Point taken, and I’m aware that I was pushing the envelope with…
But…
It can be difficult for anyone to accurately judge acceptable behaviour in any milieu, let alone an aspergian, especially when the guidelines are fairly vague and somewhat sparse. I tend to take my cues from the behaviour of those around me, though of course I have no way of knowing how many of the posters LinusK refers to have now been warned or banned.
I found the following without too much difficulty:
“Generally, you may not directly insult or personally attack other posters. The strictness of this rule varies a bit by forum, but the basic rule is that you should attack what the other person says, not the other person.” [FAQ - Rules for Posting]
and:
“Violations of good manners and common courtesy constitute jerkhood, and are a bannable offense.” along with “We’re trying to promote debate, not suppress it.” [FAQ - Guidelines and Etiquette]
I’m aware that a skilled poster can, for example, call someone else a bigot without directly saying “you’re a bigot”, which is perhaps within the letter of the law, if not the spirit. And this is almost certainly not the right place for a protracted discussion of these issues, but it is the place where I’ve first seen on this board the profoundly discourteous practise of discussing a poster in public in the third person - a practise which is only intended to suppress debate by attacking the poster rather than the post.
But you are both correct and in charge and I, at least, shall take care not to call a spade a spade again.
I’ll start off by saying I did not say: “no woman on earth can do now, and that we couldn’t manage to learn even if all of our lives literally depended upon it, because…we’re too afraid of bugs?”
And I’ll thank you for quoting what I did say, so that it’s easy to see I didn’t say it.
Logging workers
Fishers and related fishing workers
Aircraft pilots and flight engineers
Roofers
Refuse and recyclable material collectors
Mining, machine operators
Driver/sales workers and truck drivers
Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers
Electrical power-line installers and repairers
Construction laborers
I want to point out that, aside from the fact that these are the most deadly jobs in America, they’re also jobs that are absolutely essential to the functioning of our economy: for example, without fishers, farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural workers, there’d be much less food on the table.
Without loggers, roofers and construction workers, there’d be little or no new housing going up. Or new building of any kind, or maintenance on existing buildings.
Without pilots and flight engineers or drivers, very few products would make it from where they’re produced to where they need to go.
Without mining and electrical power-line installers and repairers, the electrical grid (the thing that makes the lights work) would go down within a matter time.
Without refuse and recyclable material collectors, there would be no one to pick up your trash.
Much of the 92% death occupational death gap comes from these: the top ten most dangerous jobs. These jobs are primarily done by men.
I say primarily, because I recognize that some of them are done by women. For example, when I worked on a factory/trawler in the Bering Sea, approximately ten percent of the people on the boat were women. (I didn’t take an exact count: there were approximately 5 women on my 12 hour shift, and I assume the number was similar on the other 12 hour shift. There were about 100 people on the boat.)
I assume there are some women roofers and garbage collectors - though I’ve personally never seen one. I’m sure there are some women construction workers - but in the new high-rise going up next to the building where I work every worker I’ve seen is a man. (And, FWIW, it’s surprising how difficult what they’re doing is, how efficiently they do it, and how quickly the building is going up.) The only woman I’ve ever seen there was dressed in a business suit, and was clearly there in some sort of managerial capacity. I’ve never seen a female trash collector. (Also known as “garbage men.”)
Anyway, if you sincerely believe that these occupations are not primarily - or overwhelmingly - done by men, I’ll ask you to provide a cite. If you demand I provide a cite, I’ll try to do it, when I have time.
As for roaches, while I’m sure there are women who aren’t freaked out by them, I’ll just say that, in every relationship I’ve been in (which, admittedly, isn’t that many - I’ve been married for half my life) I’ve been exclusively in charge of killing bugs. That is, just one of my jobs (apparently) as a man. And, FTR, because I keep seeing what I say misrepresented: I’m complaining about killing bugs. I’m not afraid of bugs, and I don’t particularly mind doing it. I’m only pointing it out as some evidence to back up an earlier claim.
Here’s another woman putting her hands on a man and finding out it was a poor idea. I realize the feminists here will think the man is a good feminist. After all, he reacted the same way he would’ve reacted to a man. Equality! Yay!
Most of these workers are men, but to imply that in the absence of men that women would be helpless and unable to learn these skills is absurd. If all men disappeared, these jobs and skills would be taken up by women.
The words you wrote imply that no women do, and no women can, learn how to do the tasks under discussion. And it is within the scope of the phrase “what you are saying is…” to then go on to write out, not just quotations or paraphrases, but implications.
For example, if you ask whether you’ll need a flashlight if you go outside, and I reply by saying “Well, it’s high noon out there,” then even though I didn’t literally say “it’s bright enough that you’ll not need one,” it is perfectly fine for you to reply, “So you’re saying I don’t need one?” I could not possibly have a rational objection to this.
The difference between what you did post and how your post was paraphrased is meaningless. You provided a list of occupations that you said would have no workers if men disappeared. You then listed a number of things about which women would be “pretty unhappy” because they disappeared after the men did.
Whatever difference there might be between saying that women are not capable of doing jobs and not capable of learning to do them and your statement exists only in your mind.
You made a dumb claim, (one more appeal to emotion and stereotypes rather than the facts that you claim you wanted to discuss), and got caught. Just admit that you did poorly in that post and move on.
ETA:
No one has claimed that men are not the overwhelming majority of those workers, today. That is a straw man argument.
Your claim, however, was that women would not do them and generally could not do them. It was a dumb remark that you cannot avoid by straw man claims.
LinusK never said women CAN’T or WON’T do those jobs; he said they DON’T do them. And he’s right; they don’t. The only straw man is the moronic argument that since they don’t do them, which is true, the IMPLICATION is that they can’t. There is no such implication, except for those who want to argue something he never said.
“I do not pick lettuce.” That does not imply that I’m incapable of learning or unable to do it. It is a statement of fact. If all the lettuce-pickers “disappeared,” I would be out of lettuce in the short term. Duh. There is no implication that lettuce would never again be harvested, just that it would be wildly inconvenient in the short term. Duh.
Christ, I can’t believe some of you can’t follow his argument; it’s not rocket surgery.
Well, I can believe that you are willing to ignore his actual statements in order to post one more kvetch.
His claim was that if men disappeared, women would no longer have a list of products and services. The clear implication was that if men disappeared, women would not be able to supply such things, themselves. He did not say that women would have trouble recovering such things. He did not say that women would be inconvenienced. He did not say that women would be burdened by the need or the time needed to re-train. He said that women would no longer have them. He further implied that women would be unable to provide those services and products due to a fear of a bug. You can dance and twist to your heart’s content, but his words are up there for everyone to see.
Your attempt to defend his nonsense says rather more about your willingness to support nonsense that it says about those who have pointed out his silliness.
He said that the lights would go out and toilets would stop working, directly implying that women would not be capable of keeping the lights on and toilets working. That’s a pretty silly assertion.
We do know that they don’t currently do those jobs (in sufficient numbers to service the rest of their gender). “Well I could do those dirty dangerous if I had to” doesn’t sound like oppression…
I could fetch the post number where I quoted one of the few rules available about posting, if you like. The one that mentioned not shutting down debate. Is it a personal attack to say I don’t regard you as a particularly good moderator, in that regard?
I post. I think that’s broadly allowed. I hold a position, which I also think has not yet been outlawed (give it time…) I comment on another’s post - again, I think that’s within the rules. but you’re the moderator, you can build whatever righteous oppression you’re comfortable with. Personally (with the benefit of non-feminist thought) I view your post as a personal attack rather than a comment on the content of my post. Did I mention my views on your aptitude?
I understood oppression to be a key concept of ‘feminism’, which is very much the context of a thread titled ‘Anti-feminism’. I criticise your post (and accept the warning that will accompany the acknowledgement that I resolutely criticise you).
FYI, posts about moderation go in the “About This Message Board” forum. Also, in general, when moderators post it is always simply as a regular poster UNLESS they specify in the body of their post that they are hereby moderating. Tomndeb wasn’t posting as a moderator, in other words. (So your comments about whether s/he is ‘being a good moderator’ in her post do not apply.) The post invites response rather than shutting down response–it’s inviting you to either defend the idea against the arguments that have already been presented, or else to explain it’s not what you meant.
Obviously I agree with your comments. If I wasn’t married, and she wasn’t married, I’d consider moving moving to Canada. (J/K, of course. :p)
Interestingly, she explicitly identifies herself as working-class. My impression (which could be wrong, of course) is that she’s never been to college. She is, I other words, an autodidact. Which would - if it wasn’t entirely off-topic - lead me to some comments about the extent to which higher education has become a pay-for-a-diploma business.
No it doesn’t. It says “Are you showing up again, with a view I don’t like?”. It’s clearly a personal criticism rather than a response to the content of my post, and, regardless of the variable status of a moderator, one who can’t even seem to grasp the basic concepts I learned readily, yet still wears the badge on every post they make, does not deserve the badge IMHO. And yes, I’m sure I could drag this particular exchange elsewhere - except you go on to argue that it isn’t in fact about moderation. Indeed it isn’t, it’s necessarily become about that poster, and now about this poster. I’d rather talk about the issues, the context, the OP, the matter at hand, the subject of this debate etc. I think it’s telling that the supporters of an untenable political ideology have to disrupt debate this way (I can proffer plenty more real world examples if you wish).
Well, they pretty much would, surely? By the time you had enough trained personnel to get them working again, the infrastructure would require a bugger of a lot of sorting out.
I realize I’m possibly laying myself open to mob ridicule by tossing my hat into the ring on the wrong side, but to give you a for-instance, it’s a lot easier to keep the existing power grid running than it is to cold-start it from scratch if it goes out. It’s a lot easier to keep refining and distributing oil going now, while it’s a going concern, than it would if the supply chain got interrupted. And of course if you lose either of these, you have lost the other, surely, and a lot more besides.
Starting from the vantage point that “we knew that this was possible once, so it must be possible to do it again” you’ve perhaps got an easier ride than if it was 1800 all over again and neither petrochemicals nor electricity was even a thing, but it’s a non-trivial task to figure out how you’re going to start things running again and I wouldn’t bet too much on the chance of restarting it inside a generation. And that’s leaving out the effects of the famines and the epidemics.
I don’t say that women can’t do these jobs; I don’t even say that women don’t do them. I do dare claim that they don’t do them in anything like enough numbers to keep the supplies going if the men vanished overnight, whereas if the women vanished overnight, the infrastructure would barely notice the bump in the road.
There are plenty of female engineers. If in some catastrophe, all men disappeared, those women engineers (and many other intelligent women in other fields) would quickly recognize the importance of keeping infrastructure going, and they would get it done. They would organize and take what emergency action was necessary to keep things from collapsing (just like men would if most male engineers disappeared), and quickly train other women to replace the lost men and keep things going.
This isn’t that hard – some women are capable of doing these things, and they are capable of training the ones who don’t have the skills to do them.
When I was part of the crew of a submarine, we could have lost 90% of the crew and still gotten the submarine safely back to port, while continuing to safely operate the power, water, and other necessary systems.
