# un-PC beliefs **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 2, 2010, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823 "2010-10-02T05:46:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/81 "2010-10-04T20:11:44Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > > > A case can be made that boys’ current underperformance may be due to sexism in the school system. It is possible to go through an entire K-12 education without ever once having a male teacher. That’s gotta count for something. > > It’s just as possible to go through without ever having afemale teacher. The odds of both are extremely low. Especially in high school, and any instances of it happening would be statistically too low to account for the difference in test scores. You are correct that it is possible to do either. However, the probability of the one is an order of magnitude or more less than the probability of the other. You are correct that high school typically has a more mixed faculty. In the K-8 environment, on the other hand, I suspect that the probability of never having a single male teacher in nine years is at least 25%. Also, I said that a case could be made - I didn’t say it was a sure thing. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/82 "2010-10-04T20:21:01Z")
> [@Peeta\_Mellark](#): > > > [@astro](#): > > > > No, I saying that the classic argument that there was a sexist, male oriented classroom dynamic that oppressed girls ability to participate, and crippled their academic performance was never substantiated by the relatively tiny differences in male/female academic performance over the last 30 years. It was a “just so” story that people could get behind that was largely BS when you looked at the numbers. > > Okay, let me try to break down your bizarro logic: > > During our very sexist past, women did not excel academically as often as men. This was held up as evidence of their inferiority, supporting the sexist environment further. > > During our more recent past, women still did not excel academically as often as men. This was blamed on pervasive sexism and lack of educational opportunities. > > Over the past generation, there have been efforts to put an end to a pervasively sexist environment and give greater opportunities to women. _Suddenly_, women are performing at the same level as men or even exceeding them. > > And so you conclude there was never any sexism in school behind the differences that have now disappeared following efforts to stamp out said sexism? > > Dude. Share whatever you’re smoking. You’re kind of missing the point or you have a reading comprehension issue. I’m saying that with the exception of upper level abstract math performance (and a good portion of that differential may simply be due to the differences in the way male and female intellect distributes biologically along the bell curve with more male outliers at both ends), the contention that there was a substantial classroom performance gap between boys and girls over the last 40 years is largely false. If you have statistics that show evidence of a substantial female underperformance differential between the classroom performance of secondary and grade school boys and girls in US classroom (as a whole) from the 70’s to the present please post them. The reason that women are taking more advanced math and science classes these days is not that there was more classroom oppression in the past by teachers, but simply that’s where the jobs are these days, and sexist attitudes about women’s role in the in the workplace have changed considerably opening up new opportunities. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/83 "2010-10-04T20:30:07Z")
Are saying there was never a difference in standarized test scores? ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/84 "2010-10-04T20:35:24Z")
> [@Tethered\_Kite](#): > > White people are the world’s true minority. > > _Ducks and covers_ I’ve hung around a lot of non-white people and I’m going to have to agree with you. They make up less than 50% of the Los Angeles population. I’ve heard more racist things about white people than I’ve heard from white people. ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/85 "2010-10-04T20:43:21Z")
Oh and my un-PC thing is my hatred for non-English speaking employees and the places that hire them. They get mad at me for not knowing how to speak Spanish, or when they realize I know Armenian but choose to speak in English. Fuck that! Thai might be a slight issue too but the food names are in Thai and I have the option of ordering by number. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/86 "2010-10-04T20:45:12Z")
Kids deserve the opportunity to get out and play outside of direct parental supervision at a much younger age than we currently think appropriate (I will think nothing of letting my 7-8 yr old play in my yard or in the neighborhood, presuming the crime rate stays where it is), and not letting them do this is crippling to their social and moral development. For that matter, if the kid climbs a tree and falls and breaks his arm, that’s the natural consequences of being a kid, not a huge tragedy that means trees are inherently unsafe to climb ever. –Z, who will probably still be upset if his kid (currently -2 months old) does as Z did and steals several hundred feet of blasting cord from an unsecured strip mine in his early-to-mid teens. Good times, that. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/87 "2010-10-04T20:53:44Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Are saying there was never a difference in standardized test scores? As I noted there has always been a difference in upper level abstract math performance, although [some believe that even that is more of a testing artifact](http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2009/07/more-on-the-male-female-sat-math-test-gap/)than true performance differential these days. Classroom oppression, if it existed as a meaningful agent for suppressing academic performance, is logically not going to just impact a narrow set of quantitative abstract reasoning skills. I’m saying there is no substantive evidence as reflected by grades that girls performed marked more poorly overall than boys in grade school and high school from the 70’s to 2010. If you have evidence for this substantive differential please post it. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/88 "2010-10-04T20:57:01Z")
I’m sorry, but sometimes you just have to say that someone is black. I have a black friend from Jamaica who gets pissed when people call him African-American. “I’ve never been to Africa, and neither have my parents or grandparents! I’m black!” And no, he doesn’t want to be called Jamaican-American either. We have been so engrained to call black people “African-American” that it’s gotten stupid. I saw a segment on a TV show about starving children in Somalia, and the reported referred to them once as “African-American.” I bet they loved that. ---
**Author:** ![FordTaurusSHO94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f07891/32.png) [@FordTaurusSHO94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordTaurusSHO94)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/89 "2010-10-04T21:10:05Z")
> [@Gedd](#): > > I’m sorry, but sometimes you just have to say that someone is black. I have a black friend from Jamaica who gets pissed when people call him African-American. “I’ve never been to Africa, and neither have my parents or grandparents! I’m black!” And no, he doesn’t want to be called Jamaican-American either. > > We have been so engrained to call black people “African-American” that it’s gotten stupid. I saw a segment on a TV show about starving children in Somalia, and the reported referred to them once as “African-American.” I bet they loved that. There’s a black Forumula One driver that is British. Someone finally pointed that out to the announcers before they stopped calling him African-American. ---
**Author:** ![heatmiserfl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/df705f/32.png) [@heatmiserfl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heatmiserfl)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/90 "2010-10-04T21:25:08Z")
> [@astro](#): > > > [@Peeta\_Mellark](#): > > > > Okay, let me try to break down your bizarro logic: > > > > During our very sexist past, women did not excel academically as often as men. This was held up as evidence of their inferiority, supporting the sexist environment further. > > > > During our more recent past, women still did not excel academically as often as men. This was blamed on pervasive sexism and lack of educational opportunities. > > > > Over the past generation, there have been efforts to put an end to a pervasively sexist environment and give greater opportunities to women. _Suddenly_, women are performing at the same level as men or even exceeding them. > > > > And so you conclude there was never any sexism in school behind the differences that have now disappeared following efforts to stamp out said sexism? > > > > Dude. Share whatever you’re smoking. > > You’re kind of missing the point or you have a reading comprehension issue. I’m saying that with the exception of upper level abstract math performance (and a good portion of that differential may simply be due to the differences in the way male and female intellect distributes biologically along the bell curve with more male outliers at both ends), the contention that there was a substantial classroom performance gap between boys and girls over the last 40 years is largely false. If you have statistics that show evidence of a substantial female underperformance differential between the classroom performance of secondary and grade school boys and girls in US classroom (as a whole) from the 70’s to the present please post them. > > The reason that women are taking more advanced math and science classes these days is not that there was more classroom oppression in the past by teachers, but simply that’s where the jobs are these days, and sexist attitudes about women’s role in the in the workplace have changed considerably opening up new opportunities. Ooooh, I get it. I agree. I’ll also add, as a woman, the oppression was much less in the classroom and much more throughout society (in my experience). Although I have to say most my math teachers, even in high school, were male. Men and women have been shown to think about analytical problems differently. ---
**Author:** ![lindsaybluth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90db22/32.png) [@lindsaybluth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsaybluth)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/91 "2010-10-04T21:45:08Z")
Goodbye, thread! It was nice while you lasted. Enjoy your derailment! ---
**Author:** ![heatmiserfl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/df705f/32.png) [@heatmiserfl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heatmiserfl)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/92 "2010-10-04T21:55:55Z")
> [@lindsaybluth](#): > > Goodbye, thread! It was nice while you lasted. Enjoy your derailment! Well, THAT was very un-PC of you. Thread back. You’re welcome. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/93 "2010-10-04T21:59:52Z")
> [@lindsaybluth](#): > > Goodbye, thread! It was nice while you lasted. Enjoy your derailment! You actually thought non-PC statements would not be subject to people disagreeing with them, and arguing about them? [Welcome to the internet](http://crookedhouse.typepad.com/crookedhouse/images/2008/03/31/duty_calls.png). ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/94 "2010-10-04T22:19:42Z")
> [@tr0psn4j](#): > > > [@Tethered\_Kite](#): > > > > White people are the world’s true minority. > > > > _Ducks and covers_ > > I’ve hung around a lot of non-white people and I’m going to have to agree with you. They make up less than 50% of the Los Angeles population. I’ve heard more racist things about white people than I’ve heard from white people. I didn’t mean that White people are treated any worse than any other race - just that factually there are less White people in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/95 "2010-10-04T23:17:46Z")
Since someone stole the Mac joke I was going to make … No, you cannot “axe” me something! The word is “ask”, I don’t care if you think it’s part of your culture or whatnot, unless you are actually wielding an axe you cannot “axe” a question. ---
**Author:** ![PeskiPiksi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e495f1/32.png) [@PeskiPiksi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeskiPiksi)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/96 "2010-10-05T00:42:19Z")
Okay, here’s mine. Not sure if it’s really “non-PC” but it’s in the ballpark, at least. For a long time I had a problem deciding which side of the abortion debate I came down on. See, we have pictures of my niece and nephew when they were literally just a few cells “old,” and to us, those were BABIES. I know it’s illogical, pure emotion, whatever…but there you are. I could just never break my gut reaction that even that early, a fetus is a living thing. (I’m atheist, btw.) How could I ever say it was okay to kill a living being? But then I realized…sometimes that’s just what has to happen. Sometimes killing a “baby” is better than the alternative. So now I’m firmly pro-choice. For the first trimester, anyway. I’m foggy (as many people are) about where to draw the line, but at least I’ve chosen a side. I think this puts me a little out there, as most of the pro-choice arguments I’ve seen are about when they believe life begins, or about the rights of the woman to have control over her own body. But here I am, a pro-choicer who believes life begins at conception. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/97 "2010-10-05T00:56:08Z")
> [@PeskiPiksi](#): > > Okay, here’s mine. Not sure if it’s really “non-PC” but it’s in the ballpark, at least. > > For a long time I had a problem deciding which side of the abortion debate I came down on. See, we have pictures of my niece and nephew when they were literally just a few cells “old,” and to us, those were BABIES. I know it’s illogical, pure emotion, whatever…but there you are. I could just never break my gut reaction that even that early, a fetus is a living thing. (I’m atheist, btw.) How could I ever say it was okay to kill a living being? > > But then I realized…sometimes that’s just what has to happen. Sometimes killing a “baby” is better than the alternative. So now I’m firmly pro-choice. For the first trimester, anyway. I’m foggy (as many people are) about where to draw the line, but at least I’ve chosen a side. > > I think this puts me a little out there, as most of the pro-choice arguments I’ve seen are about when they believe life begins, or about the rights of the woman to have control over her own body. But here I am, a pro-choicer who believes life begins at conception. Along those lines-If it’s not a person, what is it exactly? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![lindsaybluth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90db22/32.png) [@lindsaybluth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsaybluth)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/98 "2010-10-05T01:37:04Z")
> [@astro](#): > > > [@lindsaybluth](#): > > > > Goodbye, thread! It was nice while you lasted. Enjoy your derailment! > > You actually thought non-PC statements would not be subject to people disagreeing with them, and arguing about them? [Welcome to the internet](http://crookedhouse.typepad.com/crookedhouse/images/2008/03/31/duty_calls.png). No of course I knew it would derail. It was just nice while it lasted is all. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/99 "2010-10-05T02:17:19Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > The term “political correctness” is a red herring. It was appropriated by people who wanted to continue to insult, in order to misrepresent politeness and consideration toward others as bowing towards a political orthodoxy (similar to the manner in which various totalitarian regimes discourage intellectual dissent). This had the advantage of reframing obnoxious douchebaggery as free speech, and thus obscuring the original insult that led to the desire for politeness and consideration in the first place. Hear, Hear! ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823/100 "2010-10-05T03:06:07Z")
I have no respect for religion–any of them–and I feel they deserve none. All religions prey on the gullible and weak-minded. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-pc-beliefs/555823.md?page=6)