Class analysis...

[BertrandRussell]

Why do people find it so difficult? Am I being too simplistic and missing something?
White people as a class have more power than black people as a class.. Men as a class are more violent than women as a class. Is there anything controversial there?

Bertrand

I find it very hard to understand why people find it difficult to accept or even get upset by a statement like "men as a class are more violent than women as a class". It seems to me just to be purely factual and based on statistics. And it seems to me that we should accept that and move on

I don't think anyone on these threads has argued with that point. I certainly haven't and I don't get upset by the statement that men as a group are more violent than women as a group. As you say, its just a statement of fact.

The issue comes after that, where we have to decide what we are going to do about it. I have seen on these threads many comments along the lines of 'men are responsible for most violence, therefore its reasonable to treat all men as potential attackers/rapists'

This is what I'm talking about earlier about taking a characteristic of a collective and applying it to an individual. Its fundamentally flawed.

As a good example lets look at another fact about a group.

Black people in the USA commit more crime than white people. That's another statement of fact. However if I extrapolate from that (as a lot of women do about men) that I should therefore treat all black people as potential criminals, it becomes obvious that that's wrong.

Constantly- it's not about individuals. You can make the classes smaller- but the analysis still applies. Men have more power than women- even within small groups. So an individual woman may have more power than an individual woman. But even within disadvantaged groups, men still hold more power than women in the same group. Does that make sense

It does make sense but I can see why people might get upset with sweeping statements that white men have more power - if you belong to a class of men that actually don’t have very much.

Actually within the education system the class of white males do worst of all. So most of the time men do better / have more power but that isn’t always the case.

I’m not arguing for looking at everything on an individual level but the larger the class of people you are looking at the greater the variance. And the higher the likely hood that the statement you have made will not hold true for many of the people in the class.

Surely that’s when class breaks down to the individual? And if you’re one very small part of that class, then what can you do to change anything?

Depends if you are libfem or radfem.

Libfem is all about trying to reduce everything to the individual. Radfem is all about working to change the structure.

Obviously if everyone always thinks ‘I can’t do anything’ ‘I don’t matter’ ‘I’m just one person’ then I question why they are so opposed to class analysis which provides a framework for collective action...

Racism is class analysis. Sexism is class analysis.
Sort of. I would say racism/sexism is class analysis + faulty inference/conclusion

So: class women on average have lower paid jobs that require less qualifications. Sexist infers this means women are stupider than men/less ambitious than men/more motivated by housekeeping than men.
The sexist jumps to conclusions from the class analysis.

The analyst would look for more patterns or evidence to understand what is driving the class difference before making the conclusion.

I was actually challenge you on some of your core ideas, and you didn't really provide me with a response other than 'this is my opinion'

Hello patriarchy, what a surprise to see you. Again. Telling women how they are doing it wrong.

Previously you asserted that women in the West were not oppressed. I said they were. You denied that, it went rather tediously from there. You challenged me to ask a Saudi colleague if she felt women in the West were oppressed. I did. She said they were. You then asserted that she was the wrong type of Saudi woman and from there... well I’m not sure really, I don’t believe you ever replied to that one. Do t really fancy getting in a plane to Jeddah in this heat to canvas opinion.

You believe women in the West as a class are not oppressed because Reasons including access to mobile phones and the web
I think they are oppressed, because they are women.

Short of The second coming with Jesus beaming down with a ‘yes! Women are oppressed’ banner in fairy lights I’m not sure what else I can say to make my point.

Do carry on derailing this thread with your manly wisdom on what it's like to be a woman though and all the issues we face, you obviously know an awful lot about it.

collective action offred??

Burned at the stake for less these days.

The issue comes after that, where we have to decide what we are going to do about it. I have seen on these threads many comments along the lines of 'men are responsible for most violence, therefore its reasonable to treat all men as potential attackers/rapists'

If you look at the analysis from the perspective of a man who is not a rapist, i can see why that kind of sentiment is upsetting.

If you look at it from the perspective of a woman who is concerned about being raped it is a reasonable response. There is no way to identify a rapist from a non-rapist

kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-schrodinger’s-rapist-or-a-guy’s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-being-maced/

Please re-read your last post Babel

Thanks for proving my point.

in some situations it is reasonable to assume the worst.

That’s why we have women’s toilets and changing rooms.

The behaviour of the individual Male is irrelevant. As a class, they are a danger to women in that specific situation and thus as a class, they are excluded in that situation.

Quentin

If you look at it from the perspective of a woman who is concerned about being raped it is a reasonable response

This opinion is my entire point.

There is no logical difference between what you have just said there and someone saying that they should treat all black people in America as potential criminals.

That is intuitively wrong and unfair, so why is your example about men not also wrong and unfair?

Thanks for proving my point.

That men are always right? Well you certainly think so don’t you. And you love to come on here and tell us as well.

Do you ever hang out on Male forums?

There is a huge logical difference.

Can you explain why in your opinion we have women’s toilets?

And if they should be abolished? Bearing in mind that where there are no female facilities rapes and sexual assaults increase massively?

Just a quick bit of reading material for you Babel

Ad Hominem

Oh good I'm glad some people still believe in class analysis! I'm writing an essay atm and shaking my head at some of the postmodern priviledged white theorists.

Off to read the rest of the thread.

There is a huge logical difference

What is it then?

Derailing me into discussion of women's toilets (which exist for a lot of different reasons) doesn't answer the question.

PatriarchyPersonified

The issue comes after that, where we have to decide what we are going to do about it. I have seen on these threads many comments along the lines of 'men are responsible for most violence, therefore its reasonable to treat all men as potential attackers/rapists'

This is what I'm talking about earlier about taking a characteristic of a collective and applying it to an individual. Its fundamentally flawed.

Thats not a flaw or an attempt at causing offence, its a risk assessment.
If that offends men then they need to devise a different way for women to assess and manage risk. It has to be realistic, and it has to work for us.

If I decided that my life experience and crime statistics meant black people were more likely to be criminals, i would be entitled to put in place whatever boundaries i wanted to, to protect myself.

I don't, because the argument that someone being black is a good indicator that they might be a criminal is totally flawed and oversimplistic.

Read the blog i linked. If you can respond in good faith then we can continue the conversation. But false equivalence isn't going to help.

Because it's horrible to think that you're in the most powerful class, you have every advantage it is possible to have, and you're STILL an abject failure.

It is the people who aren't doing great who scream the loudest about positive discrimination, affirmative action, equality of rights, parity of income.

I also find the fact tht many men won't accept that "as a class men are more violent than women as a class" (AACMAMVTWAAC) Incredibly frustrating because it means they can wash their hands and carry on, rather than doing what they can to change it. Men have the power to make society so much better yet they (as a class) choose not to.

Because it has no situational root.

Treating people like criminals - what does that mean? You think a black person might comit an act against you so you’re wary in public? Well no one can stop you I guess if that’s your thought.
Or does it mean you actively discriminate against them in a way such as not hiring because they’re black? Now you’re committing an illegal act. The situation is different.

In the case of women’s toilets it IS relevant because the situation is defined.

Should a woman treat all men as potential rapists in the context of being alone in a bathroom? This is allowed under law and it’s the reason why we have women’s bathrooms toilets and change areas.

Ifva woman was treating all men as rapists to the point she wasn’t hiring one to work in the same office she would run into discrimination law. Just as she would if she refused to hire someone who was black.

So there’s the logical difference. Class plus situation equals response.

Women’s toilets exist solely for the safety, dignity and privacy of women. What other reasons exist?

Patriarchy..yes having made some discoveries about class behaviour, one shouldn't jump to actions. Effect sizes also need to be considered. True causality needs to be considered ( I think in America if you control for poverty, the race association with crime is gone) weapons of math destruction was a good read.

I think that's where the equality act does well. I recall it highlights that responses need to be proportionate . So {men} are more violent. This doesn't mean we lock all men up or make them use different busses. Not only would that be unfair on the majority of men, it could also make things worse by telling men that we expect them to behave violently. So the impact on both men and not men would be worse by those interventions

It gets harder for AWS when the act of promoting a women would reduce opportunity for a man...even if that man would not have had that opportunity if we were in a total meritocracy. People find that reasoning very hard

However it is not true that in all cases action would be Innappropriate. My suspicion is that women who had had a harder time at the hands of men are more likely to take more extreme position {classes } . And that's a very large subgroup of women . the acts committed against those women have a lasting negative mental impact. From distrust to PTSD. Which is why sometimes discrimination against {men} is justified. As both physical protection and mental reassurance. And is usually expressed in society as a mutual respect for each other. So when a man uses the gents, he is being a gentleman.

Because it's horrible to think that you're in the most powerful class, you have every advantage it is possible to have, and you're STILL an abject failure.

In a nutshell it’s why the incels and alt right exist. That failure and sense of entitlement breeds some serious rage.

The argument that someone being black is a good indicator of criminality is totally flawed and oversimplistic

I agree, but surely that the point. The argument that someone being a man is a good indicator of violence is also flawed and oversimplistic.

Its a small minority of black people that commit the vast majority of crimes within the black community.

Its a small minority of men that commit the vast majority of violent crimes and rape.

It's not a false equivalence. It's a fair comparison.

The issue comes after that, where we have to decide what we are going to do about it. I have seen on these threads many comments along the lines of 'men are responsible for most violence, therefore its reasonable to treat all men as potential attackers/rapists'

If you look at it from the perspective of a woman who is concerned about being raped it is a reasonable response. There is no way to identify a rapist from a non-rapist

It might be an understandable response in the individual, but that doesn't make it either a useful or desirable response in the group.

You have to look at what that response would achieve, in what way it would potentially benefit or protect the person experiencing it, in what way it would potentially disadvantage them, and what other impacts it would have if it were adopted by that group on a large scale.

So people treat all black people as potential criminal; results in potentially their group x% less likely to experience crime from black people, BUT they're all xxx% more anxious in day to day life, more prejudiced with knock-on effects on other dynamics in society, and ultimately they probably won't be any less likely to experience crime as individuals than if they didn't act that way. So is it the right response to the class analysis? On balance.... no.

Meanwhile women are dealing with the risk of violence. Come up with a better way to manage that risk, instead of just sweeping away what is already in place by complaining its not fair on men who are not violent.