Just when you think a comic book artist can’t get any crazier.

He should have married Gerhard when he had the chance.

I fit very well into that mode. Great wife, excels at her job, makes more money than me.

(And if she was male, she might be making even more!)

And I guess you and I won’t be able to agree on the zero-sum thing, as my previous statement made clear. If you hire talented people–whatever gender–there is no clear one-to-one ratio on available jobs. The ultimate “sum” is that we all benefit by casting as wide a net as possible.

But it’s still a zero-sum game if Woman X gets the job he wants. There’s any number of variables one can bring in, but the basic schema remains true.

On at least one occasion, Sim has stated that he’s not opposed to women entering the workplace (for your assignment, class, see Paglia’s “No Law in the Arena” and write 100 words drawing comparisons), as long as they abide by the “hard knocks” of the workplace. I *assume* that he thinks most women can’t take those hard knocks and that therefore they (and society) would be better off staying home. I wouldn’t be surprised if he contradicts this stance somewhere else, though I give him props for trying to stay consistent within his own suppositions.

Once again: I am a fan. I just read FLIGHT last week. I’ve just about read all the phone books up to the point where I started buying the floppies every month in the mid-90s.

Toby, the only two comics entertainment blogs I read are written by women. Being male, I would attempt the argument that I already know what males think regarding comics and the like. I want to know what women think about the medium — that might be a black mark against me, alas…

I wonder if Dave Sim sees the entire article that Heidi wrote, or just select parts cut-and-pasted into emails. And I wonder the same about Dave Sim’s responses…are we seeing the entire email, or just parts that are selected to move an argument forward?

There go all my illusions…..

http://www.comicsvillage.com/column.aspx?ArticleID=217

Once again, sorry I don’t have a smug insult or pompous joke to follow up with.

Does he not gain from her employment? The household has more income!

No “acceptable losses” there.

And perhaps, she is brilliant! Her company soars, creating more jobs! The man who didn’t get the job is hired as well!

I could go on….but you get the picture.

I merely tendered my opinion.

BTW, I love your line, “There’s a contradiction there that doesn’t seem to make sense.”

I am still smiling over that. You had better run out and trademark that.

But no matter what long-range POV one takes of the matter, for the person who doesn’t get the job, it’s still a zero sum game. It doesn’t make any sense to pretend otherwise, no matter how many long-range justifications one puts out there. This is not to say that the original “old boy’s network” wasn’t just as much of a zero-sum game: in fact, it was more of one. The justifications for the Narrative of Emancipation are better, but it’s not a perfect world and abuses will happen.

To the extent that Heidi has said roughly-similar things (”old people’s network”), hers too would be on the side of Universal Emanicipation, as I read her words here. I’m certainly more on her side than on Dave’s (whether she wants me there or not), and I think Dave has based too much of his rhetoric on the “one percent doctrine.”

But it just doesn’t make any sense to say, “No one loses.” “Acceptable losses,” maybe.

Except when they’re used to keep down half the human race out of fear that maybe, someday, one guy, somewhere, might be unjustly dismissed from his job if Those Damned Women are not stopped?

This would be the one percent doctrine at work, would it?

Maybe the idea isn’t to create ANY new network. Maybe there’s a new “old people’s network.”

Where they show Matlock and Murder She Wrote all the time.

(that was a joke.)

If you’re a member of the “old boy’s network,” you may stand to lose a job if the “new girl’s network” gains hegemony.

Maybe the girl who gets your job does so because you did your job badly. Or maybe she was brought in to fill a quota? Who knows? Every case is different. Generalities aren’t workable, on Dave’s side or Heidi’s.

If you’re a member of the “old boy’s network,” you may stand to lose a job if the “new girl’s network” gains hegemony.

Maybe the girl who gets your job does so because you did your job badly. Or maybe she was brought in to fill a quota? Who knows? Every case is different. Generalities aren’t workable, on Dave’s side or Heidi’s.

Just off the top of my head: As women’s sexual freedom has increased, men’s sexual freedom has not contracted (as your model would predict), but has instead also increased. Men’s earning power overall has not shrunk as women’s has grown — unless you’re sitting on a bunch of poll data that I haven’t seen; instead, the overall household income of men in partnerships has grown, and both partners benefit from that. The reduction in numbers of unplanned children brought about by easier access to contraception has been a boon to both women and men. And the easing of gender restrictions in career tracking has resulted in a broader range of options for both women and men.

Funny thing about equality; in a fair system, it really is better for everybody. I’m a feminist because I know what’s good for me — and a rising tide lifts all boats.

Speaking of lazy, patently untrue premises…

And, HEY MATT- feminism is only “war on family” if you believe men can’t share decision-making, yield to a more capable partner (in situations where that partner is more capable), raise children, cook, clean, etc.
I think we can do these things and we can share our world and lives with our partners in equality rather than treat our partners as subservient, lesser beings. See, now I shouted…

How do you know? This is Dave Sim. He could actually be running around, moving goalposts. Who knows how the man gets his kicks?

Don’t be silly. Feminists aren’t actually at war, any more than Dave Sim is actually moving goalposts.

You have other examples available to you for utilization in your anti-Sim campaign, such as Pol Pot’s Genocide, the Armenian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide, and even Hussein’s attempted genocide against Khurds — and yet, you opened yourself up to Godwin’s Law and allowed Sim to score a rhetorical point against you.

@ Unpopular: Up until that last paragraph, Mr. Sim was on the right track.

If by “on the right track,” you mean “proceeding from a series of lazy, easily-disprovable premises,” then you’re correct.

Can you, with a straight face, tell me that North American feminists are “cosseted, pampered, and universally capitulated-to”? In a country where—40-some years after the birth of the modern feminist movement—women still aren’t getting equal pay for equal work, making on average 76 on the dollar as compared to their male counterparts, even when studies factor in variables such as children? (and that’s across the board, from blue-collar grunt work to high-powered, high-paying professional jobs: female neurosurgeons earn a median annual salary of $337,031 compared to male neurosurgeons at $487,000; female civil engineers = $61,000, male civil engineers = $78,000; et bleedin’ cetera) In a country where bullshit “conscience clauses” allow pharmacists to deny women access to drugs to which they are legally entitled, drugs that their doctors have prescribed?

Man, if that’s what it looks like in a place where feminism has won the day, I’d hate to see the alternative.

@ matt: his views aren’t isolated to himself

Doesn’t make them correct: the truth is not subject to popular vote.