Or, is just a "fun" joke that ties into stereotypes. "Haha, told you women couldn't drive, look at this one stopping global trade" and then it spirals out of control.
Men pose higher per-km risk to others than women for all modes except buses, as well as being over-represented among users of the most dangerous vehicles.
Intuitively, it seems correct that in aggregate, women kill less people on the road. From personal experience, most people can drive well enough regardless of who or what they are, but if someone's driving extremely riskily then it's almost always youngish males. But also, if someone's exceptionally incompetent then it's usually old people or women.
The distribution skews at the extremes and that's where the common perception that women can't drive comes from (and probably also the fact that men kill more people in aggregate). Actual data is not going to dissolve this perception because you see it every time you get outside.
Very rarely do you see the gender of someone driving incompetently. So, most of this ‘personal experience’ is simply conjecture which can self reinforce.
Yet personal experiences do happen and shape us, and we talk about it and propagate the skewed perceptions seasoned with half-assed ruminations.
I'll make an example of how this works between well intentioned people:
My wife is an excellent driver. We live in small town, in a country where infrastructure predates cars. Roads are very narrow, often on steep inclines, and flanked by tall stone walls. My wife regularly complains of large SUVs stuck unable to maneuver. On her account, they are almost always driven by women. Her reaction is invariably: "if you can't drive, just get a nornal-sized car!".
As this happens again and again, with caring frequency etc, occasionally we talk about it ans wonder about this pattern and what may cause it, or whether it is real. My wife's theory is that some women feel unsafe in a car and solve the problem by buying a bigger car instead of getting some practice.
And here we are spreading crappy anecdata. But that's life, that's how human interact.
Physics. You can see a lot more cars than you can identify the gender of the cars driver. For example on a freeway at night, how many cars in front of you can you see vs how many drivers genders can you identify and remember.
Now sure, the smaller percentage may still add up to a significant number. But people do a crap job of limiting their mental tallies to only the people they actually verify. If they assume someone is say drunk their going to add that as evidence even if they never actually have any direct evidence for drunkenness/age/gender/ethnicity etc.
It’s a smaller sample than all cars I ever see, sure. But it’s still fairly big. If I look at a car I’ll usually try to look at the drivers face too, just because it’s useful information to know where they are directing their attention. I don’t think that’s particularly idiosyncratic and so it seems like a somewhat cheap argument to me to imply that people are basically just willfully deluding themselves.
The issue is cognitive biases make the total sample size irrelevant, which is something to be aware of. Unfortunately, said biases are not willful which makes them far more insidious a problem to notice and deal with.
Anyway, as a simple test try and count how many cars you can see next time you go for a drive, how many people’s gender you can infer, and how many you can positively identify based on their looks. It’s significantly safer to try this as a passenger.
> Anyway, as a simple test try and count how many cars you can see next time you go for a drive, how many people’s gender you can infer, and how many you can positively identify based on their looks. It’s significantly safer to try this as a passenger.
Might be interesting to try, but I think in a situation where I notice a bad driver I'm much more likely to identify their gender than in a random passing car.
But I live in a comparatively small Austrian city riddled with traffic lights, weird intersections, crosswalks, and way too much traffic in general, so I get ample opportunity to look at slow moving cars. If you're American your culture around cars is probably very different and that might explain why we seem to have a different intuition about this.
The media are a trusted class of society who are afforded a blanket level of respect based on their role in society.
The media have started to act in the best interest of their clan vs society as a whole.
The Media has fragmented and serves their niches but not society as a whole.
So talking about the media as a whole is possible without having to identify tribes within.
In the above paragraph replace "the media" with "doctors", "scientists", "politicians", "elected officials", "the police", "big pharma", "journalists" ...
I'm not saying you are not making a point - it's just a unnecessarily broad point that is difficult to discuss constructively.
An alternative interpretation is that the media is a reflection of society. If people weren't looking for bullshit articles to click on (actually, not even click on, they usually end up just resharing the article on social media for the headline) to artificially confirm their biases, then the media wouldn't be making bank on this strategy.
Also, the media does not exist outside of society. The media sucks because our culture in general sucks.
Same thing with politicians. We don't get shitty politicians out of nowhere. They come from the people, they optimize for what people want, and people vote for them.
It can be tempting for others to try to call this an example of the Prisoner's Dillema, but the Prisoner's Dillema doesn't apply because there isn't even a marginal upside to "defecting" when your counterpart "defects". We're personally better off when we choose to not participate in this stuff, regardless of what other people do, and we're all more better off as more people choose to not participate.
The news story is literally that she's the _first_ female captain, so it's safe to say that there are probably a lot of deeply entrenched prejudices against women in those roles.
Jokes are (almost?) always political because it only works if you share similar views about what the world is like and how it should be. In this case the joke is that women are unfit to be captain, the setup is that "they" eventually "let" a woman be captain and the punchline is that she went on to cause one of the most economically disastrous incidents in recent history (ba-dum-tiss). If you don't think women are unfit to be captain (or at least "intrinsically less fit" or whatever) the punchline doesn't work.
> If you don't think women are unfit to be captain (or at least "intrinsically less fit" or whatever) the punchline doesn't work.
You seem to have a rather linear view of humor. People laugh at (and enjoy) comedians they disagree with all the time - a well crafted joke can be considered well crafted and funny by many people, regardless of the target or the listener’s personal beliefs.
A joke can be funny and disagree with your beliefs if the fact that it disagrees with them is the basis of the joke. Most shock humor is meant to work this way: it's funny because it's completely inappropriate and violating social norms.
The problem with shock humor is that it can still be funny to people who agree with it and can help normalizing the views it's meant to make fun of. You can see this play out in real time on websites like 4chan that always shift from "transgressive humor" to genuine far-right talking points.
If the joke is "women are bad drivers", you either have to agree with the premise (so the joke is likely about the humorously exaggerated extent to which this is confirmed by an anecdote), or the joke is that someone holds this view while presenting evidence to the contrary (so the joke is that the character doesn't understand he's wrong), or the joke is that the view is extremely inappropriate and doesn't follow at all from what is laid out before (so the joke is that the character is so absurdly bigoted they just bring up their prejudices all the time).
Examples for the three structures would be:
1. <statement that Egypt now has a female captain> <statement that the Suez Canal was blocked by a massive ship>
2. <statement about female drivers presenting them positively> (optional: <statement about one minor data point that could be construed negatively>) <assertion that women are bad drivers>
3. <statement about some scenario involving a woman that could be a strained analogy for driving a vehicle> <assertion that women are bad drivers>
There are probably a few more of these patterns, but they still work by presenting a position that either agrees with your views, follows logically from them or intentionally contradicts them.
Having watched hours and hours of comedy roasts and heckler takedowns on youtube over the years, I just don't see this in practice. The butt of the joke never gets it.
Do you believe that there’s a perfect mapping between ‘jobs that people want’ and ‘representation in those jobs’?
And if so, how do you account for the fact that a) people working in the industries themselves cite that there is work to do on gender diversity and b) that the disparity remains even when you control for manual/heavy physical work (i.e you account only for people working in desk / design based AEC roles)?
I'd imagine barely anyone has the job they'd choose; maybe I'm an outlier.
Suppose I'm a doctor/refuse collector, but really wanted to be a ship's captain, am I 'behind'. I guess it's that there's an implicit hierarchy of roles implied .. if I'm ship's engineer, but really want to be engineer, am I 'behind' the captain?
I just don't know what's really meant by this: is it about competitive roles, is it about access, is it about status. I'm not trying to be argumentative, I don't know that the parent means by 'behind'.
It seems all the responses have assumed I did know what they meant and had taken a particular view on it.
FWIW I'm not in the slightest denying that in some countries women/men are excluded from (or find it more difficult to get) some roles for sexist reasons.
I'm aware there are disparities in all areas (in UK), one of the biggest is teaching - very few men are able to get roles in primary (5-11yo) teaching. In other areas it seems you're more likely to get a job if qualified. Where I work women are being offered jobs at about equal rates to men (higher rates of women, actually), but the pool of qualified people is heavily male as women don't choose to take the degrees that feed into that pool. None of this proves anything, except that I know senior management were lauding the offering of more jobs to women, as opposed to just to qualified people regardless of sex [I can't cite this, internal stats, sorry].
I'm interested in your (b) do you have stats to cite on that?
that's not how being behind is meant. it's the industry that's behind if you were not able to become a captain because of prejudices against you.
you are assuming that there are not many women in this field because they don't want to be. but the reality is that there are not many women because they are not welcome. 50% parity is not the goal here. (though in some fields like teaching children, it actually should be) but the removal of all barriers so that all women (or men, if that's the case) that want to work in this field and are qualified, can.
Usually I'd agree with you, but this arguments works as a heuristic with a 70/30 split. Maybe even 90/10, if you have some data. But when we're talking about a single woman on thousands of men in the job, personal preference is very probably not the reason.
I’m assuming you didn’t read the article. At the time she applied, women were not legally allowed to enter the merchant marines in Egypt. No less than Hosni Mubarak had to review and approve her application to join.
Not that it's okay but note that it is "first in Egypt" which is a lot less surprising. Outside Egypt it is a lot more common. I know a few female captains in places like in the Danish shipping company Mærsk (like this ships captain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_M%C3%A6rsk).
If lack of female ship captains is a sign that women are far behind, is lack of male school teachers, nurses, and HR professionals a sign that men are far behind?
At least in your first example, yes, it is a sign that men are far behind when it comes to being trusted with children. But that's not really relevant to the ship story.
They might be, but that‘s not the reason why there are less male teachers. It is not harder to become a teacher, when you are male. They are just less interested in becoming one (on average). As are women to drive container ships. Although I don’t think that there is just one woman, who wants to do it.
it is the reason in new zealand. there it is practically impossible for men to become teachers at least in kindergarten and primary school because parents don't trust them.
sad really because kids need rolemodels from both genders
The "solution" to this problem is to not allow people to choose. In the country where I live the vast majority of schools are funded from the very high taxes you pay. You'd still have to pay those taxes if you choose to enroll your kid in a private school just so you could avoid a male teacher.
Male teachers are nevertheless underrepresented, due to other biases.
Then what is the solution? Because as far as I can tell, unless you force people to be 50/50 in a profession, it will be basically impossible to get rid of the implicit bias people have in those jobs. And I'd be willing to bet that applies to other immutable characteristics, not just gender.
People working in those sectors themselves acknowledge there is implicit bias. And the difference remains even when you control for dangerous work (I.e looking at people who only work desk jobs).
You may never get to 50;50 but there is no reason for the disparity to be as large as it is - any more than women (or any any other immutable characteristic) don’t self select not to be CEOs or similar.
And articles like this tell you you don’t have to look too far to find out what the real reason is.
Do you really extrapolate that women are 'far behind' from the fact there are few female ship captains? What about coal miners or steel workers or construction crews then?
Jumping to a completely different edge in the graph of human relationships seems like a poor way to get through anything, be it a conversation or an actual social challenge.
Networks are local. Speaking and making negating cases based on far-away, low-connectivity areas makes little sense and serves no one except those favouring inaction or an abundance of caution (for whatever reasons).
Anyhow, I'm saying the above respectfully. Not attacking you as a person, but your way of seeking perspective i feel quite opposed to. I'm content to be in amicable disagreement though, and have no sense that you're compelled to agree with me
What in the world? This is the most out of place reply I've ever received. I can't begin to understand what you think you read and the volumes of strange assumption you made about me
I honestly don't know if this reply represents sanity at all. Literally nothing in the reply even appears to relate to a single word I said. The entire reply appears to be based on a completely different post?
haha oookie dokie. i do ok, thanks[1]. i feel you're reacting to a gentle yet eccentric message in a pretty uncharitable way, and so this interaction would maybe not be productive for either of us
EDIT: ok, against my better judgement, i'll engage and try to communicate better -- the leap where i may have jumped off your train of thought (and it was a jump, but is always very evident to me) is this: i disagree that it's productive to use a relationship between men in china (compared to women in America?) as some sort of measure with which to determine actions that those in other countries should take. I mean this in regards to repairing relationships with women (in the "network of relationships" sense). It's a trap and a red herring to think that way with those comparisons. To continue with that way of rationalizing: if there's some minimum trough of ethics anywhere, we'd always lose energy to do better elsewhere (outside that minimum) until we somehow drag that far-removed minimum up. And since that minimum is likely far away, non-local and hard to affect, then operating this way is a recipe for the least productive mode of using our limited energies for change. This isn't a "women's rights" point I'm making, but about anyone affecting change on anything.
Comparison of how women are treated in their local communities [elsewhere] with how men are treated in China is completely irrelevant and counterproductive imho. Unless someone doesn't want to do anything about it or have responsibility put on them, and wishes to paint a blanket rationale for that -- in which case it's a helpful framing. (Ps, it's totally ok to not work on these things. Life is busy. But it feels particularly unhelpful to rationalize it with weird intentional logic.)
I'm a very network-centric thinker, so this is how I speak and process (at least on HN, if not in real life)
Again, despite you not receiving my message well before, I state again: I say the above kindly, and not with any sort of "argumentative" or "gotcha" style of engagement. I tried to state these as my beliefs, and not some truth of the universe, though maybe i slipped in my language a few times * shrug * Anyhow, hope you're well
I feel almost entirely the opposite as you. Ignoring inconvenient comparisons because of political borders or because it is difficult to enact change is the actual red herring and trap.
I would charge that your "network centricism" is a buzzword to help you rationalize ignoring bad things in our world. I would charge that it appears to be nothing more than "Completely ignore things you can't change", which is a honestly horrific ethos to live by.
"Comparison of how women are treated in their local communities [elsewhere] with how men are treated in China is completely irrelevant and counterproductive imho"
It's only irrelevant if Chinese people are irrelevant. Sorry to state hard facts, but this comparison is only irrelevant if the plight of the Chinese person is irrelevant.
To you, maybe.
I don't take offense to how you write, I think you use 100 words where 15 would work, and I think you enjoy the concept of ideas more than thinking them through to their endpoints. I amount all of this response to nothing more than justifying not giving even 1% of thought to the plight of people who are oppressed in the world. The highest IQ "Out of sight, out of mind" I've ever witnessed.
I think you're clearly smarter than me, but I think you have some very immoral ideas. I don't mean to offend, I just think it's shocking how one can compartmentalize so efficiently that you think it's a "red herring" to bring up real oppression in the world because, basically, you can't do anything about it. Reality isn't a red herring and to even suggest that real situations happening right here today right now are "red herrings" is just such a feat of smart stupidity to me.
Thanks for replying. But I fear your opinion is why it's so easy for genocide's like the one happening there to happen. Out of sight out of mind, it's a red herring and trap to think about it!
What an outrageous example of a straw man, I never suggested anything of the sort.
Women here can run for president, own newspapers, vote and own guns and property. That's more free than most people these days.
We should celebrate that best of all time freedom for women. Never in history have women been as equal and empowered as right now and right here.
We should care more about our chinese and other brothers and sisters who live an oppressed life of authoritarian rule.
All people deserve what american women have, and all Americans deserve more than we've achieved, and american women deserve more. All of these can be true.
I'm not trying to leave the USA, but suggesting it's not fubar is a willful denial of reality.
'It could always be worse' is an agent of the status-quo.
This place maybe the least-worst, but we can still strive for actually good.
Edit: you're completely right that we should balance our efforts domestically with our efforts universally. The latter is unfortunately a much more intricate web to unweave than the relatively simple issues we've got here. It sucks.
It certainly feels like false equivalence to suggest "you win some and lose some" when comparing free speech and political rights to gender representation in some fields.
But I'll take your word for it, perhaps there are american women who would trade their right to vote and speak freely in exchange for more of their gender at work with them
you are right it is, i did say those are not really comparable. i was only trying to point out that there are positive aspects and negative aspects to both societies. not that those are equivalent.
Not sure we can or should read too much into it.