[nawitus]

Nope, men have the upper hand and lower hand, and if you take the average out of that then women are men are equal at least in all Western nations. Even though 60-80% of politicians may be male, that's contrasted with 80% of homeless people being male, 80% of suicides made by men.

If we look at young people, then women clearly have the uppder hand. In addition to having the upper hand in dating, they out-earn young men and have greater success in education. Interestingly, if women are better than men at something, then the explanation is never discrimination, but if men are better than women, then the reason is discrimination.

[kaitai]

You're right about some of this, although you're overstating the case: about 44% of the homeless in the United States are single men; families with children are about 36% and single women are only 13%. (Figures for Europe are certainly different as they offer different social services, especially for families.) Greater male service in the military is one component of this, as in the US veterans make up 16% of the homeless, as opposed to 10% of the general population.

I'm one of those overeducated women with the upper hand or something like that, although due to my great success in education I'm not out-earning all that many people yet. Remember, though, that the mythical ability to get a guy to pay for dinner and that incredible math PhD mean nothing when a guy on the street is looking me up & down & giving me a "compliment." If I talk back to that crazy guy on the bus, even if I'm out-earning and out-educating him, I always remember it can go like this: http://unwinona.tumblr.com/post/30861660109/i-debated-whethe...

To return to the original topic, I don't support Lulu at all. I've had far better success in dating and life treating men like people.

[nawitus]

>(Figures for Europe are certainly different as they offer different social services, especially for families.)

Yeah, I used statistics from my own country.

>Greater male service in the military is one component of this

Funny anecdote, here in Finland men still have conscription (e.g. forced labour for 6-12 months), but almost nobody talks about that as a gender equality issue.

>I'm one of those overeducated women with the upper hand or something like that, although due to my great success in education I'm not out-earning all that many people yet.

Education of course doesn't directly lead to higher earnings, as you need to choose the right industry and career path. Of course, I don't know anything about you in particular, but most well-off people underestimate the earnings of otherpeople. (I don't know the exact statistic, but the top 10% think that they're only slightly better off than the average or something).

Anyway, men earn more than women because they work longer hours (about 20% more in average). The other explanation is that men choose careers that have higher income (e.g. according to research for men income matters a lot more in career choise than for women).

>Remember, though, that the mythical ability to get a guy to pay for dinner and that incredible math PhD mean nothing when a guy on the street is looking me up & down & giving me a "compliment."

Err, men have to deal with crazy people on the bus too. In fact, vast majority of street violence is against men (it's around 80% in my country).

[flyinRyan]

Wow, what a horrific story. I hope my daughter never has to go through something like that.

[sophacles]

Query: why are 80% of men homeless. That stat on it's own is not indicative of disadvantage towards men. There needs to be some analysis of the why to determine that.

Quey: how does the suicide give women an "uppper hand" this is a personal choice, and doesn't seem to be about gender equality at all. Sure you could say "men are more pressured..." but you could also say "women aren't empowered to make decisions about their body and don't see it as viable". Again: how does the stat show an upper hand?

About dating: I don't think you can declare women have the "upper hand". At best they have an "even hand". Sure there are pretty girls that get an absurde level of "power of choice", but there are plenty of men in the same category. Similarly when the traditional "men approach" role is taken, women are stuck with what comes their way. Putting it another way: in my experience the problems women experience in dating are the same as the problems men experience: shitty candidates, lots of fear of rejection, insecurity and incompatability issues. Leading to:

Query: how do women have the upper hand in dating in your mind?

[nawitus]

>Query: why are 80% of men homeless. That stat on it's own is not indicative of disadvantage towards men. There needs to be some analysis of the why to determine that.

It indicates that men are at a disadvantage. It doesn't matter what causes the disadvantage, it's still a fact. Of course, when men are at a disadvantage the reason is never expected to be gender roles or discrimination.

>Quey: how does the suicide give women an "uppper hand" this is a personal choice

If you think social issue like suicide can be categorized as "personal choice", you don't know much about depression and suicide. There are factors that increase risk to suicide, like poverty and depression, which are quite prevalent in males.

>About dating: I don't think you can declare women have the "upper hand". At best they have an "even hand". Sure there are pretty girls that get an absurde level of "power of choice", but there are plenty of men in the same category.

That description doesn't quite fit the facts, though. It's more like the upper 2/3 of women are in the same position as upper 1/3 of men for various reasons. You can just look at the number of messages on online dating sites, or look at the genetic evidence: 2/3 of all women in history have had children, but only 1/3 men have had genetic offspring.

>Putting it another way: in my experience the problems women experience in dating are the same as the problems men experience: shitty candidates, lots of fear of rejection, insecurity and incompatability issues.

The social etiquette and gender roles and various other reasons mean that men are expected to make the initiation, and women can simply choose the best candidate. That means that men have to face a lot more rejection than women.

This is a good article on the issue: http://alvanista.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/another-okcupid-st...

[sophacles]

>>Query: why are 80% of men homeless. That stat on it's own is not indicative of disadvantage towards men. There needs to be some analysis of the why to determine that.

>It indicates that men are at a disadvantage. It doesn't matter what causes the disadvantage, it's still a fact. Of course, when men are at a disadvantage the reason is never expected to be gender roles or discrimination.

False. This is not how statistics work. There could be other confounding factors that are relevant. For instance, of the women who would become homeless how many are forced into some sort of prostitution scheme from which they can't escape? How many die early in homelessness because they are at a survival as homeless person disadvantage? You are not providing enough data, just cherry picking context free numbers as if it meant something.

>>Quey: how does the suicide give women an "uppper hand" this is a personal choice

>If you think social issue like suicide can be categorized as "personal choice", you don't know much about depression and suicide. There are factors that increase risk to suicide, like poverty and depression, which are quite prevalent in males.

Maybe. So what advantages to women have. Again, you need to explain a causal relationship of advantage, not just cherry pick numbers as if it were meaningful.

About the dating stuff: your stat makes no sense with regards to genetics. Everyone gets a X chromosome, some get 2 of them. Of course there will be more attributable genetic lineage to women, wheres a guy who only produces daughters will not necessarily be identifiable in a few generations from his sister who passes on the same X chromosome to ~50% of her offspring. Also, why does this genetic number prove evidence for "do nothing"? That is conflating two similar numbers pointlessly. Again, I suggest you learn some simple statistics.

As for the initiation thing: that is not a disadvantage to males. A couple reasons:

First of all, except for people who have 0 social skills initiation is really not hard.

Second, initiation must be invited, putting half the onus in the woman's hands (again, there are cues and signaling for this) - the act of asking or a date or starting a conversation is quite far into the courting process.

Third, simply choosing the best candidate is not - ever been part of a hiring process? Sometimes all the candidates are shitty and you have to choose "no hire", this is a problem.

Fourth do you really think women just sit there and do nothing in dating but wait for a candidate to come along? I doubt that, otherwise why would there be a giant business targeting women with things like "how to make guys notice you", and "improve your dating potential".

Fifth: In the traditional role, women have the following disadvantage: they are the ones with the job of keeping men around far more often than men keeping a woman around. Once the relationship is established, the woman has to keep the man happy. (again - big buisness in magazines with articles like "keep your man happy and around", "how to prevent him from cheating" and the like).

Finally your linked article presupposes the conclusion it reaches, and ignores in its analysis any other factors.

[fluidcruft]

If "men have the upper hand and lower hand"; then, yes men actually do have the upper hand.

[nawitus]

"X have upper hand" implies that on average X are better off than non-X. Therefore it's not very honest to talk only about the well-off subset of X, if there's a similarly sized not-so-well-off subset of X which mirrors the successful subset.

[fluidcruft]

> "X have upper hand" implies that on average X are better off than non-X.

I don't think that's a valid inference, honestly. Firstly, "average" is too tied to distribution and biased outliers and asymmetry. Perhaps you intended to compare medians.

"have the upper hand" I think means that when you compare proportions of X to non-X within strata that the proportion of X decreases with increasing status.