🎵Music: Yann Tiersen - The Crossing
We are Survivors
The last podcast that gave me a lasting impression was an interview with Jennifer Fox in the podcast Fresh Air.
As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, (survivor, a term she used to replace the term victim) she has described a rather sophisticated, non black and white narrative of her abusive relationship with her running coach. If you have not listened to this episode, I highly recommend you to listen the whole interview. I don't want my terrible summarization skill to misinterpret the great idea Fox wanted to convey. But there's one thing I remembered so deeply, which is that the word victim has flattened the person who has gone through this ordinary difficulty (it is another empowering word used by Jennifer).
I feel the same way. The word victim is very passive and disheartening, especially when a person didn't have too much experience about the society, he or she is and will be very vulnerable to other people's ill intention. But such a vulnerability is completely normal. We have to acknowledge that terrible things like that will happen. We try our best to protect and educate our kids, but when the thing actually happened, we need to tell them that they're survivor. They've got into the mud, and they've managed to get out. This is empowering. You have survived, you're brave and strong, and you will continue to be a survivor, a fighter, a warrior in the battle of any possible future difficulties.
The Gender Issue
I honestly think that the concept of gender should disappear.
From my previous post Anti-Fragile, I mentioned a book whose name is same as the title. I have found the author's concept intriguing until he made a comment on the reason about why there are more males in the top of almost all fields. He supports Harvard principle Summer's statement that, there's no so much difference on the IQ between men and women, and that the difference is caused by men having more numbers on both ends of the IQ spectrum, and therefore there're more smart men as well as more dumb men than women.
I've found this argument illogical. If we assume Men and Women ratio of 1:1, that is, we have roughly the same amount of women and men on Earth. Given the bell curve, if there are more men on both ends of the spectrum, then the diagram of men's IQ diagram would not necessarily follow a normal bell curve as the women's IQ diagram because somewhere in-between the two ends, the number of males would have to decrease in order to compensate the increase on the both ends of the spectrum. Therefore, if there are more males on both ends of the IQ spectrum, the IQ diagrams of men and women would necessarily display a difference between them.
Women aren't being given that much opportunities to work on those "non-conventional jobs for women" until lately. Even today's developed countries, women in many fields are still being paid less than their same-level male colleagues, and their vocational choices are being influenced by social or cultural norms. (Someone may pull out that high H-index article stating that there are less women chose STEM major in more gender-equal country, trying to prove that women are less talented than men on STEM major, which is the same argument used by that ex-google employee who was complaining that Google lowered the standards for women new hires. No, the logic in that article is that women and men are equally skilled on STEM-related courses, but for women, their talent on Liberal Arts tends to be slightly better than that of STEM. Therefore in more gender-equal countries, there's no too much pressure on living and women are free to choose whatever they feel that they're better at -- which is liberal arts (and this inclination is socially constructed as well). For less gender-equal countries, women are usually being "forced" to enter the STEM field because that's the only way out for them. As conclusion, women have equal talent in STEM as men, and usually have better Liberal Arts talent than men.)
I have stopped reading Anti-Fragile for a while. The theory is very intriguing, but I always wonder, why sometimes a person could be so rigorous and so brilliant on one topic, but at the same time so ignorant on the minority's issues. Same thing for Jordan Peterson, who has very obvious bias and discrimination against trans-genders, and possibly women as well (he can't even name any female role-model when the host asked him in the podcast The Economist Asks). I wonder, why? A PhD, and a professor, they're not stupid, for sure, but they can still be so ignorant on the gender and LGBTQ issues. Is it because they're surrounded by males? By the so called "normal people" too much such that they just can't use their well-rounded logic and critical thinking to even sympathize about those marginalized people? Or is this because they just somehow felt threatened? I don't know. I only know that marginalized people like us don't have too much voice at the top of the fields, and our voice doesn't mean that much, simple as that.
It seems that a degree can't guarantee sympathy, tolerance, and understanding.
Today's Podcast:
Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History -- Sometimes, the history deserves a second chance. If you have not listened to it yet, you're missing out a great deal.