Oh? Enligten me. BTW, when I said "like they say," I meant it in the literal sense. The extremists have said that "they love death while we love life." They claim its our weakness.


LOL. I love it when you insult me. You could save yourself some typing if you just said "Eric, you're right, I know I'm wrong, and I'm pissed about that." When you have to resort to personal attacks, that's what you're saying whether you know it or not.


LOL the arts? Battlestar Galactica eh? That, Sir, is funny.

You're hardly in a position to accuse anyone of not thinking for themself as you've demonstrated that very inability by not being able to engage in a meaningful way, drawing the same false conclusions, making the same illogical false arguments, and getting your facts wrong over, and over, and over.


Again, enlighten me. How is it that women have it so hard in the U.S.? Are you familiar with a liberal woman named Oprah Winfrey? She's an American. She said her success wouldn't be possible anywhere but the U.S.

A woman is Secretary of State in my country. Another woman had a good chance at becoming president. Still another woman is leading our House of Representatives. There's women on the Supreme Court. Want me to name some women who are CEOs of major cooperations? Astronauts?

Tell me about this lack of opportunity.

It's not an attack, it's a comment - on your self-view you expressed about your career choice being one of service and self-sacrifice. Military careers are jobs like any other - if you really buy into the whole 'service' thing, maybe you have been conned into the job choice.

Firstly, please don't call me sir - it's a demeaning term that I dislike intensely. Now, to the Arts - lets start with a definition (from wikipedia simply because it seems succinct, and hopefully somethign you won't disagree with just for the sake of it): "The arts is a broad subdivision of culture, composed of many expressive disciplines. In modern usage, it is a term broader than "art", which usually means the visual arts (comprising both fine art, decorative art, and crafts). The arts encompasses visual arts, performing arts, language arts, culinary arts, and physical arts".

Television and film are part of visual arts, and the quality of either varies dramatically (no pun intended). There is a vast difference between a high quality production and a low quality production. I don't see the difference so much as one of the budget that has gone into it as the creative effort that has gone into it - in particular the writing and direction. If you can't see the difference between, say, 'The Bold and The Beautiful', and something crafted with great creative effort, for example, 'The Sopranos', then you have my pity, you are missing out on something most enjoyable. For me, watching a quality show (film or TV) is about appreciation of the art form, inspiration of thought and emotion, suspension of disbelief etc. Most definitely I see this as an Art form. And I was even a little surprised myself about the high quality of Battlestar Galactica.

I guess this is a matter of perspective as from where I stand your comments seem completely accurate when applied to you. You fail to acknowledge anythign you don't find acceptable. If it doesn't already have a place in your world-view, it does not exist - presumably because you already have it all worked out completely. This seems a very sad and narcissistic approach to life to me, but each to their own.


A woman is Secretary of State in my country. Another woman had a good chance at becoming president. Still another woman is leading our House of Representatives. There's women on the Supreme Court. Want me to name some women who are CEOs of major cooperations? Astronauts?

Tell me about this lack of opportunity.[/quote]

This is a really HUGE topic of its own and deserves its own topic. If you want to start one, I will try to educate you a little in it. Right now, I start work in 5 minutes, so certainly can't cover it all here right now. In a nutshell, I think you are seeing the topic very superficially. Look a little deeper and once again, put yourself in their shoes. Ask your wife if she ever feels she gets treated a bit differently because she's female.

LOL, "buy into the whole "service" thing" eh?


Well Sir, you are on a roll. You've been getting a laugh out of me on a near daily basis this week. How about you start taking care of what you say to others? At that point, I'll be sure not to call you something as horrible as "sir."


It probably seems that way because the only things I take a strong opinion on are the things I have worked out. I believe its foolish to make assertions about things you don't have command of the facts on.

This is why you don't see me in many of the evolution debates. I simply don't have much of an opionion on it - not in the way I feel I'm in a position to tell anyone they're wrong anyway. I can spot faulty arguments on both sides, but as for what someone actually believes on the subject, I don't take a stand.

So yeah, when you hear be take a decicisive position on something, its because I've worked it out and know the facts on it. You should give it a try and see how it works out for you.

You didn't want to bring my wife up - she's basically a better example than Oprah. In her field, she hit the top - she couldn't go higher without leaving the state. Because of her and what she does, I've met people you only see on the news. We've been to the world premier of major films.

I told her about your question anyway. No, if by "treated differently," you mean has she ever been screwed over professionally because she's a woman, no.

Of course, women do get treated differently all over. In my country, men usually hold doors open for women, stand if one enters the room in a formal setting, etc. That must be horrible.

The thing is, our views on this aren't even me seeing the glass half full, and you seeing it half empty, its more like I see the glass very near full, with the water level rising, and you're still bitching that there isn't enough water in the glass.

And you said my view is superficial? You have yet to even show an example, cite a statistic, or anything. You've just made claims.

This reminds me of a story from my own experience early in my military career - its been about 18 years ago. I got a call from someone saying they needed one person to come help them move some boxes or something. Among the people working with me that day, was one irritating young woman, who'd been complaining that women are not allowed in the special forces. I told her that she was needed over at such -n- such right away. When she returned tired and sweaty from the physical labor she actually complained that I had sent her when there were men I could have sent. I asked her what should have stopped me from sending her. Of course, she had no answer.

Indeed. To me, the whole 'serve your country' concept is meaningless. As I said, a military career is just that - a career - a job, for which you are well paid. If it was for free, or perhaps just for the basic needs (food, shelter, medicine) while you are "serving", then I could see some sense in call it 'serving your country'. But the facts of the matter are that more enticements are needed to attract people (even those who do not risk their lives while in the military), proving that it is not about personal values of service/sacrifice, but about remuneration. But as it is, it is a job. Calling it 'serving my country' is a way to glorify it and make people feel important for doing it.

Another aspect is that of getting called away from your chosen life during wartime (i.e. conscription) - this is quite different, and I think perhaps does deserve the tag 'service', as well as the other word you chose to apply to yourself, 'sacrifice'. Perhaps too there may be a minority who do choose to do it from personal values those who would choose to do it anyway, even if the enticements were not there - but I am quite convinced these are in the extreme minority.

Happy to provide you with a laugh if that's the case. Nevertheless, I should have expected you would not grasp this concept, so won't bother going in to the reasoning behind it. Nor should I expect you to have the courtesy to respect another person's request not to apply any given term to them, simply because they ask you to. If there are any terms I use to refer to you that offend you, please do tell - I will be happy to oblige.[/quote]

Again, you don't get it. As I think I mentioned earlier, professionally is not what I referred to, though as you seem insistent, let me see if I can find something for you ...

OK, try figure 11 in this document, showing wage disparity between genders:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/censr-20.pdf

It is meaningless for you to cite individual examples of professionally successful women. Individual examples do not represent the real picture - for every 1 individual successful women story you can cite, how many individual men stories do you think can be cited? You are citing individuals in a pool of 300 million people. BTW, Oprah is black as well as a woman (as is Condaleeza Rice, do you think this also proves that black people have equal opportunity in the USA?

Do you really think that when considering promotions in the workplace, nobody even considers issues like gender (and related points e.g. maternity) any more? Things are certainly much better than 50, 20 or even 10 years ago, but equality has not yet been reached.

But what I was referring to more was not purely the professional side of things - I believe that a great many males still believe women to be inferior, or that they 'belong at home with the kids'. This of course does not go undetected by women who interact with those men throughout their lives, and it has an impact on them.

I don't believe I have ever in my life seen an example of all the men standing up purely because a woman walks into the room. Sounds like something from upper class Victorian society rather than the modern or in any way normal world. Opening doors still exists to some extent, though I am suspicious of the sub-conscious motives of those men who do it (but then I have a fairly suspicious and low opinion of men in general - based on their track record). For me, courtesy extends to people of any gender. Whether I hold a door open and stand aside while another person enters, or open it, enter then hold the door open for them to come through after me, or open the door and leave them to open it themselves, comes down to spur of the moment, based more on the exact position of myself and them at the time.

I'm interested if you would say the same about doctors, EMTs, fire fighters, police officers, and others that serve the public?



Like I said, you've already shown you are perfectly comfortable with saying things that will offend unnecessarily. You should change your tune before making such a big deal about something like calling you "sir."


This is why I so often insist that people clarify their terms. I believe there is an intention to be vague - it allows wiggle room to get out of tight spots when you're cornered. If that's not the case, know that the next time I ask you to clarify what you're saying, its not to play games, its to avoid wasting my time or yours.

Wage disparity proves nothing. There are a multitude of factors other than discrimination that can and do explain it.

They are examples women and blacks were not prevented from great success by discrimination based on race or gender. You are correct in pointing out stories like these prove nothing conclusive about the big picture, but they do disprove they type of generalizations you were making.

This is exactly what I meant yesterday when I said all you can say is there isn't enough water in the glass. Injustices happen, no one is perfect, and that applies to women, men, and people of all colors. I'm sure if I cared to, I could come up with some examples of where I've been screwed over somehow. What's the use?


I'm not talking about standing up in a fast food place because some lady walks through the door. Maybe its an Australian thing. I've heard you guys have a reputation for treating your women like shit, but I hadn't put any stock in it.

That indicates to me you are a sick fuck. I don't mean sick as in "dirty mind," I mean you have an illness. You are also projecting.

People hold the door open for elderly or disabled men too. I typcially don't make a big deal of it if its a younger teen or twenty-something, then again I'll hold a door open for a guy right behind me too.


Same here.

Reminds me of something happened last week - I was walking out of a Starbucks, and a young guy was walking behind me, so I paused and held the door. The punk stops in the door way to turn around and say something else to this girl he'd been conversing with as if I was a door man or something, didn't reach out to hold the door or anything, just stood there talking. I let the door close and hit him in the side of the face, and hoped he'd say something about it as I walked to the car.

So no, manners is not a universal thing here either.

Less so, but the same principle applies, yes. I say less so because I have not heard of the active recruiter campaigns deliberately targeting low-income neighbourhoods, and because (I don't know about there but certainly here) there are elements of this type who do not do this kind of work as a career, but as volunteer work. Perhaps those type of people illustrate my point best - the difference between a person who makes a career decision to take up a job which is well-remunerated because there is a 'danger-pay' element to it, and, for example, a volunteer fire-fighter who risks their life purely from the desire to contribute to society.

It seems to me it is you who has made it a big deal - it was a very mild, off-hand comment/request from me which most civilized people would simply accept and respect (much as they would to someone who responds to being called "Ms" with "I prefer Miss (or Mrs)"). The civilized response is simply "Sure, no problem". You chose to take exception to it (probably just for the sake of causing trouble wherever you can as usual), that is, to 'make a big deal of it'. I never said I found it offensive, I said I thought the term is demeaning (more precisely self-demeaning) - I don't get offended by something that is commonplace to the point of basically being 'the norm'.

I believe my original comment was "On a side note ... you really believe that women are 'treated as equals'?" ... it is you who chose to assume that I would be talking purely about job opportunity and legal status. If you think that I consciously chose those words with an "intention to be vague" to give myself a way out if cornered, well, I guess you're a more paranoid individual than I had previously recognized. To me that sounds like bordering on psychosis/neurosis.

I give you solid proof and you simply deny it exists - so where is the point of finding it for you. I've never seen any reasonable alternative explanations for the amount of wage disparity that exists.

No. If I was claiming that it is impossible for any woman to be successful in our society, then your examples would disprove it. I never made such a claim. My point is it is much harder and unusual for women to succeed because barriers of sexism still exist, though (happily) they are steadily decreasing over time.

Granted, 'injustices' don't just happen to women and minority groups - again that was neither my point nor my claim. But, when there are widespread injustices that apply purely to women (or to other minorities - identical principles apply) in addition to the miscellaneous injustices that occur to people of both genders, that's sexism at work. That is precisely the target of Equal Opportunity legislation. When the levels of that type of discrimination are down to trivial or non-existent amounts, sexism will finally have been beaten.

Well, you response here raise some points:
1. Why not stand up when a lady walks into McDonalds, if that's what you think is civilized? (Personally I think most women would prefer that it not happen when they walk into a room in any scenario)
2. I'm not sure where you are going with the Australian thing, but your terminology betrays your attitudes a little ... "treating your women like" ... this says 2 things to me: you think of women as a different species, and men have some kind of ownership or superiority rights over them.

Now who's resorting to name calling? But as usual you are completely not understanding. I have simply noticed throughout my life the huge numbers of men who see women as objects to be used for their own amusement (there are also women who have this attitude towards men, but they have been far fewer in number in my experience). When you've seen enough women hurt from this behaviour (both personally, in friends, and professionally) you develop a suspicion/mistrust of males in general - or at least, I should say, I did. Where the hell you get the 'projecting' thing I have no idea.

Now you've lost me a little - yesterday you were claiming that holding the door open was a special treat for females, now you are saying it's something you offer for anyone who deserves 'special treatment'.

As I said, to me it is a courtesy, and I offer it to everyone in the same proportion - that is, based on circumstance. Yes, I would go further out of my way to get the door for someone in a wheelchair, but then I would also go further out of my way to get the door for someone carrying 4 bags of groceries.

I believe that courtesy is a valuable thing that is sad to see slowly disappearing or at least diminishing. One small way I have noticed is the courtesy wave while driving. It used to be that while driving if another drive holds back to let you, for example, pull out or pull in to a parking spot in a car park, that it was normal to give them a little wave as an acknowledgment to say thanks. I still do this without exception, but I've noticed it disappearing in recent years. Actually I've noticed the levels of it jump back up again a couple of years ago, but that correlated perfectly with me moving out of the city to a country area.

You gave no such thing. I had just explained that to you. Wage disparity is not proof that discrimination is its cause.

For example, one fact is that women simply choose different fields than men in general. Proof that men and women take different types of jobs? How about the fact that men are much more likely to die in the workplace? According to Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2006, 428 women were killed on the job. Compare that to 5275 men who were killed on the job.

The disparity closes dramatically when you factor out life decisions. Among men and women aged 27 - 33 who have never had a child, the disparity drops to a 2% difference - women earn 98% of what men do.

Women spend more time outside the work force than men. That's a choice.

Another big factor that Hilary Clinton has pointed out - women are eight times less likely to negotiate for a salary than men. That's yet another choice.

I'm afraid I just don't believe your rationalizations and simplifications. Things that you call simply 'a choice' are more complex than that if the choice has to me made in a setting where certain choices are harder for women than for men, due to various factors.

As for the gender gap rationalizations and denials, here is another link to an article covering the issue thoroughly:
Gender Wage Gap -- Male-Female Pay Difference

What you do and do not believe has no bearing on what is fact.

A choice is a choice, it means you can do one thing, or you can do another. How difficult an individual makes the choosing does not turn a choice into something else. Neither does calling them complex, talking about various factors, etc. People make choices, and outcomes are a result of those choices.

The important thing is equal opportunity - that affords us the opportunity to make choices. We can, and have, put mechanisms in place to ensure equal opportunity. Trying to force equal outcomes has devestating results, and I honestly don't think women or men would like it.

Lastly, I'm not going to play dueling URLs with you. If you would like to address any of the points I've made, please do. If you don't feel your position is worth putting in your own words, so be it, but the author at that link isn't here to participate in a dialogue, so I'm not going to have one with her or him.

Semantics - I don't believe/accept your oversimplifications because they are not in any way factual.

Spoken like a true 'black and whiter'. Decisions are not impacted upon by external factors, eh? I guess such an outlook would make life nice and easy for you.

I can see how such an oversimplification of life in general in the previous paragraph would lead you to this belief. Unfortunately one falsehood leads to more. You may not be able to perceive this as it requires more than one-dimensional thinking.

So now you don't approve of citing URLs at all, other than as references? Seems like a pretty silly view to me ... you won't address the points when I point you to where you can read them, but would if I paraphrase them and put them here instead? I really don't see the difference (other than the requirement of a mouse click), which can only lead me to the conclusion that there is some other reason you won't address them. Next perhaps you will tell us that we shouldn't cite studies done by others, we should do the studies ourselves.

Anyway <sigh> I will provide a few highlights for you.

1. The Wage Gap Exists Within Racial/Ethnic Groups - White men are not the only group that out-earns women, although the wage gap is largest between white men and white women. Within other groups, such as African Americans, Latinos, and Asian/Pacific Islanders, men earn more than women (Source: U.S. Census Bureau).

2. Higher levels of education increase women’s earnings, just as they do for men. However, there is no evidence that the gender gap in wages closes at higher levels of education. If anything, the reverse is true

3. Wage Gap Exists Within Occupations - only four occupational categories were found for which comparison data were available in which women earned even a little more than men: special education teachers, order clerks, electrical and electronic engineers, and miscellaneous food preparation occupations (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics). Social psychologists have demonstrated repeatedly that occupations associated with women or requiring stereotypically feminine skills are rated as less prestigious and deserving of less pay than occupations associated with men and masculine skills.

4. Women are more likely than men to work part-time. However, most gender wage comparisons leave out part-time workers and focus only on full-time, year-round workers. A close look at the earnings of women and men who work 40 hours or more per week reveals that the wage gap may actually widen as the number of hours worked increases. Women working 41 to 44 hours per week earn 84.6% of what men working similar hours earn; women working more than 60 hours per week earn only 78.3% of what men in the same time category earn (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics).

As I originally stated, the original article is more thorough, and supported by included graphs to help you understand (more reasons why I simply included the link).

You're starting to sound like a one-string banjo with your oversimplification palaver. All while you're the one doing the over-simplifying - you tried to claim its just gender discrimination causing the wage disparity, and will not concede that there are other factors. I presented several factors - all based on solid fact, explaining how there is much more involved in the wage gap than gender-based discrimination. Those aren't oversimplifications, they are facts, and the reason you won't accept them is they prove your position wrong.

Another thing about "oversimplification." There's not really any point debating the nuances when there's no common ground based on fact. Until you are willing to concede as fact that gender discrimination is not the only cause behind the wage disparity, questions about how little or how much are rather pointless.

That little strawman demonstrates you are either dishonest or very dense. Of course decisions are impacted by external factors, I never said otherwise, but that doesn't change the fact they are decisions. Choices.

Again, I can't have a dialogue with a URL. Having one with someone who's either incredibly dense and/or compulsively dishonest isn't easy either, but it is amusing at times.

Irrelevent. We aren't debating whether there is a wage gap, we are debating causes. You claim its gender discrimination only, I'm claiming there are a variety of other primary causes at work.

Was there any evidence at all in that snippet? Any fact whatsoever?

Why are women earning more in those four fields than men if there is this overwhelming, universal problem of gender based discrimination? Why aren't women in those fields discriminated against?

Are people in those other female dominated fields earning less because of gender discrimination or because of market forces. Do men in those female dominated fields earn more than the women? Or is it mainly a supply and demand thing? Could it be that its easier to find someone willing and able to be a nursing assistant than it is to find someone willing and able to be a coal miner?

I submit that a male and female nursing assistant will generally be paid the same all things besides gender being equal, just as a male and female construction worker will generally be paid the same all else being equal.