I am not sure we have enough of a normative agreement on what racism or sexism actually is to even begin to answer this question (or very many other ones).

For example, one person might believe a tech company not intentionally hiring women to increase diversity is sexist; and another individual might believe that intentionally not considering male hires is sexist.

As long as this is the case, I am not sure how we can untangle this issue.

This is a general critique of postmodernism itself, that postmodernism states there is no axiomatic truths or meanings to even start the process of developing a consistent, coherent worldview.

(Please correct me if you think I am not articulating the postmodern worldview correctly)

What does "the post modern worldview" have to do with anything?

The whole concept that racism and sexism are institutional and need to be addressed at the institutional level through measures of distributive justice is a very postmodern one.

If classical liberal ideas were still en vogue, "meritocracy" wouldn't be a dirty word and there wouldn't be such a strong push for equity IMO.

And almost certainly our normative concept of what racism and sexism is would be very different

Postmodernism is the reason our society accepts more men than women in tech and STEM fields = sexism; and no one seems to have much of a problem with the fact 90%+ kindergarten teaches are female.

There is no axiomatic truth, all there is is contextual truth.

Post modernism was a short lived, mostly in literary academia. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone in academia or not who calls themselves post modernist.

Why sexism and racism became an issue wasn't because someone the magical words "post modernism" Harry Potter style but that women and minorities agitated against the prevailing status quo for more egalitarian treatment

For instance, on Amicus by Slate

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...tq-rights.html

After the Civil Rights Act passed women sued based on a provision that prohibited discrimination by sex. One particular series of cases that stood out to me was that previously female flight attendants had to adhere to a very strict set of critiera that didn't apply to male flight attendants. Female attendants couldn't get pregnant, they had to fit certain proportions, they had to be under 30, etc.

The court found that that was sexual discrimination and found in favor of the women. And now you'll find female attendants of all shapes and sizes and ages and are treated more like their male flight attendants.

Just say egalitarianism instead of post modernism.

Just length of time, period.

A job candidate may have had short tenures and multiple jobs due to an undiagnosed/unknown disability.

Whatever the case may be, in regards to all the close calls, a job candidate can just lawyer up prior to the process of putting out applications and interviewing.

Reality is racist, sexist, attractivist, ageist, cognitivist, behavioralist, etc etc. Or else some races, sexes, attractiveness levels, ages, cognitive abilities and behavioral traits wouldn't consistently crush others at specific tasks.

To the extent that job descriptions reflect the reality of finding someone most capable at a job, they will also have those qualities. It is what it is.

The question is, should we try to change it? In my view if hiring is purely focused on the task at hand (can they write low-bug code efficiently? can they lift the actual fire hose? do children respond to them well and feel safe and engaged?) then claims of racism, sexism, etc are crazy and attempts to artificially fit it to demographics are also crazy.

I have the same problem with your usage of racist/etc. as I had with David's:

The mere existence of various differences is not in of itself racist/sexist/etc and I think we have good reasons to try to be careful with our definitions, and not use those terms merely to indicate the existence of statistical differences.

Where's the burden of proof? If high end programming is 60% asian and 38% white and 2% black, is that proof of a racism "ghost in the machine" somewhere in the system from birth->death? Or is it possible that, in entirely healthy non-racist ways, cultures, preferences, norms, etc just don't get many black people in coding? As pure hypothetical examples, black culture might be more sociable, more sports-oriented, higher energy, people-focused, etc. Programming is an intellectual loner's activity.

I guess the problem I have with the approach that is often taken (major lack of outcomes matching demographic in high paying field => ____ism) is that it invites the worst of human qualities - confirmation bias, shoehorning, etc. There are infinite ways to fit a "secret/institutional racism" narrative on top of the sum of a human life. Particularly for underperforming groups.

In my view it's unknowable if something is "structurally ____ist" since the term is so ill defined and the set of statistics you could milk to "prove" it is near infinite, meaning you end up with a literature that fits the prevailing political bias/will rather than any kind of reality (see: scientific racism for 100+ years, social science today). All we can do is determine if entry (to a job, to a university) is based on merit and if it then the free market will do the rest by the simple fact of outliers being far more valuable than the norm.

Why do you not subscribe to this view? Particularly the last sentence.

There are plenty of bad faith actors, but I think plenty of people legitimately believe that there is enough corruption in the system that this is not true, or at least it is not as true as it could be, and they are trying to tweak the system to improve it.

I'm sure they legitimately believe it but whether they believe it has no bearing on whether it's true. If you look for structural racism in birth -> death for an underperforming group you will find it in spades even in a society with ZERO structural racism. And that is precisely the problem I have with this approach. Where's the falsification?

I think it's obviously true that the US is highly meritocratic. Combined with extreme value of outliers compared to the average and the vast variety of jobs available, and it seems obvious to me that there is zero problem with structural racism in the skilled professional job market overall. Perhaps there is for simpler jobs but OP was talking about jobs with specified skills.

Typically on the one making a claim. So for example, if your hypothesis is that the primary explanation for some social inequality is grounded in cultural differences than you should look for evidence to support that claim. As far as the salience of prejudice and discrimination to various racial inequalities, there is a voluminous body of research on that, so I consider claims to the contrary to be rooted mostly in ignorance of the evidence.

It's not obviously true, at the very least. I would say all the evidence I'm aware of points in the other direction.

But, if we're going to talk about programming as an example, I think it may be useful to set race aside for a moment. A belief in a highly meritocratic society would suggest that, controlling for individual capability, a white male from a middle-upper class family in a middle class neighborhood should have the same odds of getting into the field and succeeding as a white male from a poor family in an impoverished neighborhood.

I sincerely doubt that this is the case. I expect that the upper-middle class individual has better odds, and anecdotally my experience bears this out. I believe there is evidence that this is true across professional occupations (and I could probably find more research if I try).

The causal factors here are fairly straightforward, and include both access to better resources as well as cultural capital that makes higher SES individuals better prepared for the secondary socialization related to those professions. This also illustrates the ways in which culture is a product of material conditions, which should not be overlooked and is also relevant to a theory of cultural differences. These factors mediate meritocratic ideals in non-trivial ways.

Going back to the question of racial differences, I would expect that inequalities related to wealth and income are highly salient to some racial divides in professional occupations. And inequalities in wealth and income between racial groups are connected by other research to the historical consequences of discrimination and prejudice. Regardless of how deeply you decide to dig into causes of class differences, the structural factors related to social class are prima facie a better explanation than a vague appeal to culture, while also demonstrating why belief in strict meritocracy is unwarranted.

Just to be clear, my first two posts in this thread were arguing against framing all statistical differences as inherently ____ist. But that is different from saying that ____ism plays no role in any differences.

First, I do not think the terms are ill-defined. Poorly understood by many, perhaps, but not ill-defined.

I think knowledge is hard and most of us could benefit from being more skeptical of our own beliefs, but I also think it is possible to reach reasonable conclusions from careful study of available evidence. I believe the evidence supports my views, and does not support belief in very strong meritocracy.

I dont believe this is correct. I believe that it's on the plaintiff to show disparate impact, and then the burden of proof is on the company to show that the policy *is* necessary. That obviously shifts incentives to make companies more defensive (hiring unqualified applicants to avoid lawsuits) than your version.

Having requirements that, at first blush, might be 'discriminatory' are not necessarily sexist or racist in nature.

The simple reality is that some positions will be more physically demanding. This does not automatically preclude all females nor does it necessarily include all males. Without question, however, it is something that might favor the more muscular, which is generally going to be the males. However, as a number of agencies have learned, there are qualified females who can meet the demanding standards and do the job in a capable manner.

So much this. I had a algebra teacher in my sophomore year that was not good at math OR at being a teacher. I got 'invited' to go speak with the Vice-Principal about my comment that the District could save some money and just put the book up on the board and eliminate the salary. My comment had been made after the teacher, rather exasperated over a confuzzled student in the class, finally just said 'it's in the book...just READ it.'

Some people simply cannot teach. And, I would also argue that reaching some arbitrary number on a test does not mean the person knows a subject well enough to teach in the first place. We see the same thing in law on a regular basis where someone had performed poorly on the LSAT and did not score as high as a lot of their cohorts on certain sections of the Bar exam, yet went on to have stellar careers.

I get that we need to have some sort of a measuring stick, but, at least in America, we have long since gone too far overboard with trying to attach scoring success in multiple-guess testing with actual ability to perform a task.

I accept your correction. I think you are right about the legal process. If EEOC brings a complaint, then the company needs to demonstrate the necessity of the requirement. Before EEOC will bring a complaint, I think it's generally the case that they will require the complainant to establish disparate impact. The opinion I've read in the past from various lawyers is that it's still difficult in practice to win a discrimination suit based on disparate impact.

In any case, my main point was just that it's not enough to establish a disparity to succeed on a discrimination claim, regardless of where the burden of proof lies.

If people were genuinely equal to the extent that anyone could do any job as well as anyone else, I'm thinking the least fulfilling, most grueling and generally least productive jobs would be the best paying ones.

oO

isn't it sexist to not allow men to compete in women's sports?

No. Concepts of ____ism generally entail the idea of there being unreasonable (prejudicial, discriminatory) harm. Men are not being harmed by not being allowed to compete in women's sports, and there's also obviously relevant reasons why segregating sports by sex is reasonable.

but soon there may be no such thing as sex, right?
did you agree with the boy scouts having to allow girls?
are you okay that the girl scouts still do not allow boys?

No.

wat

No. Is this true? (That they were forced to do this?)

Yes.

1) I'm a part-timer but WTF?

2) If the girls want to do what the boys are doing, I don't see it as a big issue TBH.

3) obviously

I certainly don't think the boy scouts should be forced to allow girls, but if they want to I have no issue with that either. I'm skeptical they were forced.

mets: TiltedDonkey's replies work for me.