Discrimination against Men

453 Pages·2009·1.43 MB·English

Pasi Malmi
Discrimination Against Men
Appearance and Causes
in the Context of a Modern Welfare State
Academic Dissertation to be publicly defended
under permission of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Lapland
in the Mauri Hall
on Friday 6th of February 2009 at 12
Acta Electronica Universitatis Lapponiensis 39
University of Lapland
Faculty of Social Sciences
Copyright: Pasi Malmi
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ISBN 978-952-484-279-2
ISSN 0788-7604
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Abstract
Malmi Pasi
Discrimination against Men: Appearance and Causes in the Context of a Modern Welfare State
Rovaniemi: University of Lapland, 2009, 453 pp., Acta Universitatis Lapponinsis 157
Dissertation: University of Lapland
ISSN 0788-7604 ISBN 978-952-484-279-2
The purpose of the work is to examine the forms of discrimination against men in Finland in a manner
that brings light also to the appearance of this phenomenon in other welfare states. The second goal
of the study is to create a model of the causes of discrimination against men. According to the model,
which synthesizes administrative sciences, gender studies and memetics, gender discrimination is
caused by a mental diff erentiation between men and women. This diff erentiation tends to lead to
the segregation of societies into masculine and feminine activities, and to organizations and net-
works which are dominated by either men or by women. The organizations dominated by men will
tend to develop ideologies and cultures which emphasize the superiority of men over women, whilst
women’s organizations and networks tend to glorify women, and exaggerate the defi ciencies of men.
This bias is likely to evolve in all religions, ideologies, sciences and professions which are dominated
either by men or by women. The evolution and reproduction of the feminine and masculine biases
is caused by a feedback loop, in which mental memes such as norms, role expectations, attitudes,
beliefs and paradigms manifest themselves into cultural memes of masculinity and femininity, such
as habits, traditions, advertisements, discourses and texts. This reproductive loop is completed by
the manner in which people interpret and imitate the cultural memes that they recognize around
themselves.
The evolution of mental and cultural memes tends to favor simple and attractive memes. The
attractiveness of memes is substantially aff ected by their coherence with popular memeplexes, dis-
courses and paradigms. Those memes that are anomalous to dominant paradigms and memeplexes
tend to be fi ltered out in the process of memetic reasoning, which is a chaotic combination of fuzzy
logic, Chinese whispers, and an intentional twisting of memes. Another consequence of memetic
reasoning is the tendency of exaggerated, simplifi ed and mutated memes to replace their original
memetic “ancestors” that have been developed within rational and coherent scientifi c or political par-
adigms. This tendency towards mutations makes it possible that two seemingly opposing discourses
such as sexism and feminism emit memes that recombine into misandric memeplexes such as the
reverse strategy which considers women better and more valuable than men. In the same fashion,
some welfare state ideologies such as the general idea of favoring the disadvantaged tend to mu-
tate and corrupt into misinterpretations which cause harm either to men or to women. An example
of such corruption is the evolution of the memeplex of reverse discrimination, which proposes the
wide and practically permanent usage of double standards in favor of women, and which diff ers from
the more moderate memeplex of positive action.
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When this is all summed up, we may predict that modern welfare states tend to be simultane-
ous patriarchies and matriarchies in such a fashion that women have a high chance of being dis-
criminated in male dominated organizations and fi elds of activity, while men will be discriminated
by female dominated organizations and fi elds of activity. These predictions were evaluated in a study
that analyzed 1149 complaints and other requests of action sent to the Finnish equality ombuds-
man’s offi ce 1997–2004. In more than one third of the potential or confi rmed cases of discrimination,
the discrimination appeared against men. Men seem to have a two times higher chance of being
discriminated in issues concerning the treatment of customers, both by private and public organiza-
tions. Women seem to have a three times higher chance of being discriminated on the labor market
than men, in general. However, male employees seem to have a 3–9 times higher chance of being
discriminated in those fi elds of activity, in which the majority of employees and managers are women
(e.g. social services and healthcare).
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Contents
Thanks 15
1 Topic of Study and the Research Mission 17
1.1 Topic of Study and Its Relevance 17
1.2 Research Mission and the Specifi c Research Tasks 18
1.3 Positioning the Work among Existing Studies 19
1.4 Personal Standpoint 21
1.5 The Structure of the Thesis 22
1.6 Research Data and Methods of the Empirical Studies 23
2 Conceptual Analysis of Discrimination and Modern Welfare States 24
2.1 Central Concepts Relating to Gender Discrimination 24
2.1.1 Discrimination and equality in general 24
2.1.2 Structural discrimination, formal equality, and substantive equality 25
2.1.3 Positive action and reverse discrimination 25
2.1.4 Reversed burden of proof 26
2.1.5 Direct, indirect and structural gender discrimination 27
2.1.6 Misogyny and misandry 28
2.2 Modern Welfare States 30
2.2.1 Welfare states 30
2.2.2 Modernity and modern welfare states 31
2.2.3 Femocrats, gender mainstreaming, and femocracy 34
2.3 Explicating the Scope of the Thesis 35
3 Introduction to the Discrimination of Men and its Causes 36
3.1 Gender Roles and Structural Discrimination 36
3.2 Hegemonic Masculinity as the Oppressor of Men and Women 38
3.3 Industrial Capitalism as a Discriminator of Men 39
3.4 Feminism as a Potential Discriminator of Men 41
3.5 Women as Exploiters of the Chivalrous Men 43
3.6 Finnish Statistics Concerning the Impacts of Structural Discrimination on Men 45
3.6.1 Introduction 45
3.6.2 Dropping out of the society 46
3.6.2 Men’s health problems and lowered life time expectancy 47
3.7 Summary 48
4 A Synthetic Theory of Socio-Cultural Evolution 51
4.1 Introduction 51
4.2 Overview 52
4.2.1 Central concepts 52
4.2.2 The determinants of sociocultural evolution 56
4.3 Functional Pressure 57
4.3.1 Introduction 57
4.3.2 Earlier theories of functional selection 58
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4.3.3 The combined eff ects of economic, coercive, reproductive and cognitive
selection 59
4.3.4 The signifi cance of functional selection in the context of the welfare states 62
4.4 Unintentional Biases as Shapers of Memes 63
4.4.1 Introduction 63
4.4.2 Cognitive, linguistic and communicational biases 63
4.4.3 Emotional and social psychological biases 68
4.4.4 Memetic reasoning 70
4.5 Social Groups, Power and Interest Group Bias 71
4.5.1 Introduction 71
4.5.2 The elements and consequences of power 71
4.5.3 An empirically oriented typology of power resources 75
4.5.4 The connections from memes and power to discrimination 79
4.6 Metamemes and Paradigms as Shapers of Other Memes 81
4.6.1 Introduction 81
4.6.2 Paradigms and other metamemes 82
4.6.3 The evolution of theoretical paradigms 86
4.7 The Role of Organizations and Media in Sociocultural Evolution 92
4.7.1 Introduction 92
4.7.2 The vertical and horizontal aggregation of organizational memes 93
4.7.3 The change of organizational memes 96
4.7.4 Organizational clusters 98
4.8 The Success Factors of Memes and the Degeneration of Scientifi c Knowledge 99
4.8.1 Summary of the success factors of a meme 99
4.8.2 The degeneration of scientifi c knowledge in modern societies 102
4.9 Predicting the Evolution of the Welfare States 108
4.9.1 The central memeplexes of the welfare state ideology 108
4.9.2 Functional selection and the macro level trends of welfare states 108
4.9.3 Interest groups and discourses as determinants of the future of
welfare states 112
4.10 Summary 115
5 Applying the Theory to Gender Discrimination 118
5.1 Introduction 118
5.2 Identifying the Memeplexes and Biases that Cause Gender Discrimination 119
5.2.1 Mental and cultural memeplexes 119
5.2.2 Sociostructural memes as causes of gender discrimination 122
5.2.3 A typology of the biases that cause gender discrimination 127
5.3 Functional Selection as a Determinant of the Gendered Memes 128
5.3.1 Functional selection in primitive and agrarian societies 128
5.3.2 Functional selection in the industrial and post industrial societies 130
5.4 The Feminine and Masculine Bias as Causes of Gender Discrimination 133
5.4.1 Introduction 133
5.4.2 The gendering of the cognitive and linguistic biases 133
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5.4.3 The emotional and social psychological gender bias 137
5.4.4 Masculine and feminine biases as shapers of facts 140
5.4.5 Examples of the discriminative eff ects of the masculine and feminine
biases 141
5.5 Feminism and Masculism as Causes of Gender Discrimination 143
5.5.1 The cooperation and competition between feminism and masculism 143
5.5.2 Sexist masculism and male chauvinism as causes of the bad status of
women 144
5.5.3 Sexist branches of feminism as a cause of the bad status of men 149
5.5.4 Anti-sexist masculism as a cause of the bad status of women 152
5.5.5 Anti-sexist forms of feminism as a cause of men’s bad status 155
5.6 The Coexistence of Patriarchy and Matriarchy in Modern Welfare States 158
5.6.1 The accumulation of power to men and women 158
5.6.2 The accumulation of gender bias into organizations 159
5.6.3 The accumulation of bias to the patriarchal and matriarchal subsystems
of the society 163
5.6.4 The discrimination of men and women in the patriarchal and matriarchal
subsystems 167
5.7 Discrimination of Beta Males and Females by the Society 170
5.7.1 The basic model 170
5.7.2 The eff ect of alpha males and females on the masculist and feminist
biases 173
5.8 The Connection of Welfare State Ideologies to Gender Discrimination 175
5.8.1 Introduction 175
5.8.2 Welfare states as patriarchal discriminators of women 175
5.8.3 Misandry and matriarchy as a future scenario of the welfare states 177
5.8.4 Mixed scenarios 181
5.8.5 Preliminary predictions concerning the future of gender discrimination in
welfare states 182
5.9 Summary 184
6 Locating the Patriarchal and Matriarchal Subsystems of the Finnish Society 188
6.1 Introduction 188
6.1.1 Purpose of the chapter 188
6.1.2 Initial hypotheses 188
6.1.3 Research method and research data 189
6.2 The Gender Distribution of Power Resources in the Public Sphere 190
6.2.1 Operationalization of the power resources 190
6.2.6 Manpower 192
6.2.3 Managerial positions of power 193
6.2.4 Academic and professional know-how 196
6.2.5 Formal resources of political power 198
6.2.6 Social resources of power 199
6.2.7 The qualitative resources of power in the public sphere 205
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6.3 Resources of Power in the Private Sphere 210
6.3.1 Solving the Problems of Operationalization 210
6.3.2 Wealth 212
6.3.3 Income and consumption 213
6.3.4 Fear of violence and the incidence of intimate partner violence 215
6.3.5 The gender distribution of free time 217
6.3.6 Ability to speak up in a relationship 219
6.4 Summary 219
7 An Empirical Examination of the Memeplexes, Discourses and Coalitions that Induce
Discrimination against Men 224
7.1 Introduction 224
7.1.1 Hypotheses 224
7.1.2 Original research data 225
7.1.3 Methodological background 226
7.1.4 Description of the heuristic research cycle 227
7.1.5 Discourse analysis of the popularity and signifi cance of memes 229
7.1.6 Description of the research data collected by the pilot survey 231
7.2 Sexism and Sexist Sciences as Discriminators of Men 231
7.2.1 Introduction and overview 231
7.2.2 Sexist stereotypes of men and women as a cause of discrimination 232
7.2.3 Macho masculinity and alpha females as discriminators of men 235
7.2.4 Chivalry and gentlemanly codes 237
7.2.5 Maternalism and psychoanalysis as discriminators of men 240
7.2.6 Sexist interpretations of Darwinism, sociobiology and the brain research 243
7.2.7 The sexist discrimination of men in criminal court 245
7.3 Discourses of Patriarchy, Male Dominance and Reverse Discrimination 247
7.3.1 Introduction 247
7.3.2 The belief in male dominance and patriarchal oppression of women 248
7.3.3 Feminist equality policy as a conclusion from the theory of patriarchy 259
7.3.4 Epistemological and methodological conclusions from the theory of
patriarchy 274
7.4 Putting Women and Femininity above Men and Masculinity 280
7.4.1 Introduction and overview 280
7.4.2 All men pose a threat to women in the form of rape and violence 282
7.4.3 Men are irresponsible and selfi sh pigs 292
7.4.4 The valuation of women and femininity above men and masculinity 295
7.4.5 The belief in the superior value of women’s lives, safety and comfort 299
7.5 Double Standards that Lead to Discrimination 303
7.5.1 The origins of the misandric and discriminative double standards 303
7.5.2 Summarizing and explicating some double standards described so far 305
7.5.3 Misandric double standards 306
7.5.4 The favoring of female clients in recreational services 315
7.5.5 The discrimination of men at the core of the matriarchy 317
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7.6 Results of the Pilot Survey 328
7.6.1 Introduction 328
7.6.2 Popularity of some sexist memes 328
7.6.3 Popularity of the memes concerning the patriarchal nature of the Finnish
society 330
7.6.4 Policy recommendations 331
7.6.5 Conclusions 333
7.7 The Coalitions behind Misandry and Discrimination 334
7.7.1 Introduction and overview 334
7.7.2 Conservative parties 335
7.7.3 Alpha males and alpha females 336
7.7.4 Mistreated women 336
7.7.5 Left wing parties and feminist parties 337
7.7.6 Women’s organizations 338
7.7.7 The Matriarchal Organizations of the Society 340
7.8 Summary 341
8 Gender Discrimination, According to the Complaints Sent to the Finnish Equality
Ombudsman 346
8.1 Hypotheses, Research Data and Method 346
8.1.1 Hypotheses 346
8.1.2 Target and context of the study 347
8.1.3 Research data and method 348
8.1.4 Classifi cation of customers and outcomes 349
8.1.5 Delineation of the primary research data 351
8.2 Quantitative Overview and the Gender Distribution of Complaints 353
8.2.1 The outcomes of the complaints 353
8.2.2 The contexts of the complaints 355
8.2.3 The fi eld of activity of the suspected discriminator 357
8.2.4 Eff ects of the fi eld of activity to the discrimination of employees 360
8.2.5 The vertical segregation of the society 363
8.2.6 Is the public sector more female friendly than the private? 365
8.2.7 Summary of the evaluation of the main hypotheses 367
8.3 The Themes and Motives of Discrimination 369
8.3.1 Introduction to the classifi cation of themes and motives 369
8.3.2 Labor market 372
8.3.3 Customers of Enterprises 378
8.3.4 Administrative Customers 384
8.3.5 Discriminative Laws 389
8.3.6 Diverse themes 392
8.3.7 Combined themes 395
8.4 Summarizing the Memetic Causes of Gender Discrimination 396
8.4.1 Review on the validity of the ratings on likely motives 396
8.4.2 The median values of motives in the diff erent themes 397
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8.4.3 The appearance and frequency of the motives 401
8.5 Summary 403
9 Summary of Contributions 406
9. 1 Contributions to Discourse Analysis and Memetics 406
9.2 Contributions to Gender Studies and Sociology 407
9.3 Contributions to Administrative Sciences 408
9.4 Implications to the equality policy on the EU level, and predictions about
the future of gender discrimination in the welfare states 411
9.5 Suggestions for Additional Research 413
Sources 415