call me ignorant but i genuinely don’t understand why sports have to be split up by gender.
@ everyone in the notes talking about physical performance: if that were the case, then sports would be divided by physical performance. that’s a thing you can measure. that’s a thing that varies by individual. a weak man and a strong man would be an unfair fight in boxing/wrestling/MMA, which is why they divide those sports up into weight groups based on physical performance. but they also further segregate them based on gender. chess is segregated by gender for no reason but sexism. if it’s actually about skill and physical ability, then measure those and separate people by those metrics. don’t do some bullshit gender segregation and pretend like men and women are inherently on different levels no matter their individual abilities.
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Remember that time a teenage girl struck out Babe Ruth? That’s fucking why. Men are afraid of being beaten by women.
One of my favorite research projects I ever did for school was the effect of single-sex education on children. I’ll tell you why.
My initial research (mostly news articles) all said that there’s no benefit to sex-segregated education. They acknowledged outliers like that school for young black men with such incredible graduation statistics, but said that, generally, there’s no benefit.
But then I kept looking. And it turns out that yeah, if you look at all children overall, there’s no benefit – because sex-segregated education is great for girls, and terrible for boys.
Girls in all-girl schools get better grades, have closer and healthier social lives, and have better mental health.
Boys in all-boy schools get worse grades and get in trouble more.
When attempting to make sense of this, journalists and researchers usually fall back on “girls do better because they’re not distracted by boys/boy drama, and boys do worse because there’s no girls to impress.”
Which is ridiculous, of course, because these effects are seen even grade school – 8 year old boys are not doing well in school to impress girls. It’s also ridiculous because teenage boys are also not doing well in school to impress girls. That’s not how teenagers work.
The answer is obvious to women. Girls learn better away from boys because they are not being assaulted, harassed, belittled, or compared to their male peers at every turn. Boys do worse away from girls because, without a socially acceptable target, they turn their antisocial urges on each other. Even adult men do this when separated from women – see hazing scandals at fraternities, or the constant man-on-man sexual harassment that is just “part of military culture.”
But because it doesn’t benefit men, sex-segregated education is considered pointless. Send your daughters to girls-only schools.
“Teachers are often unaware of the gender distribution of talk in their classrooms. They usually consider that they give equal amounts of attention to girls and boys, and it is only when they make a tape recording that they realize that boys are dominating the interactions.Dale Spender, an Australian feminist who has been a strong advocate of female rights in this area, noted that teachers who tried to restore the balance by deliberately ‘favouring’ the girls were astounded to find that despite their efforts they continued to devote more time to the boys in their classrooms. Another study reported that a male science teacher who managed to create an atmosphere in which girls and boys contributed more equally to discussion felt that he was devoting 90 per cent of his attention to the girls. And so did his male pupils. They complained vociferously that the girls were getting too much talking time.In other public contexts, too, such as seminars and debates, when women and men are deliberately given an equal amount of the highly valued talking time, there is often a perception that they are getting more than their fair share. Dale Spender explains this as follows:The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women.In other words, if women talk at all, this may be perceived as ‘too much’ by men who expect them to provide a silent, decorative background in many social contexts. This may sound outrageous, but think about how you react when precocious children dominate the talk at an adult party. As women begin to make inroads into formerly ‘male’ domains such as business and professional contexts, we should not be surprised to find that their contributions are not always perceived positively or even accurately.”
As a teacher, I give girls what I hope is a lot of attention. I don’t know if I give girls their fair share, but I aspire to, especially after noticing that boys are willing to use their greater share of teachers’ attention to get girls who they feel aren’t being quiet and docile enough punished. I have therefore acquired a reputation for “caring more about the girls.” This has had two marked results: Some straight boys have gotten more hostile toward me, and most girls have gotten more confident around me. This makes me think I’m doing something right.
Longer thoughts on how this phenomenon relates to sexual harassment in classrooms, if you’re interested: The girls figured out I won’t report them if they hit boys who are sexually harassing them, I’ll only report the boys. This led to an increase in how often girls got the last word and boys got smacked in my classes, and, also, to a DECREASE IN HOW OFTEN GIRLS GOT SEXUALLY HARASSED. The sexual harassers seem to have been depending on the sort of “equal blame” and “retaliation is never warranted” and “don’t hurt others’ feelings” perspectives so many schools try to instill in kids; the sexual harassers were usually the ones bringing me into the situation by saying, “Miss, she hit me! You should write her up!” Once they figured out I was only ever going to respond, “If you don’t treat girls like that, they won’t hit you,” the girls got more confident and the sexual harassers largely shut the fuck up.
In schools, fighting against sexual harassment is often punished exactly the same as, or more severely than, sexual harassment — a lot of discipline codes make no distinction between violence and violence in self-defence, and violence is ALWAYS the highest level of disciplinary infraction, whereas verbal sexual harassment rarely is. Sexual harassers, at least in the schools I’ve been in, rely heavily on GETTING GIRLS IN TROUBLE WITH HIGHER AUTHORITIES as a strategy of harassment — creating an external punishment that penalises girls for and therefore discourages girls from fighting back. Sexual harassers are willing to use their greater share of floorspace to ask to get girls who won’t date them punished. By and large, teachers do punish those girls when they swear or hit. Schools condition girls to ignore sexual harassment by punishing them when they speak up or fight back instead.
Once the sexual harassers in my classes understood that girls wouldn’t be punished for rejecting them, they backed off around me. And there started to be a flip in what conversations I get called into — girls are telling me when boys are being nasty (too loud and dominant), instead of boys telling me when girls are being uncooperative (louder and more dominant than boys think they should be).
As a girl who would not be shut up and would not tolerate teasing or abuse from boys in my class and was several times sent to such higher authorities for it, reading this is extremely, extremely vindicating. I was lucky, though, because being a particularly bright, advanced student for those grades, they generally took my side and I never got into any severe or lasting trouble. Again ,this was luck, and shouldn’t be the rule.
Scientific fact, actually. Researchers at the University of Toronto Scarbrough found that White people’s neuron system fired less when viewing people of color performing actions, which indicates that they have an emotional disconnect when thinking about people of color; in essence they really don’t connect with us on a basic level of human empathy. (Source) The same people tested scored higher on a subtle racism test, as well.
Jesus
Reason why I don’t trust or fuck with white people proven by science.
There was actually a study done (if better science Tumblr wanna link the source that would be awesome) where they showed a Black person’s hand being tortured and a purple hand being tortured and measured the empathetic response and ppl actually had more empathy and a higher emotional response for a purple ass alien hand being tortured than a Black person’s hand smh
Neuroscience student here. While all of the above statements are true in context, the whole point of the purple hand study is to show that racism based on differences in skin color is not an inherent biological trait in the brain. (There’s hope for humanity!) Quick summary:
When racist white people watch someone who isn’t white experience pain, their brains activate less in areas associated with feeling empathy. The less racist you are (as measured by tests of racial bias), the more these areas activate, while the more racist you are, the less these areas activate. In other words, science confirms the obvious: racism makes you less empathetic to people who aren’t white.
But here’s the super important thing! When the same person watches someone with bright purple skin experience pain, these areas activate as strongly as they do when they’re watching another white person. This shows that the lack of empathy that racist white people feel for people of different skin color is learned, rather than an intrinsic biological trait. If a white person’s ability to feel empathy were intrinsically limited to people with the same skin color, these people wouldn’t feel empathy for a purple hand.
The fact that racist white people still feel empathy for a purple hand shows that this brain activity is the result of cultural learning, rather than differences in skin color blocking our ability to feel empathy. As the authors write, “… Cultural conditioning (e.g., racial stereotyping), rather than biological or structural factors (e.g., somatic similarity), may shape embodied resonance with others.” Again, this is the whole point of the study, and it’s the only reason they included a purple hand.
In summary: humanity isn’t biologically doomed to feel less empathy for people with different skin color. If we can feel empathy for someone whose skin is bright purple, it’s not the difference in skin color itself that’s blocking empathy. What we’re seeing is the product of culture: many white people grow up in a culture that teaches them to see those with more melanin as being “Different”, “Other”, or members of an out-group. Since this in-group/out-group effect is where the lack of empathy comes from, we can prevent these changes in the brain just by teaching little kids to include everyone in their in-group, whether or not their skin color is the same.
Also, as a side note, the concept of race is scientifically controversial. Quote from a paper: “The use of biological concepts of race in human genetic research […] is problematic at best and harmful at worst. … Racial classifications do not make sense in terms of genetics.” Even without getting into details, on average there’s more genetic variation between two random members of the same “race” than between two different “races” as a whole. (Obviously race is real in its consequences, but it’s still a social construct).
In other words, being white does not make you racist. Learning and retaining a chosen lack of empathy from other racists and societal bias makes you racist. Racism is learned, and once learned, becomes a choice. A committed choice.
[Caption; A series of tweets by josie duffy rice/ @jduffyrice
Now that we’re all on twitter because of this game, I am making a public service announcement: PLEASE STOP SHARING THAT STORY ABOUT 1500 KIDS MISSING. The outrage I’ve seen is the result of a total misinterpretation and could SERIOUSLY threaten the children you want to save.
Before I get to it, I’ll answer the question that 99 million ppl will inevitably ask: I know this because I’m a lawyer, i works on criminal justice issues (sometimes incl immigration), and 4 of my closest friends are immigration attorneys dealing with this EXACT THING.
There are two things going on. 1) HHS doesn’t know where 1500 unaccompanied minors are. 2) we are separating parents and children at the border.
These are different. The kids in 1) were not separated from their parents at the border. They crossed the border alone* or arrived here without a parent.
That’s not really the point I want to make, though it is important.
These kids were dealt with by ORR, the office of refugee resettlement. They were released into the care of people that almost always fit within one of these three categories:
1) immediate family 2) extended family 3) other people that the child has a pre-existing relationship with. If none of these categories apply, then the kids normally stay in a shelter.
(After a number of children were trafficked in 2014, these restrictions got tighter.)
So those kids are released and then they are no longer ORRs responsibility or problem. THIS IS A GOOD THING.
One analogy I heard from my dear friend who I won’t tag without her permission, is that ORR is basically a jailer. Do you want the jail keeping track of where every former inmate is?
Now I have more to say about that but before we do that, let’s talk about the word missing. Basically by all accounts HHS did a cursory reach out to check on these kids, and couldn’t find out where they were exactly.
When I say cursory I mean cursory. We’re talking about phone calls. Phone calls! Like, no door knocks. No checking school records. They called. They didn’t find answers.
There are so many reasons why people wouldn’t answer. Maybe these kids are living with someone undocumented. Maybe they aren’t but their sponsor is (legitimately) completely scared of immigration authorities in trumps America.
They aren’t missing! They are almost certainly living with family members who almost certainly don’t want to interact with the government and WE SHOULDN’T ASK THEM TO
ORR’s job is NOT to track and monitor these kids, and it shouldn’t be. As my friend said, if there were an issue- abuse, or other wrongdoing- it should go through the appropriate agency: children’s services or what have you. It SHOULDN’T GO THROUGH HHS/ORR or DHS/ICE
When your school loans provider can’t reach you, are you missing? No. When your boss can’t find you on a Friday night, are you missing? No. They aren’t missing. Some unanswered phone calls does not a missing child make.
Now, I started out identifying two things that were happening. The second- the separation of children and their parents at the border- is goddamn unconscionable and sickening.
But DO NOT confuse the two. The potential for it backfiring is real. What we’re demanding is that ORR, which works hand in hand with ICE, “keep better track” of kids they basically would like to deport if giving the chance. We don’t want that!!!
You’re asking immigration authorities IN TRUMP’S AMERICA to BETTER MONITOR UNDOCUMENTED CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES. You don’t want this. I promise you don’t.
I get it. It sounds awful. But at WORST it’s benign. At best, it’s a GOOD thing that ORR doesn’t know where these kids are. There’s a reason. We actually now have pretty strict requirements before we release these kids. They aren’t all being trafficked. They aren’t dead.
It doesn’t mean life is easy, but life won’t be easier if ORR starts tracking them. Trust me. And trust my brilliant friends who know about this shit and have warned me and are now warning you. DONT conflate the two things.
AND because some people are obviously taking this as an opportunity to exonerate the president- NO. Trumps immigration policy is disgusting. His separation of kids and parents at the border is SICKENING. He’s a tyrant. Just don’t conflate them.
Man oh man I forget that at least 50 percent of people on twitter refuse to learn basic reading comprehension. Tonight should be fun!
] *[Also it says “alien” up there where it should say “alone”, cool, autocorrect.]
*corrected autocorrect/typo in my transcription for the sake of being less confusing, especially for anyone listening to the text rather than reading it visually.
Since I reblogged a post about this issue, here is a correction.
We all know the pro life movement is full of shit. They only care abt controlling wm. They don’t care abt the children. Because if u were a real prolife advocate u would b completely disgusted
Since there’s no links, here’s an article from USA Today with footage, and here’s a CNN follow-up from a day later stating that the officer retired before disciplinary action could be taken.
wupacing 