The Force is Female: A BS Story

It's a tricky one.
I don't know much about diversity quotas...is that an option on the table?

My default position is that force and coercion is never inherently legitimate, should always require clear and reasonable justification, and be second in priority to information and education.
But in saying that even I can see the odd circumstance when a short forced nudge toward a better direction may be worth exploring.

When I was a smoker I remember feeling extremely angry and defensive when steps that effected me were taken to change public perception.
I could no longer smoke in bars/nightclubs/beaches, tobacco prices were forcibly raised, packs made to carry gruesome photos of diseases caused by smoking and hidden from sight at store counters.
Now, as a non-smoker for nearly a decade, I enjoy coming home after a night out without clothes reeking of others' smoke, marvel that the smoking rates in my country have dropped by over 50% and am surprised to see the culture shift so dramatically that I can't imagine smoking in restaurants or nightclubs.
It gives me pause about the forcing change issue.

Was the forced intervention worth it to nudge social attitudes?
I dunno...I think so, but there are reasonable arguments on both sides.

What I do know is that, as a privileged white male, I'm happy to leave it up to the less privileged to decide what steps may help gain them equal opportunities and empower others like them.
And if such steps mean I have to shift out the way for a little while to make room for others I'm ok with that - especially if doing so could shift perspectives for another generation.

Edit: Not advocating for anything like diversity quotas here - I don't know anything about such things - just some thoughts.

 

I feel like my own history with groups of people, who (allegedly) fought and won against what is now called "privelege" is such, that I would be a bad idea for me to continue this discussion.
Still, congratulations on quitting smoking. I never started, but still have and addiction or two to beat myself.

 

Quotas have to be viewed as a step, an evolutionary component in the process of equality and representation, not in isolation. Quotas open the doors to women for power and managerial positions in which we normally find a higher ratio of men. Women want and need to contribute more in power decisions in the world and it is paramount that this equality is encouraged. Education and personal qualifications sometimes are just not enough. In order to encourage women to attain certain positions it is needed having more women in those positions so that young women deciding their career paths can witness a substantial amount of other women choosing power careers as a viable option for their gender (people tend to shy away from professions where they don’t see enough representation. This is fact. There are many reasons for this, but an important one is childcare and parental leave. The modern world still has to overcome stigmas of men working in the home or sharing family responsibilities with women. Gender quotas encourage this change.)

Gender quotas are a temporary solution to an imbalance of power that has occurred for many years in even the most modern and developed societies. They are not meant to be a long term solution.

 

Well it's only a problem if you assume the standing aside I was talking about - making room for self-determination by the under-privileged - also entails doing nothing to support them.

I have to tread carefully. There's a thin line between having white men like myself suggesting ways to support those who are ignored and speaking for those who are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves!

 

The NFL has the Rooney Rule which is that a minority candidate has to be interviewed.

 

Thank you for explaining that.

 

The Force is female in French as well. La Force, not le Force. Interesting read, coming late to the show lol.

Being French Canadian, I've experienced discrimination, but admittedly far less then some other minorities. The thing with quotas is that there are both pros and cons. I think (hope) everyone agrees that in a vacuum, we're all equal. Give us the same educated parents, same finances, same quality of teachers ect ect... race, gender ect, none of it matters all that much in most cases. Even when they do, rarely should it be a deal breaker.

The need for quotas arises because we don't live in vacuum. Thus if A's parents are College educated and B's parents are elementary school drop outs, there's going to be a pretty big difference in both their children in most instances (there are always outliers, I'm talking averages). Over time, the only challenged face is no longer simply your parents education, but opportunities due to parents finances (school, tutor, post secondary options, as well as connections and nepotism). We haven't even really gotten into race and gender yet.

So quotas are put into place to change people's perception as much as anything else. Most jobs are not that difficult, given training and the right attitude most people could thrive in most fields. A year into the job, in most cases, most of the hurdles have evaporated. In some cases, a person may be inferior in one portion of the job description only to thrive at another. I looking at police officers. It's not reasonable for a woman to be expected to have the same physical strength as her male counterpart in most cases. However, she'll have skills or simply be particular useful in certain situations more than a male would. Dealing with a rape victim for one example.

In most cases, if you give the minority a chance, they'll thrive. That's not however to say that the white male would not have done well and thrived as well, but as in most things, variety is usually more useful. Because the two hulking white males will likely bring more or less the same skillset while the minority will add a new skill set and not trip or compete with the other but rather further diversify the group or unit. In most cases, that's far more beneficial.

The only issue I have with it, is as they push to get women in, they use strategies like free tuition along with quotas, but only in the male dominated work places. I work in a female dominated work place, and the women here are often very grateful to have a man in their ranks because much like a male dominated work place benefits from the female perspective, a female dominated work place benefits from the male perspective. However, I can often relate well to women who work in male dominated fields, as many of the challenges are similar when facing what I call soft discrimination. Having restrictions or exceptions in your job description due to your gender.

So as white men are facing stiffer competition to get traditional male jobs (unfair isn't quite a wrong statement here, as they need not only be as good as the minority, but clearly better in most if not all facets, and even then they may still lose out based on the need to fill quotas), they are not given an easy avenue or obvious avenue to pursue. All this to say that in the case of gender, I often hear on the radio that women can get free education/tuition in carpentry, mechanics, welding ect... but I don't see the same consideration given to men to pursue careers in nursing, teaching ect... where it would be beneficial to have more diversity there too. But as in all things, squeaky wheel gets the grease, and women's rights activists are much more vocal and organized than that of men's rights activists. Add that women dominate education (at least here in Canada) and you have a similar power issue as women face in other sectors, but in reverse. Of course women will help out their own first. As others have said, human's are tribal, and if women are the tribe you identify with... it stands to reason.

As to the topic of KK and force is female. The media didn't help as, if I recall correctly, the interpretation was not a Nike slogan, but a commentary on where KK wanted to take SW, her take on the Force within the SW universe. They didn't report negatively on it (not that I had seen anyways) but to someone watching the broadcast in passing, they seemed to speak or make a bigger deal out of the SW then they did the ladies and Nike.

 

NFL...



everyone in America needs to watch this...

privileged white males...

women...

African-Americans... etc,..

minorities are encouraged to apply, is one of the shocking truths outlined in this film...

 

Really looking forward to seeing this film.

Minorities are encouraged to apply, but in what exactly?

 

The Colorado Springs Police Department

 

I'll tell you what I find to be even more BS . . . this penchant to divide the Force into categories. First of all, I blame George Lucas for this. But the fans have taken this to ridiculous extreme.

 

I don’t get what you mean here. What categories?

Surely Lucas invented the force. Whatever he does with it is his prerogative.

 

That doesn't mean I have to blindly agree with everything he does . . . or Kennedy, Abrams, Johnson or anyone else. Lucas' creation of the phrase "Dark Side of the Force", I believe, allowed for many people to divide the meaning of the Force into subcategories or label them. Why not just call it . . . the Force - whether it has a good or bad effect?

 

I think Luke in TLJ explained the whole concept quite nicely in his first lesson to Rey: The force is an energy that exists between all things, balanced by powerful light and powerful darkness.

 

Exactly.

 

I never got the impression GL or the ST had divided the force into sub categories though... Surely there is good and evil in the SW universe and the force within this universe has its own brand of good and evil in the light and the dark. It appears however that any user in the force spectrum needs to have a healthy balance of light and dark to become most powerful. The force users with good values veer towards the light, whereas those with evil ones veer towards the dark. That's my take on it after seeing most of the 3 trilogies.