You've been looking in the wrong direction, the dangers are coming from the Left - read OP

People of a certain background tending to lean towrads certain vocations or careers doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be the best person for the job or that they people not from the more popular demographic should be given priority or even advantage. We're on the same page here.

I think this goes back to a question I've asked a few times about this thread's title: exactly what is it that the threats from the left (or right, to quote its sibling thread to)…?

If we're talking society - than it's the rioters and the lies and misinformation spread by Twitter. Not just in Ireland, but it's happened in the US, the UK as well.

If we're talking personal - then you're probably right and a equality and diversity is more going to be more of a threat to the individual. But there's a lot of automatic resentment towards this sometimes. People say equality and diversity as autmoatically being "woke" or something when it's just a step towards anti-discrimination. And people who rant at this are seen as being in favour of discrimination when they're not.

Not really no - it's more (theoretical) basing of policy and opportunity on the stereotypes and trying to combat this.

The biggest threat from the far left is they are the biggest driver of the far right, it's happening in Europe and it will happen here eventually.

Common sense needs to be applied and the far left and far right need to be ignored.

"In your point about useless fathers bailing, in the situations I have seen the kids are better off, are we supposed to force someone who doesn't want the child to be involved and risk danger to a child?"

Up to the courts to decide that. Of course, in Ireland, it's bail out with no consequences. Fathers might just be deadbeats but if they know there's no free lunch, maybe they won't sign up and we'd all be better off.

No, I’m not making your point. Your point is that because women have a more nurturing nature and men have a more competitive nature, this provides an explanation for their choices of vocation (we’re talking about employment, not vocations, there’s a difference), which is, not to put too fine a point on it - a load of nonsense. Men are equally capable of being nurturing as women are competitive. Your argument is a lot of the reason why there exists the stereotype of deadbeat fathers and mothers being perceived as being more capable of providing care for children. That hasn’t always been the case either, there was a time when fathers were granted custody of children by default.

I am not talking about stereotypes, or custody battles, so let's try keep it on topic.

There have been studies conducted for what I am talking about:
Lippa, R. A. (1998). "Gender-related individual differences and the structure of vocational interests: The importance of the 'things–people' dimension" This study investigated the "things vs. people" dimension of vocational interests, finding that men are more likely to prefer careers involving things (e.g., engineering, mechanics), while women prefer careers that involve people (e.g., teaching, nursing).

Browne, K. R. (2006). "Evolved sex differences and occupational segregation": This paper discusses evolutionary explanations for occupational segregation and suggests that sex differences in risk-taking, competitiveness, and nurturing behaviors may result from evolutionary pressures. These traits could explain why men gravitate toward physically demanding jobs and women toward caregiving roles.

Baron-Cohen, S. (2002). "The extreme male brain theory of autism" Baron-Cohen's work suggests that men and women have differing cognitive styles. He posits that men tend to be stronger systemizers (focused on understanding systems and objects), while women tend to be better empathizers (focused on understanding people), which could influence career choices.

So there have been studies conducted on this, as well as other that involve the social norms etc.

Men can of course be nurses, women can of course join the marines. I am not saying there are none of either, just that there are more of a certain sex in each job, and the possible reasons for that.

And no, the sheer numbers involved in any particular industry wouldn’t make your point, all it does is confirm your own cherry-picked biases - like ignoring the fact that the majority of office cleaners (and domestic cleaners for that matter, or childcare workers, another low paid employment), are women. I don’t see hordes of men clamouring for low-paid cleaning or childcare jobs either, seeing as you make the point about how women don’t have any interest in low-paying manual labour jobs which are dominated by men.

What does this attempt to prove? You are using your own cherry picking for this. Why don't we go with oil workers then? Very labour intensive and male dominated, should there be a 50/50 split for that?

More women being nurses than men has nothing to do with war? I’m right about war and the economic impact of war on the domestic labour market in that it meant a scarcity of men to fill jobs which still needed to be done, and so the same jobs were filled by women. That was out of necessity, not because employers had any real choice in the matter if they wished to continue to remain in business. It’s not the least bit odd or surprising that the draft meant there were more men in military service than women. The men weren’t there by choice either, and conscientious objectors were viewed as unpatriotic cowards, until of course the reality of war began to hit close to home. Muhammad Ali as one example, failed to qualify for military service because his writing and spelling skills were sub-standard, but when the standards were lowered (again, out of necessity, not because of any particular impetus towards equality), Ali made a rather obvious observation:

Weird, don't remember mentioning Vietnam, are you cherry picking again?

It is also 2024, if we use Ireland, who is not involved in any war right now, we still see more female nurses. So your tangent about wars would make sense if we were in a war, we are not.

Child support. "Accidentally…" LOL

I am not talking about stereotypes, or custody battles, so let's try keep it on topic. 

You are though, so we’re still very much on topic. Hell I won’t even quibble about the fact that you produce three studies from the same science you were skeptical of earlier (I’m skeptical of a lot of the nonsense churned out in the social and behavioural sciences too tbh); I won’t even quibble about the fact that of the three examples you present - none are from Ireland (seeing as you’re keen to attempt to restrict the discussion to Ireland only, and only then when it suits your purposes).

The primary reason for the discrepancy is simply bias in employment practices - discrimination. We can go with oil workers if you like, a male dominated industry where technology has again reduced much of the need for manual labour, and manpower for that matter, but the real barrier to entry for women isn’t that no women want to do the job - they are actively discouraged and discriminated against in order to keep them out of the job. Those oil companies who do hire women, struggle to retain them because of this:

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/oil-and-gas/our-insights/how-women-can-help-fill-the-oil-and-gas-industrys-talent-gap

I’m not cherry picking at all, ‘twas you who brought up military service, and I figured to be fair to you it was unlikely you were referring to non-combatant roles in the military (Grace Hopper is a cracking example of a woman who contributed plenty not only to the US military, but to the fields of computer science and mathematics - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper ), but seeing as you’re now keen to attempt to restrict the discussion to an Irish context, well that doesn’t help your argument in any way, shape or form whatsoever, because even in Ireland our Defence Forces were for a long time out of step with international employment practices; took women the best part of 20 years after they were first permitted to join the defence forces, to be able to participate without discrimination in all aspects of military service:

But when did women first join the Defence Forces? The slightly misleading answer is 1922, when Dr Brigid Lyons Thornton, a veteran of the revolutionary movement, received a commission from Michael Collins in the provisional government's National Army. Thornton served until a serious bout of tuberculosis ended her military career two years later.

Thornton, however, remained the only woman commissioned in the Defence Forces for almost six decades. By the 1970s, Ireland was out of step with many of its international counterparts when it came to the recruitment of women. Proposals to allow women join the Defence Forces surfaced by the middle of the decade, and a commitment to do so was included in Fianna Fáil's 1977 election manifesto.

…

Recognising the level of dissatisfaction with the status quo, Chief of Staff Lt Gen James Parker convened a board in October 1991 to re-examine the issue. In a belated recognition of the fact that international norms increasingly tended towards full integration of women soldiers, the board recommended that women be allowed to fully participate in all aspects of Defence Forces' duties, including operational work, and to have equal access to the career educational system and promotion opportunities. Restrictions on deployment of women soldiers under arms were lifted in 1993, and the full integration of women was achieved over the remainder of the decade.

https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2023/0502/1380272-ireland-defence-forces-womens-service-corps-equality/

It’s not an unpopular opinion at all, rather it’s the popular opinion (particularly now that abortion is available to women in Ireland in circumstances where it wasn’t before), but should a woman choose to give birth after accidentally tripping and falling on a man’s mickey (cos that’s the only plausible way it would happen accidentally), both parents are obligated in Irish law to provide for the child (or children in the case of multiple births), cos the State certainly doesn’t want to be picking up the tab.

Unfair to who? Children aren’t responsible for the actions of their parents, and because both parents were involved in the child’s conception, both parents are responsible for their children’s welfare. Though as has been pointed out already - there are that small minority of men who don’t want to pay for the candle after dipping their wick, and not accidentally either!

You’re not giving anyone any sort of choice though if you’re suggesting limiting their choices to abortion or single parenthood when the other parent is very much alive and kicking and still dipping his wick without any kind of thought as to the consequences. Abstinence is the only way for anyone, regardless of their sex, to avoid becoming a parent, and should they choose to engage in sexual activity in the knowledge that unintended pregnancy is one of the consequences, they should probably point out how it’s unfair to them before they drop their trousers, and at least give their prospective sexual partners the opportunity to tell the guy to jog on!

I'd support what you'd suggest. However, he gets no vote and if the woman chooses to continue the pregnancy, he has to pay. Fortunately the women have some rights to abortion in Ireland, not enough, but again a discussion item for other threads.

As to accidental, well, no. But that's not worth debating. By now people know how this works.

I am not, you are bringing in points that have no relevance, as always. I am not skeptical of science at all, I am skeptical of branches of science, you are either twisting my worlds or being silly on that one. What does it matter if they are from Ireland…Ireland has men and women as well. You are making no sense.

That’s what I said - that you produced three studies from the same science you were skeptical of earlier. Your exact words were:

Hold on, Equality studies is a branch of science? What???

That’s brilliant! 😂😂😂

And yet here you are producing equality studies from the social and behavioural sciences to demonstrate that there are studies which attempt to examine and explain social and behavioural differences between the sexes.


You sure it has nothing to do with the insane physical toll it take on a human to be a rigger or work on a drilling site? Getting covered in oil, dirt, sand, lubricant, and working 16 hour days repeatedly? You think it is discrimination? Best of luck with that.

I’m very sure, it’s why as well as making the point that modern technology has removed much of the manual labour and manpower that was previously required in the industry, I provided evidence that there still exists discrimination and prejudice against women which prevents their employment and advancement in the industry. Your point about the insane physical toll it takes on a human to be a rigger or work on a drilling site applies equally to men as it does women, which is why there has been increasing regulation introduced in the industry, not just for the benefit of women, but for the benefit of men too in an industry where previously men were simply regarded as a cheap and plentiful supply of labour, and no regard was given to either the short-term or long-term effects on their physical and mental health. That’s just not the case any more, and employers are required to provide health and safety training to employees in order to reduce the risk of injury and death.

Getting covered in oil, sand and lubricant is the least of anyone’s concerns. When I worked in a similar industry where I came home daily covered in oil, sand and industrial grease, my jeans would stand up on their own with the amount of grease because I refused to wear overalls which appeared to have been made to fit children, they were that restrictive. Dirt wasn’t an issue for me, it was definitely an issue for the guy who did my bag laundry, and he charged through the nose accordingly. That was of course when jeans were made from quality material and not the cheap shìt being produced in Vietnam for half-nothing and sold for eye-watering profits here in Ireland nowadays.

One example, well done. Pretty sure you can find other examples of men in the military that have achieved great things also, or should we be ignoring that?

Well the reason I used the example of Grace Hopper in that context is because I was making the point that I understood it was unlikely you were referring to non-combatant roles in military service, so I didn’t bring her up previously in relation to women’s involvement in STEM, precisely because it is just one example, an anecdote, much like I could of course provide similar anecdotes and examples of men in the military who achieved great things also, like Einstein and Oppenheimer (stripped of his security credentials for being suspected of being a Communist Lefty! He was a Lefty, not a Communist), or Alan Turing, who broke the German Enigma machine, changing the course of the war before the British Government changed the course of his life by imprisoning him for gross indecency (Turing was convicted on the basis of committing homosexual acts which were prohibited by law at the time), receiving a posthumous pardon from the British Government some 60 years later:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing_law

“Oops!”, and “mistakes were made”, doesn’t quite seem to excuse their actions would you think? They certainly ignored the discrimination for long enough and caused many men and women to suffer unnecessarily in order to uphold their beliefs about men and women, ignoring and even going out of their way to suppress evidence which contradicted their beliefs about men and women and what they needed everyone to believe in order to keep up appearances. It wasn’t quite as detrimental as the DADT policy, but that was still “don’t ask, don’t tell”, which was just another means by which to uphold an imaginary idea that required people to ignore reality in order to uphold and maintain the illusion.

Took them 20 years to join, ok you can have that. And what are your excuses for the lack of numbers now? Since 1977, why isn't there a 50/50 split?

I think you have this whole thing arseways. I don’t have to come up with excuses for the lack of numbers now, I don’t care for your explanations of the lack of numbers either. The whole point of the conversation is that historically women were denied opportunities on the basis of beliefs about the differences between men and women, differences which it was argued meant women just wouldn’t be able to do what men are doing, and so they shouldn’t be let do what men are doing. The shortage of men who are willing and able to do what men previously were given not much choice in doing (either do it or go to prison were their choices), doesn’t make any difference as to whether or not women are capable of doing the very same job. The military forces biggest issue now, and it’s an issue for military forces the world over, is the prevalence of fatties among their ranks 🤨

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10674729/

The Defence Forces said it was not possible to provide a gender or age breakdown of failure rates, but that different metrics applied depending on age bracket, with higher expectations for younger troops.

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/nearly-250-soldiers-failed-fitness-32564112.amp

How convenient indeed that they couldn’t provide a gender or age breakdown of failure rates and the metrics applied depending on age bracket 😏

Would you say they were cherry-picking? I would 😂

Which of the Left parties support increased funding for Gardai and Defence forces?

the current lot increased funding in recent budget

Both

Gardai and prisons details here

Defence forces here in 2023 budget tho I remember reading something about 2024 goodies too

edit 2024 here