US Presidential Candidates

thinkstoomuch wrote:This is an interesting article on Hillary Clinton.

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-35526459

Not a problem my limited imagination envisioned.

T2M

USA has a very strict male/female cultural divide.
I believe it is actually easier to "break the (gender-)norms" even in classically "macho" cultures like Italy and Spain, than it is in USA.

To make a very simple comparison of actual facts as a showcase of it, USA has dramatically more pregnancies among its females in military service than anywhere else, including services with more gendermixing.

Several years ago, there was an investigation(that was soon turned "unofficial" and buried as it became too uncomfortable) which found that males were drastically less capable of "acting professionally" if females were part of the same unit, while the females felt group pressure to not reject advances(because then they were by default "frigid bitches", among other things).

Both issues were found to be mostly or completely absent when small comparative reviews were made with a few allied militaries(UK, France and Germany IIRC).


It´s the same thing as with how a voter(BOTH male and female) might respond that they wouldn´t vote for a woman on the basis of "she´s ugly/has weird hair/isn´t a good enough mother or wife/etc(personal reasons suddenly taking precedence or felt more strongly)", reasons for not voting that is drastically less common in regards to male candidates.
This weird prejudice exists in lots of places, but USA has it much stronger than here in W./N. Europe.
Strangely, it is actually stronger than in a few places where women are outright considered 2nd rate people.

Tenshinai wrote:

thinkstoomuch wrote:This is an interesting article on Hillary Clinton.

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-35526459

Not a problem my limited imagination envisioned.

T2M

USA has a very strict male/female cultural divide.
I believe it is actually easier to "break the (gender-)norms" even in classically "macho" cultures like Italy and Spain, than it is in USA.

To make a very simple comparison of actual facts as a showcase of it, USA has dramatically more pregnancies among its females in military service than anywhere else, including services with more gendermixing.

Several years ago, there was an investigation(that was soon turned "unofficial" and buried as it became too uncomfortable) which found that males were drastically less capable of "acting professionally" if females were part of the same unit, while the females felt group pressure to not reject advances(because then they were by default "frigid bitches", among other things).

Both issues were found to be mostly or completely absent when small comparative reviews were made with a few allied militaries(UK, France and Germany IIRC).


It´s the same thing as with how a voter(BOTH male and female) might respond that they wouldn´t vote for a woman on the basis of "she´s ugly/has weird hair/isn´t a good enough mother or wife/etc(personal reasons suddenly taking precedence or felt more strongly)", reasons for not voting that is drastically less common in regards to male candidates.
This weird prejudice exists in lots of places, but USA has it much stronger than here in W./N. Europe.
Strangely, it is actually stronger than in a few places where women are outright considered 2nd rate people.

Those sorts of surveys/interviews etc are very difficult to conduct properly. It's not socially acceptable to have such a bias, so often what you wind up measuring is not the level of prejudice but 1) people's willingness to admit to it or 2) people's self knowledge.

The one type of test that I like the best is the implicit bias surveys. That is where the take the same resume/application etc etc and send out 2 copies one with a male name, one with a female. I tend to like this type of study because it picks up both conscious and subconscious biases and it's less susceptible to people's unwillingness to admit it.

Incidentally, in the USA almost always the male resume/application will get more positive responses than the female one even from female respondents. So there is still prejudice, however it is a vast improvement over a generation ago where people could be openly biased.

My favorite of all of those studies was one where the author sent them to liberal college professors and it turns out that the holier than thou professors were as prejudiced as anyone else.





In Hilary's case the problem seems to be not so much that she is female but that

1) She is seen as untrustworthy

2) She is part of the establishment in a non-establishment year

3) She doesn't have the charisma of a natural politician

And is compounded by the fact that she is not seen by young feminists as a genuine feminist. They tend to view her not as a role model but more as a me first sociopath who happens to have 2 X chromosomes.

I'm curious to see how Hilary vs Bernie plays out in Nevada. The most recent Nevada poll was December. Hilary 50 Bernie 30 Undecided 20. I suspect in this case the undecideds translate into Bernie's national problem of our hearts are with Bernie but our heads are with Hilary. No Nevada polls (or for that matter national ones) have been taken after Bernie's Iowa tie and New Hampshire victory, so it'll be interesting to see what happens.

For those outside the USA. Next up for the Democrats is Nevada. Next up for the Republicans is South Carolina. They two parties primaries/caucuses in those states aren't being held at the same time.

Which incidentally is stupid from the financial point of view. It costs $$$ to hold elections and the more elections that are held the more $$$ the states have to spend since they will be duplicating some of the costs.

I read an interesting article about how the super delegates are likely to screw the Dem's if Bernie wins the popular vote as much as the RNC is likely to be screwed by the party bosses if the Donald comes out ahead.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

One thing that I have trouble understanding is the caliber of the candidates. The US has 200m plus people, despite jokes about education the people must be better educated than the majority of countries, first world communication systems, brilliant people who invent computer systems and spaceships; yet look at the standard of candidates from both sides over the past few elections. The brighter ones seem to be sidelined early in many cases.

The US also has a deep cultural mistrust against the educated.

Annachie wrote:I read an interesting article about how the super delegates are likely to screw the Dem's if Bernie wins the popular vote as much as the RNC is likely to be screwed by the party bosses if the Donald comes out ahead.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

yep. They already did in New Hampshire. Bernie won by a 60/40 split. A huge margin! Hilary got more delegates because of the superdelegates. So even though the New Hampshire voters voted 60/40 for Bernie, Hilary won New Hampshire. If this continues BERNIE COULD WIN EVERY SINGLE STATE BY A 60/40 MARGIN AND STILL LOSE THE NOMINATION.

Daryl wrote:One thing that I have trouble understanding is the caliber of the candidates. The US has 200m plus people, despite jokes about education the people must be better educated than the majority of countries, first world communication systems, brilliant people who invent computer systems and spaceships; yet look at the standard of candidates from both sides over the past few elections. The brighter ones seem to be sidelined early in many cases.

yep. It's especially bad with the Dems this year. The better candidates weren't even running!

If I could design a perfect candidate (leaving ideology out of it). I would design him/her to be all of the following:

1. A governor (governors are the closest thing to president, so good job training)
2. High IQ
3. High EQ
4. At least 4 years of active duty military experience and some combat zone experience (the president is commander and chief, The perfect president should have at least some personal concept of what that means)
5. Some experience doing something notable outside of the government
6. Accomplished something notable in government

Daryl wrote:One thing that I have trouble understanding is the caliber of the candidates. The US has 200m plus people, despite jokes about education the people must be better educated than the majority of countries, first world communication systems, brilliant people who invent computer systems and spaceships; yet look at the standard of candidates from both sides over the past few elections. The brighter ones seem to be sidelined early in many cases.

Quite simple, really. The political party machine does not put forward true leaders, only apparatchiks. Early in the nomination process, they'll allow rabble-rousers (Trump, Sanders, etc.) in order to fire up the electorate on emotional issues and distract them from the political money machinery in the background. It's our fault, we let them get away with it.

The E wrote:The US also has a deep cultural mistrust against the educated.

No, its a cultural mistrust of academia as captured by the adage; those that can, do; those that can't, teach. Being educated is fine so long as one is also competent navigating the vagaries life in the real world. All else being equal, real life competence trumps education all day long.