assigned based only on their job training and experience, we'd all basically stopped paying any attention to unimportant things like our coworkers' skin tones or accents.

On the other hand, I've learned from a number of folks who served in the Army that the Army seems to have problems with internecine conflict, possibly because group-to-group antagonism, and even serious violence, is tacitly accepted within the Army. To me, it looks like Army policy is to try to develop aggression in Soldiers through these conflicts, but without even bothering to apply checks and balances to ensure that Soldiers learn when to be aggressive, and when not to be. That's a Bad Thing. What's worse, it seems to be turning around and biting the Army in its collective derriere.

[el chupacabra]

… .

[subego]

If I had to characterize the point of your post, I'd say it's "you reap what you sow".

Do you think the particular differential in how we treat children is correct? That's not a setup for a "gotcha" or something. I'm actually curious about your opinion.

Isn't that differential treatment sexism? Note, not all sexism is necessarily bad. I think the basic tenets of chivalry towards women are good.

No worries about the length.

[el chupacabra]

… .

[The Final Shortcut]

Originally Posted by el chupacabra 

Managers I talk to try to maintain certain ratios of women at work; but NOT with the intent of acquiring 'career ladder workers', its for the atmosphere. With 40hrs at the office men are more productive with workplace girlfriends to flirt with. It's interesting seeing the skirts and weight class that big oil hires for menial tasks. It sounds bad but what else are companies to do with food-science, criminal justice, and psychology degrees?

This was something I had a discussion about a few weeks ago; in Canada, female representation in engineering actually peaked over a decade ago and has dropped since. Meanwhile, female representation in other professional capacities that have traditionally been male-dominated (lawyers, doctors) has gone absolutely bonkers - both are now female-dominated amongst newer grads. Also in the conversation were two university professors, science (chemistry) and business (commerce) - their personal teaching anecdotes was that women are slowly increasing in number but are now pretty much close to even, but more importantly, women in their classes are in general dominating the men in terms of work ethic, commitment, and high marks. (I have no data to back up any of their observations; it may certainly be region/field-specific.)

Women who are passed up, fail to realize what they accuse men of all the time; the fact that men are more ambitious, power hungry, nerdily obsessed with work. Men put effort into entertaining other people at work. When men are called sluts fag etc they brush it off turning it into a joke. Women prefer routine jobs. They do what they're asked, nothing more nothing less, gossiping, creating mortal enemies with other women who looked at them cross. Their demeanor is often a robot like professionalism that rarely turns off. Then they get pregnant. The last one? 4 times in a row! She's on the books as an employee who's rarely seen, and can't be replaced by law. And when 1 of them is sick, she calls in sick. Talk about wild cards businesses fear.

Women are less socially tuned for the workplace. Which might be attributable to the fact that when they had problems as kids others solved them? They didn't need to learn how to make friends which would later become the rubbing-elbows skill, because friends came easy to them. Women are less prone to bullying. I don't think my childhood was anything exceptional so if most guys grew up like me - When us guys couldn't solve a problem, we got the shit kicked out of us until we learned to solve it or brush it off. Guys are verbally abused, kicked below the belt, punched in the face (or stabbed), then thrown in the deep end; women are given a kiddie pool of confidence boosting programs and free tutoring from all the nerdy guys in college; and don't realize they're promoted less because they never learned to swim.

Wow. What a load of sexist, stupid bullshit wrapped in a paper-thin veneer of pseudo-psychology. It would be simply hilarious if not so downright ****ing insulting.

Over my relatively short lifetime I have gone to school with and worked with an equal slew of "power-hungry", "ambitious", "nerdily-obsessed" men and women. A huge number of the small-to-large businesses I work for/with have women in upper-management capacities, and those I interact with are fearsomely and intimidatingly capable. And good luck trying to convince any of these women (or the ones I work with) that they need networking skills, or confidence boosting and free tutoring - they all have huge jobs and work 65+ hours a week and in my experience are regarded by all the men they work with as being far more efficient with their time. In addition, women also won the "Top Marks" award for each of my degrees. Oh, and at least two of my female co-workers were life guards.

In short, you have related some personal anecdotes and drawn sweeping, controversial, and offensive conclusions regarding the status of women in the workplace. Shockingly, those anecdotes are not universal and may be specific to your particular profession. Oh wait...no one saw that coming at all.

I have no animosity to women in all this. I'm willing to believe what the contenders say is true; but only after I see these people choose the hard majors/jobs...

And yet, as I stated at the beginning, new lawyers and doctors are now predominantly women, even though traditionally those professions have been almost exclusively male. Both of those professions are equally as difficult and demanding as engineering.

Despite your protests to the contrary, methinks your "theory" doth need considerably less animosity towards women. (Not to mention some better data than your own personal experiences as an engineer.) I'm more than a little suspicious that the source of animosity is likely tied to the number of times you explicity mentioned your own lack of good looks.

Would you agree that women generally aren't as motivated to seek power as men?

No. Would you agree that until recent decades, women have generally not been given anything remotely close to an equal opportunity to seek power? And, looking around at the number of prominent women in both politics and business, would you agree that this situation is rapidly changing?

[subego]

@el chupacabra,

You lost me right of the bat.

You talk about "how things are sown", but I'm not supposed to take you reap what you sow?

[el chupacabra]

… .

[subego]

Originally Posted by el chupacabra 

I could have said reap what you sow

Which is why I'm utterly confused by this exchange.

chup: Stuff.
subego: Ah! Reap what you sow.
chup: No. Even though we hear that.
subego: It's not reap what you sow?
chup: No, its proof you reap what you sow.

Still


I feel like we're on different wavelengths here, which is odd, because I feel like I agree with you on a lot of things.

[The Final Shortcut]

If you are referencing my third paragraph, then the statements were made with no connection to how much women get paid or promoted in the workplace (other than the fact that they certainly do, which is in direct contravention to your statements), and certainly no connection was made to "an exclusive club white male" (hilarious btw).

Frankly, "much of what I said" is in direct opposition to much of what you said. So either I completely missed all the sarcasm dripping from your post, or else you completely missed the intent of mine.

[subego]

I'm getting thrown too. There will be one statement, and then a statement which completely opposes it.

Something is getting lost in the translation.

[The Final Shortcut]

I don't suppose you're suggesting this can all be translated another way?

Women prefer routine jobs. They do what they're asked, nothing more nothing less, gossiping, creating mortal enemies with other women who looked at them cross.
...
Women are less socially tuned for the workplace. Which might be attributable to the fact that when they had problems as kids others solved them?
...
...women are given a kiddie pool of confidence boosting programs and free tutoring from all the nerdy guys in college; and don't realize they're promoted less because they never learned to swim.

I actually had to bite back incoherent rage when the response was

@ Final shortcut, I agree with much of what you said

Oh. Really.

[subego]

Well, yeah. They're not trolls per se, but there's no effort being put in to avoid "incoherent rage" as a response.

[el chupacabra]

… .

[Shaddim]

Meetings? It's overrated, though.

[The Final Shortcut]

Originally Posted by el chupacabra 

Im still trying to interpret where he stands, he pulled pieces of my post out and referenced them out of context to laugh at them. I still dont have any info as to why he thinks us business people are reluctant to promote or hire women, if he truly believes it's not due to higher risks accociated their kids.

...oh, I'm sorry, you were actually saying that it's pregnancy which is the problem?

So all that stuff about women in the workplace only liking routine tasks and doing only what they're told, gossiping, being less socially tuned and not having elbow-rubbing skills, being less ambitious and power hungry...that was all obiter?

Oh. I see.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

Yes, I do.

But in all seriousness, yes. Good looking people have advantages. So do people with common, one syllable first names and common last names such as Smith, Williams, etc. That reminds me, where is the DoD handbook on being wary of good looking people?

I think the problem would be good looking people are a minority (i.e., they aren't flooding the market) and are much harder to quantify. White people are ubiquitous.

(Also being tall helps one get promoted)

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

I think the problem would be good looking people are a minority (i.e., they aren't flooding the market) and are much harder to quantify. White people are ubiquitous.

(Also being tall helps one get promoted)

I mean, I fit the bill exactly for the stereotype.

I'm 6'3", white, named James and I've never had any complaints from my lady friends. So where do I fit in with this? Should the government be wary of me simply because I was born this way? Am named this way? Can reach the top shelf?

Which attributes that have statistical significance to workplace success should the government be giving extra scrutiny to?

Should I be scrutinized for being white, but "allowed" to excel because I'm tall and devilishly handsome?

[Snow-i]

I mean it seems to me the government should be training our military leaders to be careful of the statistical biases that can effect equal opportunity, and to be sensitive to cultural, ethnic, and personal difference when fostering relationships, and to avoid making decisions based on or in spite of these biases.

I don't see how "be wary of whitey" imparts the right message to government trainees. It's basically an indictment of perceived wrong doing based on skin color, which sounds an awful lot like racism (or reverse racism if you hold racism to only mean oppression, vs its actual definition of stereotyping by race for good, bad or indifferent).

[subego]

Originally Posted by el chupacabra 

Yes i generally agree we reap what we sow, but isnt this already a given? Dont we all kinda agree on that? But we know how this forum stuff goes, if i had just said that, someone would say "oh yeah what about disabled people " or something to this effect for the sole sake of arguing and proving the statment wrong. Thats because its overly simplified statement. I try to avoid such circumstances, yet by final shortcuts post, it seems Ive failed in this thread. I just wanted to focus on the details of one subject much as i could.

Im still trying to interpret where he stands, he pulled pieces of my post out and referenced them out of context to laugh at them. I still dont have any info as to why he thinks us business people are reluctant to promote or hire women, if he truly believes it's not due to higher risks accociated their kids.

I'm working up an answer here, but let me put this forward.

While there's stuff we agree on, there's also some stuff we have some pretty hefty disagreements on.

Despite the differences (or maybe because of it) I'm interested in what you have to say. I know "the Internet you", and what you have to say has value to me.

The upshot of this is I truly have no interest in getting into a fight. I'm okay if when this conversation ends you haven't changed your opinion, even though I may disagree with that opinion.

Sure, I'm going to try and sway you to my position of thinking, but as soon as that no longer holds interest for you, I'm fine with dropping it.


I say this because I feel you're expecting a fight merely for stating your opinion. I can't speak for anyone else, but that's not where I'm trying to go.

[The Final Shortcut]

Good for you. It appears I am in the only one, but I refuse to let those sort of comments slide.

[subego]

Who's talking about letting things slide?

Making my point is not letting it slide. I'm questioning the value of going to combat over it.

[subego]

@el chupacabra,

Would having more women pursue STEM degrees, and hence getting more of those jobs, be a good thing?

If so, what do you think would be the best way to encourage them?

If not, why not?


If there's some question of yours I'm missing, hit me with it again, and I'll answer.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

I mean it seems to me the government should be training our military leaders to be careful of the statistical biases that can effect equal opportunity, and to be sensitive to cultural, ethnic, and personal difference when fostering relationships, and to avoid making decisions based on or in spite of these biases.

I don't see how "be wary of whitey" imparts the right message to government trainees. It's basically an indictment of perceived wrong doing based on skin color, which sounds an awful lot like racism (or reverse racism if you hold racism to only mean oppression, vs its actual definition of stereotyping by race for good, bad or indifferent).

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say the people who wrote this manual have an axe to grind, and that's ****ing everything up.

What I imagine they're trying to say (if they could get over themselves) is be wary of one's own assumptions.

This is a swell piece of advice, which is why I'm hesitating to go the full nuclear.

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by subego 

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say the people who wrote this manual have an axe to grind, and that's ****ing everything up.

What I imagine they're trying to say (if they could get over themselves) is be wary of one's own assumptions.

This is a swell piece of advice, which is why I'm hesitating to go the full nuclear.

That's exactly my point. High ranking officials that shape the way our military is trained are grinding their axes using public means, and I find this deeply disturbing and troubling for the long term preservation of a free republic. It's not just this, it's an indictment of how corrupt our political process has become and the washing off of serious erosion of the sanctity of our public trust, up to and including now our freaking military. The military is the last thing that should be used as a political pawn and the misappropriation of government outlets to "grind your axe" should not be tolerated by the citizenry of the United States.

If it was merely an administrative oversight to have woefully incompetent people in charge of the training programs to the extent that they use military programs to grind their axes, that suggests a level of incompetence that is spreading from Congress and the executive to the world's only current superpower. It's time we as a people reject this level of incompetence and demand a government that is capable of executing it's duties without eroding the public's trust.

[subego]

Point taken.

[el chupacabra]

… .

[ebuddy]

Women do not get paid as much because they aren't nearly as aggressive as men in seeking higher wages. They also prefer jobs with less travel and lean toward a greater work/life balance. This comes at a cost. Is there a men's club mentality? Sure, just as there are women's club mentalities in any capacity where a tribal-mentality is possible over all. I can tell you that study after study affirms that most men and women prefer to work for men. Studies indicate this is so because men are deemed less competitive and emotionally-charged, more concise and direct, and less driven by personal agenda. I'm not going to pretend such polling constitutes a law of nature, but I can tell you that these traits or lack thereof come at a cost. If this is the perception of women regarding other women, what are men to do to instill a greater sense of fairness in the workplace?

As always, it's much easier to conclude that someone else is holding you back and much more difficult to employ a little introspect and seek to better one's self in the corporate environment -- if that's really what you want, though I'd argue happiness is likely more important and that women might actually be the more shrewd in this.

[subego]

@el chupacabra,

I'm working up questions, but I wanted to answer yours first.

Right off the bat, I want to say I agree with most of your observations to one extent or another.

Is the average woman as motivated by power as the average man? Uhh... not even close. For men, wealth and power is often a means of possessing women. Unless you're a lesbian, that motivator is completely non-existent. Of course, there are other reasons to seek power, and other factors for why someone may or may not do so, I'm only singling this out because it's a big one, and it's right there in everybody's face.

You have the flipside when it comes to pregnancy. As much as a man might want to get pregnant, it's pretty much beyond their ability, just like it's pretty much beyond a woman's ability to attract a man with her wealth and power. Though I'd hazard a guess the latter happens more often than the former.

I'll also throw in the dirty little secret most male feminists don't want to admit. Personally, I've wanted to have sex with a lot of the women I've worked with. I'd be full of shit if I said that didn't throw off my work mojo. Sometimes I honestly wish for "the old days", where you didn't cross the streams. I know I'd get more done.

I think it's important to note all three of these rate pretty highly on the "nature" side of the "nature vs. nurture" debate. IOW, these factors are going to be highly resistant to change

Likewise, I don't know how much we want these things to change. We may desire more control over them, but they're all fundamental building blocks of society. The desire for wealth and power drives us forward. Our "biological clocks" convince us to make the sacrifice entailed by having children...

Wanting to bang everybody may not be the most useful thing ever, but the first two are pretty important.