Debating a Machine
I’m so proud of myself today. I didn’t leave a comment on a garbage post.
The algorithm sent me this curse today:
For a moment, I was about to give in to temptation and comment. I mean, how can I resist gems like this:
What if we told you that women actually dominate the world and men are the ones who are repressed and discriminated against? Sounds absurd, right?
(Yes, yes, it does)
Followed by:
Well, not so fast. In this article, we will show you some surprising facts and arguments that reveal how women have more power and privilege than men in many aspects of life, and how men are suffering in silence from a system that favors women over them.
Men suffer in silence?! Are you serious?! Have you ever met men?
But something about the wording or structure here struck me as being a bit odd. I kept reading, having a feeling I’d be debunking this piece, but then I checked the links, which all led to the wrong place (largely a Bing search for “ai chatbot”), and I became suspicious that perhaps this article was not written by a computer.
So I checked. And I was right.
As such, this is going to be the kind of thing I can debunk in my sleep.
Shall we?
Argument #1: Women Dominate Education
One of the areas where women have surpassed men is education. According to the latest statistics from UNESCO, women make up 54% of the world’s tertiary students, compared to 46% of men.
I found values for the US, which suggest that women are 60% of the undergraduate students in universities.
According to that link, it’s even slightly higher for graduate programs.
Women also outperform men in academic achievement, graduation rates, and enrollment in advanced degrees. This means that women have more opportunities and qualifications to enter the labor market and compete for high-paying jobs.
And yet… women make less money than men. So explain that one to me: women are at an unfair advantage because a higher percentage of them go to university, where they perform better than men, which gives them more opportunities for higher paying jobs.
And yet they don’t get those higher paying jobs.
I think you accidentally found a sexism, computer!
Women Dominate Health Care
The global average life expectancy at birth for women is 74.2 years, compared to 69.8 years for men.
I got slightly different numbers, but whatever, it’s close enough.
And, yeah, it sucks that I’ll likely not live as long because of being a man. Better make what years I do have count, I guess.
But, why is that, Mr. Computer?
Women tend to seek medical help more often than men, follow preventive measures more diligently, and adopt healthier lifestyles. Men, on the other hand, tend to ignore their health problems, engage in risky behaviors, such as smoking and drinking, and face more occupational hazards, such as accidents and violence.
This is their explanation. Someone please walk me through the process of how men are the victims of discrimination because we’re more likely to participate in a wannabe Jackass stunt.
Women dominate social support
A third area where women have an edge over men is social support. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, women have more friends and confidants than men, and are more likely to receive emotional support from them.
Again, lovely link to an unrelated Bing search as evidence.
But this is true, but I fail to see how it’s the result of discrimination. Men failing to form decent social connections? That’s kind of on us, though I’ve seen articles on here arguing that this is women’s fault because they won’t sleep with us.
Women dominate legal protection
A fourth area where women have a upper hand over men is legal protection. According to a report by the World Bank, women have more rights and freedoms than men in many countries around the world.
Uh-huh. I would love to read that actual report. Here’s what I could find from World Bank:
- Nearly 2.4 Billion Women Globally Don’t Have Same Economic Rights as Men
- More than 1 billion women lack legal protection against domestic sexual violence, finds World Bank study
- Despite Gains, Women Face Setbacks in Legal Rights Affecting Work (Globally, women are accorded only three-quarters of the legal rights that men enjoy…)
But maybe there’s something I missed. According to the original post:
The report finds that women have equal or better legal status than men in 75 countries out of 190. Women also benefit from affirmative action policies that aim to promote gender equality in education, employment, politics, and other fields.
Wait a minute… equal or better in 75 out of 190 countries? So all 75 of those 190 countries could, potentially, have achieved gender parity based on their metrics, which would mean — and my math might be off here — that men have it better than women in 115 of 190 countries. I’m failing to see how this means men are discriminated against.
Women dominate media representation
A fifth area where women have a lead over men is media representation. According to a study by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, women are more visible and diverse than men in film and television content across the world.
Okay, so this link doesn’t go to Bing, but does go to a completely unrelated article, which I guess is progress.
As a side note, I just want to point out that Geena Davis rules. Aside from being a good actor, who’s made some pretty entertaining movies (The Long Kiss Goodnight is kind of a guilty pleasure, but Thelma and Louise is legit great), she’s also a member of MENSA (I know, I know, IQ is a racist and poor method to measure intelligence, but she is very smart), and a nearly Olympic level archer.
From her Wikipedia page:
In July 1999, Davis was one of 300 women who vied for a semifinals berth in the U.S. Olympic archery team to participate in the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics. She placed 24th and did not qualify for the team, but participated as a wild-card entry in the Sydney International Golden Arrow competition. In August 1999, she stated that she was not an athlete growing up and that she entered archery in 1997, two years before her tryouts.
And she also founded her institute, which built a tool to measure gender representation in movies, which results such as the following:
- Male characters received two times the amount of screen time as female characters in 2015 (28.5% compared to 16.0%).
- In films with a female lead, male characters appear about the same amount of time as female characters (24.0% compared to 22.6%). This means that even when women are featured in a leading role, male characters appear on screen just as often.
- In 2015, male characters spoke two times as often as female characters in the top box office movies (28.4% compared to 15.4%).
- Films led by women grossed 15.8% more on average than films led by men.
This is very cool stuff and worth taking a look at.
Conclusion
Computer AI isn’t very good at determining fair gender practices or reading reports on the subject. But, then again, neither are many men on this platform, so maybe that’s just a quality the tools are trying to emulate.
I would suggest to be aware that AI is out there and people are using it to write pieces on Medium. I don’t personally think it’s worth spending the time to leave a comment on one of these fake articles when the author generated the post in a fraction of a second, but y’all are living your own lives and can decide that for yourselves.
And for all the haters who doubt me, I’d just like to remind you that I have been voted the smartest man alive.
