Article about boys wearing skirts as a protest in Quebec school

Clippings from news sources involving fashion freedom and other gender equality issues.
Stu
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Re: Article about boys wearing skirts as a protest in Quebec school

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pelmut wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 11:57 pm In at least one case, Hertha Ayerton, her work was credited to her husband (despite his denials and the obvious differences in their specialisms).  
Thanks for her example which perfectly proves my point. She was a notable physicist of her time and, as I recall, she won prizes, so she was and still is recognised - and rightly so. She was not, however, responsible for any major breakthroughs such as special relativity or quantum theory.
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Re: Article about boys wearing skirts as a protest in Quebec school

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pelmut wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 11:40 pm The intelligence tests were drawn up by men, using men's ideas of what constitutes 'intelligence'.  It's not all that long ago that intelligence tests 'proved' differences along racial lines, until the cultural bias in the questions was removed.
I can partly agree - yes, there are many different kinds of intelligence. I doubt anyone would argue that Mozart was brilliant, but he would probably have little idea how to perform algebraic calculations. I used to know a chess grand master who made brilliant decisions in matches and horrendous ones in his life. If we are defining intelligence as the ability to perform abstract reasoning, then the IQ test offers a measure. However, the nature of the bell curve seems to apply beyond just IQ tests. Females can have considerable abilities and sometimes these can reach the same level as those the best men possess, but the distribution is not the same - and that was the point I was making. It explains at least to some degree why we have no female Shakespeare, Mozart, Einstein, Rembrandt etc. This is a result of our evolution, which made men the risk-takers while the women tended to be risk-averse. The willingness to risk everything is a key factor in achieving the ultimate success in any field.
pelmut wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 11:40 pmI am reminded of the situation many years ago when we were taught by a qualified expert that men couldn't suffer from Anorexia Nervosa. 
I know that to be untrue: I know men can suffer with eating disorders. However, again this reinforces my key argument - look at the figures which I believe generally show a ratio of around 80% of sufferers are female. Conversely, while a proportion of sufferers of autism are female, the majority seem to be male. There is clearly an underlying cause for these differences.
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Re: Article about boys wearing skirts as a protest in Quebec school

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Stu wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 11:41 am
pelmut wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 11:40 pmI am reminded of the situation many years ago when we were taught by a qualified expert that men couldn't suffer from Anorexia Nervosa. 
I know that to be untrue: I know men can suffer with eating disorders.
At the time I approached this 'expert' for advice I was actually suffering from Anorexia, he dismissed it with "Men can't have Anorexia, you must be a homosexual".  I was so astonished by his ignorance of his own specialist subject and his crass manner that I was unable to reply.
However, again this reinforces my key argument - look at the figures which I believe generally show a ratio of around 80% of sufferers are female. Conversely, while a proportion of sufferers of autism are female, the majority seem to be male. There is clearly an underlying cause for these differences.
I don't deny there are some inherent differences, but there are also a lot of things that appear to be differences but are not inherent and are brought about by the way society treats men and women differently.  To use the example of my (now sadly deceased) autistic friend: If her parents had encouraged her to follow her natural inclinations, she would have become an excellent engineer or scientist because of her logical thinking and memory for detail which were on a plane well above average.  As it was, they brought her up to be 'ladylike' and devote her energies to making herself attractive so she would get a good husband.  Most people who knew her said she was 'neurotic' and best avoided -- I was thrown together with her by circumstances and decided to make the best of it by engaging her in conversation.  She turned out to be a wonderful, intelligent and talented person but given to outbursts of frustration when confronted by the illogicality of people.  We stayed friends for over 20 years.

Was she a stupid neurotic female, as most people said when they first met her, or was she actually autistic and reacting to a stereotypical feminine upbringing with no opportunity to expand her considerable mental powers in the most appropriate direction?  I think the latter.

How many other women have been similarly mis-classified over the years?
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Re: Article about boys wearing skirts as a protest in Quebec school

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pelmut wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 3:12 pmWas she a stupid neurotic female, as most people said when they first met her, or was she actually autistic and reacting to a stereotypical feminine upbringing with no opportunity to expand her considerable mental powers in the most appropriate direction?  I think the latter. How many other women have been similarly mis-classified over the years?
Many - I am sure of that. And thank you for sharing the story.

I have never doubted women's abilities. I have a wife who started her own business, ran it successfully for over two decades, sold it at a handsome profit and then managed to secure for herself a well-paid position in a construction company and was promoted within a year. My eldest daughter is a senior hospital doctor. Some women see themselves first and foremost as home-makers and mothers rather than careerists, and that's fine, too.

The original post related a story about boys making a protest about what they perceived to be female inequality in Canada. Why would they do this? Because they have been taught that women and girls are somehow disadvantaged in their society, and that is largely a lie promulgated by the feminist lobby, which is especially vociferous and powerful in Canada. But nobody seems willing to challenge this myth, or the dogma which promulgates it - it is just taken as fact and anyone who questions it is labeled a "sexist" or "out-of-date" etc, as I have in this thread. Fortunately, anti-feminists are now making their voices heard, especially in Canada. These anti-feminists are not generally men, but highly educated women like Professor Janice Fiamengo and switched-on activists like Karen Straughan. Of course, top some people questioning the feminist cult's dogma is a heresy. They will close their ears to the facts as presented and to the arguments out of a combination of ignorance and a desire to be seen virtue signalling.

These boys in Quebec should absolutely be donning skirts - but they should be doing so to advance equality for males so we can all expand the sartorial choices that females take for granted.
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Re: Article about boys wearing skirts as a protest in Quebec school

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Stu wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 11:41 am Marie Curie discovered an element. Remind me, how many elements are there in the Periodic Table? And how many were discovered by women?
A larger proportion of the periodic table was discovered by women than the proportion of women to men doing research into chemistry at the time of Marie Curie.   :-)
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Re: Article about boys wearing skirts as a protest in Quebec school

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pelmut wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 6:12 pm A larger proportion of the periodic table was discovered by women than the proportion of women to men doing research into chemistry at the time of Marie Curie. :-)
Really? And I am sure you have evidence of that claim. :wink:
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Re: Article about boys wearing skirts as a protest in Quebec school

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I believe in offering every assistance short of actual help but then mainly just want to be left to be myself in all my difference and uniqueness.
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Re: Article about boys wearing skirts as a protest in Quebec school

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Sinned wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 9:35 pm Stu, here's a start:

https://www.energy.gov/articles/her-ele ... odic-table
Thanks for the list of women who made a contribution to the evolution of chemistry. I never doubted they did. But I think you will agree that doesn't prove Pelmut's claim that: "A larger proportion of the periodic table was discovered by women than the proportion of women to men doing research into chemistry at the time of Marie Curie".
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Re: Article about boys wearing skirts as a protest in Quebec school

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Stu wrote: Wed Dec 02, 2020 8:41 am ... that doesn't prove Pelmut's claim that: "A larger proportion of the periodic table was discovered by women than the proportion of women to men doing research into chemistry at the time of Marie Curie".
Marie Curie discovered about 1% of the Periodic Table at a time when fewer than 1% of the chemistry researchers were women; that makes women's contributions to chemistry proportionally greater than mens (based on a very small sample size, which I agree is not particularly good statistical practice).
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Re: Article about boys wearing skirts as a protest in Quebec school

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Where is the evidence that fewer than one percent of research chemists were women? Besides, Marie Curie - and her husband Pierre - discovered ONE element between them. A single element out of the 118 in the Periodic Table.

As you appear to recognise, one person contributing to one discovery is hardly proof of a general point that the individual in question is representative of the abilities and achievements of an entire major demographic.
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Re: Article about boys wearing skirts as a protest in Quebec school

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stu, Marie and Pierre curie actually discovered 2 elements - polonium and radium. Who really knows what the proportion of the contribution of effort, intellectual and physical, each put into their research? But what must also be remembered is that women, really up to relatively modern times, were ACTIVELY discouraged from such careers, expecting to be housewives and mothers. It's only in the past 20 or 30 years that it is being recognised that women are capable of serious advances in science. So the small percentage is really most remarkable. That they are coming late into Various fields where a lot of groundbreaking work has been done is hardly the fault of women. In reality now women are further ahead than men in education levels and hence be in a better position to make greater contributions.
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Re: Article about boys wearing skirts as a protest in Quebec school

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We seem to be getting away from my main point. Of course women can perform physical investigations and be involved in the discovery of new elements. My point was that men have a higher propensity to focus on things that are inanimate and non-social - an average - and to a greater degree. Women have had pretty much full equality for around half a century, but I am still waiting for a female Newton, Einstein, Planck, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Shakespeare, Mozart or Puccini. My own field, linguistics, has seen huge numbers of women making important contributions for at least seven decades and they have been equal in number with men, if not outnumbering men, since the 1970s. Notable among these women are Deborah Tannen (a bit of a heroine of mine) and Deirdre Wilson. The chances are you have never heard of them, but I would wager you have heard of Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky - and there is a reason for that. It seems to be males that, mostly, make the breakthroughs. When women are involved in breakthroughs, it tends to be either when paired with men (like Marie Curie with her husband Pierre, and Deidre Wilson, whose work was in conjunction with Dan Sperber) or when working in a team.

To a large degree, womankind is limited by their role in childbirth and motherhood. They spend a substantial part of their lives menstruating, pregnant, nursing infants, caring for very young children, and then eventually experiencing the menopause - things men don't normally have to worry about. When this has happened for the entire history of our species - the homo-line - then this evolutionary-based limitation inevitably affects every aspect of a person's character, disposition and aptitudes. In other words, male and female brains work differently and that is not disputed, so why shouldn't their respective interests and levels of performance and achievement also vary?
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