"But, under the law everyone is equal and has an equal right to advance."

For the 100th time nobody is disputing the law - but instead our inability to uphold it to the standards set by the law.

Again, I can't make assumptions about a private company's hiring practices when I know nothing about it. I mean, how the hell am I supposed to know what 500 different fortune 500 company's hiring practices detail?

Okay. So even if you refuse to make "assumptions", you do recognize that these numbers are a problem, correct?

Look it's up to a private company to hire who they want and it's not my place or the government's to mandate something. But I do agree 4 percent is really low.

It's not your place to critique bad business practices? If companies were using children in factories, would it be your place to critique that?

"4% of CEOS in the S&P 500 are women.

19% of Congress is female.

90% of rape victims are women.

Seems equal. But hey, women get into clubs free on ladies night, so it all evens out right?"

Tom, this is a terrible argument.

There are (presumably) 500 CEOs in the S&P 500. That makes 20 women and 480 men.
There are roughly 150 million men in the United States. You are using a statistic that impacts 0.00032% of the male population to make a point about the entire population. How is your point at all instructive to American men generally?

Same thing when it comes to Congress. 19% of the 535 members of Congress are female, so that's 102 women and 433 men. Men who are members of Congress constitute 0.00029% of the American male population. How is that instructive?

The one statistic you posted that actually reflects reality for the normal American is the rape statistic, and of course you chose the one that is by its nature the most gendered -- from a strictly functional standpoint, men are going to be the majority of rapists (I assume I don't have to explain how this works), and the majority of men are heterosexual, which means the majority of male rapists' victims are going to be women.

I can find a bunch of other statistics that are less gendered that paint a bad picture for men, if I want.
Over 90% of workplace deaths happen to men.
A man's life expectancy is somewhere between 4-6 years lower than a woman's, depending on where you look to find your stats.
Men constitute 93.2% of the federal inmate population.
Statistics for this are obviously difficult to get down to an exact science, but from what I can find online, roughly 70% of the homeless are men.

And you know what the stark thing about my stats is? Unlike your stats about Fortune 500 CEOs and Congressmen, mine actually affect the broader population. Just over 1% of the male population of the US is in a federal prison. In a regular commute five blocks downtown, you'll walk past a hundred men -- one man in that group is missing, because he got himself into federal prison.
Again, the homelessness stats are hard to get precise data on, but extrapolating from what I could find, roughly 0.25% of the male population in the US is homeless. In that same commute you'll pass a homeless man just under twice a week.

And you know what else is stark about this?
Women can live a pretty happy life without ever being Congressmen or Fortune 500 CEOs. The women who are in a position to be unhappy about this are already living the most privileged lifestyle available to anyone, male or female, in human history, aside, of course, from the one threshold you're citing here. The woman executive who hits the glass ceiling and can't break through into the Fortune 500 CEO ranks is still sleeping at night in her own home, after eating her own food, with all of her bills paid and her savings for life well set up.
It's sad that plausibly sexist forces prevent her from getting to that last threshold, but you'll forgive me if:
(1) I'm more worried about the homeless man she walked past on her way to the interview
(2) I'm HIGHLY skeptical of people who claim to be concerned about "gender equality" but spend all their time talking about the pressure she faces in her interview and no time talking about the shivering, starving man waiting to die outside.

Men and women are created equal under the Contituiton.

The Contituion gives private companies the right to hire whoever they want. So if they want to hire only white men, that is their right.

Equality achieved! Good wrk Constitution, you did it!

"Not my problem because I'm in the 96%."

If you were a Fortune 500 CEO you wouldn't be posting here.

You are not part of the 96%.

@ Tom Bombadil

Why are only 4% of S&P 500 CEOS female? who really cares? all CEO's are ripping off the shareholders. they are all eco criminals.

Why is only 19% of Congress female? who really cares? heck 100% of california's senators are democrat females. where is the justice in that?

Why do liberals Keep calling those who do not bend to their hateful diatribe a Nazi? they are the ones using black shirt and brown shirt tactics. Its not going to end the discussion.

If a modern company in the us used children in a sweatshop I would call the cops. That's against the law.

Hell, if you were even in a POSITION to be a Fortune 500 CEO, I'd bet my MAGA hat that you wouldn't be posting here about it.

So little time to spend on debating gender equality and we're carrying water for people whose station in life is so much higher than ours that we'll never be in their number, rather than trying to solve the heavy and much more solvable issues of people whose stations are below ours and bring them into our number.

the Constitution was written to run a government. not rule the lives of its citizens.

Bead and Eden said it better than me. Good arguments

Brad

i know ND, i know..

... So.. Positions of power aren't important and it's ok if it's all men because it's not the general population. Noted. You're all batshit insane. Muting this thread now.

Lol

Brad - I didn’t bring Nazis into this. ND called me a Nazi for some reason. I’ll post more tomorrow, I’ve got to go to bed - I work in the a.m.

Mostly I want to respond to PE because I think he is at least rationale. But for now suffice to say that I think casting aside the CEO numbers because it’s a small population is silly. Iits a small number but they have more power than millions of the rest of us.

I think the workplace death argument is a a bit silly, but the prison one is legit

"... So.. Positions of power aren't important and it's ok if it's all men because it's not the general population. Noted. You're all batshit insane. Muting this thread now."

They are far less important than the suffering of the people whose situations I discussed.
Better representation in the highest ranks is important, but if you spend all or most of your time arguing for the marginal improvement of the lives of a small number of ultra-privileged women, and no time and disdainful dismissal of the substantial improvement of the lives of a large number of suffering men, you lose any station to claim to care about the impact of your so-called "patriarchy" on both sexes, and you lose any right to criticize people who are skeptical of your intentions.

I'm always entertained by people who feel a need to write a comment in a thread like this, and then end it with "Muting this thread now". It's like the childish need to always get the last word in a debate.

Anyways, for what it's worth, I'm still manspreading ...

I hate this thread

Man PE is like grade A fuckboi at this point it's pretty sad.

This thread is men mainsplaining to one another. Except that they don't care what the fuck they say to one another. If one happened to be a woman, it would be crying and pleading from the SJWs and LOLing from the non-SJWs.

There isn't philosophical coherency on the feminist side.

I dunno, I feel like if you get the most active female forum user to mute your thread ya might have done something wrong.

It's hardly a representative sample. If the most active female forum user happened to be ND's other half I doubt that would inspire the members of the webDip feminist society to change their minds. Indeed, we'd probably just have the amusing scenario of webDip's feminists lining up to tell her why she's wrong.

I dare say that to potential members who happen to be female and conservative the forum is quite a hostile looking environment.

Representative of the whole or not, she was the only person in this discussion who (I know) has experienced what it is like to be treated as a woman, in a discussion about how society treats women. Surely one can not ignore that.

Why would you ignore it? She's posted well thought out and insightful posts. But neither should you give those posts elevated importance. We all (probably all, anyway) know various women very well. Like everyone else, they have a wide variety of opinions. I know women who would broadly agree. I know more women (because of the circles I tend to move in) who very strongly disagree. We have to be wary of giving any opinions too much weight.

I thought feminism was about gender-related issues not about how society treats women?
Really activates the almonds.

Great example of what I mean when I say I am skeptical of the real intentions of feminism. If your movement is really about equality then why are you arbitrarily giving extra weight to Demon's opinion because she's a woman? Shouldn't the "gender equality approach" (if you will) be to evaluate hers and everyone else's ideas on the merits without giving special consideration for the sex of the people expressing those ideas?

Are you arguing they should be weighed equally to other arguments in the thread or simply I am weighing them too much. I feel either could be a valid argument (for very different reasons, and not definitively) but would like some clarification.