Call to Action: LA Times Bias Shines

"Most striking is that 40% of the estimated 88,000 homeless people in the county are women and children."

I always get a chuckle out of statements like that. Why don't they mention that 98% of the homeless people that have shelters to go to, must be women - since 99.9% of the homeless actually on the streets, are men!

-Axolotl

The matter is that the LA-Times stuff writer has nothing to do with these biased figures. She just quotes from the researches sponsored by various "female leaders" who are gathering for a conference in LA. Unfortunately the problem is much bigger than just another crazy feminist scribbler.

The goals of those "female leaders" are clear:

Although, as the report points out, more girls than boys graduate from high school in the county and more women are enrolled in college in the county than men, there are still problems.

...there are still problems. And these problems are men remaining in high schools.

According to a new report to be released today by the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, women are living longer and make up 44% of the county workforce — but they remain poorer than their male counterparts.

So lets see if I understand this. As we all know, women make up 52% of the general population and that is consistent in areas the world over. So, they likely make up more then half the population in LA as well. They live longer to which that paragraph mentions, but they make up less then half the work force. I wonder what gender the other 56% of the workforce is? So what the author must be saying is men work more then women.

Those poor girls.

Most striking is that 40% of the estimated 88,000 homeless people in the county are women and children. Twenty years ago, that percentage was unheard of, according to Marge Nichols, who researched the report.

"Homelessness has changed so much," said Nichols, who retired last year as director of research for the United Way in L.A. but still consults for the agency. "I did a report on homeless shelters in 1986," she said. "Gender wasn't even addressed. There were bag ladies. And very few of those."

I'm not going to get into the first paragraph as others have done a great job pointing out the flaws there. Men are still overwhelmingly the majority of those homeless.

I am instead going to focus on the conclusion of the summary of homelessness in the second paragraph.

The last three sentences tell the whole story. Gender was not an issue in 1986 when this feminist did her report because the problem of homelessness was almost exclusively a problem of males. Are males not a gender? Is male homelessness not a problem? I guess we know where men rank in her book then.

Among other findings, the report says "40% of single-mother families with children under 18 are poor" — up from 37% in 1990.

Oh F*CK! A 3% rise in more then a decade and a half! Some would call that no change at all, others would say its minimal. I wish the national inflation rate would rise that slowly. Feminists say: NATIONAL EMERGENCY! Spread the hysteria!

What's the cause for concern here? Sounds to me like most young girls who get pregnant have a family and/or a boyfriend willing to look after them and the rest of them have tax payers to help them out with their poor choices.

On the subject of work and earnings, the United Way study found that 34% of women in the county work full time and have a median income of $34,941 — compared with $36,581 for men.

So, as we all know, women CHOOSE to work part time more often then men (because they actually have a choice). Nothing new. But we're talking about the full time workers. Women earn less huh? Strange that the article does not mention the reasons why. Do women who work full time really work the same amount as men who work full time? No! Men are much more willing to take over time. Men take less sick days and personal days. Men are less likely to leave early. Yet, somehow, women manage to fall short of mens earnings by only $1640 per year. I wonder who really gets paid more.

Eighteen percent of all women in Los Angeles County live below the poverty level — which is $13,200 for a single mother with one child, compared with 15% of men, said Nichols, who used the U.S. Census Bureau's "2004 American Community Survey for Los Angeles County" and other sources for the study.

There are problems here. I am certain that the 18% of women living in poverty are NOT single mothers. So why does the article only quote the poverty level for single moms with one child? Misleading? I sure think so. Insinuating that ALL women in poverty are single mothers is deceptive.

Oh, and 15% of all men in LA county are also living in poverty but no mention of a single one of them being a dad. Or for that matter that the poverty rates between men and women in LA County are nearly identical. Not a single word about men living in poverty being a problem.

Also, the report says "child care is a make-or-break issue for working women; half of women make less than what they need in order to afford child care."

Perhaps - this is just a thought, but one that has endured since the beginning of humanity - the best form of child care known is an intact family. Maybe, it makes more sense to work towards keeping families (traditional definition that includes a father) together and supporting families in need as opposed to destroying families and paying for child care after the family is broken. Children are much better off with strangers after all aren't they? No? Then stop encouraging the destruction of the family!

One result of the study that Nichols thinks leaders should focus on is education. Although, as the report points out, more girls than boys graduate from high school in the county and more women are enrolled in college in the county than men, there are still problems.

Girls in high school tend not to do as well as boys in math and science. And Latinos in general lag in educational achievement. According to Nichols, only 24% of Latinas have a high school diploma, 18% have taken some college courses and 8% have a college degree.

So, more girls are already completing high school then boys, more girls are enrolling in college, more girls are graduating from college then boys in most fields of discipline - math and science being the two most notable exceptions, but we need to focus MORE on girls education!

I know, how about every male that attends a post secondary school of any kind must not only pay his own tuition and living expenses but must also pay the full tuition and living expenses for a female student. Every boy that does not choose to pursue education after high school must still pay for one female to pursue a post secondary education! That'd be a feminists wet dream! Women would finally achieve their definition of equality. Only the extremely rich or ambitious males (therefore most eligible sperm donors) would receive post secondary education, the poor males would be forced into slave labor to pay for female achievement, and women would finally feel equal to men and the non-existent patriarchy would be destroyed.

Think they wouldn't do it? Think again! The only reason to spread lies like that article does is to deceive people into thinking that no matter how far ahead of men women get they are really still lagging behind and the only way to rectify it is to make them pay less and be less responsable and make men pay more and take more responsibility. In other words, total female domination of males.

Ratio of the homeless gender-wise: I'm not sure we can trust ANY numbers on this issue right now; but one possibility for the apparent increase in number of homeless women, is that the definition of "homeless" may have changed (or been "updated"), to reflect those who do not have a "permanent abode" or something of that nature, instead of just someone living on the streets. It would have been better if the term "homeless" was defined, to help the reader reconcile the article's statements with the obvious fact that almost all street homeless are men It may be like how "experts" have said that we have an obesity epidemic..without pointing out the little-known fact that the medical definition of "obesity" changed just a year or so prior to that alarmist statement..the threshold for obesity was lowered, thus "creating" a greater number of obese people.

As far as workforce numbers, I don't know that "men work more than women"..that is a questionable statement. But it does sound like the author seems to be saying that a very large number of women are EITHER working OR homeless..but she does not mention any "middle ground" such as living with relatives or friends and not working; working part-time (does she even count that as working?); having a spouse support her; etc.

On the issue of median income,Warren Farrell disproved the myth of a wage gap between men and women, in his classic book "Why Men Earn More" (an unfortunate title, no doubt designed to attract women readers)..as it turns out, the apparent wage disparity is due to differences in type of work done (high-risk for example), hours worked and other factors. In fact, women doing the same jobs as men, with equal level of experience, responsibility and hours worked make slightly MORE than their male counterparts.

I would like to address a couple other of your statements, but what do you think about these ideas so far?

-Axolotl

Let's do a little Algebra on the numbers given in the Los Angeles Daily News. Yes another Los Angeles newspaper ran the same story as the L.A. Times, but gave actual numbers of women homeless (21,000).

Let's do all the math:

36,000 = (approximately) 40% of Los Angeles's homeless population.
36,000 = the approximate number of homeless women and children.
.4X = 36,000
X = 36,000/.4
X = 90,000 (total homeless population)
Checking the math (.4)90,000 = 36,000

and

(.6)90,000 = 54,000 (approximate total number of homeless men in L.A. County).

This means there are 54,000 homeless men in Los Angeles compared to 21,000 homeless women.

# Men are approximately 60% of the total homeless population of 90,000 or 54,000 homeless men.

# Women are approximately 23% of the total homeless population of 90,000 or 21,000 homeless women.

# Children are approximately 17% of the total homeless population of 90,000 or 15,000 homeless children.

There are over twice as many homeless men in Los Angeles as homeless women but the headlines and stories address the homeless women (and children) crisis. Am I missing something, or are Los Angeles's newspapers trying to shove a shopping cart up my a$$ with all their fuzzy gender feminist math??? Why are homeless women's lives so much more of a priority in Los Angeles as compared to homeless men's lives? Do I smell the foul stench of chivalry, all nicely rolled up in gender feminist propaganda???

Dear Editor:

When are inequalities not inequalities, just propaganda that ignores half the relevant data? One example would be the article published in the L.A. Times on November 30, 2006.
"Inequities for women are on agenda"
http://www.latimes.com/business/careers/work/la-me-women30nov30,1,6947148.story?coll=la-headlines-business-careers

The content of the article seems to be committed to using a paradigm that omits the needs of males from the glaring social problems facing so many men, women and children today in Los Angeles.

The article seems to be committed to using a societal paradigm that allows children to only be counted with their mothers and not their Fathers, thereby further marginalizing the role of Father's in their children's lives. The liberal social agenda in California politics and government works overtime to drive Fathers from children's lives, then works to blame them for not being more active in their children's lives.

Sadly, the #1 predictor of delinquency in adolescents is Fatherlessness. Documentation for that exists in Stephen Rhoads's book, Taking Sex Differences Seriously on Pp. 148. The priorities of California liberal politics and the United Way seem to be complicit in reinforcing and even creating those problems - more than solving them.

By the way, the vast majority of homeless in Los Angeles are men. If you bothered to drive a few blocks South East of the Los Angeles Times's, gender feminist biased base, you would find an abundance of homeless men hopelessly living on the streets of Los Angeles. What about them?
Photo 1
Photo 2
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Photo 4
Why is their plight not as important, or more important than what the United Way study, and L.A. Times article, focuses on, given their greater numbers?

In the article we read:

"On the subject of work and earnings, the United Way study found that 34% of women in the county work full time and have a median income of $34,941 — compared with $36,581 for men."

However, the article fails to mention that men comprise over 90% of workplace injuries and deaths (NIOSH). That doesn't seem to be a very viable trade off for the minimal difference in salaries shown in the United Way study.

The article points out:

"One result of the study that Nichols thinks leaders should focus on is education. Although, as the report points out, more girls than boys graduate from high school in the county and more women are enrolled in college in the county than men, there are still problems."

When is someone going to address the glaring deficiencies in males' educations in this county instead of flippantly dismissing them by saying, "there are still problems," (referring to females' educations), then sexistly going on to only address the needs of females? Where is the United Way's study on the needs of males in Los Angeles County? When did the United Way become a charity, and a mouth piece, that preeminently addresses female issues to the exclusion of male issues? I hope all people remember that when they think about donating to such an apparently sexist charity.

In Los Angeles, a city already notorious for its sexist hatred of all things male, I find the above mentioned Los Angeles Times's article, provoking my gag reflex. Through its omission of the needs of male human beings, the article further contributes to the marginalization, hatred and yes, demonization of all things male. Through such articles, Los Angels males become less human beings and more social pariahs, while the Los Angeles Times becomes less a newspaper and more a convenient social instrument of the gender feminist hate movement, in my opinion.

Sincerely XXXX XXXXXXXX
XXX XXXXX
XXX XXX XXXX

Let's face it, bleeding hearts will step over (or perhaps on) a homeless (male) war veteran suffering from PTSD on their way to save an endangered species of cockroach!

"Let's face it, bleeding hearts will step over (or perhaps on) a homeless (male) war veteran suffering from PTSD..."

Sadly, that appears to be pretty close to what people are doing every day in L.A. - See Photo 1

You are probably right about the homeless situation with regards to the definition of homeless. They probably are counting every filled spot in every LA County Womens Shelter as being among the homeless as you alluded to in your earlier comment. The definition of homeless is certainly questionable, as might the methodology as to include women in shelters as homeless one would also have to take men residing in temporary arrangements like half way houses into consideration which I doubt would have crossed the author of the research whose numbers are used in the articles mind.

As per the workforce number I was merely extrapolating from the "44% of the workforce" number provided in the article. I was using a non-feminist definition as I am reasonable certain that the 44% figure refers exclusively to remunerated employment and not "household work" as included in so many other feminist work studies. When it comes to remunerated employment I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that men do more of it then women. Women have the option to either work outside the home or latch on to a man for support, or just milk the State out of Welfare and Mothers Allowance. Men have the option to work or, well, that's it really, no other viable options exist without the man being relegated to the very fringes of society and at the bottom of the ladder socially.

On the issue of income I believe I mentioned some of the reasons Warren Farrel addresses in his book such as, men working more overtime, and taking fewer sick and personal days. I did not mention types of work as I did not think it was necessary to explain the tiny difference ($1640/year) the author makes reference to.

In my opinion, if you take workplace hazards into account then full time employed men should be receiving a significantly higher yearly median income then women as men take on 98% of all the highly dangerous jobs. If anything, with such a small gap being noted in the article it leads me to believe men in LA County are possibly being short changed.

Again however, the author of the research may have cherry picked the fields to include in the calculations so the numbers may not be 100% reliable. Depends on the person collecting the figures definition of "full time employment"

I hope no one feels the least bit hesitant to comment on anything I write as I am here as to learn (I am nowhere near flawless and all knowing) as well as to share what I have learned and personal experiences. I greatly enjoy the discussions here and love to read others opinions and learn from them. So go nuts Axolotl, comment away my friend.

I am a little suspicious why the author brings up the issue, of apparent low level of achievement of Latino students. What I mean is, she appears to bring this up within the context of her discussion of gender issues..it is as if she is trying to rally the Latinos in support of women..as usual, white men are responsible for all the ills in the world (and none of the good stuff). Oh well, I guess I'm "paranoid", like they said about early feminists.

-Axolotl

LA County is something like (I forget the exact percentage) 42% Hispanic. Since there is a very large Hispanic populous in the area it makes since to mention Latinos and Latinas as a group because they are the single largest ethnic group in the area.

I was just under impression that the thrust of the article, was the homeless women problem. Why bring up Latinos WITHIN that context..unless it is specifically Latino women? It just seems out of place. I'm the last one to say that my intuition is always correct, but sometimes there is a fine line between imagination, and seeing things that are so subtle that go unnoticed by most people. (as an aside, that is why it is better to get the news from the paper than the TV. A discerning person can oftentimes spot the horse-shit in the paper, as opposed to the rapid-fire TV news..although that isn't too hard to do when reading "USA Today").

-Axolotl