Masculinity contest cultures

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote Republicans can’t decide if Biden is senile or superhuman. They’ve been portraying Biden as senile every chance they get (have you heard that Biden is old?). Then Biden does something, like his State of the Union address in March which showed him vigorous and with a competent mind. So what to do? Accuse Biden of being on drugs. Several have proposed Biden be given a drug test just before Thursday’s debate (of course, no need to give on to the nasty guy). Claiming Biden is on drugs is an all purpose excuse. On NPR this evening I heard it phrased as “performance-enhancing drugs,” which athletes take for physical improvements. Thankfully, NPR was reporting on the Republican tactic, not buying into it. Sumner wrote:

But the silliest thing about all this may be the idea that there are “performance-enhancing drugs” someone can take to overcome dementia. The sad fact that millions of American families face every day is that most forms of dementia are a one-way street. Treatments may slow the progress of the condition, but nothing can pull someone back once they have gone far down that path. All the stimulants in [Trump doctor Ron] Jackson’s little black bag can’t drag someone from the kind of senile state that Fox News and Republicans claim Biden lives in and restore them to vigorous, determined competence. If only it were possible. Everyone would love to lay their hands on these magic pills.

I would have definitely given those magic pills to my mother, if they existed. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Jerusalem Demsas of The Atlantic and her interview of Dr. Alice Evans about the increased sexism of young men worldwide. Part of the issue is young men are facing such things as higher home prices and differing outcomes for men with and without college degrees. Another factor is because women have increased opportunities they are able to reject men that don’t give them enough economic security, love, respect, or even fun. These women don’t have to “make do” with what society expects. Wrote Evans:

They’re guys with emotions—and nobody wants to be ghosted, to be rejected, to feel unwanted. So if men go on these dating apps, and they’re not getting any likes, and even if they speak to her, when she doesn’t have the time of day, it just bruises and grates at your ego, your sense of worth. And so then, men may turn to podcasts or YouTube, and if you look at that manosphere, if you look at what people are talking about, it’s often dating. And so they’re often saying, Oh, women have become so greedy. They’re so materialistic...

In the comments exlrrp posted memes to show a church (likely Catholic) where the Ten Commandments are not displayed. And they would not be displayed in the nasty guy’s prison cell. In a second comment exlrrp posted a photo of the sign on a Grace United Methodist Church that says, “If your version of Christianity wants to put the 10 Commandments in schools but take free lunches out of them, you are worshiping something other than Jesus.” Pedro Molina posted a cartoon on Kos. An elephant in a pinstripe suit is in a classroom pointing to the Ten Commandments posted behind him. He says to a schoolboy, “...And do you know what happens to those who break them?” They boy replies, “They become your presidential candidate!” Back in mid May Wailin Wong and Adrian Ma of NPR’s Planet Money talked to June Carbone, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who was one of the authors of the book Fair Shake: Women And The Fight To Build A Just Economy. Carbone and colleagues saw that efforts to close the gender pay gap between men and women college grads had been stalled for about 30 years. And it didn’t look like old fashioned sexism. What the researchers found is a winner-take-all approach to business that wasn’t so widespread 30 years ago. Ma said:

Companies that adopt a winner-take-all approach prioritize winning at all costs. They do ethically questionable or sometimes straight-up illegal things in pursuit of short-term goals, like pumping up the stock price.

Carbone explained why this put women at a disadvantage:

First, if you don't compete on the same terms as the men, you lose. Second, if you do compete on the same terms as the men, you lose because women are disproportionately punished.

An example: Women in finance are less likely than men to commit financial misconduct. And if they do they are more likely to be to be fired. Ma said these kinds of work environments are “masculinity contest cultures.” They attract people who tend to engage in high levels of sexual harassment, bullying, and favoritism. The companies can’t maintain diversity because they push women out. Carbone and co-authors argue for changes to reduce winner-take-all culture, “like people speaking out against abusive behavior, more gender diversity, government investment in childcare and paid family leave, and stronger regulation of misbehaving companies.” I see increasing gender diversity will be difficult in an organization that tends to push women out. And men tend not to speak out against abusive behavior because they want to participate in it. Mark Sumner of Kos, as part of his 7 stories post included at the bottom a video by Mr. Who’s the Boss explaining the “ensh**ification” of the internet, or why the internet is getting worse. He started with Uber as an example, then explained that many other internet companies do the same things. The video is 25 minutes. When Uber started they made it really easy and cheap for the rider. Soon riders thought the service was essential. Then the made it better for the driver to sign up more of them and lock them in. Then it made it better for the shareholder – how to get the most out of customers and spend least on suppliers. They introduced tiering. That means better service if one pays more. If it stopped there that is good. But it soon meant worse service for those that didn’t pay more. Then they began to hide or misdirect the true price. So it was to find what is the worst service at the highest price before we scare off the customer. Now that there are a lot fewer taxis the Uber price is more expensive than taxis were. Add to that a subscription, giving one a discount. It makes the customer more loyal. But soon fewer things are included in the subscription. An example is Amazon charging for shipping that is supposed to be included and defaulting to the slower and cheaper shipping method, hoping the customer doesn’t notice. Facebook knows it has you because leaving is social suicide. So Facebook shows ads and other content not because it thinks that’s what you want (though many times it is) but what makes Facebook the most money. Then there are dark patterns. The biggest is how difficult it is to unsubscribe. He had an example of how difficult it could be. Add to that the free month – which requires a credit card – that they hope you forget about when it comes time to start billing. Streaming services used to be a great deal. Except now one needs to subscribe to several to get all the hit shows. The more there are the worse each one gets. He found he was paying over a 1000 pounds a month for all the streaming services. Things one can do: When trying a service for that free month subscribe, then immediately turn off auto renew (or unsubscribe). Instead of paying for all the streaming service every month, rotate between them. As part of planning my summer travels that include New York City and a couple Broadway shows I got an email showing where previous Broadway hits can be found on streaming services. Some were recorded straight off the stage, some rewritten as movies. Many I thought were intriguing turned out to not make the transition well. One that did was a show I saw on tour in Detroit. It is the musical Come From Away and I wrote about how much I loved it here. The story is straightforward. The 9/11 terrorist attacks closed US airspace. Planes already in the air had to go somewhere. The town of Gander, Newfoundland, population of 10 thousand, had been a refueling station on trans-Atlantic flights before the time of jets. When the US airspace closed Gander suddenly had 6,500 guests to care for until the airspace reopened several days later. The guests were amazed at how well they were treated. So when I heard the stage version had been filmed I wanted to share so you can see it too. Come From Away is on Apple+. And if I get a subscription to Apple+ (keeping the suggestions above in mind) I just might enjoy it again.