The Glade 4.0

No, improvement doesn't have to spread evenly across the economy, but when you're talking about the situation of women in general, you also have to talk about men in general. An improvement in the employability of men that work only in the specific positions where they don't really compete with women wouldn't hurt the employability of women, but it also wouldn't help the vast majority of "household units" either, because the vast majority of women aren't married to these men. For everyone else, improving the employability of them men hurts the employability of the women, because they're competing with the men for these jobs.

Where do you get that women aren't married to men that work in heavily male occupations from?

Furthermore, seeing as men are rapidly falling behind women educationally, improving those other men's employability might just mean not emphasizing female success in the classroom so much. If that's what "hurting the employability of women" is supposed to mean then.. so what?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Uh, because the majority of men don't work in occupations where they don't compete with women, that would mean the majority of women aren't married to them.

Also, I'm not sure why you keep bringing this other stuff up. All I'm doing is pointing out that Schlaefly's position amounts to saying that women should, as opposed to improving their own earning prospects, instead focus their energy on finding a husband and then once married focus on improving his earning power rather than improving their own. The suggestion that finding a husband should be the most important goal for an unmarried woman is supremely insulting to most women today, not just feminists, and is pretty much exactly the 50's stereotype where women were expected to marry early and then be the "dutiful housewife" who is 100% responsible for taking care of the home and children in order to support her long-hours-working husband so he can make all the money.

There you go using that degree in Mind Reading you got at Virginia Tech, again. I really need to go get one of those. The only thing sustaining this thread is your misogynistic, ageist closed-mindedness.

The girl is 12. 238 years ago she'd be betrothed to a fat, landed 30-something already, and trussed up in kirtles, girdles, petticoats, and lace, and almost everyone of us would be perfectly ok with him sticking his dick in her the day she started to bleed. We've kind of evolved as a society since. Today, she's attempting to engage the American political system at a local and state level. She's actively engaged in lobbying for changes that do directly affect her and her peer group. Honestly, I don't care that her mom is a muckety-muck involved with MoveOn.org. I don't even care that Madison Kimrey supports those politics, because Madison Kimrey has already been burned by her mom once over the cake incident and learned from it. Her mom doesn't have too much to do with Madison Kimrey's acitivism anymore.

I do care that this 12 year-old girl has the ability, wherewithal, and presence to actively engage the American political system and get some traction. And I do care that she's conscious enough to believe she has the right and responsibility to engage the political system. As far as I am concerned, the only sad part of those who debate, debacle, situation?

Your ageist, sexist, intolerant political nonsense, Diamondeye.

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Not to rain on your parade, but Open Enrollment movements and the Opening Up of the American Workforce in 1970s are largely responsible for the current economic woes of the developed world. Someone in the marriage/family/cohabitation unit NEEDS to be the "dutiful housewife". And the correction that pushes is back to single-income households has started, I think.

Fortunately, I don't care which part of the marriage/family/cohabitation unit is the "dutiful housewife", just that there is one.

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There you go again, responding to anything you don't like with talk about mind reading and ad homs. Just dig right into that standard feminist response when it suits your purposes, why don't you?



All totally irrelevant. No one here, nor Schlafely, is advocating a return to those conditions.



If by traction you mean "ooh look, a 12 year old that gets attention because she talks to adults and says things liberals like hearing" then maybe. I am completely unimpressed. Yes, it's fantastic that she thinks she should engage politically, but she has neither the right or responsibility until she turns 18. If she wants to try beforehand, fine, but adults taking her seriously beyond "keep learning, you have a long way to go" is doing her a tremendous disservice; Maybe in 3 or 4 years she might just barely have something meaningful to say, but until that point, all she's learning is that she must be right, because no one will disagree with her, since hey, she's 12 and who wants to look like they're picking on a 12 year old? Eventually, she won't be 12, she'll be 32 and she'll be another Sandra Fluke doing things like taking scholarships under false pretenses, then showing up at Congress as the self-appointed speaker for women's health issues, and speaking in the same oh-so-offended-at-the-world voice adolescent girls use when they think they're politically aware and which Fluke still uses. Listen to her talk, then go listen to any other adult female politician; it's quite striking how much she sounds like a juvenile.

Oh that's right, me. I really don't give a ****.



Your ageist, sexist, intolerant political nonsense, Diamondeye.[/quote]

Sadly for you, you are in no position to determine any of those things, nor do I really give a **** about what's "sad as far as you're concerned", Khross. At this point, your opinion is utterly unworthy of respect, no matter how much you try to phrase things as if you were in a position to talk down. If something appears sad, or whatever adjective you want to use next time, to you, it probably means I'm doing something right.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Statistics on this? Even if the majority of men don't, very large numbers do, since these occupations are labor intensive and... it's men filling them.



And? She may be wrong about that, but if that's actually true, whining about it wouldn't make it untrue.



So what? I really don't give a ****, especially since you are massively strawmanning. Schalfely is not suggesting women should not work or should intentionally reduce their own income, she is saying that women benefit more from men making more, since the family aggregates its income anyhow.

The real problem with her position is that it doesn't apply to anyone not in a nuclear family, but that's still a very large portion of the population, so even that is weak.

What's truly insulting is that you think the 1950s situation is some sort of problem for women. It's not; it's a problem for everyone. The man is stuck in that situation just as much as the woman is. Not only does he lack her options, just as she lacks his, but any screw-up by him, or that he bears the consequences of, and his entire family suffers.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Diamondeye:

Do you read your own posts? Do you even see the language you put into the text box? Or is just some sort of verbal ejaculation through your fingers?

Let's see who's really using ad homs to sustain this thread.

viewtopic.php?p=256072#p256072
So Madison Kimrey is pretentious, snotty, and not a woman.

viewtopic.php?p=256075#p256075
Madison Kimrey's argument is not well thought out and is not respectful, and she is a 12 year old of "colossal arrogance."

viewtopic.php?p=256093#p256093
Really? Madison Kimrey isn't allowed to self-report or self-describe herself?

viewtopic.php?p=256167#p256167
You're telling her she is not what she thinks she is ... again.

viewtopic.php?p=256216#p256216
I don't even know what to do with this post. Your argument boils down to: "She's 12, so she's wrong and not who or what she claims to be."

viewtopic.php?p=256286#p256286
And here you go mindreading ...

You know that girl's thought processes? Really? You're not a clinical psychology therapist of any variety; nor, for that matter, have you ever indicated being licensed to practice as a clinical therapist in any capacity. And since I don't recall you having ever mentioned possessing the requisite MS in Clinical Psychology from an accredited institution, I doubt you actually have enough clinical talk therapy and language therapy practice, training, and experience to actually tell me or anyone else on these forums what her thought processes are; and even then, she probably knows how her own brain works better than you.

As for what's irrelevant or not relevant ...

Women were usually treated as legal adults after their first menstruation in most of the Anglo-Saxon diaspora until the mid 19th Century. At 12, she'd be damn near a woman grown. In fact, 15 was a pretty common age for full majority in the British Empire for a very long time (There are still countries in which 15 is considered the Age of Majority by the way). I get that it's 2014 and you're now legally obligated to support your children until their 26th birthday, but what we consider adulthood in the 21st century is just as relevant to this conversation as what we considered adulthood in the 18th century.

But, that's ok, you're obviously doing something right by wasting so much time bad mouthing a 12 year old girl with political opinions and the wherewithal to get media notice for it. You're also doing something right by claiming to have more knowledge of how her brain works, her reasoning processes, and her belief systems than she does.

You keep on mind-reading over the internet. I'm going back to Lent.

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Hi Khross,

You must be new here. Welcome to the Glade.

/bonk

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Attacking the idea that open letters are a valid means of addressing issues, or that there's something wrong with giving credibility to the political views of small children is not an ad hom.



She is clearly not a woman; she's not even an adolescent yet. That's an observation of clearly visible fact. Furthermore, I did not say that Kimrey is pretentious and snotty, I said that an hypothetical adult that may have faked the letter made her look that way. Clearly, that means if she wrote the letter herself, that also means she made herself look that way (and she did) but that does not mean she IS that way all the time. In other words, the letter is pretentious and snotty.



I said that the letter is representative of that, not that she necessarily is that way, and it is. Furthermore, if you're going to complain about me using ad homs, you might not want to use examples where you yourself admit that I'm attacking her argument. That's the exact opposite of an ad hom.



The description at the bottom is not written by Kimrey; it's written by someone else. She can describe herself as an astronaut too; that doesn't make it so. Criticizing the accuracy of her self-description is not saying she's not allowed to do it (which she didn't in the first place).



So what? That has nothing to do with ad homs.

I don't even know what to do with this post. Your argument boils down to: "She's 12, so she's wrong and not who or what she claims to be."[/quote]

Yes, it does, because I know perfectly well what the limits of a 12-year-old's experience, maturity, and ability to relate to others is. I've had classrooms full of them, you know, and raised one myself. I also studied it academically. Even if she is mature, well-read, experienced, for her age, and intelligent (and her writing indicates that she is; no matter how poor her reasoning is it is still expressed with considerably more clarity and coherence than most of her peers probably exhibit) she simply cannot yet claim to be any of those things (other than "student") with legitimacy. Those are adult titles with adult agency and responsibility. Older adolescents might be able to claim them by virtue of being near-adults and beginning to have truly adult experiences, but children - and she IS a child - cannot and do not. If she is a rare exception, you will need to present a MOUNTAIN of evidence to that effect; infatuation with her on the part of the public is not such evidence.

If you want me to go into why she's wrong, the fact is that her points do not, in fact, address whether it is more beneficial for women, from an economic standpoint for the economic prospects of the men in their lives to improve versus improving their own. Xecqual actually addressed this point, and to a degree I think he may be correct about that, even if he's incorrect about Schlafely's motivations. You will note, by the way, that I was able to address his attempts to leap to conclusions about what Schlafely must want rather than resorting to your tactic of screeching about imaginary mind-reading.


Nope. Try something other than you're bog-standard complaint when you have no idea what else to say. It is not mind-reading to evaluate someone's thoughts based on their actions (including speech). Mens rea rests on this principle, for example. You are about the only person that doesn't get this, and you do so only in order to drag debates off topic when you don't like where they're going.



I am not making a clinical diagnosis here, so all of this is irrelevant. The normal behaviors of pre-adolescents are undergraduate psychological material.. which I have in fact studied, and have a degree in from an accredited institution.



This girl is 12, not 15, and the fact that a person is physically ready to bear or father children says nothing about whether they are mature enough to participate in the political life of a society at all, much less as a public figure.

Khross, there is really no point in even talking to you. Honestly, everything above comes down to this line:



This is my leisure. Everything that happens in this forum is wasting time. Are you going to suggest something productive actually goes on around here? Hell, this entire thread is a waste of time even relative to the forum. The real issue is the bill before Congress, but instead we have people ***** about Schlafely for no apparent reason, and cooing over a 12-year-old responding getting offended at the old lady.

If you're worried about "wasting time", why don't you give us your thoughts on the legislation? That might be worth reading.



Seeing as you're trying to complain about me being aware of well-known aspects of developmental psychology, having been properly educated in the subject, we can pretty much chalk this up to you just not knowing how to address arguments.



That's nice. You do that. I strongly suspect you won't be able to resist responding again.

This is what the "I'm leacing the thread!" thing looks like, by the way: [url]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comicsandcosplay/comics/critical-miss/10343-Were-Done-Here
[/url]

Really, this comes down to one line:


There's one key word in there - argument. You, in a list of alleged ad homs by me, included a point where you admitted I was attacking her argument.

I mean, there's just nothing else to say. There's no point in even talking to you. Either you simply don't know what an ad hom is, or else I'm talking to someone for whom absolutely no principle of reason can be allowed to stand in the way of his conclusions.

Furthermore, we get Xecqual "reading Schlafely's mind" (he wasn't, any more than I was reading anyone's but by your standards he was) and in her letter:


Leaving aside her misrepresentation of herself as a teenager (and later, a women, both of which she demonstrably isn't, yet) and the implications that has for her self-identification you're so worried about...

She's reading Schlafely's mind, by your standards. For you, "mind reading" is some kind of huge deal, but this escaped your notice. That's ok. I'm sure there will be some sort of amazing quarterback scandal to explain why it's ok if she tells Schlafely what Schlafely thinks, but not ok when DE does it to her.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Diamondeye:

Your vitriol is amusing. I know precisely what an ad hominem attack happens to be. You, on the other hand, sling them with such ready rapidity that it's almost ironic, in the woefully inadequate Alanis Morisette sense. You're attacking a 12 year old girl; denying her self-professed and self-styled identity; and assailing any person who points out that your position, argument, and attempts to behaviorally deconstruct the girl are ludicrous.

She's 12, and Phyllis Schafly believes that certain parts of the feminist development have obviated or destroyed certain social manifestations of sexual dimorphism. And, amusingly, no today's old people don't know how what today's children are about; no more than the old people who raised your parents' parents truly knew what the hell you were about.

The world's got a lot smaller since Phyllis Schafly was 12 years old.

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Unfortunately for you, I just demonstrated incontrovertibly that you didn't use it correctly. If you know what it means, the only thing left is that you were just intentionally misusing it.

The vitrol, by the way, is entirely yours. I do this for amusement. In your case, I like watching you try to extend intellectual hegemony over every topic that comes up, and then freak out every time you're reminded that you have no academic authority here, and precious little knowledge of what the **** you're talking about on anything outside of economics or linguistics.



You're demonstrating once again that you don't know what an ad hom is. An ad hom is distracting from the matter at hand by attacking one's opponent; since she is not a party to the discussion here, no ad hom is being committed, unless you are prepared to assert that behavior of 3rd parties can never be evaluated in discussion or debate.

As for "ludicrous", the only thing ludicrous here is you trying to use the fact that she's a 12 year old girl to immunize her from criticism. There is nothing wrong with "denying her identity"; it's obviously not what she thinks it is; she categorizes herself in an observably incorrect manner as both a "woman" and a "teenager", and while the latter might be fast approaching the fact remains that her "Self charcterization" is self aggrandizement well beyond any experience she could possibly have.



Khross, you have no idea what you are talking about. The degree to which any given person is in touch with later generations varies wildly from person to person; it is not within your purview to evaluate. The hypocrisy of you making this sweeping generalization after your complaints bout my imaginary "mind reading" is beyond classification.

This is also completely irrelevant; none of that addresses the economic issue Schlafely was talking about, and does not change the fact that the letter was nothing more than pre-teen vitrol that failed to address the point.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

DE:

Look, man, you can have any opinion you want. We know this. But you're not shielded from others pointing out how absurd it is.

With your responses, you are acting so incredibly ageist that I can't even tell if you're being sexist or not. I'm kind of feeling bad for your kids if you're so completely dismissive of their views.

There is one statement of yours that I'd like to address. You suggested above that she does not have the right to engage politically until she's 18. This is false. She does not have the right to vote until she turns 18. She is a citizen, and has the same free speech rights that you do - under guardianship of her parents. If they approve of her engaging politically, she does indeed have that right.

And lastly I just wanted to reiterate my opinion that your assertion that you know more about the motivations and behaviors of a 12 year old girl, than a 12 year old girl, laughably absurd.

I've found DE to argue in the way stereotypically attributed to 12 year old girls for a long time now so I don't find it so absurd.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I never claimed otherwise. The problem is that it isn't absurd at all. You're not shielded from me pointing that out, and appeal to Glade popularity doesn't change that. As I pointed out, her letter does not address Schlafely's point; it's simply her being offended at the suggestion and talking about how young women don't want to do that. That may very well be true, but just because young women are offended by it doesn't make Schlafely's point untrue. Xecqual brought up a much better and more on-topic counterpoint than



The tendency of people around here to attempt to evaluate other people's parenting skills based on the microscopic information of things like this is actually rather alarming. Also, I don't even buy the concept of agism at all, at least when applied to people under the age of approximately 21. At that age, or somewhat thereafter, is the point where full adult psychological development has completed, so complaining about "agism" before that is hilariously at odds with science, science that is blindingly obvious to practically everyone. Parenting would not be necessary at all if children had the psychological tools to participate in the adult world.

There was also a thread recently where Coro and I were the only ones pointing out the importance of not holding one's financial means as a way of controlling one's children or other dependents via ultimatums and such, and allowing them control and independence, especially when they are contributing partly to the financial situation. To turn around and then complain that I'm being "agist" or to use the "I'm worried about your kids" (it isn't your place to worry about my kids) indicates a distinct tendency to shut out experiences that might compromise the conclusions you feel like drawing right now.

One thing I am very aware of is the level of maturity of children at different ages. Partly this is due to my education, partly due to having 4 of them of very widely varying ages, partly due to having taught and worked with kids, and partly because I noted when I was young that my father was far more aware of my and my sister's abilities and limits at given ages than my mother, aho was notably unable to understand the difference between a 16 year old and a 6 year old unless it was convenient for her.

This gorl may be aspiring to be an actor, an activist, and astronaut, or whatever else, but she isn't yet. She's doing those things swathed in a cocoon of adult protection and sensitivity to her lack of maturity and inexperience. This is unavoidable; adults are still legally responsible for her, and I'm sure that her parents care about her safety and want to protect her as much as any other parents even as they encourage her. Yes, it's very impressive that she can write a letter this coherent at that age, and that she has the confidence and poise to appear on TV vs Al Sharpton, but adults are always going to pull their punches against her so as not to appear to be picking on a 12 year old girl. I frankly feel that if she were a boy of the same age she'd get harsher treatment and less attention, but that's another issue and there is no example I can think of to compare, so...

In any case, if she's able to go on national TV against a major political figure like Sharpton, she doesn't need white-knight protection from anonymous internet criticism, especially from other anonymous sources that want to ***** about "mind reading" and yet are unable to respond to the fact that her letter is irrelevant to the point Schlafely was making. Which is it? Is she old enough to engage the adult world, or not? If it's "in between" (which evidently it is) then my point stands that she's not fully ready to do so, and taking her really seriously is actually doing her a disservice, much like coddling high school students with low standards and constant monitoring does not prepare them for the realities of college, and easy college degrees with little relevance don't prepare students for the working world.

I doubt very much anyone has sat her down and said "look, that was a pretty good letter in terms of writing quality, but Mrs. Schlafely is addressing what would be economically more beneficial, and whether young people agree with that from a standpoint of egalitarianism doesn't address whether it's an economic truth or not." Partly this is because I doubt very much the adults around her really understand (or even care about) the distinction themselves, partly because they agree with her and it makes them feel good to see a 12 year old talking back to an elderly person they don't like, partly because they're the sort of people to whom market forces controlling things is a source of social injustice and therefore can't be allowed to enter the arena, and partly because a 12 year old is going to have a very hard time understanding that distinction. Even later adolescents from 16 to 18 have a hard time with "what should be" vs. "what is", so expecting a 12 year old to appreciate that is totally unrealistic.



"If they approve". They do, so she is permitted to do so, but she doesn't have the right. If she had the right, they wouldn't be able to stop her either. There's all the usual caveats about "on someone else's property" wtc, but the basic fact is that an adult may speak as they please without the permission of the government or anyone else barring some intervening factor making them subject to the permission of that party. I didn't go into all the caveats because we don't need yet another discussion of rights, but the bottom line is that children are permitted to use the rights their parents have charge of by their parents; they don't have the rights yet. Or, if you want to claim a linguistic win, they have the rights but the parents hold them "in trust" or whatever analogy you prefer and you can preen about winning a semantic victory.



I don't really care how absurd you find it. Developmental psychology is not an obscure field, and while I'm not an expert, I do know the basics of what a preadolescent is and isn't capable of. I'm not sure why you're so alarmed that I would draw a conclusion based on relevant information and education.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."