Here's what I think is a good illustration of the point Marcus makes.
doubtingthomas wrote:I want to make it very clear that I don't follow or agree with white supremacists, incels, and red pillers. I only follow some left-leaning pick-up artists and some researchers, but I don't agree with them completely. I don't follow any right-wingers.
viewtopic.php?p=2829337#p2829337
DT says he doesn't follow right wingers. But he is more than happy to credulously cite right-wing propaganda in support of his arguments. Follow me down the rabbit hole....
Upthread, DT posted this to me:
doubtingthomas wrote:I am against this BS, "A new study that recently came out revealed that 84% of roughly 220 universities "lopsidedly benefited women" by offering single-gender scholarships, many of which are in STEM fields; permitted under Title IX only if the "overall effect" of scholarships is equitable."
https://www.scholarships.com/news/femal ... -higher-ed
Now, when someone cites a "study," I always want to read the original because websites and media often misdescribe or misinterpret what a study says. But, if you follow DT's link, the article he links to does not link to the study. In fact, it doesn't even identify who conducted the study. So, how to track it down.
I thought the phrase "lopsidedly benefitted women" was unique enough to allow Google to track the study down. And, lo and behold, the first item it found was an article in the Los Angeles Times.
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... complaints.
The Headline reads: "Women-only STEM college programs under attack for male discrimination"
And here's the lede:
Los Angeles Times wrote:
Female-only science programs, launched by many universities to redress gender imbalance in such fields as computer science and engineering, are coming under growing legal attack as sex discrimination against men.
And regarding the study:
Los Angeles Times wrote:
A new study released Tuesday found that 84% of about 220 universities offer single-gender scholarships, many of them in STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. That practice is permitted under Title IX only if the “overall effect” of scholarships is equitable. The study, by a Maryland-based nonprofit advocating gender equity on college campuses, showed the majority of campus awards lopsidedly benefited women.
Gender equity? Must be a left-leaning group, because anything "equity" related is fighting words to the political right. And, if this is an organization that promotes gender equity, they probably support both men's and women's rights, depending on where the inequity is occurring. Sounds pretty reasonable.
But, the article does provide a link to the study, so let's take a look:
https://www.saveservices.org/equity/scholarships/
Well, it's an organization called Stop Abusive and Violent EnvironmentsSAVE, whose motto is "Assuring Fairness and Due Process in Schools." That sounds good. I mean, I want to stop abusive and violent environments, and I'm all for fairness and due process in schools.
Here's how the website describes the study:
SAVE wrote:In 2019-2020, the SAVE Title IX Equity Project conducted an in-depth review of the websites of 346 large universities and colleges in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The review counted the number of sex-specific scholarships designated for men and for women, and calculated the difference. Based on this information, the Title IX Equity Project sent Demand Letters to these universities, calling for universities to correct the Title IX violation. Overall, the review found a widespread pattern of scholarship offerings that discriminate against male students (as of July 1, 2020):
Now, on to the study itself.
There must be a link somewhere to the study.
Hmmm. This webpage, which only reports numbers of scholarships, IS the study. The "study" was performed by SAVE and was neither peer reviewed nor published. And although some of the discrepancies by number look large, one thing immediately caught my eye: those numbers could not have included athletic scholarships because the totals for men are too low. For example, football scholarships are for male athletes. Now, through Title IX, the numbers of male and female athletic scholarships are balanced. But the exclusion of the balanced totals of athletic scholarships severely understates the number of "men only" scholarships that each school offered, making the ration of "women only" to "men only" appear much more exaggerated than it actually is.
Moreover, although SAVE reported the number of scholarships, it failed to provide any information on the amount of the scholarships at issue. So there is no way to assess whether the availability of the contested scholarships had any effect at all on men's ability to afford to go to college.
Hmmm. Maybe I should look a little more at who SAVE is:
Looking at the home page, I think the photos of drag queens might be a clue.
Here's their latest press release:
SAVE wrote:Sharing is caring!
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PRESS RELEASE
R. Stewart: 301-801-0608
Email:
information@savesevices.org
Republican Lawmakers Lead National Movement to Thwart the ‘Gender Agenda’
WASHINGTON / March 8, 2023 – The “Gender Agenda” refers to the movement to promote gender transitioning, curtail parental rights, allow biological males to compete in women’s sports, curtail free speech, and diminish due process on college campuses. A major goal of the Gender Agenda is to overhaul the Title IX law to redefine sex to include “gender identity.”
Republican lawmakers across the country have been at the forefront of efforts to stop the Gender Agenda. Following is a listing of measures introduced thus far in Congress in 2023:
Greg Steube: Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act (H.R. 734) [1]
Marjorie Taylor Greene: Protect Children’s Innocence Act (H.R. 8731) [2]
Jeff Van Drew: My Choice, My Child Act of 2023 (H.R. 216) [3]
Julia Letlow: Parents Bill of Rights (H.R.5) [4]
Debbie Lesko: Parental Rights Amendment (H. J. Res 38) [5]
Jim Banks: Protecting Minors from Medical Malpractice Act (H.R. 1276) [6]
Tim Scott: PROTECT Kids Act (S. 200) [7]
Tommy Tuberville: Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023 (S. 613) [8]
In addition, Congressman Jim Banks is spearheading a new group called the House Anti-Woke Caucus, now with over 25 members [9.
The following state-level bills already have been enacted into law in 2023:
Tennessee: SB 0001 – Prohibits minors from receiving puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and transgender surgeries [10]
Tennessee: Hunter Biden 0009 – Outlaws drag shows in public spaces and restricts them to age-appropriate venues [11]
South Dakota: Help Not Harm Act (Hunter Biden 1080) – Prohibits certain medical and surgical interventions on minor patients [12]
Mississippi: Regulate Experimental Adolescent Procedures (REAP) Act (H.B. 1125) – Forbids any person to “knowingly provide gender transition procedures to any person under eighteen years of age” or “engage in conduct that aids or abets” such procedures. [13]
To date, SAVE has identified 82 bills in 28 states, including proposals that address Parental Rights (36 bills), Gender Transitioning (29 bills), and Women’s Sports (16 bills).
At the recent Conservative Political Action Conference held near Washington DC, SAVE sponsored a booth titled, “Stop the Gender Agenda.” [14] At the booth, 377 individuals signed a petition to Stop the Gender Agenda. Signers included the Lieutenant Governor of a southern state, a woman who transitioned to the male sex and later de-transitioned to being female, and other persons from Spain, Peru, Austria, Norway, Sweden, and Japan.
The "gender agenda?" Booth at CPAC? What do drag shows have to do with "Assuring Fairness and Due Process in Schools?"
Maybe I should look at the mission statement:
SAVE’s mission is to assure that every student and faculty member across America is afforded their constitutional protections of fairness and due process, especially in the context of sexual harassment and sexual assault. In particular, SAVE seeks to assure that the federal Title IX law is applied consistently and fairly to all students, both male and female.
Well that sounds good and all, but all of their efforts support men. Conspicuously absent is any effort to even talk about fairness toward women. Although the site proclaims to be non-partisan, all of its efforts are made in support of conservative causes, including all of the moral panic we are observing today.
In fact, SAVE isn't really an organization at all. It's a dba for an organization called The Center for Prosecutor Integrity.
https://www.saveservices.org/about/financials/
http://www.prosecutorintegrity.org Prosecutor Integrity is good. But, reviewing the website, it's clearly a men's rights organization targeting prosecutors for bringing sex abuse cases, including chid abuse cases.
So, what's all the fuss about the scholarships? Well, the SAVE website prominently cites a "Q&A" on Department of Education letterhead. The date of the document? January 14, 2021. For those without a calendar handy, that was six days before Joe Biden was inaugurated. The letter itself is stamped with "ARCHIVED AND NOT FOR RELIANCE This document was issued without the review required under the Department's Rulemaking and Guidance Procedures." That's right. Just an unofficial Q&A that the Department itself cannot rely on for guidance, with no indication of who drafted or approved it.
https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ ... &utm_term=
But the order of events is important. First came SAVE's crusade against women only scholarships. The LA Times article is from 2019. Then, in the last few days of the Trump administration, the Q&A, which just so happens to support SAVE's position, appears. The "magic" Q & A? And if you look at what SAVE actually does, it's primarily lobbying and press releases. It's a right-wing advocacy organization.
So, what the LA Times described as "growing legal attack" on women only scholarship, failed to mention that the source of the "growing legal attack" was the very organization that produced the "study" it cited. It also gave no indication of the organization's actual politics -- men's rights.
But, at least the LA Times provided some context about the scholarships -- context that SAVE completely ignores.
LA Times wrote:UCLA did not exclude men from participating in the two workshops despite the focus on women, campus spokesman Ricardo Vazquez said. Moreover, he added, the institute has held 59 workshops over the last three years and the “vast majority” of participants were men.
“The workshops, though funded in part by federal monies earmarked for the career advancement for women through research-focused networks, did not exclude men either actively or through de facto exclusion,” Vazquez said in a statement.
Other California campuses also denied allegations of sex discrimination. UC Berkeley, under federal review for running a “Girls in Engineering” summer camp for middle school students, said the program was open to all genders. Officials could not provide data on the gender breakdown of the 356 students who participated in the last three years except to say they were “overwhelmingly female.”
Berkeley spokeswoman Janet Gilmore said the university launched the camp more than five years ago to draw more females into the field — only 29% of students enrolled in the engineering college are women. She said Berkeley would change its marketing materials to make clear the summer camp was open to all genders. But the camp will remain known as “Girls in Engineering” in order to specifically invite girls to attend, she said.
Since the late 1990s, women have earned about half of all science and engineering bachelor’s degrees overall, but their achievements vary widely by field. In 2015, they received more than half of all undergraduate degrees in biological sciences, but only 18% in computer sciences and 20% in engineering, according to the National Science Foundation. Women made up more than half of the U.S. college-educated workforce but filled only 28% of science and engineering jobs, according to a report by the NSF in 2018.
Officials at UC Davis, which has been hit with a similar Title IX complaint, believe their STEM programs for middle and high school girls are permitted under 2006 federal rules that widened the door for single-sex K-12 education. Under that expansion, a school may run a single-sex program if it is substantially related to an “important objective” to improve educational achievements, said Sheila O’Rourke, senior campus counsel.
O’Rourke said UC Davis launched the programs in part because research shows that a critical time to spark girls’ interest in STEM fields is middle and high school years. UC Davis offers nearly 100 programs open to all K-12 students — its College of Education runs about 55 of them focused on STEM — and just a handful are geared toward girls, she said.
by the way, SAVE's tactics on the scholarship issue are pretty familiar. They flood the Department of Education with complaints and then threaten to sue because the Department takes too long to respond. in my opinion, that's because they don't give a crap about the scholarships. They hate the Department of Education and will do just about anything to interfere with its functioning. That included challenging scholarships simply because they were named after women. It's really a two-for: they get to vilify and tie up the Department of Education, they also get to fundraise off the outrage they generate.
DT may not follow right-wingers or activists in the "manosphere," but he is perfectly happy to parrot their propaganda when it suits him. That includes citing a "study" that wasn't a study at all conducted by a right-wing advocacy group.
To be perfectly clear: I support Title IX. And, given the sex ratio reversals in university attendance, I expect there may be policies in place at universities that were justified in the past but may not be justified today. And, if a university or college is in violation of Title IX, then it should be brought into compliance. But that's not what SAVE is about: it's about the kind of victimology that the right pretends to be against when they talk about the left. Programs that support and encourage young women to enter fields where they are severely underrepresented is not any kind of crisis. Neither is the existence of similar programs that support and encourage men to become nurses.
The bottom line for me, given that all we have for data is the number of "women only" and "men only" scholarships, is that the percentage of female students that receive scholarships is the same as the percentage of male students that receive scholarships. There is no evidence that the existence of female only scholarships reduces the ability or willingness of young men to apply to and be accepted at colleges.
