Statistics: Not a Feminist Strong Suit

The other day I was in the bookstore browsing the books in the Politics section when I came across a book titled “Drink”.  I was reminded of a book called “blink” which argued that the best decisions people make are snap decisions.  That book was answered with another book called “think” that argued people should take time to think before making a decision.  So, I thought, the message of this book is clearly: Forget all that thinking, just “Drink”.

I laughed out loud at myself in public like I’m prone to do and picked up the book.  I glanced at the cover and at the very top it said “The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol”.

Uh oh.

Nevertheless my interest was piqued.

In the first paragraph a rarely mentioned truth is revealed: “Over the past few decades, the feminist revolution has had enormous ramifications.  Women outnumber their male counterparts in postsecondary education in most of the developed world, and they are about to do the same in the workplace.”   Interesting. Could this be a feminist book that actually tells the truth? (Despite this truth, however, women-only scholarships are abundant as are such programs designed to get more women into the sciences—which, by the way, are already dominated by women with the exception of the math-heavy domains.  Men-only scholarships are virtually if not actually non-existent).

“But what has not been fully documented or explored is that while women have gained equality in many arenas, they also have begun to close the gender gap in terms of alcohol abuse.”  Please take note of where women stand on this.  Far more women than men?  No.  Same number of women as men?  No.  Actually it’s still more men than women, but now the difference between those numbers is smaller (at least according to this author).

Just how close is that gender gap? 1.2 men for every 1 woman, 1.1 men for every woman?  Well, according to CDC statistics, in the US it’s 3:1 men to women.  Wait… what? Yeah, three times as many men die in alcohol related deaths as women.

From the CDC: “In 2010, a total of 25,692 persons died of alcohol-induced causes in the United States.  This category includes deaths from dependent and nondependent use of alcohol, as well as deaths from accidental poisoning by alcohol.  It excludes unintentional injuries, homicides, and other causes indirectly related to alcohol use, as well as deaths due to fetal alcohol syndrome. … For males, the age-adjusted death rate for alcohol-induced causes in 2010 was three times the rate for females.”  CDC source

If you are like me, you are probably thinking, well, that’s just the US, how does that compare to the rest of the world?  According to The WHO: “The harmful use of alcohol is a particularly grave threat to men.  It is the leading risk factor for death in males ages 15 – 59, mainly due to injuries, violence, and cardiovascular diseases.  Globally, 6.2% of all male deaths are attributable to alcohol, compared to 1.1% of female deaths.  Men also have far greater rates of total burden attributed to alcohol than women—7.4% for men compared to 1.4% for women.  Men outnumber women four to one in weekly episodes of heavy drinking—most probably the reason for their higher death and disability rates.  Men also have much lower rates of abstinence compared to women.  Lower socioeconomic status and educational levels result in a greater risk of alcohol-related death, disease, and injury—a social determinant that is greater for men than women.” WHO source

Table 8 from the WHO shows that 1,940,111 global deaths were male while 309,739 were female (in 2004).  That means, worldwide 6.3 male deaths per every 1 female death is attributable to alcohol.

What does the author have to say about this?  Well, naturally she is concerned about men’s health and how not only are men falling behind in postsecondary education they will soon be falling behind in employment, but nevertheless men still suffer in greater numbers from alcoholism.

A rational mind would draw such a conclusion.

A feminist mind, well, just read between the lines: LINE feminists are not rational LINE.

According to the WHO, in every category (except Breast Cancer) the number of male deaths is greater than the number of female deaths.  In fact, in most cases, the number of male deaths is several times greater than that of female deaths. 

What does this imply to the author?  The effects of alcohol on women constitute a “crisis” that will have a “far-reaching impact on society”.  It’s “an epidemic we can no longer afford to ignore”.

My sympathies to anyone who is or knows someone affected by alcohol.  I’m sorry that the author or anyone has to go through this (my family has also experienced its share of alcoholism).  However, that’s no excuse for what appears to me to be outright lies.  Granted, I haven’t read the book, just the dust jacket, but if that is indication of the contents that lie within, then there’s certainly no evidence for “in-depth research” and there is certainly nothing “ground-breaking” about feminists taking an issue that affects women at a fractional rate compared to men and calling it a crisis.

Last, but not least, I want to call attention to the fact that the author was virtually ecstatic about how feminism has led to larger numbers of women than men in postsecondary education.  According to the WHO “lower socioeconomic status and education levels result in a greater risk of alcohol-related death”.  So, not only have women outstripped men in educational attainment, there is a very real link that lower educational attainment increases the risk of alcohol-related death for men.  Yet, somehow, beyond all of this, beyond the fractional mortality numbers, beyond the fact that men are being virtually shouldered out of college by women (a factor that can lead to alcoholism), this is still, somehow, a “crisis” for women.

Dust Jacket Full Text

Over the past few decades, the feminist revolution has had enormous ramifications.  Women outnumber their male counterparts in postsecondary education in most of the developed world, and they are about to do the same in the workplace.  But what has not been fully documented or explored is that while women have gained equality in many arenas, they also have begun to close the gender gap in terms of alcohol abuse.  In the United States alone, more than twenty-three thousand women die from heavy drinking each year.  Binge drinking and so-called drunkorexia are on the rise, contributing exponentially to an array of health conditions and cancers.

Combining in-depth research with her own personal story of recovery, Ann Dowsett Johnston delivers a ground-breaking examination of a shocking yet little-recognized epidemic threatening society today, what preeminent researcher Sharon Wilsnack believes is a “global epidemic” of women’s drinking.

Dowsett Johnston’s authority comes from a place of experience.  Eight years ago she was an award-winning senior journalist with Canada’s major newsweekly magazine Maclean’s and popular on the speaking circuit.  She seemed to have it all when she was named vice principal of McGill University.  In private, the high-functioning professional knew she was wrestling with a demon that had undone her own mother: alcohol addiction.  Dowsett Johnston took a very private exit from her professional life and went to rehab.  She reentered professional life in 2010, winning the prestigious Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy, charged with examining the closing gender gap in the world of risky drinking.  Sober now for five years, she retells her struggles with brutal honesty, affording us an unprecedented look at women and drinking that is both moving and enlightening.

Dowsett Johnston dissects the psychological, social, and workplace factors that have contributed to this crisis, exploring their far-reaching impact on society at large and individual lives, including her own.  Comprehensive and emotionally riveting, Drink is sure to become a modern classic on the topic of women and drinking, much as Andrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon was for depression.  Drink is a brave and powerful story beautifully told and an important investigation into an epidemic that we can no longer afford to ignore.

Facts Feminists Lie About

If you do a search for "women in science scholarships" you will get some immediate hits. If you do a search for "men in science scholarships" you'll find nothing that you are looking for. 

This is despite the fact that women in science have outnumbered men in science since 1982. Yeah, you read that correctly. Since 1982 women have outnumbered men in science. You wouldn't know that if you were only listening to feminist rhetoric.

Though to be fair, that is in general, cumulative across all science. Only 18% of computer science graduates were women in 2009 (the latest date that I have statistics for). 

Probably no one is aware that women dominate such fields as psychology (77%), anthropology (70%), and sociology (70%). Even among those who are aware they never refers to this as a crisis for men.

Another interesting thing that comes to light is the fact that the scientific fields where women dominate tend to be quite light as far as math is concerned and fields where men dominate are quite math intensive.

To me, this indicates one of two things (or both). First, perhaps spread out over the population, women just don't enjoy math intensive subjects like math, physics, and engineering. Research would tend to support this in that women typically (again, over populations) prefer to be social and interact with people. Math, physics, and engineering are no where near as social of fields as say psychology.

The second thing it might indicate is that girls are trailing behind boys in math at an early age and they never learn to love that particular field of problem solving. The research does NOT support this. Girls tend to do better in math than boys all through school, up to high school, and perhaps even in college until about Calculus then the numbers begin to shift. 

This is not to say that women can't do math, just that they don't find it interesting. I've aced every psychology class that I've taken, but I'm far more interested in making and breaking software so that gets the lion's share of my time. I would imagine the same could be said for women who like science, but not mathy science, and not solitary science. So they are drawn toward social, relatively math-light fields. 

Et voila, you have women dominating psychology, anthropology, and sociology. ( Please note, I'm not implying any value judgement here regarding these choices, just attempting to point out the reality of things.)

With that said, I do want to stress that I think anyone should have the opportunity to do whatever is they truly want to do AS LONG AS they put in the requisite work. No line jumping, no special treatment, and certainly no ostracism. At the same time, if you are a man going in to a woman dominated field, you should expect the predominant culture to be somewhat feminine. Similarly, if you are a female going into a male dominated field, you should expect the culture to be somewhat masculine.

This is problematic for men, however, because masculinity is currently vilified in our overall culture. Misandry is cool. Chrome doesn't even recognize the proper spelling of misandry, but it certainly recognizes misogyny. There is a not so subtle war against men and boys in this country and it's time that people become aware of that.

This level playing field is not what we see however.  We have a push for more women in science even though the number of women in science is growing at a faster rate than the number of men in science.

The red line on the left is the trend line for women, the one on the right is for men.  Notice the women's trend line shows a greater increase from 2000 to 2009.

But What do the Feminists Say?

Joan Williams, gushing love of a NYTimes commissioned article, over at the Huffington Post said this:

Twenty years of work by myself and Mary Ann Mason confirms Pollack's worry that things don't look good for women in science.

Based on the numbers that I've shown, does that seem like a legitimate comment?  Absolutely not.  But, she didn't bother to point this out.  You are welcome to draw your own conclusions about her character and motivation.

Rather than focusing on science as a whole (where women are dominating, at least as far as matriculation rates are concerned... I'll do some research on employment statistics next time), she focused on those math intensive areas that women just don't seem to be drawn to in college.  Granted, if fewer women enter these fields in college, it seems obvious that there would be fewer women employed in these fields.

Is there any mention of that?

No.  Instead, she goes on and on... and on about about various kinds of bias that were uncovered during some research.  I have the article and will report back on that soon.

To wrap this up at an unreasonable length, ponder the implications of the bias (once subtle if you weren't aware of the bigger picture, but now, hopefully, not-so-subtle).  Even though women are clearly outnumbering men in science degrees earned, feminist writers will find a way to spin this.

In the sake of clarity, she is talking about employment and I am talking about degrees earned.  Though there is a relationship there, I will soon post information regarding employment statistics as well.

Ignorant, Racist Comment: Thanks Lady For Being So Dumb.

I was unfortunate enough to experience the comments of a racist black lady in a youtube video.  It came to me by way of the liberal-for-the-sake-of-being-liberal website Upworthy.  If you are an unthinking liberal, you'll love it, otherwise I'd recommend avoiding it.

One of my short comings as a human being is the inability to just let things slide.  I watched the video in its entirety, but I had to comment on her sentence:

The majority of serial murdererers and rapists in this country are middle aged, white men.

Is that so?  I'll save you the suspense and cut to the chase.  As a whole, the statement is false.  Black serial killers have outnumbered white serial killers since the 90's (Serial killer data).  White rapists outnumber black rapists on a ratio of about 1.3:1 (Burid in this document).  So, in a sense that statement is correct.  However, race ration of whites to blacks in this country is about 8:1.  In other words, even thought the white population is eight times larger, it produces only slightly more rapists than the black population.

At least according to the available statistics, which is the obvious criticism.  However, I'm at least basing what I write on the available stats.  Mrs. Harry Twatter here is divining them straight from her ass.

Harry Reid: Dumbest Comment So Far This Year

Speaking about Mitt Romney, Harry Reid said: 

“Never in modern American history has a presidential candidate tried so hard to hide himself from the people he hopes to serve.”

I’m not birther, but I always use this analogy when talking about Obama’s birth certificate fiasco.  If a cop pulls you over and asks to see your id, and you stall, he’ll ask again.  If you stall a second time and continue to stall, that cop would rightly become suspicious.

Also, if I—and nearly every other American in this country—had two forms of a birth certificate and I was running for president and people asked to see my birth certificate, I would show them.  If they said, “we want to see the other form”, I would say “Okay”.    “Okay” is a short word, so unless you have one hell of a stammer, it shouldn’t take three years to say.

So while I believe that Obama was born in Hawaii, I’ve always wondered why it took so long to release the long form.  This conspiracy theory could have been nipped in the bud before it got off the ground if Obama had simply said “okay”.

The only saving grace of this comment is that Reid said "presidential candidate".  The three years Obama spent on his birth certificate were while he was president. In light of all that, Harry Reid’s comment goes down as the dumbest comment so far this year.

Priest Defended Child Sex Abusers

In this Yahoo News article a catholic priest said child sex abusers are often seduced by teenage boys and should not go to jail on a first offense.  As an alternative, he proposed a slap on the limp wrist.  What is interesting here is that he almost seems to be saying “don’t put them in jail on the first go round, wait till the second or third, you know it’s coming because little boys are like Lays potato chips, you can’t have just one…erm… or so I’ve heard.”

The friar, who essentially blamed those devilishly delicious young boys with their pubescent crackling voices and struggling facial hair for the priests’ inability to control themselves, recanted and apologized for his statements stating that he isn’t always clear, especially when afflicted with a raging boy-love boner.  What he meant to say was, “MAN THOSE ASSES!”

Why do “men of the cloth” always go after boys?  Is there something in the cloth that turns the man gay?  Just what is the cloth made out of, Elton John’s scrotum?  “Oh, this is so lovely.  So soft.  It smells like…like… ball sweat and rainbows.”  Priests are surrounded by catholic school girls, what with their little skirts, tight asses, and holy-shit pert little titties.  But, if you want something with an ass like a ten year old boy, there’s nothing better than a ten year old boy.

A nun’s habit is a very conservative style of dress.  A priest’s habit is little boys.

And why are the priests always 15 boys deep before anyone comes out to talk about it?  Shouldn’t that be part of the catechism at this point?  “The Pope is infallible, but keep in mind that has nothing to do with your phallus.  Oh, and by the way, Father John seems a bit off to all of the parents, so if he starts talking about holding your ‘private mass’ let one of the adults know. ” 

Maybe the men of the cloth should just be castrated.  They’ve made a commitment to God to never have sex, so the church should remove their nuts (you know, just in case) and call it a “Saintly Circumcision”.    The balls could be put on display and considered martyrs.  Granted the lack of testies would bring out their flamboyant side so mass, with all that organ music and kneeling,  would be like Richard Simmons Sweating to the Extremely Oldies. 

Priest collars are now fitted with a penis detection device that delivers a shock, the Popes hat is just a big condom, and he has declared that priest-on-boy sex is no longer sinful on Fridays.  Really, if it gets much worse they’ll have to replace the collar with a cock ring and communion will be served from a butt plug.

In a more serious note, to recognize those who have not been caught up in a child sex scandal, the Catholic Church has decided to have a dance for the priests.  They’re calling it The Blue Ball.

Irrational Feminism

My best friend works as a prison guard and he volunteered to be on the Corrections Emergency Response Team (CERT).  This team is called when there is a situation that requires a little extra oomph.  To join, he had to pass a physical and take some training. 

He recently told me about a couple of fat ass women that somehow got on the team. Apparently the female version of the physical was a quarter-mile in sixty short, cardiac-arrest-inducing minutes followed by a fifteen minute kneel and wheeze topped off with a tank of oxygen and a gurney.  Two invaluable additions, to be sure.

There are three kinds of women:  skinny and weak, fat and weak, and body builders.  So, what does up to two-thirds of the female population have in common?  They’re morons.  They think they can do a job that requires a significant amount of strength like fireman, policeman, soldier, or prison guard yet more often than not they can’t even twist the top off of a jar of pickles.

When is this ridiculousness going to stop?  How much longer do I have to pretend that some wildebeest can gallop across the courtyard of the prison to help protect my friend?  Being on this team doesn’t come with any extra pay, no extra benefits, not even any preferential treatment as far as where he’d like to be stationed on his shift.  All he gets is a higher chance of getting hurt on the job by some prisoner who’s angry he got caught beating off in the broom closet.  With no perks and a higher chance of danger the last thing that any of the men on the team need is to depend on a squishy sack of cottage cheese to ooze to the rescue if something were to go terribly wrong.

Ladies, be realistic in your expectations.  If just walking to the bathroom generates enough heat between your thighs your zipper melts, prison guard is probably not the job for you.  Can you imagine this woman running to an emergency?  She’d show up ten minutes late with enough smoke billowing up from her crotch she’d look like the Tasmanian Devil had Pigpen from Peanuts in a triangle choke.  the one positive is prisoners would think the smoke was tear gas and would instinctively hit the deck.

Ladies, all I’m asking is that you realize that your physical stature and overall weakness does present certain limitations.  For you petite little ladies:  do you remember that time you were sitting on your boyfriend’s chest and he easily threw you off when your husband came home?  What makes you think you can control an angry and violent prisoner?  The only possible benefit the big girls have is they could sit on the inmates.

If you are going to even consider being on a team like that, think about losing weight and picking up something heavier than a Haagen-Dazs filled spoon and make a minimal effort to get your BMI out of the holy shit range.

Before someone accuses me of being a misogynist, understand this: putting someone’s life in danger because you are physically incapable of performing certain duties is utterly irrational.  Believing that you’re able is different than actually being able.  Society has kissed your ass on this long enough and it’s high time that stops.  Feminism claims to be about equality, but it’s not.  It’s about parity in a best case scenario (you have three coins and I have three coins, but yours are gold and mine are bronze).  More often than not, it’s about privilege and that disgusts me because when someone comes along to point this out, that person is accused of all sorts of fun things except for the one thing that matters, clear thinking.

Gay Adoption

A few of my liberal friends have asked me what my beef with liberals is.  I assure you, I have no beef, not even some Whole Foods soy-based beef-like substitute, with liberals.  It’s stupidity I hate.  And while stupidity doesn't discriminate, it certainly seems to lean left and south.  I don’t know, maybe it’s me, maybe I’m missing something; the passion, the understanding, a soul, but just because something makes someone feel good doesn't mean it is good (think LSD or pretending there is a direct link between explosives and virgins).

I don’t give the left credit for much, but occasionally they blindly feel their way along and through what appears to be nothing more than dumb luck, fall into the right answer.  Most of what the left proposes is bound to fail because they think with their hearts and not their heads, unless it’s Clinton who thinks with his dick or Michael Moore whose thoughts, according to scientists, come from an ass canker.  But, gay adoption, a leftist cause, to me at least, makes sense. 

Here’s why.

First, the argument that gay couples will screw up a child’s delicate psychology just doesn’t hold water.  We’re all screwed up.   I’m shaking hands with crazy and my parents made me the old fashioned way, accidentally.  There might be some stigma through the high school years for kids growing up in certain parts of the country—what I like to call the Redneck Belt—but those are just the jocks afraid they can catch queer like they catch a cold, by licking each other’s balls in the locker room.

Second, outside of meeting a drunk and horny Kimbo Slice in a dark alley or becoming a prison bitch, you just can’t make people gay.  You can make guys effeminate so that they think tight jeans look good and you can make girly-girls lose some of their girly-ness so that they become tolerable, but you can’t make someone gay.  Even if you tried, at some point biology is going to kick in and they are going to throw out the drawer full of panties and start wearing men’s bikini briefs.  Heterosexuality… ease into it.  As a matter of fact, if the current rate of pusification of American boys continues at this alarming rate, we won’t know who’s sporting what kind of pee-pee parts until we see them naked. 

Third, I’m going to defer to the professional wisdom and ethics of the adoption agencies that they aren’t going to put a kid into the hands of a creeper (gay or straight) and I hope that their background check on potential adopting parents includes questions like: are you an ass-raping, creeper pedophile?  Check yes or no.  I’m also hoping the hoops the adoption agencies make you jump through makes the windowless 1970’s van with the word “Candy” spray painted on the side the best shot that these sick-o’s have at getting children.  Hey kids, don’t go near that van. 

I know that’s a lot of hopes, but if adoption agencies are putting kids in the hands of freaks that’s a fault in the system not reflective of homosexuals in general.  Also, I think that when most people think of gay they think of Mardi Gras gay and in a sense that sort of serves them right for all the years of in-your-face pseudofeminity with the affected lisps we’ve had to…erm… swallow.  But, there are also a lot of normal people out there who just happen to be gay and would like to adopt.  So as an adoption agency, unless one of the people sitting across from you is wearing a leather hat, no shirt, and ass-less chaps and his partner has a dildo strapped to his forehead, pass them on to round two.