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Yes, it was moderately anti-diversity. But many people reacted as though it did say something like "women belong in the kitchen". Okay, it's been some time since I read the document, and there may have been parts that weren't phrased as tactfully as you - or I - would have liked. Well, here's my heretical thoughts: So what if there are minor differences in brain development that have some statistical effect? It doesn't mean that all members of group X are somehow unsuited for a particular career - let alone deserving of less dignity as human beings - but it could explain why fewer of them choose to pursue it. Different people have different talents and inclinations, and membership in a particular group defined by biological factors could well be correlated. But that is irrelevant when it comes to individuals. In Nazi Germany, one propaganda poster said "You are nothing, your People (Volk) is everything". So in their ideology, the individual by itself doesn't matter, only as part of the group. But every one of us is different from each other, and membership in some Group (whether defined by ethnicity, gender or anything else) may be a small part of it, but it does not define who we are. There does seem to me to be an orthodoxy today. One that claims that any underrepresentation of some group must be the result of systemic discrimination, and that it has to be corrected by whatever means necessary. More and more, it tends to see people not as individuals, but again as representing some particular group, with relations between those groups always defined in terms of oppression and victimhood. This orthodoxy has become the most dominant force on the political "left", but strangely enough, it is supported by some of the largest corporations as well - corporations that also increasingly control our access to information. Are they really just trying to counteract historical injustices? Will the invisible hand of the market guide us into a better society, once the CEOs are no longer straight white cis-males? Or do they, like so many others, just want to be on top of the power dynamics that they frame every human relationship in? |