Talk:Sexism

Distinguish between "real discriminations" and, let's say, "questionable discriminations"
I did sort the section about Sexist discriminations against women to make clear that some of the listed discriminations can be objectively called discriminations, while other are not so well supported by evidences and could be explained also by non-sexist causes. I think that RationalWiki should make that distinction, because putting on the same discrimination-level a law that says "adult women need permission from a male guardian to travel abroad, marry, or leave prison" and a study that shows that "Published material by women academics is less frequently cited" is all but skeptical and rational reasoning.

However, my edit was reverted (by, I guess (?)). I have sorted again the section in such a way. I admit that the opening paragraph is not written very well... please if you can improve it, or explain what is wrong. --McLaghing (talk) 17:13, 16 February 2018 (UTC)


 * 1) To use one example, you placed the Jennifer and John study in the section you categorised as different treatments of women [and] men whose existence is supported by weak evidences (or no evidences at all) and/or whose sexist origins are supported by weak evidences (or no evidences at all), so they could be explained by non-sexist causes. How is this weak/no evidence?
 * 2) Following on from the first point, you could do the same thing with the discriminations against men but you didn't (e.g. car insurance premiums differ because women are safer drivers on average). Why did you only do it for the discriminations against women?
 * 3) I think that RationalWiki should make that distinction, because putting on the same discrimination-level a law that says "adult women need permission from a male guardian to travel abroad, marry, or leave prison" and a study that shows that "Published material by women academics is less frequently cited" is all but skeptical and rational reasoning. Nowhere in the section does it say that the discriminations are comparable or as bad as one another (which is irrelevant anyway).
 * CowHouse (talk) 15:59, 17 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Please do not revert everything back but let's have a conversation: As you can see below, I'm open to changes, if things are motivated.


 * "To use one example, you placed the Jennifer and John study in the section [...] How is this weak/no evidence?" <- OK, the "Jennifer-John study" was misplaced, I moved it to the other section. However, note that I have split that point into two parts "Jennifer-John study" and "gender gap", because one thing is a very specific study showing a bias in hiring (for the same job), other things is saying that the average wages of men and women are different because of sexist discriminations (completely different jobs are taken into account, so the kind of careers men/women chose matters a lot).


 * "Why did you only do it for the discriminations against women?" <- Because initially I wrote only "plain discriminations", so I did not see the reason to make a distinction. Later, I saw that I have forgot the point on car insurances and I move it without thinking to much. In some way it could be counted as discrimination because each man is considered by the average behavior of all men, on the other hand, it depends on how much liberty private insurance should have regarding their policies. Anyway, I split the section on discriminations against men into two parts.


 * "Nowhere in the section does it say that the discriminations are comparable or as bad as one another" <- My point is not that some discriminations are less bad than some others. My point is that some of the claimed discriminations are not supported by evidences and could be explained by non-sexist causes. Women's papers are less cited than men's? Well, it could be that such papers are less interesting, women cite themselves less than men, women collaborate less than men, ... But mostly, the burden of the proof is on who claim that is due to sexism. Regarding Viagra and abortion, that even more difficult to be considered a discrimination since completely different things are unfairly compared: a drug to cure erectile erectile dysfunction and a procedure to terminate pregnancy. --McLaghing (talk) 16:51, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * There is no consensus here, so the article will be restored to the version before the disputed edit. I'll protect the page if you undo this again.
 * A study showed that if an applicant has a woman's name, they were offered less money. You acknowledge this but deny that the "average wages of men and women are different because of sexist discriminations"? I await your mental gymnastics.
 * Can you at least explain what you would consider "strong" and "weak" evidence? Some objective, consistent criteria would be helpful. Using the vague description you've given, there is weak evidence for the cancer research example since it could be explained by non-sexist causes. CowHouse (talk) 09:06, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * "There is no consensus here, so the article will be restored to the version before the disputed edit. I'll protect the page if you undo this again. " <- That's dishonest. First, I do not see any logic to "there's no consensus between you and me then everything is restored accordingly to your idea". Second, I edited the page giving motivations, you reverted everything back without giving motivation, I edited again asking to discuss, I listened to your feedback and I changed some of my edit accordingly to your positions... but now you reverted again everything back and you stated that you'll protect the page if I edit it again. Isn't this a collaborative wiki? Everybody can see that I try as much as possible to collaborate, while you are just authoritarian.


 * "A study showed that if an applicant has a woman's name, they were offered less money. You acknowledge this but deny that the "average wages of men and women are different because of sexist discriminations"? I await your mental gymnastics." <- A study shows that there's a bias against women who applies to a STEM job. This is an evidence in support of the fact that women are discriminated in STEM. It is not an evidence that in all jobs women are discriminated hence their average wages are less then men's. This is not "mental gymnastic", is just knowing the difference between a specific case and all cases. Essentially you are saying that a study showing women are discriminated in STEM jobs is an evidence, among other things, that women are discriminated in, let's say, nanny jobs.


 * "Can you at least explain what you would consider "strong" and "weak" evidence? Some objective, consistent criteria would be helpful." <- Of course I cannot throw out objective criteria to tell everything which is a discrimination and everything which is not, otherwise justice would be an exact science and there would be no discussion in the first place. I am the first acknowledging that there can be different opinions about what is a discrimination. However, that doesn't mean that a "skeptic" wiki should be neutral in its judgments. I have already explained why "women under sharia-laws" is a plain discrimination while "women's paper are cited less", "health insurance Viagra/abortion" are not. I do not see the point of repeating myself again and being ignored again. --McLaghing (talk) 11:32, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * You are free to consult another moderator if you want a second opinion.
 * It is a collaborative wiki. What's your point? I am disputing one of your edits. If I was reverting everything you have done then you might have a point.
 * It is unreasonable to insist on adding something to the page when it has been disputed and there is no consensus. You are also insisting on including a paragraph you have admitted was "not written very well". It makes no sense to leave the disputed edit on the page while we are discussing it. The way the page is set out now is the same as it was before I edited it. So it is dishonest to say that everything was restored according to my idea. It's also dishonest to say that I'll protect the page if you "edit" again. It's only if you restore the disputed edit. Do you think an edit war is productive?
 * I may have thought of a compromise. I think this can be worded in a way you will find uncontroversial: "the average wages of men and women are different because of sexist discriminations". Based on your comments, you have interpreted this as saying that sexist discrimination explains the entirety of the gap. How about this instead: "sexist discrimination plays a role in explaining the difference in average wages between men and women". Note that this says nothing about "all jobs".
 * Of course I cannot throw out objective criteria to tell everything which is a discrimination and everything which is not [...] I am the first acknowledging that there can be different opinions about what is a discrimination. Do you think it might be a problem to structure a page based on such an arbitrary threshold? CowHouse (talk) 15:43, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * "It is a collaborative wiki. What's your point?" <- That you are not collaborating, and I have already explained why.
 * "I am disputing one of your edits. If I was reverting everything you have done then you might have a point." <- So you can revert back some of my edits as long as you do not revert everything... where's the logic?
 * "It is unreasonable to insist on adding something to the page when it has been disputed and there is no consensus." <- I didn't "insist", I changed part of my edits accordingly to your objections and I explained why I didn't change the rest... following such a process maybe we find a compromise. On the other hand, you insisted in reverting back...
 * "You are also insisting on including a paragraph you have admitted was "not written very well" <- I meant grammatically. English is not my first language and I'm aware my grammar might be bad. If you were really interested in improving the page you could have rewritten such paragraph better, instead of just deleting it.
 * "It makes no sense to leave the disputed edit on the page while we are discussing it."' <- I didn't leave the edits, I improved them accordingly to your objections... clearly I need to repeat myself hundred of times...
 * "The way the page is set out now is the same as it was before I edited it. So it is dishonest to say that everything was restored according to my idea." <- But it has been.
 * "It's also dishonest to say that I'll protect the page if you "edit" again. It's only if you restore the disputed edit." <- Which I don't. Saying it again: I didn't restore my edits, I changed them accordingly to some of your objections.
 * "Do you think an edit war is productive?" <- Saying it again: I didn't start an "edit was", I changed the page accordingly to some of your objections.
 * "I may have thought of a compromise. I think this can be worded in a way you will find uncontroversial: "the average wages of men and women are different because of sexist discriminations" <- I hope you wrote it wrong, because there's now way that's uncontroversial...
 * "How about this instead: "sexist discrimination plays a role in explaining the difference in average wages between men and women". Note that this says nothing about "all jobs"." <- Well, I agree with your proposed sentence, but I have no idea how you want to put that in context. If you want to present the gender gap as a discrimination because one study showed biases in hiring women in STEM, I disagree.


 * Anyway, I moved the "Other examples" section before the feminists opinions section (why the hell "adult women need permission from a male guardian to travel abroad, marry, or leave prison..." should come after an idiotic comparison between Viagra an abortion?) Note that this is a different edit, so you if you revert back again you cannot claim that you just reverted a disputed edit. --McLaghing (talk) 16:32, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * If I wasn't collaborating I wouldn't bother having this discussion. You seem to think that reverting or undoing an edit implies I'm not collaborating. When two people collaborate they often disagree. I'm not simply reverting everything you're doing without discussion. But this is getting way off-topic...
 * Just to be clear, this paragraph is the disputed edit that you restored, and I don't think it belongs on the page at all:
 * Often, different people have different opinions on what constitute a sexist discrimination. We try to distinguish between "plain discriminations", that is, discriminations against women whose existence is supported by strong evidences (for example, they are implemented by laws) and which have no reasons to exist if not to disadvantage women and/or favor men; and "discriminations accordingly to feminists", that is, different treatments of women are men whose existence is supported by weak evidences (or no evidences at all) and/or whose sexist origins are supported by weak evidences (or no evidences at all), so they could be explained by non-sexist causes.
 * I am interested in improving the page which is why I removed this paragraph. Here's my counter-proposal:
 * Current version: "Also, feminists generally consider the following to be examples of sexism in western society"
 * Proposal: "Feminists generally consider the following to be examples of sexism in western society. (Note: On the other hand, dedicated antifeminists insist that they might be explained by non-sexist causes or biological differences.)"
 *  I have no idea how you want to put that in context. Something like this: "Even in progressive and liberal nations, the average wage of women is less than the average wage of men. Sexism plays a role in explaining the difference in average wages between men and women. In a study..." CowHouse (talk) 04:48, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * "Feminists generally consider the following to be examples of sexism in western society. (Note: On the other hand, dedicated antifeminists insist that they might be explained by non-sexist causes or biological differences.)" <- I disagree. Although it does not explicitely say that, it implicitly suggests that only dedicated antifeminists think such phenomena could be explain by non-sexists causes, which is false (for example, the article about "women's paper are cited less" proposes several non-sexists explanations, and surely it is not written by dedicated antifeminists). Moreover, the Viagra/abortion thing is not even a discrimination (completely different things are compared) so it does not even require an explanation about non-sexist causes.
 * "Even in progressive and liberal nations, the average wage of women is less than the average wage of men. Sexism plays a role in explaining the difference in average wages between men and women. In a study..." <- You cannot use a study about STEM (a very specific field) to support a conclusion about the average wage (obtained by averaging all the wages in all jobs). If you insist in keeping together the "gender gap" point and the "STEM hiring" point an honest sentence would be: "Even in progressive and liberal nations, the average wage of women is less than the average wage of men. In STEM jobs, a study showed that sexism plays a role in explaining the difference in women and men wages. ..." --McLaghing (talk) 10:26, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Instead of my proposal, you could add some of the explanations from the article about women receiving fewer citations.

I looked through the edit history and the Viagra example was seemingly added as a joke. There's currently no source establishing that feminists consider it an example of sexism. Unless anyone strongly objects, you can just remove it from the page entirely.

"Even in progressive and liberal nations, the average wage of women is less than the average wage of men. In STEM jobs, a study showed that sexism plays a role in explaining the difference in women and men wages. ..." I'm happy with that. CowHouse (talk) 16:20, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * "I looked through the edit history and the Viagra example was seemingly added as a joke. There's currently no source establishing that feminists consider it an example of sexism. Unless anyone strongly objects, you can just remove it from the page entirely." <- Yes, it seems so. But probably the real joke is that the example has been proudly on the page for 9 years. I leave the shame to remove it to some long standing RW editor.
 * "I'm happy with that." <- Done. --McLaghing (talk) 17:55, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * "I looked through the edit history and the Viagra example was seemingly added as a joke." <- No, wait, I found a reference. It's seem a case of Poe's law. --McLaghing (talk) 18:00, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Jennifer/John Study
The interesting study conducted at Yale discloses some surprising results. It is true that faculty offering laboratory-manager positions tended to favor male applicants. It is true also that the male applicants were offered higher salaries than the female applicants. It seems to me that several issues have been conflated: intentional pay disparity (offering disparate salaries is not unconscious), and flat-out gender preference for STEM jobs. Did faculty offer less to female applicants because it was a technical way to ensure fewer females accepted positions?: Faculty preference for male applicants was about the same for both male and female faculty. Weird.Ariel31459 (talk) 20:45, 18 February 2018 (UTC)


 * The John/Jennifer study (here's a link to it) has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) in 2012. The study showed that on average a nationwide sample of 127 biology, chemistry, and physics professors evaluated the competences of the same curriculum up to 1.08 points higher, in a scale 1-7, if the candidate is believed to be male (see Table 1, pag. 3).


 * A 2015 study published in PNAS too (here's the link to it) found a completely different result. In Experiment 1 of the study, 363 professors from biology, engineering, economics, and psychology, had to rate three curricula. The experiment showed that candidate believed to the female are ranked first 67.3% of the times. This in all field, except economics, where there was no significant preference for men or women. The study has done other experiments, and the overall conclusion is that women have a 2:1 preference advantage. Unfortunately, the study did not concern salaries.


 * How would you change the part on the John/Jennifer study in the page now that this new information came up? --McLaghing (talk) 18:16, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * What do you suggest? CowHouse (talk) 19:03, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * If anything, both studies should be presented, making comparison between the sample size and methodology (the second study is much more complex). However, that would be quite long to write. Personally, I do not have time to do it. --McLaghing (talk) 19:15, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, a long section discussing both studies would be more appropriate on the gender pay gap page. This article would then briefly mention both studies and refer to the pay gap page for more detail. CowHouse (talk) 16:54, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
 * So... 4 days have gone and no reply? You pushed so much about John/Jennifer... What do you think it should be done? --McLaghing (talk) 19:19, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Workplace sexism studies
The debate about discrimination against women in the workplace is more complex than most people seem to realise. There are various methodologies for testing this, including: hiring surveys where CVs are sent out with different names; surveys in which people are asked to subjectively rank the suitability of candidates; real-world statistics of salary and career progression. Ample evidence also shows significant differences across different jobs. There's a discussion of methodologies here and for comparison here's one on racial bias.

Studies by Christine Wennerås and Agnes Wold and by Moss-Racusin (behind the Jennifer and John study and other studies) have found evidence of anti-female bias in science. In contrast Wendy M. Williams and Stephen J. Ceci at Cornell found that female candidates were preferred for STEM positions. This has been criticised for not reflecting real-world hiring practices (it was based on asking people to judge a career summary, which isn't a usual way to choose people for a job). Similar studies in other industries have found a pro-female biases: Booth and Leigh found strong pro-female bias in traditionally female jobs (such as secretarial work) and a slight pro-female bias in sales (seen as mixed-gender). Men may be discriminated against more for having worked part time than women are (across a range of jobs). Other research finds that bias against women in scientific academia is larger for higher-level jobs.

There is a lot of research being conducted in the area of workplace discrimination (for informal surveys see e.g. ) so it's inexcusable to be acting like there's no evidence. The problem if anything is that there's too much evidence. Sorry I don't have time to go into more depth. --Gospatric (talk) 15:52, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * "so it's inexcusable to be acting like there's no evidence." <- I think nobody here is acting like there's no evidence. I think the discussion is more about how much such evidences explain the gender gap. Please, if you can, add all the studies you have cited to the page. --McLaghing (talk) 16:26, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Common conservative views
This section is at worst totally unnecessary and at best useful but embeds a lot of obvious bias and assumptions with few referenced datapoints. The question is whether to remove it entirely, or to rework it to hold more nuance and balance it with an equally nuanced section on common liberal views. Einlanzer (talk) 00:53, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Sexist discriminations against men - Balance fallacy?
The section "Sexual discrimination against men" (which comes first) has ten points. The section "Sexual discrimination against women" also has ten points and is about the same size.

Which sort of looks like we are implying that both sexes suffer equally from sexism.

I'm sure that that is not what we want to suggest.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 13:27, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is enough to accuse the page of balance fallacy. Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 15:08, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * If you take the number of points as indicative of such a measure....but why would you do that? It doesn't change the fact that we live in a male dominated society when looking purely at those who make up the majority of positions of socioeconomic power. Women are more often "subjects" to the rule of men then vice versa, but sexism still hurts everyone. I would agree with the implicit premise that women suffer more on the whole from sexism when compared to men  but I don't think the number of examples we list under each sub-header really implies the opposite one way or another. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 19:04, 27 August 2022 (UTC).

The name of laws in sexual assault cases
I removed the section about women not being able to get a sentence for life in UK and India because it is possible in both countries, it’s just not called „rape“. What kind of implications it has to call it something else than rape should perhaps be discussed but it’s important to not perpetuate the idea that there is no legal grounds against female sex offenders in these countries.

In UK it falls under the section „Causing sexual activity without consent ( penetrative) (section4(4))(indictable – max life)“ (https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offences-chapter-7-key-legislation-and-offences).

In India this would be Section 377 „unnatural offences“ (https://www.indiacode.nic.in/show-data?actid=AC_CEN_5_23_00037_186045_1523266765688&orderno=434#:~:text=India%20Code%3A%20Section%20Details&text=Whoever%20voluntarily%20has%20carnal%20intercourse,Explanation.) Nataratata (talk) 20:53, 17 June 2023 (UTC)