ObjectivityIncarnate

The coup de grace has to be you comparing Iceland to Saudi Arabia.

Okay I guess you’re just illiterate. YOU are the one that asserts that a bigger man/woman gap means there is more sexism. Therefore, YOU consider Iceland one of the MOST sexist countries, because it has a HUGE man/woman gap in construction, MUCH wider and further away from 50/50 than in the vast majority of countries.

That is the conclusion YOUR logic produces, not mine.

• Fact: Iceland has made great strides in gender equality, at the very least, relative to other nations, and has earned its place at the top of that gender equality index.
• Fact: Iceland’s man/woman gap in construction is MUCH larger than it is in nations that are known to have SIGNIFICANTLY less gender equality overall.

Therefore, the obvious conclusion, for any rational thinking person, is that it is clearly incorrect to equate the size of that gap to the level of gender equality.

You still can’t contend with the simple burning question that arises from the two simple facts above, so until you address it, the following is all you’re going to get from me as a response from now on:

If sexism is the cause of that gap, how is it that the gap is larger in less sexist countries, than it is in more sexist countries?

Culturally Sweden may be more or less sexist than the US.

Nah, the research has been done, the data is in. There is no “may”.

But why don’t we push my argument as far as it can go and look at the country rated literally #1 in the world for gender equality, Iceland? It’s had that distinction for well over a decade, so it’s no flash in the pan you can accuse of being cherry-picked.

Well, it turns out that according to Iceland’s most recent national census, the percentage of women in construction in the most gender equal country on the planet is SIX.

I have already provided evidence in the form of Norway that disputes your pet theory.

You cherry picked a country that has had national gender quotas since 2003–what, think I wouldn’t notice your sneaky little maneuver? You’re not going to get good information about what men and women freely choose to do for a living in a country that literally directly manipulates the sex ratio in the workforce.

You conflate progressive laws with sexism itself

No, you’re the one who does that, because you’re the one that assumes that the gap is in and of itself evidence of sexism. In reality, the evidence clearly shows that with less sexism, which translates to men and women being more empowered to make their own free choice about what they want to do for a living, men and women’s average differences in preference of career manifests more strongly.

Your insistence that there is zero difference of preference between the sexes, and that therefore anything but a 50/50 ratio in an industry is indicative of sexism, is complete bunk.

Men and women are not identical, no matter how much of a tantrum you throw. In the country consistently regarded as being the most gender equal, construction is dramatically more male-dominated than in the average country.

Having progressive laws does not suddenly end sexism.

No one said it did. But you’re arguing that progressive laws INCREASE sexism! lmao

Your goofball ‘logic’ would place Iceland among the LEAST gender equal countries, closer to Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia than the US! Do you really not understand how you are literally arguing that up is down?

Sweden is still a sexist society

Nobody said there was zero sexism in Sweden. I’m talking in relative terms. All that’s needed to make my point is for Sweden to be less sexist than the US. And it is–in fact, it’s top 4 in the world on gender equality indexes.

The fact, again, is that countries that are more egalitarian re sex have been found to exhibit, as was just evidenced, steeper sex skews in the workforce, than less egalitarian countries.

This roundly refutes the assumption that sexism is the primary cause of the skew’s existence. If it was, reducing sexism would narrow the gap, not widen it.

I realize this fact doesn’t confirm your biases, but it is the fact of the matter nonetheless.

lol…do you sink in mercury?

the construction industry in Sweden consists of only 11 per cent women."

Meanwhile, in the US:

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 14% of construction workers [are] female.

Oh, look at that, it’s exactly what I just said: the country with MORE gender equality overall, Sweden, has the LARGER gender skew. Construction is MORE male-dominated in Sweden than in the US.

So, once more:

Explain how, if sexism is the reason for the gap in the first place, it can be that less sexism leads to a wider gap (which you just unwittingly proved is the case). Be specific.

citing a theory

It’s not a “theory”, it was what the research found. It just doesn’t confirm your biases, so you strain your wrist with how hard you desperately try to handwave it out of existence. Ironically another similarity to the young earth creationist playbook: “evolution is just a theory”, lol.

pseudo-science like personality types no different than other asinine postulations like astrology

LMAO, better let Nature know you know better what real science is. What a hack journal, right?

Incredible.

Facts:

• Scandinavia is more egalitarian than the US re sex. In other words, less sexism overall.
• To mention just two examples, the skew of men over women in engineering, and the skew of women over men in nursing, are both STEEPER in Scandinavia than in the US.

Explain how, if sexism is the reason for the skew in the first place, it can be that less sexism widens the gap. Be specific.

Everything you said was pretty much nonsense.

I quoted “gender equality paradox” for a reason. It is a real thing, not some concept I conceived of–It has a Wikipedia entry, for fuck’s sake. I’ll quote the first paragraph, but please stop being so intellectually lazy and actually look up the whole thing yourself, instead of wallowing in your haughty condescension:

The gender-equality paradox is the finding that various gender differences in personality and occupational choice are larger in more gender equal countries. Larger differences are found in Big Five personality traits, Dark Triad traits, self-esteem, depression, personal values, occupational and educational choices. This phenomenon is seemingly paradoxical because one would expect the differences to be reduced as countries become more gender egalitarian.[1] Such a paradox has been discussed by numerous studies ranging from science, mathematics, reading, personality traits, basic human values and vocational interests.

You have no facts to speak of

No facts you’re willing to admit exist, despite being both present and easily-accessible, you mean. You can’t will them out of existence, no matter how much you wish you could.

and it is clear you think sexism is status quo

No, what’s clear is that you assume any sex disparity is caused by sexism, the sociological version of the creationist’s ‘god of the gaps’ argument, where God is similarly conveniently spackled into any crevice not already filled.

How many men are supportive of male librarians or male grade school educators.

99% of them don’t give a shit, at all, either way. Same for women, as well.

It was found that in areas of the world that have made much more progress than the US in the are of overall sex equality, that the skews in professional positions are HIGHER, not lower (e.g. engineers are even more male-skewed, nurses are even more female-skewed, etc.). Men and women, when given the free choice to pursue whatever they want professionally, do not make the same choices in aggregate. That is the fact of the matter.

It’s literally called the “gender equality paradox” because so many people naively assumed that men and women are exactly the same, blank slates that only differ in any way because of societal pressures, and that only sexism (e.g. society telling men to do job X and women job Y) could be the reason that it’s not an exact 50/50 sex split across all jobs/careers. The research that discovered the exact opposite was true flabbergasted them, but the facts are what they are, like it or not.

The fact that those skews become MORE pronounced in societies with MORE equality completely obliterates that assumption.

In 2022, 88.1% of CEOs were men, and 88.8% were Caucasian.

And what percentage of women want/try to be CEOs, compared to men?

That’s an important piece of the puzzle that gets ignored far too often. If, for example, one half of the population is 10x more likely to desire/pursue a particular job than the other, a 10 to 1 difference among those who end up in that job is not only not evidence of any sort of bias, but it’s exactly the outcome one should expect in the absence of such bias.

Librarians are ~83% women, but it’s not because those who are hiring librarians are massively sexist against men.