On Gender-based Oppression, Again

     I know that I have written about gender-based oppression before, but I would like to investigate the issue slightly more deeply in this article. As we all know, feminists keep shouting that women were oppressed throughout history and that they need liberation. First, let's see how we define "oppression":

     Oppression = the inappropiate use of authority (or power) to cause distress

     Let's do some analysis, shall we?

     In those old day (in almost all races), people are in general, divided into "nobles" and "serf", with the former exerting authority to the latter. Obviously, the latter don't have what we call "authority", so by definition they can't cause any oppression. To begin with, it is obvious that NOT all men are "nobles" and NOT all women are "serf", but men of both classes seemed to have more authorities than their womenfolk.

     Does this mean that women were more oppressed?

     Think about it clearly, having authority is merely a neccesary condition, but not sufficient condition, according to our definition. To prove that women were more oppressed, one need to prove that men tended to use authority inappropiately compared to women.

Within-class Oppression

     However, it may be reasonable for men in both classes to have slightly more power than their womenfolks. This is because of the fact that in many parts of the world the society had what we call "chivalry" or its variants (e.g. Keen, 1984), which oppose male aggression towards females, but not the other way round. Therefore, it may be that if men and women were given equal power, the latter will be more likely to inappropiately use their authorities to aggress. Thus, to balance to amount of aggression experienced by either gender, it may be reasonable to give men in both classes slightly more power than their female counterparts.
     Apart from the issue of inter-gender aggression, we all know that women have access to various tools for emotional manipulation when it comes to indirect aggression, such as spreading rumors or manipulating people into aggressing on their behalf (e.g. Bjorkqvist, 1994; Osterman et al., 1998) and that men are far less likely to do so, and this is quite likely to have some biological basis, since those results are cross-cultural. This means that even if women had slightly less direct power than their male counterpart, it may be to a certain extent fair and thus may not constitute what we call "oppression".
     Lastly, one should compare the life of noble men and women in those days. Noble men in those days had to go to work. Was it something pleasant? Probably not. After all, you need to face the demanding bosses and various tasks that sprung up from nowhere in workplace, and we all know that people mostly consider work to be something they want to get away from. In comparison, noble women didn't have to work, instead they lives were probably better than their husbands in some aspects.

Inter-class Oppression

     To prove that serf women suffered more oppression than their male counterpart, we need to prove that the maltreatment exerted on these women from "nobles" are greater. Nonetheless, it had been very consistently found that cross-culturally, both men and women in positions of power tend to treat males more harshly than females, even if the severity of misbehavior is the same (Daly & Tonry, 1997; Mustard, 2001), and this is true even in childhood (Lambert et al., 1971),  implying a biological basis.
     This implies that it was likely the case that both "noble" men and women tended to exert more oppression on serf men than on serf women. If this is true, that it logically follows that serf women could not have suffer more oppression than their male counterparts in those days, in fact the converse would probably be true.
     You may tell me that many women in those days were sexually restricted. However, I seriously doubt if you would call this "oppression" if you compare it to being subject to painful death in the battlefield or having to work in dirty and dangerous environments to financially support one's wife.

     If it is the case that men created a system in which they suffer more (as a whole, since NOT all men are kings, obviously), how can this constitute "oppression"? Moreover, were rulers treated that nicely? Of course the majority of them led very extravagant life, they also had opportunities to fulfil their ambitions (only a few of them did so though), but these came with a burden: intense stress. Well, just imagine how you would feel if you are constantly told that your decisions can affect the lives of hundreds or thousands, and women seem to have idealized these positions too much.

Conclusion

     As you can see, I used a lot of "may" and "probably" in this article. Well, obviously because these are merely my speculation, so do those feminist theories. First, we all know that those old societies won't give us any objective statistics and subjective observation is just unreliable since women are just so much better at claiming victim status than men (statistically speaking, of course!). Therefore, is it reasonable to suggest that one of the genders (be it male or female) were more oppressed in those old days?

     I suspect not.

     One last thing, although feminists claim that women are more oppressed in some parts of the world, I am not willing to give help to these "oppressed women", since I seriously doubt if feminists are telling us the truth. Such doubt is not without reasons, considering the fact that feminists have already done a lot of things in which they deliberately distort the truth using their political power. With this in mind, I am not very motivated to give these "oppressed" women help, at least not via feminists.

     Are feminists truly helpful for impoverished women? 

     Once again, I suspect not.

Reference

     Bjorkqvist, K. (1994). Sex differences in physical, verbal, and indirect aggression: A review of recent research, Sex roles, 30(3-4), 177-188.
     Daly, K, & Tonry, M. (1997). Gender, Race, and Sentencing. Crime & Justice, 22, 201-252.

     Lambert, W. E., Yackley, A., & Hein, R. N. (1971). Child training values of English Canadian and French Canadian parents. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 3(3), 217-236.

     Keen, M. (1984). Chivalry. USA: Yale University Press.
     Osterman, K., Bjorkqvist, K., Lagerspetz, K. M. J., Kaukiainen, A., Landau, S. F., Fraczek, A., Caprara, G. V. (1998). Cross-cultural evidence of female indirect aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 24(1), 1-8.
     Mustard, D. (2001). Racial, Ethic, and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Courts. Journal of Law and Economics, 44(1), 285-314.

Summary of my Attitude towards Gays

     I have discussed with quite a lot of people about my attitude towards homosexuals, and of course I have received some irrational comments, after posting my thoughts in some other blogs. In this article, I would like to summarize what I think about homosexuals and gay activists. I hopes to stress that these two things are different, with the latter being much more aggressive and demanding.

Proper Places

     There are two main positions on homosexuality in our society:

1. Homosexuality is a sin that should be condemned.

2. Homosexuals deserve exactly equal rights as heterosexuals.

     I support neither position. Let me tell you why.

     Even in countries in which gay rights are most rampant (e.g. Netherland), homosexual couples are still much more likely to break up than heterosexual ones, for both gay men and lesbians. Moreoever, there is strong evidence that homosexuals, statistically speaking, are more likely to adopt pathological behaviors such as substance abuse and suicidal behaviors. Some of you may tell me that this is due to homophobia.

     Ah really?

     One study have found that this trend persists in Netherland and other countries that are remarkably tolerant of homosexuals. Even after controlling for experience of social stigma and rejection, homosexuals are still more likely than heterosexuals to exhibit pathological behaviors. This suggests that homophobia can't explain everything, instead some scholars suggested that there may be something intrinsically wrong with homosexuality itself.

     Let's see how the APA (American Psychological Association) define mental disorder:

-- A mental disorder is a condition which is un-normative, distressful and causing impairment.

     Obviously as we have discussed, homosexuality fits into this definition perfectly.

(Saghir & Robins, 1978; Bell & Weinberg, 1981; Ross ,1988; Herrell et al., 1999; Sandfort et al. 2001)

     Therefore, my conclusion is that homosexuality is probably indeed a mental illness, and some APA staff even admitted that the removal of same-sex attraction from their list of mental disorder was based more on politics rather than science. Hence, homosexuals deserve treatment of mental patients, not that of normal people nor that of criminals. That's why I don't agree with both of the above positions.

     Someone told me that homosexuality caused some other problems, which would in turn lead to pathology, and thus it is these problems rather than homosexuality itself, that need to be dealth with. However, we know that depression doesn't cause pathology directly either, but instead cause irrational thoughts, but we still prefer to treat depression rather than merely removing those thoughts, this is because if we knows that the former is causing the latter, changing the latter only won't bring any long-term benefits. If we deal with the former intead, we could completely uproot the problems (in theory).

The Movement

     While homosexuals themselves are not condemnable, I strongly believe that there are something wrong about the gay "rights" movement.

     Reason?

     See this article:
http://www.blogherald.com/2003/09/09/profs-anti-gay-blog-returns-to-university-website/

     That's the point: the gay "rights" movement have already attained such a powerful position that criticism of homosexuals become politically incorrect, even if those comments are perfectly rational. Read some history and you will know that letting a group (be it religious or not) hold the power to shut off rational criticism can lead to very disastrous results. In my opinion, some gay activists are merely exploiting homosexuals to attain the power, and things that can potentially follow are just too morbid to imagine.
     Of course, promoting gay marriage and all those politically correct "gay-is-not-an-illness" things is not going to help homosexuals either. If they are indeed mental patients, letting them roam around with their problematic behaviors won't bring them any good.

Conclusion

     In sum, I believe that there are some good reasons to consider homosexuality to be a mental disorder, rather than criminal behaviors nor a normal orientation. Although I won't blame homosexuals of anything, there are some signs of gay activism being the cult for the next generation. I sincerely hope that this is not going to happen.

Reference

     Bell, A.P.; Weinberg, M.S. (1978): Homosexualities. A Study Of Diversity Among Men And Women. Simon and Schuster, New York.
     Herrell, R.; Goldberg, J.; True,W.R.; Ramakrishnan, V.; Lyons, M.; Eisen,S.; Tsuang, M.T. (1999): Sexual orientation and suicidality: a co-twin control study in adult men. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 56, 867-874.
     Ross, M.W. (1988): Homosexuality and mental health: a cross-cultural review. J. Homosex. 15(1/2), 131-152.
     Sandfort, T.G.M.; de Graaf, R.; Bijl, R.V.; Schnabel (2001): Same-sex sexual behavior and psychiatric disorders. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry. 58, 85-91.
     Saghir, M.T.; Robins, E. (1973): Male and Female Homosexuality, A Comprehensive Investigation. Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore Maryland. 335 pages.

Basic Assumptions of Feminist Theory

     I have written quite a number of articles about feminists before. However, my previous articles were mostly concentrated on specific parts of the feminist agenda, and were relatively informal, but still logical though. Today I would like to explore together with my readers about the basic premises of the feminist theory and of course, its absurdities. This is going to be a relatively formal article so one could expect a reference list.


Gender: Nature VS Nurture


     One of the most important premises of the feminist theory is that gender is purely a social construct. Specifically, they consider traditional feminity and masculinity to be solely due to socialization, rather than inherent characteristics of either gender. This is one of the reasons why they believe that some seemingly "unfair" treatment are problematic.
     Take women's underrepresentation in science and engineering as an example, they have cited extensive evidence (e.g. Spencer et al., 1999) that it is "purely" due to discrimination against women in these domains. Nonetheless, these studies are probably methodologically flawed. This is because most of them indicates that women's performance on some standardized test can be impaired by stereotyping. Lamentably, doing scientific researches and designing engineering products have very little to do with these tests.
     Indeed, the above-mentioned trend has been very consistently observed across cultures and it persists despite all those feminist agenda, along with many other gender differences in behaviors and cognition (e.g. Lee & Keith, 1994; Cohen-Bendahan et al., 2005). This suggests that such difference are quite resistent to cultural influence, implying that they have some biological roots. Therefore, it makes absolutely no sense to argue that gender itself doesn't have a biological basis. Then it logically follows that this very basic premise is false.


The Oppressed Gender


     Another commonly cited premise by the feminist theory is that women were "oppressed" more than men in the past, primary by the patriachial system. To begin with, we should define this terms before discussion, since a vague word implies unclear thinking. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the term "oppress" means to cause distress to someone through the inappropiate use of authority.
     However, there have been strong evidence people of both gender tend to treat males more harshly than females, at all ages (e.g. Daly & Tonry, 1997; Mustard, 2001), even in childhood (e.g. Lambert et al., 1971). These findings are quite consistently across cultures and therefore probably have a biological basis as well. This implies that no matter who is holding power, they tend to treat males in worse ways, even back in ancient times.
     The above means that there factors which suggest that men were actually the more oppressed gender back in those old days. However, if one would like to prove this point, they need to show that the total unhappiness caused by unequal treatment received by men is greater than that received by women. The only way to do this is to develop some ingenius ways to measure total happiness, and travel back to those old days using a time machine. This obviously cannot be done, at least not with the current technology. Then it follows that it makes no sense to argue that one of the genders was overall more oppressed than the other and thus, the feminist theory makes very little sense in this premise, too.
     Moreoever, can this oppression be blamed on patriachial system entirely? Probably not. Even back in those old days, we have many women who held considerable authority, mostly through maniplating men around them though, and they were fully capable of inflicting harm on their subordinates. This is especially problematic since men tend to suppress their aggression towards women, but may not other way round.
     Worse still, even in nowaday society, oppressions exist in non-patriachial system. This implies that the tendency to misuse authorities may be innate in humans rather than being inherent problem of the patriachial system. Therefore, can one says that it is the system that have caused the oppression? The answer would be a certain "no".


Equal Opportunities in Everthing


     Based on the above premises, the feminist theorists suggested that women deserve equal opportunities in EVERY aspects of life as men, most specifically political influence. However, even without considering the falsehood of the last two premises, this statement is also problematic in itself.
     The very first condition for giving someone certain rights is that they are not going to cause troubles with those rights. We won't let serial killers freely roam around because we know that granting them such rights is going to be harmful to our society. In a similar manner, it is actually reasonable not to give women certain power. Take political influence as an example, there have been little doubt that women tend to base their judgement more on "empathy" (e.g. Toussaint & Webb, 2005). This is quite problematic since we all know that this is going to cause biases in perception, since some politicians are really good at manipulating emotions.
     Therefore, a more reasonable thing to do is not to allow all women to exert their power on everything, since their biased perception is going to lead them to cause destructions. Of course, if a woman does give some rational opinion, we should listen, but if we allow all women to act without letting men voice their opinion first, troubles would follow. Thus, according to our basic principle, women don't deserve equal opportunities in political participation. I am NOT saying that women shouldn't get such rights in every aspects, but they don't deserve it in at least SOME domains. Similarly, if one finds that letting men having certain opportunities would cause trouble, I would agree that men don't deserve equal rights in these aspects either.


Conclusion


     Obviously, it is not possible to cover all facets of the feminist theory in one single article, that's why I stressed the word "brief" in the title. However, the above three are the most basic premises of this theory. In reality, almost ALL feminist agendas are based on at least one of the above three statements. As we can see, all three of these feminist principles are far from the truth. This implies that a VERY significant number of feminist theories are based on serious falsehood and their arguments are definitely NOT going to be sound. This is going to do nothing but to cause misery to everyone.


Reference


     Cohen-Bendahan, C. C., Beek, C., & Berendaum, S. A. (2005). Prenatal sex hormone effects on child and adult sex-typed behavior: methods and findings. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Review, 29(2), 353-384.
     Daly, K, & Tonry, M. (1997). Gender, Race, and Sentencing. Crime & Justice, 22, 201-252.

     Lambert, W. E., Yackley, A., & Hein, R. N. (1971). Child training values of English Canadian and French Canadian parents. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 3(3), 217-236.

     Lee, K. A., & Keith, D. E. (1994). Attachment style, gender, and relationship stability: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(3), 502-512.
     Mustard, D. (2001). Racial, Ethic, and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Courts. Journal of Law and Economics, 44(1), 285-314.
     Spencer, S. J., Steel, C. M., & Quinn, D. M. (1999). Stereotype Threat and Women’s Math Performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(1), 4–28
     Toussaint, L., & Webb, J. R. (2005). Gender differences in the Relationship between Empathy and Forgiveness. The Journal of Social Psychology, 145(6), 673-685.

Feminism pollutes the Counseling Profession, Part 1

     Decades earlier, the counseling profession was more oriented towards men than towards women. For instance, counselors at those days were in general more concerned about technique on dealing with male clients than with female ones. Of course they didn't completely ignore women's need, but overall they spent more resources on male issues, that is.
     As you could imagine, feminists were VERY unhappy about it, and they threw their horrifying tandrums and forced counselors to spend more time on women's need, and everyone knows that the terrifying pressure feminists can exert, so the counseling profession can do nothing but to succumb to their tandrums. Did this make sense?

     Like many things put forward by feminists, this makes absolutely no sense at all.

The Rule

     One of the most important rules in helping is that we should pay more attention to those who are more in need, which I personally call the "needs rule". For example, impoverished children are more prone to academic failure despite not being inherently inferior in terms of intelligence plus they are quite helpless since it is the social structure that had handicapped them, so it make perfect sense to administer extra help to them. With this rule in mind, let us consider the following facts:

1. Men are less likely to have intimate relationships with whom they can share very personal problems.
2. Men are less likely to be able to seek help from their spouses for personal issues.
(Research have found that it is much more likely for a man to help a woman than vice versa)
3. Women are much more likely to seek emotional support from friends and family memebers.
(At worst, this means that they tend to complain for trivial things)

     The main point of counseling is to administer support for people with personal problems, and the above facts suggest that men are more likely to need counseling services than women, statistically speaking. Then according to the "needs rule", it actually makes quite a lot of sense for the counseling profession to be more oriented towards men. Moreoever, they didn't ignore women either. Instead, if you do some readings and you will find that they did pay quite adequate attention to female clients.

Conclusion

     As usual, feminists are nothing but a group of obnoxious people who keep throwing tandrums in order to acquire privileges that they don't deserve. Only cults use political pressure to bring privileges to their members, and feminists are doing this all the time.

     Does this make it clear that what feminism actually is?

Why is there so much Misery

     Throughout the history of homo sapiens, there are unspeakable sociopathic acts, and of course the misery that follows them. For instance, the superstition in Europe had caused the witch hunts, persecution of heretics and the torture that went with them. In the Eastern world, we had the callous oppression of ancient Chinese emperors exerted on their fellow men, including unthinkable political persecution and zero freedom of speech.
     It is far too simplistic to suggest that such things exists only in ancient world. Indeed, oppression exists in modern world as well, namely feminists, to a lesser extent SOME gay activists and CERTAIN types of Christians. They have a common feature: the use of political pressures to distort the truth. Everyone knows about what feminists and SOME gay activists do, and Christians have recently attempted to add Creationism into science disciplines. These people, through manipulating the public with their emotional tactics, acheive their own twisted agenda.

How They Opreate

     What gives rise to such obnoxious groups in the first place?

     The answer is: Irrationality. When people ask for reasons, it is hard for such groups to exert their influence. This is because almost ALL of them operate as follows:

1. Distort the truth, mostly through political pressures
2. Tell people about the distorted picture
3. Induce appropiate emotions in them
4. Motivate people into doing what they want them to do

     If people demand reasons and objectivity, stage 2 and 3 of this model would be VERY unlikely to happen, then it follows that their agenda would be over and of course they are not going to harm our society nor get what they want.

An Ideal World

     Therefore, my theory is that one of the main culprits of human misery is the use of emotions and feelings rather than reasons and logics in evaluating truth. It is doubtless that an ideal world should not be so miserable. Then it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that the use of logics instead of feelings in evaluating truths among the public is essential for an ideal world.

     Please bear in mind that I am NOT saying that emotions and feelings are of no value. I admit that they have their importance to an ideal world, but their value in helping us to determine what to believe is very limited compared to logics and reasons. They may not be overall inferior, but they are definitely undesirable in some aspects.

Conclusion

      All in all, one of the greatest culprits of human misery is the lack of "mind" among the general public, that's why cults exist throughout human history. Even in modern day, we have feminists, SOME Christian and SOME gay activists as our new "cults". Therefore, the promotion of more "mind" is of essence to creating an ideal world.