2blowhards.com: Discrimination in the Theater

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June 24, 2009

Discrimination in the Theater

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Relatively few plays written by women are produced. Can we take this as definitive evidence of discrimination against women? Research has been done:

More men than women write plays, and the men are also often more prolific. Taking these numbers into account, plays by men and women are in fact produced at the same rate.
Plays by women do seem to need to be better (or at least more commercial) than plays by men in order to receive productions. But who enforces this state of affairs? As it turns out: women artistic directors and women literary managers.

Ladies: Sometimes you do it to yourselves.

Best,

Michael

posted by Michael at June 24, 2009

Comments

And if I'm mugged by a white guy, the police can ignore it because "one of my kind" did it?

Why on earth should it matter *who* is doing the harm? It is the harm that we should be trying to stop.

[Sarcasm]I know, I know, men are *constantly* being accused of sexism against women. It's so terrible. Delicate flowers that we are, it wounds us to our very hearts... So now, now we can point to this, and say "See? SEE? IT'S NOT JUST MEN! YOU CAN'T BLAME US ANY MORE. SEE!"[/sarcasm]

Can we be 'real men' enough to acknowledge that sexism is a real problem, understand that men are responsible for the lion's share of the sexism that women encounter, examine our own actions to avoid it ourselves, and smile compassionately when someone claims "sexism is *all* men's fault".

Posted by: Tom West on June 25, 2009 3:24 PM

Since it is not men responsible for "the lion's share" of this particular instance of "sexism", what would have us men do? Tell the women doing the discriminating to just stop it?

If harm is being done (a premise you seem to hold but which isn't justified by anything in the story), then isn't it incumbent on you, or anyone else, to address your concerns to those doing the harming? Unless, as so many "anti-sexist" men seem to believe, you think women should not be held responsible for their own actions?

Posted by: PatrickH on June 25, 2009 4:32 PM

Ugh! God, please tell me. Why did you put idiots like Tom West on this earth?

You're giving Chris White a run for his money, Tom.

I'd try to reason with you, but what would be the use of that?

Let's skip to the chase. Over the long haul, the Muslim Jihadists are going to win. I don't know what I think of that. It's a tough choice between them and the likes of Tom West. And, it's not my choice to make either. It's in God's hands.

The bizarre stupidity that has overtaken the intellectual class of the West (Tom West!)... what can you say about it? It is beyond comic.

It's difficult to find the right name to call you, Tom. Pussified? Brain dead wimp? Asinine narcissist? Mental defective? I often ask men like you: "When you cut your balls off, did you make sure to use a rusty knife?" All of this falls short. It's almost impossible to find a foul enough description of the collapse of this type of western man.

The decadence and intellectual rot of western intellectuals is terminal. We deserve to die. We're headed toward a well-deserved catastrophe.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on June 25, 2009 7:14 PM

I might add that it is equally fascinating that the U.S. has been threatened directly with nuclear attack by two different nations, Iran and North Korea, in the past day.

It says something about just how deeply the intellectual West has fallen into decadence and narcissism that this has gone almost unnoticed. As a commenter said the other day (and I believe it was Tom West), war is a voluntary choice.

It only took three generations of affluence for the West to collapse into this abject stupidity. I knew that this has happened repeatedly throughout history, but somehow I thought that it took longer than, basically, 60 years.

We are moving very quickly toward being incapable of even defending ourselves... and even worse, we barely even acknowledge that defending one's self is a tragic reality of life.

The spoiled brat party is about to end. In fact, it has already. Anybody noticed?

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on June 25, 2009 7:53 PM

Heh, perhaps this is just a results of HBD. Sorry ladies.

By the way.

WTF is Shouting Thomas smoking and can I get me some of it? Unable to defend ourselves?! I'd say our 1.5 million strong active military and 1.5 million reserves (fit for military service are estimated to be 60 million men), our $651 billion spent annually, our ability to project force anywhere in the world and all of our shiny tanks, aircraft carriers, missiles, etc. pretty much say that we can defend ourselves.

Posted by: I_Affe on June 25, 2009 8:20 PM

"The spoiled brat party is about to end. In fact, it has already. Anybody noticed?"

You and I both. We are living in the fin of the fucking fin de siecle. The keg is kicked, the bar closed and the dishes are DONE. I can smell the fucking rot all around.
Meanwhile, the usual clowns are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic (Will the blacks like the curtains? Maybe we should print the menus in Espanol? Did we have a female written play scheduled tonight?) in complete oblivion/denial. Funny and pathetic all at once...

Posted by: Nobody on June 25, 2009 9:08 PM

I'll admit, I don't give two shits about whether plays written by women are getting produced more or less than those by men. As Micheal mentions, literary agents are mostly women and there are probably an equal distribution of men and women in artistic director positions, so women are well represented in the theater.

Can I digress a bit and mention what I think is the most telling bit of media about sexual differences currently running? It's this Heineken commercial (for some reason I can only find the Dutch version, but even if you haven't seen it, you can get the gist). The premise is that a couple is having a party at their new house and are showing off the custom details. The wife is showing her female friends a walk-in closet dedicated to clothes and they squeal with delight. Suddenly, they hear a bunch of guys screaming and are immediately taken out of the joyful moment they were having in order to find out just what the men are so damn happy about. They find the men, who are screaming about the walk-in cooler full of beer, totally unconcerned about what the women are doing.

I think this speaks volumes.

Posted by: JV on June 25, 2009 9:26 PM

Really! Read this.

Who's going to steer that aircraft carrier?

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on June 25, 2009 10:11 PM

Broadway and the commercial biz share one characteristic: those universes are almost entirely the preserve of gay men.

So, JV, don't be too sure that that commercial reflects the reality of heterosexual men and women. I find it a lot more likely that it reflects the views of gay men.

I think it is very unlikely that the men reading those scripts are hetero.

So, let's be honest about what universe we're discussing: the world of the fags and fag hags.

That crowd loathes the traditions of hetero love, sex and relationship. And, they consider themselves exempt from the demands for fairness that they make on heteros. Homosexuals in the gay ghettos of Manhattan feel very strongly that they have the right to self-segregation. That's what they moved to Manhattan to experience.

The demand for diversity and integration only extends to those they want to punish.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on June 25, 2009 10:23 PM

our $651 billion spent annually, our ability to project force anywhere in the world and all of our shiny tanks, aircraft carriers, missiles, etc. pretty much say that we can defend ourselves

Vietnam.

None of it means jack if the head is rotten.

Posted by: slumlord on June 25, 2009 10:43 PM

ST, the scenario in the that commercial I find to be quite indicative of the hetero men and women I know, regardless of the most-likely gay people behind the production.

Posted by: JV on June 25, 2009 11:25 PM

Michael--

Relatively few plays written by women are produced. Can we take this as definitive evidence of discrimination against women?

I couldn't care less and think it's absurd that anyone would.

Now if you could show me that absolutely brilliant and revelatory plays by women are not being produced and it didn't just happen once or twice but it's a regular thing, which absolute dreck and mediocrity written by men is produced all over the place, well then, yeah, I'd care.

That hasn't been true for 100 years or more, seems to me.

Among the reasons that women tend to be less represented among the brilliant is that they don't have to be to get laid or to get laid by a really attractive member of the opposite sex and in fact it doesn't really even help in that and probably hurts. Doing something kind of high status but not absolutely brilliant does help women attract very attractive men somewhat, so guess what, that's what they tend to do, by and large.

Oh. This ain't never gonna change. What's more, it's probably receding from the high water mark of women thinking that widespread super high career effort was most advantageous to them, right about now.

Posted by: doug1 on June 26, 2009 1:38 AM

So the gay men of Broadway aren't very good at discriminating against women. Interesting, but I wonder whether it would also be true of straight men.

Posted by: Martin Regnen on June 26, 2009 4:30 AM

The problem with these discrimination arguments was identified a while ago by Gary Becker, the Nobel-winning economist from U of Chicago.

Applied to playwrights: if there's discrimination, then worthwhile plays are being written by women, but rejected for production. Where? On Broadway, presumably. But then it would make these plays available for production elsewhere...and remember, these are supposed to be really good plays. But apparently, discrimination is so universal that NOT ONE playhouse accepts the play for production, despite its excellence. All because it was written by a woman.

The Summers math scenario: suppose his critics are right who say there aren't enough female math profs at Harvard because Harvard math discriminates against them. Well then, even just to apply for a job at Harvard, you've got to be in the nano-atto-femto-picoth percent of applicants in terms of your ability.

But Harvard (Broadway/Corporate America) rejects you! Because you're a woman! Well then, it seems that a second-tier university has a real bargain going for it, doesn't it? Snap up the Harvard rejects, who will be absolutely brilliant at math, and hire them for your faculty. Bingo! World-class math faculty, and at a lower salary than Harvard would have paid.

But they don't hire these castoff geniuses. Anymore than regional or local playhouses produce the castoff genius women playwrights. Or rival corps hire rejected but brilliant women execs.

There's a much simpler explanation for all of this supposed (self-destructive and apparently UNIVERSAL) discrimination against women: it's not there. There are no legions of rejected female geniuses, not in any field where there's a paucity of female representation.

The whole discrimination/systemic bias approach is a lie designed to hide the fact that women simply don't appear in large numbers at the highest levels of accomplishment in many areas of life (not just because of lack of ability; almost certainly as and maybe more important is lack of motivation, as in the kind of monomaniacal obssesion kind of motivation that is an integral part of high-level accomplishment).

Under-representation of women is never a problem in any area of life: art, science, business, politics. Never. Non-issue.

Posted by: PatrickH on June 26, 2009 10:25 AM

I wouldn't imagine that most theatergoers particularly notice or care much about the writer's identity. Serious theatergoers, as opposed to casual tourist types, might be different, and there are some famous writers whose names might be a draw, but by and large it just doesn't matter too much.

Posted by: Peter on June 26, 2009 11:02 AM

I have a great deal of respect for that commercial. So many commercials these days involve humiliating men at the expense of women. This is especially true in commercials depicting families, the "doofus dad" scenario, though it is not restricted to them. This Heineken commercial vividly (and quite accurately if in an exaggerated manner) illustrates the differences between the sexes, but does so without making the men look like idiots ... or, at least, no more idiotic than the women.

Posted by: Peter on June 26, 2009 11:09 AM

"But they don't hire these castoff geniuses. Anymore than regional or local playhouses produce the castoff genius women playwrights. Or rival corps hire rejected but brilliant women execs."

I see the logic of your argument, but, honestly, I don't think it would work that way, even if there were hordes of cast-off geniuses around. The follow-the-leader mentality is too entrenched among the second-tier institutions.

You remember that controversy about the McMichael Gallery north of Toronto, right? Its charter (or whatever) basically mandated them to focus on the Group of Seven and other relatively traditional painters. The board badly wanted to break the charter, to turn it into a clone of the edgy galleries on Spadina Avenue downtown. How did that make sense? They had a lock on a very popular niche market. (Well, "niche" is an understatement - that niche may be bigger than the mainstream, for the public at large.) The explanation is that they could not bear the shame of curating un-cool art.

Same applies to these other scenarios. The second-tier are wounded by their failure to make the first tier, and while in principle they could rebel and pursue countervailing strategies (as you suggest they might), in reality they are the worst conformists.

Posted by: intellectual pariah on June 26, 2009 12:55 PM

PatrichH

Yeah. Well said.

Under-representation of women is never a problem in any area of life: art, science, business, politics. Never. Non-issue.

Yuuup.

First and foremost because of the way the getting laid / attracting permanent mates from the opposite sex who are real hotties cuts for males and female respectively.

There are of course other motivations for work, such as supporting oneself and perhaps children, independence, work satisfaction, colleagues and mental stimulation. All of that works for women as well as men, and women do well at work. Very well and on average just as well or maybe better in some or many kinds of modern bureaucratic work things.

It's as you say the manic dedication sides of excelling in fields that don't showcase a woman's femine attractiveness (the way that acting or singing or modeling does) where though some women participate in that way too, many fewer do. And always will.

Hopefully they will still less in the less feminist future.

Posted by: doug1 on June 26, 2009 1:53 PM

Under-representation of women is never a problem in any area of life: art, science, business, politics. Never. Non-issue.

Wow. Life must be simpler when complex social phenomena have one and only one explanation that is responsible for everything.

While I suppose it's inevitable that the "any possible difference in outcomes is the result of sexism" crowd has to have its counterpart in foolishness on the opposite end of the spectrum, it's pretty surprising to see it spelled out as boldly as you did, Patrick.

I'd smile compassionately on your claim too, except if you're a white male like me, you've never suffered any sexism or racism that might have injured you enough to excuse the foolishness of your position.

Posted by: Tom West on June 26, 2009 3:07 PM

Tom West,

Boy, Shouting Thomas hit the nail on the head with you. You are without question the most ignorant and feminine dimwit that I've ever seen post here.

Hey moron, name me one institution in the United States or Canada where it is permitted to discriminate against women or minorities? Now, every single one those institutions actively and overtly discriminates agaianist white men. Did you notice that dumbass?

How in the world can anyone be so completely out of touch with reality? How is that humanly possible? Reality is exactly 180 degrees from what you claim it is, so where on earth did you did you get the idea that women and minorites are getting the shaft? Have you been asleep for 40 years or so?

Well, Tommy West got his brain full of mush from television and the media. And Tommy is so grossly ignorant and unaware as to believe that day is night. He saw it on TeeVee! It must be so!

It would be one thing to debate somebody who has some idea of what he is talking about. But you are a complete moron. You have absolutely no business lecturing anybody here about the real world.

And if you think that's too strong, prove me wrong, that ALL institutional racism in North America is IN FAVOR OF WOMEN AND MINORITIES. Did you read that Tommy?

So get that wet noodle of yours working and prove me wrong. I'll wait.

Posted by: B on June 27, 2009 12:25 AM

Actually, B, despite the invective, you make a good point. If Patrick has personally suffered from government sanctioned gender or racial policy and that has been enough to run his worldview off the rails of logic then, yes, I'll look at his claim and smile with compassion as well.

On the other hand, if he hasn't, I'll look upon his claim with the same contempt that I do for people who espouse the belief that "sexism and racism are responsible for everything" while having suffered neither.

Unlike many people here, I don't believe the proper response to those who would try to hold you responsible for everything is to claim you are responsible for nothing.

Posted by: Tom West on June 27, 2009 1:34 PM

Unlike many people here, I don't believe the proper response to those who would try to hold you responsible for everything is to claim you are responsible for nothing.

Did it ever occur to you that you shouldn't be holding anybody responsible at all?

I find it amazing that the left is all for the despicable evil called "social justice"--the idea that any given person of a group is responsible for any actions of another member of the group. That's not justice at all--it's the very definition of bigotry!

"Social justice" is an oxymoron because there is never any justice--innocent people are constantly punished for nothing, over and over again, till the end of time. Nothing is ever resolved. There is no such thing as "social justice", just individual justice. You abandoned one of the most hard-fought of human rights for a warm, fuzzy feeling of bigotry. A bigotry you never hope to be on the wrong end of. How sickening!

Mind your own business Tom. For the last 40 years, no groups in history have enjoyed the unjustified priveledges of women and minorities in white countires (soon to be formerly white countries).

If white men are all guilty Tom, tell me when you pay. When do you pay, when do you take the hit? Or were you hoping on escaping the punishment you like to dish out, standing on the sidelines and feeling morally superior?

Good job Tom! You are exactly what you say you hate--a big fat bigot. That's you--a bigoted racist! You're just bigoted against people like yourself, so that's okay. What a coward! Take the hit Tom! Don't just admit your guilt--take your punishment, like you want everybody else to do!

Posted by: B on June 27, 2009 5:55 PM

Unlike many people here, I don't believe the proper response to those who would try to hold you responsible for everything is to claim you are responsible for nothing.

Ah, the let's meet in the middle argument. Compromise is the language of the Devil. If I'm responsible for something then it's my duty to take the rap. On the other hand, if I'm not my accusers can go jump. Now, is there any proof that sexism is responsible for a lack of female achievement. Or it it just possible that a lot of them are crap.

Men like to regale each other with stories of success against the odds, women like to complain of how they don't get enough support, perhaps the perceived "sexism" is due to this fact of human nature.

Posted by: slumlord on June 27, 2009 6:37 PM

Did it ever occur to you that you shouldn't be holding anybody responsible at all?

In fact, no. A society without any collective sense of responsibility is anarchy. it is a society without laws, morals or ethics.

the idea that any given person of a group is responsible for any actions of another member of the group.

I am confused. *Nothing* I have said has indicated the I hold any group collectively responsible for wrong-doings. Note, all four of the things I suggested as a correct course of action are *individual* responsibilities.

Mind your own business Tom.

Sorry, but our society is my concern as much as is it yours. We will both push (in whatever minor way) for a society that fits our ethics and mores.

If white men are all guilty Tom

Somehow you are mistaking my remarks that white men like us are unlikely to suffer career and personality altering discrimination with the idea that I think that we should be punished. You are mistaken.

Nor do I think that white males are especially likely to be more sexist or racist than other individuals. However, they are far more likely to be in a position of dominance such that such sexism or racism that does occur will have a much more pronounced effect on individuals. And more likely, non-whites or females are more likely not to be in positions of power that help shelter them from the effects of any racism or sexism they might encounter.

Once again, I don't hold individuals responsible for the wrong-doing of other individuals. But I will certainly claim that individuals have the responsibility to examine their own behaviour.

On the other hand, if you don't believe sexism or racism exist, then there's not much I can do for you, except to suggest you talk to a women or a black person. Of course most haven't been damaged by the sexism or racism they've encountered, but very few will deny they've encountered it.

slumlord: Men like to regale each other with stories of success against the odds, women like to complain of how they don't get enough support, perhaps the perceived "sexism" is due to this fact of human nature.

Fine, then treat men as they'd like to be treated, and treat women as they'd like to be treated. Shouldn't be too hard for a capable man like yourself.

Posted by: Tom West on June 27, 2009 10:53 PM

"Men like to regale each other with stories of success against the odds, women like to complain of how they don't get enough support, perhaps the perceived "sexism" is due to this fact of human nature."

That's pretty fucking true, on average. Always outliers, of course, but we can't base our lives on the outliers. They will fail and succeed in extreme measures regardless.

Posted by: JV on June 27, 2009 11:00 PM

And more likely, non-whites or females are more likely not to be in positions of power that help shelter them from the effects of any racism or sexism they might encounter.

On the other hand, if you don't believe sexism or racism exist, then there's not much I can do for you, except to suggest you talk to a women or a black person.

So, I'm supposed to go by unsupported anecdotal stories instead of where the overt institutional racism is that applies to millions and millions of (white) people? Okay, sure Tom. So let's go back to my original challenge.

You contend that minorities and women are discriminated against, and that they need "protection" by ignorant busybodies like you.

I make the opposite contention. That for the last 40 years, everybody else in the US and Canada are discrimnated against for the benefit of women and minorities.

Now, I'll marshall all the eveidence that supports my thesis, and you marshall all the evidence that supports your thesis, and we'll see who's right.

Ready to put up or shutup Tom?

You have absolutely no business screwing with other people's lives if they have committed no crime. Can we accuse you and punish you for a crime you didn't commit? See, you ran away from that one, Tom. When do YOU pay Tom? You're just as guilty as everybody else. When do you pay? Time to start slithering away again.

The answer is, of course, that you never pay, because you are the man with two sets of rules--one for yourself and one for everybody else. You are the ultimate hypocrite. You say you're for justice, then you support screwing completely innocent people (except yourself, of course). Then you pat yourself on the back for being a good person! What a joke!

You think that what you see on TV is real! Hahahahahaha! You're no different from a child--a CHILD! How completely do you have your head shoved up your ass to believe something 180 degrees opposite of reality? What world do you live in? Holy crap, what a clown!

Posted by: B on June 28, 2009 1:07 AM

Perhaps you dashing gentlemen should read the link I posted above.

A white man must score 100 points higher on the SAT test than a black man to be considered for appointment to the Naval Academy. That same white man must have completed high school with an A average, while that black man need only amass a C average.

This deliberate racist and sexist discrimination against white men is the law of the land. Would you any of smug, ever so liberal motherfuckers care to dispute this?

I long ago gave up trying to figure out what in the fuck melted the brains of idiots like Tom West, who pride themselves on debonair disregard for the screwing of their own kind. All I can hope is that, one day, Tom is gloriously screwed by the quota system. He's got it coming. I hope that he takes it like a man, smug sanctimony intact.

South Park made an episode about the narcissist white liberal who can't get enough of smelling his own farts. It's called "Smug Attack." Visit their site. The entire episode is available online.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on June 28, 2009 8:35 AM

Shouting Thomas--

Here, here.

The place to START is to eliminate all affirmative action of all kinds for women. Immediately.

It's ludicrous.

It's also socially destructive.

Most women have a strong sense of hypergamy, despite continuing feminist and hence accordingly some media mythologizing to the contrary. That is most women want to marry and only stay married to a man with equal but hopefully somewhat higher status particularly in the job world and equal but hopefully at least somewhat higher money earning chops than they have. Sometimes they don't think so due to that feminist propaganda but then discover so and get divorced.

Men on the other hand, want something entirely congruent with female hypergamy -- to marry and remain with a woman who earns less and has at least a bit less job status, but is as pretty as he can manage and still have her be real attracted to him.

How is affirmative action for women helpful to family formation and cohesion given this basic fact of human and female nature.

Part of ending affirmative action for women would be doing away with the disparate impact test of the EEOC in their interpretation of title IX, as applied to women, to begin with.

(Then as the next step, do away with all affirmative action for immigrants or the children of immigrants, legal or illegal. It's obscene. To get technical about it, we could define an immigrant as anyone who immigrated to the US after the civil rights law was passed in 1964.)

The Senate letting affirmative action zealot Sotomayor onto the Supreme Court will not be helpful to this cause.

Posted by: doug1 on June 28, 2009 10:41 AM

Tom "Call Me Bwana" West: *Nothing* I have said has indicated the I hold any group collectively responsible for wrong-doings.
[...]
Nor do I think that white males are especially likely to be more sexist or racist than other individuals. However, they are far more likely to be in a position of dominance such that such sexism or racism that does occur will have a much more pronounced effect on individuals.

Let me see if I can get this straight. You believe that white men didn't invent racism and sexism, and furthermore are no more likely to exhibit these attitudes than non-white non-males. At the same time you appear to decry the concept of "collective guilt". Yet still one group is somehow "more guilty" of these universal human failings, such that that, say, the decidedly down-on-his-luck po' white guy I spotted in town yesterday owes some mysterious, social-morality-balancing expiation to, say, our desi cardiologist, since some intrinsic quality of "dominance" inheres in the former's being. Ah, I begin to perceive the distinction: you don't hold "any group collectively responsible for wrong-doings" of that specific group. But the individuals of one particular group are to be held responsible not for the failings of other members of their group (that would be wrong), but - stay with me now to catch the difference - for the besetting sins of the entire freaking human race.

It's all clear now. Insane, but clear.

On the other hand, if you don't believe sexism or racism exist, then there's not much I can do for you, except to suggest you talk to a women or a black person.

C'mon, guys! Break out of that tight-ass, Thurston Howell/Mt. Athos existence of yours. Take a walk on the wild side with Tom and talk to an actual female person or black person! I know none of you have ever had such a mind-bending experience but Bwana can show the way!

How nice that you to talk to us, though, Tom. I always find it so entertaining to be patronized by idiots.

Nobody: We are living in the fin of the fucking fin de siecle. The keg is kicked, the bar closed and the dishes are DONE. I can smell the fucking rot all around.

Meanwhile, the usual clowns are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic (Will the blacks like the curtains? Maybe we should print the menus in Espanol? Did we have a female written play scheduled tonight?) in complete oblivion/denial. Funny and pathetic all at once...

Nothing to add, I just enjoyed the comment. Clowns. We are ruled by clowns. The best and brightest of clowns.

Posted by: Moira Breen on June 28, 2009 11:42 AM

From Tom West

Comment 1:
In fact, no. A society without any collective sense of responsibility is anarchy. it is a society without laws, morals or ethics.

Comment 2:
*Nothing* I have said has indicated the I hold any group collectively responsible for wrong-doings. Note, all four of the things I suggested as a correct course of action are *individual* responsibilities.

Orwell would have called this type of of thinking "Doublethink": The ability to hold two mutually contradictory thoughts in one's head without noticing the difference. Only one sentence separates the two statements, it's pretty impressive Tom. Appropriately it's "I'm confused."

Orwell correctly identified this ability as a prerequisite of the totalitarian mind.

Posted by: Slumlord on June 28, 2009 5:50 PM

To quote:
Black males on average still receive 40% lower wages a week than that of whites, even if they have the same schooling and job experience. In 1960, white males made $700 more than blacks if both had less than elementary level education. Furthermore, blacks were paid on average $1400 less than whites if both had a high school diploma. These stats rise even higher if both receive a college degree; whites were paid $3800 more than blacks.

- Source: Wright, Erik (1978) Race, Class, and Income Inequality. [Electronic Version]. The University of Chicago, 1368-1373

B & ST, I'll believe that discrimination against white males is a serious problem when a good number of white males grow up wishing they were lucky enough to be black or female...

B, I'm not certain what you mean by paying. Have I gotten every job or educational opportunity I applied for? No. Have I paid? Don't know.

Secondly, I don't consider the goal of AA and other such programs to be the 'punishment' of white males. I believe that there's a strong social good to be had in avoiding a society that is even more stratified by race than it currently is and I am willing to see programs put in place to promote that.

Does it come with a social cost? Of course, every program does. Is that cost borne disproportionately by whites? Yes - then again income taxes are borne disproportionately by the rich.

All programs have a social cost. We have electricity because of our willingness to forcibly remove people from their homes to run power lines. We accept the cost of that social good. Do those who lose out in AA 'deserve' that fact? No, no more than the person who loses his house for a power line or a road deserves that fact. It is simply that we, as a society, have (currently) decided that it is a cost that is worth the social good that the program provides.

Do I expect everyone to share my evaluation of the costs and benefits of AA? Again, no. That's why we have elections.

disregard for the screwing of their own kind.

Come on, ST. You've got more in common with most black men than you have with white liberals like me. For me, "my kind" is the entire society that my children and I live in. Surprisingly enough, that means I have a stake in *everybody*'s future. That includes the long term. And in the long term, I don't think my descendants will be served by a highly racially or gender stratified society.

How nice that you to talk to us, though, Tom. I always find it so entertaining to be patronized by idiots.

Come on, Moira - B and Patrick are claiming that there's no discrimination against women or non-whites? Seriously?

I'm hoping that's the sort of claim you can't possibly say to someone you're looking in the eye who has *actually* been lived that discrimination.

Even the most right-wing women I know acknowledge it happens. They just figure everyone should be strong enough to shrug it off.

As for being entertained by idiots, well, if it wasn't for the idiots, there'd hardly be any comments here at all, well except for ST. I'm certain he'd still have something to say. And as for "Call me Bwana"... ouch.

Posted by: Tom West on June 28, 2009 6:20 PM

Tom West,

Holy shit, that statistic is over 30 years old! What attic did you pull that garbage out of Tommy? Do you have a calendar? Its almost 2010. Rip van Winkle West!

B & ST, I'll believe that discrimination against white males is a serious problem when a good number of white males grow up wishing they were lucky enough to be black or female...

I see you backed out of my challenge once again Tom! You are the biggest puss I've ever met!

NAME ONE SINGLE INSTITUTION, ACADEMIC,GOVERNMENTAL, CORPORATE, CULTURAL, OR OTHERWISE, IN THE UNITED STATES OR CANADA, WHERE WHITE MEN ARE NOT RACIALLY AND SEXUALLY DISCRIMINATED AGAINST FOR THE BENEFIT OF MINORITIES AND WOMEN! JUST ONE!

You are a lying hypocrite! You say you are against racial and sexual discrimination, yet you back it 100%. You say you are for justice, yet you think innocent people should be punished for somebody else's misdeeds. You say that all white men owe a debt to women and minorities, yet you never pay. You don't even know what decade it is! You are a despicable liar!

Shove you head back up your rear end and keep watching the TeeVee, where they tell you day is night, up is down, and black is white. You are a clown who has no grasp of reality and you have no business getting into any kind of debate with any body. Save your sanctimony for somebody else.

You live in a media-induced psychosis.

Posted by: B on June 28, 2009 7:19 PM

Tom West,

You are, quite simply, a complete liar and a sanctimonious fool

No, discrimination against women and black is virtually non-existent in this society. Black men are in the fix they're in because they spend their time playing basketball instead of concentrating on school. Half of them are in jail. The problems of black people are entirely of their own making. (Well, white liberals like you played a significant role in the destruction of black families with that dumb habit of always offering them an excuse.)

You speak in horseshit cliches that have nothing to do with reality.

How old are you? Have you ever lived among blacks?

Once again, I nominate you to be the one to get screwed for your great social ideals. You're busy giving away admission to school and jobs that other white men work for. Damn you.

You aren't a righteous, idealistic, well-meaning person. You are the lowest of scoundrels. Quit preening your halo. Black people don't need your condescension. The dissolution of the black family was caused by lowlife scoundrels like you, pretending that you had something in mind other than your own halo.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on June 28, 2009 7:31 PM

I notice even the most robust anti-PCers usually prefer to have this discussion without being so ungracious as to bring in psychometrics. (Except on dedicated race science/politics sites like Sailer's.)

But it can't be avoided. So I'll take the plunge: Tom, maybe the pay of blacks is lower because of thier lower average IQs vs whites and asians (even at a given level of education).

By the way, this is not purely a white or a white gentile issue. It's likely that American northeast asians and jews give up spots at Harvard (etc) for whites to take.

Posted by: blue anonymous on June 28, 2009 7:42 PM

Tom Tom the prancing man:

I'd smile compassionately on your claim too, except if...

Up to the "except if..." every word of that was a lie. Especially "compassionately".

On the other hand, if he hasn't, I'll look upon his claim with the same contempt...

Better. More honest. Keep going and eventually you'll drop the weepy mask and let a "Payback"-style comment slip out.

God. Liberals. I can be a cold-hearted bastard, but I'm never so cold of heart as a liberal in one of his fits of compassion.

The feeling you get when you look into the soul of a liberal gives a whole new depth of meaning to the word Brrrrrr.

Posted by: PatrickH on June 28, 2009 9:34 PM

You say you are for justice, yet you think innocent people should be punished for somebody else's misdeeds. You say that all white men owe a debt to women and minorities, yet you never pay.

B, I'm not certain what you've been reading, but I've said *exactly* the opposite in all of my postings. It's you that insist that AA policies are punishment. I *do* consider the injustice perpetrated by AA policies to be worth the social good they bring to society at large. Note, I don't consider taxes a punishment of the rich, and do consider the injustice of people being forcibly parted from their money to be worth the social good taxes bring as well.

You'll also note that my justifications for support of AA doesn't depend on *any* guilty parties.

And of course I don't take on your challenge because we are, thank God, mostly past the era of institutionalized racism. (Although I'm certain someone on the far-left would pillory me for my blindness.)

However, claiming that racism or sexism doesn't exist is almost unbelievable. Could you honestly look these people in the eye and tell each of them that they're lying?

Crikey, *I've* witnessed enough sexism and racism just by having acquaintances 'sharing their insights' about women and other races. Nothing like a science teacher confiding that 'women don't get math'.

Sure, many if not most manage to ignore the idiots. But claiming that it doesn't exist? Unbelievable!

Posted by: Tom West on June 28, 2009 10:25 PM

Michael Blowhard would certainly be interested by The Woman Racket by Steve Moxon; which is a very hard-hitting book that looks at womens' social position from an evolutionary psychology standpoint.

http://www.amazon.com/Woman-Racket-Science-Explaining-Society/dp/1845401506/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246250623&sr=1-1

Moxon's summary of the literature on women in management is consistent with this press report: the main systematic distortion is that women don't like working for women managers.

There are two aspects to the general phenomenon:

1. men and women are different, human expectations have these differences built-in; and research which assumes that the results for men and women *ought* to be the same in the absence of 'discrimination' is usually flawed. It is usually rational to assume some degree of pre-defined sex difference as the null hypothesis.

2. Women (as the high investing in offspring, therefore reproductively rate-limiting, sex) are *favoured*, systematically, over men in most situations. This is massively obvious unless one's brain has been disabled by PC - sadly this disablement applies to most intellectuals.

The group systematicaly disfavoured are not women but low status men, who are biologically disposable (because it is high status men that reproduce and low status men tend to have a higher load of deleteriousgene mutations); and tend to be treated as such. Men are in competition with each other, so don't care about other men per se, except as potential allies - which favours high status men; women prefer high status men as having better genes.

Moxon sees modern equal-outcomes feminism as a strategy to gain even more advantage for the small minority of status-seeking women.

Posted by: bgc on June 29, 2009 12:48 AM

As long as YOU don't pay, right Tom?

I've read what you said, and what social good is there is racially and sexually discriminating against every white man but you? That blacks can get a job? Correct me if I'm wrong, but how did women and blacks survive before AA? Are you stupid enough to think that they are children who can't do anything if it isn't given to them?

Not only are you a closet racist and bigot, you think that widespread race and sex discrimination is just fine. You are a LIAR! Tom West is a LIAR, a BIGOT, and a HYPOCRITE! Tom West thinks blacks are children! Tom West thinks women are helpless waifs! What a joke!

And of course I don't take on your challenge because we are, thank God, mostly past the era of institutionalized racism.

You won't take on my challenge because you know you'll lose. Otherwise, you would jump at the chance to show how smart you are.

And how can you say that instituional racism is gone when institutional racism against white men explicitly and overtly exists IN EVERY SINGLE INSTITUTION--ACADEMIC,GOVERNMENTAL, CORPORATE, CULTURAL, OR OTHERWISE, IN THE ENTIRE WESTERN WORLD!

You have no grasp of reality if you can't see this obvious fact. You indeed are broken away from reality. You are clinically psychotic.

And you know, your psychosis is completely voluntary because you simply believe what you see on TV. And you revel in your psychosis because you think it makes you look good to other psychotics.

I can't believe that you don't see this. How is that possible?

Posted by: B on June 29, 2009 1:53 AM

Nothing like a science teacher confiding that 'women don't get math'.

Obviously that's an idiomatic and hyperbolic expression in any case. But once again, you don't even consider the inequalitarian possibility, here the possibility that men might actually average modestly better at math than women. Sober and rather convincing examinations of the subject do exist, such as La Griffe du Lion's latest essay. You remember Larry Summers getting fired, right?

You write as if you were an equalitarian fundamentalist. That's fine. I'm not for quite 100.00% reality and truth on all matters, myself. But what is the point of people who are realists on this point having an aggressive debate with an irrealist.

Posted by: blue anonymous on June 29, 2009 7:14 AM

I can't believe that you don't see this. How is that possible?

The other great intellectual pathology of the Left is self-censorship or willful disregard of evidence which does not concord with their world view. Willed intellectual blindness.

The underlying assumption in this debate is that women are just as good playwrights as men and that their lack of representation in the actually produced theater is as a result of some plot, scheme, etc. If we could remove this discrimination then the natural brilliance of women would shine.

The problem with this assumption is that it has no basis in reality. Men and women differ and races differ when analysed by whatever criteria. IQ testing within white communities show that the IQ of men and women differ not in mean but in deviation. There tends to be less deviation from the mean with women than with men. Mathematically there are more men that are stupider than women, and more men that are smarter than women. This ain't my opinion, it's math.

Now if the business end of intellectual achievement is at the far right of the Bell curve, mathematically there are simply going to be more men than women there amongst any ethnic group.

Like it or not Tom West, human beings are not born equal, some of their inequality is circumstantial but quite a lot of it is "hard wired". Pretending that it isn't there (under the guise of "compassion") is a recipe for social disaster.

Posted by: Slumlord on June 29, 2009 10:38 AM

Just to return to the actual subject of the posting for a sec:

Observe that it turns out that, where raw numbers go, this study shows that there is no bias against playwrights of either sex. Given the numbers of people writing plays, and given the numbers of plays these people are writing, plays by women and plays by men get produced at just about the rate you'd expect.

What this study showed, in other words, was that the theatergals who were complaining about discrimination against gal playwrights were COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT THE FACTS.

(All jokes about the way many women are prone to whining, bitching, feeling picked-on, and complaining about being treated unfairly to one side, of course ... And all subversive thoughts about how one group that may be wildly underrepresented in the theaterworld these days is straight white males un-indulged-in, natch ...)

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on June 29, 2009 11:12 AM

Just as the plays are not being written and submitted by women, so too women are not applying for PhD positions in Harvard math, or getting to the candidate stage for high-level positions in business, politics, and any other area where they are allegedly underrepresented.

Hence the fallback position of the discriminationists: the discrimination is "systemic" or "institutional" or "structural", which is to say you can't find any evidence for it other than the different levels of representation the discrimination hypothesis is supposed to explain in the first place.

The basic method of the discriminationizers is: compare proportion of Group of Interest XX in area at issue (plays, science, etc) to proportion of Group of Interest XX in overall population. Lower proportion in area at issue than in population, then voila! Discriminatificationizing is responsible!

Women are around 1/2 of pop, therefore, if women are not represented at that level in playwriting, science -- anything with prestige, money, status or attention devoted to it -- then women are being discriminated against. The evidence for the discrimination? Fewer than half of (playwrights, scientists) are women! Quod [Non] Erat Demonstrandum.

There is no getting through this hermetically sealed ideological fortress. There's too much money, power and status involved, or you have bizarrely pathologically sincere minds like Tom West's, who seems incapable of even answering a single point directly.

He's worse than Chris White, if that's possible. Although Chris, I do value your contribution to the blog very much.

Posted by: PatrickH on June 29, 2009 11:38 AM

Obviously that's an idiomatic and hyperbolic expression in any case.

Sadly, it was an almost exact quote (I think he said girls instead of women). It would help if the same attitude hadn't been almost universally held by the male 1st year student I TA'd in university. It drove the best student in my section (who was female) into a different discipline because she didn't need the hassle. (Bad news for science, good news for a medical school.)

But once again, you don't even consider the inequalitarian possibility, here the possibility that men might actually average modestly better at math than women.

I doubt it's truth, but for the sake of argument, let's say it's true. Human society has extremely powerful equivalents of "network effects". We develop biases, and then we enforce them mercilessly along with a heavy dose of confirmation bias. Being in the sciences, I saw a number of women drop out of the field simply because the field wasn't rewarding enough to put up with having to 'prove' oneself every single day, with any missteps remembered as proof of what the judger already knew.

That's how you turn what might 'naturally' have been a 60-40 bias into a 98-2 bias, and why I think AA or Diversity programs have a place in contemporary society.

It's also why I think Summers richly deserved to get let go. His comments may or may not have been factually accurate. It doesn't matter, because how it was taken was that "Even the president of Harvard says women aren't good at Physics". And that attitude damaged women across the country who were involved in or interested in the hard sciences.

As someone who is in a public position, he's responsible for how is remarks are taken, not just what they said.

Like it or not Tom West, human beings are not born equal, some of their inequality is circumstantial but quite a lot of it is "hard wired".

SL, I'll not argue the point because it's immaterial. By studiously ignoring what I'm writing, everyone has decided that I believe that -isms are responsible for anything that deviates from total equality. However, I will certainly claim that circumstantial inequality is not negligible and the severe stratification that we see now is in part due to the 'network effects' that I mentioned above.

I consider AA/diversity programs to be a pretty minimal imposition to alleviate a natural human bias to make a small inequality a large one. Of course, you are free to disagree. We'll meet at the ballot box :-).

As for disastrous effect on society, really, if reserving 15% of positions is going to destroy society, then we weren't going to last too long anyway. Honestly, I think that as a society, we're robust enough to handle it. Would we consider it the end of the world if 15% of the positions simply disappeared?

Personally, I think the social damage that would be done by having very little
representation from all aspects of society at large to be vastly higher.

Michael, I have to admit, I know very little about theater. My initial comment was directed, as I said earlier, to the fact that the coda to the posting was the usual starting point to "see, sexism doesn't exist, and I don't have any responsibility to do anything". Perhaps an over-reaction my part.

Posted by: Tom West on June 29, 2009 12:32 PM

I do talk every day to one of your downtrodden minorities, Tom-my girlfriend.

I suggest you find a nurse to discuss this topic with. The stories of arbitrary dismissals, tit-for-tat power plays, divide-and-conquer tactics by the bosses, etc., will curl your hair!

Unfortunately for your thesis, however, is the fact that most of this is being inflicted on women by other women!

Posted by: Brutus on June 29, 2009 12:36 PM

I consider AA/diversity programs to be a pretty minimal imposition to alleviate a natural human bias to make a small inequality a large one.

So you mean that non-institutional racism which might occur to 12% of the population (you're talking just blacks here?) needs to be addressed by intitutional racism that definitely occurs to 35-40% of the population? And then throwing the doors open to expand the 12% number to as large a percentage as possible? Which number is larger there, O physicist Tom, 12 or 35? Isn't that making a small inequality into a larger one? Do you have any idea how stupid you sound to anybody with a brain?

Who cares what you think? You didn't make up the policy. Your vote didn't decide anything either. According to the law, such discrimination is completely illegal. The imposition of this institutional racism was done by judicial fiat and lawyerdom. So you're wrong once again!

So when does guilty Tom West suffer from the "minimal imposition" of AA? When does Tom take the hit? Never Tom? You're just as guuilty as anybody else.

As for disastrous effect on society, really, if reserving 15% of positions is going to destroy society

Nobody said it was going to destroy society. What we said was it is illegal and unfair. And women and minorities make up about 65% of the population. Yet another distortion or outright lie by the morally shiny exemplar, Tom the Hypocrite West. Nice to meet a physicist who can't do math!

So Tom West, despite all his bullshit to the contrary, supports 100% the idea and practice of race and sex discrimination! Yet he thinks he is anything but a morally repugnant liar!

The self-induced psychosis of Tom West continues unabated! He will never say he's wrong! That's just what I want in a scientist--a self righteous psychotic who doesn't base his opinions on facts and will never admit he's wrong! Believe me, you are a perfect fit for the mental institution of higher learning!

I challenged you three times to back up your claim that there is widespread discrimination against women and minorites with facts, and you backed down every time.

I win. You lose. Nice try with the attempt to divert the discussion back to the theater so you can save face. I thought I was going a bit overboard calling you a clown, but I was right once again. Clown!

Posted by: B on June 29, 2009 4:30 PM

Bwana Tom: As for disastrous effect on society, really, if reserving 15% of positions is going to destroy society, then we weren't going to last too long anyway. Honestly, I think that as a society, we're robust enough to handle it.

Christ, this attitude gives me the willies, and I see it often enough - generally followed by some variant of "if we're not robust enough to take this, then we don't deserve to survive anyway". Both, of course, based on the the common delusion of comfortable, safe people that civilization and order, not dysfunction, danger, and want, are the default, not the exception, and that what is difficult, what requires ability, what needs constant effort, is "unworthy", and only what is "robust", what exists without standards, deserves our loyalty. So sure, Tom, just keep chipping away - dispossess a few percent of the competent here, reward a few percent of the mediocre there - life will trundle on regardless. But civilization? High standards of living, of technological efficiency, of law? Very, very fragile, Tom. Mediocrity, on the other hand - and poverty, corruption, dysfunction, disorder, and oh, I dunno, a sewage system that's not up to specs, say, 15, then 20, then 50, then 100% of the time - all those things? Robust as hell. They'll take a lickin' and keep on tickin' - for centuries, nay, millenia!

See, Tom, "network" systems, which you quite correctly note can be discriminatory (while ignoring that they are used thusly by all groups, not just WMs), can demand and maintain high standards of competence, and can also develop the flexibility to admit "outsiders" who have the chops. The bureaucratic systems which you promote - like AA - while theoretically instituted to appoint competent people who would otherwise have been passed over due to prejudice, in practice result in replacing the qualified with the unqualified. In fact, you admit this yourself, by stating that a system requires a certain "robustness" to withstand your 15% reservation - a "crumple zone" entirely unnecessary if you are merely replacing qualified "over-representeds" with qualified, but heretofore overlooked "under-representeds".

Posted by: Moira Breen on June 29, 2009 4:55 PM

Two points Brutus. One, it sounds more like personal (vicious!) political infighting than discrimination based on gender, and two, yes, in situations where women have the larger share of power, I'd expect discrimination from females to be more of a problem than from men.

But then, I don't think that *anyone* should automatically assume that they are free from prejudice. A little self-reflection as to how one's personal actions might be taken (even if not meant that way) is the level of responsibility I expect of most people.

Sadly, according to many people here, that is apparently way, way, way too much responsibility with which to saddle poor hapless males.

Posted by: Tom West on June 29, 2009 5:05 PM

Sadly, according to many people here, that is apparently way, way, way too much responsibility with which to saddle poor hapless males.

Where in the hell have you been, Uncle Tom West? We've been doing very little for the past 60 years except discussing prejudice.

We have whole industries that provide no other service other than to hype the prejudice racket.

Have you been living in a cave?

You keep talking like it's 1966. Stop making a fool of yourself. As I said, you aren't a well-meaning man. You're a scoundrel. Get it? You're no damned good.

Give away your own stuff if you're so inclined. Stop proposing the give-away of other men's stuff.

We need to find a way to steal your stuff. You are quite outspoken about wanting to steal other men's stuff.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on June 29, 2009 5:18 PM

Good God! What a bunch of angry, whining, lunbkheads. Nope, there has never been any discrimination against anybody … except white guys for the past 30-40 years who have been relegated to the sidelines by government AA fiats. I mean, when was the last time you saw a white man elected to a major office, head up a big company, become a General, or any of the other things we associate with power and control? Soon there won’t be any white men left not forced to service the needs of the domineering gal they work for.

Should someone dare … DARE … to offer an opinion that Steve Sailer wouldn’t endorse, then by all means, push down the “caps lock” button and BEGIN THE BLOG VERSION OF SHOUTING VILE PERSONAL INSULTS AT THEM. If the (obviously gay or beta) boob never contributes to a thread again, puff out your chest and gloat that you’ve driven away another pussified pansy. If they stick around they’ll evenutally hit send before taking a deep breath and considering whether a word or phrase crosses the line of what will so wound the delicate sensibilties of dedicated 2BH contributers that you can henceforth immediately dismiss anything and everything they say with a quick reminder that they once, in four words, revealed themselves to be the worst sort of all the stereotypes you ever imagined.

To end this mini-rant, allow me to go back to the original posting and (surprise, surprise) agree that theater is highly unlikely to be discriminating against good plays by women playwriters. While anecdotes are not data, I’ve had enough experience in the arts, including theater, with various individuals who are either female or non-white who immediately claim discrimination when they are not selected for an exhibiton or if their play doesn’t get picked for production that I am as sceptical of their claims that they’re victims of institutional bias as I am of the sort of dudes bitching here about how white men are the only group you can still discriminate against.

Posted by: Chris White on June 29, 2009 5:35 PM

The third intellectual pathology of the Left is to refuse to engage the argument, instead to talk about something else.

The point of this debate is not whether society can handle quotas, whether one race or sex is better than the other, the point is "is there discrimination in the theater?

A Michael (more eloquently than I) repeated, there is no bias against playwrights based on sex, there are simply less women writing plays than men. This difference in participation rates is an observed phenomena, the cause of this fact is the subject of this debate. Now if 15% of each sex get to have their plays produced, how is that discrimination?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

Posted by: Slumlord on June 29, 2009 5:49 PM

I’ve had enough experience in the arts, including theater, with various individuals who are either female or non-white who immediately claim discrimination when they are not selected for an exhibiton or if their play doesn’t get picked for production that I am as sceptical of their claims that they’re victims of institutional bias as I am of the sort of dudes bitching here about how white men are the only group you can still discriminate against.

Well done, Chris. Now apply this experience of yours in the arts to the rest of society, and you'll have a good chance at understanding something. For once.

Try a little skepticism about claims of discrimination. Apply the standard you enunciated. You might be surprised how much it clarifies the reality of the ethnic/gender/sexual orientation AA spoils trough that is the governing principle of American politics.

Although...today, the Supreme Court ruled in Ricci...well, they ruled the way that the Chris and Tom W's of the world dismiss as "whining". Check out their reasoning, my liberal friends.

P.S. And Chris and Tom, your use of straw man arguments as your default explains why you get such hostile responses from so many here. Neither of you will answer any point directly, nor attribute positions to people while backing up that attribution with a quote or two. It's just your mealy-mouthed evasive pseudo-responses and putting-words-in-mouthing. You have failed, both of you, to influence anybody toward your positions. And rightly so.

May you experience similar levels of intellectual success in the future.

Skoal!

Posted by: PatrickH on June 29, 2009 5:56 PM

B
I challenged you three times to back up your claim that there is widespread discrimination against women and minorities with facts, and you backed down every time.

Look B, we both understand there's no way you can be persuaded, so I'm not going to waste my time trying. (Admittedly, I'm not likely to be persuaded either.) We both understand that the sort of racism/sexism that I'm concerned about is quite individual and isn't easily quantifiable, and AA has nice hard numbers. So, you're right. You win and I lose.

However, I, as you, are entitled to have an opinion that is backed by personal experience about what conditions in society are like, and what policies produce optimum outcomes on a variety of levels.

For example, I am willing to trade a strict meritocracy for a society where every group feels that extraordinary effort gives a decent chance at middle-class success. An outcome that would be unlikely without AA/Diversity policies. And yet again, I'll point out that the reason for under-representation is immaterial to my opinion.

I'd also trade a strict meritocracy for a decrease in the number of workplace cultures that can turn toxic. Again, my personal experience is that 'boys-clubs' and mono-racial environments are most in danger of this.

And yes, for what I perceive as these advantages, I am willing to risk me or my boys in future years missing out on a job or a position they might have otherwise achieved. I judge the good to be worth it.

Posted by: Tom West on June 30, 2009 12:22 AM

Slumlord:
is there discrimination in the theater?

Well according to Michael's original article:

Plays by women do seem to need to be better (or at least more commercial) than plays by men in order to receive productions.

However, no-one seems to arguing that there is discrimination in theaters (I certainly never mentioned theaters), so the answer to that question is pretty much irrelevant to what the thread turned into after my initial post.

Moira:
[rebuttal of] "if we're not robust enough to take this, then we don't deserve to survive anyway"

Good heavens, Moira, can't I get even a little snark through? Okay, you make an interesting and relevant point.

I withdraw my flippant robustness remark, but make three serious points in reply:

(1) Qualifications for a job only occasionally seem to have a strong correlation with success at the job. In my experience, success in all but a small slice of jobs tends to rely far more on intangibles including work ethic (see 2).

(2) AA doesn't work by select Joe Shmoe off the street as the replacement. You have to be among the highest achievers in the group, and no, I am no ST to imply that every single member of group X is lazy or stupid. The people who get promoted because of AA are going to be the most talented and hard-working of the group.

(3) I consider the social goods that such programs help develop to be instrumental in a functioning society as well. To exaggerate, the sewers might have all run perfectly in a Brave New World, but neither of us would consider it successful. Honestly, I consider the prevention of social stratification to be more important for the long term success of a technical society than the relatively marginal loss of competence in the jobs themselves due to policies like AA/diversity.

Again, my personal experience with government where AA might be in operation is that incompetence doesn't seem to be correlated with race or sex. (Okay, marginally correlated with males, but that might be selection bias on my part.)

Posted by: Tom West on June 30, 2009 12:54 AM

Tom,

>> Obviously that's an idiomatic and hyperbolic expression in any case.

> Sadly, it was an almost exact quote (I think he said girls instead of women).

Excuse my lousy writing... I meant to say that the math teacher's words were hyperbolic, and acknowledge that this is undesirable when discussing a sensitive matter.

> It drove the best student in my section (who was female) into a different discipline because she didn't need the hassle. (Bad news for science, good news for a medical school.)

Still a good career, at least. Notice women are at parity there - in medical school at least, if not yet in the career itself.

They are also at ~78% in both UK and US vet schools, and possibly still rising at least in the UK.

I agree that Summers as a U-pres has to take substantial responsibility for how his remarks are interpreted. But in fact his comments were quite sedate and scholarly.

Do you really think a given woman has any place in research if she can't resist groupthink and grasp how modest, at most, the gender intelligence differences are?

I agree there are costs to realism about group intelligence differences. I just think the costs are too high on the other side.

For one, as is often pointed out, placing people from group X in jobs beyond their competence is not going to make group X look more competent. This is not such a big deal if you assume Aff-Act is going to help all group achievement differences to rapidly close, but they generally haven't closed.

I know Peter Brimelow estimated the costs of Aff-Act at US$350 billion a year, and was able to get it published in Forbes, but I haven't read the analysis. Without analysis I don't really expect you to swallow a number that comes from a strident anti-immigration activist. But for what it's worth.

I actually don't think the money is the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that equalitarian axioms leave one with no possible serious objection to the immigration situation - the importation, as I see it, of millions of rapidly-reproducing people with a more-or-less inalterably lower mean IQ compared to the US average. IQ is the single variable most strongly correlated with job performance, including (albeit with a smaller correlation coefficient) performance in fairly menial jobs. At the same time, as far as I know all economists are forecasting an ever-lower demand for unskilled labor over future decades. Maybe some of the manufacturing we've lost overseas will eventually come back, decades from now, when Chinese labor prices finally start to approach ours. (Based on IQ data, I kind of doubt India, SE Asia, or anyone else will ever be a powerhouse manufacturing competitor like China. China, thanks to its communist past, may be the last nation left with the potential to move up into the $20,000 per cap GDP class. Well, North Korea too, if it ever manages to un-**** itself.)

Also bad is the illegality in practice, for most employers, of using most kinds of competency tests.

Also, using irrealism here - as anywhere - teaches irrealism. It's possible irrealism may occasionally be desirable in very small doses, but my god is it dangerous stuff. Just look at Bush the Lesser.

Possibly even worse than immigration is the overall effect on western civilization. The effect is incalculable in the literal sense of the word and quite possibly also in the figurative one. If there are no group differences, then there must be great discrimination. It must also be possible for westerners to bring about the industrialization of the third world, if they wanted to spend money on that rather than on frivolities. Conclusion: western societies are quite vile in some very significant ways, and deserve only a modicum of our loyalty and good will. I once believed exactly that, myself.

Posted by: blue anonymous on June 30, 2009 1:38 AM

However, I, as you, are entitled to have an opinion that is backed by personal experience about what conditions in society are like, and what policies produce optimum outcomes on a variety of levels.

You're entitled to steal? You're entitled to cheat somebody else? This isn't about opinions, its about the real world. I don't have "personal experiences" about society in toto, and neither do you. And what policies produce "optimum outcomes" is not a matter of "opinion", its about facts. You're the one pushing hard and fast quotas and preferences, not opinions.

You're willing to trade off merit for--feelings? It's not your decision to trade-off anything. Every individual, regardless of race, has freedoms that should not be infringed. AA isn't and never has been about extraordinary effort--its about hiring the least qualified over better qualified--the exact opposite of what you say above. Holy crap you are a liar.

Can, maybe, possibly--not have, did, or were. I'm sure you're all for the system of penalizing somebody innocent, unless of course, it's you.

I am willing to risk me or my boys in future years missing out on a job or a position they might have otherwise achieved. I judge the good to be worth it.

Wow, how nice it is to dish away your kids' future without their consent!

But that's all BS. You've never ever been discrimnated against in your whole life. If it ever happened to your kids, you'd go ballistic. You're a liar.

I've been discriminated against for my sex, race, and age now. I've been cheated out of money, denied raises, and replaced by AA hires with no experience or ability, who do a vastly inferior job, simply to fill a quota.

I can't wait until you pay the same price you want somebody else to pay. People's lives are all so much theory and opinion to you--you don't give a crap about anybody but yourself. It's all about Tom and how Tom looks.

Tom West is a racist, a sexist, a liar, a hypocrite, and a thief, stealing what's not his and giving to the undeserving. Why don't you break into your neighbor's garage and start handing out his goods to the "needy"? You are a despicable human being. And the most pathetic part about it is you can't see it. You think you're wonderful. It's just sickening.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors' goods.

Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

That's moral authority.

Posted by: B on June 30, 2009 2:41 AM

Tom West is a racist, a sexist, a liar, a hypocrite, and a thief, stealing what's not his and giving to the undeserving.

Judge not, lest you be judged.

Posted by: Chris White on July 1, 2009 8:17 AM

that equalitarian axioms leave one with no possible serious objection to the immigration situation

I do *not* understand this claim at all. I'm not an immigration restrictionist, but I can certainly understand those who feel that large scale immigration is not in the interest of current citizens for a variety or reasons such as social integration or cultural preservation. Such opposition does not require resorting to the (what I consider quite toxic) beliefs of HBD.

In fact, if *was* in favor of less immigration, I'd be bitterly trying to dump the HBD'ers as the wing-nut side of the argument that threatens to make the entire position equivalent to 'white nationalist' in the minds of the populace. (In the same way that the pro-immigration side would be happy to see the Libertarian open-borders people disappear into obscurity because it threatens their success.)

Posted by: Tom West on July 1, 2009 9:35 AM

You have my sympathy. More relevantly, you've been treated illegally. None of what you have described is legal under any AA policies I know of. Have you considered taking legal action?

Posted by: Tom West on July 1, 2009 9:40 AM

"I've been discriminated against for my sex, race, and age now. I've been cheated out of money, denied raises, and replaced by AA hires with no experience or ability, who do a vastly inferior job, simply to fill a quota."

I'm always highly doubtful of statements like that. For one, as Tom stated, those things are illegal and if they happened to you, you have legal recourse. For another, what are you basing these statements on? Did you not get a job you thought you were going to get? Join the club. That's happened to me a few times. Denied raises? Shit, who hasn't experienced that? Did someone with darker skin than you and/or a woman get the job you were going for? If so, how do you know the reason he/she got the job was due to race and/or sex?

Posted by: JV on July 1, 2009 11:37 AM

Chris White,

Judge not, lest you be judged.

I'm not judging. In Bible-speak, judging means condemning and punishing. We're all supposed to differentiate right from wrong, even in other's behavior. But I'm punishing no one. God alone does that.

And as a Unitarian, you don't believe in the divinity of Christ anyway. Who knows when you last read the Bible (if you ever have in your life). Why are you lecturing me with something you don't even believe in?

Tom West,

You have my sympathy. More relevantly, you've been treated illegally. None of what you have described is legal under any AA policies I know of. Have you considered taking legal action?

I don't want your sympathy. Why do I have your sympathy--because I'm a "victim"? EVERYTHING THAT I DESCRIBED IS LEGAL AND COMMON PRACTICE IN THE US AND CANADA, AND HAPPENS DAILY. And guys like you support it 100%. That's what AA is Tom.

Why take legal action? It'll cost me tons of money and many years of stress I don't need. The big corporations bank on that. I'd rather just pick myself up and get another job. Ricci had to go all the way to the Supreme Court, and he only won by one vote! No thanks. But I don't look for jobs anymore with firms over 50 employees, where AA policies apply.

JV,

The last time I got laid off, the situation was that the (large engineering) company I was at wasn't getting any new work. But for some strange reason, they were making new hires out of college of people with no experience whatsoever, all women and blacks. No design experience, no construction experience, nothing. Never put a set of plans together in their life.

I was working on a project where I was responsible for designing some complex highway interchanges on a job that was wrapping up. After we submitted the last design, I got laid off.

Why would I get laid off if I have 20 years of experience? Why would the company be hiring women and blacks exclusively? Don't say that it was my work. I was training these folks on a daily basis.

They needed a guy like me to do complex work, and after it was over, they got rid of me because of my pay scale and to make a quota. That's exactly the situation. I've been around long enough to know.

I also worked at a "minority" firm (hispanic) where I cleaned up a couple of jobs for the company. The projects were so badly done by the (mainly) hispanics and women who worked on them that the company only broke even. Yet when yearly raises came out, I didn't even get a COLA raise, yet other (select) non-white workers did indeed get a raise. And the company was actively working on recruiting H1-b hispanics from South America and bringing them here. After saving that company many tens of thousands of dollars, and trying to train their incompetent staff, that's what I got--nothing. I quit that company after that.

The reason that these companies can continue to get work is that work isn't awarded on quality--its awarded on "relationships" between the company's upper brass and public officials, otherwise known as corruption and graft. This includes the "disadvantaged women and minority" handouts where any doofus can and does get work. So AA not only gives you bad quality work, it contributes to public corruption and bribery. Nice.

This stuff goes on every sinlge day in America. I suggest you start talking to regular people instead of watching TV and listening to NPR. Reality is quite different from what they protray it to be.

Posted by: B on July 1, 2009 2:20 PM

"This stuff goes on every sinlge day in America. I suggest you start talking to regular people instead of watching TV and listening to NPR. Reality is quite different from what they protray it to be"

Pretty sure I'm a regular person. Father of 3, husband of 1, job in IT, live in the suburbs. Pretty damn regular.

So you got laid off after finishing a project and they hired a bunch of college kids. Sounds familiar. Most likely they were paying you based on your experience, once you set everything up, they laid you off and hired some kids on the cheap. They were black and/or women? Could very well be part of the reason was AA. However, as someone with some experience managing projects for large firms, including budgeting, I'd say money was a bigger factor. They would have hired college kids regardless of AA just to save money. It sucks, and I'm not in favor of that practice, but that's the breaks. It's happened to me as well and I write it off to bottom-line management practices.

You experience at the "minority firm" sounds illegal and you'd definitely have a case there. Again, not part of AA.

Posted by: JV on July 1, 2009 3:20 PM

Now, Patrick, I want you to pay attention, is attacking a "strawman":And as a Unitarian, you don't believe in the divinity of Christ anyway. Who knows when you last read the Bible (if you ever have in your life). Why are you lecturing me with something you don't even believe in?

Where have I stated my personal religious beliefs, past or present? Or discussed my familiarity with the Bible? Or what I do or do not believe in?

While I fail to see what this has to do with the validity of charges by certain women playwrights that they are being discriminated against, I am not, nor have I ever been a Unitarian. Some of my best friends, however, are Unitarians ... and Jews ... Pagans ... Episcopalians ... Buddhists ...

As for the major tangent at hand, a significant percentage of those who apply for, but don't get, a job, or who are passed over for promotion, believe they were discriminated against. Some of them are no doubt correct; if so, they should decide whether to make a legal challenge or not.

Virtually all societies are structured in ways that define an "Us" that implies the existence of various "Them." The interests of "Us" are served by discriminating against "Them" thus such discrimination becomes institutionalized. The arc of history in North America over the past couple of hundred years has been the expansion, by fits and starts, of the definition of 'Us" from being restricted to wealthy, landowning, white men to including nearly anyone born or naturalized as a citizen with little regard for gender, race, religion, class or other characteristics. To deny that there has been institutionalized discrimination against minorities, including women, should put one right there with the Flat Earth Society.

The problems that won't go away are those pertaining to what needs to be done to bring about some degree of remediation, if anything. How profoundly does a given group have to be harmed by past actions to require what degree of restitution by whom? What are the intended ... and unintended ... consequences of a method like Affirmative Action being used to accelerate the rate of change needed for achieving a new, more equitable, norm?

To recognize the desirability for some degree of AA or similar remedial programs is not to be in favor of throwing out meritocracy for aggressive reverse discrimination.

Posted by: Chris White on July 1, 2009 4:06 PM

Oops. ... THIS is attacking ....

Posted by: Chris White on July 1, 2009 7:47 PM

Chris Whiter-Than-Thou

You're just a lazy old hippie who doesn't even want a job.

What in the fuck are you doing giving away another man's job?

You're not even in the game. What is this mental disorder you have? Bad hit of acid?

One of the most psychotic parts of life in Woodstock is all these brain dead old hippies who never learned a trade, are dead broke, and who also want to screw with men who worked hard and learned a trade.

You have no business in this discussion, Chris Whiter-Than-Thou. You're a deserter.

When we need advice on how to sit on our asses and simultaneously develop a universal philosophy for saving the world, we'll let you know. You might be useful then. I might find something you say pertinent, if I've smoked a couple of reefers.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on July 1, 2009 10:07 PM

Even more venom and personal attacks from the Shouting One filled with errors, distortions, projections, assumptions, and lies. To argue with such nonsense would be the equivalent of attempting to refute an accusation made by a total stranger in a coffee shop that I'm a wife abusing alcoholic. All I can do is suggest to ST that whatever meds he's onto moderate his symptoms of paranoia and delusion need to be reevaluated.

Posted by: Chris White on July 2, 2009 7:48 AM

Chris, why did you seem to attribute a comment about your Unitarianism to me? I didn't make that comment. Unless you were pointing me to an instance of strawman to which I should pay attention.

Well, so what? Other people use straw man too. Big deal. You still evade responsibility for your own committed use of basic logical fallacies like strawman. Hmmm...what's the name of that one again?

And Tom: More relevantly, you've been treated illegally. None of what you have described is legal under any AA policies I know of.

I take it you agree with the Ricci majority then?

Posted by: PatrickH on July 2, 2009 11:54 AM

I agree with the Ricci majority decision, for what it's worth.

Posted by: JV on July 2, 2009 2:08 PM

Add my agreement on the Ricci decision.

Posted by: Chris White on July 2, 2009 6:34 PM

I take it you agree with the Ricci majority then?

I haven't paid very close attention, but from my understanding the city had done what was generally felt was necessary to prevent the tests from being racially biased.

Unless there was some sort of proof of racial bias (and no, I don't feel the results are proof of bias), then I'd have to agree with the recent Ricci decision.

I'll admit if the city had chosen to use some sort of quota system, I'd have been fine with that (as I said, I think there are other larger social reasons that might justify that). But since they didn't, then the results should stand.

Posted by: Tom West on July 2, 2009 11:41 PM

Why gentlemen of the left! You're, ah, "growing"!

Maybe there's hope for America after all.

Although technically, Tom, the "city" threw out the test results when they turned out not to be biased...against whites.

Not that I want to argue any more.

Enjoy your July 4th extravaganza, my American friends (and Tom too).

Posted by: PatrickH on July 3, 2009 2:31 PM

Scalia was right. Roberts is leaning that way. The whole "disparate impact" test that the EEOC cooked up should be thrown out, as violative of the 13th amendment.

It's simply hogwash to assume, as that test does, that any criteria which fewer blacks and other protected groups (women, Hispanics) fail must be racially based and invalid since it has a "disparate impact". The fact is that women are weaker and will fail fighter fighter strength tests. Revelant to you know, wrestly and pulling fire hoses and holding them when pressured, without requiring twice as many females to do it, and relevant to caring an injured or unconscious smoke or fire victim down stairs or through a building.

Similarly blacks and to a lesser extent the Hispanics we predominantly have in the US will do worse on essentially all written or even oral tests for reasoning ability and/or knowledge of their field. That's because for whatever combination of cultural and genetic reasons, these two groups have lower IQ's. There's been a lot of effort, a WHOLE lot of effort put into changing that in the last 40 and more years, but the short version is it hasn't worked. Any test that touches on the use of IQ will have a disparate impact on them. The psychometric evidence is clear.

Nailing just how much is genetic is still contested but it's virtually certain a lot is, however much the left vilifies and seeks to have fired, anyone who says so in a high profile, non specialized journal, way. See the Watson firing for his limited remarks on the subject.

Posted by: doug1 on July 12, 2009 5:08 PM