Shirtstorm (split from Rosetta Mission thread)

[Lagmonster]

Yeah I agree about the inappropriate part with the caveat that its dependent on what his employer allows. Basically if the ESA couldn't be half arsed to stop him until after the shit storm I feel that it can't have been that important to them, and his work environment is just different from mine. I know places like Google supposed to encourage quite a lot of laxity in this regard.

Well, possibly, but it wasn't the ESA who had a problem - it was the public he was supposed to be representing them to. The fact that the ESA didn't recognize how stupid it was to put this man on camera doesn't mean that this guy made a good decision. Worse, if the ESA approved of his shirt and comments, that sends a signal to women who could contribute to the field, but don't want to work with people who make them feel uncomfortable. Of course, there are two different camps when it comes to opinions on whether or not people should be made to feel 'comfortable' while at a job, but I think that when we're talking about extremely high-end careers such as medicine, science and engineering, there aren't enough good brains to go around that we can afford to alienate anyone, so I absolutely think that an employer achieves more by being even anal-retentively inclusive.

[Lagmonster]

And of course, it's we men who get to decide what counts as "real sexism". You certainly can't let flighty, emotional women make decisions of such import.

This is the phenomena of social change that I feel most conflicted about. I absolutely want women in STEM, and acknowledge the realities of sexism, but I get really jittery when people start to re-define words and ideas as part of their social revolution. It does have to be done to some extent, but it's a tool that has been used to grind people into the mud since forever, and it's a very effective tool at that. Just think about how many people casually associate the word 'atheist' with 'evil' and 'religious' with 'good'. So when someone tells me that words that describe offense are now 'whatever the offended person says it is', that's the social equivalent of writing a blank cheque. And anything that gives one group power now can be used against that same group later.

[Covenant]

Well, honestly, anyone can take offense over something--it does not mean every such offense needs to be ameliorated by a response. No offended party can bully anyone into doing anything unless their is broad-base approval or the offending person decides to cave in. I feel like egos are fragile on all sides right now, it's not just the people being offended but the pearl-clutching offensive people who quiver under their bedsheets hoping nobody else takes issue. The only "power" here is the result of the second party spending an undue amount of time caring/worrying/stressing about the things being said, rather than thinking about what they themselves are saying. It is the cult of public appearence, but not restricted to celebrities and dictators. The first party cannot simply be told "deal with it" because that is a de-facto stamp on the Status Quo. The second party, however, is spending time being concerned what other people "think" of them, and that is both fruitless and unsolvable unless they ban freedom of speech in order to end the reporting of offensive speech. You can see why that is a horrid option.

So the solution is to tell the second party to "deal with it" and just get used to people expressing dissatisfaction with offensive (however defined) ideas or speech or actions. Given that society at-large already allows for commentary of any sort for anything at all, as the Free Speech provisions depend upon just that sort of thing, it is absurd to take exception to other people using a freedom to speak their minds. If anyone is asking for a "blank cheque" here it is the people who want the freedom from responses. Not because they want to be able to offend people, but they want to moderate what is ALLOWED to be called offense rather than, in their own minds, discriminate between the complaints they care about and the ones they do not care about.

I do not think society needs to establish restraints on speech in order to spare the minds of offensive persons from further thought.

We need to assume that a global world with freedom of speech and freedom of thought is going to be a carnival of ideas, many of them totally insane, and all of them with the ability to flood your email or twitter or facebook or post youtube videos or gin up outrage in their newsletters or demonstrate or boycott or whatever. Every single one of them. There is no way to avoid offending people. If you are a champion of rights for women then you offend people, if you are an enemy of rights for women then you offend people. Not having an opinion on the matter will offend people. Trying to parse a view so it does not offend people will offend people, possibly even all people. The solution to the democraitization of dissent and the ease of offense is not the linguistic control over what is considered "offensive" to a person but the client-side realization that all speech is offensive and you need to choose what you care about, not what you want other people to care about.

You cannot control what someone else will find offensive. You may not want them to find something offensive, but that is not the point. Say what you actually think, do what you think is right, and defend these choices with intellectual integrity. Then when people bomb your twitter for the things you say it will not need an apology, because their offense was expected.

When we call a neo-nazi troll a worthless trolling palm-fucker we assume that they will be offended. We expect and even welcome the offense it causes them. That is not an unreasonable standard.

So if you want to wear a shirt that objectifies women's bodies then you are certainly allowed, you should just expect some degree of offense from people who find your shirt offensive. If you discover that MORE people are taking offense to your shirt than you expected then the apology tango is entirely justified and reasonable, because you are quite honestly sorry that you offended those people. If you are mad they are offended, and wanted them to be okay with your shirt, then you are taking the wrong tact.

[mr friendly guy]

I think the argument is that:

1) Describing a very gender-neutral mission to land a probe on a comet as "she's sexy, but I never said she was easy" is sexist, since it's basically using people as metaphors for objects, in a way that reinforces the women-as-sex-objects mindset. The idea that women are 'challenges' measured by the desirability and difficulty of getting them into bed.

2) This is compounded by the fact that the guy's turned himself into a walking billboard covered with bikini babes, which is outside the norms even for the very loose dress code of academia.

Now, in isolation we might take that as "his washing machine's broken and he's down to his last shirts because he's too busy to get the laundry done while landing a probe on a comet" or something. But combine it with (1) and you get a very strong implication that this guy has a problem with his attitude toward women, which he is trawling out on display before the whole world now that the Rosetta mission has put him in the public eye.

Outside the norms isn't the issue. Matt Taylor has been shown wearing other shirts which are outside the norm for academia. What I don't get is why it equates to sexism which is where the criticism lies. If Matt Taylor dressed like Sheldon Cooper I don't think he would get the level of criticism even though Dr Cooper's dress sense is also outside the norm of academia.

Those blogs I read say it objectifies women without explaining what, and how it does so. Over here at least someone made an attempt to explain it, which is unconvincing as I stated above. I suspect a lot of these critics won't explain it because when you strip this idea down, its going to be fundamentally unsound when you say the images on the shirt, in and of itself is sexist, but the images of female celebrities choosing to pose in even more sexually suggestive poses are themselves not.

Of course the real reason could simply be he liked the shirt. The shirt was given to him by a female friend who made some subtle alterations to the stock standard model available (which is now sold out - good job SJWs), and he really liked it. We know he liked it because he apparently tweeted about getting the gift when he got it some time ago.

[Darmalus]

And of course, it's we men who get to decide what counts as "real sexism". You certainly can't let flighty, emotional women make decisions of such import.

This is the phenomena of social change that I feel most conflicted about. I absolutely want women in STEM, and acknowledge the realities of sexism, but I get really jittery when people start to re-define words and ideas as part of their social revolution. It does have to be done to some extent, but it's a tool that has been used to grind people into the mud since forever, and it's a very effective tool at that. Just think about how many people casually associate the word 'atheist' with 'evil' and 'religious' with 'good'. So when someone tells me that words that describe offense are now 'whatever the offended person says it is', that's the social equivalent of writing a blank cheque. And anything that gives one group power now can be used against that same group later.

The thing is it's not about getting women into STEM anymore, women took 57% of all STEM degrees in 2013. There is a massive imbalance in what specific degrees are taken, it's become a matter of convincing women to drop their biology or math major for engineering or computer science.

[Zeropoint]

Indeed, it's now about KEEPING women in STEM. Individual incidents like the shirt thing don't make women leave . . . at least, not individually. The combined effect of hundreds of minor incidents, though . . . they add up to the "death of a thousand cuts" that Phil Plait mentioned.

[Jub]

Indeed, it's now about KEEPING women in STEM. Individual incidents like the shirt thing don't make women leave . . . at least, not individually. The combined effect of hundreds of minor incidents, though . . . they add up to the "death of a thousand cuts" that Phil Plait mentioned.

So women are now so weak willed that they will give up on something that takes high end smarts and heaps of passion to see through to the end over a couple of shirts and the odd comment or two? If they don't want the spots, I'm sure somebody else will take them (assuming that affirmative action will allow the numbers to drop that much).

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Indeed, it's now about KEEPING women in STEM. Individual incidents like the shirt thing don't make women leave . . . at least, not individually. The combined effect of hundreds of minor incidents, though . . . they add up to the "death of a thousand cuts" that Phil Plait mentioned.

So women are now so weak willed that they will give up on something that takes high end smarts and heaps of passion to see through to the end over a couple of shirts and the odd comment or two? If they don't want the spots, I'm sure somebody else will take them (assuming that affirmative action will allow the numbers to drop that much).

How clueless are you ... oh wait, nevermind. Look at it this way ... what does a woman entering a STEM field have to look forward to? Systemic discrimination from many men in her field, ranging from her college professors, who may grade her harder than they would their male students, to her co-workers, who believe that casual (or not so casual) sexism is A-okay while blathering on about how 'SJWs' have overblown the whole gender discrimination thing, to her upper management; who'd prefer to hire a man for the work she's doing, and will cheerfully pay her less to do the same job as they would the man the next cubicle over.

It's not just an "odd comment or two," or a "couple of shirts." And it most certainly isn't about women being "weak willed," or whatever other quaint, sexist, nonsense you're spewing. It's an entire professional culture ... one that'd produce a work environment where, say, a man can think it'd be a great idea to wear a shirt covered in vinyl-clad pinup models to his workplace, and give an interview on global TV while doing it.

[Jub]

How clueless are you ... oh wait, nevermind. Look at it this way ... what does a woman entering a STEM field have to look forward to? Systemic discrimination from many men in her field, ranging from her college professors, who may grade her harder than they would their male students, to her co-workers, who believe that casual (or not so casual) sexism is A-okay while blathering on about how 'SJWs' have overblown the whole gender discrimination thing, to her upper management; who'd prefer to hire a man for the work she's doing, and will cheerfully pay her less to do the same job as they would the man the next cubicle over.

It's not just an "odd comment or two," or a "couple of shirts." And it most certainly isn't about women being "weak willed," or whatever other quaint, sexist, nonsense you're spewing. It's an entire professional culture ... one that'd produce a work environment where, say, a man can think it'd be a great idea to wear a shirt covered in vinyl-clad pinup models to his workplace, and give an interview on global TV while doing it.

Yet, in spite of all this, 57% of STEM grads in 2013 were women. Now which do you think is more likely; that sexism in this field has started to get worse this year and the number of female STEM grads will drop in 2014, or that the culture hasn't changed for the worse and incidents are getting more coverage in a post gamer gate media situation?

Also, women are more of a risk for an employer to hire than a man and thus they get paid less. How many men do you expect to miss 9+ months of work on average of twice in their career? How much of a pay decrease is that risk worth? How is this pay gap any different than men being expected to pay higher premiums for most types of insurance?

As for the shirt, it's a shirt with some sexy women on it. If it was a shirt with sexy men on it we wouldn't be having this conversation, if he was in a dress we wouldn't be having this conversation, but because (and heaven forbid) this man likes sexy women it's now a huge issue. Frankly I'd support a woman wearing a shirt with half naked men on it with equal vigor to supporting a man wearing a shirt with half naked women on it.

Now in addition to the above, please tell me what is wrong with expressing the fact that you like a certain type of figure on a woman? Is it now sexist to admit that at least some of our attraction to a woman is based on how she looks? Are we now expected to ignore our preferences because not all women will meet our standards for attractiveness?

[Raw Shark]

[snip] Also, women are more of a risk for an employer to hire than a man and thus they get paid less. How many men do you expect to miss 9+ months of work on average of twice in their career?

Do you have any evidence for this, or are you just ball-parking 9+ months on the assumption that women tend to get to take an entire pregnancy off from work, even at technical jobs involving no physical labor? I don't know about Canada, but good luck finding that in the USA.

How much of a pay decrease is that risk worth? [snip]

How about decreasing pay by exactly as much as they would've been paid for that time off by simply not paying them for it (minus things like paid maternity leave, PTO, etc if the company offers them), if and when it happens?

[Jub]

Do you have any evidence for this, or are you just ball-parking 9+ months on the assumption that women tend to get to take an entire pregnancy off from work, even at technical jobs involving no physical labor? I don't know about Canada, but good luck finding that in the USA.

They won't usually take the entire pregnancy off, but the last few months plus some until the baby is old enough to be cared for by a sitter isn't unusual. There are also women that take a much longer time off to raise their child and others that will never come back after having a child. So these are all risks that need to be factored in by an employer, risks that they don't face nearly as often with men.

How about decreasing pay by exactly as much as they would've been paid for that time off by simply not paying them for it (minus things like paid maternity leave, PTO, etc if the company offers them), if and when it happens?

How about we tell insurance companies not to raise the premiums of young male drivers until after they crash for the first time while we're at it? Go ahead and suggest that to an insurance agent and see how many colors he changes while he laughs you out of the room.

[Jub]

Ghetto Edit:

If women work cheaper and are just as good as men at the job, shouldn't companies go for that over a man who they have to pay more for the same output? Aside from some companies having a backwards mentality regarding the competence of women, there must be reasons for not hiring the better/equal but cheaper option.

[Lagmonster]

Jub, dude, just...fuck.

Also, women are more of a risk for an employer to hire than a man and thus they get paid less. How many men do you expect to miss 9+ months of work on average of twice in their career? How much of a pay decrease is that risk worth? How is this pay gap any different than men being expected to pay higher premiums for most types of insurance?

I work for a science-based, Canadian employer, so surprisingly I can actually tell you about actual women in actual STEM fields. You know what happens whenever one of our female employees is pregnant? The same thing that happens when one of the male employees' partner gets pregnant: They are covered, on average, at 90% of their salary for one full year, divisible between the genders with some small allowance whereby the first few weeks can only be taken by the woman for recuperative reasons. For families where both partners wish to be off, leave is arranged for one partner (and you can arrange for it to be the one with the lower salary) with income averaged for the time lost. In either case, the family may end up with more money in pocket during their year off, owing to no deductions made on their salaries during that time (it gets finicky and there are all sorts of little tax rules and payments at the end, but basically it comes out that we take care of our new parents to within close to full salary).

There are a shitload of reasons why we do this, ranging from not being total fucking assholes to realizing that good STEM employees are valuable enough to compensate one really important year in exchange for twenty or thirty years of service. The long-term benefits are also advocated; many of our top scientists are second or third generation in the same industry, meaning that there is an investment to be made in children of STEM workers. More than that, we have as an employer never failed to find people willing to accept an acting promotion for the duration of the woman's leave. It's almost as if having these occasional staffing needs creates opportunities for people up-and-coming to learn and grow, thus increasing their own value to the organization!

Frankly I'd support a woman wearing a shirt with half naked men on it with equal vigor to supporting a man wearing a shirt with half naked women on it.

This is what I meant before when I cited the golden rule. You may not be uncomfortable with a dong-shirt, but you might be uncomfortable with SOMETHING (let's say, a shirt featuring men who look a lot like you enjoying being sexually humiliated), so maybe you should choose not to exercise your liberty in an offensive manner as part of an agreement with everyone else on your team that they won't exercise theirs in the same way. Seriously, your freedom of expression isn't something you lose if you don't use it.

Now in addition to the above, please tell me what is wrong with expressing the fact that you like a certain type of figure on a woman? Is it now sexist to admit that at least some of our attraction to a woman is based on how she looks? Are we now expected to ignore our preferences because not all women will meet our standards for attractiveness?

It is wrong to advertise your sexual preferences in a non-sexual situation, because sexual preferences are considered personal and private. And, people can feel threatened if they think or feel that they're being evaluated as a target of sexual pursuit (ie. you advertise that you like redheads, so a red-headed colleague gets creeped out thinking you'll hit on them, which is a reasonable assumption since you just advertised that you're interested in having sex with a red-head).

If that still feels unreasonable to you, you might not be cut out for humanity and should try enlisting as a type of waterfowl instead. I hear ducks have mating habits that may suit you better.

[Jub]

I work for a science-based, Canadian employer, so surprisingly I can actually tell you about actual women in actual STEM fields. You know what happens whenever one of our female employees is pregnant? The same thing that happens when one of the male employees' partner gets pregnant: They are covered, on average, at 90% of their salary for one full year, divisible between the genders with some small allowance whereby the first few weeks can only be taken by the woman for recuperative reasons. For families where both partners wish to be off, leave is arranged for one partner (and you can arrange for it to be the one with the lower salary) with income averaged for the time lost. In either case, the family may end up with more money in pocket during their year off, owing to no deductions made on their salaries during that time (it gets finicky and there are all sorts of little tax rules and payments at the end, but basically it comes out that we take care of our new parents to within close to full salary).

There are a shitload of reasons why we do this, ranging from not being total fucking assholes to realizing that good STEM employees are valuable enough to compensate one really important year in exchange for twenty or thirty years of service. The long-term benefits are also advocated; many of our top scientists are second or third generation in the same industry, meaning that there is an investment to be made in children of STEM workers. More than that, we have as an employer never failed to find people willing to accept an acting promotion for the duration of the woman's leave. It's almost as if having these occasional staffing needs creates opportunities for people up-and-coming to learn and grow, thus increasing their own value to the organization!

Not every company is willing or able to do that for their staff and while I fully support mat leave for both sexes, there are a lot of places in the world where that isn't an option. Men are also still less likely to take time off from work for a baby and some studies (google fails me at the moment) suggest that the average man takes on more hours and responsibility when his partner gets pregnant while women tend to cut back on hours.

Ignoring all that, even with a company like yours that treats new parents well, who's more valuable to the company: a) the man who stays on at his same hours during and after his wife's pregnancy; b) the woman who works as much as she can, but is forced to take a significant amount of time of due to being expecting/having a new child; or c) the person who takes all the time off they can and willingly lets another (likely less experienced person) get temporarily promoted into their spot? If you ranked them in any order other than a > b > c I have to question your logic.

The fact is, that even if we want to support new families, a person who takes a significant amount of time off of work is a lesser asset than the one who doesn't. Given that women are far more likely to miss a significant amount of time in their career than men, companies may use this as a reason to pay them less.

This is what I meant before when I cited the golden rule. You may not be uncomfortable with a dong-shirt, but you might be uncomfortable with SOMETHING (let's say, a shirt featuring men who look a lot like you enjoying being sexually humiliated), so maybe you should choose not to exercise your liberty in an offensive manner as part of an agreement with everyone else on your team that they won't exercise theirs in the same way. Seriously, your freedom of expression isn't something you lose if you don't use it.

Try me. No seriously, try to find a bit of clothing that will offend me. Hell, if you want to go for your example pick the poses and I'll send you the pictures as long as you're willing to publicly model the shirt. The issue here is that I don't have thin skin and may in fact be far less sensitive to these sorts of issues than most people. I just don't care enough to be offended by the things that a lot of people get twisted about and while I can certainly see why people are offended by things, I can't bring myself to care much beyond telling them to suck it up.

I value people's right to say anything, do anything, express anything so long as it doesn't directly harm others. I don't see causing mild social discomfort as harm because there is no reasonable way to live life without offending somebody some of the time. Once you realize that you're always going to piss somebody off, the next logical step is to figure out what makes you comfortable and doesn't offend anybody you normally interact with. That's what this scientist did, he wore a shirt he liked that didn't seem to cause waves at work, and then out of left field got blasted for it. Seriously, the man was in tears, how many women do you think openly wept over him wearing that shirt?

It is wrong to advertise your sexual preferences in a non-sexual situation, because sexual preferences are considered personal and private.

That is a dull and prudish attitude and one that I place no value on. My declaring what I do and don't like sexually shouldn't offend anybody. I can't change what I like, and even if I could I still wouldn't feel a need to, so what does it matter if I keep it locked away tight or if I shout it out louder and prouder than a pride parade? What I like and how I choose to express that is my business and anybody that doesn't like it can fuck off.

And, people can feel threatened if they think or feel that they're being evaluated as a target of sexual pursuit (ie. you advertise that you like redheads, so a red-headed colleague gets creeped out thinking you'll hit on them, which is a reasonable assumption since you just advertised that you're interested in having sex with a red-head).

The fact that I've advertised that I like x doesn't mean that I want to do x with anybody specific. Even if I did decide that I wanted to do x with a person, if they don't want to do x with me I'm going to give them their space while letting them know that us not doing x doesn't effect how I see them. Seriously, I've asked ladies out, found out we shared certain interests in bed, and been rejected in the end. The best part, I've also become friends with them and now that we both know that the other person is equally freaky in tastes we can talk more openly about damned near everything. If everybody could swallow their pride and realize that being embarrassed isn't going to kill them we'd all get along just fine.

If that still feels unreasonable to you, you might not be cut out for humanity and should try enlisting as a type of waterfowl instead. I hear ducks have mating habits that may suit you better.

Equating a lack of tact and a desire to see people be open about a taboo subject makes me a rapist now? Funny, because that's like the furthest thing from what would get me off. Seriously, me getting raped would be preferable in my mind to me raping somebody, I don't swing that way.

[Raw Shark]

Do you have any evidence for this, or are you just ball-parking 9+ months on the assumption that women tend to get to take an entire pregnancy off from work, even at technical jobs involving no physical labor? I don't know about Canada, but good luck finding that in the USA.

They won't usually take the entire pregnancy off, but the last few months plus some until the baby is old enough to be cared for by a sitter isn't unusual. There are also women that take a much longer time off to raise their child and others that will never come back after having a child. So these are all risks that need to be factored in by an employer, risks that they don't face nearly as often with men.

So, no evidence, then? Gotcha.

How about decreasing pay by exactly as much as they would've been paid for that time off by simply not paying them for it (minus things like paid maternity leave, PTO, etc if the company offers them), if and when it happens?

How about we tell insurance companies not to raise the premiums of young male drivers until after they crash for the first time while we're at it? Go ahead and suggest that to an insurance agent and see how many colors he changes while he laughs you out of the room.

Red Herring served with apples and oranges. Insurance companies must operate by predicting the averages, often using demographic stereotypes, if they are to be successful. Employers must operate by evaluating each worker individually, if they are to operate in accord with the law. This is a bullshit comparison.

[Jub]

So, no evidence, then? Gotcha.

Do I need to quote evidence for something that is common sense? A man if he so chooses can not miss a shift if his partner gets pregnant, a woman will always miss at least some shifts and, depending on the job, be of limited use for a time before and after the pregnancy for purely physical reasons. This isn't even bring raising and breastfeeding the child or things like post partum depression into the mix.

HRed Herring served with apples and oranges. Insurance companies must operate by predicting the averages, often using demographic stereotypes, if they are to be successful. Employers must operate by evaluating each worker individually, if they are to operate in accord with the law. This is a bullshit comparison.

If you think that employers don't play the averages you're an idiot. Companies may not be allowed to open discriminate, but they're still allowed to pick and choose and play the odds when it comes to who they hire. As an example, who's more likely to get a job if the two have the same qualifications, a person who meets qualifications and has shown the ability to stick with a job long term or a person who, through no fault of their own, has never held a job for more than 6 months? If you think the first guy isn't going to get a longer look and more chances to impress you're an idiot.

[Raw Shark]

So, no evidence, then? Gotcha.

Do I need to quote evidence for something that is common sense? A man if he so chooses can not miss a shift if his partner gets pregnant, a woman will always miss at least some shifts and, depending on the job, be of limited use for a time before and after the pregnancy for purely physical reasons. This isn't even bring raising and breastfeeding the child or things like post partum depression into the mix.

You're assuming kind of a lot here. What if she doesn't want kids and is on birth control? Does she deserve a pay cut just for possessing ovaries?

HRed Herring served with apples and oranges. Insurance companies must operate by predicting the averages, often using demographic stereotypes, if they are to be successful. Employers must operate by evaluating each worker individually, if they are to operate in accord with the law. This is a bullshit comparison.

If you think that employers don't play the averages you're an idiot. Companies may not be allowed to open discriminate, but they're still allowed to pick and choose and play the odds when it comes to who they hire. As an example, who's more likely to get a job if the two have the same qualifications, a person who meets qualifications and has shown the ability to stick with a job long term or a person who, through no fault of their own, has never held a job for more than 6 months? If you think the first guy isn't going to get a longer look and more chances to impress you're an idiot.

You're moving the goalposts a little frantically here, jackass. I never claimed that employers don't attempt to break the law, just that the same standards do not apply to them and insurers.

[Jub]

You're assuming kind of a lot here. What if she doesn't want kids and is on birth control? Does she deserve a pay cut just for possessing ovaries?

What if I never so much as cut a close call on a red light or go over the speed limit, do I deserve to pay extra for insurance just for being male?

You're moving the goalposts a little frantically here, jackass. I never claimed that employers don't attempt to break the law, just that the same standards do not apply to them and insurers.

So companies should just hire the first person that applies then? According to you picking the person that you deem to be the best fit based on guesses made due to limited information is discrimination now. As an employer you have to play the average, no number of interviews, calling references, or reading resumes/CVs will ever give you the full picture so you have to make some choices based on the averages and your past experiences.

[Ziggy Stardust]

It is wrong to advertise your sexual preferences in a non-sexual situation, because sexual preferences are considered personal and private. And, people can feel threatened if they think or feel that they're being evaluated as a target of sexual pursuit (ie. you advertise that you like redheads, so a red-headed colleague gets creeped out thinking you'll hit on them, which is a reasonable assumption since you just advertised that you're interested in having sex with a red-head). .

You realize this is the same exact argument used by homophobic people so they don't seem homophobic, right? I mean, a constant argument made by homophobic men is, "Well, I don't hate gay people, but why do they have to act so flamboyant all the time?" or "I'm fine if people are gay, but I don't like them shoving everyone's faces in it in these parades" etc. I'm not so sure appealing to puritanical standards is the best way to normalize gender and sex relations in this country.

[LaCroix]

My not understandign this might be due to not being US-american, but why is this shirt a sexual statement? It's just a shirt with comic heroines on them. I would never even had thought of it as anything else.
By that logic, wearing a shirt with supergirl (or even worse, wonderwoman!) on it would be a statement that I am a misoginistic would-be rapist?

I've seen worse in museums, on fountains, and advertisements. And on a lot of tshirts...

[Lagmonster]

Not every company is willing or able to do that for their staff and while I fully support mat leave for both sexes, there are a lot of places in the world where that isn't an option. Men are also still less likely to take time off from work for a baby and some studies (google fails me at the moment) suggest that the average man takes on more hours and responsibility when his partner gets pregnant while women tend to cut back on hours.

So, you basically agree that the status quo is ass. Why, exactly, are you telling everyone in earshot about the business risks of hiring a woman, if you understand that it's a shitty thing to value productivity over parenthood?

Ignoring all that, even with a company like yours that treats new parents well, who's more valuable to the company: a) the man who stays on at his same hours during and after his wife's pregnancy; b) the woman who works as much as she can, but is forced to take a significant amount of time of due to being expecting/having a new child; or c) the person who takes all the time off they can and willingly lets another (likely less experienced person) get temporarily promoted into their spot? If you ranked them in any order other than a > b > c I have to question your logic.

Leaving aside the fact that discriminating against women in the manner you advocate as an employer is prohibited under the Canadan Human Rights Act, option C) is, as I've started to explain, a good long-term decision. At the end of the term, a junior staff member will return to their former job with a) the ability to contribute above their previous capacity/level, due to the experience, at b) a lower salary, and c) lets an employer establish a stable of future candidates within, which is quicker and easier than hiring from without. It's smart, and employers whose "product cycles" are longer than a few weeks know that.

The fact is, that even if we want to support new families, a person who takes a significant amount of time off of work is a lesser asset than the one who doesn't. Given that women are far more likely to miss a significant amount of time in their career than men, companies may use this as a reason to pay them less.

At this point, you may realize that the form of discrimination you are saying companies may elect to follow could be used to deny employment to anyone with a long-term disability. It also ensures that women will be reliant on men for financial support. Single mothers will be encouraged to find a male protector who can keep them fed and cared for. This is exactly the situation women are angry about.

I value people's right to say anything, do anything, express anything so long as it doesn't directly harm others.

You mentioned above that companies should be mercenary and do what's best for business. Well, people who choose to express themselves in a manner which may offend the public and/or a significant demographic are bad for business. The ESA is learning that now. *You*, Mr. Freedom, are the risk to a business in today's Canada. You're the person that will be disciplined, reprimanded, and fired, not the person who complains about feeling uncomfortable around you. Having appealed to your sense of teamwork, and of succession planning, and of human rights, I really don't have any other message than that.

What I like and how I choose to express that is my business and anybody that doesn't like it can fuck off.

So, your ultimate position is "I don't care about other people". To an employer, that's an equally bad message. To other people, too.

[Lagmonster]

You realize this is the same exact argument used by homophobic people so they don't seem homophobic, right? I mean, a constant argument made by homophobic men is, "Well, I don't hate gay people, but why do they have to act so flamboyant all the time?" or "I'm fine if people are gay, but I don't like them shoving everyone's faces in it in these parades" etc. I'm not so sure appealing to puritanical standards is the best way to normalize gender and sex relations in this country.

That's something I hadn't considered, true, and I'm really the wrong advocate for either position, being kinda old fashioned myself. I can only wave weakly towards the ongoing discussions about sexism and power and wonder if the difference between the two lies in who feels threatened, and why.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

It's a catch-22 for people trying to raise awareness. You can't make people aware of how pervasive gender issues are without pointing out things like the "shirtstorm", but every time you do, people come out of the woodwork and accuse you of focusing on trivial issues like some guy's shirt, even if you admit (which every feminist I've heard speak about the issue has) that it's not a big deal in and of itself but the larger pattern it represents is a very big deal, and we should all be aware of the bigger issues. Feminists have tried to use this as an example to segue to a discussion of those issues, and reactionaries have blocked that segue so they can point and say "look at all these crazy old birds getting their literal panties in a bunch about some dude's shirt".

[Purple]

The problem is that for the most part people don't really want to be made aware of things. They don't want to be told that the world sucks and it's all their fault and that they have responsibilities to fix things they newer heard about before and likely don't care about. From the perspective of a lot of people, even those whom it actually should concern people "raising awareness" are basically just stirring stuff up because they have nothing better to do. At best they are seen as annoying and at worst as equivalent to conspiracy theorists. So when they start focusing on such an insignificant and meaningless example such as a guys shirt that is hardly going to help.

[Simon_Jester]

What it comes down to is this.

Your sexual preference is an important piece of information about you even in non-sexual situations, because it affects your social life. Also, there's a continuum between "sexual" and "non-sexual." For instance, we routinely talk about our relationships with loved ones in a non-sexual environment, while not talking explicitly about sex. And we routinely make assumptions about other people in a non-sexual environment, that are informed by our assumptions about their sexual preferences. Like, say, playing matchmaker with a friend.

So it is desirable that this basic information about one's sexual preferences be known because it has important social consequences. Imagine how annoying it would be to have a co-worker decide you were gay and try to set you up with homosexuals of the same sex, and you begin to see why this is matters.

By contrast, detailed information about specific sexual acts and interests (like "redheads" or "getting tied up") is NOT appropriate for a non-sexual social situation.

The difference is that "is attracted to men/women" is not the same category of information as "fancies redheads" or "likes being tied up." One is general and has implications for the nonsexual parts of a person's life. The other doesn't.

And as a rule, people trying to force gays to conceal the "is attracted to same sex" information... well, they tend to view this whole "gay" thing as some kind of weird sexual perversion and treat it as such.

The whole point of gay pride, so far as I can tell, is that gayness is not simply a fetish to be kept concealed in polite company. It's a fundamental fact about their identity. A lesbian's love of women cannot be divorced from the rest of her identity any more than a straight man's can. She shouldn't have to hide the fact that she is in love with a woman any more than a straight man should.

But she (like the straight man) might reasonably not be supposed to go on and say "not only am I attracted to women, I specifically have a thing for willowy brunettes with... mmmm... ponytails..." That might make people uncomfortable.