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crossposted from /r/politics: Jezebel blog recently accused Jon Stewart of running a sexist work environment ("boy's club") at The Daily Show, citing the low number of female writers/correspondents. The number of male writers/editors at Jezebel? Zero.

darkreign

July 20, 2010

14 upvotes

/r/MensRights

http://www.whyweworry.com/2010/07/18/jezebel-v-jon-stewart/

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Title	crossposted from /r/politics: Jezebel blog recently accused Jon Stewart of running a sexist work environment ("boy's club") at The Daily Show, citing the low number of female writers/correspondents. The number of male writers/editors at Jezebel? Zero.
Author	darkreign
Upvotes	14
Comments	18
Date	July 20, 2010 4:22 AM UTC (16 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/crhc9/crossposted_from_rpolitics_jezebel_blog_recently/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/crossposted-from-rpolitics-jezebel-blog-recently.1048541 https://theredarchive.com/post/1048541

Comments

[–]SwirlingVortex 6 points7 points8 points 16 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]stemgang 2 points3 points4 points 16 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]Alanna 2 points3 points4 points 16 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]stemgang 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

[–]Alanna 2 points3 points4 points 16 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]stemgang 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]Alanna 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (9 children) | Copy Link

[–]XFDRaven 4 points5 points6 points 16 years ago (7 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

[–]XFDRaven 3 points4 points5 points 16 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

If you're leveraging horrifically biased laws as justification, you've already lost this argument.

Jezebel's article was inflammatory, raising hell to the amount of "how sexist they are, they do not employ any women." If equality is the heart of the message, she is then a hypocrite as she has no male coworkers at her place of work. Period.

...and I think most people would agree that this is a reasonable standard for a just hiring practice.

And per this line of thinking, in the middle east most people agree that capital punishment is necessary to discipline a woman. It's a "reasonable" punishment to stone her to death. Arguing that the status quo is fine grounds to define "reasonable" is dishonest, and that is exactly what you're doing with your last analog twist.

Jezebel attacked the staff of the daily show to "make an example" of their sexism. It was shown the door when the female staff members called out the author. The whole of the incident boiled down to nothing less than female entitlement trying to find something to flame for kicks, and like a child caught stealing cookies got slapped quickly.

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points1 point 16 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

"If you're leveraging horrifically biased laws as justification, you've already lost this argument."

I'm not really using the law as a basis for morality? Really I'm just using it's phrasing as a succinct description of a concept. In either case your position doesn't really make sense without some argument as to why "you can't discriminate on the basis of gender unless gender itself is a job requirement" is somehow "horribly biased".

"Jezebel's article was inflammatory, raising hell to the amount of "how sexist they are, they do not employ any women." If equality is the heart of the message, she is then a hypocrite as she has no male coworkers at her place of work. Period."

Having not read the Jezebel article, I won't comment on it's quality. But the point of my argument is that it's not hypocrisy to take a different action than what you argue someone else should do if there are substantial differences between you and the person or group you're criticizing. If Jezebel's position were that all employers should have gender-equal hiring policies, then I agree that they'd be being hypocritical; but I don't think that's a position they would argue for. Their argument is only that the Daily Show's hiring policies are wrong - that even if unequal gender balances are okay in cases of inherently gendered contexts like a women's magazine, that doesn't make them okay in a parody news show.

"And per this line of thinking, in the middle east most people agree that capital punishment is necessary to discipline a woman. It's a "reasonable" punishment to stone her to death. Arguing that the status quo is fine grounds to define "reasonable" is dishonest, and that is exactly what you're doing with your last analog twist."

Now this is just silly. Replace "most people would agree that is a reasonable" with "this is a reasonable" and the meaning of the sentence is unchanged (which I'm sure you knew - I obviously didn't mean that an opinion's popularity makes it correct).

"Jezebel attacked the staff of the daily show to "make an example" of their sexism. It was shown the door when the female staff members called out the author. The whole of the incident boiled down to nothing less than female entitlement trying to find something to flame for kicks, and like a child caught stealing cookies got slapped quickly."

Perhaps this is true; I have no basis for evaluating it. As I said, I have no opinion on the correctness of Jezebel's position. My only point is that it's not hypocritical for a women-oriented website who disproportionately hires women to criticize a humor magazine who disproportionately hires men.

[–]XFDRaven 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

So the essence of your position is that based on your preconceived ideals from the issue, without actually observing the issue, that you can assert insight into that very issue. You state that it isn't hypocrisy, but the very definition of hypocrisy is, *"Hypocrisy is the act of persistently professing beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that are inconsistent with one's actions. Hypocrisy is thus a kind of lie."

Jezebel professed the evils of TDS for not having equality in their workplace, and at the same time did not apply their rules to themselves. That is hypocrisy. At best, the only time it might ever actually work is when it is done in satire of itself, which this is not the case and were you to inform yourself by reading the related articles and writings would be better suited to participate in this discussion. As it stands, it is nothing more than "I see no evil, therefore it does not exist."

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

"So the essence of your position is that based on your preconceived ideals from the issue, without actually observing the issue, that you can assert insight into that very issue."

I'm not really sure what this means? I'm just trying to duck the issue of whether or not Jezebel's criticism of the Daily Show is correct or not; whether or not they've correctly characterized the Daily Show is orthogonal to whether or not they're being hypocrites. I'm only addressing the hypocrisy issue without trying to make a statement about whether or not the Daily Show has sexist hiring policies.

"You state that it isn't hypocrisy, but the very definition of hypocrisy is, *"Hypocrisy is the act of persistently professing beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that are inconsistent with one's actions. Hypocrisy is thus a kind of lie." Jezebel professed the evils of TDS for not having equality in their workplace, and at the same time did not apply their rules to themselves. That is hypocrisy."

Except that Jezebel's opinion can be "shows with gender-neutral content should have gender-neutral hiring policies". This is both a reasonable position and one that could put the Daily Show in the wrong without also putting Jezebel in the wrong. Your argument only makes sense if your interpretation of Jezebel's argument is that "all workplaces should hire equal numbers of men and women", which no one claims it is. By comparison, it's not hypocritical for me to say "it's wrong of you to buy a new car" while myself buying a new car if there's something that sets us apart in terms of whether or not buying a new car is a good idea (like if I can afford a new car and you cannot, or if I want a new car and you do not, etc.).

"At best, the only time it might ever actually work is when it is done in satire of itself, which this is not the case and were you to inform yourself by reading the related articles and writings would be better suited to participate in this discussion. As it stands, it is nothing more than "I see no evil, therefore it does not exist." "

Again, it's not clear to me what your point is. I know all that I need to (making some fairly reasonable assumptions) about Jezebel and what they've written in order to evaluate whether or not they're being hypocritical. I don't know all I need to know in order to evaluate whether or not the claims they're making are true (separately from whether or not they're hypocritical). Therefore I'm only commenting on the first issue and not the second. If one of my assumptions is false (say, if the Jezebel author wrote that any hiring imbalance is ipso facto proof of an immoral hiring standard, regardless of whether or not the position only makes sense for a certain gender), I'll change my mind.

[–]stemgang 2 points3 points4 points 16 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

"Allow me to re-phrase you: "Only women understand women's issues." This is dangerously false."

This is not at all what I'm saying. It's not clear to me what "women's issues" would be, but assuming you mean things like abortion, the ERA, etc., men can clearly "understand" them. But men can't give a women's perspective on them.

"It invites others to neglect women's issues, and likewise invites women to neglect men's issues."

I don't see how this is the case. There's a difference between trying to express a women's point of view on something and trying to understand that point of view. Only the latter is necessary to allow empathizing with other people (and it's still not clear to me what "men's issues" and "women's issues" are; it seems like the issue at hand is cultural attitudes about gender roles).

"In a society built on mutual respect, we all need to be able to sympathize with, and understand, each others' positions.

If your logic had held, civil rights could not have advanced, because the majority would not be expected to understand or respect the perspectives of the oppressed minority."

This is silly. Taking the black civil rights struggle as an example, the argument would be "it makes sense for a magazine about black perspectives on social issues to have a largely black writing staff". The idea of a white person writing about what it feels like to be black in America sounds like something out of Chappelle's show (though read "Black Like Me" for an interesting book along these lines).

In any case, even if you don't find this argument compelling it's certainly not outright unreasonable. Jezebel's staff can honestly hold this position as more than a sophistry, and thereby criticize the Daily Show's gender imbalance without being hypocritical.