Starting Young & Aiming High

Roosh shared the above video by Guy Branum from The Factuary on the Forum, prompting an all round attack on the video. soup said “I think it would be good if we actually debunked them in this thread with evidence and examples”. As such, this post was born.

This forum has now officially become my primary exam study distraction…

Gender Pay Gap

The New York Times

THE NEW GENDER DIVIDE
At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust

What is beyond dispute is that the college landscape is changing. Women now make up 58 percent of those enrolled in two- and four-year colleges and are, over all, the majority in graduate schools and professional schools too.

Most institutions of higher learning, except engineering schools, now have a female edge, with many small liberal arts colleges and huge public universities alike hovering near the 60-40 ratio.

Forbes

The wage gap statistic, however, doesn’t compare two similarly situated co-workers of different sexes, working in the same industry, performing the same work, for the same number of hours a day. It merely reflects the median earnings of all men and women classified as full-time workers.

The Department of Labor’s Time Use Survey, for example, finds that the average full-time working man spends 8.14 hours a day on the job, compared to 7.75 hours for the full-time working woman. Employees who work more likely earn more. Men working five percent longer than women alone explains about one-quarter of the wage gap.

There are numerous other factors that affect pay. Most fundamentally, men and women tend to gravitate toward different industries. Feminists may charge that women are socialized into lower-paying sectors of the economy. But women considering the decisions they’ve made likely have a different view. Women tend to seek jobs with regular hours, more comfortable conditions, little travel, and greater personal fulfillment. Often times, women are willing to trade higher pay for jobs with other characteristics that they find attractive.

Men, in contrast, often take jobs with less desirable characteristics in pursuit of higher pay. They work long hours and overnight shifts. They tar roofs in the sun, drive trucks across the country, toil in sewer systems, stand watch as prison guards, and risk injury on fishing boats, in coal mines, and in production plants. Such jobs pay more than others because otherwise no one would want to do them.

Unsurprisingly, children play an important role in men and women’s work-life decisions. Simply put, women who have children or plan to have children tend to be willing to trade higher pay for more kid-friendly positions. In contrast, men with children typically seek to earn more money in order to support children, sometimes taking on more hours and less attractive positions to do so.

The Washington Post

The gender pay gap is not the product of discrimination. ”It’s a staple of feminist rhetoric: Women make less money than men because of discrimination…Here’s the truth you won’t hear: The pay gap is exaggerated, discrimination doesn’t drive it and it’s not clear that government can eliminate it — or should even try…[Conservative economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth] points out that part of the gap reflects the fact that women, on average, work fewer hours than men…Furchtgott-Roth cites a 2005 study by economists June O’Neill and Dave O’Neill, which found that for the most part ‘the gender gap is attributable to choices made by women concerning the amount of time and energy to devote to a career.’ They continue: ‘There is no gender gap in wages among men and women with similar family roles.’” Ramesh Ponnuru in Bloomberg.

Rape Culture

Everyday Sociology

Males are more likely to be victims of violence than females

Aspiring Economist

My university recently hosted a forum on rape for female college students. They emphasized that rape is a serious issue on campus using statistics. Fact: 1 in 4 college women have either been raped or suffered attempted rape. At least that is what women’s centers at colleges around the United States claim. That’s scary high. Too high. I was suspicious. I care quite a bit about a few college women. How much danger are they in? I decided to check out the figure.

Fortunately, it is bogus. 

More notably, I found this interesting critique of the study by Christina Sommers of Clark University. She notes that the study asked students:
Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?

An affirmative answer was counted as rape. In other words, a women who regretted a one night stand after a night of drinking was considered as having been sexually assaulted. The ambiguous nature of the questions and inclusive definition of rape is evident from the following statistics. Only 27 percent of the women Koss counted as having been raped identified themselves as rape victims. Moreover, 42 percent of labeled rape victims, went on to have sex with their attackers at a later date. Clearly, something is wrong. If we just consider women who considered themselves to be raped, the figure falls to a more believable 1/14.

Community Voices

You can not have an article on sexual assault in college, of course, without a solemn invocation of that infamous, oft-repeated, almost-as-oft-debunked One-in-Four statistic. The Trib does not disappoint:

The National Sexual Violence Research Center in Enola, northwest of Harrisburg, estimates 20 percent to 25 percent of women are victims of forced sex during their time in college.

But where the Trib, like everyone else who uncritically accepts this uncritical notion, does disappoint is in its failure to acknowledge that the numbers do not add up. And, in fact, that they do not even come close.

As a supplement to that same article, the Trib published a Campus Safety sidebar that provided a list of reported sexual assault offenses for eight local colleges over the past three years. All told, there were 65. 65. At 8 colleges. Among tens of thousands of female students. Over 3 years.

At the University of Pittsburgh, there are roughly 14,800 female students. If their chances of being sexually assaulted are 1-in-4, there should be about 3,700 sexual assaults each year. In 2009, the most recent year for which full statistics are available, Pitt students reported 4. 

At Carnegie Mellon University, there are roughly 3,900 female students. If their chances of being sexually assaulted are 1-in-4, there should be about 975 sexual assaults each year. In 2009, CMU reported 6. (That figure was a three-year high.)

At Duquesne University, there are roughly 5,700 female students. If their chances of being sexually assaulted are 1-in-4, there should be about 1,425 sexual assaults each year. In 2009, Duquesne reported 3. 

Just to be clear, and so those numbers stand out, here are the total number of reported sexual assaults for each of the three campuses in 2009, followed in parentheses by the numbers those universities should have suffered, according to the 1-in-4 figure:

PITT: 4 (3,700)
CMU: 6 (975)
DUQ: 3 (1,425)

Which means that, instead of 1-in-4, their chances of being sexually assaulted in 2009 were:

PITT: 1-in-3,700.
CMU: 1-in-650.
DUQ: 1-in-1,900.

There is, of course, a widely reported (if virtually unverifiable) statistic that says 90 percent of sexual assaults go unreported. The Trib piece took note:

90 percent or more of those victims do not report the assault.

If we grant that claim and adjust the numbers, then here are the total number of sexual assaults that occurred in 2009, followed in parentheses by the numbers those universities should have suffered, according to the 1-in-4 figure:

PITT: 40 (3,700)
CMU: 60 (975)
DUQ: 30 (1,425)

Which means that, even if we grant the 90%-are-unreported figure, women’s chances of being sexually assaulted while attending those universities in 2009 were not 1-in-4 but:

PITT: 1-in-370
CMU: 1-in-65
DUQ: 1-in-190

Is it possible that these numbers are just anomalies? That they represent a down year for sexual assaults on these local campuses, one that is not indicative of a typical year?

Not according to the crime statistics published for the past three years.

In 2009, Pitt reported 4, CMU 6, Duquesne 3. For the period 2007-2009, Pitt averaged 3.33 per year. CMU averaged 4 per year. Duquesne averaged 1.33 per year.

Which means that, in each case and on each campus, the three-year average was lower than the 2009 figure.

If we use those three-year averages, women’s chances of being sexually assaulted while attending those universities from 2007-2009 were not 1-in-4 but:

PIT: 1-in-4,444
CMU: 1-in-975
DUQ: 1-in-4,285

If you combine all of the crime statistics for Pitt, CMU, and Duquesne — again, the city’s three most populous urban campuses — and run an average for 2009 (which, as we’ve already seen, is above the most recent three-year average), here’s what you get:

# of Female Students: 24,400
# of Reported Sexual Assaults: 13
Chances of Being Sexually Assaulted: 1-in-1,877.

IF you accept the claim that 90% of college sexual assaults are not reported, you get:

# of Female Students: 24,400
# of Reported Sexual Assaults: 130
Chances of Being Sexually Assaulted: 1-in-188.

Reproductive Health

The National Review

Myth #2: “If you receive federal funding you have to comply by federal rules. You can’t have your cake and eat it too!”
Truth: The mandate forces every group health plan in America to cover these drugs whether the group gets federal funds or not. There is no opt-out. The government is making religious groups choose between offering services they believe to be immoral or closing their doors. That would have the terrible consequences of withdrawing charitable religious organizations from our country’s social safety net. Who will bear the brunt of this backwards policy? The poor, the homeless, the sick and the hungry.

Myth #5:The federal mandate actually protects women’s health because it increases access to free birth control.
Truth: Access isn’t the issue. 9 out of 10 employer-based insurance plans already cover these services. There is no need for the government to force religious groups to provide these services against their religious convictions.

Media Portrayal

The Guardian

Germany’s top-selling women’s magazine is considering abandoning its use of amateur models barely two years after deciding to banish professional ones.

Furthermore, the publicity gained by abandoning models appears to have done little for the bottom line. Sales have continued to slide, down from 801,574 in 2002 to 601,696 today.

The Telegraph

A leading German woman’s magazine that wanted to promote “real women” instead of professional models is considering abandoning the policy owing to falling sales.

The “real women” policy has also failed to garner the universal acclaim Brigitte’s publishers may have expected. While many welcomed its introduction others queried how it was possible to define what a “real” looked like, and complained that the definition insulted thin women.

The “micro aggression” thing is more a case of whether you consider it offensive to call a guy a pussy or a member of either sex a bitch when their behaviour doesn’t match their biologically predetermined gender roles.

^must watch

His media portrayal rant didn’t have much facts to even debunk. I googled his 70% of TV characters are male thing, nothing came up. The Bechdel Test examples on the internet are dominated by male oriented action and sci-fi movies.

Alison Bechdel, feminist.

I wonder how the test would fare with the same criteria for men in movies with a female target audience, although personally I don’t give two shits whether the Blechdel test holds up in the reversed situation or not.

Too Large for Forum: Feminism = Bullshit Poster

^Open in a new tab and read the Divorce and Fatherhood statistics in particular

Starting Young & Aiming High

On a chilly August night of an Australian winter, an attractive 18 year old private school girl was walking down the beach near her home one night when she was sexually assaulted, an event which immediately became front page news. As she walked down the beach, she heard a man call for help from a beachfront toilet block. When she went to go help him, the hooded, scruffy looking middle aged man pulled out a knife and used it to keep her from fleeing as he sexually assaulted her by the toilets, cutting her arms and legs. Miraculously, he was scared by a noise and fled, saving the poor girl from full-fledged rape.

The story above is fiction. Not because I made it up as a hypothetical, but because the girl in question fabricated the story and then confessed to have done so the next day. Coincidentally, one of my wings who I’m going to be moving out with is a classmate of hers so I happen to know a fair bit more about the girl and what happened then the media did. A week after this “ordeal” the girl returned to her school but instead of being upset or remorseful about what she had done she was happy, over the moon even. Allow me to explain why.

This girl didn’t have a reputation for being particularly crazy, neurotic or slutty. She’s hot (solid 7 in my opinion) and known to be pretty hard working, especially in her final few months of high school. Now, when something horrible happens in this critical year like saying becoming badly ill or almost getting raped, the student in question can apply for special consideration which would lower the entrance score she would need to get into her universities of choice. This girl made up this rape claim, cut herself (albeit shallowly) to fake the wounds and created a fictional wannabe-rapist (who ironically fits the same exact physical description as her dad) to get this special consideration.

Her story had some glaring inconsistencies which led it to eventually unravel. However, she’s gotten away charge free. The Police:

won’t be laying charges in relation to the report as we do not believe this is in the best interests of the young woman involved.

On top of this, she’s still going to get special consideration for university because of “what she went through”. The feminist establishment here tried to manufacture the complete lie that she actually was raped but retracted the claim because she was too scared to face the stressful environment of the justice system. Yeah, bullshit. The first reaction my wings and I had was something along the lines of “Oh shit we better install cameras n shit in the pad” so we didn’t get accused of rape by a woman scorned.

We ridiculed how white knightey the police would have to be to not charge an adult with a felony or for her to still get special entry from the panel despite admitting she faked the whole thing, but then I realized something. There is zero use in complaining about it. Special treatment and white knighting is ingrained into the male psyche. No amount of activism or legalization could undo that biological hard wiring.

There is no point trying to create a “true equality” where men aren’t disposable and fertile women aren’t precious. It is not a mindset that is manufactured by society, it is not a gender role handed to us by a “patriarchy” or a “matriarchy”. It is mere biology. Getting too worked up about it might even mess with your game. By all means, continue with the podcasts, the misandry alerts, the mental masturbation on blog comments and poster hanging on university campuses trying to artificially legislate gender relations.

Ultimately what you are doing right now will signify nothing. Meanwhile, I’ll be at the beach.

Starting Young & Aiming High