Sex Discrimination - One time I talking to a female friend in the gym about my dating situation, and I somewhat flippantly referred to myself as "sexist". She was shocked - to her "sexism" meant, basically, "evil". I had to explain that it was a word with a specific definition, to wit (m-w.com):

1 : prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women
2 : behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex

I was not interested in dating men; without knowing them or even meeting them once I was ruling them out as possible partners. That is discrimination. Since it is discrimination based on sex, it is sexism. Once I explained that to her, you could see the little lightbulb go on.

Sexism isn't (always) evil. That people think so today indicates more than just a random shift in English usage. It indicates how much of what used to be private is now public.

With that in mind, two minor issues of the day. First up: Annika Sorenstam. There is much handwringing amongst the paleoconservatives about her entry into a "male" tournament. Of course who plays is up to the (private) tournament; everyone agrees on that. Still, isn't there an issue of fairness here? If "we" let her in, don't women's tourneys have to admit men? For example, Fred Reed:

What I don't see is why the club should let women compete against men in the first place. Sure, it sounds like high principle and real fair and American, like Superman. But I notice that all this fairness is one-sided. If men wanted to shoot in ladies' clubs, or play in the women's golf tournaments, every feminist and all her litter-mates would go crazy. Na-a-wwww, that wouldn't be fair.

It seems like women want to compete with the men when they think they can win, but want protection from male competition when they can't, which in sports is usually.

Yes. If we let women join men's tournaments but not vice-versa, it's not fair. But then, neither is it fair for men to have all the testosterone. Life isn't fair. The point in sport is simply to get good competition. As long as we know that one sex or the other is superior in any given sport, then we can, for that sport, have one league with truly open entry, and a second protected league only allowing in the inferior sex. Is that sexist? Yes! But it is no more sexist than having two different sexually segregated leagues. It does require superior knowledge: we need to know which sex is superior wrt that particular sport. But that is hardly difficult to do: set up the open-entry league, then watch for a while and see if women or men cannot compete.

Furthermore, allowing open entry into one league has one huge benefit, from the libertarian (or conservative) angle. And that is, that it allows us to compare the sexes, and thereby maintain a realistic picture of sexual differences. As it happened, Sorenstam's performance in the Colonial was predicable: Steve Sailer predicted it perfectly. But it is one thing to predict, another to do. The only true way to truly know how women and men compare at any given task, is to simply let them do it, and compare them. There is simply no way that you can look at Sorenstam's performance and hold onto the idea that women and men are equal wrt golf-playing. They aren't, and never will be (short of genetic manipulation). Sailer rates Sorenstam, the women's champ, as perhaps the 400th or 500th best golfer in the world (he has no permalinks on his blog it seems; scroll down).

Only with a realistic idea of the comparative strengths and weaknesses of men and women, can we realistically make policy for us all. That "we" have to make policy at all, I reject; but that's not up to me. As long as the state is with us, we need that information.

A good example of need for honest information about sex differences is the issue of women in combat. You find a lot of silly misinformation about what women can do, such as this silly Karen De Coster piece. De Coster argues, among other things, that women and men can't serve together because they are too interested in sex. Given that men are going to be there, then doesn't that mean we should exclude women? No. If it is really a problem, segregate sexes by unit. Perhaps by company or battalion. There is no reason that men and women have to share foxholes to share an army, if that's a practical problem.

Should women be allowed in combat? The answer should be arrived at in the free market; but since we don't have that luxury, we must decide based on political factors. And there the answer must be informed by our liberal values: women are just as much people as men. So of course they must be allowed in combat! But that doesn't mean there cannot be objective criteria to be allowed in; in particular, it may be that for some combat roles very few women will be able to meet the criteria. Very few women can, for instance, carry 100 pound packs for 20 mile hikes. Is that really necessary for an infantry-person? I don't know. Whether or not it is is to some degree simply political. But given that it is, the leg infantry may have to stay mostly or even all male.

Nonetheless, there are many combat jobs that it would seem women could fill very aptly. In particular, it seems women would make great tankers. Small is better in the cramped interior of a vehicle; in fact the USSR used to have height restrictions of 5'5" for its (male) tankers due to the design of their tanks.

Now, I am pretty much against war in all circumstances. But, given that the US is going to act as a hegemonist against all-male armies, I love the idea of an all-female armor battalion annihilating some Arab all-male armor division. Talk about a reality check.