Matthew Yglesias » Nordics Lead on Global Gender Gap; U.S. is 31st

Nov 11th, 2009 at 4:01 pm

Nordics Lead on Global Gender Gap; U.S. is 31st

Ariel Boone brings us the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Gender Gap Review. It’s even got rankings. We’re 31st out of 134:

The tippy top is crammed with Nordic countries, but we turn out to do worse on this metric than our fellow Anglophones.

Comments
80

80 Responses to “Nordics Lead on Global Gender Gap; U.S. is 31st”

MNPundit Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
And racial tolerance and integration? How are they on that? Aren’t the Danes arguing about whether to give immigrants $20,000 so they leave Denmark and NEVER COME BACK?
Brad Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Yawwwwn. “Made up arbitrary metric shows U.S. lags Cambodia, Cuba, and Yemen.” You’ll excuse me if I don’t get too worked up over this just yet.
heedless Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Has anyone had any luck finding out exactly what metric is used? I found it frustratingly difficult to locate.

Assuming, arguendo, that the rankings are fair, wouldn’t the US’s relatively large Mexican and Asian populations tend to weigh us down in the rankings? I notice that Canada is relatively close top us in score (if not in rank) and they would suffer from a similar issue. East Asia (aside, oddly, from the Phillipines) seems to lag the West in female equality.
StevenAttewell Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Wow. South Africa made some huge strides in a year.
jmo Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Switzerland? The canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden didn’t even give woman the vote until 1990.
jd Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Yeah, we must be “worse.” Because, of course, statistical inequalities couldn’t possibly be the result of statistical differences between the sexes in freely-made life choices about career, family, education, etc. As we all know, men and women are absolutely identical psychologically, emotionally and intellectually and thus any differences in income, education, etc, must be the result of discrimination.
Anthony Damiani Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I’m not even quite sure what this is trying to measure, precisely, much less whether or not they’re going about it in an accurate manner.

But, hey, one more thing to suck at.
jmo Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
If Germany in #12 then I know this survey is bullshit. Germany can say they have programs to support working mothers, but when you insist on sending school children home everyday for lunch – that undermines many, if not all, of their progressive policies.
Al Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Has anyone had any luck finding out exactly what metric is used?

Uh, yeah, by clicking the link – for some reason, the link brings you to a page specifically about India, but that page has a link to the report.

As it turns out, the report is GIGO. As noted above, it is a made-up arbitrary index with some extremely questionable assumptions. For example, one of the inputs is the ratio of females to males graduating from various levels of educations. This, however, is capped at 1 – so the fact that the US graduates more women than men is irrelevant. Hence, GIGO.
Hector Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I would simply point out for the record that this chart shows that Ecuador, the Philippines, Costa Rica, Ireland, and Argentina have high levels of gender equity. These countries all have strict laws against abortion, which shows that the culture-of-death Yglesian yahoos are wrong when they say that the right to abortion is important to gender equality.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Yglesian yahoos have been wrong about a major moral issue of our time. They ought to be ashamed of themselves for their enthusiastic support of the culture of death, but given that they think shame is an out-of-date outmoded figment of the imagination of the Christofascist patriarchy, I doubt they have much of a capacity to be ashamed of anything.
Mike Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
…Mozambique?

Anyone know what’s going on with that?
nattybumpo Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
The biggest reason why the US is where it is on this list is because of the lack of successful women politicians at the national level.

WRT to the health and education measures. The US essentially maxes out.

The economic measure has dubious value when the top 5 countries are: Mongolia, Bahamas, Mozambique, Lesotho, and Barbados. In any event, the top country, Mongolia received a score of .8334 vs .7501 for the US and .7851 for Sweden (the 6th highest economic score).

So, again, the biggest reason for US’s position is the lack of successful women politicians at the national level, where the US has a score of .1398 for a ranking of 61. The top five rated countries are: Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and S Africa. Which, with the exception of S. Africa, is exactly the same as the top 5 overall, and of course S. Africa is 6th overall.

For rich countries, this report on the Gender Gap should be relabeled as the Gender Gap in successful national politics, which is substantively what it amounts too.

I am curious to know why there is such a discrepancy: Does it reflect fewer women participants or more sex discrimination on the part of the electorate. The numbers, by themselves, don’t say anything about this.
razib Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
lol. my first thought when i saw the title was that someone in my google reader had “favorited” a blog post from a white nationalist site
Lucy Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
A lot of the newer electoral systems in Africa, including Mozambique’s, have high levels of female representation because, when they brought in electoral reforms, they imposed gender quotas. It’s easier to achieve radical changes in female participation and representation when you’re not even trying to adhere to the old patriarchal structures.

There is probably a trickle-down effect from having a lot of women in the legislature – all things being equal you would expect a more female-skewed parliament to introduce woman-friendly legislation. I don’t know if this is really what has happened in Mozambique, though.
SteveAR Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
This study looks like nothing but a bunch of phony leftist metrics using phony leftist numbers to come up with a phony leftist conclusion.

However, there is something humorously ironic about it. These jerk leftists should be complaining to the leftists running Congress, led in part by a female leftist Speaker of the House, and the leftist administration for making things worse. The dummies who did this study have nobody to blame but themselves.
jmo Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
the lack of successful women politicians at the national level.

One minor point/ possible explaination. I travel for work and once women start having children almost all of them get off the road. A Danish politician can commute from pretty much any part of the country in 2 hours. Sweden is the size of California with the vast majority of the population in the south. For an national level female US politician, commuting from St. Louis, Columbus, Lincoln etc. to DC isn’t something that most women with children ages 25 to 55 are going to be willing to do.
nattybumpo Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Ariel Boone:
The most demoralizing result of this evaluation is not just the overall rank of the United States, but rather, our sub-category rankings in Political Empowerment and Health and Survival. America ranks…61st in Political Empowerment and 40th in Health and Survival, behind Cambodia, Mexico, the Philippines, Venezuela, and Yemen.

Yes, the US is technically 40th, but only because its score is .0001 behind 39 other countries. I seriously doubt the statistics they are relying on have any statistical validity to the 1/10,000 point. Even if their stats are valid that far out, it’s hardly anything to get too demoralized about. Not to mention, this score is about gender differences, not absolutes. Women are much better off, health-wise and in just about every other way, in the US than in Cambodia, Mexico, or Yemen.
joe from Lowell Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
jd Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Yeah, we must be “worse.” Because, of course, statistical inequalities couldn’t possibly be the result of statistical differences between the sexes in freely-made life choices about career, family, education, etc. As we all know, men and women are absolutely identical psychologically, emotionally and intellectually and thus any differences in income, education, etc, must be the result of discrimination.

I knew this completely-irrelevant argument would come up, for the simple reason that most of conservative discourse consists of reading a talking point off an index card when a topic is raised. “Uh let’s see…gender gap…ok, ahem, ‘Differences are the result of freely-chosen blah blah blah…’”

The problem is, these are RANKINGS, you dolt. They have men and women in all of those other countries, too. Whatever innate sex differences there are exist in the countries that beat us, too, so that blather doesn’t even begin to address the question of why we’re at #34.
ed Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Ah yes, the wonderful women’s paradise of South Africa, where only a mere quarter of the men admit they have committed rape. When will we learn to be more like them?
Glaivester Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
For an national level female US politician, commuting from St. Louis, Columbus, Lincoln etc. to DC isn’t something that most women with children ages 25 to 55 are going to be willing to do.

Can I assume that you mean most women ages 25 to 55 with children? Otherwise, you are suggesting that women travel less after their kids graduate college.
jd Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
The problem is, these are RANKINGS, you dolt. They have men and women in all of those other countries, too.

Irrelevant, moron. As other commenters have noted, some of the “better” rankings are the result of gender quotas. There are also other kinds of affirmative action policy intended to reduce gender inequality. Social engineering can go both ways, you know.
JM Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
My day will not be complete until Steve Sailor drops by to explain that the US is 31st because the negroes are holding us back, due to the persistent influence of Mandingo agricultural practices in shaping gender roles.
urgs Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
I certainly didnt expect my homecountry to outrank the United Staates in that statistic. But i suspect thats mainly because the ranking is bad designed)-:. Germany and Switzerland are very conservative considering womans role. The paygap in Germany for similar jobs is one of the highest and involuntarly non participation in the labour market is quite high.
fostert Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
“The economic measure has dubious value when the top 5 countries are: Mongolia, Bahamas, Mozambique, Lesotho, and Barbados.”

Not necessarily. This is talking about the gap in opportunity rather than the level of opportunity. If nobody has any opportunity, then the gap will small. The Bahamas is really the only one that stands out as strange to me. But the economy relies heavily on tourism, and women tend to be over represented in service jobs that support tourism. So I guess even that one makes sense. But in a place like Mongolia, there really aren’t great opportunities for anyone. Men raise yaks and sheep, and the women weave stuff. The gap between these opportunities is very small. It reminds me of an old quote by a black NFL player about Vince Lombardi. Asked if Lombardi discriminated against blacks, he replied: “No, he didn’t discriminate, he treated us all like dirt.”
Al Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
The biggest reason why the US is where it is on this list is because of the lack of successful women politicians at the national level.

Thanks to the mysogynistic attacks on Hillary Clinton by the Obama supporters, such as Matthew.

Let’s remember that the most mysogynistic political campaign waged in the United States in living memory was waged by Barack Obama and his supporters.
Howell Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Norway has explicit legal gender quotas for board membership of public companies. That probably helps explain its high ranking.
Why oh why Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I can’t believe Steve Sailer hasn’t blamed this on hispanics or blacks yet.
urgs Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Why do you so many imply that quotas are somehow cheating? They are not. They are merly a formal reflection of social norms shifting towards more equality.
nattybumpo Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
fostert Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
“The economic measure has dubious value when the top 5 countries are: Mongolia, Bahamas, Mozambique, Lesotho, and Barbados.”

Not necessarily. This is talking about the gap in opportunity rather than the level of opportunity. If nobody has any opportunity, then the gap will small. The Bahamas is really the only one that stands out as strange to me. But the economy relies heavily on tourism, and women tend to be over represented in service jobs that support tourism. So I guess even that one makes sense. But in a place like Mongolia, there really aren’t great opportunities for anyone. Men raise yaks and sheep, and the women weave stuff. The gap between these opportunities is very small. It reminds me of an old quote by a black NFL player about Vince Lombardi. Asked if Lombardi discriminated against blacks, he replied: “No, he didn’t discriminate, he treated us all like dirt.”

I think we basically agree. The study purports to be about the inequalities between men and women, but the economic score seems is just as much about the equality of the absence of economic opportunity as it is about the gender roles.

I find it dubious that, economically, women have it better in Mongolia or Mozambique than in the US. I find it dubious, even after one accounts for the fact that they are measuring ratios compared to men, and not absolutes.

If both men and women have an equal chance at being a farmer and 90% of the population is farmers, but women can only be farmers, is it really fair to say that women experience less discrimination than in a society where women can do any job but can only participate in those jobs 75% as much as men? I think that is what is essentially happening with the numbers in Mongolia and Mozambique. For that reason, I find the numbers dubious. They obscure more than they enlighten.
Anthony Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
which shows that the culture-of-death Yglesian yahoos are wrong when they say that the right to abortion is important to gender equality.

Hector, you are so wrong. This shows nothing of the kind.
joe from Lowell Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Thanks to the mysogynistic attacks on Hillary Clinton by the Obama supporters, such as Matthew.

True story: Hillary Clinton is the only female political figure to seek office in the United States. Thanks, Al, for commentary that is always useful, and not at all blindingly idiotic.

So…anyway…how are all of those female Republican leaders working out? You know, the ones in your Congressional leadership?
joe from Lowell Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton, let me see: United States Senator, Secretary of State. Damn you Democrats!
fostert Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
“I find it dubious that, economically, women have it better in Mongolia or Mozambique than in the US.”

It’s not just dubious, it’s just plain wrong. Obviously, a woman would much rather be born in the US than Mongolia. Then again, so would a man. The problem here is that they are trying to apply the same calculation to societies that are very different. But if they tried to apply different calculations to different societies, they’d be accused of bias. I think the methodology makes sense if you split the rankings into groups like “developed”, “developing”, and “underdeveloped.” Otherwise, I agree, they really tend to obscure the meaning.

Another thing is that the opportunity ratings ignore the black market, as they probably should. But including them could radically alter the results in some countries. We normally think of a nurse as having a higher level job than a prostitute. But who gets paid more? In Thailand, a good prostitute rivals a doctor is salary and earns far more than a nurse. When the family farm is in trouble, you don’t send your son to college, you send your daughter to turn tricks in Bangkok. I can see why they don’t want to count this an an ‘opportunity,’ because it’s usually not really voluntary. But in a farming family with one prostitute daughter, she earns more than the rest of the family combined.
The Lorax Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Oh come on Hector. You can do better than that. Many of the top countries have legal abortion.
weber Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Oh come on Hector. You can do better than that. Many of the top countries have legal abortion.

The fact that a variety of countries with very strict laws against abortion apparently have high levels of gender equality gives the lie to the left’s claim that abortion rights are essential to social and political equality for women.
Steve Sailer Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Matt’s Blue-Eyed Utopias win again!

They do it better in Spitzbergen.
Anthony Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
The fact that a variety of countries with very strict laws against abortion apparently have high levels of gender equality gives the lie to the left’s claim that abortion rights are essential to social and political equality for women.

Nope. Think about it.
weber Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Nope.

Yep.
argentine gal Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Well, for what it’s worth, Argentina ranks slightly higher than the US because a large part of the index is “percentage of women in elected positions’ and “years with a woman head of state”. Argentina has a 30% quota for national congress (effectively 33% in the Senate, where there are 3 senators from each province) and we have had a woman president for the last two years.
Argentina does less well than the states in maternal mortality, mostly because abortion is illegal. However Argentina has a 0-day full paid leave law for pregnancy and adoption, and employers cannot fire pregnant women or women with a child less than a year old. The two countries are quite similar in the education indicators.

While the 30% rule may seem arbitrary (why not 50% or no rule at all?), the Argentina congress is currently discussing a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, introduced -of course- by two female legislators. Women have also promoted reforms in criminal law (sexual harrasment, child abuse), and if abortion ever gets de-criminalized (thanks catholic tradition for that burden) it will be thanks to the work of women in congress).

One more thing: this is not in the indicator, but Argentina has no “engagement ring” tradition, no two-or-three salaries rule: both spouses usually wear a very discrete gold wedding band, and prenups are not legally enforceable (after a divorce, each spouse gets half of what the other spouse accrued during the marriage). all in all, while I love the states, I’m sure glad I was born -and dated, and got married- in Argentina.
argentine gal Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
sorry, that should have read 90-day paid leave
fostert Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
I don’t think you can really draw any conclusion about abortion from this. Countries where abortion is illegal still have a lot of abortions, they are just illegally performed. And those countries tend to be countries where the licensing of doctors is pretty sketchy and have large black market economies. So access to an illegal abortion is pretty easy there. The obvious exception is Ireland. But let’s face it, an Irish woman can easily travel to England for an abortion. I guess if we get into semantics, the right to abortion probably doesn’t matter. But availability does. But if restricting abortion is supposed to help woman’s equality, then Saudi Arabia should have the best woman’s right record in the world. And the entire Muslim world should do great on gender equality because of there extreme restrictions on abortion.
fostert Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
In case you don’t believe me:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/world/12abortion.html
weber Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
I guess if we get into semantics, the right to abortion probably doesn’t matter. But availability does.

I didn’t say the right to abortion “doesn’t matter” to gender equality. I said it’s not essential. It may not even be particularly important. That’s what these gender equality rankings suggest, given all the countries with severe legal restrictions on abortion but high levels of gender equality.

Whether the “availability” of abortion is essential or important to gender equality is a different question, and one that cannot be resolved simply by assertion.
Anthony Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
I didn’t say the right to abortion “doesn’t matter” to gender equality. I said it’s not essential. It may not even be particularly important. That’s what these gender equality rankings suggest, given all the countries with severe legal restrictions on abortion but high levels of gender equality.

Nope.
weber Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Nope.

Yep.
fostert Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
“and one that cannot be resolved simply by assertion”

It can’t be resolved very well with correlation, either. But the correlation is pretty strong. Legal or not, abortions are pretty much equally available in most of the world. The main exception is the Muslim world, where woman’s equality is also not available. But these are also places where women have a hard time getting any medical treatment, much less an abortion.
weber Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
It can’t be resolved very well with correlation, either. But the correlation is pretty strong. Legal or not, abortions are pretty much equally available in most of the world.

What correlation? And what, exactly, do you mean by “availability,” anyway? Do you mean the availability of all abortions, or only safe ones? And how have you determined that abortions are pretty much equally available in most of the world?
Hector Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Re: and if abortion ever gets de-criminalized (thanks catholic tradition for that burden) it will be thanks to the work of women in congress).

Argentina will never decriminalize abortion, because unlike the United States, the people of Argentina do not concider themselves too cool for Christ, too hip for heaven, and too modern for morality.

People in Latin America who seek to import the decadent values of Judith Jarvis Thomsen are nothing but dupes and pawns of American imperialism, and should be treated the same way that President Harry Truman treated the American Communist Party.
Anthony Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
too hip for heaven

You got me. I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.
JM Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
I guess the people of Catholica are too cool to read the Book of Exodus.

Not that that would surprise anyone about Catholics.
fostert Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
“Do you mean the availability of all abortions, or only safe ones?”

All abortions, not just the safe ones.

“And how have you determined that abortions are pretty much equally available in most of the world?”

Based on statistics provided by international organizations on the number of abortions (legal and illegal) per capita of nearly all countries. Did you read that article I linked to? Yes, it’s kind of lame, but the real statistics say the same thing. Obviously, these are the abortions performed and I’m making the logical assumption that if an abortion happened, then it was available, whether legal or not.

And look, this distinction between legal and available is very real. We’re seeing it right now with marijuana in Boulder. Legalizing it for medical purposes has made it harder for me to buy it. I’d “go medical” as we say here, but then I have to admit to pre-existing medical conditions, which will screw me on getting insurance. Screw that. But my dealer is having trouble because his growers went medical. Legal and available can be very different things. Especially in the medical field. Once you admit to a medical condition, you have to pay cash for it the rest of your life. I’ll stay in the black market for everything but dental when it comes to medicine.
Steve Sailer Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Maybe if we all wore blue contact lenses, us lowly Americans could live up to the high standards set by Matt’s favorite race of people.
fostert Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
“Argentina will never decriminalize abortion”

Of course they won’t, the illegal abortions are too easily available and much more discreet. Why would anyone want to let the government come between her and her doctor on such a sensitive issue? Keep it on the black market, and ain’t nobody asking questions. And look, I’m morally opposed to abortion, which is why I strongly support contraception. But when laws make little practical difference in the number of abortions performed, it’s obvious that the reason to make abortion illegal is to impose a possible death penalty on those that get one. Make it more dangerous, and more people die. The difference between you and my on this issue, Hector, is that you want to kill the mother too. The abortions happen anyway. So who’s the culture of death?
fostert Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
“Maybe if we all wore blue contact lenses, us lowly Americans could live up to the high standards set by Matt’s favorite race of people.”

Screw that, I’ll keep my blue/yellow eyes. The blue and yellow rings change size based on emotion. When I’m happy, the inside yellow ring becomes nearly invisible, so my eyes look blue. When I’m sad, they look green if you don’t look close enough to see the distinct rings. That’s way more fun than eyes that always look the same. Very few of us can play the “show me your tits and my eyes will turn blue” game. That’s the best bar trick ever.
weber Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Based on statistics provided by international organizations on the number of abortions (legal and illegal) per capita of nearly all countries. Did you read that article I linked to?

Yes. Did you? You seem to be inferring abortion “availability” from abortion rates. But the article you linked to reports wide variation in abortion rates (54 per 1000 women in Uganda; 12 in Western Europe; 21 in the US).

And here is a longer list of abortion rates by country from the UN, showing even greater variation in abortion rates.

So why do you think that “abortions are pretty much equally available in most of the world?”
Glaivester Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Actually, I think that our black population would increae our levels of “gender equality,” considering that in most of the measures where men outperform women on a scale like this, black women tend to ddo better than black men.
fostert Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
“too hip for heaven”

In Tibetan Buddhism, “Heaven” is the worst place you can go. You cannot achieve Nirvana from Heaven because you don’t experience the suffering that leads to Enlightenment. It is generally thought that you fall directly from Heaven to Hell (oddly, in a way like Milton would describe). At least if you start from Hell, you can become a Human. I don’t really buy into this, but it’s another concept of Heaven and Hell that includes four other states of existence as well. Human being the most desirable outcome (short of Nirvana, obviously) because it’s neutral on Desire, guarantees Suffering, and gives you a big enough brain to understand why suffering happens and achieve Enlightenment.
fostert Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
“And here is a longer list of abortion rates by country from the UN, showing even greater variation in abortion rates.”

The UN’s data is crap, and you know it. The UN takes data reported by the government and obviously doesn’t include black market statistics. Brazil has no abortions? Give me a break. Yes, I saw that it ignores private clinics, where obviously all the abortion occur. But look at Mexico’s data. That’s what we scientists and engineers call an outlier and look for some problem in our equipment. I’ll trust the private medical community long before I’ll trust the UN on this. And on this issue, the UN has a bias in Islam’s favor (radically anti-abortion by the standards of the Southern Baptist Convention) and an American veto to boot (can’t lose the Catholic vote in Delaware).
Average American Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
I’m curious what jd@21 thinks the existence of quotas proves about any innate differences in men and women. The women in these countries still make the free choice to join legislative bodies, they just have vastly less restrictive pathways for so doing. It’s not like unmarked vans are whisking up and down the streets of Argentina, kidnapping women and forcing them to analyze the merits of new building codes.
The Gender-Gap Rankings Are In: We’re Number (Thirty)One! | ScoopDaily Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
[...] Via Yglesias: [...]
fostert Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Here’s a more realistic study on abortion. The kind of study that doesn’t have people voting on what they think the results should be. You know, scientific. Based on data and shit. You’ll need to register to read the full report, but it’s free.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61575-X/abstract

Now Lancet has received many a complaint about their estimates on Iraq War deaths, but what nobody noticed was that they included secondary deaths, and they made it quite clear when they did it and why they did it. And this is legitimate. We like to talk about confirmed kills, but what do you call a guy who needs a dialysis machine that didn’t arrive in time because a missile took the delivery truck out? Isn’t that death a result of the war? Given that we were shooting at ambulances, this wasn’t like some random white truck with a huge red crescent on it. It was a target because it was white and had a huge red crescent on it. If you stop the supplies to a hospital, you kill those in it. And if that wasn’t the intent, then we are very poor at understanding how hospitals work. And we obviously aren’t stupid about that. You cannot infer intent from these actions, but you can infer a complete lack of concern for the welfare of the patients.
Houyhnhnm Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 12:22 am
Hector, you are the Biggest. Ass. Ever.

I kind of love you anyway.
fostert Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 12:25 am
“they just have vastly less restrictive pathways for so doing. It’s not like unmarked vans are whisking up and down the streets of Argentina, kidnapping women and forcing them to analyze the merits of new building codes.”

Ahh, another true realist. I really can’t speak about South America at all, I’ve never been there. From what I’ve seen, the combination of fascists, communists, drug lords, and American military haven’t really helped much. But the actual people seem pretty realistic and most of the Catholic priests help them. Or try until they’re killed.

But what happens when that woman is pulled into the van should really be a measure of reality. And it will be a three dimensional quantity at least. In America, that girl is kidnapped and the authorities will look for them. And usually not ever even find the corpse. In South America, she’s kidnapped but the family knows not to try get get her back, it’s just too dangerous. In Southeast Asia, the girl walks into the van because her mother told her to do it, oh, and send money home to help the farm. In Russia, don’t ask.
fostert Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 12:50 am
The three axes are government, black trade, and local attitudes. Most cultures add an ingredient or two, and mix them anyway. The Thai do it right by just mixing them all. It saves a lot of effort when everyone knows legislation is bought with money. We already do it here, we just don’t admit it. Bangkok does. Things are illegal, and the cops expect a bribe to get out out of it. But that saves the government a lot of money. The cops don’t care about their shitty wages, they make their money on the take from the brothels. And get a happy ending on the side. Well, more than happy, actually. I’d say the Bangkok cops seem unusually happy, but all the Thai do. They are always happy. Land of Smiles. And they aren’t kidding.
godoggo Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 2:21 am
“Land of smiles.”

The same is true of Filipinos. It’s certainly true all over the country itself, but I 1st noticed it among the guest workers in Taiwan, which was striking to me because of the horror stories I would read about their exploitation in the Filipino page in the English newspaper. When I mentioned this observation to my girlfriend at the time, she said that people in France behaved the same way during the war.
fostert Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 3:00 am
“The same is true of Filipinos.”

Maye not the same, how about much worse. Mexicans hire Guatemalans to clean their toilets. The Thai hire Lao to do that. And the Lao hire Filipinos. But the real place to look is Dubai. They have everyone in their place there, and Filipinos cleaning toilets is it. So is hot blond Swedish women in perfume shops. And Yemeni men at the advice table. After all, who else would you want giving advice in a Wahhabi country but a Wahhabi? Except for anyone but a Wahhabi, of course. Fortunately, you can get decent advice in the smoking lounge. And transfer suitcases of cash, too! A smoking lounge in Dubai can get interesting. I’ve spent a long time there. And I’m just talking the airport. But I do know three things. First, if a well dressed man walks in with an aluminum suitcase, don’t ask. Second, if someone else leaves with it, you really don’t want to ask. And if it’s in the Dubai Airport, don’t ever even think about asking. Or even telling anyone about it.
Steve Sailer Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 3:02 am
Matt, for one, welcomes our new blue-eyed overlords. As a trusted media personality, he can be helpful in rounding up other Americans to toil in their gender-neutral daycare centers.
fostert Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 3:16 am
You are a smart guy Steve, so I really wonder about this:

“Matt, for one, welcomes our new blue-eyed overlords. As a trusted media personality, he can be helpful in rounding up other Americans to toil in their gender-neutral daycare centers.”

That really looks like a computer generated bunch of phrasing. Are you really going there? You are repeating your own rhetoric word for word. But I can see how that might happen, but that second phrase doesn’t really make any sense. It’s just a random conservative catch phrase that doesn’t really apply. Are you robo-blogging here? It seems like it.
fostert Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 3:27 am
“Are you robo-blogging here? It seems like it.”

And robo-blogging is when you set up a program that sees catch words and the goes through a data base to say a response. Oddly enough, most humans aren’t any smarter than that. But they are less predictable. It’s tough with Steve Sailer because he does have a long body of work and it’s entirely predictable. And he once was a human being, and I’ll assume he still is. But he seems trapped by his creations.
fostert Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 6:29 am
“And if it’s in the Dubai Airport, don’t ever even think about asking.”

I actually did, and that guy is under federal indictment now. Not from anything I ever said. I said to him “Funny you weren’t worried about that American taking your suitcase, that suitcase alone is worth $40K empty. I’d guess what’s in it would be more.” Of course, the guy I was talking to in Islamic garb was really the American and I knew it. The Lebanese guy was dressed like an American. I called him on it and he didn’t ask for money. I didn’t need to because he’d kill me anyway. But he did let me live on the agreement that I wouldn’t talk. He’s in a jail cell now, so I can talk as long as I don’t say who he was working for. And I won’t. He was an American working either for one of the many American corporations, or an American working for one of the many governments of the world. I don’t have to testify regardless. And that is a thing of beauty. There really are things you don’t want to get messed up in. Especially when the random guy sitting next to you is the guy who busted him. And I had no idea about that. Turns out, I made it easier and harder at the same time. My antics drew a confession, but made apprehension harder. But they had him anyway. Those guys are good. As for those guys, can’t say. Their technique involves GHB and alcohol and then dumping you on the floor behind some seats in a waiting area just after a flight has left. At that point, you can say nothing credible and can’t remember anything anyway. The airport authorities pick you up as a drunk and treat you that way. So, nothing happened except your being a problem in the airport. My plane was canceled anyway and I got on a plane four hours after the incident to the same country but nowhere near I was expecting to be. But that four hours later seemed to be missing twenty hours. By the time I figured that out, I was on a plane to Hyderabad. And my luggage wasn’t. I’ve been GHB’d twice, and I guess I’d should be happy my anus wasn’t bleeding. But it ain’t pretty. But the time freak is amazing and the memory erasure is downright astonishing. I wish I could tell you about it, but that’s the point, isn’t it?
fostert Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 7:23 am
And the GHB memory loss is retroactive. It doesn’t just knock out everything after taking it, it takes out the previous two hours as well. And everyone thinks you were just drunk and didn’t remember. But it’s not like that. I know what a drunk blackout is, but I remember what got me there. But with GHB, you can’t remember the entire night. A couple of days later,you start to remember again, but those memories are sketchy. But I’m a lucid dreamer, so I ended up figuring out who did it. Because I had to cancel my credit cards, I had to stay in the town to receive new ones. And being Bratislava, it would take five days after the three days they said it would take. So I eventually retraced everything and found which bar GHB’d me, but also found the alley I was dumped in. And I expected the situation to be very weird and very ugly. But I didn’t expect this. Not only was it a block away from the police station and a cop bar, it was the gay cop bar. And flaming gay. I wish I knew how I got there, but GHB takes that out. But I didn’t get raped in a gay cop bar, I just got the shit kicked out of me and robbed. By gay cops. In Slovakia. That’s the kind of weirdness where you don’t bother trying to find your missing tooth and just go home. And when they get there, they tell you that you can’t have another day. And it’s not because you’re bleeding, it’s because there’s a diamond conference. And you look around, and half the people are Hasidic Jews, and you’re like fuck, they probably bought up every hotel room in town. And they did. I got a day on a cruise boat that was parked, and then got a few days in room that was supposed to be being renovated but the guy didn’t show up. Trust me, stranded in Bratislava is even weirder than Oklahoma. And yes I’m crazy, but how crazy are the sane peoplethat make this world?
Hector Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Re: In South America, she’s kidnapped but the family knows not to try get get her back, it’s just too dangerous

Interestingly enough, Venezuela over the last years (which has an astronomical crime rate) has tried to take a demand-side approach to ending kidnapping. In Venezuela, if your relative is kidnapped (including second cousins) it’s illegal to pay ransom to the kidnapper (apparently on the ground that if no one pays a ransom, then kidnapping will not be lucrative and no one will do it). In the last few years the government has apparently tightened up the rules so that the relatives of kidnapped people are required to publically declare their assets so the government can know if they are secretly paying a ransom.

I’m glad to hear you are morally opposed to abortion, BTW. And I do support making contraception more widely available, at least as a legal matter. Incidentally, the Southern Baptist Convention was pro-choice until the 1980s (unlike the Catholic, Orthodox, and Oriental churches which have always been uncompromisingly pro-life since the time of the Didache). Which simply proves, of course, that the ‘priesthood of all believers’ concept of Calvin, Zwingli and their buddies is a recipe for moral anarchy.
godoggo Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
My understanding was that, at least in Taiwan, the Filipino workers were actually a bit better off than the Thais because they at least had English skills and the support of the Church.
ActaNonVerba Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
The game is rigged, the Global Gender Gap Report is more feminist thuggery and propaganda, and that’s all it is.

http://glennsacks.com/blog/index.php?paged=3

There are three write-ups on this page discussing the Global Gender Gap Report. Start on the lower part of the page (Part I) and work up.
weber Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
fostert,

I’m not sure why I’m even bothering with you, since you’re just flailing around now, but I can’t resist pointing out that YOUR OWN CITATIONS BOTH CONTRADICT YOUR CLAIM that “abortions are pretty much equally available in most of the world.” The NY Times article reports a difference of 2-to-1 in abortion rates between Western Europe and the US, and 4-to-1 between Western Europe and Uganda. The Lancet study you cite reports similar differences, with abortion rates varying by region from 12 per thousand women in Western Europe to 44 in Eastern Europe (another almost 4-to-1 difference), and 39 in Eastern Africa and Southeastern Asia.

You don’t know what you’re talking about. Even your own citations contradict your claims. You’re a waste of time.
Introducing the Bizarro Awards « #Goodtimes Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
[...] was an attempt to add to the conversation post about international gender gaps on a politics/economics [...]
Anthony Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
The game is rigged, the Global Gender Gap Report is more feminist thuggery and propaganda, and that’s all it is.

O NOES! Not MORE feminism thuggery! Anything but that!!

Asshole.
Glaivester Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
#59: I’m curious what jd@21 thinks the existence of quotas proves about any innate differences in men and women. The women in these countries still make the free choice to join legislative bodies, they just have vastly less restrictive pathways for so doing.

The point is that there if there are no innate differences, why does this sort of equality have to be forced in this way?
Anthony Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
The point is that there if there are no innate differences, why does this sort of equality have to be forced in this way?

Really? You can’t figure this one out? Obtuse, man.
Hitting the Friday Links | Africa Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
[...] On the good news front, we are accustomed to seeing various global rankings of various human indexes with African states lagging way behind. It is worth noting, then, that the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Gender Gap Review is out and that South Africa (7th), Lesotho (10th), and Mozambique (26th) all rank in the top 30. By way of comparison, the United States ranks 31st. (Via Matthew Yglesias.) [...]

Matt Yglesias

Nordics Lead on Global Gender Gap; U.S. is 31st

80 Responses to “Nordics Lead on Global Gender Gap; U.S. is 31st”

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