Posted on Ask Men's Rights but it looked a little inactive: How does MRAs feel about the results of this social experiment and ones like it?

dejour · 2015-08-08T01:53:55+00:00

Yes, this is a problem that should be fixed, assuming it's real. If women are doing the exact same work and getting fewer opportunities, then that is legitimate sexism and should be corrected

I will say that this particular experiment is not the final say on the matter. It's possible that Catherine Nichols has a history of sending in bad manuscripts. Or she has a negative online profile. Or George is a preferred name to Catherine (but Georgia is a preferred name to Cathal). Or that this was just a case of bad luck for the female name. Or that Catherine Nichols consciously sent "Catherine" manuscripts to agents with high rejection rates and "George" manuscripts to agents with low rejection rates.

I'd want to see a more controlled study with multiple fake names and multiple manuscripts. But assuming this more rigorous study showed the same results, then something should be done to ensure fair treatment of women.

throwawaymypizzaplz · 2015-08-08T00:58:58+00:00

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Mitschu · 2015-08-08T03:16:22+00:00

How did the agents read through her multi-page offering and make decisions "within minutes" of hearing from her "on a weekend," complete with warm, welcoming, "deeply generous and thoughtful" reviews about them? Do publishing houses employee superheroes nowadays to handle their emails?

I mean, for fuck's sake, the equivalent here would be for someone to post underneath this comment a fully fleshed argument addressing and critiquing the specific points I raise, within seconds of me hitting the submit button.

What, you can't read, comprehend, and write a review that fast? Neither can agents.

Right out the gate, I suspect hyperbole presented as fact, which doesn't bode well neither for veracity nor for her skills as an author.

I offer that the reason why Catherine keeps getting rejected is because she can't even write fucking fanfiction about herself that doesn't jar the audience's suspension of disbelief with its nonsensical nature, much less write something of quality that agents would ever actually want to publish.

piemanrises · 2015-08-07T23:29:33+00:00

i find these social experiments laughable. theres nothing experimental about them.

some are blatant propaganda for the side thats doing/funding them some are just shoddily done and the rest tend to be done but are nowhere near scientific.

i mean the fact it turned up on jezzabel says a lot, if its demonstrable then lets try another experiment performed under scientific standards, otherwise its an article about opinion with no factual basis or real world effect.

rg57 · 2015-08-08T10:11:13+00:00

An accurate test would have used a false clearly-male name, a false clearly-female name, and a false ambiguous name (e.g. "Terry" or "Jordan").

Instead, she used her own name. That renders the results worthless.

DavidByron2 · 2015-08-07T23:28:22+00:00

Feminism is a hate movement so no, there's nothing those bigots could possibly ever work on together with any decent human beings. Although they have worked together with traditional conservatives on their anti-sex prudery a few times.

Btw? That link you sent is shitty science. Real scientists have tried this sort of experiment and found that often it's the male name that receives fewer responses, not the female name. Don't believe anything a feminist tells you. All you have to do is Google this stuff. So did this feminist author deliberately lie to her audience?

Yeah there was a lot of discussion about the science behind this stuff a while back. Science doesn't work by getting some blog author to say blah blah blah. Experiments by one person are meaningless in part because of the risk of bias and fraud as here, but really anything can go wrong with one experiment which is why science is about other people being able to reproduce the results. When people try to reproduce feminist results they fail. Why is that? Try sending out a bunch of CVs yourself maybe.

Someone had a theory that it depended upon the type of job you were applying for. At any rate the feminist version where everyone prefers men to women simply isn't true.

2015-08-08T02:39:11+00:00

One thing that gets me about this is that she some under the pseudonym and some under her real name. If the publisher looks in up they will see she writes for a shock tabloid. That could really count against her and cause the discretion.

Another important fact is that the vast majority of edited and publishers are women. This is more likely a women accepting these male written works that a men.

Now to say that in-group bias does not exist is a lie. It absolutely does! However blind in group bias is seen twice as often in women than in men. Also the bias from women can be obvious and is usually met with applause rather than revulsion. A publisher recently announced they would only publish female written book for the duration of 2017. The UN Womens twitter was quick to congratulate their announcement.

I remember judging a high school science fair with a few PhDs. We were tied on our thoughts for the second place winner. An honest to god quote from one of the women there "It is best she gets it cause she is a girl". No way you could say that about a boy and not get hung for it.

PeteyMax · 2015-08-08T04:26:04+00:00

I read the original article and I must confess I don't entirely believe it. From what I understand, female writers outnumber male writers by a considerable margin. It's almost certainly the same story for editors and even agents. I doubt there is that much sexism in publishing.

GenderNeutralLanguag · 2015-08-08T04:49:32+00:00

Gender biases are real. There are gender biases that negatively affect women. Assumed ability in writing appears to be one. There are many of these gender biases that negatively affect men. These range from imposing leadership roles on unable and unprepaired men because penis to assumptions that children are unsafe around men.

I expect that the biggest factor in this specific study isn't gender bias, but the author being known and known as sub-par. The greater response was primarily due to a different name, not that it was a male name.

There is an issue with gender bias in publishing. There is a larger bias that affects more people in child care. The larger bias that has a larger affect is the one we should pay more attention to.

MRSPArchiver · 2015-08-07T22:53:01+00:00

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absonous · 2015-08-08T17:13:39+00:00

OP, you seem to be here more to debate and try and prove MRAs "wrong" than anything judging by the content of your replies here. The problem that arises with most of your arguments is the problem with most feminists with regards to science: you don't understand it. Let me give you a run-down:

A study is presented. It comes to a specific conclusion. It is meaningless all on it's lonesome. It must be replicated a number of times by other researchers. It must be challenged. When sufficient time has passed and the conclusions have be supported by repeated investigations and no challenges have dis-proved the conclusion of the study then the conclusion is generally viewed as fact.

However, it only takes failed replication, or one successful challenge to invalidate the conclusion of a study.

You have posted numerous studies to try to show this "gender bias". Here is the problem: they are all meaningless. One study that shows some bias X in some field Y along with another study that shows some bias A in some field B and a third study that shows some bias M in some field N mean absolutely nothing. These studies must be both challenged and replicated before they can be considered "factual". None of the studies you are citing as support of your claims have either been challenged or replicated. No one, including yourself, is in position to claim they are "correct" or "conclusive" at this point. Doing some is a logical fallacy known as "appeal to authority". Your credentials are irrelevant. The credentials of the researchers, or any on else for that matter, are completely irrelevant.

With that being said, I do agree with you that there is gender bias. But this is an opinion and I am careful to present it as such. In some ways gender bias is axiomatic it doesn't really need a study to be shown (i.e. that in the United States it is expected that men will approach women at bars) but the "evidence" you are using to support you conclusions/ideas is not evidence at all. It is not scientific.

In fact, the main problem with modern feminism is illustrated in all of the above. They claim "rape culture" that 1 in 5 women will be raped in their lifetime. Excepted that the DOJ study on sexual assault (which is done using better methods overall) directly contradicts this. It doesn't necessarily mean the DOJ report is valid, but it does certainly mean the CDC "1 in 5" study is not.

Feminist claim the "wage gap". Women are paid 77 cents to every mans dollar. Yet, when investigated thoroughly by the AAUW, they came to a different conclusion. Again, this does not validate the AAUW study's conclusions, it just invalidates the 77 cent "wage gap" claim.

Feminists claim "online harassment". Yet Pew Research conducted a study that says MEN not women are more likely to be harassed online (I think women under 25 were the most likely to be harassed group overall, so in that sense it did provide a tad bit of support to this claim). Once again, this does not validate the conclusion of the Pew Research study, but it does disprove "online harassment" claim made by feminists.

The ultimate problem with most of these feminist "studies", and the reason people here make fun of research done by sociologists in general, is that they are often so poorly done and so ridiculous that no one wants to waste their time disproving them. Who wants to spend all their time de-bunking the hundreds of bullshit studies that get churned out by sociological departments each year? It's not fun, it's not glorious, and it's never-ending task. Hell, ask anyone who works in medicine about the BS and quackery in their field. They can't keep up with the never-ending bullshit factory of the "alternative medicine" crowd. Sociology is worse. Much, much worse. Hell, I'd go as far to say that it's more bullshit than actual research but that would be a pretty hard claim to support.

Ultimately, when you look at a study you have to ask yourself:

Was this replicated? This specific study? No? Maybe it's still worthy of investigation but it certainly, it's not conclusive.

Has it been challenged? Are there other contradictory studies? No? Again, possibly true but needs more research. Yes? There are contradictory studies? Then the conclusion of the original study is obviously not correct.

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